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Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Surprise, Donald Trump's Budget Has a $2 Trillion Math Error
Surprise, Donald Trump's Budget Has a $2 Trillion Math Error

Or as Trump might say, they made a mistake, bigly. Jonathan Chait at New York Magazine lays it out.

One of the ways Donald Trump’s budget claims to balance the budget over a decade, without cutting defense or retirement spending, is to assume a $2 trillion increase in revenue through economic growth. This is the magic of the still-to-be-designed Trump tax cuts. But wait — if you recall, the magic of the Trump tax cuts is also supposed to pay for the Trump tax cuts. So the $2 trillion is a double-counting error.
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Zeph

Zeph

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Jan 22, 2015
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The brother of slain Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich wrote a letter on Tuesday to the executive producer of Sean Hannity's Fox News show pleading with him to find "decency and kindness" in his heart and stop spreading an unproven conspiracy theory about the unsolved murder.
"Think about how you would feel losing a son or brother. And while dealing with this, you had baseless accusations of your lost family member being part of a vast conspiracy," Aaron Rich wrote in the letter to "Hannity" executive producer Porter Berry, a copy of which was provided to CNN.

"As the family, we would hope to be the first people to learn about any such evidence and reasons for Seth's death," he added. "It is a travesty that you would prompt false conspiracy theories and other people's agendas rather than work with the family to learn the truth."

Rich was shot to death last July in the streets of Washington, DC. The Metropolitan Police Department continues to investigate the murder and police say there is evidence to suggest Rich was the victim of a botched robbery.

Seth Rich's brother pleads with Hannity to stop spreading conspiracy theory
 
Zeph

Zeph

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Jan 22, 2015
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SFO: Kim Dotcom's smoking gun email evidence was a 'forgery' - National - NZ Herald News
SFO: Kim Dotcom's smoking gun email evidence was a 'forgery'
5:59 PM Friday Mar 17, 2017

The email which Kim Dotcom claimed was proof of a conspiracy against him is a forgery, the Serious Fraud Office has said.

The Herald can today report for the first time that the SFO investigated the email, which emerged on the eve of the 2014 election claiming then-Prime Minister John Key was involved in a conspiracy to get Dotcom.

It is also a definite statement rejecting any possibility the email is genuine.

In a statement, the SFO said: "The SFO confirms that it carried out an investigation into this matter. As a result of that investigation, the SFO is satisfied that the email was a forgery."

Dotcom said today that he still believed the email to be genuine and was surprised the SFO was able to be so definite.

"I believe the email to be real," he said.

Unrelated to the Seth Rich case but Kim Dotcom is fabricating evidence for his own extradition case. Seems like a solid source.
 
Q

Qat

QoQ
Nov 3, 2015
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Zeph said:
SFO: Kim Dotcom's smoking gun email evidence was a 'forgery' - National - NZ Herald News
SFO: Kim Dotcom's smoking gun email evidence was a 'forgery'
5:59 PM Friday Mar 17, 2017

The email which Kim Dotcom claimed was proof of a conspiracy against him is a forgery, the Serious Fraud Office has said.

The Herald can today report for the first time that the SFO investigated the email, which emerged on the eve of the 2014 election claiming then-Prime Minister John Key was involved in a conspiracy to get Dotcom.

It is also a definite statement rejecting any possibility the email is genuine.

In a statement, the SFO said: "The SFO confirms that it carried out an investigation into this matter. As a result of that investigation, the SFO is satisfied that the email was a forgery."

Dotcom said today that he still believed the email to be genuine and was surprised the SFO was able to be so definite.

"I believe the email to be real," he said.

Unrelated to the Seth Rich case but Kim Dotcom is fabricating evidence for his own extradition case. Seems like a solid source.
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He is a known fraud in Germany since the 90s, and he kept doing it.
 
Zeph

Zeph

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Jan 22, 2015
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The Pentagon Can't Believe Trump Told Another President About Nuclear Subs Near North Korea
Pentagon officials are in shock after the release of a transcript between President Donald Trump and his Philippines counterpart reveals that the US military had moved two nuclear submarines towards North Korea

“We never talk about subs!” three officials told BuzzFeed News, referring to the military's belief that keeping submarines' movement stealth is key to their mission.

While the US military will frequently announce the deployment of aircraft carriers, it is far more careful when discussing the movement of nuclear submarines. Carriers are hard to miss, and that in part, is a reason the US military deploys them. They are a physical show of forces. Submarines are, at times, a furtive complement to the carriers, a hard-to-detect means of strategic deterrence.
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Zeph

Zeph

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Jan 22, 2015
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Trump Called Rodrigo Duterte to Congratulate Him on His Murderous Drug War: “You Are Doing an Amazing Job”
In a phone call from the White House late last month, U.S. President Donald Trump heaped praise on Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte, one of the world’s most murderous heads of state, for doing what Trump called an “unbelievable job” in his war on drugs. Trump offered an unqualified endorsement of Duterte’s bloody extermination campaign against suspected drug dealers and users, which has included open calls for extrajudicial murders and promises of pardons and immunity for the killers.

“You are a good man,” Trump told Duterte, according to an official transcript of the April 29 call produced by the Philippine Department of Foreign Affairs and obtained by The Intercept. “Keep up the good work,” Trump told Duterte. “You are doing an amazing job.”

Trump began the call by telling Duterte, “You don’t sleep much, you’re just like me,” before quickly pivoting to the strongman’s drug war.

“I just wanted to congratulate you because I am hearing of the unbelievable job on the drug problem,” Trump told Duterte at the beginning of their call, according to the document. “Many countries have the problem, we have a problem, but what a great job you are doing and I just wanted to call and tell you that.”
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Zeph

Zeph

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Jan 22, 2015
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Since taking office on June 30, 2016, Philippine President Rodrigo Duterte has launched an abusive “war on drugs” that has resulted in the deaths of more than 6,000 Filipinos to date, the vast majority poor urban slum dwellers. The Philippine National Police’s own data indicates that police killed at least 2,250 “suspected drug personalities” from July 2016 to January 2017, with an additional 3,600 alleged drug users and dealers killed by “unidentified gunmen.” Police Director-General Ronald dela Rosa has characterized the killings as proof of an “uncompromising” approach to drug crimes.

During his 22-year tenure as mayor of Davao City in southern Mindanao, Duterte was a vocal supporter of a death squad that perpetrated hundreds of extrajudicial killings of so-called undesirables, including children as young as 14. The Davao Death Squad was organized, financed, and directed by elements of local police and government officials, as detailed in the 2009 Human Rights Watch report, “‘You Can Die Any Time’: Death Squad Killings in Mindanao.”

Large-scale extrajudicial violence as a crime solution became the cornerstone of Duterte's electoral campaign. On the eve of his May 9, 2016 election victory, he told a crowd of more than 300,000: “If I make it to the presidential palace I will do just what I did as mayor. You drug pushers, holdup men, and do-nothings, you better get out because I'll kill you.”
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Philippines’ ‘War on Drugs’
 
Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Attorney General Jeff Sessions Failed To Disclose Contacts With Russian Officials On Security Clearance Form: Although the security clearance application requires disclosing any contacts with "foreign government" or its "representatives," the DOJ told CNN that Sessions did not disclose his meetings with Sergey Kislyak, the Russian Ambassador. Sessions was previously in hot water after the Washington Post revealed the Kislyak meetings, which contradicted Sessions testimony during his confirmation hearing that he was not in contact with Russian officials during the election.

Russian Officials Discussed How To Influence Top Trump Aides: According to the New York Times, Russian officials discussed last summer how they might be able to influence Donald Trump through his aides — particularly Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort. The Times also reports that it's not clear whether the Russians attempted to follow through on those conversations.

Comey Relied On Questionable Letter In Decision To Blast Clinton: James Comey reportedly relied on a document that purported that former Attorney General Loretta Lynch colluded with the Clinton campaign to suppress the investigation into her email servers when making the decision to announce that the Clinton investigation was over while simultaneously blasting her. Now, however, the letter is suspected to be a creation of the Russians — an effort to destabilize the election process.

Pentagon Shocked That Trump Leaked Sub Location: Pentagon officials are reportedly shocked that President Trump leaked the location of two submarines to Phillippines President Rodrigo Duterte. Tuesday, The Intercept released a transcript of a call between Trump and Duterte, where Trump praised Duterte's campaign against drugs (that has resulted in thousands of vigilante murders) and talked about North Korea. While discussing North Korea, Trump mentioned that there were two submarines stationed near the country. Officials told BuzzFeed that submarine locations are highly classified and almost never discussed.

Oil Tycoon Saves $60 Million After Lobbying Trump Administration: Filings show that billionaire Carl Icahn expects to save $60 million after the Trump Administration changes renewable energy regulations. But these savings aren't what everyone can expect. Icahn has been serving as a "special regulatory adviser" to Trump, advising him on these very policy changes.

Russian Officials Wanted To Use Trump's Aides To Influence Him, And Other Trump News From Wednesday
 
Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Perspective | Donald Trump’s $10 trillion magic asterisk
President Trump's budget only pretends to balance itself in 10 years' time by assuming that the economy will grow at a 3 percent pace between now and then, which is somewhere between wildly optimistic and wildly implausible.

It also might be the most realistic part of Trump's budget.

Now, it was always pretty obvious that Trump was relying on rosy economic projections, but the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget has figured out by just how much. It turns out that even if the economy started partying like it's 1999, that'd only be good enough to get growth back up to 2.9 percent today. Trump's budget promises are akin to when he promised to make “every dream you ever dreamed come true.” And if neither of those propositions seem likely — if you don't think Trump can make things better than they were at the height of the tech bubble — well, then you clearly haven't taken enough classes at Trump University.

But let's back up a minute. Why has what used to be routine — 3 percent growth — become so ambitious now? Simple math. How much the economy grows depends on how much two other things do. Those are how many people are working every day, and how much work people can get done. That first part, though, isn't helping nearly as much as it used to now that so many baby boomers are hitting retirement. And that's not going to change considering that the only way to make workforce growth great again would be to force retirees to get jobs. In all, these demographic headwinds explain about half of the slowdown from the 3 percent growth we've been accustomed to in the postwar period to the 1.9 percent the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office thinks we'll get in the next 10 years.

The rest is that the future isn't what it used to be. For all the talk of robots going after jobs, like the Terminator went after Sarah Connor, the reality is different. Technological progress of the economically useful variety has stalled out — we were promised flying cars and got Angry Birds — and companies aren't even spending that much on the things they could to make their workers more productive. These aren't easy things to change. The government could spend more on R&D itself and set up innovation prizes to try to get the private sector to do the same, but there's no guarantee that these would generate the kind of breakthroughs we had in the 1990s to speed up the economy. You can't plan on ingenuity.

Trump's budget does, though. It assumes that we can get people to invent new things and invest in old ones if we just cut the corporate tax rate. That's the implication of saying that, even with our demographic slowdown, we can kick-start 3 percent growth if we just reform the tax system. It's a fantasy. Sure, lower taxes can make companies invest more, and maybe some of those new investments will lead to new technologies, but those are relatively small-scale changes. Maybe a few tenths of a percentage of growth if we're lucky — not anywhere near enough to get us all the way up to 3 percent.

This is at least a $5 trillion problem for Trump — and maybe double that. Think about it like this. A stronger economy means that people have more money to pay in taxes and need less money in help from the safety net. Put those together, and the left-leaning Center on Budget and Policy Priorities estimates that every extra 0.1 percentage points of GDP growth reduces deficits by $300 billion over the course of a decade. Which, in turn, implies that Trump's budget is relying on over $3 trillion of, in all likelihood, illusory savings. This isn't just far-fetched, but historically so. Indeed, the 1.1 percentage point gap between the growth Trump assumes and the growth the CBO does is the most a president ever has.
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Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Theresa May to tackle Donald Trump over Manchester bombing evidence

Theresa May will confront Donald Trump over the stream of leaks of crucial intelligence about the Manchester bomb attack when she meets the US president at a Nato summit in Brussels on Thursday.

British officials were infuriated on Wednesday when the New York Timespublished forensic photographs of sophisticated bomb parts that UK authorities fear could complicate the expanding investigation into the lethal blast in which six further arrests have been made in the UK and two more in Libya.

It was the latest of a series of leaks to US journalists that appeared to come from inside the US intelligence community, passing on data that had been shared between the two countries as part of a long-standing security cooperation.

A senior Whitehall source said: “These images from inside the American system are clearly distressing to victims, their families and other members of the public. Protests have been lodged at every relevant level between the British authorities and our US counterparts. They are in no doubt about our huge strength of feeling on this issue. It is unacceptable.”

Police chiefs also criticised the leaking of information from the investigation. A national counter-terrorism policing spokesperson said: “We greatly value the important relationships we have with our trusted intelligence, law enforcement and security partners around the world.

“When that trust is breached it undermines these relationships, and undermines our investigations and the confidence of victims, witnesses and their families. This damage is even greater when it involves unauthorised disclosure of potential evidence in the middle of a major counter-terrorism investigation.”

Manchester’s mayor, Andy Burnham, added yet more criticism:


View: https://twitter.com/AndyBurnhamGM/status/867507912457015296


The government does not believe the president is directly responsible for the potentially compromising leaks; but May will raise her concerns with him at the Nato summit where she will push for the military alliance to join the coalition against Islamic State.

The images published by the US newspaper revealed that the device that killed 22 people used by Salman Abedi had been made with “forethought and care”, raising questions for investigators about how it had been constructed and by whom.

Abedi had carried a metal box containing “well packed” explosives, metal nuts and screws in a box probably inside a Karrimor rucksack, the leaked details showed. The device was powerful enough for shrapnel to penetrate metal doors and to scar brick walls. Abedi detonated the bomb with his left hand.

It showed the force of the explosion was such that his torso was ripped from the rest of his body and propelled across the foyer and that most of those killed were in a circle around the bomber.

Only hours earlier Amber Rudd, the home secretary, had rebuked the US security services for leaking the bomber’s name to American media before it had been made public in Britain, but her warnings appeared to have had no impact.

“I have been very clear with our friends that that should not happen again,” Rudd had said.
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Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Jared Kushner Becomes Focus Of Trump-Russia Investigation, And Other Trump News From Thursday

Jared Kushner Focus Of FBI Probe: According to FBI officials, Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law and adviser, is now the focus of the FBI's investigation into Russia's interference into the US presidential election. According to sources, Kushner may have information relevant to the investigation. According to The Washington Post, Kushner has become the central focus — or target — of the investigation.


Appeals Court Upholds Ruling Against Travel Ban: The 4th Circuit Court of Appeals has upheld a district court's injunction against President Trump's travel ban. In the decision, the chief justice writes the ban "drips with religious intolerance, animus, and discrimination."


Trump Calls On NATO Members To Spend More Money On Defense: At today's NATO meeting in Brussels,President Trump called for other members of NATO to contribute more money to the group, even as he refused to acknowledge article 5, which commits the US to respond to the attack of another member state— something he has refused to do as president.


Sessions Didn't Disclose Russian Meetings In Security Clearance App:When applying for his security clearance, Jeff Sessions did not include the same two meetings with Russian officials that he also omitted from his Senate confirmation hearing. The Justice Department reportedly told CNN that they were instructed to leave off meetings that were part of official Senate business, but a legal expert tells CNN that the meetings should have been included. The omission could spell trouble — Jared Kushner has had to backtrack to address similar omissions.


Russians Discusses Influencing Flynn And Manafort Last Summer:Wednesday evening the New York Times reported that American spies had collected intelligence last summer that Russian officials were discussing how to influence Trump aides, Michael Flynn and Paul Manafort, who had connections to Russia. The revelation adds to speculation swirling around Flynn's and the Trump campaign's connections to Russia.
 
Freeloading Rusty

Freeloading Rusty

Here comes Rover, sniffin’ at your ass
Jan 11, 2016
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Exclusive: NSA Chief Admits Donald Trump Colluded With Russia
Exclusive: NSA Chief Admits Donald Trump Colluded With Russia

Admiral Rogers anecdotally flatly denied Trump’s request, which—if true—was inappropriate, unethical and dubiously legal, while Coats, a Trump appointee who’s only been in the DNI job since mid-March, likewise refused to back the president against the FBI. This was a stunning setback for Trump, who seems to view our nation’s top security officials as his personal employees who ought to follow his presidential whim rather than the law and the Constitution, which all of them take an oath to defend.
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Last week, when he appeared before the Senate Armed Services Committee, Coats declined to answer questions about the White House’s effort to undermine the FBI investigation of Team Trump, stating, “I don’t feel it’s appropriate to characterize discussions and conversations with the president” in open session. Presumably DNI Coats would be more forthcoming in a closed Congressional session, where classified information can be revealed.

Director Rogers, in contrast, has made no public statements about the president’s effort to enlist him in his anti-Comey campaign. This is typical of his famously tight-lipped agency—for decades, NSA was humorously said to stand for Never Say Anything—and why Trump approached Rogers is no mystery. As the nation’s signals intelligence force, NSA isn’t just the biggest source of intelligence on earth—it’s also the agency possessing the bulk of the classified information which establishes collusion between Trump and the Russians. Although whispers of such SIGINT have reached the media, the lion’s share remains hidden from public view, though it’s all known to the FBI.

If Trump could co-opt NSA in his fight with the Bureau, that would be a big win, protecting the White House from dangerous information, so it’s safe to assume that Rogers’ refusal burned Trump personally. Perhaps that’s why, early this week, Admiral Rogers took the unusual step of addressing the entire NSA workforce to tell them what transpired with the president.

This is not Rogers’ style. Indeed, his tenure as NSA’s director (called DIRNSA by insiders) has been characterized by distance from his employees, which has made things rockier than necessary. To be fair to Rogers—a career intelligence officer well equipped for his current position—when he became DIRNSA in the spring of 2014, he inherited an agency in crisis. NSA was still reeling from the disastrous Ed Snowden affair, the biggest theft of classified information in espionage history.

While Snowden has taunted NSA with tweets sent from his Russian hideaway, more security disasters have followed. The strange case of Harold Martin, yet another rogue defense contractor who stole gigantic amounts of classified information from the agency, constituted another Snowdenesque embarrassment, even though there’s no evidence that Martin was engaged in espionage.

Worse for Rogers was the theft of highly classified hacking tools from NSA by the so-called Shadow Brokers, which is widely believed to be a front for Russian intelligence. The dumping of those top-secret exploits online, after modification by rogue hackers, has resulted in worldwide cyberattacks impacting millions—yet another black mark on Rogers’ tenure as DIRNSA. In response to these very public setbacks, Rogers has seldom addressed the NSA workforce about them or much else.

This week’s town hall event, which was broadcast to agency facilities worldwide, was therefore met with surprise and anticipation by the NSA workforce, and Rogers did not disappoint. I have spoken with several NSA officials who witnessed the director’s talk and I’m reporting their firsthand accounts, which corroborate each other, on condition of anonymity.

In his town hall talk, Rogers reportedly admitted that President Trump asked him to discredit the FBI and James Comey, which the admiral flatly refused to do. As Rogers explained, he informed the commander in chief, “I know you won’t like it, but I have to tell what I have seen”—a probable reference to specific intelligence establishing collusion between the Kremlin and Team Trump.

Rogers then added that such SIGINT exists, and it is damning. He stated, “There is no question that we [meaning NSA] have evidence of election involvement and questionable contacts with the Russians.” Although Rogers did not cite the specific intelligence he was referring to, agency officials with direct knowledge have informed me that DIRNSA was obviously referring to a series of SIGINT reports from 2016 based on intercepts of communications between known Russian intelligence officials and key members of Trump’s campaign, in which they discussed methods of damaging Hillary Clinton.

NSA employees walked out of the town hall impressed by the director’s forthright discussion of his interactions with the Trump administration, particularly with how Rogers insisted that he had no desire to “politicize” the situation beyond what the president has already done. America’s spies are unaccustomed to playing partisan politics as Trump has apparently asked them to do, and it appears that the White House’s ham-fisted effort to get NSA to attack the FBI and its credibility was a serious mistake.

It’s therefore high time for the House and Senate intelligence committees to invite Admiral Rogers to talk to them about what transpired with the White House. It’s evident that DIRNSA has something important to say. Since Mike Rogers is said to have kept notes of the president’s effort to enlist him in Trump’s personal war with the FBI, as any seasoned Beltway bureaucrat would do, his account ought to be impressively detailed.
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IschKabibble

IschKabibble

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Jan 15, 2015
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Trump impeachment any day now boys.

FBI misses House committee's deadline for providing Comey's Trump memos

The FBI declined to hand over memos regarding former FBI Director James Comey's communications with President Trump to the House Oversight Committee Thursday, and said it needs more time to evaluate how the special counsel investigation into possible collusion between Trump's campaign and Russia affects the committee's request for information.

In a letter released Thursday, Assistant Director Gregory Brower, in the FBI's Office of Congressional Affairs, told committee chairman Rep. Jason Chaffetz the special counsel investigation means more "consultation" is needed before any documents are released.

FBI misses House committee's deadline for providing Comey's Trump memos
 
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