Donald Trump fires Rex Tillerson, replaces him with Mike Pompeo. Update!

Mike Pompeo, Director of the CIA, will become our new Secretary of State. He will do a fantastic job! Thank you to Rex Tillerson for his service! Gina Haspel will become the new Director of the CIA, and the first woman so chosen. Congratulations to all!

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 13, 2018

Courtesy of CNBC: 

Rex Tillerson is out as secretary of State, ending a tumultuous tenure as America's top diplomat that was marked by a series of public disagreements with his boss — President Donald Trump. 

Trump plans to appoint CIA Director Mike Pompeo to replace the former Exxon Mobil chief executive. The president picked deputy CIA Director Gina Haspel to run the spy agency.

That tweet up above was how the world learned that Trump was kicking Tillerson off the island, no press conference, no official statement, just a tweet. Because apparently that is how these things are done now.

There has of course been talk that Trump was displeased with Tillerson going way back to when he called Trump a "moron" back in October.

Though of course Trump responded to talk that Tillerson may be on his way out with this tweet:

The media has been speculating that I fired Rex Tillerson or that he would be leaving soon - FAKE NEWS! He’s not leaving and while we disagree on certain subjects, (I call the final shots) we work well together and America is highly respected again!https://t.co/FrqiPLFJ1E

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 1, 2017

I cannot say that I was ever a fan of Tillerson, but at least he comported himself like a grown up most of the time.

Mike Pompeo is just a Trump ass kisser and a rubber stamp on anything and everything that Trump will want to do going forward.

Clearly this administration is in free fall right now, and when it finally makes impact it is going to leave a hell of a crater.

Update: Apparently Tillerson learned he was fired in the same tweet where everybody else learned about it. 

The State Department has used NONE of the money that it was allocated to fight the Russian cyber attacks. Go ahead, act surprised.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

As Russia’s virtual war against the United States continues unabated with the midterm elections approaching, the State Department has yet to spend any of the $120 million it has been allocated since late 2016 to counter foreign efforts to meddle in elections or sow distrust in democracy. 

As a result, not one of the 23 analysts working in the department’s Global Engagement Center — which has been tasked with countering Moscow’s disinformation campaign — speaks Russian, and a department hiring freeze has hindered efforts to recruit the computer experts needed to track the Russian efforts. 

The delay is just one symptom of the largely passive response to the Russian interference by President Trump, who has made little if any public effort to rally the nation to confront Moscow and defend democratic institutions. 

As if you needed ANY more evidence that Donald Trump is a Russian agent.

This also reinforces the New Yorker article about the Kremlin's influence in Trump's decision to choose Rex Tillerson as his Secretary of State.

Just not sure that Mitt Romney would have been so willing to play along with this.

Russia warns the United States against meddling in their election. Yeah, you heard that right.

Maria Zakharova

Courtesy of USA Today: 

Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova on Wednesday rejected U.S. criticism over opposition leader Alexei Navalny's blocked presidential bid, saying it amounted to "meddling in the Russian elections." 

"This statement by the U.S. Department of State, which I'm sure will not be the only one, is a direct interference into the electoral process and the state's domestic affairs," Zakharova said in comments carried by state-owned TASS news agency. 

A State Department spokesman expressed concern over the "restrictions on independent voices" in response to the vote by Russia's top electoral body to formally bar Navalny from participating in the 2018 presidential election. 

"The funniest thing about it is that this statement was made by the same people who put the foreign agent label on RT and Sputnik, persecuted Russian media worldwide and invested vast sums in 'countering Russian propaganda,'" Zakharova said.

Can you believe the balls on these guys? 

They use Facebook and social media to spread misinformation, hack a number of government and personal computers, and then attempt to manipulate their asset in the White House to repeal sanctions against their country, and they have the audacity to bitch about the State Department pointing out that they are rigging an election to reelect Vladimir Putin?

I can't even.

Here is a GOP Congressman suggesting that the FBI and State Department should be purged of agents who are part of the "deep state."

WATCH: GOP Rep. Francis Rooney calls for 'purge' of FBI, accuses some in the agency of being a part of the 'deep state' pic.twitter.com/kkJTBPFeui

— MSNBC (@MSNBC) December 26, 2017

"Deep State" by  the way is right up there with the "Illuminati" and "Gay Mafia" as fantastical imaginary shadow organizations which conspiracy theorists claim are working the levers of power behind the scenes.

This is the kind of lunacy espoused by Alex Jones and Right Wing talk radio hosts.

To see an actual member of Congress using this kind of language is flatly terrifying.

Jeff Sessions orders the State Department to examine the connection between Hillary Clinton and the Uranium One deal. Can you say distraction?

Seriously, this again?

Courtesy of NBC News:  

On the orders of Attorney General Jeff Sessions, Justice Department prosecutors have begun asking FBI agents to explain the evidence they found in a now dormant criminal investigation into a controversial uranium deal that critics have linked to Bill and Hillary Clinton, multiple law enforcement officials told NBC News. 

The interviews with FBI agents are part of the Justice Department's effort to fulfill a promise an assistant attorney general made to Congress last month to examine whether a special counsel was warranted to look into what has become known as the Uranium One deal, a senior Justice Department official said.

Jesus, the Trump Administration and the Republicans are getting really desperate now.

First they suggest appointing a Special Counsel to investigate Hillary Clinton's connection to Fusion GPS to deflect from Mueller's Russia investigation, and now they are suggesting the need for one to investigate Hillary's connection to a 2010 uranium deal that she had nothing to do with personally.

Hell even Fox News deflated this conspiracy theory back in November.

This is just another taxpayer money wasting Benghazi investigation.

Clearly the point is not to discover any actual wrongdoing, but to distract attention away from the Mueller investigation which is freaking Donald Trump and his supporters out big time.

The New York Times reports that Rex Tillerson may be on his way out at State.

Bad news boss, I think I'm about to lose my job.

Courtesy of the New York Times:

The White House has developed a plan to force out Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson, whose relationship with President Trump has been strained, and replace him with Mike Pompeo, the C.I.A. director, perhaps within the next several weeks, senior administration officials said on Thursday. 

Mr. Pompeo would be replaced at the C.I.A. by Senator Tom Cotton, a Republican from Arkansas who has been a key ally of the president on national security matters, according to the White House plan. Mr. Cotton has signaled that he would accept the job if offered, said the officials, who insisted on anonymity to discuss sensitive deliberations before decisions are announced. 

It was not immediately clear whether Mr. Trump had given final approval to the plan developed by John F. Kelly, the White House chief of staff, but the president has been said to have soured on Mr. Tillerson and in general is ready to make a change at the State Department. Mr. Tillerson was at the White House on Thursday twice for meetings, but neither the president nor his team gave a public reaffirmation of his position in the administration.

When given the opportunity to confirm his confidence in Tillerson, and to assure folks that he was not going anywhere, this was Trump's reply.

Reporter: "Do you have Rex Tillerson on the job?"

President Trump: "He's here. Rex is here." pic.twitter.com/H72H8X529y

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 30, 2017

"He's here. Rex is here."

Yeah, but the question was how long would he be there.

Some have suggested that putting Mike Pompeo in charge of the State Department would be a good move as he takes the position more seriously than Tillerson apparently did. 

However Pompeo is also ideologically more pro-war, so if Tillerson was the obstacle keeping Trump from going off half cocked and attacking North Korea, it is unlikely that Mike Pompeo will continue to obstruct that decision.

One thing is for certain Trump's claim that he "only hires the best people" has now become a running joke.

You know, much like this presidency.

Only no one is laughing anymore.

Yet another State Department employee resigns her post as Rex Tillerson seems to adopt new problem solving strategy called "wishful thinking."

Courtesy of Think Progress: 

Rex Tillerson’s State Department slipped further into disarray this week, following the departure of a figure brought in to overhaul the department amid growing tensions within the Trump administration. 

Maliz Beams, who was brought on as Counselor to the Department of State in August, resigned her position after only three months, according to officials. The department confirmed Beams’ departure on Monday. 

“Beams is stepping away from her role here at the Department of State and is returning to her home in Boston,” a spokesperson told BuzzFeed News. “Effective immediately, [Tillerson’s deputy chief of staff] Christine Ciccone will step in to lead the redesign effort and manage its daily activities.” 

Beams’ departure is more bad news for the department, which has suffered a number of exits in recent months. Beams, who has an extensive private sector background in business and finance and previously served as CEO of Voya Financial (formerly ING US), was brought in to lead a massive redesign effort championed by Tillerson. Trump’s budget calls for a $10.1 billion reduction in State Department spending, a controversial move that could cost 2,300 people their jobs. Beams reportedly clashed with Tillerson over the effort.

But don't think that Rex Tillerson does not have a plan for how to deal with world crises with only a skeleton crew, because he does.

The aforementioned "wishful thinking."

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Rex Tillerson said on Tuesday that the Trump administration’s proposal to slash the state department and foreign aid budget is in part based on an expectation it will be able to resolve some of the global conflicts that have been absorbing costly diplomatic and humanitarian support. 

But in a vivid display of the most urgent diplomatic challenge facing the US, Tillerson was speaking as North Korea carried out a new ballistic missile test – the first since it fired a missile over Japan in mid-September. 

The secretary of state presented this rationale for the budget cut at a time when he is under fire from former US diplomats for gutting his state department amid multiple crises around the world – an allegation Tillerson denied.

I think it is overwhelmingly obvious at this point that Tillerson, like many Trump appointees, was  appointed to destroy the very agencies they were supposed to lead.

Tillerson seems particularly adept in that regard.

Of course the problem with that is that it leaves the American people incredibly vulnerable.

All across the board we are suffering a crisis of leadership, and every day the danger to average citizens rises just that much higher.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson continues to gut the State Department.

Remember who you work for.

Courtesy of Raw Story: 

According to a Friday night report in the The New York Times, Tillerson has not only frozen hiring and failed to nominate people to the majority of the department’s politically-appointed positions — he’s also engaged in what appears to be an intentional campaign to push out as many career diplomats as possible. 

“[Tillerson’s] small cadre of aides have fired some diplomats and gotten others to resign by refusing them the assignments they wanted or taking away their duties altogether,” the Times report states. “Among those fired or sidelined were most of the top African-American and Latino diplomats, as well as many women, difficult losses in a department that has long struggled with diversity.” 

Among the methods used to push out senior diplomats is by forcing them to undertake menial tasks under Tillerson’s presidentially-directed order to accelerate Freedom of Information Act requests (which are currently backlogged). The task has required every department in the bureau to contribute. As a result, “midlevel employees and diplomats — including some just returning from high-level or difficult overseas assignments — to spend months performing mind-numbing clerical functions beside unpaid interns.” 

“The United States is at the center of every crisis around the world, and you simply cannot be effective if you don’t have assistant secretaries and ambassadors in place,” R. Nicholas Burns, a retired career diplomat who served as under secretary of state during George W. Bush’s adminsitration, told the Times. “It shows a disdain for diplomacy.” 

The report notes that Tillerson still has not nominated an assistant secretary for East Asia or an amabssador to South Korea — two positions that are integral to finding a diplomatic solution to President Donald Trump’s continually escalating feud with North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.

One former ambassador said that either the Trump Administration does not believe that America should continue to be a world leader or else they are simply incompetent.

Or else they could simply be doing exactly what their Russian puppet masters have directed them to do.

Donald Trump in response to a question about unfilled positions in the State Department.: "I'm the only one that matters."

Courtesy of HuffPo: 

President Donald Trump brushed off concerns that the State Department still has key unfilled jobs, telling Fox News’ Laura Ingraham that he’s the only one who matters. 

“We don’t need all the people they want us to get,” Trump said in an interview that aired Thursday night. “Let me tell you ― the one that matters is me. I’m the only one that matters because when it comes to it, that’s what the policy is going to be.” 

The president also blamed Senate Democrats for dragging out the approval process for his nominees. While some State Department job picks are waiting for confirmation, more than a dozen top positions remain vacant with no named nominee, according to a Fox News article published last month.

Damn I swear I felt somebody walk across my grave.

That is one of the most chilling answers I have heard yet.

Donald Trump is a fucking idiot, and clearly suffering from a mental illness.

Only somebody with an extreme megalomaniac would suggest that they, and they alone, are the only important person needed to run a country as vast and complicated as the united States of America.

Just imagine if President Obama had answered a question like that. Never mind trying, you can't do it, because he NEVER would have.

When asked later if Trump thought that Rex Tillerson would last the duration, he responded with:

“Well, we’ll see,” Trump said. “I don’t know who’s gonna be ― duration.”

Yes, let's dismiss all of the grownups and leave the cranky toddler in charge of everything.

Okay look if you need me, I will be hiding under my bed. 

Donald Trump pushing the State Department to release more of Hillary Clinton's emails. Can you say "distraction."

Courtesy of CNN: 

President Donald Trump has made it clear to the State Department that he wants to accelerate the release of any remaining Hillary Clinton emails in its possession as soon as possible, according to three sources familiar with the President's thinking. 

This latest move for disclosure from the State Department comes at the same time the President called upon the Justice Department to lift a gag order on a key FBI informant in an investigation into Russian efforts to gain influence in the US uranium industry during the Obama administration. 

The sources described the President's interest in the release of the emails -- and the testimony of the FBI informant -- as rooted in a commitment to "transparency," with one source adding that "the law requires cooperation with Congress and the courts."

After the initial publication of this story, one White House official confirmed the President expressed interest in the release of the Clinton emails, and later -- in a conversation with Secretary of State Rex Tillerson -- learned of the vast backlog of more than 13,000 outstanding FOIA cases. Those cases involve not just Clinton's emails but a multitude of topics -- some going back almost a decade. Trump then asked Tillerson to work to clear the backlog.

Transparency my ass.

Trump is simply looking for a way to distract from the upcoming Mueller indictments, and ongoing Russian investigations, and he knows that Clinton emails are like catnip to the media and they cannot resist rolling around in them every time a new batch is released.

Of course what we have learned from every other batch of Hillary emails that the press breathlessly awaited is that they are for the most part the most boring emails ever written.

Damn the smell of desperation in this White House must be almost overwhelming at this point.

Steve Bannon drunk dials reporter for liberal rag to apparently slam his boss by mocking his chest thumping about North Korea and the constant infighting in the White House.

I know that some of this is going to read like an SNL skit gone bad but apparently Bannon called this reporter, Robert Kuttner, from the American Prospect right out of the blue.

This is a portion of what he had to say: 

Contrary to Trump’s threat of fire and fury, Bannon said: “There’s no military solution [to North Korea’s nuclear threats], forget it. Until somebody solves the part of the equation that shows me that ten million people in Seoul don’t die in the first 30 minutes from conventional weapons, I don’t know what you’re talking about, there’s no military solution here, they got us.” 

Actually that's not really crazy, not even a little bit.

But then the topic turned to Gyna. (No I did not misspell China, that is how these idiots pronounce it.): 

“To me,” Bannon said, “the economic war with China is everything. And we have to be maniacally focused on that. If we continue to lose it, we're five years away, I think, ten years at the most, of hitting an inflection point from which we'll never be able to recover.” 

Bannon’s plan of attack includes: a complaint under Section 301 of the 1974 Trade Act against Chinese coercion of technology transfers from American corporations doing business there, and follow-up complaints against steel and aluminum dumping. “We’re going to run the tables on these guys. We’ve come to the conclusion that they’re in an economic war and they’re crushing us.”

But what about the folks in the State Department who are not on board with these aggressive tactics against Gyna?

Funny you should ask:

“Oh, they’re wetting themselves,” he said, explaining that the Section 301 complaint, which was put on hold when the war of threats with North Korea broke out, was shelved only temporarily, and will be revived in three weeks. As for other cabinet departments, Bannon has big plans to marginalize their influence. 

“I’m changing out people at East Asian Defense; I’m getting hawks in. I’m getting Susan Thornton [acting head of East Asian and Pacific Affairs] out at State.” 

But can Bannon really win that fight internally? 

"That's a fight I fight every day here,” he said. “We’re still fighting. There’s Treasury and [National Economic Council chair] Gary Cohn and Goldman Sachs lobbying.” 

“We gotta do this. The president’s default position is to do it, but the apparatus is going crazy. Don’t get me wrong. It’s like, every day.”

So much for Trump's assertion that everything is running smoothly in the White House.

And why is Bannon talking like HE'S the president? Wait, is HE the president?

To give Bannon a little credit he certainly came out harder against the protesters in Charlottesville than his boss ever did:

He dismissed the far right as irrelevant and sidestepped his own role in cultivating it: “Ethno-nationalism—it's losers. It's a fringe element. I think the media plays it up too much, and we gotta help crush it, you know, uh, help crush it more.” 

“These guys are a collection of clowns,” he added. 

Cannot argue with that last part. But then Bannon switched gears and went after the Democrats:   

“The Democrats,” he said, “the longer they talk about identity politics, I got ’em. I want them to talk about racism every day. If the left is focused on race and identity, and we go with economic nationalism, we can crush the Democrats.”

That sounds a little more like the Steve Bannon that we know, and loathe. 

Well this should make for some awkward cabinet meetings in the White House for the next couple of days.

And didn't Bannon just essentially out himself as a White House leaker?

When the Mooch called up a reporter and started talking smack he was out the door in less than 24 hours.

Let's see how much longer Bannon holds onto his job.

So why does the State Department want to keep a Russian diplomat's cause of death quiet?

Courtesy of The Hill: 

The State Department asked the New York Medical Examiner not to publicly release information about the cause of death of Russia's ambassador to the United Nations. 

Vitaly Churkin died unexpectedly in New York last month, one day before his 65th birthday. 

"In order to comply with international law and protocol, the New York City Law Department has instructed the Office of Chief Medical Examiner to not publicly disclose the cause and manner of death of Ambassador Vitaly Churkin, Permanent Representative of the Russian Federation to the United Nations," Office of Chief Medical Examiner spokesman Julie Bolcer said, according to New York Times reporter Michael Grynbaum. 

"As outlined in formal requests from the United States Department of State, Ambassador Churkin's diplomatic immunity survives his death. Further questions concerning this matter should be directed to the United States Department of State."

Okay, that's weird right?

I mean since when does diplomatic immunity pertain to a cause of death?

And what makes it even weirder still is that Churkin is just one of eight Russian operatives to suddenly drop dead in the last year.

Axios listed all but the most recent one and pointed out some suspicious circumstances:

1. You probably remember Russia's Ambassador to Turkey, Andrei Karlov — he was assassinated by a police officer at a photo exhibit in Ankara on December 19. 
2. On the same day, another diplomat, Peter Polshikov, was shot dead in his Moscow apartment. The gun was found under the bathroom sink but the circumstances of the death were under investigation. Polshikov served as a senior figure in the Latin American department of the Foreign Ministry. 
3. Russia's Ambassador to the United Nations, Vitaly Churkin, died in New York this past week. Churkin was rushed to the hospital from his office at Russia's UN mission. Initial reports said he suffered a heart attack, and the medical examiner is investigating the death, according to CBS. 
4. Russia's Ambassador to India, Alexander Kadakin, died after a "brief illness" January 27, which The Hindu said he had been suffering from for a few weeks. 
5. Russian Consul in Athens, Greece, Andrei Malanin, was found dead in his apartment January 9. A Greek police official said there was "no evidence of a break-in." But Malanin lived on a heavily guarded street. The cause of death needed further investigation, per an AFP report. Malanin served during a time of easing relations between Greece and Russia when Greece was increasingly critiqued by the EU and NATO. 
6. On the morning of U.S. Election Day, Russian diplomat Sergei Krivov was found unconscious at the Russian Consulate in New York and died on the scene. Initial reports said Krivov fell from the roof and had blunt force injuries, but Russian officials said he died from a heart attack. BuzzFeed reports Krivov may have been a Consular Duty Commander, which would have put him in charge of preventing sabotage or espionage. 
7. Ex-KGB chief Oleg Erovinkin, who was suspected of helping draft the Trump dossier, was found dead in the back of his car December 26, according to The Telegraph. Erovinkin also was an aide to former deputy prime minister Igor Sechin, who now heads up state-owned Rosneft.

Look I don't want to lead anybody down any conspiratorial rabbit holes, but one of the casualties of this election has been my ability to see things as only coincidental.

MAYBE, everything is just a big ole coincidence, but no part of me believes that is true.

Top State Department officials resign en masse in order to avoid working for a Trump administration.

Courtesy of the Washington Post:  

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s job running the State Department just got considerably more difficult. The entire senior level of management officials resigned Wednesday, part of an ongoing mass exodus of senior foreign service officers who don’t want to stick around for the Trump era. 

Tillerson was actually inside the State Department’s headquarters in Foggy Bottom on Wednesday, taking meetings and getting the lay of the land. I reported Wednesday morning that the Trump team was narrowing its search for his No. 2, and that it was looking to replace the State Department’s long-serving undersecretary for management, Patrick Kennedy. Kennedy, who has been in that job for nine years, was actively involved in the transition and was angling to keep that job under Tillerson, three State Department officials told me. 

Then suddenly on Wednesday afternoon, Kennedy and three of his top officials resigned unexpectedly, four State Department officials confirmed. Assistant Secretary of State for Administration Joyce Anne Barr, Assistant Secretary of State for Consular Affairs Michele Bond and Ambassador Gentry O. Smith, director of the Office of Foreign Missions, followed him out the door. All are career foreign service officers who have served under both Republican and Democratic administrations.
 ........

“It’s the single biggest simultaneous departure of institutional memory that anyone can remember, and that’s incredibly difficult to replicate,” said David Wade, who served as State Department chief of staff under Secretary of State John Kerry. “Department expertise in security, management, administrative and consular positions in particular are very difficult to replicate and particularly difficult to find in the private sector.”

On the one hand it is a little gratifying to see government employees with too much integrity to work for Putin's puppet, but on the other it is somewhat terrifying as these folks do a very important and challenging job that will now be left undone unless Trump can find equally experienced folks to replace them with.

In other words the job will be left undone.

By the way according to two senior Trump Administration officials these officials were asked to leave and did not resign in protest.

Just so you know my baseline stance on everything that has to do with the Trump administration is that they are established liars, so any contradictory version of events I hear is the one that I am most likely going to accept as true.

This may seem unfair since NOBODY lies all of the time, but to me there is really no choice considering what we know about Trump and his subordinates, so unless they have corroborating evidence provided by a trustworthy source, I am going to assume they are full of shit.

Justice Department Inspector General to investigate how FBI handled Clinton e-mail case.

Courtesy of NBC News:  

The Justice Department Inspector General says he will review how the FBI and Justice Department handled certain aspects of the Hillary Clinton email investigation. 

The probe by Michael E. Horowitz will include a review of FBI Director James Comey's news conference in July and his two letters to lawmakers in late October and early November. 

"In response to requests from numerous Chairmen and Ranking Members of Congressional oversight committees, various organizations, and members of the public, the Office of the Inspector General will initiate a review of allegations regarding certain actions by the Department of Justice and the Federal Bureau of Investigation in advance of the 2016 election," the Justice Department said in a statement.

Just 11 days before the 2016 general election, Comey notified Congress that the FBI was reviewing a new batch of emails that appeared to be pertinent to their investigation. The emails, discovered during a probe, were found on a laptop that former New York congressman Anthony Weiner allegedly used to send lewd text messages and pictures to an underage girl.

Well this is good news, which hopefully will see Comey punished for his sabotage.

Just yesterday Vox offered up an article that offers proof Comey's letter altered the outcome of his election: 

Many people — most notably Trump and other Republicans — have scoffed at the claim that the letter changed the outcome of the election, suggesting that it’s a convenient excuse for a weak candidate who made some questionable strategic decisions. 

But the Comey effect was real, it was big, and it probably cost Clinton the election. 

Vox then offers up four pieces of evidence to support their contention.

The first is state polls:

To be sure, the gap with Clinton was narrowing before Comey dropped his bombshell, but the pace also picked up significantly after that. For example, averaging across 14 battleground states, the race moved 1.1 points in Trump’s direction in the week following the third and final debate — but Trump gained an additional 2.4 points after October 28.

National polls:

Sort of self explanatory.

Voter choices AFTER the Comey letter:

And media coverage of the two candidates:

Coverage of Clinton’s emails eclipsed her policy proposals and ended up being the only story about Clinton that stuck with voters. While 79 percent of registered voters had heard “a lot” about Clinton’s emails, only 23 percent heard “a lot” about Trump’s housing discrimination, 27 percent heard “a lot” about the Donald J. Trump Foundation’s illegal political contribution to the Florida attorney general, and, surprisingly, only 59 percent had heard a “a lot” about the Hollywood Access tape. 

I think that this is more than enough evidence in a court of law to prove malfeasance on the part of the FBI director.

I just wonder what the appropriate punishment is for a law enforcement employee helping the Russian government destroy one candidate's chances of winning in order to help their opponent?

The Trump transition team wants a list of State Department employees who worked on gender equality and ending violence against women. Gee, I wonder why?

Courtesy of NPR: 

President-elect Donald Trump's transition team has asked the State Department to list its workers who focus on gender equality and ending violence against women, in what's being seen as an echo of an earlier request for the Energy Department to list employees who work on climate change. 

In a brief email that was sent Wednesday morning, the Trump team asked the State Department's bureaus and offices to list any programs or activities that "promote gender equality, such as ending gender-based violence, promoting women's participation in economic and political spheres, entrepreneurship, etc." 

The email was acquired and published by The New York Times, which reports: 

"Although the wording of the memo is neutral and does not hint at any policy change, it rattled State Department employees, even those at senior levels. Some officials said they feared that the incoming Trump administration was trying to determine what programs were focused on lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender issues, though the memo did not refer to them." 

The team also asked the department offices to "note positions whose primary functions are to promote such issues" and to highlight any funds for the current financial year that are "already allocated to such programs and activities." 

Is it just me, or is every single new thing we learn about this administration more upsetting than the thing before?

I actually tried to imagine what possible reason the team could have for requesting this list if were NOT to do away with any work protecting women against violence or protecting them from gender bias, and I came up with nothing.

Targeting Energy Department employees for attempting to protect the planet, and now targeting State Department employees for attempting to protect women. All while talking about reentering a nuclear arms war.

Can it really get any worse than this?

Wait, don't answer that. I am afraid I already know the answer.

E-mail between Colin Powell and Hillary Clinton shows Powell instructing her how to avoid having her e-mails become part of the official record.

The full back and forth between Hillary Clinton and Colin Powell is here. And wow. pic.twitter.com/jHKpEbTS8W

— Matt Viser (@mviser) September 7, 2016

Courtesy of CNN:  

Former Secretary of State Colin Powell told his successor, Hillary Clinton, that he used his own personal computer to communicate with friends and foreign leaders and sent emails without going through the State Department server, according to emails released Wednesday by congressional Democrats. 

Clinton has previously said she reached out to Powell when she began serving as the nation's top diplomat to find out how he used personal devices. In a four-paragraph email response from Powell, he told Clinton he didn't use a BlackBerry, but detailed how he got around having his communications with both employees and people outside the State Department becoming part of the agency's official record. 

"What I did do was have a personal computer that was hooked up to a private phone line (sounds ancient). So I could communicate with a wide range of friends directly without it going through the State Department on their personal email accounts. I did the same thing on the road in hotels," Powell wrote.

Powell also admitted that he conducted business with foreign leaders on his private e-mail account, and warned Clinton to keep her Blackberry use private so that it would not be considered part of the official record.

Gee that does not sound like Colin Powell's version of events at all now does it?

Staying with Clinton's e-mail kerfuffle, FBI Director James Comey also just released a memo defending his decision not to prosecute and his decision to make the FBI notes public:

"We don't play games," the FBI director said as he further defended his decision not to recommend charges in the matter. 

"[D]espite all the chest-beating by people no longer in government, there really wasn't a prosecutable case," Comey wrote in the message obtained by ABC News. "The hard part was whether to offer unprecedented transparency about our thinking."

"I'm okay if folks have a different view of the investigation (although I struggle to see how they actually could, especially when they didn't do the investigation), or about the wisdom of announcing it as we did (although even with hindsight I think that was the best course)," Comey said. "[B]ut I have no patience for suggestions that we conducted ourselves as anything but what we are -- honest, competent, and independent. Those suggesting that we are 'political' or part of some 'fix' either don't know us, or they are full of baloney (and maybe some of both)." 

Comey told his employees they “may be sick” of hearing about the Clinton email probe, and he ended his message by saying, “I will try not to bother you with this any longer.”

Last night during the Commander-in-Chief forum Hillary also stated once again that she did not send nor receive any e-mails with the official markings of a confidential document.

And whether the Right Wing likes that or not it is supported by the FBI's investigation.

FBI notes that Hillary Clinton informed investigators that Colin Powell told her to use a private e-mail address. And he did.

Courtesy of Time:  

Hillary Clinton told FBI investigators that former Secretary of State Colin Powell advised her to use a personal email account, according to a new report. 

The claim was included in notes given to Congress by the Federal Bureau of Investigation on Tuesday, The New York Times reports. Powell confirmed he did write Clinton an email talking about how his use of a personal email account “vastly improved communications within the State Department.” 

A book by left-leaning author Joe Conason on Bill Clinton’s post-presidency includes a claim that Powell had given similar advice to Clinton at a dinner party early in her tenure, hosted by another former Secretary of State, Madeleine Albright. 

“Albright asked all of the former secretaries to offer one salient bit of counsel to the nation’s next top diplomat,” Conason writes according to the Times, which obtained an advanced copy of the book. “Powell told her to use her own email, as he had done, except for classified communications, which he had sent and received via a State Department computer.”

According to Reuters Powell did not recollect that dinner conversation:

Colin Powell's office in a statement said he could not recall the dinner conversation. He did recall describing the system he used to her, but the statement did not say he suggested Clinton do the same. 

"He did write former Secretary Clinton an email memo describing his use of his personal AOL email account for unclassified messages and how it vastly improved communications within the State Department," the statement said. "At the time there was no equivalent system within the department."

Seriously? An AOL account?

Now the conservatives will jump on the fact that Powell told Hillary to use the State Department e-mails for classified information, but she must have done that because, also according to the FBI, she did not send ANY classified information through her private e-mail server, and only three of the thousands that she received had any markings which might have indicated that they had classified material in them, and THAT was only indicated by a small "c" in the body of the e-mail.

Gee I bet the Congress is really glad they asked for these FBI notes now.

The Hillary Clinton campaign was also hacked by the Russians.

What the hell Russia?

Courtesy of Reuters:  

A computer network used by Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton’s campaign was hacked as part of a broad cyber attack on Democratic political organizations, people familiar with the matter told Reuters. 

The latest attack, which was disclosed to Reuters on Friday, follows two other hacks on the Democratic National Committee, or DNC, and the party’s fundraising committee for candidates for the U.S. House of Representatives. 

A Clinton campaign spokesman said in a statement late on Friday that an analytics data program maintained by the DNC and used by the campaign and a number of other entities "was accessed as part of the DNC hack." 

"Our campaign computer system has been under review by outside cyber security experts. To date, they have found no evidence that our internal systems have been compromised," said Clinton campaign spokesman Nick Merrill.

So at this point we now know that the Russians hacked the White House, the State Department, the DNC, and now the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Do you know who WASN'T hacked?

The hack did not involve the private email system Clinton used while she was secretary of state.

Here's an idea.

Instead of everybody freaking out about Hillary Clinton's private e-mail server, and  accusing her of putting top secret information at risk, they should instead ask her to set up every other e-mail server used by government agencies or political organizations in order to protect them from hackers as well.

Just a thought.

And by the way can we now stop pretending that the Russians are not trying to stop Hillary Clinton from being elected?

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.

More on the Hillary Clinton e-mail "scandal."

Courtesy of Forbes:  

The report released Wednesday by the State Department Inspector General on its email records management is being reported as heavy-duty criticism of former Secretary Hillary Clinton. However, the report has more in it that vindicates Clinton than nails her. 

It does not add any new serious charges or adverse facts. And, it shows she was less out of line with her predecessors, notably Colin Powell, than has been charged. Powell’s handling of his email was so similar, in fact, that when House Republicans drag this issue through hearings up to Election Day, Powell should be called as a witness – a witness for Clinton. To put it differently, she is having a double standard applied to her.

The author then goes on to list five key takeaways from the report. I won't list all them all on this post, but here are a few highlights.   

First, and foremost, it is simply not about classified email. It is about regular, ordinary, run-of-the-mill, unclassified email. Yet it is the classified email, not these messages, that are the focus of the FBI investigation of Clinton. In other words, the report does not, and cannot, talk about the most serious issues. It is about a sideshow.

It is, by the way, my opinion that the FBI investigation will not include anything substantial that damages Hillary either, and I join with others in hoping that they wrap up the investigation quickly.

However if the Right Wing hoped that his report contained a smoking gun, well it really doesn't.

I will skip through the next three takeaways and go directly to the last one, which I think is key.

Fifth, to the extent that she is criticized because “she did not comply with the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act,” the report is making a legal judgment that is not particularly strong. Note how she is not labeled as violating any statute, but rather, a real mouthful of mush – “the Department’s policies that were implemented in accordance with the Federal Records Act.” So we are talking about obscure, dull, bureaucratic policies. Not a criminal statute. Not even a civil statute – just the bureaucratic policies. 

A report that says so little new against Clinton, amounts to a vindication.

You may disagree with that very last sentence, but the paragraph before it is hard to refute.

In short she broke NO laws. 

In fact other news outlets far less sympathetic to Hillary have come to essentially the same determination, like the Washington Post for instance:

The department’s email technology was archaic. Other staffers also used personal email, as did Secretary Colin Powell (2001-2005), without preserving the records. But there is no excuse for the way Ms. Clinton breezed through all the warnings and notifications. While not illegal behavior, it was disturbingly unmindful of the rules.

Okay but WAS it "disturbingly unmindful of the rules?"  Or is there in fact an epidemic of individuals in the State Department flouting the rules and Clinton is simply being held to a higher standard than the rest of them.

Because it appears very much as if it is the latter.

I think now might be a good time to once again remind everybody that the State Department's e-mail system suffered one of the "worst hacks" ever.