Prince Harry interviews Barack Obama BBC Radio 4 - Best of Today 27 December 2017 - 39 minutes 2017 began with Barack Obama leaving the White House and handing over the baton of the presidency to Donald Trump. Our guest editor today, Prince Harry, met President Obama, in Toronto in September during the Invictus Games to talk about his memories of the day he left office, his post-presidential work with the Obama Foundation and his hopes for the future. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p05s395q [at the time of this post, "15 days left to listen"]
With the confirmation of a 12th Circuit Court judge earlier this month, Trump set a record for the most appellate judges confirmed in a president’s first year in office. Early in his first year, Trump appointed conservative Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch. But legal experts say Trump’s appointments to the lower courts will have the most impact on American life because they decide nearly all cases, ranging from voting rights and contraception to gay rights and immigration. Meanwhile, Trump’s nominee to a lifetime appointment on the U.S. District Court in Washington withdrew from consideration, after widely circulated video showed he was unable to answer basic questions about the law and had never tried a case in court. We get response from Judge Shira Scheindlin, former United States district judge for the Southern District of New York, where she served for 22 years. https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/27/former_federal_judge_trump_is_packing[with embedded video, and transcript]
Meet the Federal Judge Trump Attacked for Ruling NYPD’s Stop & Frisk Policy was Unconstitutional
Published on Dec 27, 2017 by Democracy Now!
We speak with Judge Shira Scheindlin, former United States district judge for the Southern District of New York, about her role in a case that found the controversial police policy of stop-and-frisk unconstitutional. While running for president, Donald Trump called for a nationwide stop-and-frisk program. “It was a bad policy,” Judge Scheindlin says. “It was not effective law enforcement … It obviously wasn’t deterring crime. All it was doing was alienating the community from the police.” https://www.democracynow.org/2017/12/27/meet_the_federal_judge_trump_attacked[with embedded video, and transcript]
Full Broadcast 27Dec17 Real News with David Knight
The lunatic left, from Canadian govt to religious leaders & SPLC, try to hijack Christmas for their agenda while the establishment is furious at the USA exercising its sovereignty at the UN by cutting UN funding. And Congressman Rooney says the FBI & DOJ are “off the rails” and the “deep state” needs to be “purged” at the top.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
Six Colorado inmates sentenced to decades in prison as teenagers in the ’80s and ’90s thought they would never get out. During their 20-plus years behind bars, technology has changed the outside world dramatically.
The criminal justice system has changed, too, becoming more forgiving of people who commit crimes as juveniles. Since 2005, the U.S. Supreme Court has slowly chipped away at harsh, mandatory sentences for kids, ultimately finding in 2012 that it’s unconstitutional to sentence juveniles to life without parole.
This year, Colorado started an early-release program for people convicted as juveniles who have already served 20 years of their sentences. To get ready for life on the outside, inmates in the three-year program use virtual reality to prepare for stressful situations and practice skills they never learned as teens, like doing laundry and grocery shopping.
VICE News visited the medium-security Fremont Correctional Facility as they used VR for the first time.
Wednesday, Dec. 27th 2017: Trump Economy Delivers Biggest Xmas In History - Alex Jones covers the record-breaking sales over the Christmas holiday and how the economy looks heading into 2018. Survival expert and author James Wesley Rawles joins today's show to share the best ways for you and your family to stay prepared for any situation, and he gives his expert take on cryptocurrency. Alex Jones and Owen Shroyer also look into a report claiming the Director of the C.I.A. warned about a war with North Korea taking place within the next 12 weeks and the F.B.I. is under scrutiny for their poor handling of the Trump, Russia investigation. Roger Stone joins to host the fourth and final hour of The Alex Jones Show.
In Today’s War Room Show: Rob Dew and Roger Stone cover Trumps tax plan fall out, Predictions when the impending war with North Korean will start and the secret behind #BlackGirlMagic.
[from Alex Jones and his merry band of batshit bullshitters]
After praising Mueller, former Clinton prosecutor Ken Starr contradicts himself
The Beat With Ari Melber 12/27/17
The Republican independent counsel who led the Whitewater investigation into Bill Clinton recently praised Mueller’s “integrity” and once said it’s “not fair to attack and calumny career civil servants” is now attacking Mueller. Duration: 7:53
Mark Zuckerberg under fire for Facebook’s deal with authoritarian Rodrigo Duterte
The Beat With Ari Melber 12/27/17
Beat special report on Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook, “fake news” and how Rodrigo Duterte deployed the “Putin playbook” using the platform. Melber’s message for Mark Zuckerberg: “Working with anyone and everyone to make money is not good for democracy.” Duration: 10:29
Mueller probing Republican non-Trump work with Russian hacking
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/27/17
Natasha Bertrand, political correspondent for Business Insider, talks with Joy Reid about a report that the Mueller investigation is expanding to look at the extent to which RNC digital operations overlapped with Russian hacking activity. Duration: 13:00
Trump legal team prepares Mike Flynn smear strategy: WaPo
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/27/17
Joyce Vance, former U.S. attorney, talks with Joy Reid about a Washington Post report that Donald Trump's legal team is preparing a strategy to discredit Mike Flynn in case his testimony is used against Trump, and the legal implications of a possible Trump pardon of Flynn. Duration: 8:22
Joy Reid reports on how one indicted former Donald Trump aide, Rick Gates, is trying to convince a judge that his participating in a fundraiser for his legal fees did not violate the gag order in his case. Duration: 1:34
Conditions favorable for Democrats in 2018 (if rules still apply)
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/27/17
Steve Kornacki, national political correspondent for MSNBC, talks with Joy Reid about how the political conditions in 2018 compare with those of past midterm elections. Duration: 7:19
Karine Jean-Pierre, senior adviser at MoveOn.org, talks with Joy Reid about how Democrats intend to turn the raw political energy Democrats are displaying into electoral success. Duration: 7:41
Haley duped in phone call with fake Polish leader: report
The Rachel Maddow Show 12/27/17
Joy Reid relays a report that Nikki Haley, U.S. ambassador to the U.N. spent over 20 minutes on the phone with someone she thought was the prime minister of Poland but was actually a Russian radio show prankster. Duration: 3:35
Joy Reid shares a bit of the latest release from Rachel Maddow favorite, Bad Lip Reading, featuring Christmas greetings from Donald Trump, Melania, and a robot with hurt feelings. Duration: 3:21
Lawrence O'Donnell looks back on the losing moves of President Trump's first year in office, which included following Steve Bannon to defeat in the Alabama Senate race, calling white supremacists "very fine people," and firing FBI Director James Comey. Duration: 11:47
For the third year in a row, Barack Obama edged out Donald Trump in Gallup's survey of "The Most Admired Man." Joy Reid joins Ari Melber to explain why "Obama is who we hope we are, and Donald Trump is who we fear we are." Tim O'Brien also joins the discussion. Duration: 9:43
Russia thinks U.S. is meddling in Putin's presidential campaign
The Last Word with Lawrence O'Donnell 12/27/17
Vladimir Putin, the man Trump praised for his leadership, has blocked his most formidable challenger from running in Russia's 2018 election. WaPo Moscow Bureau Chief David Filipov says talk about Putin's challengers is being called meddling. Evelyn Farkas joins. Duration: 9:50
Report: Trump legal team ready to attack Michael Flynn
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 12/27/17
With Robert Mueller reportedly ready to talk to new witnesses in his seemingly expanding Russia probe, a new report says the president's legal team is ready to discredit Michael Flynn if they need to. Our panel discusses. Duration: 9:51
Does Trump deserve credit for surging stock markets?
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 12/27/17
Speaking to Florida firefighters, Trump again took a victory lap for the surge in U.S. stock markets. But does he really deserve the credit? Philip Bump & Kimberly Atkins join to discuss. Duration: 5:49
It's the economy stupid: Tax bill may hurt GOP in 2018
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 12/27/17
The GOP is banking on their newly passed tax reform bill to help them at the polls in 2018. But can Pres. Trump & Hill Republicans sell their plan to voters? Donna Edwards & Charlie Sykes discuss. Duration: 4:42
Longtime friends learn after DNA test they're brothers
The 11th Hour with Brian Williams 12/28/17
Two longtime friends in Hawaii, each looking for answers about their families, got a holiday surprise when they learned they'd been brothers all along. Duration: 2:04
Hasan Minhaj rounds up some of the most outrageous punditry from the past year, including Rachel Maddow's tax return fake-out and Tomi Lahren's vitriolic takes.
"Day 342" Paul Nehlen says the "Shekel-for-Hire" are coming after him. So the Question today is simple, Are Donald Trump, Steve Bannon and QAnon Shekels for Hire ? Does a bear shit in the Woods ?
Four Russians Are Either Traitors To Their Country Or Pawns In A Putin Power Game Four Russian hackers have been rotting away in a notorious prison for more than a year—and they are either traitors to their country for telling U.S. intelligence agencies about Russian meddling in last year's U.S. election or just pawns in a bizarre power game by President Vladimir Putin. Almost nothing about the cases against Sergei Mikhailov, Dmitry Dokuchaev, Ruslan Stoyanov and Georgy Fomchenkov is known, except that all four are being held on charges of treason. Their lawyers won't talk about details of the cases, and even the legal papers haven't been made public. Newsweek spoke to one of the men's lawyers—and he wouldn't even confirm the name of his client, let alone whether he pleaded guilty or not guilty. The trials are at the core of the Russian election-hacking scandal, which has roiled American politics since even before Election Day last year. But the cases also may reveal Putin's darkest political instincts. The Russian media, which are largely controlled by the Kremlin, say the men are spies. Others say they are pawns. Then again, in Putin's Russia, they may be both at the same time. This much is known: Mikhailov and Dokuchaev were officers in Russia’s Federal Security Service, the notorious FSB. Fomchenkov is a cyberexpert who also worked for the security agency. And Stoyanov is a cyberexpert at Kaspersky Lab, a software company that the U.S. government believes allows Russian intelligence access to customers' computers and, according to Bloomberg, has been working closely with Russian agents. Such pedigree puts the four men at the heart of Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election, which the U.S. intelligence community believes was orchestrated at the highest levels. So why are they in prison? The arrests came around the same time that the U.S. intelligence community reported on Russian meddling, specifically on how Democratic National Committee emails were stolen by hackers and published by WikiLeaks during the presidential campaign. No individual hackers were ever identified. Then, in January, the arrests of the four men were made public in Russia, prompting rumors that they were connected to the hacking. But if Putin was behind the hacking, why would he imprison the hackers? A possible answer came this month, when a Russian media outlet, The Bell, reported that the four men may have confirmed Russia's role in the hacking to U.S. intelligence. Citing two sources, the website reported that "the men passed the information about last year’s Russian attacks on the Democratic National Committee." But that Bell report doesn't necessarily ring true. Experts familiar with Russian intelligence practices are skeptical of the claims that the men had worked with U.S. intelligence, given Russia’s past history of privately handling potential spies and not using the courts, even ones veiled in secrecy. “In my experience, over years and years they rarely catch spies and deal with them in that sort of open legal way,” said John Sipher, a former CIA operative who ran the agency’s Russia program for several years. And, worse for Putin, putting spies on trial and leaking details to the press makes it more difficult to recruit future hackers, which the Russian government reportedly does through handlers. But then again, putting spies on trial and leaking details to the press allows Putin to flaunt his power. “He definitely wants his population to realize that he’s important on the world stage, that he’s powerful, and that he can control what happens in the United States,” Sipher said. “They could be trying to deflect from something that obviously is more covert and more real, whereas this stuff is already out there.” Russia has never directly confirmed its role in the hacking campaign, but at times it has sought to subtly take credit. Putin told reporters in June that maybe “patriotically minded” private Russians hacked the U.S. political system, a seemingly tongue-in-cheek denial. So which is it: Putin cracking down on treason or pretending to be disciplining rogue hackers? Another clue came from a different case this month when an accused hacker, Konstantin Kozlovsky, said that Dokuchaev had expressly ordered him to steal emails from the Democratic National Committee for the Kremlin. But even that claim may be part of a larger game being played by Putin. The allegation by Kozlovsky came from an apparent audio recording and handwritten note that popped up on his Facebook page nine months after Dokuchaev was arrested—a posting that suggests tampering because Kozlovsky is being held in a high-security prison, where detainees typically don’t have access to the internet. Some believe the Facebook posts are actually misinformation from the Kremlin. But then again, they may just be information: The U.S. intelligence community has never said how it was so certain about Russian hacking, but most experts assume that federal agencies had sources inside Russian intelligence who confirmed key details of the hacking campaign. All four of the men have ties to Russia’s hacking underworld, a hybrid community of government employees and contractors viewed by cyberexperts as one of the best in the world. Mikhailov was a key figure running the FSB’s cyberoperations through its Center for Information Security. The FSB has been tied to Russian hacking group Cozy Bear, one of the attackers behind the political hacking that yielded the Hillary Clinton campaign’s emails released by WikiLeaks. Dokuchaev is on the FBI’s most wanted list, accused of having been involved in a hack of Yahoo’s systems that compromised the accounts of millions of users. Russian hackers are generally recruited by government handlers after they are caught engaging in financial crime, according to cybersecurity experts. The handlers can then use the hackers, without directly employing them, while maintaining some plausible deniability for Russia’s government. “It really makes it challenging for the U.S. intelligence community to understand the scope and size of their cyberforce,” said Jeff Moulton who runs Louisiana State University’s Transformational Technology and Cyber Research Center. “It gives them expertise that they probably don’t have. The criminal element is always more sophisticated.” All four of the men and their lawyers were required to sign special security agreements preventing them from discussing the cases, including the specific nature of the charges that keep them at Lefortovo Prison, which was infamous as a torture facility for FSB's predecessor, the KGB. Ivan Pavlov, a lawyer for one of the four men, told Newsweek that he could not even reveal his client's identity, adding that the “strict conditions” of the court bar him from talking about the case at all. But he did tell Newsweek that his client “has a hope that everything will be resolved without any public noise.” That resolution, and the amount of noise it makes, will likely be decided by one man, Vladimir Putin. http://www.newsweek.com/bizarre-treason-cases-tied-russian-election-hacking-759011
Trump's lawyers reportedly want to cast Michael Flynn as a liar •President Donald Trump's legal team wants to cast ex-national security advisor Michael Flynn as a liar if he accuses top White House officials of wrongdoing, according to The Washington Post. •Flynn has pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI and is reportedly cooperating with special counsel Robert Mueller. https://www.cnbc.com/2017/12/27/trumps-lawyers-reportedly-want-to-cast-michael-flynn-as-a-liar.html
Mueller is reportedly zeroing in on the Trump campaign's data operation — and the RNC Special counsel Robert Mueller has reportedly begun to question Republican National Committee staffers about the party's digital work with the Trump campaign last year. The report indicates that Mueller may be homing in on yet another facet of Russia's election interference — its social media influence campaign and targeted political advertising. Trump's son-in-law Jared Kushner managed the Trump campaign's data operation and recently hired a crisis public relations firm to handle all press inquiries. http://www.businessinsider.com/mueller-questions-rnc-digital-operation-trump-campaign-russia-2017-12
Published on Dec 22, 2017 by Vovan222prank Famous russian pranksters Vovan & Lexus played a phone trick on the U.S. Ambassador to the U.N. Nikki Haley. Presenting themselves as The Prime-Minister of Poland they had a conversation with her that lasted for about 30 minutes. Nikky Haley was informed about the situation in Binomo - an island in the South China Sea: Putin supposedly interfered in their elections (this island doesn't exist for real). Ignorant Ambassador stated in all seriousness she was aware of the situation and confirmed Putin interfered in the elections of Binomo. Though it doesn't exist at all. Haley and the pranksters also discussed Kevin Spacey's harassment towards the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko and Trump's harassment. Vovan & Lexus are famous for their pranks with Senator McCain and Senator Graham, Congresswoman Maxine Waters, Congressman Adam Shiff, the U.S. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry, the President of Ukraine Petro Poroshenko, the President of Turkey Recep Tayyip Erdogan, the President of Belarus Alexander Lukashenko, British singer Elton John and many other politicians and celebrities in Russia and the world. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9RgXL7byTF0