caulfield12

"Obama could be sentenced to up to 5 years in prison if he is investigated and found guilty of wiretapping President Donald Trump's campaign headquarters during the last presidential election..." Lol. Love the Breitbart comments section. In response to Levin/Breitbart hit piece Julian Borger reported for the Guardian back on January 11 that FBI inquiries into ties between four Trump associates and Russian government figures had led to applications for two Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) warrants. One application was rejected, and then a second, narrower application was accepted. Contrary to Trump’s assertions, the President of the United States does not personally direct FBI investigations, and there’s no evidence that Obama had anything to do with this personally. Lurking beneath Trump’s conspiratorial web is simply the reality that he seems to be confirming that intelligence services and the FISA Court believe there is some kind of investigation-worthy evidence out there. http://www.vox.com/2017/3/4/14813434/trump...hoo&ref=yfp

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/03/03/char...l-flynn?ref=yfp Now it's time for the conservative media to close ranks and blame all current Trump political quagmires on "land mines" set by the Obama admin One positive (if Bannon/Priebus/Miller are out of favor) is that Ivanka softens his worst instincts, like separating mothers from their children at the border...on the other hand, Jared Kushner has zero foreign policy experience...but more of a deal maker than a keyboard warrior, compared to many in the admin. Unless the flashpoint is Israel, that is.

QUOTE (RockRaines @ Mar 4, 2017 -> 08:37 AM) 1. Trump is in full panic mode. They must be getting close to the truth about him and Russia 2. His defense is to tweet out stories from Breitbart. Lol They STILL have Milo's podcast prominently featured...along with an exciting assortment of Breitbart souvenirs.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-po...m=.cfaaf78a4c23 Latest WaPo wiretapping story http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/E/EU_...-03-03-08-20-54 Moscow compares Sessions uproar to McCarthyism....still coordinating news? What next, Russia hacked Oscars to rally Trump voters against Hollywood glamorization of "perverted" gay black males by exchanging La La Land Best Picture envelope for Moonlight? SNL will destroy him tonight. https://mobile.twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/...src=twsrc%5Etfw And yet he still has energy to feud with Arnold about Celebrity Apprentice

“Just out: The same Russian Ambassador that met Jeff Sessions visited the Obama White House 22 times, and 4 times last year alone,” Trump tweeted.. Trump small mind doesn't realize that Obama was the sitting president who had the authority to meet with foreign diplomats. "Yahoo Tony" 4 mins ago

http://www.cbsnews.com/news/trump-claims-o...fices-election/ It gets worse. "Obama is a bad (or sick) guy." https://www.yahoo.com/news/this-is-nixonwat...-131755678.html snidesnide29 minutes ago wow kite surfing and wire tapping? Trump you are turning Obama into a regular James Bond!!!!

Not sure where Joshua is going...but the fact is that many of us (including myself!) have probably deserved at least a 5-10 day ban more than once. If anything, the mods here are TOO reasonable. And surely the political jokes have been pushed to the precipice, but life is too short to hold a grudge against a comment riddled with obvious sarcasm.

Moncada with a single and triple...but two more K's. (Second hit was off Andre Rienzo.) Now 7 in 13 abs.

QUOTE (bmags @ Mar 3, 2017 -> 05:47 PM) Chaffetz contends that because Sessions was a senator it is not perjury due to some rule. "It is, at best, very misleading testimony," said Richard Painter, formerly the top ethics lawyer in President George W. Bush's White House. "I don't go so far as to say that it's perjury, but there is a lesser charge of failing to provide accurate information to Congress." "A nominee at a confirmation hearing has an obligation to provide full and complete information to Congress," Painter continued. "Conduct that might be just short of perjury in a deposition in a typical civil case is entirely inappropriate in front of Congress." However, such misdemeanor charges are usually only rolled out as part of a plea deal after prosecutors obtain or threaten more serious felony perjury charges. Some lawyers say those would be a stretch in Sessions' case. "Perjury is very hard to prove," said former House Counsel Stan Brand, who worked for the Democrats. "You have to prove two elements that are very difficult in the Congressional context: one is intent and two is an absolutely clear and unambiguous question." Politico.com

http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/opinions/why...nion/index.html Trump's war on reality is truly baffling (excellent piece) http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/hous...s-it-say-235648 New ObamaCare repeal details leaked... The bill still includes new tax credits for individuals based on age, a proposal that hardline conservatives derided as "Obamacare lite" after POLITICO published a previous version of the draft legislation last week. However, one significant change to the tax credit is being considered: not allowing wealthier Americans to qualify for assistance. No specific proposal for cutting off eligibility has been added to the legislation, but staff have been directed to come up with possible proposals, according to a source familiar with the deliberations. The latest draft, dated Feb. 24, also still includes a plan to phase out Obamacare’s Medicaid expansion. Instead the program’s current open-ended federal entitlement would be replaced by capped payments to states based on the number of Medicaid enrollees.

MSU seems safe, Michigan a bit less so. Illinois and Iowa need to win at least two B10 Tourney games.....probably there ends up being a head to head elimination. If they only beat Illinois once or closed out Minnesota, they'd (Iowa) be in the same position or better than Michigan. Have beaten Iowa State, Wichita State (without Van Fleet), MD, Purdue, WI. MD and WI on the road.

QUOTE (soxfan2014 @ Mar 3, 2017 -> 01:11 PM) Who else is gone from the "ton of moves?" They biggest one is still here. Rollins, Lawrie, Navarro, Morneau, Latos, Jackson, Avila, etc. Shields and Frazier still around.

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 3, 2017 -> 07:49 AM) Sessions used campaign funds to visit with the Russian ambassador. https://twitter.com/Amy_Siskind/status/8374...src=twsrc%5Etfw That means he lied in response to both frankens broad question and the narrower written question. And now Trump will go after the conservative Wall Street Journal, too? Trump can't exactly try to push the stock market back down to enact revenge on them, can he?

http://money.cnn.com/2017/03/03/news/econo...jobs/index.html Trump voters in the Rust Belt want good jobs now

http://m.mlb.com/news/article/217383778/to...y-mlb-pipeline/

"Jeff Sessions is an honest man. He did not say anything wrong. He could have stated his response more accurately, but it was clearly not intentional," Trump said. "This whole narrative is a way of saving face for Democrats losing an election that everyone thought they were supposed to win. The Democrats are overplaying their hand. They lost the election and now, they have lost their grip on reality. The real story is all of the illegal leaks of classified and other information. It is a total witch hunt!" On Twitter, Massachusetts Democratic Sen. Elizabeth Warren warned that Sessions should never have been confirmed at all, but now there is reason to remove him. "Now Jeff Sessions is AG -- the final say on the law enforcement investigation into ties between the Trump campaign & Russia? What a farce. This is not normal," she tweeted. "This is not fake news. This is a very real & serious threat to the national security of the United States." So much for the unifying tone TUES night. Out the window already. Both sides firmly entrenched yet again. http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/dem...call/index.html

QUOTE (Reddy @ Mar 2, 2017 -> 07:41 PM) This thing is just going up in flames. I love every second of it. Except if that happens you're still left with Pence or Ryan as president...depending on your views towards those two, it could be even worse in terms of partisanship, because Trump at least can float from side to side politically and try to pick off the Democrats and might actually be able to FORGE a compromise on immigration. Of course, that might all be just "reasonable-sounding talk" from the administration and a red herring to distract from a more nefarious reality.

Another national security adviser to the Trump campaign, J.D. Gordon, also disclosed Thursday that he had met with Kislyak, this time during the Republican National Convention in Cleveland in July. That meeting was first reported by USA Today. Gordon told CNN that along with national security advisers Carter Page and Walid Phares, Gordon stressed to the Russian envoy that he would like to improve relations with Russia. Gordon added that at no time did any inappropriate chatter come up about colluding with the Russians to aid the Trump campaign. "This is not any different than anything I said publicly and on panels," Gordon said. Gordon had advocated for language in the GOP platform that the Ukrainians not be armed in their battle against pro-Russian separatists, an effort was ultimately successful. But Gordon says he was simply advocating what Trump himself had expressed -- that he did not wish to see major war break out over the situation in Ukraine. cnn.com So you've also got one of Trump's three key advisors, Jared Kushner, admitting to meeting Kislyak http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/02/politics/rus...ions/index.html Kislyak is NOT a spy, Russia contends (hahaha!!!)

QUOTE (StrangeSox @ Mar 2, 2017 -> 12:37 PM) After a SEAL’s death in Yemen, questions persist on Trump’s decision-making process https://www.democracynow.org/2017/3/2/headl...ential_approval Solution for Trump...let Pentagon call the shots and blame them later by claiming you weren't involved in decision-making process Here's hoping that the NSA/CIA has recordings of what Sessions actually said...otherwise, deny deny deny

Complacency/risk-aversion biggest issues with American workers http://finance.yahoo.com/news/why-tougher-...-153036556.html Trump undoubtedly tapped into a vein of frustration among Americans fed up with the kind of economic stagnation Cowen documents. But Cowen doesn’t see Trump as a savior. “I think he’s proving to be an ineffective president who isn’t getting much done because of lack of attention to detail,” he says. “For all this talk of change, Trump is just another symbol of complacency.” Trump fulminates about protecting Americans from terrorism, for instance, and claims the government will bring relief to Americans falling behind. But he doesn’t call on Americans to take more risks, show more initiative or make short-term sacrifice for long-term gain. Where is all this heading? To more economic volatility, the continued displacement of jobs by technology, and even more feckless government, if Cowen is right. But the gloom won’t last forever. “People will be shook out of their complacency by changes and risks that are so big they can’t control them,” Cowen says. “Only then will America somehow find itself once again.”

He was the ONLY member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee to meet with the Russian ambassador, period...and not just once, BUT TWICE. Flynn Manafort Cohen Sessions Tillerson Wilbur Ross http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2016/1...l-ties-russians Donald Jr. and Eric Trump However, he and his family have had many dealings in Russia and with Russian émigrés elsewhere. Donald Trump Jr., for example, was a keynote speaker at a Moscow real estate conference in 2008. “Russians make up a pretty disproportionate cross-section of a lot of our assets,” Trump Jr. said during his speech, according to reports from the time. “We see a lot of money pouring in from Russia.” Read more here: http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-g...l#storylink=cpy

https://www.yahoo.com/news/the-central-mist...-100052871.html Forget Trump's speech, look at his budget. Of course, Sessions/Russia Talk is about to take over again for the next week or so.

QUOTE (ChiSoxFanMike @ Mar 1, 2017 -> 05:39 PM) You can cherrypick individual players all you want to prove your point, but it's like comparing apples to oranges. Ynoa was nowhere as highly rated as Robert and they don't play the same position either. They're not comparable. It's not like signing Robert would prevent these pennies on the dollar signings anyway, so I'm not sure what your point is. Fwiw, Miguel SAño was the second most hyped that year, at 16, after coming into the signing season first but sliding due to collusion with the buscones, as a rumored appeared that he was overage and lying. The mom was furious. There was an agent who wanted to push him to a team for a lesser overall price where he would have received an appreciable kickback in return. Shady stuff. One example of the scouts being right, although his defensive value undercuts him.

The man is an American through and through That's the current fault line in American politics...despite Obama's 60-65% job approval/popularity ratings when he left the White House, there was the perception: 1) He wasn't patriotic and didn't wear his American flag lapel pin proudly enough 2) He apologized too much for American Exceptionalism and preferred to reach out to Islamic-majority countries more than Israel (largely this was to compensate for the shift in the other direction for 8 years under Bush) 3) That his "cool aloofness" was yet another indicator of the Democratic Party's problem attracting "average" folks between the two coastal regions of the country, the meatloaf/steak & potatoes crowd 4) Wait...he wasn't even born in America!!! 5) Obama and the Dems were globalists/corporatists who wanted to sell out the country to George Soros/Wall Street and take away everything unique and distinctive that makes America and "The American Dream" such a great symbol for the world Listening to C-SPAN there really is that 20-25% that strongly believes that Obama was the "lousiest" president in American history. It's really hard to believe that they could be so righteous in their calls for positivism now (especially due to ONE SPEECH) after watching everything that transpired with GOP obstructionism over the last 8 years. Even forgetting about the "dark/pessimistic" Trump phenomenon, the idea that Democrats now owe it to the country to work together with the president...well, that's just rich. Didn't the GOP owe it to the country to consider Merrick Garland's Supreme Court nomination and work with the Dems 7-8 years ago to come up with a better version of ACA...a solution they still don't have nearly a decade later? Now it's the fault of the Dems for not passing a better law, when nobody on the other side of the aisle even attempted to compromise?

http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option...p;jumival=18545 Ralph Nader on Trump's speech PAUL JAY: --To some extent people that aren't that familiar with these agencies, it sounds a bit like alphabet soup. Can you give some examples of what they do and how it might affect people's lives if they're weakened? RALPH NADER: Yeah, well you know, thousands of babies are born with flippers for legs and arms in Europe because they didn't have regulation of a sedative, years ago, that was taken by pregnant women. Well, our Food and Drug Administration under the leadership of Dr. Kelsey blocked it. And so, there were no babies born with flippers for legs because-- PAUL JAY: --This is thalidomide, is it? RALPH NADER: Yeah, that was thalidomide. The Auto Safety Agency has presided with some irregular interruptions with a massive decline in fatalities and injuries on the road. The curve has gone up in the last two years, but according to Clarence Detlaw(?) of the Center for Auto Safety, 3.5 million deaths were averted because of the Federal role that started in 1966 under Lyndon Johnson, in highway vehicle and driver Safety. 3.5 million-averted deaths and you can imagine how many more injuries were averted. The American people have less lead in their blood because tetraethol(?) lead was taken off the market from gasoline by the Environmental Protection Agency. We have more efficient motor vehicles in terms of gas mileage, nothing like I would have liked, but still that has saved billions and billions of dollars. We have the Consumer Financial Protection Board that the Republicans and Trump seem to want to abolish that has brought back $11.5 billion and is cracking down on financial fraud against students with loans, fraud against mortgage shenanigans, and other such corporate violations. And the story goes on and on. Now, none of these Federal regulatory agencies besieged by corporate lobbyists and often run by people from the corporations they're supposed to regulate, have done what I would like done. But can you imagine life without them? And those are the budgets he wants to cut, so he can continue bloating the Pentagon budget which is the only agency in the country at the Federal level that is not auditable. It is violating a 1990 Federal law that went into effect in 1992 that requires them to provide auditable data to the Government Accountability Office of the US Congress. Every other agency does that. Every other Department does that, but the biggest budget of all doesn't do that. And he wants to give them more money. I mean, this is a Pentagon budget that loses billions of dollars in the Air Force spare parts which they buy again because they can't locate them in the far-flung warehouses around the world. This is a Pentagon budget that admits to the loss, unaccountably of $9 billion in the first few months of the criminal invasion of Iraq by George W. Bush and Dick Chaney. That's $9 billion with a "B", and he wants to give them more money. The hapless Democratic Party, of course, won't point this out, but your reporter, Tom Hedges has written about the not auditable Pentagon budget. But unfortunately, the rest of the mainstream press is not picking it up. So, you can have these crazy contradictions and it's what he doesn't mention, for example, he talks about terrorism, and a few homicides by illegal immigrants, he doesn't talk about the immigrants who are in retail stores in the inner city who have been slain by criminals who were born in the US throughout the country. He doesn't mention that at all but what he ALSO doesn't mention is that 5,000 Americans a week are dying because of mishaps that are preventable in hospitals. Who says so -- last March, Johns Hopkins University Medical School put it out -- it's 250,000 Americans dying every year through preventable causes, hospital-induced infections, hospital malpractice, hospital errors, bad combinations of pharmaceuticals, and he doesn't even mention it. That's 5,000 a week, 800 a day and the doctors who did this study said that was the minimum, conservative figure. That is probably much higher if they took clinics into account. And then he talks about abolishing Obamacare, and he doesn't mention that the government he's heading is being defrauded $60 billion a year, Medicare's being defrauded by corporate and other crooks in the healthcare industry. He doesn't even mention that. He doesn't mention that over $340 billion this year will be drained away through computerized billing fraud and abuse in the provision of healthcare sales. $340 billion according to the applied mathematician expert Professor Malcolm Sparrow at Harvard University and an earlier study by the Government Accountability Office. So, what we have here is an orchestrated speech by Donald Trump and I think they really worked to make sure there was no low level booing, as has often occurred, in State of the Union speeches, and they really worked on just massive applause that, you know, when you hear it just on the radio, it just seems orchestrated and largely exaggerated. But of course, you know, his easily-bruised ego required that kind of calming(?), that kind of support and I think the Republicans in the Congress basically agreed to it because they were hell-bent on not having any division before this big national audience -- that they wanted to show that there was unity. But actuall