Actual Craigslist ad:
People are funny.
This post is in: Clown Shoes
by Betty Cracker| 163 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Politics, Republican Stupidity, Russiagate, Trump-Russia, Assholes, General Stupidity
Here’s a shocker via CBS News:
White House officials have been looking into whether $500 million in loans that went to Trump administration senior adviser Jared Kushner’s family real estate company may have spurred ethics or criminal law violations, according to the head of the federal government’s ethics agency.
David J. Apol, acting director of the Office of Government Ethics, said in a letter sent late last week to Rep. Raja Krishnamoorthi that the White House Counsel’s office told him that officials were probing the loans to Kushner Cos. and whether “additional procedures are necessary to avoid violations in the future…”
In a statement from Kushner attorney Abbe Lowell to CBS News early Tuesday, Lowell says he confirms White House counsel has concluded there were “no issues involving Jared.”
Pay no attention to the feathers littering the floor of the coop, ladies and gents — the fox has assured us that all is well in the hen house.
But while the Trumps might be devouring Uncle Sam’s choice poultry, the Trumps themselves are seen as fat, slow-moving pullets by a far more ruthless predator. Via TPM:
By all evidence President Trump had to be pushed to sign off on this expulsion of Russian diplomats/spies. Reports also say that Trump refused to commit to the expulsion until he saw that other European allies committing first. Both domestically and internationally, Trump seems to have been faced by a fait accompli. All that said, he did sign off on a major expulsion. Yet note that Russia appears to be placing the blame on the United States and President Trump…
President Trump has been extremely accommodating toward Russia and lavish in his praise and defense of Vladimir Putin. It has not been reciprocated. Russia has continued with a series of aggressive buzzing of US navy ships, particularly in the seas north of Europe. Putin gave that wild speech about new nuclear missiles that could obliterate Florida and could overwhelm any missile defense (we’ve known both are true for like half a century). Trump’s toadying has been met with provocations and what can only be called trolling, though perhaps that’s not yet part of international relations jargon.
Trump’s too dumb and vain to realize he’s being serially humiliated by Putin, but the rest of the world sees it. Hard to see how this ends well.
Open thread.
Fox Investigates Hen House Malfeasance, Finds “No Issues”Post + Comments (163)
by Adam L Silverman| 232 Comments
This post is in: America, Domestic Politics, Election 2016, Foreign Affairs, Open Threads, Silverman on Security, All Too Normal
HUGE scoop by @JasonLeopold: Christopher Steele, who wrote the Trump dossier, provided a secret report to the FBI asserting that RT founder Mikhail Lesin was murdered “by thugs hired by an oligarch close to Putin.” https://t.co/by6hAQ02KW
— Jane Bradley (@jane__bradley) March 27, 2018
Buzzfeed has the details on the service that retired MI6 senior intelligence officer Christopher Steele continues to provide. Right now an aide is trying to secure Senator Grassley’s twitter feed, another is trying to find a fainting couch for Senator Graham, and a third is hiding Congressman Gaetz car keys…
The FBI possesses a secret report asserting that Vladimir Putin’s former media czar was beaten to death by hired thugs in Washington, DC — directly contradicting the US government’s official finding that Mikhail Lesin died by accident.
The report, according to four sources who have read all or parts of it, was written by the former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele, who also wrote the famous dossier alleging that Russia had been “cultivating, supporting and assisting” Donald Trump. The bureau received his report while it was helping the Washington, DC, Metropolitan Police Department investigate the Russian media baron’s death, the sources said.
FBI spokesperson Andrew Ames declined to confirm or deny the existence of the report and would not comment for this story. Steele’s business partner, Chris Burrows, declined to comment on behalf of Steele and their company, Orbis Business Intelligence.
The BuzzFeed News series also revealed new details about Lesin — including that he died on the eve of a scheduled meeting with US Justice Department officials. They had planned to interview Lesin about the inner workings of RT, the Kremlin-funded network that he founded.
Now BuzzFeed News has established:
- Steele’s report says that Lesin was bludgeoned to death by enforcers working for an oligarch close to Putin, the four sources said.
- The thugs had been instructed to beat Lesin, not kill him, but they went too far, the sources said Steele wrote.
- Three of the sources said that the report described the killers as Russian state security agents moonlighting for the oligarch.
- The Steele report is not the FBI’s only source for this account of Lesin’s death: Three other people, acting independently from Steele, said they also told the FBI that Lesin had been bludgeoned to death by enforcers working for the same oligarch named by Steele.
Much more at the link.
If Steele’s report, as well as the FBI’s other sources regarding Lesin’s death, are borne out, we will have a confirmed case of Russian wetwork on US soil. Specifically intended to prevent a potential confidential informant of providing significant counterintelligence information pertaining to Russia’s active measures to the FBI. That the death was unintentional because the Russian agents who administered the beating were bad at their jobs is actually inconsequential. While the result may provide Putin with some mild embarrassment that the Russian government will deny any involvement in, the deterrent effect is this the same: turn on Putin and you and/or your loved ones will be killed.
It is also going to cause a significant problem for whoever was involved in trying to cover it up. From the same Buzzfeed article:
But Steele’s report — the existence of which has never before been made public — adds to a mounting body of evidence that casts doubt on the official finding on Lesin’s death. “What I can tell you is that there isn’t a single person inside the bureau who believes this guy got drunk, fell down, and died,” an FBI agent told BuzzFeed News last year. “Everyone thinks he was whacked and that Putin or the Kremlin were behind it.”
In December, DC police released 58 pages of its case file on Lesin’s death. While many parts are blacked out, what was released says nothing about the blunt force injuries that killed Lesin — or even about him falling down, which is how he is supposed to have died.
Steele’s report on Lesin’s murder, and the Buzzfeed reporting about it, raise significant questions:
Until we get answers to those questions, the revelations about this additional Steele report are interesting, but still only provide us with a partial understanding of the events surrounding Lesin’s murder, his autopsy, the investigation into his death, and the official accounting of those events.
Updated at 1:45 PM EDT
I just want to take a moment and add this portion of Buzzfeed’s reporting:
For his report to the FBI about Lesin, Steele gathered intelligence from high-level sources in Moscow, according to the two sources who read the whole report.
All four of the people who read Steele’s report said it pins Lesin’s murder on a professional relationship gone lethally awry. According to the report, they said, Lesin fell out with a powerful oligarch close to Putin. Wanting to intimidate Lesin, the oligarch then contracted with Russian state security agents to beat up Lesin, the report states, according to three of the sources. The goal was not to kill Lesin, all four sources said Steele wrote, but Lesin died from the attack.
The sources could not recall what, if anything, the report said about whether Putin knew of or sanctioned the attack.
Three other individuals, including a business associate of Lesin and two intelligence officials, told BuzzFeed News that they had independently given the FBI similar information: that Lesin had been bludgeoned to death by thugs operating on orders from the same oligarch Steele named.
I specifically want to highlight that three of Steele’s four high level sources indicate that the oligarch that Lesin crossed contracted with “Russian state security agents to beat up Lesin”. Given that the report indicates that the oligarch that Lesin had gotten crosswise with is close to Putin, and given how we know Putin runs Russia, it would be hard to believe that “Russian state security agents” that were contracted to do the op were doing so without Putin at least knowing about the operation, if not approving it.
Stay frosty!
Open thread.
Follow The Trail Of Dead Russian Bodies!Post + Comments (232)
This post is in: Gun nuts
This piece in the WaPO about the neo-Nazi who shot his girlfriend’s parents is horrifying. I honestly feel bad for his mother, but once again, an unsecured weapon was in play.
by Alain Chamot (1971-2020)| 16 Comments
This post is in: Open Threads, Previous Site Maintenance
An issue with RSS was found that affected Feedly users. I need to c0mtact their support but there is no way without being a Pro member. So, can a Pro member use the c0ntact form and let me know who you are? I’ll email you some text to submit.
Now, for other RSS reader/service users, please let me know what the name of it is so we can look to see if they’ve been being blocked for similar reasons.
Open Thread!
This post is in: Meetups and social events, Readership Capture
From commentor and party-planner Dog Mom:
I am looking forward to the meet ups and will call the pubs with a rough count and appropriate warning.
Rochester – Wednesday, March 28 at 5:30 at Tap and Mallet (South Wedge)
I am planning on attending both this and next week’s meet-up in Buffalo, and will bring the
greenturquoise balloon (that’s what the store had).From the prior posts, I will look out for:
MisterMix
Tarragon
Athenaze and spouse
Pika
Geeno
Nancy and spouse?
Old Dan and Little Anne
Zamphuor and SO (hoping to make it)
Kevin (are you still in the area?)
DougJ (not confirmed)
As always, lurkers, friends, and drop-ins welcome. Leave a comment below, or send me a message at annelaurie (dot) bj (at) gmail (dot) com, and I’ll forward it.
Reminder: Rochester Meet-Up Tomorrow — Wednesday 3/28Post + Comments (6)
This post is in: Anderson On Health Insurance
Last week, Emma Sandoe and I wrote in the Health Affairs blog an outline on how to think about evaluating Medicaid buy-in proposals. We thought that as the primary season is opening up and the chaos in the individual market, that more states will start thinking about Medicaid buy-in options for the individual market. From here, the most critical thing in evaluating a Medicaid buy-in proposal is identifying what the sponsors are seeking to achieve with such a proposal. We think there are several goals that could be achieved via a Medicaid buy-in. Some of these goals may be in opposition to each other.
The key challenge to evaluate any buy-in proposal is figuring out what it is trying to do. Once that is identified, the evaluation is fairly straightforward but if you are an advocate, please press your representatives to clearly articulate the problem that they are trying to solve with this policy. That is just good advice in general.