Friday PM news dump Topic

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5/8/2016 12:16 PM

RUSH: So the economy is in the tank. It's confirmed. All the April economic news is out, jobs news and everything. So what does Obama do? Come out and spin it. He's doing a presser or some sort of press availability now at the White House timed exactly to coincide with the beginning of this program, which he is wont to do. Here are the numbers that you need to know: 160,000 new jobs in April, the vast majority of them part time. That is 50,000 below "expectations." The expectations are meaningless. It's a bunch of economic experts that don't know what they're talking about.

They're constantly surprised every month, the media reports that the experts are surprised over what actually happened given their predictions. But the bottom line is you can create all these jobs or not create all these jobs. People's incomes are not rising! People do not have more disposable income. People do not have more liberty and freedom with their money. So all of this is just irrelevant, but there's Obama out there trying to spin this and use this. What he's doing, is this is an occasion to call for more government spending to "get the economy going."


We're in our eighth year with Barack Hussein Obama, and we're still not spending enough money! Even though we have doubled the national debt on his watch, it still isn't enough. No. We need more. We need more government stimulation, stimulus. We need more government spending, and it needs to be "fair." That's the problem. The money that's been spent so far hasn't quite been fair.

5/8/2016 4:46 PM

The 160,000 new jobs supposedly created in April is the fewest announced created jobs in seven months. The labor force participation rate plummeted yet again. The number of Americans not working is 94.04 million. I don't know what the adult population of the country is. I guess 210, 220 million. Forty percent of them are not working. You cannot have economic growth with that. You can't have economic growth, and you can't have rising productivity.

Without rising productivity, you can't have rising wages, increased salaries. You just can't have it. Ninety-four million Americans! Somebody has to buy their food. Somebody has to pay for them to eat. Somebody has to pay for them to get in their cars. Somebody has to pay for them to use their cell phones. Somebody has to pay for when they get sick. Speaking of when you get sick, the government has purloined one-sixth of the US economy in the terms of Obamacare. So not only is the government spending more and choking more, it is making the economy where the American dream languishes, smaller.


"Economic growth has slowed sharply..." It never did pick up. This is the thing. Measured against what did economic growth "slow"? Sure. There hasn't been any appreciable economic growth since Obama was inaugurated. There hasn't been any to write home about. Otherwise the number one issue in exit poll after exit poll after exit poll, in primary after primary after primary -- to the tune of 80% to 85% -- wouldn't say the number one most important issue to you: The economy. The second most important issue to you: The economy. Third most important issue to you: The economy.

Every primary -- Republican, Democrat -- the most important issue is the economy, 'cause nobody is getting ahead, and nobody feels confident that the pieces are in place to get ahead. Where's the anger over that? Where's the panic about that? Where's the all-is-lost attitude about that? Where has it been for the 7-1/2 years? "JCPenney 'Taking Emergency Measures to Stay Afloat.'" I didn't click the link. It's just another American corporation in trouble for all kinds of reasons that you can trace back to, in part, the United States government.

5/8/2016 4:50 PM

Group that helped sell Iran nuke deal also funded media

By BRADLEY KLAPPER
Associated Press

WASHINGTON (AP) -- A group the White House recently identified as a key surrogate in selling the Iran nuclear deal gave National Public Radio $100,000 last year to help it report on the pact and related issues, according to the group's annual report. It also funded reporters and partnerships with other news outlets.

The Ploughshares Fund's mission is to "build a safe, secure world by developing and investing in initiatives to reduce and ultimately eliminate the world's nuclear stockpiles," one that dovetails with President Barack Obama's arms control efforts. But its behind-the-scenes role advocating for the Iran agreement got more attention this month after a candid profile of Ben Rhodes, one of the president's top foreign policy aides.

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

"We created an echo chamber," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that "outside groups like Ploughshares" helped carry out the administration's message effectively.

The magazine piece revived Republican criticism of the Iran agreement as they suggested it was evidence of a White House spin machine misleading the American people. The administration accused opponents of trying to re-litigate the deal after failing to defeat it in congressional votes last year.

Outside groups of all stripes are increasingly giving money to news organizations for special projects or general news coverage. Most news organizations, including The Associated Press, have strict rules governing whom they can accept money from and how to protect journalistic independence.

Ploughshares' backing is more unusual, given its prominent role in the rancorous, partisan debate over the Iran deal.

The Ploughshares grant to NPR supported "national security reporting that emphasizes the themes of U.S. nuclear weapons policy and budgets, Iran's nuclear program, international nuclear security topics and U.S. policy toward nuclear security," according to Ploughshares' 2015 annual report, recently published online.

"It is common practice for foundations to fund media coverage of underreported stories," Ploughshares spokeswoman Jennifer Abrahamson said. Funding "does not influence the editorial content of their coverage in any way, nor would we want it to."

Ploughshares has funded NPR's coverage of national security since 2005, the radio network said. Ploughshares reports show at least $700,000 in funding over that time. All grant descriptions since 2010 specifically mention Iran.

"It's a valued partnership, without any conditions from Ploughshares on our specific reporting, beyond the broad issues of national and nuclear security, nuclear policy, and nonproliferation," NPR said in an emailed statement. "As with all support received, we have a rigorous editorial firewall process in place to ensure our coverage is independent and is not influenced by funders or special interests."

Republican lawmakers will have concerns nonetheless, especially as Congress supplies NPR with a small portion of its funding. Just this week, the GOP-controlled House Oversight Committee tried to summon Rhodes to a hearing entitled "White House Narratives on the Iran Nuclear Deal," but he refused.

Ploughshares' links to media are "tremendously troubling," said Rep. Mike Pompeo of Kansas, an Iran-deal critic.

Pompeo told the AP he repeatedly asked NPR to be interviewed last year as a counterweight to a Democratic supporter of the agreement, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, who he said regularly appeared on the station. But NPR refused to put Pompeo on the air, he said. The station said it had no record of Pompeo's requests, and listed several prominent Republicans who were featured speaking about the deal or economic sanctions on Iran.

Another who appeared on NPR is Joseph Cirincione, Ploughshares' president. He spoke about the negotiations on air at least twice last year. The station identified Ploughshares as an NPR funder one of those times; the other time, it didn't.

Ploughshares boasts of helping to secure the deal. While success was "driven by the fearless leadership of the Obama administration and supporters in Congress," board chairwoman Mary Lloyd Estrin wrote in the annual report, "less known is the absolutely critical role that civil society played in tipping the scales towards this extraordinary policy victory."

The 33-page document lists the groups that Ploughshares funded last year to advance its nonproliferation agenda.

Story continues .... http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_IRAN_SELLING_THE_DEAL?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2016-05-20-15-43-45

5/20/2016 6:24 PM

FBI releases Hillary Clinton email investigation documents

The FBI on Friday released a detailed report on its investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email server while she was secretary of state, as well as what appears to be a summary of her interview with agents, providing the most thorough look yet at the probe that has dogged the campaign of the Democratic presidential nominee.

The documents released total 58 pages, though large portions and sometimes entire pages are redacted.

[FBI’s attempt to show Clinton probe was nonpartisan keeps running into politics]

FBI Director James B. Comey announced in July that his agency would not recommend criminal charges against Clinton for her use of a private email server. Comey said that Clinton and her staffers were “extremely careless” in how they treated classified information, but investigators did not find they intended to mishandle such material. Nor did investigators uncover exacerbating factors — such as efforts to obstruct justice — that often lead to charges in similar cases, Comey said.

The FBI turned over to several congressional committees documents related to the probe and required that they be viewed only by those with appropriate security clearances, even though not all of the material was classified, legislators and their staffers have said.

Those documents included an investigative report and summaries of interviews with more than a dozen senior Clinton staffers, other State Department officials, former secretary of state Colin Powell and at least one other person. The documents released Friday appear to be but a fraction of those.

Comey’s announcement in July offered unusual transparency into how the FBI handled the case, and he later answered questions about the matter for nearly five hours during a hearing on Capitol Hill.

People on both sides of the political aisle have criticized Comey for his blunt assessment of Clinton’s conduct and unusual release of materials to Congress. Republicans have said the bureau made inspection of them unnecessarily difficult by inappropriately mingling classified documents with unclassified ones. Democrats have said making the documents available at all — especially the summaries of witness statements — sets a bad precedent and might discourage future witnesses from sitting for voluntary interviews with agents.

Clinton campaign spokesman Brian Fallon has said that turning over the documents was “an extraordinarily rare step that was sought solely by Republicans for the purposes of further second-guessing the career professionals at the FBI.” But he has said that if the documents were going to be shared outside the Justice Department, “they should be released widely so that the public can see them for themselves, rather than allow Republicans to mischaracterize them through selective, partisan leaks.”

Though Fallon seems to have gotten his wish, the public release of the documents will undoubtedly draw more attention to a topic that seems to have fueled negative perceptions of Clinton. A recent Washington Post-ABC News poll found that 41 percent of Americans had a favorable impression of Clinton, while 56 percent had an unfavorable one.

9/2/2016 2:32 PM

RUSH: Last night, All Due Respect, Bloomberg TV, John Heilemann speaking with himself. He was speaking about the debate and the strategy here that the Clinton campaign is working on.

HEILEMANN: They've been trying to do this thing for a little while now, which is to try to say to us, as reporters, all of us, and sort of say, "Hey, there's been a double standard here, you guys need to raise the bar on Trump."

RUSH: Now, in the old days -- I'm fairly confident of saying this -- in the old days a reporter would never admit that they were getting marching orders from a candidate. They'd get the marching orders. I mean, the campaigns would have always tried to manipulate and influence various media, but it's rare that the media tells us that the Clinton campaign, "Yeah, they're trying to get us to raise the bar on Trump."


Why? What's Hillary worried about? I thought Trump's a buffoon. I thought Trump's incompetent. I thought Trump doesn't have any business being president. I thought Trump's the biggest ill-tempered, gauche, gross, bombastic POS that's ever run for president. What in the world do they have to raise the bar for? They must be worried there at camp Hillary if they're asking the media to raise the bar.

And here's Jonathan Karl, ABC Good Morning America today. Stephanopoulos is talking to him about all of this, the strategy. The question, "The Clinton team is working the jury. All the reporters are gonna being covering this race on social media, the debate, the media, the Clinton campaign's already trying to prejudice them."

KARL: Exactly what is going on. Trump is saying he's gonna be treated unfairly. He talks about this over and over again. For Hillary Clinton, her campaign knows the debate, as large as that audience is for the debate, the audience afterwards will be even more important. They are encouraging their supporters to get out there and dominate social media to create the impression that she has won, to try to shape the coverage and what is seen of the debate in the news coverage that follows.

RUSH: Isn't this amazing now? Who is this? This is Jonathan Karl. What does he do? He's a reporter. And he's admitting that there are gonna be attempts to change his mind, to influence him by virtue of how they dominate social media. Why should any of that matter? If I'm a reporter covering the debate, why do I have to go see what social media says to know what I saw? Or to report what I saw?

Obviously it's a rhetorical question. These guys are admitting, they're gonna wait to see what social media says. And if Hillary's team can dominate social media in the post-debate, the equivalent of the spin room, they can't wait to report that. This is all part of my question: What does Trump have to do to meet and surpass expectations.

9/23/2016 7:59 PM
Obama used a pseudonym in emails with Clinton, FBI documents reveal
By Josh Gerstein and Nolan D. McCaskill
09/23/16 06:27 PM EDT
Updated 09/24/16 03:35 PM EDT

President Barack Obama used a pseudonym in email communications with Hillary Clinton and others, according to FBI records made public Friday.
The disclosure came as the FBI released its second batch of documents from its investigation into Clinton’s private email server during her tenure as secretary of state.
The 189 pages the bureau released includes interviews with some of Clinton’s closest aides, such as Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills; senior State Department officials; and even Marcel Lazar, better known as the Romanian hacker “Guccifer.”
In an April 5, 2016 interview with the FBI, Abedin was shown an email exchange between Clinton and Obama, but the longtime Clinton aide did not recognize the name of the sender.
"Once informed that the sender's name is believed to be a pseudonym used by the president, Abedin exclaimed: 'How is this not classified?'" the report says. "Abedin then expressed her amazement at the president's use of a pseudonym and asked if she could have a copy of the email."

The State Department has refused to make public that and other emails Clinton exchanged with Obama. Lawyers have cited the "presidential communications privilege," a variation of executive privilege, in order to withhold the messages under the Freedom of Information Act.

The report doesn't provide more details on the contents of that particular email exchange, but says it took place on June 28, 2012, and had the subject line: "Re: Congratulations." It may refer to the Supreme Court's ruling that day upholding a key portion of the Obamacare law.
It's been known since last year that Obama and Clinton corresponded occasionally via her private account, but the White House has insisted Obama did not know she relied on it routinely and exclusively for official business.
A report on the FBI's June 7, 2016 interview with "Guccifer" confirms FBI Director James Comey's claim that Lazar falsely asserted that he'd surreptitiously accessed Clinton's server.
"Lazar began by stating that he had never claimed to hack the Clinton server. [An FBI agent] then advised that Fox News had recently published an article which reported that Lazar had claimed to hack the Clinton server. Lazar then stated that he recalled the interview with Fox News, and that he had lied to them about hacking the Clinton server."
Additional FBI interviewees whose reports were made public Friday included Jake Sullivan, Clinton's policy planning director; Bryan Pagliano, a former Clinton technology aide; Monica Hanley, a veteran Clinton aide who worked for her in the Senate and at State; and Sidney Blumenthal, Clinton’s longtime confidant.
Hanley revealed in her FBI interview that she had no idea where a thumb drive she used to store an archive of Clinton's emails had gone. Hanley searched for the thumb drive, which the FBI described as "something she happened to have laying around the house," several times but was unable to find it.
The interviews provide more insight into Clinton's lack of technical acumen. According to the FBI's Abedin writeup, she "could not use a computer"; Hanley said Clinton had no idea what her own email password was, and had to rely on aides.
The so-called "302" reports also detail FBI interviews with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, former CIA acting director Mike Morell, State Department official Pat Kennedy, State Department Inspector General Steve Linick, Bill Clinton aide Justin Cooper, former diplomatic security chief Eric Boswell and longtime diplomat Lewis Lukens.
Some of the interview reports had the subject's name removed on privacy grounds before the records were released. Many of those people seem to be computer technicians or lower-level State Department officials.
The FBI published 58 pages of documents earlier this month that revealed Clinton had relied on others’ judgment to not send her classified material during email correspondences.
“Clinton did not recall receiving any emails she thought should not be on an unclassified system,” the FBI said in its Sept. 2 report. “She relied on State officials to use their judgment when emailing her and could not recall anyone raising concerns with her regarding the sensitivity of the information she received at her email address.”
9/25/2016 12:25 AM
State Dept. releases FBI-recovered Clinton emails
By Josh Gerstein
10/07/16 03:11 PM EDT
Updated 10/07/16 03:28 PM EDT
The first major batch of Hillary Clinton emails recovered by the FBI during its probe of her private email server went public Friday, prompting another round of heartburn for Clinton's presidential campaign and anticipation on the part of Republican critics hoping for an October surprise.
However, there are indications that Friday's release of fewer than 300 pages could be a snoozer since many of the messages scheduled for release are already in the public domain in some form.
"This will be our first substantial release of information that we received from the FBI," State Department spokesman John Kirby said shortly before the release. "We'll be releasing approximately 75 documents totaling about 270 pages."
The FBI flagged State to about 5,600 messages investigators thought were potentially new, but lawyers representing State in a flurry of Freedom of Information Act lawsuits have said that about half of those messages are actually duplicates or near-duplicates, such as previously-released messages with the addition of Clinton's trademark request to her aides: "Pls print."
Friday's document dump is the first of four court court-ordered disclosures of sets of the Clinton messages between now and Election Day.
One judge has ordered State to process 350 pages of Clinton's emails for release every other week through the election. Other judges have ordered an additional batch of 1,850 pages to be processed for release on Nov. 3, five days before the election.
The actual number of pages disclosed is likely to be substantially smaller than those figures would suggest because State can count toward the total entirely duplicative messages as well as those referred to other agencies for review.
"The order was to process — to work through 350 [pages,] which we did," Kirby said.
The pace of release is also substantially slower than when State was releasing emails Clinton provided directly to her former agency, with monthly releases of as many as 7,000 pages of messages.
State officials say they can't process the FBI-recovered Clinton emails at that rate because they are devoting resources to other Clinton-related requests with court-imposed deadlines before the election. But conservative groups and journalists contend State has allowed its FOIA-related staffing to slump, reducing its capacity in the months leading up to the election.
A few of the FBI-provided emails have already trickled out. Last month, State released two messages Clinton exchanged with former Secretary of State Colin Powell, as well as three Benghazi-related messages. Portions of two of them had already been released.
Where the FBI got the messages isn't entirely clear, but some appear to have come from computer equipment investigators obtained. Others may have come from the email accounts of third parties who traded messages with Clinton.
10/7/2016 3:36 PM
LOL

BENGHAZI!

E-MAILS!

INVESTIGATE!

HOLD HEARINGS!

DRINK!
10/7/2016 3:40 PM

Donald Trump apologized on Friday after a video published by the Washington Postshowed Donald Trump having a vulgar discussion about multiple women.

In the clip, which the newspaper said is from 2005, Trump was apparently caught on a hot mic described trying to “f***” a married woman. He can also be heard expressing interest in kissing another woman and grabbing her “by the p****.”

According to the Post, the video shows Trump going to the set of the soap opera “Days Of Our Lives” with “Access Hollywood’s” Billy Bush. Trump and Bush were on a bus emblazoned with the “Access Hollywood” logo and the newspaper said they were on set to film a segment about Trump making a cameo on the soap opera. The clip begins with the pair discussing an unnamed woman Bush described as “beautiful.”

“I moved on her actually, you know, she was down in Palm Beach. I moved on her and I failed. I’ll admit I did try and f*** her. She was married,” Trump said. “I moved on her very heavily,” he added.

10/7/2016 5:25 PM
GRAB HER BY YE *****!
10/7/2016 5:25 PM
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Computer seized in Weiner probe prompts FBI to take new steps in Clinton email inquiry


By Rosalind S. Helderman, Matt Zapotosky and Sari Horwitz October 28 at 4:14 PM

Newly discovered emails found on a computer seized during an investigation of disgraced former Rep. Anthony Weiner have prompted the FBI to make new inquiries related to Hillary Clinton’s private email server, according to three people familiar with the deliberations.

FBI Director James B. Comey informed congressional leaders Friday that the agency would take “appropriate investigative steps” to determine whether the newly discovered emails contain classified information and to assess their importance to the Clinton server probe.

The emails were found on a computer used jointly by both Weiner and his wife, top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, according to a person with knowledge of the inquiry. Federal officials have been examining Weiner’s alleged sexually suggestive online messages with a teenage girl. The link to the Weiner probe was first reported by the New York Times.

Comey’s announcement appears to restart the FBI’s probe of Clinton’s server, which previously ended in July with no charges. The explosive announcement, coming less than two weeks before the presidential election, could reshape a campaign that Clinton, the Democratic nominee, has been leading in public polls.

In a brief letter to congressional leaders, Comey said that the FBI, in connection with an “unrelated case,” had recently “learned of the existence of emails that appear to be pertinent to the Clinton investigation.”

Comey wrote that he had been briefed on the new material Thursday. “I agreed that the FBI should take appropriate investigative steps designed to allow investigators to review these emails to determine whether they contain classified information, as well as to assess their importance to our investigation,” he wrote.

An FBI spokesman on Friday declined to elaborate, and a spokesman for Attorney General Loretta E. Lynch declined to comment.

Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta called it “extraordinary that we would see something like this just 11 days out from a presidential election” and called on Comey to provide a fuller explanation.

He noted that Comey, in July, had said that “no reasonable prosecutor” would bring such a case. And he said the campaign was “confident this will not produce any conclusions different from the one the FBI reached in July.”

Comey provided no details about the unrelated case that resulted in the finding of the new emails. A law enforcement official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the emails were “numerous.”

The official said once informed of the find, Comey felt an obligation to inform Congress, since he had previously told lawmakers the investigation had been completed. As a technical matter, however, the Clinton investigation was never formally closed, the official said.

Abedin, who has worked for Clinton since the 1990s, is vice-chairman of Clinton’s presidential campaign. She exchanged thousands of emails with Clinton while serving as her deputy chief of staff at the State Department. She, like Clinton, used an email address routed through the private server. She announced in August that she was separating from Weiner following a report in the New York Post about a Weiner sexting incident.

When he announced the FBI’s findings in July, Comey said that Clinton had been “extremely careless” in her handling of classified material, which had been found among the emails exchanged on her private server.

He had said that his investigators found evidence of potential violation of laws governing the handling of classified information.

In particular, he said investigators did not find evidence that there had been intentional mishandling of classified material or indications of disloyalty to the U.S. or efforts to obstruct justice.

Comey had come under enormous pressure from Republicans for his recommendation to bring no case against Clinton. Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump has repeatedly cited the decision as a sign of corruption endemic to Washington institutions and promised that, if elected, he would reopen the investigation.

Podesta on Friday cited the political pressure on Comey in questioning the director’s actions, saying that Republicans had been “browbeating” career FBI officials “to revisit their conclusion in a desperate attempt to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign.”

Trump, addressing supporters in New Hampshire Friday, hailed the FBI’s announcement - saying he had “great respect” for the agency’s decision to “right the horrible mistake that they made.”

“Perhaps, finally, justice will be done,” he said, as the crowd pumped fists and cheered, “Lock her up! Lock her up!”

As the news broke, the Dow Jones industrial average dropped more than 150 points.

Word also began to spread quickly on Capitol Hill, where lawmakers saw the announcement as a potential game-changer for the election.

“A total bombshell,” said Rep. Peter T. King (R-N.Y.), member of the House Homeland Security Committee. King predicted the FBI would not close its inquiry prior to the election, and said he believed Comey wanted the public to know of his move regardless of the outcome.

“He wants it all out there,” King said.

WikiLeaks has been releasing emails hacked from the account of campaign chairman John Podesta in recent days, including material in which some of Clinton’s closest advisors expressed surprise over her use of the server.

“[D]id you have any idea of the depth of this story?” Podesta asked campaign manager Robby Mook late on March 2, 2015, the day the New York Times revealed Clinton had exclusively used a private account as secretary.

“Nope,” Mook replied early the next day. “We brought up the existence of emails in [research] this summer but were told that everything was taken care of.”

The State Department’s deputy spokesman, Mark Toner, said the FBI has not notified them of the new emails and referred all questions to the FBI.

“We stand ready to cooperate if we’re asked to do so,” he told reporters. “But I don’t have any additional details at this point.”

-Jenna Johnson, Tom Hamburger, Carol Morello and Adam Entous contributed to this report.

10/28/2016 6:12 PM (edited)

Weiner probe



LOL. Typical all3 Friday night.
10/28/2016 6:15 PM
Posted by MikeT23 on 10/28/2016 6:15:00 PM (view original):

Weiner probe



LOL. Typical all3 Friday night.
Beginning ti think sjpoker is a MikeT alias.

Both seem obcessed with me for some reason. I must have hurt thier whittle feelings.

Hopefully b_l can distract them (him?) by telling us how this whole new Clinton thing is nothing for anyone to pay attention to.
10/28/2016 6:48 PM
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