Replies to post #401443 on Tornado Alley (PROG)

[zab]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/valentine-s-day-really-sucked-for-the-trump-organization/ar-AATR1LB?ocid=msedgntp

Too bad, there was nothing to that report, but there was this yesterday. You now have actual real indictments, real lawsuits, real news on the piece of shit trump and his fucking family of shitheads.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/dc-attorney-general-moves-ahead-with-trump-inauguration-suit

https://www.forbes.com/sites/nicholasreimann/2022/02/14/accounting-firm-drops-trump-as-client-amid-investigations-into-overvalued-real-estate-assets/?sh=564c45191a6c

https://www.wsav.com/news/melania-trumps-high-teas-under-investigation-in-florida/

Even Melania Trump is under investigation for having a cancer charity, where she kept money for herself.

[zab]

https://fortune.com/2020/09/28/covid-buisnesses-shut-down-closed/

https://blog.cheapism.com/companies-have-filed-bankruptcy-pandemic-began-and-which-ones-could-be-next/

https://www.cnn.com/2020/09/16/business/yelp-coronavirus-closures/index.html

Those businesses close, went bankrupt, went away, they never came back, damn you are dumb.

[zab]

https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-accounting-firm-recants-a-decade-of-his-financial-statements/ar-AATQXY0?ocid=msedgntp

But you do have Trump's accounting firm recanting 10 years of trump financial records that were called unreliable. Now that actually did happen, trump now has to explain away 10 years of fraudulent returns. Trumps accountants of 10 years just called him a fraud, now that was real yesterday.

[zab]

https://www.newsmax.com/money-wire/russian-propaganda-zero-hedge/2022/02/15/id/1056867/

Everyday another right wing organization gets it's news from Russia and spreads it to the extreme right wing of the republican party.


https://apnews.com/article/russia-ukraine-coronavirus-pandemic-health-moscow-media-ff4a56b7b08bcdc6adaf02313a85edd9

Everyday America can see that not only did Trump and Russia were connected, but now republican's are getting caught with Russia propaganda.

[blackhawks]

Small businesses received significant help to SURVIVE to reopen from Biden's Covid relief bill.

As usual the GOPERS took credit for what they opposed.

Republicans shamelessly take credit for Covid relief they voted against

And it’s not going over well.

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Mar 15, 2021, 3:40pm EDT



Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.
Sen. Wicker during a hearing in January. |Tom Williams/Getty Images

https://www.vox.com/2021/3/15/22331722/american-rescue-plan-salazar-wicker

Two recent tweets from members of Congress illustrate how, in the wake of President Joe Biden signing the Covid-19 relief bill, Republicans are trying to “have their cake and vote against it, too,” as Barack Obama once put it.

That $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law last Thursday, didn’t receive a single Republican vote, even though recent polling shows a majority of Republican voters have said they somewhat or completely support it.

The popularity of the legislation puts Republican members of Congress in a bind: How does one message against a bill that most Americans like, and that will cut child poverty in half, while also juicing an economy that’s been ravaged by the year-long pandemic?

Some Republicans, perhaps understandably, are instead opting to instead focus on culture war distractions like whether Dr. Seuss is being “canceled.” But others are shamelessly trying to take credit for Democratic policy right after they voted against it.

One example of this came last Friday, when Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) patted herself on the back for a decision made by Biden’s Small Business Administration to extend deferment periods for Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).

“BREAKING ... So proud to announce that the Biden Administration has just implemented my bipartisan COVID relief bill as part of @SBAgov,” Salazar tweeted, linking to a statement on her website in which she’s quoted as saying, “I am so proud that my bipartisan legislation has officially become SBA policy.”

#BREAKING

So proud to announce that the Biden Administration has just implemented my bipartisan COVID relief bill as part of @SBAgov policy!

?? READ MORE HERE ??https://t.co/ojuhTNbTK7 pic.twitter.com/v0KUdrVE0d

— Rep. María Elvira Salazar (@RepMariaSalazar) March 12, 2021
The timing of the tweet, coming one day after the American Rescue Plan was signed, led many to believe the lawmaker was referring to the Covid-19 relief bill Salazar voted against — that bill contains $15 billion in EIDL funding. But the SBA decision she highlighted is actually distinct from the American Rescue Plan, as National Economic Council (NEC) Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti explained on Twitter.

I’ve seen some confusion on this. On Friday — separate from the American Rescue bill — SBA announced it was letting 3M+ businesses defer EIDL loan payments for an extra year.

We’re glad to see bipartisan support for this and other changes we’ve made to help small businesses. https://t.co/OxVp0u2jfn
— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) March 14, 2021

While it’s not correct to say that Salazar is trying to take credit for the Covid-19 relief bill, her claim that the Biden administration “implemented” her “bipartisan COVID relief bill” is false. The bill in question hasn’t come up for a vote in Congress, and it doesn’t appear that the SBA’s decision was inspired by it. An SBA press release announcing the deferment extension doesn’t mention Salazar.

Salazar on Sunday responded to criticism by trying to turn the tables, tweeting that her statement “has nothing to do with the $1.9T Blue State Bailout. It is a bipartisan policy I introduced separately that was adopted by SBA.”

But while Salazar played misleading semantic games on Twitter, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced it’s buying billboards in her district to highlight that she and other Florida Republicans voted against $1,400 relief checks — a part of the Democratic Covid-19 relief bill supported by more than 80 percent of Americans.

Sen. Wicker took credit for a bill he voted against

Even more egregious than Salazar’s tweet was one from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) lauding the $28.6 billion in aid to restaurants included in the relief bill.

“Independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion worth of targeted relief,” Wicker tweeted on Wednesday. “This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll.”

Independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion worth of targeted relief.

This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll.https://t.co/Ob4pRb9Xh4
— Senator Roger Wicker (@SenatorWicker) March 10, 2021
It’s true that Wicker pushed for restaurant relief — he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) proposed an amendment to the bill with the funding that passed with bipartisan support. But Wicker ultimately voted against the final bill.

Wicker was roundly dragged for trying to have it both ways.

It is your duty as a patriotic American - on social and off - to vigorous drag Republicans taking credit for the relief they just voted against. Yes, their voters get the relief! They deserve it! Ask Roger Wicker (and all the others) why they didn't vote for it?

https://t.co/utjIwLuU5A
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 10, 2021
Speaking to reporters last Wednesday, Wicker dismissed a query about if he was trying to take credit for Democratic legislation as a “stupid question.”

“One good provision in a $1.9 trillion bill doesn’t mean I have to vote for the whole thing,” he said.

But voters don’t really appear to be buying Republican claims that while there are good parts of the bill, it was ultimately too large to warrant support. Recent polling from Vox and Data for Progress showed that twice as many voters preferred the path Democrats went down of passing a big relief bill quickly over a Republican option that was only one-third the size.

There’s precedent for Republicans trying to take credit for legislation they voted against. As Amanda Terkel detailed for HuffPost, they did the same thing for the 2009 stimulus that, like the 2021 one, passed without a single Republican vote:

A similar pattern happened after the 2009 stimulus, when GOP lawmakers who voted against President Barack Obama’s legislation then went back into their home districts and took credit for the money that flowed to their constituents.

At the time, ThinkProgress counted 114 Republican lawmakers who blocked the bill while touting its benefits. They sent out press releases taking credit for money that funded projects in their district, even though they voted against it.

On Wednesday, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), perhaps mindful of that precedent, said on the House floor that “what we are all concerned about on our side is that the Republicans are all going to vote against this, and then they’re going to show up at every ribbon cutting, and at every project funded out of this bill, and they’re going to pump up their chests and take credit for all of these great benefits that are coming to their citizens.”

The Covid-19 relief package Biden signed is even more popular than the 2009 stimulus. It also comes after many Republicans backed two Covid-19 relief bills while Donald Trump was president, as well as 2017 tax cuts that (coincidentally) were projected to add $1.9 trillion to the national debt while disproportionately benefiting the rich.

But now that Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, Republicans are suddenly finding reasons to be against spending — even if in a couple of cases they’d like their constituents to believe otherwise.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how Sen. Wicker voted on an amendment providing relief to the restaurant industry. He voted for it.

[blackhawks]

Small businesses received significant help to SURVIVE to reopen from Biden's Covid relief bill.

As usual the GOPERS took credit for what they opposed.

Republicans shamelessly take credit for Covid relief they voted against

And it’s not going over well.

By Aaron Rupar@atrupar Mar 15, 2021, 3:40pm EDT



Mississippi Sen. Roger Wicker.
Sen. Wicker during a hearing in January. |Tom Williams/Getty Images

https://www.vox.com/2021/3/15/22331722/american-rescue-plan-salazar-wicker

Two recent tweets from members of Congress illustrate how, in the wake of President Joe Biden signing the Covid-19 relief bill, Republicans are trying to “have their cake and vote against it, too,” as Barack Obama once put it.

That $1.9 trillion American Rescue Plan, which Biden signed into law last Thursday, didn’t receive a single Republican vote, even though recent polling shows a majority of Republican voters have said they somewhat or completely support it.

The popularity of the legislation puts Republican members of Congress in a bind: How does one message against a bill that most Americans like, and that will cut child poverty in half, while also juicing an economy that’s been ravaged by the year-long pandemic?

Some Republicans, perhaps understandably, are instead opting to instead focus on culture war distractions like whether Dr. Seuss is being “canceled.” But others are shamelessly trying to take credit for Democratic policy right after they voted against it.

One example of this came last Friday, when Rep. María Elvira Salazar (R-FL) patted herself on the back for a decision made by Biden’s Small Business Administration to extend deferment periods for Covid-19 Economic Injury Disaster Loans (EIDL).

“BREAKING ... So proud to announce that the Biden Administration has just implemented my bipartisan COVID relief bill as part of @SBAgov,” Salazar tweeted, linking to a statement on her website in which she’s quoted as saying, “I am so proud that my bipartisan legislation has officially become SBA policy.”

#BREAKING

So proud to announce that the Biden Administration has just implemented my bipartisan COVID relief bill as part of @SBAgov policy!

?? READ MORE HERE ??https://t.co/ojuhTNbTK7 pic.twitter.com/v0KUdrVE0d

— Rep. María Elvira Salazar (@RepMariaSalazar) March 12, 2021
The timing of the tweet, coming one day after the American Rescue Plan was signed, led many to believe the lawmaker was referring to the Covid-19 relief bill Salazar voted against — that bill contains $15 billion in EIDL funding. But the SBA decision she highlighted is actually distinct from the American Rescue Plan, as National Economic Council (NEC) Deputy Director Bharat Ramamurti explained on Twitter.

I’ve seen some confusion on this. On Friday — separate from the American Rescue bill — SBA announced it was letting 3M+ businesses defer EIDL loan payments for an extra year.

We’re glad to see bipartisan support for this and other changes we’ve made to help small businesses. https://t.co/OxVp0u2jfn
— Bharat Ramamurti (@BharatRamamurti) March 14, 2021

While it’s not correct to say that Salazar is trying to take credit for the Covid-19 relief bill, her claim that the Biden administration “implemented” her “bipartisan COVID relief bill” is false. The bill in question hasn’t come up for a vote in Congress, and it doesn’t appear that the SBA’s decision was inspired by it. An SBA press release announcing the deferment extension doesn’t mention Salazar.

Salazar on Sunday responded to criticism by trying to turn the tables, tweeting that her statement “has nothing to do with the $1.9T Blue State Bailout. It is a bipartisan policy I introduced separately that was adopted by SBA.”

But while Salazar played misleading semantic games on Twitter, the Democratic National Committee (DNC) announced it’s buying billboards in her district to highlight that she and other Florida Republicans voted against $1,400 relief checks — a part of the Democratic Covid-19 relief bill supported by more than 80 percent of Americans.

Sen. Wicker took credit for a bill he voted against

Even more egregious than Salazar’s tweet was one from Sen. Roger Wicker (R-MS) lauding the $28.6 billion in aid to restaurants included in the relief bill.

“Independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion worth of targeted relief,” Wicker tweeted on Wednesday. “This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll.”

Independent restaurant operators have won $28.6 billion worth of targeted relief.

This funding will ensure small businesses can survive the pandemic by helping to adapt their operations and keep their employees on the payroll.https://t.co/Ob4pRb9Xh4
— Senator Roger Wicker (@SenatorWicker) March 10, 2021
It’s true that Wicker pushed for restaurant relief — he and Sen. Kyrsten Sinema (D-AZ) proposed an amendment to the bill with the funding that passed with bipartisan support. But Wicker ultimately voted against the final bill.

Wicker was roundly dragged for trying to have it both ways.

It is your duty as a patriotic American - on social and off - to vigorous drag Republicans taking credit for the relief they just voted against. Yes, their voters get the relief! They deserve it! Ask Roger Wicker (and all the others) why they didn't vote for it?

https://t.co/utjIwLuU5A
— Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 10, 2021
Speaking to reporters last Wednesday, Wicker dismissed a query about if he was trying to take credit for Democratic legislation as a “stupid question.”

“One good provision in a $1.9 trillion bill doesn’t mean I have to vote for the whole thing,” he said.

But voters don’t really appear to be buying Republican claims that while there are good parts of the bill, it was ultimately too large to warrant support. Recent polling from Vox and Data for Progress showed that twice as many voters preferred the path Democrats went down of passing a big relief bill quickly over a Republican option that was only one-third the size.

There’s precedent for Republicans trying to take credit for legislation they voted against. As Amanda Terkel detailed for HuffPost, they did the same thing for the 2009 stimulus that, like the 2021 one, passed without a single Republican vote:

A similar pattern happened after the 2009 stimulus, when GOP lawmakers who voted against President Barack Obama’s legislation then went back into their home districts and took credit for the money that flowed to their constituents.

At the time, ThinkProgress counted 114 Republican lawmakers who blocked the bill while touting its benefits. They sent out press releases taking credit for money that funded projects in their district, even though they voted against it.

On Wednesday, Rep. John Yarmuth (D-KY), perhaps mindful of that precedent, said on the House floor that “what we are all concerned about on our side is that the Republicans are all going to vote against this, and then they’re going to show up at every ribbon cutting, and at every project funded out of this bill, and they’re going to pump up their chests and take credit for all of these great benefits that are coming to their citizens.”

The Covid-19 relief package Biden signed is even more popular than the 2009 stimulus. It also comes after many Republicans backed two Covid-19 relief bills while Donald Trump was president, as well as 2017 tax cuts that (coincidentally) were projected to add $1.9 trillion to the national debt while disproportionately benefiting the rich.

But now that Democrats control the White House and both chambers of Congress, Republicans are suddenly finding reasons to be against spending — even if in a couple of cases they’d like their constituents to believe otherwise.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Correction: An earlier version of this story misstated how Sen. Wicker voted on an amendment providing relief to the restaurant industry. He voted for it.

[blackhawks]

Memo to the GOP

Newly resurrected allegations against HRC, Hunter Biden et al may seem to be a viable distraction from Trump's obvious crimes - but let me assure you they're not.

When the theft/destruction of classified documents is HEADLINE NEWS, nobody is interested in anything else - and whatabout him/her doesn't cut it.

Jesus H. Christ, get a grip, Republicans. If you're really determined to die on the hill of a bloated orange traitor, at least come up with something better than 'news' that was debunked years ago.

It's like you're not even trying - and apparently you're not.

And the fact that you're not even trying speaks for itself.

https://www.democraticunderground.com/100216357410

7. Not even trying because thinking...hard.

It's easier, but still resonates with their knuckle dragging base.

[newmedman]

you will never learn.

[newmedman]

Court Filing Started a Furor in Right-Wing Outlets, but Their Narrative Is Off Track

The latest alarmist claims about spying on Trump appeared to be flawed, but the explanation is byzantine — underlining the challenge for journalists in deciding what merits coverage.


By Charlie Savage
Feb. 14, 2022
WASHINGTON — When John H. Durham, the Trump-era special counsel investigating the inquiry into Russia’s 2016 election interference, filed a pretrial motion on Friday night, he slipped in a few extra sentences that set off a furor among right-wing outlets about purported spying on former President Donald J. Trump.

But the entire narrative appeared to be mostly wrong or old news — the latest example of the challenge created by a barrage of similar conspiracy theories from Mr. Trump and his allies.

Upon close inspection, these narratives are often based on a misleading presentation of the facts or outright misinformation. They also tend to involve dense and obscure issues, so dissecting them requires asking readers to expend significant mental energy and time — raising the question of whether news outlets should even cover such claims. Yet Trump allies portray the news media as engaged in a cover-up if they don’t.

The latest example began with the motion Mr. Durham filed in a case he has brought against Michael A. Sussmann, a cybersecurity lawyer with links to the Democratic Party. The prosecutor has accused Mr. Sussmann of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.

The filing was ostensibly about potential conflicts of interest. But it also recounted a meeting at which Mr. Sussmann had presented other suspicions to the government. In February 2017, Mr. Sussmann told the C.I.A. about odd internet data suggesting that someone using a Russian-made smartphone may have been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

Mr. Sussmann had obtained that information from a client, a technology executive named Rodney Joffe. Another paragraph in the court filing said that Mr. Joffe’s company, Neustar, had helped maintain internet-related servers for the White House, and that he and his associates “exploited this arrangement” by mining certain records to gather derogatory information about Mr. Trump.

Citing this filing, Fox News inaccurately declared that Mr. Durham had said he had evidence that Hillary Clinton’s campaign had paid a technology company to “infiltrate” a White House server. The Washington Examiner claimed that this all meant there had been spying on Mr. Trump’s White House office. And when mainstream publications held back, Mr. Trump and his allies began shaming the news media.

“The press refuses to even mention the major crime that took place,” Mr. Trump said in a statement on Monday. “This in itself is a scandal, the fact that a story so big, so powerful and so important for the future of our nation is getting zero coverage from LameStream, is being talked about all over the world.”

There were many problems with all this. For one, much of this was not new: The New York Times had reported in October what Mr. Sussmann had told the C.I.A. about data suggesting that Russian-made smartphones, called YotaPhones, had been connecting to networks at Trump Tower and the White House, among other places.

The conservative media also skewed what the filing said. For example, Mr. Durham’s filing never used the word “infiltrate.” And it never claimed that Mr. Joffe’s company was being paid by the Clinton campaign.

Most important, contrary to the reporting, the filing never said the White House data that came under scrutiny was from the Trump era. According to lawyers for David Dagon, a Georgia Institute of Technology data scientist who helped develop the Yota analysis, the data — so-called DNS logs, which are records of when computers or smartphones have prepared to communicate with servers over the internet — came from Barack Obama’s presidency.

Sign Up for On Politics A guide to the political news cycle, cutting through the spin and delivering clarity from the chaos. Get it in your inbox.
“What Trump and some news outlets are saying is wrong,” said Jody Westby and Mark Rasch, both lawyers for Mr. Dagon. “The cybersecurity researchers were investigating malware in the White House, not spying on the Trump campaign, and to our knowledge all of the data they used was nonprivate DNS data from before Trump took office.”

In a statement, a spokesperson for Mr. Joffe said that “contrary to the allegations in this recent filing,” he was apolitical, did not work for any political party, and had lawful access under a contract to work with others to analyze DNS data — including from the White House — for the purpose of hunting for security breaches or threats.

After Russians hacked networks for the White House and Democrats in 2015 and 2016, it went on, the cybersecurity researchers were “deeply concerned” to find data suggesting Russian-made YotaPhones were in proximity to the Trump campaign and the White House, so “prepared a report of their findings, which was subsequently shared with the C.I.A.”

A spokesman for Mr. Durham declined to comment.

Mr. Durham was assigned by the attorney general at the time, William P. Barr, to scour the Russia investigation for wrongdoing in May 2019 as Mr. Trump escalated his claims that he was the victim of a “deep state” conspiracy. But after nearly three years, he has not developed any cases against high-level government officials.

Instead, Mr. Durham has developed two cases against people associated with outside efforts to understand Russia’s election interference that put forward unproven, and sometimes thin or subsequently disproved, suspicions about purported links to Mr. Trump or his campaign.

Both cases are narrow — accusations of making false statements. One of those cases is against Mr. Sussmann, whom Mr. Durham has accused of lying during a September 2016 meeting with an F.B.I. official about Mr. Trump’s possible links to Russia.

(Mr. Durham says Mr. Sussmann falsely said he had no clients, but was there on behalf of both the Clinton campaign and Mr. Joffe. Mr. Sussman denies ever saying that, while maintaining he was only there on behalf of Mr. Joffe — not the campaign.)

Both Mr. Sussmann’s September 2016 meeting with the F.B.I. and the February 2017 meeting with the C.I.A. centered upon suspicions developed by cybersecurity researchers who specialize in sifting DNS data in search of hacking, botnets and other threats.

A military research organization had asked Georgia Tech researchers to help scrutinize a 2015 Russian malware attack on the White House’s network. After it emerged that Russia had hacked Democrats, they began hunting for signs of other Russian activity targeting people or organizations related to the election, using data provided by Neustar.

Mr. Sussmann’s meeting with the F.B.I. involved odd data the researchers said might indicate communications between the Trump Organization and Alfa Bank, a Kremlin-linked institution. The F.B.I. dismissed suspicions of a secret communications channel as unfounded. In the indictment of Mr. Sussmann, Mr. Durham insinuated that the researchers did not believe what they were saying. But lawyers for the researchers said that was false and that their clients believed their analysis.

The meeting with the C.I.A. involved odd data the researchers said indicated there had been communications with Yota servers in Russia coming from networks serving the White House; Trump Tower; Mr. Trump’s Central Park West apartment building; and Spectrum Health, a Michigan hospital company that also played a role in the Alfa Bank matter. The researchers also collaborated on that issue, according to Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch, and Mr. Dagon had prepared a “white paper” explaining the analysis, which Mr. Sussmann later took to the C.I.A.

Mr. Durham’s filing also cast doubt on the researchers’ suggestion that interactions between devices in the United States and Yota servers were inherently suspicious, saying that there were more than three million such DNS logs from 2014 to 2017 — and that such logs from the White House dated back at least that long.

But Ms. Westby and Mr. Rasch reiterated that YotaPhones are extremely rare in the United States and portrayed three million DNS logs over three years as “paltry and small relative to the billions and billions” of logs associated with common devices like iPhones.

“Yota lookups are extremely concerning if they emanate from sensitive networks that require protection, such as government networks or people running for federal office,” they said.

Charlie Savage is a Washington-based national security and legal policy correspondent. A recipient of the Pulitzer Prize, he previously worked at The Boston Globe and The Miami Herald. His most recent book is “Power Wars: The Relentless Rise of Presidential Authority and Secrecy.” @charlie_savage • Facebook

https://www.nytimes.com/2022/02/14/us/politics/durham-sussmann-trump-russia.html

[zab]

https://www.veteranstoday.com/2020/10/20/giuliani-admits-hunter-biden-story-a-russian-fake-emails-forged/

You always post fake bullshit, that is what happens when you only read from sources that are just above comic book level.

Every time I see a post from you I know I am going to start laughing. How can anyone even read these stories without laughing.