Not in the good way.

What the Stone indictment doesn’t say is what you need to know about Mueller’s Trump Russia probe
by Lucian k. Truscott IV, Salon
January 26, 2019

By now, everyone on the face of the earth knows that on Friday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted Roger Stone for committing seven felonies, including lying to the Senate Intelligence Committee, obstructing justice, and tampering with a witness. Coverage of the indictment has focused so far on what it says about Stone’s contacts with WikiLeaks and Julian Assange. Most of the coverage yesterday focused on paragraph 12 of the indictment, which intriguingly states, “After the July 22 release of stolen DNC emails by Organization 1 [WikiLeaks], a senior Trump campaign official was directed to contact STONE about any additional releases and what other damaging information Organization 1 had regarding the Clinton campaign. STONE thereafter told the Trump campaign about potential future releases of damaging material by Organization 1.”

The Mars rover could probably measure wind from the collective sigh of the punditocracy on the surface of the red planet, it was so strong. Finally! Confirmation of collusion! It’s right there! Speculation immediately focused on who “directed” the “senior Trump campaign official” to contact Stone. The top staff of the Trump campaign was famously small. Who could be more “senior” than the “senior campaign official? It was probably Trump himself, the punditocracy concluded nearly en masse.

The rest of the indictment spells out in detail Stone’s contacts with WikiLeaks through his pals: Person 1, known conspiracy theorist and fabulist Jerome Corsi, and Person 2, sometime funnyman and radio host Randy Credico. The indictment outlines how Stone lied about those contacts to the Senate Intelligence Committee, how Stone counseled both Corsi and Credico to either lie to the committee or take the Fifth, and lists the threats from Stone to Credico about what would happen to him after he became a “rat” and a “stoolie” to the committee.

Mueller’s indictment is crafted like his previous indictments of both former Trump campaign officials and 25 Russians in the Russia investigation. It lays out details in an easily followed narrative that more or less amounts to a report on what he has discovered. Legal scholars have pointed out that even if Mueller is prevented from releasing an official report to the public at the conclusion of his investigation, what he has carefully revealed in his indictments already serves as an excellent substitute for an official report.

But what Mueller leaves out of his indictments and other court filings is as interesting as what he includes. Some of the parts have been redacted and appear on the page as long sections of black bars. In the Stone indictment, he omits key details about the Trump campaign and hints at some of what he’s learned but is not choosing at this time to release. The first such hint is dropped at the very top of a section entitled “Background: STONE’S Communications About Organization 1 During the Campaign.”

“By in or around June and July 2016, STONE informed senior Trump campaign officials that he had information indicating Organization 1 had documents whose release would be damaging to the Clinton Campaign. The head of Organization 1 was located at all relevant times at the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, United Kingdom.”

Let’s take a moment to deconstruct the first sentence in the context of the rest of the indictment. Most important is the reference to “June” of 2016 as the first time Stone was transmitting information about WikiLeaks to the Trump campaign. In fact, the month of June never appears again in the indictment, whereas various things Stone said and did in July, August, September and October of 2016 are listed throughout the indictment.

The name of the person who told prosecutors that Stone had informed the Trump campaign in June about WikiLeaks having the Democrats’ emails has been omitted by Mueller. Who could this be?

Well, Stone himself didn’t tell Mueller’s team, so it could be only Rick Gates, who has pled guilty to charges brought against him and is known to be cooperating with Mueller. In fact, it was only 10 days ago, on January 15, that Mueller and Gates’ lawyer filed a document in federal court in Washington D.C. asking a judge to delay Gates’ sentencing hearing, and requesting until March 15 to again “update” the court on the status of Gates’ sentencing. This was regarded at the time as evidence that Gates is continuing to cooperate with Mueller, and that his cooperation is considered important enough to delay his sentencing.

That the Trump campaign knew that WikiLeaks had the Democratic emails hacked by the Russians as early as June of 2016 is very important. It was on June 9 that the infamous meeting in Trump Tower took place between six Russians, including a Russian lawyer with close connections to the Kremlin and a former Russian intelligence agent, with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Paul Manafort. The subject of the meeting was promised in an email to Trump Jr. as information from the Russian government damaging to Hillary Clinton that the Russians wanted to share with the Trump campaign as part of the “support” of the Russian government of Trump’s campaign.
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Mueller omitted from his indictment the coincidences between Roger Stone’s actions and events in the campaign, but by any measure, they are too numerous and convenient to ignore. It seems clear from the indictment that Mueller has way, way more information on the connections between the Trump campaign and WikiLeaks’ release of Democratic emails than he has revealed so far.

Mueller went into court on the same day he indicted Roger Stone and argued that Paul Manafort should be shown no mercy because he lied to the Special Counsel even after his plea agreement to cooperate with the office of the Special Counsel. But he’s got Manafort’s friend and deputy Trump campaign chairman, Rick Gates, still whispering in his ear, and a lot of the information in the indictment of Stone appears to have come from Gates.

The next shoe to drop was hinted at by other omissions by Mueller about what he knows happened in June of 2016 between Russians and the Trump campaign. We know about one incident: the infamous Trump Tower meeting. One of those who attended the meeting with Russians is already in Jail.

They’re all going down. Not that it makes any difference, Elliot “Convicted in Iran/Contra” Abrams is our new special envoy to Venezuela and Ollie “Also Convicted in Iran/Contra” North is the President of the NRA.

Welcome to the Stars Hollow Gazette‘s Health and Fitness News weekly diary. It will publish on Saturday afternoon and be open for discussion about health related issues including diet, exercise, health and health care issues, as well as, tips on what you can do when there is a medical emergency. Also an opportunity to share and exchange your favorite healthy recipes.

Questions are encouraged and I will answer to the best of my ability. If I can’t, I will try to steer you in the right direction. Naturally, I cannot give individual medical advice for personal health issues. I can give you information about medical conditions and the current treatments available.

You can now find past Health and Fitness News diaries here.

Follow us on Twitter @StarsHollowGzt

Rendering fat trickles from the chicken as it roasts onto a bed of sliced potatoes and onions, resulting in a deliciously crisp and juicy low-fuss bird with a built-in side dish.

The spicy garlic-honey glaze for the pan-seared pork chops also forms the base of the sauce for the warm escarole-and–white bean salad in this easy one-pan dinner.

Hummus is a great base for a weeknight dinner. Top each serving off with crispy spiced beef and a fresh tomato salad and dig in, with pita or without.

Long sweet peppers show up at farmers’ markets during the peak of the season and may be sold as long sweet yellow, sweet banana, Hungarian Sweet, or Cubanelle. You can substitute two medium red, orange, or yellow bell peppers (don’t use the green ones).

This warming porridge features oats two ways plus brown rice, millet, or quinoa. Knowing you have a bubbling hot breakfast waiting for you on a chilly morning makes getting out of bed so much easier. This recipe feeds a crowd, but it also reheats easily for individual servings throughout the week.

This eminently sharable cookie has all the flavors of a latte. And chocolate. Lots of hot, melting milk chocolate.

Continue reading

As you know I don’t attempt to keep up with breaking and things are. Stone arrest, LaGuardia shutdown, Unindicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio’s second cave in as many days (this one on the Shutdown).

No, there is too much. Let me sum up.

Well, that will take a while and in the meantime there is this-

Cody Johnston

Update: Wow, a complete and total cave. Can’t wait for Hannity tonight.

Normally I save the nominee bashing for later, if ever. I’ve stayed notably silent except in general terms to say that Democrats need more Candidates that embrace positive change (because face it folks, things suck and standing around waiting to lose so they get worse is a pretty nihilistic strategy that only encourages depression and apathy) and not those who favor the Status Quo.

Joe Biden is the Status Quo. He must go.

Joe Biden Should Run, Just to Represent the Kind of Politics Democrats Must Abandon
By Charles P. Pierce, Esquire
Jan 24, 2019

Now that it’s January of 2019, my self-imposed boycott of news concerning the 2020 presidential election regrettably has been lifted. As far as I’m concerned, I hope all 22 Democrats who have evinced an interest in running decide to do so. And that includes former Vice President Joe Biden, who I wish, for the love of god, would shut the hell up and let the field come together.

Biden simply cannot be the Democratic nominee for president. Not in this Democratic Party and not after those midterms, he can’t. I don’t hold with the fashionable performance-lefty revisionism regarding the Obama administration but, given the events of the last two years, the Obama Administration seems as distant in the past as the Seleucid Empire. Biden is a nostalgia candidate. He’s also a terrible one.

I take exception to that “performance-lefty” crack. Obama was a terrible President, basically a Conservative Republican in ‘D’ clothing, and I haven’t changed my mind about it since the 2008 Transition with his picks for Inauguration Speakers and Cabinet Members. I could cite hundreds if not thousands of examples where he betrayed any Left hopes. Nothing “performance” about my disdain Chuckles.

The first time he ran for president was 31 years ago. He cratered behind Michael Dukakis, for pity’s sake, because he couldn’t keep Neil Kinnock’s words out of his speeches. Then, he demolished a lot of his credibility on women’s issues by presiding over the catastrophic Anita Hill hearings. (He got some of it back by shepherding the Violence Against Women Act through to presidential signature in 1994, but, you watch, the Hill hearings still sting.) In 2008, he finished fifth in Iowa and never made it to Valentine’s Day. Those disasters, however, will pale against what will happen to him if he tries his mojo against the current Democratic primary electorate.

He’s already in trouble. On Wednesday, The New York Times reported on a paid speech Biden had given in Michigan last November in which he appeared to be flattering local Republican congresscritter Fred Upton, a Republican in a tough re-election fight. Biden also declined to endorse Upton’s Democratic opponent, Matt Longjohn. Upton won by less than five percent of the vote.
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This episode was bad enough, but Biden literally hand-waved the reaction to it, albeit in a very religious way.
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Yeah, that’ll work during a manufactured government shutdown in which people are afraid to fly.

Later in that same speech, Biden told the National Conference of Mayors that his bipartisan bona fides are one way out of our gridlocked system. How he plans to cure the prion disease afflicting the other party went unmentioned, but Biden insisted that part of the remedy is banality.
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But there is a madman at the wheel, and the Republican half of the government has spliced hands on the proposition that they will follow him around the horn, around the Norway maelstrom, and around perdition’s flames before they give him up. (Thanks, Herman!). That really isn’t what the country needs right now, Joe. Still, though, I hope he runs. If the Democratic Party really wants to leave the old DLC and the Obama days behind, someone should be in the race to represent that legacy, too, for good and ill. At the very least, having Joe Biden and Senator Professor Warren on stage, talking about Biden’s credit-card friendly 2005 bankruptcy bill, would be entertaining as all hell.

Talk about barely a Democrat!

Joe Biden’s Paid Speech Buoyed the G.O.P. in Midwest Battleground
By Alexander Burns, The New York Times
Jan. 23, 2019

Joseph R. Biden Jr. swept into Benton Harbor, Mich., three weeks before the November elections, in the midst of his quest to reclaim the Midwest for Democrats. He took the stage at Lake Michigan College as Representative Fred Upton, a long-serving Republican from the area, faced the toughest race of his career.

But Mr. Biden was not there to denounce Mr. Upton. Instead, he was collecting $200,000 from the Economic Club of Southwestern Michigan to address a Republican-leaning audience, according to a speaking contract obtained by The New York Times and interviews with organizers. The group, a business-minded civic organization, is supported in part by an Upton family foundation.

Mr. Biden stunned Democrats and elated Republicans by praising Mr. Upton while the lawmaker looked on from the audience. Alluding to Mr. Upton’s support for a landmark medical-research law, Mr. Biden called him a champion in the fight against cancer — and “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.”

Mr. Biden’s remarks, coming amid a wide-ranging discourse on American politics, quickly appeared in Republican advertising. The local Democratic Party pleaded with Mr. Biden to repair what it saw as a damaging error, to no avail. On Nov. 6, Mr. Upton defeated his Democratic challenger by four and a half percentage points.

As Mr. Biden considers a bid for the presidency in 2020, the episode underscores his potential vulnerabilities in a fight for the Democratic nomination and raises questions about his judgment as a party leader. Mr. Biden has attempted to strike a balance since leaving office, presenting himself as a unifying statesman who could unseat President Trump while also working to amass a modest fortune of several million dollars.

But Mr. Biden’s appearance in Michigan plainly set his lucrative personal activities at odds with what some Democrats saw as his duty to the party, linking him with a civic group seen as tilting to the right and undermining Democrats’ effort to defeat Mr. Upton, a powerful lawmaker who in 2017 helped craft a bill to repeal the Affordable Care Act.

Eric Lester, a retired physician who chaired the Democratic Party in Berrien County, Mich., during the midterms, said he viewed Mr. Biden’s supportive remarks about Mr. Upton as a betrayal. Mr. Lester, who attended the speech, said he had confronted an aide to Mr. Biden in the hallway, telling him the former vice president had badly damaged the Democratic cause.

“It just gives Fred Upton cover and makes it possible for him to continue to pretend to be a useful, bipartisan fellow,” Mr. Lester recalled saying, adding, “I entered the hall with positive feelings about Mr. Biden and felt very frustrated.”

Joe Trippi, a Democratic strategist and veteran of several presidential campaigns, said it was an open question whether voters in the party would punish candidates they see as overly friendly or cooperative with Republicans. He suggested that could be one of the defining pressures for Mr. Biden if he announces his candidacy.

“I really believe the country does not want to be at war with each other,” Mr. Trippi said. “But there is also the polarization going on, where people say: Damn it, I want to fight.”

Kick ’em in the ‘Nads. When they’re down on the ground writhing in pain? Kick ’em in the ‘Nads again.

Oh, there’s many more terrible things in that piece, you should take a look. I was going to talk about it anyway, but then this came out-

Biden on criticism of his praise for GOP lawmaker: ‘Bless me, Father, for I have sinned’
By REBECCA MORIN, Politico
01/24/2019

Former Vice President Joe Biden, who is weighing a 2020 presidential run, rejected criticism that he is too close with Republican lawmakers, telling a gathering of U.S. mayors in Washington that nothing can get done “unless we start talking to one another again.”

The criticism of Biden stems from a New York Times report published earlier this week detailing remarks he made in the run-up to last year’s midterms praising Rep. Fred Upton (R-Mich.) as “one of the finest guys I’ve ever worked with.” Upton, facing a stiff challenge from a Democratic challenger, won his race by 4.5 percentage points.

Biden’s words, which quickly surfaced in Republican advertising, prompted backlash from Michigan Democrats, the Times reported.

“I read in New York Times today … that one of my problems is if I ever run for president, I like Republicans,” Biden said during a speech at the Conference of Mayors’ winter meeting in Washington. “Bless me, Father, for I have sinned.”

Although Biden has a longstanding reputation as a bipartisan deal-maker on Capitol Hill, his warm words for a Republican during last year’s heated midterms could hinder a possible presidential bid in 2020, especially with an increasingly packed Democratic field.

THIS WAS LAST NOVEMBER! 2018!

Joe Biden is a Quisling. A Traitor to the Democratic Party!

Why don’t you and your Republicans with a ‘D’ Centrists get the hell out of the Party and start your own New Dem DLC Third Way No Labels piece of crap and get out of the way of actually pursuing policies that improve people’s lives instead of the .01%ers who’s teats you’re sucking at for money?

No self respecting Sex Worker would give you the time of day sell out!