"Mueller, in first comments on Russia inquiry, declines to clear Trump" by Sharon LaFraniere New York Times, May 29, 2019
WASHINGTON — Democrats seized on Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s refusal to exonerate President Trump and his reference to Congress, saying the onus was now on the House and Senate to fully investigate Trump’s actions. The president’s aides tried to cast the event as not even newsworthy, just a repetition of a 448-page report released weeks ago.
And they would be right. There isn't any "real" news in the Globe anymore.
Mueller, 74, who carried out the investigation without speaking a word publicly, walked stiffly to the lectern and began tentatively, then delivered a succinct distillation of his investigation that was distinctly more powerful than the often legalistic language of his two-volume report.
This looks like a desperate ploy to raise impeachment!
By the Times' reckoning, we should all be listening to radio and podcasts, not reading filthy newspapers.
In summing up his inquiry, he seemed to cast the president’s conduct in a more damning light than Attorney General William Barr, who has said Trump was not guilty of “obstructive conduct.”
Now it is not even obstruction of justice, but obstructive conduct!
Barr had also suggested that the president may have been merely acting out of frustration, not corrupt intent, when he tried to interfere with the special counsel’s investigation, including when he tried to oust Mueller.
He was either frustrated or trying to keep his son-in-law safe, and now it is all falling apart.
Mueller, by contrast, stressed the gravity of the allegations against the president. Although he noted that his office did not “make a determination as to whether the president did commit a crime,” he said, “the matters we investigated were of paramount importance.”
He added, “When a subject of an investigation obstructs that investigation or lies to investigators, it strikes at the core of their government’s effort to find the truth and hold wrongdoers accountable.”
As if government were interested in truth.
Btw, this is the guy who is neck-deep in 9/11 and was in Bo$ton during the reign of Whitey Bulger. That's why the Feds sent Whitey to be killed. He was going to blow the whistle (did you notice how Mueller didn't make the movie?).
Barr suggested at one point that the special counsel should not have collected evidence against Trump if he only intended for Congress to review it, but Mueller defended his inquiry as wholly justified.
The investigation was necessary both to preserve evidence and to hold accountable anyone who might have conspired with the president and could face criminal charges, he said. He also referred obliquely to the impeachment process, a point that is reduced to a footnote in his report.
Mueller said his news conference was his final word on his investigation. He suggested that Democrats in Congress were wasting their time in seeking his testimony because he would simply repeat what he stated in his report. “The report is my testimony,” he said.
Like I waste mine every morning reading Globe slop.
Although his comments suggested he was more troubled by Trump’s actions than Barr, Mueller took pains to defend how the attorney general handled his report — a subject of previous disagreement between the two men.
The president’s allies took advantage of that interim to cast the findings in Trump’s favor, prompting complaints that Barr was allowing them to shape the public narrative before the facts came out.
Yeah, that's the ma$$ media's job!
Mueller acknowledged that he and Barr had differed over whether to release his team’s summaries, but he said, “I certainly do not question the attorney general’s good faith in that decision.” He also complimented Barr’s decision to make almost the entire report public.
He left that to the Democraps.
Despite Mueller’s comments, Democratic House leaders vowed to continue to seek his testimony.
See: House Democrats want Mueller to testify, despite his reluctance
Republicans, meanwhile, said they were looking ahead to the results of a review into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation that ultimately triggered Mueller’s appointment.....
When are you going to investigate that, NYT -- and I don't mean some vague slop that doesn't go anywhere.
--more--"
What an "extraordinary spectacle," eh?
You have the option to read the AP version, if you wish, but Mueller’s done and the Globe says to reframe the debate over Trump’s actions so Congress can get to the endgame and take down Trump.
In battle against vaping, AG sues national retailer, alleging it targets underage consumers
Take it outside, will ya'?
[flip to below fold]
Trooper in OT scandal says many of his colleagues also committed fraud, bosses knew about it
Hey, it's Ma$$achu$etts, one of the most corrupt, if not most corrupt, state in the nation!
Where’s the beef? The North Shore, where they’re fighting over the No. 1 sandwich
Have you made your dinner reservations yet?
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
McConnell called hypocrite after saying GOP would confirm justice in 2020
Now they are going after his wife, and has anyone seen Ruth Bader Ginsburg lately?
I mean, if her health is the issue......
"White House runs into health care industry ire as it plans executive order on drug prices" by Amy Goldstein and Josh Dawsey Washington Post, May 29, 2019
WASHINGTON — President Trump is preparing to issue an executive order to foster greater price transparency across a broad swath of the health care industry while consumer concerns about their costs for medical treatment emerge as a major issue in the leadup to next year’s presidential election.
The most far-reaching element favored by the White House aides developing the order would require insurers and hospitals to disclose for the first time the discounted rates they negotiate for services, according to health care lobbyists and policy specialists familiar with the deliberations.
The idea has stirred such intense industry opposition, however, that it may be dropped from the final version, the sources said.
Compelling disclosure of negotiated rates ‘‘would have the ultimate anticompetitive effect,’’ said Tom Nickels, the American Hospital Association’s executive vice president for government relations and public policy.
The order also may include an effort to promote more competition among hospitals by slowing a trend toward consolidation, according to an administration official who spoke on the condition of anonymity about details that continue to take shape.
The executive order, likely to be announced by mid-June and first reported by The Wall Street Journal, would carry the force of law but not bring about immediate change.
Then this is really a nothing article, isn't it?
The order reflects a conservative conception of how to tame rising health care costs, relying on competition — the idea that consumers will make prudent, price-minded choices if they are given enough information and options about where to get their care. Critics say patients are seldom in position to comparison shop.
With surveys showing that voters trust Democrats significantly more than Republicans to solve problems in the health care system, the order is, in part, a White House strategy for his reelection campaign to portray Trump as an ally of medical consumers.
This slop is making sick.
‘‘My understanding is they are trying to figure out what is going to have high splash value,’’ said Dan Mendelson, founder of Avalere Health, a Washington-based consulting firm.
The order also is a response to voters’ escalating concern about the growing burden of out-of-pocket health care costs.....
--more--"
Related:
Missouri governor doubles down on threat not to renew abortion clinic license
The tissue-harvesting Planned Parenthood doesn't have its paperwork in order?
Californians wish they were dreaming as record-breaking cold and wet weather hits
The Globe buried that at the bottom righthand-corner of page A2 because it would have conflicted with the narrative.
"White House kills plan for expanded criminal background checks for federal jobs" by Lisa Rein Washington Post, May 29, 2019
WASHINGTON — The White House, after receiving bipartisan criticism, quietly has withdrawn a plan to require applicants for federal jobs to divulge whether they went through a pretrial diversion program that helped them avoid prison.
The proposed expanded criminal background checks appeared to conflict with President Trump’s support for criminal justice reform, an effort championed by his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, that has become an early issue in the 2020 presidential race.
The update to hiring requirements was posted for public comment in late February by the Office of Personnel Management.
An administration official, who was not authorized to speak publicly about the decision, said the White House told the federal personnel agency to drop the new language following an outcry from advocates and a report in The Washington Post.
An OPM official confirmed the administration had dropped the proposal and said the agency would provide comment later.
The new requirement had escaped Kushner’s notice. It blindsided liberal and conservative groups, which formed an unlikely coalition last year to push major legislation through Congress called the First Step Act that revises sentencing laws and expands reentry and early release programs.
They just told you jwho is really in charge, and whatever happened with those bank records anyway?
‘‘The prospect of stigmatizing people who have gone through a diversion program is horrible,’’ said Jason Pye, vice president of legislative affairs for FreedomWorks, a conservative group that pushes for criminal justice reform.....
That is a Koch group.
--more--"
Yeah, Creepy Uncle Joe seems to be above it all while the only authentic candidate is Sanders.
Let the winnowing begin (bye, Seth)!
How about those Senate races in South Carolina and Alabama, huh?
Florida Cabinet meets in Israel, raising objections from watchdog, media outlets
The headline speaks for itself!
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Israel moves to hold new election as Netanyahu fails to form a coalition
That was my World lead, and rather than give Gantz a chance at a government, they are going to hold new elections. Maybe Netanyahu can do a better job of rigging them this time as Gantz becomes Israel's version of Subianto.
Accused of lying, Boris Johnson is summoned to court over Brexit claims
The New York Times says "after Britons voted to leave the bloc, 52 percent to 48 percent, many supporters abandoned the pledge, calling it a mistake, but....."
But what, NYT?
Britain vowed big changes after tower fire, but thousands still stuck in firetraps
It's two years later and not a thing has been done.
That's government for you! Just an exercise in damage control and public relations while looting the populace.
Btw, why didn't the Grenfell (or any of the other skyscrapers we have seen on fire over the years, neither before nor since) drop into its own footprint like those three WTC towers on 9/11?
Dutch court bans Hells Angels motorcycle gang
They claim it is a violent organization that endangers public order.
You know, like the USraeli government:
"In UAE, Trump’s adviser warns Iran of ‘very strong response’" by Jon Gambrell Associated Press, May 29, 2019
ABU DHABI, United Arab Emirates — President Trump’s national security adviser John Bolton spoke to journalists in Abu Dhabi, the capital of the United Arab Emirates, which only days earlier saw former defense secretary Jim Mattis warn there that ‘‘unilateralism will not work’’ in confronting the Islamic Republic.
Doesn't he have a book coming out?
What is he doing over there interfering with US Foreign policy anyway?
He's no longer a member of the administration.
Isn't that treason?
The dueling approaches highlight the divide over Iran within American politics.
On Wednesday, Bolton told journalists that there had been a previously unknown attempt to attack the Saudi oil port of Yanbu as well, which he also blamed on Iran. He described Tehran’s decision to back away from its 2015 atomic deal with world powers as evidence it sought nuclear weapons, even though it came a year after America unilaterally withdrew from the unraveling agreement.
If that isn't flipping things on their head, I don't know what is.
What an embarrassment it is to have that human piece of excrement speaking for my beloved nation.
Bolton stressed the United States had not seen any further Iranian attacks in the time since, something he attributed to the recent military deployments — but he warned the United States would strike back if again attacked.
‘‘The point is to make it very clear to Iran and its surrogates that these kinds of action risk a very strong response from the United States,’’ Bolton threatened, without elaborating.
So who is the next false flag, John, and where?
Bolton spoke before talks with Abu Dhabi’s powerful crown prince, Sheikh Mohammed bin Zayed Al Nahyan. He declined to have his remarks recorded by journalists.
Where is the ma$$ media outrage?
A longtime Iran hawk, Bolton blamed Tehran for the recent incidents, at one point saying it was ‘‘almost certainly’’ Iran that planted explosives on the four oil tankers off the UAE coast. He declined to offer any evidence for his claims.
‘‘Who else would you think is doing it?’’ Bolton asked at one point when pressed. ‘‘Somebody from Nepal?’’
That would be a tall sell, even for the New York Times.
JWho is hiking up there anyway?
Iran’s Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif has repeatedly criticized Bolton as a warmonger. Abbas Mousavi, a spokesman for Iran’s Foreign Ministry, said later Wednesday Bolton’s remarks were a ‘‘ridiculous accusation.’’
Separately in Tehran, President Hassan Rouhani said that the ‘‘road is not closed’’ when it comes to talks with the United States — if America returns to the nuclear deal. However, the relatively moderate Rouhani faces increasing criticism from hard-liners and Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei over the collapsing accord.
Meanwhile, acting US defense secretary Patrick Shanahan said some 900 troops coming to the Mideast over the perceived Iran threat to reinforce the tens of thousands already in the region would be placed in Saudi Arabia and Qatar. Another 600 attached to a Patriot missile battery have had their deployment in the region extended.
Bolton also said the US would boost American military installations and those of its allies in the region.
But no attack, right?
Bolton said that without more nuclear power plants, it made no sense for Iran to stockpile more low-enriched uranium as it now plans to do, but the United States also earlier cut off Iran’s ability to sell its uranium to Russia in exchange for unprocessed yellow-cake uranium.
That's right, Pilgrim!
Iran has set a July 7 deadline for Europe to offer better terms to the unraveling nuclear deal; otherwise, it will resume enrichment closer to weapons level. Bolton declined to say what the United States would do in response to that.
‘‘There’s no reason for them to do any of that unless that’s part of an effort to reduce the breakout time to produce nuclear weapons,’’ Bolton said. ‘‘That’s a very serious issue if they continue to do that.’’
Then let the attack begin, for it will finally bring the EUSraeli Empire to an end!
Bolton’s trip to the UAE comes just days after Trump in Tokyo appeared to welcome negotiations with Iran, but Bolton himself, for years before becoming national security adviser, called for overthrowing Iran’s government in interviews and in paid speaking engagement before an Iranian exile group.
‘‘I don’t back away from any of it. Those are positions I took as a private citizen,’’ Bolton said when asked about his prior remarks. ‘‘Right now I’m a government official. I advise the president. I’m the national security adviser, not the nation security decision-maker. It’s up to him to make those decisions.’’
Then God help us all!
He also dismissed reports that he faced criticism from Trump over his hard-line stance with what he described as an old proverb: ‘‘The dogs bark and the caravan moves on.’’
You know what dogs leave in their wake, right?
Now where is that pooper scooper?
--more--"
Also see: Iranian jabs at Trump go viral on social media
So says Bloomberg.
Related:
"A former Tehran mayor and vice president if Iran was arrested on suspicion of murder after his wife was found in her bathtub, shot several times. Mohammad Ali Najafi, 67, was arrested Tuesday and handed over to prosecutors Wednesday, the state news outlet IRNA said. It said Najafi confessed to shooting his second wife, Mitra Ostad, 35. Gun crime is rare in Iran, and Najafi’s prominence has made the crime all the more shocking, raising questions about media coverage of domestic violence....."
The New York Times says Iranians abuse their women so we must invade!
Of course, the domestic violence issue in AmeriKa has been overshadowed by the #MeToo movement!
Also related:
"To get inside Mar-a-Lago, where President Trump was staying last Thanksgiving, 18-year-old Mark Lindblom walked along the beach until he reached an underground tunnel, leading straight to the luxury club. The narrow corridor dipped beneath South Ocean Boulevard, a shortcut so Mar-a-Lago Club members didn’t have to cross the street on their way to and from the beach. There was a sign posted right outside the tunnel, warning, ‘‘UNITED STATES SECRET SERVICE RESTRICTED AREA,’’ according to federal court documents, but Lindblom, who was not a member of the club, was undeterred. ‘‘I wanted to see how far I could get,’’ the college freshman told a federal magistrate on Tuesday, the Palm Beach Post reported. As it turns out, he got pretty far: past Secret Service and all the way inside. For sneaking onto the property, Lindblom pleaded guilty Tuesday to entering or remaining in a restricted building. Lindblom, reportedly a business student at the University of Wisconsin, was sentenced to a year of probation and $25 fine after prosecutors acknowledged he had no ill intent, that he intended only to take pictures on his cellphone. The security breach is the latest incident at Trump’s private ‘‘Winter White House’’ in recent months, provoking concerns about inadequate security measures at the club."
It's a Washington ComPost piece, and it is a blatant signal to Trump regarding how easy it would be to assassinate the man, so he had better toe the line!
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
Boston Teachers Union reaches potential contract deal with city
That will keep them coming back!
Don’t Be Like Us
Don't worry, I'm not one of you.
Delaware North, chaired by Bruins owner, wants in on professional sports betting
Related(?): Former Babson College soccer player charged with sending death threats to athletes
He bet on both professional and collegiate sports, and when teams or players he bet on lost, he would send them threats on Instagram.
Look for more of that as sports betting expands.
How about a drink?
"A state senator apologized after his drunk driving arrest. Next week, he’s fighting the charges in trial" by Matt Stout Globe Staff, May 29, 2019
After his March 2018 arrest on drunken driving charges, state Senator Michael D. Brady was repentant, apologizing publicly to his family, his constituents — even to police — before announcing he had admitted himself for alcohol treatment and counseling.
Left unsaid in the carefully worded statements: He intends to fight the charges.
Brady, 57, is set to go to trial Tuesday in Quincy District Court, where a conviction of operating under the influence could carry fines and jail time and potentially invite further discipline back on Beacon Hill.
The Brockton Democrat has hired Jack Diamond, a former Suffolk County prosecutor and Hingham attorney regarded as one of the state’s premier OUI lawyers. He intends to submit medical records from an optometrist in his defense, and in simply going to trial, Brady has taken an uncommon route.
The vast majority of drunken driving cases in Massachusetts — some 85 percent — are resolved outside of a trial, most of them through pleas, according to a study of OUI cases court officials commissioned in 2012. Most commonly, especially among first-time offenders, cases are “continued without a finding,” which carries most of the penalties of a guilty finding without giving the defendant a criminal record.
Through a spokesman, Brady declined to discuss the case ahead of his trial, citing advice from his lawyer. Diamond did not respond to requests seeking comment.
David Traub, a spokesman for Norfolk District Attorney Michael W. Morrissey, a former lawmaker himself, said prosecutors would not disclose whether they offered Brady a plea deal to continue the case without a finding, but he said that Diamond is “likely aware that [it’s] the relatively standard disposition” for cases in Quincy District Court.
He said the office has not approached prosecuting Brady’s case any differently because he’s an elected official.
“The only notable difference [in this case] is the press attention being given due to his position,” Traub said.
Brady was pulled over in the early morning of March 24, 2018, when police said he was unsteady on his feet and slurred his words and his breath smelled of alcohol.
Brady admitted to drinking at a “work event” in Boston and at one point told an officer that “he was a state senator,” according to a police report. He failed several field sobriety tests, police said, and his license was suspended for nearly six months after he refused to take a Breathalyzer test.
He later pleaded not guilty to charges of operating under the influence of liquor, negligent operation of a motor vehicle, and a civil count of a marked-lanes violation. Diamond filed paperwork in February indicating he will submit records from a Brockton-based optometrist at trial, though his one-page affidavit didn’t explain why.
At the time of his arrest, Brady released a statement apologizing to a range of people “for any embarrassment and distraction that this incident causes.”
“I know that as a senator, I am held to a higher standard, and I will abide by the advice of my counsel as this matter is adjudicated by our judiciary,” he said.
Brady had been previously cited for drunken driving in 1998, also in Weymouth, where police said he admitted to drinking “a lot of beers” before driving his car into a telephone pole, but Brady, then a Brockton city councilor, avoided drunken driving charges after appearing in a closed-door clerk’s hearing in Quincy District Court. A criminal count of driving to endanger was reduced to a marked-lanes violation, a civil infraction that cost Brady $100, and he was found responsible for not wearing a seat belt and fined $35.
Brady’s case was one of many the Globe reviewed as part of a Spotlight series examining the secretive court hearings.....
--more--"
Check this out:
The long history, culture of the BPL
Also see:
"The city is set to launch this week a privately sponsored campaign, Fund for the Boston Public Library, the first major philanthropic endeavor of its kind for the 171-year-old civic institution. It’s part of an effort, officials said, to build on the library as an integral community resource in an age of fast-paced technological advances and increasing income inequality. “The realization is that to respectively do everything our residents are asking of us, and we can live up to, really requires more funding and resources to do that,” David Leonard, the library’s president, said in an interview ahead of the planned announcement Wednesday, adding that fund-raising efforts were never before “at the level the library, as one of Boston’s treasured cultural institutions, truly deserved,” though the city funds most of the library’s nearly $50 million budget....."
That is when I stopped reading, and they already have $2.8 million in donations in hand.
Lincoln woman who served as World War II spy surprised with Congressional Gold Medal
Steamship Authority ferry run canceled Wednesday due to ‘mechanical issues’
Panel urges state courts to eliminate ban on cellphones and other electronic devices
{@@##$$%%^^&&}
How the Merrimack Valley won, despite losing Amazon’s HQ2 contest
With app, commercial real estate startup plans to enhance landlord-tenant relations
For these biotech workers, love (of music) is the drug
Newest Boston hotel’s name sounds familiar
Chinese tech giant Huawei heads to court to fight US ban
Related(?):
"Another round of selling gripped Wall Street on Wednesday as nervous investors fled health care, technology, and other high-risk stocks in favor of the safety of bonds. The broad sell-off, which lost some momentum in the last hour of trading, keeps the market on track for its fourth consecutive weekly loss and its first monthly drop this year....."
Also see:
Nissan and Renault talk about Fiat merger proposal
And as Facebook tries to calm fears over metadata use, Pelosi calls them ‘willing enablers’ of Russian election interference.
What more is there to talk about?
