Month: March 2018

EPA chief’s security detail on Italy trip cost $30,000: document

Reuters

EPA chief’s security detail on Italy trip cost $30,000: document

Reuters      March 20, 2018 

                                FILE PHOTO: Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) Administrator Scott Pruitt attends during a summit of Environment ministers from the G7 group of industrialized nations in Bologna, Italy, June11, 2017. REUTERS/Max Rossi

(Reuters) – The U.S. government spent over $30,000 on personal security for Environmental Protection Agency chief Scott Pruitt during his trip last year to Italy, according to documents obtained by a watchdog group that said the spending was irresponsible at a time of budget cuts.

According to the document, obtained by the Environmental Integrity Project through a Freedom of Information Act request and shown to Reuters, Pruitt’s personal security detail racked up $30,553.88 in travel costs from June 5 through June 12, 2017, when Pruitt was in Italy for meetings at the Vatican and to attend a summit of foreign energy ministers.

Previous documents released by EIP showed the cost of Pruitt’s trip to Italy at $43,000, not including the security detail. The new documents, which include airfare and expenses for Pruitt, his career and political staff, and his security detail, put the cost over $80,000, EIP calculated.

“Mr. Pruitt’s trip to Rome last summer cost the taxpayers over $84,000,” said Eric Schaeffer, EIP’s director. “That’s a lot of money for Mr. Pruitt to tour the Vatican, pose for photos, and tell his European counterparts that global warming doesn’t matter,” he said.

Spending by top officials in the Trump administration has come under more scrutiny by critics at a time when federal agencies have been making sharp budget cuts. Lawmakers have also criticized Pruitt for frequently flying first-class, and for spending tens of thousands of dollars on a secure sound-proof telephone booth for his office.

EPA spokesman Jahan Wilcox said the security detail “followed the same procedures for the G7 environmental meeting in Italy that were used during EPA Administrators Stephen Johnson, Lisa Jackson, and Gina McCarthy’s trips to Italy. EPA’s security procedures have not deviated over the past 14 years.”

It was unclear from looking at the document how many members were in the security detail, and no breakdown of the spending was provided.

EIP has been critical of Pruitt’s statements questioning the causes of global climate change and his efforts to roll back environmental protections.

EPA has said Pruitt has flown first-class as a security measure, and that the administrator does not make decisions relating to his security detail.

(Reporting by Valerie Volcovici; Writing by Richard Valdmanis; Editing by David Gregorio)

Baseball’s ‘wannabe environmentalist’ thrives with a fastball that doesn’t have any gas

Yahoo Sports

Baseball’s ‘wannabe environmentalist’ thrives with a fastball that doesn’t have any gas

Jeff Passan, Yahoo Sports     March 13, 2018

MARYVALE, Ariz. – Of all the questions that distressed Brent Suter before the Milwaukee Brewers summoned him to the major leagues in 2016 – how his 85-mph fastball would play against the world’s finest hitters or how the rigors of big league life would suit him – only one vexed him enough to ask his Triple-A teammates: Could he bring his food tray?

Suter reached into his locker last week at the Brewers’ spring-training complex and pulled out Smart Planet’s collapsible Eco Meal Kit. He showed how its silicone bottom expanded and raved about the recyclable plastic fork-spoon combination that snapped into the cover. When his teammates tuck into pre- and post-game meals on Styrofoam plates, Suter opts for old reliable: the same reusable container that accompanies him from city to big league city.

“I’m a wannabe environmentalist,” Suter said, and in the world of Major League Baseball, populated disproportionately by conservatives compared to conservationists, the concerns over an $11 food tray were palpable. Suter, a Harvard graduate, didn’t want to paint a picture of himself any stuffier than the one his degree might.

He was, after all, a 31st-round draft pick who had ascended the Brewers’ organization on guile, deception and a fastball that, staying completely on brand, performed without gas. When he was drafted, Suter put on hold plans to join Teach for America, and over the next five years, he pitched too well for the Brewers to keep overlooking him. So up he and his tray came in 2016, and each has proven itself worthwhile ever since, with a 3.40 ERA in 103 1/3 innings and a likely starting rotation spot this season.

Suter’s interest in the environment started early in high school, when his mother rented “An Inconvenient Truth.” He started carrying a water bottle to lessen his use of plastic. He showered for 40 seconds or so on average. He studied environmental science and public policy in college and figured eventually he would wind up consulting companies on how to get greener. Last season, cognizant of farming’s harm to the environment, Suter stopped eating meat midseason. A rotator-cuff strain ended that experiment.

“I had to go back on meat,” Suter said. “Tough decision.”

Suter’s teammates do about everything that would be expected in a baseball clubhouse. He is called a tree hugger. Brewers starter Chase Anderson, a Trump supporter, occasionally refers to Suter as “Hillary.” In Suter’s rookie year, before hazing was outlawed, he wore a cheerleader’s outfit that was amended to note his love of recycling.

Milwaukee Brewers starting pitcher Brent Suter delivers in the first inning of a baseball game against the Pittsburgh Pirates, Monday, Sept. 18, 2017 in Pittsburgh. (AP)

“I’ve had teammates who just look at me and drop napkins in the trash,” Suter said. “And I go, ‘Noooo!’ And then I’ve had teammates who turn on an extra shower.”

What may surprise is that Suter also had teammates who love engaging with him in the sort of civil discourse that barely exists anymore. Over coffee and omelets, Suter, Anderson and minor leaguers Jon Perrin and Kyle Wren will discuss the environment, politics, philosophy, religion. Sometimes it’s the news of the day. Others it’s whatever they’re reading.

“This is one of the last places where you can talk openly about your background, what your beliefs are, have conversations with people from totally different backgrounds and even if you disagree, at the end of the day you still can be friends,” said Wren, a teammate of Suter’s for three years. “You’re still going out on the field and playing for each other. And I think that’s something our society has gotten away from. Just because you disagree doesn’t mean you can’t like each other.”

Currently, Wren is reading “The Moral Case for Fossil Fuels,” and he sent a picture of the book’s cover to Suter, who responded with an upside-down smiley-face emoji. Even if Wren finds himself the near-ideological opposite of Suter when it comes to the environment – he acknowledges climate change but doesn’t believe its dangers are imminent – their conversations stir something the game may not.

“When that cognitive dissonance hits you and you’re fighting it because it runs in conflict to your own beliefs,” Wren said, “I think that makes the world a better place.”

Wren has seen Suter’s influence first-hand. As he did at all of his previous minor league stops, Suter in 2016 offered to buy his teammates food trays. About 10 took him up on the offer, and half used them for the rest of the season.

“In the real world, just him doing that one thing, is he making a difference? It’s probably negligible,” Wren said. “But he’s principled. And I can respect the fact that he believes a certain thing enough to bring a recyclable lunch tray to the field. He says something about his life and lives it out.

“Even if he influences 30 people over the course of his life, that’s a lot of lives he’s changed. It can create a lot of exponential growth from his one decision to carry this lunch tray.”

The conversations invigorate Suter likewise, and the more time he spends in the major leagues, the likelier he’ll be to expand them to a broader audience. Baseball enforces a pecking order that tends to keep the most outspoken voices silent until success turns off the mute button.

“I love it so much,” Suter said. “I really enjoy the debates. We don’t attack each other or get personal. We just have our opinions and respect each other’s points.”

So when they go deep, Suter talks about the importance of water bottles: “They can save a ton of CO2.” He advocates for composting: “Not only is it good for the earth, but when you have food waste, you feel like it’s going to something good.” He encourages people to take shorter showers (while realizing the futility of this inside a postgame clubhouse). At very least, he says, don’t use running water while shaving.

The best, Wren said, came in 2016. It was so good that he screenshotted it for posterity. After he switched phones, the picture didn’t transfer over, but Wren swears that one day, out of nowhere, Suter sent him a text message that may sound farcical but was completely sincere and perfectly earnest.

“Hey,” Suter wrote, “you wanna go plant some trees today?”

Federal judge doesn’t hold back on Kris Kobach’s deceit of Kansas voters

ThinkProgress

Federal judge doesn’t hold back on Kris Kobach’s deceit of Kansas voters

“You are under ethical obligation to tell me the truth,” the judge said. “That’s why lawyers are licensed.”

By Kira Lerner      March 20, 2018

Kansas Secretary of State, Kris Kobach (left) and U.S. Vice President Mike Pence, attend the first meeting of the presidential advisory commission on election integrity in the Eisenhower Executive office building, on July 19, 2017 in Washington, DC. Credit: Photo by Mark Wilson/Getty Images

A Kansas federal judge had sharp words for Republican Secretary of State Kris Kobach during a contempt hearing Tuesday, accusing him of misleading the court and failing to inform voters whose registrations were previously suspended that they are eligible to vote.

In May 2016, Judge Julie Robinson issued a preliminary injunction ordering Kobach “to register for federal elections all otherwise eligible motor voter registration applicants,” whether or not they have shown a documentary proof of citizenship. The American Civil Liberties Union, which filed the lawsuit challenging Kobach’s proof of citizenship law, argued that Kobach was failing to add voters to the rolls, making eligible voters cast provisional ballots, and failing to send voters affected by the preliminary injunction a postcard that would notify them of their registration status.

After seven days of trial, the court held a hearing on contempt Tuesday in which Judge Robinson repeatedly chastised Kobach when he argued that he did not violate the order.

“You have a duty to tell them that and to assure me that they complied,” the judge told Kobach about his obligation to tell counties to register all eligible voters. “It’s your duty to make sure they do what they are supposed to do and abide by the law.”

Bryan Lowry: Judge tells Kobach he had no problem making sure counties adhered to his proof of citizenship policy, but not her order. #ksleg #ACLUvKobach

In a telephone conference in October 2016, roughly five months after the injunction, Kobach made a verbal promise that counties would send postcards to voters who had previously been on the suspense list for not showing proof of citizenship, but became registered because of the court’s order, informing them of their registration status.

In court Tuesday, Kobach and his attorneys claimed the judge never ordered them to send those postcards to voters, but the judge didn’t buy that argument.

“Why would I order something you told me you’d take care of?” the judge said, according to ProPublica’s Jessica Huseman, who was in the courtroom. “You are under ethical obligation to tell me the truth… that’s why lawyers are licensed.”

At another point, Kobach grew exasperated, telling Judge Robinson: “I certainly would have no interest in failing to comply with any court’s order.” Last June, the court upheld a $1,000 fine against Kobach for intentionally misleading the court about a document he was photographed carrying into a November 2016 meeting with Trump.

In its motion for contempt, the ACLU had previously argued that Kobach’s violation of the preliminary injunction was already affecting elections.

“These are not merely technical violations of the order; they have real consequences for all affected Kansans,” the ACLU wrote. “The refusal to register the plaintiffs deprives them of the most basic protections afforded to registered voters… Because of the Secretary’s defiance of the Order, covered voters have received no assurance that they may participate in the upcoming election or that their votes will be counted.”

The ACLU claimed that Kobach’s actions could have a “chilling effect,” suppressing turnout in upcoming elections.

“It’s an election year this year, and there’s no more time for games,” Dale Ho, lead attorney for the ACLU, told the judge Tuesday.

Kobach helped draft and enact the documentary proof of citizenship law, which took effect in January 2013, requiring all Kansas residents to show a document like a birth certificate or passport when they registered to vote. The law was in place for more than three years until the court issued the preliminary injunction order before the 2016 presidential election.

The contempt hearing came on the eighth day of a trial that was originally supposed to last just four days, but ended up stretching for far longer because Kobach’s legal team struggled to cross-examine witnesses and follow basic rules of evidence. At the start of Tuesday’s hearing, Ho apologized to the judge for having to address the motion for contempt.

Celia Llopis-Jepsen: ACLU (Dale Ho): Apologizes to judge to spend time on this. Says Kobach could have very easily complied with judge’s preliminary injunction, but he failed to update the online elections manual & to send postcards to voters with info including their polling place. #ACLUvKobach

Ho told the judge that Kobach is refusing to update the online elections manual until the U.S. Supreme Court issues a final judgement on this case, which could take years. “Incorrect information is continually distributed to the general public,” he said.

Sue Becker, an attorney for Kobach, claimed that the secretary of state’s office put the required information on its website and emailed counties with the notice to begin registering voters without documentary proof of citizenship. If individual counties misunderstood the directive, Becker argued, it was not Kobach’s fault.

Judge Robinson said she was not going to take Becker’s word that her office sent notices to the counties. “You’re going to present evidence to that effect or am I supposed to accept your statement?” she said. “I want evidence… In light of everything that’s happened.”

“You all have engaged in gamesmanship with this court,” she said.

Later in the hearing, Kansas Director of Elections Bryan Caskey testified that the state was equipped to register all eligible voters before the 2018 election. But during cross-examination, Caskey admitted to failures by the state in the past.

Bryan Lowry: Judge gets Caskey to definitively say that he does not remember Kobach telling him to tell the counties to send out postcards to these voters. #ksleg #ACLUvKobach

At the end of the hearing Tuesday, Judge Robinson said she will issue a written opinion in the case and on the motion for contempt — the second time the ACLU has sought to hold Kobach in contempt in this trial. Kobach has already indicated his intentions to appeal an unfavorable ruling to the U.S. Supreme Court.

Related:

Republi-con Voter Supression

HuffPost

Kris Kobach Really, Really Did Not Want You To See This Deposition. Read It Here.

Sam Levine, HuffPost      March 19, 2018

The morning after Donald Trump was elected President, Kansas Secretary of State Kris Kobach (R) wrote to an adviser on the president-elect’s transition team and told him that he had already started drafting a preliminary amendment to federal voting law. The amendment would alter the 1993 National Voter Registration Act (NVRA) to make it acceptable for states to ask people to prove they were citizens when they went to register to vote at a motor vehicle agency.

A few weeks later, Kobach traveled to Bedminster, New Jersey, to meet personally with Trump and some of his top advisers. As he was going into the meeting, Kobach was photographed holding a memo outlining a proposal for actions during the first year of Trump’s Department of Homeland Security. The 23rd item on the page, at the bottom of the memo, suggests amending NVRA to allow states to impose a proof of citizenship requirement.

As Kobach defends Kansas’ own proof of citizenship requirement, he has fought hard to block the public release of both the memo and his draft to NVRA. He has also fought having to answer questions under oath about both.

Those efforts were largely unsuccessful, as both a federal district court and the 10th Circuit Court of Appeals said he had to answer questions about them. Kobach sat for an hourlong deposition with the ACLU lawyers suing him last summer, a tape of which was played during trial in Kansas City earlier this month. A partially redacted transcript of that deposition provides a unique insight into Kobach’s conversations with Trump and efforts to change federal voting law to allow states to provide proof of citizenship.

In the deposition, Kobach says that his proposal to amend NVRA was merely a “contingency” should he lose the lawsuit against the ACLU. He said he broadly discussed the issue of noncitizens voting with Trump ― who began tweeting that illegal votes cost him the popular vote shortly after his meeting with Kobach ― but did not come up with a specific plan to impose a proof of citizenship requirement. He also said they talked about ways to incentivize states to impose a proof of citizenship requirement and that he had discussed introducing legislation to amend NVRA with Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) should he lose the case against the ACLU.

Read the full deposition here:

Kris Kobach Fish v. Kobach redacted deposition (PDF)
Kris Kobach Fish v. Kobach redacted deposition (Text)

Trump wants to eliminate after school programs.

Anderson Cooper 360

March 17, 2018

The White House claims there is no evidence that after-school programs help children succeed. http://cnn.it/2n7APhF

The White House claims there is no evidence that after-school programs help children succeed. http://cnn.it/2n7APhF

Posted by Anderson Cooper 360 on Friday, March 17, 2017

We have found the cure for trump

Occupy Democrats

March 13, 2018

Share the great news!

Video by Sam Friedlander: https://www.facebook.com/sam.friedlander
Shared by Occupy Democrats.

We have found the CURE for Trump

Share the great news!Video by Sam Friedlander: https://www.facebook.com/sam.friedlanderShared by Occupy Democrats.

Posted by Occupy Democrats on Monday, March 13, 2017

More children have been killed by guns since Sandy Hook than U.S. soldiers in combat since 9/11

Newsweek

More children have been killed by guns since Sandy Hook than U.S. soldiers in combat since 9/11

By Ryan Sit      March 16, 2018

The number of children killed by gunfire in the U.S. since the 2012 mass shooting at Sandy Hook Elementary School in Newtown, Connecticut, surpasses the total of American soldiers killed in overseas combat since 9/11, according to a Department of Defense report.

The report accounts for total deaths in the five military operations since the war on terror began following the September 11, 2001 attacks through 10 a.m. EST Thursday, March 15. Over 17 years of combat, the U.S. has lost 6,929 soldiers. Including Department of Defense civilians killed overseas, that number grows to 6,950.

In the five years and three months since the December 14, 2012 massacre at Sandy Hook in Newtown, Connecticut, when 20-year-old Adam Lanza killed 20 first graders and six adults with an AR-15-style rifle, about 7,000 children have died by gunfire. Though the exact figure is unclear, it rivals the tally of U.S. military deaths overseas—in 11 fewer years.

An analysis of gun-related deaths among children and a new report by the Department of Defense shows that more kids have been killed by gunfire since the Sandy Hook massacre than the number of U.S. soldiers killed overseas since 9/11.DAVID MCNEW/GETTY IMAGES

On Tuesday, a global activist group placed 7,000 pairs of empty shoes outside the Capitol building—one pair for each child killed by a gun since Sandy Hook. The group, Avaaz, arrived at that figure based of an American Academy of Pediatrics report, which said about 1,300 children are killed by guns every year.

Related: Kids and guns: Here’s how easy it is for children to get their hands on a firearm

At that rate, the number of children killed by guns since Newtown would be about 6,825. But an analysis by the fact-checking site Snopes of the the Center for Disease Control and Prevention data—which the American Academy Pediatrics cited in its report—found that this figure may be low.

According to Snopes, a review of deaths for children 17 or younger for years 2013 to 2016 (2017 was not yet available), found 5,683 firearms-related deaths, or an average of 1,421 per year. Extrapolated over the five-year and three-month period, the tally is about 7,460, Snopes found.

What Happens Now That McCabe Is Fired? Consider These Five Things.

Esquire

What Happens Now That McCabe Is Fired? Consider These Five Things.

We appear to be experiencing a slow-motion “Saturday Night Massacre.”

 By Andrew Cohen     March 19, 2018

Shutterstock

By now, this much is clear: comparing our current constitutional “crisis” to Watergate only gets one so far. President Trump is far better situated to withstand the legal charges against him than President Nixon was four decades ago. That’s true even if, as some believe, the allegations against Trump and his people may be more pervasive than those swirling around Nixon and his crew before the latter resigned in disgrace. From Congress to the courts to the media, the institutional forces that checked Nixon’s power are far weaker today than they were in 1973 and 1974.

Count me among those who believe we are not yet at a “crisis,” but are witnessing instead a form of slow-motion “Saturday Night Massacre”—a rolling devolution in norms and standards, the latest iteration of which we endured Friday night when an attorney general who might be indicted himself for false statements fired a former FBI deputy director for reportedly lacking “candor.”

“Constitutional rot” is what we are supposed to call what is happening, and that’s as evocative a phrase as any, I guess. Trump ultimately destroys all he touches (especially the truth) and he’s trying to destroy what we thought we all agreed on about constitutional checks and balances.

Getty Images

So here are five quick things to ponder about the firing of Andrew McCabe, and what may be coming next, as we gear up for the start yet another “Infrastructure Week” with a raging and vengeful president prowling the White House, fending off porn star allegations, railing against Special Counsel Robert Mueller, and otherwise devaluing the office of the presidency.

If Michael Horowitz is in the tank for Trump, the Justice Department is in even worse shape than we think it is.

In my dealings with the Inspector General over the years, I have found him to be an honorable, earnest public servant. Horowitz is a professional and not a partisan, which is why so many journalists, academics, and law enforcement specialists over the weekend urged caution about prejudging the merits of the report Attorney General Jeff Sessions used to justify McCabe’s firing. If Horowitz is feeling undue pressure from Sessions or the president, I am confident he would do something about it. If he’s become a Trump toady, I’d be shocked, and worried.

McCabe was cooperating with the Mueller probe before he was fired.

The special counsel has had those “contemporaneous notes” McCabe took about the Comey firing for a while now, so it’s not as though McCabe suddenly became a key witness in the investigation once Sessions fired him. McCabe’s testimony will not be altered by his sudden defenestration at the FBI. Trump knows this, which is why he is doing the only other thing he can do: attempt to undermine McCabe’s credibility. Who do you think Mueller believes more? Comey and McCabe and their contemporaneous notes, or Trump and Sessions? Trump understands this calculus, which is why the stronger the case against him gets, the more unhinged are his attacks on Mueller.

Getty Images

Sessions has made a mockery of his recusal.

The Justice Department argues that the attorney general’s recusal doesn’t extend to personnel matters, like firing the former deputy director of the FBI who was investigating the subject matter of the recusal, but as Ryan Goodman and others have noted, that’s terribly weak sauce. The other big Sessions news of the weekend is that the paragon of ethics in Washington may have lied to Congress, and perhaps as well to Mueller’s investigators, about his role in the dance between the Trump team and the Russians in 2016. That puts him squarely on the hook for criminal charges if Mueller is so inclined.

Congressional Republicans are largely remaining silent.

If Trump, Sessions, or Rosenstein fire Mueller, and Senate and House Republicans do nothing but wring their hands about it, will you really be surprised? The tepid response to McCabe’s firing from the GOP caucus, and the new questions surrounding Sessions’ credibility, and the president’s deranged Tweeting, are additional warning signs that we shouldn’t presume these people are going to step up and be honorable Americans when the moment comes. “Sounding the alarm”? Hardly. Sen. Rand Paul’s comment—“I wouldn’t advocate it”—when asked how he would react if Mueller were fired tells you what you need to know about the courage behind that “libertarian” vote on Capitol Hill.

Shutterstock

John Dowd, one of the president’s lawyers, deserves the client he has (and vice versa).

I know that journalists have to share with the world what the president’s lawyers say. I know that part of the story here is whether and to what extent the president himself is signaling things through the comments of his advocates. But John Dowd’s Saturday “prayer” for an end to the Mueller investigation is one of those moments that might have been better downplayed, or even ignored. Every defense lawyer in history has prayed for the end to a prosecutor’s investigation into a client’s misconduct. Pro tip? Apply the same amount of skepticism the next time you see a story about negotiations between Team Trump and Team Mueller over a presidential interview.

RELATED STORY

Here Are All the Details About Comey’s Memoir

Trump was going to name Gary Cohn head of the C.I.A. because, why not?

Vanity Fair

Trump was going to name Gary Cohn head of the C.I.A. because, why not?

A Wall Street executive with zero relevant experience? Hired!

By Bess Levin     March 19, 2018

Why not? By Alex Wong/Getty Images.

Fourteen months ago, the sentence “the Secretary of State has just learned he was fired via Twitter” probably seemed farfetched—maybe just slightly less ludicrous than the suggestion, by the president’s chief of staff, that the Cabinet official was warned of his imminent dismissal while on the can. But in Donald Trump’s world, where we all now reside, that‘s a totally normal set of events that actually happened. And now, we’ve learned that the situation was even more batshit behind the scenes, with the president apparently coming this close to making the sort of personnel decision that would’ve made tasking Ivanka with running the C.D.C. during an outbreak of the bubonic plague seem reasonable. Politico reports that before he decided he couldn’t take one more second working in the Trump administration, Gary Cohn was under strong consideration for the C.I.A. director job left vacant by Mike Pompeo, who’s set to replace Rex Tillerson at State. Yes, that Gary Cohn.

As National Economic Council director, ol’ Gar was more qualified than anyone working for Team Trump by a factor of 1,000. However, though he is many things—a former Goldman Sachs president, a shrewd trader, a guy who stands up for what he believes in (no indiscriminate tariffs!)—he also has zero background in national security. Appointing him to lead the Central Intelligence Agency would be like hiring me, your humble Levin Reportauteur, to perform brain surgery. Of course, to Trump, this made Cohn the perfect man for the job, by the same logic—you have no background for a job that requires a high level of expertise? You’re hired!—that probably informed decisions like the one to name Betsy “What are these things you call ‘books’?” DeVos education secretary and to reportedly consider firing scandal magnet David Shulkin at Veterans Affairs and replacing him with Rick “Where am I? Who am I?” Perry. According to reporters Eliana Johnson, Ben White, and Andrew Restuccia, Trump “informally offered Cohn the position, telling him he thought he’d be a good fit for the job, and Cohn agreed to take it.”

In the end, of course, the president decided to name Pompeo’s deputy, Torture Queen Gina Haspel, to the C.I.A. role instead, and Cohn decided to run as far away as physically possible from Idiot Island. And while it’s unclear why Trump changed his mind—it’s possible this was just another instance of him letting words tumble from his mouth at random and not actually ever intending to make good on what he said or, more likely, he was smitten by her role running one of the agency’s most brutal “black sites,”—the real kicker is that we probably would have slept better with the wholly unqualified Cohn at the helm:

James A. Goldston Tweeted: “We did call her Bloody Gina. Gina was always very quick and very willing to use force. Gina and people like Gina did it, I think, because they enjoyed doing it. They tortured just for the sake of torture, not for the sake of gathering information.” http://www.theamericanconservative.com/articles/gina-haspel-as-if-nuremberg-never-happened/ …

     Gina Haspel: As If Nuremberg Never Happened

Nothing will say more about who we are, across three American administrations—one that demanded torture, one that covered it up, and one that seeks to promote its bloody participants—than whethertheamericanconservative.com

Trump-linked Cambridge Analytica caught on camera boasting about bribing politicians

RawStory

BUSTED: Trump-linked Cambridge Analytica caught on camera boasting about bribing politicians

Brad Reed     March 19, 2018 

Alexander Nix (YouTube)

The United Kingdom’s Channel 4 News went undercover in Cambridge Analytica by having its reporters pose as prospective clients and caught its executives making multiple claims of illicit behavior.

“In an undercover investigation by Channel 4 News, the company’s chief executive Alexander Nix said the British firm secretly campaigns in elections across the world,” the station reports. “This includes operating through a web of shadowy front companies, or by using sub-contractors. In one exchange, when asked about digging up material on political opponents, Mr. Nix said they could ‘send some girls around to the candidate’s house,’ adding that Ukrainian girls ‘are very beautiful, I find that works very well.’”

Nix also talked about setting up their candidates’ political rivals by giving them bribes that they would record and release on the internet.

“We’ll offer a large amount of money to the candidate, to finance his campaign in exchange for land for instance, we’ll have the whole thing recorded, we’ll blank out the face of our guy and we post it on the Internet,” he said.

Cambridge Analytica didn’t use its own employees to entrap politicians, however, as Nix said in the exchanges that they prefer to hire third-party operatives to do the work for them.

Watch the entire bombshell report below.