July 10, 2020

Pentagon chief confirms he was briefed on intelligence about Russian payments to the Taliban

(CNN) Secretary of Defense Mark Esper confirmed Thursday that he had been briefed on information regarding Russian payments to the Taliban, seemingly acknowledging that Russia's support for the militant group in Afghanistan is not a "hoax," as President Donald Trump has claimed. However, Esper also made clear that he has not seen intelligence that corroborates claims that American troops were killed as a result of the "bounty" payments, walking a delicate line between acknowledging a well-known threat and potentially clashing with the President.

Esper's comments came during a long-awaited appearance before the House Armed Services Committee, where lawmakers had their first opportunity to ask the defense secretary and Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Gen. Mark Milley about their knowledge of intelligence on Russia offering bounties to the Taliban for killing US troops in Afghanistan.

It was clear that both men attempted to carefully navigate questions from lawmakers, but Esper admitted exercising particular caution while addressing inquiries about whether he had been briefed on the matter and when.

Responding to a very narrow line of questioning from Rep. Mike Turner, an Ohio Republican, Esper initially told lawmakers that he did not recall a briefing that included the word "bounty," but less than an hour later he clarified that answer when pressed by a Democratic member of the panel.

At that time, Esper explained that his response to Turner's question had been tailored to address whether the word "bounty" had ever been included in any briefing he had received and that he had refrained from elaborating further at the time in an effort to avoid politicizing the issue.

He went on to tell lawmakers that he had seen intelligence about Russian payments to the Taliban in February but added that his top generals did not believe those initial reports were credible at the time, a claim that appears to clash with comments made by one of those commanders on Tuesday, who called the reports "very worrisome."

(Read More) https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/09/politics/esper-briefed-russian-payments-to-taliban/index.html

July 9, 2020

Ft Lauderdale Police Chief Rick Maglione removed as officers face scrutiny over protest brutality

*new police chief named just minutes ago: Karen Dietrich

(Sun Sentinel) FORT LAUDERDALE — Rick Maglione was removed Thursday as chief of the embattled Fort Lauderdale Police Department, an agency rocked in recent weeks by what some perceive as missteps by its top leader — including a July Fourth message that criticized protesters and hailed his officers as heroes.

Maglione, chief since January 2017, will stay on with the department in another role.

Maglione’s tenure as police chief was rocked by the street protests that erupted after the death of George Floyd at the hands of Minneapolis police officers.

A May 31 protest against police brutality in downtown Fort Lauderdale devolved into a hectic melee between officers bristling with long guns, gas masks, and stun grenades and protesters armed with chants, slogans and water bottles.

Read More:
https://www.sun-sentinel.com/local/broward/fort-lauderdale/fl-ne-fort-lauderdale-police-chief-removed-20200709-6uwd7rehvnhdtix4pa2vo4rqgy-story.html

July 9, 2020

Lincoln Project Ad - Learn Their Names

July 7, 2020

Deutsche Bank hit with $150 million penalty for relationship to sex offender Jeffrey Epstein

(CNBC) New York state financial regulators said Tuesday that they have slapped Deutsche Bank with a $150 million penalty “for significant compliance failures” in the bank’s dealings with accused child sex trafficker Jeffrey Epstein, a now-dead investor, as well as with two client banks.

The New York State Department of Financial Services said that Deutsche Bank, which agreed to the payment under a consent order, “failed to properly monitor account activity conducted on behalf of the registered sex offender despite ample” public information about Mr. Epstein’s earlier criminal misconduct.

The big settlement comes days after Epstein’s alleged procurer, Ghislaine Maxwell, was arrested on federal charges that accuse her of helping him get access to and groom underage girls so he could sexually abuse them.

The state said it was the first enforcement action by a regulator against a financial institution for dealings with Epstein.

The consent order covers Deutsche Bank’s relationship with Epstein, and correspondent banking relationships with Danske Bank Estonia and FBME Bank.

snip

Epstein, 66, died last August in a federal jail in Manhattan from what authorities ruled was a suicide by hanging after being denied bail in his criminal case, where he was charged with child sex trafficking and conspiracy to commit child sex trafficking.

The multimillionaire investor was a former friend of Presidents Donald Trump and Bill Clinton, as well as of Britain’s Prince Andrew.

Deutsche Bank has reportedly loaned more than $2.5 billion to projects run by Trump’s company, the Trump Organization. The Supreme Court currently is considering arguments in case in which Trump has sued to block two House of Representatives Committees from getting financial records related to the president and related entities from Deutsche Bank pursuant to a subpoena. (Read More)

https://www.cnbc.com/2020/07/07/jeffrey-epstein-case-deutsche-bank-fined-150-million-penalty-for-relationship.html

July 7, 2020

This Kentucky Democrat may be the key to the Senate majority

(CNN) Amid all of the grilling and fireworks, you may have missed a development that could fundamentally impact the fight for the Senate majority this fall: Amy McGrath beat Charles Booker to win the Kentucky Democratic primary.

What!?, you say. Mitch McConnell isn't going to lose this fall! Which, in the main, is probably right. McConnell is a very able politician. It's how he has won six times in Kentucky and is currently the most influential Republican -- aside from President Donald Trump -- in Washington. But McGrath doesn't need to beat McConnell to reshape the Senate map. All she has to do is be competitive enough that she a) keeps McConnell focused on his own race and b) forces him (and, potentially, the national Republican Party) to spend time and money ensuring that the Republican leader wins.

snip

And this is where strategy comes in. Remember that the amount of money -- via national parties and super PACS -- that will be spent on the battle for the Senate is finite. Let's, for the sake of explaining how this works, say there is $200 million that Republican committees and super PACs have to spend on all of the Senate races in the country this fall. (The actual number is likely to be much, MUCH higher than that.)

McConnell, because he is not only the most powerful Republican in the Senate but also because he raised tens of millions for the party and its related super PACs (of which the major one is staffed by longtime McConnell allies), will get as much money from these groups as he needs to win. So, let's say that $20 million gets spent on the Kentucky race to make sure that McConnell is insulated from the TV ad onslaught that McGrath's fundraising can buy.

Well, that's $20 million that can't be spent on trying to reelect Arizona Sen. Martha McSally. Or Maine Sen. Susan Collins. Or North Carolina Sen. Thom Tillis. Or Georgia Sen. Kelly Loeffler. You get the idea.

And then there's this to consider: If McConnell, the best fundraiser among Senate Republicans, is focused on raising money for his own reelection race, he can't raise as much money for all of those senators I just named above. Ditto for if he is pinned down in Kentucky rather than traveling across the country for events to collect cash for the most vulnerable GOP incumbents.

Winning, when it comes to McConnell, isn't necessarily the goal for Senate Democrats as they try to net the three seats (if Joe Biden wins the White House) or four (if he doesn't) they need for the majority. Senate Democrats don't need Kentucky to get to the majority. In fact, there are roughly a dozen GOP seats that would likely fall before McConnell loses. Instead, keeping McConnell occupied on his own race has to be Democrats' goal. And McGrath makes that much more likely.

(Read More)
https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/07/politics/amy-mcgrath-mitch-mcconnell-kentucky-senate-2020/index.html

*Yep. Keep Mitch all tangled up and busy (and Barr too) and trump goes down without his two life-preservers.....

July 6, 2020

Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms says she tested positive for coronavirus

(CNN) Atlanta Mayor Keisha Lance Bottoms, one of the top prospects to be presumptive Democratic presidential nominee Joe Biden's running mate, said Monday that she has tested positive for Covid-19.

"COVID-19 has literally hit home. I have had NO symptoms and have tested positive," the mayor said on Twitter.
She told MSNBC that she received the news that both she and her husband were positive on Monday. She said they decided to get tested because her husband was sleeping more than normal.

"It's a shock," she said, noting that she initially thought her husband's symptoms were due to allergies. "It leaves me at a loss for words."

The mayor added that her diagnosis highlights how contagious the virus is and that she has no idea where they were exposed. (Read More)

https://www.cnn.com/2020/07/06/politics/keisha-lance-bottoms-coronavirus-positive-test/index.html

July 6, 2020

Supreme Court Decision about Electoral College

Rick Hasen
@rickhasen
·
5m
Breaking: Supreme Court unanimously holds that states can require presidential electors to vote the way the state says (no faithless electors). https://supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf This is great news. A contrary decision would have been a disaster:

Link to document: https://www.supremecourt.gov/opinions/19pdf/19-465_i425.pdf

July 4, 2020

Alan Dershowitz Writes Essay Defending Longtime Jeffrey Epstein Associate Ghislaine Maxwell

*Dersh the Dirtbag is SO scared Maxwell is going to implicate him....

(MSN) Alan Dershowitz, who defended Jeffrey Epstein against charges that he had serially abused young girls in 2008, has written an essay in The Spectator defending Epstein’s onetime girlfriend Ghislaine Maxwell, who was arrested on Thursday and charged with six counts related to the trafficking of underage girls, including transportation of a minor with intent to engage in criminal sexual activity.

“Like every other arrested person,” writes Dershowitz, “she must be presumed innocent.”

The lawyer then spent most of the rest of the essay assailing Netflix for its recent multi-part documentary, Jeffrey Epstein: Filthy Rich, in which one of Epstein’s most prominent accusers says Dershowitz abused her multiple times while she was under Epstein’s control.

Dershowitz has for weeks been assailing: If you want the truth about the false accusation against me, read my book Guilt by Accusation which is free on kindle. It puts the lie to Netflix’s deeply flawed presentation. “She claimed to have sex with me on six or seven occasions,” writes Dershowitz in the Spectator, “although she had previously admitted in her own words that she never met me or even heard of me.”

Dershowitz has confirmed he jetted to Epstein’s private island where sex trafficking allegedly took place, but only once. He says he was accompanied on that trip by his wife and daughter. "That’s a lie. My wife & daughter were with me the one time I flew to the island, years before Guiffre met Epstein and years before he was suspected of wrongdoing. Show me a flight log that has me going to island without my wife. You can’t because there isn’t any."

As for Maxwell, Dershowitz writes in his essay that he never saw her do anything untoward and assumed she was simply Epstein’s girlfriend:

My wife and I were introduced to Ghislaine Maxwell by Sir Evelyn and Lady Lynne de Rothschild, and we subsequently met her on several occasions — generally in the presence of prominent people such as Bill and Hillary Clinton, Nobel Prize-winning scientists, presidents of universities, and prominent academic and business people. We never saw her do anything inappropriate. We knew her only as Jeffrey Epstein’s thirty-something girlfriend.

Later however, Dershowitz negotiated a controversial plea deal for Epstein in Palm Beach County that shielded the billionaire from federal prosecution in 2008. Epstein pleaded guilty to a state charge (one of two) of procuring for prostitution a girl below age 18 and he was sentenced to 18 months in prison. The deal also shielded Maxwell.

One year ago, Epstein was re-arrested after a cache of explicit photos of girls was allegedly found in his home. The financier was charged with sex trafficking and sex trafficking conspiracy and faced a combined maximum sentence of up to 45 years in prison. Before he could be tried, Epstein hanged himself in his jail cell.

At the time, the New York Times said the arrest deepened “questions about why federal prosecutors in Miami had cut a deal that shielded him from federal prosecution in 2008.” Today, ever the defense lawyer, Dershowitz urged readers of the Spectator to “keep an open mind about Maxwell.”

https://www.msn.com/en-us/tv/news/alan-dershowitz-writes-essay-defending-longtime-jeffrey-epstein-associate-ghislaine-maxwell-assails-netflix-documentary-allegations/ar-BB16jB1z

https://spectator.us/ghislaine-maxwell-know-jeffrey-epstein-alan-dershowitz/

July 3, 2020

Black Violin - Lift Every Voice

July 2, 2020

George Takei's Great Tweet

George Takei
@GeorgeTakei

Dear Donald,

There are now 11 million Asian Americans eligible to vote in November. We will be the margin of difference in your defeat in several battleground states.

So keep up with the “Kung Flu.” Your words aren’t nearly as powerful as our votes.