[JUDICIALWATCH.ORG] Judicial Watch announced that a federal court judge ordered the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) to produce this week any "preservation requests" for emails sent to Homeland Security Secretary Jeh Johnson, Deputy Secretary Alejandro Mayorkas, Chief of Staff Christian Marrone, and General Counsel Stevan Bunnell.
The order from U.S District Court Judge Randolph Moss came in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit seeking agency records in the personal email accounts used by the four top Homeland Security officials (Judicial Watch v U.S. Department of Homeland Security (No. 1:16-cv-00967)). The court order, issued last week after a hearing, requires DHS to comply by January 12 (Thursday).
At last week’s January 5 hearing, Obama Justice Department lawyers confirmed that nothing had been done to retrieve government records from Jeh Johnson or the other officials’ accounts.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017 00:00 ||
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#1
At last week’s January 5 hearing, Obama Justice Department lawyers confirmed that nothing had been done to retrieve government records from Jeh Johnson or the other officials’ accounts.
I look forward to the Trump administration filing the appropriate charges.
#2
CIA Director Mike Morell? What? Nothing for the former MI6 guy hired by the Clinton funded Washington Opposition Research Group to develop data on the Trump-Russian connection ?
Oh, ok, that's right...foreign spy. Mike Morell was going to hire take care of that fellow.
[PJ] Here is the latest Fake News lie: They actually believe this crap -- Trump partook in "golden showers" in Russia with prostitutes on a bed Obama once slept on... Russia then blackmailed Trump, not by asking for money or influence in his business deals, but by forcing him to run for president against all odds and win?
Here is the story that the CIA and idiots in the FAKE NEWS Media are pushing on America ‐ Here’s what they want us to believe -- Let’s recount:
Skipping down
And no one questioned this report? Seriously?
America, let’s face it. After eight years of Obama, we are in worse shape than we thought. No wonder Americans trust Wikileaks over the intelligence community.
#4
If Bill Clinton was the target of the smear the story would be entirely plausible. But not Trump and America knows it. Any fiction journalist who refers to this smear in the press conference should be escouted out and their fake press bureau banned for life from from the press pool.
#6
Well, I read the "story" and after finding out that McCain was in part behind it, and that it was opposition research by the Dems and the NeverTrumps, I have to say they could have had a better story.
This is going to be the sleaziest four years of news. I mean when is the picture of Trump with a goat going to surface.
BTW, the picture of Trump and Vlad is wrong, they were riding Vlad's Russian Brown Bear.
#11
McCain gave it to the FBI and then to the Democrats. Seems it was paid for by Republicans.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/11/2017 16:49 Comments ||
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Deacon Blues' Daily Mail link wraps it all up in a bow for me. The honourable senator and former presidential candidate was the second person to be given that information to pass on to the FBI; somebody or several somebodies also tried to shop the story to various members of the mainstream media, who rejected it, then to various members of the anti-Trump media, who also rejected it until CNN broke the story and Buzzfeed published salacious bits from the file.
Apparently the salacious bits were not in the two page summary the intelligence community representatives shared with their future boss when they met with him to discuss Russian hacking.
And today Mr.Trump openly refused to take questions from CNN at his press conference, but unlike President Obama's early treatment of Fox News, he allowed them to be in the room with the rest of the press pool.
#13
I was kidding when I suggested Trump privatize the intelligence services, but it's starting to look like a good idea. At least he would know who they were working for.
Benedict Arnold was a POW from the failed early Canadian campaign. Exchanged, he went on to lead the critical combat that lead to the victory at Saratoga. However, he never felt he got the recognition and rewards for his service, so, as well all know, his ego let him to betray his fellow Americans.
[Free Beacon] Leaders of a pro-Hillary Clinton political group threatened to fire employees who questioned its founder’s criticism of Vermont Sen. Bernie Sanders, according to a former staffer.
Employees of American Bridge 21st Century, an opposition research-focused super PAC that backed Clinton’s candidacy, "had their employment threatened when they complained" about the treatment of Sanders, said Will Urquhart, formerly an American Bridge video tracker.
Urquhart revealed the group’s treatment of Sanders supporters in a pair of tweets on Tuesday. He was responding to statements by American Bridge founder David Brock, who publicly apologized on Tuesday for his treatment of Sanders.
"I recognize that there were a few moments when my drive to put Hillary in the White House led me to take too stiff a jab," Brock wrote in a post on Medium. "I own up to that, I regret it, and I apologize to you and your supporters for it."
Brock’s network of political groups, including blog Blue Nation Review and American Bridge spinoff Correct the Record, attacked Sanders as a radical, single-issue candidate myopically focused on the supposed misdeeds of Wall Street. Correct the Record even linked Sanders to unpopular British Labour Party leader Jeremy Corbyn and late Venezuelan strongman Hugo Chavez.
[Free Beacon] Congressional Democrats pushing for an ethics probe into a Trump cabinet nominee’s stock trades have their own histories of investing in sectors of the economy they oversee, public records show.
Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) last week called for an investigation into stock trades by Rep. Tom Price (R., N.C.), who President-elect Donald Trump has tapped to lead the Department of Health and Human Services.
Schumer and Senate Democrats are focusing on Price’s stock portfolio and trading history, which has included holdings in a number of health and insurance companies.
"We don’t know if he broke the law, but there are certainly enough serious questions to warrant an investigation before any hearing is held on Congressman Price to become secretary of HHS," Schumer said at a press conference last week.
Senate Democrats’ strategy on the Price nomination is part of a larger focus on alleged conflicts of interest among Trump cabinet nominees. However, unlike a number of those nominees Price’s personal financial information is publicly available due to reporting requirements for members of Congress.
At issue are 40 trades in health industry companies worth more than $300,000. Schumer and Sens. Patty Murray (D., Wash.) and Ron Wyden (D., Ore.), the ranking Democrats on the Health and Finance Committees, respectively, want to put Price’s nomination on hold pending an investigation into those trades and whether they coincided with legislation written or supported by Price.
That strategy could open up Senate Democrats to criticism, as Schumer, Wyden, and Democratic members of the Finance and Health Committees, which will both hold confirmation hearings for Price next week, have also traded in industries they oversee.
Schumer himself owned securities that likely benefitted from policies he advanced in his official capacity.
[CNN] Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN. The money shot:
The allegations were presented in a two-page synopsis that was appended to a report on Russian interference in the 2016 election. The allegations came, in part, from memos compiled by a former British intelligence operative, whose past work US intelligence officials consider credible. The FBI is investigating the credibility and accuracy of these allegations, which are based primarily on information from Russian sources, but has not confirmed many essential details in the memos about Mr. Trump.
The classified briefings last week were presented by four of the senior-most US intelligence chiefs -- Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, FBI Director James Comey, CIA Director John Brennan, and NSA Director Admiral Mike Rogers.
One reason the nation's intelligence chiefs took the extraordinary step of including the synopsis in the briefing documents was to make the President-elect aware that such allegations involving him are circulating among intelligence agencies, senior members of Congress and other government officials in Washington, multiple sources tell CNN.
#1
The raw memos on which the synopsis is based were prepared by the former MI6 agent, who was posted in Russia in the 1990s and now runs a private intelligence gathering firm. His investigations related to Mr. Trump were initially funded by groups and donors supporting Republican opponents of Mr. Trump during the GOP primaries, multiple sources confirmed to CNN. Those sources also said that once Mr. Trump became the nominee, further investigation was funded by groups and donors supporting Hillary Clinton.
So, let me get this straight. A Washington D.C. 'Opposition Research Group' likely funded by Clinton, Soros, dems, you pick....looking for info, dirt, and validity, hires Non-USP and former British MI6 officer to build 'synopsis' on Trump connections and 'surrogates.' Unsubstantiated data (unfinished and unverified data aka rumors) then shared with McCain, Reid, Comey....but not Trump until last week.
Excuse me while I claim partisan political BULLSHI* and possible foreign espionage directed against USCIT and U.S. presidential candidate (Trump) by a 'former' foreign intelligence operative likely hired by the Clinton campaign.
Dirty, nasty Russians had the info all the time and never said anything, not even to Wikileaks? Clinton campaign foreign operatives now correcting the record by disseminating unsubstantiated information (non-intelligence fake news). There Julian Assange, take THAT !
Thank you McCain, Reid, Comey, Brennan, Obama, and Clinton's. Nice, very nice. I hope Mike Flynn explains this to Trump and he sticks it up their collected arses with a post-Jan 20th Justice Department investigation.
#4
Did this unnamed MI6 officer have anything to do with former Congressman and FBI agent Mike Rogers, Aegis LLC, or no-bid security contracts at Benghazi annex by chance ?
Vietnam War "hero" Senator Dick Blumenthal decided to take the best left-wing opposition research and throw it at Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for Attorney General. In a creepy scene out of the Soviet Union, Blumenthal demanded that Senator Sessions disavow Horowitz and the Freedom Center.
"At an event called Restoration Weekend, you gave a speech praising a man named David Horowitz as a man I admire," Blumenthal sneered. "David Horowitz has said, among other things, that, quote, all the major Muslim organizations in America are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and quote, 80 percent of mosques are filled with hate against Jews and Americans."
Blumenthal demanded to know whether Sessions was embarrassed to have praised David Horowitz.
Sessions refused Blumenthal's demand and instead praised Horowitz's "brilliant book" Radical Son, recalling it as a "powerful and moving story of how he moved from the unprincipled radical totalitarian left to a more traditional American person."
"He's a most brilliant individual and has a remarkable story." More and a video at the link
#1
"David Horowitz has said, among other things, that, quote, all the major Muslim organizations in America are connected to the Muslim Brotherhood, and quote, 80 percent of mosques are filled with hate against Jews and Americans."
Its refreshing to hear the truth every once in awhile.
California’s Lt. Governor Gavin Newsom on Monday said that President-elect Donald Trump’s plan to build a wall along the border will run into trouble in California.
Speaking with ’The Gold State’ podcast, he said that the state could sue under the California Environmental Quality Act or its federal equivalent, the National Environmental Policy Act, utilizing a common tactic that has been used to delay or kill various development projects around the state.
"There’s something called CEQA in California -- NEPA at the federal level," Newsom said. "There’s indigenous lands and autonomies relating to governance on those lands. There are all kinds of obstructions as it relates to just getting zoning approval and getting building permits. All those things could be made very, very challenging for the administration."
The law, which was passed in 1970, has been credited with help protecting the state’s environment, but also is a frequent source of criticism for its unintended consequences. Governor Jerry Brown’s plan to spur housing development last year collapsed in part because environmentalists and labor unions believed the [CitizenSlant] plan was an end-run around CEQA. How, again, did that "Gordian Knot" thingie work out?
When Congress authorizes the wall, it exempts it from state and federal EPA review. That takes care of that.
#3
No more federal research grants for California universities. No more federal block grants for California. No loans for trains to nowhere. In fact, that federal gravy train to California is gonna be delayed for a while.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:55 Comments ||
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And if Rantburgers think Moonbeam is a whacko just wait until he's gone and you start hearing more about Newsom.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:56 Comments ||
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Governor Brown submitted his budget proposal. I think he sees something coming:
When asked about how California would respond to the incoming administration, Brown said the state cannot budget for something that has not happened yet. There was a lot of uncertainty about what the Trump administration and Republican Congress would actually do on issues like healthcare and immigration, he said, adding that the state will remain vigilant.
Brown's budget proposed to boost funding for state reserves, education, healthcare expansion, and transportation infrastructure, counteracting poverty and combating climate change, while rolling back some planned spending increases.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Congress’s top immigrant-rights immigrant entitlements advocate said Tuesday that he’ll skip next week’s inauguration, saying he can’t stomach seeing President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... take the oath of office.
Rep. Luis V. Gutierrez, an Illinois Democrat who for years has led the push to legalize illegal immigrants colonists, said Mr. Trump’s past remarks about racial and religious minorities -- and particularly women -- are ’something I can never un-hear."
"Sorry. That is never OK," Mr. Gutierrez said in a speech on the House floor.
Instead, he said, he’ll participate in a women’s march a day later.
He said he went to both inaugurations for former President George W. Bush, and it’s not partisanship that’s driving him away. Instead, he said, Mr. Trump is an exceptional case.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017 00:00 ||
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Every public "skip" should be met with a low key announcement by the Trump team that a real patriot of whatever background (whether a celebrity, or a serviceman, or whatever background) has been invited to symbolically fill the vacant chair.
#2
he’ll skip next week’s inauguration, saying he can’t stomach seeing President-elect Donald Trump take the oath of office.
I predict the next four years are going to be really hard on you, Luis.
As for "he’ll participate in a women’s march a day later", the thing speaks for itself.
It is an oath not to an Arc of History, the Planet or some progressive vision of the future. It's not an oath to Mexico or Europe or the Liberal world order. The text of the oath is a declaration of allegiance to permanent interests of the United States and the people who live in it, as determined by the Constitution and the laws of the land -- or it is nothing. - Richard Fernandez
[WSJ] Sen. Jeff Sessions, President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s choice for U.S. attorney general, forcefully rejected accusations that he has racist views, and departed from several of Mr. Trump’s campaign stances during a Senate confirmation hearing on Tuesday that drew tough questioning from his fellow wardheelers.
Mr. Sessions, a Republican from Alabama, said he doesn’t support a ban on Moslems entering the U.S., as Mr. Trump once proposed, and noted that the use of waterboarding is illegal under current law. Mr. Trump has advocated using that practice more frequently on terror suspects.
The nominee said he wouldn’t serve as a rubber stamp for the incoming administration and would recuse himself on any pending investigation into Mr. Trump’s opponent during the presidential campaign, Democrat Hillary Clinton ... former first lady, former secretary of state, former presidential candidate, sometimes described by her supporters as the smartest woman in the world, usually described by the rest of us as a crook... . "You have to say ’no’ sometimes...for the good of the country," Mr. Sessions said at the start of the hearing in the Senate, which is set to elevate one of its most conservative members to run the Justice Department.
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017 00:00 ||
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When they start playing the race card it's for damn sure they don't have anything else.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 12:59 Comments ||
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Heh. The "fact check" refutes the claim that Obamacare was a bi-partisian effort by admitting that Obama and the democrats rammed it through on a partisan basis.
As for the "death spiral": The very best time for a plane to get out of a death spiral is for the pilot to recognize when the plane is getting into one BEFORE it gets into it. What? these people are deliberately going to WAIT until companies burn through irreplaceable personal resources BEFORE admitting it?
Meh, I correct myself: they won't admit it even while the companies who shilled for it are in the midst of one.
Their predictions have proven wrong and ours were proven right. All their braying "NAY!" doesn't alter a thing.
[YAHOO] Democratic Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower. Senate minority leader as of 2017. threw Republican Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell’s own words back in his face, tussling over President-elect Donald Trump ...New York real estate developer, described by Dems as illiterate, racist, misogynistic, and what ever other unpleasant descriptions they can think of, elected by the rest of us as 45th President of the United States... ’s Cabinet picks.
Schumer announced on Monday that he is sending McConnell a copy of a letter the Republican wrote in 2009 outlining "standards" for President B.O.’s Cabinet nominees. In a speech on the Senate floor and a tweet in which he shared a handwritten version of the letter with McConnell’s signature crossed out, Schumer suggested he is trying to show his requests are "reasonable." Confirmation hearings are set to begin on Tuesday, but some of Trump’s nominees have not completed ethics reviews.
In his speech, Schumer raised concerns about what he described as a "jammed" schedule with multiple hearings being held on the same day. Schumer also pointed out that the director of the Office of Government Ethics has raised concerns about the pace of the hearings and said some of the nominees have not undergone reviews.
"We’re not doing this for sport. Democrats feel very strongly that pushing for a thorough and thoughtful vetting process is the right thing to do," Schumer said, later adding, "Our caucus was and is concerned about the timely completion of the standard paperwork and ethics clearance for nominees before proceeding full-steam ahead with their confirmation hearings and votes."
Posted by: Fred ||
01/11/2017 00:00 ||
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Payback's a bitch, huh Chuck?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/11/2017 13:00 Comments ||
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Question - did they pass the various ethics reviews for Obama's nominations?
If they did passed then that says a whole lot about the value of such 'ethics reviews'.
[Breitbart] President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the President-elect.
On January 15, 2017, with only five days left after 2,917 days in office, President Barack Obama is planning once again to feed Israel to the international wolves. The move is intended to tie the hands of President Donald Trump and is a direct repudiation of the will of the American electorate who rejected Obama’s calamitous foreign policy and a repeat performance by his secretary of state.
On Sunday, France is scheduled to hold an international conference to unleash an international mob on Israel. The meeting is taking place with Obama’s direct connivance. Seventy-states have been lined up to impose their preferences on the Middle East’s only democracy. Israelis are still dying in Israeli streets after seventy years of unending Arab terror ‐ and the folks sitting in Paris munching on croissants know best how to protect Israeli national security.
The bare-faced power-grab by France and its Arab allies ‐ with the blessing of President Obama ‐ raises unavoidable questions: Who will attend? If they attend, how senior a representative will be sent by the main players on the Security Council: the U.S., Russia, and the United Kingdom? Will attendees sign on to an outcome document imperiling Israel that is already circulating? Will the Middle East Quartet ‐ composed of the U.S., the EU, Russia and the UN ‐ approve of the outcome document? Will a UN Security Council subsequently approve of the outcome document before January 20, 2017?
The French meeting follows on President Obama helping to ram through a UN Security Council resolution on December 23, 2016 that was clearly intended to unleash a legal and economic pogrom against the Jewish state. It didn’t take long for Palestinian terrorists to get the message: sidelining a negotiated solution between the parties by strong-arming an Israeli villain at the UN was a greenlight for the enforcers in Gaza City and Ramallah.
French authorities are expecting 72 countries to attend Sunday’s Middle East peace conference in Paris — but not Israel or the Palestinians.
Government spokesman Stephane Le Foll said Wednesday both Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu have been invited to come to France after the conference to be informed of its conclusions.
Netanyahu has declined the invitation — saying only direct negotiations will produce a solution.
Abbas is expected to visit the French capital at the end of the week on the sidelines of the conference. It was unclear whether he would meet French President Francois Hollande.
Participants will include US Secretary of State John Kerry.
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.
[PJ] Here is the latest Fake News lie: They actually believe this crap -- Trump partook in "golden showers" in Russia with prostitutes on a bed Obama once slept on... Russia then blackmailed Trump, not by asking for money or influence in his business deals, but by forcing him to run for president against all odds and win?
[Free Beacon] Congressional Democrats pushing for an ethics probe into a Trump cabinet nominee’s stock trades have their own histories of investing in sectors of the economy they oversee, public records show.
[CNN] Classified documents presented last week to President Obama and President-elect Trump included allegations that Russian operatives claim to have compromising personal and financial information about Mr. Trump, multiple US officials with direct knowledge of the briefings tell CNN.
Vietnam War "hero" Senator Dick Blumenthal decided to take the best left-wing opposition research and throw it at Senator Jeff Sessions, Trump's pick for Attorney General. In a creepy scene out of the Soviet Union, Blumenthal demanded that Senator Sessions disavow Horowitz and the Freedom Center.
[WASHINGTONTIMES] Congress’s top 
Hillary Clinton
[CBSNEWS] 
Senator-for-life from New York, renowned for his love of standing in front of cameras. Schumer has been a professional politician since 1975, when disco was in flower. Senate minority leader as of 2017.
[Breitbart] President Obama has gone rogue and only one man can protect American democracy in the next few days: the President-elect.
