Thursday, June 8, 2017

Thursday's Losers

They are following up Wednesday's Winners, and it's a long list.

Let's start from the top with the greatest loser of all:

‘I need loyalty,’ Comey to testify Trump said

I thought he testified yesterday, and now I not only need not read this, I need not watch it. Besides, he wasn't the loser I was talking about.

‘Cloud’ over Trump is now a full-blown thunderstorm

Yeah, that's the one, sizing up his war criminal docket as I type. Good thing about thunderstorms is they pass relatively quickly.

Below the fold:

Whistle-blower files suit over alleged double-booked surgeries

Yeah, the Globe is really loving the whistleblowers these days (ha-ha-ha-ha).

General Electric was ordered to clean up the Housatonic River, but now the plan may be scuttled by those who drafted it: the EPA.

How fortunateJust warms the heart, doesn't it?

Brookline principal Asa Sevelius is finally becoming himself

Excuse me, where is the toilet?

Thank you.


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They told me it was in the back, and you should se how Gro$$ it looked:

"US markets are at their highest risk levels since before the 2008 financial crisis because investors are paying a high price for the chances they’re taking, according to Bill Gross, manager of the $2 billion Janus Henderson Global Unconstrained Bond Fund. “Instead of buying low and selling high, you’re buying high and crossing your fingers,” Gross, 73, said Wednesday at the Bloomberg Invest New York summit. Central bank policies for low-and negative-interest rates are artificially driving up asset prices while creating little growth in the real economy and punishing individual savers, banks, and insurance companies, according to Gross. The US economy is expected to grow 2.2 percent this year and 2.3 percent in 2018, according to forecasts compiled by Bloomberg. Trump administration officials have said their policies will boost annual growth to 3 percent." 

My first reaction was: HE'S NUTS! 

Then I thought Bloomberg and others were.

"US Representative Bill Keating called out Secretary of Homeland Security John F. Kelly on Wednesday for misinterpreting a provision that authorized Kelly to raise the cap of seasonal foreign workers. Employers around the country, including many in New England, have been unable to hire back the foreign workers they count on each summer because of a change in the seasonal visa program, causing a mad scramble to find staff to make beds and serve lobster rolls as the summer tourist season kicks off. To address the problem, Congress added a provision in the May spending bill authorizing Kelly to increase the number of H-2B visas from 66,000 to roughly 129,000. When Keating, whose district includes the Cape and Islands, asked Kelly about raising the cap during a Homeland Security committee hearing, Kelly responded that there is reluctance to expand the program because it will cost Americans jobs. Keating responded that there was bipartisan support for lifting the cap and that Americans won’t do this kind of seasonal service work. “It is concerning that Secretary Kelly and the department could interpret it to mean that Congress did not want to increase the number of H-2B workers when the provision specifically gave him the authority to do just that,” Keating said in a statement. “This is not a trivial issue, this is a matter of many seasonal, small businesses being able to open in time for their high season. The revenues made now are what keep these businesses afloat.” The Department of Homeland Security did not respond to a request for comment....."

There is overtime if you want it

As for me, I've had it.

"Essential, a startup run by the creator of Google’s Android, added $300 million to its war chest as it looks to break into the highly competitive field of consumer electronics. The financing round valued Essential at $900 million to $1 billion, according to an analysis of fundraising documents by Equidate, a private market research firm. Essential submitted paperwork on the new investments in late May, a few days before co-founder Andy Rubin unveiled the first two products: a high-end smartphone and an Amazon Echo-like gadget for the home. Investors in the deal weren’t disclosed. A spokesman for Essential declined to comment. Essential emerged from Playground Global, a tech incubator Rubin formed after leaving Alphabet Inc.’s Google in 2014. Rubin, a pioneer in mobile tech, ran the Android unit at the search giant for nearly a decade."

RelatedYou got a warrant?

Umm, they no longer need no stinking' warrants, and the concern is not serious coming from that echo chamber.

Santander buys failing Banco Popular for 1 euro

Weren't they in some sort of trouble for auto loans that made people really mad?

Pot pizza among the edibles for sale at Quincy dispensary

UGH! 

Why don't you add some cigarette butts as a topping, too? I'd rather eat garbage fast food and pink slime than that.

Then they were gone in a flash

Scientists worry about plan to cap individual labs’ federal funding

There is money is flowing out there; you just need to know where to look to $niff it out.

"Banks and other financial companies led US stocks slightly higher Wednesday, snapping a two-day losing streak for the market. The latest gains were partially offset by a slide in energy companies following a 5.1 percent slump in the price of US crude oil, its biggest single-day drop in nearly three months. Trading was mostly subdued, as investors sized up the latest company earnings and looked ahead to testimony Thursday from former FBI director James Comey, part of a congressional investigation into Russia’s possible election-meddling. Financials were the biggest gainers in the S&P 500. Speculation that the Federal Reserve may raise its key interest rate at a meeting next week probably helped lift the sector on Wednesday. Higher interest rates allow banks and credit card issuers to charge more for loans, which boosts profits. Oil futures fell sharply after a report said US crude stockpiles grew last week......" 

Qatar is of no concern to the markets. Hmmm.


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"Several Baltimore police officers charged with racketeering met in the detention center where they’re being held and discussed how to ‘‘beat’’ some of their charges, according to federal prosecutors....."

How would the feds know that unless they were spying or had an informant in their midst?

That's not defending Baltimore's bullies, and sorry for copping out.

Montana Republican charged with assaulting reporter apologizes

I'm glad that's literally $ettled.

"Trump picks former prosecutor Christopher Wray to head FBI" by Glenn Thrush and Julie Hirschfeld Davis New York Times   June 07, 2017 

I'm glad it wasn't Lieberman but.... 

WASHINGTON — President Trump on Wednesday announced that he had selected Christopher Wray to be his FBI director, turning to a former federal prosecutor who recently defended Governor Chris Christie of New Jersey in the so-called Bridgegate scandal to lead an agency under a harsh political spotlight.

The president revealed his decision in an early-morning tweet without alerting members of Congress in advance. Hours after the Twitter post, the White House followed up with an official statement in which Trump called Wray “an impeccably qualified individual,” citing his role in major fraud investigations and antiterrorism efforts at the Justice Department after the 9/11 attacks.

Wray is a safe, mainstream pick. He was the lead lawyer for a pharmaceutical company that agreed in 2010 to pay $81 million to settle federal claims it had illegally promoted the use of the epilepsy drug Topamax. Wray represented two subsidiaries of Johnson & Johnson who were targeted by whistleblower lawsuits in US District Court in Boston.

Some civil liberties organizations expressed deep reservations about Wray, a litigation partner at King & Spalding, a law firm that advises Trump’s family real estate empire.

“Christopher Wray’s firm’s legal work for the Trump family, his history of partisan activity, as well as his history of defending Trump’s transition director during a criminal scandal makes us question his ability to lead the FBI with the independence, evenhanded judgment, and commitment to the rule of law that the agency deserves,” said Faiz Shakir, national political director of the American Civil Liberties Union, referring to Christie and the Bridgegate case.

Shakir said Wray would also have to “come clean about his role” in legal justifications for the use of torture during the Bush administration after the 9/11 attacks.

Related: Trump on Torture 

Were Trump truly what he said he was during the campaign, there would be war crimes trials in the Senate or Supreme Court for members of the Bush Administration at least.

Wray played a pivotal role in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, providing oversight of Justice Department operations as the country adjusted to a new reality and working alongside Comey and Robert Mueller, then the FBI director and now a special counsel overseeing the Russia investigation. As head of the criminal division from 2003 to 2005, Wray directed efforts to deal with fraud scandals plaguing the corporate world.

???????

He was also in charge of oversight when all the bad mortgage-backed securities were being written and sold?

While Wray’s reputation is not as a partisan operative, he has donated consistently to Republican candidates in recent years. Over the past decade, he has contributed at least $35,000 to Republican candidates or committees, according to data maintained by the Federal Election Commission. He did not do so during the 2016 election. Wray earned his law degree in 1992 from Yale Law School.

Republicans praised Trump’s choice even as they expressed surprise about the way in which it was unveiled.  “I learned about it from Twitter,” Senator Charles Grassley, Republican of Iowa, chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said in a corridor in the Capitol. “But then, I learn a lot of things about the president from Twitter.”

Only losers use twitter.

--more--"

I like Naomi Wolf (right around #9, wouldn't you say) more than Naomi Klein (was shocked to see it, though), and Naomi Watts even more, but as for the rest it's one or the other.


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A teachable moment, but not censorship, at Harvard

(Blog editor just shakes head. Now eliti$t $upremaci$m is a teachable moment!)

Related:

Haverhill teen shot to death when he answers the door

St. Paul assault survivor Chessy Prout to write memoir

That's her story and she's sticking to it! Don't tell her she is crazy, either. 

Take one step back.

Boston lawyer acquitted in connection with ‘Naut Guilty’ boating accident

Cost him an arm and a.... bad pun, my apologies

No big deal being drunk with underaged girls on the boat, 'eh?

My guess is they don't really care given that the story was the lead on my local news last night.

‘I was on the phone talking to him when he killed himself’

Already seen enough of her, and it is looking like satanism and child sacrifice could be the motive behind the tragic Bella Bond slaying. Maybe they can make a movie of the black art later, and subsidize a few more salaries.

Speaking of making movies:

"On June 8,1972, during the Vietnam War, an Associated Press photographer took a photo of a 9-year-old girl, Phan Thi Kim Phuc, as she ran naked and burned from a South Vietnamese napalm attack."

Got me think, why no movie about the USS Liberty? It's the 50th anniversary today, and nary a peep from my jew$paper!! Those are usually big anniversaries that they use to reflect upon the past x-amount of years.

It makes for a great screenplay and story. It's based in reality, and ou can develop the real life characters upon the ship, the suspense can be built through the first hour, the actual event would be the climax, and then a small epilogue to close.

I'll bet it would be a real winner.