Posts on Monday, May 20, 2019

I believe that the technical psychiatric term for Rep. Eric Swalwell is "hot mess." Or at least it should be. After having been exposed as a liar about the "evidence" he claimed to have seen that President Trump is a traitor in league with Russia, Swalwell declared himself a candidate for president. Clearly, he has no chance, but at least one could justify it as a fundraising ploy appealing to the nutso faction of the Democrats, a significant constituency among the Donkeys.

Today was Day 7 of witness testimony in Gibson Bros. v. Oberlin College. The events giving rise to the lawsuit have been said to represent “the worst of identity politics.” (Snip) The court addressed damage issues from a legal perspective earlier in the case, as described in our post Gibson’s Bakery v. Oberlin College trial motions – What’s a reputation worth, and how do you prove it? In a half day of testimony that was full of numbers, the jury deciding whether Oberlin College defamed and libeled a small business

I hope everyone is ready to do some reading…. Moments ago Judiciary Committee ranking member Doug Collins released the transcripts of nine key figures from the House investigation into DOJ and FBI political activity. The transcript release includes testimony from: Former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe – pdf Link Here Former U.S. Attorney General Loretta Lynch – pdf Link Here James Comey former chief-of-staff James Rybicki – pdf Link Here Former FBI lawyer, Office of Legal Counsel, Trisha Beth Anderson – pdf Link Here (snip) This could be overwhelming. So we will post two transcripts per day for full review starting below with the transcript of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe:

Former Vice President Joe Biden and Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) are tied atop the field of Democratic presidential hopefuls in Iowa, according to a new poll, suggesting that the crucial first-in-the-nation caucus state is still in play for both men. An Iowa Starting Line/Change Research poll released on Monday shows Biden and Sanders each receiving 24 percent support among likely Democratic caucusgoers in Iowa. They’re trailed by South Bend, Ind., Mayor Pete Buttigieg, who received 14 percent of the vote, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.), who came in fourth with 12 percent, and Sen. Kamala Harris (D-Calif.) who also had double

PHILADELPHIA — And to think I was worried. Having lingered too long over a cheesesteak lunch, I feared being late for former Vice President Joseph R. Biden’s big kickoff rally here Saturday, forced to watch the event at the Eakins Oval from a mile or so away. But despite showing up at about 12:58 p.m., two minutes before the festivities were set to begin, I easily waltzed right up to the front of the thin crowd, a mere 20 feet or so from the lectern from which Mr. Biden would deliver his remarks. A Barack Obama or Donald Trump rally

CHICAGO – Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Monday questioned whether a backwards-looking message of returning America to a time before President Trump was in the White House is a winning message for Democrats trying to succeed in 2020. The comments by Hickenlooper, who is running for the White House, come as Democratic presidential frontrunner Joe Biden has focused his candidacy on a promise to “restore the soul of the nation” and “rebuild the backbone of the nation” in the wake of Trump’s presidency. “When you are rebuilding, never say you are going to rebuild what was there before,” Hickenlooper

Kurt Kaser had no time to consider his options. The 63-year-old farmer had stepped into a grain auger, the blade violently twisting and twirling to carry corn to a storage bin on his farm in northeastern Nebraska — and, in an instant, his left foot was sucked into the machine. He scrambled as the corkscrew-style blade inside cut off his foot and continued to pull at him, leaving him to wonder when or whether it would stop, he said. “I can remember telling myself, ‘This is not good. This is bad,’ “ he recounted Monday in a phone interview with The Washington Post.

Sorry to burst your balloon, but the world is currently experiencing its third major helium shortage in the last 14 years, putting more than just party decorations at risk. Heather Murphy at The New York Times reports that the shortage recently made headlines when Party City, the chain store perhaps best known for being the place to get bunches of helium balloons, announced the closure of 45 of its 870 stores. Many people, noting that recently some of the stores have been out or short of helium, blamed the low supply of the gas... ...Nevertheless, the story brought to light the fact that helium is currently being rationed.

A federal judge upheld a congressional subpoena seeking President Donald Trump’s financial records from an accounting firm, dealing a blow to the president’s efforts to resist Democratic investigations. U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta’s ruling means that Mazars USA must comply with the House Oversight and Reform Committee’s subpoena for eight years of Trump’s financial records, though the president is certain to appeal the ruling. The president filed suit last month to block the subpoena, arguing that it amounted to an abuse of congressional authority.

In a disturbing report out of Panama, Panamanian authorities have made a new bust linked to Cuba, intercepting a huge shipment of cocaine worth $90 million at the canal, bound for Turkey. Babalu has a report, based on a news item spotted in CiberCuba: Panamanian authorities on Saturday intercepted 46 suitcases containing an estimated $90 million in illegal drugs on a cargo ship that arrived from a Cuban port and was en route to Istanbul, Turkey. The suitcases contained 1,517 packages of drugs hidden in a container declared as containing charcoal. Authorities are still investigating and no arrests have been made. There has been no confirmation the drugs originated in Cuba,

New York City - Crossing the street here can be challenging any time, and you might be even less likely to notice that honking cab or zooming bicyclist if you're looking at your phone. Now, it could become illegal to do so. A bill in the New York State Senate seeks to ban pedestrians from using portable electronic devices while crossing the road. Fines would range from $25 to $250. The statewide ban would include texting, checking emails, and browsing the internet, with exceptions for emergencies. The bill was introduced in the State Assembly last year by Assembly Member Felix W.

The Trump administration earlier this year sought funds from Congress to reimburse leaders of the Taliban for expenses incurred traveling to negotiate peace in Afghanistan with U.S. representatives. The undisclosed sum would repay representatives of the Afghan terrorist organization for expenses like airfare, hotel, food and supplies. The idea, ultimately shot down by a House subcommittee, is one small sign of how eager the U.S. government is to craft a peace settlement in that war-torn country as cover for finally extracting American forces after 18 years of deadly combat. Not coincidentally, although it targets civilians, the Taliban is not listed

First came Rent a Mob for every day malcontent street and park protests. Now it’s Rent a Standing Ovations over at Fox News’ televised ‘Town Hall’ presentations. Democrat (read Socialist) presidential hopefuls don’t so much get standing ovations at Fox News’ Town Halls’—they bring them with them. Message from Fox News to the Caravan of Crazies running for DNC approval in the 2020 presidential election race: Come and Bring Your Standing Ovation Surrogates With You To Our Town Halls Because Fox News Is On YOUR Side.

The U.S. Supreme Court ruled in favor of Native American rights in a 5-4 decision in a case out of Wyoming. Justice Neil Gorsuch, the only Westerner on the court, provided the decisive vote in this case, showing himself again to be sensitive to Native American rights.

There is something Kafkaesque about the current round of investigating possible FBI, CIA, National Security Agency, Justice Department, and National Security Council wrongdoing during the 2016 election, Trump transition, and early presidency. Special Counsel Robert Mueller had been permitted to range well beyond his mandate of “Russian collusion.” He

US traders were gobsmacked at Monday’s opening bell when they glimpsed the day’s top business headline. CNBC and other sites brandished the stunning news that Google (aka, Alphabet, trading symbol GOOGL) was suspending its business activities with Chinese cellphone behemoth Huawei. Specifically, the company is cutting Huawei off from most aspects of Google Android OS tech, the only smartphone OS the Chinese company currently uses.

President Trump, in between battling subpoenas and other demands from congressional committees as they ramp up their probes into his administration, on Monday urged top-ranking Democrats to shift their focus to “Crooked Hillary” and the genesis of the “phony” Russia investigation. The president even suggested House Judiciary Committee Chairman Jerrold Nadler and House Intelligence Committee Chairman Adam Schiff could boost their “credibility” by doing so.

Less than 48 hours after GOP Rep. Justin Amash declared that President Trump "engaged in impeachable conduct," a fellow Republican has vowed to challenge him in the upcoming primary election. Michigan state Rep. Jim Lower made his intentions known Monday morning, announcing that instead of seeking a third term in the state legislature, he will run against Amash for their party's nomination for the 2020 election. Amash has served as the representative for Michigan's Third District since 2011 "Congressman Justin Amash tweets yesterday calling for President Trump’s impeachment show how out of touch he is with the truth

There are two courts of the world meant to ensure equality of justice: The Star Chamber of 17th Century England and the modern day FISA Court in America. England’s Star Chamber history (15th to 17th centuries) had good intentions. At least initially. Henry (Tutor) VII created the Star Chamber for the primary purpose of ensuring the fair enforcement of laws against socially and politically prominent people. Those people so powerful that ordinary courts would probably hesitate to convict them of their crimes.

I called my grandmother recently to check up on her. She lives in Caracas, Venezuela, and I was anxious to see how she was holding up. It was a Friday, the eve of another protest called for by interim President Juan Guaidó. Was it the sixth protest? Or the seventh? In the five months of heightened tension and crisis in Venezuela, I’ve lost count. My grandma, Dora Lopez, was in good spirits. She was in the middle of cooking pasta con caraotas, a working class dish made up of black beans and spaghetti often looked down upon by upper-class palates, but at my grandma’s, this dish is sacred.

If you've been to an event with a Democrat running for president this year, there's a good chance you've heard about it: the racial wealth gap. Candidates are regularly bringing up the fact that the typical black family has only one-tenth the assets of the typical white family — a divide that has grown larger than it was 35 years ago. Far from a niche concern, candidates have incorporated it into their signature proposals. They've addressed it in speeches not just to black churches in South Carolina, but also to mostly white town hall crowds in Iowa and New Hampshire. In

The attempted entrapment of George Papadopoulos by the FBI and possibly the CIA, apparently as an excuse to trigger surveillance of the Trump presidential campaign, may turn into the "smoking gun" that exposes the depth of corruption of the Deep State Russia Hoax. Trey Gowdy, the retired congressman from South Carolina, was, until 2018, chairman of the House Oversight and Investigations Committee, who was able to view classified information uncovered by the GOP congressional investigations when the party enjoyed a majority in the House of Representatives. He is constrained as to what he can reveal about those documents, but yesterday,

During the 2016 presidential campaign I was stunned and often revolted by Donald Trump’s aggressive and insulting verbal behavior and political tactics. (snip) Over time, however, I became fascinated and increasingly impressed with Trump’s successful campaign despite his blatantly unorthodox political tactics and narcissism. I reminded myself that narcissism is not necessarily a psychiatric curse word. The psychoanalytic term for the complex area of self-love and dignity is narcissism, or the narcissistic sector of our personality. It is important to note that narcissism is not necessarily a synonym for selfishness or self-absorption.

Was Joe Biden projecting when he called Donald Trump the "divider-in-chief" in his big campaign speech in Philadelphia Saturday? The former Veep proposed -- in imitation of his one-time boss and apparent idol Barack Obama -- that he would be the man to unite our riven country. Remember "There is not a liberal America and a conservative America—there is the United States of America" from Obama's keynote at the 2004 Democratic National Convention, the speech that ignited his march to the presidency? How far did that go? Just about as far as Barack dismissing Republicans as those who cling to their guns

FARMINGDALE, N.Y. -- His place in PGA Championship history finally secure, Brooks Koepka draped both arms around the top of the Wanamaker Trophy and let out a deep sigh. The stress was more than he wanted. The satisfaction was more than he imagined. Koepka lost all but one shot of his record seven-shot lead on Sunday. Then he lost the brutal Long Island crowd, which began chants of "D.J.! D.J.!" as Koepka was on his way to a fourth straight bogey that allowed Dustin Johnson to pull within one shot. "It's New York," Koepka said. "What do you expect when you're half-choking

Human beings will die without oxygen. Yet breathing pure oxygen will kill you as certainly as taking strychnine or cyanide. Someone should remind Grand Rapids, Michigan’s Congressman Justin Amash of this – and maybe his voters. In a series of tweets on Saturday, Amash declared that “Contrary to Barr’s portrayal, Mueller’s report reveals that President Trump engaged in specific actions and a pattern of behavior that meet the threshold for impeachment.”

The latest tactic for the elite to shaft Normal Americans is the obnoxious “adversity score” that the academifascists who run the SATs plan to introduce as a way to give a fig leaf of objectivity and fairness to their screwing over of your kids in favor of the kids of people they prefer. Do you think there is any chance, and chance at all, that these secret numbers based upon secret factors and kept secret from you will make it more likely for your children to get into one of the elite schools? Yeah, right. If only someone had predicted this kind of social credit nightmare…

The disgraceful decision by the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism to have Al Sharpton speak this morning at a plenary session of its conference in Washington, D.C., (titled “Consultation on Conscience”) sends a very dangerous and intolerable message to the anti-Semites among us. Anti-Semitism is on the rise, not just in the form of shouts or graffiti but also the murder of Jews. It is thus incomprehensible how the Religious Action Center could have ever made this decision. The advertising material promoting this event describes Sharpton as “founder and President of the National Action Network …

So how did Beto O’Rourke go from being the golden boy of the media to a goat in just six months? The media is dunking on him more often than Dr. J or Michael J. in their prime. Margaret Carlson wrote of O’Rourke: According to my unscientific poll asking every woman I see, Beto reminds them of the worst boyfriend they ever had: self-involved, convinced of his own charm, chronically late if he shows up at all, worth a meal or two but definitely not marriage material. When he should be home with the kids or taking out the trash, he’s jamming with his garage band or skateboarding at Whataburger.

Imagine an election in which one party promises to save the planet and the opposing party pledges to save your job. Which is more likely to get your vote? For most people, those who support families and coach T-Ball on weekends, the answer will not require a lot of soul searching. You may have, for various social reasons, told some pollster that the “Save the Earth” party has your support. But it’s a lot easier to focus on the environment if one can count on a steady income. Consequently, in the end, you’ll vote for the “Paycheck Party.” This shouldn’t require enormous prescience to predict, yet it consistently surprises the pollsters.

A conference of local government officials from across California erupted into violence over the weekend when several attendees began throwing punches, with at least one person apparently knocked unconscious, according to five witnesses to the incident. A spokesman with the Riverside County Sheriff’s Department confirmed that a brawl at the Renaissance Indian Wells Resort & Spa had been reported to police around 12:30 a.m. Saturday. Seven people were involved in “an altercation and physical battery,” said Deputy Mike Vasquez. Police tried to identify the people involved but “none of them were cooperative,” Vasquez said. One man was hospitalized for minor injuries, he said.

Democrats in the House are celebrating Friday’s passage of the Equality Act, a misnamed legal jackhammer that would add “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” to federal civil rights law. It goes far beyond allowing men into women’s sports and locker rooms, as bad as that is. It provides the state with the power to persecute anyone who won’t celebrate any aspect of the LGBTQ agenda.

WASHINGTON — House Democrats will hear from former CIA Director John Brennan about the situation in Iran, inviting him to speak next week amid heightened concerns over the Trump administration’s sudden moves in the region. Brennan, an outspoken critic of President Donald Trump, is scheduled to talk to House Democrats at a private weekly caucus meeting Tuesday, according to a Democratic aide and another person familiar with the private meeting. Both were granted anonymity to discuss the meeting. The invitation to Brennan and Wendy Sherman, a former State Department official and top negotiator of the Iran nuclear deal, offers counterprogramming to the Trump administration’s closed-door briefing for lawmakers also planned for Tuesday

Now that’s a motivational speech they can really take to the bank. Billionaire tech investor Robert F. Smith stunned college graduates on Sunday as he gave their commencement speech — offering to pay their student debts despite it costing an estimated $40 million. “On behalf of the eight generations of my family that have been in this country, we’re gonna put a little fuel in your bus,” Smith told the 400 graduating seniors at the all-male Morehouse College in Atlanta.

Google has a page, tucked away deep in your settings, where all your receipts from shopping online are sorted and saved. Ordered sushi on Seamless? Not only is the receipt there, but it lists out the California rolls and edamame. It doesn't stop at Seamless either; it includes anything else you might have bought online too (in which a receipt was sent to your Gmail): Amazon, prescriptions, movies, stuff you paid for using Square. And there are the orders placed using Google services, like Google Play Store, Google Express, or through the Google Assistant. Here's the link to the page (you have to be logged in): https://myaccount.google.com/purchases.

A bus full of foreign tourists was bombed Sunday near Egypt's famed pyramids of Giza, injuring several passengers, authorities said. The explosion happened as the tour bus was driving past the Grand Egyptian Museum, close to the pyramids in Giza, officials said. The bus was headed to the nearby Movenpick hotel when an improvised bomb believed to have been planted by the side of the road detonated, officials said.Several people on the bus were hurt, but an official told ABC News that most of the injuries appear to be minor.

For the second time this month, the U.S. destroyer Preble sailed near islands claimed by China in the disputed South China Sea while the two countries engage in a trade fight. The operation was carried out on Sunday, Reuters reported, citing a commander for the Seventh Fleet. Preble sailed 12 nautical miles off Scarborough Reef “in order to challenge excessive maritime claims and preserve access to the waterways,” the commander said. The most recent round of trade talks between the Trump administration and China broke up earlier this month without an agreement after Trump accused China of backing out on agreed-to parts of a deal and hiked tariffs