From the New York Times:
By ERIC LICHTBLAU
April 6, 2017
WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. told senior lawmakers in classified briefings last summer that it had information indicating that Russia was working to help elect Donald J. Trump president, a finding that did not emerge publicly until after Mr. Trump’s victory months later, former government officials say.
The briefings indicate that intelligence officials had evidence of Russia’s intentions to help Mr. Trump much earlier in the presidential campaign than previously thought. The briefings also reveal a critical split last summer between the C.I.A. and counterparts at the F.B.I., where a number of senior officials continued to believe through last fall that Russia’s cyberattacks were aimed primarily at disrupting America’s political system, and not at getting Mr. Trump elected, according to interviews.
The former officials said that in late August — 10 weeks before the election — John O. Brennan, then the C.I.A. director, was so concerned about increasing evidence of Russia’s election meddling that he began a series of urgent, individual briefings for eight top members of Congress, some of them on secure phone lines while they were on their summer break.
It is unclear what new intelligence might have prompted the classified briefings. But with concerns growing both internally and publicly at the time about a significant Russian breach of the Democratic National Committee, the C.I.A. began seeing signs of possible connections to the Trump campaign, the officials said. By the campaign’s final weeks, Congress and the intelligence agencies were racing to understand the scope of the Russia threat.
In an Aug. 25 briefing for Harry Reid, then the top Democrat in the Senate, Mr. Brennan indicated that Russia’s hackings appeared aimed at helping Mr. Trump win the November election, according to two former officials with knowledge of the briefing.
So, let’s be clear. The CIA did their job. The CIA got the information. The CIA delivered the information to the people that they should have-THE F.B.I., the President, the leaders of Congress.
We know what the FBI Director did.
The GOP leadership knew. They kept quiet. They are traitors to this country and should be treated as such.
Illegitimate Election. Illegitimate Administration.
https://twitter.com/JuddLegum/status/851965925205082112
ADIOS MOFO!
It’s going to take much more than a couple of weeks of ‘vacation’ away Mr O’Reilly…
You’ll have to go away permanently…
For good..
The ironic thing is that he’s probably headed to Rome this week…he’s supposedly spent the past many years…pre-dating Pope Francis and even Benedict, celebrating Easter attending the Pope’s mass at the Vatican…
The hypocrisy of these evil men…
https://twitter.com/VicenteFoxQue/status/851882181647642624?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Ftheobamadiary.com%2F2017%2F04%2F11%2Fearly-bird-chat-912%2F
https://twitter.com/davidmackau/status/851872115821248514
LOL..
Here is the description by a POU poster about the lawyer hired by Dr. Dao:
sagittarius • an hour ago
One of Dr. Dao’s attorneys is Thomas Demetrio. Let me put it this way – if Lucifer was going to trial in front of God, he would want Demetrio to represent him.
https://twitter.com/CNBCnow/status/851900546743242754
I’m not surprised by the caliber of the attorney(s). Mr. Dao’s representatives will get a nice slice of a healthy size pie.
KARMA BITCH!!!! Joe “YOU LIE,” WILSON
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=90iPgPgSPi8
https://twitter.com/JBsGhost/status/851840070940151808
https://twitter.com/JBsGhost/status/851900781758365696
Major GarrettVerified account @MajorCBS
News: GOP Rep. Tom Marino to become @POTUS director of Office National Drug Control Policy
…
Matthew MillerVerified account @matthewamiller
Wonder if he has been vetted by the FBI. He had to resign as US atty after an ugly scandal over helping out friends in the mob (seriously).
The Asian Doctor Dragged Off A United Airlines Flight Is The Blackest Thing That Ever Happened This Week
Damon Young, 4/11/17
………………………
Anyone can, however, have some Black-ass shit happen to them. And David Dao, the doctor recently dragged off of a United Airlines flight, wasn’t quite a nigga for a day, but was definitely treated like one. And then United Airlines CEO Oscar Munoz added to the niggafication of this ordeal by describing the doctor as “disruptive and belligerent” and apologized for having to inconvenience the other passengers. (Please re-read those last eight words.) After reading that statement, I was immediately reminded of Henry Davis, the man who was beaten by Ferguson police and then charged with property damage because he bled on their uniforms. Which is just one of countless examples of something like that happening to a Black person; where pain is inflicted on us, and our natural and justifiable response to that pain is treated as some sort of burden and agitation. We’re the insensitive and violent ones for merely reacting to violence; for getting hit and saying “Oww. That hurt. Please stop.”
In America, this particular type of trauma-dependent gaslighting a uniquely Black phenomenon that synopsizes much of our experience here. But, as the soon-to-be-rich-as-the-fuck Dao learned, it actually happening isn’t unique to Black people.
Funny the way this is written but so much truth here.
I’ve been thinking about this in relation to my own experience flying United in February when I went to Florida for surgery. I was supposed to fly back the next day after the surgery and made it as far as Houston. The connecting flight to Tucson was supposed to take off 1.5 hrs after we landed. Well, they spent about six hours delaying the flight for maintenance reasons then cancelled it. They sent us to a hotel to sleep for three hours, gave us useless food vouchers because everything was closed, and then shuttled us back to the airport at 4:30 AM.
Well, my overall condition was not so good. I had not slept longer than one or two hours at a stretch for the previous four days. I was so extremely tired and I knew I wasn’t thinking clearly, but I couldn’t correct it. I remember trying to use the restroom on the plane and couldn’t figure out how to open the door which only involved turning a knob. The flight attendant had to assist me.
If I had been told that I had been randomly selected to give up my seat, I honestly do not think I could have comprehended the situation. The other possibility, and probably more likely, is that I might have just simply collapsed.
It is truly astonishing that this is how these people run their airline business. They would rather take a chance that they seriously harm a person rather than pay a few extra hundred dollars as incentive for a volunteer.
LOL
What Y’all Not Gon’ Do Is Come For Janet Damita Jo Jackson
Panama Jackson, 4/11/17
http://verysmartbrothas.com/leave-janet-alone/
Sean Spicer Is What Happens When You Give Mediocre White Men Microphones
Damon Young, 4/11/17
……………………
Of course, for those who’ve studied the peculiarities unique to the culture of White Mediocrity — the anthropological subcategory exclusively compromised of candy corn-ass White people who’re convinced they’re king-sized fucking Snickers — none of this is a surprise. This is what happens when they’re promoted above their abilities and allowed statuses they haven’t earned and platforms they don’t deserve. They reach for shit their mediocre-ass arms are too short to grab. Just as a tiger is going to eventually just go tiger, because that inevitability is coded into his DNA, an aggressively mediocre White man is going to go mediocrewhiteman as long as he’s able to.
If the world were truly just, Donald Trump would be hocking 17-year-old Hyundais in a vacant Youngstown, Ohio lot and Sean Spicer would be his mascot on the sidewalk, holding a “No Credit, No Problem” sign, dressed in a giraffe costume, and using his lunch breaks to masturbate in the bathroom of the Arby’s across the street. But life aint fair, and White Mediocrity rules Washington, so all we can do is hide the diaper bags.
http://verysmartbrothas.com/sean-spicer-is-what-happens-when-you-give-mediocre-white-men-microphones/
VSB IS ALWAYS ON POINT!
And to think that he’s not even nearly the worst of the lot…
And to think that he is in fact one of the few in a crazy cohort of Putin-owned and installed interlopers… held up as ‘decent’, ‘professional’, ‘knowledgeable’, ‘credible’, ‘a good guy’…
In an you could not make up this stuff up, crazy set-up that has folks applauding and ‘breathing a sigh of relief’, and talking up unqualified and mediocre folks that wouldn’t otherwise even marginally be considered for the positions and titles they now pretend-inhabit…and only because they aren’t considered as far out crazy or as badly compromised as the other flat out crazy, greedy, corrupt, treasonous white supremacists and Putinistas…
In what other world would Gary Cohn go from Goldman Sachs to sitting in and weighing in on key ‘national security’ matters….or Dina Powell go from being Ivanka’s ‘women empowerment’ adviser, to Deputy National Security Adiviser in a space of weeks…simply because she just happens to be somewhat saner …and once upon a time worked as some random mid level aide in Bush jr.’s admin…
Insanity..
I will be back later to post about Spicer.
https://twitter.com/3ChicsPolitico/status/851897492883034114
https://twitter.com/iteachoneofu/status/851898490292711425
Good! CRASH & BURN
I only wish that the brutal, cold-blooded murders – at the hands of taxpayer funded, uniformed racists – of innocent black folks just going about their lives, would elicit even half the universal outrage and response and demands for justice – and forgone expectation of generous restitution…
https://twitter.com/purpledocket/status/851871113852452865
This is what happens when media is owned by the same plutocrats now self-servingly invested in the crazy buffoon they hope to steer to fulfill their agenda…
Some of the media folks see and hear the absurdity…recognize the madness and see the crap for what it is….and are to some extent, if not entirely disturbed by it, somewhat discomfited by events….but they remain silent…complicit ….turn a blind eye and still go along …to keep their paid gigs …
https://twitter.com/RickRitterWJZ/status/851884911980052480
Y’all.
Y’ALL?
Spicer today.
I.just.can’t. The level of disrespect is OFF THE CHAIN!!
Same.
https://twitter.com/kylegriffin1/status/851881619656986628
The Coming White House Egg Roll Catastrophe
by Martin Longman April 11, 2017 10:36 AM PM
With so many potential story lines percolating at the moment, I’m pretty certain that Julie Hirschfeld Davis wasn’t entirely thrilled to draw the assignment of covering the Trump administration’s preparations (or lack thereof) for the annual White House Easter Egg Roll. But she certainly did as much as a human can reasonably be expected to do, essentially hitting a grand slam with her hard hitting and thorough exposure of a catastrophe in the making.
Here are some things her reporting uncovered. Sesame Street will only be sending one (unnamed) character to the event rather than its usual full complement. A typical White House Easter Egg Roll has about 2,000 volunteers. This year it might draw only two hundred volunteers. Last year there were 37,000 attendees at the event, but sources say that Trump will be lucky to get half that many people this year. Washington-area public schools have historically received as many as 4,000 invites, but they haven’t heard a peep from the White House. The same is true for military/veterans organizations that normally account for about 3,000 egg rollers. And, most importantly, the event is normally supplied with approximately 85,000 wooden commemorative eggs, but this year the Trump folks ordered them so late that they’ll be getting only 40,000.
How did this happen? What explains this rank incompetence?
Well, you might want to blame the absent First Lady.
……………………………
This isn’t all that Julie Hirschfeld Davis uncovered. She also learned that military bands will have to fill in for the “A-list entertainers like Justin Bieber, Ariana Grande, Idina Menzel and Silentó who have performed for Egg Rolls past.” She verified that “members of Congress have not received word from the White House about whether they will get tickets to distribute to their constituents.” And, vitally, none of “the organizers of the Yoga Garden featured on the South Lawn during Obama-era Easter Egg Rolls [have] been asked to share their asanas.”
…………………………………………………………..
https://twitter.com/AP/status/851876612148789248
https://twitter.com/TPM/status/851862159101448192
https://twitter.com/mentnelson/status/841365272225316864
https://twitter.com/originalspin/status/851547710633123840
https://twitter.com/mckaycoppins/status/851821184006189060
https://twitter.com/CharlesMBlow/status/851798248662630400
https://twitter.com/NBCNews/status/851766852934086656
But all the decimation of protections for vulnerable Americans …and all the crazy crap being perpetrated by the white supremacists and Putinistas around her and her father aren’t even remotely disturbing…or bothersome to her…?
https://twitter.com/RawStory/status/851804251634499586
The combo sense of entitlement, arrogance, wanton ignorance and utter lack of self-awareness, is mind-blowing…
Studying reels of well-documented and properly archived accounts and every single moment of the Obama admistration and 8 years of well-put together events and activities of the historic President and First Lady who put their heart, soul and authentic vision into every detail…
The brazen impostors trying their darnedest to mimick and very shoddily copy it all…and try to pass it all off as their very own, ‘new’ and ‘classy’ 🙄😂idea…is not only laughable, but a complete fail…and rightly falling apart as it should…
WTF does David Dao’s past has to do with United assaulting him and dragging him from the plane. He didn’t start trouble on the plane. United did.
https://twitter.com/courierjournal/status/851790308471951360
Yeah, it’s right about time for the perpetrator to start blaming the victim.
@united CEO Oscar Munoz need to go. He called the victim ‘disruptive and belligerent’. He blamed the victim for being assaulted. FIRE HIM!
Trump keeps taking credit for Obama-era economic news
04/11/17 10:08 AM
By Steve Benen
When it comes to avoiding responsibility for bad things that happen on his watch, Donald Trump will go to almost any lengths. But the president is also capable of acting with equal vigor when trying to take credit for good things that happen on his watch.
Take yesterday, for example.
“Toyota’s decision to invest $1.3 billion in their Kentucky plant is further evidence that manufacturers are now confident that the economic climate has greatly improved under my administration,” Trump said in a written statement. The press release was Toyota’s, not the White House’s, which is itself unusual – because ordinarily a president doesn’t communicate with the public through corporate public-relations departments.
Trump’s daughter helped sway the president to launch Syria strike
04/11/17 08:40 AM
By Steve Benen
It’s not exactly a secret the Pentagon encouraged Donald Trump to launch last week’s attack in Syria, but according to one of the president’s adult sons, Ivanka Trump played a key role, too.
Eric Trump, speaking to the British newspaper while visiting a Trump-branded golf course in Scotland, explained the behind-the-scenes situation at the White House. “Ivanka is a mother of three kids and she has influence,” he explained. “I’m sure she said, ‘Listen, this is horrible stuff.’ My father will act in times like that.”
He will? Really?
Look at the comparison pictures of the Trump Seder vs. the Obama Seder.
Look at that cheap trash for Dolt45.
Look at the cheap chairs.
Look at the non-existent place settings.
Look at the glasses.
Everything about it screams CHEAP
Dolt45
https://pbs.twimg.com/media/C9F3g-_W0AAFB5T.jpg
Obama’s Seder
https://obamawhitehouse.archives.gov/sites/default/files/image/image_file/16998780086_7a3454b62e_k.jpg
Copy, copy, copy…albeit, crassly, fakely, cheaply, superficially…
Plagiarize, plagiarize, plagiarize…albeit it poorly, soullessly, fakely,
And still have the gall to claim ‘superiority’ …
The Jews didn’t attend the Passover dinner?
WHAT THE PHUCK?!?!?!?!?!?!??
I keep on saying this, and will continue to say it…
KUSHNER IS A SLAVE CATCHER.
All Lives Mattering the Holocaust…NOT attending the WHITE HOUSE Passover Seder…..
catch the clues, people.
Why Does Jeff Sessions Want to Reinvigorate the Failed War on Drugs?
by Nancy LeTourneau April 11, 2017 8:00 AM
I’d like to remind you of that day when Trump’s OMB Director Mike Mulvaney told us that the reason this administration’s budget cut funding to programs like Meals on Wheels and after-school initiatives for kids was because they could no longer defend spending tax dollars on programs that don’t work.
Let’s put aside the fact that feeding seniors and children is a self-defined success: hungry people are no longer hungry. It’s really that simple.
My reaction to Mulvaney was that if we’re going to defund programs that don’t work — the best place to start is by ending the so-called “war on drugs.”
………………………………………….
In the last 46 years we’ve spent over $2.5 trillion on that war and all we’ve got to show for it are a lot of dead bodies and the highest incarceration rate on the globe. Meanwhile, the U.S. is the No. 1 nation in the world in illegal drug use.
…………………..
Apparently AG Sessions and his top lieutenant Steven Cook think that we can arrest and incarcerate our way out of the drug problem, even though both science and recent history tell us that is nonsense. It is worth asking why this administration would cling to one failed federal initiative while proposing to eliminate so many others. Ava DuVernay answered that question with a documentary titled simply: “13th.”
Whether it is Sessions’ move to pull away from police reform, his history of opposition to voting rights, or his plans to ramp up the war on drugs, there is one key element that binds his approach on all of these issues…racism. While we’re in the business of breaking taboos, let’s get rid of the one that keeps us from naming exactly what’s going on here.
Jared Kushner and the Bipartisan Bog
by Martin Longman April 10, 2017 5:50 PM
…………………….
don’t know how good her legal advice really is, considering that her client managed to bungle his paperwork:
As Charles Pierce astutely asks, “who among us hasn’t forgotten about the times we met Russian spies who own banks?”
It would have been nice if the election of Donald Trump actually signaled an end to the kind of incestuous relationships that allowed the Democratic nominee for president to praise the man who committed war crimes for Nixon, or for Jared Kushner to hire a Cheney-approved “Democratic” 9/11 commissioner as his personal pro-nepotism representative who will cover for his high-level national security lapses.
Alas, that was not the case.
There’s a swamp to be drained, certainly. Trump and Kushner just aren’t the ones to do it.
Indeed..
Young women view Ivanka Trump negatively: poll
The Hill
Olivia Beavers
A new SurveyMonkey poll released Monday reveals that a majority young women share a negative view of Ivanka Trump, President Trump’s daughter and special counselor.
The poll found the first daughter is much more popular among women ages 34 and over than she is among young women.
According to the survey, 40 percent of women between the ages 18 and 34 find the first daughter unfavorable, compared to only 32 percent who see her favorably.
Sixteen percent of women between the ages of 34 and 64 found her more favorable than the younger women did, with 48 percent favorable and 29 percent unfavorable.
And women 65 and older gave the highest approval for the first daughter, at 53 percent, with 28 percent disapproving.
Ivanka Trump is also more popular among men than women. While 44 percent of men view her favorably, only 35 percent of women do.
Her favorability ratings among men and women are almost identical to those of first lady Melania Trump.
But she’s ‘popular’ they insist…in ‘tChyna’…among ‘young women’ who crave ‘fame and wealth’. …and those who’ve been ‘bowled over’ by video of her daughter reciting a poem in chinese…courtesy of the Chinese nanny …something that is interestingly, never ever mentioned..
S-T-O-L-E-N S-E-A-T
Trump on Gorsuch’s confirmation: ‘You think that’s easy?’
04/11/17 09:20 AM—UPDATED 04/11/17 09:32 AM
By Steve Benen
……………………………
But the president’s question need not be rhetorical. Trump believes he “got it done,” and it wasn’t “easy.” Is that right?
The fact that Senate Republicans had to use the so-called “nuclear option,” changing the institution’s rules in order to get Gorsuch onto the bench, obviously means this wasn’t an easy process. Indeed, the fact that Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) had to execute a 14-month scheme, with no precedent in the American tradition, effectively stealing a high court vacancy from one administration in order to hand it to another, reinforces the complexity of this dynamic.
But what rankles is the president’s boast: “I got it done in the first 100 days.” I’m sure it made Trump feel nice to say this, but let’s not forget that Trump didn’t actually do any real work.
Conservative activists helped the Trump campaign put together a list of possible justices before the election; the White House chose a name from that list after the election; and then Senate Republicans used their majority to do all the heavy lifting. As accomplishments go, the president spent vastly more time golfing and tweeting about stuff he saw on television than shepherding Neil Gorsuch through the confirmation process.
As for the audience that heard Trump’s curious boast, Slate’s Mark Joseph Stern had a good piece noting one of the attendees at yesterday’s event in the Rose Garden.
The fact that Mitch McConnell is one of Congress’ fiercest opponents of campaign-finance reform puts a nice little bow on the entire affair.
#SCOTUSJUSTICESTOLENSEAT
From The Daily Mail
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4401444/Name-man-hauled-United-flight-Chicago-revealed.html
Excerpt:
More from the above Daily Mail article:
http://i.dailymail.co.uk/i/pix/2017/04/11/13/3F283F0E00000578-4401444-David_Dao_has_been_revealed_as_the_man_who_was_dragged_from_a_Un-m-5_1491912974420.jpg
“David Dao has been revealed as the man who was dragged from a United flight in Chicago on Sunday. He is pictured with his wife, Teresa, and one of their grandchildren”
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4401444/Name-man-hauled-United-flight-Chicago-revealed.html#ixzz4dwXbOuxe
The man forcibly removed from a United flight went to the hospital for his injuries
http://www.businessinsider.com/united-airlines-passenger-dragged-off-plane-hospital-injuries-2017-4
Excerpt:
with non-life-threatening injuries.”
I am worried for this passenger:
Did the passenger go voluntarily to the hospital?
Can he leave the hospital any time he chooses?
Is there a guard at the door to his hospital room?
Would a reporter be allowed to see him if he asked for one?
Does he have access to a lawyer from his hospital room?
The United CEO needs to STOP 😠😠😠
Take the L
Write the check$$$$
And the lying azz Chicago Police Department needs to do the same.
Cut the phucking check$$$
Good Morning, Everyone 😄 😄😄
https://twitter.com/billypollina/status/851652906440736768
LOL! So clever! @united getting rolled for their fuckery.
LOL..
Twitter is dragging United Airlines natural ass. It’s a nasty filthy beat down.
Good morning, Chicas!
Twitter is beating united airlines ass and Rikyrah beating the GOP ass. Is it safe to come in?
LOL!
BWA HA HA HA Good Morning, SG2 & Everyone.
Rikyrah’s taking the GOP to the WOODSHED & BACK!