….but, Bobby Three Sticks will get us what we need!
gates was released from house arrest last Tuesday…Craig mentioned money laundering, obstruction…gates was also involved in the data portion of the election heist.
You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want You can’t always get what you want But if you try sometimes well you just might find You get what you need
Hamilton 68…tracking the ruskies and their twitter troll attacks. ruskies pushing “release the memo” yesterday. Working with the congrussians, freedom caucus to get the dirty fbi before they get the boss.
Shortly after President Donald Trump fired his FBI director in May, he summoned to the Oval Office the bureau’s acting director for a get-to-know-you meeting.
The two men exchanged pleasantries, but before long, Trump, according to several current and former U.S. officials, asked Andrew McCabe a pointed question: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election?
McCabe said he didn’t vote, according to the officials, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive matter.
Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton.
McCabe, 49, who had been FBI deputy director for a little more than a year when James Comey was fired, is at the center of much of the political jockeying surrounding the investigation into potential coordination between Trump associates and the Kremlin. He has for months been the subject of Trump’s ire, prompting angrytweets suggesting that the Russia probe is politically motivated by Democrats sore about losing the election.
McCabe, who has spent more than two decades at the bureau, found the conversation with Trump “disturbing,” said one former U.S. official. Inside the FBI, officials familiar with the exchange expressed frustration that a civil servant – even a very senior agent in the No. 2 position – would be asked how he voted and criticized for his wife’s political leanings by the president.
One person said the Trump-McCabe conversation is of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller III.
Add Elton John’s “Funeral For A Friend” to today’s offering & you have the two songs played at every Trump rally. Pump up the volume, pen the Press. Memories.
I understand “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” being played at rallies but “Funeral For A Friend” ….? It always left hope that Trump was Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton’s Tony Clifton. The ultimate joke; we’re being played. Only enough believed.
Can’t wait to see the books written about Mueller’s investigation… I’m sure they’ll be quite thick.
Hopefully Fire and Fury is waiting for me at the post office today. Couldn’t get out of the house yesterday to get it. We had an ice storm… thankfully didn’t lose electricity… but our driveway was a skating rink. Neither Rick or I was foolish enough to risk broken limbs.
On May 10, 1933 student groups at universities across Germany carried out a series of book burnings of works that the students and leading Nazi party members associated with an “un-German spirit.”
Such barbarity was just the beginning, however. One can see in retrospect how the book burnings and other steps to remove “Jewish influence” from German institutions foreshadowed much more catastrophic Nazi plans for the Jews of Europe. Eerily, among the books consigned to the flames in 1933 were the works of the nineteenth century Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who in 1822 penned the prophetic words, “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.”
I just watched the rnc head, a lady who removed her middle name of romney for trump, attack the fbi on cable news. She joins many repugs in slamming the fbi. The corruption must reach the rnc for them to be so fervidly burning down the fbi house.
The most shocking piece to hit out of all this is how the greedy old perverts have become russian agents. From a party which had an absolute hate of the Soviets to a party which is compromised to become agents of our enemy.
Holy yarmulke! pence with hair like spider webs visits the wall and female reporters blocked by tradition and “a shoulder and a bald spot … of someone with a better view than me.”
Certainly there are Democrats who partake of Russian money too.
You betcha! wilbur ross (see him Friday at Davos) comes to mind. However, the law and order gang attacking the law and order gang? Authoritarian and junta tactics to cover-up some crimes on citizens while they loot the office. The entire repug party seems complicit vs a few bad individuals in the dem party.
False equivalency –not everyone in public office is a stupid greedy asshole that is what a Trump gooper does. I doubt anyone except Jill Stein is taking money from the Russians
The progressive left is determined to give the goops another shot at controlling everything
I will not be attending any more of the women’s events because the leadership sucks and is trying to take credit for things they did not do
I see bitter Bernies living in the past still trying to get revenge for god knows what..
“Hamilton 68…tracking the ruskies and their twitter troll attacks. ruskies pushing “release the memo” yesterday. Working with the congrussians, freedom caucus to get the dirty fbi before they get the boss.”
bw, thanks for linking that. it shows a chart that shows just what you’re talking about
“Though Mr. Wray has resisted the pressure to change Mr. McCabe’s role, he has begun to alter the F.B.I.’s leadership. He removed James Baker, the general counsel for the bureau under Mr. Comey, and replaced him with Dana Boente, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and the acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division, according to a person familiar with the move.”
Make no mistake: the FBI Director is flexing his muscles here, and working to build up the FBI’s defenses against Trump and his cronies. Trump just finished pushing Boente out of the picture, and now the FBI is installing Boente in a key role. Trump is now too weak to take any real punitive action against the FBI, and he knows it, and now the FBI knows it.
more about Boente from the above linked palmer report….he departed around the same time as page and stryzok.
So why is the mainstream media botching this story so badly? It may be a result of how President Obama tricked Donald Trump regarding Dana Boente. Just before leaving office, Obama demoted Boente in the Department of Justice line of succession. This led Trump to conclude that Boente was anti-Obama, and prompted Trump to promote Boente even higher in the line of succession. Boente then spent all of 2017 helping with the prosecution of Michael Flynn in his district, before Trump finally figured out he’d been had. Some in the media still don’t appear to have figured it out.
I don’t think it is the same as what is going on with Trumpco– Diaper Don is a willing participant as are all the others and it is not about policy it’s about money and power in the private sector for them and influence in the US for the Russian
This is a Trump problem not a problem univerally with American pols
Boente played a key role in the prosecution of Michael Flynn in the Eastern Virginia District, which helped lead to Flynn’s eventual plea deal. In December, Trump finally figured out Boente wasn’t playing for his team, and forced him to retire.
I agree, kgc, the heart of the progressives is not dark and black like the alt-right, but they are just as easily snared to the song of conspiracy, phony news lyrics.
The problem isn’t with one Party, it’s all Parties & most of all us. As long as voters keep reelecting the same people nothing will change. It won’t. We hire these guys & gals.
the guardian Davos 2018: Merkel warns against ‘poisonous’ populism – live updates Merkel: Beware poisonous populism
Returning to the dangers of populism, Angela Merkel warns of the ‘poisonous mix’ created if people feel they are getting an unfair deal.
She warns against descending into stereotypes, saying:
When you say Americans are protectionist by nature, Germans are tight-fisted by nature, you are generalising. The next thing is Muslims are like this, Christians are like that.
If you not respect each person’s individuality, and already have your pre-conceived notion before you even talk to them, that is the very basis of populism.
Yes they are and the media is happy to cover them. But the facts do not support their chronic whining. The elections in Va and NJ and Alabama all had important participation by the National Democratic party in partnership with the locals and made the difference in organizing GOTV. And what had the much vaunted Bernie Machine done they were going to pick candidates raise money and run campaigns so far big fat zero
I don’t mind voting for change with some different personalities, but I do not like the institutions that deliver my checks, my promises undone by crooked leaders. I do not mind the same humans dealing with my government bureaucracy. Stability and strength by longevity are okay with me. It is the current crooked leaders who are costing us so much and leaving us like an empty shell company. No loaded barrels. We have been swindled and the ruse continues.
Stein is an opportunist who quite publicly called for disenchanted Dems to join her Party. These people can still be registered Dem, attend Dem functions, but be influenced by others than Dems. And now work from the inside, under various guises.
wapo: Top Democrats warn of ‘ongoing attack by the Russian government’ amid push to publish classified memo
Top Democrats on Tuesday called on Facebook and Twitter to investigate what lawmakers said are Russian efforts to promote the release of a classified Republican memo criticizing the FBI probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign.
Hashtags such as “#ReleaseTheMemo” have been trending on Twitter in recent days, and accounts affiliated with Russian influence efforts have been supporting this campaign, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a U.S.-based group that examines efforts by Russia and other nations to interfere in democratic institutions.
“If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process,” said a letter to Facebook and Twitter from Rep. Adam B. Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats from California who are the top members of their party on the House Intelligence Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively.
[….]
In alleging involvement by Russian trolls and bots, Schiff and Feinstein cite the Alliance for Securing Democracy, part of the German Marshall Fund. The group hosts on its website a dashboard that tracks roughly 600 accounts that the group says echo or otherwise support Russian influence efforts, though in some cases this is done unwittingly, according to information posted on the site.
It adds that many of the accounts are not directly controlled by Russia but amplify key themes put forth by Russian government media. The dashboard, called “Hamilton 68: Tracking Russian Influence Operations on Twitter,” shows #ReleaseTheMemo as the most commonly used hashtag by tracked accounts over the past 48 hours.
Facebook confirmed that it had received the letter from Schiff and Feinstein but did not immediately make further comment. Twitter issued a statement saying the company “is committed to addressing malicious activity on our platform, and we take any assertions of such activity very seriously. We look forward to working closely with Senator Feinstein and Congressman Schiff to address their questions.”
[….]
In seeking help from Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday, Schiff and Feinstein reminded the companies of their inability to stop Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Both companies have since acknowledged that the Internet Research Agency, in St. Petersburg, Russia, used their social media platforms to spread divisive messages during the election and its aftermath.
The Democratic lawmakers demanded a report by Friday and urged the companies to shut down any participating accounts found in violation of company policies.
“This should be disconcerting to all Americans, but especially your companies as, once again, it appears the vast majority of their efforts are concentrated on your platforms,” Schiff and Feinstein wrote. “This latest example of Russian interference is in keeping with Moscow’s concerted, covert, and continuing campaign to manipulate American public opinion and erode trust in our law enforcement and intelligence institutions.”
The urgent request for investigation underscores growing scrutiny on Capitol Hill of the influence of social media on American politics, as well as growing concern over release of the classified GOP memo. The letter is addressed to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey.
The letter cites no evidence of Russian influence efforts on Facebook, but investigations of Russian manipulation of social media during the 2016 campaign found widespread exploitation of U.S.-based social media platforms. Researchers have a more difficult time tracking the flow of information on Facebook than Twitter, whose posts are more widely available to the public than on Facebook.
That day, Hannity’s website ranked among the top 10 shared by the network of Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence campaigns and tracked by the nonpartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy on its national-security project, the Hamilton 68 dashboard. Hannity content had not registered much previously—but since Dec. 20, links from Hannity’s site have appeared frequently on the dashboard, often ranking among the top 10. “It’s now up there with other top most-shared domains,” says Bret Schafer, an analyst who monitors the dashboard for the Alliance.
KGC It is about the popular vote for me…the majority is easy to spot. With the electoral college? We end up with a minority rule with no mandate.
I’m sure the Bern-outs think he was the majority candidate. How will we coalesce around a candidate if we can’t agree on the issues that should be counted. I’m concerned the bernies will do what they did before and screw the rest of us
Then we have Trump and his dream wall of 9 Feb 2018 aka The Ozymandian. He loves how impressive the name sounds and despite his World Class education and wonderful mind, does not connect it or himself to Ozymandias. Shelley, bless his soul, must be laughing his ass off.
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
munchkin applauds weak dollar at davos.
Mnuchin has advocated for a weaker dollar before, arguing it puts the U.S. in a better position on trade. President Donald Trump has also been vocal about his desire for a weaker dollar, saying back in April the buck was “getting too strong.”
What are strategists saying?
“The long-term trend for the dollar is negative and once more its support seem to be breaking down which is impacting across financial markets,” said Richard Perry, market analyst at Hantec Markets, in a note.
However, is a weak dollar good for US citizens?
According to McTeer, a weakening dollar should have the effect of reducing the trade deficit. That hasn’t happened, ironically, because the dollar has not been able to deteriorate enough. Countries like China peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, so those trade patterns tend to be somewhat insulated from fluctuations in the dollar.
But there’s another problem: The U.S. is generally not a producer of cheap consumer goods, so it can’t compete with countries that have cut-rate labor forces and a willingness to devalue their currency indefinitely.
Here are three ways a weak dollar can make you poor:
No. 1: It leads to stagnant wages and increased outsourcing
No. 2: Gas and luxury goods cost more
No. 3: Overseas trips are more expensive for Americans
Holder and Obama are doing great with their redistricting efforts and it highlights the importance of the courts and who gets appointed. Get rid of Trump now before he ruins the judiciary for years to come.
Finally… I have Fire and Fury in my hands! Can’t wait to start reading it later. Right now…. I’ve got to get back to work. I still have galleries wanting me to stock their shelves with my scarves. I just went back to work this week after taking a month off. I’m too old to weave as much as I used to.
excerpts from that mother jones story craig linked above:
On Jan. 18, Hannity inveighed against Mueller specifically: “I have a message tonight for the special counsel, Robert Mueller,” he said at the outset of his Fox News prime time report on the memo. “Your witch hunt is now over. Time to close the doors.” By the end of the following day, the hashtag #releasethememo had been tweeted about 3,700 times in 48 hours by the 600 accounts monitored on Hamilton 68, boosted in part by a tweet from WikiLeaks offering a reward for the memo. Hannity also posted “#releasethememo” to the top of Hannity.com.
[….]
But the more recent Hannity links seized upon by the Russian trolls echo a deceptive style seen with content from far-right conspiracy sites like Gateway Pundit and True Pundit. One recent example: a Hannity.com link headlined, “KNIVES OUT: Elizabeth Warren GOES AFTER Oprah Winfrey over 2020 run”—leading to a story quoting Warren as praising Winfrey for a “fabulous speech.” Another Hannity link shared by the trolls recently carried a headline claiming “Fusion GPS says FBI likely funded ‘Trump dossier’ author” and crediting Breitbart News. The Hannity links shared this week continued to demand the release of the Nunes memo and hammered at the freshest conspiracy theory, the alleged disappearance of FBI officials’ allegedly biased text messages.
Former senior CIA official John Sipher says the smear campaign by Fox News and Trump’s allies in the House plays directly into Kremlin hands. “A weak FBI is in the Russian interest. They will use all the tools at their disposal to pile on and amplify the negative messages,” he told Mother Jones. “At the very same time that we should be coming together to defend ourselves, partisan supporters of the president are attacking the institutions that are protecting us. There needs to be a level of trust and awareness that [FBI and DOJ] are working on behalf of the people, and are not partisan hacks. While it might be in the immediate, short-term interest of a few right-wing politicians, they are helping our enemies and risk doing long-term damage to our democracy.”
time to start asking each of the gopers the old HUAC questions about their commie connections and did they properly report to f.e.c. their accepting of Russian campaign help and funds.
I will always keep in mind my choice of republicans who could have been president, Colin Powell. A fine commander, a wonderful human being. And a guy who fixed his own cars (Volvos).
flynn interviewed by the fbi…exactly one year ago in the WH.
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe reportedly facilitated the Jan. 24, 2017, meeting after a phone call with Flynn’s scheduler that day. Sources told NBC that Trump was unaware of the meeting until Jan. 26.
Flynn took the meeting alone, NBC said, opting to exclude his lawyer or a lawyer from the National Security Council who would normally attend such a meeting.
I only saw Powell outwardly express surprise a single time. It was early on a Sunday on a New Year’s Day. In a weak moment, I decided to go to the Episcopal service at the Post Chapel. I was at the Communion rail next to Powell when he looked up and saw me there; I thought he was going to have a heart attack–good thing he didn’t have a mouth full of wine.
Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada took the opportunity to announce that on exactly the anniversary of the United States’ withdrawal from the TPP, a trade agreement had been reached between the other 11 countries that would exclude the United States and had been signed in Tokyo. (I’m sure the timing was totally a coincidence.) While it was widely expected both in the US and abroad that the US’s withdrawal would jeopardize the agreement, it now seems the agreement could be ratified as early as March.
Right….. he’s a changed man…..this all happened before he elected president.
What a load of crap. It’s always been the case but now it’s out in the open– the so called Christians are nothing but bullies in the name of Christ stepping all over Other people’s lives as a way of maintaining control. So in this case they admit he did these things…just not recently (but they don’t really know that for sure)
Great news from Justin… TPP – can’t wait for the SFB deals with individual partners – what are we down to the Seychelles
The Justice Department ramped up pressure on so-called sanctuary cities, like New York City, seeking public safety grant money, warning state and local officials they could be legally forced to prove they are cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The 23 jurisdictions that received letters Wednesday include Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles and the states of Illinois, Oregon and California. Officials said the places have been previously warned that they need to provide information about their policies to be eligible to receive grants that pay for everything from bulletproof vests to officer overtime.
too bad there isn’t also a comparable vid of trump combing his “hair” and primping in the mirror … maybe the twit would have suffered the same fate as Edwards did.
A presidential candidate is accused of arranging hush money to conceal a mistress in a sensational story ripped straight from the tabloids. Sound familiar? Six years ago, federal prosecutors put two-time Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on trial for just that and ended up failing to convict the North Carolina politician. Now, the Common Cause watchdog group wants the Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission and Congress to investigate a $130,000 payment that President Trump’s lawyer is alleged to have arranged weeks before the 2016 election for a former porn actress in an attempt to cover up her purported affair with Trump. Campaign-finance experts say these cases are tricky to prove, and Washington politics — the Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission and Congress are all controlled by the president’s party — seem likely to doom any probe into whether federal laws were violated. “I have real doubts that the Department of Justice has the independence and the fortitude to go after this,” said Peter Zeidenberg, who served as a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section during George W. Bush’s administration [….] In its complaints to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Common Cause argues that the alleged payment to Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, likely violated federal campaign-finance laws as an unreported, in-kind donation to Trump’s campaign.
Campaign contribution limits in effect during the 2016 election capped direct donations to a candidates at $2,700 for a primary or general election. In addition, corporations are prohibited from giving campaign donations to congressional and presidential candidates. [….] “The timing of this payment is strong evidence that this was payment for the purpose of influencing an election,” rather than concealing the affair from Trump’s family, said Paul Ryan, Common Cause’s vice president for policy and litigation. “It was a decade-old relationship he had with her,” Ryan said of the alleged affair. “So, why then?”
[….continues….]
Flate….I went to one of them communions…….in the eighth grade at the episcopal/military high school I went to……we had to do church everyday in the school chapel……I liked the music ok, they had a great organ, and the rest wasnt so bad……but then one day they called this communion thing and all the students started going a row at time, up on the “stage” and kneeling while the preacher goes along administering the Body and the Blood and whatnot. This was big episcopal stuff, costumes, acolytes, candles on sticks, maybe a little incense, the whole scene……They even had a gold cross on a stick they kept waving around everywhere…..Came time for my row to go up and I had no idea what to do so I just got up and went along with em……just did whatever the guy next to me did and then back to the pews……Piece of cake…..I mean bread……I mean body….So anyway when my mother got old and used to ask me if I was washed in the blood of the lamb, I’d tell her, “I shore AM!”
Simple twist of fate…….if the old man hadn’t got into a beef with the island public school principle and I hadn’t been yanked out and sent to the military school, I would never have heard all those stories, and wouldn’t have gone to Australia on a boat.
The pressure cooker is building up steam right now. Which leader will refuse to shake the hands of the American delegation? Which will snub SFB setting off a twitter storm that is all about Obama and Clinton? How soon will stupid decide to return home? And with lovely wife thinking of single life, even if it means hubby is in ADX Florence learning to love single life, he might have a desire to head to NY and visit her.
….but, Bobby Three Sticks will get us what we need!
gates was released from house arrest last Tuesday…Craig mentioned money laundering, obstruction…gates was also involved in the data portion of the election heist.
The mosaic takes shape!
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
You can’t always get what you want
But if you try sometimes well you just might find
You get what you need
x-r, perhaps a distant cousin as we all are… otherwise on behalf of meerkats everywhere, we demand an apology
photo meant for above comment re x-r insult to meerkats of the world
also to x-r, in the case of the other meerkat relative (you mentioned ryan):
remember who slithers into potus job if pence and the twit go byebye …. another case of you don’t always get what you want
Hamilton 68…tracking the ruskies and their twitter troll attacks. ruskies pushing “release the memo” yesterday. Working with the congrussians, freedom caucus to get the dirty fbi before they get the boss.
chi trib:
Shortly after President Donald Trump fired his FBI director in May, he summoned to the Oval Office the bureau’s acting director for a get-to-know-you meeting.
The two men exchanged pleasantries, but before long, Trump, according to several current and former U.S. officials, asked Andrew McCabe a pointed question: Whom did he vote for in the 2016 election?
McCabe said he didn’t vote, according to the officials, who, like others interviewed for this article, spoke on the condition of anonymity to talk candidly about a sensitive matter.
Trump, the officials said, also vented his anger at McCabe over the several hundred thousand dollars in donations his wife, a Democrat, received for her failed 2015 Virginia state Senate bid from a political action committee controlled by a close friend of Hillary Clinton.
McCabe, 49, who had been FBI deputy director for a little more than a year when James Comey was fired, is at the center of much of the political jockeying surrounding the investigation into potential coordination between Trump associates and the Kremlin. He has for months been the subject of Trump’s ire, prompting angrytweets suggesting that the Russia probe is politically motivated by Democrats sore about losing the election.
McCabe, who has spent more than two decades at the bureau, found the conversation with Trump “disturbing,” said one former U.S. official. Inside the FBI, officials familiar with the exchange expressed frustration that a civil servant – even a very senior agent in the No. 2 position – would be asked how he voted and criticized for his wife’s political leanings by the president.
One person said the Trump-McCabe conversation is of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller III.
[….continues…]
sessions and his wife are so boring…we need a Martha the Mouth, the Mouth of the South. Housewives of the nixon crime gang speak out.
Add Elton John’s “Funeral For A Friend” to today’s offering & you have the two songs played at every Trump rally. Pump up the volume, pen the Press. Memories.
I understand “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” being played at rallies but “Funeral For A Friend” ….? It always left hope that Trump was Andy Kaufman’s Tony Clifton’s Tony Clifton. The ultimate joke; we’re being played. Only enough believed.
Can’t wait to see the books written about Mueller’s investigation… I’m sure they’ll be quite thick.
Hopefully Fire and Fury is waiting for me at the post office today. Couldn’t get out of the house yesterday to get it. We had an ice storm… thankfully didn’t lose electricity… but our driveway was a skating rink. Neither Rick or I was foolish enough to risk broken limbs.
Next record selection, “Sympathy for the Devil”?
patD – Do we now refer to the house on the hill as “Meerkat Manor”? (As fascinating a show as anything ever shown on CSPAN.)
May 10, 2018 is the anniversary of the nazi book burnings.
On May 10, 1933 student groups at universities across Germany carried out a series of book burnings of works that the students and leading Nazi party members associated with an “un-German spirit.”
Such barbarity was just the beginning, however. One can see in retrospect how the book burnings and other steps to remove “Jewish influence” from German institutions foreshadowed much more catastrophic Nazi plans for the Jews of Europe. Eerily, among the books consigned to the flames in 1933 were the works of the nineteenth century Jewish poet Heinrich Heine, who in 1822 penned the prophetic words, “Where they burn books, they will, in the end, burn human beings too.”
In the digital age? fake news burns the truth.
I just watched the rnc head, a lady who removed her middle name of romney for trump, attack the fbi on cable news. She joins many repugs in slamming the fbi. The corruption must reach the rnc for them to be so fervidly burning down the fbi house.
The most shocking piece to hit out of all this is how the greedy old perverts have become russian agents. From a party which had an absolute hate of the Soviets to a party which is compromised to become agents of our enemy.
There once was a Garrison Keillor
Who haunted public media as a spieler
Until it got known
All the ladies he’d hound
And how they’d arouse his wiener.
Holy yarmulke! pence with hair like spider webs visits the wall and female reporters blocked by tradition and “a shoulder and a bald spot … of someone with a better view than me.”
from npr
Female journalists complain about obstructed view at Wailing Wall.
SJ, garrison is a ‘dachshund’…or a wiener dog as many call the pooch.
Certainly there are Democrats who partake of Russian money too … not condemning anyone here, just being realistic.
Blonde Wino,
After today’s reporting about the Keillor investigation, he is one sick puppy.
SJ says –
Certainly there are Democrats who partake of Russian money too.
You betcha! wilbur ross (see him Friday at Davos) comes to mind. However, the law and order gang attacking the law and order gang? Authoritarian and junta tactics to cover-up some crimes on citizens while they loot the office. The entire repug party seems complicit vs a few bad individuals in the dem party.
False equivalency –not everyone in public office is a stupid greedy asshole that is what a Trump gooper does. I doubt anyone except Jill Stein is taking money from the Russians
RR…surprise you have an ice skating rink in your front yard. Be careful, many years ago in college, I broke my leg slipping on ice.
The progressive left is determined to give the goops another shot at controlling everything
I will not be attending any more of the women’s events because the leadership sucks and is trying to take credit for things they did not do
I see bitter Bernies living in the past still trying to get revenge for god knows what..
Katherine Graham Cracker,
No false equivalency implied. Just dealing in facts & human nature. Money is a powerful drug.
Wilbur Ross is Trump’s laundry guy and not a Democrat anymore
“Hamilton 68…tracking the ruskies and their twitter troll attacks. ruskies pushing “release the memo” yesterday. Working with the congrussians, freedom caucus to get the dirty fbi before they get the boss.”
bw, thanks for linking that. it shows a chart that shows just what you’re talking about
Topic
Times mentioned in the last 48 hours
FBI
1443
kgc…the left is influenced by the same crap as the alt-right. Remember TPP? Victim of russian meddling by the fringes of both parties.
Great News! Dana Boente is back.
“Though Mr. Wray has resisted the pressure to change Mr. McCabe’s role, he has begun to alter the F.B.I.’s leadership. He removed James Baker, the general counsel for the bureau under Mr. Comey, and replaced him with Dana Boente, the United States attorney for the Eastern District of Virginia and the acting head of the Justice Department’s national security division, according to a person familiar with the move.”
Wray strikes back at the junta, per palmer report.
Make no mistake: the FBI Director is flexing his muscles here, and working to build up the FBI’s defenses against Trump and his cronies. Trump just finished pushing Boente out of the picture, and now the FBI is installing Boente in a key role. Trump is now too weak to take any real punitive action against the FBI, and he knows it, and now the FBI knows it.
also from same page to help explain the charts
Between January 2 and January 13, we examined 97 unique articles that were among the top URLs shared by Kremlin-oriented accounts on Twitter.
and
The charts and graphs here display hashtags, topics and URLs promoted by Russia-linked influence networks on Twitter.
more about Boente from the above linked palmer report….he departed around the same time as page and stryzok.
So why is the mainstream media botching this story so badly? It may be a result of how President Obama tricked Donald Trump regarding Dana Boente. Just before leaving office, Obama demoted Boente in the Department of Justice line of succession. This led Trump to conclude that Boente was anti-Obama, and prompted Trump to promote Boente even higher in the line of succession. Boente then spent all of 2017 helping with the prosecution of Michael Flynn in his district, before Trump finally figured out he’d been had. Some in the media still don’t appear to have figured it out.
BW
I don’t think it is the same as what is going on with Trumpco– Diaper Don is a willing participant as are all the others and it is not about policy it’s about money and power in the private sector for them and influence in the US for the Russian
This is a Trump problem not a problem univerally with American pols
Stein looked lovely at the RT table, sitting near Putin. Then made a speech in Red Square denouncing American policies.
Stein received uber time on RT during the election. You’ve got a friend …
Stein made a play for disenchanted Sanders supporters literally outside the HRC nominating convention.
Ms Graham Cracker, you
may beare correct in your assessment of certain barnicle-Dem groups. Beware. Be careful. They’re here.dana who?
Boente played a key role in the prosecution of Michael Flynn in the Eastern Virginia District, which helped lead to Flynn’s eventual plea deal. In December, Trump finally figured out Boente wasn’t playing for his team, and forced him to retire.
way to go wray!
Today’s lesson should be focus on the problem at hand
I agree, kgc, the heart of the progressives is not dark and black like the alt-right, but they are just as easily snared to the song of conspiracy, phony news lyrics.
“Lock her up” was also chanted by progressives.
sjwny, but jill isn’t a dem, she’s green party.
patd
good defense of meerkats and I’m the one who suggested Jill the loser Stein
The problem isn’t with one Party, it’s all Parties & most of all us. As long as voters keep reelecting the same people nothing will change. It won’t. We hire these guys & gals.
The Green Party — the color of money.
the guardian Davos 2018: Merkel warns against ‘poisonous’ populism – live updates
Merkel: Beware poisonous populism
Returning to the dangers of populism, Angela Merkel warns of the ‘poisonous mix’ created if people feel they are getting an unfair deal.
She warns against descending into stereotypes, saying:
SJ
Yes they are and the media is happy to cover them. But the facts do not support their chronic whining. The elections in Va and NJ and Alabama all had important participation by the National Democratic party in partnership with the locals and made the difference in organizing GOTV. And what had the much vaunted Bernie Machine done they were going to pick candidates raise money and run campaigns so far big fat zero
I don’t mind voting for change with some different personalities, but I do not like the institutions that deliver my checks, my promises undone by crooked leaders. I do not mind the same humans dealing with my government bureaucracy. Stability and strength by longevity are okay with me. It is the current crooked leaders who are costing us so much and leaving us like an empty shell company. No loaded barrels. We have been swindled and the ruse continues.
patd,
Stein is an opportunist who quite publicly called for disenchanted Dems to join her Party. These people can still be registered Dem, attend Dem functions, but be influenced by others than Dems. And now work from the inside, under various guises.
Hey, after 2016, anything is possible. ?
In the immortal word of sjwny we are the majority let’s act like it
I don’t think Wray is working out the way Diaper Don had hoped I wonder if it is because he can see the handwriting on Bobby Three Sticks desk?
Patd says —
way to go wray!
No, WRAY to go!!
(clinging to humor, life is getting dicey)
The majority needs to vote for the majority candidate in order for this to work.
wapo: Top Democrats warn of ‘ongoing attack by the Russian government’ amid push to publish classified memo
Top Democrats on Tuesday called on Facebook and Twitter to investigate what lawmakers said are Russian efforts to promote the release of a classified Republican memo criticizing the FBI probe of Russia’s meddling in the 2016 campaign.
Hashtags such as “#ReleaseTheMemo” have been trending on Twitter in recent days, and accounts affiliated with Russian influence efforts have been supporting this campaign, according to the Alliance for Securing Democracy, a U.S.-based group that examines efforts by Russia and other nations to interfere in democratic institutions.
“If these reports are accurate, we are witnessing an ongoing attack by the Russian government through Kremlin-linked social media actors directly acting to intervene and influence our democratic process,” said a letter to Facebook and Twitter from Rep. Adam B. Schiff and Sen. Dianne Feinstein, both Democrats from California who are the top members of their party on the House Intelligence Committee and Senate Judiciary Committee, respectively.
[….]
In alleging involvement by Russian trolls and bots, Schiff and Feinstein cite the Alliance for Securing Democracy, part of the German Marshall Fund. The group hosts on its website a dashboard that tracks roughly 600 accounts that the group says echo or otherwise support Russian influence efforts, though in some cases this is done unwittingly, according to information posted on the site.
It adds that many of the accounts are not directly controlled by Russia but amplify key themes put forth by Russian government media. The dashboard, called “Hamilton 68: Tracking Russian Influence Operations on Twitter,” shows #ReleaseTheMemo as the most commonly used hashtag by tracked accounts over the past 48 hours.
Facebook confirmed that it had received the letter from Schiff and Feinstein but did not immediately make further comment. Twitter issued a statement saying the company “is committed to addressing malicious activity on our platform, and we take any assertions of such activity very seriously. We look forward to working closely with Senator Feinstein and Congressman Schiff to address their questions.”
[….]
In seeking help from Twitter and Facebook on Tuesday, Schiff and Feinstein reminded the companies of their inability to stop Russian disinformation during the 2016 presidential campaign. Both companies have since acknowledged that the Internet Research Agency, in St. Petersburg, Russia, used their social media platforms to spread divisive messages during the election and its aftermath.
The Democratic lawmakers demanded a report by Friday and urged the companies to shut down any participating accounts found in violation of company policies.
“This should be disconcerting to all Americans, but especially your companies as, once again, it appears the vast majority of their efforts are concentrated on your platforms,” Schiff and Feinstein wrote. “This latest example of Russian interference is in keeping with Moscow’s concerted, covert, and continuing campaign to manipulate American public opinion and erode trust in our law enforcement and intelligence institutions.”
The urgent request for investigation underscores growing scrutiny on Capitol Hill of the influence of social media on American politics, as well as growing concern over release of the classified GOP memo. The letter is addressed to Facebook chief executive Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter chief executive Jack Dorsey.
The letter cites no evidence of Russian influence efforts on Facebook, but investigations of Russian manipulation of social media during the 2016 campaign found widespread exploitation of U.S.-based social media platforms. Researchers have a more difficult time tracking the flow of information on Facebook than Twitter, whose posts are more widely available to the public than on Facebook.
BW
I guess the argument is who is the majority candidate?
Here is a link to a great analytic approach to identifying russian trolls in twitter and possibly other social media venues.
niall ferguson: Trump exemplifies the Ugly American
hannity russian troll on Hamilton 68.
That day, Hannity’s website ranked among the top 10 shared by the network of Twitter accounts linked to Russian influence campaigns and tracked by the nonpartisan Alliance for Securing Democracy on its national-security project, the Hamilton 68 dashboard. Hannity content had not registered much previously—but since Dec. 20, links from Hannity’s site have appeared frequently on the dashboard, often ranking among the top 10. “It’s now up there with other top most-shared domains,” says Bret Schafer, an analyst who monitors the dashboard for the Alliance.
KGC It is about the popular vote for me…the majority is easy to spot. With the electoral college? We end up with a minority rule with no mandate.
Both my Senators and my Congress critter are Democrats… and all women. You bet my ass I’m voting for them again.
Damn it, I can’t find my piece of the Berlin Wall!
I was completely underwhelmed by its lack of substance
I’m sure the Bern-outs think he was the majority candidate. How will we coalesce around a candidate if we can’t agree on the issues that should be counted. I’m concerned the bernies will do what they did before and screw the rest of us
Bernie is not a Democrat
Then we have Trump and his dream wall of 9 Feb 2018 aka The Ozymandian. He loves how impressive the name sounds and despite his World Class education and wonderful mind, does not connect it or himself to Ozymandias. Shelley, bless his soul, must be laughing his ass off.
Ozymandias
By Percy Bysshe Shelley
I met a traveller from an antique land,
Who said—“Two vast and trunkless legs of stone
Stand in the desert. . . . Near them, on the sand,
Half sunk a shattered visage lies, whose frown,
And wrinkled lip, and sneer of cold command,
Tell that its sculptor well those passions read
Which yet survive, stamped on these lifeless things,
The hand that mocked them, and the heart that fed;
And on the pedestal, these words appear:
My name is Ozymandias, King of Kings;
Look on my Works, ye Mighty, and despair!
Nothing beside remains. Round the decay
Of that colossal Wreck, boundless and bare
The lone and level sands stretch far away.”
Source: Shelley’s Poetry and Prose (1977)
This Poem has a Poem Guide
View Poem Guide
munchkin applauds weak dollar at davos.
Mnuchin has advocated for a weaker dollar before, arguing it puts the U.S. in a better position on trade. President Donald Trump has also been vocal about his desire for a weaker dollar, saying back in April the buck was “getting too strong.”
What are strategists saying?
“The long-term trend for the dollar is negative and once more its support seem to be breaking down which is impacting across financial markets,” said Richard Perry, market analyst at Hantec Markets, in a note.
However, is a weak dollar good for US citizens?
According to McTeer, a weakening dollar should have the effect of reducing the trade deficit. That hasn’t happened, ironically, because the dollar has not been able to deteriorate enough. Countries like China peg their currencies to the U.S. dollar, so those trade patterns tend to be somewhat insulated from fluctuations in the dollar.
But there’s another problem: The U.S. is generally not a producer of cheap consumer goods, so it can’t compete with countries that have cut-rate labor forces and a willingness to devalue their currency indefinitely.
Here are three ways a weak dollar can make you poor:
No. 1: It leads to stagnant wages and increased outsourcing
No. 2: Gas and luxury goods cost more
No. 3: Overseas trips are more expensive for Americans
Holder and Obama are doing great with their redistricting efforts and it highlights the importance of the courts and who gets appointed. Get rid of Trump now before he ruins the judiciary for years to come.
loving the Hannity works for Putin angle.
Finally… I have Fire and Fury in my hands! Can’t wait to start reading it later. Right now…. I’ve got to get back to work. I still have galleries wanting me to stock their shelves with my scarves. I just went back to work this week after taking a month off. I’m too old to weave as much as I used to.
excerpts from that mother jones story craig linked above:
On Jan. 18, Hannity inveighed against Mueller specifically: “I have a message tonight for the special counsel, Robert Mueller,” he said at the outset of his Fox News prime time report on the memo. “Your witch hunt is now over. Time to close the doors.” By the end of the following day, the hashtag #releasethememo had been tweeted about 3,700 times in 48 hours by the 600 accounts monitored on Hamilton 68, boosted in part by a tweet from WikiLeaks offering a reward for the memo. Hannity also posted “#releasethememo” to the top of Hannity.com.
[….]
But the more recent Hannity links seized upon by the Russian trolls echo a deceptive style seen with content from far-right conspiracy sites like Gateway Pundit and True Pundit. One recent example: a Hannity.com link headlined, “KNIVES OUT: Elizabeth Warren GOES AFTER Oprah Winfrey over 2020 run”—leading to a story quoting Warren as praising Winfrey for a “fabulous speech.” Another Hannity link shared by the trolls recently carried a headline claiming “Fusion GPS says FBI likely funded ‘Trump dossier’ author” and crediting Breitbart News. The Hannity links shared this week continued to demand the release of the Nunes memo and hammered at the freshest conspiracy theory, the alleged disappearance of FBI officials’ allegedly biased text messages.
also from mj, this one really gets to the point.
Former senior CIA official John Sipher says the smear campaign by Fox News and Trump’s allies in the House plays directly into Kremlin hands. “A weak FBI is in the Russian interest. They will use all the tools at their disposal to pile on and amplify the negative messages,” he told Mother Jones. “At the very same time that we should be coming together to defend ourselves, partisan supporters of the president are attacking the institutions that are protecting us. There needs to be a level of trust and awareness that [FBI and DOJ] are working on behalf of the people, and are not partisan hacks. While it might be in the immediate, short-term interest of a few right-wing politicians, they are helping our enemies and risk doing long-term damage to our democracy.”
time to start asking each of the gopers the old HUAC questions about their commie connections and did they properly report to f.e.c. their accepting of Russian campaign help and funds.
“Then we have Trump and his dream wall of 9 Feb 2018 aka The Ozymandian.”
per percy bysshe flatus
Speaking of creepy people Franklin Graham yikes — because SFB admits to nothing Graham feels comfortable giving him a pass — yuck
KGC,
IMO, he’s always been a creep living off his father’s reputation as a humanitarian.
I’m sure his sister is quite embarrassed by this
I wonder who asked him to make the statement
So what Christians under Trump must be down to about 5 commandments
Well he does seem to honor his parents but everything else not so much
I will always keep in mind my choice of republicans who could have been president, Colin Powell. A fine commander, a wonderful human being. And a guy who fixed his own cars (Volvos).
flynn interviewed by the fbi…exactly one year ago in the WH.
Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe reportedly facilitated the Jan. 24, 2017, meeting after a phone call with Flynn’s scheduler that day. Sources told NBC that Trump was unaware of the meeting until Jan. 26.
Flynn took the meeting alone, NBC said, opting to exclude his lawyer or a lawyer from the National Security Council who would normally attend such a meeting.
I only saw Powell outwardly express surprise a single time. It was early on a Sunday on a New Year’s Day. In a weak moment, I decided to go to the Episcopal service at the Post Chapel. I was at the Communion rail next to Powell when he looked up and saw me there; I thought he was going to have a heart attack–good thing he didn’t have a mouth full of wine.
America Alone…Trudeau sends message to trump.
Today, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau of Canada took the opportunity to announce that on exactly the anniversary of the United States’ withdrawal from the TPP, a trade agreement had been reached between the other 11 countries that would exclude the United States and had been signed in Tokyo. (I’m sure the timing was totally a coincidence.) While it was widely expected both in the US and abroad that the US’s withdrawal would jeopardize the agreement, it now seems the agreement could be ratified as early as March.
Holy Mulligan! evangelicals play golf, too. Maybe they go to the same tournaments as trump. A do over for trump? Pretty disgusting.
The Pope and fake news. Fake news started with the book of Genesis.
From the article —
A writer in the New York Times once called Pope Francis “the anti-Trump,” which we guess would make President Trump something like the antipope.
Right….. he’s a changed man…..this all happened before he elected president.
What a load of crap. It’s always been the case but now it’s out in the open– the so called Christians are nothing but bullies in the name of Christ stepping all over Other people’s lives as a way of maintaining control. So in this case they admit he did these things…just not recently (but they don’t really know that for sure)
Great news from Justin… TPP – can’t wait for the SFB deals with individual partners – what are we down to the Seychelles
sessions mongooses the snake…attacks sanctuary cities sending mayors to cancel meeting with trump today. The alacrity of change by sessions…move fast until we are all caught by Mueller.
The Justice Department ramped up pressure on so-called sanctuary cities, like New York City, seeking public safety grant money, warning state and local officials they could be legally forced to prove they are cooperating with federal immigration authorities.
The 23 jurisdictions that received letters Wednesday include Chicago, New York, Denver, Los Angeles and the states of Illinois, Oregon and California. Officials said the places have been previously warned that they need to provide information about their policies to be eligible to receive grants that pay for everything from bulletproof vests to officer overtime.
they should lie that’s the standard of the day
It’s National School Choice Week aka Destroy Public Education Week
In honor of Neil Diamonds’ 77th birthday, a salute to all those Trump is trying to exclude:
Just because it is fun, the Scots do have a way with words and have applied some of their BEST WORDS for Donald Trump
too bad there isn’t also a comparable vid of trump combing his “hair” and primping in the mirror … maybe the twit would have suffered the same fate as Edwards did.
usa today:
A presidential candidate is accused of arranging hush money to conceal a mistress in a sensational story ripped straight from the tabloids.
Sound familiar?
Six years ago, federal prosecutors put two-time Democratic presidential contender John Edwards on trial for just that and ended up failing to convict the North Carolina politician. Now, the Common Cause watchdog group wants the Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission and Congress to investigate a $130,000 payment that President Trump’s lawyer is alleged to have arranged weeks before the 2016 election for a former porn actress in an attempt to cover up her purported affair with Trump.
Campaign-finance experts say these cases are tricky to prove, and Washington politics — the Justice Department, the Federal Election Commission and Congress are all controlled by the president’s party — seem likely to doom any probe into whether federal laws were violated.
“I have real doubts that the Department of Justice has the independence and the fortitude to go after this,” said Peter Zeidenberg, who served as a prosecutor in the Justice Department’s Public Integrity Section during George W. Bush’s administration
[….]
In its complaints to the Justice Department and the Federal Election Commission (FEC), Common Cause argues that the alleged payment to Stephanie Clifford, whose stage name is Stormy Daniels, likely violated federal campaign-finance laws as an unreported, in-kind donation to Trump’s campaign.
Campaign contribution limits in effect during the 2016 election capped direct donations to a candidates at $2,700 for a primary or general election. In addition, corporations are prohibited from giving campaign donations to congressional and presidential candidates.
[….]
“The timing of this payment is strong evidence that this was payment for the purpose of influencing an election,” rather than concealing the affair from Trump’s family, said Paul Ryan, Common Cause’s vice president for policy and litigation.
“It was a decade-old relationship he had with her,” Ryan said of the alleged affair. “So, why then?”
[….continues….]
Flate….I went to one of them communions…….in the eighth grade at the episcopal/military high school I went to……we had to do church everyday in the school chapel……I liked the music ok, they had a great organ, and the rest wasnt so bad……but then one day they called this communion thing and all the students started going a row at time, up on the “stage” and kneeling while the preacher goes along administering the Body and the Blood and whatnot. This was big episcopal stuff, costumes, acolytes, candles on sticks, maybe a little incense, the whole scene……They even had a gold cross on a stick they kept waving around everywhere…..Came time for my row to go up and I had no idea what to do so I just got up and went along with em……just did whatever the guy next to me did and then back to the pews……Piece of cake…..I mean bread……I mean body….So anyway when my mother got old and used to ask me if I was washed in the blood of the lamb, I’d tell her, “I shore AM!”
kgc, snl also noted last weekend that extra-marital thingy and other twit evil don’t matter anymore to the so-called Christian religious right
Nice to see Mueller finally starting to show us what he’s up to. The lights are coming on and the roaches are scattering.
Great thing about that school was all the teachers were all old WWII vets full of stories…….
Simple twist of fate…….if the old man hadn’t got into a beef with the island public school principle and I hadn’t been yanked out and sent to the military school, I would never have heard all those stories, and wouldn’t have gone to Australia on a boat.
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=JJTXWBlc9A8
nobeller feller strikes again
The pressure cooker is building up steam right now. Which leader will refuse to shake the hands of the American delegation? Which will snub SFB setting off a twitter storm that is all about Obama and Clinton? How soon will stupid decide to return home? And with lovely wife thinking of single life, even if it means hubby is in ADX Florence learning to love single life, he might have a desire to head to NY and visit her.
I’ll tell ya…….if you ever get the chance to be 15 years old and go to Australia on a boat, I highly recommend it…..
I think people should picket the Whitehouse with Free Melania signs
Slow boat to the general Aries…..
It was always amazing how Tom and Dickie Smothers could get so much pure music out of a bass and guitar and two voices…..it was orchestral.
NEW THREAD