kpete
kpete's JournalEnron prosecutor tells me Trump threat to Comey may be clearer obstruction of justice than firing
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/05/12/us/politics/trump-threatens-retaliation-against-comey-warns-he-may-cancel-press-briefings.html?_r=0
BUT HER EMAILS!
https://twitter.com/ThePlumLineGS/status/863095625809887232"If Clinton had won, do you think the country would be in a better or worse place?"
Better 40
Worse 33
https://poll.qu.edu/national/release-detail?ReleaseID=2456
From: The Art Of The Deal-Trump disdains 'respectable' guys with integrity-but who have no "loyalty"
https://twitter.com/timkmak/status/863147665613361153
Jennifer Rubin: Trump's "Pressuring & Firing The FBI Director Must Be Impeachable, If Not Criminal"
Trump’s ‘tapes’ tweet is too much. Hasn’t the GOP had enough?By Jennifer Rubin May 12 at 10:15 AM
The 2016 election demonstrated that the party once united by political thought (e.g., smaller government, objective truth, respect for tradition, the rule of law) and respect for civic virtue would accept a thoughtless, entirely unscrupulous leader for the sake of holding power. (“Sure, he’s totally ignorant about the world, but we’ll get the Supreme Court.” “Well, he’s obviously lying about a bunch of issues, but he’ll sign whatever the House gives him.“) En masse, most Republicans — including those at some premier publications (which are now unreadable to all but the Trump cultists) — declared willingness to defend ignorance, bigotry, dishonesty and ineptitude on the chance that they’d get a top marginal tax rate of 28 percent. The calculation, to those not driven by partisan zeal, seems shockingly small-minded and tribalistic. (At least Hillary Clinton’s not there to raise taxes!) One marvels at other trades they’d make. (Lose an independent judiciary for sake of a meaningless and offensive travel ban?)
Republican Party identification has begun requiring intellectual vacuity. One has to be free from shame to agree that it’s no big deal when Trump confesses he fired former FBI director James B. Comey because he decided Russian interference in the election was “just a made-up story.” A slew of FBI agents is now investigating the “made-up story,” the entire intelligence community verifies it and members of both parties acknowledge that it occurred. To go along with such utterances means condoning Trump’s inability to accept reality (Russia did, in fact, meddle) and refusing to concede that pressuring and then firing the FBI director must be impeachable, if not criminal, conduct. This mind-set forces Trump defenders to say daft things such as: Trump has the right to fire Comey, so what’s the problem? Democrats didn’t like Comey, anyway. It doesn’t matter that he gave a pretextual answer for the firing.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/right-turn/wp/2017/05/12/trumps-tapes-tweet-is-too-much-hasnt-the-gop-had-enough/?utm_term=.b55ad450ebd0
Striking words from Fox News's Chris Wallace:
http://www.mediaite.com/online/it-took-my-breath-away-chris-wallace-offers-stunning-must-watch-critique-of-trump-white-house/
Rosenstein plans to allow FBI investigation to move forward-uninhibited by WH (NO Special Prosecutor
Source: Rosenstein told lawmakers and staff he plans to allow FBI investigation to move forward, uninhibited by pressures from White House
https://twitter.com/stevebruskCNN/status/863131418460905472
New from our @evanperez and @mkraju: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein doesn’t see a need at this point for a special prosecutor
But then there is THIS!?!
https://twitter.com/stevebruskCNN/status/863130833544245248
The Rise of a Despot
John Cassidy: “It is often said that the U.S. Presidency is a relatively weak office—but that is a contingent statement. To prevent the President from gaining too much power, or abusing that power, the Founding Fathers divided authority among the different branches of government, and established some fundamental governing principles. These are the fabled checks and balances, arranged, as James Bryce, the British jurist, noted in his venerable 1888 tome, ‘The American Commonwealth,’ to ‘restrain any one department from tyranny.'”
“But the checks and balances only work if each of Bryce’s departments agrees to play its allotted role. A President enabled by a spineless and supine Congress that fails to exercise its oversight powers isn’t a weak executive at all: he is a potential despot. Using his authority to hire and fire federal officials, he can rapidly remake the government to his own design, appointing loyalists to key positions, eliminating potential threats, and undermining alternative repositories of power.”
“Authoritarian leaders in foreign countries seize and maintain power this way. And, despite his bungling start, this is the project that Donald Trump appears to have embarked upon.”
http://www.newyorker.com/news/john-cassidy/donald-trumps-craven-republican-enablers?mbid=nl_170512_Daily&CNDID=21493341&spMailingID=11011670&spUserID=MTMzMTc5NzcyNzUwS0&spJobID=1161068671&spReportId=MTE2MTA2ODY3MQS2
Donald Trump to James Comey: Beware! I recorded myself trying to obstruct justice.
Donald Trump to James Comey: Beware! I recorded myself trying to obstruct justice.
Stipulating that President Trump’s insinuation that he recorded a conversation or conversations between himself and then-FBI Director James Comey is probably bullshit, let’s imagine it were true for a moment.
If there’s one thing we know about Comey it’s that, whatever his blindspots, his most prized asset is his claim to independence, or what we might call performative independence. His judgment might be flawed, or shaped by improper considerations, like the internal politics of the FBI, but he doesn’t make decisions that he can’t later account for under oath. And he’s not the kind of person who would get duped into surrendering that asset by a halfwit like Trump.
To the contrary, he is the kind of person who, faced with a compromising situation, starts taking notes and preparing for the moment when he’ll be able to vindicate his own behavior.
..........
It is overwhelmingly likely, then, that Comey’s version of events is the correct one, and Trump is either bluffing about the recording altogether, or the recording would confirm that Trump lied about what transpired.
But even if we assume that Comey abandoned his most prized asset and entered a corrupt, implicit bargain with Trump, where he affirmed Trump wasn’t under investigation, and thus got to keep his job—that outcome would be far, far worse for Trump, who would have recorded himself obstructing justice, than for Comey, whose reputation would be shattered, but who at the end of the day is now a private citizen with no job to lose. To that end, threatening to release possibly imaginary recordings of their conversation is tantamount to intimidating a witness.
Even if Trump’s threat isn’t idle, or a complete fabrication, then it’s a threat to ruin Comey’s suit with the blood and gore from shooting himself in the face.
https://newrepublic.com/minutes/142694/donald-trump-james-comey-beware-recorded-trying-obstruct-justice
JK Rowling Quotes Lewis Carroll In This Tweet Addressed To Trump
`I don’t think–'
`Then you shouldn’t talk,’ said the Hatter.
Lewis Carroll
Alice in Wonderlandhttps://twitter.com/jk_rowling/status/863006122483077121
The cyber attack on UK's Nat'l Health Service used tools stolen from the US National Security Agency
Hackers use NSA tools in UK health service cyber attackRansomware known as ‘WannaCry’ strikes organisations across the world
Hackers responsible for the wave of cyber attacks that struck organisations across the globe on Friday from the UK’s National Health Service to European telecoms company Telefónica used cyberweapons stolen from the US National Security Agency, the Financial
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A tool known as Eternal Blue developed by US spies was used by the hackers to supercharge an existing form of criminal malware, three senior cyber security analysts said, leading to one of the fastest-spreading and potentially damaging cyber attacks seen to date.
Their analysis was confirmed by western security officials who are still scrambling to contain the attack that hit hospitals and doctors’ practices across the UK.
The same or similar virus was used in a large-scale attack in Spain that hit Telefónica, the country’s main telecoms provider.
The People’s Daily in China tweeted that similar attacks may have hit China and there were reports of similar attacks in dozens of other countries, including Russia, Portugal, Taiwan, Germany and Vietnam. MegaFon, one of Russia’s largest telecoms operators, confirmed it had been hacked.
https://www.ft.com/content/e96924f0-3722-11e7-99bd-13beb0903fa3
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