[CDP] High profile spin doctor and "longtime Clinton family ally," Lanny Davis, predicts big trouble ahead for former FBI Director James Comey.
Davis is popping up on talk shows all over Washington, D.C. to tell anyone who will listen that Comey, along with his deputy, Andrew McCabe, are destined to become political speed bumps. He threw Comey under the bus himself.
Davis sat down with former Fox newscaster Bill O’Reilly this week, who now broadcasts from his own web page. In the interview, he covered the same ground he has been tromping since word broke of James Comey’s impending book.
When Michael Horowitz releases his awaited report, the Inspector General will "come down very hard" on Director Comey, Davis declares.
Lanny Davis isn’t just any attorney. He handles very touchy cases. Penn State University retained him for the Joe Paterno scandal.
According to Justin Elliot, a columnist for Salon magazine, Davis specializes in "lobbying for controversial corporate and foreign clients," especially those with Democratic-leaning needs in Washington.
[The Hill] They were among the most powerful men of the last decade. They commanded armies of armed agents, had the ability to bug and wiretap almost anyone, and had virtually unlimited budgets. They were the leadership of the FBI, the CIA and the director of national intelligence under President Obama. Each day, it becomes clearer that they are the real abusers of power in this drama.
The book by former FBI Director James Comey and the daily hyperbolic John Brennan sound bites are perhaps the final reveal of just how much hubris and vitriol they had. Comey’s book, according to reports, contains nothing new of legal consequence to Trump (while suggesting that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has something to worry about), but it unmasks the hatred that Comey had for Donald Trump from the beginning. It impeaches Comey’s fitness to have ever held high, nonpartisan office. Read the whole thing. Note the author: Mark Penn served as pollster and adviser to President Clinton from 1995 to 2000, including during his impeachment. He is chairman of the Harris Poll and author of the recently released book, "Microtrends Squared."
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
Thought a pic of Custar's last stand might also be appropriate.
[Malkin] While congresscritters expressed outrage at Facebook’s intrusive data grabs during Capitol Hill hearings with Mark Zuckerberg this week, not a peep was heard about the Silicon Valley-Beltway theft ring purloining the personal information and browsing habits of millions of American schoolchildren.
It doesn’t take undercover investigative journalists to unmask the massive privacy invasion enabled by educational technology and federal mandates. The kiddie data heist is happening out in the open ‐ with Washington politicians and bureaucrats as brazen co-conspirators.
Facebook is just one of the tech giants partnering with the U.S. Department of Education and schools nationwide in pursuit of student data for meddling and profit. Google, Apple, Microsoft, Pearson, Knewton, and many more are cashing in on the Big Data boondoggle. State and federal educational databases provide countless opportunities for private companies exploiting public schoolchildren subjected to annual assessments, which exploded after adoption of the tech industry-supported Common Core "standards," tests, and aligned texts and curricula.
The recently passed Every Student Succeeds Act further enshrined government collection of personally identifiable information ‐ including data collected on attitudes, values, beliefs and dispositions ‐ and allows release of the data to third-party contractors thanks to Obama-era loopholes carved into the Family Education Rights and Privacy Act.
[Washington Examiner] Famed lawyer Alan Dershowitz on Sunday wouldn't say whether he had been asked to join President Trump's legal team, adding as a Democrat his only concern was whether Trump's civil liberties and due process rights were being infringed by special counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe.
"I do not want to be his lawyer, I don't want to give him legal advice," Dershowitz said during an interview on CNN's "Reliable Sources."
Dershowitz, who dined at the White House on Tuesday as part of a prearranged meeting to discuss Middle East politics, described Trump as "pretty upbeat" during their conversation.
"At the dinner they basically threw me out when they wanted to talk about confidences," he continued. "I am not a supporter, I am not a defender of Donald Trump the person, I'm a defender of civil liberties and basic due process."
But Dershowitz recommended Trump's legal counsel focus on the state case against Trump's personal attorney Michael Cohen in New York rather than Mueller's federal investigation.
"He's much more vulnerable on what he did before he was president than what he's done as president because what he's done as president has constitutional protection, the other does not," Dershowitz said.
[LI] On Monday, April 16, 2018, the court in the Southern District of New York will continue its hearing on the motion by Donald Trump’s personal attorney Michael Cohen for return of records seized from his law office and home. In the alternative, Cohen seeks severe restrictions on the government’s ability to review the records, even if the government follows its procedures to have a so-called "taint team" do so. This has 'pending Supreme Court' appeal written all over it.
[Zacks] The markets closed modestly lower on Friday, but up solidly for the week, with the Dow and the S&P up nearly 2%, while the Nasdaq gained close to 3%.
As trade tensions eased, stocks enjoyed an impressive week of gains.
And with Q1 earnings season set to officially begin this week, stocks are poised for even more gains. (Stocks typically rise during earnings season. And since this bull market began in 2009, the average increase for stocks during earnings season is more than 2%, with gains seen more than 70% of the time.)
But given how the market has diligently held support and has staged a promising rally, the gains should be even bigger as Q1 earnings should be just a catalyst that ultimately propels stocks back up to their all-time highs.
And with a robust economy, historical tax cuts, and surging corporate profits, the market should then begin a whole new leg higher.
[Wirepoints] You’d be mistaken to think Harvey, Illinois has a unique pension crisis. It may be the first, and its problems may be the most severe, but the reality is the mess is everywhere, from East St. Louis to Rockford and from Quincy to Danville. A review of Illinois Department of Insurance pension data shows that Harvey could be just the start of a flood of garnishments across the state (click here to see the list).
Harvey made the news last year when an Illinois court ordered the municipality to hike its property taxes to properly fund the Harvey firefighter pension fund, which is just 22 percent funded.
Now, the state has stepped in on behalf of Harvey’s police pension fund. The state comptroller has begun garnishing the city’s tax revenues to make up what the municipality failed to contribute. In response, the city has announced that 40 public safety employees will be laid off.
Under state law, pensions that don’t receive required funding may demand the Illinois Comptroller intercept their municipality’s tax revenues. More than 400 police and fire pension funds, or 63 percent of Illinois’ 651 total downstate public safety funds, received less funding than what was required from their cities in 2016 ‐ the most recent year for which statewide data is available.
Two-thirds of Illinois’ 355 police pension funds failed to receive their full required contribution in 2016. And 60 percent of Illinois’ 296 firefighter pension funds suffered the same fate.
If those same numbers continue to hold true, all those cities face the risk of having their revenues intercepted by the comptroller.
#9
More and more urban areas are going to try to adopt the "regional asset district" model. Sure, you live 75 miles from downtown, but look at all the "benefits" you receive from being a "neighbor." It's working out so well in Pissburgh...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/16/2018 11:46 Comments ||
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#11
When Pensions fail in California, and they will, and they dismantle Prop 13 to increase the property taxes, and they will, it's going to get ugly very fast.
#12
When courts nationwide start imposing / spiking taxes to satisfy the many local government contractually bound (yet impossible to satisfy) promises to pay pensions to their retirees, THAT'S when it will get ugly.
Recall the states are forbidden from passing any "Law impairing the Obligation of Contracts" - but this doesn't apply to courts or to the federal legislature.
Coming soon to a country near you. It is already predictable using simple math.
#13
Whomever a politician signs a contract to pay someone money beyond their ability to pay, that politician should have their pension taken to help pay for it.
#14
Re: #9: that has already been floated out here in the hinterlands surrounding Seattlestan, but as it impacts homeless ( aka bums) ; we peasants should take our fair share so the amaoznians and microsofties don't have to step over them and dodge their sidewalk doo-doo.....
#16
Obviously its time for an 'Affordable Retirement Act' where they take everyone's pension, IRA, and 401K and split them up equally (1).
Why should Jim who blew all his earnings on a wasteful lifestyle have to suffer while John, who scrapped and saved for his retirement has it easy? Its not fair! Its RACIST I tell you!!! (with exclamation points and everything...)
(1) of course some people are more equal than others.
[Huffpoo] One of Donald Trump’s first obsessions in office was the size of his inauguration crowd.
Trump famously sent then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer into the press briefing room to slam media reports that he had drawn fewer spectators than President Barack Obama during his first inauguration in 2009.
In an interview with George Stephanopolous on Sunday night, former FBI director James Comey said the topic even came up at a private dinner he had with Trump that the president said not even then-chief-of-staff Reince Priebus knew about.
"It was him talking almost the entire time, which I’ve discovered is something he frequently does. And so it would be monologue in this direction, monologue in that direction, monologue in a different direction. And a constant series of assertions that ― about the inauguration crowd, about how great my inauguration speech was, about all the free media," Comey said. "...On and on and on and on. Everyone agrees, everyone agrees, I did this, the ― I never assaulted these women, I never made fun of a reporter. And ― I’m sure you’re wondering what question did I ask that would prompt those? None, zero. I didn’t ask any questions that I recall."
#2
Trump famously sent then-White House press secretary Sean Spicer into the press briefing room to slam media reports that he had drawn fewer spectators than President Barack Obama during his first inauguration in 2009.
The concept is called 'fake news' and Trump's the first President since Reagan to actively fight it.
Also - seems Comey can't shut up, either. Can't wait to see his book at the dollar store in a few weeks.
[American Thinker] The day that James Comey cashed the multi-million dollar advance check from MacMillan Publishers will turn out to mark the date that we can call "Peak Comey." It was all downhill from the instant the ink started drying on his signature on the back of the check. He and his ghost writer suddenly faced the unenviable task of making him look like the righteous warrior he had always portended to be, but with the need to fill 300 pages with something. Self-serving rationalizations can’t sustain reader interest over that many words, so apparently they decided that prose about physical appearances drawn from the bodice-ripper school of novels grafted onto Trump-hatred would do the trick.
The result was so awful that even the Washington Post, owned by arch-enemy of Trump Jeff Bezos, felt the need for a satire. The result, written Alexandra Petri, a Post writer whose "Compost" blog is described as "offering a lighter take on the news and opinions of the day," is downright hilarious. Purporting to offer "further excerpts" from his forthcoming book, her satire takes on the purple prose and wrestles it to the mat.
#1
It is a little embarrassing to describe myself: I stand, as mentioned, about 6-foot-8, like an oak with a firm sense of right and wrong and large, capacious hands.
And he thinks Trump is an ego maniac?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/16/2018 10:19 Comments ||
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[Real Clear Politics] We’re supposed to be reassured that the FBI agents who raided the offices and home of Donald Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael A. Cohen, were, in Cohen’s words, "courteous" and "respectful."
The president’s attorney was understandably grateful that the agents didn’t replicate the FBI’s tactics at the home of Paul Manafort, Trump’s onetime campaign manager. Busting in before dawn, guns drawn, with a "no knock" warrant while Manafort and his wife were in bed, the agents frisked Mrs. Manafort while she was still in her nightclothes.
Perhaps Cohen thinks if he sounds reasonable, he can appease Robert Mueller, the special prosecutor who ordered Manafort’s arrest, or his other federal prosecutors behind this raid. Or maybe Cohen simply developed the quickest case of Stockholm syndrome in history. Whatever his reasons, a line has been violated. The government is going after lawyers now, as part of an investigation that feels as though policy differences and partisan politics have been criminalized.
Since the day Trump entered political life, liberals, Democratic activists, and media pundits have issued ominous warnings about the coming authoritarianism. When Trump shocked his critics by winning the presidency, this alarm became a crescendo. The "f" word was bandied about: Fascism, we were admonished, was in our future if we didn’t "resist" this presidency.
[Free Beacon] Former FBI Director James Comey said "it sucked" to be him the final 10 days of the 2016 presidential campaign and he felt "everybody hated me" after his late October letter to Congress about the reopening of the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
"What did it feel like to be James Comey in the last 10 days of that campaign after you sent the letter?" ABC host George Stephanopoulos asked in an interview airing Sunday night.
"It sucked," Comey said. "I walked around vaguely sick to my stomach, feeling beaten down, felt like I was totally alone, that everybody hated me, and that there wasn't a way out, because it really was the right thing to do."
Comey's Oct. 28, 2016, letter to Congress announcing newly discovered emails related to Clinton's private email server is still viewed by Clinton and her allies as one of the key reasons for her loss. Clinton has even remarked that if the election had been held Oct. 27, she would have been the 45th president.
#2
Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me your ears;
I come to bury Caesar, not to praise him.
The evil that men do lives after them;
The good is oft interred with their bones;
So let it be with Caesar. The noble Brutus
Hath told you Caesar was ambitious:
If it were so, it was a grievous fault,
And grievously hath Caesar answer'd it.
Here, under leave of Brutus and the rest--
For Brutus is an honourable man;
So are they all, all honourable men--
Come I to speak in Caesar's funeral.
He was my friend, faithful and just to me:
But Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
He hath brought many captives home to Rome
Whose ransoms did the general coffers fill:
Did this in Caesar seem ambitious?
When that the poor have cried, Caesar hath wept:
Ambition should be made of sterner stuff:
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And Brutus is an honourable man.
You all did see that on the Lupercal
I thrice presented him a kingly crown,
Which he did thrice refuse: was this ambition?
Yet Brutus says he was ambitious;
And, sure, he is an honourable man.
#3
Well, Jimmy, if you think that stretch sucked, I got news for you about the near future. Pretty much everybody hates you now, ans I just hope you have something good to shop to the DOJ.
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/16/2018 8:59 Comments ||
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#4
Hated? Why the past tense, Jimmy?
Posted by: Bobby ||
04/16/2018 9:29 Comments ||
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[Townhall] Kassem Eid survived the 2013 Syrian chemical attack and for nearly two years lived in a constant state of war and violence. As a refugee in America, his heart longs for peace in his home land. After years of President Obama's reluctance to intervene in Syria, Eid is thrilled that President Trump is finally helping the Syrian people. Specifically on CNN yesterday, Eid said he would love to buy Trump a beer and sit down with him to explain just how badly the situation is in Syria.
[IsraelTimes] Regime forces expected to target area that was the cradle of uprising and a stronghold for Western-backed non-jihadist rebels.
The capture of Eastern Ghouta is a significant milestone for Syria’s regime and paves the way for government troops to shift south to where the seven-year uprising first began: Daraa, the province that touches Israel’s border.
After securing the capital from deadly rockets that once rained in from its suburbs, Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/16/2018 00:00 ||
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#1
The SAA will have to fight the FSA under US and Jordanian protection. Last several times Syria/Iran tried this, they beat feet when the US Air Force objected.
#2
Assad's SAA will have to eventually fight the FSA/Kurds in the North. Emphasis on the word eventually. Before then there are the pockets of resistance around Damascus and the Daraa corner. The Turks and their proxies will continue to pressure the Kurds in North in the mean time occupying both.
Scooter Libby, VP Dick Cheney's former chief of staff, was thrown to the jaws of the Washington Swamp by the George W. Bush administration for allegedly lying to federal investigators about the unmasking of Valerie Plame. As Arthur Herman wrote in Commentary, an overzealous special prosecutor framed Libby, a dedicated public servant (and a friend of this writer). Now President Donald J. Trump has given him a long-overdue pardon--something that President George W. Bush refused to do, despite Cheney's heartfelt pleas.
...Why didn't Bush pardon Libby? Joseph Bottum said it back in 2007: "The case was a political trial from the beginning--and the opponents lined up in a properly political way. One side wanted to use Scooter Libby as a step ladder to reach up and pull down someone higher. The other side wanted to make sure that the case ended with Libby."
W. washed his hands and turned his back on Libby because he feared that a pardon might make him look complicit in some way. Bush was at no legal risk, to be sure. He just worried about the optics. The psychiatric term for such behavior according to DSM-IV is "chickenshit."
Donald J. Trump doesn't care about the optics. He does whatever he thinks best, and he doesn't care who tells him not to (unless, of course, it is Defense Secretary Mattis telling him about the limitations and risks to military action).
To the Never-Trumpers who think that our president is a lout and a ruffian who cares nothing for decent standards of behavior, I say: What you call "decent standards of behavior" have become so perverse, so cowardly, so hypocritical and so self-serving that only an outsider, a "lout," a "ruffian" with contempt for your standards will have the courage to do the right thing.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
The book by former FBI Director James Comey and the daily hyperbolic John Brennan sound bites are perhaps the final reveal of just how much hubris and vitriol they had. Comey’s book, according to reports, contains nothing new of legal consequence to Trump (while suggesting that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch has something to worry about), but it unmasks the hatred that Comey had for Donald Trump from the beginning. It impeaches Comey’s fitness to have ever held high, nonpartisan office.
Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir 
