Part 169, some of Russian meddling, and related, material from F6 big ones. These posted Thursday, 03/22/18, covering March 2, 2018, and headed, Civil Rights Leader Who Desegregated U. of Georgia on Student-Led Movements of 1960s and Today https://investorshub.advfn.com/boards/read_msg.aspx?message_id=139495429
Twenty-fourth and fifth
Trump's Nixon problem: How abusing privilege can be criminal 'obstruction'
Published on Mar 3, 2018 by The Late Show with Stephen Colbert Special counsel Robert Mueller is now gathering evidence from beauty pageants, controversial documents, and one anonymous source extremely close to Trump. [originally aired March 2, 2018] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxAmKMLA7us [with comments]
Trump has privately asked John Kelly to help him move Ivanka and Jared Kushner out of the White House President Donald Trump has reportedly grown frustrated at his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, and daughter. Ivanka, both of whom work as senior advisers in the White House. Though Trump reportedly told the two to keep serving, he privately asked White House chief of staff John Kelly for help to remove them, according to aides cited by The New York Times. The two are believed to be locked in a power struggle with Kelly, who has also grown frustrated with them. http://www.businessinsider.com/trump-wants-to-kick-jared-kusher-ivanka-trump-out-of-white-house-2018-3
Cramer: If Gary Cohn resigns, watch out stock market A resignation by Gary Cohn would be a tough day for the stock market, CNBC's Jim Cramer says. Media reports cast doubt on Cohn's future at the White House after he was unable to dissuade President Trump from imposing steel and aluminum tariffs. Cohn "is someone who makes you feel that there is not as much chaos," Cramer says. https://www.cnbc.com/2018/03/02/cramer-if-gary-cohn-resigns-watch-out-stock-market.html
Leaked documents shed light on the astonishing intricacy of Russia's trolling operation Leaked documents reviewed by The Daily Beast show the lengths a notorious Russian troll farm, the Internet Research Agency, went to in order to stoke conflict and spread disinformation during and after the 2016 US election. In addition to operating on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, the IRA conducted a substantial amount of activity on Reddit and Tumblr. The troll farm specifically reached out to unwitting American activists working on causes the Kremlin wanted to brew tensions about, including "migration policy," "the ruling political oligarch," "false promises of America," and "air strike costs." http://www.businessinsider.com/leaked-documents-on-internet-research-agency-trolling-operation-disinformation-campaign-2018-3
Russian banker said he met Trump through NRA The Russian banker under scrutiny for money transfers to the National Rifle Association said the organization helped him meet President Trump. Alexander Torshin, a deputy head of Russia’s central bank, is one of his country's strongest supporters of the NRA, even hosting dinners for an American delegation that came to Moscow in 2015. A report earlier this year said federal investigators were looking into whether his payments to the group were funneled towards Trump’s election as part of what Fusion GPS investigator Glenn Simpson said was a “very concerted effort” by Russian officials to get in with the gun lobby. Further digging by NPR into Torshin's prolific Twitter use found that he also mentioned in December 2015 that he knew the then-candidate. Responding to a tweet from a Russian journalist about Larry David saying Trump is racist, Torshin said “comics should make people laugh! Right? There he is trying! I know D. Trump (through NRA). A decent person.” Torshin had said earlier that year that he saw Trump, who denies meeting Torshin, in Nashville, where the NRA convention was held in 2015, and that he has “traditional family values.” Other tweets show Torshin, a lifetime member of the NRA who met with Donald Trump Jr. in 2016, talking about meeting top officials in the group including during the late 2015 Moscow trip that included Trump-supporter Sheriff David Clarke. It is not illegal for foreigners such as Torshin to be part of the NRA or for them to give funds to the group, though it would break federal law if the NRA used those funds for election purposes. The NRA, currently under pressure for opposing even moderate gun reforms such as raising the age to buy an assault rifle, spent $55 million on the 2016 election, including $30 million for Trump. Torshin has previously been accused of financial wrongdoing by Spanish officials who said he helped launder money for the Russian mob on the resort island of Mallorca. Trump posted on Twitter Thursday that he had a “good (great) meeting” with the NRA, though he has said after the Parkland school massacre that he would support modest gun control measures such as raising the minimum age to be an assault rifle, which is opposed by the lobby. http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/russian-banker-met-trump-nra-article-1.3850535 https://www.aol.com/article/news/2018/03/02/russian-banker-said-he-met-president-trump-through-nra/23375234/
Depth Of Russian Politician's Cultivation Of NRA Ties Revealed A prominent Kremlin-linked Russian politician has methodically cultivated ties with leaders of the National Rifle Association and documented efforts in real time over six years to leverage those connections and gain deeper access into American politics, NPR has learned. Russian politician Alexander Torshin said his ties to the NRA provided him access to Donald Trump — and the opportunity to serve as a foreign election observer in the United States during the 2012 election. Torshin is a prolific Twitter user, logging nearly 150,000 tweets, mostly in Russian, since his account was created in 2011. Previously obscured by language and sheer volume of tweets, Torshin has written numerous times about his connections with the NRA, of which he is a known paid lifetime member. NPR has translated a selection of those posts that document Torshin's relationship to the group. [...] https://www.npr.org/2018/03/01/590076949/depth-of-russian-politicians-cultivation-of-nra-ties-revealed http://www.wbur.org/npr/590076949/depth-of-russian-politicians-cultivation-of-nra-ties-revealed
Vladimir Putin made an absurd argument for why he can't respond to accusations of Russian election interference Russian President Vladimir Putin said during an interview with NBC's Megyn Kelly that he would not be able to respond to the US's accusations of Russian election interference if the underlying conduct did not violate Russian law. The US intelligence community concluded last year that Russia-linked actors interfered in the 2016 US election on specific orders from Putin. When Kelly pressed him about the different facets of Russia's meddling and the recent indictment of over a dozen Russian nationals and three Russian entities, Putin said the request had to move through "official channels" and not through the press or "yelling and hollering" in Congress. President Donald Trump, who has been reluctant to confront Russia over its aggression, has not publicly commented on whether he will pressure Putin to deliver the defendants. http://www.businessinsider.com/vladimir-putin-russia-election-interference-megyn-kelly-2018-3
Leaked Emails Appear To Show A Top Trump Fundraiser Abusing His Power The messages suggest that Elliott Broidy tried to use his influence with the Trump administration for personal gain. Emails and documents an anonymous group leaked to HuffPost this week appear to show a Los Angeles lawyer asking for more than $80 million to scuttle a Department of Justice investigation into a multibillion-dollar scandal involving Van Gogh paintings, the movie “The Wolf of Wall Street,” the prime minister of Malaysia — and the lawyer’s husband, a Republican National Committee deputy finance chair Elliott Broidy, trying to use his influence with the Trump administration to help. [...] https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/elliott-broidy-trump-malaysia-doj_us_5a988471e4b0a0ba4ad18d65