Washington Post — It’s unclear whether the initial incursion happened stealthily at night or brazenly during the day — though authorities are almost certain the invasion occurred by sea.
And federal employees who returned from the month-long partial government shutdown decided that it was probably not worth the effort to relocate the roughly 90 individuals involved. That’s because some of them were pregnant or newborns, and all of them were opportunistic elephant seals that have taken over what used to be the tourist area of Drakes Beach, Calif.
Across the nation this week, returning federal workers slogged through backlogs of voicemails, sifted through bursting email inboxes and tried to remember the name of the childhood pet at the beginning of their log-in passwords.
At Drakes Beach, part of the Point Reyes National Seashore, employees had a much bigger problem. Literally. Some of the elephant seal squatters weigh as much as a car.
A colony of nearly 1,500 seals inhabits nearby Chimney Beach, which is protected from binocular-wearing tourists by 100-foot-tall cliffs. But Drakes Beach, with its wide swath of sand and spectacular views of the Pacific, has been claimed by humans. Park officials have used a decidedly low-tech method to enforce an armistice between the mammal species: They waved blue tarps to annoy the seals away from the areas most popular with Homo sapiens.
“It doesn’t scare them, and it’s a standard technique used with elephant seals,” John Dell’Osso, chief of interpretation and resource education for the seashore, told the San Francisco Chronicle. “This would have kept them farther away from tourists.”
The annoying tarps were an effective plan, usually chasing all but a seal or two away from the beach, which is a 90-minute drive from San Francisco.
But the federal government apparently does not regard the tarp-wavers as essential federal employees, so the workers who did it were among the 800,000 furloughed.
During that time, according to the Chronicle, high tides and storms battered the seals’ normal habitat.
So the seals showed up at the suddenly deserted Drakes Beach, and they brought friends and apparently family, too. Seals give birth during winter, and the unoccupied Drakes Beach appears to be an excellent place to raise pups.
to the invaders, a congratulatory kudo bark!
LOL – what a hoot – blue tarps – maybe SFB should try that at the border.
Speaking of SFB, time stands still. He musta forgot that he tweeted the same thing about the DOW rising to 25000 a year ago.
38.9K people are talking about this
Donald J. TrumpVerified account @realDonaldTrump
FollowFollow @realDonaldTrump
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Dow just broke 25,000. Tremendous news!
1:54 PM – 30 Jan 2019
21,205 Retweets
118,195 Likes
If he didn’t have stupid what would he have?
pogo, imagine blue tarps waving atop his great big beautiful wall to scare off the caravan.
and more on that wall
It’s Dad’s moving day. See you when I come up for air.
off to a new adventure!
Putin wins another one as SFB pulls the US out of a nuclear arms treaty. Treason is a serious crime and the greedy old perverts are complicit.
Craig… I’ll be thinking of you and your dad all day…. wishing you both the very best.
BlueB… I saw that news somewhere this morning. My first thought was “Jesus Christ, can it be anymore obvious that trumpty is working for the Russians”. It looks like Putin is getting him to do as much as he can before it all crashes.
Craig,
Wishing your dad an easy relocation.
I think everyone is going to be very happy in their new homes.
A full article from another source above the fold? Hm.
Well, if one reads beyond the headline they will see NATO supports the U.S. ultimatum concerning that nuke treaty, but either way, the odds just increased that humanity will exterminate itself with nuclear arms.
I told you ppl are dumb.
Bink, yep, that’s what the WaPo article on the INF Treaty suspension announcement reports.
And along the lines of your ppl are dumb comment, from a WaPo article about the Trump Tower meeting phone calls of SFBJr.:
So SFBJr. couldn’t remember, Lorber’s spokesman says Lorber doesn’t remember any such calls and France ain’t talking? WTH did they base their conclusion on? Stupid Senate investigators.
resemblance is uncanny
from talkingpointsmemo: How Did Roger Stone Know About The Access Hollywood Tape?
Roger Stone’s indictment last week laid out juicy, inside details about his alleged attempts to contact Wikileaks, including the tantalizing allegation that the Trump campaign directed him to do so.
Facing criminal charges hasn’t stopped the longtime GOP operative from getting caught up in a catfight with conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi, over conversations the two had in the hours before Trump’s now-notorious Access Hollywood tape was released.
But what seems to be yet another bizarre Stone-related imbroglio has the potential to answer larger questions about why Wikileaks began releasing the Podesta emails half an hour after the Washington Post published the Access Hollywood tape on Oct. 7, revealing Trump’s “Grab ’em by the pussy” remarks.
According to Corsi’s account, Stone frantically called him in the hours before the now-infamous video dropped, demanding that he push Wikileaks into publishing the Podesta emails as a way of diverting attention from the impending story.
Stone’s indictment records an associate of Trump campaign chair Stephen K. Bannon texting Stone “well done” after the release, and states that Stone went on to claim credit for the leak in the days after Wikileaks began the dump.
If Corsi’s account is true, Stone would have known before nearly anyone the Access Hollywood tape was about to be made public. That raises fascinating questions about how Stone would have learned that the tape was coming. It also raises separate questions of whether – and how – he managed to contact Wikileaks, and why at least one Trumpworld figure in the indictment appeared to attribute the document release to Stone.
Corsi, a longtime fabulist, backs up his account in a book about the matter with phone records that the special counsel purportedly accessed during his investigation, supposedly showing that Corsi and Stone spoke multiple times the day the tape was published.
It’s important to note that even in a Trumpian world of unreliable narrators, Corsi stands out as particularly mendacious. He developed both the swift boat and birther conspiracy theories, and so it’s difficult to rely on him as a narrator of what happened, in spite of the fact that he was present for some crucial events in 2016.
However, the Stone indictment tended to hew more to Corsi’s version of events – supporting earlier assertions he made in a draft plea agreement he released to the press in November.
Stone himself was less than helpful in an email exchange with TPM, declining to answer specific questions, writing “All false!” after an Infowars-sponsored press conference yesterday in Washington. Stone has pleaded not guilty to the charges in the indictment.
A look at the timeline of events in the days and hours leading up to when Wikileaks began publishing the Podesta emails on Friday, Oct. 7 raises serious questions about how Stone learned what and when.
The now-infamous tape of Trump talking with Billy Bush on the Access Hollywood bus first surfaced within NBC on Monday, Oct. 3, when an Access Hollywood producer reportedly unearthed it from the company’s archive. The tape sparked an internal discussion at the network over what to do with it.
That same day, Stone was trying to get in touch with Trump campaign chairman Stephen K. Bannon about Assange and the then-impending release of the Podesta emails.
“A load every week going forward,” Stone wrote to Bannon in an email the next day, Oct. 4, that was first reported by the New York Times and cited in last week’s indictment.
Throughout the week, Stone allegedly continued to agitate for the release. In the words of Randy Credico to Mother Jones, Stone “was wigging out” about getting Wikileaks to drop the materials.
But on Friday morning of that week, Stone purportedly began to ‘wig out’ even further, to cite Credico.
At around 11:00 a.m. ET that day, Washington Post reporter David Fahrenthold had received a copy of the Access Hollywood video from a source. Throughout the day – and before the Washington Post published the story online at around 4 p.m. ET – Fahrenthold put out requests to NBC and the Trump campaign for comment.
Corsi’s phone records show that he and Stone held a call at around 11:30 a.m. ET. Corsi recalled to TPM in December that Stone continued to phone him throughout the day.
“I recall Roger telling me that the Billy Bush tape was going to be that day and Roger
was saying to me, ‘if you have any way to get Assange to start dropping, tell him to start dumping,’” Corsi said.
It’s not clear how Stone knew that “the Billy Bush tape” was about to be published.
The fact that the Washington Post reporter had sent out requests to NBC and the Trump campaign could narrow down the potential list of sources.
Corsi told TPM that he had records of two more phone calls with Stone on that day before the Access Hollywood tape was published at 4 p.m. ET. He alleged in his since-published book that those calls occurred at 1:42 p.m. ET and 2:18 p.m. ET.
[…]
Half an hour after the tape was published, Wikileaks began dumping emails taken from Hillary Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta’s personal account.
The special counsel’s interest in the episode has apparently continued into probing what interactions took place after the Wikileaks’ email release.
The Stone indictment records a Bannon associate as texting the longtime GOP operative “well done” after the Wikileaks release.
[continues]
FBI protects kkk against ‘leftists’
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2019/feb/01/sacramento-rally-fbi-kkk-domestic-terrorism-california
wapo:
The federal judge overseeing the criminal case against longtime Trump friend Roger Stone said Friday she is considering whether to impose a gag order after Stone went on a week-long media blitz to discuss the allegations against him.
U.S. District Judge Amy Berman Jackson told prosecutors and Stone’s attorneys to file any opposition to such a directive by next Friday. Stone, a political operative who relishes press attention, has said he worries about a possible gag order because his career is in speaking and writing.
Jackson’s comment came as Stone returned to federal court in Washington on Friday for a scheduling hearing after pleading not guilty this week to charges in special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s investigation of Russian interference in the 2016 U.S. election.
The judge said Stone might have been justified in making his position clear after his arrest, but added that she needed to ensure he received a fair trial.
“I believe it’s better for counsel and parties to do their talking in pleadings, not on courthouse steps, not on the talk show circuit,” Jackson said.
[continues]
patd – if a gag order is placed on Roger the rat an office pool needs to be created for how long it will take for him to break it. I tend to think he might make it to the court room door and then maybe thirteen more minutes.
roger stone’s indictment & hollerpalooza indicates that he’s protecting trump, while offering himself up for serious jail time. he is expecting a short bit of discomfort waiting for trump to pardon him.
He’s raising $$ through crowd-source funding, so it’s just possible, though barely) that he might get through the legal battle without spending a penny of his own. How can he crowd-source effectively if there’s a gag order ? This is a question that he might take to brett kavanaugh for a 5/4 ruling.
Looks like a picture is undoing an elected Dem governor. The coverup is always worse than the crime. Perhaps if Gov. Ralph Northam had disclosed the stinker earlier and ran over it with a truck a few times he might not be facing an early goodbye from office. I am sure the repubs are thinking about Democratic purity and laughing. This would be a plus for many of them, just like the pic of the senate majority leader of the soviet party standing in front of a Confederate battle flag accepting an award is.
bbronc, that brings up the subject of Halloween costumes. what are the rules now?
are they more relaxed for children or, as an example, will pictures of their past donning war paint and head feathers be used against them in their political future? or little girls posing as Charlie Chaplin or groucho marx?
am I in trouble for once wearing a burka and going as “fat Ima” pictured at such a party [seen truly reprehensible nowadays and for which I sincerely apologize for the insensitivity to religious beliefs of others and the offense it could cause] ?
does this mean i’m forever banned from being gov, senator or prez?
no TV talking head career?
If you were in a burka then no one can prove it’s you.
Here’s a good rule of thumb: if you’re over age 12, don’t wear a Halloween costume.
bink, as an adult my default costume has been the classic clown nose. easy on, easy off and hopefully unobjectionable and inoffensive. it’s a gift to be simple.
The Liberal thought-police will find some issue with it, patd.
Northam would be smart not to yield to the twitterverse and serve out the term to which his constiuents elected him. Say, “I’ll resign when the criminal in our nations’s highest office does; you know: the one that promotes and aims to codify actual racist policies”.
Why do Democrats eat their own?
BTW happy groundhog day
In his editorial New Rule, Bill argues that the national emergency we should be addressing isn’t border security – it’s the threat posed by climate change.
I haven’t put a costume on in maybe 25 years other than a monkey suit for the odd party. Last time I recall ever dressing for a costume party I put on a plastic hockey mask and coveralls and went as Michael Myers of Halloween fame.
Northam is a quandary. Bad optics. 6 years after his idiot photo Doug Wilder was elected as the first black governor of Virginia. Ironically Northam has described himself as “conservative on fiscal issues and liberal on social issues”. He’s a Dem, but not a base Dem. he voted for Shrub twice before running for office in 2007 as a dem. Repugs tried to recruit him to change parties when he was In the state senate but he declined. The current Lt Gov is a black Dem, so if Northam steps down it won’t be a catastrophe for VA.
I remember Bill Maher licking chocolate off of the naked body of a model in Playboy magazine- get him off the air!
Smelling like dead career in the Virginia governor’s chair. Northam has miss handled this from the start, the start being stupid enough to put on black face. It also raises the question about what is yet to be discovered. I stepped back and wanted to think about this for a few hours. I value the African-American thought, especially Virginians, first. I also expect the Virginia political parties to have more information and opposition information. It all points to a man who brought a racist and white supremacist life to a Virginia which is actively changing to a modern and diverse state. The good people of Virginia are telling the man to go away. I look forward to the new governor getting rid of honoring Lee.
Hey Bink… what are you… the liberal tv police. If you don’t like Maher, then don’t watch him. I’ve been watching Maher for years. I don’t always agree with him. And yes… I feel the same way about fox news and rush limpball. I don’t watch or listen… but others can make up their own minds.
Do i get to carry a taser? What about dental insurance? If so, yes.
NO… no taser…. no dental insurance for you. And you will be made to watch the Super Bowl over and over again.
If I am home tomorrow, it will be a day of Puppy Bowl videos.
foxnews:
A former illegal immigrant who worked at President Trump’s National Golf Club in Bedminster, N.J. as a housekeeper will attend the State of the Union address next week following the invitation from a California Democrat.
Rep. Jimmy Gomez invited Sandra Diaz, an employee of Trump’s businesses between 2010 and 2013. The invitation came just days after a Democrat from New Jersey also invited an illegal immigrant who worked on the golf property for five years before she was fired.
“It’s no small feat for a migrant from Costa Rica to stand up to a bully and hypocrite in the White House,” Gomez said in a statement. “She is living proof that President Trump couldn’t be more wrong — both morally and factually — when he demonizes those who come to America seeking a better life.”
Since leaving the job at the golf property, Diaz has become a legal resident of the U.S. Last year, she spoke out about her experience working for Trump and claims she took care of Trump’s personal residence and had even occasional interactions with him.
She told the New York Times that her supervisors knew she was illegally in the country and forced her to perform certain jobs that she didn’t want. They also allegedly abused her verbally and physically, and threatened her with the deportation.
“Apparently, the Trump Organization had no problem with hiring undocumented immigrants like Sandra to polish their golf clubs, serve them drinks, and make their beds. Treating these hardworking people with dignity, however, was clearly a bridge too far,” Gomez added in his statement.
Rep. Bonnie Watson Coleman, a New Jersey Democrat, announced on Wednesday that she extended the invitation to the State of the Union address to Victorina Morales, a Guatemala-born woman who was fired from the golf property where she worked as a housekeeper for five years.
The woman, who’s an illegal immigrant, has since become an advocate for other illegal immigrants in the country. She recently spoke out in the media about the Trump Organization’s hiring practices.
Following the backlash over the hiring of illegal immigrants, the Trump Organization pledged to use the E-Verify system to ensure everyone working at the company is legally in the U.S.
usatoday:
Who is Justin Fairfax? 3 things to know about Virginia’s Lt. Governor
The calls for Virginia’s Gov. Ralph Northam to resign have mounted a day after a racist yearbook photo surfaced of two individuals, one dressed in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe.
The photo, which appeared in Northam’s 1984 yearbook at Eastern Virginia Medical School, has put all eyes on his No. 2 — Lt. Gov. Justin Fairfax, a descendant of slaves and the second-ever African-American to hold a statewide office in Virginia.
If Northam does step down, Fairfax would replace him. Here are three things you should know about the lieutenant governor.
A historic race
Fairfax is the only African-American who currently holds a statewide office – and only the second to do so in Virginia’s history.
The state, which is moving from its southern roots to a move progressive base, elected Fairfax in 2017, the same year as Northam.
The only other African-American to hold a statewide office was Gov. L. Douglas Wilder, who served from 1990 to 1994. Wilder was one of many who called for Northam’s resignation in the aftermath of the yearbook photo.
Fairfax is a former federal prosecutor and attended both Duke University and Columbia Law School.
When he took his Oath of Office, Fairfax carried a copy of the manumission document that freed one of his ancestors from slavery. The Washington Post reported Fairfax’s father gave him a copy of the document just before the ceremony. It was a handwritten deed dated June 5, 1798 that freed Simon Fairfax, who was born into slavery.
Protests against Confederate figures
Fairfax has made it a mission to stand up against the racially-charged history in Virginia.
He stepped out of the state Senate, where he presides, two years in a row as lawmakers honored prominent Confederate figures, including this year with honoring Gen. Robert E. Lee.
Fairfax posted about his silent act of protest in a January tweet, saying instead of honoring Lee, he would be “thinking of this June 5, 1798 manumission document that freed my great-great-great grandfather Simon Fairfax from slavery in Virginia.”
The Richmond Times-Dispatch reported that Fairfax called the decision to honor Lee on his birthday last month on the Senate floor a “divisive” one that “stings a lot of people.”
“Particularly in this year, which is obviously the 400-year commemoration of the first enslaved Africans being brought to Virginia, in Hampton and Point Comfort, I think it stings a lot of people in particular in a year like this,” Fairfax said, according to the newspaper.
He continued: “To constantly look backwards to a very divisive time and conscript people into honoring someone who — had he prevailed and gotten his way I would not be standing up there on that dais as lieutenant governor of Virginia — I think is something that we should not be doing.”
Next in line?
Northam’s initial apology over the photo has failed to quell a firestorm of bipartisan calls for his immediate resignation. That list includes everyone from former vice president Joe Biden, Terry McAuliffe and Northam’s Democratic predecessor as governor to a half-dozen Democratic presidential hopefuls, the NAACP, Planned Parenthood and state Democratic lawmakers.
Virginia’s two Democratic U.S. senators, Mark Warner and Tim Kaine, also issued statements stopping short of calling out right for his departure, but saying Northam should carefully consider his next move.
[continues]
Happy Ground Hogs Day !
I wore a costume in Viet Nam : a pretend soldier with red crosshairs. That offended few actual soldiers.
However, some of my other ‘qualities’ were offensive.
wapo:
RICHMOND — Virginia Gov. Ralph Northam (D) plans to tell the public Saturday that he will not resign because he does not believe that he appears in a racist photograph from his 1984 medical school yearbook, according to a person close to the governor.
The governor’s spokeswoman, Ofirah Yheskel, confirmed the governor will not resign when he speaks to the public at 2:30 p.m .
Northam believes there was a mixup when the yearbook was produced and the image of a person dressed in blackface and another in a Ku Klux Klan robe mistakenly ended up on his page.
Northam feels he should not step down for something he didn’t do, according to the person, who spoke on condition of anonymity to talk about the governor’s internal discussions. Several high-ranking Democrats confirm they were briefed on his plans. Northam does not expect the intensifying calls for his resignation to cease but believes he can work to regain public trust, the person said.
[…]
Northam told them he has no memory of being in the photograph, despite his public apology, the aides said. He said he remembers selecting three other photos that appear on the page but not the offensive image.
In the phone calls, the governor distanced himself from the yearbook, saying he didn’t purchase it. And he told lawmakers that he talked to medical school classmates who confirmed that some of the photos on various pages might have gotten mixed up.
“He should have said that yesterday then,” said State Sen. L. Louise Lucas (D-Portsmouth), who was among the lawmakers who received a call from Northam Saturday morning. “He just told me he didn’t think it’s him. And I said, ‘Ralph, this is a day late and a dollar short. It’s too late.’”
[continues]
So, what WERE the qualities that helped Northam to rise in the party and state politics ? The pretty face, pleasant voice, and military industrial complex tattoo ?
He believes it was a mistake. Are we hearing swiftboats coming this way ?
If Northam would bother to look up he would see the vultures gathering. He is the equivalent of political road kill. The only question is, how long will it take them to pick the carcass clean?
also from an updated wapo story:
Northam said Friday was the first time he’d seen the photo, which he called “shocking and horrific.”
But he alluded to other actions in his past, and disclosed that in 1984 he won a dance contest in San Antonio where he wore dark shoe polish on his cheeks as part of a Michael Jackson costume.
he might also lose a few patients were he to resume his medical practice given the obvious lack of attention to detail, admitted poor memory and tendency to speak or act before considering all ramifications.
Yup, black face standing next to the KKK is offensive. Black face imitating Michael Jackson is okay? If he is as smart as he is supposed to be he should be arranging a golden parachute or something better than walking out the door poor. An example of a tone deaf white man.
Maybe he and Tom Brokaw can do something together
Mistaken identity ? Who does northam think he is, a Supreme Court nominee ?
GROUND HOG DAY REPORT
Chuck Wood, the official ground hog of partisan politics, saw his shadow this morning, and predicts six more seasons of political mayhem.
The good news is, Wood predicts that trump won’t start a nuclear war, ‘cuz doing so would dash all hopes for a hotel in Moscow.
Good thing is nobody thinks roasted wood chuck is worth eating.
I’ve heard mixed reports about woodchuck and marmot meat. I suppose it depends on what they’ve been eating. The wood chucks I inadvertently raised loved the broccoli that I was never able to harvest. One must presume that those guys tasted like broccoli.
The deer, the neighbor’s cow, and bugs also liked my broccoli. All the neighborhood critters must have tasted like my broccoli, except for me.
Ms Jamie,
I have a special request. As you appear to be the expert in matters owlish, would you please post a picture of a Superb Owl for the game tomorrow ?
Thanks for your consideration in this matter.
Yours,
X
Our super bowl party is very small – but we are still having a lot of snacks