“California’s politicians and bureaucrats are veritable Einsteins when it comes to finding creative ways to squeeze more money from their citizens.
With Sacramento sucking even more money from tax payers, recently in the form of a new gasoline tax, city governments have had to become quite imaginative.
Therefore, some of the state’s desert communities are now hitting up residents with “prosecution fees”. For example, when homeowners are hit with code enforcement violations such as dirty backyards, they are charged a “prosecution fee” in addition to the fine and cost of repairing the problem. The total cost to them can be staggering…and raised if they challenge the initial charge.
Through an extensive review of public records, The Desert Sun has identified 18 cases in which Indio and Coachella charged defendants more than $122,000 in “prosecution fees” since the cities hired Silver & Wright as prosecutors a few years ago. With the addition of code enforcement fees, administration fees, abatement fees, litigation fees and appeal fees, the total price tag rises to more than $200,000.
In most of those cases, the disparity between the crime and the cost is staggering. Defendants who faced no jail time and were fined only a few hundred dollars ended up paying five or ten times that much to prosecutors who attended a couple of court hearings.
For example, a Coachella family with a busted garage door and an overgrown yard filled with trash and junk was billed $18,500.
Reason contributor Scott Shackford reviewed the records and uncovered some high-priced prosecutions.
In Coachella, a man was fined $900 for expanding his living room without getting a permit. He paid his fine. Then more than a year later he got a bill in the mail from Silver & Wright for $26,000. They told him that he had to pay the cost of prosecuting him, and if he didn’t, they could put a lien on his house and the city could sell it against his will. When he appealed the bill they charged him even more for the cost of defending against the appeal. The bill went from $26,000 to $31,000.
…A woman fined for hanging Halloween decorations across a city street received legal bill for $2,700. When she challenged it, the bill jumped to $4,200.
Shackford took a look at Silver & Wright, and made some fascinating discoveries. Matthew Silver, one of the firm’s partners, is also a vice president for the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers…so he is leading a professional association for government employees responsible for enforcing the laws that lead to his firm’s billable hours.
The Silver & Wright website promoting their work seems directed to appealing to politicos and bureaucrats who want to drain citizens of their hard earned money:”
“The FBI confidential informant who went undercover to look into Hillary Clinton’s role in an Obama administration-era uranium company was identified Thursday.
William Campbell, a Russian lobbyist, is the informant, according to Reuters. He will be testifying before a congressional committee about the 2010 sale of Uranium One, where a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the U.S. Campbell gave information to the FBI about what he saw while undercover as an informant.”
————————-
“When Clinton served as secretary of state, Russia routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and former President Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees as part of Russian efforts to influence the U.S. government to approve the deal, The Hill reported.
Campbell’s attorney, Victoria Toensing, said on Fox Business that former attorneys general under the Obama administration are the reason her client hasn’t been able to “tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made.”
@7:14 Creative lawyers are like creative accountants in that both are prone to creative injustices. Yes, I know there are some good ones, I have both in my family, but these are two professions that have gone completely off the rails and need a good nose-thumping.
Recently (since Trump) there has been much talk of defining or re-defining what it means to be a Conservative. Perhaps part of the re-definition needs to be articulating a general position on war and meddling abroad and the out of control spending that accompanies those activities. The American Conservative has a pretty good article on the subject.
One of the odder aspects of present-day politics is the assumption that if you are antiwar you are on the left, and if you are conservative you are “pro-war.” Like labelling conservative states red and liberal states blue, this is an inversion of historical practice.…..
Conservatives’ detestation of war has no “touchy-feely” origins. It springs from conservatism’s roots, its most fundamental beliefs and objectives. Conservatism seeks above all social and cultural continuity, and nothing endangers that more than war…..
The threat war poses to the cake of custom is exacerbated by one of its foremost characteristics: its results are unpredictable. Few countries go to war expecting to lose, but wars are seldom won by both sides. The effects of military defeat on social order can be revolutionary….
The plain fact is, conservatives loathe unpredictability. They also know that vast state expenditures and debts can destabilize a society, and no activity of the state is more expensive than war. America’s adventure in Iraq, driven in no small part by the quest for oil—which will now mostly go to China—has already cost a trillion dollars, with another trillion or two to come caring for crippled veterans. Even the peacetime cost of a large military can break a country, as it broke the Soviet Union. American conservatives used to be budget hawks, not warhawks…..
One gain that comes out of war is as disturbing to conservatives as any of the losses: an aggrandizement of state power. The argument of “wartime necessity” runs roughshod over all checks and balances, civil liberties, and traditional constraints on government. In the 20th century, American progressives knew they could only create the powerful, centralizing federal government they sought by going to war. It was they, the left, who engineered America’s entry into World War I. Nearly a century later, 9/11 gave centralizers in the neocon Bush administration the cover they needed for the “Patriot Act,” legislation that would have left most of America’s original patriots rethinking the merits of King George. Just as nothing adds more to a state’s debt than war, so nothing more increases its power. Conservatives rue both.
When Edmund Burke, generally regarded as conservatism’s 18th-century founder, was faced in Parliament with a proposal for a war to ensure the river Scheldt in the Austrian Netherlands remained closed so Antwerp could not compete with London, his response was, “A war for the Scheldt? A war for a chamber pot!” That was a genuinely conservative reaction.
Real conservatives hate war. If that now sounds as strange as thinking of blue as the conservative color, we can thank a bunch of (ex?)-Trotskyites who stole our name, and a military-industrial-congressional complex that has bought right and left alike. If history is a guide, and it usually is, the price for the nationalist right’s love of militaries and war is likely to be higher than we can to imagine.
Lavar Ball is basically a black Donald Trump. He gains attention by saying things that are ridiculous. While Trump came to prominence as a con man and tabloid adulterer, Ball is the world’s biggest and worst Sports Dad. My son thinks the relationship between the two men is destined to be the heart of a Reality TV show.
Debra, As you know I am with you on the issue of the US being the world’s policeman. Like you, I liked some of the things Trump said about this on the campaign though his comments tended to be uneven and ill-informed. We have seen little change in US policy to this point, but I remain optimistic. People don’t like lunatics as policemen, so I am hopeful that Trump’s presence will help other nations learn to solve their own problems.
Canada and US businesses try to teach basic business and economic principles to the Trump Administration. Good luck with that!
The Canadian position is, essentially: The US proposal hurts the US industry. Every constituency in the US hates it. Why should we try to refine a proposal even your country hates? Try again. https://t.co/13Ets8EUSV
I still think the Korean war was necessary.
However, I erroneously supported the other wars because I was naïve about what was happening and I thought we should save the world from communism which seemed to be everywhere. i.e. Russia and China were filling every void.
However, after I retired and had time to become informed, I have come to the conclusion that we did the wrong thing during the last half century.
The Communists won in Viet Nam and no harm was done to the world. Communism in Russia has crashed under it’s own weight, though Russia is still a threat to Europe.
I agree with Trump that Europe needs to defend itself. It is well capable.
We would be better off if Sadaam were still in Iraq. Nothing but Islamic chaos has resulted from ridding Iraq and Lydia of it’s tyrants..
Muslims need tyrants to rule them. They do not understand democracy. Their culture and religion prohibits it.
Nothing good has ever come to anyone messing around with Afghanistan.
We are not dealing with an expansionist nation like Germany and Japan were.
We are dealing with a people who think their religion should and will control the world so that only Allah is worshipped. These people think they will get eternal benefits if they die in this effort.
It’s a different world.
It’s the lawyer thing. And the poor lawyers in California have such a hard time getting their licenses that they’ve decided to make it easier to pass the bar because, well, we obviously don’t have enough lawyers.
You cannot even begin to guess at the horror shenanigans awaiting us after the fires. I’d be happy to move . . . but, someone has to stay here and hold the innocent victim’s hands.
“Efforts to form a three-way coalition government have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, pitching Germany into its worse political crisis for decades, raising the prospect of new elections and casting doubt over her future.”
“A tired-looking Merkel said she would stay on as acting chancellor and consult President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on how to move forward. A deal had been within reach, she said.
With the Social Democrats (SPD) sticking on Monday to their pledge after losses in a September election not to go back into a Merkel-led “grand coalition” of center-left and center-right, the most likely option looked to be new elections.
Steinmeier, who in the ordinary course of events is meant to play a non-partisan role above the cut-and-thrust of party politics, was due to give a statement at 1330 GMT.
”It is a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,“ Merkel told reporters. ”As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country is well managed in the difficult weeks to come.
The failure of coalition talks is unprecedented in Germany’s post-war history, and was likened by newsmagazine Der Spiegel to the shock election of U.S. President Donald Trump or Britain’s referendum vote to leave the EU – moments when countries cast aside reputations for stability built up over decades.
The collapse came as a surprise since the main sticking points – immigration and climate change policy – were not seen as FDP signature issues.”
“President Trump’s approval ratings, often mocked by Democrats and the media, top those of Europe’s biggest three leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron.
A new Zogby Analytics survey of people in those countries also finds that the disapproval ratings are sky-high.
Trump’s approval ratings range from 38 percent to the mid 40s, and Rasmussen set it at 42 percent this week.
Zogby found the three European leaders below that:
“A woman says Sen. Al Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010, telling CNN that he grabbed her buttocks while taking a photo at the Minnesota State Fair.
It is the first allegation of improper touching by Franken, who is a Democrat, while he was in office. It comes just days after Leeann Tweeden, a local radio news anchor in California, said that Franken forcibly kissed and groped her in 2006, when Franken was a comedian.
Franken has since issued an apology to Tweeden and faces a potential investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.
Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman who now lives in Frisco, Texas, reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an “uncomfortable” interaction that left her feeling “gross.””
——————————-
I feel that way every time I see this fraud pretending to be a Senator.
“It is distressing to read and listen to the nonsense in the Canadian media about Donald Trump. It is too early to predict whether he will be a successful president or not. But no one relying on the Canadian media would be aware that he has more than doubled the economic growth rate, reduced illegal immigration by about 80 per cent, withdrawn from the insane Paris Climate accord, helped add trillions to U.S. stock market values, created nearly two million new jobs, led the rout of ISIL, and gained full Chinese adherence to the unacceptability of North Korean nuclear military capability. He will probably pass the greatest tax cuts and reforms since Reagan, if not Lyndon Johnson, by Christmas, and may throw out the most unpopular feature of Obamacare, the coercive mandate, with it.
He can be a tiresome and implausible public figure at times, and the reservations widely held about him, in the United States and elsewhere, are understandable and not unfounded. He is, however, the most effective U.S. president since Reagan.”
——————-
“Canadians of all people should recognize that what is really going on in the United States is the tawdriest political charade in the country’s history. The Clinton campaign commissioned, through intermediaries, a dossier of salacious gossip and outright fabrications about Trump, from unidentified, unverifiable Kremlin sources, desperately shopped it to the U.S. media (remember the “Golden Shower” of Trump-synchronized urinating prostitutes in a Moscow hotel?), and managed to hand off the dossier to the FBI, politicizing that organization. Trump fired the FBI director, James Comey, who, in revenge, removed a government document, a much contested memo to himself about a conversation with the president, to force the appointment of a special counsel, who turned out to be none other than Comey’s chum and mentor and preceding FBI director, Robert Mueller.
Mueller has thrashed around with the Trump-collusion nonsense, which Obama launched a year ago, and which has not produced a shred of probative evidence of collusion. Mueller is reduced to the usual fascistic shakedown of American prosecutors: a pre-dawn Gestapo-style raid on Trump’s former campaign manager’s home (Paul Manafort), with armed men in his bedroom with his wife in sleeping attire (not uncommon for people sleeping at night in their own bedrooms), and then threw all the spaghetti at the wall — “conspiracy against the United States,” but for alleged financial activities years before Manafort knew Trump. It has emerged that this false dossier commissioned by the Clinton campaign is the only evidence there is of Trump-Kremlin collusion, all that is supposed to be “tightening a noose around (Trump’s) neck.” It is a stupendous farce confected by Kremlin low-lives for $10 million dollars paid over by the Clinton campaign, a partisan smear job. But you would ransack the Canadian media in vain to find it exposed as such, because they have all drunk the hand-me-down Kool Aid of the Never Trumpers and the anti-Trump Resistance. Canada’s media have almost totally failed in its coverage of the biggest political news in the world in many years.”
There were seven women in my Zumba class this morning whose houses burned down. Seven.
Today we read in the paper that the President sent a $44 Billion relief bill to Congress to fund the natural disasters in Florida in Texas.
I’m very sorry, but there were disasters in Puerto Rico and California. I hate to say this, but targeting it to only two places is not fair. Surely they could have spread the money out in percentages by numbers of people affected?
But that’s my opinion.
I understand the administration may not like California politics–and who can blame them, many of us don’t like them either–but out here it’s being spun as a deliberate choice to make people suffer more.
Michelle, is Puerto Rico America’s financial responsibility? (I don’t know one way or the other.) I wonder if it isn’t that the other disasters were first and there aren’t numbers yet to do one for California?
Donna, from the NYT via Drudge: LOS ANGELES — There have been governors and generals, senators and members of Congress, secretaries of states and vice presidents. There was even a billionaire business executive chosen as commander in chief.
But never in the 228 years since General George Washington went to the White House has a sitting mayor been elected president.
Eric M. Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, may be out to change that.
Is this what Trump is hoping for? Next to Hillary, of course.
“Two of the “stars” of the IRS debacle where they targeted conservative groups for special attention, Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, were back in federal court last week, but not for additional charges against them. This time they’re working on fighting a request to have the records from their trial and the statements they gave sealed in perpetuity. The reason? If the rest of us heard what they said about the Tea Party, angry mobs with pitchforks and torches would probably march on their homes. (Washington Times)
Former IRS executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court last week that members of her family, including “young children,” face death threats and a real risk of physical harm if her explanation of the tea party targeting scandal becomes public.
Ms. Lerner and Holly Paz, her deputy at the IRS, filed documents in court Thursday saying tapes and transcripts of depositions they gave in a court case this year must remain sealed in perpetuity, or else they could spur an enraged public to retaliate.
“Whenever Mss. Lerner and Paz have been in the media spotlight, they have faced death threats and harassment,” attorneys for the two women argued.
At issue are tapes of the two women’s testimony and transcripts of depositions in the class action lawsuits brought against the agency on behalf of Tea Party groups targeted by Lerner and others. Those suits were settled earlier this year with the IRS not only admitting wrongdoing but offering further proof that Lerner continued the practice even after being discovered. And now journalists would like to get hold of the records and make them public.
This is an interesting defense strategy to be sure. We’ve seen countless cases where court records have been sealed, at least for a time, if the contents could damage ongoing criminal investigations or create a national security risk. What the attorneys for Lerner and Paz are saying is something else entirely. It’s basically an admission that what they said in court was so damning that people might wish to do them harm.”
“FBI and Justice Department officials have told congressional investigators in recent days that they have not been able to verify or corroborate the substantive allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign outlined in the Trump dossier.
The FBI received the first installment of the dossier in July 2016. It received later installments as they were written at the height of the presidential campaign, which means the bureau has had more than a year to investigate the allegations in the document. The dossier was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
An August 24, 2017 subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee to the FBI and Justice Department asked for information on the bureau’s efforts to validate the dossier. Specifically, the subpoena demanded “any documents, if they exist, that memorialize DOJ and/or FBI efforts to corroborate, validate, or evaluate information provided by Mr. Steele and/or sub-sources and/or contained in the ‘Trump Dossier.'”
According to sources familiar with the matter, neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has provided documents in response to that part of the committee’s subpoena. But in face-to-face briefings with congressional staff, according to those sources, FBI and DOJ officials have said they cannot verify the dossier’s charges of a conspiracy between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
The news appears to contradict recent statements from some top Democrats. “A lot of it has turned out to be true,” Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.”
————————–
Except it hasn’t, and Schiff is lying, and he knows it.
“For all the lingering tensions between President Donald Trump and former President George W. Bush, Trump’s White House shares one thing in common with his Republican predecessor’s: People.
Trump has installed more than three dozen veterans of the Bush administration, putting them in charge of running agencies, implementing foreign policy and overseeing his schedule. While hiring from the last administration controlled by the same party is common, Trump’s staffing moves are notable given his pledges to change politics-as-usual and the frosty relations between the current and former Republican standard-bearers.
The Bush influence has only grown stronger recently, as Trump nominated Alex Azar to lead the Health and Human Services Department, where he served under the Bush administration, and tapped Jerome “Jay” Powell to be chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell served in the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.
While the White House says this is standard practice, some Trump allies say the hires don’t fit with the president’s non-traditional style.
“If Donald Trump’s presidency fails it will be because he has perhaps inadvertently surrounded himself with” Bush associates, said longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.
The Bush alums in the administration include Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who served as Bush’s labor secretary, and Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser who oversaw presidential personnel and later served in Bush’s State Department as an assistant secretary under Condoleezza Rice. Even the president’s schedule and day-to-day operations are overseen by a former member of Bush’s inner circle: Joe Hagin, who served as deputy White House chief of staff.
Of course, hiring staffers from a past administration brings needed experience.
“These are complex jobs and the time is limited,” said Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor and Health and Human Services secretary under Bush. He pointed to the importance of understanding the complexities of federal regulations, the budget and congressional relations. “If everyone has to learn it anew the chances of implementing an agenda are substantially reduced and the quality of government isn’t as good.”
AJ @4:35 I think the President is trying to keep his campaign promises, but I suspect it’s hard for him to get the country to change directions when in DC he is surrounded by so many people who want us to believe the hogwash that 1) ‘free-trade’ is properly conducted with a communist country, 2) wars to spread Democracy are a good idea, and 3) over half of the population is irrelevant, stupid, lazy or otherwise Deplorable.
WhoooHooo! Now this is good news. Blocking a mega-merger is the next best thing to breaking up a ‘too big to fail’ enterprise. Neither happens nearly enough. Way to go Trump administration!
Trump administration sues to block AT&T-Time Warner merger
The suit comes little more than a year after then-candidate Donald Trump said the $85 billion merger would place ‘too much concentration of power in the hands of too few.’
The Justice Department filed a lawsuit Monday to block the AT&T-Time Warner merger, amid a growing political storm over whether the administration has tried to use its review of the $85 billion deal to force the sale of CNN, a frequent target of President Donald Trump’s media criticism.
A DOJ official told reporters Monday that the agency is concerned the combined company will charge competitors hefty fees to distribute Time Warner content, providing an unfair advantage to AT&T-owned DirecTV. Such an arrangement would have a negative impact on American TV viewers, said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss the litigation.
“We believe, and our investigation has found, the merger would harm competition, , resulting in higher bills and less innovation…..
Debra, Here is an article by your favorite author.
You need to tell Trump to get moving on these ideas. The Dems are going to take over Congress in less than 14 months, and they have their own ideas, so tell him his Twitter War with Lavar Ball needs to wait.
I don’t know what Mrs Antoinette er, Mrs Mnuchin did to raise Williamson’s blood pressure, but he’s scathing. I don’t read that many of his articles, but I do follow him on Twitter mostly to catch a glimpse of his gorgeous little long-hair dachshund. :–)
Speaking of Marie Antoinette, my husband was telling me about an incident he watched on YouTube not long ago. Former Clinton Labor Sec’y Robert Reich had been invited to give a talk at a university, but he was being interrupted by far Left protesters who kept demanding that he denounce Clinton and various other things. But at one point it showed the protesters had set up a large working guillotine—I think it was outside the lecture hall. They were lopping heads off of dolls.
Some of the protesters who are showing up at universities (and I think that includes the Antifa groups) are very bad news.
Wandering Views 
You have to give Cali. credit. At least they are creative in finding ways to shaft their residents.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/11/welcome-to-california-home-of-the-prosecution-fees/#more-233368
“California’s politicians and bureaucrats are veritable Einsteins when it comes to finding creative ways to squeeze more money from their citizens.
With Sacramento sucking even more money from tax payers, recently in the form of a new gasoline tax, city governments have had to become quite imaginative.
Therefore, some of the state’s desert communities are now hitting up residents with “prosecution fees”. For example, when homeowners are hit with code enforcement violations such as dirty backyards, they are charged a “prosecution fee” in addition to the fine and cost of repairing the problem. The total cost to them can be staggering…and raised if they challenge the initial charge.
Through an extensive review of public records, The Desert Sun has identified 18 cases in which Indio and Coachella charged defendants more than $122,000 in “prosecution fees” since the cities hired Silver & Wright as prosecutors a few years ago. With the addition of code enforcement fees, administration fees, abatement fees, litigation fees and appeal fees, the total price tag rises to more than $200,000.
In most of those cases, the disparity between the crime and the cost is staggering. Defendants who faced no jail time and were fined only a few hundred dollars ended up paying five or ten times that much to prosecutors who attended a couple of court hearings.
For example, a Coachella family with a busted garage door and an overgrown yard filled with trash and junk was billed $18,500.
Reason contributor Scott Shackford reviewed the records and uncovered some high-priced prosecutions.
In Coachella, a man was fined $900 for expanding his living room without getting a permit. He paid his fine. Then more than a year later he got a bill in the mail from Silver & Wright for $26,000. They told him that he had to pay the cost of prosecuting him, and if he didn’t, they could put a lien on his house and the city could sell it against his will. When he appealed the bill they charged him even more for the cost of defending against the appeal. The bill went from $26,000 to $31,000.
…A woman fined for hanging Halloween decorations across a city street received legal bill for $2,700. When she challenged it, the bill jumped to $4,200.
Shackford took a look at Silver & Wright, and made some fascinating discoveries. Matthew Silver, one of the firm’s partners, is also a vice president for the California Association of Code Enforcement Officers…so he is leading a professional association for government employees responsible for enforcing the laws that lead to his firm’s billable hours.
The Silver & Wright website promoting their work seems directed to appealing to politicos and bureaucrats who want to drain citizens of their hard earned money:”
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Should be interesting to hear what he has to say now that Obama’s DoJ can’t muzzle him any longer…….
http://dailycaller.com/2017/11/16/heres-the-fbi-informant-who-says-he-has-evidence-on-the-uranium-one-deal/
“The FBI confidential informant who went undercover to look into Hillary Clinton’s role in an Obama administration-era uranium company was identified Thursday.
William Campbell, a Russian lobbyist, is the informant, according to Reuters. He will be testifying before a congressional committee about the 2010 sale of Uranium One, where a Russian-backed company bought a uranium firm with mines in the U.S. Campbell gave information to the FBI about what he saw while undercover as an informant.”
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“When Clinton served as secretary of state, Russia routed millions of dollars to the Clinton Foundation, and former President Bill Clinton collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in Russian speaking fees as part of Russian efforts to influence the U.S. government to approve the deal, The Hill reported.
Campbell’s attorney, Victoria Toensing, said on Fox Business that former attorneys general under the Obama administration are the reason her client hasn’t been able to “tell what all the Russians were talking about during the time that all these bribery payments were made.”
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@7:14 Creative lawyers are like creative accountants in that both are prone to creative injustices. Yes, I know there are some good ones, I have both in my family, but these are two professions that have gone completely off the rails and need a good nose-thumping.
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Recently (since Trump) there has been much talk of defining or re-defining what it means to be a Conservative. Perhaps part of the re-definition needs to be articulating a general position on war and meddling abroad and the out of control spending that accompanies those activities. The American Conservative has a pretty good article on the subject.
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It is good to know that countries other than the US are also incapable of self-government.
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Lavar Ball is basically a black Donald Trump. He gains attention by saying things that are ridiculous. While Trump came to prominence as a con man and tabloid adulterer, Ball is the world’s biggest and worst Sports Dad. My son thinks the relationship between the two men is destined to be the heart of a Reality TV show.
http://www.bostonherald.com/news/national/2017/11/lavar_ball_sparks_twitter_war_with_donald_trump
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Aj @ 7:14
Are these elected officials?
Are they responsible to elected officials.
I don’t see how they get away with thst.
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Debra, As you know I am with you on the issue of the US being the world’s policeman. Like you, I liked some of the things Trump said about this on the campaign though his comments tended to be uneven and ill-informed. We have seen little change in US policy to this point, but I remain optimistic. People don’t like lunatics as policemen, so I am hopeful that Trump’s presence will help other nations learn to solve their own problems.
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Canada and US businesses try to teach basic business and economic principles to the Trump Administration. Good luck with that!
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I still think the Korean war was necessary.
However, I erroneously supported the other wars because I was naïve about what was happening and I thought we should save the world from communism which seemed to be everywhere. i.e. Russia and China were filling every void.
However, after I retired and had time to become informed, I have come to the conclusion that we did the wrong thing during the last half century.
The Communists won in Viet Nam and no harm was done to the world. Communism in Russia has crashed under it’s own weight, though Russia is still a threat to Europe.
I agree with Trump that Europe needs to defend itself. It is well capable.
We would be better off if Sadaam were still in Iraq. Nothing but Islamic chaos has resulted from ridding Iraq and Lydia of it’s tyrants..
Muslims need tyrants to rule them. They do not understand democracy. Their culture and religion prohibits it.
Nothing good has ever come to anyone messing around with Afghanistan.
We are not dealing with an expansionist nation like Germany and Japan were.
We are dealing with a people who think their religion should and will control the world so that only Allah is worshipped. These people think they will get eternal benefits if they die in this effort.
It’s a different world.
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It’s the lawyer thing. And the poor lawyers in California have such a hard time getting their licenses that they’ve decided to make it easier to pass the bar because, well, we obviously don’t have enough lawyers.
You cannot even begin to guess at the horror shenanigans awaiting us after the fires. I’d be happy to move . . . but, someone has to stay here and hold the innocent victim’s hands.
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Huh. I guess they didn’t get Ricky’s memo that she was the new ruler of the free world.
https://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-politics/merkel-fourth-term-in-doubt-as-german-coalition-talks-fail-idUSKBN1DJ0I3
“Efforts to form a three-way coalition government have failed, Chancellor Angela Merkel said on Monday, pitching Germany into its worse political crisis for decades, raising the prospect of new elections and casting doubt over her future.”
“A tired-looking Merkel said she would stay on as acting chancellor and consult President Frank-Walter Steinmeier on how to move forward. A deal had been within reach, she said.
With the Social Democrats (SPD) sticking on Monday to their pledge after losses in a September election not to go back into a Merkel-led “grand coalition” of center-left and center-right, the most likely option looked to be new elections.
Steinmeier, who in the ordinary course of events is meant to play a non-partisan role above the cut-and-thrust of party politics, was due to give a statement at 1330 GMT.
”It is a day of deep reflection on how to go forward in Germany,“ Merkel told reporters. ”As chancellor, I will do everything to ensure that this country is well managed in the difficult weeks to come.
The failure of coalition talks is unprecedented in Germany’s post-war history, and was likened by newsmagazine Der Spiegel to the shock election of U.S. President Donald Trump or Britain’s referendum vote to leave the EU – moments when countries cast aside reputations for stability built up over decades.
The collapse came as a surprise since the main sticking points – immigration and climate change policy – were not seen as FDP signature issues.”
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😀🤣
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/europes-merkel-macron-may-less-popular-than-trump/article/2641178
“President Trump’s approval ratings, often mocked by Democrats and the media, top those of Europe’s biggest three leaders, German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Britain’s Theresa May and French President Emmanuel Macron.
A new Zogby Analytics survey of people in those countries also finds that the disapproval ratings are sky-high.
Trump’s approval ratings range from 38 percent to the mid 40s, and Rasmussen set it at 42 percent this week.
Zogby found the three European leaders below that:
Merkel approval 40 percent, disapproval 49 percent.
Macron approval 28 percent, disapproval 52 percent.
May approval 28 percent, disapproval 61 percent.”
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So much for Al’s “but it was years ago before I was a Senator” defense.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/11/20/politics/al-franken-inappropriate-touch-2010/index.html
“A woman says Sen. Al Franken inappropriately touched her in 2010, telling CNN that he grabbed her buttocks while taking a photo at the Minnesota State Fair.
It is the first allegation of improper touching by Franken, who is a Democrat, while he was in office. It comes just days after Leeann Tweeden, a local radio news anchor in California, said that Franken forcibly kissed and groped her in 2006, when Franken was a comedian.
Franken has since issued an apology to Tweeden and faces a potential investigation by the Senate Ethics Committee.
Lindsay Menz, a 33-year-old woman who now lives in Frisco, Texas, reached out to CNN on Thursday hours after Tweeden made her story public. Menz said she wanted to share an “uncomfortable” interaction that left her feeling “gross.””
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I feel that way every time I see this fraud pretending to be a Senator.
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Amusing to me, but probably blasphemy to others. And it seems Canada has the same problem with their press as we have with ours. Their bias.
http://nationalpost.com/opinion/conrad-black-trump-is-already-the-most-successful-u-s-president-since-ronald-reagan
“It is distressing to read and listen to the nonsense in the Canadian media about Donald Trump. It is too early to predict whether he will be a successful president or not. But no one relying on the Canadian media would be aware that he has more than doubled the economic growth rate, reduced illegal immigration by about 80 per cent, withdrawn from the insane Paris Climate accord, helped add trillions to U.S. stock market values, created nearly two million new jobs, led the rout of ISIL, and gained full Chinese adherence to the unacceptability of North Korean nuclear military capability. He will probably pass the greatest tax cuts and reforms since Reagan, if not Lyndon Johnson, by Christmas, and may throw out the most unpopular feature of Obamacare, the coercive mandate, with it.
He can be a tiresome and implausible public figure at times, and the reservations widely held about him, in the United States and elsewhere, are understandable and not unfounded. He is, however, the most effective U.S. president since Reagan.”
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“Canadians of all people should recognize that what is really going on in the United States is the tawdriest political charade in the country’s history. The Clinton campaign commissioned, through intermediaries, a dossier of salacious gossip and outright fabrications about Trump, from unidentified, unverifiable Kremlin sources, desperately shopped it to the U.S. media (remember the “Golden Shower” of Trump-synchronized urinating prostitutes in a Moscow hotel?), and managed to hand off the dossier to the FBI, politicizing that organization. Trump fired the FBI director, James Comey, who, in revenge, removed a government document, a much contested memo to himself about a conversation with the president, to force the appointment of a special counsel, who turned out to be none other than Comey’s chum and mentor and preceding FBI director, Robert Mueller.
Mueller has thrashed around with the Trump-collusion nonsense, which Obama launched a year ago, and which has not produced a shred of probative evidence of collusion. Mueller is reduced to the usual fascistic shakedown of American prosecutors: a pre-dawn Gestapo-style raid on Trump’s former campaign manager’s home (Paul Manafort), with armed men in his bedroom with his wife in sleeping attire (not uncommon for people sleeping at night in their own bedrooms), and then threw all the spaghetti at the wall — “conspiracy against the United States,” but for alleged financial activities years before Manafort knew Trump. It has emerged that this false dossier commissioned by the Clinton campaign is the only evidence there is of Trump-Kremlin collusion, all that is supposed to be “tightening a noose around (Trump’s) neck.” It is a stupendous farce confected by Kremlin low-lives for $10 million dollars paid over by the Clinton campaign, a partisan smear job. But you would ransack the Canadian media in vain to find it exposed as such, because they have all drunk the hand-me-down Kool Aid of the Never Trumpers and the anti-Trump Resistance. Canada’s media have almost totally failed in its coverage of the biggest political news in the world in many years.”
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https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Conrad_Black
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There were seven women in my Zumba class this morning whose houses burned down. Seven.
Today we read in the paper that the President sent a $44 Billion relief bill to Congress to fund the natural disasters in Florida in Texas.
I’m very sorry, but there were disasters in Puerto Rico and California. I hate to say this, but targeting it to only two places is not fair. Surely they could have spread the money out in percentages by numbers of people affected?
But that’s my opinion.
I understand the administration may not like California politics–and who can blame them, many of us don’t like them either–but out here it’s being spun as a deliberate choice to make people suffer more.
I may be touchy on this subject.
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Michelle, is Puerto Rico America’s financial responsibility? (I don’t know one way or the other.) I wonder if it isn’t that the other disasters were first and there aren’t numbers yet to do one for California?
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Yes, it is, particularly since it has very little electricity at the moment and a large number of American pharmaceuticals are made there.
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Donna, from the NYT via Drudge:
LOS ANGELES — There have been governors and generals, senators and members of Congress, secretaries of states and vice presidents. There was even a billionaire business executive chosen as commander in chief.
But never in the 228 years since General George Washington went to the White House has a sitting mayor been elected president.
Eric M. Garcetti, the mayor of Los Angeles, may be out to change that.
Is this what Trump is hoping for? Next to Hillary, of course.
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I’ve already seen one factual error in this article– Ivanka Trump’s husband is Jewish, not her– but it’s an interesting development if true.
http://donsurber.blogspot.com/2017/11/mecca-calls-off-fatwa-against-jews.html?spref=tw&m=1
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She is a convert to Judaism. From what is an interesting question.
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So it wasn’t a crime, but people might wanna kill us if they knew what we did.
That’s your defense for hiding your misdeeds to the public? Got it.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/11/20/lois-lerner-save-crazed-taxpayers/
“Two of the “stars” of the IRS debacle where they targeted conservative groups for special attention, Lois Lerner and Holly Paz, were back in federal court last week, but not for additional charges against them. This time they’re working on fighting a request to have the records from their trial and the statements they gave sealed in perpetuity. The reason? If the rest of us heard what they said about the Tea Party, angry mobs with pitchforks and torches would probably march on their homes. (Washington Times)
Former IRS executive Lois G. Lerner told a federal court last week that members of her family, including “young children,” face death threats and a real risk of physical harm if her explanation of the tea party targeting scandal becomes public.
Ms. Lerner and Holly Paz, her deputy at the IRS, filed documents in court Thursday saying tapes and transcripts of depositions they gave in a court case this year must remain sealed in perpetuity, or else they could spur an enraged public to retaliate.
“Whenever Mss. Lerner and Paz have been in the media spotlight, they have faced death threats and harassment,” attorneys for the two women argued.
At issue are tapes of the two women’s testimony and transcripts of depositions in the class action lawsuits brought against the agency on behalf of Tea Party groups targeted by Lerner and others. Those suits were settled earlier this year with the IRS not only admitting wrongdoing but offering further proof that Lerner continued the practice even after being discovered. And now journalists would like to get hold of the records and make them public.
This is an interesting defense strategy to be sure. We’ve seen countless cases where court records have been sealed, at least for a time, if the contents could damage ongoing criminal investigations or create a national security risk. What the attorneys for Lerner and Paz are saying is something else entirely. It’s basically an admission that what they said in court was so damning that people might wish to do them harm.”
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Remember this next time some leftist tells you the “Trump dossier” was verified by intelligence sources.
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/fbi-has-not-verified-trump-dossier/article/2641207
“FBI and Justice Department officials have told congressional investigators in recent days that they have not been able to verify or corroborate the substantive allegations of collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign outlined in the Trump dossier.
The FBI received the first installment of the dossier in July 2016. It received later installments as they were written at the height of the presidential campaign, which means the bureau has had more than a year to investigate the allegations in the document. The dossier was financed by the Hillary Clinton campaign and compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele.
An August 24, 2017 subpoena from the House Intelligence Committee to the FBI and Justice Department asked for information on the bureau’s efforts to validate the dossier. Specifically, the subpoena demanded “any documents, if they exist, that memorialize DOJ and/or FBI efforts to corroborate, validate, or evaluate information provided by Mr. Steele and/or sub-sources and/or contained in the ‘Trump Dossier.'”
According to sources familiar with the matter, neither the FBI nor the Justice Department has provided documents in response to that part of the committee’s subpoena. But in face-to-face briefings with congressional staff, according to those sources, FBI and DOJ officials have said they cannot verify the dossier’s charges of a conspiracy between the Russian government and the Trump campaign.
The news appears to contradict recent statements from some top Democrats. “A lot of it has turned out to be true,” Rep. Adam Schiff, ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence panel, told the Wall Street Journal on Wednesday.”
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Except it hasn’t, and Schiff is lying, and he knows it.
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Great. 🙄
https://apnews.com/870954ac84824d42a4d1b5be2faf5cef/Bush-administration-alums-rising-in-Trump%27s-orbit
“For all the lingering tensions between President Donald Trump and former President George W. Bush, Trump’s White House shares one thing in common with his Republican predecessor’s: People.
Trump has installed more than three dozen veterans of the Bush administration, putting them in charge of running agencies, implementing foreign policy and overseeing his schedule. While hiring from the last administration controlled by the same party is common, Trump’s staffing moves are notable given his pledges to change politics-as-usual and the frosty relations between the current and former Republican standard-bearers.
The Bush influence has only grown stronger recently, as Trump nominated Alex Azar to lead the Health and Human Services Department, where he served under the Bush administration, and tapped Jerome “Jay” Powell to be chairman of the Federal Reserve. Powell served in the Treasury Department under President George H.W. Bush.
While the White House says this is standard practice, some Trump allies say the hires don’t fit with the president’s non-traditional style.
“If Donald Trump’s presidency fails it will be because he has perhaps inadvertently surrounded himself with” Bush associates, said longtime Trump associate Roger Stone.
The Bush alums in the administration include Transportation Secretary Elaine Chao, who served as Bush’s labor secretary, and Dina Powell, the deputy national security adviser who oversaw presidential personnel and later served in Bush’s State Department as an assistant secretary under Condoleezza Rice. Even the president’s schedule and day-to-day operations are overseen by a former member of Bush’s inner circle: Joe Hagin, who served as deputy White House chief of staff.
Of course, hiring staffers from a past administration brings needed experience.
“These are complex jobs and the time is limited,” said Mike Leavitt, a former Utah governor and Health and Human Services secretary under Bush. He pointed to the importance of understanding the complexities of federal regulations, the budget and congressional relations. “If everyone has to learn it anew the chances of implementing an agenda are substantially reduced and the quality of government isn’t as good.”
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AJ @4:35 I think the President is trying to keep his campaign promises, but I suspect it’s hard for him to get the country to change directions when in DC he is surrounded by so many people who want us to believe the hogwash that 1) ‘free-trade’ is properly conducted with a communist country, 2) wars to spread Democracy are a good idea, and 3) over half of the population is irrelevant, stupid, lazy or otherwise Deplorable.
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WhoooHooo! Now this is good news. Blocking a mega-merger is the next best thing to breaking up a ‘too big to fail’ enterprise. Neither happens nearly enough. Way to go Trump administration!
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Debra, Here is an article by your favorite author.
You need to tell Trump to get moving on these ideas. The Dems are going to take over Congress in less than 14 months, and they have their own ideas, so tell him his Twitter War with Lavar Ball needs to wait.
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Jonah Goldberg is politely trying to nudge your man in the right direction.
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Henry Olsen for President! (After Trump. of course.) :–)
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Williamson can pick on spoiled rich people who are not named Trump.
https://twitter.com/bretstephensnyt/status/932634617475141633
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I don’t know what Mrs Antoinette er, Mrs Mnuchin did to raise Williamson’s blood pressure, but he’s scathing. I don’t read that many of his articles, but I do follow him on Twitter mostly to catch a glimpse of his gorgeous little long-hair dachshund. :–)
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Speaking of Marie Antoinette, my husband was telling me about an incident he watched on YouTube not long ago. Former Clinton Labor Sec’y Robert Reich had been invited to give a talk at a university, but he was being interrupted by far Left protesters who kept demanding that he denounce Clinton and various other things. But at one point it showed the protesters had set up a large working guillotine—I think it was outside the lecture hall. They were lopping heads off of dolls.
Some of the protesters who are showing up at universities (and I think that includes the Antifa groups) are very bad news.
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