#new & improved Bob Mueller

[never-was-has-been]

[caitalysmith]

Does Website Spelling and Grammar Affect SEO?

Spelling and language structure are things many individuals want to have abandoned in school yet sadly it is a significant piece of business life. In the advanced world, content authors grapple with spelling and punctuation consistently (and could you accept it really appreciates it) however does a site's spelling influence SEO?

What Spelling and Grammar Mean for SEO

With regards to positioning substance on web indexes, every one of the calculations are searching for quality substance. This digital marketing agency in sheffield actually intends that on the off chance that you make sites thrown with language mistakes and spelling blunders, odds are you will not be suggested for clients. Be that as it may, this will not be on the grounds that a web crawler dislikes your utilization of the Oxford comma. No, rather web search tools will decipher the bob rate, low nearby times, and possibly harming impact spelling mistakes can have on your traffic.

You'll likewise have to consider errors with regards to watchwords. While web indexes normally represent semantic varieties if you mistype a word you could pass up fundamental catchphrase rankings.

Indeed, even with these elements, the change is as yet insignificant. Google's own personal John Mueller has broadcasted his considerations with regards to this issue expressing:

"Not actually… .it is more a question of how it is gotten according to a client perspective. On the off chance that you are a financial site and you have horrible English on it, then, at that point, I accept clients will lose trust in your site."

Read Also:--Powerful Tips to Improve Website Performance

What Spelling and Grammar Mean for User Experience

While spelling and syntax don't straightforwardly influence SEO, they can enormously influence trust in your image. A site filled with mix-ups can make clients think your site is amateurish and possibly even perilous and they'll cast a ballot with their fingers by rapidly tapping ceaselessly and visiting a contender's site all things considered.

By going through your substance with extreme attention to detail you can dispose of any superfluous mistakes, sneak in a couple of watchwords, and ensure your duplicate looks proficient and useful. With the sheer volume of sites on the web, digital marketing agency in stafford presently more significant than any other time in recent memory to guarantee you're offering clients an excellent site that forms trust, flaunts how great you are at your particular employment, and at last proselytes clients.

On the off chance that you're not happy with spelling and language checks then, at that point, get a few open-minded perspectives on the site. Ask an associate, companion, or adored one to take a period and read through your site to check whether they can detect any glaring mistakes. In the event that you'd like an expert's perspective, consider working with an expert substance group who can help you dispose of any blunders as well as smooth out your duplicate to further develop SEO, catch new catchphrases, and rouse clients to change over on your site.

[theliberaltony]

via Politics – FiveThirtyEight

Welcome to Pollapalooza, our weekly polling roundup.

Poll of the week

For some time, the conventional wisdom (and I largely agree with it) around the upcoming midterms has been that Democrats are modest favorites to win the House, while Republicans are likely to hold the Senate. Democrats, who have 49 Senate seats at the moment,1 might win GOP-held seats in Arizona and Nevada, but it seems likely they’ll lose at least one of the 10 seats they hold in states that President Trump carried in 2016.

But the 2018 Senate map is shifting — mostly in ways that make it more likely that Democrats could flip that chamber too. If you’ve only been paying attention to the House, it’s time to check back in on the upper chamber.

Our poll of the week, for example, comes from Tennessee. In the race to replace retiring Republican Sen. Bob Corker, Democrat Phil Bredesen (Tennessee’s former governor) leads GOP Rep. Marsha Blackburn 45 percent to 35 percent, according to a Middle Tennessee State University poll of 600 registered voters.2 (Blackburn and Bredesen are almost certain to win their respective parties’ primaries in August.) Seventeen percent of voters were undecided.

A poll in December showed the two effectively tied, so this MTSU survey could be an outlier. And I’m skeptical Bredesen will win by double digits in ruby-red Tennessee, where Trump won by 26 percentage points in 2016. But at the same time, Bredesen has deep roots in the state. He was the mayor of Nashville, and then got himself elected governor twice (in 2002 and 2006), winning his re-election campaign by 39 points. Blackburn is likely to run as a Trump ally, but the president is not as popular in Tennessee as you might think, considering his margin of victory there in 2016: He’s only barely above water, according to most surveys. The MTSU poll put his approval rating in the state at 50 percent, with 41 percent disapproving. Morning Consult had him at 55-41 in March. And Gallup, aggregating all their 2017 tracking polls, put him at 50-44.

All of which is to say that Bredesen has a real chance — and Democrats could pick up a seat in the South that, not long ago, looked unwinnable. If a Democrat is going to win a statewide federal race in Tennessee in the foreseeable future, this is probably the time, when all the conditions are right: an open seat (i.e. no incumbent, and especially no incumbent Republican), an unpopular GOP president with lukewarm support even in the Volunteer State, and a strong Democratic candidate.

Meanwhile, Arizona could have two Senate seats up for grabs this November.

It’s been clear for a while that Democrats might take one of Arizona’s seats, with incumbent Republican Sen. Jeff Flake retiring. But — and look, it’s uncomfortable to discuss this — Sen. John McCain’s health now has major political implications as well. McCain, who has represented Arizona in the Senate for more than three decades, is suffering from brain cancer and has not been on Capitol Hill since December. If McCain resigns or passes away before May 30, Arizona Gov. Doug Ducey, a Republican, would appoint a temporary replacement. But there would be a primary in August for the seat and an election in November.3

About half of Arizona voters approve of Trump and half disapprove, according to the recent Morning Consult poll. Trump won the state by less than 4 points. Arizona isn’t all that red, in other words. And if there are two open seats, the chances are that much higher that at least one of them will feature an uber-conservative GOP nominee, which might make it hard to win a general election. In the race for the Flake seat, the GOP establishment has coalesced around U.S. Rep. Martha McSally, who is running in the Republican primary against the tea party-aligned Kelli Ward and former Phoenix-area sheriff Joe Arpaio, who was convicted of criminal contempt for refusing to follow a judicial order to stop racially profiling and detaining Latinos. (Arpaio was pardoned by Trump last year.)

If the McCain seat is open, Arpaio, Ward or another candidate who might be too conservative for the state could switch to run in that race instead. It may be hard for more establishment Republicans in Arizona to lock the anti-establishment wing of the party out of both seats.

Like in Arizona, Democrats are often enthusiastic about their chances in Texas but almost always lose in federal statewide races there. That said, Democratic congressman Beto O’Rourke outraised incumbent Republican Sen. Ted Cruz in the last quarter of 2017. And O’Rourke raised even more cash in the first quarter of 2018, a sign he’s waging a serious campaign.

We don’t have any recent polls of this race, but it’s worth watching. Cruz has the advantage; Texas is still unquestionably a red state, after all. But his re-election can’t be taken for granted anymore. Case in point: The Cook Political Report moved the race from “solid Republican” to “likely Republican.” So did CNN.

So Democratic prospects are looking better in Tennessee, Arizona and Texas. There is one race, though, where the outlook seems to be improving for the GOP: Florida. Gov. Rick Scott, a Republican, officially announced this week that he is challenging Democratic Sen. Bill Nelson. Everyone already knew Scott was going to run for the seat, but in such a Democratic-leaning environment, it’s gotta be a little reassuring for Republicans that a strong candidate like Scott officially took the plunge. Florida is about evenly divided between the two parties, so this was always going to be a close race, and polls have suggested Nelson and Scott are running neck and neck.

The race may have even gotten a bit tighter in recent weeks, as only one of those polls was in the field after Scott signed a set of gun control measures into law last month in the wake of the school shooting in Parkland, Florida. That was a high-profile move, and one that might appeal to more moderate Florida voters in both parties.

Other polling nuggets

A poll out of Washington’s 5th Congressional District suggests that longtime Republican incumbent Cathy McMorris Rodgers will face some real competition. The poll, conducted by Elway Research, showed Rodgers with a 44 percent to 38 percent lead over Democrat Lisa Brown, with 16 percent undecided.

A Quinnipiac poll found that 84 percent of Democrats have a favorable view of the Parkland students who have been calling for new gun-control laws, but only 22 percent of Republicans feel the same — 62 percent of Republicans have an unfavorable view of the students.

The Quinnipiac poll, taken April 6-9, also found that 69 percent of Americans (including 55 percent of Republicans and 82 percent of Democrats) believe that President Trump should not fire Robert Mueller.

A quarter of Facebook users believe that the service has made their lives better, according to a YouGov/CBS News survey. Eleven percent feel it has made their lives worse, and 63 percent feel that their lives haven’t changed either way.

39 percent of Americans believe that the GOP’s new tax law is benefitting them personally, according to a new Greenberg Research poll. There was a strong partisan divide in who agreed: 61 percent of Republicans vs. only 20 percent of Democrats.

Missouri Governor Eric Greitens, who has been accused of sexual assault, is under pressure to step down. A Mason-Dixon poll conducted last week finds that 48 percent of Missourians think he should resign, 36 percent think he should not. Still, there was a large partisan divide in responses, with a majority of Republicans believing he should not step down.

A Mason-Dixon poll of Missouri registered voters also found Republican Josh Hawley in a statistical tie with incumbent Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill, who is up for re-election in November — 45 percent of respondents supported McCaskill and 44 percent preferred Hawley, with 11 percent undecided. In addition, 17 percent of registered voters polled said they were not familiar with Hawley.

A Washington Post poll found that 20 percent of adults have attended a political rally, protest or speech in the past two years. Half said they had signed a petition, 41 percent have boycotted a product or service for political reasons, 40 percent have contacted an elected official, 29 percent said they have contributed money to a political group or campaign, and 11 percent had volunteered for a political party or campaign.

Americans are split on whether or not the U.S. has a responsibility to get involved in the conflict in Syria, according to a YouGov/Economist poll, but they are not split along party lines. Twenty-eight believe that the U.S. has a responsibility to get involved (including 36 percent of Democrats and 32 percent of Republicans), while 37 percent believe the U.S. does not have that responsibility and 35 percent are not sure.

Harvard’s Institute of Politics poll found that 64 percent of 18- to 29-year-olds are more fearful than hopeful about the future of America.

A survey of about 6,000 teenagers by the bank Piper Jaffray found that only 8 percent considered Facebook their favorite social media platform. Snapchat led with 45 percent, and Instagram (which is owned by Facebook) followed at 26 percent.

44 percent of pet owners buy birthday or holiday gifts for their pets, according to an SSRS poll.

YouGov asked 31,000 Brits who their favorite member of the Spice Girls was. Baby Spice was the most popular, and fans of Scary Spice were most likely to describe themselves as feminists.

Trump’s approval rating

Trump’s job approval rating is 40.6 percent; his disapproval rating is 53.3 percent. Last week, his approval rating was 40.2 percent, compared with a disapproval rating of 53.8 percent.

The generic ballot

The Democrats hold a 46.2 percent to 39.6 percent advantage on the generic congressional ballot this week. Last week, Democrats were up 47.1 percent to 39.1 percent.

[opedguy]

Medvedev Sees Trump as Missed Opportunity

LOS ANGELES (OnlineColumnist.com), Feb. 1, 2021.--Former Russian Prime Minister Dmitry Medvedev said today that 74-year-old President Donald Trump’s presidency was a missed opportunity, after former President Barack Obama drove U.S.-Russian relations to Cold War lows.  Commenting about Trump losing the 2020 election, Medvedev called Trump’s time a “period of disappointment,” referring to the failed attempt to rekindle strong U.S.-Russian relations.  “The period of the previous administration ‘s work is a period of disappointment,” Medvedev told the Tass Russian government news agency.  Medvedev, who’s deputy chairman of the Russian Security Council, hoped that when Trump came to office in 2017 U.S.-Russian relation would improve.  He watched over his four years in office Trump’s enemies do everything possible to sabotage his attempts at rapprochement with the Russian Federation.   

          When you consider that Obama ordered a counterintelligence investigation of Trump during the 2016 campaign and lasting through much of his presidency, it’s outrageous that no high ranking official in the Obama administration or at the Department of Justice, FBI, CIA or National Security agency was charged with spying on Trump’s 2016 campaign and presidency.  While it’s still possible that Special Counsel John Durham (R-Conn.) continues to investigative 60-year-old former FBI Director James Comey and other involved in the Crossfire Hurricane investigation, only one former DOJ official plead guilty to tampering with government documents, former DOJ Atty. Kevin Clinesmith.  Trump hoped that former Atty. Gen. Bob Barr and Durham would have returned indictments before the Nov. 3, 2020 election, nothing happened. 

 Trump was accused for much of his presidency of being a Russian asset.             Medvedev recognized the missed opportunity, especially when 62-year-old former National Security Adviser Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn was accused by 76-year-old former Special Counsel Robert Mueller of lying to federal agents.  Obama former Vice President now President Joe Biden set Flynn up at the White House Jan. 24, 2017 in a perjury trap.  Flynn was charged with lying to FBI agents about his completely innocent conversations during the transition with 70-year-old former Russian Amb. Sergey Kislyak.  “Donald Trump already a former president of the United States, was indeed a friendly person and demonstrated in very possible way his intention to, as he put it, get along with the Russians—but failed,” Medvedev said.  Medvedev watched from afar as Trump’s good faith effort to restore a cooperative relationship with Moscow was sabotaged by Democrat and the U.S. press.      

       So five days after he was confirmed by the Senate Judiciary Committee as Secretary of State, 58-year-old Tony Blinken starts the bad will all over again.  Medvedev recalls well when Obama and Biden ousted 35 Russian diplomats in Washington, D.C. for allegedly meddling in the 2016 presidential election.  Trump worked from the day he won office Nov. 8, 2016 to help restore U.S.-Russian relations but was accused by the U.S. government of colluding with the Kremlin. Blinken’s recent tweet demanded that Russian President Vladimir Putin release from jail 44-year-old dissident Alex Navalny who’s antagonized the Kremlin.  Russia views attempts by the U.S. or European Union to impose democracy on the Russian Federation as meddling in internal affairs.  Blinken throws his support to Putin’s biggest critic sours U.S.-Russian relations right from the get-go.    

         Blinken, and his boss Biden think they’ll have the backing of the EU with any get tough measures against Putin and Kremlin when it comes to the crackdown on Navalny’s pro-Democracy movement.  Putin views Navalny as a left-wing agitator who’s broken Russian national security laws deserving a long prison sentence.  What’s ironic is that the U.S. House of Representative has charged Trump with “incitement of insurrection,” the exact thing the Kremlin charges Navalny.  While the House charges Trump with plotting a coup d’etat, the Kremlin charges Navalny with the same thing, bring the hypocrisy in the U.S. full swing.  Whoever broke the law at the Jan. 6 Capitol Hill riot, it was not orchestrated by Trump but by right wing extremists thinking they were doing Trump’s bidding.  Right wing radicals have much in common with Black Lives Matter, Antifa and other leftists groups.    

          Biden and Blinken are kidding themselves that slamming Putin and Kremlin is the best way forward to improve U.S.-Russian relations.  U.S. officials have accused Trump for four years of colluding with the Kremlin, only recently saying that Trump was groomed by the FSB [formerly the KGB] as a Kremlin asset, according to a recent book “American Kompromat” by journalist Craig Unger.  Unger quotes former KGB man  Yuri Shvets, another pile of left-wing rubbish. Trump’s been an American real estate tycoon and reality TV star for the past 50 years, an iconic American success story.  Turning him into a Russian asset is preposterous, just like when Hillary spewed such rubbish back in 2016.  One thing’s for sure, Biden and Blinken have set back U.S.-Russian relations and won’t get much help from the EU who imports 40% of its natural gas and 305 of its petroleum from Russia.

 About the Author

 John M. Curtis writes politically neutral commentary analyzing spin in national and global news.  He’s editor of OnlineColumnist.com and author of Dodging The Bullet and Operation Charisma.  

[epacer]

Education

Terri Novacek is executive director of Element Education.

An Enrollment Crisis Is Coming for School Districts

Deep down in their May 18 letter to lawmakers warning that they could not “in good conscience” return students to the classroom if the state follows through on proposed budget cuts, superintendents of the six largest school districts in the state also requested a change.

They asked lawmakers to “authorize school districts to earn average daily attendance using a three-year rolling average of ADA.”

Right now, schools are mostly funded using average daily attendance calculations. Each student carries with them a number. If they go to school, that school and school district gets their funding. Districts care deeply about getting kids into classes not only because of their commitment to learning, and their mission, but because funding doesn’t come if they don’t. If students go to charter schools, they take that funding with them and some of those charter schools aren’t part of the districts. Last year, we helped uncover one of the biggest fraudulent manipulations of this average daily attendance system in the state’s history.

So, in that letter, the districts were asking that the state protect them from what could happen to their funding not from the budget cuts but from the loss of students they may experience. It was a subtle acknowledgement of a real nightmare in the works for them.

An enrollment crisis is coming.

If even 5 percent or 10 percent of parents don’t send their kids to traditional schools this year, it would deliver a massive funding crisis for schools that have already been grappling with enrollment declines. The deadline to lay off teachers has already passed. It is difficult to imagine how they can rearrange and cut costs swiftly enough to absorb the change. Especially with increased costs to deal with the health crisis on the horizon.

But the enrollment crisis is coming.

The San Diego County Office of Education is advising districts to prepare for parents who are not comfortable sending their kids back to school yet. Some are worried that if they send kids to school, they may carry the coronavirus to a vulnerable relative. David Miyashiro, the superintendent of Cajon Valley Elementary School District, reported that hundreds of his families have left the region because of the economic catastrophe.

But there is also another challenge. Richard Barrera, a trustee for San Diego Unified School District, said that if the federal government (including the Republican-dominated U.S. Senate) does not bail out school districts like his, then next year they will not bring kids back to schools. Instead, they will continue doing distance learning as they have this year except it will be a “lesser” version.

San Diego Unified School District Trustees and Superintendent

If that is real, then we may watch an unprecedented re-alignment in education occur. This year, traditional public schools transitioned abruptly and awkwardly to online and remote learning based on the physical classrooms that already existed. But if we switch to online-only learning for the coming school year, then it could lead a new online/homeschooling market where different providers compete to help parents deliver the best education possible.

Think about it. Traditional public schools are geographically based. They’re neighborhood schools. For decades, a reform movement has argued students and parents should not be victims of their location – they should not be destined for success or failure just because of the conditions of their neighborhood school. It has allowed students to choose better schools in other neighborhoods or magnet schools or charter schools that offer different approaches.

San Diego Unified has openly resisted this for years, and has declared there should be a quality school in every neighborhood – hoping to turn the tide of kids and parents who feel their best opportunities would be outside their neighborhood.

That was before COVID-19. If the largest school district in the region is now unable to welcome students to campuses, the geographic connections to schools will evaporate. Right now, the only argument for sending your child to an underperforming school is that it needs you: If you commit to your community, you can help it improve and, also, help your neighborhood advance. It’s what parents at McKinley Elementary did. It’s what parents have been trying to do at Sherman Heights and Edison Elementary.

The message is clear: With parent engagement schools like that, and the area, improve. It creates a community of higher standards and achievement. The community helps retain quality teachers and administrators. But if that interaction – that community – is literally prohibited, indefinitely, what keeps you at a “Knox Middle School”?

By all accounts, San Diego Unified’s online learning foray this spring has been as diverse as its student body. Some people and teachers are having great experiences. Some are not. At all.

If the district announces in coming weeks that this will continue and it will not welcome kids back to neighborhood schools, the most motivated and involved parents will seek alternatives.

It’s harder to picture how it won’t happen than how it will. Right now, the county’s public health order literally prohibits schools from reopening on their physical campuses.

“We’ve had the luxury of kind of doing a one-size-fits-most learning system. COVID-19 is going to force us to have a continuum of options to support students who may be more comfortable learning at home,” said Bob Mueller, who is coordinating much of this for the County Office of Education. The County Office of Education does not control school districts. It provides advice and shared support systems for them, and financial oversight.

Mueller listed for me all the types of families that may not return to school this fall – the ones with health concerns, the ones doing well with homeschooling, etc.

I added one to his list: the parents who are turned off by the prospect of sending kids back to a highly modified and restrictive physical campus.

Take Jody Madigan. She has a child in elementary school and one in middle school. She’s active in the PTA and has personally helped raise tens of thousands of dollars for Ocean Beach Elementary School, where my kids attend school also.

She said she watched school district leaders recently describe what school may be like in the fall and was so disturbed, she decided to enroll her daughter, Fara, into the homeschool charter Dimensions Collaborative. Madigan has a few months to decide what they will do but she didn’t want to miss a chance to sign up with a more evolved homeschool platform. And even if schools come back, she’s waiting to see what it will be like.

“I’m not worried about the virus at all. But if the kids are going to be limited in their interactions, cordoned off into squares where they have to play by themselves and wear masks, can’t play with their friends, what is the point of sending them?” Madigan said.

I asked what it would take to get her back.

“If they can play on the playground, that’s almost No. 1. If they’re so worried about germs and budgets I don’t want that to rub off on Fara,” she said. Her son, on the other hand, has had a good experience with distance learning in middle school and will stay with the school district.

Madigan is a stay-at-home mother and she says she can handle the educational challenge.

“I don’t need a teacher who is new to distance learning trying to help me. I want someone who is experienced,” she said.

Dimensions is one of two schools run by Element Education and chartered through the County Office of Education. If Madigan’s child goes to Dimensions, the state’s money will follow. Element Executive Director Terri Novacek said she’s seen a spike in inquiries from parents like Madigan over the last month. She’s capped enrollment at Dimensions 1,200. It has 500 students now and 100 new applicants. Its sister school Community Montessori now has a waiting list.

She said she’s worried about people who just want a place to park for a while as they wait for schools to return. But she is hearing from people who had thought about homeschooling before and now feel like the situation has forced them to investigate it as a real, permanent option. Element offers learning plans that are all online, or all paper or involve visiting learning centers more often. Some parents are confident in what they’re doing and don’t need much guidance from teachers.

“We provide the level of support necessary for each student. Some once a day. Some once a month,” she said. The question she gets the most is about socialization, and she has a ready answer.

“I don’t want my kids marching in a group to a bell and being in a room with kids all the same age. That’s not the real world,” Novacek said. “My kids were educated by the community, by older children who mentored them and they are now very comfortable with adults.”

She makes an attractive case …  if you have the time. The nightmare for many parents, though, is that kids will be home this fall and they will still have to work. Even if districts open campuses to kids twice a week, what do you do the other three days? I keep hearing from parents who are considering organizing small groups of kids and hiring their own teachers to coordinate the distance learning.

They’re inventing schools.

Mueller doesn’t think 100 percent distance learning is likely to be the scenario in the fall, despite the warnings from Barrera and the districts.

“I don’t think anyone is considering complete distance learning, if they don’t have to,” he said. But the lift to get kids on campus is heavy. Imagine, for example, that the public health officer mandates temperature checks to get into a school. If a school has several hundred people, that could be a logistical nightmare.

“We have to buy thermometers, masks and hand sanitizer in a volume I cannot even estimate,” he said.

It’s not even clear when we will know what is planned for the fall. The county’s public health officer, Dr. Wilma Wooten, told the Board of Supervisors Tuesday that she and her colleagues anticipate outbreaks of the coronavirus to occur because of recent re-openings, increased activity and protests. That could stall, if not reverse, many of the re-openings she has allowed. And while UC San Diego is planning an ambitious testing and tracing regimen to allow the campus to re-open, Mueller told me he has heard of nothing of the sort for K-12 schools.

It’s leading to a great deal of anxiety for working parents who have no idea where their kids can go in the fall. Special education services have almost completely evaporated and summer camps have only now begun tentatively announcing re-openings.

When I asked San Diego Unified Superintendent Cindy Marten if her May 18 letter to state leaders was as stark as it sounds – that schools would not reopen if the funding cuts proposed were realized – she responded that they were, now, actually open. The current distance learning approach was school, despite the inequities and struggles and the teachers’ four-hour workday arrangement.

If it is school, it is going to lead to a re-imagining of what school is completely. And if it continues, the long link between your neighborhood and your school could be irrevocably severed for many. *Reposted article from the VOSD by Scott Lewis of June 2, 2020

[quakerjoe]

Back in the early days of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”, I had the joy and privilege of being Fred Rogers’ partner in producing the program.  Until my responsibilities for managing the company eventually required my full attention, I wrote the scripts for quite a few episodes.

Although both Fred and I were deeply versed in matters of child psychology, we depended to an enormous degree on the wisdom of the unsung heroine of “Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood”—Margaret McFarland, Professor of Psychiatry at the University of Pittsburgh and lifelong Director of the Arsenal Child Study Center there.  Her two co-founders of the Center—Benjamin Spock and Eric Erickson–went on to greater fame, but Erickson once said, “Margaret McFarland knew more than anyone in this world about families with young children.”

So I followed Fred’s lead in setting up a meeting with her each week to discuss whatever phenomenon of child development I was intending to develop in the next set of scripts I would write—sibling rivalry, separation anxiety, fear of the dark, or any of the other dramas that enliven and sometimes bedevil the preschool child.  Always quietly composed, she would proceed in her soft voice to weave a rich tapestry that displayed how that particular dynamic was embedded in the interactive network of factors animating a young child’s life.  More to the point of my mission, she informed and improved my tentative script ideas about how that issue might be evoked and nurtured through Fred’s TV relationship with the child.

One day I asked her why preschool children are often inclined to tell tall tales.  Her first words were memorable: “Because they feel so small.  Telling tall tales makes them feel bigger.”

She went on to elaborate, of course.  The truth is, she continued, they are small.  Everything and everyone around them is much bigger than they are, and that is often scary to them.  Imagine your eyes at the level of a small child, and you realize that dogs are as big to them as a horse is to you today.  Dogs knock them down.  Older children take things away from them.  They reach blindly onto a surface above their eye-level and pull something over onto them.  Being small makes you want to be bigger.

Eventually, small children do grow bigger.  They can relinquish the need to tell tall tales because they no longer are small.  But we all go on telling lies into adulthood, of course.  Some of them embellish the truth (resumé buffing), some are the harmless white lies that lubricate social interaction (“Love your new hairdo!”) and some others (think: perjury or libel) are not so innocent.  Unlike the small child, however, in adulthood we care quite a bit about not being labeled a liar, about not getting caught in lies, about not losing our credibility on which so much depends.  We lie carefully.

But there is one category of adult liar for whom the lying is so extremely important that it doesn’t even matter whether we look stupid and untrustworthy to others.  I am talking about addicts.  Everyone who has ever spent time in a Twelve Step meeting—I am one such—knows it is a den of liars.  The difference in the meeting, of course, is that we declare, decry, and denounce our lifelong habit of lying to ourselves and others about the abuse of whatever it is that we are addicted to—alcohol, drugs, food, sex, gambling.

An addict’s whole life is a lie.  It’s not just the lying words of denial when confronted by someone’s challenging our addictive behavior.  It’s the whole web of deceptive behavior—secretly attaining what we crave, hiding our stash of addictive relief, sneaking around like a thief in the night to get a hit undetected.

Self-respect and dignity are early casualties, self-loathing is rampant, and even the disgust of observers—especially loved ones—has no capacity to prompt change.  The power of addiction propels an addict forward into a future the addict knows full well, beyond any doubt, is destructive.  It just doesn’t matter.  Too much is never enough, and so the free-fall will continue forever—or until the addict hits “low bottom” where the pain is so intolerable that the addict surrenders and seeks a way out of the big lie of their life.

Donald Trump is a small, insecure person living out a never-ending frenzy of narcissistic self-aggrandizement wherein his addiction to lying is the principal feature.  It is pathetic to all who observe it except—and this is critical—those “co-dependents” who choose to join him in his lying.  He doesn’t care that everyone on earth knows his oft-repeated lie about General Pershing and pig-blood bullets is a total piece of BS.  Like any addict, he’ll repeat it because it’s part of his life-lie and because there are some equally self-deceiving followers who are willing to swallow it and, in the swallowing, feel a surge of nourishment for their free-range hatred.

Many addicts who were not fortunate enough to hit low bottom on their own and turn to the truth to save themselves have been saved by an “intervention”.  This is a process in which a small group of those who care about them stage a surprise party where they confront the addict with a united front of tough love that is engineered to close every door except the one to a rehabilitation unit, through which the addict is led into the possibility of recovery.

Can a President addicted to dishonesty, who is unable or unwilling to stop lying and show his capacity to recognize and honor actual truth, safely discharge the powers and duties of that office?  That is a question that the Vice President and a majority of Congress must decide, pursuant to Section 4 of the 25th Amendment which gives them the power to perform an “intervention” in order to protect the United States of America from this dangerously dishonest man.

When the Chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, Senator Bob Corker (R-TN), publicly questions Donald Trump’s “stability” and “competence” and says that he has put America “in peril”, one might think the Republicans would consider protecting us from him.  But of course, they won’t take any such initiative.

That is why the work of Robert Mueller and his Grand Jury may be our only hope of an intervention that comes in time to prevent a catastrophic decision by this man who lives inside a sick mind and is pathologically disconnected from truth and reality.  Hillary Clinton put it best: “A man you can bait with a tweet is not a man we can trust with nuclear weapons.”  May Mueller’s work continue apace and be concluded swiftly.

[mikebarnicle]

Listen in on this Morning Joe conversation between Joe Scarborough and Mike Barnicle as they underscore the significance of Democrats being able to reach and connect with blue-collar voters as the 2020 presidential election approaches, following a New York Times report that suggests blue-collar voters in Youngstown, Ohio, are sticking with President Donald Trump despite the lack economic boom in their community. “You have to wonder out there in the country, in Youngstown Ohio, people watching and listening to this, do they really grasp the importance of what’s going on? I think probably at some level they do, but on a day-to-day basis they don’t, and this story for the Democrats: To achieve some sense of victory or standing in this story, they need to improve their narrative. They need a storyteller, and they need Bob Mueller to appear before the House to testify,” comments. Join the conversation here.

[wskent]

What about Bob? (pt. 3)

It’s time. But time for what?

Mueller throws the newspaper off his face and lurches upward. He’s back in the gym. Staring back at him he sees Sam Waterston from the NBC hit Law and Order. He rubs his eyes. No, just John Kerry again wearing those damn American Flag workout shorts that say ‘04 on the rear. “Say Bob, you seem stressed. Why not come to our improv show tonight? I guarantee it’s the funniest show this side of the Potomac.”

“That’s not a thing people say, John,” Mueller spits, gathering the papers he threw on the floor. He could use a good laugh he admits to himself. Kerry thrusts a neon flyer that he made in Mueller’s direction. It depicts stick figures laughing at a crudely-drawn performer on stage. “Err, thanks, John. I’ll see if I can come. It’s pretty busy on my end,” he says, squeezing out his best smile.

“Sure Bob, no problem. Maybe you can ask Tammy what she meant. She has such a foul mouth in these shows. She is very - and I mean very - funny.” Kerry checks himself out in the mirror. Mueller takes his papers and stands up. “Candied pecan?” Kerry offers, “You look famished. I love these things - never leave home without a bag or two.” Did Kerry just wink at me, Mueller thinks to himself.

“Sure, sure, thanks John,” Mueller demurs, helping himself to a few. He scans the papers, walking away quickly, hoping that he’s lost Kerry. He’s on the fence about whether he should go to the show this evening. Following up with Baldwin would be smart. And nobody enjoys a good laugh more than Bob Mueller...but John Kerry? Seven dollars at the door?

“You know Bob,” Kerry says far down the hall, “it’s always time for nuts!”

Mueller’s mind starts racing. Nuts, time, shawarma, Law and Order, the ‘04 election...what does it all mean? How does it fit together? Mueller leans against a shuttering tree outside the gym. The rain has started up again. He removes the tie from his waist and uses it to wipe rain and sweat from his forehead. A lightning bolt splits the sky. Mueller feels a primal urge to take shelter.

He enters a shop with a strange device over the door, a sort of masonic mermaid - “Starbucks,” reads the sign under the device. Mueller’s head clears as he enters, the acrid smell of coffee fills his nostrils. He closes his eyes and sighs. And then he notices something, all the people in this little shop are holding the paper coffee cups! This must be where you get one! Finally, a piece of the puzzle becomes clear.

Mueller goes up to the counter and says to the barista, “I want a cup of coffee, in one of the paper cups.” The barista sighs inwardly, she can tell this is a man who has never ordered a Starbucks coffee before.

“What size?” she asks, gesturing to a display of various sized paper cups. Mueller is struck by the variety of sizes, and by the names for the sizes which seem to correspond to nothing. This is a metaphor for his life, he realizes.

Several people order while Mueller contemplates the cups as well as the idea that words are meaningless until we add meaning to them. Finally he gestures to one of the middle cups and says, “that one.”

“Okay, great,” says the barista, “is a dark roast okay?”

Mueller rocks back and forth on his heels, feeling almost revived, “Yes, yes, anything!”

She gets the coffee and punched a few buttons on the cash register, “That will be…”

Mueller is already digging in his pocket for his wallet, “Anything, I don’t care how much it is!” He pulls out a crisp $100 bill. “Keep the change!”

The barista’s face goes from mild annoyance to happy surprise in an instant, but Mueller only has eyes for his paper cup of coffee. He cradles it as though it were a newborn Panda at the National Zoo, a symbol of international cooperation, joy, and new grant money.

“Milk and sugar are over there!” the barista calls. Robert Mueller is not a man who needs milk and sugar in his coffee. He takes a seat in a stoll looking out the window. He takes a sip of the coffee - too hot, acrid, perfect.

With a snap, he straightens like a predator who has smelt a trace of blood. He stares out the window. There, just across the street, is his Mr. Tumnus, his white whale, his...he can’t think of another literary comparison. The man with the pink umbrella turns to look across the street into the Starbucks. His eyes meet Mueller’s. In this mild-looking man’s eyes, Mueller sees reflected the void he himself has stared into for many months. For a moment, they are one.

Bob Mueller quickly sips from the white paper cup. A caustic, burning taste fills his mouth. He winces and it is the best feeling he’s felt in months. He bursts out of the doors onto the sidewalk where it is pouring. The man with the pink umbrella stays put across the street, as if beckoning. The world grows quiet as busy citizens zoom by in their automobiles. Mueller straightens his back, cups his hands over his mouth and shouts “I’ve seen you before.” The man with the pink umbrella stares, face partially obscured by his prop. “I...I think I know you,” Mueller stammers. He feels an energy seething within as if long-sought after answers stand across the street from him. Could this be when everything changes?

The man replies in a slow, calm tone, “I know you too, Bob. It’s good to see you. There’s much to discuss.” He glances up and down the street, “But this is not the place.” Sound suddenly returns to Bob Mueller’s world: trucks wheeze down the road, shoes scrape against the pavement, rain cascades down, phone conversations stick like pins into his ears. “I need to go,” the man announces.

“Wait, just wait, please,” Mueller begs, waving his arms, spilling coffee everywhere. “Are you real? Do you know what’s going on? Who...who are you.” Questions flood his brain and his shoes suddenly feel too small for his feet. Everything is wet.

The man smiles, establishing a comforting truth. “I’m flesh and blood, Bob. Just like you. I’m as real as those ties you are wearing. We share the same passions. The answers you seek are out there. We’re on the same side of this story. I know it’s not easy, but I need you to be patient.” Where Mueller would normally feel frustration, he feels a deep connection with this stranger - an understanding, a sense of justice.

“Soon, then?” Mueller squints and shouts over the din of the storm.

“Yes, soon,” the man says, nodding, as a bus suddenly appears, obscuring him. Mueller tries to track him, bolting down the street to catch another glimpse, but he is already gone. In his place is Chief Justice John Roberts holding a red umbrella and some bowling pins. Mueller instantly realizes that Roberts has just finished another one of his circus classes.

“Bob Mueller, that you? Dang! Did you know I just learned how to juggle? Well, sorta.”

“Inopportune,” Mueller swears to himself under his breath. He feels the weight of his foul mouth and quickly conjures up a way to avail himself “John, you are here! I have to go fix my sink!” Brilliant, he thinks and teeters away down the jagged, labyrinthine streets. He can hear Roberts shouting something about an improv show going on later as he speeds away.

Mueller feels overwhelmed by his interaction with the man with the pink umbrella. He seems so familiar. He must connect the dots. How can he find out who that man is? Sky plane note? No. Microfiche? Probably. Fortune-teller? Expensive. Old newspaper clippings? Likely, but which ones? Who shares the same passions that he does? How soon is too soon to obtain another paper cup? He feels a familiar feeling and looks up. Wind. Simple wind. It is the wind blowing on his face. He looks toward its source.

The storm has subsided and the sun is setting. Bob Mueller stares at the golden rays stretching across the old greystones. He realizes he has been walking away from John Roberts for longer than he thought. There’s a soft sound of...music? He looks up to see that he’s standing outside of an old jazz club, holding a half-eaten tuna melt in his hand. He throws the sandwich away and walks toward the hazy light coming out of the jazz club’s doorway. Like the first chirps of birds in a well-earned spring, the most beautiful sounds coax him in.

[mindthump]

Here's a running list of all the ways climate change has altered Earth in 2019 https://ift.tt/2Jr7xbk

Earth is now the warmest it's been in some 120,000 years. Eighteen of the last 19 years have been the warmest on record. And concentrations of carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas — are likely the highest they've been in 15 million years. 

The consequences of such a globally-disrupted climate are many, and it's understandably difficult to keep track. To help, here's a list of climate-relevant news that has transpired in 2019, from historically unprecedented disappearances of ice, to flood-ravaged cities. As more news comes out, the list will be updated.

Image: SHUTTERSTOCK / FRANK_PETERS

In early 2019, the Rhodium Group — a research institution that analyzes global economic and environmental trends — released a report finding that in 2018 carbon dioxide emissions in the U.S. rose 3.4 percent from the prior year. That's the second largest gain in the last two decades. 

"It’s trending in the wrong direction — it’s not encouraging," said Robert McGrath, the director of the University of Colorado Boulder's Renewable and Sustainable Energy Institute who had no role in the report but reviewed it.

Image: GETTY IMAGES/FOTOSEARCH RF

Antarctica — home to the greatest ice sheets on Earth — isn't just melting significantly faster than it was decades ago. Great masses of ice that scientists once presumed were largely immune to melting are losing ample ice into the sea.

"People are beginning to recognize that East Antarctica might be waking up," said Josh Willis, an oceanographer at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory that visits and measures Earth's melting glaciers.

"There’s growing evidence that eastern Antarctica is not just going to stay frozen and well-behaved in the next 50 to 100 years," he explained.

Image: SHUTTERSTOCK / AFRICA STUDIO

A triple whammy of disease, climate change, and deforestation has threatened around 60 percent of the planet's wild coffee species. While this hasn't yet imperiled the world's coffee supply, it jeopardizes your favorite coffee's resiliency in the face of profound planetary change.  

"As farmers are increasingly exposed to new climate conditions and changing pest pressures, the genetic diversity of wild crop relatives may be essential to breeding new coffee varieties that can withstand these pressures," Nathan Mueller, an assistant professor of earth system science at the University of California, Irvine who researches global food security, said over email.

Reds, oranges, and yellows show 2017 global temperatures warmer than the average.

Americans find today's climate science increasingly convincing, and a damaging mix of exceptional drought, storms, and record-breaking heat is the reason why. 

The results of a new survey — conducted in November 2018 by the University of Chicago's Energy Policy Institute and the research organization The Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research — found that nearly half of Americans said today's climate science "is more convincing than five years ago, with extreme weather driving their views."

Temperature forecast for early February 2019.

Image: UNIVERSITY OF MAINE/CLIMATE REANALYZER

The polar vortex has become a popular phenomenon for good reason: This weakening of the polar vortex and the subsequent spillover of frigid air has become more common over the last two decades.

"We are seeing these events occurring more frequently as of late," said Jeff Weber, a meteorologist with the University Corporation for Atmospheric Research.

Although this increase in polar vortex frequency is a hot area of study, one emerging theory blames significantly diminished Arctic sea ice. The Arctic is warming over twice as fast as the rest of the globe and sea ice cover is plummeting. As a result, recent climate research suggests that — without this ice cover — more heat escapes from the oceans. Ultimately, researchers found that this relatively warmer air interacts with and weakens the winds over the Arctic, allowing frigid polar air to more easily escape to southerly places like Cleveland and New York City.

Arctic air flowing south into the U.S. on January 31, 2019.

Image: CLIMATE REANALYZER/UNIVERSITY OF MAINE

While certain portions of the winter sure felt frigid, overall, the number of daily cold records set in the U.S. has been consistently dwarfed by the number of warm or high temperature records. The score isn't even close. High records over the last decade are outpacing low records by a rate of two to one.

In the past 10 years there have been 21,461 record daily highs and 11,466 lows.

"The trend is in exactly the direction we would expect as a result of a warming planet," said Michael Mann, a climate scientist at Penn State University.

A weather station in the Hindu Kush Himalaya region.

Image: JITENDRA BAJRACHARYA/ICIMOD

Beyond the continually grim news from the north and south poles is the melting of the "third pole," known as the Hindu Kush Himalaya region. Spreading over 2,000 miles across eight nations (from Afghanistan to Myanmar), these mountainous lands are home to the third-largest stores of ice on the planet and provide water to hundreds of millions of people. 

Under the most optimistic conditions, a new report found that over a third of the ice will vanish by the century's end. But under more extreme climate scenarios — wherein global climate efforts fail — two-thirds of these mighty glaciers could disappear, with overall ice losses of a whopping 90 percent.   

"Glacier-wise, it's not a great story," Joseph Shea, one of the report's lead authors and an assistant professor of environmental geomatics at the University of Northern British Columbia, said in an interview.  

The U.S. Capitol Building in Washington D.C.

Image: SHUTTERSTOCK / NICOLAS AGUIAR

The U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Science, Space and Technology is no longer under the leadership of the Republican party, which is candidly opposed to globally-accepted climate science. 

Congresswoman Eddie Bernice Johnson, a veteran Democratic lawmaker from Texas, has become Chairwoman and called a hearing for Feb. 13 entitled "The State of Climate Science and Why it Matters," inviting four scientists to give testimony about major U.S. climate reports and the significance of the latest climate science. 

"Climate change is real, it's happening now, and humans are responsible for it," Bob Kopp, a climate scientist at Rutgers University and a coauthor of the congressionally mandated Fourth National Climate Assessment Kopp said in an interview, outlining critical points he planned to make to federal lawmakers. 

Half the Earth illuminated by the sun.

In early 2017, the Trump Administration tried to ax NASA's Orbiting Carbon Observatory 3, or OCO-3. It didn't work. Then, again in 2018, the White House sought to terminate the earth science instrument. 

Again, the refrigerator-sized space machine persisted. 

Now, SpaceX is set to launch OCO-3 to the International Space Station in the coming months, as early as April 25. Using a long robotic arm, astronauts will attach OCO-3 to the edge of the space station, allowing the instrument to peer down upon Earth and measure the planet's amassing concentrations of carbon dioxide — a potent greenhouse gas. 

"Carbon dioxide is the most important gas humans are emitting into the atmosphere," said Annmarie Eldering, the project scientist for OCO-3 at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "Understanding how it will play out in the future is critical."

In 2017 Earth's temperatures were significantly warmer than compared to the average.

Here's a statistic: On Earth, 18 of the last 19 years have been the warmest in recorded history.

The globe's 21st-century heating, however, becomes all the more stark when compared to the coldest years on record. As climate scientist Simon Donner, who researches human-induced climate change at The University of British Columbia, underscored via a list posted on Twitter, the planet's 20 coldest years all occurred nearly a century ago, between 1884 and 1929.

The coldest year on record occurred in 1904.

Green areas show increases in areas covered by green leaves.

Two NASA satellites have watched Earth grow greener over the last 20 years — in large part because China is hellbent on planting millions of trees. 

Earth's greening — meaning the increase in areas covered by green leaves — has made the greatest gains in China and India since the mid-1990s. "The effect comes mostly from ambitious tree-planting programs in China and intensive agriculture in both countries," NASA wrote as it released maps of the planet-wide changes. 

China kickstarted its tree-planting mobilizations in the 1990s to combat erosion, climate change, and air pollution. This dedicated planting — sometimes done by soldiers — equated to over 40 percent of China's greening, so far.

A New Deal project: the Chickamauga Dam.

Image: SHUTTERSTOCK / EVERETT HISTORICAL

The scope of a Green New Deal — if such a program ever truly comes to match the scale of the original New Deal — wouldn’t just put millions of Americans to work, but could very well transform the mood, culture, and spirit of the United States in the 21st century.

The New Deal wasn’t just paying people to build things. People were doing fulfilling, nation-improving work. They planted three billion trees. They built many of the nation’s bridges and roads. Today, we drive under their tunnels and walk through their parks. 

“Those men at the end of their lives would take their families back to show them what they had done — because they were quite proud of it,” said Gray Brechin, a historical geographer and New Deal scholar. 

Higher CO2 concentrations swirling around Earth (shown by yellows and reds).

Princeton physicist and carbon dioxide-advocate William Happer has been selected to head the brand new Presidential Committee on Climate Security, reports The Washington Post. Happer maintains that the planet's atmosphere needs significantly more CO2, the potent greenhouse gas that U.S. government scientists — and a bevy of independent scientists — have repeatedly underscored is stoking accelerating climate change.

Because plants use carbon dioxide to live, Happer has said "more CO2 is actually a benefit to the Earth," asserted that Earth is experiencing a "CO2 famine," and concluded that "If plants could vote, they would vote for coal."

Earth and plant scientists disagree.

"The idea that increased CO2 is universally beneficial [to plants] is very misguided," said Jill Anderson, an evolutionary ecologist specializing in plant populations at the University of Georgia.

Rich Willson paddles through the miniature golf course after the flooding in in Guerneville, California.

Image: KARL MONDON/MEDIANEWS GROUP/THE MERCURY NEWS VIA GETTY IMAGES

A potent atmospheric river — a long band of water vapor that often transports ample amounts of moisture to the western U.S. like "rivers in the sky" — deluged portions of Northern California in late February. The Russian River, which winds through the Sonoma County town of Guerneville, reached over 45-feet high and swamped the area, prompting the Sheriff to announce on Twitter that the town had been surrounded by water — with no way in or out.  

While California relies heavily on these wintertime atmospheric rivers for its water, scientists expect these storms to grow dramatically wetter as Earth's climate heats up. 

"We're likely to see rain in increasingly intense bursts," said Daniel Swain, a climate scientist at the National Center for Atmospheric Research.

Satellite imagery of the mostly ice-free Bering Strait on Feb. 28. 2019.

Image: SENTINEL HUB EO BROWSER/SENTINEL 3

During winter, the Bering Strait has historically been blanketed in ice. But this year, the ice has nearly vanished [by late February].

"The usually ice-covered Bering Strait is almost completely open water," said Zack Labe, a climate scientist and Ph.D. candidate at the University of California at Irvine.

"There should be ice here until May," added Lars Kaleschke, a climate scientist at the Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research.

Sunlight reflecting off the Earth.

Solar geoengineering is widely viewed as risky business. 

The somewhat sci-fi concept — to use blimps, planes, or other means to load Earth's atmosphere with particles or droplets that reflect sunlight and cool the planet — has crept into the mainstream conversation as a means of reversing relentless climate change, should our efforts to slash carbon emissions fail or sputter. But geoengineering schemes come with a slew of hazards. A number of studies have cited the ill consequences of messing with Earth's sun intake, including big falls in crop production, the likelihood of unforeseen adverse side effects, and critically, a weakened water cycle that could trigger drops in precipitation and widespread drought.

Yet new research, published in the journal Nature Climate Change, acknowledges these problems but finds a potential fix: only deploying enough reflective specks in the atmosphere to reduce about half of Earth's warming, rather than relying on geoengineering to completely return Earth to the cooler, milder climate of the 19th century. In other words, giving Earth a geoengineering dose that would reverse a significant portion of the warming, but not enough to stoke the problematic side effects.  

"Solar engineering might not be a good choice in an emergency," said David Keith, a solar engineering researcher at Harvard University and study coauthor. "If it makes any sense at all, it makes sense to gradually ramp it up."

Image: Getty Images/WIN-Initiative RM

With no benefit to itself, Earth's vast sea has gulped up around 30 percent of the carbon dioxide humans emitted into Earth's atmosphere over the last century. Critically, scientists have now confirmed that the ocean in recent decades has continued its steadfast rate of CO2 absorption, rather than letting the potent greenhouse gas further saturate the skies. 

But a weighty question still looms: How much longer can we rely on the ocean to so effectively store away carbon dioxide, and stave off considerably more global warming?

"At some point the ability of the ocean to absorb carbon will start to diminish," said Jeremy Mathis, a National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) climate scientist who coauthored the study. "It means atmospheric CO2 levels could go up faster than they already are."

"That's a big deal," Mathis emphasized.

More to come as 2019 unfolds....

[duaneodavila]

Donald Trump’s Lessons On Management

At a corporation, you’re often asked to lead teams.

So I naturally looked to our leader-in-chief, the President, for examples of how best to lead people.

I had been told by many folks, for example, to “praise publicly, criticize privately.”  People who do praiseworthy things should feel that they’re getting proper recognition for their work.  People whose work needs improvement, on the other hand, should be spared public embarrassment and shouldn’t come to resent their supervisor.  I thought you should praise publicly and criticize privately.

But Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

I told Rex Tillerson, our wonderful Secretary of State, that he is wasting his time trying to negotiate with Little Rocket Man… Save your energy Rex, we’ll do what has to be done!

The Russian Witch Hunt Hoax continues, all because Jeff Sessions didn’t tell me he was going to recuse himself…I would have quickly picked someone else. So much time and money wasted, so many lives ruined…and Sessions knew better than most that there was No Collusion!

I had learned from other folks who think about management that criticism should be leveled carefully and neutrally.  Depersonalize the situation.  Just describe the performance that must be improved.  That maximizes the chance that the person being criticized will take the criticism to heart and improve his or her performance.

But Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

Jeff Sessions said he wouldn’t allow politics to influence him only because he doesn’t understand what is happening underneath his command position. Highly conflicted Bob Mueller and his gang of 17 Angry Dems are having a field day as real corruption goes untouched. No Collusion!

I learned not to call people names.  That would be puerile, of course, but that’s not why management gurus tell you to avoid. it.  The problem is that calling people names destroys relationships and makes it very difficult later to work constructively with people whom you’ve insulted.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

Michael Wolff is a total loser who made up stories in order to sell this really boring and untruthful book. He used Sloppy Steve Bannon, who cried when he got fired and begged for his job.

So funny to see little Adam Schitt (D-CA) talking about the fact that Acting Attorney General Matt Whitaker was not approved by the Senate, but not mentioning the fact that Bob Mueller (who is highly conflicted) was not approved by the Senate!

I had been told that good leaders don’t hog all the credit.  Rather, give credit to members of your team.  Indeed, crediting your team and helping other team members advance their careers is the hallmark of a great manager.  Take yourself out of the picture.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

So great that oil prices are falling (thank you President T). Add that, which is like a big Tax Cut, to our other good Economic news. Inflation down (are you listening Fed)!

I had learned that good leaders take the blame when things go wrong.  Sometimes, the leader is actually to blame.  Other times, the leader may not have been at fault, but the good leader nonetheless accepts responsibility, protecting those who work for him from criticism.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

I think the Fed right now is a much bigger problem than China. I think it’s — I think it’s incorrect what they’re doing. I don’t like what they’re doing. I don’t like the $50 billion. I don’t like what they’re doing in terms of interest rates. And they’re not being accommodative at all. And I’m doing trade deals, and they’re great trade deals, but the Fed is not helping.

I had learned that negotiations should always be conducted professionally.  Never insult the person with whom you’re negotiating.  After all, I was told, you’ll want to settle most of the lawsuits in which you’re involved.  That means you must be able to pick up the phone and talk sensibly to opposing counsel.  You don’t want to ruin that relationship by insulting the other side.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

‘Federal Judge throws out Stormy Danials lawsuit versus Trump. Trump is entitled to full legal fees.’  Great, now I can go after Horseface and her 3rd rate lawyer in the Great State of Texas. She will confirm the letter she signed! She knows nothing about me, a total con!

Why would Kim Jong-un insult me by calling me “old,” when I would NEVER call him “short and fat?” Oh well, I try so hard to be his friend – and maybe someday that will happen!

I had learned that negotiations should be conducted in private.  That ensures that both you and your counterparty can retreat from positions without being forced to admit publicly that you’ve given ground.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

Did China ask us if it was OK to devalue their currency (making it hard for our companies to compete), heavily tax our products going into…  their country (the U.S. doesn’t tax them) or to build a massive military complex in the middle of the South China Sea? I don’t think so!

I had learned that you should try to leave a job on good terms.  Whether you’re firing someone or quitting, be nice.  You never know where life will lead; don’t make enemies unnecessarily.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

Wacky Omarosa, who got fired 3 times on the Apprentice, now got fired for the last time. She never made it, never will. She begged me for a job, tears in her eyes, I said Ok. People in the White House hated her. She was vicious, but not smart. 

Mike Pompeo is doing a great job, I am very proud of him. His predecessor, Rex Tillerson, didn’t have the mental capacity needed. He was dumb as a rock and I couldn’t get rid of him fast enough. He was lazy as hell. Now it is a whole new ballgame, great spirit at State!

I had learned that you always argue the merits of a dispute; never attack the other side’s motives.  The other side’s motives are, of course, irrelevant.  If the other side’s arguments are correct, then you should lose.  If the other side’s arguments are incorrect, then you should win.  It doesn’t matter why the other side is making an argument.

Donald Trump corrected my misperception.

Robert Mueller and Leakin’ Lyin’ James Comey are Best Friends, just one of many Mueller Conflicts of Interest. And bye the way, wasn’t the woman in charge of prosecuting Jerome Corsi (who I do not know) in charge of “legal” at the corrupt Clinton Foundation? A total Witch Hunt…….Will Robert Mueller’s big time conflicts of interest be listed at the top of his Republicans only Report. Will Andrew Weissman’s horrible and vicious prosecutorial past be listed in the Report.

Finally, I looked to the President for help with my writing style.  I had often been told that good writers rarely need to add emphasis.  If you compose a sentence correctly, the sentence will naturally stress the word that requires emphasis; you won’t have to underscore or capitalize that word.  Similarly, there’s almost no use for exclamation points.  If a sentence is composed correctly, the sentence will emphasize itself.

SAD!

Mark Herrmann spent 17 years as a partner at a leading international law firm and is now deputy general counsel at a large international company. He is the author of The Curmudgeon’s Guide to Practicing Law and Inside Straight: Advice About Lawyering, In-House And Out, That Only The Internet Could Provide (affiliate links). You can reach him by email at inhouse@abovethelaw.com.

[tomperanteau]

New article has been published on The Daily Digest

New article has been published on http://www.thedailydigest.org/2018/11/06/adam-schiff-the-tearing-down-of-our-justice-department-is-going-to-end/

Adam Schiff: The Tearing Down of Our Justice Department 'Is Going to End'

Tuesday night on MSNBC’s midterm election coverage, Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) said now that Democrats control the House of Representatives, President Donald Trump will not be able to tear down of the independence of the Justice Department. Schiff said, “The chances that Bob Mueller will be able to finish his work improved for the reason that our committee and others, like the government reform committee and the judiciary committee, which under Republican leadership served as basically surrogates for the president in their efforts to batter down the Justice Department, to give the president a pretext to fire people at the Justice [READ MORE HERE]

[cloakedsparrow]

Senators on Wednesday passed the bipartisan sanctions legislation 97-2, underscoring broad support among Republicans and Democrats for rebuking Russia after U.S. intelligence agencies determined Moscow had deliberately interfered in the presidential campaign. Lawmakers who backed the measure also cited Russia's aggression in Syria and Ukraine.

Despite Russia's bellicosity, there's been no forceful response from President Donald Trump. The president has instead sought to improve relations with Moscow and rejected the implication that Russian hacking of Democratic emails tipped the election his way.

Russian President Vladimir Putin's "brazen attack on our democracy is a flagrant demonstration of his disdain and disrespect for our nation," Sen. John McCain of Arizona, the Republican chairman of the Armed Services Committee, said ahead of the vote.

"But in the last eight months, what price has Russia paid for attacking American democracy?" said McCain, who also faulted Congress for not moving more quickly.

Secretary of State Rex Tillerson offered tepid support for the sanctions measure, telling the House Foreign Affairs Committee he agreed "with the sentiment" among lawmakers that Russia must be held accountable for its meddling in the election.

But Tillerson urged Congress to make the sanctions legislation doesn't tie the president's hands and shut down promising avenues of communication between the two former Cold War foes. He asked lawmakers "to ensure any legislation allows the president to have the flexibility to adjust sanctions to meet the needs of what is always an evolving diplomatic situation."

If the Trump administration decides to oppose the new sanctions, they could be in a bind. The sanctions measure has been attached to a bill imposing penalties on Iran that the Senate is currently debating and which also has strong bipartisan support. So the White House would have to reject stricter punishments against Iran, which it favors, in order to derail the parts of the legislation it may object to.

Sens. Mike Lee, R-Utah, and Rand Paul, R-Ky., voted against the Russia sanctions package. Once the Iran bill passes the Senate, the legislation moves to the House for action.

Sen. Sherrod Brown of Ohio, the top Democrat on the Banking Committee, said Trump's failure to act could embolden Russia and lead to interference in future U.S. elections. Brown also said the veto-proof vote on the sanctions package should send a strong signal to the White House.

"If the president doesn't sign a bill that passes the Senate with 90 votes, the president will learn yet another lesson about what the public wants," Brown said.

The leaders of the Senate Banking and Foreign Relations committees announced late Monday that they'd reached an agreement on the sanctions package after intensive negotiations.

The discussions gathered steam late last month after Sen. Bob Corker of Tennessee, the Republican chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee, joined the effort to push the legislation forward. Corker said he'd agreed to give Tillerson a "short window of opportunity" to reverse the deteriorating relationship between the United States and Russia. But Corker said his patience ran out after he reviewed classified intelligence that showed "no difference whatsoever" in Russia's behavior, especially in Syria.

The deal was forged amid the firestorm over investigations into Moscow's possible collusion with members of Trump's campaign. House and Senate committees are investigating Russia's meddling and potential links to the Trump campaign. Special Counsel Robert Mueller is conducting a separate probe.

The measure calls for strengthening current sanctions and imposing new ones on a broad range of people, including Russians engaged in corruption, individuals in human rights abuses and anyone supplying weapons to the government of Syrian President Bashar Assad. Broad new sanctions would be imposed on Russia's mining, metals, shipping and railways sectors.

The measure would punish individuals who conduct what the senators described as "conducting malicious cyber activity on behalf of the Russian government." Also covered by the sanctions are people doing business with Russian intelligence and defense agencies.

The package also would require a congressional review if a president attempts to ease or end current penalties. The review mechanism was styled after 2015 legislation pushed by Republicans and approved overwhelmingly in the Senate that gave Congress a vote on whether Obama could lift sanctions against Iran. That measure reflected Republican complaints that Obama had overstepped the power of the presidency and needed to be checked by Congress.

Sen. Jeanne Shaheen, D-N.H., a member of the Armed Services and Foreign Relations committees, said the Senate has finally confronted Russia.

"This bipartisan amendment is the sanctions regime that the Kremlin deserves for its actions," Shaheen said.

[itsfinancethings]

Everything about Derek Chauvin’s case — from his long list of previous conduct complaints to the 44-year-old police officer’s brutal calm as he pressed his knee to George Floyd’s neck for more than eight minutes until he died— spoke to the decades of failure to address the systemic problems plaguing his employer, the Minneapolis Police Department.

Floyd’s death under the knee of the white MPD officer on May 25 has reignited furor over the persistence of police brutality against people of color in the United States. As Americans gathered to protest in more than 70 cities, they raged against the same tepid solutions proposed by local and national leaders that have fallen far short in the past: opening investigations, firing police officers, and simply promising more reforms.

Nowhere is that pattern clearer than in Minneapolis. More than half a dozen government investigations and reports reviewed by TIME show that the same reforms were recommended time and again over the past two decades in the MPD to increase accountability, curb use-of-force violations and build up community trust — with seemingly little implementation. “People in this community have been very concerned about the Minneapolis Police Department for a long, long time,” says Hans Lee, a pastor at Minneapolis’ Calvary Lutheran Church. “It was a tinderbox.”

Floyd’s killing has refocused attention on both the local factors that led to Minneapolis’ poor record and the ways that President Donald Trump’s Justice Department has made it more difficult at the federal level to rehabilitate police departments accused of systemic abuses. In the wake of Floyd’s death, Trump has not addressed issues of racism and injustice in the country, instead focusing his ire on ensuing protests. His Administration has rolled back a series of reforms that former President Barack Obama instituted to facilitate Justice Department intervention in problematic police forces like the MPD.

“The Department of Justice has clearly indicated that it is not in the businesses of holding agencies responsible for police misconduct,” says Kanya Bennett, the American Civil Liberties Union’s (ACLU) senior legislative council leading the organization’s federal work on police use of force. “Agencies like the Minneapolis Police Department, which is the center of attention given the police killing of George Floyd — you know, there should have been DOJ intervention there a long time ago.”

‘A few bad apples’

For black residents of Minneapolis, who make up one-fifth of the city’s population, the outrage over Floyd’s killing followed a sickeningly familiar pattern. Every minute caught on camera leading up to his death seemed to echo previous police abuses in the area. There was Christopher Burns, a 44-year old black man who was killed in front of his children when MPD officers put him in a choke hold in 2002. There was David Smith, a 28-year old mentally ill black man who was killed when an MPD officer pinned him down with his knee for four minutes in 2010. There was 24-year old Jamar Clark, shot by MPD officers who responded to a paramedic call in 2015. There was Philando Castile, a beloved cafeteria worker shot by police in front of his girlfriend and her four-year-old child in 2016.

The day after Floyd’s death, Chauvin was fired from the Minneapolis Police Department and has since been charged with second-degree murder. The other three officers on the scene at the time have been charged with aiding and abetting. In Washington, the Justice Department has initiated a civil rights investigation into Floyd’s killing. Vanita Gupta, who led the Department’s Civil Rights Division under President Barack Obama, is among a group of civil rights advocates and lawmakers who are calling for the DOJ to also open what’s known as a “pattern-or-practice” investigation into the MPD, which would focus on rooting out broader issues in the Department beyond Chauvin’s actions. “It’s a really important tool because individual criminal prosecution is insufficient to addressing long standing systemic problems that can exist in police departments,” says Gupta, who now heads The Leadership Conference on Civil and Human Rights in Washington D.C.

The Justice Department isn’t ruling out opening a pattern-or-practice investigation in Minneapolis, DOJ officials tell TIME. But they are not rushing in either. The case against the individual officer should play out first while the Justice Department evaluates if it should open the broader investigation, one DOJ official says, speaking on condition of anonymity. “The way that you can ensure the public views your decision-making as credible is if you make methodical and complete decisions,” the official says, adding that it is “premature” to “reflexively” jump to calling for a pattern-or-practice investigation before the underlying criminal conduct at issue has been addressed.

While DOJ weighs whether to go further, some senior members of the Administration have said they do not believe there are systemic problems to investigate. On May 31, National Security Adviser Robert O’Brien told CNN he doesn’t “think there’s systemic racism” in law enforcement in the country. “There’s a few bad apples that are giving law enforcement a terrible name,” he added. When asked if Trump shares O’Brien’s view, White House Press Secretary Kayleigh McEnany said at a press briefing on June 1 that Trump “fundamentally rejects” the idea that the actions of Chauvin and the other Minneapolis officers at the scene are representative of the police force as a whole.

Over the past three years, Trump’s Administration has loosened the reins on local police departments, rolling back many of the major police reform measures that Obama championed to improve police accountability. Jeff Sessions, Trump’s first attorney general and a criminal justice hardliner, ended an Obama-era restriction on transferring military equipment to police, which was put in place after the 2014 shooting of Michael Brown in Ferguson, Mo., when police arrived at protests in armored vehicles and military-grade gear. Sessions then restored what is known as the 1033 Program, allowing the Pentagon to resume sending surplus military gear including armored vehicles, weapons and riot gear to state and local police forces.

Sessions also reviewed the consent decrees the Obama Administration had formed with more than a dozen police forces accused of abuses around the country, and fought to withdraw from agreements in Baltimore and Chicago. Sessions then made consent decrees — court-ordered agreements to reform local police departments accused of abuses and civil-rights violations— more difficult to obtain going forward, issuing new rules that raised the bar for when they can be used. Those new processes, which are still in place, require a higher level of sign-off within the Department for the agreements to go into effect and also put a sunset date on the deals, instead of allowing them to remain in place indefinitely until improvements are made, as they did under Obama, among other measures.

William Barr’s tenure as Trump’s second attorney general, which began in 2019 after the President fired Sessions, has been defined more by the fallout of former special counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation than by national criminal justice reforms. But he is of a similar mindset to Sessions on police reform in many ways. “If communities don’t give [police] that support and respect, they might find themselves without the police protection they need,” Barr warned in a speech in December. Earlier this year, Barr convened a national commission to study issues in law enforcement, but all of its members come from law enforcement, which critics say ignores important civil rights and civil liberties perspectives.

When asked on June 1 what the Trump Administration is doing to work on the issue of police violence, McEnany said it was “an important question, for sure,” but the only specifics she mentioned were the civil rights investigations into the deaths of George Floyd and Ahmaud Arbery, an unarmed black man who was shot and killed while out jogging in February. “He recognizes injustices where they are,” McEnany said of Trump.

Obama himself has said that most police and criminal justice reforms must ultimately be made at the state and local levels. But while his administration worked to address what it could at the federal level, says, Bennett of the ACLU, “this Administration has decided that it needs to offer another narrative.” That narrative is “pro blue lives,” she says, and “seeks to dismantle any of the progress that was made previously at the federal level with respect to local and state police accountability.”

‘Put the handcuffs on the criminals’

That pro-blue view has won Trump support from plenty of cops — including in Minneapolis. In October, Minneapolis Police Union president Bob Kroll came to a Trump rally wearing a “Cops for Trump” shirt. “The Obama Administration and the handcuffing and oppression of police was despicable,” Kroll said onstage. “The first thing President Trump did when he took office was turn that around… letting the cops do their job, put the handcuffs on the criminals instead of us.”

Long before Floyd was killed, the MPD was aware its practices were dangerous and often led to tragic outcomes. The Justice Department’s Community Relations Service oversaw a federal mediation process between the police department and community leaders in 2003, which resulted in signing a “memorandum of agreement” laying out several corrective actions. According to a copy of the document reviewed by TIME, it noted that the “MPD agrees that a choke hold constitutes deadly force. MPD will maintain its policy that prohibits the use of the choke hold except in circumstances in which the use of deadly force is authorized which is essentially life and death situations.”

While other metropolitan police departments across the country have since restricted the controversial practice of neck restraints for suspects, it was that very maneuver that killed Floyd 17 years later. Police officers and use-of-force experts say the MPD stands out for the permissive language of its use-of-force guidance, which notes it can be used “on a subject who is exhibiting active aggression” or “active resistance.” That guidance has not been updated since 2012, according to the MPD website. Since 2015, MPD officers have rendered people unconscious with neck restraints at least 44 times, according to an analysis of police records by NBC News.

Accountability measures within the police force have also been notoriously difficult to implement. Since joining the force in 2001, Chauvin had 17 conduct complaints filed against him, all but two of which were “closed with no discipline,” according to city records. Another of the officers who was present at the scene when Floyd was killed, Tou Thao, had at least six complaints filed against him, none of which resulted in discipline. Their cases are not uncommon in the department. A 2015 report by the U.S. Justice Department found that only 21% of conduct complaints in the MPD were ever even investigated, with almost half dismissed outright and the rest resulting in “coaching,” a program which allows officers to receive a refresher on department policy instead of a suspension. The report said the program was full of “inconsistencies and confusion.”

Several attempts to establish an effective police review board also seem to have failed. The Civilian Police Review Authority, a body created by the city council in 1990, was shuttered in 2012 after it “fell apart amid complaints from its members that their rulings on police misconduct cases were routinely ignored by the police chief,” according to media reports at the time. It was replaced by the Office of Police Conduct Review, which has also been accused of ignoring most complaints filed. According to city records, only 13 out of nearly 1,200 complaints processed between October 2012 and September 2015 resulted in disciplinary measures. Most times, the police officer in question was just sent for “coaching.”

“The statistics on discipline speak for themselves,” Dave Bicking, a board member of Communities United Against Police Brutality, a Twin Cities advocacy group, wrote in an email to the Minneapolis City Council in April 2018. “From complaints by the public, the harshest discipline we are aware of is a 40-hour suspension. Is this level of accountability acceptable to you?” In the data he attached showing complaints against officers without discipline, Chauvin’s name appeared eight times.

Other parts of Minnesota’s state government have also shown little appetite for supporting reform. The state has one of the lowest police license revocation rates in the country: A 2017 investigation by the Star Tribune found that over the past two decades, several hundred officers across the state had been convicted of serious crimes, such as assault, without ever facing discipline by the state licensing body. The state legislature, too, has resisted police reforms. In February, a working group led by State Attorney General Keith Ellison released 28 recommendations including new training standards and independent investigations into the use of deadly force in the MPD. But many require the approval of the state legislature, which has failed to pass even one of more than a dozen police reform bills proposed since 2015.

“After Castile, we were hopeful the legislature would take some action to address these broad, systemic issues,” Nelson says. “But then things calm down. There’s not enough political will to hold the police accountable. It’s very difficult to change the direction of a ship.”

With nationwide protests extending into a second week, it’s clear that many Americans still want to try. They hope the tragedy of Floyd’s death may finally lead to long overdue reforms in Minneapolis and around the country— even in systems that so far have not been receptive to significant change. “This is an instance where there’s a strong focus on the need to hold Officer Chauvin and the other three officers accountable for the terrible acts, for killing Mr. Floyd,” says Gupta. But, she adds, there’s “also the need for a real reckoning.”

— With additional reporting by Jasmine Aguilera

[mitchbeck]

CANTLON: (FRI) ROCKET CRASHES IN HARTFORD

BY: Gerry Cantlon, Howlings HARTFORD, CT - The Hartford Wolf Pack scored two early goals and utilized a stingy defense along with solid goaltending from Tom McCollum and upended the visiting Laval Rocket, 3-1, before 4,089 on Friday night at the XL Center. The Wolf Pack improved their record to 28-13-5-5 (66 points). Their home record elevates to 21-2-0-2 while their record when leading after two periods remains perfect at 20-0-1-2. The Pack now trails the Hershey Bears by two points who lost in overtime to the Binghamton Devils, 4-3. The Wolf Pack takes on the Lehigh Valley Phantoms Saturday at the PPL Center and seeks to improve their woeful play and record on the road. Laval's record falls to 23-22-5-2 (53 points). They are in sixth place in the North Division and play in Providence against the Bruins on Sunday. Laval made the game close forcing the Wolf Pack to sweat it out in the third period as two-thirds of the scoring came from players who have hurt the Wolf Pack in the past. Phil Varone got a pass from defenseman, Gustav Olofsson, in the left-wing circle. His shot was perfectly kicked out by McCollum’s right pad. Unfortunately for the Pack, the rebound went right to Riley Barber who had position on Mason Geersten and was easily able to pot his 13th of the season into the net. The Wolf Pack’s Tim Gettinger scored his 12th goal of the season depositing the puck into an empty net with 14.6 seconds remaining sealing the Hartford victory. Laval came out with a bit more fire in the second frame and started taking the body. McCollum played a well-structured first period but had to do some diving and acrobatics to keep the Rocket off the scoreboard. He stopped Quinnipiac graduate, Matt Peca, at 6:18. Barber was denied from off the left-wing and leading Laval’s leading scorer, Philippe Hudon, from in the right-wing circle all-alone and Olofsson who was pinching off the left-point with just about 7:50 to go in the second period. “I felt really good tonight," remarked McCollum. "I think a lot of it really boils down to a total team effort. The guys in front of me did a really good job. They were blocking a lot of shots and giving me clean lanes to see pucks. Our forwards were doing a good job to create backpressure, which helped our defense." His secondary skillset as a good puck handler made a tremendous difference in the game’s outcome for head coach Kris Knoblauch. “He did well for us. His passing skills alleviate a lot of pressure. Making saves is really important, but not letting them establish a forecheck (equally important). I know our defense appreciate that.” The Wolf Pack grabbed a quick 2-0 lead early in the first period. The breakout was made possible by Mason Geersten who won a one-on-one battle along the right-wing boards getting the shot/pass to Kravtsov and the scoring sequence began. At 5:28, Vincent Loverde came across the Laval blueline and sent a short pass to Vitali Kravtsov, who did the same for Danny O’Regan in front of the net. O'Regan was all-alone and went backhand-to-forehand, slipping the puck past Cayden Primeau, the son of former Hartford Whaler, Keith Primeau, for his tenth of the season. “Our D played awesome tonight. Those small places like that made a difference whether up along the wall or from behind the net makes a big difference,” said O’Regan. The move in front of the net on the 6’4 Primeau came about as a result of a veteran's patience with the pay off being a goal. “Instinct just took over there. I was able to pull it around him and get in the harder work was done by everyone else,” remarked O’Regan while complimenting his teammates. O’Regan has quietly gone about being a stabilizing force down the middle. “Danny has been very important to us throughout the year, and that was maybe his best game," Knoblauch. stated. "I thought he won a lot of key faceoffs. The majority of his shifts were against their top line, which is pretty dangerous. So, not only was he providing offense, but he did a lot of defensive responsibilities. I thought his game was really good.” Then at 8:55, Nick Ebert skated backward to the blue line and took a pass from Matt Beleskey, who let a hard wrist shot that was blocked and the puck went right to Vinni Lettieri. Lettieri took a shot that was blocked by Laval defenseman, Josh Brook, and the came right back to him. Lettieri skated back to the blue line and sent a low wrist-shot through a Beleskey/Brook screen. Primeau never saw Lettieri’s shot, which would become his 22nd goal, go past him, “I don’t think we could have played any better in the first period. Laval got better as the game went along. We had to defend a lot more. It was a pretty good overall effort from everybody,” Knoblauch stated. Across the ice, a deeply frustrated Laval head coach, Joel Bouchard, whose Rocket squad is 0-3-1-0 in their last four, and 2-6-2-0 in their last 11, has had some tough times with recalls because of injuries in Montreal. The Laval lineup that has undergone major changes in the past two months. Bouchard and his staff are working to keep their players as upbeat as possible. “Every goal seems to weigh on us. We just sag down. We worked hard tonight, but right now we have no chemistry. We have three-or-four guys who were in the NHL most of the year and are adjusting here. Some of our veterans are not playing well. They're good guys. We just don’t have it right now. They're a good team (Hartford) and they got out quickly on us." LINES: O’Regan-Kravtsov-Fogarty Jones-Lettieri-Gettinger Newell-Beleskey-Elmer McBride-Dmowski-Ronning Hajek-Raddysh LoVerde-Geersten Crawley-Ebert SCRATCHES: Boo Nieves - (Upper-Body, Out Indefinitely) Nieves skated in practice the last few days for the first time in more than a week. Yegor Rykov - (Upper-Body) For the fourth time in the last five games is just about ready to return to action. Ryan Gropp - (Healthy) Gabriel Fontaine - (Shoulder-Surgery, Season-ending) NOTES: Pack defenseman Joey Keane was recalled to New York because Rangers rearguard, Tony DeAngelo, suffered an upper-body injury late in the Rangers 5-4 come from behind shootout victory. Keane did not make his NHL debut in Columbus as Marc Staal played despite having had the flu. Sadly, it was the last game for Minnesota head coach, Bruce “Gabby” Boudreau. He was relieved by the Minnesota Wild early Friday. The interim head coach is former Whaler, Dean Evason. Bouchard is an ex-Pack and Sound Tiger. Rocket, Hayden Verbeek, is the nephew of former Whaler great and Detroit assistant GM, Pat Verbeek, who was scratched. The AHL in a late afternoon press release announced the successor to retiring AHL President and CEO Dave Andrews on July 1st. Scott Howson, the current VP Hockey Operations, and Player Development in Edmonton. He has a relationship from their Canadian Maritime days when Andrews was the GM and Director of Hockey Operations in Cape Breton. Howson was his assistant GM and took over the reins when Andrews succeeded Jack Butterfield in 1994-95 as AHL President and CEO. According to a hockey executive who went to apply, they were told the process was being handled by Andrews himself. The fact Andrews knows Howson, he is with a Western NHL team and the league shift and focus is now more a Central and Western US-based league with the recent announcement of Las Vegas purchasing San Antonio and moving them to Nevada, the Palm Springs, CA expansion team that will begin play by the fall of 2022. WOLF PACK FAN JERSEY OF THE NIGHT: #19 Chris Mueller, #22 Tomas Kloucek and a #22 Thomas Pock whose name is really spelled Poeck. Barrett Hayton, the son of former New Haven Nighthawk, Brian Hayton, was recalled from his conditioning stint in Tucson by the parent Arizona Coyotes. Anton Sundin, the son of ex-Pack, Ronnie Sundin, heads from Hanhals IF (Sweden Division-1) to Karlskrona HK (Sweden-SHL) for the rest of the year. UCONN defeated the University of Maine in the first of two critical weekend games 3-2 handing the Black Bears their first home loss of the season. Benjamin Freeman, the Maine native scored the game-winner at of the third period. Carter Turnbull returned to the lineup with three primary assists and Freeman three points and a goal and assists from Sasha Payusov they combined for all eight UCONN points on the night. The two team splay again tomorrow at 7:30 pm (NESN). The Walter Brown Award is awarded to the top New England Division I collegiate player the award started in 1953. Of the 23 players submitted for consideration a few CT connections. The group includes two from Sacred Heart University (AHA) in Mike Lee (Hamden/Gunnery Prep) and Pioneer teammate Jason Cotton. Cotton’s brother, David of Boston College was nominated as well making them just the third brother combo nominated since the award’s inception. Billy and Bob Cleary and former Whaler Scott Fusco and Whaler draft pick Mark Fusco were the others all four attended Harvard. Jack Drury, the son of ex-Whaler, Ted Drury, and the nephew to current Wolf Pack GM, Chris Drury, who both grew up in Trumbull. Uncle Chris won the award twice while at BU. Five other players have won it twice including Ranger and ex-Pack Mike Mottau former New England and Hartford Whaler, Tim Sheehy, and former Ranger, Jimmy Vesey. Boston College’s Spencer Knight (Darien/Avon Old Farms) and Tyce Thompson from Providence College son of ex-Pack and current Sound Tigers head coach, Brent Thompson are under consideration. The winner will be announced at the end of the regular season and before the NCAA tourney begins and the winner will be presented the award on May 3rd at a banquet in Saugus, MA. Several former Wolf Pack players besides Mottau have won it. Matt Gilroy, Dov-Grumet Morris, Bobby Butler, and Ty Conklin. Rangers who have won it include current Blueshirt Adam Fox, Mottau and Brian Leetch (Cheshire). Several others with CT connections were awarded the honor, the late New England and Hartford Whaler, John Cunniff, Scott Harlow (New Haven Nighthawks) and John Curry (Taft Prep-Watertown). Keeping up with Gernander’s wonderful piece on their son, Micah, and being a part of the tradition of Greenway H.S. hockey in Minnesota. Read it HERE. Another superb piece on Brady Tomlak, son of ex-Whaler Mike Tomlak and his play the Air Force Academy. Read that HERE. Dean Bachiero (Southington/Salisbury Prep) commits to Brown University (ECACHL) for 2021-22 and the 6’3 forward is NHL Draft eligible this year. Ex-Pack, Jarko Immonen, signs a one-year extension with JYP Jyvaskyla (Finland-FEL). Ex-Pack, Marek Hrivik, is rumored to be moved from Leksands IF (Sweden-SHL) to Malmo IF (Sweden-SHL) next season. Ex-Wolf Pack, Josh Gratton, continues his career in Canadian senior league hockey with the Hamilton Steelhawks (ACH) joining another ex-Pack, Kris Newbury. A pair of former Wolf Pack players and defense tandem Dale “Diesel” Purinton and Marvin Degon are the latest pro athletes that have entered into the CBD ag-health business like retired Patriots TE Rob Gronkowski. Read the full article

[marymosley]

Lord of War: A Senate Trial Could Be Exactly What Trump Needs

Below is my column in the Hill newspaper on the prospect of a Senate impeachment trial for President Donald Trump. While Speaker Nancy Pelosi said Sunday that she is “heartbroken” and “prayerful” over the prospect of impeaching Trump. Whether those are crocodile or heartfelt tears, Pelosi may have to worry more about another possibility: this could be the trial that Donald Trump has long wanted, including the prospect of calling Joe Biden as his first witness.

Here is the column:

In the movie “Lord of War,” arms dealer Simeon Weisz tells his competitor and the film’s central character, Yuri Orlov: “The problem with gun-runners going to war is that there is no shortage of ammunition.”

The problem with politicians going into impeachments is that there is no shortage of scandals. And that danger may soon be realized, as momentum builds to impeach President Donald Trump. 

The only way for Democrats to remove Trump from office would be to hold a trial that highlights the controversial business dealings of Hunter Biden, son of their potential presidential nominee, Joe Biden. The result could be a mutually assured destruction that only a lord of political war (and, possibly, Biden rival Elizabeth Warren) would love.

On one side of that trial is a deeply disturbing allegation involving Trump’s withholding of roughly $400 million in military aid — a national security concern. Using such powers to pressure another nation to investigate a political opponent can be a crime as well as an impeachable offense. Thus far, the evidence against Trump is damaging but not decisive on a quid pro quo. At the same time, the point of a defense is mitigating conduct that would be otherwise criminal.

The assumption by many Trump critics is that the greatest risk in an impeachment trial is that he is likely to be acquitted and the trial would galvanize Republican voters. Yet, that may be the least of the dangers if one thinks of the likely – indeed, the only – viable defense. 

Trump will argue that he asked for Ukraine’s investigation of a corrupt relationship that was used to secure U.S. aid during the previous administration. The strength of that defense will depend greatly on the merits of the underlying corruption allegation. 

If Hunter Biden’s business contracts were entirely appropriate, Trump’s actions would be difficult to justify. Seeking an investigation of, say, Pete Buttigieg by Malta clearly would be abusive, since there is no credible claim of a criminal act. But Trump will argue that Hunter Biden’s profiteering was ignored by the Obama administration and, largely, by the media.

In Washington, this pattern is all too familiar. I have written for years in criticism of Democratic and Republican politicians whose spouses or children received enormous salaries or contracts from companies with interests in legislation. Even newspapers like the New York Times have described Hunter Biden’s deals as conflicts of interest. 

Biden has insisted that he never, ever discussed his son’s foreign dealings. According to Biden, even on the long flight to China on Air Force II, Hunter never mentioned that he was going to be put on an advisory board for a Chinese investment management company or his ten percent minority interest. Yet, according to the New Yorker, Hunter Biden arranged for his father to shake hands with Jonathan Li, who one of the key partners with the company.  The problem is that Hunter Biden has said he did tell his father about the Ukrainian deal.  Strangely, the Washington Post has insisted that Biden did not lie when he categorically denied ever speaking  to his son about any foreign business, because, after being told about the Ukrainian deal, Biden curtly left it to his son and “that’s not much of a discussion.”

So here is a simple defense narrative: 

In April 2014, Hunter Biden is curiously put on the board of a Ukrainian energy company, Burisma Holdings, despite a glaring lack of relevant experience. According to the New York Times , that was just weeks after Joe Biden was asked to oversee U.S.-Ukraine relations and aid. Burisma is owned by oligarch Mykola Zlochevsky, accused of systemic corruption and a close associate of Ukraine’s prior pro-Russian president.

In 2016, Biden forced the firing of Ukraine’s chief prosecutor and later bragged how he made clear to the Ukrainians that he, not President Obama, would determine if the country received $1 billion in aid. Biden then claimed — falsely, according to his son — that he never spoke to his son about his dealings in Ukraine. 

The problem for Democrats? They cannot presume a criminal intent in Trump’s calls while rejecting any such presumption in Biden’s dealings. They point out that the Ukrainians found no violations under their laws — a curious spin for a country with notoriously lax anti-corruption enforcement. But the question is how these deals are viewed in the United States.  

Few people seriously believe Hunter Biden stood out in Ukraine, China or elsewhere for his transnational business acumen. Yet, while Democrats pursue every Trump deal in foreign countries (and even foreign guests in Trump hotels), there is a striking lack of interest in money that went to a member of the Biden family while Joe Biden handed out billions in U.S. trade and aid.

An impeachment trial also is likely to feature another investigation.  Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz, a widely respected figure, is close to releasing his report on the origins of the Trump-Russian investigation. His report is expected to be comprehensive and damning in its findings, including documenting highly questionable representations and decisions by federal officials during the Obama administration. 

It is likely to rekindle objections that Hillary Clinton’s campaign sought evidence against Trump from Russian and other foreign sources. That information was then used by the Obama administration to target Trump campaign associates. Ultimately, not only were targets like Carter Page never charged but special counsel Robert Mueller found no evidence the Trump campaign knowingly worked with the Russians. 

In other words, Horowitz’s report could blur any bright line separating the conduct of Trump and his critics.

Ironically, a Senate trial might give Trump what he has long demanded: A hearing of his allegations against Democrats, from the matters in the Horowitz report to the Biden controversy. Impeached presidents are, historically, allowed fairly wide leeway to call witnesses — so Trump could turn any Senate trial into a showcase of countervailing Democratic scandals. Trump could even call Joe and Hunter Biden.  It just might be the trial that Trump wants: leaving him in office, damaging the Democratic nominee, and (while not improving his own image) making others look just as bad.

The one positive aspect in such a trial would be to give Americans a true glimpse into the subterranean level of corruption and self-dealing that runs just beneath the surface in Washington. Yet, that is why public corruption cases are notoriously difficult to prove: All politicians engage in some degree of self-dealing or using their offices for political advantage. History is replete with allegations of presidents engineering foreign or domestic “October surprises” to win elections.

Of the three most famous public corruption cases in recent decades, two failed. Gov. Robert McDonnell (R-Va.) was found guilty but his conviction was overturned by the Supreme Court, and the case against Sen. Bob Menendez (D-N.J.) ended in a hung jury and mistrial — even though both men delivered on the favors alleged in their quid pro quo arrangements.

To complete the sordid optics, Menendez actually would vote as a juror in any Senate trial of Trump, who is accused of suggesting a quid pro quo as opposed to the completed acts in return for lavish gifts charged against Menendez.

Frankly, both sides deserve this ignoble moment.  

As the “Lord of War” character Yuri Orlov said, “There are only two tragedies in life. One is not getting what you want, the other is getting it.” Both Democrats and Republicans could soon get the trial they want and deserve.

Jonathan Turley is the Shapiro Professor of Public Interest Law at George Washington University.  He testified during the Clinton impeachment and served as the last lead defense counsel in an impeachment trial in the United States Senate.

Lord of War: A Senate Trial Could Be Exactly What Trump Needs published first on https://immigrationlawyerto.tumblr.com/

[wskent]

What about Bob? (pt. 2)

Mueller steps back out into the drizzling street. In the distance, a furtive figure catches his eye. A man carrying a brightly colored umbrella, its pattern indiscernible at this distance, is leaning over a garbage can. The man straightens, seeming to feel Mueller’s eyes on him. He scurries off, his gait both unusual and familiar. Mueller follows, no longer noticing the rain. As he trails the mysterious man, he is reminded of Mr. Tumnus, the faun in The Chronicles of Narnia, who helped the Pevensie children. Or did he sell them out to the White Witch? Mueller isn’t sure. He breaks his stride to consider the story, in that instant, the man with the umbrella disappears.

A few yards ahead Mueller sees former White House photographer Pete Souza coming out of a laundromat.

“Hey there!” Mueller calls. “Did you see a man with a pink umbrella go by a minute ago?”

Souza is startled and almost drops his sack of laundry. “No, I didn’t see anyone.”

Mueller continues, “it was one of those really big umbrellas.”

Souza replies, “I think I would have noticed that, Mr. Mueller, it’s not even raining.” Mueller stares at him. Souza goes on, attempting to be conversational, “It hasn’t rained here in weeks, we could really use it.”

Mueller continues to stare, he is sure it was drizzling only a few minutes ago. Then he thinks to himself, you can’t trust a photographer anyway. He is about the push past Souza to try to find the umbrella-wielding stranger when Souza pipes up again. Souza, alarmed at the lack of focus in Mueller’s eyes and the fact that he is wearing two ties, asks, “Are you okay, Mr. Mueller?”

Mueller snaps to attention and begins to correct Souza on the pronunciation of his name. “It’s Mueller, like mule. No, I mean it’s like dull, but with an ‘M,’ I mean...what were we talking about? I can’t say anything about the indictments.” Mueller presses his knuckles into his temples. Souza, meanwhile, has begun to back away.

“Can I call anyone for you, Mr. Mue…” Souza pauses, now unsure how to pronounce the name, “Can I get call an Uber for you?”

Mueller is looking frazzled now, “Who have you been talking to?! NO CALLS!” Mueller steps toward Souza and stares down at him, and the full force of the jowly features ripple over the photographer’s face. Could it be a mask? Souza is torn now, he wants to get away from Mueller, but he also feels that the man needs help.

Just then Senator Baldwin comes back around from the Chipotle across from the shawarma shop. “Just spit it out, Bob,” she yawps, smacking Mueller in the middle of his back. The force of the blow throws Mueller to his knees. She continues to march down the street without looking back.

Souza takes the moment of confusion to slip across the street.

Mueller stands up, dusting off his knees. Better get back to it; lunch is over he thinks to himself but really says out loud to a gaggle of tourists from Revere, Massachusetts. “Go get ‘em, Bowbby!” they say in response. He walks toward a federal building at a gait that anyone would label as “teetering” or “goofy,” but he thinks of as “power walking” or “a heel-forward clip.”

Teetering by several pristine government offices, Bob Mueller opens a black door, which reveals a hallway that has not been renovated in decades. It smells musty. Homey. Honest. He unlocks his office door and blurts out “what’have’we’got,gang?” It is a hive of productivity. In the back there are several cork boards with yarn radiating out from many axes, connecting disparate pieces of evidence. Trusted agents click-clack away at laptop keyboards, while others dig through crates of documents. Phones ring. An old stereo sounds a restrained jazzy beat. There are murmurs of “Hey, boss.” “Nothing yet.” “Too much to process.” “Hiya.”

Special Agent Sandra Willard slams her phone down. “Boss, it’s another flurry today.”

“Don’t I know it,” Mueller says, shaking his head, loosening one of his ties.

“Aiming for another write up in the New Yorker?” Sandra or Sandy if you prefer, asks, looking at the ties.

“Let’s just say it’s all part of the plan,” Mueller responds, winking at a blank wall as if someone were there. Two agents see this and exchange knowing looks. “Sandy, I ran into Tammy Baldwin at lunch today and she said that I shouldn’t worry about the time, but that I should keep my eye on it too. What the hell’s that mean?”

Sharpie in hand, Sandy writes this down on an index card and posts it on a cork board. “Cryptic. It’s something. We’re getting more used to this confusion every day,” she says shrugging. Index cards cover the boards with various phrases like “All is still in the moonlessness,” “It’s Mueller time,” “Four in one isn’t quite three of nine,” “Botched nose job,” etc.

“All will reveal itself,” Mueller declares, tapping his lip for ten minutes. “I also saw Souza today. He was telling me it wasn’t raining out.”

“Sure wasn’t. Wish it was. We really could use it,” Sandy adds. “But, then again, you can never trust a photographer, even when they’re right.”

“Agreed,” Mueller nods, pinning Souza’s name on the board for good measure. Unwrapping a Charleston Chew, he takes a generous bite. He gnaws, sizing up the board. He stares, shakes his head, rubs his eyes, still chewing. He unbuttons his blazer and places his hands in his pockets. “This is going nowhere,” he sputters between chews. Swallowing, he turns to everyone and says “You are all doing the work this country deserves. I can’t thank you enough and this citizenry owes you all a debt of gratitude. I’m a little stuck right now and need to work through some of this,” he explains, gesturing at a cluster of cards and strings, letting the day’s events wash over him. “I’m going to the gym.” High-fiving everyone he can on the way out, he grabs a copy of The Hilltop, Howard University’s best newspaper, by his estimation, to check for leads.

He teeters down the hallway and stumbles out into the bright sunlight. “Gosh darn it, Souza,” he mumbles, using one of his stronger oaths. He takes a hesitating step out onto the sidewalk. He can tell there is something off about how he is walking. He tries a few steps on his tip toes, then a few hops, then settles into stomping with his left foot and dragging his right foot to meet it.

Halfway to the gym is when his best frenemy and doppleganger, John Kerry, bursts out of a boarded up Border’s. “Typical,” Mueller thinks, “Just what I need.”

“Heya, Three Sticks,” Kerry calls out, “How’s the weather up there.” Kerry runs up and hip checks Mueller. “What’s with the two-step?”

Mueller doesn’t understand the reference. “John, have you spoken to Senator Baldwin lately?”

“Sure, she’s in my improv group.”

“She told me something kind of cryptic today, off the record, ya know. Something about how time was short.”

“Well, sure, Bob. Time is like a hand slowly circling a clock face. But you’d have to talk to someone on the Budget Committee to really understand it.”

Mueller finds this statement to be completely unhelpful. He tries to lose Kerry in a gaggle of 7th graders, but it doesn’t work because they’re both much taller than the kids. “Listen John, I need to get to the gym to do some reading.” He stomps off before Kerry can react.

At the gym, the twenty-something at the desk says, “Good Morning, Mr. Mueller, enjoy your workout.”

“It’s Mueller,” Mueller snaps, “Like bugler, with an ‘M,’ I mean it’s like bowler, like that hat.”

In the locker room, Mueller removes his remaining tie. It has a golf theme, with tees, and ball, and putters printed all over it. “Where the heck did I get this thing? Have I ever even played golf?” He promptly ties it around his waist.

He goes out into the gym to use his usual bench press. There is a new motivational sign on the wall next to him. “There’s only one today until tomorrow!” it reads. Mueller is struck by this sentiment. Surely it was placed here for him to see. Is it a threat or a clue? Mueller can’t tell. He leans back on the bench, places The Hilltop over his head and falls asleep.

A field, green with wildgrass. The sky is a golden yellow. The sun is strong. Bob Mueller can feel his jaw sharpening. He is far away from the district. He rolls over in the grass which feels like swimming. His hands stretch farther than normal and his feet feel light. He floats toward a tree and looks down at his watch. The numbers blink rhythmically. He clicks his heels together and notices a blue ribbon in a tree. He maneuvers up toward it. The air smells sweet. He reaches for the ribbon, grazing it with his hand. A gentle breeze lifts him toward it. He can touch it. He feels a sense of being late and something else. He should call home. And something else. He looks at the ribbon. There’s a message. “Oh great, just what I need, another message,” he says, only his voice pours out of his mouth like a thick, juicy marmalade. He raises the ribbon to read, but the words remain out of focus. He pulls it closer. Still blurry. He begins to wrap his head in it, starting from his neck up to his nose. He is about to cover the last bit of his face, his eyes, with the ribbon when the last part of the message abruptly comes into focus: “It’s time.”