Thursday, July 27, 2017
Wednesday, July 26, 2017
CNBC's John Harwood lies about the size of the individual market in health insurance, and by omission
Here:
Individual market coverage has risen to 18 million from 11 million in 2013.
That's simply false.
The Kaiser Family Foundation had individual market coverage at 15.4 million already in 2013, as I reported at the time here. Rising by less than three million in four years to 18 million, if that's even true, is purely a function of natural population growth, not Obamacare's success in extending individual market coverage where there was none before. These millions who have seen their premiums and their deductibles soar as a result of Obamacare were far more numerous than Harwood says.
Completely unaddressed by Harwood is the small group market where employers have fewer than 50 employees. Their costs have also soared, as anyone working for a small business can tell you. Obamacare compliant small group plans typically charge FIVE TIMES what individuals used to pay on the individual market before Obamacare. This small group market was 25 million strong in 2013.
That's over 40 million people in 2013 who have born the brunt of paying for Obamacare's handouts to deadbeats and grifters, not the 10 million or fewer Harwood claims.
HE'S A LYING SACK OF JAWEA.
HR 3762 reloaded in the Senate fails this time 45-55
From the story here:
The Senate on Wednesday rejected an amendment to gut Obamacare without a replacement ready to go, a bill identical to a 2015 measure that passed Congress.
Senators voted 45-55 on the measure, with seven Republicans and all Democrats voting no. The Republicans voting no were Sens. Shelley Moore Capito of West Virginia, Susan Collins of Maine, Dick Heller of Nevada, John McCain of Arizona, Rob Portman of Ohio, Lamar Alexander of Tennessee and Lisa Murkowski of Alaska.
Only Collins voted against the measure in 2015. ...
The bill is identical to a 2015 measure that passed Congress that would gut Obamacare's taxes and mandates but leave in place insurer regulations. The bill would have let Obamacare stay in place for two years while a replacement was crafted. Former President Barack Obama vetoed the legislation in 2015.
Once a Bruce Jenner always a Bruce Jenner
The male aggression rears its ugly head, or something:
Jenner in the past [you know, ages ago . . . in April] told Diane Sawyer that she has “one deal-breaker” with the Republican party: “You mess with my community, you do the wrong thing with our community, you don’t give us equality and a fair shot, I’m coming after you.”
The story is here.
Meanwhile the transnational Max Boot is upset that the Boy Scouts love Trump, hate Hillary
Very telling, that.
He must read WaPo tweeter Jenna Johnson here, and NY Magazine here, which omit references to the loud sustained boos by Boy Scouts for Obama but focus instead on the boos for Hillary.
Well, they emphasize what's important to them. Since they are Clinton advocates and Trump opponents and want to make the story a story about Trump's inappropriate partisanship, the fact that Trump was contrasting himself with his predecessor, not Hillary, has to be ignored.
Most stories have been about the boos for Obama.
Here is Boot:
At one point he actually had the boys booing Clinton, a former secretary of State, former first lady and the first female major-party presidential nominee in U.S. history. This is an offense not only against good taste but also against the Boy Scout rule forbidding any political activities in uniform.
David Harsanyi: There isn't a single Republican lawmaker effectively answering the lies told about Obamacare or their own plans
But Harsanyi provides persuasive answers, here.
Tuesday, July 25, 2017
How to identify a member of the establishment
Anyone who complains about the existence of alternative sources of information like Twitter, blogs, conservative talk radio, etc.
In other words, anyone who has lost control of the messaging, like John McCain in the Senate today, and John Boehner in a leak to WaPo.
Boy Scouts love Trump, boo Obama, Newsweek features lefties calling them Hitler Youth
Says the former magazine sold for a dollar because nobody read it anymore. Soon to be a former website.
Meanwhile the redundant Damon Linker is just fine with a thieving lefty as defacto head of the Democrat Party
Here in "Democrats don't need 'A Better Deal.' They need Bernie Sanders":
That he was an independent who became a Democrat solely for the purpose of running for president and spent a good deal of time on the stump railing against the party's choice to succeed Barack Obama as president is just one reason why he should be treated as the party's de facto leader and its presumptive presidential frontrunner — and why he should have been the one to craft and deliver the party's message heading into the midterms. ... Populism is a politics of anger. It needn't escalate to violence. It shouldn't tear down institutions that can be reformed in productive ways. But it does need to channel the passion for justice and give voice to justified resentments.
Emotion, not reason, has the better of a person who can write that, or "who is sufficiently woke enough" and "now, at long last . . . has finally . . .."
If you get WaPo delivered and live next to Damon Linker, make sure you are "woke" before he is or you might be out of luck.
Thieving lefty: Washington neighbor of Bernie Sanders tells Chris Plante Sanders routinely pinched his Sunday delivery of WaPo
Plante reported yesterday the anecdote from the neighbor, saying WaPo actually investigated and confirmed that an old balding and greying guy was personally observed by the person responsible for the route picking up the paper at the door. The subscriber, however, is younger and has a full head of hair.
The Laugh of the Day comes from a John Boehner leak: Trump should never get into a pissing match with skunks
 |
| Mika Skunkski and Joe Skunkorough |
A guy who recognizes that the media are skunks can't be all bad.
Here:
“You never get into a fight with people who buy ink by the barrel. He does it every day.” Boehner said, adding, “Never get into a p---ing match with a skunk. He does it every day.” “It may have worked during the campaign. But I think he would do himself well if he would just slow the tweeting down and just focus on what he’s doing and not being critical,” Boehner said.
Monday, July 24, 2017
Despite auto company bailouts, Michigan employment lags year 2000 levels by 308,000 jobs, the worst in the country
Ohio comes in number two, with a shortfall in jobs of 108,000 from the previous peak.
Together Michigan and Ohio account for 95% of the shortfalls in eight states recently identified in a Wall Street Journal blog post.
Drug abuse in Michigan reaches an all-time high, state makes the top 10
Reported in Crain's Detroit Business, here:
Research indicates Michigan's drug abuse problem is at an all-time high. A study released in May found Michigan ranks 10th for drug use and addiction among the 50 states and the District of Columbia, with analysts considering such factors as abuse of prescription drugs, illicit drugs and the rate of overdose deaths.
In 2015, Michigan recorded 1,981 fatal drug overdoses — more than five per day — with nearly half related to opioids. That death rate represents more than a 10-fold increase from 1999
Sunday, July 23, 2017
George Herbert Walker Bush's legacy: It took only 7 years of NAFTA to destroy hours worked in the United States
Hours of all persons grew 44% during the Reagan bull market, which ended in August 2000. Since then, hours of all persons has grown just 3%.
NAFTA went into effect in January 1994, eleven years after the Reagan bull began and a little over one year after Bush inked the deal. Seven years later hours of all persons peaked.
It reminds me of Bill Clinton's innovation, the so-called Taxpayer Relief Act of 1997, which blew up the housing market after just 10 years.
Republicans take away your job, then Democrats come along and take away your house.
If you're living in your car, you'd better watch your back.
Saturday, July 22, 2017
Income inequality has increased really for just one reason: Growth of owner occupied housing is in decline
Homeownership is the ticket to the middle class, and fewer and fewer tickets are being issued:
Your mortgage interest deduction is only eighth in the latest list of top things on which government claims it loses revenue
But libertarians especially hate it. Expect more articles telling you it's got to go as tax reform talk heats up in Congress.
Here are the top 20 "tax loss expenditures" for 2016-2020:
1. Exclusion of employer contributions for health care and insurance: $863 billion
2. Lower tax rates on dividends and long term capital gains: $678 billion
3. Income made by controlled foreign corporations: $587 billion
4. Contributions made to IRAs and 401k plans: $584 billion
5. Pension plan contributions: $424 billion
6. Earned Income Tax Credit: $373 billion
7. Deductions taken for state and local income taxes, sales taxes, property taxes: $369 billion
8. Deductions taken for mortgage interest on owner occupied homes: $357 billion
9. Obamacare "subsidies": $327 billion (what a laugh: they raise the cost, give you a subsidy, and count the subsidy as a tax-free gift)
10. Child tax credit: $271 billion
11. Expensing depreciable business property: $248 billion
12. Deductions taken for charitable contributions: $231 billion
13. Social Security benefits: $214 billion
14. Municipal bond income: $195 billion
15. Deductions taken for taxes on real property: $180 billion
16. Capital gains taxes excluded at death: $179 billion
17. Medical expenses and over the counter medications under cafeteria plans: $169 billion
18. Capital gains taxes excluded on sale of principal residence: $166 billion
19. Life insurance proceeds: $128 billion
20. Deduction for income from domestic production activities: $102 billion.
Total revenue the government claims it's "losing" because of its "benevolent" tax policy on these items: $6.645 trillion over five years, or $1.329 trillion annually.
My, how nice of them.
Friday, July 21, 2017
Justin Raimondo is right, and Coulter and Nehlen are wrong: Afghanistan is the world's first narcostate, supplying over 75% of the world's heroin
Nuke Afghanistan's poppy fields, and you solve a lot of the world's problems. Raimondo is right, Coulter and Nehlen are wrong. Mexico isn't the "source". It's the conduit.
From the New York Times in 2013, here:
Afghanistan is already the world’s largest producer of opium, and last year accounted for 75 percent of the world’s heroin supply. “The assumption is it will reach again to 90 percent this year,” said Jean-Luc Lemahieu, the United Nations’ top counternarcotics official here.
China per capita cigarette consumption is 114% higher than US
The Chicoms consume about 4.7 cigarettes per day per capita, about 7.1 packs a month, despite recent attempts to tax the habit out of existence (2350 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of 1.379 billion).
Americans consume 2.2 cigarettes per day per capita, about 3.3 packs a month (258 billion cigs in 2016 divided by population of .3231 billion).
Life expectancy in the US is 79 years, in China 76 years.
Deaths per 100,000 from coronary heart disease in China are pushing 100, in the US 78.
Thursday, July 20, 2017
Wednesday, July 19, 2017
Inquiring minds want to know: Is it cheaper to stop drugs by building a wall or nuking the opium fields of Afghanistan?
Each one can incinerate about 50 square miles.
Afghanistan has about 780 square miles devoted to opium production.
Number of B61 bombs needed: just 16.
Cost $320 million.
Hundreds of bombs left over to enlighten other ne'er-do-wells.
Three pleasant outcomes: 1) Drugs eliminated at the source; 2) Afghan War ends immediately; 3) Drug mules and gangs stop coming over the border.
I say we nuke 'em.
Supremes intervene again to uphold Trump right to ban 24,000 refugees awaiting entry
From the story here:
The high court on Wednesday blocked Watson’s order as it applies to refugees, but not the expanded list of relatives. The justices said the federal appeals court in San Francisco should now consider the appeal. It’s not clear how quickly that will happen.
In the meantime, though, up to 24,000 refugees who already have been assigned to a charity or religious organization in the U.S. will not be able to use that connection to get into the country.
The Reagan GDP miracle is a complete myth: It was all government spending (on defense)
And it set a horrible precedent for the dramatic overspending of George W. Bush and Barack Obama, which has sent us on a course to oblivion. You can argue it was necessary to defeat the USSR, but you can't argue that baseline spending (in black) has done anything but go up, up, up to dangerous new levels as a result (notice the baseline Jimmy Carter inherited from liberal Republicanism, for which he got the blame from Ronald Reagan, which wasn't very nice of the old man who went on to bequeath a similar giant new baseline to his successor, G.H.W. Bush).
No, the real miracle was the pathetic loser in Iran, Jimmy Carter, who spent the least in the post-war for his additional GDP, followed by Bill Clinton.
Of course, the spending is all the prerogative of the Congress. The president proposes but the Congress disposes, as the saying goes.
Beware libertarian politicians preaching balanced budgets, as well as utopian infrastructure spending enthusiasts promising the moon and liberal Republicans selling government spending as security to senior citizens at the expense of younger Americans in a time of protracted war. They have delivered little beyond $20 trillion in debt.
Tuesday, July 18, 2017
These two women voted to repeal Obamacare in 2015, but now they refuse to
 |
| Shelley Moore Capito -- WV |
 |
| Lisa Murkowski -- AK |
Turncoats Shelley Moore Capito and Lisa Murkowski said Tuesday they’ll oppose a repeal of the Affordable Care Act
Capito and Murkowski should be run out of the party on a rail. They both voted for repeal last time.
Story here.
As high school grades inflate, SAT scores deflate
Reported here:
Recent findings show that the proportion of high school seniors graduating with an A average — that includes an A-minus or A-plus — has grown sharply over the past generation, even as average SAT scores have fallen.
In 1998, it was 38.9%. By last year, it had grown to 47%.
That’s right: Nearly half of America’s Class of 2016 are A students. Meanwhile, their average SAT score fell from 1,026 to 1,002 on a 1,600-point scale — suggesting that those A's on report cards might be fool's gold.
McConnell reportedly set to bring full repeal bill like HR 3762 to a vote in the Senate
There were 52 "Yeas" for the HR 3762 Obamacare repeal bill in the Senate on December 3, 2015 out of 54 Republicans, which Obama subsequently vetoed. It was the only repeal bill ever to reach Obama's desk:
Alexander of Tennessee
Barrasso of Wyoming
Blunt of Missouri
Boozman of Arkansas
Burr of North Carolina
Capito of West Virginia
Cassidy of Louisiana
Cochran of Mississippi
Corker of Tennessee
Cornyn of Texas
Cotton of Arkansas
Crapo of Idaho
Cruz of Texas
Daines of Montana
Enzi of Wyoming
Ernst of Iowa
Fischer of Nebraska
Flake of Arizona
Gardner of Colorado
Graham of South Carolina
Grassley of Iowa
Hatch of Utah
Heller of Nevada
Hoeven of North Dakota
Inhofe of Oklahoma
Isakson of Georgia
Johnson of Wisconsin
Lankford of Oklahoma
Lee of Utah
McCain of Arizona
McConnell of Kentucky
Moran of Kansas
Murkowski of Alaska
Paul of Kentucky
Perdue of Georgia
Portman of Ohio
Risch of Idaho
Roberts of Kansas
Rounds of South Dakota
Rubio of Florida
Sasse of Nebraska
Scott of South Carolina
Shelby of Alabama
Sullivan of Alaska
Thune of South Dakota
Tillis of North Carolina
Toomey of Pennsylvania
Wicker of Mississippi.
There were two Republican "Nays":
Collins of Maine, who is still there
Kirk of Illinois, who lost his seat to the Democrats.
Now out of 52 Republicans in the Senate we have 48 votes this time for repeal that we had last time, plus 3 Republican freshman in the Senate to pressure to vote for repeal, which would bring the total to 51, assuming Collins of Maine again votes "Nay".
We'll see if they have the guts.
Monday, July 17, 2017
Ted Cruz concluded Mitch McConnell is a liar in 2015, now Ron Johnson appears to be doing the same
The Ted Cruz incident with McConnell involved the Export-Import Bank (story here).
Now, Ron Johnson is reportedly concluding McConnell committed a breach of trust by privately telling moderate senators that the Medicaid cuts in the healthcare bill won't actually occur, as reported here.
The current Republican bill in the Senate appears dead as four senators in the Republican caucus have said they don't support it. With a 2-seat majority, only 3 defections are tolerable (the tie-breaker vote is cast by the Vice President, Mike Pence).
When all is said and done we might find out that the loss of support is all intentional and orchestrated in order to save the Senate from having to vote on the issue again at all. The nay-sayers may be handsomely rewarded at some future date while getting to please their constituencies.
Remember, Republicans generally don't believe in anything except for what is. In other words, maintaining the status quo is their objective. They are pragmatists who are willing to accept progressive creations once passed, like the income tax, Social Security, Medicare and now Obamacare, and will defend those programs no matter how they became law.
Lighting their hair on fire for anything is completely out of the question, including for the constitution.
The only thing that will save us now is a meteor strike on the Senate chamber while they are all in session.
The Senate ceased being a gentlemen's club when they started letting just anybody in in 1913
Spare me the blather about its august rules, traditions and decorum, especially when propounded by the gaggle of mediocrities, grifters, hacks, and perverts now occupying it, and aspiring to it.
Sunday, July 16, 2017
Hm, hundreds withdraw their voter registrations in Colorado as Secretary of State gets ready to turn over records to Trump
Imagine that.
270 in Boulder County, 180 in Denver, 365 in Arapahoe County, according to the story here.
Saturday, July 15, 2017
Michigan Doctor Men with funny names charged in $1.3 billion healthcare fraud conspiracy: Mashiyat Rashid, Yasser Mozeb, Abdul Haq, Tariz Omar, Mohammed Zahoor
From the story here:
More than 400 people across the country were charged Thursday for taking part in health care fraud and opioid scams including six Michigan doctors in connection with a raid Wednesday at the Fisher Building in Detroit. ... Rashid and Mozeb are charged with conspiracy to defraud the United States and pay and receive health care kickbacks.
Laugh of the Day: Leave it to Rod Dreher to crank out 2,000 to 3,000 words about so much bologna
Here, in the comments section.
Friday, July 14, 2017
J. P. Morgan Chase CEO Jamie Dimon complains "stupid shit" is distracting America from implementing better tax and spending policies
Blame the Democrats and NeverTrumpers, Jamie.
Here:
It's almost an embarrassment being an American citizen traveling around the world and listening to the stupid s--- we have to deal with in this country, and at one point we all have to get our act together or we won't do what we're supposed to [do] for the average Americans and unfortunately people write about this saying like it's for corporations. It's not for corporations. Competitive taxes are important for business and business growth, which is important for jobs and wage growth. And honestly we should be ringing that alarm bell, every single one of you, every time we talk to a client.
Thursday, July 13, 2017
Trump Jr. saga: Loretta Lynch personally signed off on Moscow lawyer entry to US in October 2015, but it appears the lawyer overstayed and no one followed up
The Hill reports here:
The Moscow lawyer had been turned down for a visa to enter the U.S. lawfully but then was granted special immigration parole by then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch for the limited purpose of helping a company owned by Russian businessman Denis Katsyv, her client, defend itself against a Justice Department asset forfeiture case in federal court in New York City.
During a court hearing in early January 2016 as Veselnitskaya’s permission to stay in the country was about to expire, federal prosecutors described how rare the grant of parole immigration was as Veselnitskaya pleaded for more time to remain in the United States. ...
The U.S. Attorney’s office in New York confirmed Wednesday to The Hill that it let Veselnitskaya into the country on a grant of immigration parole from October 2015 to early January 2016.
Justice Department and State Department officials could not immediately explain how the Russian lawyer was still in the country in June for the meeting with Donald Trump Jr. and the events in Washington D.C.
Wednesday, July 12, 2017
David Brooks, who thinks he's so much smarter than a high school graduate, mistakenly calls stirato bread striata bread
Here.
All the recipes by the people who actually know Italian bread call it stirato. Here, here, here, here, here, here and here.
When gathering up your cultural signifiers with which to preen and beat the illegitimi over the head, David, maybe you should first make sure that they are intelligible. Looks like all those layoffs of the striata eaters at the Times are starting to expose the columnists for the ignoramuses they are.
Ralph Peters becomes irrational about Putin like Bush, under questioning by Tucker Carlson
 |
| "I looked the man in the eye. I found him very straightforward and trustworthy – I was able to get a sense of his soul." |
[Vladimir Putin] is malevolent and he is as close to pure evil as I can find. ... [H]e is as bad as Hitler. ... Vladimir Putin hates America, he wants to hurt us. ... Russia is evil, Russia is our enemy.
Laugh of the Day: Baloney sandwich Joe Scarborough says he's not going to be a filet mignon anymore
Seen in the comments section, here.
Politico's real story from January was that the DNC, the Hillary campaign, Alexandra Chalupa, Rep. Marcy Kaptur, journalists, government officials and intelligence operatives all colluded with Ukraine to take out Manafort and disrupt Trump's campaign
You should read it to appreciate the four fingers pointing back at the Democrats every time they point at Republicans yelling "collusion".
The whole article was designed to run interference for Chalupa and the Democrats, putting the best spin on it they could after uncovering the dirty details. The heart of the story begins seventeen paragraphs in, after trying in the first sixteen to make what follows not say what it says, here:
The Ukrainian efforts had an impact in the race, helping to force Manafort’s resignation and advancing the narrative that Trump’s campaign was deeply connected to Ukraine’s foe to the east, Russia. ...
Manafort’s work for Yanukovych caught the attention of a veteran Democratic operative named Alexandra Chalupa, who had worked in the White House Office of Public Liaison during the Clinton administration. Chalupa went on to work as a staffer, then as a consultant, for Democratic National Committee. The DNC paid her $412,000 from 2004 to June 2016, according to Federal Election Commission records, though she also was paid by other clients during that time, including Democratic campaigns and the DNC’s arm for engaging expatriate Democrats around the world.
In an interview this month, Chalupa told Politico she had developed a network of sources in Kiev and Washington, including investigative journalists, government officials and private intelligence operatives. While her consulting work at the DNC this past election cycle centered on mobilizing ethnic communities — including Ukrainian-Americans — she said that, when Trump’s unlikely presidential campaign began surging in late 2015, she began focusing more on the research, and expanded it to include Trump’s ties to Russia, as well.
She occasionally shared her findings with officials from the DNC and Clinton’s campaign, Chalupa said. In January 2016 — months before Manafort had taken any role in Trump’s campaign — Chalupa told a senior DNC official that, when it came to Trump’s campaign, “I felt there was a Russia connection,” Chalupa recalled. “And that, if there was, that we can expect Paul Manafort to be involved in this election,” said Chalupa, who at the time also was warning leaders in the Ukrainian-American community that Manafort was “Putin’s political brain for manipulating U.S. foreign policy and elections.”
She said she shared her concern with Ukraine’s ambassador to the U.S., Valeriy Chaly, and one of his top aides, Oksana Shulyar, during a March 2016 meeting at the Ukrainian Embassy. According to someone briefed on the meeting, Chaly said that Manafort was very much on his radar, but that he wasn’t particularly concerned about the operative’s ties to Trump since he didn’t believe Trump stood much of a chance of winning the GOP nomination, let alone the presidency.
That all started to change just four days after Chalupa’s meeting at the embassy, when it was reported that Trump had in fact hired Manafort, suggesting that Chalupa may have been on to something. She quickly found herself in high demand. The day after Manafort’s hiring was revealed, she briefed the DNC’s communications staff on Manafort, Trump and their ties to Russia, according to an operative familiar with the situation. ...
Chalupa asked embassy staff to try to arrange an interview in which Poroshenko might discuss Manafort’s ties to Yanukovych. While the embassy declined that request, officials there became “helpful” in Chalupa’s efforts, she said, explaining that she traded information and leads with them. “If I asked a question, they would provide guidance, or if there was someone I needed to follow up with.” But she stressed, “There were no documents given, nothing like that.”
Chalupa said the embassy also worked directly with reporters researching Trump, Manafort and Russia to point them in the right directions. ...
Andrii Telizhenko, who worked as a political officer in the Ukrainian Embassy under Shulyar, said [Shulyar] instructed him to help Chalupa research connections between Trump, Manafort and Russia. “Oksana said that if I had any information, or knew other people who did, then I should contact Chalupa,” recalled Telizhenko, who is now a political consultant in Kiev. “They were coordinating an investigation with the Hillary team on Paul Manafort with Alexandra Chalupa,” he said, adding “Oksana was keeping it all quiet,” but “the embassy worked very closely with” Chalupa.
In fact, sources familiar with the effort say that Shulyar specifically called Telizhenko into a meeting with Chalupa to provide an update on an American media outlet’s ongoing investigation into Manafort.
Telizhenko recalled that Chalupa told him and Shulyar that, “If we can get enough information on Paul [Manafort] or Trump’s involvement with Russia, she can get a hearing in Congress by September.”
Chalupa confirmed that, a week after Manafort’s hiring was announced, she discussed the possibility of a congressional investigation with a foreign policy legislative assistant in the office of Rep. Marcy Kaptur (D-Ohio), who co-chairs the Congressional Ukrainian Caucus. But, Chalupa said, “It didn’t go anywhere.”
Asked about the effort, the Kaptur legislative assistant called it a “touchy subject” in an internal email to colleagues that was accidentally forwarded to Politico.
Kaptur’s office later emailed an official statement explaining that the lawmaker is backing a bill to create an independent commission to investigate “possible outside interference in our elections.” The office added “at this time, the evidence related to this matter points to Russia, but Congresswoman Kaptur is concerned with any evidence of foreign entities interfering in our elections.” ...
In [an] email [released by Wikileaks], which was sent in early May to then-DNC communications director Luis Miranda, Chalupa noted that she had extended an invitation to the Library of Congress forum to veteran Washington investigative reporter Michael Isikoff. Two days before the event, he had published a story for Yahoo News revealing the unraveling of a $26 million deal between Manafort and a Russian oligarch related to a telecommunications venture in Ukraine. And Chalupa wrote in the email she’d been “working with for the past few weeks” with Isikoff “and connected him to the Ukrainians” at the event.
Isikoff, who accompanied Chalupa to a reception at the Ukrainian Embassy immediately after the Library of Congress event, declined to comment.
Chalupa further indicated in her hacked May email to the DNC that she had additional sensitive information about Manafort that she intended to share “offline” with Miranda and DNC research director Lauren Dillon, including “a big Trump component you and Lauren need to be aware of that will hit in next few weeks and something I’m working on you should be aware of.” Explaining that she didn’t feel comfortable sharing the intel over email, Chalupa attached a screenshot of a warning from Yahoo administrators about “state-sponsored” hacking on her account, explaining, “Since I started digging into Manafort these messages have been a daily occurrence on my yahoo account despite changing my password often.”
Dillon and Miranda declined to comment. ...
The [Financial Times] noted that Trump’s candidacy had spurred “Kiev’s wider political leadership to do something they would never have attempted before: intervene, however indirectly, in a U.S. election,” and the story quoted Leshchenko [Ukraine's parliamentarian] asserting that the majority of Ukraine’s politicians are “on Hillary Clinton’s side.” ...
[A]n operative who has worked extensively in Ukraine, including as an adviser to Poroshenko, said it was highly unlikely that either Leshchenko or the anti-corruption bureau would have pushed the issue without at least tacit approval from Poroshenko or his closest allies.
“It was something that Poroshenko was probably aware of and could have stopped if he wanted to,” said the operative. ...
Telizhenko, the former embassy staffer, said that, during the primaries, Chaly, the country’s ambassador in Washington, had actually instructed the embassy not to reach out to Trump’s campaign, even as it was engaging with those of Clinton and Trump’s leading GOP rival, Ted Cruz.
“We had an order not to talk to the Trump team, because he was critical of Ukraine and the government and his critical position on Crimea and the conflict,” said Telizhenko. “I was yelled at when I proposed to talk to Trump,” he said, adding, “The ambassador said not to get involved — Hillary is going to win.”
This account was confirmed by Nalyvaichenko, the former diplomat and security chief now affiliated with a Poroshenko opponent, who said, “The Ukrainian authorities closed all doors and windows — this is from the Ukrainian side.” He called the strategy “bad and short-sighted.”
Andriy Artemenko, a Ukrainian parliamentarian associated with a conservative opposition party, did meet with Trump’s team during the campaign and said he personally offered to set up similar meetings for Chaly but was rebuffed.
“It was clear that they were supporting Hillary Clinton’s candidacy,” Artemenko said. “They did everything from organizing meetings with the Clinton team, to publicly supporting her, to criticizing Trump. … I think that they simply didn’t meet because they thought that Hillary would win.”
Tuesday, July 11, 2017
The Denver Post defends the right of anyone to request and receive public voter records, including President Trump
Here:
Withholding public records simply because you don’t like the president or because he is investigating election fraud sets a terrible precedent and is perhaps illegal.
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