US Politics Mega-thread - Page 9073

On October 28 2017 04:53 ZerOCoolSC2 wrote:

Marine sharpshooter. Gotta make that distinction. I'm an expert on the field but that's a stationary target. Even moving as slow as Kennedy was, would still take some skill. Every Marine can shoot a rifle. It takes skill to make that shot. Whether or not it was Oswald or he was the fall guy, is what I would like to know. But everything is saying he died before he made a confession. So who knows?

Maybe it really was The Comedian?

On October 28 2017 05:02 Sermokala wrote:

Even more so, the guy would have the training and the knowledge to plan out exactly how that shot would work. The car was moving in a straight line at a steady rate so compensating is easier then shooting a deer.

If there is something in the conspiracy I would think it would have to be behind why oswald did it and how he was modivated to do something like that.

The Trump administration has said that it did not have any role in the decision to award a $300m contract to help restore Puerto Rico’s power grid to a tiny Montana company in interior secretary Ryan Zinke’s hometown.

During a press breifing on Friday afternoon, White House press secretary Sarah Huckabee Sanders repeatedly denied that the federal government had any role in granting the contract to Whitefish Energy.

“The federal government, as I said, has nothing to do with the contract or the process,” Sanders said. “This was something solely determined by the Puerto Rican government.”

She refused to comment on whether the choice of a two-year-old company raised questions and said the administration “looks forward” to the results of an audit of the deal.

Huckabee Sanders said Donald Trump had asked Zinke about the contract and that the cabinet secretary said he had nothing to do with it.

“He had no role in that contract,” Sanders said of Zinke. “This was a state and local decision made by the Puerto Rican authorities and not the federal government.”

Earlier on Friday the Department of Homeland Security’s inspector general, an agency watchdog, confirmed that federal auditors will review the Whitefish contract.

“As part of their standard procedure, they will conduct vetting to look for the presence of any inappropriate relationships,” said Arlen Morales, a spokeswoman for the inspector general’s office.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency also distanced itself from the deal. Fema said in a statement that any language in the controversial contract saying the agency approved of the deal with Whitefish Energy Holdings is inaccurate. The contract, which was awarded by the Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority, said the utility would not pay costs unallowable under Fema grants, but it also said, “The federal government is not a party to this contract.”

Fema said it has not approved any reimbursement requests from the utility for money to cover repairs to the island’s power grid following Hurricane Maria.

The agency said its initial review raised significant concerns about how Whitefish got the deal and whether the contracted prices were reasonable. The two-year-old company had just two full-time employees when the storm hit on 20 September. It has since hired more than 300 workers.

The interior department has denied that Zinke, a former Montana congressman, played any role in the contract award. Zinke knows Whitefish CEO Andy Techmanski “because they both live in a small town where everyone knows everyone”, a spokeswoman said. Zinke’s son had a summer job at a Whitefish construction site.

Several congressional committees have launched investigations into the deal, the terms of which have triggered questions from both Republicans and Democrats.

Puerto Rico Electric Power Authority director Ricardo Ramos has praised the work performed by Whitefish so far, saying the company’s was the only offer the utility received that did not require a down payment. The power company is $9bn in debt and was already struggling to provide service amid ongoing power outages before hurricanes Irma and Maria hit last month.

A federal control board that oversees Puerto Rico’s finances said this week it had appointed a former military officer to oversee the work. Retired Air Force Col Noel Zamot will be responsible for speeding up reconstruction efforts and overseeing coordination with the board, Puerto Rico’s government and the federal government.

It was not immediately clear whether Zamot would have the authority to void Whitefish’s contract, although under the contract the utility can suspend or terminate the contract “for any or no reason” after providing written notice to Whitefish and compensating the company for actual expenses.

Board spokesman Jose Luis Cedeno did not return calls or messages Friday from The Associated Press seeking comment. Power company spokesman Carlos Monroig also did not respond to requests for comment.

About 75% of the US territory remains without power more than a month after the category 4 storm made landfall.

Zamot told Puerto Rico radio station WKAQ 580 on Friday that once a judge confirms him as chief transformation officer of Puerto Rico’s Electric Power Authority, he will review all of the agency’s contracts.

“We’re going to be incredibly transparent,” he said, declining further comment on any issues related to Whitefish.

Natalia V. Veselnitskaya arrived at a meeting at Trump Tower in June 2016 hoping to interest top Trump campaign officials in the contents of a memo she believed contained information damaging to the Democratic Party and, by extension, Hillary Clinton. The material was the fruit of her research as a private lawyer, she has repeatedly said, and any suggestion that she was acting at the Kremlin’s behest that day is anti-Russia “hysteria.”

But interviews and records show that in the months before the meeting, Ms. Veselnitskaya had discussed the allegations with one of Russia’s most powerful officials, the prosecutor general, Yuri Y. Chaika. And the memo she brought with her closely followed a document that Mr. Chaika’s office had given to an American congressman two months earlier, incorporating some paragraphs verbatim.

The coordination between the Trump Tower visitor and the Russian prosecutor general undercuts Ms. Veselnitskaya’s account that she was a purely independent actor when she sat down with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law, and Paul J. Manafort, then the Trump campaign chairman. It also suggests that emails from an intermediary to the younger Mr. Trump promising that Ms. Veselnitskaya would arrive with information from Russian prosecutors were rooted at least partly in fact — not mere “puffery,” as the president’s son later said.

In the past week, Ms. Veselnitskaya’s allegations — that major Democratic donors were guilty of financial fraud and tax evasion — have been embraced at the highest levels of the Russian government. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia repeated her charges at length last week at an annual conference of Western academics. A state-run television network recently made them the subject of two special reports, featuring interviews with Ms. Veselnitskaya and Mr. Chaika.

The matching messages point to a synchronized information campaign. Like some other Russian experts, Stephen Blank, a senior fellow with the nonprofit American Foreign Policy Council in Washington, said they indicate that Ms. Veselnitskaya’s actions “were coordinated from the very top.”

The Trump Tower meeting is of keen interest to the special counsel, Robert S. Mueller III, as he investigates Russian efforts to help Mr. Trump’s campaign. At least one participant at the meeting has already testified before a federal grand jury.

Ms. Veselnitskaya declined to be interviewed, saying in an email that The New York Times had published “lies and false claims.”

The memo that Ms. Veselnitskaya brought to the Trump Tower meeting alleged that Ziff Brothers Investments, an American firm, had illegally purchased shares in a Russian company and evaded tens of millions of dollars of Russian taxes. The company was the financial vehicle of three billionaire brothers, two of them major donors to Democratic candidates including Mrs. Clinton. By implication, Ms. Veselnitskaya, said, those political contributions were tainted by “stolen” money.

Kremlin officials viewed the charges as extremely significant. The Ziff brothers had invested in funds managed by William F. Browder, an American-born financier and fierce Kremlin foe. Mr. Browder was the driving force behind a 2012 law passed by Congress imposing sanctions on Russian officials for human rights abuses.

The law, known as the Magnitsky Act, froze Western bank accounts of officials on the sanctions list – including Mr. Chaika’s deputy — and banned them from entering the United States. It was named after Sergei L. Magnitsky, a tax lawyer who had worked for Mr. Browder and who died in a Moscow jail after exposing a massive fraud scheme involving Russian officials.

In his speech to Western academics at a Black Sea resort last week, Mr. Putin said that American authorities had ignored the allegations against Mr. Browder and his investors because the Ziff brothers were major political donors. “They protect themselves in this way,” he said.

A spokesman for Ziff Brothers Investments declined to comment. Mr. Browder said the charges were concocted to discredit him and to undermine the Magnitsky Act sanctions.

How Ms. Veselnitskaya’s allegations made their way to the upper reaches of the Russian government, and then to Trump campaign, is a tangled tale. A former prosecutor for the Moscow regional government, Ms. Veselnitskaya lives and works in Moscow but has traveled frequently to the United States in recent years, partly to lobby against the Magnitsky Act.

She was also the lead defense lawyer in a civil fraud lawsuit brought by the Justice Department against a Russian firm in New York. The firm, which ultimately settled the case for about $6 million without admitting fault, was accused of using real estate purchases to launder a portion of the profits from the tax fraud that Mr. Magnitsky had uncovered. Mr. Browder provided much of the prosecution’s evidence.

While investigating Mr. Browder and his investors, Ms. Veselnitskaya unearthed what she considered evidence of a financial and tax fraud scheme. In October 2015, she took her findings about Mr. Browder and the Ziff brothers directly to Mr. Chaika, Russia’s top prosecutor and a man whom she has said she knows personally.

Mr. Chaika was highly pleased with her report, according to a former colleague of Ms. Veselnitskaya who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of repercussions.

In April 2016, Ms. Veselnitskaya teamed with Mr. Chaika’s office to pass the accusations to an American congressional delegation visiting Moscow. An official with the Russian prosecutor general’s office gave a memo detailing the charges — stamped “confidential”— to Representative Dana Rohrabacher, a California Republican who is considered to be one of the most pro-Russia lawmakers in Congress and who heads a subcommittee that helps oversee U.S. policy toward Russia.

Ms. Veselnitskaya handed a nearly identical memo to Representative French Hill, Republican of Arkansas. She has said she also met with Mr. Rohrabacher then, although he said that he does not recall the encounter.

The next month, Mr. Chaika’s office described the alleged scheme on the prosecutor general’s website.

Precisely how Ms. Veselnitskaya ended up at the June 2016 Trump Tower meeting to present her findings remains in dispute. She asked Aras Agalarov, a well-connected Russian oligarch who knows the Trump family to help her share her allegations with the Trump campaign, according to Mr. Agalarov’s attorney, Scott Balber.

She may have told Mr. Agalarov that she had previously conveyed the same information to Mr. Chaika, Mr. Balber said. Mr. Agalarov’s son then enlisted his publicist, Rob Goldstone, to broker the meeting.

In emails to Donald Trump Jr., Mr. Goldstone wrote that a Russian prosecutor — an apparent reference to Mr. Chaika — had met with Mr. Agalarov and wanted to offer the Trump campaign official documents that would incriminate Mrs. Clinton. Mr. Goldstone described the proposed meeting as part of the Russian government’s effort to help Mr. Trump’s candidacy, and said a “government lawyer” would fly to New York to deliver the documents.

Donald Trump Jr. has dismissed Mr. Goldstone’s emails as “goosed-up.” Mr. Balber blamed miscommunication among those arranging the meeting. “Mr. Agalarov unequivocally, absolutely, never spoke to Mr. Chaika or his office about these issues,” he said.

On October 28 2017 06:35 LegalLord wrote:

That’s what I’d want to know more about.

On October 27 2017 21:31 IyMoon wrote:


Nothing weird here, just the free market at work! Coal is so good it only needs 10 b a year to keep it up? Why do we even waste time with solar/wind?

On October 28 2017 07:48 Nixer wrote:
At that distance and the speed of the target the average rifleman should be able to get a good hit, let alone a sharpshooter or marksman. Considering he had time to familiarize himself with his rifle it's definitely doable, almost a piece of cake. Even if the scope (and the rifle) were subpar.

Ballistics seems to add quite well up to me.

I am profoundly sorry for the pain and anguish I have caused by my past actions. I apologize sincerely to the women I mistreated.
The world is now publicly acknowledging what so many women have long known: Men harm women in the workplace. That new awareness is, of course, a positive development. For a long time at ABC News, I was part of the problem. I acknowledge that, and I deeply regret it. As I said earlier in the week, my behavior was wrong. It caused fear and anxiety for women who were only seeking to do their jobs.
In recent days I have closely read the accounts of women with whom I worked at ABC News. I have not read these accounts looking for discrepancies or inconsistencies. Instead, in almost every case, I have recognized conduct for which I feel profound guilt and responsibility, some involving junior ABC News personnel and women just starting out in the news business.
Many of the accounts conveyed by journalists working on stories about me or that I have read after publication have not been particularly detailed (and many were anonymous) making it difficult for me to address certain specifics. But make no mistake: I fully acknowledge and apologize for conduct that was often aggressive and crude.
Towards the end of my time at ABC News, I recognized I had a problem. No one had sued me, no one had filed a human resources complaint against me, no colleague had confronted me. But I didn’t need a call from HR to know that I was a selfish, immature person, who was behaving in a manner that had to stop.
For several years around my departure from ABC News, I had weekly counseling sessions to work on understanding the personal issues and attitudes that caused me to behave in such an inappropriate manner.
Those who have worked with me in the past decade know that my conduct in subsequent jobs at TIME, Bloomberg, NBC News, and Showtime has not been what it was at ABC. I did not engage in improper behavior with colleagues or subordinates. If you spoke to my co-workers in those four places (men and women alike), I am confident you would find that I had a very different reputation than I had at ABC News because I conducted myself in a very different manner.
Some of the allegations that have been made against me are not true. But I realize that is a small point in the scheme of things. Again, I bear responsibility for my outrageous conduct at ABC News.
I hope that not only will women going forward be more confident in speaking up, but also that we as an industry and society can create an atmosphere that no longer tolerates this kind of behavior.
I know I can never do enough to make up for the harm I caused. I will be spending time with my family and friends, as I work to make amends and contributions both large and small.

The first of the four new accusers, who was at the time of the incident an ABC News desk assistant in her early 20s, told CNN she asked Halperin if she could meet with him for career advice in either 1997 or 1998. It was after 10 p.m. when she went into his office, she said. During their conversation, Halperin began to masturbate behind his desk while staring at her, the woman said.

“I sat in a chair across from him,” she told CNN. “He was behind a wooden desk so I couldn’t see him from the waist down. As we had our conversation about my career he was masturbating. There was no question about it.”

“I pretended like I didn’t know what was going on and we talked a bit more and then he abruptly wrapped up the conversation,” she continued.

On October 28 2017 08:55 Nevuk wrote:
Turns out the steele "piss on bed" dossier was originally funded by the washington free beacon :
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/10/27/us/politics/trump-dossier-paul-singer.html

Since its launch in February of 2012, the Washington Free Beacon has retained third party firms to conduct research on many individuals and institutions of interest to us and our readers. In that capacity, during the 2016 election cycle we retained Fusion GPS to provide research on multiple candidates in the Republican presidential primary, just as we retained other firms to assist in our research into Hillary Clinton. All of the work that Fusion GPS provided to the Free Beacon was based on public sources, and none of the work product that the Free Beacon received appears in the Steele dossier. The Free Beacon had no knowledge of or connection to the Steele dossier, did not pay for the dossier, and never had contact with, knowledge of, or provided payment for any work performed by Christopher Steele. Nor did we have any knowledge of the relationship between Fusion GPS and the Democratic National Committee, Perkins Coie, and the Clinton campaign.

Representatives of the Free Beacon approached the House Intelligence Committee today and offered to answer what questions we can in their ongoing probe of Fusion GPS and the Steele dossier. But to be clear: We stand by our reporting, and we do not apologize for our methods. We consider it our duty to report verifiable information, not falsehoods or slander, and we believe that commitment has been well demonstrated by the quality of the journalism that we produce. The First Amendment guarantees our right to engage in news-gathering as we see fit, and we intend to continue doing just that as we have since the day we launched this project.

Matthew Continetti
Editor in Chief

Michael Goldfarb
Chairman

On October 28 2017 09:16 Introvert wrote:


That's not a correct summation, as I'm sure you know. At least according to the WFB.

http://freebeacon.com/uncategorized/fusion-gps-washington-free-beacon/

Washington (CNN)A federal grand jury in Washington, DC, on Friday approved the first charges in the investigation led by special counsel Robert Mueller, according to sources briefed on the matter.

The charges are still sealed under orders from a federal judge. Plans were prepared Friday for anyone charged to be taken into custody as soon as Monday, the sources said. It is unclear what the charges are.

On October 28 2017 10:22 KwarK wrote:
I especially liked that all it took to make xDaunt shut up about the Uranium One scandal was asking him to explain what the Uranium One scandal was. He was trying so hard to make that a thing, it's unfortunate that some things are too hard to understand when you get all your information in 140 character bites.

“This is far more evidence than we’ve ever seen involving President Trump and his campaign that the Democrats were directly involved in trying to get information from the Russians to affect the 2016 campaign,” Wallace said.

“Having said that, we still don’t know about Robert Mueller [and his] investigation. Both things could be true that both sides were trying to get aid from the Russians and it certainly seems true that Russians were playing both sides to try to disrupt the election," Wallace continued.

“We still have to wait and see, but there is more evidence at this point of Democratic collusion with the Russians than there is of Republican collusion with the Russians."