Originally posted by Unregistered
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Maybe because she's described by NBC as "an extremist vegan who claimed on her social media accounts that YouTube was discriminating against her videos, many of which focused on animal rights and veganism — mixed in with bizarre musical parodies." -
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Dylan Roof (white) kills black church members having a prayer meeting. Cray Cray is everywhere.Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Andrew McCarthy
[i]Rosenstein assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation, which is not a sound basis for appointing a special counsel; the regulations require grounds for a criminal investigation.
The Deficiencies of Rosenstein’s Order Appointing Mueller
To recap, Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, days after President Trump’s botched firing of FBI director James Comey — a debacle in which the administration’s conflicting explanations for the director’s removal, coupled with the president’s reprehensible comments about Comey for the consumption of Russian diplomats he hosted at the White House, intensified Democratic calls for a special counsel.
From the outset, I protested that Rosenstein’s order appointing Mueller violated governing special-counsel regulations. They make the trigger for such an appointment the existence of a “criminal investigation of a person or matter,” which some conflict of interest prevents the Justice Department from conducting in the normal course — requiring that an attorney from outside the U.S. government be assigned to conduct the criminal investigation (see 28 CFR Sections 600.1 and 600.3). To the contrary, Rosenstein’s order disclosed no basis for a criminal investigation and indicated no crimes that had allegedly been committed.
Instead, the deputy attorney general assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation. To wit, Rosenstein defined the probe as “the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017.” In that testimony, Comey had quite explicitly confirmed a counterintelligence probe: “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election”
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NATIONAL SECURITY & DEFENSE
The Rosenstein Memo
By ANDREW C. MCCARTHY
April 4, 2018 6:30 AM
Deputy U.S. Attorney General Rod Rosenstein on Capitol Hill, June 13, 2017. (Jonathan Ernst/Reuters)
We now have a redacted version of the deputy attorney general’s guidance to the special counsel.
Eight months ago, in August 2017, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein secretly gave Special Counsel Robert Mueller specific guidance as to the crimes Mueller is authorized to investigate. The guidance came about ten weeks after Mueller’s May 17 appointment. This guidance purports to describe the grounds for criminal investigations, marking the limits of the special counsel’s jurisdiction.
As readers may recall, these columns have been critical of the deputy attorney general for failing to provide such guidance. Instead, I’ve contended, Rosenstein assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation, which is not a sound basis for appointing a special counsel; the regulations require grounds for a criminal investigation.
So . . . was I wrong? No, I was right.
x
We learned Tuesday morning, based on a Monday-night court filing by Mueller, that Rosenstein’s amplification of Mueller’s jurisdiction was set forth in a classified memorandum dated August 2, 2017. That memo was filed just one week after a July 26 column in which I comprehensively laid out the deficiencies in Rosenstein’s appointment order and suggested that he could cure the problem by “specify[ing] exactly what potential crimes the special counsel is authorized to investigate.” To be clear, I do not claim to be the only commentator who has criticized the deficiencies of Rosenstein’s appointment order, though I doubt others have done so as consistently and pointedly, including with proposals for bringing it into compliance. (See, e.g., “Mend, Don’t End, Mueller’s Investigation.”)
The Deficiencies of Rosenstein’s Order Appointing Mueller
To recap, Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, days after President Trump’s botched firing of FBI director James Comey — a debacle in which the administration’s conflicting explanations for the director’s removal, coupled with the president’s reprehensible comments about Comey for the consumption of Russian diplomats he hosted at the White House, intensified Democratic calls for a special counsel.
From the outset, I protested that Rosenstein’s order appointing Mueller violated governing special-counsel regulations. They make the trigger for such an appointment the existence of a “criminal investigation of a person or matter,” which some conflict of interest prevents the Justice Department from conducting in the normal course — requiring that an attorney from outside the U.S. government be assigned to conduct the criminal investigation (see 28 CFR Sections 600.1 and 600.3). To the contrary, Rosenstein’s order disclosed no basis for a criminal investigation and indicated no crimes that had allegedly been committed.
Instead, the deputy attorney general assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation. To wit, Rosenstein defined the probe as “the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017.” In that testimony, Comey had quite explicitly confirmed a counterintelligence probe: “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election” (emphasis added).
Significantly, there is a natural symmetry between the grounds for appointing a special counsel and those for requiring the recusal of top Justice Department officials. It is the latter that gives rise to the former. I had thus argued that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation was premature and too sweeping. As the attorney general acknowledged, the recusal matter was controlled by 28 CFR Section 45.2. But that regulation similarly states that disqualification is necessary only if there is a criminal investigation or prosecution as to which a prosecutor has a conflict of interest.
Since the Russia investigation was a counterintelligence investigation, I contended that Sessions could have declined to recuse. There was a caveat: In the event the Russia counterintelligence probe turned up evidence of crimes that would warrant criminal investigations, Sessions — because of his prominent role in the Trump campaign — would likely have to recuse himself from those investigations, on a case-by-case basis (e.g., if criminal charges were brought against Michael Flynn, as ultimately happened).
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is to be commended for attempting to rectify the deficiencies in his original special-counsel appointment order by issuing a memo that amplifies Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s jurisdiction to conduct criminal investigations. Rosenstein’s explanation for the timing of the memo (ten weeks after the appointment order) is not very convincing, and the extensively redacted form in which it has been released means the memo raises more questions than it answers. Suffice it to say, we remain uninformed regarding the government’s basis for alleging that “collusion” with Russia resulted in potential crimes warranting investigation; and we still do not know if the Justice Department alleges that President Trump is a criminal suspect — and, if so, in what crime.Comment
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Let me clean that up a bit.
Andrew McCarthy
Rosenstein assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation, which is not a sound basis for appointing a special counsel; the regulations require grounds for a criminal investigation.
The Deficiencies of Rosenstein’s Order Appointing Mueller
To recap, Rosenstein appointed Mueller on May 17, 2017, days after President Trump’s botched firing of FBI director James Comey — a debacle in which the administration’s conflicting explanations for the director’s removal, coupled with the president’s reprehensible comments about Comey for the consumption of Russian diplomats he hosted at the White House, intensified Democratic calls for a special counsel.
From the outset, I protested that Rosenstein’s order appointing Mueller violated governing special-counsel regulations. They make the trigger for such an appointment the existence of a “criminal investigation of a person or matter,” which some conflict of interest prevents the Justice Department from conducting in the normal course — requiring that an attorney from outside the U.S. government be assigned to conduct the criminal investigation (see 28 CFR Sections 600.1 and 600.3). To the contrary, Rosenstein’s order disclosed no basis for a criminal investigation and indicated no crimes that had allegedly been committed.
Instead, the deputy attorney general assigned Mueller to conduct a counterintelligence investigation. To wit, Rosenstein defined the probe as “the investigation confirmed by then-FBI Director James B. Comey in testimony before the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence on March 20, 2017.” In that testimony, Comey had quite explicitly confirmed a counterintelligence probe: “I have been authorized by the Department of Justice to confirm that the FBI, as part of our counterintelligence mission, is investigating the Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election”
Significantly, there is a natural symmetry between the grounds for appointing a special counsel and those for requiring the recusal of top Justice Department officials. It is the latter that gives rise to the former. I had thus argued that Attorney General Jeff Sessions’s recusal from the Russia investigation was premature and too sweeping. As the attorney general acknowledged, the recusal matter was controlled by 28 CFR Section 45.2. But that regulation similarly states that disqualification is necessary only if there is a criminal investigation or prosecution as to which a prosecutor has a conflict of interest.
Since the Russia investigation was a counterintelligence investigation, I contended that Sessions could have declined to recuse. There was a caveat: In the event the Russia counterintelligence probe turned up evidence of crimes that would warrant criminal investigations, Sessions — because of his prominent role in the Trump campaign — would likely have to recuse himself from those investigations, on a case-by-case basis (e.g., if criminal charges were brought against Michael Flynn, as ultimately happened).
Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein is to be commended for attempting to rectify the deficiencies in his original special-counsel appointment order by issuing a memo that amplifies Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s jurisdiction to conduct criminal investigations. Rosenstein’s explanation for the timing of the memo (ten weeks after the appointment order) is not very convincing, and the extensively redacted form in which it has been released means the memo raises more questions than it answers. Suffice it to say, we remain uninformed regarding the government’s basis for alleging that “collusion” with Russia resulted in potential crimes warranting investigation; and we still do not know if the Justice Department alleges that President Trump is a criminal suspect — and, if so, in what crime.Comment
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Washington Post: In the first year of the Trump presidency, places that voted for Trump are doing better economically than at the end of the Obama administration. But that is not totally surprising, because the overall economy has continued to add jobs.
What may be more surprising is that not only are these counties adding jobs, but also job growth has accelerated the most in counties where Trump earned the most votes, according to a Washington Post analysis of Labor Department data.
In other words, even if the counties that supported Trump most are still struggling relative to the rest of the country, they’ve experienced the largest reversal of fortune.Comment
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Because the YouTube shooter was simply mentally ill. Isn't that what you on the right keep saying anytime the shooter is white?Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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Not sure I'm following. White Man goes nuts and starts shooting up the place, and every liberal under the sun, led by Hollywood Elites, charge white men and the NRA as the devil.Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
Why the silence today? Doesn't fit your narrative, does it?Comment
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Based on some of the industries getting hit with tariffs that may only get worse. Trump also slashed funding for things like job training and the Rural Economic Development program. Overall his budget has huge cuts to programs like SNAP, HUD, home heating assistance. Next they want to cut SS and medicare. The GOP is hurting the people who got them into office the most (well, except for big corporations and wealthy donors. They're enjoying the tax cuts that will benefit no one but themselves). https://www.theatlantic.com/politics...curity/516861/Originally posted by Unregistered View Post
"These national trends are especially concentrated in the region that proved decisive in the 2016 election. A recent Urban Institute study found that whites without a college degree constituted a majority of those who gained coverage under the ACA in the five Rustbelt states that Trump flipped from blue to red: Iowa, Ohio, Michigan, Wisconsin, and Pennsylvania. Similarly, the CBPP found that among all adults lifted out of poverty by federal programs, whites without a college degree represented 77 percent in Iowa, 64 percent in Ohio, 61 percent in Pennsylvania, 59 percent in Michigan, and 51 percent in Wisconsin.
House Republicans have repeatedly passed budgets that impose significant reductions on government anti-poverty programs, but those plans were mostly stymied in the Senate or by former President Obama. Now, with unified control of Washington, the GOP has a much clearer path toward enacting those cuts. But, as with the drive to repeal the ACA, they face the risk of withdrawing government benefits that many of their own voters rely on.
“[T]he election has brought increased attention to the economic difficulties that people without a college degree can face,” the CBPP report’s authors write. “Largely overlooked in the discussion of these issues to date, however, is the fact that the nation’s poverty-reduction programs provide extensive support to adults lacking a college degree, including working-class whites, and that such people would be the principal losers under various proposals to cut these programs that may emerge in coming months.”Comment
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No College degree doesn't mean poor, and doesn't mean uneducated.
I'll take the kid who went straight from HS, got some OJT and certifications, and was making money and contributing to the economy by the time he's 20 vs. the Liberal Arts grad with a Masters in Art History, massive debt (which she wants the gov't to forgive) and no jobs in her field.
7/10 workers have no college degree, and there are many jobs with more postings than ability to hire.
College, for some, is a waste and we'd be better served to acknowledge it.
-Mike Rowe (no, not really)Comment
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Seriously??? I think you get more for jaywalking.
Dutch attorney gets 30 days in first sentence for Mueller probeComment
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More than 3 in 4 believe traditional media reports ‘fake news’: pollOriginally posted by Unregistered View Post
A majority of Americans believe that mainstream news outlets report "fake news," according to a new Monmouth University poll.
More than three in four Americans said they believe that traditional television and print outlets take part in reporting fake news.
Thirty-one percent of those polled said they believe the mainstream media reports fake news regularly, while 46 percent said it occurs occasionally.
The survey also shows that Americans increasingly feel that fake news is reported by mainstream media outlets.
“These findings are troubling, no matter how you define ‘fake news.’ Confidence in an independent fourth estate is a cornerstone of a healthy democracy. Ours appears to be headed for the intensive care unit,” Patrick Murray, director of the independent Monmouth University Polling Institute, said in a statement.Comment
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How is it that California has some of the most restrictive gun laws in the country and yet these incidents keep occurring there?Originally posted by Unregistered View PostComment
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