HAB911
HAB911's JournalRoger Stone will testify before House Intl Cmte
Sept 26, Cmte source tells me. Jim Sciutto Verified account CNN
https://twitter.com/jimsciutto/status/908403049529577473
John Morgan, may run for FL Gov sez:
#HurricaneIrma Advice: Take pictures or videos of all your valuables. The insurance company is not your friend. Pass it on.
https://twitter.com/JohnMorganESQ/status/905039205331587073
A Second Look at the Steele DossierKnowing What We Know Now
Bottom line: it's generally credible
Recent revelations of Trump campaign connections to Russia have revived interest in the so-called Steele Dossier. The dossier is composed of a batch of short reports produced between June and December 2016 by Orbis Business Intelligence, a London-based firm specializing in commercial intelligence for government and private-sector clients. The collection of Orbis reports caused an uproar when it was published online by the US website BuzzFeed, just ten days before Donald Trump’s inauguration. Taken together, the series of reports painted a picture of active collusion between the Kremlin and key Trump campaign officials based on years of Russian intelligence work against Trump and some of his associates. This seemed to complement general statements from US intelligence officials about Russia’s active efforts to undermine the US election. The greatest attention was paid to the first report, which conveyed salacious claims about Trump consorting with prostitutes in Moscow in 2013. Trump himself publicly refuted the story, while Trump associates denied reported details about their engagement with Russian officials. A lot of ink and pixels were also spent on the question whether it was appropriate for the media to publish the dossier. The furor quickly passed, the next news cycle came, and the American media has been largely reluctant to revisit the report over the months since.
https://www.justsecurity.org/44697/steele-dossier-knowing/
Prominent Republicans Urge Supreme Court to End Gerrymandering
WASHINGTON — Breaking ranks with many of their fellow Republicans, a group of prominent politicians filed briefs on Tuesday urging the Supreme Court to rule that extreme political gerrymandering — the drawing of voting districts to give lopsided advantages to the party in power — violates the Constitution.
The briefs were signed by Republicans including Senator John McCain of Arizona; Gov. John R. Kasich of Ohio; Bob Dole, the former Republican Senate leader from Kansas and the party’s 1996 presidential nominee; the former senators John C. Danforth of Missouri, Richard G. Lugar of Indiana and Alan K. Simpson of Wyoming; and Arnold Schwarzenegger, a former governor of California.
“Partisan gerrymandering has become a tool for powerful interests to distort the democratic process,” reads a brief filed by Mr. McCain and Senator Sheldon Whitehouse, Democrat of Rhode Island.
The Supreme Court will hear arguments in the case, Gill v. Whitford, No. 16-1161, on Oct. 3.
https://mobile.nytimes.com/2017/09/06/us/politics/prominent-republicans-urge-supreme-court-to-end-gerrymandering.html?referer=https://t.co/6fPl88HAIE?amp=1
Trump lawyer in leaked email exchange: 'Me and Kelly' are the 'adults in the room'
White House special counsel Ty Cobb on Tuesday engaged in a lengthy email exchange in which he defended his decision to join President Donald Trump's legal team and appeared to refer to himself and White House chief of staff John Kelly as the "adults in the room."
Jeff Jetton, the owner of a popular ramen restaurant in Washington, DC, has made himself known to reporters by digging into Trump's ties to Russia, partly as an unabashed troll. He sat down with Carter Page, an early Trump campaign foreign-policy adviser, and Sergei Millian, a reported source in the dossier alleging Trump-Russia ties, earlier this year for separate on-the-record interviews. Jetton also once wrote Trump's personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, to give him fashion advice.
Cobb responded, using his official White House email account, to Jetton's obscenity-laden emails to him on Tuesday night. The exchange, which was provided to Business Insider by Jetton, sheds light on Cobb's motivations for entering the White House and his perception of his role.
"How are you sleeping at night? You’re a monster," Jetton wrote to Cobb's White House email account on Tuesday night.
"Like a baby..." Cobb replied.
http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-lawyer-ty-cobb-email-russia-2017-9
Trump gets millions from golf members
CEOs and lobbyists get access to president
Dozens of lobbyists, contractors and others who make their living influencing the government pay President Trump’s companies for membership in his private golf clubs, a status that can put them in close contact with the president, a USA TODAY investigation found.
Members of the clubs Trump has visited most often as president — in Florida, New Jersey and Virginia — include at least 50 executives whose companies hold federal contracts and 21 lobbyists and trade group officials. Two-thirds played on one of the 58 days the president was there, according to scores they posted online.
Because membership lists at Trump’s clubs are secret, the public has until now been unable to assess the conflicts they could create. USA TODAY found the names of 4,500 members by reviewing social media and a public website golfers use to track their handicaps, then researched and contacted hundreds to determine whether they had business with the government.
The review shows that, for the first time in U.S. history, wealthy people with interests before the government have a chance for close and confidential access to the president as a result of payments that enrich him personally. It is a view of the president available to few other Americans.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/09/06/trump-gets-millions-golf-members-ceos-and-lobbyists-get-access-president/632505001/
http://amp.usatoday.com/story/632505001/
How to Read a News Story About an Investigation
Eight Tips on Who Is Saying What By Benjamin Wittes
Over the past few months, I’ve been consistently surprised at the assumptions people make about who is leaking—or lawfully and properly disclosing—material to newspapers that have been breaking stories on L’Affaire Russe. Anonymous sourcing has many benefits, but one of its pernicious features is that it allows everyone to draw their own conclusions about who makes disclosures. These conclusions of course map onto preexisting political fault lines.
To a large degree, the problem is inherent. The nature of anonymity is that it obscures accountability. That’s its very purpose.
Yet journalists—at least ethical ones—do follow rules and conventions about sourcing. Those rules are self-serving, to be sure, ones that attempt to make trade-offs between the need to tell the truth and the need to obscure the identity of who’s helping a reporter reveal what he’s got. The basic balance ends up being that the words have to be literally true but that they can—at least to a certain degree—also be quite misleading to those who are not in on the code. Still, the rules are real and they constitute a known professional discipline that provides the savvy reader—those that take the time to learn them—a certain latitude to discern what’s going on. But that’s a big if. To make reasonable inferences, you have to both know the rules and use them to parse sourcing descriptions carefully.
I worked as a journalist for more than a decade. Those years included covering the period of intensive reporting concerning the last major investigation of a sitting president—and the alleged leaks that arose from that investigation.
https://lawfareblog.com/how-read-news-story-about-investigation-eight-tips-who-saying-what
POLICE CHIEF THANKS UTAH NURSE FOR STANDING FIRM
RIGBY — On July 26 of this year, one of our reserve officers, William Gray, was the victim in a horrific accident in northern Utah while working his full-time job as a truck driver.
The suspect in this incident was fleeing from Utah State Highway Patrol, when he crossed into oncoming traffic and collided head on with Gray’s truck, severely injuring Gray and killing himself. Officer Gray was flown to the University of Utah’s burn unit where he remains under their watchful, professional, and competent care.
Within the first hours of Officer Gray being admitted into the burn unit, an incident occurred between hospital staff and an officer from an agency in Utah who was assisting with the investigation.
The Rigby Police Department was not aware of this incident until Aug. 31, 2017.
The Rigby Police Department would like to thank the nurse involved and hospital staff for standing firm and protecting Officer Gray’s rights as a patient and victim. Protecting the rights of others is truly a heroic act.
https://www.eastidahonews.com/2017/09/rigby-police-chief-thanks-nurse-for-standing-firm-in-protecting-officers-rights/
So lemme get this straight
@realDonaldTrump sits at home watching live hurricane coverage ON THE NEWS & he asks himself "Where's the media?"
https://twitter.com/wkamaubell/status/904131867149869056
Bannon's right-hand woman remains in the White House
WASHINGTON — Former White House chief strategist Steve Bannon may have left the building, but one of his top aides, Julia Hahn, remains in the West Wing.
Hahn is a 26-year-old former writer from Bannon’s site, Breitbart News. Earlier this week, a source familiar with the situation told Yahoo News that Hahn was staying on in her position as a special assistant to the president and deputy strategist in the wake of Bannon’s departure last month.
Due to her fiery writings for Breitbart, association with the controversial Bannon, and an unusual level of secrecy surrounding her work, Hahn has been the subject of mystery and intrigue since President Trump took office. Hahn did not respond to multiple requests for comment on this story and the White House would not say what Hahn has been working on. However, a source said that, prior to Bannon’s exit, she was working closely with him and another top staffer, Stephen Miller, and focusing on immigration policy. Neither Bannon nor Miller responded to requests for comment on this story.
In addition to the secrecy surrounding Hahn and her duties, her rather unconventional background contributed to the interest in her work. Hahn hails from Beverly Hills, where her grandfather built a bottling company fortune, her father has produced movies, and she attended one of the Los Angeles area’s top private schools before going on to University of Chicago. Her grandmother is a well-known philanthropist and staunch advocate for gun control and her younger brother has worked in one of Trump’s least favorite fields, journalism, including a stint as an intern at the president’s frequent target, CNN. None of Hahn’s immediate family or former co-workers responded to requests for comment on this story.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/steve-bannons-right-hand-woman-remains-white-house-202241541.html
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