Donald Trump had senior staff sign NDA's, which would extend beyond their time in the White House.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

In the early months of the administration, at the behest of now-President Trump, who was furious over leaks from within the White House, senior White House staff members were asked to, and did, sign nondisclosure agreements vowing not to reveal confidential information and exposing them to damages for any violation. Some balked at first but, pressed by then-Chief of Staff Reince Priebus and the White House Counsel’s Office, ultimately complied, concluding that the agreements would likely not be enforceable in any event.

The nondisclosure agreements, said a person who signed the document, “were meant to be very similar to the ones that some of us signed during the campaign and during the transition. I remember the president saying, ‘Has everybody signed a confidentiality agreement like they did during the campaign or we had at Trump Tower?’ ” 

At that time, in February or March of 2017, the source said, “There was lots of leaking, things that just weren’t true, and a lot of things that were true and should have remained confidential. The president’s point was that they [staff] would think twice about that if they were on the hook for some serious damages.” 

Moreover, said the source, this confidentiality pledge would extend not only after an aide’s White House service but also beyond the Trump presidency. “It’s not meant to be constrained by the four years or eight years he’s president — or the four months or eight months somebody works there. It is meant to survive that.” 

This is extraordinary. Every president inveighs against leakers and bemoans the kiss-and-tell books; no president, to my knowledge, has attempted to impose such a pledge. And while White House staffers have various confidentiality obligations — maintaining the secrecy of classified information or attorney-client privilege, for instance — the notion of imposing a side agreement, supposedly enforceable even after the president leaves office, is not only oppressive but constitutionally repugnant.

The draft of the NDA seen by the reporter for this story levied a fine of 10 million dollars for every unauthorized revelation about Trump or the Trump Administration.

That is beyond punitive, that his draconian.

It is also not enforceable, as explained by this professor of political science:

Even if the White House NDAs are unenforceable, they (a) still could have a chilling effect and (b) are inconsistent with the principles we expect the leader of a free society to uphold. https://t.co/AlHBqEmczY

— Brendan Nyhan (@BrendanNyhan) March 18, 2018

I am having a hard time getting over the fact that Trump is treating White House personnel in the same way that he treats an adult film actress with whom he had an extra marital affair.

After he does something criminal or despicable, they are just loose ends to be tied up by his attorneys.

Really makes you wonder exactly what Donald Trump is so concerned with people finding out about him, doesn't it?

Trump Administration demanding that sheriffs keep undocumented immigrants in jail longer than legally allowed in order to allow time for deportation.

Courtesy of The Daily Beast:  

President Donald Trump’s crackdown on undocumented immigrants has some sheriffs worried the White House is pushing them to break the law – demanding they violate the Fourth Amendment or face vilification from the commander-in-chief. 

“It’s a total mess,” said Bob Gualtieri, the sheriff of Pinellas County, Fla. 

At issue is a complicated question: Should sheriffs keep undocumented immigrants in their jails for more time than otherwise necessary so that Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) officers can pick them up to be deported? 

The White House is demanding sheriffs do just that, by honoring ICE’s requests that sheriffs keep certain people locked up long enough for the agency to take them into custody. Those requests are called detainers. And many sheriffs would happily comply – except that federal courts have ruled repeatedly that the Fourth Amendment bars them from keeping an undocumented immigrant in jail who would otherwise go free. 

“If we violate the law by doing what they ask us to do, we’re subjecting ourselves, no question, to civil liability and civil rights violations,” Gualtieri said.

Galtieri goes on to say that he contacted the head White Nationalist at the White House, now that Steve Bannon's gone,  Stephen Miller and he did not seem to have any real understanding of the law.

Least surprising part of this whole article. 

So to be clear the White House is pushing local sheriffs to break the law so that they can tear apart families and send people who may only have had a minor legal infraction back over the border.

However in the meantime Donald Trump wants to forgive Nazis who beat people with clubs because "they had a permit."

Oh yeah, that's the kind of country I want to live in.

Hobby Lobby forced to return illegally obtained "Biblical" artifacts and pay 5 million dollar fine.

Courtesy of NPR:

Hobby Lobby, the Oklahoma-based chain of arts and crafts retail stores, has agreed to pay a $3 million fine and forfeit thousands of ancient clay tablets and clay bullae that were smuggled into the United States with improper labels. 

The announcement by the Justice Department says Hobby Lobby bought over 5,500 artifacts, such as clay tablets and blocks with cuneiform writing, and cylinder seals for $1.6 million. The artifacts, originally from Iraq, were shipped to the company from the United Arab Emirates and Israel with labels that described them as "ceramic tiles" or "clay tiles (sample)." 

In a statement, Hobby Lobby President Steve Green said the company "was new to the world of acquiring these items, and did not fully appreciate the complexities of the acquisitions process. This resulted in some regrettable mistakes." 

"We should have exercised more oversight and carefully questioned how the acquisitions were handled," he said. 

But the Justice Department prosecutors say the company should have realized that its acquisition of the artifacts "was fraught with red flags."

As it turns out Hobby Lobby was warned about these "red flags" by their own expert.

Courtesy of CNN: 

"In October 2010, an expert on cultural property law retained by Hobby Lobby warned the company that the acquisition of cultural property likely from Iraq, including cuneiform tablets and cylinder seals, carries a risk that such objects may have been looted from archaeological sites in Iraq," the DOJ said. 

"The expert also advised Hobby Lobby to review its collection of antiquities for any objects of Iraqi origin and to verify that their country of origin was properly declared at the time of importation into the United States. "

But hey, why listen to THAT guy?

As if all of this were not embarrassing enough to Hobby Lobby, there is also the fact that they may inadvertently be funding ISIS.

Courtesy of Newsweek:

Islamic State militants in Syria and Iraq are netting between $150 million and $200 million a year from illicit trade in plundered antiquities, Russia's ambassador to the United Nations said in a letter released on Wednesday. 

"Around 100,000 cultural objects of global importance, including 4,500 archaeological sites, nine of which are included in the World Heritage List of ... UNESCO, are under the control of the Islamic State ... in Syria and Iraq," Ambassador Vitaly Churkin wrote in a letter to the U.N. Security Council. 

"The profit derived by the Islamists from the illicit trade in antiquities and archaeological treasures is estimated at U.S. $150-200 million per year," he said.

These artifacts were scheduled to be displayed at the Hobby Lobby's Museum of the Bible.

But here's the thing, MOST so called "biblical artifacts" turn out to be bullshit, and are either actual ancient artifacts unrelated to events in the Bible or outright fabrications of pottery and cuneiform tablets that sell like hot cakes to Christians desperate to prove that the Bible is accurate.

In fact Archeological finds rarely support events occurring in the Bible, though that often does not stop charlatans from offering them up as proof.

I think the only thing that one could learn by visiting this "Museum of the Bible" is that the folks who own Hobby Lobby have money to burn, and that it would undoubtedly be better spent helping the poor, building a REAL museum, or at the very least not wasted fighting against having to provide access to contraception in their employee's health care plan.

Rachel Maddow's fascinating expose on Donald Trump's business ties with the Iranian National Guard.

The inspiration for this segment came from this article by Adam Davidson of the New Yorker:

No evidence has surfaced showing that Donald Trump, or any of his employees involved in the Baku deal, actively participated in bribery, money laundering, or other illegal behavior. But the Trump Organization may have broken the law in its work with the Mammadov family. The Foreign Corrupt Practices Act, passed in 1977, forbade American companies from participating in a scheme to reward a foreign government official in exchange for material benefit or preferential treatment. The law even made it a crime for an American company to unknowingly benefit from a partner’s corruption if it could have discovered illicit activity but avoided doing so. This closed what was known as the “head in the sand” loophole.

As with everything that swirls around Donald Trump there is a fog of scandal but rarely enough evidence to directly tie him or his company to that scandal.

This episode follows closely on Rachel's other piece on that Russian oligarch following the Trump campaign and evidence of a possible money laundering operation.

There are a lot of loose threads but it appears that Rachel is really starting to tie things together.

The Guardian makes the case for trying former British Prime Minister Tony Blair in front of the ICC.

Courtesy of The Guardian:  

Geoffrey Robertson rightly argued that it is not legally possible to put Tony Blair on trial in the international criminal court for a crime of aggression, because aggression was not included in the Rome statute that established the ICC. Joshua Rozenberg suggested that the focus should therefore be on cases against British soldiers for abuse of detainees. However, there is an alternative route to take Blair and his ministers to the ICC over their war crimes. 

Under the Hague and Geneva rules, occupying powers are prohibited from fundamentally transforming the economy and political system of a country. Yet this is exactly what happened: the coalition provisional authority (CPA), through which the UK and US governed, forced through a series of major structural economic reforms, including the removal of product subsidies and protective trade barriers and other tariffs, a flattened tax system in which the richest and the poorest paid the same rate, and economic policies that threw Iraqi industry wide open to foreign investors. It also reformed the political system root and branch, creating a government structure based on sectarian identity, which arguably played a key role in stimulating the violence that continues to this day. 

One Foreign and Commonwealth Office lawyer advised Blair in February 2004 that because “the extensive body of CPA legislation dealing with economic reform and governance was of questionable lawfulness … the risk of claims against the UK could not be ruled out”. 

This issue had been contentious in the days leading up to the invasion. Concerns about the legality of the occupation were expressed in writing by several officials. In his memo to Blair on 26 March 2003, the attorney general Lord Goldsmith had warned that “wide-ranging reforms of governmental and administrative structures would not be lawful”. Meanwhile, Iraqi oil revenues were used to fund reconstruction, the majority of it carried out by US and UK contractors. Chilcot noted that by the end of the CPA’s first year of occupation, there were more than 60 UK companies working in Iraq, on contracts worth an estimated $2.6bn. To the victor, the spoils. Over $8bn of that Iraqi oil revenue was lost, unaccounted for in a process described thus by Blair’s representative in the CPA, Sir Jeremy Greenstock: “A lot of cash was going round in suitcases to be dispensed to Iraqis, not all of which was accounted for.” 

The CPA also laid the groundwork for a fundamental restructuring of Iraq’s vast oil industry. While the period formally defined as occupation ended in June 2004, British troops remained in Iraq for a further five years. The official narrative was that they were there at the invitation of sovereign Iraqi governments, but those nominal governments were successively appointed, promoted or defined by the US and UK. 

Contrary to Blair’s protestations, government documents released this week spell out how Iraqi oil was a central motive behind the war. Throughout the six years that British troops remained in Iraq, the UK consistently maintained two objectives in relation to oil: to transfer oil from public ownership to multinational companies, and to ensure BP and Shell got a large share of it. While the post-2004 phase may escape the formal legal definitions, it raises important political and ethical questions.

Remember how protesters of the Iraq War claimed that it was all about oil, and they were dismissed as being liberals who did not understand the "post 9-11 world" we lived in?

Well guess what?

It was all about the oil. 

The attacks were just a convenient excuse to do what George W. Bush and his neocon buddies wanted to do seconds after he was sworn in as President of the United States.

And we just sat back and let it happen.

Former Deputy Prime Minister of Britain now calls the Iraq War "illegal" and apologizes for his part in promoting it.

Courtesy of the BBC:

John Prescott, who was deputy prime minister when Britain went to war with Iraq in 2003, says the invasion by UK and US forces was "illegal". 

Writing in the Sunday Mirror, he said he would live with the "catastrophic decision" for the rest of his life. 

Tony Blair has apologised for mistakes he made but has said he stands by his decision to take the country to war.

Lord Prescott said Mr Blair's statement that "I am with you, whatever" in a message to US President George W Bush before the invasion in March 2003, was "devastating". 

He said he now agreed "with great sadness and anger" with former UN secretary general Kofi Annan that the war was illegal.

"A day doesn't go by when I don't think of the decision we made to go to war. Of the British troops who gave their lives or suffered injuries for their country. Of the 175,000 civilians who died from the Pandora's Box we opened by removing Saddam Hussein," he went on. 

He also expressed his own "fullest apology", especially to the families of British personnel who died.

This of course is in response to that Chilcot report that I posted about earlier. 

I have long ago given up hope that we could see something happen in America like what is happening in Britain right now concerning the Iraq War decision.

However I have to say with what we are seeing in Britain gives me the tiniest amount of hope that if the Democrats were able to regain the Senate, and possible the House, that they would launch a Chilcot-like investigation of their own and we could finally bring a little justice to the families of the soldiers that fell in that bloody and completely unnecessary conflict.

And how gratifying would it be for Hillary Clinton, who says that her vote in favor of Bush's "resolution to use force" is the vote that she regrets the most, to be the person in the White House when that justice finally came to pass?

I know, I know, I am fantasizing out loud.

But do you know what, before the findings of that Chilcot report so were a number of like minded British citizens.

So many things that I have hoped for have come to pass, so who's to say that this fantasy might not one day become a reality?

Ted Nugent calls the story of Cecil the lion a "big lie" and says people who are upset about it are "stupid."

Courtesy of the Nugent's Facebook page:

 For those having trouble reading: 

 "the whole story is a lie. It was a wild lion from a "park" where hunting is legal & ESSENTIAL beyond the park borders. all animals reproduce every year & would run out of a room/food to live w/o hunting. I will write a full piece on this joke asap. God are people stupid."

Later on the page Nugent is asked about Jimmy Kimmel's emotional response to the killing and he responds by calling him a "lying punk."

What a sweetheart. 

Ahh, leave it to Ted "shitty pants" Nugent to embody the conservative Id when it comes to how to treat other creatures on the planet.

You know it seems to me that since Ted Nugent once got into trouble for illegally killing a black bear up here in Alaska, that perhaps he may not be the best person to weigh in on the legality vs illegality of killing this lion.

Just saying.

Pro-LGBT clothing commercial from India, where being gay is illegal, will melt your heart.

Courtesy of Stylelite: 

In India, being homosexual is back to being illegal — as in punishable with prison, which is why this fashion ad featuring a lesbian couple in a heavenly apartment has gone viral there. 

Shared with tagline, “standing up for what you believe in is never easy. But the struggle is what makes the journey so beautiful,” Anouk Ethnic Wear’s “The Visit,” is the beautiful and pure story of two women who might be roommates getting ready together in an apartment filled with sunlight through sheer curtains flowing in the breeze. They share eyeliner and solicit advice on accessories until you realize they’re gay and about to come out to one of the woman’s parents.

I have to admit that I find Indian women beautiful, and the message in this ad even more so. 

Imagine coming out to your parents in a land where your love is illegal.

Hopefully progress will soon reach India, which has had a complicated history with homosexuality, just like it is reaching into other places all over the world.

Newly released court documents show that Wisconsin Governor, and GOP rising star, Scott Walker may be in very, very hot water.

Courtesy of the AP: 

Newly released court documents include excerpts from emails showing that Wisconsin Gov. Scott Walker's recall election campaign team told him to instruct donors to give to a key conservative group that would run ads for Walker and distribute money to other conservative groups backing him. 

The documents released Friday by a federal appeals court also show that prosecutors believe Walker personally solicited donations for conservative group Wisconsin Club for Growth to get around campaign finance limits and disclosure requirements as he fended off the recall attempt in 2012. 

Aides told Walker to tell donors that they could make unlimited donations to Wisconsin Club for Growth without having the gifts publicly disclosed. Wisconsin Club for Growth then funneled the money to other conservative groups that advertised on Walker's behalf. 

"As the Governor discussed ... he wants all the issue advocacy efforts run thru one group to ensure correct messaging," Walker fundraiser Kate Doner wrote to campaign adviser R.J. Johnson in April 2011, a little more than a year before the recall election. "We had some past problems with multiple groups doing work on 'behalf' of Gov. Walker and it caused some issues ... the Governor is encouraging all to invest in the Wisconsin Club for Growth." 

It's not clear whether Walker followed the instructions from his team. But the documents say millions of dollars later moved from donors he was set to speak with to Wisconsin Club for Growth, which in turn funded groups backing Walker in the recall election.

The documents are part of a secret investigation into whether Walker illegally coordinated with conservative groups and fundraisers in the run up to the 2012 recall election.

According to these documents it appears that he did just that.

I think my new favorite song when reporting on the Republican party is this one by Queen.

Rachel Maddow disusses the Justice Department white paper justifying drone strikes against Americans, and illustrates once again why MSNBC is NOT Fox News.

Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

There is perhaps NOTHING more controversial about the Obama administration than these drone strikes in countries in which we are not actively waging war. And when you add in that Americans have been targeted by these drones that just makes it all the more difficult to defend.

So I am not even going to bother.

Essentially this is wrong. Americans, even those who we have determined to be enemies of America, deserve due process.

The only way I could see this as being a reasonable, or legal, response by America is if there truly was NO way to arrest and put these people on trial, and there was little doubt that they were in the process of launching an attack against America or Americans stationed overseas.

However even then we are playing with fire, and we must remember that the powers exercised by ONE President will surely be exercised by every President that follows. Think about that for a moment.

By the way let me point out that Rachel was not the ONLY MSNBC host to take this on, and that the story was broken on her program, which  you know would never have taken place on Fox News while George W. Bush was in office.

Man with illegal gun shoots off penis. Oh the irony is strong with ths one.

Courtesy of Digital Journal:  

A security guard in Trinidad and Tobago has been hospitalized after accidentally shooting his own penis off with a .38 caliber handgun. 

The Trinidad and Tobago Guardian reports that the unidentified 33-year-old Lopinot resident was rushed to the San Fernando General Hospital on Sunday suffering from a gunshot wound that obliterated his manhood. 

According to the Guardian, a Rio Claro resident called police around 8 a.m. after to report hearing a gunshot coming from a parked car. Officers responding to the call found the man slumped over behind the steering wheel. He was bleeding from a wound in his groin and a .38 pistol was found in his pocket. 

It was later determined that the man did not have a permit for the handgun. Authorities say he will likely be charged with illegal possession of a firearm and ammunition when he recovers. 

There are a lot of really mean spirited jokes that I feel are appropriate here, however I am so tightly curled into the fetal position at the very thought of being shot in my happy place that I just cannot seem to think of one.

Now of course this incident happened in Trinidad and not America. But if as Americans you are feeling left out, don't worry it has happened in this country more than a few times.

Once in Florida in 2010,

Again in 2010, this time in Seattle, where the man missed his penis but did manage to exercise his 2nd Amendment rights on his testicles.

And then again in Arizona in 2011,where the genius also managed to blow the damn thing completely off. (Fun fact: It was his girlfriend's gun.)

You know I cannot speak for these gentleman, but the only "accidental discharge" I want associated with my penis is the one that forces me to change my sheets, NOT one that forces me to change my gender.

I'm just saying.

Michele Bachmann still owes money to campaign workers, but refuses to pay them unless they sign a nondisclosure form. Hmmm, interesting!

Courtesy of Salon:  

Over a year after she dropped out, Republican Rep. Michele Bachmann has refused to pay five staffers from her failed presidential bid, according to a former top campaign official. Peter Waldron, her controversial former national field coordinator, told Salon the dispute started when former Iowa straw poll staffers refused to sign a nondisclosure agreement that would bar them from discussing any “unethical, immoral, or criminal activity” they witnessed on the campaign with police or reporters. 

Waldron said the staffers are owed a mere $5,000, and that Bachmann has more than $2 million in her campaign account, but has refused to pay unless the staffers sign the agreement. Negotiations over payment with Bachmann Finance Chairman James Pollack eventually broke down and Waldron decided to go public with the news, posting a press release on Christian Newswire this evening. 

“I feel a moral obligation to see that my Christian brothers and sisters are paid for worked performed in good faith. I’ve continually communicated by telephone and email with Mr. Pollack for 1 year but he broke every promise made to me to pay the staff. I appealed to Dr. [Marcus] Bachmann for help. I appealed to Representative Bachmann’s Chief of Staff Robert Boland to intercede with Mrs. Bachmann on behalf of her loyal Iowa staff — all of whom are married, all have children,” Waldron said in the press release. 

“It is sobering to think that a Christian member of Congress would betray her testimony to the Lord and the public by withholding earned wages from deserving staff,” Waldron added. 

Reached my phone, Waldron confirmed the details and said the nondisclosure agreement stems from the campaign’s alleged misuse of an email list. A home-schooling group accused the Bachmann campaign of stealing the list, which was contained on a volunteer’s laptop, and then using it to fundraise for the campaign. The home-schooling group has sued the campaign and Waldron said there is also a criminal investigation pending, explaining that he spoke with police about the incident “several times.” 

“They wanted us to have no further conversation [with police] without first notifying Michelle’s attorneys, and we just refused,” he told Salon. “We’ve been lied to at every turn.”

Okay so the "super religious" Michele Bachmann refuses to pay people who worked for her in good faith because she does not want them to tattle on her for breaking the law. Does that about sum it up?

You know I think these five ought to spill their guts to the police and then later on collaborate on a book. Should pay a hell of a lot more than $5000 a piece don't you think?

The REAL reason that Joe Miller dropped his lawsuit.

'Wait, you want to depose me under oath concerning who is financing my lawsuit? You know $5,000 sounds like a reasonable settlement to me."

Courtesy of Fairbanks NewsMiner:  

On Thursday, the borough filed a motion brimming with exasperation, asking the court to order Miller to “stop playing games” and require Miller to produce the documents outlining his legal expenses and who has paid them, even though the case is close to being finally settled. 

“At the risk of understatement, using campaign funds for personal reasons unrelated to the campaign would seem to be a problematic interpretation of federal election law,” the document states. “This is probably why Miller willfully refused to discuss his damages in any detail. … For unknown reasons, Miller has persistently and continually refused to ‘come clean’ about who was funding his litigation and in what amount.” 

The latest filing also requests Miller pay the borough’s legal fees. 

In previous documents Miller had cited attorney-client privilege as well as the need to hire an expert when declining to answer questions about his legal expenses. 

In the months leading up to the judgment, Miller had offered to have the borough agree to a judgment of $50,000, then later $25,000. The borough made one settlement offer where Miller would get nothing. 

The June 6 hearing resulted in a judge ruling against Miller’s claims for monetary compensation for damages resulting from the alleged leak of information. The only remaining issue after the hearing was the question of whether the borough had violated his privacy. 

On June 18, the borough filed a request to depose Miller on July 31, where it would have also asked Miller to produce documents relating to his legal fees, any statements made by borough employees that he believed are false, secretly taped audio recordings of conversations with borough employees the borough believes he has as well as complete records of any conversations he had with political figures, such as Sarah Palin or David and Charles Koch, regarding his employment at the borough.

As we know on Tuesday, the day IMMEDIATELY after the borough's request to depose Miller, he SUDDENLY decided that this had gone on long enough and accepted a payoff of a measly $5,000. 

Which of course means we now don't get to learn exactly who was financing Miller's personal crusade to punish the North Star Borough for daring to educate the voters of Alaska as to why they should NEVER elect Joe "Palin butt boy" Miller to political office in Alaska. And THAT, by the way, sucks!

But obviously it was somebody that Miller did NOT want revealed in court, and I am pretty sure that it was the same people who financed his Senate campaign in the first place. If that is true than Miller will do everything in his power to keep that quiet.

Want a hint? They were NOT from Alaska, and what they did (Which was well before Citizen's United) was VERY, VERY illegal at that time. And THAT is not something which the "Vaguely Bearded One" wants anybody to find out.

But do you know what? That information is on it's way. Oh yes it is!

And so is the connection between Miller, the GOP takeover, and Sarah Palin. Count on it.