California Democratic party declines to endorse Senator Dianne Feinstein in her reelection bid.

Courtesy of Politico: 

In a sharp rebuke to Sen. Dianne Feinstein, the California Democratic Party has declined to endorse the state’s own senior senator in her bid for reelection. 

Riven by conflict between progressive and more moderate forces at the state party’s annual convention here, delegates favored Feinstein’s progressive rival, state Senate leader Kevin de León, over Feinstein by a vote of 54 percent to 37 percent, according to results announced Sunday. 

Neither candidate reached the 60 percent threshold required to receive the party endorsement for 2018. But the snubbing of Feinstein led de León to claim a victory for his struggling campaign. 

“The outcome of today’s endorsement vote is an astounding rejection of politics as usual, and it boosts our campaign’s momentum as we all stand shoulder-to-shoulder against a complacent status quo,” de León said in a prepared statement. “California Democrats are hungry for new leadership that will fight for California values from the front lines, not equivocate on the sidelines.”

I'm a little concerned about this.

Dianne Feinstein has been in the Senate since 1992.

Yes she is part of the "establishment" but she is also a known quantity with a lot of support in her state.That means if she were to run for reelection, especially while riding the "blue wave," there is an almost certain victory.

If this Kevin de Leon guy, who may be an excellent candidate, wins the primary there is an increased possibility that something heretofore unknown in his background may be discovered and then he could be vulnerable in the general.

The saying "As California goes, so goes America" could bite us in the ass if we start seeing other safe seats suddenly challenged by more ideologically "pure" liberals who cannot win the general election.

Remember that is what has been happening with the conservatives, and they are losing seats right and left.

Look I want strong progressives in as many seats as possible, but I am also a pragmatist, and I know that if we start applying these purity tests to our sitting members of Congress and the Senate, we might purify ourselves right back to an overwhelming Republican majority in both houses.

Dianne Feinsten slams Republican probe into Christopher Steele while stating emphatically that "nothing in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

Courtesy of the Washington Examiner:  

Senate Judiciary Committee Ranking Member Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., slammed the criminal referral of Christopher Steele by Sens. Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., saying it has numerous “flaws” and “omits key facts.” 

In a five-page analysis released Friday, Feinstein says the criminal referral is “not based on any allegation” that Steele, the author of the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, lied to FBI investigators about former Trump aide Carter Page, or what was included in the dossier. 

“[N]either provide any evidence that any of the information in Steele’s dossier is wrong. Instead, the referral is limited to a single baseless allegation: that Steele lied about his contacts with the press,” the analysis says. 

This week Grassley made public more details from the Jan. 4 unclassified criminal referral of Steele. The referral asks the Department of Justice to investigate whether Steele lied to FBI investigators about his communications with the press.

Feinstein goes on to say this:  

Feinstein’s analysis concludes that the criminal referral “fails to make a case” that Steele actually lied o the FBI. 

“The criminal referral contains no new information. All the information in the criminal referral was already available to the FBI and the Department of Justice,” the analysis concludes. “In fact, the referral relies on publicly available information and information that was provided to Congress from DOJ and the FBI.” 

In a statement accompanying the analysis, Feinstein said the Grassley-Graham referral has goals that include “undermining the FBI and Special Counsel [Robert] Mueller’s investigation, attacking Christopher Steele and deflecting attention from collusion and obstruction of justice investigations. 

“Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted. Unfortunately, the claims in the criminal referral rely on classified information, so it’s difficult to fully repudiate them here. However, as much as possible using unclassified information, the following points lay out the flaws in the criminal referral,” she said.

Here is a link to the analysis to which Feinstein is referring.

"Not a single revelation in the Steele dossier has been refuted."

I bet that every single time that is mentioned it just pisses Donald Trump off to no end.

It really appears that the Republicans are essentially in a blind panic right now.

These tactics are so transparent and obvious that you would think they would be embarrassed to be caught using them.

It kind of makes you wonder if the Russians do not have kompromat on the entire Republican party.

Representatives Dianne Feinstein and Adam Schiff send letter to Mark Zuckerburg urging him to investigate Russian bots pushing the #releasethememo campaign.

Sen. Feinstein and Rep. Schiff have sent a letter to Mark Zuckerberg and @jack urging them to investigate involvement of Russian bots pushing #releasethememo campaign. Here’s my story about it that they cited: https://t.co/YNufBFfOCR pic.twitter.com/5WaTjKh7PM

— Natasha Bertrand (@NatashaBertrand) January 23, 2018

Good for them.

Since our own Justice Department and the Republicans are currently busy helping the Russians to undermine the FBI and the Mueller investigation, I guess we have to turn to the powers that be behind social media to help protect the American people.

Keep in mind that there is STILL no actual coherent plan from this administration to prevent or deal with the next foreign interference in our election process.

Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirms that they will definitely still be interviewing Jared Kushner. Court date for Paul Manafort announced.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The Chair of the Senate Judiciary Committee confirmed Friday that President Donald Trump’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, will still be interviewed as part of the committee’s investigation into Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election.

“Kushner is still going to be interviewed,” Republican Senator Chuck Grassley, of Iowa, said at a town hall meeting in western Iowa. “We’re getting some more documents, and that’s not done.”

Grassley assured constituents Friday that the interview would happen just days after expressing hesitation that his committee could easily secure a voluntary interview with Kushner after his Democratic counterpart, Senator Dianne Feinstein, published a 312-page transcript detailing a private interview with the founder of Fusion GPS, the organization behind the so-called Trump dossier. Grassley said Friday that the committee is just waiting on documents that Kushner has delayed in handing over before conducting the interview. 

“We’re going to do that,” Grassley said as an Iowan rebuked him over the committee’s five-month delay in interviewing Kushner. “Right now, Senator Feinstein is wanting more documents, and we wait until we get the documents, go through the documents, then we have a basis for the interviews that we’re going to have.”

While we are on the topic it appears that Paul Manafort and his associate , Richard Gates, have a shiny new court date to look forward to.

Courtesy of Reuters:  

U.S. Special Counsel in the Russia probe Robert Mueller will request a trial date of May 14 for Trump’s former campaign manager Paul Manafort and Manafort’s associate Richard Gates, Mueller said in a court filing in U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia Friday.

Just a reminder that while all of these distractions about Trump's racism and piggish behavior are dominating the news cycle that the wheels of justice are still slowly moving forward. 

Senator Dianne Feinstein gets fed up with all of the Republican excuses and releases the Fusion GPS transcript onto the internet.

Courtesy of Politico:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) on Tuesday unexpectedly released the transcript of congressional investigators' August 2017 interview with Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson, whose firm was behind a controversial dossier alleging ties between President Donald Trump and Russians. 

Feinstein's move represents an escalation of partisan tensions that have long been simmering on the Senate Judiciary Committee, chaired by Republican Sen. Chuck Grassley. Simpson had called for the transcript of his appearance to be made public, but Republican leaders so far had not agreed to release it. 

A spokesman for Grassley said Feinstein posted the transcript with "no agreement" from committee Republicans. 

"The American people deserve the opportunity to see what he said and judge for themselves,” Feinstein, the top Democrat on the judiciary committee, said in a statement about her decision to release the Simpson transcript.

“The innuendo and misinformation circulating about the transcript are part of a deeply troubling effort to undermine the investigation into potential collusion and obstruction of justice. The only way to set the record straight is to make the transcript public," she said.

(If you want to read that transcript you can do so here.)

Since the release a number of news outlets have reported on its contents.

For instance Axios reported that at least a portion of the dossier had been confirmed to the FBI by a White House source: 

Fusion GPS head Glenn Simpson told Senate Judiciary Committee staffers in August that the FBI had independently received information from an Trump campaign insider that led them to find some of the allegations in former MI6 agent Christopher Steele's Trump-Russia dossier credible. That revelation comes from a transcript of his testimony to the committee released unilaterally today its ranking member, Sen. Dianne Feinstein.

That source of course turned out to be George Papadopoulos.

Simpson revealed that there was evidence of Russian money laundering:

During his testimony, Simpson detailed ways that money had been stolen from a bank in Kazakhstan, then laundered throughout multiple countries — before possibly being funneled in part to the Trump Soho hotel project. 

At the center of the ordeal appears to be Felix Sater, a Trump-linked Russian-born businessman who in 1998 pleaded guilty to taking part in a mafia-related stock fraud scheme, and who is now cooperating with an international investigation into an alleged money laundering network.

Business Insider reports that Christopher Steele had initially reached out to the FBI, but then became concerned that they were being manipulated by Trump and cut ties with them: 

Simpson said Steele "stopped dealing" with the FBI after the New York Times reported in October 2016 that the FBI had found no clear links between Trump and Russia. Steele was also irked by the letter that then-FBI Director James Comey sent to Congress on October 28, effectively re-opening the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

"That episode, you know, obviously created some concern that the FBI was intervening in a political campaign in contravention of long-standing Justice Department regulation," Simpson said. "So it made a lot of people, including us, concerned about what the heck was going on at the FBI." 

Simpson called the New York Times piece, published on October 31, "a real Halloween special." 

"Sometime thereafter the FBI -- I understand Chris severed his relationship with the FBI out of concern that he didn't know what was happening inside the FBI and there was a concern that the FBI was being manipulated for political ends by the Trump people and that we didn't really understand what was going on," Simpson said. "So he stopped dealing with them."

We also learned that according to Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson's lawyer that at least one person has been killed due to the release of the dossier.

!!!

Glenn Simpson's lawyer said someone has been killed as a result of the Steele dossier being published. pic.twitter.com/TMjbi7oPU7

— Kyle Cheney (@kyledcheney) January 9, 2018

I have been busy today so I have only started to read through the 312 page transcript, but I have already concluded that the Republicans did not want this released for some very scurrilous reasons.

This is how Scott Dworkin responded to what he read.

After reading the Fusion GPS transcript it’s clear Republicans have been completely ignoring all of the credible allegations of money laundering, conspiracy with Russia against the US & other crimes committed by Donald Trump & his pals. It’s proof Republicans are traitors—Period.

— Scott Dworkin (@funder) January 9, 2018

Yeah, essentially that.

Dianne Feinsten says that Senate Judiciary Committee is now building a case for obstructionism against Donald Trump. Update!

Courtesy of NBC News:  

A Senate investigation into Russia's meddling in the 2016 presidential election has revealed a possible obstruction of justice case against President Donald Trump, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein said on "Meet The Press" Sunday. 

"The [Senate] Judiciary Committee has an investigation going as well and it involves obstruction of justice and I think what we're beginning to see is the putting together of a case of obstruction of justice,” Feinstein, the panel's top Democrat, said.

“I think we see this in the indictments, the four indictments, and pleas that have just taken place and some of the comments that are being made," Feinstein added, referencing the indictments of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his associate Rick Gates, who face charges that include conspiracy and money laundering that were uncovered during Special Counsel Bob Mueller's investigation into potential links between Trump and Russia. Also charged in connection to the Mueller investigation are Trump's former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn and former campaign adviser George Papadopoulos, who both pleaded guilty to lying to the FBI. 

"I see it in the hyper-frenetic attitude of the White House, the comments every day, the continual tweets. And I see it most importantly in what happened with the firing of Director [James] Comey, and it is my belief that that is directly because he did not agree to ‘lift the cloud’ of the Russia investigation. That’s obstruction of justice,” Feinstein said.

Gonna be kind of hard to call this all "fake news" when the courts issue a subpoena charging you with obstruction of justice, now isn't it?

Of course Trump's lawyers have a response to that as well:

John Dowd, President Trump's outside lawyer, outlined to me a new and highly controversial defense/theory in the Russia probe: A president cannot be guilty of obstruction of justice. 

The "President cannot obstruct justice because he is the chief law enforcement officer under [the Constitution's Article II] and has every right to express his view of any case," Dowd claims. 

I'm sorry, what?

I swear it's like this Trump legal team all got their license to practice law from a box of  "Cracker Jacks."

Man so far December has rocked.

Update: Here is more from CNN:  

The White House's chief lawyer told President Donald Trump in January he believed then-national security adviser Michael Flynn had misled the FBI and lied to Vice President Mike Pence and should be fired, a source familiar with the matter said Monday. 

The description of the conversation raises new questions about what Trump knew about Flynn's situation when he urged then-FBI Director James Comey to drop the investigation into Flynn and whether anyone in the White House, including the President himself, attempted to obstruct justice. Special counsel Robert Mueller is investigating whether the Trump campaign colluded with Russians, a probe led by Comey until Trump fired him. 

White House counsel Donald McGahn told Trump that based on his conversation with then-acting Attorney General Sally Yates, he believed Flynn had not told the truth in his interview with the FBI or to Pence, the source said.

So Trump was told that Flynn had lied not only to Mike Pence, but also the FBI, but did not decide to fire him until the Washington Post story came out almost two weeks later. 

Damn, Donald Trump really IS bringing Christmas back!

I think we can stop pinning our hopes on the Senate Judiciary Committee to get to the truth about the Trump/Russian collusion.

Courtesy of Mother Jones: 

Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and ranking member Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) have broken up over Russia. 

The committee’s once bipartisan investigation into whether President Donald Trump obstructed justice or his campaign colluded with Russia has hit a partisan wall, with Republicans and Democrats saying they will now conduct their own probes. “We made the decision to go and carry it out ourselves,” Feinstein told Mother Jones on Tuesday. “They can go ahead and do whatever it is they wanted to do.” A Grassley spokesman also said the chairman had decided to proceed with a Republican-only investigation. 

Judiciary’s Russia investigation is the latest congressional probe to stall out over GOP efforts to pursue matters Democrats see as gambits to distract or provide cover for the Trump administration. The partisan sparring within the committees looking into various aspects of the Russia scandal has caused concern among Democrats and other observers that Republicans will fail to complete rigorous probes but will still declare their investigations did not find significant collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia. 

While I have virtually NO confidence in Congress's ability, or desire, to  get to the truth. I kind of thought that the Senate Judiciary and Intelligence Committees might have a fair shot at it.

After all they were saying all the right things, and Senate does not seem nearly as partisan as the House.

However apparently that faith has been misplaced.

And now we see why having the Robert Mueller investigation working independently is so damn important.

If Trump finds away to sabotage that, then this whole thing will simply disappear forever and we will NEVER learn the truth.

The Attorney General Jeff Sessions had a rather contentious Senate hearing today.

In case you missed Senator Al Franken rip apart Jeff Sessions lies, here's the clip. pic.twitter.com/jopVVIb6rx

— Red T Raccoon (@RedTRaccoon) October 18, 2017

Courtesy of the Business Insider:  

Attorney General Jeff Sessions engaged in a lengthy, heated exchange with Democratic Sen. Al Franken of Minnesota during a Senate hearing on Wednesday. The battle focused on what Sessions told the Judiciary Committee during his confirmation hearing in January about his communications with Russian officials during the 2016 presidential campaign. 

During a line of questioning from Franken in that January hearing, Sessions was asked what he would do as attorney general if he found evidence that "anyone affiliated with the Russian government" communicated with the Trump campaign through the election. Sessions said he was unaware of any such activities and insisted he "did not have communications with the Russians." 

It was later reported that Sessions had a handful of conversations during the campaign with the Russian ambassador to the US at the time, Sergey Kislyak. As a result, Sessions recused himself from all matters related to the Trump campaign and insisted he did not attempt to mislead the committee. 

"This allegation that a surrogate — and I had been called a surrogate for Donald Trump — had been meeting continuously with Russian officials, and that's what I — it struck me very hard, and that's what I focused my answer on," Session said on Wednesday in response to a question from Franken. "And in retrospect, I should have slowed down and said, 'But I did meet one Russian official a couple of times, and that would be the ambassador.'" 

......

Franken said that once Sessions was confronted with the reports, he began to change his answer about whether he communicated with Russians. 

"So again, the goalpost has been moved," Franken said. "First, it was 'I did not have communications with Russians,' which was not true. Then it was 'I never met with any Russians to discuss any political campaign,' which may or may not be true. Now it's 'I did not discuss interference in the campaign,' which further narrows your initial blanket denial about meeting with the Russians. 

"Since you have qualified your denial to say that you did not 'discuss issues of the campaign with Russians,' what in your view constitutes issues of the campaign?" he said.

Sessions of course denied that "he had any improper discussions with the Russians at any time about the campaign."

This was by no means the only adversarial back and forth that Sessions had today.

Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort are all scheduled to appear before the Senate Judiciary Committee next week.

Courtesy of the Independent:  

Jared Kushner, Donald Trump Jr and former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort are to testify before the US Senate Judiciary Committee in relation to a meeting with a Russian lawyer who promised to provide incriminating information about Hillary Clinton. 

The meeting has come under intense scrutiny as part of investigations into Russian interference in the 2016 US election and possible collusion on the part of the Trump campaign. 

Mr Trump Jr and Mr Manafort are to appear in front of the committee on July 26, but Mr Kushner is due to appear on July 24 in a closed session.

Mr Kushner’s lawyer Abbe Lowell said his client is voluntarily cooperating with the congressional probes into the now notorious meeting. 

In addition, Natalia Veselnitskaya, the Russian lawyer who organised the meeting with Mr Trump Jr, has also said she would be happy to testify.

Oh I am DEFINITELY clearing my calendar to watch this.

I just wish that Kushner's was an open door testimony as well.

Maybe he is just afraid that people will mock his little boy voice if he appears on television.

But don't worry he is certainly not out of the woods yet.

Courtesy of Newsweek: 

The Congressional oversight body that holds U.S. employees accountable and exposes government fraud and abuse voted unanimously Wednesday to investigate why senior Trump administration officials have been granted security clearances. 

Senior advisors to the president, Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump, former National Security Advisor Mike Flynn, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions were all given security clearances after “omitting significant information about foreign contacts from their applications,” said a statement from Illinois House Representative Raja Krishnamoorthi.

And the noose gets a little bit tighter.

P.S. After I wrote this I saw a few talking heads on TV suggesting that Junior and Manafort would be idiots to agree to show up for this hearing, and I got a little worried.

But then Senator Dianne Feinstein came along to put those concerns to rest:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-Calif.) said Thursday she isn't concerned about Donald Trump Jr. and Paul Manafort agreeing to testify before a Senate panel, because if they don't "they'll be subpoenaed." 

"Am I concerned? No, I'm not concerned, because if they don't they'll be subpoenaed," Feinstein, the top Democrat on the Senate Judiciary Committee, told reporters.

And there you have it.

Junior and Manafort might TRY to avoid testifying next week, but they will ultimately testify one way or the other. 

Senator Dianne Feinstein just opened a can of Whoop ass on Donald Trump.

Here is the Senator's complete press release: 

“I’m growing increasingly concerned that the president will attempt to fire not only Robert Mueller, the special counsel investigating possible obstruction of justice, but also Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein who appointed Mueller. 

“The message the president is sending through his tweets is that he believes the rule of law doesn’t apply to him and that anyone who thinks otherwise will be fired. That’s undemocratic on its face and a blatant violation of the president’s oath of office. 

“First of all, the president has no authority to fire Robert Mueller. That authority clearly lies with the attorney general—or in this case, because the attorney general has recused himself, with the deputy attorney general. Rosenstein testified under oath this week that he would not fire Mueller without good cause and that none exists. 

“And second, if the president thinks he can fire Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein and replace him with someone who will shut down the investigation, he’s in for a rude awakening. Even his staunchest supporters will balk at such a blatant effort to subvert the law. 

“It’s becoming clear to me that the president has embarked on an effort to undermine anyone with the ability to bring any misdeeds to light, be that Congress, the media or the Justice Department. The Senate should not let that happen. We’re a nation of laws that apply equally to everyone, a lesson the president would be wise to learn.”

In other words, "Don't try any of your bullshit shenanigans because we are watching everything you do and there is no place for you to run."

As CNN reports Feinstein is on both the Senate intelligence and Judiciary Committees so there is likely NOTHING about those investigations of which she is not fully aware.

And if she drops an ultimatum like this she has the means to back it up.

In other news Robert Mueller is hiring his own platoon of lawyers.

Courtesy of TPM:

Special counsel Robert Mueller has hired 13 lawyers for his probe of Russian meddling in the 2016 investigation and plans on hiring “several more,” a spokesman for Mueller told Talking Points Memo on Friday. 

“In addition to Mr. Mueller, we have 13 attorneys on board, with several more in the pipeline,” Mueller’s spokesman, Peter Carr, told TPM in an email. “The number of people will be determined by the needs of the investigation.”

Man I would love to be a fly on the wall inside that White House right now.

It must be similar to a mental hospital which has depleted its supply of anti-psychotic medications.

I just imagine a building filled with people overcome with paranoia and starting to see things out of the corner of their eyes creeping ever closer to them.

I await the days when through the windows we see furniture stacked up against all of the exits, while Donald Trump, with his long red tie wrapped firmly around his forehead, screams out to the gathering mob that "Dammit this is a witch hunt, why won't anybody understand that?"

James Comey claims that he is made "mildly nauseous" by the idea that he may have affected the outcome of the 2016 election.

Courtesy of the New York Times:  

Mr. Comey said he went public on Oct. 28 because he believed that the emails found by his agents might provide insight into Mrs. Clinton’s reasons for using a private server as secretary of state and might change the outcome of the investigation. Failing to inform Congress, Mr. Comey said, would have a required an “act of concealment.” 

“Concealment, in my view, would have been catastrophic,” he said, adding later that he knew the decision would be “disastrous for me personally.” 

What Mr. Comey viewed as concealing, Justice Department officials viewed simply as following the rules. The F.B.I. does not normally confirm ongoing investigations. Senior Justice Department officials urged him not to send a letter to Congress informing them that the bureau was examining the new emails.

I have to say that I was made more than just mildly nauseous by Comey's contention that he only had two choices before him, and that he made the one that he believed would NOT be "catastrophic."

In my opinion the truth is just the exact opposite, and that if Hillary had won, and it had been revealed that Comey kept quiet about any new evidence, it would only have added more fodder for the investigations that the Republicans were already preparing to launch once she was in the White House.

In the end it would only have resulted in some Republicans bitching about Comey on Twitter and then calling him to endlessly testify before Congress about what he learned, which they would have done if Clinton won no matter what he had said, or not said, before the election. 

After listening to Comey's testimony I came away with the sense that he has really worked hard to convince himself that he had no choice in going public, but that at some level he realizes that he fucked up.

Here was another exchange, this time with Senator Al Franken, discussing the importance of looking into Trump's financial records and tax returns to help understand why Putin chose to help him win the election.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

The Minnesota Democrat laid out business relationships between Trump, his White House staff, cabinet officials, campaign advisers and Russia, and he asked whether FBI investigators had access to the president’s tax returns. 

Comey declined to say whether investigators had viewed Trump’s taxes, but he agreed that had Russia in the past exploited financial arrangements to influence politics abroad. 

“I hope people don’t over-interpret my answers, but I don’t want to start talking about anything — what we’re looking at and how,” Comey said. 

He agreed that intelligence agencies believed Russia had a clear preference for Trump, which he said was based in Russian President Vladimir Putin’s dislike for Hillary Clinton. 

“The intelligence community assessed that Putin believed he would be more able to make deals, reach agreements with someone with a business background rather than someone who had grown up in more of a government environment,” Comey said. 

He declined to say whether investigators believed Trump was vulnerable to manipulation through his business contacts with Russians, including the oligarch who purchased a Palm Beach, Florida, mansion from him a decade ago.

I thought that Franken's questions were some of the best of the hearing, and I thought that he probably touched on many of the things that the FBI are likely looking into concerning possible collusion between the Trump team and the Russians.

Other things we learned, or had reinforced, during the testimony:

• That the "thousands of emails" which were on Anthony Weiner's laptop were there because Huma Abedin sent them there to be printed off so that Hillary could review the hard copies later. 
• That initially Comey thought these might be some of mysterious "missing" 30,000 e-mails that the Republicans had made a cause celeb during their numerous investigations into Clinton. 
• The investigation into the ties between the Trump campaign and Russia is still ongoing.
• Comey said that journalists who receive classified information are not criminals, but that the folks who send them that information might be.
• Comey does not consider what Wikileaks does as legitimate journalism, and claimed they traffic in "intelligence porn."
• That the Russians are STILL interfering in American politics, and in European politics as well. 
• And Comey says that they are "the greatest threat of any nation on earth."

My take away from this hearing was that Comey is simply covering his own ass, that he was more afraid of his own agents than he was of the consequences of his interference, and that currently he is very serious about investigating Trump's ties to Russia.

That sounds like very good news for us, and not so good news for a certain tangerine colored tyrannical toddler.

Dianne Feinstein on Donald Trump: "I think he's going to get himself out."

Part 4 of Q&A. A protester asked "how do we get Trump out" @SenFeinstein responds: "I think he is going to get himself out." pic.twitter.com/VJ9TK0K0cF

— Javier Panzar (@jpanzar) March 17, 2017

Courtesy of Raw Story:  

“You looked white as a ghost after that meeting yesterday,” one person said to Feinstein — referring to Feinstein and Judiciary Committee chairman Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA)’s briefings with FBI Dir. James Comey on Wednesday. Comey declined to comply with a Senate Intelligence Committee request that he go on the record by Wednesday confirming or denying whether the FBI is currently investigating Pres. Donald Trump’s campaign and its connections to the Russian government. 

“There are so many things [Trump] is doing that are unconstitutional,” a protester said. “How are we going to get him out?” 

“We have a lot of people looking at this,” Feinstein said. “I think he’s going to get himself out… I think that sending his sons to another country to make a financial deal for his company and then have that covered with government expenses. I believe that should not be allowed.” 

“We’re working on a bill that would do that now,” she said. “We’re working on a couple of bills that would deal with conflicts of interest.”

I am not exactly sure what Feinstein knows that we don't know, but it is hard not to be a little skeptical about Donald Trump voluntarily abandoning his presidency.

I actually think that if there were plans to impeach him that he would go all scorched earth and take as many of his critics down with him as he could. 

However on Monday James Comey is scheduled to respond publicly to those charges that Trump made that he was wiretapped by the Obama Administration, so maybe she does have some sort of inside scoop.

Top Democrat on Senate Intelligence Committee believes that yes Russia altered the outcome of this election.

Courtesy of NBC News: 

A top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee said she believes Russia tried to interfere in the election and that their activity ultimately altered the outcome. 

"The answer is yes on both cases," California Sen. Dianne Feinstein said when asked on NBC's "Meet the Press." 

"I've had all of the major classified briefings. I have been astonished at what has been a two-year effort [at] Russia to spearfish, to hack, to provide disinformation, propaganda wherever it really could. And I think this has been a very sophisticated effort," Feinstein added.

Feinstein has seen the classified information about these hacks provided by the intelligence agencies so she is speaking with great knowledge about this topic.

I no longer think that anybody can definitively say that without these hacks Donald Trump would still have been elected.

And once you throw in Comey's letter that removes the last vestiges of doubt.

Sure Donald Trump WILL be sworn in as president this week.

But the fact is that the majority of Americans will never see him as legitimate and will always wonder who he is representing. Himself, the American people, or the Kremlin?

Top Democrats finally proclaim publicly that the Russian government is trying to sway this election. No, really?

Courtesy of Politico:  

The top Democrats on the House and Senate Intelligence panels said Thursday that they are convinced, based on briefings, that senior Russian officials are trying to sway or disrupt the U.S. elections. 

"Based on briefings we have received, we have concluded that the Russian intelligence agencies are making a serious and concerted effort to influence the U.S. election," said Sen. Dianne Feinstein and Rep. Adam Schiff in a joint statement. 

"At the least, this effort is intended to sow doubt about the security of our election and may well be intended to influence the outcomes of the election - we can see no other rationale for the behavior of the Russians," they added. 

The pair placed the blame at the highest levels of Russia's government. 

"We believe that orders for the Russian intelligence agencies to conduct such actions could come only from very senior levels of the Russian government," they said. 

This does not exactly come as news to those of us paying attention to all of these hacks, and the fact that they seem focused mostly on the Democrats and opponents of Donald Trump.

Speaking of Trump, it appears that one of his advisors is under investigation for his dealings with Russia:

One of Donald Trump's foreign policy advisors is being probed by U.S. intelligence officials to determine whether he has had private discussions with senior Russian officials, Yahoo News reported, citing sources. In particular, members of the intelligence community are concerned that Carter Page has spoken with the Kremlin about the possibility of lifting economic sanctions on Russia, sources told Yahoo.

The former Soviet Union working to help a Republican win a presidential election. I wonder if you can die from an irony overload? 

Senator Dianne Feinstein on Clinton e-mail controversy: "Enough is enough!"

Courtesy of Mediaite:

In an interview with ABC’s This Week that aired Sunday, Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein dismissed the controversy over Hillary Clinton‘s use of a private email server, saying, “enough is enough,” and encouraging voters to deal with more pressing issues facing the country. 

HC broke no law. I read all 42 pages of the report. The conclusion of the report does not say that. What it does say is that the [State] Department does not handle these electronic platform operations well.” 

She continued: “I mean, what do people want? This goes on and on and on. We’re reaching the final stages of a primary. Hillary Clinton is going to win this primary. I say enough is enough. Let’s get to the major problems facing this nation.”

Finally somebody said this out loud.

This thing has gone on for far too long and when all is said and done it is all going to be a huge disappointment for the Bernie Bros and the Right Wing conspiracy fanatics who have been masturbating themselves to sleep over the possibility of a Clinton going to prison for over three decades now.

First it was Whitewater, which nobody even understands.

Then the Clintons supposedly killed Vince Foster.

Then we heard Hillary allowed four Americans to be killed in Benghazi while she refused to save them.

Then there are the allegations that Hillary is owned by Wall Street because they paid to hear her speak.

And now we have the e-mail "scandal."

In every case there is just enough unanswered questions, or troubling details, to keep it going sometimes for year. But in the end.....nothing.

None of this garbage shouted from the rooftops by the Right Wing has ever panned out, and yet every single time there is a new "scandal" we are told "Sure the rest of those were all bullshit, but THIS one, this one is going to finally destroy Bill Obama Hillary completely." 

And don't even bother bringing up the FBI investigation.

Do you REALLY think that if the White House had any fear that Hillary would be indicted that they would not have intervened to derail her campaign by convincing Joe Biden to run, or pressured more Democratic politicians behind the scenes to endorse Bernie Sanders, or simply taken Bill and Hillary aside and said that for the good of the country she needed to drop out of the race?

Of course they would.

Look I get it Hillary Clinton has made some stupid mistakes in the past, and sometimes she plays a little fast and loose with the facts. Which politician doesn't?

But none of that really matter because this contest is now between Hillary Clinton and Donald Trump, and of the two she is by FAR the more qualified, honest, and competent person running for this office.

Hillary Clinton IS going to be the next President of the United States.

So y'all better get used to it.

Senator Dianne Feinstein on deal with Iran: "It's a better agreement, candidly, than I thought it was ever going to be."

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

Sen. Dianne Feinstein (Calif.), the top Democrat on the Senate Intelligence Committee, said the nuclear framework deal with Iran was better than she had anticipated, and she criticized Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's call for continuing sanctions on Iran. 

Under the framework deal announced last week, Iran agreed to restrictions on nuclear facilities and to international inspections. Feinstein noted that the inspection of Iran's mines, mills, facilities and other elements of its nuclear supply chain would last up to 25 years. The surveillance and inspections are key, she said. 

"It's a better agreement, candidly, than I thought it was ever going to be. I think that it can be a very serviceable, practical agreement, and it can signal a new day," Feinstein said on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "Otherwise, we keep this dynamic going, which is not productive of anything that's positive for the region."

Feinstein also said this on CNN yesterday:  

CNN "State of the Union" host Jim Acosta asked Feinstein Sunday morning whether she believes the deal threatens Israel's survival. 

"No, I don't," she replied. 

"I don't think it's helpful for Israel to come out and oppose this one opportunity to change a major dynamic, which is downhill -- a downhill dynamic in this part of the world," Feinstein continued.

Senator Feinstein is herself Jewish, and certainly no fan of Iran, so for her to come out this strongly for the deal with Iran, and so strongly against Netanyahu's rhetoric, I think is pretty powerful .

Rep. Mike Rogers and Sen. Dianne Feinstein seem to agree that Edward Snowden had help stealing NSA data. Possibly from Russia.

(The Snowden remarks start at the 3:30 mark.)

This synopsis courtesy of Raw Story:  

On Meet the Press Sunday, the chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, Michigan Representative Mike Rogers (R), said that he believes Edward Snowden may have been working for agents of the former KGB. 

“Let me just say this,” Rogers said. “I believe there’s a reason he ended up in the hands, the loving arms, of an FSB agent in Moscow. I don’t think that’s a coincidence.” 

He accused Snowden of being an amateur, saying “it’s like having the janitor at a bank who figured out how to steal some money deciding matters of high finance. This was a thief who, we believe, had some help to — who stole information the vast majority of which had nothing to do with privacy.” Rogers was referring to the idea, popularized by Glenn Greenwald, that Snowden’s central concern wasn’t with sharing state secrets so much as informing Americans as to the scope of government intrusion into their lives. 

When NBC’s David Gregory pressed Rogers on the question of who helped Snowden, Rogers said “that are certain questions we have to get answered…he didn’t look for information on the privacy of Americans, he was stealing information that had to do with how we keep Americans safe.” 

“Some of the things he did were beyond his technical responsibilities,” Rogers said, suggesting that Snowden lacked the technical capability to acquire the information he did. Also suspect, according to Rogers, was “how [Snowden] arranged travel before he left, how he was ready to go. He had a go bag, if you will.”

As you can see Dianne Feinstein essentially backs up Rogers assertion, and they say that the evidence is leading them to believe that Snowden is no hero, and may in fact have distributed information, information that we as of right now know nothing about, that is potentially very detrimental to the country and the military overseas. 

I have never run into a story that I have found to be as mercurial as the Snowden story, but if these two intelligence experts are to be believed much of the beatification  bestowed on Snowden may be premature and in fact history could prove him to have a significantly villainous nature.

Let me know your take.

My Senator wrote me back about gun control legislation.

As many of you may remember on Wednesday I encouraged all of you to write to your Senators to urge them to push for a full vote on the assault weapons ban.

Following my own advice I did just that, and sent off e-mail messages to my two Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowski.

Yesterday I received this response from Senator Murkowski:

Dear Jesse: 

Thank you for contacting me regarding recently proposed gun control measures. I appreciate hearing from you and having the opportunity to respond. 

Alaskans have mourned with all Americans at the tragic, senseless deaths in recent years and I believe we should examine ways to reduce violence by improving our mental health care system, keeping guns out of the hands of criminals, and enforcing existing laws. But we must continue to protect our Constitutional right to bear arms.

I am opposed to Senator Feinstein's bill that would prohibit the sale of many semi-automatic rifles and pistols to law abiding Americans and infringe on their Second Amendment rights. Now is not the time to demonize those who possess and use firearms lawfully. It is time to build a national consensus, with firearms owners, about how to prevent incidents like those we have recently seen. We must look at the issue from all perspectives, but demanding the vast majority of us who responsibly use firearms to give up our individual freedoms in the interest of community safety simply may not make our communities safer. 

If Congress considers legislation related to gun control, I will be sure to keep your thoughts in mind. Again, thank you for contacting me. 

 I am not precisely sure how restricting the sale of military style weapons to every Tom, Dick, and Dirty Harry that wants one is "demonizing" anybody, but from the gist of this letter I will assume that Lisa is not willing to break ranks with the GOP, nor risk angering her sometimes crazy constituents by taking this on. I don't think I ever expected that she would, though I did mention in the e-mail that she was in a "unique position" to take a leadership role on this.

However to be fair I wrote to BOTH of my Senators only minutes apart, and have only heard back from one thus far. I am really interested in what Mark is saying about this legislation since a lot of other Senators are looking at the blue dogs to give them inspiration to vote on this bill.

Once he responds, if he responds, I will let you all know what he says.

Rachel Maddow reports on the fact that the assault weapons ban has been removed by Democrats from the gun control legislation headed to the Senate. Dianne Feinstein expresses her frustration.

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After this broadcast last night Senator Feinstein, who has worked very hard and faced extreme opposition to draft that assault ban legislation, spoke out about this decision:

“This is very important to me. And I’m not going to lay down and play dead. I think the American people have said in every single public poll that they support this kind of legislation. It’s aimed to protect children, to protect schools and malls. … Not to give me a vote on this would be a major betrayal of trust, as I would see it,” Feinstein said Tuesday on CNN. 

Yeah I completely share her anger at this cowardly decision.

You know this is really where the rubber hits the road. We, as citizens, need to let the Senate know that we support this assault weapons ban, and that not getting it past puts their jobs in jeopardy.

Here is the contact information for the Senate. let them know how you feel.

Trust me Alaska Senators Mark Begich and Lisa Murkowskil just got an earful.

When it comes to taking down lying political blowhards perhaps NOBODY does it better than Lawrence O'Donnell. Let's get out some popcorn and watch what he does to Ted Cruz.

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God that was satisfying!

Ever since I watched that exchange between Dianne Feinstein and this tool, I have had this almost overwhelming desire to see him get his ass kicked on camera.

I think Lawrence gave us the closest representation of that we are likely to see.