[TheFederalist] On Thursday, Fox News reported that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein received prior notice of former Donald Trump private attorney Michael Cohen’s plea deal before Acting Attorney General Matthew Whitaker did.
This reminds me of a tradition the Army observed when there’s a change in command: The departing commanding officer is typically expected to physically leave his office and the organization to give the incoming commander space to assume command. Otherwise, the temptation for subordinates to "check in" with their old commander can seriously undermine the transition’s effectiveness.
Rosenstein seems like an affable guy who continuously demonstrates his wickedly dry humor with ironic speeches claiming fealty to the rule of law. But his mere presence in the Department of Justice is now demonstrably undermining its change in leadership. That the special counsel first checks in the deputy attorney general before the AG proves Rosenstein is still in charge.
In the complicated four-dimensional chess board of Washington DC, the results of a Senate election in Mississippi and President Trump’s trip to the G-20 summit in Argentina both affect Rosenstein’s strategic position. The recent media storm of "new" Trump-Russia collusion stories carpet-bombed the airwaves within hours of the Cohen plea deal.
Of course, this all happened hours before the president’s now-canceled meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin. I’m sure that’s all a coincidence. Just like it was a coincidence that Rosenstein timed the last big Trump-Russia indictments days before the president met with Putin in the 2018 summit. Is the deputy attorney general in charge of American foreign policy?
I don’t play four-dimensional chess. But it seems to me that when a subordinate undermines the president, defies Congress, flouts the rule of law, and now bucks the chain of command, it’s time to reach onto the chess board and relocate Rosenstein’s office to McMurdo Research station in Antarctica. If I were president, Rosenstein would share a desk with Bruce Ohr in their new Antarctic empire. Allow me to offer a very incomplete list of justifications to reassign Rosenstein to the polar tundra.
1. The Wire
Recently, The New York Times published an allegation that Rosenstein, as acting attorney general, "suggested last year that he secretly record President Trump in the White House... discussed recruiting cabinet members to invoke the 25th Amendment to remove Mr. Trump from office for being unfit."
The article included an ambiguous denial from Rosenstein that unspecified details in the report were "inaccurate and factually correct." He added that, "Based on my personal dealings with the president, there is no basis to invoke the 25th Amendment." There is no basis, meaning the story could have been true in 2017.
The denial was transparently evasive. Donald Trump Jr. quipped, "Shocked!!! Absolutely Shocked!!! Ohhh, who are we kidding at this point? No one is shocked that these guys would do anything in their power to undermine @realdonaldtrump." The president should not be expected to cede de facto control of the DOJ to a man who is known to have plotted a coup against him.
2. A History of Mocking and Defying Congressional Oversight
It’s one thing to resist congressional oversight. It’s another thing to do it while giggling and smirking during a congressional hearing and a public speech in Washington. If any lawyer had done the same during a proceeding before an Article III judge, the judge would have been duty-bound to have sanctioned his lack of decorum. A president should not tolerate his subordinate showing such contempt for a co-equal branch of government. Eight more reasons follow:
[The Hill] Conservative author and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi said in an interview that aired Friday on "Rising" that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian election interference was politically motivated.
"Absolutely," Corsi told Hill.TV's Buck Sexton and Jamal Simmons when asked whether he thought Mueller, a former FBI director and Republican nominated to lead the Bureau by former President George W. Bush, was a political partisan.
"My conclusion is the Department of Justice and Mueller's investigation are being run not only by partisan politicians but by criminals," Corsi said.
The criticisms echo remarks by President Trump, who frequently derides the special counsel probe as being a "partisan witch hunt" run by "Angry Democrats" on Twitter. A number of people working for the special counsel investigation have given political donations to Democrats.
Mueller's probe is investigating Corsi and Roger Stone's links to WikiLeaks' release of emails belonging to Hillary Clinton's former campaign chairman, John Podesta, during the 2016 campaign as part of an investigation into whether there was collusion between Trump's campaign and Moscow to interfere in the election.
[Townhall] It's a political story so scandalous that it has been turned into podcasts, analyzed in books, and even given feature film treatment in 2017. Now, the story of Chappaquiddick is going to be a documentary series on Fox News starting this Sunday night.
On July 18th, 1969, Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) was driving with 28-year-old political strategist Mary Jo Kopechne on Chappaquiddick Island, Massachusetts, when they drove off a cliff and sunk with the vehicle. He escaped, she didn't. Kennedy didn't officially report the accident for about 10 hours, which according to authorities would have been plenty of time for them to rescue the drowning girl.
In the first episode of "Scandalous," viewers will learn some more context about the events leading up to that fateful morning. According to producers, they have new evidence to share.
"The program will chronicle the perspective of many of those involved, along with the journalists who covered the puzzling accident that left the political career of the late Senator Edward "Ted" Kennedy tarnished and led to the death of campaign strategist Mary Jo Kopechne," Fox News explained in a statement. "Through archival footage, records and never-before seen photos, the series will revisit the daily twists and turns of the drama that first captivated the world nearly 50 years ago. In addition to airing on FNC, special director cuts of the series will be available on FOX Nation."
[ARMSLIST] The very first time I held a Smith and Wesson 360pd in my hand, I knew that I wanted one. That was a few years ago at an NRA convention if I recall correctly. The Scandium frame and the Titanium cylinder come together to create something very special. The barrel, hammer, trigger, cylinder release, and a few internal parts are about the only iron you will find on this gun.
It all adds up to a serious case of cognitive dissonance. It is very hard to pick up an empty 360PD and think of it chambering .357 rounds. I've held toy guns that are heavier.
#1
S&W manufactures an excellent line of what I call wheel gun 'road pistols.' All carry a lifetime warranty.
Remember to visit the range a minimum of one or two times per year to maintain proficiency and confidence in your weapon. Target placement at 5-7 meters is ideal. Most defensive engagements take place at 21 feet or less. Unless you are an amputee, I strongly recommend the two handed grip as illustrated in the video.
Lastly, Concealed Carry Liability Insurance is a must.
#4
If (God forbid) you ever have to 'skin that smoke wagon' your legal troubles could be costly. BTW, liability insurance for firearms only covers 'legal actions' associated with self defense. Dropping a hammer on a fleeing perp is not generally considered a 'legal action.'
Trick shooting over his shoulder with a mirror during egress...... a possible exception.
#5
Don't like the alloy frame Smiths. I have several M29's in various barrel lengths. Heavy, yes, but I'm not weak.
Never Trump Dana Loesch can s*ck it...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/04/2018 15:24 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Never Trump Dana Loesch can s*ck it...
M. Murcek, Ms Loesch’s Wikipedia page has this to say:
During the 2016 Republican presidential primary, she endorsed the Ted Cruz campaign while disparaging the candidacy of Donald J. Trump. According to The Atlantic, since Trump's election Loesch has become one of the Trump presidency's most visible "passionate defenders".
[Washington Examiner] n the 1973 sci-fi classic "Soylent Green," Charlton Heston's character faces a dystopian future in which a protein made from plankton is grown in test tubes to sustain an overpopulated Earth.
A new National Academies of Sciences study from 18 top scientists suggests that a similar cultured protein will be needed in the not-too-distant future to deal with the problems of population growth and climate change.
The new Department of Energy-funded study on environmental engineering released Monday doesn't suggest that switching the global diet to a lab-made protein will lead to the horrifying climax of "Soylent Green", but it does suggest that beef will have to be made more scarce.
The report finds that livestock farming could be responsible for as much as 14.5 percent of all man-made greenhouse gas emissions, which are blamed for raising the temperature of the Earth. Cattle alone is responsible for almost two-thirds of that 14.5 percent, the study says.
Beef and dairy farming also require far more water per unit of protein produced compared to plant-based protein equivalents, the study says.
The study estimates that global meat production could grow as much as 12 percent by 2026 due to population growth and increasing demand due to rising standards of living in lower- and middle-income countries.
The environmental effects of this increase could be reduced by shifting global dietary patterns that de-emphasize animal-based protein, especially beef.
Not unlike "Soylent Green," the National Academies report says a variety of meatless protein products, including protein products grown from "animal and plant tissue cells in culture, are becoming available."
#3
So tell me, do the cows yet outnumber the vast, massive herds of buffalo that used to roam the US? How much methane did they emit? And since your version of climate change is a fraud, do we really even care or should we care just enough to burn these people at the stake?
#4
Think of the Children™! When we start colonizing the rest of the Solar System we want those (great- ?) grand-children to enjoy a nice juicy steak made to order from vat-grown protein. Hopefully they will get it cooked correctly at the time, say Medium-Rare instead of Well Done...
#7
In the 1973 sci-fi classic "Soylent Green," Charlton Heston's character faces a dystopian future in which a protein made from plankton is grown in test tubes to sustain an overpopulated Earth
Except they moved on to other resources to make 'food'.
You a vegan? The Soylent Corporation is looking to expand a new 'organic' division. Think of it as a way to put less stress on old Mother Earth.
#11
Thirty-odd years ago, an article in Scientific American traced the beginning of agriculture - and cows - 8,000 years ago, to the start of a warming trend (not yet tagged climate change). The graph suggested were it not for the cow flatulence, we'd be smack in the middle of another ice age right now.
There's no news like recycled news!
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/04/2018 9:39 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Since we're likely heading for another ice age, I for one, welcome our bovine saviors especially medium rare filet mignon with an abundance of Hollandaise.
LDR: An administrator encouraged Sigma Chi to take down the American flag flown in front of its house in order to improve its image on campus.
Let me explain. We all know the fate of Sigma Chi: it no longer exists. As is the experience of many Stanford Greek organizations past, while on probation last year, Sigma Chi sought to improve its image with the university so as to ensure its survival and the eventual lifting of its probation. Obviously, this aim was not realized. Sigma Chi is gone. Nevertheless, some administrative advice extended to Sigma Chi during this effort is worth noting, even after the fact, for its anti-Americanism.
Pablo Lozano '18 is the primary source for the following account. Other individuals, who asked not to be named, have corroborated it.
Continued on Page 49
[Stephen F. Cohen at The Nation] War With Russia?, like the biography of a living person, is a book without an end. The title is a warning‐akin to what the late Gore Vidal termed "a journalistic alert-system"‐not a prediction. Hence the question mark. I cannot foresee the future. The book’s overarching theme is informed by past and current facts, not by any political agenda, ideological commitment, or magical prescience.
To restate that theme: The new US-Russian Cold War is more dangerous than was its 40-year predecessor that the world survived. The chances are even greater that this one could result, inadvertently or intentionally, in actual war between the two nuclear superpowers. Herein lies another ominous indication. During the preceding Cold War, the possibility of nuclear catastrophe was in the forefront of American mainstream political and media discussion, and of policy-making. During the new one, it rarely seems to be even a concern.
In the latter months of 2018, the facts and the mounting crises they document grow worse, especially in the US political-media establishment, where, as I have argued, the new Cold War originated and has been repeatedly escalated. Consider a few examples, some of them not unlike political and media developments during the run-up to the US war in Iraq or, historians have told us, how the great powers "sleepwalked" into World War I:
§ Russiagate’s core allegations‐US-Russian collusion, treason‐all remain unproven. Yet they have become a central part of the new Cold War. If nothing else, they severely constrain President Donald Trump’s capacity to conduct crisis negotiations with Moscow while they further vilify Russian President Vladimir Putin for having, it is widely asserted, personally ordered "an attack on America" during the 2016 presidential campaign. Some Hollywood liberals had earlier omitted the question mark, declaring, "We are at war." In October 2018, the would-be titular head of the Democratic Party, Hillary Clinton, added her voice to this reckless allegation, flatly stating that the United States was "attacked by a foreign power" and equating it with "the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks."
[Townhall] Wildfires have devastated California and killed 88 people, with the number of casualties continuously rising. Californians lost their homes, farms, and pets. Americans throughout the nation have offered assistance and contributed financially. Our hearts broke from news of the devastation.
These California fires were not started intentionally. But what if we lived in fear that park fires would be started maliciously? What if we were threatened daily with arson terrorism?
Arson terrorism has been a daily and agonizing reality in Israel.
Israel has spent this past year under unyielding bombardment of terroristic arson. For over seven months, on a daily basis, Israeli farms, homes, schools, national parks, and wildlife sanctuaries have been burned by malicious fires, fires started as intentional acts of terrorism.
Palestinian Hamas and Islamic Jihad members and supporters, who desire to overtake Israel and "kill Jews," have been attempting to weaken the Israeli borders by overwhelming the border towns with unremitting fires. The fires are started by terrorists launching burning kites and incendiary balloons from Gaza into Israel. The fires rage and firefighters struggle to put them out.
[Defense One] Worried about the NSA monitoring you? If you take certain steps to mask your identity online, such as using the encryption service TOR, or even investigating an alternative to the buggy Windows operating system, you’re all but asking for "deep" monitoring by the NSA.
TOR is an encryption network developed by the U.S. Naval Research Laboratory in the 1990s. The military’s hope was to enable government workers to search the web without exposing their locations and identities. The system today is widely available, runs on open source code and is popular among privacy advocates as a more secure alternative to open Internet surfing, particularly in countries with repressive regimes. It works by encrypting the user’s address and routing the traffic through servers that are located around the world (so-called "onion routing.") How does the NSA access it? Through a computer system called XKeyscore, one of the various agency surveillance tools that NSA leaker Edward Snowden disclosed last summer.
According to a recent report from the German media outlet Tagesschau, a group of TOR affiliates working with Tagesschau looked into the source code for XKeyscore. They found that nine servers running TOR, including one at the MIT Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory, were under constant NSA surveillance. The code also revealed some of the behaviors that users could undertake to immediately be tagged or "fingerprinted" for so-called deep packet inspection, an investigation into the content of data packages you send across the Internet, such as emails, web searches and browsing history.
If you are located outside of the U.S., Canada, the U.K. or one of the so-called Five Eyes countries partnering with the NSA in its surveillance efforts, then visiting the TOR website triggers an automatic fingerprinting. In other words, simply investigating privacy-enhancing methods from outside of the United States is an act worthy of scrutiny and surveillance according to rules that make XKeyscore run. Another infraction: hating Windows.
If you visit the forum page for the popular Linux Journal, dedicated to the open-source operating system Linux, you could be fingerprinted regardless of where you live because the XKeystore source code designates the Linux Journal as an "extremist forum." Searching for the Tails, operating system, another Windows alternative popular among human rights watchers, will also land you on the deep-packet inspectee list.
Science fiction author Cory Doctorow, an editor at the popular technology blog Boing Boing, was quick to take exception to the findings, questioning not only the propriety of the tactics revealed in the researchers’ report but also their utility.
#5
The old editor unix 'emacs' used to have an actual command, I believe it was called 'spook' or 'meta-X spook', which would insert the 7 words which would guarantee that your file would be read by the NSA.
emacs had all sorts of easter-eggs like that.
#9
Back in the day, I had a Libertarian friend who liked to start a phone call with "Revolution, Revolution, Revolution, ♫Hello, NSA!♫" before going on to talk about a tabletop RPG game...
[Live Mint] But I saw it in the Dallas Morning News. Looks like the first few paragraphs are identical. And in many other sites, too. Journalism!
No more dinners with female colleagues. Don’t sit next to them on flights. Book hotel rooms on different floors. Avoid one-on-one meetings.
In fact, as a wealth adviser put it, just hiring a woman these days is "an unknown risk." What if she took something he said the wrong way?
Across Wall Street, men are adopting controversial strategies for the #MeToo era and, in the process, making life even harder for women. Unintended consequences? Or Saul Alinsky at work?
Call it the Pence Effect, if you're a never-Trumper after US Vice President Mike Pence, who has said he avoids dining alone with any woman other than his wife. In finance, the overarching impact can be, in essence, gender segregation.
Interviews with more than 30 senior executives suggest many are spooked by #MeToo and struggling to cope. "It’s creating a sense of walking on eggshells," said a former managing director at Morgan Stanley.
Now, more than a year into the #MeToo movement ‐ with its devastating revelations of harassment and abuse in Hollywood, Silicon Valley and beyond ‐ Wall Street risks becoming more of a boy’s club, rather than less of one.
"Women are grasping for ideas on how to deal with it, because it is affecting our careers," said [the] president of the Financial Women’s Association and a senior vice president at Wells Fargo & Co. "It’s a real loss."
There’s a danger, too, for companies that fail to squash the isolating backlash and don’t take steps to have top managers be open about the issue and make it safe for everyone to discuss it, said an employment attorney.
"If men avoid working or travelling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment," he said, "those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint." I think this guy is looking for more client he can steer between the rock and the hard place.
On Wall Street as elsewhere, reactions to #MeToo can smack of paranoia or paranoid feminism. "Some men have voiced concerns to me that a false accusation is what they fear," said Zweig, the lawyer. "These men fear what they cannot control."
There are as many or more men who are responding in quite different ways. One, an investment adviser who manages about 100 employees, said he briefly reconsidered having one-on-one meetings with junior women. He thought about leaving his office door open, or inviting a third person into the room.
Finally, he landed on the solution: "Just try not to be an a---ole."
That’s pretty much the bottom line, said [the] chief executive officer of Context Capital Partners. "It’s really not that hard."
In this charged environment, the question is how the response to me #MeToo might actually end up hurting women's progress. Given the male dominance in Wall Street's top jobs, one of the most pressing consequences for women is the loss of male mentors who can help them climb the ladder. Suggesting the old system was set up to help find cooperative 'rising stars'?
"There aren't enough women in senior positions to bring along the next generation all by themselves," said Lisa Kaufman, chief executive officer of LaSalle Securities. "Advancement typically requires that someone at a senior level knows your work, gives you opportunities and is willing to champion you within the firm. It's hard for a relationship like that to develop if the senior person is unwilling to spend one-on-one time with a more junior person." My favorite boss mentored me, coached me, gave me opportunities, but with very little "one-on-one time". Perhaps somebody is hyperventilating here.
Men have to step up, she said, and "not let fear be a barrier." You're not paranoid if half the world thinks it's your fault because you're male.
No more than a quarter. At least half of women aren’t that silly, but unfortunately there’s no way to tell until afterward who is which.
Posted by: Bobby ||
12/04/2018 09:04 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
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#1
I've heard from quite a few women that they don't like having another women as their boss. Curious
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/04/2018 10:24 Comments ||
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#2
Female bosses are trouble....or do I have that backwards ?
#3
My worst bosses have been female. But my best boss was also female, so I don’t see a s3x link there. Trailing daughter #2 will one day soon start being the best boss her people ever have — she is just like her father, but she and I worked on skills during her childhood that he only developed from on-the-job experience.
#8
"Just try not to be an a---ole." "It’s really not that hard."
What a contradiction those two statements make when juxtaposed. It is REALLY THAT HARD. Some of the participants in this brouhaha make it so.
#10
Finally, he landed on the solution: "Just try not to be an a---ole."
And who gets to define what being an asshole is?
And how does this eliminate the risk of false accusations?
"Women are grasping for ideas on how to deal with it, because it is affecting our careers," said [the] president of the Financial Women’s Association and a senior vice president at Wells Fargo & Co. "It’s a real loss."
Men in danger of false accusations which could ruin their careers and lives --- women hardest hit!
#11
Welcome to feminism. Cortez, Maxene,Pelosi, and Hillary to name a few. Flashing red lights to avoid. No wonder men have dropped out of the dating game. No wonder women have turned to drink and drugs. I spoke to a former Church pastor and marriage councilor. The women of his congregation wanted their own bible study. The result as in the outside world the women consult and advise on how to get the most out of a marriage to a man or a job. This women's bible study group resulted in all getting divorces.
[National Review] CIA director Gina Haspel will brief lawmakers Tuesday on the assassination of Saudi journalist Jamal Khashoggi, the Wall Street Journal reported Monday afternoon.
The news comes after prominent senators on both sides of the aisle complained publicly about the Trump administration’s alleged efforts to prevent Haspel from briefing lawmakers.
White House officials reportedly told Haspel not to attend a classified congressional briefing on Saudi Arabia last Wednesday, prompting speculation that the officials sought to avoid a confrontation between Haspel, whose agents have determined with high confidence that Saudi crown prince Mohammad bin Salman ordered Khashoggi’s murder, and White House personnel who have cast doubt on that finding.
Following Haspel’s absence from the Wednesday briefing, Senator Lindsey Graham threatened to block Republican leadership’s legislative agenda until Haspel was invited to brief him and his colleagues.
"I’m not going to blow past this. If that briefing is not given soon, it’s gonna be hard for me to vote for any spending bill," Graham told reporters on Capitol Hill.
When pressed on what specific measures he would oppose, Graham added, "I’m talking about any key vote. Anything that you need me for to get out of town, I ain’t doing it until we hear from the CIA."
#6
When they're done with this, can we look at doing something about the death of Alexios IV Angelos? I understand that happened in Constantinople too.
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 Hill] Conservative author and conspiracy theorist Jerome Corsi said in an interview that aired Friday on "Rising" that special counsel Robert Mueller's probe into Russian election interference was politically motivated. 
[Townhall] It's a political story so scandalous that it has been turned into podcasts, analyzed in books, and even given feature film treatment in 2017. Now, the story of Chappaquiddick is going to be a documentary series on Fox News starting this Sunday night. 
[Washington Examiner] n the 1973 sci-fi classic "Soylent Green," Charlton Heston's character faces a dystopian future in which a protein made from plankton is grown in test tubes to sustain an overpopulated Earth.
Across Wall Street, men are adopting controversial strategies for the #MeToo era and, in the process, making life even harder for women.
"If men avoid working or travelling with women alone, or stop mentoring women for fear of being accused of sexual harassment," he said, "those men are going to back out of a sexual harassment complaint and right into a sex discrimination complaint."
In this charged environment, the question is how the response to me #MeToo might actually end up hurting women's progress. Given the male dominance in Wall Street's top jobs, one of the most pressing consequences for women is the loss of male mentors who can help them climb the ladder. 
