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Well, I think it was last year same time same place .. where the cavs LOST three and everyone said . .NO ONE has ever caught up and then won the series in that situation . meaning three games down .... BUT ... and the BUT is a big one .......................dubs didn't have kd last time ..... so ... I get it ..
once again , I didn't watch the whole game .. for the same reasons that I have left early all the other recent games ... ..
oh well, there's always books that what we used to do .. read books .. ! ............;)
see you
going with James .. can't stand those princesses! .. ..
my god they have the cavs with only a 7percent chance to win the series .. huh?
at least 20 right ?
Game starting, channel 3 at now .. ;)
Well, tonight is the first game of the plalyoffs between the Cavs and the DUBS ...
I'm so confused .. I was going to be for the dubs this time .. all the way through .. but then some people here in California had to show their ignorance and damage James home with RACIAL EPITAPHS ! god when will this stuff stop.. of course James is calm and basically perfect .. he took it well, I would say more sad than anything else but still it's NOT a surprise to him! .. (doesn't that make you angry? He's not surprised! damn.. people get rid of your hate for gods sake go work with kids .. help some kids learn to read ..do things to get rid of your hate! anyway...
I guess I will be for EVERYONE! .. this time or until I see something that ticks me off on one side .. there are people who play with the Princess that really really tick me off .. and really the only thing that ever ticks me off about the Cavs is that they are so damn GOOD!.... ;) .. they always beat my favorite teams ! dammit!
anyway ........I 'm sure glad the finals are here ..it's been a long season .......for me anyway. .Good CHEER to ALL everywhere who take part in these classic games ... ;)
GO CHRISTIANS!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!good job!!!
I got pregnant. I chose to keep my baby. And my Christian school humiliated me.
Making the decision to become a teenage parent was hard. What came next was even harder.
yes yes, I know they're not ALL like that, but even one is too much!
By Madeline Runkles June 1 at 6:00 AM
Madeline Runkles is a high school student in Maryland.
VIDEO - go to the link
I’m only 18 years old, and I’m about to have a baby boy in the fall as a result of my deliberate failure to adhere to a pledge of chastity I signed at my school.
Until this year, I was an ordinary high school student at Heritage Academy, a Christian school in Hagerstown, Md. I was the president of the student council and vice president of the Key Club. I played soccer, had a 4.0 GPA, and ate ice cream and watched movies with my best friends on the weekends. My Christian faith is also extremely important to me, so I involved myself at my church working in the nursery, helping out with Vacation Bible School and helping my mom with meals for church bus drivers on Sunday mornings.
But in January, all that changed. What I thought was the flu was actually the very beginning of my pregnancy. This wasn’t the way it was supposed to be. I was going to graduate in a few months with very good grades and then in the fall I was going to head off to Bob Jones University in South Carolina.
[A Christian school rejects calls to let a pregnant senior attend graduation]
I am a born-again Christian, one who made a mistake with a very visible consequence. Even though I grew up knowing abortion was wrong, I also knew that it would make things easier for me — no one would know what I had done, and I could get on with my life. I had seen women being forgiven who admitted to having abortions, while women who kept their babies seemed to be harder to forgive. But the more I thought about abortion, the more I knew I couldn’t go through with it. In my view, abortion is taking a life. And I couldn’t do that.
I told the baby’s father first. I didn’t know how to tell my parents, because even though they were very involved in both my brother’s life and mine, telling my parents I was pregnant at 18 wasn’t at the top of my list of things I thought I would ever do.
Finally, I broke down in a grocery store parking lot with my mom, and I cried as I told her the truth. She looked at me and said: “I’m not mad at you, I’m not upset with you. You’re gonna be fine, and we’re gonna make it through this.” I still had to work up the courage to tell my dad, but when I finally did — the day I received my acceptance letter to Bob Jones — he reacted just like my mom: “It’s going to be okay, sweetie,” he said, “God is in this somewhere, we just need to find where He is in all of this.”
Unfortunately, my school didn’t feel the same way.
My dad was, at the time, the president of the board at Heritage Academy. He called an emergency board meeting to explain my situation. I was not allowed to attend school as my principal and the board decided if I would be allowed to return at all, and I would be stripped of all leadership positions. I wasn’t allowed to attend sports games to watch my brother play basketball or baseball, and I wouldn’t be allowed on campus until after the baby was born. I would be allowed to receive my diploma, but I would have to take all my classes at home, and wouldn’t be allowed to walk at graduation.
This felt overly harsh to me and my parents, so my dad asked the principal and the board to reconsider. He argued that the only difference between me and other seniors who had broken the school’s moral code in various ways was that I was pregnant, and they were trying to hide me away because they were embarrassed by my visible sin. My principal and the board finally changed their decision: I would be allowed back to finish the year with my classmates, but I couldn’t be in any leadership positions in school clubs, and I still couldn’t walk at graduation.
On top of all of this, my principal called an assembly of the entire high school, and invited school families, to tell everyone what had happened. He told me I didn’t need to be there, but I volunteered to tell them myself. I was a senior and a campus leader, so I felt like I should stand there myself and tell them what I did.
In front of the whole school, I got up and started to read a statement that I wrote, explaining that I had broken the rules, that I was repentant and that I asked for forgiveness. But I couldn’t get through it. My dad had to read some of it while I composed myself. It was one of the hardest things I ever did, and I’m so sorry, not for myself, but for any girl in that audience who will get pregnant in the future and may consider abortion because of what I had to go through.
After that, I got involved with Students for Life of America, as I wanted to use my story to help other girls like me. Part of their mission is to help pregnant girls and teenage mothers on campuses like myself who are treated unfairly. They had seen similar situations and after trying to persuade the school privately, which was unsuccessful, we decided to take my story to the media in hopes to create a national conversation about how girls like me should be treated.
When girls like me who go to pro-life schools make a brave pro-life decision, we shouldn’t be hidden away in shame. The sin that got us into this situation is not worth celebrating, but after confession and forgiveness take place, we should be supported and treated like any other student. What we are going through is tough enough. Having to deal with the added shame of being treated like an outcast is nothing that any girl should have to go through.
Many of the people in my town and at my school who had supported me and my family have turned on us since I went public, feeling that all the scrutiny was hurting Heritage Academy’s reputation. We started getting nasty emails, angry posts on social media and rude remarks in person. People who had been supportive before are now telling me to shut up, suck it up and grow up. Because of the volume of anger from the community, my parents have decided to keep my brother and me at home for the rest of the school year.
I’m still not allowed to walk at graduation this month, but I still wouldn’t change my decision to keep my baby — a boy, who I want to name Greyson. Even though it’s been hard losing support in my town, even though my school has drawn out my punishment over months, I want other girls in my position to know you don’t have to give in to pressure or fear of judgment.
My school could have made an example of how to treat a student who made a mistake, owned up to it, accepted the consequences, and is now being supported in her decision to choose life. But they didn’t. It is my hope that the next Christian school will make the right decision when the time comes.
Thank Goodness for WONDERFUL Parents!
https://www.washingtonpost.com/posteverything/wp/2017/06/01/i-got-pregnant-i-chose-to-keep-my-baby-and-my-christian-school-humiliated-me/?utm_term=.42f692c09a63
Putin Hints at U.S. Election Meddling by ‘Patriotically Minded’ Russians
By ANDREW HIGGINS JUNE 1, 2017
President Vladimir V. Putin in St. Petersburg, Russia, on Thursday. He said that hackers “are like artists” who
choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.” Credit Pool photo by Dmitri Lovetsky
MOSCOW — Shifting from his previous blanket denials, President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia said on Thursday that “patriotically minded” private Russian hackers could have been involved in cyberattacks last year to help the presidential campaign of Donald J. Trump.
While Mr. Putin continued to deny any state role, his comments to reporters in St. Petersburg were a departure from the Kremlin’s previous position: that Russia had played no role whatsoever in the hacking of the Democratic National Committee and that, after Mr. Trump’s victory, the country had become the victim of anti-Russia hysteria among crestfallen Democrats.
Raising the possibility of attacks by what he portrayed as free-spirited Russian patriots, Mr. Putin said that hackers “are like artists” who choose their targets depending how they feel “when they wake up in the morning.”
“If they are patriotically minded, they start making their contributions — which are right, from their point of view — to the fight against those who say bad things about Russia,” he added.
His remarks echoed ones by Mr. Trump, who has dismissed accusations of Russian meddling and said that the person responsible for the attack on the Democratic National Committee “could be somebody sitting on their bed that weighs 400 pounds.”
UH, NO KIDDING PUTINY? Go read the whole sad thing -- he thinks we would believe him? .. god.. so funny! trumpee and putiny ...holding hands climbing that tree ... so ridiculous. the American people are NOT stupid .. well yes, some are I'm very sad to say .... anyway.. Go READ.. ;)
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/06/01/world/europe/vladimir-putin-donald-trump-hacking.html?_r=0
Trump administration moves to return Russian compounds in Maryland and New York
By Karen DeYoung and Adam Entous May 31 at 7:16 PM
The Trump administration is moving toward handing back to Russia two diplomatic compounds, near New York City and on Maryland’s Eastern Shore, that its officials were ejected from in late December as punishment for Moscow’s interference in the 2016 presidential election.
President Barack Obama said Dec. 29 that the compounds were being “used by Russian personnel for intelligence-related purposes” and gave Russia 24 hours to vacate them. Separately, Obama expelled from the United States what he said were 35 Russian “intelligence operatives.”
Early last month, the Trump administration told the Russians that it would consider turning the properties back over to them if Moscow would lift its freeze, imposed in 2014 in retaliation for U.S. sanctions related to Ukraine, on construction of a new U.S. consulate on a certain parcel of land in St. Petersburg.
Two days later, the U.S. position changed. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson told Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak at a meeting in Washington that the United States had dropped any linkage between the compounds and the consulate, according to several people with knowledge of the exchanges.
[Inside the Oval Office with Trump and the Russians: Broad smiles and loose lips]
Go to the link for more of everything... very interesting ... ;)
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-security/trump-administration-moves-to-return-russian-compounds-in-maryland-and-new-york/2017/05/31/3c4778d2-4616-11e7-98cd-af64b4fe2dfc_story.html?utm_term=.ba7057310ccc
yay~ .. yay Lawrence!
that's a relief...;)
It makes their brain swell up. ..
... Love IT! Dale..
Go Gunballs! ..Thank YOU so much for that snippet of TRUTH!
we really do appreciate that on this board! .. I mean IT!
GOD! he is soooooooooooooooooooooo milking this! ..just loves the attention
Elon Musk told him ____Elon Musk to Trump: Ditch Paris deal and I'll quit as your adviser
May 31, 2017: 3:55 PM ET
Elon Musk says he'll step down from President Donald Trump's advisory councils if he decides to withdraw from the Paris climate agreement.
The CEO of both Tesla (TSLA) and SpaceX tweeted Wednesday that he's done everything possible to lobby the president to keep the U.S. in the treaty.
"Don't know which way Paris will go, but I've done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in WH & via councils, that we remain," Musk said.
Asked via Twitter what he'll do if Trump decides to leave, Musk responded that he would "have no choice but to depart [the] councils in that case."
Don't know which way Paris will go, but I've done all I can to advise directly to POTUS, through others in WH & via councils, that we remain
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2017
Will have no choice but to depart councils in that case
— Elon Musk (@elonmusk) May 31, 2017
Musk is currently one of 18 business leaders who serve on Trump's business advisory council, formally known as the Strategic and Policy Forum. He is also part of the president's manufacturing jobs initiative, and has met with POTUS to discuss the need to boost infrastructure spending.
Trump is expected to announce later this week that he intends to pull out of the landmark Paris agreement. The U.S. signed the accord in 2015, committing to reducing carbon emissions by 26% to 28% within a decade.
Tesla is one of hundreds of companies that has asked Trump not to withdraw.
Musk has said he's raised climate issues with the White House before, but that despite these efforts, he's come under fire for his willingness to engage with the Trump administration. In April, a Silicon Valley investor took out full-page ads in the Sunday editions of the Washington Post and New York Times that called on Musk to "dump Trump."
This isn't the first time Musk has publicly opposed the Trump administration. Musk came out strongly against the president's executive order on immigration, which temporarily banned travel from seven Muslim-majority countries. Musk said in February that he would remain on Trump's advisory councils even though he publicly opposed the ban.
"Advisory councils simply provide advice and attending does not mean that I agree with actions by the Administration," Musk said on Twitter at the time.
Uber CEO Travis Kalanick, meanwhile, decided to step down to protest the ban.
Silicon Valley has had a complicated relationship with the Trump White House in its early months. Tech giants like Tesla, Google (GOOG) and Apple (AAPL, Tech30) have had to balance their desire to try to influence policy with their longstanding support for immigration and green energy.
CNNMoney (New York) First published May 31, 2017: 3:55 PM ET
http://money.cnn.com/2017/05/31/news/elon-musk-paris-climate-deal-trump/
now he feels that HE IS IN THE DRIVERS SEAT .. oh HA!
Just Another Night in Donald Trump’s America
May 31, 2017 | Scott Lemieux
I’m definitely more interested than ever in how Obama will justify nominating James Covfefe Director of the FBI.
56 GREAT comments !
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/05/just-another-night-donald-trumps-america
And then, Melania has got her bought and paid for feathers up ... about it ..... puleeeze .............Poor Baron, I just feel that for sure he is a sperm bank child ... . I mean who on earth could lay down next to HIM? .... well, his daughters and I guess poor Baron ..... but puleeeze ... Melania ? ..........I don't think so .. unless the drugs were 'that good' ..........and the pay is that great!
I feel fine taking the stick to her .. after all .......she blabbed and blabbed about Obama not being born here being a Muslim from some such country .. that she had never heard of .. ... god they are so so sickening!
just leave already .. we don't want to pay for any of you!
I agree .... I don't know where or who but I heard it this morning on the tv ... that there is a mob, confefe's fans that want to hurt her .. I mean hurt her really! ... really hurt her . .oh I know I read this on NBC .. this morning somewhere around 10 or 11:00 ... .. my VIEW time .. ;) ............and they are worried very worried. They agreed it was thoughtless and 'showed no smarts etc.. etc.. ..everything BUT they are much more worried about HER! this, what they were calling The MOB ...... it was on nbc ... I flipped over during the views commercials .. .... so sad .. sheesh, as nasty as he has talked about people and they don't think that incites people to do bad stuff ? .. . well ...................it does !
anyway, there is some confefe mob threatening her life and following her .. everything etc... and she has done everything ... but they just don't care ... apologizing two million times will not be enough for them! they want to hurt her ..
How are You? ... how are the Red Sox doing? I've been watching a little bit but not since last week.....
Gunballs I loved that answer of yours ... .;) thanks for the smile
so ... how's Confefe today? ALright? .. alright........
what to say? How about this from Chris?
ChrisS says:
May 31, 2017 at 8:39 am
Well, I’m sure that his reasons are well-thought out, backed up with thorough studies, and
potential improvements to combat climate change will be clearly stated.
Ah, who the fuck am I kidding …
---------------
keta says:
May 31, 2017 at 8:45 am
Only two other nations currently do not support the climate deal: Nicaragua and Syria.
Hmmm…
---------------
N__B says:
May 31, 2017 at 8:46 am
The good news is that, once DJT has destroyed our local economy and our foreign trade,
our production of greenhouses gases will decline.
----------------
gocart mozart says:
May 31, 2017 at 11:19 am
What is a greenhouse gas?
A fart amongst the plants in a glass enclosure.
----------------
Knight of Nothing says:
May 31, 2017 at 8:52 am
It’s not at all surprising, but
I find myself seething. It makes me as angry as Sessions’ nomination.
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/05/u-s-pulling-paris-climate-agreement
U.S pulling out of Paris climate agreement
[ 100 ] May 31, 2017 | Paul Campos
Per various sources.
[ http://www.cbsnews.com/news/president-trump-to-withdraw-from-paris-climate-agreement/ ]
Imagine Donald Trump’s answer to this question: What is a greenhouse gas?
Time for a drink.
100comments .. wonderful! read some...;)
http://www.lawyersgunsmoneyblog.com/2017/05/u-s-pulling-paris-climate-agreement
yes ...we all know this is not 'new news' I just had to get mine in!
and no doubt still getting. People were so stuck on her in a negative way and then shouting it out that it was actually very scary.... and all that for a person who was guilty of nothing .... I could never do what she did and then .. .do what she is doing now ... she shows lots of courage and frankly doesn't appear to give a damn about 'whatever the russian trolls think about her' .. let's face it .. it started in the nineties .. rush limbaugh.... he never let up .. but of course for sane people .. it's always been disgusting ... .. but, that's republicans! Republicans are our Number one problem in the country and have been for years and years .. I just never saw it so clearly before ...
Oh Hi FastLizzy ,, it's always good to see you here !
O.K., I edited!GO HERE! - Congress expands Russia investigation to include Trump's personal attorney
One of President Donald Trump’s closest confidants, his personal lawyer Michael Cohen, has now become a focus of the expanding congressional investigation into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 campaign.
Cohen confirmed to ABC News that House and Senate investigators have asked him “to provide information and testimony” about any contacts he had with people connected to the Russian government, but he said he has turned down the invitation.
“I declined the invitation to participate, as the request was poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered,” Cohen told ABC News in an email Tuesday.
After Cohen rejected the congressional requests for cooperation, the Senate Select Intelligence Committee voted unanimously on Thursday to grant its chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, and ranking Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner of Virginia, blanket authority to issue subpoenas as they deem necessary.
"To date, there has not been a single witness, document or piece of evidence linking me to this fake Russian conspiracy," Cohen added. "This is not surprising to me because there is none."
While much of the media focus in recent days has fallen on Russian contacts made by Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, there are few people closer to the president than his longtime lawyer. Insiders consider Cohen to be Trump’s pit bull or consigliere for his role in threatening legal action against Trump critics, gaining notoriety for threatening and browbeating reporters investigating Trump’s background.
He was quoted in 2015 telling Daily Beast reporters, “I will take you for every penny you still don’t have. And I will come after your Daily Beast and everybody else that you possibly know … So I’m warning you, tread very f---ing lightly, because what I’m going to do to you is going to be f---ing disgusting.”
In a 2016 appearance on CNN that went viral, the stone-faced attorney flashed anger when anchor Brianna Keiler said the Trump campaign was “down.”
“Says who?” he challenged. When she cited polls, he countered, “Which polls?” She replied, “All of them.” His final response in that exchange proved prescient: “You’re going to all be very surprised when he polls substantially higher than what you all are giving him credit for.”
After the 2016 campaign, Cohen left the Trump Organization to become the president’s personal attorney, a job he still holds. From that post, he has continued to weigh in on Trump’s behalf on Twitter and during occasional television appearances.
After Trump dismissed FBI Director James Comey, for example, Cohen tweeted, “I believe @POTUS was justified in terminating #Comey as @FBI director. #RT if you agree with me!”
Cohen was also made a deputy national finance chairman of the Republican National Committee — a position that gives him some sway on how money will be allocated to Republican candidates. And in April he announced he formed a “strategic alliance” with the powerful D.C. lobbying firm Patton Boggs, a firm whose clients include Russia’s third-largest bank, Gazprombank. The arrangement enables him to work out of Squire Patton Boggs’ offices in New York, Washington and London, according to the announcement.
The emergence of Cohen as a subject of the Senate probe brings renewed attention to a strident Trump advocate who was named in the unverified dossier prepared by a former British intelligence agent during the 2016 campaign and provided by the FBI to Sen. John McCain, which contains a number of unconfirmed allegations that Cohen played a role in working with the Russians on the hacking of Democratic National Committee computers during the campaign.
In January, Cohen told ABC News the allegations in the dossier were “laughably false.” His wife is Ukrainian, and he once worked with her family in Ukraine to establish an ethanol business. ABC News was able to debunk some references to him in the unverified document, such as the assertion in the that his Ukrainian-born father-in-law had a vacation home, or dacha, near Russian President Vladimir Putin’s.
“I don’t even think my father-in-law has ever been to Moscow,” Cohen told ABC News earlier this year. “I wonder who’s living in the dacha.”
Another suggestion in those documents — that Cohen supposedly met with the Russians in Prague last August — is also false, he said. Then-President-elect Trump pushed back against the claim in a wide-ranging news conference held in January, saying that he saw Cohen’s passport.
“I said, ‘I want to see your passport.’ He brings his passport to my office. I say, ‘Hey, wait a minute. He didn’t leave the country. He wasn’t out of the country.’ They had Michael Cohen of the Trump Organization was in Prague. It turned out to be a different Michael Cohen,” Trump said. “It’s a disgrace what took place. It’s a disgrace, and I think they ought to apologize to start with Michael Cohen.”
Democrats in Congress have argued it is conceivable he entered Europe through another country — he was in Italy on vacation around the time the dossier alleges he was in Prague — and his passport would not receive a stamp for crossing the border, but no proof of any such trip has been produced.
“I’ve never actually walked the land in Prague,” Cohen told ABC News. “And last August I was not in Prague.”
Congressional investigators involved in the widening probe have already identified four Trump campaign advisers as people of interest because of their interactions with Russian officials. Only one of them, retired Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, has received a subpoena for records. Flynn, who served briefly as Trump’s national security adviser, declined to provide them, citing his Fifth Amendment rights.
Lawmakers have also asked former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, informal adviser Roger Stone and former foreign policy adviser Carter Page to voluntarily hand over relevant records. All three men have said publicly they are producing records and cooperating with investigators.
ABC News' Eric Avram and Pete Madden contributed to this report.
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/russia-investigation-expands-include-donald-trumps-personal-attorney/story?id=47646601
how much worse can this get
LOLOL... ;) This!
https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_person.aspx?membernum=2975&nummsgs=1
Ayock is the BEST EVER!
oh I think she would be dead .. I mean really a woman ?
those are the only choices they have ... I'm happy they have two choices......
If I were them I wouldn't show too much enthusiasm for either one though .. as he will take it away.. ...
Thank YOU so much Fuagf ... that is one of the ugliest things I've read of republicans doing ..
but russians are still worse, however, republicans are catching up fast! .. IF they don't have a
come to jesus moment pretty soon ..........well then .................
and by the way, I never even cared about 'emails' ... my decision about Russia has been ...
along my way of life.... and that which I have read and observed over the years at that time current news ...
My distaste for Russia has been forever ... nothing at all to do with our election
I don't like men who poison and/or imprison their opponents and/or lock them up take their money and companies
... and keep them in russia jail forever .... until they make a deal or he then kills them ..
NO ! .. and they CHEAT all the TIME in SPORTS .. kill doggies .. they are the buttholes of the earth ....no thank you!
never had a taste for them .. I don't like their accents either ...
I've always thought they were the rump of the world.......
AND I have NOT HEARD ONE DEMOCRAT say ONE WORD about wanting WAR with that murderer who lays with garbage of the world..........NOT ONE!
I hope so too Hookrider ... I don't trust him one bit
if there is a way for him to have what he wants he'll take that way
but ...........I'm praying that will not happen .. I really don't how we
settle disputes in the budget .. is it through congress? ..
or is it even possible to dispute them? yes, I think it is .. ;)
What I found out from the tv ... that slime lawyer is the one who told fox to say 'whatever' to Kelley
and to let her know that if she didn't comply with what they wanted .... He was going to "gut her" ...
I swear ... that beautiful woman being treated like that and
those old mean men allowing it ! .... . that place needs to disappear !
then we have bowlbreathe
I just thought we needed a break and an opportunity to see him the way he is ..........
yes, I get it .. I just can't believe that the repugnants will let that happen..
The dems will kill it but ...........they are the minority ..
dems with a few repugnants ... then it won't happen ..
he's a total asshole ... I've never seen anything like it .. and I hold everyone who voted for him responsible
.. I saw who he was ..then!
if they couldn't ... well then they need to check into school ...or a hospital
45 caught having a tantrum . . .
Meet The Hard-Charging Lawyer Trump Tapped To Defend Him In Russia Probe
Close your mouth! flies will get in !
By Alice Ollstein Published May 30, 2017 6:00 am
There are LOTS & LOTS of embedded links, go to the link at the end of the article to pick them up!
As the sprawling federal investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 election intensifies, President Donald Trump is assembling a team of outside lawyers to defend him against the allegations. The first tapped to join the team is Marc Kasowitz, Trump’s longtime private attorney who has for decades represented him on everything from his casino bankruptcies to the fraud allegations surrounding Trump University to his many standoffs with the media.
Though not a criminal lawyer and no background in the kind of high stakes national security work the Russia investigation will entail, he has been solidly in Donald Trump’s corner for decades, defending him doggedly if not always successfully.
Attorneys who have squared off against Kasowitz say not to underestimate him. New York Times deputy general counsel David McCraw, who handled multiple lawsuit threats from Kasowitz against the newspaper, told TPM that he is a “top-notch litigator” whose clients “are fortunate to have him.” Andrew Carboy, the opposing counsel to Kasowitz in a case concerning victims of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, called him an “absolute gentleman and a real attorney. Highly skilled and a quick study.”
Others who have worked with Kasowitz—whose new role as the President’s chief defender may give him a national profile—have described him as a “legal brawler” and “bare-knuckled litigator” whose firm is “not afraid to get their hands dirty.”
In Donald’s corner
Kasowitz, a founding partner of the corporate law mega-firm Kasowitz, Benson and Torres LLP, is no stranger to high-profile, controversial cases.
He represented the tobacco company Liggett in years of legal wrangling with 22 state attorneys general that culminated in the company admitting for the first time that cigarettes are addictive, are marketed to minors, and increase the risk of cancer, and paying a settlement of hundreds of millions of dollars over multiple decades.
He defended the Port Authority of New York when victims of the 1993 terrorist bombing sued it for negligence. A New York appeals court upheld a jury verdict that the Port Authority was partially liable for the deaths and destruction because the agency knew about but chose to ignore “an extreme and potentially catastrophic vulnerability that would have been open and obvious to any terrorist who cared to investigate and exploit it.” That verdict was overturned in 2011, when the state’s high court agreed with Kasowitz that the Port Authority was protected by the “governmental immunity doctrine.”
Recently, Kasowitz defended ousted Fox News anchor Bill O’Reilly against multiple claims of sexual harassment. At one point, someone on his legal team in that case accidentally forwarded emails to a Politico reporter detailing their strategy to portray the accusations as part of a left-wing conspiracy against O’Reilly.
But for all his other high profile cases and clients, Kasowitz on his law firm profile page first and foremost touts his representation of “President Donald J. Trump in a wide range of litigation matters for over 15 years.”
The two men have been in the trenches together since the early aughts, when Kasowitz’s firm helped him restructure his Atlantic City’s massive debts. Trump walked away with millions of dollars, his creditors ate significant losses, the city sank into financial ruin and thousands of people lost first their health care and other benefits and ultimately their jobs. All three casinos in the case—the Trump Plaza Casino and Hotel, the Trump Marina Hotel Casino, and the Trump Taj Mahal—have since closed up shop.
Kasowitz also represented Trump in a failed lawsuit against a group of Hong Kong investors who rescued one of his Manhattan properties from the edge of bankruptcy. He defended him successfully in court when multiple news outlets sued for access to his divorce records from his first marriage—with Ivana Trump. He is currently defending Trump against charges filed by multiple women for sexual assault and defamation, arguing in court that the demands of the presidency should give Trump legal immunity.
“He knows how to deal with Donald Trump and obviously has Trump’s trust and respect,’’ attorney John Quinn, who has known Kasowitz for 20 years, told the Los Angeles Times.
A botched war on the press
Over his years of service to Trump, Kasowitz has been repeatedly deployed to attack, threaten, and sue reporters and news media outlets.
In 2006, Kasowitz sued New York Times’ Timothy O’Brien for libel, demanding $5 billion in damages over O’Brien’s book TrumpNation: The Art of Being the Donald, which he said significantly underestimated the mogul’s net worth. “I did it to make his life miserable, which I’m happy about,” Trump later bragged.
Kasowitz employed some unorthodox and intimidating tactics in the case, including showing up at one of O’Brien’s book readings, O’Brien has recounted. The Trump team allegedly recorded the reading and what O’Brien described as “obvious plants” in the audience attempt to goad him into saying something incriminating. Not only was the case thrown out, because Kasowitz failed to prove O’Brien acted with malice, but Trump was forced to turn over scores of tax returns and other financial documents and undergo lengthy and revealing depositions in the process.
Kasowitz has also gone after New York Post investigative reporter Roddy Boyd, who has reported on many of the firm’s cases. Boyd told the Washington Post that Kasowitz personally threatened him with a lawsuit and unsuccessfully tried to subpoena his hard drive and reporting notes.
Last year on Trump’s behalf Kasowitz threatened the New York Times twice with lawsuits—once over the publication of Trump’s tax returns and once over a report on women who have accused Trump of sexual assault. The Times’ responded in a public letter noting that “Mr. Trump has bragged about his non-consensual sexual touching of women” and saying the paper would “welcome the opportunity to have a court set him straight” on what constitutes libel.
Kasowitz’s threatened lawsuit never materialized.
Banking on Russia
Now, selected to defend Trump against allegations of collusion with Russia to influence the 2016 election, Kasowitz’s own connections to Russian banks and oligarchs may soon come under scrutiny.
Kasowitz is currently defending Sberbank—Russia’s largest, state-run financial institution—against accusations that it engineered a hostile takeover of a granite company. In a separate case, he represented a company controlled by a Russian oligarch, Oleg Deripaska, who has close ties to Vladimir Putin.
Ethics experts have expressed concern about Kasowitz’s Russian clients creating both the appearance of and the actual presence of a conflict of interest.
“Could there be some line of communication between these clients and the White House?” Campaign Legal Center general counsel Larry Noble asked on CNN. “Is there any situation where the interests of one conflicts with the other? These are the questions that come up.”
what a sack of slime ... ewww
http://talkingpointsmemo.com/dc/who-is-marc-kasowitz-trump-lawyer-russia
House intel subpoenas Trump’s personal attorney
In this Dec. 16, 2016 file photo, attorney Michael Cohen arrives in Trump Tower in New York. A House intelligence committee staffer says the panel recently issued a subpoena to President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, as part of its ongoing investigation into Russia’s election meddling. (Richard Drew, File/Associated Press)
By Eileen Sullivan and Jake Pearson?|?AP
May 30 at 3:24 PM
WASHINGTON — The House intelligence committee has subpoenaed President Donald Trump’s personal attorney, Michael Cohen, as part of its ongoing investigation into Russia’s election meddling and contacts with the Trump campaign, according to a congressional aide.
The aide spoke on condition of anonymity in order to discuss internal committee matters.
Cohen, a longtime attorney for the Trump Organization, remains a personal lawyer for Trump. He served as a cable television surrogate for the Republican during the presidential campaign.
The subpoena for Cohen comes as the congressional investigations into ties between the Trump campaign and Russia advance beyond formal requests for information from Trump associates. The president’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, has also received subpoenas from the Senate panel regarding his Russian contacts and his business records. The House intelligence committee has also subpoenaed Flynn, the congressional aide said.
“I declined the invitation to participate as the request was poorly phrased, overly broad and not capable of being answered,” Cohen told The Associated Press. “I find it irresponsible and improper that the request sent to me was leaked by those working on the committee.”
Cohen told ABC News Tuesday that he had been asked by both the House and Senate intelligence committees to provide information and testimony about contacts he had with Russian officials.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the allegations of Moscow meddling in the U.S. presidential election are “fiction” invented by the Democrats in order to explain their loss. In an interview with French newspaper Le Figaro, Putin reaffirmed his strong denial of Russian involvement in the hacking of Democratic emails. The interview was recorded during Putin’s Monday trip to Paris and released Tuesday.
Trump made a similar claim in a tweet early Tuesday: “Russian officials must be laughing at the U.S. & how a lame excuse for why the Dems lost the election has taken over the Fake News.”
Cohen’s ties with Russian interests came up in February when the New York Times reported that Cohen helped to broker a Ukraine peace plan that would call for Russian troops to withdraw from Ukraine and a referendum to let Ukrainians decide whether the part of the country seized by Russian in 2014 should be leased to Moscow. The Russian government denied knowing anything about such a plan.
The Times reported that the peace plan was the work of Felix Sater, a business associate who has helped Trump try to find business in Russia, and Cohen.
Cohen was a fierce defender of Trump during the campaign, often haranguing probing reporters and famously challenging a CNN reporter live on-air to name the specific polls that showed then-candidate Trump behind his rival, Hillary Clinton.
In the early 2000s, he formed his own firm working on a range of legal matters, including malpractice cases, business law and work on an ethanol business in Ukraine. Cohen also owned and operated a handful of taxi medallions, managing a fleet of cabs in New York.
so smart ass! Now you have to turn them over - you've been subpoenaed..HaHa.. now you have to .. .lololol ...
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/house-intel-subpoenas-trumps-personal-attorney/2017/05/30/695ea882-455c-11e7-8de1-cec59a9bf4b1_story.html?utm_term=.5080ada0ecf9
Don't believe the people trashing Corey Booker. He's a strong progressive.
Progressive Punch scores him as having the 5th most progressive record in the Senate. But the top two scorers based on the numbers --
Kamala Harris and Chris Van Hollen -- have only been in office since January -- not much time to accrue a record.
So of the Senators who have served more than this current term, Booker is ranked #3, almost equal to Elizabeth Warren.
For some reason there are people already trying to kneecap Booker -- probably knowing he will be a strong contender in
2020. We shouldn't be assisting in the dirty work.
http://progressivepunch.org/scores.htm?house=senate
I truly despise these people who are 'of the party' . .but NOT IN THE PARTY... .. hayseed illiterates
he wouldn't let go .. I mean... Emomali got him!
oh my goodness!!!!! kushnie will have talk to trumpee all night long so he can get some sleep.......we know he can't stand
things like that running .... lololololol.................May you have HAD your last goodnight sleep without medication ! ...............
probably had his last good sleep in Saudi Arabia
John McCain gets an idea and he damn well says it ..He should have added 45 to that name!
Thanks Borealis! .... ;)
Nothing like having SCUM and company running your country...
Scum Inc.
Thanks F6 .. I read this one earlier .........it's excellent, fills up any holes ..