Karen Handel Wins Georgia Sixth District

Republican Karen Handel won yesterday's special election in Georgia defeating her democratic opponent with a lot of last minute "dark money".  If you will remember the Democrat almost won the election outright in the primary winning 47 or 48% of the vote.  The Republicans made it a big thing out of their ability to prevent a Democratic majority.  But they forced a run-off and the Republican vote was splintered among a host of Republican candidates.  All of the Republican big money rallied behind Handel and she won the election 51 to 48% for the Democrat.  Early elections had the Democrat leading by over fifty percent.  But like so many other races "too close to call" like in the 12014 congressional elections, a little voter machine rigging took care of the problem as once again we see that predictable "red shift", which we have seen in elections that we have witnessed consistently since 2014 in Ohio particularly.  A voter profile analysis shows a lot more red dots than blue dots meaning of the shifting that took place between the run-off and the primary and most of the voters who switched, switched to the Republicans.  Republicans were strongest on Foulton County up north and the democrats were the strongest in the southeast.  This race was the most heavily funded congressional election of all time because it was seen as a "do or die" effort for both political parties.  The results don't bode well for democratic prospects in 2018.

The Senate has finally revealed the Republican Health Care plan they have been working on in absolute secrecy for months now.  A team of thirteen senators have been crafting this bill and from what we hear it's worse than anything in the House Bill.  Now Mc Connell is trying to ram the bill through in a week or so and hope to have the bill passed and signed into law not by August first when congress goes on recess.  No.  They want the thing a done deal and voted on by July Fourth.  This means there will be almost no open debate and no amendments will be offered or accepted.  Actually the text of the bill won't even be made public until tomorrow.  This rush to pass seems an abrupt change of pace for this Republican Congress who suddenly have decided they have stalled long enough.  In contrast with the Obama Care Health bill the bill had been offered early in 2009 and wasn't passed or signed into law till March of 2010.  There was an extended period of spirited debate with the Republicans having ample oppertunity to offer amendments. And of course you all know the Tea Party movement began in April of 2009 nearly a year before the bill was ratified and there was an extended period of debate in all of these town halls.   This bill will raise the ammount of premiums that Seniors pay by five hundred percent.  They are also bringing back lifetime caps and throwing you off for pre-existing conditions.  

This is Tuesday June 20, 2017 the longest day of the year.  This morning at ten I went out for lemonade-punch combo and a graham cracker.  Then I watched yesterday’s “Days of our Lives” on computer.  Earlier in the morning Vince and Augustine were in here while I was out looking at the outlets and unplugged the computer when it was on.  As far as I know the problem still hasn’t been fixed.  John and Marlena found the group stranded on that Greek island.  They had been saying there was no emergency because there was adequate food and water such as nuts and fruits.  Justin tried to call Angelica Deveroux about the selling of the Spectator.  For lunch we had beef stew on a plate that was mostly beef gravy and potato bits.  We had mashed potatoes with that and a banana for dessert.  Judy gave me half of her banana.  Then I watched the rest of “Days of our Lives”.  Then I had the Gary and Shannon show on.  I had bouts of tiredness.  I turned the computer off after one and just lay down till two then I thought Money Draw would be called.  I’ll tell you this.  It sure is hard to get cigarettes.  It’s a hot day.

I got an iced tea and a graham cracker for snacks.  I went back up briefly and then Jennifer announced Money Draw at 2:20.  I made my way down.  We were lined up in the sun most of the time but we didn’t need to be then someone redirected the line go the other way so we’d be in the shade.  Fortunately Wally didn’t take too long today.  Ron Flowers cut in line because he claims he was there earlier.  I only got eight dollars from Jennifer and not the twelve or thirteen I was expecting.  She reminded me of a five dollar withdrawal I had made and also charged me for a two dollar co-pay she hasn’t received yet.  I took a peanut butter cup and left and went to the store and bought a pack of Clippers.  I was out back a while.  Then I turned on the Norman Goldman program.  The program was very informative today.  I am behind in my blogging and need to get my act together.  It seems as if Flynn may be cutting a deal with the FBI.  Also the Senate version of the Health Care bill has been made known and they are saying if anything that it is worse than the Republican version, and they want it passed quickly.

We were supposed to have ham and pineapple pizza.  We didn’t.  It was two pieces of plain pizza but it was at least two pieces and not one.  We had a green salad with that which was short on dressing.  We had rainbow sherbet for dessert.  There were no seconds.  I went to the bakery hoping to get rolls.  I think they are remodeling a lot of stuff in that mall.  The door was open and I went in and was about to make a purchase when someone came in and told me the bakery was closed.  Mario greeted me and after smoking a cigarette I agreed to buy him a pack of Clippers for two dollars.  I bought another pack for myself too because I owe a lot of people.  I took the two cigarette commission out of the pack and gave Mario the pack. 

Last night I read the latest “The Week” magazine till eight to nine and then went to bed.  I slept pretty good.  I woke briefly at 3:15.  I got up at five after five though it was earlier than I need to and I should have slept longer.  I showered.  I had three cigarettes left.  I made myself a cup of Glenda’s awful coffee.  Then I went and got my medication at a quarter to six from Ricardo and Phyllis Green was there and wanted one of my two remaining cigarettes so naturally I gave it to her.  Then I smoked the remaining one.  For a while I had on Eye Witness news on computer but I switched to Stephanie Miller.  We had oatmeal for breakfast.  I asked for and got two glasses of orange juice.  Judy gave me about half of her oatmeal and all of her scrambled eggs.  We had toast and butter and jelly.  The coffee was good for both breakfast and lunch.  Then it was more Stephanie.  I’m still hoping to get coffee from Glen if he isn’t out.  

Another Police Shooting Acquittal in Minnisota

There has been another police acquittal in the news today.  In Miniapolis this Black guy who admits he had a gun and a permit in the car was gunned down by cops.  All of his relatives and friends were bemoaning and protesting his death.  I honestly don’t think these police officers believe they are in any real danger.  Instead of saying “he was going for his gun” or “I thought he was going for his gun”, why don’t they just wait till they actually see the gun in his hand?  But they are trained not to think that way.  They are conditioned not to respect human life.  It’s true that Black lives don’t seem to matter to these police officers.  I don’t see how they can consistently get juries that acquit these cops but you’ve seen it happening time and time again.

There was a story in the Washington Post yesterday morning or something saying now that President Trump is officially under investigation.  That ends that argument, not that it was an argument to begin with.  People like Judy and Shawn believe that everybody including the media and the Republican congress is out to get the President, and there’s no persuading them otherwise.  But as long as all this turmoil is going on, it will bring the machinery of this Republican congress to a halt.  Then before you know it it will be August recess. 

There was a shooting at a Republican congressmen practice session of baseball.  It was an anti Trump antagonist who posted a lot of left wing stuff.  He didn’t kill anybody but got killed himself.  He injured one congressmen, two Capitol police and two others.  It dominated the news this morning.  At least they aren’t calling it Islamic terrorism.  Still it’s going to generate a lot of heat on right wing radio.  I listened to Trump’s speech on the radio which lasted about five minutes.  Apparently I had it on Shawn Hannity and quickly turned the station.  Bernie Sanders regrets that it was a person who actually worked in his campaign last year.   As a post script the Democrats won the baseball game by a lopsided score.  The thing is I'd heard a rumor that the Democrats were going to win that game. 

Tomorrow is the 45th anniversary of the Watergate break-in and I guess they are doing comemorative broadcasts on the subject.  It's a good way to educate the younger people.   

We had shepherd’s pie for dinner.  Kathy gave me a small piece of banana nut bread.  She was slicing up pieces and giving them to the staff.  But for the remaining piece she didn’t eat it herself and Judy, Marcia and Jennifer all turned her down so finally I got it.  We had strawberry ice cream for dessert.  I had six cigarettes left and Bill asked to borrow one and at first I hesitated but finally agreed.  I’m hoping to get a blog off tonight but if I’m too mentally lazy it might not be till tomorrow morning.  Three outlets in this room still don’t work and I can’t easily move the big screen TV or the stereo.  And you know the extension cord won’t work because it only has two and not three outlets.   I guess I’ll tune in Eye Witness live streaming.  

Donald Trump is Making a Mistake Attacking Comey

President Trump is engaging in self defeating behavior because of his continued attacks on Director Comey.  Comey had the support of every member of congress I heard in terms of the questions they asked.  None of them that I heard questioned the veracity of Comey's basic testimony about his conversations with Trump.  Lindsey says that all of this is a distraction that could go on almost indefinitely in terms of it getting worked out in the courts and congress and the special prosecutor.  Mullen's job has just begun.  If they cried "Uncle" and got Trump to resign then Mike Pence could get on with the Republican agenda of passing that major tax cut and major slashing of government funds for domestic programs.  It is said that Mike Pence would be less likely to get us into a major war than Trump would be and this would be fine with the Republicans as long as their extensive budget agenda gets passed including the repeal and replacement of Obama Care.  So as a quazi democrat I'd just as soon keep the status quo of chaos we have right now.  But one find day a light bulb is going to goo off in the minds of the Republican establishment and they are going to give Donald Trump the book.  Thom Hartman says a signal will be a chorus in the media and elsewhere of consistent loud praises for Mike Pence in reporter interviews and public statements.  The question is whether Donald Trump will be impeached.  There may not be enough evidence to bring a criminal indictment against the President for obstruction of justice but I believe the offences do rise to the level of "moral perpitude", which is the criteria for impeachment.  It's a Misdemeanor or "misbehavior" of a person in office.

The nine circuit court of appeals has decided to uphold the Moslem travel ban instituted months ago.  This is the second circuit court to rule against the President.  If all of the circuit courts rule against the President experts say it's less likely that the Supreme Court will take up the case.  It certainly won't be in this court year, which runs only a few more weeks, and all the key rulings come down in late June.

There is a bill in the California state legislature that supposedly eliminates Daylight Savings time.  But I saw Rene in the hall and it wouldn't change the majority summertime time, but it would give us Daylight Savings time through the winter.  That would mean it wouldn't begin getting light till seven thirty in the darkest winter months and it would stay light till nearly six o clock in the evenings.  But it would cause confusion with Nevada because if they were still on Standard Time during this period Lake Tahoe would be split right down the middle and dark Las Vegas would be surrounded by places where the sun set an hour later.

 Paul called last night and I ended up watching the message from Greg Laurie’s “Harvest Crusade”, which was in Arizona and not Texas as Paul had said.  Greg said there was an alarmingly high suicide rate in Arizona, which exceeds the murder rate.  He gave one of the best straight out evangelical messages I’ve heard in a long time.  He laid out the whole enchilada in a way that most evangelists on TV don’t today talking about sin and how to get to heaven.  And he said “If you’re not with Jesus you’re against him”.  He talked about the prodigal son and how all of his newfound friends deserted him when all the money ran out “and nobody gave him anything”.  Greg talked about his own testimony of stuff I’d never heard before.  I take exception to things of course like “Coming to a pastor with all of your questions”.  Pastors don’t respond well to questions in my experience.  Also I haven’t “run from God” but I have walked away from God several times coming to the conclusion that church life wasn’t helping me and I could do better on my own making my own decisions”.  The message ended about seven o clock.   

We have another update just this morning.  I went back into the archives and made a song substitution of “If I Was A Dancer” for “Five Me Shelter”.  Give Me Shelter is prominently located on that November 30^th entry from ‘Soap Opera of Life’ and actually last February I made the mistake then and should have fixed it at the time.  Maybe it was a garbled translation from the Powers that Be.  “If I Was a Dancer” also better fits the mood of “Party Mixer”. 

These gay pride parades get a little old after a while.  I continue to find the subject of gay pride rather disturbing because the words are an oxy moronism.  You can't take pride in a sexual abnormality.  Of course this year it's the "resist" parade because of Donald Trump and Mike Pence's threatened crackdown of the gay community and particularly this trans gender restroom nightmare.  

I grew drowsy listening to Thom Hartman in the morning.  Later on as I was coming in from outside Melody was trying to get her key out of the lock to our door.  I sure couldn't shake it loose and I didn't want to damage the key.  But then she got Rene and he pulled it out of the lock right away.  Then I went for snacks and got a red punch and a graham cracker from Rico in the courtyard.   

Trump Calls Comey a Liar and an Obstructionist

Donald Trump had his brief press conference in the news.  They preempted some soap opera on KNXT to cover it but couldn’t cover Trump’s remarks with the Polish guy but would only cover the part where Trump was fielding questions.  Trump repeated the same thing he and his aids have been saying for a day or so.  Trump called Comey a liar and said he ought to be brought up on charges of leaking information.  Trump didn’t have any other eleborations on anything.  Glenda agrees with me that he had to fire Comey because Trump has told so many lies and he doesn’t want them exposed.  I would remind you what I said yesterday that no senator doubted the veracity of Comey’s basic testimony, but only Trump and his aids are doing that.   [Wedmesday morning]  After breakfast I came here and Bill had the TV on.  Comey had already read his opening statement and now was being questioned in a friendly manner by senator after senator.  All of the answers were forthright and frank, and Comey has a transparent presentation not attempting to conceal his true feelings.  No senator questioned the veracity of Comey’s opening remarks or other allegations, which he elaborated on often embellishing with added detail.  He indeed say he was pressured by President Trump not to pursue the investigation of Flynn.  The most explicit citing of this was in the March 30^th phone call and I word searched it and found it though I had missed it with previous reading.  The meetings ran a little past nine thirty.  Then there was media commentary.  At ten I went out for a snack and got punch and a graham cracker.  I continued to have the computer on and caught the Victoria Jones phone call at ten to eleven.

They say there is gridlocked government in England because the Conservative party suffered major losses in yesterday's election there.  The conservatives no longer have a majority but still maintain a plurality and it's hoped that Teresa May will be able to form a new government, even if it's less secure.  

Bill ate in the dining room this morning but Glenda ate in her room.  “Good Morning America” was on.  I had Stephanie on also.  I didn’t see Sarah about the laundry but went to the big laundry room and ran into the Black lady again and figured I’d give her another chance to get my clothes done.  Today she said she’d put them in the right place.  She said my clothes would be done around one and it was eight thirty at the time.  President Trump is calling Director Comey a liar and a leaker and says that he should be prosecuted for leaking.   

Today is Friday June 9, 2017.  Last night I went to Glenda’s room a little after dinner for coffee.  I offered her money but she declined.  It was a good thing too because the coffee was really awful and seemed to have absolutely no caffeine lift despite making it strong.  At last some good news.  The Pittsburgh Penguins won last game over Nashville six to nothing and I saw a number of scores, but I didn’t watch the entire game but I saw enough of it.  I saw the beginning, some of the middle, and the end.  I had ABC network news on.  I got medication from Ricardo feeling rather depressed about the day.   I went to Glen’s room to give him a second chance after Wednesday.  Today he came through.  I gave him a quarter and two Clippers for my own teaspoon measuring out the Nestcafe.  The caffeine gave me the lift I was looking for  It got kind of chilly last night out.  The game ended a little before eight.  A fight broke out with less than a minute to go.  I watched all of one episode of “Bones’ and part of another till nine twenty.  Some of that time I was using the toilet or out smoking.  I woke after midnight again and had to have two cigarettes.  I am almost out of that clipper pack.  I went back to bed and Bill eventually came in but it took time to achieve even broken sleep the rest of the night.  I got up at twenty after five and showered.  I used the itching cream on the one remaining rough patch on my left cheek that gets a little sore occasionally.  I was going to ride out the period before breakfast without coffee but physical fatigue got the better of me and I went to the bakery at six and got a large coffee for a dollar fifty.  I turned on the Stephanie Miller show.  At breakfast I crossed the room for the oatmeal cart from Nora and got sugar.  Then Judy gave me another half a bowl and I got sugar from my pocket.  I left for a bathroom break and when I returned my plate was already at my place.  It was scrambled eggs, a waffle and a pat of butter.  Judy gave me all of her eggs so I had enough to eat.  I got a large cup of coffee.  

 For lunch we had some fratata sandwich or whatever that F-word was.  We had grilled ham and cheese, and also French fries drowning in catsup.  We had peaches for dessert.  On Wednesday we had pineapple for dessert.  I mis-report it.  My clothes were actually washed today for the first time in eleven days I’ve been wanting it done, since a week ago Monday.  Everything was accounted for except a pair of boxer shorts, but they were identical to a pair I’m actually wearing now, except the ones I have now have a stretched waist.  I found the unopened pack of new boxers in the drawer.  At some point I went to the store for more Clippers.  It’s just a relief to have the clothes washed.  “Days of our Lives” wasn’t on because for the second day it was preempted by the French open.  I listened to Moe Kelly and the movies along with other Gary and Shannon stuff.  Roman Polanski and Bill Cosby are again featured in the new due to sexual stuff.  I went out at two for snacks and got another two halves of a ham and cheese sandwich and two cups of iced tea. 

Director Comey's Statement

Chairman Burr, Ranking Member Warner, Members of the Committee. Thank you for inviting me to appear before you today. I was asked to testify today to describe for you my interactions with President-Elect and President Trump on subjects that I understand are of interest to you. I have not included every detail from my conversations with the President, but, to the best of my recollection, I have tried to include information that may be relevant to the Committee.

January 6 Briefing

I first met then-President-Elect Trump on Friday, January 6 in a conference room at Trump Tower in New York. I was there with other Intelligence Community (IC) leaders to brief him and his new national security team on the findings of an IC assessment concerning Russian efforts to interfere in the election. At the conclusion of that briefing, I remained alone with the President-Elect to brief him on some personally sensitive aspects of the information assembled during the assessment.

The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.

The Director of National Intelligence asked that I personally do this portion of the briefing because I was staying in my position and because the material implicated the FBI's counter-intelligence responsibilities. We also agreed I would do it alone to minimize potential embarrassment to the President-Elect. Although we agreed it made sense for me to do the briefing, the FBI's leadership and I were concerned that the briefing might create a situation where a new President came into office uncertain about whether the FBI was conducting a counter-intelligence investigation of his personal conduct.

It is important to understand that FBI counter-intelligence investigations are different than the more-commonly known criminal investigative work. The Bureau's goal in a counter-intelligence investigation is to understand the technical and human methods that hostile foreign powers are using to influence the United States or to steal our secrets. The FBI uses that understanding to disrupt those efforts. Sometimes disruption takes the form of alerting a person who is targeted for recruitment or influence by the foreign power. Sometimes it involves hardening a computer system that is being attacked. Sometimes it involves "turning" the recruited person into a double-agent, or publicly calling out the behavior with sanctions or expulsions of embassy-based intelligence officers. On occasion, criminal prosecution is used to disrupt intelligence activities.

Because the nature of the hostile foreign nation is well known, counterintelligence investigations tend to be centered on individuals the FBI suspects to be witting or unwitting agents of that foreign power. When the FBI develops reason to believe an American has been targeted for recruitment by a foreign power or is covertly acting as an agent of the foreign power, the FBI will "open an investigation" on that American and use legal authorities to try to learn more about the nature of any relationship with the foreign power so it can be disrupted.

In that context, prior to the January 6 meeting, I discussed with the FBI's leadership team whether I should be prepared to assure President-Elect Trump that we were not investigating him personally. That was true; we did not have an open counter-intelligence case on him. We agreed I should do so if circumstances warranted. During our one-on-one meeting at Trump Tower, based on President-Elect Trump's reaction to the briefing and without him directly asking the question, I offered that assurance.

I felt compelled to document my first conversation with the President-Elect in a memo. To ensure accuracy, I began to type it on a laptop in an FBI vehicle outside Trump Tower the moment I walked out of the meeting. Creating written records immediately after one-on-one conversations with Mr. Trump was my practice from that point forward. This had not been my practice in the past. I spoke alone with President Obama twice in person (and never on the phone) – once in 2015 to discuss law enforcement policy issues and a second time, briefly, for him to say goodbye in late 2016. In neither of those circumstances did I memorialize the discussions. I can recall nine one-on-one conversations with President Trump in four months – three in person and six on the phone.

January 27 Dinner

The President and I had dinner on Friday, January 27 at 6:30 pm in the Green Room at the White House. He had called me at lunchtime that day and invited me to dinner that night, saying he was going to invite my whole family, but decided to have just me this time, with the whole family coming the next time. It was unclear from the conversation who else would be at the dinner, although I assumed there would be others.

It turned out to be just the two of us, seated at a small oval table in the center of the Green Room. Two Navy stewards waited on us, only entering the room to serve food and drinks.

The President began by asking me whether I wanted to stay on as FBI Director, which I found strange because he had already told me twice in earlier conversations that he hoped I would stay, and I had assured him that I intended to. He said that lots of people wanted my job and, given the abuse I had taken during the previous year, he would understand if I wanted to walk away.

My instincts told me that the one-on-one setting, and the pretense that this was our first discussion about my position, meant the dinner was, at least in part, an effort to have me ask for my job and create some sort of patronage relationship. That concerned me greatly, given the FBI's traditionally independent status in the executive branch.

I replied that I loved my work and intended to stay and serve out my ten-year term as Director. And then, because the set-up made me uneasy, I added that I was not "reliable" in the way politicians use that word, but he could always count on me to tell him the truth. I added that I was not on anybody's side politically and could not be counted on in the traditional political sense, a stance I said was in his best interest as the President.

A few moments later, the President said, "I need loyalty, I expect loyalty." I didn't move, speak, or change my facial expression in any way during the awkward silence that followed. We simply looked at each other in silence. The conversation then moved on, but he returned to the subject near the end of our dinner.

At one point, I explained why it was so important that the FBI and the Department of Justice be independent of the White House. I said it was a paradox: Throughout history, some Presidents have decided that because "problems" come from Justice, they should try to hold the Department close. But blurring those boundaries ultimately makes the problems worse by undermining public trust in the institutions and their work.

Near the end of our dinner, the President returned to the subject of my job, saying he was very glad I wanted to stay, adding that he had heard great things about me from Jim Mattis, Jeff Sessions, and many others. He then said, "I need loyalty." I replied, "You will always get honesty from me." He paused and then said, "That's what I want, honest loyalty." I paused, and then said, "You will get that from me." As I wrote in the memo I created immediately after the dinner, it is possible we understood the phrase "honest loyalty" differently, but I decided it wouldn't be productive to push it further. The term – honest loyalty – had helped end a very awkward conversation and my explanations had made clear what he should expect.

During the dinner, the President returned to the salacious material I had briefed him about on January 6, and, as he had done previously, expressed his disgust for the allegations and strongly denied them. He said he was considering ordering me to investigate the alleged incident to prove it didn't happen. I replied that he should give that careful thought because it might create a narrative that we were investigating him personally, which we weren't, and because it was very difficult to prove a negative. He said he would think about it and asked me to think about it.

As was my practice for conversations with President Trump, I wrote a detailed memo about the dinner immediately afterwards and shared it with the senior leadership team of the FBI.

February 14 Oval Office Meeting

On February 14, I went to the Oval Office for a scheduled counterterrorism briefing of the President. He sat behind the desk and a group of us sat in a semi-circle of about six chairs facing him on the other side of the desk. The Vice President, Deputy Director of the CIA, Director of the National CounterTerrorism Center, Secretary of Homeland Security, the Attorney General, and I
were in the semi-circle of chairs. I was directly facing the President, sitting between the Deputy CIA Director and the Director of NCTC. There were quite a few others in the room, sitting behind us on couches and chairs.

The President signaled the end of the briefing by thanking the group and telling them all that he wanted to speak to me alone. I stayed in my chair. As the participants started to leave the Oval Office, the Attorney General lingered by my chair, but the President thanked him and said he wanted to speak only with me. The last person to leave was Jared Kushner, who also stood by my chair and exchanged pleasantries with me. The President then excused him, saying he wanted to speak with me.

When the door by the grandfather clock closed, and we were alone, the President began by saying, "I want to talk about Mike Flynn." Flynn had resigned the previous day. The President began by saying Flynn hadn't done anything wrong in speaking with the Russians, but he had to let him go because he had misled the Vice President. He added that he had other concerns about Flynn, which he did not then specify.

The President then made a long series of comments about the problem with leaks of classified information – a concern I shared and still share. After he had spoken for a few minutes about leaks, Reince Priebus leaned in through the door by the grandfather clock and I could see a group of people waiting behind him. The President waved at him to close the door, saying he would be done shortly. The door closed.

The President then returned to the topic of Mike Flynn, saying, "He is a good guy and has been through a lot." He repeated that Flynn hadn't done anything wrong on his calls with the Russians, but had misled the Vice President. He then said, "I hope you can see your way clear to letting this go, to letting Flynn go. He is a good guy. I hope you can let this go." I replied only that "he is a good guy." (In fact, I had a positive experience dealing with Mike Flynn when he was a colleague as Director of the Defense Intelligence Agency at the beginning of my term at FBI.) I did not say I would "let this go."

The President returned briefly to the problem of leaks. I then got up and left out the door by the grandfather clock, making my way through the large group of people waiting there, including Mr. Priebus and the Vice President.

I immediately prepared an unclassified memo of the conversation about Flynn and discussed the matter with FBI senior leadership. I had understood the President to be requesting that we drop any investigation of Flynn in connection with false statements about his conversations with the Russian ambassador in December. I did not understand the President to be talking about the broader investigation into Russia or possible links to his campaign. I could be wrong, but I took him to be focusing on what had just happened with Flynn's departure and the controversy around his account of his phone calls. Regardless, it was very concerning, given the FBI's role as an independent investigative agency.

The FBI leadership team agreed with me that it was important not to infect the investigative team with the President's request, which we did not intend to abide. We also concluded that, given that it was a one-on-one conversation, there was nothing available to corroborate my account. We concluded it made little sense to report it to Attorney General Sessions, who we expected would likely recuse himself from involvement in Russia-related investigations. (He did so two weeks later.) The Deputy Attorney General's role was then filled in an acting capacity by a United States Attorney, who would also not be long in the role.

After discussing the matter, we decided to keep it very closely held, resolving to figure out what to do with it down the road as our investigation progressed. The investigation moved ahead at full speed, with none of the investigative team members – or the Department of Justice lawyers supporting them – aware of the President's request.

Shortly afterwards, I spoke with Attorney General Sessions in person to pass along the President's concerns about leaks. I took the opportunity to implore the Attorney General to prevent any future direct communication between the President and me. I told the AG that what had just happened – him being asked to leave while the FBI Director, who reports to the AG, remained behind – was inappropriate and should never happen. He did not reply. For the reasons discussed above, I did not mention that the President broached the FBI's potential investigation of General Flynn.

March 30 Phone Call

On the morning of March 30, the President called me at the FBI. He described the Russia investigation as "a cloud" that was impairing his ability to act on behalf of the country. He said he had nothing to do with Russia, had not been involved with hookers in Russia, and had always assumed he was being recorded when in Russia. He asked what we could do to "lift the cloud." I responded that we were investigating the matter as quickly as we could, and that there would be great benefit, if we didn't find anything, to our having done the work well. He agreed, but then re-emphasized the problems this was causing him.

Then the President asked why there had been a congressional hearing about Russia the previous week – at which I had, as the Department of Justice directed, confirmed the investigation into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign. I explained the demands from the leadership of both parties in Congress for more information, and that Senator Grassley had even held up the confirmation of the Deputy Attorney General until we briefed him in detail on the investigation. I explained that we had briefed the leadership of Congress on exactly which individuals we were investigating and that we had told those Congressional leaders that we were not personally investigating President Trump. I reminded him I had previously told him that. He repeatedly told me, "We need to get that fact out." (I did not tell the President that the FBI and the Department of Justice had been reluctant to make public statements that we did not have an open case on President Trump for a number of reasons, most importantly because it would create a duty to correct, should that change.)

The President went on to say that if there were some "satellite" associates of his who did something wrong, it would be good to find that out, but that he hadn't done anything wrong and hoped I would find a way to get it out that we weren't investigating him.

In an abrupt shift, he turned the conversation to FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, saying he hadn't brought up "the McCabe thing" because I had said McCabe was honorable, although McAuliffe was close to the Clintons and had given him (I think he meant Deputy Director McCabe's wife) campaign money. Although I didn't understand why the President was bringing this up, I repeated that Mr. McCabe was an honorable person.

He finished by stressing "the cloud" that was interfering with his ability to make deals for the country and said he hoped I could find a way to get out that he wasn't being investigated. I told him I would see what we could do, and that we would do our investigative work well and as quickly as we could.

Immediately after that conversation, I called Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente (AG Sessions had by then recused himself on all Russia-related matters), to report the substance of the call from the President, and said I would await his guidance. I did not hear back from him before the President called me again two weeks later.

April 11 Phone Call

On the morning of April 11, the President called me and asked what I had done about his request that I "get out" that he is not personally under investigation. I replied that I had passed his request to the Acting Deputy Attorney General, but I had not heard back. He replied that "the cloud" was getting in the way of his ability to do his job. He said that perhaps he would have his people reach out to the Acting Deputy Attorney General. I said that was the way his request should be handled. I said the White House Counsel should contact the leadership of DOJ to make the request, which was the traditional channel.

He said he would do that and added, "Because I have been very loyal to you, very loyal; we had that thing you know." I did not reply or ask him what he meant by "that thing." I said only that the way to handle it was to have the White House Counsel call the Acting Deputy Attorney General. He said that was what he would do and the call ended.

That was the last time I spoke with President Trump.

The Saudis Start Trouble With Qatar

Trump wants to mess around with the air traffic controllers privatizing the whole profession leaving the whole area open to private profit and the machinations of a private company.  The air above us is public and if a plane crashes it affects the commons, which is all of us.  We’ve had the government in air traffic control since the 1930’s and I don’t think we should start now.  The other thing Trump has been messing with is that the Saudis are messing around with Qatar accusing them of sponsoring terrorism.  The Saudis got all of the other neighbors to gang up on Qatar.  The problem is that Qatar is not a sponsor of terrorism but it is a supporter of Al Gezera or however you spell it.  Also the United States has a military base in Qatar and I’m wondering why Donald Trump would encourage the Saudis to mess around with a federal military base?   Former FBI director Comey still testifies on Thursday.  But I heard he wasn’t going to bring his extensive notes with them and I thought that was the whole point.  Apparently there is still classified stuff about the whole Russia investigation, which kind of takes the fun out of it for us viewers who were hoping for some sort of tell National Inquiror type of presentation, warts and all.   But I’ll be tuning in to C-Span nonetheless.

Apparently tensions between President Trump and Attorney General Jeff Sessions have been running high lately and there has even been talk about Sessions resigning.  I'm not sure of all the details but I think it has something to do with the fact that Jeff Sessions recruised himself in the Russian probe or something leaving the way for Rosenstein to appoint a special prosecutor and get the ball rolling.  It would be interesting to see what happens when Trump has a complete emotional melt-down he can't contain.  

Alone in the White House in recent days, President Trump — frustrated and defiant — has been spoiling for a fight, according to his confidants and associates.  Glued even more than usual to the cable news shows that blare from the televisions in his private living quarters, or from the 60-inch flat screen he had installed in his cramped study off the Oval Office, he has fumed about “fake news.” Trump has seethed as his agenda has stalled in Congress and the courts. He has chafed against the pleas for caution from his lawyers and political advisers, tweeting whatever he wants, whenever he wants.  And on Thursday, the president will come screen-to-screen with the former FBI director he fired, James B. Comey, who has consumed, haunted and antagonized him by overseeing an expanding Russia investigation that the president slammed as a “witch hunt.”  Comey’s testimony is a political Super Bowl — with television networks interrupting regular programming to air it, and some Washington offices and bars making plans for special viewings.

At two I decided to dip into my reserves and go off and buy a pack of Phillies at the store with exact change.  I was now down to ten dollars (for the week).  I had heard from Wally that Jennifer would be here after all at two but I couldn’t be sure.  At ten after two I went into the courtyard and got a red punch and a graham cracker in the refreshment line.  Then I got in the money draw line because they had begun calling names.  Though the line was kind of long I hoped it would move fast, which it kind of did.  I got through this line at twenty to three and so had time to spare before my appointment.  I was glad I didn’t have to worry about it.  Muffin was just ahead of me in line.  Fortunately Roxanne didn’t pull that alphabet shit and try and pull rank on me because she was a “G”.  I went in and paid the check I had written out for $1055 and signed my name three times and asked for and got my five dollars- in ones.  I grabbed a mini Almond Joy and left.  I went first up here and then down to smoke.  Clearly Tim was late with the van.  I went back up here and grabbed Bill’s pillow he wanted and locked the door.  The van arrived but there was still some sort of delay.  We didn’t leave till nearly three for a three fifteen appointment.  We had amazing luck with the green lights and we went the traditional way by Knott’s Berry farm.  We got to the office just after 3:15.   There was one couple ahead of us and they were called in.  But from then on no new names were called.  I read the San Diego Home and Garden magazine.  Bill was called in.  At five after four I was called in and waited another ten minutes in the room.  Dr Nichols said my butt looked a lot better than last week.  I never brought up the idea of getting more itching cream.  I only have a few uses left.  Dr Nichols again put that purple stuff on my butt and shined the ultraviolet light and let it dry.  Then his son came by to give me a shot in the butt.  That’s about all there was to this appointment.  I said that Tuesday afternoons were normally bad so the next appointment was made for July 6^th on Thursday morning at ten.  I smoked a cigarette waiting for Tim to converse with the people a while.  Then we headed home by the same route.  We got here at ten to five and we went straight into the dining room.  They were now out of the chili and corn bread.  I got a turkey sandwich and Bill got a ham sandwich.  I had potato chips.  I had a lemonade and a big bowl of creamy vanilla ice cream.  I was satisfied with the meal but Bill didn’t seem to be.  

Last night I ate three of those sugar bar things from the bakery.  I gave Bill one of them.  I fixed myself a cup of instant coffee.  I watched the game and the Golden State Warriors again won the game by double digits almost as bad as they did on Thursday.  But the Cleveland Cavileers were only down three points at the half and four points in the early third quarter.  The game ended earlier about seven thirty.  (?)  I went down for medication from Ricardo and got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  Earlier in the evening I checked the two Lou Christie songs of “Two Faces Have I” and “Lightning Is Striking Again”.  I found both of them but both of them were a challenge.  They had a thing on African gorillas on Sixty Minutes.  At eight o clock it was NCIS.  I went to bed right at nine.  I just had one cup of coffee.

Trump Pulls out of Paris Climate Accords

Donald Trump gave his long awaited speech on getting out of the Paris Climate Accords starting maybe twelve thirty though I was half asleep when the speech started.  But I didn’t miss when he first announced that we were pulling out of the agreement.  There was an eruption of cheering, which to me seemed out of place.  Trump was serious about this.  This was no transient matter for him as some on the spot political favor.  Clearly he’s studied this topic thoroughly and spouted a lot of facts and figures piling it on thicker and heavier as he went.  This speech was the greatest Opus Magnum of his presidency.  He said that this agreement signed by Obama in 2015 held the United States at an enormous disadvantage.  India and China can pollute all they want and spew several times the amount the United States does now.  The economy would be crippled and massive jobs would be lost.  Trump enumerated the percentage of job losses in various areas.  Coal mining would drop 85%.  They’re lucky it isn’t a hundred percent.  Natural gas would be down 35%   This agreement is bad for national sovereignty.  Trump points out that we already are the country with the cleanest air and water in the world.  That’s what he says.  I don’t think we would stack up too well against a country like Germany.  Only Nicaragua and Syria didn’t sign this agreement out of 197 nations in the world.  He says the agreement can be negotiated.  The speech ran till just past one and was at least a half hour long.  A few alarming phrases were repeated for emphisis.  He turned my opinion around on this topic.  I knew there were bad agreements out there.  Apparently congress agreed to a 1992 Kyoto agreement in 1997. (?)  Reason goes is congress agreed to terms in the nineties, it’s still bound to those terms now.  That agreement had bad stuff in it.  But I didn’t think 195 nations would all agree to an agreement that would single out the United States for punitive measures.  But Norman Goldman has a different slant on this agreement.  He says the whole agreement is voluntary and that there are no enforcement mechanisms but “Each nation will work on the pollution problems at their own pace”.  That sounds reasonable to me.  Goldman further says that it will take four years to fully exit or pull out of this agreement, about the same time of Trump’s reelection.

NEW REVELATIONS ON BLACK HOLES:  After a cigarette I checked Radio Locator and today the site was in operation.  But first I clicked on a thing on Black Holes.  I never knew that black holes exerted gravitational pulls outside their own boundaries.  Just as light is trapped and doesn’t get out, I’ve been led to believe that the gravity can’t get out and exert pulls on stars or other black holes.  You heard me correctly.  Now they say that Black Holes rotate each other and collide and merge and this article claims scientists have witnessed this three times.  This is all fresh information to me.  

The Orion Federation had no position on the Paris climate accords.  The Federation though would never agreement with another nation or empire that left them as such a strong disadvantage.  This is the sort of stuff that wars are fought over.   In terms of album sales, “Nothing Left to Roll” is still outselling its sister revised album “One Person Plus the Truth”.  The marketing on the rerelease hasn’t been good.  Two tracks are different.  As to why the Federation has been in contact with me so seldom lately, I have no answer. 

Today the bill collector reappeared.  Clowie was brazen enough to show up right at the police station with Nicole at her most vulnerable in an emotional wreck from such a stressful day.  Clowie is there to twist the knife and take the baby (Holly) and perhaps move to another state such as New York where Nicole will never see her little girl again.  I went for snacks at two and got lemonade and a graham cracker. Meanwhile Chad is still hanging on to that Egyptian almulet with a curse on it.   

We didn’t have soup for lunch.   We had two slices of pizza without toppings,  only tomato and cheese.  We had a green salad with ranch dressing with that.  We had an orange for dessert.  I listened to the Gary and Shannon show starting about a quarter to twelve.  Purlita and that new Black woman came in to change Bill’s linens.  But they both told me they wouldn’t be changing my bed any more because I no longer had scabies.  Earlier in the morning these same two women told me I would not have my clothes washed more often than once a week but that Denise would take over my laundry just like it used to be. 

The Chargers Move to Los Angeles

 The big story we learned on EWN was that the Chargers decided to move to Los Angeles after all.  I know they had sought to get city assistance for funding a new stadium.  I thought they had a plan.  When that failed I thought the owners of the team were going to fund it themselves but they were too many million short.  So the Chargers will now be playing in Carson or something and not the coliseum.  This stadium only holds thirty thousand people.   They had been in San Diego for 56 or their 57 years in existence.  They realized the first year that they could not compete in the same market as the LA Rams.  I wonder what happened to change their minds.  I had heard that the vast majority of people in both cities wanted the Chargers to stay in San Diego.  There is news that the Chargers have changed their basic logo or something.  So many teams like to make drastic changes in their uniforms and all.

 The FBI will be investigating itself or something to find out why Chief Comey “leaked” or put out that Hillary was again under suspicion with the new found E mails in October.  Actually the office investigating is the Inspector General, a post that was created by Congress in the post Watergate era.  The Inspector General has no power to prosecute in himself.  Comey sent that letter to congress but decided to just “sit on” the dirt that he had about Donald Trump.  This shows clear bias.  Of course this little stunt was among three major things that lost the election for Hillary.  The other two were Russian meddeling and needless to say all of the voter suppression that took place in critical states.  Meanwhile yesterday Marco Rubio spent considerable time grilling Tillison.  Stick a fork in him, he’s done, at least in my opinion.  If the republicans themselves don’t trust him why should I?  Now they are even running an ad in prime time TV against Tillison.  That’s a bit unusual.  I thought I heard Ben Carson up for HUD say that government could actually be a good thing.  All of the hearings are still going on with prospective members of Trump’s cabinet including Secretary of Defense and CIA chief.

Sometimes Washington’s blog goes off the rails and starts heaping praises on Donald Trump, undeservedly.  They say things like “Trump will shake up the aristocracy” and be more progressive in foreign policy than was Barock Obama.  I have a feeling Trump isn’t going to do anything that Sheldon Addelson or any of the moneyed republicans want him to do. 

This is Thursday January 12, 2017 and it’s been raining steadily since about one thirty in the morning.  Today’s rain has exceeded yesterday.  I have Stephanie Miller on and I harken back to the phrase of “You never notice the corn growing till one day it’s over your head”.  Donald Trump has so cheapened the discourse in this country you need to step back occasionally and just notice how much things have changed over the past thirty years.  Stephanie has been talking about the lies told and general chaos of yesterday’s so called press conference by Donald Trump.  Of course each step is not exactly “incremental’ because often each new development is a major jolt in our sensabilities.  I could make the same claim of my Christian faith over the past thirty years.  I can think of a lot of things that weren't exactly "incremental" but shocking jolts.  I"m surprised everybody hasn't lost their "faith" in the so called Moral Majority seeing they are neither moral nor a majority right now.  They are a very well organized media savy minority who know how to work the system, and that includes the strings of government.  Learning that William Casey, Reagan’s campaign chairman and future CIA chief sabotaged the promised ‘October surprise” itself was a jolt but it’s the thing that kicked off the Reagan administration.  It explains subsequent odd behavior of the Reagan administration.  It was the strangest thing in 1987 when I learned that congress wasn't even considering filing impeachment charges against Reagan.  The difference between then and now is that at least back then they criminally charged and convicted people for wrong doing.  Sometimes they were pardoned but often they did hard time.  Why doesn't President Obama pardon Don Siegleman?  But it sure is something the way the Republicans call the agenda.  Of course nobody is talking about Hillary’s E mails anymore because that propaganda has served its purpose and William Comey has had his revenge against Hillary or whatever. 

Re-litigating "Settled Issues"

We are all fixated by the axiom of "starie destasis" or "settled law" in Supreme Court rulings.  But clearly what we regard as moral and acceptable behavior today hasn't always been regarded as moral and acceptable, and visa versa.  Think about it.  Norman was having fun with the Obama line of “Put yourself in their shoes”.  He’s talking about being an 1830 plantation owner.  He stresses the importance of sometimes having to “re-litigate” controversial issues such as slavery verses the abolitionists.  To that 1830 plantation owner his "whole way of life" is threatened by the rising tide of this new abolitionist movement.  Many issues are being “re-litigated” such as the abortion ruling of 1973 or some say inter racial marriage, or gay relations, or how about “separate but equal?”   Many want to re-litigate the prayer in school issue.  Hence Norman says there is inherently nothing wrong with wanting to “re-litigate” a controversial issue because it goes on all the time.  Apparently the most important thing Barbra Boxer learned in her 24 years in the US senate was that “No issue is ever settled permanently”.  We progressives should take some comfort in this because you know conservatives would like to “institutionalize” and make permanent and entrenched a lot of these pipe dreams they have that are the fondest fulfillment of the 1980 platform of the Libertarian Party with David Koch.  A part of me wishes would re-litigate the importance of things like a quazi state religion we have now, or opening every meeting of congress with a Prayer, which is utterly useless.  I mean THIS congress praying at all is almost like “taking the Lord’s name in vain”.

ABC didn’t have their network news early at five thirty as I figured they would.  The sound system wasn’t working too well on the early part of Obama’s farewell speech in Chicago.  He made a big thing out of it being in his home town where he got his start and he was drowned out by applause all through the early part of his remarks.  The sound got better and he preached on three topics.  One was American excellence and how the United States doesn’t go to war except for a just cause and talked about our brave fighting men throughout history.  He talked about the onward push toward social progress throughout our history.  He talked about how the US won’t go into a country to fight without also enforcing our humanitarian principles.  Then he talked at length of the many things that are better now than eight years ago.  One of them apparently is not tax revenue to California.  Jerry Brown states that he’s going to have to make cuts in the budget so that it will be balanced.  Apparently he doesn’t want to dip into that growing “rainy day fund” to fund “unexpected dips in revenue” like he claims we are having right now.  On the other hand Donald Trump claims to be doing wonders for this economy and he’s not even president for nine more days.  President Obama said the improvements in life in the United States and the “rise in imcomes” is greater than anyone would have imagined eight years ago.  The third thing the President talked about was this political rhetoric and respect for our fellow citizens and how the quality of discourse had dropped dramatically in this country. I think this is the most important topic the President touched on.  Finally he gave accolades to his wife, Michelle, and his two daughters and Vice President Joe Biden, and his White House staff and how we hold the most important position we have in this country and that is of private citizen.  He says “The thing is that I didn’t say I would make the changes in this country but you the citizen has to make the vital changes”.  He said he wasn’t comfortable with the phrase “Post racial America” because we aren’t there yet but we have made lots of progress.  I would say we have retrogressed dramatically over the past eight years on race matters.  The speech over all probably took about fifty minutes.  It ended about four minutes to seven and I went out to smoke a cigarette and when I was back here Jeopardy was on.  So apparently there was very little if any post speech commentary by the media, and perhaps that is all for the best.

This is Wednesday morning January 11, 2017 and it rained last night and early this morning.  Trump finally held his press conference today but little was learned.  I turned on the TV and at first there was no picture at all.  The screen didn’t even light up.  I turned it off and on again and now it came in fine.  I had the TV on before eight.  But Donald Trump was late and the reporters had to review all of the issue.  But first Trump was introduced by a guy who attacked buzz-feed and CNN for propagation of a false intelligence report.  But I’m at a loss to find out what was false about it.  TH says buzz-feed was talking about Trump’s strange relations with women in other countries.  After this Mike Pence spoke.  Then Donald Trump came on with his lengthly critique of the reporting profession liking some and not others.  But then this other lady comes on and virtually takes over the thing for twenty minutes or something talking about Donald Trump’s divestment procedures and why a Blind Trust or just selling off the assets would cause more harm than good creating chaos or raising more questions than it solves.  At seven minutes to nine I went out for a cigarette.  The news conference went on till seventeen after nine and then Stephanopolis continued commentary till nine thirty.   The observation can be made that Trump still seems in campaign mode criticizing Hillary and talking about building the border wall and making Mexico paying for it.  Trump wants to get started with construction right away.  Now Trump appears to say that if the Russians did the hacking it’s because the democrats didn’t have good defenses against it, like the Republicans have.  Trump said he had no connections with overseas deals and he claimed that he doesn’t know whether Russia will be an ally of ours or not.  Trump did not deal (except perhaps to deny) with the question about Putin learning things about Trump so he could blackmail him.  There was no boring in to a particular topic until you got a satisfactory answer.  That kind of reporting is a thing of the past.  At one point he froze out a rather vocal reporter saying he wasn’t going to take questions from his organization.  There was a loud clamoring to ask questions but Trump’s dealings with the actual reporters took maybe a half hour if not less of that hour and fifteen minutes. 

Rhapsody in black is doing January of 1965 and they have played “Quicksand” just now and “I Think I’m Going Out of my Head”, “How Sweet it Is”, and “The Jerk”. They also played “The Name Game”, “How Sweet It Is” and “Yes You Will” by Joe Tex and “There’s a Change that’s gona Come” by Sam Cooke. Later on they played “Walking in the Rain” by the Ronettes and “Saturday Night at the Movies” by the Drifters. The Raiders are losing to the Texans in Houston. They say the Texans could be the very first team to play the Super Bowl in their own stadium. Glenda still hasn’t gotten a cigarette from her daughter and I’m expecting a white one.

The California Drought is a Thing of the Past

This is Monday January 9, 2017 and we can safely say the California drought is a thing of the past.  It’s been raining and snowing heavily in northern California.  Yosemite National Park has been closed.  I’m assuming the Sierra snow pack is way ahead of last year.  Of course we've had the polar vortex back east and it's been around ten or less above zero in both Pittsburgh and Green Bay.  We around here in the past month have had the most rain since the year I got my Cannon Power Shot camera in December of 2010.   Just by way of trivia the first shot from that camera used as a blog photo was the one of the front door with shrubbery around that which isn’t there anymore.  All of the grass out back in the traffic island is a verdant green after being brown in vast portions.  All of the resavaurs in northern California are filled to capacity and they even have to release water.  All of these water conservation laws will become irrelevant.  That year it was raining heavily in December and early January and then it stopped early in 2011 and after that was the start of the drought, so it’s been nearly six years.  It was raining last night.  [material edited out here] It’s been raining this morning.  I made myself instant coffee.  I had Stephanie Miller on.  It was raining when I went out to the liquor store for a dollar coffee and I brought it into the dining room.  We had Cheerios and me and Judy crossed the room to the cart to get our own milk and juice.  Later Josie gave me a second orange juice.  We got scrambled eggs and a whole English muffin and butter and jelly.  It was coffee in a small cup.  I got a second whole English muffin from Paul Evans.

Stephanie Miller says Trump told 560 documented falsehoods during the campaign.  Yesterday the Bobsey twins, John Mc Cain and Lindsey Graham, were on Meet the Press.  They both were saying that yes Russia is guilty of computer hacking and trying to sabotage our way of life holding a free election, but that one shouldn’t infer from this activity that Russia had anything to do with the outcome of the election, but whether they did or not the issue should be investigated by Congress.  Stephanie thinks it silly to maintain that Russia had no influence on our election.  This is a no brainer.  Absolutely the Russian actions affected the outcome of the election.  Let’s see.  You have 77,000 votes among three rust belt states.  You have admitted sabotaging by a foreign power motivated by a goal of reversing the election results.  And furthermore if Bernie Sanders had been the nominee to begin with, then these three rust belt states may well have voted for Bernie over Trump.  And no, we shouldn’t have to “Just get over it”.  This is not a normal situation and if we ever think it is, we’ve lost something precious. 

Yesterday I had the computer on for Face the Nation in the afternoon.  Mitch Mc Connell and Reinz Priebus and Cory Booker were on.  Mc Connell has the gift of inconsistency.  He said when Obama was appointing his cabinet eight years ago that all of the candidates for the posts needed to be thoroughly vetted and we need to go slowly.  Now of course the shoe is on the other foot and Mc Connell wants to fast track all of the appointments so that “President Trump has a national security team ready to go on day one”.   They are going to ramrod these appointments through despite the questionable backgrounds of so many of these cabinet choices.  Clearly all of these candidates are so rich with so many foreign entanglements it should take longer th approve them rather than less time.  Of course Mc Connell is also inconsistent on Supreme Court appointments.  Now he’s all eager to fill the empty seat.   Normally these hearings for a new Justice take months and we’ll have to see how the process is speeded up this time.

 Sixty Minutes raised the ongoing moral issue as to whether the United States should work to get hostages out of foreign countries.  Say what you want to about Jimmy Carter.  Not one Iranian hostage lost his life.  All of them ended up getting released.  In 2014 when ISIS was getting going- - citizens from other nations were taken hostage in Europe and such.  But these counties bought ISIS off with a few million.  They’d pay the money and not admit it.  So why couldn’t the United States pay the money and not admit it?  It would seem to me that the propaganda value of all these beheadings we saw night after night on our TV were worth a lot more to ISIS for recruiting purposes- - then buying them off with a few million dollars.  There is a saying that is in use of “Where there’s life, there’s hope”.  How much value to you place on a human life.  Will paying off ISIS “finance their terrorism for future hostage taking”?  I guess they’ve run a study and the answer appears to be “No”.  But it does farther than that because it's government's policy to actually Prosecute private citizens who raise their OWN money to get hostages of ISIS released.  It's bad enough that Obama is not more "pro life" when it comes to droning Muslims, but don't throw our own people in jail for simply "exercising self defense".  

I dozed off during the second segment and roused just after seven thirty.  I went down for medication from April.  The line was short but the few people took a long time.  For the first time in weeks we got a peanut butter and jelly sandwich.  I was glad of that.  I returned to the room and they were talking about decertifying Pluto as a planet.  This guy’s eleven year old daughter had a father who “killed Pluto”.    We all know there are constants in life.  Beethoven wrote nine symphonies and there are nine planets in the solar system, not eight.  But now in 2006 the whole question was “If we allow Pluto to remain a planet then what about all of these other planets we’ve discovered out beyond Pluto”.  But I’m unsure what planets they are talking about.  They say now that due to irregularity of orbits of the outer planets the existence of a big new planet out beyond Pluto is beyond question.  It’s a simple matter with a few mathematical formulas to determine first the location of this planet now.  Then they can calculate changes in the position of this planet over the past ten years.  From there it’s possible to extrapolate an orbital path and to a degree you can peg distance and size of the new planet.  If you were to assume a circular orbit then it matters almost not at all the size of the new planet.  This is because you can figure out the size after you have deduced the distance from the sun.  If you are able to calculate the length of time of its orbit from there you can go on to deduce the distance from the sun.  Besides you have the Hubble telescope out there and you’d think all of that space would have been scanned exhaustively for new heavenly bodies.  

The anti terriff people use the red hearing of the Smoot Holly bill of 1930 because back then it may have helped fuel the great depression.  Thom Hartman says that Smoot Holly had less than a three percent adverse impact on US Trade.  This caller on Thom Hartman says terriffs don't work and so therefore we should go hog wild with any trade deal like the TPP which emcompasses a whole lot more than free trade. This caller uses the line of Judy that "a terriff is just another tax".   Of course the caller was a spokesman for "The Club for Growth" which is one of these libertarian tea party organizations. Thom Hartman favors "picking winners and losers" and goes on to day "- - - and I want the United States to be the winner".  (Selah) 

The Inside Dope On Russian Hacking of the D N C

NOTHING LEFT TO ROLL

It's A Long Way to the Top  (AC DC)
Teenage Lobotomy (The Ramones)
Wang, Dang, Sweet Poontang (Ted Nugent)
Flashing Lights (Jimmy Page)
Well, All Right (Blind Faith)
Bitter Creek (Eagles)
Misfire (Queen)
The Great Smoke-off (Shell Silverstein) *
Xanado (Rush) 15 min approx
Rejoice (Jefferson Airplane) **
God Save the Queen (Sex Pistols)

Originally Released on Romulan Christmas January 7, 2017. This is the next day so wake up this Sunday morning and smell the Budweiser.  The dreaded Seattle Sea Hawks have defeated the Detroit Lions, or as Tweety Bird would say, "The Detwoit Wyons" by a score of 26 to 6.  You'll need more than sedation to get through these hard news times, you'll need a lobotomy, or just knock yourself in the head with a big rock and be unconscious all day- whichever is cheaper.  It's the King's birthday and I don't mean King Hussein of Jordan, but if you've been dead a couple of decades you won't know the difference.  The front photo is of Nancy Pelosi at a recent news conference. Title letters are yellow. This is a motley collections of songs, some which were on a November 2012 mini compilation. Basically it’s things that slipped through the cracks. “Misfire” takes on more relevance now because of yesterday’s shooting rampage.  *  This track kind of assumes that weed is legal so it's ahead of its time.  This track with the asterisk can actually also be found on one of our "Free Bonus Albums" that's a good one, too.  I ought to know because Tommy Ramone personally had a hand in selecting these songs.  It can be found in early August 2014 in "Rocca Rolla" down a few segments from the top.  Management decided to "bring this track forward", as it's referred to.  ** This Grace Slick penned song is an "add back" from the "Radar Screen" era and stylistically it's way ahead of the learning curve.  In late news the Raiders went down to defeat before the Houston Texans 27 to 14.  The Raiders looked horrible and they have fallen apart the past couple of games.  It's a sad ending for a season which up till lately seemed so promising.

HERE IS YESTERDAY'S "OFFICIAL" REPORT ON RUSSIAN HACKING
  The Intelligence Community on Friday published its hotly anticipated report documenting its probe into Russian interference in the U.S. election.

The crux: Intelligence officials have assessed that Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered a sweeping, multifaceted campaign geared at helping Donald Trump attain the White House.

The fallout was swift, with Democrats claiming the document proves that the Kremlin was able to damage Hillary Clinton’s campaign — perhaps fatally — and Republicans insisting that there was no impact on the final vote count in November.

The report is unlikely to resolve the roiling controversy surrounding the IC’s assessment. A declassified version of a more granular document provided to President Obama and some lawmakers, it is primarily made up of already public information and provides no “smoking gun” or detailed technical evidence.

Here are some key findings from the report:

Russia wanted to help Trump win

What began as an influence campaign to undermine trust in the U.S. election results became an explicit attempt to help Trump, officials found.

“Russia’s goals were to undermine public faith in the U.S. democratic process, denigrate Secretary [Hillary] Clinton, and harm her electability and potential presidency. We further assess Putin and the Russian Government developed a clear preference for President-elect Trump,” the report reads.

“We also assess Putin and the Russian Government aspired to help President-elect Trump’s election chances when possible by discrediting Secretary Clinton and publicly contrasting her unfavorably to him.”

There is some level of minor disagreement among intelligence agencies as to the strength of its judgment that Russia intended to help Trump.

The CIA and FBI have high confidence in the judgment, while the National Security Agency has moderate confidence, the report acknowledges.

Putin, top officials were behind the operation

The order to conduct the campaign came from the highest echelons of the Kremlin, the report concludes.

“We assess Russian President Vladimir Putin ordered an influence campaign in 2016 aimed at the U.S. presidential election,” officials wrote.

According to the document, Putin most likely wanted to discredit Clinton, the Democratic presidential nominee, because “he has publicly blamed her since 2011 for inciting mass protests against his regime in late 2011 and early 2012, and because he holds a grudge for comments he almost certainly saw as disparaging him.”

But the former KGB agent saw Trump, on the other hand, as having “Russia-friendly positions on Syria and Ukraine” and approved of his stated policy to work with Russia.

Moscow also reportedly saw the election of Trump as “a way to achieve an international counterterrorism coalition” against the Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS).

Russia had sustained access to the DNC’s system

The report found that Russian hackers maintained access to the Democratic National Committee’s (DNC) systems for nearly a year from July 2015 to June 2016.

That largely tracks with previous reporting. According to an exhaustive New York Times investigation published in December, the FBI first attempted to notify the DNC of the intrusion in September 2015 — two months after the Russians are believed to have gained access.

The Times found that the FBI tried several times in the following months to warn the DNC about the intrusion, and in November alerted a tech staffer there that information from the headquarters was being transmitted to Russia in what appeared to be a state-sponsored attack.

The report also states that Russia’s operation to interfere with the election began in March 2016, and hackers had stolen mass troves of emails from Democratic officials by May, which is when WikiLeaks first began publishing the DNC messages.

While Russian hackers never tampered with vote tallying systems, they did breach multiple aspects of state and local electoral boards, the report said. Russian intelligence has been studying the U.S. election process and technology since 2014.

Russian intel had a web of ways to make the documents public

The Russian operation used a variety of outlets to leak the documents that they stole to undermine Clinton and the Democratic Party.

“We assess with high confidence that the [Russian intelligence agency] GRU used the Guccifer 2.0 persona, DCLeaks.com, and WikiLeaks to release US victim data obtained in cyber operations publicly and in exclusives to media outlets,” the report reads.

Julian Assange, the head of WikiLeaks, has denied that his organization’s documents originated from Russian sources.

“Moscow most likely chose WikiLeaks because of its self-proclaimed reputation for authenticity,” the report says.

Guccifer 2.0, a hacker or group of hackers that also released Democratic documents, claimed in communications with various journalists to not be from Russia.

In an interview with Vice, the individual claimed to be from Romania, but could not converse in Romanian.

“Guccifer 2.0, who claimed to be an independent Romanian hacker, made multiple contradictory statements and false claims about his likely Russian identity throughout the election,” reads the report. “Press reporting suggests more than one person claiming to be Guccifer 2.0 interacted with journalists.”

Propaganda machine went after Clinton

The Kremlin used its powerful propaganda machine — including domestic media companies and publications like RT and Sputnik that target overseas audiences — to delegitimize the Clinton campaign.

They pushed out English-language videos like one headlined “Clinton and ISIS Funded with the Same Money” and promoted the idea that WikiLeaks was in possession of an email that would “put Clinton in Prison.”

“In August, Kremlin-linked political analysts suggested avenging negative Western reports on Putin by airing segments devoted to Secretary Clinton’s alleged health problems,” said the report, which describes Clinton’s health as a focal point of Russia’s efforts.

The Kremlin also leveraged an army of social media “trolls,” allowing it to amplify the reach of negative stories and fake news about Clinton. Such online users also amplified the role of WikiLeaks in the election.

If Clinton had won, Russian bloggers and trolls were ready to work to undermine her election, including a prepared hashtag: #Democracy RIP.