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Archive for 2018
March 16, 2018
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REVEALED: Peter Strzok Had Personal Relationship With Recused Judge In Michael Flynn Case.
The pair even schemed about how to set up a cocktail or dinner party just so Contreras, Strzok, and Page could speak without arousing suspicion that they were colluding. Strzok expressed concern that a one-on-one meeting between the two men might require Contreras’ recusal from matters in which Strzok was involved.
“[REDACTED] suggested a social setting with others would probably be better than a one on one meeting,” Strzok told Page. “I’m sorry, I’m just going to have to invite you to that cocktail party.”
“Have to come up with some other work people cover for action,” Strzok added.
“Why more?” Page responded. “Six is a perfectly fine dinner party.”
It is not known whether the proposed party happened as planned.
While working as one of the top counterintelligence officials at the FBI, Strzok reportedly took part in the FBI’s interview of on January 24. Flynn later pleaded guilty to one charge of providing false information to federal investigators. Strzok later left the FBI to join Mueller’s special counsel team, which obtained the indictment of Flynn.
As Glenn has been saying for a while now, this whole thing stinks.
COLD WAR II: DHS and FBI warn Russia is behind cyberattacks on US infrastructure. “Energy, nuclear, aviation and manufacturing sectors are among those affected.”
THE SCIENCE OF THE Smartphone Backlash.
Related: Social Media As Social Disease.
IT’S THE DEMOGRAPHY, STUPID: Toys R Us’s baby problem is everybody’s baby problem.
(Classical reference in headline.)
LATE-STAGE SOCIALISM: Market Gives Venezuelan President Maduro 12 Months Max.
Like many Wall Streeters with an eye on Venezuela, Nomura and its clients have investments in PdVSA bonds. Many distressed asset and global emerging market bond fund managers have been buying the debt of the Venezuelan oil company for years, hoping for a regime change. Instead, they’ve gotten late payments and headaches. A hard default is still very likely.
Morden said Wednesday that she shifted her thesis on regime change to match the consensus view among the participants of the Emerging Markets Trade Association in January. The EMTA members believe there will be a political transition within the next 12 months.
“This has only recently gained traction on the optimism of the election headlines,” she says. Snap elections are being held next month. PSUV is expected to walk away the winner, having banned most brand-named opposition leaders from running.
“The election cycle offers a convenient venue for a transition but still requires direct military intervention,” she thinks. If the sole opposing candidate Henri Falcon withdraws from the race, this would dampen market sentiment but not necessarily decrease the (likelihood) for regime change.”
Maduro must agree. He is currently purging military members who are not Chavistas or PSUV loyalists.
A comfortable exile for Maduro in exchange for a peaceful transition would be a decent outcome, but is Maduro willing to let go of the reins?
In 2009, when Israel counterattacked after four years of Hamas rocket attacks on its civilians, Hawking managed to cobble together every incoherent and inaccurate trope about the conflict into one soundbite. He told Al Jazeera:
“A people under occupation will continue to resist in any way it can. If Israel wants peace it will have to talk to Hamas like Britain did with the IRA.Hamas are the democratically elected leaders of the Palestinian people and cannot be ignored … Israel’s response to the rocket attacks has been quite out of proportion. Almost a hundred Palestinians have been killed for every Israeli. The situation is like that in South Africa before 1990. It cannot continue.”
Naturally, Hawking promoted conspiracy theories about the Iraq war, claiming that it was based on “two lies” intentionally told by the Bush administration: that Saddam Hussein possessed weapons of mass destruction and that he was involved in the 9/11 attacks.
* * * * * * *
After the celebrity he earned from A Brief History of Time, Hawking grew into that special kind of scold—think Neil deGrasse Tyson and Bill Nye—who trades on his reputation as an impartial man of facts and logic in order to condescend to ordinary people.
As Tom Wolfe said of Noam Chomsky, another leftwing scold, “An intellectual is a person who is knowledgeable in one field but speaks out only in others.”
RELATING TO MY POST FROM LAST NIGHT: FACEBOOK: SOCIAL NETWORK ‘VERY SORRY’ FOR CHILD ABUSE SEARCH SUGGESTIONS.
IN THE MAIL: The Complete Guide to Hunting, Butchering, and Cooking Wild Game: Volume 1: Big Game.
Plus, fresh Gold Box and Lightning Deals.
MY USA TODAY COLUMN: Why shouldn’t the best foreign airlines be able to carry passengers between American cities? If it saves just one dog’s life, it’s worth it!
AS A TENNESSEAN, THIS IS JUST EMBARRASSING: Tennessee Has Fined Residents Nearly $100,000, Just For Braiding Hair.
Ever since she was a little girl, Fatou Diouf has been braiding hair. And for almost two decades, Fatou has turned that tradition into a vocation by working professionally as a licensed natural hair stylist in Tennessee.
“I never did any other job but hair braiding my whole life,” she said. “I cannot recall a time when I did not know how.”
But in recent years, Tennessee has forced Fatou to pay a staggering $16,000 in fines, simply because she employed workers who did not have a government license to braid hair. Nor is she alone. After examining meeting minutes and disciplinary actions for the Tennessee Board of Cosmetology and Barber Examiners, the Institute for Justice has identified nearly $100,000 in fines levied against dozens of braiders and more than 30 different natural hair shops and salons since 2009. All of those violations were for unlicensed braiding; none were triggered by any health or sanitation violation.
Typically, the Board will issue a $1,000 “civil penalty” for every instance of “performing natural hair care services for clients without a license” it encounters. In addition to fining braiders who work out of their homes or unlicensed salons, the Board has targeted licensed shops, like Fatou’s. . . .
But in Tennessee, only licensed “natural hair stylists” may earn a living by braiding, twisting, wrapping, weaving, extending or locking hair. Obtaining that license can be quite the ordeal. Braiders must complete at least 300 hours of coursework, which often means sacrificing the equivalent of working almost two months full-time. Across the entire state, only 3 schools offer those courses, charging anywhere from $1,500 to $5,000 for tuition.
With her years of experience, completing the classes required for a state license was “mostly a waste of my time,” Fatou recalled. “We don’t need 300 hours to know how to wash a clip or a comb.”
The Institute for Justice’s John Kramer emails: “Even the Department that encompasses the Board thinks the requirements are ‘overly burdensome.’ Fortunately, there’s now a bill that would repeal the license and end the crackdowns. But many licensed natural hair stylists are doing everything they can to kill the bill. On Tuesday, March 20, the Senate is expected to hold a critical hearing on the bill.“
DON’T YOU DARE QUESTION XIS GENDER: A man with a violent criminal record is suing a battered women’s shelter for refusing to take him in.
FREE SPEECH IS NOT A CANADIAN VALUE: NO FREE SPEECH ON FOUR CANADIAN CAMPUSES.
BLUE ON BLUE: Heitkamp on when Hillary Clinton will go away: ‘Not soon enough.’
Heitkamp, who is facing a tough re-election race in a state Donald Trump won in 2016, was asked Tuesday by her brother, KFGO host Joel Heitkamp, when Clinton will “ride off into the sunset.”
“I don’t know, not soon enough, I guess,” she responded.
The host asked, “What’s the answer?”
And Heitkamp said again: “Not soon enough.”
“I mean, she’s bashing the middle of the country and my state again. I don’t need her to do that,” the host said during the exchange about Clinton that began about 12 minutes and 30 seconds into the interview.
“Yeah, I know,” Heidi Heitkamp responded.
But other than that, Senator, what did you think of Hillary’s performance in India?
PHILIP ELLIOTT: Democrats Shouldn’t Get Too Cocky About Their Big Win in Trump Country.
The bigger fight in 2018 is unlikely to be a carbon copy of what narrowly happened in Appalachia for a number of reasons. For one, Democrats avoided a messy primary fight in picking Lamb, a Marine veteran who secured the nomination by winning over 319 Democrats’ backing in a high school gym filled with 554 activists back in November. In other scenarios, an energized activist base on the Left — populated by newcomers to the process who demand ideological purity — may have prevented Lamb from winning the nomination had there been a real contest. In recent weeks, more than a few progressive activists grumbled that whether Lamb won or lost, another white male who wasn’t a full-throated supporter of abortion rights would represent the district. (Lamb said he supported abortion rights but was personally opposed to the legal procedure, a stance that matches Democrats’ 2016 VP nominee Tim Kaine. Republicans called Lamb’s position “pro-life-ish.”)
At the same time, Lamb steadfastly avoided nationalizing the race and brushed off most questions about Trump. While liberals are largely united in their disdain of the President, Lamb gamely avoided moving him to center stage. Many of the loudest voices on the Left have tried to cast 2018 as a referendum on Republicans’ national agenda. Instead, Lamb kept the focus at home and talked about policy areas that matched the voters.
Democrats have acknowledged their problems with recruiting the right candidates. For every Lamb victory, there are at least as many idealists who fire up online activists and donors — only to fall in defeat when their progressive ideas are rejected by the voters who actually matter.
And maybe voters have wised up some since the 2006 election, when all those newly elected “moderate” Democrats voted in virtual lockstep with Nancy Pelosi.
