monitoring Trump and relevant contemporary events

[The Democrat Newsactors should remember how gobsmacked they were on election eve 2016. The DNC has learned nothing and made no adjustments since their notorious defeat.

What did they all say before the numbers started coming in on election night?Hillary had a 95% chance of winning?

Lawrence O’Donnell was crying, wasn’t he?

However, it appears to me that they, the current DNC leadership team of Tom Perez and Keith Ellison, and the major Democrat leaders in the Congress have not yet shown any coherent policy platform that is even remotely politically defensible or likely to succeed with American voters.

New York Republican Rep. Chris Collins, who was arrested on insider trading charges this week, is suspending his re-election bid, he announced on Saturday.

In a lengthy statement posted on Twitter, Collins said he had decided that it is in the “best interests” of his constituents in New York’s 27th District, the Republican Party, and the president’s agenda for him to suspend his campaign.

“Democrats are laser focused on taking back the House, electing Nancy Pelosi Speaker and then launching impeachment proceedings against President Trump,” Collins said. “They would like nothing more than to elect an ‘Impeach Trump’ Democrat in this District, which is something that neither our country or my party can afford.”

Collins, his son Cameron Collins, and the father of his son’s fiancée, Stephen Zarsky, were arrested by FBI agents early Wednesday morning on charges that Collins shared non-public information about Australian biotech company Innate Immunotherapeutics in the summer of 2017. Collins was a major shareholder of the company and a member of its board. According to the federal government’s indictment, Collins told his son about negative results from a clinical trial for the company’s multiple sclerosis drug before they were made public, allowing his family members to avoid nearly $800,000 in potential losses.

“Collins, who, by virtue of his office, helps write the laws of this country, acted as if the law did not apply to him,” US Attorney Geoffrey Berman said at a news conference discussing the indictment, which charges Collins, his son, and Zarsky with 13 counts of wire fraud, securities fraud, and making false statements to the FBI.

Special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into matters related to longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone is heating up.

On Thursday, radio host Randy Credico — who Stone has said helped him communicate with Julian Assange of WikiLeaks during the 2016 campaign — was subpoenaed by Mueller’s team for grand jury testimony.

Then, on Friday, one close Stone associate — Kristin Davis, the former “Manhattan Madam” — went in to give grand jury testimony in Washington.

And another close Stone associate, political operative Andrew Miller, was held in contempt by a judge for refusing to give grand jury testimony.

Miller’s new testimony was scheduled for Friday — and once again, he didn’t show up. As a result, a judge found him in contempt. But his legal team is appealing again, hoping to bring the case eventually to the Supreme Court.

Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan has accused the US of trying to "bring Turkey to its knees through threats over a pastor".

The US has demanded the release of Andrew Brunson and on Friday doubled tariffs on steel and aluminium imports.

The diplomatic spat sent the lira down 16% against the dollar on Friday.

Mr Erdogan also wrote in the New York Times that unless the US changed course, Turkey would look for new friends and allies.

Turkey has detained Mr Brunson for nearly two years, accusing him of links to the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party and the Gulenist movement, which Turkey blames for a failed coup in 2016.

But the pastor is only one of a number of issues dividing the two Nato allies, including policy on Syria and Mr Erdogan's growing ties with Russia.

He was speaking at a rally in the Black Sea town of Unye.

He said: "It is wrong to dare bring Turkey to its knees through threats over a pastor. I am calling on those in America again. Shame on you, shame on you. You are exchanging your strategic partner in Nato for a priest. You can never bring this nation in line with the language of threats.

"We have not made concessions on justice so far, and we will never make any."

Turning to the economic effects of the diplomatic row, Mr Erdogan said: "If they have the dollar, we have Allah."

He added: "If there are dollars under your pillow, take these out. If there are euros, take these out. Immediately give these to the banks and convert to Turkish lira and by doing this, we fight this war of independence."

Who is Bruce Ohr?

Fusion GPS’s work and its involvement with several FBI officials have been well reported. But a close review of new documents shows just how closely Associate Deputy Attorney General Bruce Ohr, who reported to Obama-era Deputy AG Sally Yates, maintained contact with Fusion — and, in particular, its primary source, former British spy Christopher Steele — before, during and after the election.

Steele asked Ohr in a Jan. 31 text exchange if he could continue to help feed information to the FBI: “Just want to check you are OK, still in the situ and able to help locally as discussed, along with your Bureau colleagues.”

“I’m still here and able to help as discussed,” Ohr texted back. “I’ll let you know if that changes.”

Steele replied, “If you end up out though, I really need another (bureau?) contact point/number who is briefed. We can’t allow our guy to be forced to go back home. It would be disastrous.” Investigators are trying to determine who Steele was referring to

D'Souza has been an idiot

I did.

Mudeller is on firm legal ground.