political

Trump

Trump’s answers to Mueller’s questions leaked: CNN

The content of President Donald Trump’s written responses to special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation over Russian hacking of the 2016 presidential election have been leaked. In an exclusive report, CNN reported the leaked information focused on two points: WikiLeaks and the meeting that happened at Trump Tower.


Trump’s answers to Mueller’s questions leaked: CNN

Indivisible Lynchburg group hoping to keep open dialogue with elected officials

Indivisible Lynchburg group hoping to keep open dialogue with elected officials

LYNCHBURG, Va. (WSET) — A group of citizens presented a letter to Congressman Bob Goodlatte’s Lynchburg office on Thursday about his stance on different issues.The group calls itself Indivisible Lynchburg.By taking a page from the activism of the Tea Part

How to Resist Trump

Trump Protesters Borrow From Tea Party to Put Pressure on Lawmakers

MORRISTOWN, N.J. – For weeks, a swelling group has been showing up every Friday here at the local office of Representative Rodney Frelinghuysen to demand that he hold a town-hall meeting to answer its concerns about his fellow Republicans’ plan to dismantle the Affordable Care Act.

The Words of Your President

Walmart- They could care less about you.

Over the past several years, we have all read, heard and most likely had conversations about Walmart and their impact on the American taxpayer. But in conducting research on the subject, there are many things we have not heard unless we specifically take the time to intently study the company. There are issues involving Walmart that I do not believe we as a society, should simply let pass what the typical apathy response, that nothing we can do will make a difference. And this is an issue, that both Democrats and Republicans can collectively address. We will present some of our ideas, but first some facts and statistics that may be a reiteration to some of you and unknown others.

According to Forbes, the Waltons are the richest American family, with a net worth of $144.7 billion. (http://www.forbes.com/forbes-400/)Even more significant is that, in 2012 it was estimated that three major family members who receive dividends in the amount of $3.1 billion for the interest in the company. Astonishingly, when you add their entire wealth, the Walton’s earned more money than 42% of all American families. Wealth and UC Berkley stated the following in their article:

Last December I put the wealth held by those on the Forbes 400 list and the subset of Waltons into some perspective (here). In 2007 the total wealth of the Forbes 400 equaled the wealth of the bottom 50% of families in the U.S; wealth held by the Walton-six was equal to that of the bottom 30.5%. In 2010, the cumulative wealth of the Top 400 ($1.35 trillion) and the share held by the Waltons ($89.5 billion) equaled the entire bottom 56% and 41.5% of families, respectively. The ever increasing concentration of wealth at the top continued over this period.

What Happens To Your Brain When You Get Black-Out Drunk?

You wake up in an unfamiliar room, missing a button or two, with a few stains on your shirt that you’re hoping are food-related. The last thing you remember from the night before was downing that fourth shot of Cuervo. Okay, so you blacked out. But what exactly does that mean?

There are probably 100 or more websites and forums where people relate stories of themselves and others who are blackout drunk or intoxicated. When I retired early in 2002 and decided to write and consult, I often hung out on Friday nights with a group of family members and long-term friends. Because I lived a considerable driving distance away from the regular watering hole, I rarely went to the after bar parties at a wealthy group member’s house that was basically set up to like a private resort. There was a hot tub that included a spillover waterfall into an oddly shaped pool while music played throughout the area by numerous outdoor speakers.

By mid week stories were often related to me of skinny-dipping, sex, nude dances on the outside bar and several other illicit activities. The stories were often told in a hushed cryptic whispered voice were anyone would conclude several parts were missing. What I didn’t know is the missing parts and fragmented stories were the result of the group being blackout intoxicated while still conscious. And yes, you can remain totally conscious while blackout intoxicated but will simply have no short term memory.

I made notes of these juicy stories we all want to know about but rarely comment to wanting to know. Along with these and other stories it was my intention to someday write a book about life’s illicit moments. You know, those times and things we do that we guard revealing to anyone like the government protects Fort Knox. However, in the end I realize the book could never be written.

Here, I will relate two of the stories from personal observation that occurred in 2003. At a later date, I will expand this article to include other observations and stories personally related to me. As usual, for these kinds of issues the names have been changed. Practically all members of the group are keenly aware of these events.

One male member of the group would frequently urinate wherever he was when the urge overwhelmed him. The most notable occasion was an evening where they were doing tequila shots for nearly 45 minutes. It would not be unusual for them to whiz through an entire bottle in 15 to 20 minutes necessitating the retrieval of another. One evening a small group of us was startled when we heard a woman’s voice yelling “stop it.” We all shuffled through the sliding glass doors to see her slapping and pushing her husband who was urinating between a chair onto the wall in the family room. It took a few members of the group 30 minutes to clean the mess in the chair was removed and placed temporarily outside. I might add that it was an expensive La-Z-Boy. The next day the individual has no recollection of his action.

On another evening, my wife and I decided to stay over for the night as we were drank too much to drive home. After another round of shots, my wife went to bed while I remained outside with a female member of the group smoking and drinking Grand Marnier. We were startled when another member of the group walked into the sliding glass door attempting to come back outside. I will refer to this lady as Mary. We walked over to help her but she insisted she was okay and staggered through the door to the outside patio area. She walked over to a grassy area by the wooden stockade fence unbuttoned her short pants, squatted and started to urinate. Mary was staring right at us as I looked on in amazement. Evidently, the other lady had seen this on numerous occasions and was not surprised. However, we both shot forward a step when Mary slipped on the dew covered grass onto her back but continued urinating. We walked to the edge of the patio and looked down at her, deciding if we should help.

This wasn’t just a person who slipped and fell but instead an individual lying in a puddle of her own urine. In the end, we did help her and the other lady gave her a shower, washed the clothes and put her to bed. I was told the next morning, the Mary was found sleeping nude in a lounge chair on the patio. To this day, Mrs. urination has no recollection of that evening’s events or the 100 other blackout escapades.
Here are a few other shortcakes of various events

A lady named Carla had a minor vehicle accident, hitting several bushes a few blocks from her house. She did not remember the accident and had few recollections of the police officer placing her in his car. While everyone typically encouraged Carla to state over, she would routinely slip out of the house without telling anyone. On many occasions she was found asleep in her car.

When Carla was not slipping out of the house undetected, she usually wandered off to an empty bedroom and passed out. She typically was found lying in a bed nude with all of the lights on and the door opened. The other ladies would conduct a Carla search if she was missing for 10 minutes or longer.
On one occasion, no one could locate Carla’s clothes until the next day when they located in the bathtub sopping wet, including her belt and shoes. I was told, one of the shoes was filled with water and a bar of soap was resting on top of her blouse

On one occasion when there was a ladies night out at my house, I came home around midnight to discover all of them on the back patio area, drunk, topless and showing off their breasts. My investigation revealed that one of the ladies whom had recently received breast implants was asked by a few others if they could feel her breasts. This led to a mutual topless comparison exhibition and topless dancing.
Oh, I forgot to mention the night I found Carla asleep sitting on the commode.

 

 

5 things we learned from the White House’s Benghazi email dump

By the Week .Com and written By  | May 16, 2013

On Wednesday evening, at what Slate‘s David Weigel snidely calls “the convenient 5 p.m. hour,” the White House released 100 emails detailing the bureaucratic sausage-making that created the Obama administration’s first unclassified talking points on the Sept. 11, 2012, attack on the U.S. diplomatic compound in Benghazi, Libya.

The 99 emails and one handwritten page of edits add a lot of detail to what we generally already knew about the talking points — which means that if you had strong opinions about the Benghazi debacle and its aftermath already, you can probably find something in the 100 pages to support your beliefs.

 

“As has been widely reported, it was the State Department that drove the dumbing down of the talking points,” says John Hinderaker at PowerLine. And “the emails make another key point crystal clear: The administration molded the talking points for the specific purpose of counteracting the news, which was already starting to get traction, that what happened in Benghazi was a planned terrorist attack.” And that’s no surprise, Hinderaker adds, because strikingly, “the process was driven entirely by political operatives.”

 

Looking at the same emails, Hayes Brown at Think Progress says these new documents “seem to undermine GOP claims that the White House orchestrated a ‘cover-up,'” and “debunk the basis many of the Republican’s claims of a conspiracy.” It was the CIA, not the State Department or White House staff, that introduced the idea of pre-attack demonstrations and nixed all mention of al Qaeda — and not for political reasons. The CIA was under “express instructions” to avoid any information that would compromise the FBI’s investigation.

 

The emails did clear up some points in this long-simmering flap, however. Here, five things we learned from the Benghazi email dump:

 

1. The CIA drove the talking points process
The emails — dating from Friday, Sept. 14, just before noon to Saturday, Sept. 15, just before 8 p.m. — indicate that there was input from the CIA, FBI, State Department, White House, and other intelligence agencies, but it’s clear that the talking points began and ended with the CIA. Agency staffers wrote the first drafts of the talking points, in response to a request from Rep. C.A. Dutch Ruppersberger (D-Md.), the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee. And the person responsible for whittling the original five points down to three was CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell.

 

It was Morell, much to his boss’ apparent annoyance, who took out all references to “Islamic” extremists, the large amounts of guns floating around in Libya, and the CIA warnings about “the threat of extremists linked to al Qaeda in Benghazi and Eastern Libya.”

 

Morell “felt the talking points should focus on what happened in Benghazi on September 11, rather than the previous six months,” says CNN’s Jake Tapper, citing senior Obama administration officials. “He also felt it was unprofessional and unfair for the CIA to cite its own warnings to the State Department.”

 

2. The incorrect pre-attack protest detail was the CIA, too
A major GOP point of criticism of the Obama team’s response to the attack was the erroneous claim that the siege was preceded by a spontaneous protest, inspired by a similar protest outside the U.S. embassy in Cairo. That claim — which senior U.S. officials say reflects the best intelligence at the time — was part of the original CIA talking points, and CIA officials steered the talking points more explicitly toward highlighting a demonstration.

 

U.N. Ambassador Susan Rice has faced the brunt of the criticism on this point. Rice’s appearance on Sunday talk shows on Sept. 16 — in which she relied on the talking points to argue that the attacks probably grew out of a protest of an anti-Islam video — likely cost her a promotion to secretary of State. And it’s technically true, as PowerLine‘s Hinderaker notes, that “there is no reference to any YouTube video” in any version of the talking points. But the protest in Cairo, which all versions of the talking points say inspired the mythical Benghazi protest, were explicitly in reaction to the YouTube video.

 

The last email in the pack is from White House Deputy National Security Adviser Ben Rhodes to one of Rice’s aides. “Is this the final language you want to use on Benghazi?” the unidentified aide asks. “Have short window to get her something on paper soon.” Rhode’s one-word response: “Yup.”

 

3. Most of the objections did come from the State Department
The White House “quickly” cleared the talking points, and the FBI cleared them “with a few comments,” a CIA staffer wrote to CIA Director David Petraeus at 9:52 p.m. on Friday. But the State Department “has major concerns.”

 

That the State Department — which wasn’t roped into the discussion until the fourth draft — would raise the most objections to the CIA’s talking points isn’t surprising, say Scott Wilson and Karen DeYoung at The Washington Post. “The two agencies had the most at stake in the Benghazi aftermath,” and their main dispute was “whether previous CIA warnings of attacks in the Benghazi area should be included in those initial public statements.” Fairly or not, mention of prior warnings would have made the CIA look good and the State Department bad.

 

Senior intelligence officials who briefed the media on the emails say that Morell scratched the section about the CIA warnings even before hearing about the State Department’s objections — the emails don’t prove this either way, since Morell’s edits (in which he did cross out the CIA warnings) are handwritten and have no timestamp.

 

4. The White House changed more than one word
After Morell made the final changes to the talking points, whittling them down from five to three and stripping out much of the interesting stuff, Rhodes offered “one edit, for accuracy”: Change “consulate” to “diplomatic post.” That fits with White House press secretary Jay Carney’s contention the the White House changed only one word, “consulate.” But on Friday evening, Tommy Vietor — then NSA spokesman — also asked that the CIA add the word “Cairo” to the talking point about the previous protests in Egypt.

 

State Department official Jacob Sullivan echoed Rhodes on Saturday afternoon, asking that the CIA change “consulate” to “the U.S. mission” or “U.S. diplomatic post” for the final version. But Sullivan also noted that “there is a missing ‘of’ in the third” talking point.

 

John Brennan, now the CIA director but then a deputy national security adviser, revised a talking point about the makeup of the crowd that gathered around the Benghazi mission, though he left in that “Islamic extremists participated in the demonstrations.” Morell later scratched that entire talking point.

 

 

5. David Petraeus didn’t care for the final talking points
In the mess of emails, there are a few informing Petraeus about the status of the talking points, but only one from Petraeus himself. At 12:51 p.m. on Saturday, a CIA staffer emailed the final draft to Petraeus for his approval. He didn’t much approve. Here is his response, at 2:27, in full:

 

No mention of the cable to Cairo, either? Frankly, I’d just as soon not use this, then… [National Security Council staff’s] call, to be sure; this is certainly not what Vice Chairman Ruppersberger was hoping to get for [unclassified] use.

 

We also learned one trivial thing about Petraeus:

From the Review:

If you have read the emails, it is apparent the Obama administration did not manipulate  the talking points to protect themselves for the upcoming election. However, Lindsey Graham and others continue to incorrectly state the administration manipulated the talking points to protect mistakes from the public view prior to the presidential election. Even the news media is retracting comments given to them off the record by various Republican congressional officials that were deliberately and blatantly inaccurate.

 

 

The NCAA Gestapo:

 

11-11-2012

NCAA Gestapo: the most dysfunctional organization in the United States.

 

For those of you that are unfamiliar with how the National Collegiate Athletic Association (NCAA) applies penalties we offer the following as a simplistic but poetic factual example.  First, we present a brief explanation and description on NCAA infractions. The NCAA has established rules that all student athletes and academic institutions are to follow in order to create a level playing field, while maintaining an amateur environment. Institutions whose members violate the rules are subject to penalties generally referred to as sanctions. The penalties can include reductions in scholarships, bans from post season games, payments of cash, and probation.

Nevin Shapiro, a University of Miami booster and convicted Ponzi schemer, told Yahoo sports, that he provided money and other benefits to 72 past and current University of Miami football players. The report by Yahoo sports was first made public in August of 2011 and entailed in nearly a year of interviews while Shapiro was in prison serving a 20 year sentence. For those interested in greater details regarding the case, a number of links have been provided at the end of this post.

 

A sad story:

In 2005 through 2008, the house located at 7391 Palm Beach Shores Avenue was occupied by three wealthy bachelors that were well-known drug dealers. Over that time, they sold $23 million worth of drugs and ripped off several people under the influence. On numerous occasions they had parties where drugs were given to women in order to more easily obtain sexual favors. In the summer of 2008, they were told by an informant that the police were slowly moving in on them. They put the house up for sale at a low rate and took off to another country to continue their business where the local authorities had no jurisdiction.

In September of 2008 John and Mary, a married couple felt fortunate to purchase this expensive home at such a reduced rate. Mary invited her recently divorced sister Donna, to move in with them. For nearly one year all of them worked hard, upgraded the home and lived a life beyond their imagination. However, at 4 AM on August 10, 2009, the house was raided by the police and they were all taken into custody.

Over the next three years, they were charged with 220 counts of the sale of cocaine, with the rape of 73 women and extorting another 24 people. Under the law, guilt is determined by address and not by who committed the crime. During the three years of the investigation, the family was put on probation and was not permitted to work extended hours, attend out-of-state conventions, and not receive any bonuses from their employer. They were barely scraping by to cover their costs.

Although there were remnants of the Shapiro case six months earlier, the NCAA announced an investigation in August of 2011.

As a result, eight Miami players received suspensions and were required to return any money received from Shapiro or his associates. One other player was permanently released from the team.

The University also paid $83,000 to a bankruptcy court which is the amount of money estimated that were provided to past players in the way of cash, goods and services. Among other things, players allegedly received car rentals, jewelry, the services of prostitutes, and gratuities.

To date, the University of Miami has self imposed various sanctions and penalties. These include the following:

2011 bowl ban

2012 ACC championship game and bowl ban– as a result of the postseason bans, the University is estimated to have lost a few million dollars in additional revenue.

It is estimated University has lost close to $2 million in revenues as a result of self imposed bold bans.

Larry Bluestein, noted Florida high school recruiting analyst informed us that at least two players rejected Miami as a result of potential sanctions. He would not confirm that any others went elsewhere because of potential sanctions. However, we contacted several coaches in Miami Dade, Broward and Palm Beach counties whom had a lot to say off the record. According to the estimates of those who spoke with us, anywhere from 8 to 17 players would have enrolled at Miami if not for pending sanctions. Even if you take the low end of eight players, that’s significant considering three of them had five-star ratings according to rivals.com. One coach, who was a past starter for Miami, told us that at least two players informed him of other schools pointing out potential sanctions and the possible death penalty the University of Miami could receive.

So where does this all leave us?

Our guess is that there is a 50-50 chance the University of Miami will receive a third year bowl ban and lose approximately 20 scholarships over a three-year period. A little stiff you might think. However, odd things happened to Miami that do not occur elsewhere in college football and in our humble opinion they are unprecedented. We leave you with just two classic examples.

In October 1988, the University of Miami and Notre Dame play a game that is often mentioned till this day. At the end of the game, due to a controversial call Notre Dame won by a score of 31 to 30. But did they really win? The short answer is no. The circumstances are complicated and therefore we provided a link to an excellent explanation provided in the Los Angeles Times. Miamigetsscrewedagain Had there been instant replay, Miami would have without a doubt won this game and went on to play in another national championship. However, due to a mistake by the officials, Notre Dame won and ended up going to and winning the national championship. So the next time you see someone on television patting Lou Holtz on the back for winning a national championship at Notre Dame, remember it was only because the University of Miami wasn’t fairly treated. So Mr. Holtz, please thank the hurricanes that lost a collegiate record of 36 straight wins and handed you a national championship which you otherwise would never had won.

The year is 2000 and the University of Miami ended the season with one loss, the same as Florida State and the University of Washington. However, even though Miami beat Florida State, they were chosen selected by the then CBS formula to participate in the national championship game. As a result, Miami was not afforded an additional opportunity to play in the game. Furthermore, because of the circumstances the rules were changed in which the circumstances can no longer occur. Convenient, if you’re Florida State. Link-2000

Now if anyone out there can tell us where these type of situations have occurred with any other university in the past 30 years, we will be more than glad to post your responses and acknowledge our incorrect investigation and analysis.

11-11 2012

updated-1-14-2013

By

Charles Arnold and

R.J. Intindola