Monday, August 13, 2018
Peter Strzok, who led the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference in the 2016 election, was fired on Friday
From the story here:
Strzok has been a target of withering criticism since text messages he exchanged with FBI lawyer Lisa Page became public. In thousands of messages, Strzok and Page disparage the president and other political figures.
In one exchange, Page asked Strzok: "Trump's not ever going to be president, right? Right?!"
In response, Strzok wrote, "No. No he won't. We'll stop it."
That text exchange was one of 40,000 reviewed by the Justice Department's inspector general in the course of its review of the investigation into former Democratic presidential contender Hillary Clinton's private email server. Strzok played a senior role on the Clinton email investigation.
The inspector general's report, made public in June, found that there was no evidence that Strzok took any action in that inquiry as a result of political bias. The text messages, however, "cast a cloud over the entire FBI investigation," the inspector general concluded.
Sunday, August 12, 2018
Afraid of being replaced in 2017 200+ million vacation days were left on the table, worth $62 billion
Quits may be high above the 3 million level, but that's a drop in the bucket compared with the tens of millions feeling job insecure.
CNBC reports here:
52% don't use all their vacation time
24% have gone a year without a vacation
12% haven't taken a vacation in three years
61% say they fear looking replaceable
56% say they have too much work to do to take time off
Saturday, August 11, 2018
The many tweets of Sarah Jeong, now of The New York Times, add up to just one thing
A multitude of vulgar turds she tweets,
poured forth through soiled lips not sweet;
On men of just one tribe and race she heaps,
a steaming pile of excremental heat.
-- Johnny
Friday, August 10, 2018
Yakima Washington Herald lets the cat out of the bag: American fruit grower rich enough to buy hotel to house foreign labor complains they make too much
Rob Valicoff is relying on 270 guest workers this year to pick his 1,700 acres of apples and pears in Wapato, nearly triple the 96 guest workers he used last year.
Under the federal H-2A guest worker program, growers are required to provide workers with housing, transportation, affordable meals and pay them higher wages.
“I’m excited now, to be honest,” he said. “Even if it costs more money, I’m excited for us not to be short of labor this year.” ...
One recent afternoon, more than 300 laborers filed into the dining hall at the former FairBridge Inn and Suites on North First Street in Yakima for dinner after a day in the fields.
Valicoff bought the 800-bed hotel and in June began housing H-2A workers from Mexico there. Some of the workers are employed by other growers, with Valicoff providing housing under an agreement with them.
Housing is free for workers, and they each pay $12.26 a day for three meals. They eat breakfast and dinner at the hotel and are provided sack lunches.
Valicoff would like to see changes that would require workers to pay a little more for meals and help with the cost of utilities.
“I think they need to pay a portion of that,” he said. “It doesn’t have to be a lot, maybe $6, $7 a day.”
He’d also like to see wages lowered for H-2A workers. The minimum wage is $14.12 an hour, above the state minimum wage of $11.50 an hour.
Turkey won't let Rev. Andrew Brunson go, Trump retaliates with tariffs as promised, Turkish lira plunges
Hooah President Trump!
The story is here.
Brunson had been imprisoned for a year and a half and is reportedly now under house arrest. The tyrannical government of Erdogan allegedly pressured his own parishioners to testify against him falsely under threats.
More here.
A country headed by the likes of Erdogan is not fit to be a NATO member country.
Rick Gates testimony the complete opposite of MSNBC buffoon Chris Hayes: Manafort working to ally Ukraine with EU not with Kremlin
From the story here:
Gates said that their shell companies in Cyprus had transferred money between themselves in payments disguised as loans.
Manafort crafted a policy for Yanukovych aimed at bringing Ukraine into the European Union called “Engage Ukraine”.
Manafort recruited top former European politicians to help out with that effort.
Manafort’s income fell precipitously after Yanukovych stepped down in 2014.
Manafort then had trouble paying his bills.
Manafort then worked briefly advising Ukraine’s current president, Petro Poroshenko. ...
“Engage Ukraine became the strategy for helping Ukraine enter the European Union,” he told prosecutors Tuesday.
Wednesday, August 8, 2018
The meaning of "high" in "high crimes and misdemeanors" refers not to the nature of the offenses, but to their sphere
Gary L. McDowell, "High Crimes and Misdemeanors": Recovering the Intentions of the Founders (1999) here:
[I]t was essential to their way of thinking to make clear that impeachment was a political process dealing with political wrongdoing and not a part of the criminal justice process. Thus, they made clear that punishment for impeachment could not "extend further than to removal from Office, and disqualification to hold and enjoy any Office of honor, Trust or Profit under the United States." But they emphasized that impeachment was not a bar to prosecuting criminal acts that the person impeached may have committed by noting that "the Party convicted [of impeachment] shall nevertheless be liable and subject to Indictment, Trial, Judgment and Punishment, according to Law." Thus, although an indictable crime may be deemed an impeachable offense, impeachable offenses are not simply limited to indictable crimes. ...
In all of the English cases the political nature of the offenses charged in impeachments was revealed by the use of the word "high" to modify both "crimes" and "misdemeanors." The use of "high" in "high crimes and misdemeanors" did not refer to the substantive nature of the offense, that it was a particularly serious offense, but that it was a "crime or misdemeanor" carried out against the commonwealth itself. This use of "high" to distinguish crimes and misdemeanors against the society as a whole derived from its use in distinguishing "high" treason from "petit" treason. Alexander Hamilton summarized this understanding of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" as adopted by the Federal Convention in his explanation of the impeachment process created by the Constitution. The objects of impeachment, he noted, "are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."
In all of the English cases the political nature of the offenses charged in impeachments was revealed by the use of the word "high" to modify both "crimes" and "misdemeanors." The use of "high" in "high crimes and misdemeanors" did not refer to the substantive nature of the offense, that it was a particularly serious offense, but that it was a "crime or misdemeanor" carried out against the commonwealth itself. This use of "high" to distinguish crimes and misdemeanors against the society as a whole derived from its use in distinguishing "high" treason from "petit" treason. Alexander Hamilton summarized this understanding of "high Crimes and Misdemeanors" as adopted by the Federal Convention in his explanation of the impeachment process created by the Constitution. The objects of impeachment, he noted, "are those offenses which proceed from the misconduct of public men, or, in other words, from the abuse or violation of some public trust. They are of a nature which may with peculiar propriety be denominated POLITICAL, as they relate chiefly to injuries done immediately to the society itself."
Nearly 1 million Americans, many of whom are rich urban elites, received over $13 billion in farm subsidies in 2017
From the story here about the findings of the organization headed by Tom Coburn:
'Today, our organization, American Transparency, released its OpenTheBooks oversight report, “Harvesting U.S. Farm Subsidies.” The report catalogues $13.2 billion in these subsidies flowing to nearly 958,000 recipients in fiscal year 2017. Using our interactive mapping platform at OpenTheBooks.com, taxpayers can search all recipients receiving $100,000 or more in FY2017 farm subsidies by ZIP Code.'
FBI now admits they improperly continued to solicit and receive info from Steele through Bruce Ohr
As reported here by John Solomon:
Ohr’s own notes, emails and text messages show he communicated extensively with Steele and with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson. Those documents have been turned over in recent weeks to investigative bodies in Congress and the DOJ, but not reviewed outside the investigative ranks until now.
They show Ohr had contact with Steele in the days just before the FBI opened its Trump-Russia probe in summer 2016, and then engaged Steele as a “confidential human source” (CHS) assisting in that probe.
They also confirm that Ohr later became a critical conduit of continuing information from Steele after the FBI ended the Brit's role as an informant. ...
Steele's FBI relationship had been terminated about three months earlier. The bureau concluded on Nov. 1, 2016, that he leaked information to the news media and was “not suitable for use” as a confidential source, memos show.
The FBI specifically instructed Steele that he could no longer “operate to obtain any intelligence whatsoever on behalf of the FBI,” those memos show.
Yet, Steele asked Ohr in the Jan. 31 text exchange if he could continue to help feed information to the FBI: “Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.” ...
FBI officials now admit they continued to receive information from Steele through Ohr, identifying more than a half-dozen times its agents interviewed Ohr in late 2016 and 2017, to learn what Steele was saying.
That continued reliance on Steele after his termination is certain to raise interest in Congress about whether the FBI broke its own rules.
But the memos also raise questions about Ohr’s and the Justice Department’s roles in the origins of building a counterintelligence case against the Republican presidential nominee, based heavily on opposition research funded by his rival's campaign, the DNC, and the DNC’s main law firm, Perkins Coie.
Trump beat Hillary in Ohio's 12th District 53% to 42% in 2016, Republicans barely held on to it yesterday
Last October yesterday's result was hardly thinkable:
Total nonfarm employment has come a long way in Ohio, especially overperforming quite recently in vaulting well past the 5.6 million mark.
You'd think the voters had been more grateful yesterday, but like Hillary energizing Trump supporters by calling them deplorables, Republican Troy Balderson managed to get out the Democrat vote for his opponent by insulting part of his own district, in Franklin County.
All politics is local.
Liz Peek's talk radio echo chamber: Trump's already solved the jobs crisis
This morning on the Steve Gruber show.
This is the sort of hubris which precedes debacles, especially when the hubris isn't justified by the facts.
The difference between an employment population ratio at 60.5% today vs. 63% pre-Great Recession is in excess of 6 million jobs, or 120,000 votes in each and every one of the fifty states in the union. Trump won Pennsylvania, Michigan and Wisconsin by fewer than 80,000 votes total. Failure to expand employment decisively beyond current levels is courting disaster.
Hardly a time for gloating.
Egyptian American Abdul El-Sayed came within 3 points of beating Gretchen Whitmer in Kent County MI in the Democrat primary for governor
Whitmer overall captured the nomination for governor among Democrats in Michigan with nearly 52% of the vote, but Democrats in the county around Grand Rapids, Michigan, are clearly very divided. El-Sayed crushed Whitmer in the city itself, 49% to 36%, and beat her also in the city of Wyoming.
El-Sayed is an accomplished individual, who however has the support of very far left people like Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Linda Sarsour, and of the far left The Nation magazine.
Tuesday, August 7, 2018
Monday, August 6, 2018
Dan Bongino for Mark Levin opens the show on fire tonight
He's saying the rules which say Republicans have to lose ground in November because that's what usually happens two years after a new president is elected . . . aren't the rules.
Good for him.
Fight! Trump broke the rules, so can we.
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for July 2018
Grand Rapids, Michigan, Climate Update for July 2018
Max temp 94, Mean Max temp 94
Min temp 54, Mean Min temp 49
Av temp 74.4, Mean Av temp 72.2
Av temp to date 48.3, Mean Av temp to date 46.6 (actual is elevated 3.6%)
Precip 2.30, Mean precip 3.12
Total precip to date 21.5, Mean total precip to date 19.7 (actual ahead 1.8 despite dry conditions)
Cooling Degree Days 301, Mean CDD 241, Season to date 577, Mean Season to date 425
The cooling season to date as measured by CDD has moderated to 35.76% warmer than the mean after a hot early start to the summer season.
I notice Mean Max temp for June 2018 has been altered/changed/corrected down to 91 from the 94 I reported. It's also possible I misread it.
Check, check, double check, but still discrepancies arise due to human error . . . just not sure whose.
I notice Mean Max temp for June 2018 has been altered/changed/corrected down to 91 from the 94 I reported. It's also possible I misread it.
Check, check, double check, but still discrepancies arise due to human error . . . just not sure whose.
Frank Rich slams Gary Cohn in NY Mag, Cohn fires back in Bloomberg
Frank Rich on the 5th, here:
The Wall Street bandits escaped punishment, as did most of the banking houses where they thrived. Everyone else was stuck with the bill. ... But it’s a measure of how much the country is broken that we just shrug with resignation when the wealthy Democratic Goldman Sachs alum Gary Cohn joins this administration to secure an obscene tax cut, then exits without apology to enjoy his further enrichment at the expense of the safety net for the country’s most vulnerable citizens.
Gary Cohn here on the 6th:
In ’08 Facebook was one of those companies that was a big platform to criticize banks, they were very out front of criticizing banks for not being responsible citizens. I think banks were more responsible citizens in ’08 than some of the social media companies are today. And it affects everyone in the world. The banks have never had that much pull. ... In Washington nothing’s perfect, so I’m not thinking it’s perfect, it’s never going to be perfect. But the fact that we got something really important done, which is corporate tax reform, which made us competitive with the rest of the world, is good.
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