There is a new sheriff in town and every defense attorney is going to try for new wiggle room for their clients.

The state has already stated it is reassessing the cases before them. What I still want to know is when will Snyder, the former governor, finally be held for his part in all this.

April 9, 2019
By Ron Fonger

There’s a new attorney (click here) pushing the criminal charges against former Michigan Chief Medical Executive Dr. Eden Wells, but her attorneys say it’s same flawed case.

In a court filing Monday, April 9, Jerold Lax, an attorney for Wells, asked Genesee Circuit Court Judge Joseph Farah to dismiss charges Wells was bound over on, including involuntary manslaughter, because of “clear errors of law” by Genesee District Court Judge William Crawford....

...Farah is expected to schedule a hearing date for oral arguments on whether he should dismiss the charges -- something that happened in February for the same issue in another Flint water case -- this one against former Michigan Department of Health and Human Services Director Nick Lyon.

Farah said at the time that he expected to rule on the Lyon case within about 90 days.

Both Lyon and Wells were charged for their role in the state’s handling of outbreaks of Legionnaires’ disease in Genesee County at the same time that the city was using the Flint River as its water source.

Eighty-seven cases of Legionnaires’ -- 10 resulting in death -- were documented in the county in parts of 2014 and 2015.

City, county and state officials were aware of the outbreaks more than a year before Gov. Rick Snyder informed the public of them and the suspicion that surges in the disease were connected to the Flint water.

Oh, it was all a joke. You know, a code talking kind of joke. Wink, wink.

Of course, he meant it. He would not mind if loyalty overcame everyone he engaged that day. Trump counts on the bad behavior of those that surround him to achieve goals for him. He won't give anyone a pardon unless they make it to jail. How big of him. Anyone who acts in loyalty to Trump by breaking the law and expecting a pardon is a fool.

Presidents don't make such jokes. This is criminality. Yes, criminality coming from the president.

April 12, 2019
By Jake Tapper

Washington - President Donald Trump (click here) told Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Kevin McAleenan he would grant McAleenan a pardon if he were sent to jail for having border agents block asylum seekers from entering the US in defiance of US law, senior administration officials tell CNN.

Trump reportedly made the comment during a visit to the border at Calexico, California, a week ago. It was not clear if the comment was a joke.

Two officials briefed on the exchange say the President told McAleenan, since named the acting secretary of the Department of Homeland Security, that he "would pardon him if he ever went to jail for denying US entry to migrants," as one of the officials paraphrased.

The White House referred CNN to the Department of Homeland Security. A DHS spokesman told CNN, "At no time has the President indicated, asked, directed or pressured the Acting Secretary to do anything illegal. Nor would the Acting Secretary take actions that are not in accordance with our responsibility to enforce the law."...

Sanctuary cities have always been a States Rights issue.

The cities may actually have room for these folks. Trump's administration has cut the number of refugees taken by the USA. I know last year, Chicago actually had empty apartments and ready jobs. So, the cities might welcome the people currently detained by the federal government.

In many ways the detainees are refugees from brutal drug cartels. The difference, of course, is that refugees will already have background checks and are prepared to take jobs and settle in after having gone through a process to get to the USA. The cities might have to employ different receptions of these folks, including conducting background checks and process at the detention facilities to prepare them for a trip to their new home.

April 12, 2019
By Scott Bizby

President Donald Trump (click here) may have assumed that his proposal to release undocumented immigrants into so-called “sanctuary cities” would back Democrats into a corner on the issue of immigration. But the local officials in those cities he’s targeting don’t seem to actually find the prospect all that foreboding.

Instead, when asked about the plan—which would entail busing migrants apprehended at the U.S.-Mexico border to be released in cities that do not cooperate with federal law enforcement to arrest undocumented immigrants—mayors of major cities, regional capitals and medium-sized towns told The Daily Beast said that they would welcome those currently being detained.

“The city would be prepared to welcome these immigrants just as we have embraced our immigrant communities for decades,” Philadelphia Mayor Jim Kenney told The Daily Beast in a statement. “This White House plan demonstrates the utter contempt that the Trump administration has for basic human dignity and the core values on which this nation was founded.”

“As a welcoming city, we would welcome these migrants with open arms, just as we welcomed Syrian refugees, just as we welcomed Puerto Ricans displaced by Hurricane Maria and just as we welcome Rohingya refugees fleeing genocide in Myanmar,” said Chicago Mayor Rahm Emanuel in a statement.

“I am proud that Cambridge is a sanctuary city,” Mayor Marc McGovern of Cambridge, Massachusetts, told The Daily Beast. “Trump is a schoolyard bully who tries to intimidate and threaten people. I’m not intimidated and if asylum seekers find their way to Cambridge, we’ll welcome them.”...

Wikileaks.

April 12, 2019
By Zack Whittaker

A hacker group (click here) has breached several FBI-affiliated websites and uploaded their contents to the web, including dozens of files containing the personal information of thousands of federal agents and law enforcement officers, TechCrunch has learned.

The hackers breached three sites associated with the FBI National Academy Association, a coalition of different chapters across the U.S. promoting federal and law enforcement leadership and training located at the FBI training academy in Quantico, VA. The hackers exploited flaws on at least three of the organization’s chapter websites — which we’re not naming — and downloaded the contents of each web server.

The hackers then put the data up for download on their own website, which we’re also not naming nor linking to given the sensitivity of the data.

The spreadsheets contained about 4,000 unique records after duplicates were removed, including member names, a mix of personal and government email addresses, job titles, phone numbers and their postal addresses. The FBINAA could not be reached for comment outside of business hours. If we hear back, we’ll update.

TechCrunch spoke to one of the hackers, who didn’t identify his or her name, through an encrypted chat late Friday.

“We hacked more than 1,000 sites,” said the hacker. “Now we are structuring all the data, and soon they will be sold. I think something else will publish from the list of hacked government sites.” We asked if the hacker was worried that the files they put up for download would put federal agents and law enforcement at risk. “Probably, yes,” the hacker said.

The hacker claimed to have “over a million data” [sic] on employees across several U.S. federal agencies and public service organizations....

Pathetic. Non-profits and benefits companies.

April 12, 2019
by Rebecca Boone

One of Idaho's largest insurance companies (click here) said Friday that someone hacked its website and obtained access to the personal information of about 5,600 customers, including their names, claim payment information and codes indicating medical procedures they may have undergone.

Blue Cross of Idaho Executive Vice President Paul Zurlo said in a statement that all affected members were notified and were offered three years of complementary credit monitoring and identity protection services. The company has about 560,000 health insurance customers.

Blue Cross of Idaho said the information did not include Social Security numbers, driver's license numbers, banking or credit card numbers or information about medical diagnoses....

Possibly unrelated.

By Jim Forsyth

San Antonio - A self-professed spokesman (click here) for the computer hacker group Anonymous was arrested by authorities in Dallas, officials said on Thursday.

“He was arrested and brought in for booking about 11 p.m. last night,” said Dallas County Sheriff’s spokeswoman Carmen Castro.

She didn’t know why Barrett Brown, 31, was arrested, saying there was no offense listed on the booking sheet. Brown was turned over to the FBI, she said.

A spokesman for the FBI declined to comment.

A Twitter account for the California law firm Leiderman Devine said it would be defending Brown at a hearing in Dallas federal court later on Thursday and that he had been detained on charges of “threatening a federal agent.”...

Trisulti Monestary is not owned and operated by Steven Bannon. It is being exploited in an attempt to grow Bannon's strange idea of conservativism.

It is about money. i am sure Bannon has sold Benjamin Harnwell, a conservative Catholic ideologue from Leicestershire, he could become a wealthy man in control of European money through political control. It is foolishness, but, it exists and will become a 900 hotel for the extremists wanting to be wealthy and willing to run for office in attempts to be wealthy.

Former Trump advisor Steve Bannon has been doing the rounds in Europe trying to sell the idea of his euroskeptic club known as 'The Movement'. But it's gained little traction among the populists he promised to pull together. And it's put in serious question another of his projects, a training ground near Rome for national political warriors.

Wealth can be habit-forming. When Bannon fell out of the power of controlling wealth from Washington, DC, he decided he would try out his extremism in Europe.

Steven Bannon has not found god. He has found someone with money to play god in Europe.

September 14, 2018
By Mark Hosenball

Former Trump White House adviser Steve Bannon (click here) is helping to craft the curriculum for a leadership course at a right-wing Roman Catholic institute in Italy, stepping up his efforts to influence conservative thinking in the church.

Benjamin Harnwell, director of the Dignitatis Humanae Institute based in a mountaintop monastery not far from Rome, told Reuters Bannon had been helping to build up the institute for about half of its eight-year life.

Cardinal Raymond Burke, a leading Vatican conservative who is president of the Institute’s board of advisers, said Bannon would be playing a leading role there.

Burke told Reuters he looked forward to working with Harnwell and Bannon “to promote a number of projects that should make a decisive contribution to the defense of what used to be called Christendom”....

I am sure Pope Francis is going to take an interest in Cardinal Raymond Burke in realizing he is affiliating with politically corrupt people that wrote Trump's immigration policy to instill fear of the other.

Steve Bannon and his cohorts are Evangelicals. They are not Catholic. You believe this mess. The Cardinal is going to be taking requests for prayers while affiliating with an extremist right wing ideologue. Has Bannon received a visa for an extended period of time in Italy? If not, he might need the Cardinal's prayers if he over stayed his passport.

February 8, 2019
By Edward Pentin

Cardinal Raymond Burke (click here) has launched his own personal website (www.cardinalburke.com) where people can send him special prayer intentions, and which he intends to use to uphold the Church’s teaching and discipline.

The patron of the Sovereign Military Order of Malta says he also hopes that, by visiting the site, visitors will be inspired to pray for him. 

The website currently contains a biography, links to his apostolates, books and Facebook page, and details on how to contact the cardinal.

“Many are writing to ask for prayers,” the cardinal told the Register, adding that, with the help of a webmaster, he hopes to be able to provide texts of homilies and other teachings soon....

Perhaps Bannon is needed in Washington, DC to make testimony to Congress about his roll in the Trump campaign regarding conspiracy with Russia.

Historic blizzard impacts 18 states and 50 million people (click here for news article - thank you)

Of course, there will be more flooding.

Spring Blizzard is an oxymoron.

There have not been historic spring blizzards in the USA before the climate crisis. There are snowstorms, occasionally blizzards since the 1950s. The warming of Earth started decades ago and the subtle climate changes were occurring since the 1950s. Where does everyone think scientists got the information to bring alarm regarding the greenhouse effect which lead to the first Earth Day. The alarm started a long time ago, including the obvious changes such as "spring blizzards."

This weather is not normal.

And, oh by the way, Pope Francis didn't turn away from the truth regarding Earth's warming climate. Catholics need to appreciate Pope Francis' efforts. He is a great Pope.

Pope Francis is a humanitarian.

Pope Francis has not avoided the pedophilia issue within the church. He discharged a Cardinal (click here)over sexual misconduct as he should. It wasn't even pedophilia, it was sexual misconduct.

The Catholic Church is a global institution. It is ungainly and the Pope has to consider many issues within the cultures the church finds itself. Pope Francis called a recent summit for the church to address the issues of pedophilia. That is not a minor effort. Those attending the summit didn't satisfy the public in it's resolutions. I am sure Pope Francis will continue to press the leadership of the church to address these issues. Pope Francis is not turning away from any problem.

Pope Francis is not making excuses about anything. He is holding council in regard to these issues and he is moving through them. He is a great Pope. There will be a conclusion. This is a decades long problem and it doesn't resolve overnight.

March 31, 2019
By Casey Michel

President Donald Trump’s plans (click here) for a border wall has attracted plenty of criticism, but it may have just received its most high-profile critic yet.

In an interview with the Spanish outlet La Sexta, Pope Francis called out the president’s plans, saying that the U.S. would end up as a “prisoner” itself.

“He who raises a wall ends up a prisoner of the wall he erected… If you raise a wall between people, you end up a prisoner of that wall that you raised,” the pope said....

2019 Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medalist in Law

Judge Reeves is known for his big voice regarding civil rights. (click here)

U.S. Judge Carlton W. Reeves, (click here) a 1989 graduate of the University of Virginia School of Law, has been named this year’s recipient of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation Medal in Law.

“Judge Reeves is an exemplary public servant whose decisions have reached well beyond his seat in Mississippi,” School of Law Dean Risa Goluboff said. “His opinions elucidate the law through powerful reasoning and a deep humanity that gets to the heart of the issues at stake.”

The judge will give a talk to mark the occasion on April 11 at 2:15 p.m. in the Law School’s Caplin Auditorium.

Reeves, a native of Yazoo City, Mississippi, has served for almost a decade on the U.S. District Court for the Southern District of Mississippi, where he has ruled in a number of important cases, including those involving equality and civil rights....

Judge Reeves gave a very resounding acceptance speech.

...Now, Jefferson would truly question (click here) what you have done if he knew I was not just a black man, but a black federal judge. For he believed that federal judges were “sappers and miners, steadily working to undermine the independent rights of the States” and “assault[] . . . the Constitution.” Jefferson led his party to attack the judiciary’s independence.

So I am here today not just as a black man, but as a black judge. My friend Judge Reggie Walton once said that when black judges “see injustice,” we “have an obligation to stand up and speak.” So as a black judge, accepting an award7 named for a man whose views on race cannot be untethered from an assault on the judiciary, I must stand up and speak about that pairing. How corrosive it has been since the days of Jefferson, who we all agree, was a man of his time. How often that pairing has been embraced throughout our history, by men of their times. And why we must defend against its poison when spewed today, by men of our time. Because there is another vision of what the judiciary is and should always be – a vision of the courts as the defender of justice....

...At heart, justice is a search for truth. Deciding what is fair, what is reasonable, what is owed – these questions are too important to be decided by position, power, or tradition. Only truth can resolve them. Thus, as Justice John Marshall Harlan II wrote, “the job of courts is not merely one of an umpire in disputes between litigants. Their job is to search out the truth, both as to the facts and the law.”

Finding truth is hard. It takes time. That’s why courts follow carefully-crafted rules of evidence and procedure – and why injustice happens when courts place expediency and finality ahead of truth. Finding truth also takes independence. That’s why courts must be shielded from partisanship and undue influence. Most of all, finding truth takes experience....

...Justice’s demand for diverse experiences is best seen in the heart of our court system: the jury. The Constitution requires trials “by an impartial jury.” The Supreme Court says we should try to draw juries that “reflect a representative cross section of the community.” Excluding classes of people from juries, like women and black folk, results in decision-making that – according to the Supreme Court – is exposed to “the risk of bias.” Reams of scientific evidence support this conclusion, along with the idea that diversity is essential to all kinds of courtroom decision-making....

...The law of the land was Dred Scott, which said black people were “beings of an inferior order” with “no rights which the white man was bound to respect.”...

...Reversing the untruths of Dred Scott took a war and a new Constitution, rewritten to reflect the truth of black equality through the 13th, 14 th , and 15th Amendments. It also took “revitalized federal courts,” with expanded jurisdiction, more judgeships, and new causes of action to protect civil rights. Mississippi’s court saw black plaintiffs, black juries, black lawyers, black witnesses, and – yes – black judges. For the first time ever, Mississippi’s judiciary was equipped with the experiences of black folks.

But then came pushback....

...a former lawyer to the Klan, L.Q.C. Lamar, is the only Mississippian to have served on the U.S. Supreme Court....

...Plessy v. Ferguson, which assumed – in ignorance of all relevant experience – that segregation “stamps the colored race with a badge of inferiority . . . solely because the colored race chooses to put that construction upon it.” If you want to know what that kind of all-white justice looks like, what it feels like, what it hurts like, ask the people in Mississippi who lived through it. Ask those whose lynchings were sanctioned by a judiciary that was “the Klan in black robes instead of white sheets," as described by former Mississippi Supreme Court justice Fred Banks....

...As in Emmett Till...“Justice” whose servants called black folks “niggers” in open court. “Justice” that ignored black eyewitness testimony. Justice that delivered a unanimous “not guilty” verdict from an all-white, all-male jury that deliberated for all of an hour and seven minutes. Why that long? Because they took a “pop” break....

...Judges like William Henry Hastie integrated our Article III courts, ending 160 years of judicial segregation. Lawyers like Thurgood Marshall revived civil rights statutes, prying open the doors of “antebellum courthouses where white supremacy ruled.”...

..."Brown vs Board of Education"...That black people are “created equal.” That WE are included in “We the People.” Brown showed that our courts were once again willing to incorporate the experiences of the many, rather than the few, into their searches for truth.

Then came the second great pushback against the judiciary....

....To counter the experiences of Marshall and those like him, segregationist Senators wielded their seniority, seniority built on the disenfranchisement of black people. Men like Senator Eastland – who saw his voter suppression efforts in Mississippi rewarded with the chairmanship of the Judiciary Committee – demanded the appointment of men who would enforce white supremacy. Men like Harold Cox, a man who called black people in his court “baboons,” “chimpanzees,” and “niggers.” His “behavior was repugnant to anyone with a sense of fairness....

...And in Alexander v. Holmes County – decided just 50 years ago this year– the Supreme Court ruled that “all deliberate speed” was no longer a strategy for keeping Mississippi’s schools segregated. With the independence, power, and fortitude to do justice, our courts’ search for truth bore freedom’s fruit.

I count myself among the harvest. Alexander came down when I was in kindergarten. So I was among that first full class to enter an integrated first grade classroom at Annie Ellis Elementary. I spent the next 12 years of public education with black and white children. Maxine and Melanie. Don and Thomas. Phyllis and Charles, and every other member of my class of 1982, whose graduation song was Stevie Wonder and Paul McCartney’s classic, Ebony and Ivory....

...That opportunity, just like the opportunity of an integrated education, came from an effort to defend and strengthen our courts. For eight years at the beginning of this century, building on the legacy of the President elected the year of America’s bicentennial, our nation witnessed a revolution, one that dramatically expanded and improved the body of expertise federal courts depend on to find truth. We saw the addition of more black judges, more women judges, more Latina and Latino judges, more Asian-American judges, more Native American and Pacific Islander judges, and more openly LGBTQ judges than ever before....

...That effort to make our judiciary reflect America was as brief as it was remarkable. We are now eyewitnesses to the third great assault on our judiciary.

If you’ve never relied on a court, you may not see the assault. If you’ve never seen a friend or loved one wrongly imprisoned, you may not feel it. If you have never been stopped for Driving While Black, like my friend Judge Robert Wilkins, you might not fear it. But if you know the words of Mississippi’s darkest moments, you can hear it.

When politicians attack courts as “dangerous,” “political,” and guilty of “egregious overreach,” you can hear the Klan’s lawyers, assailing officers of the court across the South. When leaders chastise people for merely “us[ing] the courts,” you can hear the Citizens Council, hammering up the names of black petitioners in Yazoo City. When the powerful accuse courts of “open[ing] up our country to potential terrorists,” you can hear the Southern Manifesto’s authors, smearing the judiciary for simply upholding the rights of black folk. When lawmakers say “we should get rid of judges,” you can hear segregationist Senators, writing bills to strip courts of their power. And when the Executive Branch calls our courts and their work “stupid,”“horrible,” “ridiculous,” “incompetent,” “a laughingstock,” and a “complete and total disgrace,” you can hear the slurs and threats of executives like George Wallace, echoing into the present. 

I know what I heard when a federal judge was called “very biased and unfair” because he is “of Mexican heritage.” When that judge’s ethnicity was said to prevent his issuing “fair rulings.” When that judge was called a “hater” simply because he is Latino. I heard the words of James Eastland, a race-baiting politician, empowered by the falsehood of white supremacy, questioning the judicial temperament of a man solely because of the color of his skin. I heard those words and I did not know if it was 1967 or 2017.

This false seed is being sown across this country, from Mississippi to Virginia. I know, because I am there. The proof is in my mailbox. In countless letters of hatred I’ve been called a “piece of garbage,” “an arrogant pompous piece of sh**,” “a disgrace,” an “asshole . . .[who] will burn in hell,” and the “embodiment of Satan himself.” One person has even told me that he has “prayed that God will give [me] complete discomfort.” The deliverers of hate who send these messages aim to bully and scare judges who look like me from the judiciary. And so they share an aim with those who used whips and ropes and trees against my ancestors: scrubbing the black experience from our nation’s courts.

Of course, courts can – and should – be criticized. Judges get it wrong, all the time. That includes me. Scrutiny of our reasoning is not, on its own, troubling. Indeed, debating judicial decisions improves, rather than impedes, our courts’ search for truth. But the slander and falsehoods thrown at courts today are not those of a critic, seeking to improve the judiciary’s search for truth. They are words of an attacker, seeking to distort and twist that search toward falsehood.

Of the Article III judges confirmed under the current Administration, 90% have been white. Just one of those judges is black. Just two are Hispanic....

...Barely 25% of this Administration’s confirmed judges are women. None have been black or Latina. Achieving complete gender equality on the federal bench would require us to confirm only 23 women a year. How hard could that be? I suspect Deans Goluboff and Kendrick would say, “not very hard.” Think: in a country where they make up just 30% of the population, non-Hispanic white men make up nearly 70% of this Administration’s confirmed judicial appointees. That’s not what America looks like. That’s not even what the legal profession looks like....

...There is no excuse for this exclusion of minority experiences from our courts. Minority populations are not monoliths; we contain multitudes....

...This Administration and a bare majority of the Senate, walking arm-and-arm, are not stumbling unaware towards a homogeneous judiciary.  Think of the slurs against Judge Curiel. Think of the nominations to the bench of those who call diversity “code for relaxed standards,” who call transgender children part of “Satan’s plan,” who defend the KKK in online message boards, who led voter suppression efforts for segregationists like Jesse Helms. Think of the pattern of judicial nominees refusing to admit, like generations of nominees before them have, that Brown v. Board was correctly decided. That same Brown which led to Alexander v. Holmes County, which breathed justice into the segregated streets of my Yazoo City. As if equality was a mere political position

Friends, let it be said that equal protection of the law is not a political position. It is enshrined in our Constitution....

...With no Muslims on the bench, will our judiciary understand the many facets of religious freedom? How can it defend economic opportunity with so few judges who know the taste of a free lunch program or the weight of poverty? How can our judiciary understand the depths of mass incarceration119 when so few judges have stood with the accused or know them as neighbors, as Sunday School students, as loved ones? Filled only with the experiences of prosecutors and state court judges, of Big Law partners and corporate counsel, of a single religion or sexual orientation, our courts will fail to find the many truths justice must see. We need a judiciary as diverse as our country – as diverse as “We the People.”...

...James Madison cautioned that it was “essential” a democracy’s officials “be derived from the great body of the society, not from an inconsiderable proportion or a favored class of it.” We ignore this warning at our peril....

...Each of us has a role to play in defending our judiciary. Judges, politicians, and citizens alike must denounce attacks that undermine our ability to do justice. It is not enough for judges, seeing racebased attacks on their brethren, to say they are merely “disheartened,” or to simply affirm their non-partisan status. We must do more to defend our bench.

Those who control the judicial confirmation process – and those who elect them – must demand that diverse experiences be seen as a necessary qualification for office, rather than a box happily left unchecked....

...Courts must do more than denounce and diversify. For the attack on the judiciary aims to close the courthouse doors to those who most need justice by shrinking the size, resources, and jurisdiction of courts. Over the last 30 years, while the U.S. population has increased by over 30%; Congress has increased the number of Article III judges by just 3%. Meanwhile, there are continued attempts to close the doors to our own courtrooms. I think of heightened pleading standards, the rise of mandatory arbitration, and judges who proclaim that “prisoner civil rights cases should be eliminated from federal dockets.” Defending the judiciary requires judges to demand, not diminish, the resources they need to find truth. We must expand the reach and power of our courts, offering justice to all who claim the promise of America.

This speech began with Thomas Jefferson, and it will end with him as well. Because for all of his failings, Mr. Jefferson, a man of his times, also framed our country’s greatest truth: that “all men are created equal.” Searching for this truth, interpreting its meaning, and applying its mandates are the tasks that make our judiciary a bastion of democracy – what makes “We” THE PEOPLE. We do Jefferson justice – we do the martyrs of Mississippi justice – we do our country justice – by defending our judiciary. Now, more than ever. Thank you. 

It is about time the Clintons have found their voice after two years.

Wikileaks changed the course of history in 2016 and it did so in cooperation with an enemy of the very country that was most effected. Wikileaks is now a weapon of Russia against the free world. There is something very wrong in that. 

Wikileaks first alerted Americans about an invasion of privacy, but, in this episode, it sought to help Donald Trump achieve his goals of taking the presidency and why? Why, indeed.

What was the self-serving purpose of such cooperation with an enemy such as Russia. I think that needs to be understood. This was not about freely informing Americans about personal security, it was about compromising an entire country with the power of an enemy government.

April 12, 2019

Hillary Clinton — among the high-profile targets (click here) of WikiLeaks' explosive document drops over the years — told a New York crowd Thursday that Julian Assange must "answer for what he has done" after his Thursday arrest.

London police arrested Assange, the founder of WikiLeaks, on Thursday, the same day the Justice Department released an indictment alleging Assange conspired with ex-Army intelligence analyst Chelsea Manning to steal classified government documents.

"The bottom line is he has to answer for what he has done," said Clinton, who said she would "wait and see what happens." The 2016 Democratic presidential nominee shared the Beacon Theater stage with her husband, former President Bill Clinton.

Announcement of the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences in Memo...(click here for Professor Nordhaus website - thank you)

The second Nobel Laureate is Paul Romer.

...Most importantly, (click here) Romer won the Prize for seeing how the non-rival nature of ideas can boost ongoing and indeed “endogenous” economic growth.  Romer also showed mathematically that this process of growth is bounded, namely that it does not explode without limit, and that the associated mathematical models were tractable....

A civilized society that has achieved a pinnacle of development and considered a "First World" country is responsible for its economy and impact of that economy. This Nobel Prize was awarded in realizing a country's economy has an impact that does not simply profit, but, also loss. The loss in this model includes the impact of adverse climate on the economy. The Climate Crisis is causing loss. That is a fact. In realizing the impact of the climate on the economy there is a great deal of loss. Loss is not growth. Haphazard loss is a poorly conceived economic strategy for a First World economy.

Crop losses are noted in "commodity prices" and not the impact on the farmer.

Storm losses are reflected in government debt and not the well being of the people.

There is a lot missing when one assesses the current economy that was nothing more than a bailout of Wall Street in tax breaks. Wall Street will reflect a disaster when the economy collapses as in 2008, but, it never reflects the continuing GROWTH of environmental danger.

There is no clear indicator that is measured as other economic measures that indicate the enormous loss within an economy due to the climate crisis. There is only government scrambling to bring in FEMA and reduce losses to the economic strength of a consumer. That FEMA quotient shows up nowhere in calculating of  First World economy.

Bill Barr states there was spying on the Trump campaign.

Really?

\What are you going to do now, Trump? (click here for new article - thank you)

The true test of Trump's loyalty to the sovereignty of the USA occurred the minute he called on Russia to find 30 thousand emails. He trusted Russia when the FBI already tried to retrieve as much information as possible from the Clinton server. When Russia couldn't or wouldn't find them as they did not have the server, they hacked the Democratic candidate's emails and those supporting her candidacy.

Donald Trump was unsuccessful in his pleading to find 30,000 personal emails of Hillary Clinton and it was at that point he found it politically helpful to set up "The Deep State." That election theme is still being carried out by his corrupt administration in attempts to TURN UP SOMETHING. PLEASE. PLEASE, BILL BARR. TURN UP SOMETHING.

There is nothing corrupt about the Special Council Investigation and the FBI conducts noble work that places their lives on the line every day.

It isn't as though the publication of "dirt on Hillary Clinton" was legal.

This is the real reason Trump and Barr want to create a smoke screen. It is getting a little to close to home and who wants the base concentrating on this anyway?

January 25, 2019
By David Jackson, Kevin Johnson and Brad Heath

Federal agents arrested Roger Stone, (click here) a longtime adviser to President Donald Trump, Friday on charges that he had lied to investigators about efforts by top Trump campaign aides to learn about emails the Russian government had stolen from his political rivals. 

Special counsel Robert Mueller revealed the charges, including counts of obstruction and witness tampering, after FBI agents arrested Stone at his Florida home before sunrise.

The charges against Stone offer the first view from prosecutors of efforts by members of the Trump campaign to obtain information about WikiLeaks’ plans to release hacked documents that they believed would be damaging to Trump's 2016 opponent, Democrat Hillary Clinton. Prosecutors have said the hacks were carried out by a Russian intelligence service. Prosecutors said one unnamed senior campaign official was "directed" to communicate with Stone about future releases of the stolen records.

"On multiple occasions, Stone told senior Trump Campaign officials about materials possessed by (WikiLeaks) and the timing of future releases," prosecutors wrote in an indictment unsealed Friday morning.... 

I have no sympathy for this. The power players, including Putin and his hackers tampered with the election of a free democracy. I never read one of the emails released on Wikileaks. I don't care what a campaign was saying. What I was interested in was having someone in the White House that actually cared about the country and emails never entered the picture.

Hillary Clinton has had both oars in the water all her life and she was by far the most qualified of the two candidates. Trump can't hold a candle to her credentials and know how. She has done incredible work and when she was Secretary of State, the plight of women and girls was illuminated for the purpose of change and uplifting of their status. She achieved great things. There was never a doubt about her qualifications.

November 16, 2019
By Tucker Higgins

The Justice Department (click here) has apparently prepared to indict Wikileaks founder Julian Assange, setting up a legal battle that could have broad ramifications for the investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 election as well as the government’s prosecution of journalists and others who publicize national security secrets.

The revelation was an accident. Prosecutors pursuing an unrelated sex crimes case, against a man named Seitu Sulayman Kokayi, referenced Assange twice in a filing seeking to keep the complaint against Kokayi under seal.

The complaint, prosecutors wrote in the document, “would need to remain sealed until Assange is arrested in connection with the charges in the criminal complaint and can therefore no longer evade or avoid arrest and extradition in this matter.” At a separate point in the document, prosecutors wrote that “due to the sophistication of the defendant and the publicity surrounding the case, no other procedure is likely to keep confidential the fact that Assange has been charged.”...

The Attorney General Bill Barr is corrupt, corrupted and corruptible.

Barr should be up in arms about the violations of the emoluments clause, but, instead, he looks the other way. His huffing and puffing about spying on the Trump Campaign is simply fodder for the base and a smoke screen for the corruption he exudes. There is nothing decent or honest about William Barr. He and Trump deserve each other. Basically, Barr is Trump's new "Fixer."

9 April 2019
By Peter Stone

The Department of Justice (click here) has adopted a narrow interpretation of a law meant to bar foreign interests from corrupting federal officials, giving Saudi Arabia, China and other countries leeway to curry favor with Donald Trump via deals with his hotels, condos, trademarks and golf courses, legal and national security experts say.

The so-called foreign emoluments clause was intended to curb presidents and other government officials from accepting gifts and benefits from foreign governments unless Congress consents.

But in a forthcoming article in the Indiana Law Journal, the Washington University Law professor Kathleen Clark reveals justice department filings have recently changed tack. The new interpretation, Clark says, is contained in justice filings responding to recent lawsuits lodged by attorneys generals and members of Congress....

This is William Barr's idea of national security. He is a horrible AG. There is nothing nice to say about this man. I said it before, he is a defense attorney. That is all he is. Trump's new lap dog. 

What is more astounding is to realize how corrupt the Trump administration is and McConnell and Ryan did NOTHING to end it or prevent it. NOTHING. Even today, McConnell is cowering in his office trying to appease Trump with judicial appointments. 

The Republican Party is the worst political party in the country and they have no respect for the USA Constitution or the Rule of Law. They can't even pick an Attorney General that can right Trump's ship. The White House is lost. The US House needs to carry forward its oversight, pick up the pieces of the negligence of the past Speaker and bring the truth to the American people.

I am looking forward to the US House receiving a full transcript and supporting documents of the Special Council report after the courts have ruled.

Trump and his administration is a disgrace.

Trump gave the entire country a reason to investigate him when he asked Russia to find emails and then published them on Wikileaks. Excuse me? That alone is a reason for everyone to question Trump's LOYALTY to the USA.

Now, why would Iran seek to bond so deeply with Iraqi Shi'ites? Hmmmmm? Could it have been Daesh? Yes.

The victory over Daesh in the region was sanctioned by Allah. 

End of discussion.

March 14, 2019
By Bobby Ghosh

Ostensibly, (click here) Iranian President Hassan Rouhani’s visit to Iraq was meant to deepen economic ties between the two neighbors, historically divided by political and sectarian enmities as much as they are connected by geography. The trip was also meant to demonstrate to the U.S. that Tehran and Baghdad would still do business with each other, despite the Trump administration’s sanctions on Iran.

None of this was especially remarkable: the Islamic Republic’s influence over Iraq has grown exponentially in recent years, underscored by Iran’s control of Shiite militias that have captured much of the state security apparatus and now loom ever larger on the political stage. No Iraqi government, much less one led by Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi, a weak Shia politician, would dare give a representative of the Iranian regime anything less than an effusive welcome.

Only one Iraqi leader could have kept Rouhani at arm’s length: Grand Ayatollah Ali al-Sistani, the country’s most revered cleric. But he didn’t. The audience he gave the Iranian president in the Shia holy city of Najaf says as much about Sistani’s own political adventurism as it does about Iraq’s subservience to Iran....

See there. That man is smiling. Smiling is a good thing. He is never going to wear a red tie. Never.

How did I know there was such a problem? It shows. It shows in big huge ways. The USA may be welcome in Iraq today, but, it should not push it. Iraq will never be the 51st state.

March 13, 2019
By Mustafa Salim and Tamer El-Ghosbashy

Baghdad — Iranian President Hassan Rouhani (click here) capped his state visit to Iraq on Wednesday by meeting the country’s most respected religious authority, Grand Ayatollah Ali Sistani— a sit-down that has eluded previous Iranian presidents and American leaders alike.

The meeting signals to Washington that the religious, cultural and economic bonds that tie Iran and Iraq will not be undermined by a focused U.S. effort to isolate Tehran, analysts said. At the same time, it is likely to bolster Rouhani’s standing at home.

The session came after Rouhani and Iraqi Prime Minister Adel Abdul Mahdi announced agreements to boost trade, establish a rail link between the two countries and take steps to remove travel restrictions for tourists and investors. Abdul Mahdi also said Iran agreed to return to the original terms of a 1975 agreement on the sharing of an important waterway....

To be clear, the USA did not designate Iran's Revolutionary Guard a terrorist organization, Donald Trump did.

Everything is politics to this bozo. This is about campaigns that Trump likes to play with. The intelligence and military told Trump that it was a bad idea. Let's embrace that reality for now.

If it was up to Netanyahu, he'd make Mother Hubbard a terrorist if she were from Gaza. So, let's put this mess into perspective. Next thing you know Trump will be naming members of the USA Congress as terrorists.

The name for Iran's Revolutionary Guard comes from the success of the Iranian Revolution that removed the Shah.

Iranian Revolution - Revolutionary Guard. Get it?

April 8, 2019
By Anne Gearan and Carol Morello 

The United States (click here) moved Monday to list Iran’s elite military ­Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps as a foreign terrorist organization as the Trump administration looks for new ways to increase economic and political pressure on the regime in Tehran.

The designation marks the first time Washington has branded a foreign government entity a terrorist group and came despite warnings from U.S. military and intelligence officials that other nations could use the designation as a precedent against U.S. action abroad.

The announcement also comes one day before Israeli elections in which Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is seeking a fifth term by highlighting his close ties to the Trump administration and hawkish promises to battle threatening Iranian behavior across the ­Middle East.

“This action sends a clear message to Tehran that its support for terrorism has serious consequences,” President Trump said in a statement. “We will continue to increase financial pressure and raise the costs on the Iranian regime for its support of terrorist activity until it abandons its malign and outlaw behavior.”...

Trump is going to start another civil war and the rise of extremists again.

The beginnings of the Iraqi parliament was nothing but militias. Perhaps one might remember how difficult it was to bring all the GROUPS of people to the table of the Iraqi Parliament. Why should they? They were secure in their own enclaves and it was nonsense as far as they were concerned. Eventually, the benefits to representation within the Iraqi Parliament awakened the groups of protected people and they had their own elections, etc., etc., etc..

March 19, 2019
By Edward Wong and Eric Schmitt

Kuwait City — The United States’ (click here) attempts to isolate Iran, including by punishing Iraqi militias and politicians who are supported by Iranian officials, has deepened tensions not only between Washington and Baghdad but also within the Trump administration.

American military and intelligence officials said the increasing pressure on Iraq risks infuriating its Parliament, including politicians linked to Iran, which could limit the movements of the 5,200 United States troops based in Iraq.

Secretary of State Mike Pompeo, whose confrontational stand on Iran has already strained ties with European allies, is leading the push for Iraq to confront its fellow Shiite-majority neighbor. He arrived in the Middle East on Tuesday to speak with officials in Kuwait, Israel and Lebanon about containing Iran.

Under plans recommended by Mr. Pompeo and some White House officials, the State Department would designate Iran’s military Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps as a foreign terrorist organization. It would be a first instance of the United States designating a unit of another government’s military as a terrorist group. American officials said it could put United States troops and intelligence officers at risk of similar actions by foreign governments....

The USA may think it is in good standing in Iraq, but, it's presence will become intolerable if they lean too much on the people of Iraq in their relationships with other countries (Holy Pilgrimages have no boundaries.). If the pressure on Iraq to conduct itself differently within the region brings about isolationism and westernization; the country will splinter and the fluidity of the lack of cohesion will breed extremism again.

There are probably elements of that going on now. The one thing that holds the region in cohesive governments is the right to live within the religious ties they have. Those religious ties do carry brevity in the region and should not be ignored. Currently, Iraq is already divided into three distinct provinces. It would take very little to completely dissolve the sovereignty of Iraq if those religious ties are severed.

There are lots of reasons for the oil area to simply begin their own revolution. I would not force the issue. There are always religious extremists willing to be radicalized in this region of the world. Holy men are important and what they say is even more important.