United States Senate

[47of74]

Chuckles had some word salad to share today.

What the FUCK did I just read?

Hitting the booze early Chuck?

[Audrey2]

2 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Chuckles had some word salad to share today.
 

 

What the FUCK did I just read?

Hitting the booze early Chuck?

 

No, no... I'm getting a very R.E.M  or Billy Joel vibe. 

After reading this list of words I want a shout-out Leonard Bernstein.

[church_of_dog]

5 minutes ago, Audrey2 said:

No, no... I'm getting a very R.E.M  or Billy Joel vibe. 

After reading this list of words I want a shout-out Leonard Bernstein.

you mean like this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g

[fraurosena]

8 hours ago, 47of74 said:

Chuckles had some word salad to share today.
 

 

What the FUCK did I just read?

Hitting the booze early Chuck?

 

I lolled at this reaction to Chuckie's tweet:

[Audrey2]

6 hours ago, church_of_dog said:

you mean like this?

https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=eFTLKWw542g

Absolutely... showing my age, We Didn't Start the Fire came out my senior year of high school. (It was a cool way to remember history facts, although I didn't know of anyone who used it as a teaching tool. I do know by the time my sister and brother were in high school that my contemporaries had graduated from college and were starting to incorporate that song in some high school social studies classes.

In college, you always knew there was something good going on when you heard It's the End of the World as We Know It. 

Chucks tweet also looks like a list of words just toss together.

[AmazonGrace]

For crying out loud 

 

[GreyhoundFan]

"Lindsey Graham’s infantilization of Trump"

Spoiler

The British ambassador to the United States, Kim Darroch, resigned Wednesday. And to anyone paying attention, the cause was clear: President Trump declared Darroch persona non grata after leaked cables showed that Darroch privately said Trump “radiates insecurity” and that his administration was “inept.” In light of Trump’s reaction, Darroch said he could no longer serve.

And Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) has found a novel villain in this whole matter: the media.

He might as well just call Trump a dupe.

In a trio of tweets, Graham defended Darroch and suggested that the media was to blame for his effective ouster.

“Kim Darroch did an outstanding job as Ambassador and sorry to see he has resigned his post. He got a raw deal from press,” Graham said.

He then noted Darroch, in the same leaked cables, likened Trump the politician to Arnold Schwarzenegger’s character in the “Terminator” and suggested that he would be reelected in 2020. Graham concluded: “A good example of selective media coverage of an issue."

First of all, the idea that Darroch suggested that Trump might actually win could be construed as praise, but it’s abundantly clear what Darroch thinks of the quality of Trump and his administration. Even people who thoroughly dislike Trump have often admitted he has shown a knack for navigating political carnage (much of it of his own making) and that he could well be reelected.

But more than that, think about what Graham is saying. He’s effectively accusing the media of providing a slanted picture and admitting that Trump was deceived by it. Trump would go on to say he wouldn’t work with Darroch, whom he labeled “very stupid” and “a pompous fool.” Graham’s suggesting that the president of the United States isn’t savvy or disciplined enough to get to the bottom of the whole thing and learn the truth before he lashes out and severs a diplomatic relationship with the ambassador of arguably the No. 1 U.S. ally.

The original story was published by a British tabloid, the Daily Mail. And there are all kinds of theories about why this was leaked now — especially in light of the battle between two Conservative Party leaders, Boris Johnson and Jeremy Hunt, to succeed outgoing Prime Minister Theresa May.

Graham’s beef seems to be with how the U.S. media picked it up and ran with it. He seems to believe the negatives were emphasized too much. And why on earth would the media do that? Maybe because it’s newsworthy to see an unvarnished opinion of the U.S. administration from someone who has worked so closely with it. Maybe it’s because suggesting that Trump might actually win reelection, even privately . . . isn’t all that surprising.

And even if the coverage was faulty, you’d expect that a president would want to get to the bottom of the whole thing before taking the significant step of blackballing a diplomat, which could inflame international tensions. By Tuesday, we had one of two men who could soon be British prime minister, Hunt, criticizing Trump’s comments as “disrespectful” and saying Darroch would stay if he were elected.

One of the first people you’d expect Trump to consult on such matters would be Graham, who has been a leading foreign policy voice in his party for years and is perhaps Trump’s closest ally in the Senate. If even Graham can’t prevail upon Trump to avoid such a course of action and thinks Trump instead acted upon impulse and media coverage, that says a lot.

In a lot of ways, Graham is saying implicitly — and publicly — what Darroch was saying privately.

 

[fraurosena]

Interesting.

Senate Intelligence Committee summons mysterious British security consultant

Quote

Senate investigators have added yet another name to the constantly evolving cast of characters in the Russia investigation.

On April 5, just 2 weeks after Special Counsel Robert Mueller submitted his final report on Russia’s election interference, the Senate Intelligence Committee sent a letter to a British security consultant named Walter Soriano asking for a voluntary, closed-door interview and documents with various Russia probe figures dating back to June 2015.

The letter, obtained by Politico, offers yet another window into the panel’s secretive — but largely bipartisan — two-year-old investigation, and reveals the investigators’ interest in what, if any, role Israel may have played in attempts to manipulate the 2016 election.

The panel’s interest in Soriano is not a mere fishing expedition, according to a source familiar with the investigators’ internal deliberations who requested anonymity to discuss them freely.

“They’re surprised by how connected he seems to several people of interest,” this person said, including the Russian oligarch Oleg Deripaska — a former business associate of Trump’s campaign chairman Paul Manafort, who offered Deripaska private briefings about the campaign in 2016. Deripaska is believed to have worked with Soriano on corporate intelligence matters, this person said.

On April 5, the committee sent a bipartisan request to Soriano at the London address for his security firm, USG Security Limited. The letter asked for “all communications or records of communications” with some characters who have by now become household names, like Manafort and Trump’s former national security adviser Michael Flynn.

The committee also requested Soriano’s communications with three Israeli private intelligence firms: Psy Group, Wikistrat, and Black Cube, as well as any communications he may have had with Orbis Business Intelligence, a firm co-founded by the former British spy Christopher Steele.

A committee spokeswoman declined to comment. A lawyer for Soriano did not return a request for comment. It's not clear whether, or how, Soriano responded to the committee's letter.

Soriano is virtually a ghost online, aside from publicly available corporate recordslisting him as the director of a London-based security firm called USG Security. He has been accused in the Israeli press of spying on police officers involved in the corruption probe of Israeli prime minister Bibi Netanyahu—an allegation he’s staunchly denied. Soriano also produced a documentary about Netanyahu’s late brother, Yoni Netanyahu, who died leading Israel’s raid on Entebbe Airport in Uganda in 1976.

It isn’t clear why the Senate committee believes Soriano may have a connection to the private Israeli firms — one of which, Psy Group, was enlisted by Trump’s deputy campaign chairman Rick Gates in 2016 to use social media manipulation to help Trump beat his Republican primary opponents and Hillary Clinton. Psy Group’s founder Joel Zamel also owns WikiStrat, which reportedly gamed out how to successfully interfere in an election as early as 2015. Black Cube is one of Zamel’s main rivals, according to the Wall Street Journal. Steele has worked with Deripaska in the past, but a source close to Orbis told POLITICO that they’d never heard of Soriano.

The Senate Intelligence Committee has been investigating Russia’s election interference and a potential conspiracy between Trump’s campaign and Moscow for more than 2 years. It’s not clear when the probe will end, but one Democratic Senate Intelligence Committee aide said in February that the investigation was “closer to the end than to the beginning."

A spokesperson for Black Cube said in a statement that “neither they nor anyone acting on their behalf has ever had any communication or collaboration with Walter Soriano or anyone on his behalf."

 

[WiseGirl]

Calling it like it is

[fraurosena]

The personification of hypocrisy:

 

[fraurosena]

I won't post my thoughts on this one. They would be too offensive.

Rand Paul blocks Senate from approving 9/11 victim compensation fund

Quote

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Wednesday blocked an attempt by Democrats to pass an extension of the September 11th Victim Compensation Fund. 

Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand (D-N.Y.) tried to win the Senate's consent to approve the House-passed bill, which would reauthorize funding until fiscal 2090. The bill cleared the House in a 402-12 vote last week. 

But Paul objected, pointing to the country's growing debt and arguing that any new spending should be offset by cuts to other spending.

"It has long been my feeling that we need to address our massive debt in the country," he said. "And therefore any new spending …  should be offset by cutting spending that's less valuable. We need to at the very least have this debate."

He added that if the House bill was brought up for a vote in the Senate he is planning to offer an amendment "but until then I will object." 

Under Senate rules, any one senator can try to get consent, which requires the sign-off of the entire chamber, to pass a bill or resolution, but one senator can also block that request. 

Gillibrand, after Paul objected, said she was "deeply disappointed" in his decision, adding "enough of the political games." 

"I am deeply disappointed that my colleague has just objected to the desperately needed and urgent bill for our 9/11 first responders," she added.

Despite the back-and-forth on the floor, the Senate is expected to pass the bill before leaving for their summer recess by August 2. 

Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) fast-tracked the House bill to the Senate calendar this week, paving the way for him to tee it up for a vote. 

McConnell said after a meeting with 9/11 first responders that it was his plan to bring the bill up before the recess. 

“We want to try to deal with [the legislation] before the August recess,” he said.

 

[Howl]

 

[GreyhoundFan]

[WiseGirl]

Have I mentioned before that  I wish he were running for President?

Edited July 18, 2019 by WiseGirl
Add text

[GreyhoundFan]

 

[fraurosena]

I wonder if the Dems will get to ask him some revelatory questions. Will there be bombshells?

I'm off to see if this hearing is televised somewhere...

 

Edited July 23, 2019 by fraurosena

[Smash!]

I wonder if the Dems will get to ask him some revelatory questions. Will there be bombshells?
I'm off to see if this hearing is televised somewhere...
 

Can you tell us when you found the info? I'm interested to watch it too!

[fraurosena]

1 hour ago, Smash! said:

 

Can you tell us when you found the info? I'm interested to watch it too!

 

Here's a link to the whole testimony. 

I could only watch/listen to it on and off, so I haven't heard everything, but what I found noteworthy in what I did manage to catch was:

• Wray admitted that the number of domestic 'terrorist' attacks were perpetrated, for the largest part by far, by white-supremacists, and that their attacks are on the rise. When questioned, Wray would not give his opinion if the president's recent comments could be a contributing factor to the perpetration of new attacks.
   
• Wray said that there are at least two separate and ongoing counter-intelligence investigations into Trump, but could not/would not go into specifics
   
• When asked if he would supply documents for the 9/11 victims to aid them in their lawsuit against Saudi-Arabia (who the victims accuse of aiding and abetting the terrorists), Wray prevaricated and would not commit to doing so. During this discussion, he was asked if the White House was pressuring the FBI not to give the necessary documents. Wray did not give a direct answer to this question, and - to my mind, at least - gave the impression that it is entirely possible that the FBI is indeed being pressured. But I could be wrong in my interpretation.

 

Oh, I see I missed this little nugget. What on earth is Lindsey thinking?

 

[fraurosena]

Wow, good news from the Senate for once!

 

[fraurosena]

Deer Rufus, Sen. Blumenthal is finally publically saying what we’re all thinking!

 

[fraurosena]

And yet again, McConnell blocks. He will keep on blocking until the elections. He knows the repugliklans don't have a hope in hell of winning without Russian aid.

 

[GreyhoundFan]

A good one from Dana Milbank: "Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset"

Spoiler

Mitch McConnell is a Russian asset.

This doesn’t mean he’s a spy, but neither is it a flip accusation. Russia attacked our country in 2016. It is attacking us today. Its attacks will intensify in 2020. Yet each time we try to raise our defenses to repel the attack, McConnell, the Senate majority leader, blocks us from defending ourselves.

Let’s call this what it is: unpatriotic. The Kentucky Republican is, arguably more than any other American, doing Russian President Vladimir Putin’s bidding.

Robert Mueller sat before Congress this week warning that the Russia threat “deserves the attention of every American.” He said “the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in our election is among the most serious” challenges to American democracy he has ever seen. “They are doing it as we sit here, and they expect to do it during the next campaign,” he warned, adding that “much more needs to be done in order to protect against these intrusions, not just by the Russians but others as well.”

Not three hours after Mueller finished testifying, Mark Warner (D-Va.), vice chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, went to the Senate floor to request unanimous consent to pass legislation requiring presidential campaigns to report to the FBI any offers of assistance from agents of foreign governments.

Sen. Cindy Hyde-Smith (R-Miss.) was there to represent her leader’s interests. “I object,” she said.

Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-Conn.) attempted to move a bill that would require campaigns to report to the FBI contributions by foreign nationals.

“I object,” said Hyde-Smith.

Sen. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) tried to force action on bipartisan legislation, written with Sen. Tom Cotton (R-Ark.) and supported by Sens. Mike Rounds (R-S.D.) and Bill Cassidy (R-La.), protecting lawmakers from foreign cyberattacks. “The majority leader, our colleague from Kentucky, must stop blocking this common-sense legislation and allow this body to better defend itself against foreign hackers,” he said.

“I object,” repeated Hyde-Smith.

The next day, Sen. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.), the minority leader, asked for the Senate to pass the Securing America’s Federal Elections Act, already passed by the House, that would direct $600 million in election assistance to states and require backup paper ballots.

McConnell himself responded this time, reading from a statement, his chin melting into his chest, his trademark thin smile on his lips. “It’s just a highly partisan bill from the same folks who spent two years hyping up a conspiracy theory about President Trump and Russia,” he said. “Therefore, I object.” McConnell also objected to another attempt by Blumenthal to pass his bill.

Pleaded Schumer: “I would suggest to my friend the majority leader: If he doesn’t like this bill, let’s put another bill on the floor and debate it.”

But McConnell has blocked all such attempts, including:

A bipartisan bill requiring Facebook, Google and other Internet companies to disclose purchasers of political ads, to identify foreign influence.

A bipartisan bill to ease cooperation between state election officials and federal intelligence agencies.

A bipartisan bill imposing sanctions on any entity that attacks a U.S. election.

A bipartisan bill with severe new sanctions on Russia for its cybercrimes.

McConnell has prevented them all from being considered — over and over again. This is the same McConnell who, in the summer of 2016, when briefed by the CIA along with other congressional leaders on Russia’s electoral attacks, questioned the validity of the intelligence and forced a watering down of a warning letter to state officials about the threat, omitting any mention of Russia.

No amount of alarms sounded by U.S. authorities — even Republicans, even Trump appointees — moves McConnell.

On Tuesday, FBI Director Christopher Wray — Trump’s FBI director — told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the Russians “haven’t been deterred enough” and are “absolutely intent on trying to interfere with our elections.”

This year, National Intelligence Director Daniel Coats — Trump’s intelligence director — told the Senate Intelligence Committee that “foreign actors will view the 2020 U.S. elections as an opportunity to advance their interests. We expect them to refine their capabilities and add new tactics.”

And on Thursday, the Senate Intelligence Committee released a bipartisan report finding that “Russian activities demand renewed attention to vulnerabilities in U.S. voting infrastructure.”

The committee concluded that “urgent steps” are needed “to replace outdated and vulnerable voting systems.” (The $380 million offered since 2016 is a pittance compared with the need.) “Despite the expense, cybersecurity needs to become a higher priority for election-related infrastructure,” the report concluded.

But one man blocks it all — while offering no alternative of his own.

Presumably he thinks whatever influence Russia exerts over U.S. elections will benefit him (he’s up for reelection in 2020) and his party.

“Shame on him,” Schumer said on the Senate floor this week.

But McConnell has no shame. He is aiding and abetting Putin’s dismantling of Americans’ self-governance. A leader who won’t protect our country from attack is no patriot.

 

[fraurosena]

It is about time that everyone starts calling out Mitch McConnell’s treachery to the country.

It’s been found he has received many donations from Russian sources. He’s been blocking Bills aimed at protecting America from foreign influences. You don’t need to be a rocket scientist to understand what’s going on.

 

[fraurosena]

Bribery? What bribery? 

? ? ?

 

[fraurosena]

Blame the victim 101.