Jared Kushner White House security clearance hits new snag: report
hmmm
Paul Manafort, Rick Gates laundered more than $30 million, according to new Mueller indictment
The filing adds allegations of tax evasion and bank fraud and significantly increases the legal jeopardy facing Paul Manafort, who managed Trump’s campaign for several months in 2016, and longtime associate Rick Gates. Both had already faced the prospect of at least a decade in prison if convicted at trial.
The two men were initially charged in a 12-count indictment in October that accused them of a multimillion-dollar money-laundering conspiracy tied to lobbying work for a Russia-friendly Ukrainian political party.
The new charges, contained in a 32-count indictment returned by a federal grand jury in Virginia, allege that Manafort and Gates doctored financial documents, lied to tax preparers and defrauded banks — using money they cycled through offshore accounts to spend lavishly, including on real estate, interior decorating and other luxury goods.
…The charges against Manafort and Gates arise from their foreign lobbying and efforts that prosecutors say they made to conceal their income by disguising it as loans from offshore companies. More recently, after their Ukrainian work dwindled, the indictment also accuses them of fraudulently obtaining more than $20 million in loans from financial institutions.
…Two other people who aided Trump in the campaign or in the White House — former national security adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign foreign policy adviser George Papadopoulos — have pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI about their foreign contacts. Neither man has been sentenced. Both are cooperating with the investigation.
hmmm
France bans plastic cups, plates and cutlery
France has passed a new law to ensure all plastic cups, cutlery and plates can be composted and are made of biologically-sourced materials.
France bans plastic cups, plates and cutlery | The Independent
hmmm
Trump officials fight eviction from Panama hotel they manage
One of President Trump’s family businesses is battling an effort to physically evict its team of executives from a luxury hotel in Panama where they manage operations, and police have been called to keep the peace, The Associated Press has learned. Witnesses told the AP they saw Trump’s executives carrying files to a room for shredding.
…In October, Ithaca Capital led a push to terminate Trump Hotel’s management contract and seek compensatory damages. Trump’s company – which he still owns but does not directly control – refused to hand over control of the property, arguing that the vote to fire Trump Hotels was invalid.
A Panamanian court declined to support that claim in December, and the parties have since been fighting in court. The AP reported that the Trump management team ran off a group of Marriott executives who had been invited to tour the property amid a search for a replacement hotel operator.
On Thursday, Fintiklis arrived at the property with management staff and lawyers intending to take over the hotel immediately. The Trump management team again refused to yield control of the property, and according to the legal complaint filed by Ithaca’s lawyers, refused to allow Fintiklis to check into any of his company’s 202 hotel rooms.
Trump officials fight eviction from Panama hotel they manage
hmmm
Supreme Court snubs Trump by keeping DACA program in place for now
The denial leaves in place the popular DACA program, which has protected some 690,000 undocumented immigrants from deportation and enabled them to get work permits.
The program had faced a March 5 deadline for congressional action set by Trump last summer. Two federal courts have ruled the administration’s action was illegal.
…The action represents a temporary victory for the young adults brought to the U.S. illegally by their parents or guardians under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program established by President Barack Obama in 2012. And it represents a major setback for the Trump administration, which vowed to continue the legal battle in the lower courts.
Supreme Court snubs Trump by keeping DACA program in place for now
hmmmm
Do many mass shooters ‘end up being Democrats’, as Rep. Tenney said? No
Rep. Claudia Tenney, R-Utica, was speaking with a radio host from Albany, N.Y., about how to prevent future mass shootings when she made the claim.
“It’s interesting that so many of these people that commit the mass murders end up being Democrats, but the media doesn’t talk about that either,” Tenney said on Feb. 21, 2018.
…”Most of the school shooters are children who wouldn’t know a conservative from a communist,” said Jack Levin, Northeastern professor and co-director of the Brudnick Center on Violence and Conflict. “The idea of associating politics with these mass murders is absurd. It has absolutely nothing to do with it.”
Lipman agreed: “There is absolutely no evidence to show that mass killings are motivated by political ideologies of any type. All of the mass killings we’ve seen have been motivated by a lethal combination of a small subgroup of mental illnesses, and easy accessibility to weapons of mass killing during the peak symptomatology of those illnesses.”
Do many mass shooters ‘end up being Democrats’, as Rep. Tenney said? No | PolitiFact New York
hmmmm
Why Are U.S. Troops Staying in Syria? Trump WH Won’t Say
In a pair of letters issued within the last month, Pentagon and State Department officials indicated that the Trump administration envisions U.S. soldiers remaining on the ground in Syria and Iraq indefinitely, even once Islamic State militants have been defeated, and does not believe it requires additional permission from Congress to do so.
…As disconcerting as it is that the administration continues to deploy soldiers in Syria with no authorization from Congress and asserts that no such authorization is required, it is also refusing to give straight answers about its objectives there. Then again, that makes us no different than every other belligerent in the Syrian conflict: Claiming to be just fighting terrorists has been a standard refrain for a while now in Damascus, Moscow, Ankara, Tehran, and Jerusalem as well, even when ulterior motives are plain to see.
…Syria and Russia claim that they are targeting Islamist militants who are using the area to launch mortar attacks on Damascus and using civilians as human shields. Russia claims the Western media is biased against it and reports of Syrian atrocities in eastern Ghouta are fake news. The U.N., however, has called the situation a potential “massacre” and is pushing for the Security Council to impose a 30-day ceasefire to allow for medical evacuations and the delivery of emergency aid.
…Russia has threatened to veto any resolution that does not make an exception for strikes on jihadi militants such as it is purportedly targeting in eastern Ghouta — though it’s unclear how a resolution could allow the continued bombing of the area and also enable aid to safely reach the 400,000 civilians who live there. The U.S. delegation to the U.N. has accused Russia of stonewalling any meaningful action.
Turkey, meanwhile, continues its campaign to drive Kurdish forces out of the northern region of Afrin, where it is now clashing with pro-Assad fighters sent there to help the Kurds resist the Turks. The Turkish incursion is a delicate situation for the U.S., as Turkey is a NATO ally but the Kurdish militias have been some of our most reliable partners in Syria.
Why Are U.S. Troops Staying in Syria? Trump Admin. Won’t Say
hmmmmm
Israeli Settlers Are Burying Their Dead on Private Palestinian Land
Israeli Settlers Are Burying Their Dead on Private Palestinian Land
Staggeringly disrespectful and selfish. WTF?! While you’re carrying your God’s will why don’t you try and be less evil about it?
Ivanka Trump: ‘Inappropriate’ to ask her about father’s accusers
Ivanka Trump: ‘Inappropriate’ to ask her about father’s accusers – CNNPolitics
Ta fuck it is, you little twat. If we’re still hearing about Clinton’s consensual, if completely adulterous, blowjob twenty fucking years later your father being a sleazy predator is certainly on the table – from now until your final and merciful dying day it is on the table.
Don’t like it? Too the fuck bad. Maybe someone in your vile family should have looked before you leap you, you creepy enabler.
New recovery center set to open at former Boscawen jail
The Merrimack County delegation voted in the summer of 2016 to spend a total of $6.8 million to transform the jail into a transitional center.
…The finished facility will house minimum-security inmates and provide both inpatient treatment and housing for work release. Multiple classrooms, a visitation area, segregated living quarters and a small dining hall make up the space that will be used by up to 34 men and 34 women at one time.
Monday through Friday, participants attend classes that teach them about substance abuse recovery, trauma recovery, cognitive therapy and fundamental life skills.
New recovery center set to open at former Boscawen jail
hmmmm
Kushner resisting giving up top access amid scrutiny over security clearances
White House senior adviser Jared Kushner is resisting giving up his high-level access within the administration as chief of staff John Kelly moves to address questions concerning the security clearance process, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
… According to the Times, President Trump, who is Kushner’s father-in-law, spent the weekend at Mar-a-Lago surveying people about whether he should fire Kelly.
Kushner resisting giving up top access amid scrutiny over security clearances: report | TheHill
hmmmm
Bill To Overhaul Drug Sentences Faces Uncertain Fate; GOP Senator Lashes Out At DOJ
The Sentencing Reform and Corrections Act would put more power in the hands of individual federal judges and pave the way for about 3,000 federal inmates punished under old crack cocaine drug laws to ask courts for leniency. It also creates incentives for low-risk prisoners to participate in programming* and ease their return to society.
The bill has attracted broad bipartisan support in the divided Senate, with nearly two dozen sponsors from both political parties. That’s a source of pride for Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa.
But this week, on the eve of the committee vote, Sessions went out of his way to send a letter to Grassley calling the legislation a “grave error” because he said it would “reduce sentences for a highly dangerous cohort of criminals.”
…Grassley noted that Sessions was a controversial choice to serve as the nation’s top law enforcement officer, but that the senator had shepherded him through the process. And, Grassley added, he defended Sessions again last year after President Trump moved to fire him — only to be paid back with an unwelcome letter targeting a bipartisan compromise he had worked hard to achieve.
Bill To Overhaul Drug Sentences Faces Uncertain Fate; Senator Lashes Out At DOJ : NPR
Um, Grassley? Have you been awake at all in the past two years? What would ever possess you to think you can count on the friendship of the Cheeto in Chief or any member of his cabinet? Just desserts for just plain stupidity, maybe?
*A tiny footnote here: “Programming” is an interest choice of turn of phrase…
The Dark Twisted Failure of Devin Nunes
Devin Nunes, the climate-denying mediocrity from Tulare, California, will take his place in the mythology as Trump and Putin’s most useful idiot on Capitol Hill.
…it was a short step into historical infamy last March, when Nunes made his clandestine “midnight run” to the White House to be given (by one of Flynn’s toadies) classified documents that falsely “proved” President Obama had “wiretapped Trump Tower,” which he proceeded to make public in a manner so clumsy he almost lost his Intelligence perch.
…This year, Nunes laid his second great claim to historical infamy by ordering up the four-page #ReleaseTheMemo that purported to prove that Christopher Steele’s dossier, sponsored by Hillary Clinton, was the FBI’s sole rationale for launching an investigation into the Trump-Russia connection. The fact that the memo showed exactly the opposite was a minor inconvenience; Memogate, like the original Nunes caper, became (and remains) a deadly effective weapon of mass distraction. [empahsis: mine]
…Nunes had, below the radar, begun to produce his own fake news, with his campaign team publishing a website called The California Republican. Billing itself on Facebook as a “media/news company” that publishes “the best of US, California, and Central Valley news, sports, and analysis,” The California Republican turned out to be little more than an aggregation of pro-Trump propaganda lifted from The National Review and The Federalist, leavened with borrowed stories about the evils of California liberalism and (you truly cannot make this stuff up) a steady flow of reports about Fresno State University’s football team.
…The brief and puffed-up controversy over Nunes’s publishing venture will be, of course, a mere footnote in the history of a congressional mediocrity’s weird rise to national prominence as a witting tool of Vladimir Putin – and, according to a New York Times op-ed on Monday, potentially as another target of Robert Mueller’s investigation into obstruction of justice. But it’s a telling subplot in the larger drama, as one more instance of the unquestioned talent Trump and his co-conspirators have displayed for ratfucking the media, and ultimately the American public. While Nunes cried “fake news” at every turn – “Almost every story that runs about me is fake,” he mock-complained to Rush Limbaugh last week – his massive campaign kitty was being used to produce a website devoted to partisan spin.
The Dark Twisted Failure of Devin Nunes – Rolling Stone
Apparently, they do not know it is double-speak they speak.
Boswell sued over request for records
According to his lawsuit, Craig Merrill accuses the first-term representative of failing to provide “public records of official correspondence between your office and the residents and businesses of House District 6, which you represent.”
[Boswell staffer Beth] Strandberg first told Merrill in late April that “documents in the custody of a legislator are treated uniquely under the law.” Documents between legislators and legislative staff are not public record, she argued, also citing “legislative immunity” that protects lawmakers’ speech within the General Assembly.
All that’s irrelevant to his request, Merrill responded in an email a few days later. He reiterated that he was requesting correspondence between Boswell’s office and constituents, arguing those clearly fall under the public records law.
Bart Goodson, chief of staff and general counsel for Speaker Tim Moore, then gave Merrill a different reason for denial of his request. He argued that public records are defined as not only involving public officials and public business, but must also be generated “pursuant to law or ordinance,” as stated in the law defining public records.
In his email to Merrill, Goodson said “it is the long-held position of the General Assembly bipartisan central staff that constituent emails do not meet the definition of public record.” He cited no state law or court precedent that supported that position.
…After Merrill made more than a dozen requests for records, the ACLU decided to support a lawsuit against Boswell’s office because of the organization’s “longstanding commitment to transparency” in government, Legal Director Chris Brook said in an interview Thursday. He also warned that Boswell’s interpretation of public records law could give other lawmakers cover to skirt public records law and deny the public insight into their activities.
Boswell sued over request for records – Daily Advance
Unexpected twist in the saga of the bag ban.
The Outer Banks Voice: While we argued, legislators trashed the plastic bag ban
So ask yourself: Who benefits from repealing the ban, if it really wasn’t harming locally owned stores?
Which businesses were experiencing significant (even if not “harmful” to the bottom line) costs complying with the ban?
Who would be afraid of the legislature extending the ban to other areas of the state, including inland areas?
The answer to that is simple: big box stores.
The Outer Banks Voice – While we argued, legislators trashed the plastic bag ban
hmmmm
Back to OBX’s plastic bag ban…
Not only are plastic bags always one of the top 10 litter items found in coastal clean-ups in North Carolina and worldwide, the Ocean Conservancy has named them the second-most deadly litter to marine animals, which mistake the bags for food. Only abandoned fishing gear is deadlier. The bags also take hundreds of years to decompose and leech pollutants into the environment.
…Few Outer Banks residents, local businesses or local governments support repeal of the legislation enacted in 2009 that banned the bags on beachfront areas on the Outer Banks in Hyde, Currituck and Dare counties.
Even fewer would oppose a program that encourages recycling of all kinds of plastic bags. Still, the bill’s sponsors who represent the Outer Banks in Raleigh – state Sen. Bill Cook, R-Beaufort, and state Rep. Beverly Boswell, R-Dare – say the repeal is necessary to encourage merchants to create more jobs, and that consumer education about littering and plastic bag recycling would be more effective.
Plastic Bags Only Part of the Problem | Coastal Review Online
hmmmmm
Sounds like a lot of whining and weaseling and excuses from a a few folks who have decided they don’t want to uphold and support the will of the folks who elected them.
The Outer Banks Voice: CCA, GOP to blame for proposed license change
The proposed definition would require standard commercial license holders to earn at least 50 percent of his or her income from commercial fishing, make $10,000 or more a year in fish sold, and also turn in 36 or more Trip Tickets per year.
…Corbett seemed to back arguments that the new definitions were needed to eliminate commercial fishing licenses held by recreational anglers who used the licenses to skirt catch limits.
…“I fish pound nets for flounder. It’s about a six-month job to get flounder nets prepared and set and you got three months of fishing and you fish two days a week because you let them sit for several days before you fish them.
“I don’t believe in any year I would have made 36 Trip Tickets,” Tobin said. “With that said, in a good year, we’re making $75,000 to $100,000 a year.”
“In a bad year, when there’s hurricanes, we make less than $10,000 because our nets are torn up.”
…The state Republican Party wasted time repealing a plastic bag ban that cost no jobs locally.
One has to now question why they are aiding [an effort] destroy a business that has an estimated value of $25 million annually to Dare County’s economy alone and supports entire communities such as Wanchese and Stumpy Point.
The Outer Banks Voice – Commentary: CCA, GOP to blame for proposed license change
It does sound like these changes would make it harder for people who are not part of a huge commercial fishing outfit to fish for a living. Why not require commercially licensed fishermen to sell their catch or losses instead? Or create a separate license to smaller commercial outfits?
Bag ban repeal opponents jeer Boswell and her supporters at OBX fundraiser
More than a dozen protesters upset over the repeal of the Outer Banks ban on plastic grocery bags jeered those arriving at a Friday evening fund raiser for Republican state Rep. Beverly Boswell at an oceanfront home in Kill Devil Hills.
…“Democrats and Republicans have shown they support the plastic bag ban,” Nasch said, adding Friday’s protest was a non-partisan gathering about a non-partisan issue.
Those who pulled into the narrow driveway in front of the three-level cottage were met with boos, chants and even a few snide comments about supporting, “Bev The Bag Lady.”
The Outer Banks Voice – Bag ban repeal opponents jeer Boswell, others at fundraiser
Supporting a repeal of a bag bill seems a little out of sync with the coastal area she represents.
Hmm….
UN Security Council Passes Syria Cease-Fire After Hundreds Killed In Bombing Siege
The United Nations Security Council has approved a resolution calling for a 30-day cease-fire in Syria, following one of the bloodiest weeks of aerial bombardment in the war that has devastated the country.
In the eastern suburbs of Damascus, a region called Eastern Ghouta, nearly 500 people have been killed in a deadly escalation by the Syrian government that began Sunday, the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights told The Associated Press. More than 120 of the dead are children, the group says.
The Security Council resolution aims to get humanitarian aid to Eastern Ghouta and other areas under siege.
hmmmm
Michael Steele blasts CPAC official for ‘painfully stupid’ insult but refuses to admit the GOP is racist
Former Republican National Committee chairman Michael Steele on Friday refused an apology from a conservative official who said Steele had only been elected chairman “because he was a black guy.”
…While speaking at CPAC’s Ronald Reagan dinner on Friday night, Walters described former president Barack Obama’s election as a “big deal,” but said it led to the “terrible” selection of Steele to head the RNC back in 2009.
“We elected Mike Steele as chairman because he was a black guy,” Walters told the room, reportedly drawing gasps. “That was the wrong thing to do.”
…Steele served as RNC chairman from 2009 to 2011 and was the first African-American to hold the role.
He has been critical of the Trump administration. Recently, after President Trump made a reference to “shithole countries,” Steele was asked if he thought the president was racist.
“At this point, the evidence is incontrovertible, it’s right there,” he replied.
Following Walters’ remark, Steele said he believes that there is a racism problem within the Republican Party, but that he didn’t think that the party was “that way.”
Michael Steele blasts CPAC official for ‘painfully stupid’ insult
hmmmm
Comments From The Peanut Gallery 