monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

Are you from New York? I doubt it.

Dont blow smoke up my skirt,

Man you're a geezer.

A Baby Boomer and no doubt one of the majority of that generation that has degraded American society.

Still wearing bell bottoms and tie-dyed shirts?

As a member of Trump's campaign, he cannot collude with a foreign adversary in an election.

Quote:

Dont blow smoke up my skirt,

Do you like to be obnoxious?

Who decides which countries are foreign adversaries?

And where is this supposed rule written?

The law is written, I'll check where.

And I believe we have an adversarial conflict with Russia in Syria.

Mosul reclaimed: ISIS routed from Iraqi city, US-led coalition says

Lt. Gen. Stephen J. Townsend, commanding general of Combined Joint Task Force - Operation Inherent Resolve, said in a statement. “Make no mistake; this victory alone does not eliminate ISIS and there is still a tough fight ahead. But the loss of one of its twin capitals and a jewel of their so-called caliphate is a decisive blow."

The coalition said during ISIS’ occupation of Mosul, militants destroyed many of the city’s religious and cultural treasures, brutally murdered thousands of civilians and used mosques, schools and hospitals as bomb-making facilities.

The battle for Mosul killed thousands and displaced more than 897,000 people.

The coalition said during ISIS’ occupation of Mosul, militants destroyed many of the city’s religious and cultural treasures, brutally murdered thousands of civilians and used mosques, schools and hospitals as bomb-making facilities.

The battle for Mosul killed thousands and displaced more than 897,000 people.

At least 80 arrested on Capitol Hill in health care demonstrations

At least 80 demonstrators were arrested Monday in House and Senate office buildings on Capitol Hill, according to the U.S. Capitol Police.

Police officials said those arrested were first told to cease and desist their unlawful demonstration and that those who refused were arrested and charged with “crowding, obstructing or incommoding.”

Officials said 21 adults -- 10 males and 11 females -- were arrested in House office building, and 59 adults -- 22 males and 37 females – were arrested in Senate office buildings.

If it is true and Comey kept these documents in his personal possession upon leaving government service...then it would appear that he committed multiple felonies under the Espionage Act.

It is a crime to mishandle classified information: 18 USC 798 and 1924 prohibit a government official from removing a classified document from its proper place of custody to a location which is unsecure and disclosing it to an unauthorized person.

David Petraeus, former Director of the CIA, pled guilty to removing classified documents to his personal residence where he stored them in an unsecured drawer.

John Deutch, also a former CIA Director, agreed to plead guilty to keeping classified material on his unauthorized laptop computer, but was pardoned by President Bill Clinton just days before the formal charges were filed.

Richman now claims he received four memos from Comey....

Comey likely violated another law. All of his memos are, unquestionably, government property under the Federal Records Act and the FBI’s own Records Management regulations. In meeting with President Trump, Comey was not acting as a private citizen. Both Congress and the FBI agree on this obvious point.

Comey’s conduct and whether it constitutes numerous crimes should be investigated by Special Counsel, Robert Mueller. Mueller and Comey have been long-time close friends, allies and partners. They have enjoyed a mentor-protégé relationship.

This is precisely why Mueller should have disqualified himself from serving under the special counsel statute (28 CFR 600.7 and 28 CFR 45.2). His strong relationship to Comey creates a genuine conflict of interest and, at the very least, the appearance of impropriety.

John Deutch, also a former CIA Director, agreed to plead guilty to keeping classified material on his unauthorized laptop computer, but was pardoned by President Bill Clinton just days before the formal charges were filed.

Donald Trump Jr was told that material on Hillary Clinton offered by a Russian lawyer was part of a Russian government effort to help his father's election campaign, the New York Times has said.
Publicist Rob Goldstone, who arranged the June 2016 meeting with the lawyer, stated this in an email, it reported.
Mr Trump Jr has defended attending the meeting, saying the promised damaging information did not materialise.
US officials are investigating alleged Russian meddling in the US election.
The paper reports that three people with knowledge of the Goldstone email said it indicated the Russian government was the source of the potentially damaging information on Mrs Clinton.
But the paper says there was no mention in the email of any wider effort by the Russian government to interfere in the election, nor was there any indication of a link to the hacking attack on the Democratic Party that was first reported a week after the meeting.
Mr Goldstone has previously denied any knowledge of involvement by the Russian government.
Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee, told MSNBC that the New York Times report was "a very serious development".
"It all warrants thorough investigation. Everyone who was in that meeting ought to come before our committee."
Mr Trump Jr's statement on the matter on Sunday did not indicate he had been told of any Russian government involvement.
Lawyer Alan Futerfas, hired by Mr Trump Jr to represent him in the Russia-related investigations, described reports of the meeting as "much ado about nothing" and said his client had done nothing wrong.
The president's son said he was "happy to work with the committee to pass on what I know".
It took place on 9 June 2016 at New York's Trump Tower, just two weeks after Donald Trump secured the Republican nomination.
It is thought to be the first confirmed private meeting between a Russian national and members of President Trump's inner circle.
The president's son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and then-campaign head, Paul J Manafort, also attended.
After the New York Times first reported the meeting on Saturday, Mr Trump Jr released a statement which confirmed that it had taken place but did not mention whether it was related to the presidential campaign.
However, another Times report, on Sunday, said Mr Trump Jr had agreed to the meeting after being offered information that would prove detrimental to Mrs Clinton.
In his statement on Sunday, Mr Trump Jr said he had been asked to meet "an individual who I was told might have information helpful to the campaign".
Mr Trump Jr's statement continues: "The woman stated that she had information that individuals connected to Russia were funding the Democratic National Committee and supporting Mrs Clinton.
"Her statements were vague, ambiguous and made no sense. No details or supporting information was provided or even offered. It quickly became clear that she had no meaningful information."
Mr Trump Jr said the lawyer then changed subject to the Magnitsky Act and "it became clear to me that this was the true agenda all along".
Adopted by Congress in 2012, the Magnitsky Act allows the US to withhold visas and freeze financial assets of Russian officials thought to have been involved in human rights violations.
Ms Veselnitskaya is married to a Moscow government official and her clients include companies and individuals said to be close to the Kremlin. She has been at the forefront of a campaign - backed by the Russian state - to overturn the act.
But she has denied ever working for the Kremlin and on Saturday said that "nothing at all was discussed about the presidential campaign" at the meeting.
In an interview on Monday, Mr Goldstone backed Mr Trump Jr's version of the meeting, saying Ms Veselnitskaya offered "just a vague, generic statement about the campaign's funding" which was "the most inane nonsense I've ever heard".
On Monday, Mr Trump Jr tweeted sarcastically: "Obviously I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent..." He also denied issuing conflicting statements.
And he linked to a piece in the New York Post headlined "The Times 'exposé' on Donald Trump Jr is a big yawn".
A spokesman for President Trump's legal team said the president was "not aware of and did not attend" the meeting.

Call it a journalistic triple punch.
The New York Times on Friday revealed that Donald Trump Jr, his brother-in-law Jared Kushner and then-campaign chair Paul Manafort had a previously undisclosed meeting with an influential Russian lawyer in Trump Tower during the heat of the 2016 presidential campaign.
Then, on Sunday, the paper reported that during the meeting the group discussed information that was possibly damaging to Hillary Clinton and the Democrats. Trump Jr had previously said only that the meetings were "primarily" about a suspended Russian adoption programme.
Finally, the Times on Monday evening landed the haymaker - that Trump Jr went into the meeting thinking it was the Russian government itself that had incriminating information on the Democratic candidate.
Those stories, and subsequent reporting by the Washington Post, raise a bevy of questions. Here are a few of the big ones.
Is this a smoking gun?
What is a gun? What is smoke? Is anything real anymore? The media could discover a metaphorical .357 Magnum on the floor, still warm to the touch, and it would probably be dismissed by many as just another bit of fake news.
These latest revelations aren't going to cause such existential angst, but they're still enlightening - and could be bad news for Trump Jr. For the first time there's confirmation of a meeting between Mr Trump's inner circle and someone with ties to the Russian government where campaign issues were discussed.
More than that, Trump Jr seems to have walked into the meeting with the impression that the Russian government wanted to help his father - and there's email evidence that supports this.
As the Washington Post puts it: "The meeting suggests that some Trump aides were in the market to collect negative information that could be used against Clinton - at the same time that US government officials have concluded Russians were collecting such data."
That may not be evidence of collusion, but it gets close to evidence of a willingness to collude.
News of the hack of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers first surfaced a week later. Roughly a month after that, Wikileaks began releasing information from the hack, causing a political headache for the Democrats just before their national convention.
Now throw in the fact that both Mr Kushner and Mr Manafort have been mired in their own Russia-related controversies, and the plot thickens.
Doesn't every campaign look for dirt on opponents?
"Everybody does it" is Trump Jr's current defence of the meeting, after his original explanation was undercut by subsequent revelations and his revised statement proved more incriminating than exculpatory.
"Obviously I'm the first person on a campaign to ever take a meeting to hear info about an opponent," he tweeted sarcastically. "Went nowhere but had to listen."
"Opposition research", as it's called, is a standard part of any campaign. Usually a candidate has a team of researchers chasing down any and every possible bit of unflattering information on their opponents.
Dirt-digging is a messy business, however, and these units usually have a fair amount of separation from a candidate's top team to insulate the campaign from embarrassing blowback. Such insulation was non-existent in this case.
A Russian national, apparently at the behest of a British publicist working for a Russian music star who is the son of a billionaire real estate developer, was able to arrange a sit-down meeting with three top figures in the Trump campaign.
As Republican campaign strategist Evan Siegried points out, even for a campaign as unconventional as Mr Trump's, letting those close to a candidate talk to sources of uncertain background is "not just dumb", it's a serious departure from basic standard operating procedure.
Another Republican operative, Stuart Stevens, drew comparisons to an episode during the 2000 presidential race between Al Gore and George W Bush.
"When Gore campaign was sent Bush debate brief book, they called FBI," he tweeted. "If foreign interests offer you info on former [secretary of state], you call the FBI."
The Trump team didn't do that. Instead, they took the meeting.
Why are Russia questions so hard for the Trump team?
In June, Trump Jr took to Twitter to celebrate former FBI head James Comey's testimony that there was no evidence campaign aides had "repeated contacts" with Russians. Now, it turns out, he helped set up one such meeting - and reportedly thought that the Russian government was a willing partner.
Mr Kushner wrote in his security clearance application that he never met with Russian nationals - and had to subsequently revise his answers when it was revealed he had multiple meetings.
Close campaign aide turned White House National Security Advisor Michael Flynn said he never spoke with Russian Ambassador Sergei Kislyak about sanctions. He resigned in disgrace after government surveillance proved that assertion inaccurate.
Mr Manafort had to acknowledge he received millions in payments from a pro-Russian Ukrainian party and retroactively register as a foreign agent, after insisting last year that he had no such ties.
Jeff Sessions, a close political confidant of Mr Trump during the campaign and now US attorney general, had to recuse himself from his department's Russia investigation because he was not forthcoming about his own meetings with Mr Kislyak.
Time and time again, those close to Mr Trump have had to backtrack on assurances they made that they did not have Russian contacts or connections. Taken individually, these episodes may be unremarkable. In their totality, however, they become a steady drumbeat of evasion and obfuscation whenever the topic of Russia comes up.
What effect will this have on the Russia investigations?
Several congressional committees and Independent Counsel Robert Mueller are looking into possible collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. The Trump Tower meeting, while it may not be a smoking gun, will definitely pique their interest - and could result in legal exposure for Trump Jr.
On Monday morning Republican Senator Susan Collins of Maine said that the Senate Intelligence Committee should interview Trump Jr and other participants about what took place in New York last June. Adam Schiff of California, ranking Democratic member of the House Intelligence Committee, has made a similar call.
Trump Jr's assertion that neither Mr Manafort nor Mr Kushner knew the details of the meeting ahead of time appears to insulate those two from possible political and legal fallout, as does Mr Trump's lawyer's statement that the president was not aware of the meeting. Trump Jr may not be so fortunate.
"His statements put him potentially in legal crosshairs for violating federal criminal statutes prohibiting solicitation or acceptance of anything of value from a foreign national, as well as a conspiracy to defraud the United States," writes Darren Samuelsohn in Politico.
For the past few weeks, some Trump supporters have been insisting that even if members of the campaign did co-ordinate with Russian operatives, it wouldn't have been illegal or even improper.
At the time the assertions appeared unexpected and unnecessary. That's not so much the case anymore.
What does this mean for Trump's political agenda?
There are two schools of thought surrounding the impact this could have on Mr Trump's efforts to enact healthcare and tax reform, devise a federal budget, pass some sort of infrastructure spending bill and do all the other stuff that occupied the days of this pre-"modern" presidency.
On one hand, the latest round of Russia stories are crowding out any efforts to promote the president's priorities on the public stage. The latest iteration of the Senate's Obamacare repeal bill is woefully unpopular, and there's been little opportunity for any of its advocates - whether in the administration or Congress - to make a high-profile pitch for why it should be made law.
Other agenda items, like tax reform, are so far back on the burner they may have fallen completely off the stove.
The counter to this is that, given the heat many politicians have taken over proposed elements of the healthcare bill, flying under the public's radar may afford the involved parties time and space to regroup.
Two weeks ago, members of the Senate were being hounded by reporters for the latest details on the ongoing healthcare fight. This week, the media's lidless gaze is fixed elsewhere. Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has already sent two draft bills to the Congressional Budget Office for analysis. If he gets a result that's positive for his party, he may try to race to a vote before opposition mounts.
Of course these theories may well co-exist.
Congressional Republicans could have the space to quickly pass a new healthcare bill and get it on Mr Trump's desk for a short-term win. Without the ability to boost its approval ratings, however, the unpopular law ends up being a long-term drag on the party heading into next year's midterm election and undermines subsequent legislative efforts.
With a little help from his eldest son, Mr Trump could end up losing by winning - or vice-versa.

he linked to a piece in the New York Post headlined "The Times 'exposé' on Donald Trump Jr is a big yawn".

The news was delivered by the New York Times in the breathless tones that might announce a cure for cancer or the discovery of life on Mars.

“President Trump’s eldest son, Donald Trump Jr., was promised damaging information about Hillary Clinton before agreeing to meet with a Kremlin-connected Russian lawyer during the 2016 campaign, according to three advisers to the White House briefed on the meeting and two others with knowledge of it.”

To which a rational response is … who wouldn’t? And also: So what? A third response is unprintable.

Just as the “Russian collusion” fantasy — a resentful smear cooked up in the immediate aftermath of Clinton’s stunning defeat last fall — was finally fading from the fever swamps of the “resistance” and its media mouthpieces, along comes the Times with a pair of journalistic nothingburgers.

Having established the smear of “collusion,” the Times must now link every story with the word “Russia” to it in the hopes that the rubes and suckers won’t stop believing that Trump somehow cheated his way into the White House.