Conservative Blogger
Wednesday, December 13, 2017
Kaepernick's visit to meet New York prison inmates irks correction officers
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| This Dec. 24, 2016 photo shows San Francisco 49ers quarterback Colin Kaepernick talking during a news conference after an NFL football game against the Los Angeles Rams. Kaepernick filed a grievance against the NFL on Sunday, Oct. 15, 2017 alleging that he remains unsigned as a result of collusion by owners following his protests during the national anthem. (AP Photo/Rick Scuteri) |
The former San Francisco 49ers star spoke to groups of inmates during two 45 minute sessions at the jail’s George Motchan Detention Center Tuesday morning where he pontificated on social justice issues and talked about his decision to kneel during the national anthem, sparking nationwide outrage.
“That’s crazy to me to have a person like Colin Kaepernick in prison talking about police brutality,” said an officer who attended the event. “It was insulting for me to be there.”
“In the inmate’s eyes, we are the police when they’re locked up.”
The morning started off with Kaepernick attending breakfast in the warden’s office before heading over to the “Peace Center” where he conducted two 45 minutes sessions with prisoners clad in gray jumpsuits.
The first group included 14 inmates including six adults and eight adolescents.
'F TRUMP': Texts between ex-Mueller team members emerge, calling Trump 'loathsome human,' 'an idiot'
Text messages between FBI officials Peter Strzok
and Lisa Page in 2016 that were obtained by Fox News on Tuesday refer to
then-candidate Donald Trump as a "loathsome human" and "an idiot."
More than 10,000 texts between Strzok
and Page were being reviewed by the Justice Department after Strzok was
removed from Special Counsel Robert Mueller's Russia probe after it was
revealed that some of them contained anti-Trump content.
The messages were sent during the 2016 campaign and
contain discussions about various candidates. On March 2, Strzok texted
Page that someone "asked me who I’d vote for, guessed [Ohio Gov. John]
Kasich.""Seriously?! Would you not [vote] D[emocrat]?" Page responded.
"I don’t know," Strzok answered. "I suppose Hillary [Clinton]."
"I would [vote] D," Page affirmed.
Two days later, Page texted Strzok, "God, Trump is a loathsome human."
"Yet he many[sic] win," Strzok responded. "Good for Hillary."
Later the same day, Strzok texted Page, "Omg [Trump's] an idiot."
"He's awful," Page answered.
"America will get what the voting public deserves," said Strzok, to which Page responded. "That’s what I’m afraid of."
Later that same day, Strzok texted Page, "Ok I may vote for Trump."
"What?" answered Page. "Poor Kasich. He’s the only sensible man up there."
"He was pretty much calling for death for [NSA leaker] Edward Snowden," Strzok said. "I’m a single-issue voter. ;) Espionage Machine Party."
Strzok later told Page, "Exacty [sic] re Kasich. And he has ZERO appeal."
Twelve days later, after Trump took a commanding lead in the Republican delegate race with victories in key "Super Tuesday" primaries, Page texted Strzok, "I can not believe Donald Trump is likely to be an actual, serious candidate for president."
Four months later, Strzok and Page exchanged messages mocking Trump and his family at the Republican National Convention.
"Oooh, TURN IT ON, TURN IT ON!!! THE DO*CHEBAGS ARE ABOUT TO COME OUT," Strzok texted Page on July 19. "You can tell by the excitable clapping."
Later, Strzok reached out to Page again, saying, "Omg. You listening to npr? Apparently Melania’s speech had passages lifted from Michelle Obama’s…Unbelievable."
"NO WAY!" Page answered, adding "God, it's just a two-bit organization. I do so hope his disorganization comes to bite him hard in November."
On Aug. 6, Page texted Strzok a New York Times article about Muslim lawyer Khzir Khan, who became embroiled in a war of words with Trump after Khan spoke at the Democratic National Convention.
"Jesus. You should read this. And Trump should go f himself," Page wrote in a message attached to the article.
"God that’s a great article," Strzok answered. "Thanks for sharing. And F TRUMP."
Strzok, who was an FBI counterintelligence agent, was reassigned to the FBI’s human resources division after the discovery of the exchanges with Page, with whom he was having an affair. Page was briefly on Mueller’s team, but has since returned to the FBI.
House Intelligence Committee investigators have long regarded Strzok as a key figure in the chain of events that began when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump "dossier" and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.
Strzok briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, sources said. But within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was “documentary evidence” that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.
Strzok also oversaw the bureau’s interviews with ousted National Security Adviser Michael Flynn – who pleaded guilty to lying to FBI investigators in the Russia probe.
He also was present during the FBI’s July 2016 interview with Hillary Clinton at the close of the email investigation, shortly before then-FBI director James Comey called her actions "extremely careless" without recommending criminal charges.
Trump, Hillary Clinton and others congratulate Doug Jones on Alabama victory
President Donald Trump along with other politicians
from both sides of the aisle reacted late Tuesday after Democratic
Alabama Senate candidate Doug Jones defeated Republican Roy Moore in a special election.
Trump congratulated Jones in a tweet
on his “hard fought victory” and said Republicans will "have another
shot at the seat in a very short period of time.”
Hillary Clinton also took to Twitter to congratulate citizens of Alabama for electing a senator “who’ll make them proud.”“Tonight, Alabama voters elected a senator who'll make them proud,” Clinton tweeted. ”And if Democrats can win in Alabama, we can -- and must -- compete everywhere. Onward!”
Clinton was joined in her enthusiasm by former Vice President Joe Biden, who thanked Alabama in a tweet. Democrats were surely emboldened after winning one of the state's Senate seats.
It was the first Democratic Senate victory in a quarter-century in the state and proved anew that party loyalty is anything but sure in the age of Trump. The Republican loss was a major embarrassment for the president and a fresh wound for the nation’s already divided GOP.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., predicted that Jones is going to be an “outstanding senator” and lambasted Moore’s candidacy.
“Roy Moore was an awful candidate and never should have gotten to the senate. But make no mistake about it, just like Virginia, Democrats are energized, focused on the middle class and those struggling to get there, and things are looking better and better for 2018,” Schumer wrote.
Sen. Jeff Flake, R-Ariz., who has been an outspoken critic of the Trump administration, tweeted two words: “Decency wins.”
Sen. Elizabeth Warren, D-Mass., congratulated Jones on being a great candidate and said that was the reason why he won over Moore.
Sen. Kirsten Gillibrand, D-N.Y., said that Jones’ win is a “victory for showing up, fighting to the end.”
With 99 percent of precincts reporting, Fox News projected that Jones received 49.5 percent of the vote, while Moore received 48.8 percent of the vote.
Alabama Senate election: Doug Jones wins in major upset, Roy Moore won't yet concede
Democrat Doug Jones has pulled off a major upset in
Alabama by defeating Republican Roy Moore in Tuesday’s special
election, becoming the first Democrat to win election to the Senate from
the deeply conservative state in 25 years.
"We have come so far and the people of Alabama have spoken," Jones said during a victory speech in Birmingham late Tuesday.
But in a late-night speech to supporters, Moore refused
to concede. Moore told the crowd that when the “vote is this close…it’s
not over.”With 100 percent of precincts reporting, Jones had 49.9 percent to Moore's 48.4 percent.
Moore said the campaign was looking into the state's "recount provision." Under Alabama law, a mandatory recount takes place if a candidate wins by a half percent or less.
“We also know that God is always in control,” he said.
Bill Armistead, his campaign chairman, floated a possible recount late Tuesday.
Other Republicans, though, already accepted the outcome. In a tweet, President Trump congratulated Jones on his “hard fought victory.”
“The write-in votes played a very big factor, but a win is a win,” Trump said. “The people of Alabama are great, and the Republicans will have another shot at this seat in a very short period of time. It never ends!”
A Democrat winning the special election for the seat to replace Attorney General Jeff Sessions was seen as just a remote possibility several months ago.
Moore, the former chief justice of Alabama’s Supreme Court, has faced multiple allegations he pursued romantic relationships with teenage girls while he was in his thirties -- accusations that have dramatically shaken up the race. He has denied the claims.
The Fox News Voter Analysis, a new polling technique Fox News is testing to improve coverage, indicated 51 percent of voters on Tuesday believed the accusations against Moore.
The analysis also showed that 59 percent of voters thought Jones has strong moral character, while 57 percent said Moore doesn’t.
The dramatic Democratic win cuts the GOP’s Senate majority from 52 to 51, further dimming Republican hopes of enacting major legislation backed by President Trump. Jones likely won't be seated in Congress until January.
Because he is filling the rest of Sessions' term, Jones will not serve a full six year Senate term. The seat will be up for re-election again in 2020.
“The people of Alabama will do the right thing... Roy Moore will always vote with us,” the president tweeted.
Trump painted Jones as a liberal “puppet” of Democratic leaders Chuck Schumer and Nancy Pelosi.
“Doug Jones is Pro-Abortion, weak on Crime, Military and Illegal Immigration, Bad for Gun Owners and Veterans and against the WALL,” Trump tweeted.
Trump won 62 percent of Alabama’s vote in the 2016 presidential race.
Most of the attention in the race, though, centered on Moore. A favorite of religious conservative voters, he has a colorful political history that has both fueled and complicated his rise in Alabama.
He first got national attention in the 1990s as a county judge when he hung a wooden Ten Commandments plaque on the wall of his courtroom.
Benefiting from his popularity after the episode, Moore then ran and won a race for chief justice of the state’s Supreme Court in 2000. But he was ousted after refusing to remove a 5,280-pound granite Ten Commandments monument from the rotunda of the state judicial building.
He resurrected his political career in 2012, getting elected chief justice again. But his tenure was short-lived once more: In 2016, Moore was suspended as chief justice after he directed probate judges not to issue marriage certificates to gay couples.
After Sessions’ resignation, Luther Strange, the state’s former attorney general, was temporarily appointed to the seat in April before a special election could take place. Strange was appointed by then-Gov. Robert Bentley, who later resigned in the cloud of a scandal.
Despite being endorsed by Trump and enjoying the support of a well-funded super PAC connected to Senate majority leader Mitch McConnell, Strange went on to lose a runoff to Moore in September.
Last month, though, Moore was hit with multiple allegations that he initiated sexual encounters with teenagers when he was a young attorney in the 1970s.
McConnell called on Moore to drop out of the race and explored options for either removing Moore from the ballot or backing a write-in alternative. He also suggested Moore would face a Senate Ethics Committee investigation had he won.
Colorado Sen. Cory Gardner, the chairman of the National Republican Senatorial Committee, had said the Senate could take the extraordinary step of voting to remove Moore if he had won.
Alabama’s senior Republican senator, Richard Shelby, said he didn’t vote for Moore and instead wrote in the name of another Republican.
Moore, though, never backed down amid the accusations, holding multiple rallies with Trump’s former adviser, Steve Bannon, in recent weeks.
“I’m not talking about the accusers today,” Moore said after arriving at his polling location in Gallant, Alabama, on Tuesday. “I’m talking about this race... the people will answer the allegations this evening with the vote.”
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