NY Atty General Eric Schneidermann has just served the foundation with a “shut it down” order regarding veteran’s fundraiser!  MORE as it evolves! does not mean the foundation has to stop GIVING money — only that it has to stop soliciting money!

Charitable foundations must be registered with the state to be able to legally raise funds, however, according to the Washington Post, Atty Gen. Schneidermann has declined to state whether this lack of registration is the reason for the Cease and Desist Order.  

Schneiderman’s office declined to comment on whether it was investigating the lack of registration for the Trump Foundation. Schneiderman had previously launched an investigation of the foundation in the wake of reports by The Washington Post that Trump used his charity’s money to make a political gift, to buy paintings of himself and to settle legal disputes involving his for-profit businesses.

IF the paperwork is the sole reason for the shutdown, the foundation now has 15 days to file the proper paperwork regarding the money raised for Veteran’s charity — if they don’t file the proper paperwork, they will have to refund the money raised so far.

However, the Atty General is has been investigating multiple violations within the foundation:

the lack of donations by mr trump into the foundation, two portraits of trump that are in his personal possession, as well as the political donation for pam bond (the foundation was fined $25,000 for that donation that was paid personally by trump who then paid the $25,000 back into the foundation).

according to WAPO, Trump also has directed money owed his business to pay those funds into his tax free foundation.

Donald Trump’s charitable foundation has received approximately $2.3 million from companies that owed money to Trump or one of his businesses but were instructed to pay Trump’s tax-exempt foundation instead, according to people familiar with the transactions.

In cases where he diverted his own income to his foundation, tax experts said, Trump would still likely be required to pay taxes on the income. Trump has refused to release his personal tax returns. His campaign said he paid income tax on one of the donations, but did not respond to questions about the others.

the question now is whether this is “too little, too late”— has the media failed so miserably at its job that people no longer care what this man does — they will vote for him anyway!  let’s hope the october surprises just keep on coming.  unless, of course, trump can make up enough stories to feed their frenzy until november.

are you aware that mike pence signed into law on July that makes it mandatory for all fetuses to have funerary treatment — either cremation or burial — even if the woman has a miscarriage at two months? Emma Green, writing for the Atlantic, explains the state mandated “ritual” burial:

Here’s what will happen after a woman gets an abortion in the state of Indiana, starting this July. She will be told, verbally and in writing, that she has the right to choose what she does with her aborted fetus. She will be given a list of her options for disposal, and offered counseling. The fetus does not have to be named, but it will receive its own burial-transit form, just like any dead body. This form will travel with it to a funeral home, where it will be buried or cremated. There won’t necessarily be a ceremony; the fetus may not get its own headstone or urn. But it will be laid to rest in the way of a human. Aborted fetuses in Indiana, nearly all smaller than a peapod, will no longer be treated as medical waste.

in an eye-popping article by emily crockett writing for VOX (oct 3, 2016):

the wording of the burial provision meant that technically, even if a woman had a miscarriage at eight weeks of pregnancy at home, she would have to keep the blood and tissue, take it to a hospital or clinic, and have it buried or cremated by a funeral home. The law would have also dramatically increased the cost of an abortion, since providers would have had to spend time and money on arranging the funerary services.

women in indiana fought back with their own campaign called “periods for pence” where gov. pence was invited to be present during gynocological exams and was kept updated on when women changed their tampons.  the movement is now on facebook renamed to “periods for politicians formerly periods for pence”.

while women find a way to ridicule pence, the actual law is not funny at all. aside from the incredibly intrusive burden it places on women, this law would also ensure that no stem cell research could be obtained by destroying all fetal tissue following the end of the pregnancy. the speculated goal is to raise the cost of an abortion to make it prohibitive (along with slut shaming any woman who is not making live babies.
the law signed by pence is one of a long line of punitive laws punishing women for pregnancy.  according to Planned Parenthood, pence was the first to introduce legislation to defund that organization while in congress:

For years, Mike Pence has been on what Politico dubbed a “one-man crusade” to end patients’ access to care at Planned Parenthood health centers. In Congress, he started the whole “defund” Planned Parenthood thing: He introduced the first federal measure to block patients from care at Planned Parenthood… and then introduced five more… and said he’d shut down the government over it. He’s still trying. - See more at: www.plannedparenthoodaction.org/...

in addition to the bloody law pence has signed into practice, he has a long history of being anti-woman. there is no abortion law that pence doesn’t love, including making it illegal to abort a fetus with disability.  this law endangers the health of the living human to protect an unviable fetus.  this begs the question “why”?
looking at the trump/pence ticket, we are faced with a degree of misogeny never before given this much power.  from trump’s view of women based on the decimal system to pence’s insertion of his position into the private anatomy of women, we are shown two men who demean, disrespect and loathe women.  they are threatened by women who are autonomous, who are intelligent, who are independent of the domination of their male counterparts.
we have been warned by the actions of these men in the past and to ignore those actions is at our own peril.

pence also objected to condoms in the prevention of std’s as being “too modern”.  huh? in an interview with wolf blitzer, pence was asked about colin powell’s urging that condoms be used as an effective preventative for HIV/AIDS:  

“I think it’s important for young people, especially, to protect themselves from the possibility of acquiring any sexually transmitted disease, but especially to protect themselves from HIV/AIDS, which is a plague that is upon the face of the earth,” Powell said.

pence told blitzer that he disagreed with powell — comparing the “sad day” to “boxers and briefs”:  

“Well, Wolf, I think it was — given the enormous stature that Colin Powell rightly has, not only in America but in the world community — it was a sad day. I don’t think any administration has had a worse day since boxers and briefs on MTV,” Pence said on CNN to Wolf Blitzer. “And the truth is that Colin Powell had an opportunity here to reaffirm this president’s commitment to abstinence as the best choice for our young people, and he chose not to do that in the first instance, but — and so I think it’s very sad.”

“The other part is that, frankly, condoms are a very, very poor protection against sexually transmitted diseases, and in that sense, Wolf, this was — the secretary of state may be inadvertently misleading millions of young people and endangering lives,” continued Pence.

Pence said the solution was “too modern” for him.

pence and trump are both anti-science, anti-intellectual and both operate on pure lust for power over women and the nation. under NO circumstances must either of them EVER be allowed anywhere near the seat of power again!  their actions represent the anti-science trend in multiple states that have outlawed the use of any fetal tissue for research, as well.
a trump/pence ticket would continue to pursue this attack on a woman’s right to abortion as well as critical medical research on diseases like spinal paralysis, alzheimers. rubella, hepatitis a, hiv, macular degeneration, and more.  the vaccine for polio was developed from research on fetal tissue from kidney cells.

Indiana is not alone in its concern for the final resting place of fetuses. In March, South Dakota made it illegal to use aborted fetal tissue in research, and in April, Idaho and Alabama made it illegal to buy, sell, donate, or experiment on these remains. Tennessee made it illegal for sale. The legislatures of Ohio, South Carolina, and Mississippi have all recently considered burial and cremation requirements, and Arkansas and Georgia already have similar statutes in place. Like many of these other states, Indiana’s law effectively prohibits women or health-care facilities from donating fetal tissue for medical research.

this is just the tip of the iceberg that will sink this country if these two suceed in winning this election!
GOTV — go call  — go phone bank — try harder with that right winger friend or relative — these men can NOT win — ever again!

he mentioned his “perfectly formed beautiful hands”— really?  REALLY — he just HAD to go to the gutter during this fundraiser for catholic charities!  then he compared himself to god — as starting out as a “carpenter”—  he did have one good joke — hillary is cracking up — he mentioned that she accidentally bumped into him and said “pardon me”—  she cracked up — he then went on to say “talk to me after i get into office”— he is really not that funny — he is sliding the nastiness into the speech.   she is laughing at him, not with him — he just said after calling her a “nasty woman” and she went on and on — he has decided he likes rosie o’donnell a lot now. ugh.  

let’s see what she has to say...

ok — NOW this is funny!  he said that when michelle obama gives a speech, everybody loves it. then his wife melania gives the exact same speech and took a lot of grief for it — i just don’t GET it!”

 now THAT was funny!  

markos published his diary saying what we’ve been thinking — what IF… there is an accident, illness, emergency, weather, earthquake, flood, snowstorm, hurricane, tornado, or just a bad hair day! voting early when we can ensures our voices will be heard — and at my age (now 71), i have no guarantee of surviving the next two weeks!  actually, NO one has the guarantee that they won’t encounter something unexpected — so, we took markos’ words to heart and headed out to the county elections board today. this is our story — a real life proof of “voter fraud”!  trump will be at our door — why? because “we” voted!  (and everyone knows that a dog can’t legally vote — especially if he is not registered!

now pooties are another story…   

lyublyu voices his approval now knowing our vote(s) will be counted for the first “bitch” for president!  WHOOO HOOOOOOOO GO HILLARY!

some have questioned my use of “re-opening”— this is due to the media repeatedly using this phrase, trump is using this phrase and the constant pushing by the republicans who are commenting on comey’s letter.  once this statement is made, it will be what stays with the audience who first hears it. msnbc is trying to walk back their own claim the case was being “re-opened” by blaming it on trump. um — no — i heard their orginal announcement on msnbc. they are trying to correct their error now.  too little, too late.  IF proper news reporting had been done, the damage now occurring by republicans and the news announcer, hallie jackson, would not be this serious!

does anyone else find this troubling considering his unprecedented statement at the time of the determination?  i smell a rat. especially the timing.  more as it unfolds…

comey sent the letter to 16 members of congress… let me guess their,political affiliation.

and why do i get the feeling this is going to backfire on republicans!

chaffetz sent tweet stating that he “just received an email” that the case was reopened.  

msnbc said comey has been under great criticism from republicans for not prosecuting and this may be an attempt to,circle back and make sure he has covered everything. comey claims that some “new” information has come forward and is being looked into.  msnbc thinks he is just comey “keeping everyone on the loop” 

now is the time to get out the rape and molestation charges, fraud at fake university, lawsuits, etc. and push hard.

wow — RT announced this— how sweet — breaking even as the u.s. media announces this?  smell much?  

comey’s letter:

This is the second time i’ve tried to edit this!

i erred. this story first appeared in the guardian on oct 12, not today.  i mistakenly assumed it appeared today as i have not seen this covered in the u.s. media.  so the comey and this story are not in the same timeframe. however there are still questions that deserve an answer regarding both stories!

why did every republican hitman and woman have prepared statements ready?  WHY did donald trump go into his rally 20 minutes early? WHY was the letter from comey announced while Clinton was in the air and out of reach of the media? well, we may know now... the Guardian has a fascinating story out, a federal judge in ny set the first court date against donald trump and jeffrey epstein in the alleged rape of a 13 year old girl:

A federal judge in New York has ordered counsel for Donald Trump and the disgraced financier Jeffrey Epstein to appear in court along with the attorney for a woman referred to only as “Jane Doe” who alleges the Republican presidential nominee raped her when she was 13.

Judge Ronnie Abrams has slated an initial status conference in the civil lawsuit for 16 December in a New York district court. 

The order raises the extraordinary prospect, were Trump to win the 8 November battle for the White House, of counsel for a US president-elect being called into federal court in proceedings relating to allegations of rape of an underage girl.

has the media even mentioned this? has a single reporter covered this case at all?   nope.

while this story has garnered NO attention in the u.s. nonstop media circus, comey’s letter to 18 members of congress that says nothing other than we are looking at a few more emails that may not have any relevance to anything but we are looking at them anyway and they are from a totally different source. the media has NOT addressed the much more serious implications of a presidential candidate being sued for the alleged rape of an underage child !

but… three emails vaguely referenced as not being relevant are all the media is covering! maybe the “weiner” aspect is more closely related to this story than we realize, even if the rape of a 13 yr old is considered not relevant to this election cycle.

they totally ignored him! nada… nuthin’.

aside from the hysterical kelly anne conway ridicule to roxie hart take-off (in case anyone forgot, roxie was a murderer), the end of the show was perfect!  you KNOW tRump was glued to his teevee. unable to sleep due to his concern over how they would “dis” him… and “dis, him, they did — to perfection!

the show ended with the beautiful song: to sir, with love — with an awesome image of president obama looming large on the screen.  as the song ended, the two stars singing held up a coffee mug saying "world’s best president” and one of them quickly and poignantly said “DON’T GO!

to ignore tRump is the most lethal way of dealing with his ego… make him invisible on what he thought would be his big night on SNL … something he could rant and rail against tomorrow. now what can he say?  “they didn’t mention me at all and i’m PRESIDENT!!!!   

ha ha ha ha ha ha ha!!!

just now, on the weather channel, officials in dougherty county, georgia were BEGGING for help after tornados and storms cut a damaging swath through multiple small towns.  the extensive damage caused by the storms and tornados caused multiple fatalities, destroyed homes and multiple businesses, including proctor & gamble and coats & clarks facilities. 

ft stewart military base was damaged (no injuries) and a major power line supplying electricity to the region was destroyed.  many people are still missing and feared dead.

the official speaking, no...pleading, for help repeatedly stated they did not need money but resources. he stated that he personally flew to washington to ask for fema aid and how difficult it is for proud people to ask for help.

what is happening in georgia today has not been resolved, but there was an important executive order signed today to remove part of the aca that will enable employers to opt out of funding healthcare.

priorities. and circles … dantesque circles … and it is all coming to pass from day one.  the storms raged in georgia while the band played on — and the storms continue to move up the coast.

massive snowfall, mudslides in california, record snowfall in many states, flooding and storms throughout the states.

will a tweet make it better? will lack of healthcare repair the broken bones left in the wake of storms? will the new part time resident in the whitehouse finally realise it is HIS responsibility to “fix” the damage?

already, the stress is showing — what toll will it take on america to finally prove that the presidency isn’t an apprenticeship or reality teevee show where the director yells CUT! and the scene is reset for a different outcome.

and, so it begins.

welcome to hell… how long it takes to emerge from the abyss is unknown, but, hopefully, some will survive to tell the tale of how america lost its ability to see reality vs fiction.

frankly, i fear this is only the befinning of our long journey into the depths of despair.

standing in front of my tv flipping the bird with both hands at kac, brannon and tRump as they get ready to leave for joint session.

i know they can’t see me, but i DO feel better! better than throwing a shoe and having to buy a new tv.  or….

maybe i’ll just switch back to criminal minds instead.

feel free to slam, slander, annoy, vex, chastise, glower, gnash, scream, throw things (soft so as not to break valuable electronics) below…

today, got into a brief dialogue with a 30 something male who supports tRump.

his argument is that we need a “businessman” in the white house and government and we should give him a chance.

when i pointed out that tRump has had a minimum of four bankruptcies, his response was “well, he learned from his mistakes!"

when i pointed out the independent dontractors were never paid, the little guys screwed, he responded again “let’s give him a chance and see what he does — he is a successful businessman!"

when i pointed out that now all he does is sell his name, he builds nothing… this young man had no answer other than to “give him a chance..."

we are so fucked.

spicer is reading a diatribe about fisa rules instead of answering blunt question regarding committees stating no wiretapping found.  everytime the reporter tries to ask him about the point blank statement saying no wiretaps, spicer shuts him down breathlessly reading long statement that is PAGES long — telling reporter he will let him have a follow up question — duh — bet he will be “out of time” before that happens… the reporter is not giving up and the msnbc crawl states “white house deflects questions over senate intel. chief’s refuting trump’s wiretap claims”.

ha ha ha ha — bet spicy doesn’t know that crawl is there making him look even stupider — dumber and dumbest press secretary evah!

HAH HAH — the reporter didn’t miss a beat — went right back to it — and spicey is now quoting what he just read… but the reporter said “i don’t need that real long answer” and the reporters laughed!

spicey sputters!  “BUT you’re mischaracterizing what happened today!”.

he is trying to shout down the reporters — it isn’t working.  spicey should learn he can’t win by overtalking — it just pisses reporters off — and FINALLY they are striking back.  one reporter just pointed out he is quoting sean hannity instead of the intelligence committee — spicey replied that he is “cherry picking” and there was audible laughter by the reporters…

one of the reporters is now overtalking spicey — this is rich!  i need to start watching these pressers — they are pushing back on the nonsense!

i’ve been wondering for a while since the heavy advertising for dna testing to determine your “ancestry” on these sites like ancestry.com.  the method is so simple. just swab and send and get added to their database and find out your ancestry through your dna profile.

now that sounds neat, right?

BUT…

i’ve had this lingering question for a while:  could these dna profiles and records of those who submit their dna be subpoena’d by law enforcement and, if yes, for what reasons?

from ancestry.com website:

Requests for Ancestry User Information
Ancestry requires valid legal process in order to produce information about our users. We comply with legitimate requests in accordance with applicable law and our Privacy Statements.

Law Enforcement Requests Outside the United States:
Depending on the jurisdiction of the requesting law enforcement agency, a Mutual Legal Assistance Treaty request or letter rogatory may be required to compel the disclosure of records. This is because our users’ account data can only be accessed by Ancestry.com Operations Inc. (located in the United States) and Ancestry Information Operations Unlimited Company (located in Ireland). International law enforcement authorities may also submit requests for emergency disclosure. We will provide responsive records in accordance with applicable law and our policies.

Law Enforcement Requests in the United States:
Ancestry will release basic subscriber information as defined in 18 USC § 2703(c)(2) about Ancestry users to law enforcement only in response to a valid trial, grand jury or administrative subpoena.

Ancestry will release additional account information or transactional information pertaining to an account (such as search terms, but not including the contents of communications) only in response to a court order issued pursuant to 18 USC § 2703(d).

Contents of communications and any data relating to the health or DNA of an Ancestry user will be released only pursuant to a valid search warrant from a government agency with proper jurisdiction.

If we receive a valid request under U.S. law to preserve records that constitute potentially relevant evidence in legal proceedings, we will preserve, but not disclose, a temporary snapshot of the relevant account records for 90 days pending service of valid legal process as described above.

How We Respond to Legal Requests
Respect for the privacy and security of our users’ account data drives our approach to complying with legal requests for information. When we receive a request our team reviews it to make sure it satisfies legal requirements and our policies. If we believe a request is overly broad, we will try to narrow it to the extent legally permitted.

How to Request Ancestry User Information
Ancestry responds to valid legal process issued in compliance with applicable law.

When requesting user account information, please include:

• If available/known, the full name of the subject Ancestry account holder, the account holder’s username and the email and/or mailing address associated with the account(s);
• Details about what specific information is requested (e.g., basic subscriber information) and its relationship to the investigation. We are unable to process overly broad or vague requests; and
• A valid official email address (e.g., name@agency.gov) so we may get back in touch with you upon receipt of your legal process.

Requests should be made in writing and should be submitted by certified mail, express courier, or in person at the addresses listed below; and an additional copy may be sent by email. We do not accept legal process by email or fax unless the request is an emergency request. Our contact information is available at the bottom of this Guide. Written requests must be made on law enforcement letterhead and be signed by the responsible law enforcement officer.

We Will Notify Users of Requests Unless Prohibited From Doing So
Our policy for all requests is to notify users of the request and provide a copy of the request prior to disclosure, unless we are legally restricted from doing so. In the United States, law enforcement officials may prevent this disclosure by submitting a court order pursuant to 18 U.S.C. § 2705(b) or equivalent state statute that is signed by a judge. We will evaluate requests not to notify users from law enforcement outside the U.S. under applicable law. For all requests, we may also decide, in our sole discretion, not to notify the user if doing so would be counterproductive and we are legally permitted to do so.

well, looks like the answer is yes — not just to local law enforcement, but also through international legal requests, as well.

why should this bother you or me? how about hackability? how secure are their servers? what is the value of that data to an outside company (think insurance, large corporations, pharmaceutical industry).

well, in the troubled times we now are in, i am not at all comfortable with access to determinate “fingerprints” through DNA being kept in a private, hackable, unsecured business.  nor am i at ease with the ability of law enforcement to obtain DNA through such an indirect method.  

mistakes can be and are made in record keeping. errors are made in testing.is the testing done on the forensic level that would prevent mistakes being made?  what protocols are used?  having a subpoena issued without the subject’s knowledge of an investigation taking place also puts that information into hands that are not necessarily trustworthy.

with the congress trying to push through laws demanding that employees submit dna samples to be employed… where do we go next?  when did we lose total right to privacy?

soooo…

if you were thinking of sending out that little swab of spit… maybe time to rethink it?

not just your DNA … your relatives could cause a problem!  this story in wired shares a man who was taken into custody due to similar alleles to his profile — due to shared alleles with his father who was in the police dna familial database. 

The bewildered Usry soon learned that he was a suspect in the 1996 murder of an Idaho Falls teenager named Angie Dodge. Though a man had been convicted of that crime after giving an iffy confession, his DNA didn’t match what was found at the crime scene. Detectives had focused on Usry after running a familial DNA search, a technique that allows investigators to identify suspects who don’t have DNA in a law enforcement database but whose close relatives have had their genetic profiles cataloged. In Usry’s case the crime scene DNA bore numerous similarities to that of Usry’s father, who years earlier had donated a DNA sample to a genealogy project through his Mormon church in Mississippi. That project’s database was later purchased by Ancestry, which made it publicly searchable—a decision that didn’t take into account the possibility that cops might someday use it to hunt for genetic leads.  [emphasis mine]

let me repeat this: this is the database that was purchased by Ancestry, which made it publically searchable.  the wired article continues:

Familial DNA searching is only going to get more prevalent as the cost of rapid DNA analysis plummets and the size of genetic databases swells. States must start putting rules in place to protect citizens, beginning by prohibiting police from running searches through nongovernmental databases, as happened in Usry’s case. This is not only because of privacy concerns—the people who contribute their DNA to such endeavors, whether medical or genealogical, rarely expect to have their genetic code scrutinized by cops—but also because those databases haven’t been vetted for use by law enforcement. Police in Idaho Falls, for example, were able to obtain a warrant for Usry’s cheek cells because his father’s DNA “matched 34 of 35 alleles” of that of Angie Dodge’s killer. But how common are those particular alleles in the general population? Does this even mean that there is a familial link? This isn’t entirely clear. (Ancestry, which gave Idaho Falls police the name of Usry’s father in response to a court order, has since shut down the database in question because, the company said, the “site [had] been used for purposes other than that [for] which it was intended.”)

in october of  2015, people were being warned about using sites such as Ancestry and 23andMe…In an article written for Fusion, 

When companies like Ancestry.com and 23andMe first invited people to send in their DNA for genealogy tracing and medical diagnostic tests, privacy advocates warned about the creation of giant genetic databases that might one day be used against participants by law enforcement. DNA, after all, can be a key to solving crimes. It “has serious information about you and your family,” genetic privacy advocate Jeremy Gruber told me back in 2010 when such services were just getting popular.

now, 23andMe has a “privacy officer” that is supposed to ensure the data is properly handled (hello, wikileaks? sure...)  

23andMe’s first privacy officer Kate Black, who joined the company in February, says 23andMe plans to launch a transparency report, like those published by Google, Facebook and Twitter, within the next month or so. The report, she says, will reveal how many government requests for information the company has received, and presumably, how many it complies with. (Update: The company released the report a week later.)

“In the event we are required by law to make a disclosure, we will notify the affected customer through the contact information provided to us, unless doing so would violate the law or a court order,” said Black by email.

Ancestry has subsequently taken the publically searchable database offline, however, neither site has (that i can find) published any information on the number of requests submitted by law enforcement sites.  up until the public searchable site was removed, however, all an officer would have to do would be to join the sites.

As NYU law professor Erin Murphy told the New Orleans Advocate regarding the Usry case, gathering DNA information is “a series of totally reasonable steps by law enforcement.” If you’re a cop trying to solve a crime, and you have DNA at your disposal, you’re going to want to use it to further your investigation. But the fact that your signing up for 23andMe or Ancestry.com means that you and all of your current and future family members could become genetic criminal suspects is not something most users probably have in mind when trying to find out where their ancestors came from.

“It has this really Orwellian state feeling to it,” Murphy said to the Advocate.

If the idea of investigators poking through your DNA freaks you out, both Ancestry.com and 23andMe have options to delete your information with the sites. 23andMe says it will delete information within 30 days upon request.   [emphasis mine]

i’m thinking too little, too late.  even with deleting the information, we all know that NOTHING ever disappears from the web...

once again, the man who puts the twit in twitter is deleting tweets after they are posted, copied, mocked and (hopefully) being collected somewhere for future purposes.  ALL of his tweets during the intel committee are :::POOF::: gone!

The Presidential Records Act (PRA) of 1978, 44 U.S.C. §§ 2201–2207, is an Act of Congress of the United Statesgoverning the official records of Presidents and Vice Presidents created or received after January 20, 1981, and mandating the preservation of all presidential records. The PRA changed the legal ownership of the official records of the President from private to public, and established a new statutory structure under which Presidents must manage their records.

Specifically, the Presidential Records Act:

• Defines and states public ownership of the records.
• Places the responsibility for the custody and management of incumbent Presidential records with the President.
• Allows the incumbent President to dispose of records that no longer have administrative, historical, informational, or evidentiary value, once he has obtained the views of the Archivist of the United States on the proposed disposal.
• Requires that the President and his staff take all practical steps to file personal records separately from Presidential records.
• Establishes a process for restriction and public access to these records. Specifically, the PRA allows for public access to Presidential records through the Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) beginning five years after the end of the Administration, but allows the President to invoke as many as six specific restrictions to public access for up to twelve years. The PRA also establishes procedures for Congress, courts, and subsequent administrations to obtain special access to records that remain closed to the public, following a 30‑day notice period to the former and current Presidents.
• Requires that Vice-Presidential records are to be treated in the same way as Presidential records.

• Executive Order 12667 - Issued by President Reagan in January 1989, this executive order established the procedures for NARA and former and incumbent Presidents to implement the PRA.
• Executive Order 13233 - This executive order, issued by President George W. Bush on November 1, 2001, supersedes the previous executive order. The Bush executive order also includes the documents of former Vice Presidents.
• Executive Order 13489 - Issued by President Barack Obama on January 21, 2009, restored the implementation of the PRA of 1978 as practiced under President Reagan's Executive Order 12667 and revoked President Bush's Executive Order 13233.

 

since the presidential records act of 1978 clearly states that all writings and records are to be preserved UNLESS approval of the archivist is obtained, what is being done to ensure this “record, of the (diminished) mind of 45 is being kept, as required by law.  these tweets are not “private notes” to himself. the tweets are from the elected (with a little help from his comrades) resident of the white house.

who has oversight to ensure the records are not altered, deleted (oops! too late) and preserved?

2018. we MUST secure the house and senate. and, wouldn’t it be delicious if the missing tweets took down the orange monkey!

just sayin'

FOUND the screenshot thanks to lawrence o’donnell show on 3/23.

tRump is giving a press conference … with his new once again dyed gold hair.

the lighting makes him look TOTALLY BALD!!!!

i wonder if the lighting guy has a sense of karmic humor!

trying to find a screen grab or link… through the hysterical laughter!

yep. that really IS the orange buffoon sitting center!

LOLOLOLOL!!!

just coming in right now… more to follow!

he will be replaced by three republicans to head the russia probe.

there was a meeting, according to msnbc report just happening… he stepped outside then the announcement was made. seems the decision was made quickly.

more as it comes out but trey benghazzzzi is one of the three taking over.  sheesh!

mike conoway, trey gowdy and tom rooney will share charing the committee according to cnbc

Embattled House Intelligence Committee Chairman Rep. Devin Nunes will temporarily step down from the panel's Russia investigation.

In a statement Thursday, the California Republican said Rep. Mike Conaway will take control of the probe, with "assistance" from fellow Republicans Reps. Trey Gowdy and Tom Rooney.

nunes isn’t off the hook yet, however.

Also Thursday, the House Ethics Committee confirmed it is looking into allegations that Nunes "may have made unauthorized disclosures of classified information."

Nunes, a supporter of President Donald Trump, said he will still serve as the committee's chairman and carry out his other responsibilities in the position.

with the attack on the syrian people by assad, will this be the excuse for trump to exercise the ultimate power — to order people killed.  with any response he makes, will trump appear to be the “strong leader” in a time of “crisis”.

lindsay graham and john mccain are pushing for an attack to ground the war planes of syria with graham claiming if trump doesn’t “act”,  this would be “obama on steroids”.

the media is breathlessly playing into this warlike posturing and saying that trump will not be “working with” russia in search of a solution.

now, not trying to suggest collusion, but how better to redeem trump from his “russian problem” than to have him go head to toe against russia over this syrian atrocity.

i can’t help but wonder if assad is no longer “useful” to putin so this is a clever way to protect trump while building his presidential credibility.

maybe i am just getting too jaded nowadays, but something smells ...the timing, the talk of a u.s. ground war to topple assad (msnbc language just now), more limited strikes to take out planes or individuals...all to let the manchild play with his war toys.

are there no sane heads left in washington?  and how will the rest of the world react to what ever actions the narcissistic buffoon may take.

trump just issued a statement that is filled with his usual simplistic bigly statements with no substance.  

this story is breaking right now on sky news a large truck ran over pedestrians before plowing into the crowd on drottningattan st. in stockholm, sweden.  at least three people have been killed. shots were also heard at the scene.

is this the beginning of retaliation for the syrian strike?  

it seems tRump is starting his war on muslims and isis is responding.

for additional information, here are more links.

www.independent.co.uk/…

and cbs is starting to report here

trump just had a protester thrown out of his pennsylvania rally just now!

his base went crazy.  well, the crowd already IS crazy!

now he is attacking the nytimes!  WHY is this buffoon getting live coverage of this cvile monster who is anti-everything american!

ok. i’m done. can’t stomach any more of this creep...getting nauseaus already!

we are in deep, deep trouble and we are paying for his “rally”....

breaking right now! just appointed!

mueller was director of the fbi from 2001 until 1913, he brings gravitas to this investigation and he should have the ear of current fbi agents!  

mueller also worked investigating  money laundering, so he is an excellent pick for this job!

perhaps this is rosenstein’s way of trying to salvage his reputation!

mobile.twitter.com/...

mueller is the second longest fbi director after hoover! president obama asked him to stay on after his ten year term expired. he left when comey was appointed and he knows comey well.  this does not bode well for trump!

here is q link to hunter’s diary on front page.  seems everyone wants to diary this so i’m going to shut this one down even if i DID hreak it first!  😏

hunter's diary

this sleasebag is all OVER the media claiming trump hasn’t ibstructed justice cuz president.  he is the epitome of an obfuscating lawyer with no morals.  ever since the oj fiasco, this man makes me nauseous and now, he is hogging the spotlight to defend trump.

my guess? he is trying to get hired by trump as his personal lawyer.  

i loathe enablers and dershoshit is the worst kind! he is trying to throw as much mud into this cesspool as possible to give trump and his base cover.

just my opinion and i’m sticking to it....

on meet the press? with chuck todd… pruitt 

is totally off the wall!  john kerry giving no quarter over pullout, compares trump denying climate change ro o.j. looking for “real killer"

al gore eviscerating the decision.

pruitt claiming merhane more potent than co2. trump to outlaw cow farts in near future.

watch the re-run. worth it for the o.j. comment. john kerry won the sunday presser today, imho.

right now, in ohio, tRump is giving a speech and has lapsed into his mesmerizing “it will be great!” and his other catch phrases that mean absolutely nothing!

the stand out comment so far was when he described the meeting with the 50 muslim heads as the “greatest meeting in the world!?|” ` “there has never been another meeting like it!”

this was peppered in between his “believe me” and “my campaign” and blaming democrats for stopping the republican held congress, senate and white house for being able to enact his agenda…

he also is rambling and thanking all the people who helped in “that event”— building the inland waterways and who are now dead… duh!

he is rambling about the erie canal, the infrastructure, his experience as a builder, obamacare in a death spiral — ALL of it is jumbled and incoherent but there are moments of catch phrases that are his usual fare…

i am sure this crowd will be glad when this is over — they are applauding his “we will hire america, we will buy american”— (smattering of clapping) then off on another tangent of nonsensical stringing together phrases that worked in the campaign.

it is so disjointed that msnbc is overtalking him and cutting him off — before their audience goes to sleep, too!  they shut him down before he closed the speech — they cut off his “punch line”— punchy and incoherent!  i hope there is a transcript of this — he is incoherent!

wow!

cnn points out tRump is reinstating the cold war with cuba amid shouts of TRUMP! TRUMP! TRUMP!, the orange cheeto reinstated the embargo and travel ban.  his rally was intertwined by a mob scraming TRUMP! as he grinned like an idiot.

his rally incited the crowd with red meat as he listed old charges about human rights, demanded that cuba hold free elections and spewed wild accusations about the castro refime.  

as he focused on moving backward in u.s. relations with this tiny island over human rights, he loudly proclaimed  ,it will end!”, referring to that nation’s government… then lapsed into his usual “we will forger a much stronger and better path, we will make a deal, a much better deal..."

then he stated that every nation had a right to chart their own path and “we will respect cuban sovereignty… but we will respect the cuban people ...” then he rambled on about how ,we reject it...” then on to talking about a little boy…

this speech makes NO sense… none whatsoever.

and the glaring elephant i. the room is saudi arabiad the human rights abuses…. but i guess raul castro didn’t give trump a sword dance and big party and gold necklace.

trump is back on the election, crowd started to sing happy birthday and he cut them off a few sour notes in … and now he is signing the rollback of president obama’s executive order on cuba.

and the crowd shouted his name and he posed.

is anyone else watching? this is surreal and scary.  he is fucking nuts!

in actuality, his rhetoric isn’t consistant with what he is signing. most of the obama policy remains in place. this was a flagrant playing to the crowd and, as cnn said, he was clearly enjoying the crowd! and, as usual, he lied to the crowd, again.

he wanders off blasting nato and claiming money is pouring in because.. tRump.

he can barely read the script… badly written, probably by jared, but his delivery is pathetic… then he weirdly adlibs.  droning on about “reciprocal” trade deals ( a swipe at germany without mentioning the country.

he referenced the “big criwd”— guess no one told him the government is bussing that crowd in.

now come the questions:

first about n. korea’s actions — and then morphed into the wrestling thing… and cnn. dumbass isnores the n.k. part and immediately goes on attack on cnn as fake news, then saying msnbc is equally as bad despite the fact he “made them a fortune"

he claims he wants “honest beautiful free press” not fake news.

now he is addressing n.k. and claiming obama made big mistake …. he won’t tell what he will do… rambling.

next question about press freedoms and clamping down on courts in poland… pres. duda defending that clamping down.

tonite, rachel has not disappointed with her teaser from last night.

her show got a “document” purported to show a connection between a trump campaign member colluding with the russians to interfere with the election. the only little problem is that it is a forgery!

her staff found the hidden fingerprint that identifies the printer and serial number (yes, every color printer has one) that is the same as the one on the reality winner docs and the doc she received also has remnants of the crease in the winner doc.  the fakes appear to be produced before the intercept published the winner docs.

the text is a cut and paste of the alleged explosive doc from the nsa that also violates nsa protocol (like, naming an american citizen in the report, strange spacing and more).

maddow correctly points out that the release of similar explosive disclosures that then had to be retracted have occurred in the past (dan rather and cbs were mentioned) — which, in my mind, does not spell “russian”.

she also points out that this appears to be an attempt to discredit the news media and she clearly offers this as a red flag to other media outlets!

she took the fake they spotted to multiple nsa folk who all agreed the document sent to maddow is a fake...forged to look tantalizing but easily discredited after it would have been published, thus discrediting whoever published it!

go watch the show!

and, do you remember how to spell “dirty tricks”?

This story just gets more fantasmagorical!  

NBC has broken the news that a “former”  Russian Counter Intelligence Officer was in the meeting between Don, Jr, Manafort, Kushner and the Russian Lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya.

The fifth man whose identity has not been made public is described a Russian born U.S. citizen who is currently a lobbyist and former counter intelligence officer for Russia. Veselnitskaya, has confirmed she was “with someone” but refused to reveal the name of that person.  

The reporter that revealed this information has personally interviewed the fifth man and has uncovered his name and ties to the Russian spy organization.

This stunning revelation comes on the conclusion of the Trump, Jr interview with Sean Hannity where Jr. stated that there was nothing else to the “story”— the “nothing burger” that took place in June of 2016.

The timeline for the Trumpshow is fascinating — the meeting with the lawyer and unknown intelligence agent happened hours prior to Trump Sr. announcing that he would have major dirt of Clinton within a “few days”— and the comments from Trump Jr’s emails that state that the news would be good for use in a few weeks — the timeline when the DNC emails started to appear.

Further adding to the cover up of the collusion, when Jared Kushner first filed for his security clearance in January, 2017, he didn’t disclose any meetings with Russian or other foreign agents (or the sanctioned VEB Bank.  His excuse? His aide hit “send” before he had completed his forms.

Kushner stated he would amend his forms to include those contacts — which, as of mid April, he had not done.

He did not amend his forms until June 23, yet has JUST amended the forms yet again adding over 100 contacts he has had with foreign representatives.

According to the Times article, this latest form filed by Kushner included the meeting with Veselnitskaya at the Trump Tower.

This is just unfolding — will update as more information comes in — but the situation is growing more toxic by the minute.  

Russian interference is now confirmed by one non-anonymous sourse — actually, two:  Donald Trump Jr and Jared Kushner.

So much for that “witch-hunt” scenario!  

When the Trump Clown Show loses Trey Gowdy, it would appear that the curtain will be coming down… sooner rather than later!

Sen. Mike Lee and Sen. Moran have joined Sen Collins and Sen Paul in saying they will vote NO on the motion to proceed for this version of TrumpDon’tCare!

Sen. Lee tweeted out the announcement as follows:

Sen. Moran also tweeted the following:

 

As for now, the Republicans and Mitch McConnell are four votes short of passing this highly unpopular attempt to strangle American healthcare!

Senator Lee has made a formal statement on his website here:

Press Releases

Sen. Mike Lee to Vote No on Senate Health Bill

Jul 17 2017

WASHINGTON – Sen. Mike Lee (R-UT) issued the following statement Monday regarding the Better Care Reconciliation Act:

“After conferring with trusted experts regarding the latest version of the Consumer Freedom Amendment, I have decided I cannot support the current version of the Better Care Reconciliation Act,” Sen. Lee said. “In addition to not repealing all of the Obamacare taxes, it doesn’t go far enough in lowering premiums for middle class families; nor does it create enough free space from the most costly Obamacare regulations.”

Permalink: https://www.lee.senate.gov/public/index.cfm/2017/7/sen-mike-lee-to-vote-no-on-senate-health-bill

Here is the full statement by Senator Moran:

x

My full statement opposing this version of BCRA: pic.twitter.com/CUq4Kibe0I

— Jerry Moran (@JerryMoran) July 18, 2017

The floodgates are opening while the tRump family obnoxious are still holding their fingers in multiple leaks in the “wall”.  

just came across the wire… more to follow immediately, but guess who might be considered:

Donald Jr

Ivanka Trump

Jared Kushner

Paul Manafort

Mike Flynn (although if he has already sung… might not be enough…

and, Donnie Senior?

In an article written by 

By Carol D. Leonnig,, Ashley Parker,, Rosalind S. Helderman and Tom Hamburger

www.washingtonpost.com/… states:

Some of President Trump’s lawyers are exploring ways to limit or undercut special counsel Robert S. Mueller III’s Russia investigation, building a case against what they allege are his conflicts of interest and discussing the president’s authority to grant pardons, according to people familiar with the effort.

Trump has asked his advisers about his power to pardon aides, family members and even himself in connection with the probe, according to one of those people. A second person said Trump’s lawyers have been discussing the president’s pardoning powers among themselves.

Trump’s legal team declined to comment on the issue. But one adviser said the president has simply expressed a curiosity in understanding the reach of his pardoning authority, as well as the limits of Mueller’s investigation.

“This is not in the context of, ‘I can’t wait to pardon myself,” a close adviser said.

Adding to the intrigue, Thursday Mark Corallo, the spokesman for Trump legal team resigned today.  Mark Kasoiwitz is taking a significantly reduced role as of today.

So, what is left for Trump if Mueller asks for his financial returns, his business financials to see if money laundering and improper loans were funneled through the trump empire? Who would face criminal liability?

Is this why Trump thinks he can pardon his way out of illegality?  hmmm. interesting question!

Plus, what will the republicans on the hill do if/when he pulls this executive coup over our justice department?

Interesting times ahead and strong winds are brewing for this Ship of State.

My guess is that this will break quickly to prevent him from being able to accomplish this!

WaPo reporter Ashley Parker (live on Rachel Maddow) said that trump has made no decision and is reading about presidential pardoning power.  It is presented to the reporters as trump trying to find out if he can pardon himself.  

Outside legal sources say that if he ever did that, it would go to the Supreme Court immediately.

Also in the article, several senior officials were stunned when Sessions said he was staying on.  By Trump putting his comments about Sessions and other Justice officials “on the record”— it appears to many staffers and Maddow that should Sessions step down, this would open the way to fire Robert Mueller.

Stay tunes...this is JUST hitting the airways as i type.

Sean Spicer objected vehemently to this appointment and when overruled, he abruptly resigned! 

anthony scaramucci, a wall street hedge fund manager, has been hired to be the head of the white house communications director despite having no experience in this field. Also, scaramucci was the fox business host who JUST took a position at an export-import bank on june 27, 2017.  will he retain this position now?

scaramucci has stated in his book that his motto is “fake it til you make it” which fits right in with trump.  scaramucci is a big fan of fox news. he was called by the president at 5:30 a.m. where he was offered the job despite major pushbak by spicer, preibus and bannon.  spicer told people that he would not work with scaramucci because he did not know the job nor did he have the qualifications and spicer said he would resign rather than work with him.  spicer did just that this morning.

bannon and preibus have also been fighting to stop scaramucci’s hiring. trump told scaramucci that he was getting pushback, but hold on and it would work.

msnbc is now  reporting that this is the fox news whitehouse, scaramucci, sekalu?, and other fox people who are being brought into the white house to spread trump’s message.

recently, spicer has been acting as both communications dorector and white house spokesman.  despite the insults, spicer has stayed and dutifully lied for his master but this move seemed to be the last straw.

now questions are being raised over reince preibus and his future.  scaramucci is being pushed by the darlings of daddy — ivanka and jared — so preibus seems to also be in jeopardy.

From the New York Times, 

WASHINGTON — Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, resigned on Friday morning, telling President Trump he vehemently disagreed with the appointment of the New York financier Anthony Scaramucci as communications director.

Mr. Trump offered Mr. Scaramucci the job at 10 a.m. The president requested that Mr. Spicer stay on, but Mr. Spicer told Mr. Trump that he believed the appointment was a major mistake, according to a person with direct knowledge of the exchange.

reports  from within the white house say the tension is palpable… things are very volatile as trump is angry that the russia investigation is continuing and no one has stopped it.  

this appears to be a white house imploding… what will be nexr? will preibus be chased off, leaving only the trump family trapped with bannon and his manipulators — people he doesn’t trust!  

who DOES trump trust?  after donnie jr’s massive screwup dragging in his protege, jared, who then draws in his daughter, who can trump turn to.

my fear is that it will be bannon, the bloated svengali in the shadows.

i think we have much to worry about...this is the meltdown. has it reached the critical core yet. 

more info: spicer felt the communucations dept was finally moving iin the right and effective direction for the trump agenda… spicer felt that he could not continue with the addition of the inexperienced scaramucci.  as a result, reince preibus is now left hanging alone without any ally in the white house.  

just breaking yet again… sessions claimed not to remember any connections. what now exists is signet info that the meeting and conversations have taken place between sessions and kislyak. oops.

how scaramucci deals with any such conversations due to HIS relationship with his russian connects. will be interesting

 the water ges murkier.

IF sessions were to leave, given the curremt turmoil

, who in their right mind would take the job of a.g.?

this mess just gets deeper and deeper 

and is reaching the mired point from where the whole thing can not be saved?

• jared kushner has updated once again the list of foreign diplomats with whom he has met and oopsie forgot to list all his business dealings where he has foreign dealings  on his security clearance. how many more chances does he get!  he is submitting several hundred more contacts… sheesh

the new financial disclosure kushner was required to file shows he missed dozens of sozens of’ assets, he keeps having to come back and ,  later.  and HE is the big whiz kid who is advizing thr orange cheeto?

we are in serious trouble

William Browder, CEO of the Hermitage Capital Management Company and employer of Sergei Magnitsky, the murdered auditor who uncovered Russian corruption, is testifying before the Judiciary Committee and is exposing the Russian methods of infiltrating governments.

His testimony is damning regarding the meeting between Trump, Jr and Trump, himself.  He flatly stated that when they claimed the meetings were about “adoption”, that children were NOT the focus… it was about the attempt to remove Russian oligarchs from the sanctions list in the Magnitsky Act.

Go listen! The republicans are digging deep and it isn’t in an effort to protect Trump… it is to bury him!

This is on C-span 3.

Browder is detailing the work of the  (former) KGB and the current Russian operative techniques. He is stating how “it is entirely plausable that they [Russian operatives] would look at all officials to see who was bribeable or black-mailable”.

GO LISTEN or go watch the replay later!  

Browder has written a book about this called Red Notice about the use of kompromat in finance, murder and more.

Browder said that the key to finding the interference and involvement is to "follow the money"— look for banking relationships between Americans and Russian businesses that are once removed from Putin.  

THIS is why Trump is terrified!

Browder has pointed out the loopholes regarding registering as a foreign agent… companies don’t have to register. He also said that not registering as working for a foreign government has no teeth since penalties are rarely enforced. The first things that leap out are Flynn and Manafort registering after the fact. Browder stated repeatedly that when those who fail to register are prosecuted and imprisoned, the failure to register will cease.

Sen. Whitehouse pointed out while Trump could not repeal the Magnitsky Act, he COULD “de-list” those who are sanctioned by that Act.  Sen. Whitehouse said he is introducing legislation to stop the president from being able to de-list anyone.

The Senators questioning Browder are somber and almost speechless with some of his statements.

Sen. Blumenthal asked about the money involved in the sanctions.  He asked about what was being offered… Browder stated that nothing the Russians offered could be trusted.  Browder stated there was no doubt in his mind that the Russian lawyer who met with Trump, Jr., that she and the other Russian were acting on behalf of Putin with the intention of offering material in exchange for dealing with the sanctions.

Better late than never if Trump can’t deliver!

Russia seized the American Embassy properties (Country house and a warehouse used by the Enbassy) today and expelled multiple diplomats in what is believed to be a response to the sanctions act on Trump’s desk.

Richard Engel is reporting from Moscow on whether or not Trump will side with Russia or side with Russia over the sanctions bill put on his desk. He just announced breaking news that Trump will sign the legislation.

The long campaign Engel is talking about includes Kaspersky Labs' involvement with computer security programs used in U.S.

Engel interviewed Eugene Kaspersky...asking if the company is a guard or intruder!

Kaspersky’s software is installed on millions of computers around the world. He denies working with the Russians and said that he didn’t want the public to know he was working with police with a secret program to catch cyber intruders.

Kaspersky software is on our government computers as well as private. Sen. Shaheen was interviewed during this segment about classified briefings and said she is introducing legislation to prohibit Kaspersky software from being used on gov’t computers.  

From the CIA, national security and more ALL said they would not be comfortable using kaspersky software.  kaspersky said that the software scans all the data because that is the nature of the cybersecurity business.

Robert Anderson, former FBI overseer of cyber criminal activity said that he would be looking into Kaspersky if he were still with the bureau.

HOLY COW! Eugene Kaspersky went to KGB school when he was young and a math expert.  He played down the involvement.  He was a military computer guy for the KGB when he left  school.

His personal fortune is at $1.4 billion dollars, yet he claims he has nothing to do with the government or oligarchs in Russia.

Kaspersky even booked (get ready for it) — Michael Flynn as a paid speaker at one of his conference a while back!  (What exactly are Flynn’s qualifications in cyber security, I wonder”)

Kaspersky says that questioning his company as a “witch-hunt”, although his virginia offices have been vacated and the software has been put on a prohibited list. He said he won’t be coming back to the u.s. any time soon. (Where have we heard that phase before?)

He HAS offered to give the source code to U.S. Intelligence agencies, but U.S. officials ask if that would be the real the source code!

Sen. Shaheen said she doen’t know if Kaspersky had any role in the influence in hacking the election, but one of the Russians arrested as a suspected U.S. double agent had ties to Kaspersky.

Tit for tat

The seizure of the U.S.  Embassy country house  and a warehouse today were equivalents to the properties seized in the u.s.

The Embassy personnel expelled leave the exact number of U.S. diplomats in Russia as the same as the number of russian diplomats that remain in the states.

Engel is tying in Algier Hiss, Ables (the spy swapped for the U2 plane, Gary Powers), Aldrich Ames and Robert Hanson who worked for the KGB for $1.5 million.

(This is starting to get very serious as, in my mind.) 

Engel then tied in Kaspersky and Flynn and  jumped to Putin’s re-opening the intense Russian spy network in the U.S.  He brought up three Russian agents caught in NY in 2015  who were fed a document with a hidden microphone where they were overheard talking about an idiot they were trying to recruit...Carter Page!

Free Cheese can only be found in a mousetrap! 

This is a Russian saying about recruiting those who can be used for nefarious purposes. Engel said “we took the bait”— he linked the Trump meeting between Jr and Kushner to that “bait” and then suggested the real purpose of that meeting was to set up Trump for failure!

Engel showed the meeting with Putin and Trump at the G20.   Then, he interviewed a former CIA officer who said that Putin’s goals are to be on same stage, be a global player and have recognition as a major figure on that stage,

That officer said Putin was “channeling the Brothers Grimm” by leaving a trail of bread crumbs that lead straight back to the Kremlin to set the Trump administration up for failure. This officer said that the “cheese” was bait regarding Clinton. Putin was counting on the American media to uncover the crumbs and expose the meeting, thereby, disrupt our governing process and drive a wedge in America.  It worked.  

Engel said Trump Jr was not the first targeted. Carter Page was the dupe who had sympathies toward Russia, worked for Gasprom and had little awareness of his being sucked into the ruse.  

Engel showed an interview with Page who comes across as completely naive (idiot, as described by the three arrested Russian spies) as to tactics of the Russians — Engel reminded Page of the Russian attache who contacted Page and asked for documents and was later arrested and convicted as a spy.  Moscow renewed interest in Page after Trump named him (Page) as an advisor on all things Russia.

Page had no clue that the Moscow contact after that announcement was looking for “contamination” that the media would gloam onto.  This was part of the deliberate trap to destroy Trump.  Russian intelligence officers have a saying that “useful idiots can do the work for us” according the former CIA officer. When Engel asked him if Trump fitted into that category (useful idiot), the CIA replied, “No Comment!"

Are the Russians covering their tracks?

Engel said that inauguration parties were held all over Russia when Trump won.  Now, however, those who may have direct knowledge of the hacking have been arrested for "treason". He interviewed one of the authors of The Red Web who said the Russian government is  now in a containment phase, trying to prevent those involved in the U.S. hacking from talking.

The first man arrested was a member of Kaspersky Labs as he was leaving Russia. Ruslan Stoyanov and his deputy, Sergei Mikhailov and his contact, a hacker turned spy, Dmitry Dokuchaiev, plus another man (four in total) were arrested and accused of treason.

A Russian Journalist for Kommersant,  Novaya Gazeta, got into the prison where they are being held. She reported they are very disappointed because they thought they were doing what the government wanted them to do. They weren’t treasonous, they were helping but were “rolled up” for knowing too much.

IF the Russians were hoping...

that this would reverse the sanctions, now it won’t happen.  Engel interviewed a Russian senator who said now Trump is alone and it is very difficult for him.  The Russian senator claimed the U.S. has no right to punish the world...no right to rule the world.  He claimed Russia did nothing as a state and did not interfere in the election. (Interesting “qualification”, no?)

The real tell was when this Russian government official said Trump “is not so powerful like previous American presidents...”. (That should go over well in Trump’s Russian bromance!)

They took that information and weaponized it!

Perhaps, Engel said, the goal was not to get Trump elected, but to sow chaos — which they have done! 

Engel said that people are looking for the “fire” since everyone knows where there is smoke… but, while there may be "fire”, smoke is also dangerous"

I am removing this diary. a one paragraph one hit as soon as mine, then SIX MORE were rapidly thrown up. this is not productive! it kills better stories by knocking them off the recent list. what happened to checking before you post!  i will remove this in five minutes!

starting at 11:39, 12 now 15 diaries flooded the site, some only a minute apart, but the diaries ranged from 11:39 — 12:02pm.  why?  these 11 diaries along with the front page diary made 12. as a result ten diaries were pushed off the recent list...diaries worth reading and being seen.  conversation on this is fragmented.  what ever happened to the ideaa that we check before duplicating spa topic...especially breaking ones.  if a diary offers more, additional information with a different take, great, but 11 diaries all saying the exact same thing? really?

here are the diaries pushed off the recent list… please check them out!

CNN’s Erin Burnett interviewed Erik Prince on OutFront today about the role Steve Bannon and Jared Kushner want Prince  to play in Afghanistan.

[segment on Afghanistan begins following Pence segment...] 

Erik Prince (former owner of Blackwater) has offered a plan to “solve” the problem of the war in Afghanistan and Trump is listening. 

Prince founded yet another private mercenary security contractor company called Frontier Services Group. He is currently Executive Officer of FSG, now owned by a Chinese. While Prince claims to offer “advice” on how to solve the Afghan war, it is of little surprise that his plan involves hiring private contractors similar to the now defunct mercenary group previously started by Prince.  Equally of little surprise is that FSG offers private military air services and, in his current interview with Erin Burnett, he is highly critical of the Afghani air force. 

Prince has been outspoken of late regarding the future role he sees for mercenaries private contractors in “winning” the war in Afghanistan. The recent  Op Ed Prince wrote in the WSJ  (behind paywall, but here is WaPo analysis of editorial) outlining his plan was placed on Trump’s desk with support of Steve Bannon and that other military whiz kid, Jared Kushner with the expected result: Trump liked it.  Why not? Prince peppers his views with “winning”, U.S. policy is a “mess”, failure and many more of Trump’s trigger words.

Never mind that this plan blatantly offensive to the Congress, the military and to the Afghan government with his suggestion to replace the U.S.Military control with a Viceroy — a position to be filled by a U.S. citizen who will have control over the DOD, the CIA, the Military generals, the budget and much more and answer to no one but the president.

Trump has expressed frustration over the lack of “winning” in Afghanistan and blames General Nicholson for that failure. General Nicholson has requested several thousand additional troups under the plan supported by Defense Secretary Mattis, however, Trump has other ideas, thanks to Prince. Privatize it!

The plan worked out by Nicholson and Ghani calls for doubling the size of the Afghan special operations forces and bringing in hundreds of U.S. trainers for the recruits, improving the Afghan air force, pairing advisers more closely with Afghan soldiers, reforming military leadership and combating corruption in the defense forces. Ghani has said he wants the military to be totally independent after four years.

But some observers said Trump’s sharp criticism of Nicholson at a tense July 19 meeting in the White House may indicate he wants to scrap the entire plan, supported by Defense Secretary Jim Mattis, that would include raising the number of U.S. troops by several thousand. According to news reports, the president repeatedly said he wanted to fire the general, leaving senior military and policy aides stunned. There was no indication of what alternatives Trump is considering.

“The president has undermined his own general, and he has also undermined the mission,” said a former Afghan security official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “Nicholson has now lost face in front of Afghans, his NATO counterparts and his officers. What does this tell the troops under his command? How can Afghan leaders accept any commitment he makes when they know he does not carry the full faith and credit of the United States?”

Erin Burnett interviewed Erik Prince about his plan for that future privatization which caught Trump’s eye (with help from Bannon and Kushner).

Now, there is one little teeny weeny thing wrong with all this. (no, not THAT teeny weeny thing...) Surprise!  Prince has offered the services of his company to the Afghan government —it may not meet legal hurdles!

WASHINGTON — Erik Prince’s proposal to bridge the Afghanistan air force’s capability gaps with his own private air force faces a mountain of legal hurdles, government oversight, and raises  new questions about private military companies operating in roles typically in the purview of nation states.

On Wednesday, Military Times reported that the former Blackwater CEO had submitted a proposal to the Afghan government to contract services using a private fleet of attack aircraft, gunships, transport planes, and intelligence assets to help the war-torn country’s fledgling air force transition over the next two years.

Below is the transcript of that CNN OutFront segment from August 8, 2017, (which begins at 30:08 in the above video) on Afghanistan. The interview with Prince begins at 33:06.regarding his “suggestions” for Afghanistan. The grammatical and conjunction errors are theirs, not typos.

Prince interview 

Burnett: OutFront now, former Navy Seal, Erik Prince, who is the former CEO of the private military security company, Blackwater, now running a company called Frontier Services Group, and Erik, thanks, good to see you again.

You point out that the United States has had 17 Commanders in Afghanistan in 15 years. When you see that number in black and white, it is stunning.

Prince: Absolutely! There’s been no unity of Command and that’s just military commanders and that’s not counting Ambassadors and Chiefs of Station for the CIA that we’ve gone through.

Who’s really been in charge in Afghanistan? Nobody!  It’s been extremely fragmented, we’ve had up to 140,000 troops in country and we’re now spending, the Pentagon consumes more than the entire defense budget of the U.K. just in Afghanistan and we’re losing.

Burnett: And you are proposing a solution and this...this… solution, uh, you’ve written about it in the WSJ op ed — a private military force...so, i know you don’t like the word “mercenary”, explain to me why it’s not the right word.

Prince: Cuz actually it wouldn’t, uh, what I’m rec...recommending is a rationalization — you still have 9000 U.S. troops and another 4000 NATO, um, they’re ...they’re ...they’re rotate every six to nine months so when those troopers leave, all the experience and local knowledge that they had leaves with them. There’s another 26,000 contractors in country. This plan takes it from that overspend down to a much smaller number.

The Afghan force needs support at the battalion levels. Battalion is the basic unit of combat there, that’s where the rubber meets the road and in the Afghans are continuing to lose dozens and dozens...thousands… uh… per month.

Um, embedding mentors at the battalion level, attaching to the Afghan army does not even meet the threshhold of the U.N. definition of mercenary, so they’re not even mercenaries.

Burnett: So, so…

Prince:  So they are NOT mercenaries, they would be attached as long term trainer/advisors — imagine them as a stellar ...

Burnett: Are they military employees of the United States? or are they people that you’re .. they’re contractors

Prince: Nooo, they’d be military employees of the Afghan government. Imagine them as a struc..  as a skeletal structure that provides leadership, intelligence, medical, communications and logistics support to all those Afghan battalions so it works reliably.

Second, they need air power.

Less than 40% of the U.S. provided air power to the Afghan forces still even functions because the maintenance and training has been such a failure.

So, they need governance support, they need mentor support and they need air power…

A brief interjection here — again, Prince has offered the Afghan government the “services” of his private military air force.

Burnett: OK

Prince: ...attaching to the Afghan army, which doesn’t mean — you guys like to throw the mercenary word around, they’re not mercenaries...they’re 

Burnett: But what are they if they’re being paid by the Afghan government or U.S. taxpayers or but they don’t work for the Pentagon?

Prince: under the U.N. law, NO, but they don’t NEED to… If we want to Afghanize this — this is the longest war in American history… 

Burnett: Are they Americans?

Prince: They could be Americans, they could be foreign nationals, they could be NATO allies, there could be from the global soft community of professionals most of whom have served in that country already that have a lot of experience that wanna go back.

I mean, I’ve been in contact with... you know, remember, in the months after 9/11, a hundred CIA officers and a couple hundred special forces guys backed by air power crushed the taliban. The more we’ve gone to a conventional war with a conventional army, we have gone backwards. Every year since then.  

They’ve surged up to 140,000 and as soon as they’ve pulled back, it fails again.  

The reason I talked about in that Op Ed, you have to put someone in charge, there has to be a ... uh… uh… a  lead federal official in this case almost a bankruptcy trustee that rationalizes the U.S. presence that is in charge of all policy.

Second, um, they have to stay there for a while so that you have continuity of decision making.

Burnett:  OK. So, the word you use for that person was a “Viceroy”— an American Viceroy.

Prince: And I mean Viceroy — that’s a Colonial term…the last thing...

Burnett:  It IS a Colonial term...

Prince: Sure...the Colonial term came from... in the...in the British Empire, they had very little communications and you had to put someone in charge that can make decisions absent a ship going back and forth. But in this case, it really means someone that can rationalize the basic mess that is U.S. policy been, whether it is in Afghanistan or Pakistan, we’re gone backwards…

Burnett: So, when you use the word, though, as you point out is a Colonial word, the definition is “a ruler exercising authority in a colony on behalf of a sovereign. “ [emphasis added].

In that case, Trump would, perhaps, be the sovereign, Afghanistan an American Colony? I mean, it’s a loaded word...have the Afghans…

Prince: I didn’t say that…

Burnett:  Are they talking to you about this, are they open to it?

Prince: I’ve talked to...to plenty of Afghans about this. When they understand that we’re not there to colonize, but merely thuh thuh  thuh that Viceroy, that lead federal official term is someone that will rationalize so we don’t go through a commander every year like we have been or a different ambassador every two years … or who it… there’s been a complete fragmentation of command. That has to change! [emphasis added]

Burnett: So, I know that...that you said,  you said you wrote an Op Ed, Reince Priebus, H.R. McMaster, Steve Bannon then reached out to you…

Prince: Correct.

Burnett: ...and they wanted to hear more?

Prince: They wanted to hear more...and then, weeks later, they said, “OK, figure out what that actually costs, give us a ...give us a comparison”  and so...ah.. rationalizing and going down to a true battalion level mentor program that supports the entire Afghan army — remember, the Afghan special forces works. There’s about 17,000 of them because they’ve been mentored by U.S. special forces in exactly the way I’m recommending. 

They used to do village to village operations that worked really well — again, it was shut down by conventional army generals.

So, so mentoring the rest of the Afghan army in that same proven model works.

Second, giving them some air, give them some governance support so when the battalions order re-supply, they get their food, their fuel, their ammunition and parts on time, that’s what you need to keep the Afghan forces afloat. All the rest, that goes from $45 billion dollar spend this year, next year the Pentagon needs over $50 billion dollars — more than the entire U.K. defense budget — all that takes you down to less than ten.

Burnett: Less than ten is what you say it is going to cost.

Prince: Less than ten — $40 billion back to the Pentagon.

Burnett: So…

Prince: So, there’s, look… there’s a lot of people that say just pull out of Afghanistan? I disagree with that because I think the taliban or ISIS would raise their battle flag over the U.S. Embassy in six months to a year.  That’s bad, but continuing the same, i would say, insanity that we’ve been doing for the last sixteen years has to change and I think the President is uncomfortable with that level, with that continuing on uh that course.

Burnett:  Have you spoken to him?

Prince: I have not… nope.

Burnett: Oh, when you talk about H.R. McMaster, National Security Advisor, and Steve Bannon, are you still talking to them about these ideas? 

Prince: The … ahhh… I would say Gen. McMaster does not like this idea because he is a… uh… he is a Three-Star conventional Army general and he is wedded to the idea that the U.S. Army is gonna solve this but I think for the present he’s got to say after 16 years, when do we...when do we try something different?

And...and...this, and this...here’s the thing, the U.S. isn’t doing anything below a corps level, right? That’s the highest unit of movement of the Afghan army — they’re not doing anything at the ground level of the Afghan army so this can operate there, can operate effectively and create the off ramp for the rest of the U.S. forces to leave — let’s be done!  We’re still losing Americans. There was two American kids killed last week in the first 30 days of their deployment — enough!

Burnett:  So, Steve Bannon is more receptive to this.

Prince: I think Steve Bannon and other folks even in the NSC and, um, and even quite a few in Congress.

Burnett: And quite a few in Congress.  And General Nicholson, himself, have you spoken to him?

Prince: No.

Burnett: No. And this Viceroy, this person would be an American?

Prince: Again, Viceroy was the term only to describe the U.S. official, not a Colonial official, ok?

Burnett: But it would be a U.S.,  an American.

Prince: Absolutely. Yes, a...a...a...a...a government, a U.S...a U.S. government employee — call him a special envoy but they HAVE to control DOD policy and spending and rules of engagement and State Department authorities and CIA authorities — you have to combine so you don’t have interagency process doing nothing with a big com..commut...commun...uh … uh.. committee group think that accomplishes nothing. Sixteen years is a long time to be doing anything and we’re failing. [emphasis added]

Burnett: And, just to be clear, we’re talking about an American here that would at the top administering all of this…

Prince: In there — they would be in Kabul. 

Burnett: Right, in Kabul…But you would...but the u.s…. 

Prince: Absolutely. No more 9 ½ times zones away...

Burnett: the less than $10 billion dollar would be paid for by American taxpayers but the people they are paying could be any nationality at all…right? Just to be clear...that I understand.

Prince: Look, well… $3 ½ billion already the Pentagon has slated  to support the Afghan forces. That pays for their payroll, their vehicle parts, their fuel, all that.  That...that continues — there would be a continued role for U.S. special operations forces, the 2000 or so that are already there… they continue on.  This program can spool up underneath what the DOD is doing but this program can stay long term. It costs a fraction of what we are spending now… and the Pentagon can spend that money on reset but let’s figure out how to cauterize this endless bleeding that we’re have in Afghanistan.

Burnett: You know, obviously you have connections to Trump’s inner circle. You’re talking about that you were reached out to by Steve Bannon and, among others, your sister is ...

Prince: I… I… I did that, actually, I wrote that Op Ed because my wife and I, we have a lot of kids and some will serve in the military soon. The idea of them going to Afghanistan and getting killed like those kids did last year, I couldn’t tolerate, so I wrote that Op Ed with one audience in mind. The president read it and that’s what triggered this discussion.

Burnett: They said the president read it and..and… asked them to call.

Prince: I’m told the president read it at his desk, circled it and said, “Learn more about this...”

Burnett:  So, he knows who you are and, obviously, as I said,  it’s not just you know Steve Bannon and others, your sister is Betsy Devos who, of course, is Education Secretary…

Prince: That’s my big sister…

Burnett: So, let’s talk about another thing that you’re central to here.  A lot has been made of a meeting that you had with a Russian who was close to Vladimir Putin on the remote island of the Seychelles during the Trump transition, right?  This… this...meeting that everyone knows happened now, who from the Trump team asked you to take this meeting?

Prince: No one. Zero. I was there on business. ‘Kay? I was there meeting with Emirates officials and ...uh...there’s lots of other people there. I met a guy and...ah... clearly...ah...the U.S. intelligence community felt necessary to unmask me and leak it to the media  … uh… but if…if... if...the media and the obsession on the Trump/Russian collusion...uh… they’ve kinda jumped the shark  if they’re thinking I had something to do with that because this meeting occurred in January long after the election.

So, there’s either all this grand Trump collusion plan before the election or not, because if they ask me to go meet with some Russian, which no one actually did — I was happy to be there and...I...I...I met a Russian…

Burnett: Who’d you meet?

Prince: That’s pretty thin… Some fund manager, I can’t even remember his name…

Burnett: A fund manager, but you don’t remember his name…

Prince: I don’t remember his name. We didn’t exchange cards. 

Burnett: How long was it? The meeting, do you remember?

Prince: [shrugs] Ahhhhhh…..it probably lasted about as long as one beer.

Burnett: So, it was … it was a casual setting.

Prince: Absolutely.

Burnett: Over beers. So let me just say why this meeting is getting so much attention cuz I know you’re minimizing it…but

Prince: But it’s really not…

Burnett: Well, it has been reported on extensively, let me just lay out the… lay out the timeline here, Erik, so everyone will understand cuz you know this but not everybody else does… 

Ah, before this meeting happened between you and somebody who is a Putin confidant, and I know that from talking to people..uh...who know a lot about this meeting… so this person isn’t just a random Russian.  In December the Washington Post reports you met with Trump transition officials in Trump Tower, right? Cuz you know people there, that makes complete sense.

That same month, I’m also aware there was a meeting at Trump tower between Jared Kushner, Steve Bannon, Michael Flynn and the Crown Prince of Abudabi...uh….Sheik Mohamed ben Zayed.

In December, the Washington Post reports then you had a private meeting with Emirates Crown Prince, Mohamed ben Zayed.  Then the meeting comes with the Russian in the Seychelles in January.

I know the Emirates delivered the Russian to the meeting. That’s why the question is so important.  Whether you were working on behalf of the Trump team, or, even if they didn’t ask you, was anyone on the Trump team aware that you were at this meeting? 

Prince: No one was aware from the Trump team that I was even there.

Burnett: No one was aware...

Prince: It was private business that had nothing to do with the U.S. government, it had nothing to do with the Trump team or the transition team or anything else.

Burnett: And what was the meeting about then…

Prince: Ah… future business… it’s that the Russian is someone the Emirates have done business with and said may be useful to you.  

Burnett: And that was pretty much the extent of it…

Prince: That’s it.

Burnett: And, in terms of… you’re saying that it was all… when people talk about whether that was a possible back channel or anybody or all of that… you’re saying “no, off the table”.

Prince: Complete hogwash. 

Burnett: All right, well, I appreciate it and I appreciate your answering our questions about it.  Thank you. Erik Prince.

Prince: I’m amazed at the continued obsession with this when we have people dying in Afghanistan, Americans dying. Let’s find a way to cauterize the losses.

Burnett: All right, I appreciate it. Thank you.

[end of transcript]

Following Trump’s apparent frustration over complicated things… why would we expect any less reaction over something as complicated as military operations in a war that has stymied multiple presidents, the Russians and the French! 

But, Trump — winning — deals — negotiator!

I am certain Prince would never turn down a position in the government as the Viceroy of Afghanistan, either! After all, that would make Trump… King!

It’s good to be the king…

Kudos to Erin Burnett for excellent journalism!  

MSNBC LIVE:  Trump is giving multiple pressers today live at his little golf resort.  This is the third or fourth just today --  not bad for free advertising.

He made quite a bit of news as he stood by Secretary of State Tillerson,  Gen. McMaster, and Nikki Haley.

What stood out was when he was asked about the unrest in Venezuela, he stated he was not taking “military action” off the table!  Great! NOW he wants to start a war in Venezuela.

Trump is returning unexpectedly to washington early and promises a major news conference on Monday.  

he also said that he, as president, can “do a lot” to affect healthcare.

He stated he thought Iran has violated the spirit of the nuclear agreement...he is still fixated on Iran.

Tillerson tried to soften the bellicose language by saying that they are on the same page and Trump’s language is to make the point he is serious.

Trump was too self-assured so that has me worried!  Something is up!

Trump just gave a brief scheduled presser on the va, however, he digressed long enough to claim  (regarding the terrorist attack by the alt-right in Charlottesville, Va a pn hour ago) that the violence has to stop… that ot is coming  “from both sides” 

. He rambled on that children needed to go out and play..l not be afraid… he never acknowledged that the dropiver of the charger deliberately ran down multiple people, killing at least one of those counter protesting thr white supremecists that are his base!

He tried to mumble something about Not Obama, not Trump, then rambled on !coherently.

Then he said “we have to heal the wounds of our country...it’s been going on a ling time in our country…. i love the people of our country...ALL of the people in our country...we have to make america great again!"

He started to walk off then the staff stopped him to sign the bill...again, he was walking off without signing. He is clearly rattled.  

Then he went back to his canned speech about veterans. This fool can not handle a crisis — ANY crisis!

The media shouted out “Do you support these white nationalist groups? Do you denounce them?”. He walked off.

The b*stard tried to excuse them by saying “both sides do it!"

David Duke has responded to Trump:

In this disgusting press conference where dumbkopf is sparring with reporters right now, he was asked about Bannon.

His response is “I like Mr. Bannon, he is a good man — he came on late in my campaign...” THIS SOUNDS LIKE HE IS GOING UNDER THE BUS1

Uh oh!  kiss of death!

NOW, Trump is saying that next, statutes of Washington, Jefferson and more will be the next ones taken down — claims that the removal of the statute is the reason for the march — he periodically throws in that nazis, etc., are bad people but there were people in that rally very quietly protesting the taking down of the statute of Robert E. Lee. He is friggin’ delusional!

He keeps interupting the reporters calling them as “fake news”— he is hostile to the press, claiming that he waited to be sure he had the facts straight.

He is blaming the counterprotestors for violently coming after those poor marchers with a permit — he is making it MUCH worse and MUCH harder for Republicans to defend him — GO WATCH!

Now he is blaming the “alt-left” as charging in without a permit.  He is claiming that not all of the “people” there were not nazis, not neo-fascists — they were there only because they objected to taking down that “statute” — he is defending the white supremacists.

He refused to say that the statute of Robert E. Lee should have come down — he then said racial relations have gotten better since he came in…

OH MY GOD!

HE keeps saying there are “two sides to a story”— that the counter protestors didn’t have a permit!

Oh, and he keeps throwing in John McCain didn’t support healthcare… this is the fourth or fifth time he referenced it.

Sorry, folks, i can’t do this today unless I want to barf all over my keyboard!

Short diary filled with disgust. Chris Matthews is an ass.  He is trying to blame antifa for violence without allowing his guests to point out that without the white supremacists, antifa would not have been here.

Brian Levin?  and Alysha ?  (Southern Poverty Law Center) are pushing back on him asking why is he focusing on antifa when there has been an act of terrorism in the U.S. by white supremacists.  His reponse was “i am the host and I get to answer the questions — I want to ‘understand’ .”

Whatever, Tweety — you are a jerk!

Right now, breaking, a white rental van jumped the curb in Las Ramblas and plowed into many people on the sidewalk.  Spanish media says as many as 20 people have been injured as the van struck people at sidewalk cafes and people shopping in the popular city centre.  Conflicting reports are still coming in as to whether or not this was terrorism, but it is being treated as a terrorist incident.

Eye witnesses said the van mowed down multiple people. The driver of the van was seen jumping from the van and walking away… it is a suspected terrorist attack but not yet confirmed.

The Independent is reporting two dead… images coming in show multiple people down on the street and sidewalk.

Transportation hubs and streets have been closed down.

From the Independent

Authorities said the vehicle mounted a pavement and struck people in a "massive crash" in an area of the city that is popular with tourists.

The El Pais newspaper reported that the driver of the vehicle had fled on foot, while a single news agency reported that police were treating the incident as a terrorist attack.

The Reuters news agency reported that two armed men had entered a restaurant in the city centre after the van crash. One witness told The Independent he had heard a hostage situation was unfolding.

Barcelona is a major tourist attraction and for this time of year, it is the height of the tourist season where many foreigners are visiting.  

MSNBC is covering the incident live…

Steve Garratt, an eye witness describing the van drove onto the market area as people ran — some reported hearing gunshots but that is unclear — after the driver ran, armed police swarmed the market and side streets.  The images of strollers with women down are amid the debris.

People have been asked to shelter inside buildings in the area with 80 people locked  inside a nearby Church due to unconfirmed rumors that two armed men are reported holded up in a local bar.  The Guardian is updating minute by minute here.

Witnesses described the van as “zigzagging” down the street striking people and accelerated as it jumped the curb, striking more. This local article says that as many as 13 people may have been killed.

Americans are being asked to check in with the American Consulate to confirm they are safe.

ISIS is already posting in celebration of the attack, although they have not taken credit.

Gen. Kelly has briefed tRump of the incident.

Police are searching for at least one suspect, the driver of the white van… 

Will update in comments as more information comes in.

Full speech and transcript  here on npr except it is not complete!

i just can’t ….his reading of the prepared remarks is painful to listen to (since i can’t bring myself to actually, oh, LOOK at him).

y’all can discuss, i am just gagging at him quoting himself and saying absolutely f*cking nothing! he is NOT announcing the number of troops or anything else… the new “pillar” of his “new policy” is “i’m not gonna tell you!”. 

good god! it is a speech relitigating his prior inconsistent statements.  i can’t … i just can’t transcribe this crap!

“the next pillar of our aproach is to change the way we deal with pakistan...but…. i’m not gonna tell you cuz they are baaaad… but they are our valued partner…. but…. "

wow!

oh.

yeah

 he lifted restrictions on fighting imposed by "the previous administration”— war crimes, anybody?

"retribution will be fast and powerful as we lift restrictions in the field…  since my administration, we have achieved … blah blah blah..."

going to go hurl now...

and, waiting for a REAL transcription of that speech!

USA! USA! USA!

Fighting for OUR people!  Loyalty to OUR nation means loyalty for each other!

A wound inflicted on one member means a wound inflicted on us all!

[WE LOVE YOU!!!! — male voice]

It’s time for us to follow the lead of our brave american soldiers….. they’re a team...that’s what WE are, a TEAM… ….   America First!   [red meat to red hats… crowd frenzied]

What happened in Charlottesville… we are united against those thugs who perpetrated violence…. right up there ….dishonest media… right up there with the cameras.…

[CROWD ROARS  CHANTS garbled FRENZIED… trump turns to face them]

So these truly dishonest people, they make up,stories, dont want to report i spoke out forcefully against white supremacists, neonazis and kkk… i openly called out for unity, healing and love… so what i did was, just a minute, i thought i would take a few minutes… and you know my where my heart really is…. so I thought I would say…..   rambles on about having a home in charlottesville… then pulls out original statement and re-reads it… but leaves out "on many sides"

Now,  he is claiming the media criticized because he didn’t say it fast enough…  dishonest people.…

[this is insane!!!]

Now, he is attacking anarchists…

He is re-reading all of his statements, selectively excerpting bits… the crowd roars.  this man is dangerous!

[USA! USA! USA!]

He is attacking the media for the reaction to each statement he made. He is trying to re-write history by claiming the NYTimes is failing, CNN is so bad, their ratings are going down, don’t tell the truth… attacking ABC this morning… talking about George Stephanoupolus talking to Nikki Haley about great speech he gave and when he (George) went back to Charlottesville... 

THIS is unhinged!

Someone is protesting, he said “dipin’t bother, it’s only a single voice” crowd chants… then he said “how did he get in here? he should be outside… and he is screeching about the protesters outside who are supposed to be there with clubs, masks and he screeches "

"ANTIFA!!! "

Chitown Kev found the video!  having trouble embedding — click on his comment here to see video of specific comment!

Here is the full interview — the intersting part starts around 5 minutes in regarding his “confidence” in the federal government doing everything it can — leading into her direct question at 5:35 into the 8 minute interview.

Ted Cruz was just giving the live political speech from an evac center in Houston.  His statement of how Trump promised him anything he needed immediately led to Tur asking Cruz point blank about his vote denying aid to the victims of Hurricane Sandy!

Cruz was momentarily speechless, then he launched into a snide comment about how there was time later for “the political sniping...” and as he tried to continue, Tur interrupted and called him on that statement!

She pointed out that it was not political sniping when he voted to deny aid to victims of Hurricane Sandy when they had suffered and lost so much!  She said “I was there!"

Cruz hemmed and hawed and trued to claim “that bill had a lot of extra stuff in it...” trying to defend his vote against aid for Hurricane Sandy?

Tur said she hoped the people of Houston get all THEY need… as Cruz rwmbled on about how Texans were helping other Texans…

GOOD for YOU! Katy Tur! No wonder she scares the hell out of Trump!

This is unfrigginbelieveable!

In a Press Conference with Sauli Niinistö, the Finnish Presidnet, TRump just dropped a load of unreal comments!

The first comment was about climate change directed to President Niinistö.  [I took a quick break (sometimes nature calls) and when I returned, TRump was going off about the Arpaio.]

Trump was asked about the Arpaio pardon and did a prepared litany of all the “very bad people” pardoned by Clinton and Obama while proclaiming how popular Arpaio was/is in Arizona!

When this comes available, I’ll add it…

The first question to the Finish President was about whether or not the U.S. would partner regarding Climate Change — uncomfortable!

He just tried to “bully” the Finnish PM about picking another reporter to answer a question, asked him if he was picking the “same one” again, then instead of letting the PM answer, Trump overrode him since the question was about the role of FInland and Russia — Trump didn’t let the PM answer the question — instead he was stating that one day he hoped the U.S. would have a good relationship with Russia — that would be very good for the U.S.

Her follow up question was “what if the relationship with Finland and Russia deteriorated, what would happen — Trump again, didn’t let the Finnish PM speak — he bullied forward — the next reporter directed the same question to the Finnish PM — he FINALLY got to speak!  He said that “we did discuss this with Russia — he said he didn’t feel ? about advice from anybody” — but he said Finland essentially made their own decisions.

This isn’t going well at all!

OUCH!  A reporter just asked if cutting FEMA’s budget was appropriate in the light of Hurricane Harvey — Trump said emergency funding and rebuilding funding were something blahdeblah…

TRump was also asked if Hurricane Harvey would make him reconsider a “government shutdown”. His response?  “They are unrelated.”

Then Trump was asked about Mexicans paying the wall — then he went off on how NAFTA was one of the worst trade deals in the world and how Finland would never have signed off on that deal. The PM laughed out loud.

Trump is on a roll about how bad Mexico is — drugs, wall, they will pay — he said, “WE MAY PAY FOR IT THROUGH THE UNITED STATES BUT MEXICO WILL PAY!”

He is now claiming we will pay for the wall but Mexico will “reimburse” us for the wall.  He also claimed that drugs were the reason, about the very bad NAFTA deal, then later on in the presser delusionally states that “we have a very good relationship with Mexico”— um. no.

Canada wasn’t spared the vitriol, either!

There is so much in this presser, as the MSNBC hosts are saying, Trump is apparently enjoying “crisis mode” by Harvey.

Unfortunately, Peggy Noonan is on the panel and thinks “Trump did himself some good… seemed calm, didn’t seem ‘wiggy’, seemed stable...” Is that all Noonan has got!  REALLY!

WTF!  Trump said he announced the pardon during the hurricane because he said “the ratings would be good”!

I just can’t…

Watching and listening to this idiot read the prepared words AFTER he glories in who is at this Missouri “tax rally” is nauseating.

He was gushing about Sen. Blunt’s wife being at “his inaurguration”… then he said he wanted to “discuss” the tragedy in Texas AFTER reading the names of all the politicians there to praise him.

The most bizzare thing is when he finishes reading the obligatory statement about how he “cares”, without missing a beat, he launches into his speech for tax reform.  This happens so “smoothly” that it takes a moment to realize he has changed topics.

There is nothing about this man that isn’t plastic!

NOW he is introducing “my beautiful daughter, Ivanka Trump, stand up, darling..."

This will not change things… He is asking various people to stand up while the crowd cheers wildly… I can’t help wondering how much is being driven by his “staff”. Do they bring portable “APPLAUSE!” signs?

Now he remonds the crowd that HE was in business... 

GAGGGGGGG

Video is finally up!  

VP Pence and his wife travelled to Texas today to talk with survivors in front of a devastated church (of course) and conducted what seemed like a prayer rally. While Pence is better at presidenting than Trump, especially in wardrobing, he still did not address the real damage done to ondividuals in this disaster.  He focused on religion, the Governor focused on religion and very little was said about concrete actions taken to restore this broken area!  He even took members of the Cabinet with him to gather around the Baptist Church and offer a misture of religion and prayer.

The VP and his wife are borrowing a page from Jimmy and Rosilind Carter by dressing in jeans to tour the devastaion. Standing before rubble, he couldn’t GET any closer to the destruction if he were sitting on a roof top in floodwaters!

Pence stood  with Gov. Abbott as he signed an official proclamation declaring this a “Day of Prayer” (Um… really?) before he introduced man with the "lord empowered leadership” v.p. Pence.

OOPS! This is NOT the same reception the orange demon and his she-devil in high heels got!

Oh, jeezus on a pogo stick!  After saying he asked the *resident what he wanted Pence to tell the people, the *resident supposedly told him to tell them “I love Texas and will be back on Saturday"

After a few normal comments, he friggin turned the mike over to his wife to Pray?  um, how about telling these folks what is going to be done for them down here on earth!

*Rump is returning on Saturday, Pence said. I’m guessing if *Rump or his spokesmodel wife tried to offer up a “prayer”, the thunderclap and frizzz from the lightning would be heard and felt all the way to the International Space Station!

[footnote: WHY do these damned pressers always pop up just after i’ve eaten!  off to find the pepto now...]

While Pence offered to “console” folks, I am sure they would much rather have heard when the checks are coming and who is going to fix things in their town!

Let me count the ways… or, rather, let ALL of us count the ways!

tRump’s opening remarks to the U.N. after being introduced by a gushing Nikki Haley were met with a frantic applause by the “Applause” sign holder.  The U.N. audience did not respond.  

tRump then launched into critizing the U.N. over bureacracy without the usual fire and brimstone condemnation...he stuck to his notes ...teleprompter tRump became note-reading tRump and didn’t stray too much from the written word, but his voice periodically modulated to a near fever pitch before catching himself.

The U.N. current Secretary General looked absolutely relieved that the lunacy was contained to a moderate scolding about how the U.N. has "great potential”— duh!

the clip includes Nikki Haley’s introduction stating “we had to get a bigger room!”. um…. no.  this is the U.N. , not a tRump rally!  sheesh! 

oh, and I counted... 21 polite claps by one enthusiastic supporter and an obligatory smattering around the room starting at 2:07 and lasting until 2:11… four seconds of applause.  

ok…  this is just a quick heads up to let everyone know that while the “lead clapper” on the payroll didn’t get his audience to respond feevently to tRump’s “introduction” (bob barker got a MUCH more enthusiastic crowd for the price is right) so, wait and watch for the orange crybaby to let loose a tweet storm later tonight or tomorrow morning!

tRump is now walking around shaking hands with those who aren’t able to escape quickly enough.   This is not what one would call a “warm” reception!  what a shame that no one is covering this live on cable.  It seems this is the first time tRump has ever been inside the U.N.  Tomorrow is his “bigly speech”— today was “introducing” him to the members, like anyone wouldn’t recognize America’s greatest blunder and embarrassment.

Stay tuned… tomorrow, I’ll try to cover the {{{{{{{ugh}}}}}}} speech.  It is scheduled for 10:30 est.  

trump’s phone call to the idow of Sgt La David Johnson  (the young soldier killed in niger) was horrid.

today, john kelly came out to explain in great detail at today’s press conference to try to cover for trump’s phone call by now politicizing the death of his own son. 

this is just so damned wrong!

for kelly to come out to try to make this horrific incident the responsibility of the  congresswoman outraged by trump’s comments and the fault of the press instead of placing the blame on the fool that caused the uproar is just wrong.

kelly may be “stunned” over the uproar this caused but the rest of the nation is even more stunned at the lack of empathy by trump. the rest of the nation is not stunned nor are we surprised.  disappointed. yes. upset? angry? HELL,yes!

kelly calls the actions of the member of congress specifically instead of calling out trump.

the press is asking him why the soldiers were in niger.

kelly responded there is an investigation…… that kelly is trying to blame everyone but trump demeans kelly and politicizes the son he tried so hard to keep from the spotlight of the public.

wrong…

wrong…

wrong!!!