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Americans for Tax Reform put together this page. You click on your state on the map and it gives many examples of how the tax cuts have helped people in that state.

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Trump's Mar-a-Lago friends have been acting as 'shadow rulers' of the VA, report says

hree of President Donald Trump's allies who are also members of his private Mar-a-Lago club in Palm Beach have been acting as "shadow rulers" at the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, according to a report from ProPublica.

Despite having no U.S. military or government experience, this "informal council" has been quietly shaping the administration's policies affecting millions of veterans and influencing personnel decisions at the VA, ProPublica's Isaac Arnsdorf reports.

The three men are Ike Perlmutter, Marvel Entertainment chairman; Bruce Moskowitz, a Palm Beach doctor; and Marc Sherman, an attorney. ProPublica reports people inside the VA refer to them as the "Mar-a-Lago Crowd." In a statement to the investigative journalism organization, Trump's allies minimized their effect on the department, saying, "At all times, we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis, seeking nothing at all in return." But according to ProPublica:

"Hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials tell a different story — of a previously unknown triumvirate that hovered over public servants without any transparency, accountability or oversight.

The Mar-a-Lago Crowd spoke with VA officials daily, the documents show, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. They prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views. 'Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring,' a former administration official said.

If the bureaucracy resists the trio’s wishes, Perlmutter has a powerful ally: The President of the United States. … At times, Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman have created headaches for VA officials because of their failure to follow government rules and processes. In other cases, they used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests.

They say they never sought or received any financial gain for their advice to the VA. "

ProPublica notes that the Mar-a-Lago Crowd's arrangement is "without parallel" in modern American history. It's also worth noting that these men pay membership dues to Mar-a-Lago, in other words, to the Trump Organization. The club initiation fee is $200,000, plus annual dues of $14,000. One could consider this paying for access to the president.

"Such committees are subject to cost controls, public disclosure and
government oversight," the report states. "Other presidents have relied on unofficial 'kitchen cabinets,' but never before have outside advisers been so specifically assigned to one agency."

https://www.orlandoweekly.com/Blogs/arc ... eport-says

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The Shadow Rulers of the VA

How Marvel Entertainment chairman Ike Perlmutter and two other Mar-a-Lago cronies are secretly shaping the Trump administration’s veterans policies.

by Isaac Arnsdorf Aug. 7, 6:29 p.m. EDT

Last February, shortly after Peter O’Rourke became chief of staff for the Department of Veterans Affairs, he received an email from Bruce Moskowitz with his input on a new mental health initiative for the VA. “Received,” O’Rourke replied. “I will begin a project plan and develop a timeline for action.”

O’Rourke treated the email as an order, but Moskowitz is not his boss. In fact, he is not even a government official. Moskowitz is a Palm Beach doctor who helps wealthy people obtain high-service “concierge” medical care.

More to the point, he is one-third of an informal council that is exerting sweeping influence on the VA from Mar-a-Lago, President Donald Trump’s private club in Palm Beach, Florida. The troika is led by Ike Perlmutter, the reclusive chairman of Marvel Entertainment, who is a longtime acquaintance of President Trump’s. The third member is a lawyer named Marc Sherman. None of them has ever served in the U.S. military or government.

Yet from a thousand miles away, they have leaned on VA officials and steered policies affecting millions of Americans. They have remained hidden except to a few VA insiders, who have come to call them “the Mar-a-Lago Crowd.”

Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman declined to be interviewed and fielded questions through a crisis-communications consultant. In a statement, they downplayed their influence, insisting that nobody is obligated to act on their counsel. “At all times, we offered our help and advice on a voluntary basis, seeking nothing at all in return,” they said. “While we were always willing to share our thoughts, we did not make or implement any type of policy, possess any authority over agency decisions, or direct government officials to take any actions… To the extent anyone thought our role was anything other than that, we don’t believe it was the result of anything we said or did.”

VA spokesman Curt Cashour did not answer specific questions but said a “broad range of input from individuals both inside and outside VA has helped us immensely over the last year and a half.” White House spokeswoman Lindsay Walters also did not answer specific questions and said Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz “have no direct influence over the Department of Veterans Affairs.”

But hundreds of documents obtained through the Freedom of Information Act and interviews with former administration officials tell a different story — of a previously unknown triumvirate that hovered over public servants without any transparency, accountability or oversight. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd spoke with VA officials daily, the documents show, reviewing all manner of policy and personnel decisions. They prodded the VA to start new programs, and officials travelled to Mar-a-Lago at taxpayer expense to hear their views. “Everyone has to go down and kiss the ring,” a former administration official said.

If the bureaucracy resists the trio’s wishes, Perlmutter has a powerful ally: The President of the United States. Trump and Perlmutter regularly talk on the phone and dine together when the president visits Mar-a-Lago. “On any veterans issue, the first person the president calls is Ike,” another former official said. Former administration officials say that VA leaders who were at odds with the Mar-A-Lago Crowd were pushed out or passed over. Included, those officials say, were the secretary (whose ethical lapses also played a role), deputy secretary, chief of staff, acting under secretary for health, deputy under secretary for health, chief information officer, and the director of electronic health records modernization.

At times, Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman have created headaches for VA officials because of their failure to follow government rules and processes. In other cases, they used their influence in ways that could benefit their private interests. They say they never sought or received any financial gain for their advice to the VA.

The arrangement is without parallel in modern presidential history. The Federal Advisory Committee Act of 1972 provides a mechanism for agencies to consult panels of outside advisers, but such committees are subject to cost controls, public disclosure and government oversight. Other presidents have relied on unofficial “kitchen cabinets,” but never before have outside advisers been so specifically assigned to one agency. During the transition, Trump handed out advisory roles to several rich associates, but they’ve all since faded away. The Mar-a-Lago Crowd, however, has deepened its involvement in the VA.

Perlmutter, 75, is painstakingly private — he reportedly wore a glasses-and-mustache disguise to the 2008 premiere of “Iron Man.” One of the few public photographs of him was snapped on Dec. 28, 2016, through a window at Mar-a-Lago. Trump glares warily at the camera. Behind him, Perlmutter smiles knowingly, wearing sunglasses at night.

When Trump asked him for help putting a government together, Perlmutter offered to be an outside adviser, according to people familiar with the matter. Having fought for his native Israel in the 1967 war before he moved to the U.S. and became a citizen, Perlmutter chose veterans as his focus.

Perlmutter enlisted the assistance of his friends Sherman and Moskowitz. Moskowitz, 70, specializes in knowing the world’s top medical expert for any ailment and arranging appointments for clients. He has connections at the country’s top medical centers. Sherman, 63, has houses in West Palm Beach and suburban Baltimore and an office in Washington with the consulting firm Alvarez & Marsal. His legal work focuses on financial fraud, white collar investigations and damages disputes. His professional biography lists experience in eight industries, none of them related to health care or veterans.

Moskowitz and Sherman helped Perlmutter convene a council of health care executives on the day of the Trump-Perlmutter photograph, Dec. 28, 2016. Offering more private healthcare to vets was a signature promise of Trump’s campaign, but at that point he hadn’t decided who should lead an effort that would reverse the VA’s longstanding practices.

A new name surfaced in that meeting: David Shulkin, who’d led the VA’s health care division since 2015. Perlmutter then recommended Shulkin to Trump, according to a person familiar with his thinking. (Shulkin did not respond to requests for comment.)

Once nominated, Shulkin flew to Mar-a-Lago in early February 2017 to meet with Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz. In a follow-up email a few days later, Moskowitz elaborated on the terms of their relationship. “We do not need to meet in person monthly, but meet face to face only when necessary,” he wrote. “We will set up phone conference calls at a convenient time.”

Shulkin responded diplomatically. “I know how busy all of you are and having you be there in person, and so present, was truly a gift,” he wrote. “I found the time we spent, the focus that came out of our discussions, and the time we had with the President very meaningful.”

It wasn’t long before the Mar-a-Lago Crowd wore out their welcome with Shulkin. They advised him on how to do his job even though they sometimes seemed to lack a basic understanding of it. Just after their first meeting, Moskowitz emailed Shulkin again to say, “Congratulations i[t] was unanimous.” Shulkin corrected him: “Bruce- this was not the confirmation vote- it was a committee vote- we still need a floor vote.”

Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman acted like board members pounding a CEO to turn around a struggling company, a former administration official said. In email after email, officials sought approval from the trio: for an agenda Shulkin was about to present to Trump for a research effort on suicide prevention and for a plan to recruit experts from academic medical centers. “Everything needs to be run by them,” the first former official said, recalling the process. “They view themselves as making the decisions.”

The Mar-a-Lago Crowd bombarded VA officials with demands, many of them inapt or unhelpful. On phone calls with VA officials, Perlmutter would bark at them to move faster, having no patience for bureaucratic explanations about why something has to be done a certain way or take a certain amount of time, former officials said. He issued orders in a thick, Israeli-accented English that can be hard to understand.

In one instance, Perlmutter alerted Shulkin to what he called “another real-life example of the issues our great veterans are suffering with when trying to work with the VA.” The example came from Karen Donnelly, a real estate agent in Palm Beach who manages the tennis courts in the luxury community where Perlmutter lives. Donnelly’s son was having trouble accessing his military medical records. After a month of dead ends, Donnelly said she saw Perlmutter on the tennis court and, knowing his connection to Trump, asked him for help. Perlmutter told her to email him the story because he’s “trying to straighten things out” at the VA, she recalled. (Donnelly separately touched off a nasty legal dispute between Perlmutter and a neighbor, Canadian businessman Harold Peerenboom, who objected to her management of the tennis courts. In a lawsuit, Peerenboom accused Perlmutter of mounting a vicious hate mail campaign against him, which Perlmutter’s lawyer denied.)

Perlmutter forwarded Donnelly’s email to Shulkin, Moskowitz and Sherman. “I know we are making very good progress, but this is an excellent reminder that we are also still very far away from achieving our goals,” Perlmutter wrote.

Shulkin had to explain that they were looking in the wrong place: Since the problem was with military service records, it lay with the Defense Department, not the VA.

Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman defended their intervention, saying, “These were the types of stories of agency dysfunction and individual suffering that drove us to offer our volunteer experience in the first place — veterans who had been left behind by their government. These individual cases helped raise broader issues for government officials in a position to make changes, sometimes leading to assistance for one veteran, sometimes to broader reforms within the system.”

Right after meeting Shulkin, Moskowitz connected him with his friend Michael Zinner, director of the Miami Cancer Institute and a member of the American College of Surgeons’ board of regents. (Zinner declined to comment.) The conversation led to a plan for the American College of Surgeons to evaluate the surgery programs at several VA hospitals. The plan came very close to a formal announcement and contract, internal emails show, but stalled after Shulkin was fired, according to the organization’s director, David Hoyt.

Besides advocating for friends’ interests, some of the Mar-a-Lago Crowd’s interventions served their own purposes. Starting in February 2017, Perlmutter convened a series of conference calls with executives at Johnson & Johnson, leading to the development of a public awareness campaign about veteran suicide. They planned to promote the campaign by ringing the closing bell at the New York Stock Exchange around the time of Veterans Day.

The event also turned into a promotional opportunity for Perlmutter’s company. Executives from Marvel and its parent company, Disney, joined Johnson & Johnson as sponsors of the Veterans Day event at the stock exchange. Shulkin rang the closing bell standing near a preening and flexing Captain America, with Spider-Man waving from the trading pit, and Marvel swag was distributed to some of the attendees. “Generally the VA secretary or defense secretary don’t shill for companies,” the leader of a veterans advocacy group said.

The VA was aware of the ethical questions this event raised because of Shulkin’s relationship with Perlmutter. An aide to Shulkin sought ethics advice from the agency’s lawyers about the appearance. In an email, the aide noted, “the Secretary is friends with the President of Marvel Comics, Mr. Ike Perlmutter, but he will not be in attendance.” The VA redacted the lawyer’s answer, and the agency’s spokesman would not say whether the ethics official approved Shulkin’s participation in the event.

Perlmutter did not answer specific questions about this episode. His joint statement with Moskowitz and Sherman said, “None of us has gained any financial benefit from this volunteer effort, nor was that ever a consideration for us.”

Perlmutter also facilitated a series of conference calls with senior executives from Apple. VA officials were excited about working with the company, but it wasn’t immediately obvious what they had to collaborate on.

As it turned out, Moskowitz wanted Apple and the VA to develop an app for veterans to find nearby medical services. Who did he bring in to advise them on the project? His son, Aaron, who had built a similar app. The proposal made Apple and VA officials uncomfortable, according to two people familiar with the matter, but Moskowitz’s clout kept it alive for months. The VA finally killed the project because Moskowitz was the only one who supported it.

Moskowitz, in the joint statement, defended his son’s involvement, calling him a “technical expert” who participated in a single phone call alongside others. “Any development efforts, had they occurred, would not have involved Aaron or any of us. There was no product of Dr. Moskowitz’s or Aaron’s that was promoted or recommended in any way during the call,” the trio said. “Again, none of us, including Aaron, stood to receive any financial benefit from the matters discussed during the conversation — and any claims to the contrary are factually incorrect.”

Moskowitz had more success pushing a different pet cause. He has spent years trying to start a national registry for medical devices, allowing patients to be notified of product recalls. Moskowitz set up the Biomedical Research and Education Foundation to encourage medical institutions to keep track of devices for their patients to address what he views as a dangerous hole in oversight across the medical profession. At one point, the foundation built a registry to collect data from doctors and patients. Moskowitz chaired the board, and Perlmutter’s wife was also a member. Moskowitz’s son earned $60,000 a year as the executive director, according to tax disclosures.

Moskowitz pushed the VA to pick up where he left off. He joined officials on weekly 7:30 a.m. conference calls in which officials discussed organizing a summit of experts on device registries and making a public commitment to creating one at the VA. In an email to Shulkin, the VA official in charge of the project referred to it as the “Bruce Moskowitz efforts.”

When the summit arrived, on June 4, Moskowitz and his son did not attend. It’s not clear what role they will have in setting up the VA’s registry going forward — their foundation has shut down, according to its website, and Moskowitz’s son said he’s no longer involved. But in his opening remarks at the summit, Peter O’Rourke, then the acting secretary, offered a special thanks to “Dr. Bruce Moskowitz and Aaron Moskowitz of the Biomedical Research and Education Foundation” as “driving forces” behind it.

Over the course of 2017, there was growing tension within the Trump administration about how much the VA should rely on private medical care. During the campaign, Trump championed letting veterans see any doctor they choose, inside or outside the VA system. But Shulkin warned that such an approach was likely to result in poorer care at a higher cost. His preferred solution was integrating government-run VA care with a network of private providers.

In September 2017, the Mar-a-Lago Crowd weighed in on the side of expanding the use of the private sector. “We think that some of the VA hospitals are delivering some specialty healthcare when they shouldn’t and when referrals to private facilities or other VA centers would be a better option,” Perlmutter wrote in an email to Shulkin and other officials. “Our solution is to make use of academic medical centers and medical trade groups, both of whom have offered to send review teams to the VA hospitals to help this effort.”

In other words, they proposed inviting private health care executives to tell the VA which services they should outsource to private providers like themselves. It was precisely the kind of fox-in-the-henhouse scenario that the VA’s defenders had warned against for years. Shulkin delicately tried to hold off Perlmutter’s proposal, saying the VA was already developing an in-house method of comparing its services to the private sector.

Shulkin also clashed with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd over how to improve the VA’s electronic record-keeping software (the one episode involving the trio that has previously surfaced, in a report by Politico). The contract, with a company called Cerner, would cost more than $10 billion and take a decade to implement. But Moskowitz had used a different Cerner product and didn’t like it. He complained that the software didn’t offer voice recognition, even though newer versions of Cerner’s product do. For months, the Mar-a-Lago Crowd pressured Shulkin to put the contract through additional vetting.

On Feb. 27, 2018, Shulkin flew to Mar-a-Lago — not to see Trump, who was back in Washington, but to meet with Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman. The trip was supposed to close the deal on the Cerner contract, according to two people familiar with the meeting. By then, Shulkin’s stature had been badly diminished by an ethics scandal, and he expected he didn’t have much longer in the job, but he wanted to finish the Cerner deal first.

Shulkin brought O’Rourke, an ex-Trump campaign aide who stepped in as chief of staff after the ethics scandal led to the departure of Shulkin’s top aide. O’Rourke took the opportunity to ally himself with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd. “It was an honor to meet you all yesterday,” he wrote in a follow-up email. “I want to ensure that you have my VA and personal contact information.” He then provided his personal cell phone number and email address. (Using personal email to conduct government business can flout federal records laws, as President Trump and his allies relentlessly noted in their attacks on Hillary Clinton during the 2016 campaign.) “Thank you for your support of the President, the VA, and me,” O’Rourke wrote. (O’Rourke didn’t answer requests for comment.)

Perlmutter welcomed the overture. “I feel confident that you will be a terrific asset moving forward to get things accomplished,” he replied.

The Mar-a-Lago Crowd grew frustrated with Shulkin, feeling like he wasn’t listening to them, and Perlmutter came to regret recommending Shulkin to Trump in the first place, according to people familiar with his thinking. That aligned them with political appointees in the VA and the White House who started to view Shulkin as out of step with the president’s agenda.

One of these officials, senior adviser Camilo Sandoval, presented himself as Perlmutter’s eyes and ears within the agency, two former officials said. For instance, in an email obtained by ProPublica, Sandoval kept tabs on the Apple project and reported back to Moskowitz and Sherman. “I will update the tracker, and please do let me know if this helps answers [sic] questions around Apple’s efforts or if additional clarification is required,” he wrote. Sandoval, who didn’t answer requests for comment, knew Perlmutter because he worked on the campaign with Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, who is also close with Perlmutter.

In December, White House adviser Jake Leinenkugel sent Sandoval a memo outlining a plan to upend the department’s leadership. Leinenkugel would not say who asked him to write the memo. But it was clearly not intended for Sandoval alone, since it refers to him in the third person. Three people familiar with the situation said the memo was sent to Sandoval as a channel to Perlmutter. The spokeswoman for Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz said they didn’t know about the memo.

The memo recommended easing Shulkin out and relying on Perlmutter for help replacing him. “Put [Shulkin] on notice to exit after major legislation and key POTUS VA initiatives in place,” the memo said. “Utilize outside team (Ike).” Although several factors contributed to Shulkin’s downfall, including the ethics scandal and differences with the White House over legislation on buying private health care, three former officials said it was his friction with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd over the Cerner contract that ultimately did him in.

Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman dispute that contention. “Any decisions of the agency or the president,” they noted in their statement, “as well as the timing of any agency decisions, were independent of our contacts with the VA.”

But it wasn’t just Shulkin — all the officials that the Leinenkugel memo singled out for removal are now gone, replaced with allies of Perlmutter, Sherman and Moskowitz. The memo suggested that Sandoval take charge of the Office of Information and Technology, overseeing the implementation of the Cerner contract; he got the job in April. The memo proposed removing Deputy Secretary Tom Bowman; he left in June, and the post hasn’t been filled. The memo floated Richard Stone for under secretary for health; he got the job on an acting basis in July. Leinenkugel himself took charge of a commission on mental health (the same topic Moskowitz had emailed O’Rourke about). O’Rourke, having hit it off with the Mar-a-Lago Crowd, became acting secretary in May.

Trump initially nominated White House doctor Ronny Jackson to replace Shulkin, with Pentagon official Robert Wilkie filling in on a temporary basis. On Wilkie’s first day at the VA, Sherman was waiting for him in his office, according to a calendar record.

Within a few weeks, Wilkie made a pilgrimage to Mar-a-Lago. He tacked it onto a trip to his native North Carolina, and O’Rourke caught up with him in Palm Beach. They visited a VA hospital and rehab facility, then headed to Mar-a-Lago to meet with Perlmutter, Moskowitz and Sherman, according to agency records.

The Mar-a-Lago Crowd gave Wilkie and O’Rourke rave reviews. “I am sure that I speak for the group, that both you and Peter astounded all of us on how quickly and accurately you assessed the key problems and more importantly the solutions that will be needed to finally move the VA in the right direction,” Moskowitz told Wilkie in a follow-up email.

Perlmutter was similarly thrilled with the new regime. “For the first time in 1½ years we feel everyone is on the same page. Everybody ‘gets it,’” he said in an email. “Again, please know we are available and want to help any possible way 24/7.”

Wilkie replied that the honor was his. “Thank you again for taking time to see me,” he wrote.

Soon after, Jackson’s nomination imploded over allegations of misconduct as White House physician. (Jackson denied the allegations, and they’re still being investigated.) At that point, Perlmutter’s endorsement cleared the way for Trump to nominate Wilkie.

Wilkie, who was sworn in on July 30, now faces a choice between asserting his own authority over the VA or taking cues from the Mar-a-Lago Crowd. Wilkie reportedly wants to sideline O’Rourke and Sandoval and restock the agency leadership with his own people. But people familiar with the situation said the Mar-a-Lago Crowd’s allies are pushing back on Wilkie’s efforts to rein them in. As his predecessor learned the hard way, anyone who crosses the Mar-a-Lago Crowd does so at his own risk.

https://www.propublica.org/article/ike- ... -of-the-va

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The Rachel Maddow Show / The MaddowBlog

TRMS Exclusive: Devin Nunes speaks candidly at fundraiser

The Rachel Maddow Show has obtained exclusive audio of Rep. Devin Nunes speaking candidly to donors at a private fundraiser.

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TRMS Exclusive: Devin Nunes at fundraiser audio clip 1

In secretly recorded audio from a fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers obtained exclusively by The Rachel Maddow Show, Devin Nunes is heard telling donors that only a Republican majority can protect Donald Trump from Robert Mueller’s Russia.

REP. NUNES (R-CA):

“So therein lies, so it’s like your classic Catch-22 situation where we were at a – this puts us in such a tough spot. If Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones. Which is really the danger. That’s why I keep, and thank you for saying it by the way, I mean we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away.”

TRMS Exclusive: Devin Nunes at fundraiser audio clip 2

In secretly recorded audio from a fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers obtained exclusively by The Rachel Maddow Show, Devin Nunes is heard speaking candidly about Donald Trump’s tweeting sometimes making him cringe.

REP. NUNES (R-CA):

“They know it’s ridiculous to go after the president for obstruction of justice. But if they tell a lie often enough and they put it out there and they say, ‘Oh, we’re looking at the tweets,’ cause you know you’ve got a mixed bag on the tweets, right? Like sometimes you love the president’s tweets, sometimes we cringe on the president’s tweets. But they’re trying to make a political, this is all political as to why that story ran in the New York Times on the tweets.”

TRMS Exclusive: Devin Nunes at fundraiser audio clip 3

In secretly recorded audio from a fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers obtained exclusively by The Rachel Maddow Show, Devin Nunes is heard explaining that working with a foreign country to release, for example, e-mails, would be criminal.

REP. NUNES (R-CA):

“Now if somebody thinks that my campaign or Cathy’s campaign is colluding with the Chinese, or you name the country, hey, could happen, it would be a very bad thing if Cathy was getting secrets from the Portuguese, let’s say, just because I’m Portuguese, my family was. So Cathy was getting secret information from the Portuguese. You know, may or may not be unusual. But ultimately let’s say the Portuguese came and brought her some stolen emails. And she decided to release those. Okay, now we have a problem, right? Because somebody stole the emails, gave ‘em to Cathy, Cathy released ‘em. Well, if that’s the case, then that’s criminal.”

TRMS Exclusive: Devin Nunes at fundraiser audio clip 4

In secretly recorded audio from a fundraiser for Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers obtained exclusively by The Rachel Maddow Show, Devin Nunes is heard explaining that the impeachment of Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein has to wait so it doesn’t interfere

AUDIENCE MEMBER:

“But also, on things that came up in the House on Rosenstein impeachment thing. And it appears from an outsider that the Republicans were not supported.”

REP. NUNES (R-CA):

“Yeah, well, so it’s a bit complicated, right? And I say that because you have to, so we only have so many months left, right? So if we actually vote to impeach, okay, what that does is that triggers the Senate then has to take it up. Well, and you have to decide what you want right now because the Senate only has so much time. Do you want them to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice, the new Supreme Court justice? So that’s part of why, I don’t think you have, you’re not getting from, and I’ve said publicly Rosenstein deserves to be impeached. I mean, so, I don’t think you’re gonna get any argument from most of our colleagues. The question is the timing of it right before the election.”

REP. MCMORRIS RODGERS (R-WA):

“Also, the Senate has to start –”

REP. NUNES (R-CA):

“The Senate would have to start, the Senate would have to drop everything they’re doing and start to, and start with impeachment on Rosenstein. And then take the risk of not getting Kavanaugh confirmed. So it’s not a matter that any of us like Rosenstein. It’s a matter of, it’s a matter of timing.”

http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show ... fundraiser

GO TO URL LINK FOR AUDIO

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One Of The Biggest Grifters Ever, Wilbur Ross, Works In The White House

Remember the republican President Donald Trump’s promise frequently delivered to his fawning supporters while he was on the campaign trail, to drain the swamp in Washington DC. This is a promise that he’s not kept. Instead, he has filled the swamp with greedier insatiable swamp critters like the US Commerce Secretary, Wilbur Ross.

As per a 8/7/18 Daily Beast report, “Wilbur Ross could be “among the biggest grifters in American history,” according to Forbes magazine, amid new allegations that he may have wrongly siphoned off more than $120 million from business associates. An investigation, citing 21 people who have worked with the man who is now President Trump’s commerce secretary, claims Ross stole “a few million here and a few million there” from various companies. Forbes reports: “All told, these allegations—which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements and an SEC fine—come to more than $120 million.” Ross’ former colleagues offer very unkind words about him. “He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,” said New York financier Asher Edelman, while another of Ross’ former colleagues said: “He’s a pathological liar.”

Here is the rest of the story…

On August 7, 2018, Dan Alexander of Forbes penned the following report, “New Details About Wilbur Ross’ Business Point To Pattern Of Grifting”

Excerpts:

“A multimillion-dollar lawsuit has been quietly making its way through the New York State court system over the last three years, pitting a private equity manager named David Storper against his former boss: Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross. The pair worked side by side for more than a decade, eventually at the firm, WL Ross & Co.—where, Storper later alleged, Ross stole his interests in a private equity fund, transferred them to himself, then tried to cover it up with bogus paperwork. Two weeks ago, just before the start of a trial with $4 million on the line, Ross and Storper agreed to a confidential settlement, whose existence has never been reported and whose terms remain secret.
“It is difficult to imagine the possibility that a man like Ross, who Forbes estimates is worth some $700 million, might steal a few million from one of his business partners. Unless you have heard enough stories about Ross. Two former WL Ross colleagues remember the commerce secretary taking handfuls of Sweet’N Low packets from a nearby restaurant, so he didn’t have to go out and buy some for himself. One says workers at his house in the Hamptons used to call the office, claiming Ross had not paid them for their work. Another two people said Ross once pledged $1 million to a charity, then never paid. A commerce official called the tales “petty nonsense,” and added that Ross does not put sweetener in his coffee.”

“There are bigger allegations. Over several months, in speaking with 21 people who know Ross, Forbes uncovered a pattern: Many of those who worked directly with him claim that Ross wrongly siphoned or outright stole a few million here and a few million there, huge amounts for most but not necessarily for the commerce secretary. At least if you consider them individually. But all told, these allegations—which sparked lawsuits, reimbursements and an SEC fine—come to more than $120 million. If even half of the accusations are legitimate, the current United States secretary of commerce could rank among the biggest grifters in American history.”

“Not that he sees himself that way. “The SEC has never initiated any enforcement action against me,” Ross said in a statement, failing to mention the $2.3 million fine it levied against his firm in 2016. The commerce secretary also noted that one lawsuit against him got dismissed, without saying it is currently going through the appeals process. Ross confirmed settling two other cases, including the recent one against Storper, but declined to offer additional details.”

“Those who’ve done business with Ross generally tell a consistent story, of a man obsessed with money and untethered to facts. “He’ll push the edge of truthfulness and use whatever power he has to grab assets,” says New York financier Asher Edelman. One of Ross’ former colleagues is more direct: “He’s a pathological liar.”

“Wilbur Ross figured out at some point that money, or the aura of it, translates into power. Forbes has previously documented how Ross seemingly lied to us, over many years, launching himself onto, and then higher on, our billionaire rankings, at one point even lying about an apparent multibillion-dollar transfer to family members to explain why his financial disclosure report showed fewer assets than he claimed. “What I don’t want,” Ross said, “is for people to suddenly think that I’ve lost a lot of money when it’s not true.”

Such machinations now seem pathetic. But his billionaire status was not lost on another person obsessed with his net worth. Donald Trump termed Ross a “legendary Wall Street genius” and named him to his cabinet. “In these particular positions,” Trump explained to a crowd of supporters, “I just don’t want a poor person.”

https://grondamorin.com/2018/08/07/one- ... ite-house/

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Another GOP US Representative Chris Collins Is Exposed For Major Wrong-Doing

Another millionaire GOP US Congressional Representative Chris Collins of NY has been exposed as being another example of corruption gone amok.

He has gained infamy within political circles as the first US congressman to endorse the presidency of Donald J. Trump.

As per an August 8, 2018 Marketplace report by Robert Schroeder, “New York Rep. Christopher Collins was arrested on federal charges relating to securities fraud Wednesday (8/8/18), in a case involving an Australian biotech company.”

“A Securities and Exchange Commission case against Collins — the first congressional Republican to endorse President Donald Trump’s bid for the White House — also charges his son Cameron and the father of his son’s girlfriend, Stephen Zarsky.”

“The indictment says that in June 2017, Rep. Collins passed on nonpublic information about Innate Immunotherapeutics’ INNMF, +17.11% drug-trial results to his son. Collins was a board member of the company. The case says that Cameron Collins sold nearly 1.4 million shares based on nonpublic information and that the congressman and his son spoke by phone at least nine times.”

“Lawyers for Collins said in a statement that the government “does not allege that Congressman Collins trade a single share of Innate Therapeutics stock.”

“We are confident he will be completely vindicated and exonerated,” said lawyers Jonathan Barr and Jonathan New.”

Here’s the rest of the story…

On July 8, 2018, Jennifer Rubin of the Washington Post penned the following op-ed piece, “Chris Collins hands Democrats another scandal”

Federal prosecutors charged Rep. Chris Collins (R-N.Y.), one of President Trump’s earliest congressional supporters, with insider trading on Wednesday, alleging the congressman schemed with his son to avoid significant losses in a biotechnology investment.

Collins’s son, Cameron Collins, and Stephen Zarsky, the father of Cameron Collins’s fiancee, were also charged.

The indictment, secured by the U.S. attorney in Manhattan, is related to Collins’s relationship with Innate Immunotherapeutics, an Australian biotech company that was developing a treatment for multiple sclerosis. Collins was the company’s largest shareholder and on its board of directors, giving him access to confidential corporate information.

“Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) issued a terse statement directing the House Ethics Committee to investigate. In fact, the committee had already been doing that, without disciplining Collins:”

“Before Wednesday’s indictment, Collins was already under scrutiny for his role in promoting Innate Immunotherapeutics, which had been developing a new therapy for multiple sclerosis before a high-stakes clinical trial failed last year, essentially putting the company out of business. In October, the Office of Congressional Ethics found “substantial reason to believe” that Collins violated federal law and House rules by meeting with federal officials in his congressional capacity to seemingly benefit the firm and also that he shared private information about the firm to solicit investors.”

“Among those from whom Collins allegedly solicited investments were family members, his congressional staff and House colleagues — including former congressman Tom Price, who later served as Department of Health and Human Services secretary. The House Ethics Committee is reviewing the Office of Congressional Ethics report but has not taken action against Collins.”

“The issue is broader than just whether Collins’s fellow congressmen are involved. Along with the Paul Manafort trial, which has become a tutorial on insider corruption, this is another sign of the GOP’s lack of ethical seriousness and its unwillingness to follow the rules it uses to bash Democrats, as well as a sign of Ryan’s general lack of leadership. Why hasn’t anything been done since last October?”

“In the short run, the Collins matter isn’t likely to affect November’s midterm elections. His upstate New York district is strongly Republican (though, so was Ohio’s 12th Congressional District). But this scandal may envelop more Republicans, and Democrats have an excellent argument that whether it is former EPA administrator Scott Pruitt’s egregious ethical conduct, or any of the Cabinet officials who allegedly abused their travel, or Trump’s foreign emoluments and his family’s apparent self-enrichment, the GOP has become the party that tolerates corruption. Far from cleaning up government, having control of the House, Senate and White House has meant no Republican gets held accountable for anything — unless it is by the FBI and the courts.”

https://grondamorin.com/2018/08/09/anot ... ong-doing/

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U.S.-Backed Coalition Bombs School Bus, Killing Dozens of Yemeni Kids

Dozens of Yemeni schoolchildren are dead Thursday after an air strike by the U.S.-backed, Saudi-led coalition hit a school bus that was carrying them through a crowded market.

As many as 50 people were reported dead after the attack, with another 77 injured. The bus, which was traveling through a city in northern Yemen, was carrying the kids to summer camp for Quran classes, according to local TV. On Twitter, the Red Cross in Yemen said a hospital it supports had received 29 dead children, all under 15 years old, and another 48 injured people.

“Body parts were scattered all over the area, and the sounds of moaning and crying were everywhere,” an aide worker who arrived at the scene an hour after the air strike told the Washington Post. “The school bus was totally burned and destroyed.”

Images broadcast by Houthi media showed scores of bloody children, some still wearing their backpacks as they were loaded onto stretchers.
A spokesman for the Saudi-led coalition, which is fighting Houthi rebels in Yemen, said it was targeting rebel missile launchers. The attack, the spokesperson said, was retaliation for a missile fired into Saudi Arabia Wednesday, killing one and injuring 11 more. Despite killing dozens of schoolchildren, the spokesman called Thursday’s attack on the school bus a “legitimate military action” and said it is “in accordance with international humanitarian law and customs.” He also accused Houthis of using kids as “tools and covers for their terrorist acts.”

International aid groups were quick to condemn the air strike. “No excuses anymore!” Unicef’s Geert Cappelaere tweeted. “Does the world really need more innocent children’s lives to stop the cruel war on children in Yemen?” In a statement, Save the Children condemned the attacks and called for a “full, immediate and independent investigation into this and other recent attacks on civilians and civilian infrastructure, including schools and hospitals.”


At least one lawmaker in the U.S., which provides the Saudi coalition with weapons, intelligence, and air support, is calling out Washington’s role in the ongoing war.

All told, the U.N. says more than 16,000 Yemeni civilians have been killed since the war began, and it’s not hard to argue that the U.S. is complicit.

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/20 ... yemen.html

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Melania Trump used visa opposed by her husband to get her parents' citizenship

(CNN)President Donald Trump's in-laws are officially United States citizens, obtaining their citizenship through the sponsorship of their adult daughter, one of the very categories of family visas that the administration has sought to end.

Viktor and Amalija Knavs, the parents of first lady Melania Trump, were granted citizenship Thursday, their immigration attorney, Michael Wildes, announced.

"It went well and they are very grateful and appreciative of this wonderful day for their family," he said in a statement to CNN.

The first lady's office declined to comment.

Viktor and Amalija Knavs, who are from Slovenia, had been living in the United States with green cards and have been frequently spotted in Washington since their son-in-law assumed the presidency.

A source with direct knowledge of Melania Trump's parents and their immigration status told CNN that Melania Trump sponsored her parents for their green cards, a status that allowed them to live and work in the US indefinitely and paved the way for citizenship. That type of family visa is exactly one of the categories that Trump and his allies have tried to repeal, saying they are harmful to the US.

The first lady's office declined to comment.

Wildes wouldn't comment on how the Knavs received their green cards or citizenship Thursday, but criticized the Trump administration's immigration policies to CNN.

"I believe strongly in the principles of family reunification, which is a bedrock of immigration policy and law and has brought millions of people happily to our shores," Wildes said.

Pressed on the fact that the President has harshly criticized family-based migration and regularly refers to it as "chain migration," Wildes responded: "I can't comment on the President's politics when it comes to my clients but I have stood up against the President's immigration policies personally."

There are only a handful of ways that immigrants to the US can obtain green cards, and the largest share of them each year are given out based on familial connections. A smaller number go to immigrants based on their employment, and other categories include refugees and other special cases. Advocates for restricting legal immigration have pointed to the imbalance in favor of family connections as evidence of the need for reform, calling for a "merit-based" system that would choose immigrants based on need in the US.

The US allows a number of ways for US citizens and legal permanent residents to sponsor family members to come to the US permanently, including categories for parents, adult siblings and adult children, married and unmarried.

Trump and his congressional allies have fought to slash that dramatically, limiting sponsorship to spouses and minor children, including dropping the threshold for minor children from 21 to 18. Experts estimate that could cut overall immigration to the US by 40% to 50%, if those green cards are not reallocated to another category. Trump has advocated a "merit-based" system, but has not proposed any method of admitting immigrants to the US to replace those categories.

Viktor and Amalija Knavs, 73 and 71 years old, respectively, are retired, and they maintain regular contact with the Trump family, often traveling with the first family on trips to Mar-a-Lago and Bedminster, New Jersey.

https://www.cnn.com/2018/08/09/politics ... index.html

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Judge orders plane carrying deported mother and child turned around, blocks more removals

The court learned that the Trump administration had put a mother and a daughter who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit on a flight to Central America.

In a federal courtroom in Washington on Thursday, a judge heard about something the Trump administration had just done that clearly angered him. The government, he learned, had deported an immigrant mother and daughter who are plaintiffs in the lawsuit the judge was hearing over asylum restrictions.

So the judge did something highly unusual: He demanded the administration turn around the plane carrying the plaintiffs to Central America and bring them back to the United States. And he ordered the government to stop removing plaintiffs in the case from the country who are seeking protection from gang and domestic violence.

He also threatened to hold Attorney General Jeff Sessions in contempt of court and ordered the government to halt the deportation of all people who are seeking asylum from gang violence and domestic abuse.


The U.S. district judge, Emmet Sullivan, of the District of Columbia, was presiding over a lawsuit filed by the American Civil Liberties Union and Center for Gender and Refugee Studies on Tuesday. He had earlier been assured by the government in open court that no plaintiffs in the suit would be deported before midnight Friday.

The plaintiffs on the plane are identified in the lawsuit as Carmen and her minor daughter J.A.C.F., although Carmen is a pseudonym, an attorney said.

The plane was not able to turn around en route, but a Department of Homeland Security official told NBC News that the mother and daughter did not disembark in El Salvador Thursday evening and were being brought to the United States.

"Carmen and her daughter are right now somewhere in the air between Texas and El Salvador," ACLU's lead attorney in the case Jennifer Chang Newell told NBC News just after the hearing.

The lawsuit challenges a decision by Attorney General Jeff Sessions to exclude domestic and gang violence as reasons for immigrants to be granted asylum. The ACLU sought a stay of removal for its plaintiffs.

According to the ACLU, Sullivan had "suggested" government officials, including Sessions, be held in contempt for the deportation of the two plaintiffs and said their deportation was "unacceptable."

"In its rush to deport as many immigrants as possible, the Trump administration is putting these women and children in grave danger of being raped, beaten, or killed," Newell said.

"We are thrilled the stay of removal was issued but sickened that the government deported two of our clients — a mom and her little girl — in the early morning hours. We will not rest until our clients are returned to safety," she said.

The woman identified as Carmen had left El Salvador with her young daughter, fleeing two decades of "horrific" sexual abuse by her husband who routinely stalked and threatened her, even after they were living apart, according to the lawsuit. Carmen, a single mother, also faced imminent death threats from a notoriously violent gang, the complaint said.

If the ACLU succeeds in the lawsuit, the asylum restrictions ordered by Sessions could be deemed unlawful.

https://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/immig ... ks-n899311

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Devin Nunes And The Case Of The Secret Tapes

On August 8, 2018, Phil Helsel on NBC News penned the following report, “Secret recording shows GOP’s Nunes saying Rosenstein impeachment would delay Supreme Court pick”

(“”Do you want them [the Senate] to drop everything and not confirm the Supreme Court justice?” Rep. Devin Nunes said at a recent fundraiser.”)

Excerpts:

“Hard-line conservative Republicans in the House recently hit a roadblock in their effort to impeach Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein when Speaker Paul Ryan opposed the move. But one of those conservatives, Rep. Devin Nunes, R-Calif., gave a different explanation to donors recently when asked why the impeachment effort had stalled.”

“He said it’s because an impeachment would delay the Senate’s confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

“Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the statement in an audio recording surreptitiously made by a member of a progressive group who attended a Republican fundraiser on July 30 in Spokane, Washington. The recording was obtained by the Rachel Maddow Show and was played on MSNBC on Wednesday night.”
“Asked about the the impeachment plans, Nunes told a questioner that “it’s a bit complicated” because “we only have so many months left.”

“He said it’s because an impeachment would delay the Senate’s confirmation of Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court.”

“Nunes, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, made the statement in an audio recording surreptitiously made by a member of a progressive group who attended a Republican fundraiser on July 30 in Spokane, Washington. The recording was obtained by the Rachel Maddow Show and was played on MSNBC on Wednesday night.”

“Asked about the the impeachment plans, Nunes told a questioner that “it’s a bit complicated” because “we only have so many months left.”

“The audio of the Spokane fundraiser was obtained by the Maddow show from a member of the “Fuse Washington” progressive group who paid the $250 entry fee to attend the dinner. The event was a fundraiser for Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers. A spokesperson for her campaign had no comment on the recording and Nunes’ office didn’t return calls for comment.”

“On the evening of July 25, House Freedom Caucus chairman Rep. Mark Meadows, R-S.C., Rep. Jim Jordan, R-Ohio; and nine co-sponsors introduced a resolution to impeach Rosenstein. It does not have the support of the House Republican leadership.”

“House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wisc., commented a day after the resolution was introduced: “Do I support impeachment of Rosenstein? No, I do not.”

“He also said at the time that if an impeachment resolution were to pass the House, it would “tie the Senate into knots,” and could delay the confirmation of Kavanaugh.”

“According to the audio obtained by the show, Nunes said that “I’ve said publicly Rosenstein deserves to be impeached,” but he also said, “the question is the timing of it right before the election.”

“Conservative lawmakers have accused the Justice Department of trying both to tar President Donald Trump with the Russia investigation and to downplay the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server when she was secretary of state.”

“The Senate has only a few months to confirm Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court if they want to do it before the November midterms.”

“Attorney General Jeff Sessions has recused himself from any probe of Russian election interference. Rosenstein appointed Mueller in May of 2017 to investigate Russian interference in the 2016 and other matters after President Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey.”

“Nunes also said that “if Sessions won’t unrecuse and Mueller won’t clear the president, we’re the only ones. Which is really the danger,” according to the audio.”

“I mean we have to keep all these seats. We have to keep the majority. If we do not keep the majority, all of this goes away,” he added, apparently referring to keeping Republican control of the House in the 2018 midterm elections.”

https://grondamorin.com/2018/08/09/devi ... ret-tapes/

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I got to say a big "Congratulations" to Joe Z !

I was dead wrong !!!!!!!!!!

I thought it was impossible that you would post in a more boring folder then the Just Other Baseball !

Bravo, you have out done yourself again.

Hang in there, Joe. No one has to read what doesn't interest them.

That is exactly what is going on !

Bravo !

Opinions
History will wonder why these men defended Trump but not their country


President Trump at the White House on June 29. (Jabin Botsford/The Washington Post)
by Joe Scarborough

August 12 at 8:27 PM

Imagine that U.S. military leaders spent most of 1941 warning President Franklin D. Roosevelt and his Democratic Party of a coming Pearl Harbor attack. Then imagine history’s harsh judgment against FDR’s party had it ignored those concerns, voted against efforts to fortify the Pacific fleet and plotted the firing of generals who were working to expose the looming Japanese threat. Historians would have rightly savaged these politicians as traitors to their country.

Seventy-seven years later, President Trump and his Republican Party are showing a disturbing ambivalence toward Russia’s attacks on U.S. democracy. What exactly are we to make of their disturbing behavior? Even after Trump’s intelligence chiefs handed Republicans incontrovertible evidence of Russian malevolence, Trump dismissed the warnings as a hoax, the GOP House Intelligence Committee chairman secretly plotted against those leading the Russia investigation and Senate Republicans voted in lock step against a Democratic bill providing a stronger defense against future Russian attacks.

“The X-Files” this is not. The truth about Russia is out there, and it is staring every Republican right in the face.

Trump’s director of national intelligence said warning lights were “blinking red” and compared the threat level from Russia to what we faced leading up to the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

The president’s secretary of homeland security declared that Russian President Vladimir Putin’s plot against America placed “democracy itself . . . in the cross hairs.”
The president’s FBI director, in that same news conference, warned Americans that “the threat is not going away.”

But despite that clear and present danger, Trump still stubbornly sides with an ex-KGB spy over his own law enforcement and intelligence leaders. Just hours after his national security team delivered their harsh warnings in a White House press briefing, Trump bellowed to a Pennsylvania audience that “I had a great meeting with Putin. . . . Now we’re being hindered by the Russian hoax. It’s a hoax, okay?”

No, Mr. President. This is not a hoax, and things are not okay.

The United States has already indicted more than two dozen Russians for their involvement in the conspiracy to undermine U.S. elections . Twelve of those indicted work for the Russian military intelligence agency, the GRU, and allegedly launched their attacks against the United States in the course of “their official capacities,” according to the Justice Department . Those indictments charge that Putin ramped up his attacks on the United States on July 27, 2016 — the day Trump asked Russia to find Hillary Clinton’s “30,000 emails that are missing.”

We don’t know yet if Trump or his associates had any direct involvement in Putin’s conspiracy to interfere in our electoral process. But only a fool would suggest that the Russian leader is an innocent man. Special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s indictment documents in painstaking detail how Russia’s military spy agency hacked into America’s infrastructure and describes its ongoing efforts to destabilize our country. The forensic evidence proving Putin’s cyberwar against the United States is so comprehensive that neither the president nor his sycophants in Congress deny in good faith that Russia has been coordinating attacks against the United States for years.

So now is the time to ask again why Trump lawyer Rudolph W. Giuliani is demanding a speedy end to the damning Russia investigation, when the Whitewater probe of the Clintons lasted much longer. And why did Vice President Pence spend months denying the Trump team’s contacts with Russian officials, only to pivot this past year to calling for a quick end to the investigation?

Will Pence’s future presidential primary challengers remember that Americans would have never uncovered the scope and scale of Putin’s plot against Western democracies if Pence had had his way? Do House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’s constituents in California understand that their representative is trying to use his chairmanship to destroy the careers of officials overseeing the Russia investigation? Let us hope the answer is yes.

One thing is certain: Republicans can no longer plead ignorance when it comes to Putin. Our country’s national security community has sounded the alarm. Congress has been warned that our democracy is under attack by the Russians. How GOP leaders respond to this threat will determine not only the legacy of their political party but also the resilience of a political system they have carelessly ceded to a buffoon. Unless Republican leaders begin putting country ahead of party, history’s judgment against them all will be harsh.


Joe Scarborough
Joe Scarborough, a former Republican congressman from Florida, hosts the MSNBC show “Morning Joe."

I love the way they mention Joe is a former republican congressman at the end of that article. He’s no more conservative than this (me) former democrat is liberal.

Russia was pulling this trick where they would send in Russian soldiers under the disguise as mercenaries to fight in Syria. They didn’t think anybody would have the balls to attack them. And why would they after 8 years of weak Obama leadership.

But these hundreds of mercenaries were getting too close to American troops. The U.S. called Russia and said, hey, tell these guys to back off. Russia said, hey, they aren’t our soldiers, they are mercenaries, we can’t order them what to do. An obvious lie. But Trump bombed the hell out of them any way.

Russia, obviously embarrassed, won’t talk about the subject, but I’ve seen differing reports. Anywhere from 100 killed and 300 injured, to 200 killed, to as many as 500 killed.

Trump also expelled 60 Russian diplomats. Has exposed harsh sanctions on Russia and tried to talk Germany into not buying Russian oil, both harming the Russian economy.

But Trump did not call Putin a liar at the Helsinki press conference in front of God and everyone.

Under Obama Russia took over Crimea, invaded the eastern part of Ukraine, and hacked our election. And he sold them 20% of America’s uranium supply.

And in a press conference once, Obama was asked why he didn’t have more harsh comments about Russia. He said, loosely paraphrasing, that anybody that thinks calling Russia out in the public eye would have a good effect just doesn’t know what they’re talking about. (Laura Ingraham played the clip a few weeks ago, if need be I could go dig up the exact quote) taking the same diplomatic play as Trump. But he was not bashed by the liberal press.

Trump is the one colluding with Russia? But America now under Trump is being weak on Russia?

Absolutely ridiculous.

Hillbilly ! Rusty !

Just trying to do my patriotic duty and save this country from political destruction. I don't think I stand alone

Steve Schmidt Is Latest GOP Media Man to Leave Party:

“Today I renounce my membership in the Republican Party. It is fully the party of Trump,” says Schmidt in a lengthy Twitter thread

“This child separation policy is connected to the worst abuses of humanity in our history. It is connected by the same evil that separated families during slavery and dislocated tribes and broke up Native American families. “Today the GOP has become a danger to our democracy and values.”

“This Independent voter will be aligned with the only party left in America that stands for what is right and decent and remains fidelitous (sic) to our Republic, objective truth, the rule of law and our Allies. That party is the Democratic Party.”

Joe Scarborough, who served in Congress as a Republican from Florida in the 1990s, announced last July that he too was done, and made it official in October.

The trend originally began with one of the GOP’s most totemic figures, the Pulitzer Prize winning columnist George Will, who dropped the party a year earlier than Scarborough in 2016.

Max Boot, Pulitzer Prize Columnist:

“Should I stay or should I go now ?”
I left the Republican Party. Now I want Democrats to take over.

A conservative columnist for The Washington Post on Friday wrote that the current political climate makes him miss former President Obama, saying he would take the Democrat back in a “nanosecond.”

Iowa state Sen. David Johnson has been anything but quiet about why he left the GOP.

“I will not stand silent if the party of Lincoln and the end of slavery buckles under the racial bias of a bigot,”

Johnson told The Des Moines Register when he dropped the party on June 7. In the past month, Johnson has called for other elected officials to leave the GOP as well.

Dozens of others threatening to leave including some high profile members (that are not retiring members like Corker, McCain, and Flake.)

Your are welcome to join them

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Trump team destroying careers of Comey witnesses one by one

The only Comey corroborating witness still at the FBI is David Bowdich, who directed the firing of Peter Strzok.

Rachel Maddow points out that six of the seven people James Comey told about his meetings with Donald Trump are gone or leaving the FBI.
Rachel Maddow Warns That Trump Is Slowly Picking Off Witnesses In The Mueller Investigation

Rachel Maddow shined a light on Monday’s firing of FBI counterintelligence agent Peter Strzok, saying it’s part of a dangerous pattern of Donald Trump “picking off” all of former FBI director James Comey’s corroborating witnesses.

According to Maddow, Trump has systematically fired, forced out or blown up the careers of anyone that would back up Comey’s damning testimony about the president.

“If all the corroborating witnesses have been picked off and blown up, who is left to say what happened there at all?” Maddow asked on Monday. “Who is left to say otherwise now?”

Maddow explained:

[Comey] told all these people, crucially, at the time so they could corroborate what Comey said at the time about what happened. And these are not just job titles. There are specific people who had these jobs at the time in question. Comey and the corroborating witnesses for Comey and his account of what the president did. Well, it has taken them a little while to get all the way through this list, but the only one still there is David Bowdich, the one at the bottom there. He had been the number three official at the FBI, the associate deputy director. Now he’s moved up to be number two, not number three at the FBI. David Bowdich is apparently the one who personally directed today that counterintelligence chief Peter Strzok be fired even though the FBI’s office of personnel management had decided that Strzok should be kept on. Bowdich, the FBI deputy director now, he’s the only one left of all the corroborating witnesses for Jame’s Comey’s testimony. James Comey’s testimony that the president leaned on him to shut down an open FBI investigation into the national security adviser. And with all of them, almost all of them, all picked off now, who is going to back up James Comey? If the president leaning on the FBI director about that investigation is itself a matter of personal criminal liability for the president when it comes to obstruction of justice, well, who’s gonna back Comey up now? Once you work your way through all the witnesses who might testify otherwise, well, then of course you’re free to tell any story you want about what happened between the president and the FBI director. And if all the corroborating witnesses have been picked off and blown up, who is left to say what happened there at all? Who is left to say otherwise now?

This is a slow-moving train of obstruction

These firings may not have happened in rapid succession, but Trump has followed a clear pattern of obstruction over the course of the past year and a half. One by one, he has picked off witnesses that corroborated the testimony of former FBI James Comey.

First, Trump smears those who may have dirt on him, then he either fires them or forces them out. At that point, he has convinced enough people in his base and in the right-wing media that these voices – often credible, career members of the intelligence community – are corrupt and shouldn’t be trusted.

This is obstruction of justice in plain sight, and it’s more evidence that Donald Trump recognizes just how much legal jeopardy he is in.

https://www.politicususa.com/2018/08/13 ... esses.html

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Politics

White House Falsely Says Trump Beat Obama on Black Employment

White House Press Secretary Sarah Sanders falsely claimed that President Donald Trump has created three times as many jobs for black workers as his predecessor Barack Obama did during his entire time in office.

Sanders asserted at a White House press briefing Tuesday that Trump had tripled Obama’s eight-year job creation record in just 18 months, quoting numbers that are not even close to accurate.

“This president since he took office, in the year and a half that he’s been here has created 700,000 new jobs for African-Americans,” Sanders told reporters Tuesday. “That’s 700,000 African-Americans that are working now that weren’t working when this president took place. When President Obama left, after eight years in office, he had only created 195,000 jobs for African-Americans.”

The claim isn’t true, according to data from the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics. While the U.S. economy has added about 700,000 jobs held by black workers since Trump took office, it added about 3 million while Obama was in office, according to BLS data.

Job Gains:

Black employment in U.S. has maintained a steady rise since recession ended

SEE CHART

There were 15.5 million black workers with jobs when Obama took office in January 2009, as the country struggled to emerge from one of the worst economic recessions in decades. By the time Obama left office, 18.4 million black people had jobs. Trump inherited an economy on the upswing, and the rate of job growth has not changed significantly during his administration.

Two hours after Sanders made the claim, the White House Council of Economic Advisers posted in a tweet its “apologies” for a “miscommunication to” Sanders.

Her statement invoking Obama came in response to a question about whether Trump had ever used a racial slur to describe black Americans.

The Trump administration has been beset by accusations of racism in recent weeks, after former White House aide Omarosa Manigault-Newman said she had heard a tape of Trump using the n-word. Manigault-Newman, who is the highest ranking black person to have served in the Trump West Wing, released a book Tuesday titled “Unhinged: An Insider’s Account of the Trump White House.”

Sanders said Manigault-Newman has no credibility and called her claims outrageous. She went on to disseminate the false statistics about the first black president’s job-creation record.

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles ... black-jobs

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