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Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke's declaration that Florida's coastal waters would be pulled from the new federal offshore leasing proposal "was not a formal action" and did not officially remove the state from the plan, the head of the agency responsible for offshore drilling told the House Natural Resources Committee on Friday.
The Bureau of Offshore Energy Management will continue to include the federal waters off Florida in its analysis of possible oil and gas drilling sites, acting Director Walter Cruickshank said during the hearing.
…
"The secretary's statement stands on its own," Cruickshank said. "It is not a formal action. They are still part of the analysis until the secretary gives us an official decision."
President Trump’s voting commission asked every state and the District for detailed voter registration data, but in Texas’s case it took an additional step: It asked to see Texas records that identify all voters with Hispanic surnames, newly released documents show.
The voting commission vice chairman, Kansas Secretary of State Kris W. Kobach (R) who launched the drive to collect data from every state, said “at no time did the commission request any state to flag surnames by ethnicity or race. It’s a complete surprise to me.”
Told of documents showing the Texas purchase, Kobach said, “Mr. Williams did not ask any member of the commission whether he should check that box or not, so it certainly wasn’t a committee decision.”
Sure...
The voting commission faces lawsuits by at least 10 voting and public accountability groups, seeking information on what other data the panel may have assembled, if any analysis was done and whether information has been shared outside the White House.
Dunlap said the purchase of voting records was “never discussed at any commission meeting at any level.”
“It’s all speculation because they haven’t disclosed anything, but if they are breaking things down along racial and ethnic lines,” Dunlap said, it indicates “why they are guarding this information like hungry dogs cornered in a trap.”
Burr and Warner both furious with appropriators for adding language in the CR that limits Senate Intel’s ability to direct the intelligence community to spend money. Language was added at OMB’s request
Not the kind of thing we should be giving a President with an authoritarian bent.
In a rare spot of good news, Tammy Duckworth is having a kid in April, the first Senator to do so. She's also a ripe 49 years-old.
I have a special place in my heart for her because I wrecked my ex’s birthday once getting into a fight with her sister about Tammy.
Sister was a professional activist, and was trying to get Tammy to speak at some event. Sister started complaining Tammy was only against the Iraq war, and not all war. The eye-roll at the end cinched it.
Cue subego with the “she got her legs blown off, I think she’s entitled to her opinion”.
I even got the “knock it off” tap on the leg under the table from the ex, but I couldn’t help myself. Didn’t help her own mother took my side.
So Trumps approval is the highest it's been in like 6 or 9 months on Gallup and the stock market is down 1000 points today
Wtf
He called democrats traitors and unamerican today (because they didn’t applaud him enough at the SotU) so his base got a chubby, and Wall Street freaked.
He called democrats traitors and unamerican today (because they didn’t applaud him enough at the SotU) so his base got a chubby, and Wall Street freaked.
I don't but for a second it's about Trump. It's likely a market correction considering the gains I was seeing this month were insane. There was no reason for the market to be soaring like that. I think the bad earnings from a few companies threw some cold water on the mood.
For those who are curious, here's Trump's really ****ed up comments:
You’re up there, you’ve got half the room going totally crazy, wild — they loved everything, they want to do something great for our country. And you have the other side, even on positive news — really positive news, like that — they were like death and un-American. Un-American.
Somebody said, “treasonous.” I mean, yeah, I guess, why not? (Laughter.) Can we call that treason? Why not? (Applause.) I mean, they certainly didn’t seem to love our country very much.
This is one of those completely Trumpian quotes. I don't think he believes its treason, but there's no sense in saying it out loud. Looking forward to SHS saying he was joking.
Yes, yes, it's traitorous not to clap for the president. Clearly. Anyone who does not clap will be rehabilitated. Please report for rehabilitation. You will not need a suitcase.
The president was clearly joking with his comments. But what isn't a joke is that Democrats refuse to celebrate the accomplishments of last year that has helped all Americans.
Newly revealed text messages between FBI paramours Peter Strzok and Lisa Page include an exchange about preparing talking points for then-FBI Director James Comey to give to President Obama, who wanted “to know everything we’re doing.”
Page wrote to Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016 about prepping Comey because “potus wants to know everything we’re doing.” Senate investigators told Fox News this text raises questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation.
Among the newly disclosed texts, Strzok also calls Virginians who voted against then-FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s wife for a state Senate seat “ignorant hillbillys.” (sic)
Corrupt lovers Strzok and Page both worked at the FBI. As a matter of fact, they were both very high up at the FBI and are both very corrupt. Strzok is famous for his activities in protecting Hillary Clinton from criminal charges in 2016. CNN reports –
Electronic records show Peter Strzok, who led the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s private email server as the No. 2 official in the counterintelligence division, changed Comey’s earlier draft language describing Clinton’s actions as “grossly negligent” to “extremely careless,” the sources said.
Both these characters were selected by Robert Mueller to assist in his Russia – Trump farce investigation along with a team of similar characters – all Clinton and Obama cronies.
Today Fox News reported President Obama asked the FBI for updates on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
"[Lisa] Page wrote to Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016, about prepping Comey because 'potus wants to know everything we're doing,'" Fox News reports. "According to a newly released Senate report, this text raises questions about Obama's personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation."
But in an April 2016 interview on Fox News Sunday, then-President Obama said he "guaranteed" he was staying out of the FBI probe.
Here's an excerpt:
OBAMA: “I can guarantee. I can guarantee that not because I give Attorney General [Loretta] Lynch a directive, that is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line and always have maintained it. I guarantee it. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Period. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department because nobody is above the law.”
WALLACE: “Even if she ends up as the Democratic nominee?”
OBAMA: “How many times do I have to say it, Chris? Guaranteed.”
Obama later announces that Hillary has done nothing wrong.
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Last edited by Chongo; Feb 7, 2018 at 02:14 PM.
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The New York Times first reported that FEMA awarded a $156 million contract to Tribute Contracting LLC’s only employee, Tiffany Brown, to deliver 30 million meals for Puerto Ricans. Only 50,000 of these meals made it to the island, when at least 18.5 million meals were first due. Shortly after, FEMA realized the food already delivered had been improperly packaged. As a result, FEMA terminated Brown’s contract.
I don't see this as malice, as FEMA was working on their third rescue response, but holy shit, amateur hour.
In exchange for universal rights to both prosecute and persecute Hillary, Bill, and Chelsea to the full extent of the law and beyond, you relinquish all rights to run interference on Bobby Three Sticks.
Tony Perkins, head of the Family Research Council, gave President Trump a “mulligan” on his alleged affair with porn star Stormy Daniels. (It’s not clear whether mulligans were dispensed for each of the alleged acts of sexual harassment or abuse brought against Trump during the campaign or for Trump backing accused child-molester Roy Moore.) Surely his group has something to say about a White House aide whose two ex-wives have presented compelling accounts (in one case a photograph of her battered eye) and who reportedly failed to get a full security clearance. Surely, he is appalled by chief of staff John F. Kelly’s decision to keep the aide on, despite knowledge of the security clearance problem, praise him and then pronounce himself shocked by the allegations. We asked FRC for comment. No one has responded.
Concerned Women for America, which claims a membership of hundreds of thousands of women, lists as one of its concerns “the alarming increase in violence in American households, including same-sex and opposite-sex partner assaults, spousal assaults, and child and elder abuse.” Its website explains that one of its goals is to bring “an end to violence within households, especially the sexual abuse of children, while reinforcing the importance and autonomy of healthy families.” I asked CWA for comment on Porter. I have received no response.
The Family Leader, headed by a major player in evangelical politics, Bob Vander Plaats, says its mission is to “strengthen families, by inspiring Christ-like leadership in the home, the church, and the government.” I asked its spokesman for reaction to the Porter issue. “I don’t currently have a statement,” he said. In an email, he adds, “Obviously, The Family Leader stands against domestic violence and spousal abuse.”
It is noteworthy that, according to the Partnership for Public Service, the administration has not nominated anyone as the Justice Department’s director for the office of violence against women. Likewise, no one has been named as the White House’s adviser for violence against women, a position created in the Obama administration.
I caught up to Penny Nance, president of CWA. … She says that when the security clearance was denied, “Porter should have been immediately fired and escorted out.”
…
How can Christian women continue to back this president and suffer his behavior in silence? “I have the blessing of meeting with the president one on one. He is extremely respectful. We like his policies.” Does she not feel obligated to speak out when his conduct or rhetoric is objectionable? “I want to support the president because I support his policies. Am I going to go out of my way to smack him down? No.”
'Why would I hold my guy accountable if it doesn't benefit me?'
Must-watch exchange between Mike Pence and @AshleyRParker, who asks in reference to Rob Porter: "Can you comment on why you often seem a little bit out of the loop on some of this major news?" (via CSPAN)
I was a lifelong Republican until the day after Trump’s election, but I now agree with the centrist writers Benjamin Wittes and Jonathan Rauch when they call for voters to support Democrats “mindlessly and mechanically,” because “the Republican Party, as an institution, has become a danger to the rule of law and the integrity of our democracy.”
We really are in the midst a political realignment.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu should be indicted in two corruption cases on suspicion of accepting bribes, fraud and breach of trust, police recommended Tuesday, ramping up pressure on the leader who has served more than a decade in office.
His disparaging of the police and regular criticism of the media have drawn comparisons to how President Trump has handled the investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election. Netanyahu has even borrowed from Trump’s phrase book, using the term “fake news” to describe media coverage. Israel’s president, Reuven Rivlin, has warned that the country’s democracy is in peril because of attacks on the free press and judiciary by Netanyahu’s right-wing government.
Tim: I work with global students that wanna come to the United States. Well, ever since Trump got elected in 2016, the numbers of incoming global students have gone down. They do not feel safe. That's a shame.
Laura: What are they afraid of?
Paul: Trump.
Kim: Yes.
Tim: They're afraid of how they're being, they're gonna be treated. I mean look turn on the news.
Laura: I feel safer now than I ever did the last eight years of Obama. Oh my God.
Oprah Winfrey: How do you feel safer? Tell me how you feel safer?
Laura: Well, I feel like I can say Merry Christmas to anyone I want wherever I want.
More than 130 political appointees working in the Executive Office of the President did not have permanent security clearances as of November 2017, including the president's daughter, son-in-law and his top legal counsel, according to internal White House documents obtained by NBC News.
Of those appointees working with interim clearances, 47 of them are in positions that report directly to President Donald Trump. About a quarter of all political appointees in the executive office are working with some form of interim security clearance.
In separate letters to White House chief of staff John Kelly and FBI director Christopher Wray, House Oversight Committee Chairman Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., requested information from the White House and FBI about how interim clearances are investigated and adjudicated, and whether Porter's specific case conformed to those procedures.
I am sure no conservative would be alarmed if this was the case in a democratic administration.
In a sign of increasing partisan hostilities, Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee plan to construct a wall -- a physical partition -- separating Republican and Democratic staff members in the committee's secure spaces, according to multiple committee sources. It's expected to happen this spring.
For now, some Republican committee members deny knowing anything about it, while strongly suggesting the division is the brainchild of the committee's chairman, Devin Nunes, R-California.
"I'm not part of that decision," said Rep. Mike Conaway, R-Texas. "You've got to talk to Devin. I don't know what they're trying to do one way or the other."
"I swear to God I didn't know that," said Rep. Tom Rooney, R-Florida, when asked about the plan. While acknowledging a wall might not be constructive for the committee's work, he said, "The level of trust and the level of everything down there is -- it's poison. It's absolute poison down there."
Rooney said one reason for the tension is an erosion of trust, exacerbated by an ongoing ethics investigation into the "entire Republican staff," including "the woman up front that answers the phone" for alleged leaks. He later added that the matter was being handled by the Office of Congressional Ethics.
Nunes doesn't even want the Democrats to see what he's doing. Totally innocent.
Jared Kushner’s family real estate company has backtracked on its effort to have a lawsuit filed against it by tenants of its Baltimore-area apartment complexes moved to federal court, after a judge ruled that this transfer would require it to reveal the identities of its investment partners.
In early November, the various Kushner affiliates named in the lawsuit filed a request to have the case moved from the state court, where it would be heard by a Baltimore City jury, to the federal courts, where it would be heard by a jury drawn from a broader geographic swath of Maryland. To get approval for this request, Kushner Companies had to show that none of the investors it has brought in as partners on the complexes are based in Maryland.
Can't follow the money if we hide where we're getting it from.
And apart from staff on the National Security Council, he issues more requests for information to the intelligence community than any White House employee, according to a person with knowledge of the situation, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to describe private discussions.
Experts said it is rare to have such a high level of interim security clearance for such a long period of time. It is particularly striking access for someone like Kushner, who has never served in government and has a complex history of financial transactions, business ownership and contacts and dealings with foreigners.
When this is all over, we're going to need to pass some laws strengthening how we treat security clearance. On a scale out of five private emails servers, this situation is a three, easily.