Senators flag 'unusual' Susan Rice email on Russia probe from Inauguration Day

Ex-national security adviser Susan Rice sent an “unusual email” to herself the day President Trump was sworn into office documenting former President Barack Obama's guidance at a high-level meeting about how law enforcement should investigate Russian interference in the 2016 presidential race, two Republican senators said Monday. 

According to Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley and Sen. Lindsey Graham, the partially unclassified email was sent by Rice on Jan. 20, 2017 -- and appears to document a Jan. 5 meeting that included Obama, then-FBI Director James Comey, then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, then-Vice President Joe Biden and Rice. 

In the email, Obama's national security adviser wrote: “President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities ‘by the book.’ The president stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.”
THE TRUMP DOSSIER: HOW A POLITICAL DOCUMENT MADE ITS WAY TO THE FBI
The email also appears to reflect Obama's guidance on sharing sensitive information with both the Russians and the incoming administration.
Rice wrote that Obama said "he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia."
She added, "The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team.  Comey said he would."
Grassley, R-Iowa, and Graham, R-S.C., released the email Monday. They said they uncovered it as part of their oversight of the FBI and the Department of Justice, and claimed it raises new questions.
“It strikes us as odd that, among your activities in the final moments on the final day of the Obama administration, you would feel the need to send yourself such an unusual email purporting to document a conversation involving President Obama and his interactions with the FBI regarding the Trump/Russia investigation,” they wrote in a letter to Rice.
They added: “In addition, despite your claim that President Obama repeatedly told Mr. Comey to proceed ‘by the book,’ substantial questions have arisen about whether officials at the FBI, as well as at the Justice Department and the State Department, actually did proceed ‘by the book.’”
The origins of the Russia meddling probe have come under mounting scrutiny on Capitol Hill, where Republicans are looking at how an unverified anti-Trump dossier was used to seek a surveillance warrant against Trump associate Carter Page in late 2016.
The senators asked Rice to answer questions about the email by Feb. 22.
According to the released email, the Jan. 5 meeting followed a briefing by the intelligence community on Russian hacking during the 2016 election. Grassley and Graham said the meeting included a discussion of the now-infamous dossier.
But one source familiar with the meeting said it had nothing to do with Steele or the dossier. That person said it was solely focused on whether the intelligence community and the FBI needed to be careful about what Russia conversations they had with the Trump transition team.

Is Social Security to blame for so many men dying at 62?

Is the thought of looming retirement and availability of Social Security killing you? Two researchers say yes.

Maria D. Fitzpatrick of Cornell University and Timothy J. Moore of the University of Melbourne said they analyzed the mortality rates in the U.S. and noticed that many older Americans – but disproportionally men who retire at 62 – are affected by sudden increased rates of death.

“A lot happens in our early 60s. Some change jobs, scale back working hours or retire. Our health-care coverage may shift. We may have fewer financial resources, or we may begin collecting Social Security," Fitzpatrick told The Wall Street Journal. “About one-third of Americans immediately claim Social Security at 62. Ten percent of men retire in the month they turn 62.”
The numbers, according to the study, show that there is a two percent increase in male mortality at age 62 in the country. “Over the 34 years we studied, there were an additional 400 to 800 deaths per year beyond what we expected, or an additional 13,000 to 27,000 excess male deaths within 12 months of turning 62,” the professor said.
The researcher blames the increased mortality on the retirement as retirees tend to withdraw from life and no longer see the point in engaging.
“Retirement could have positive long-run benefits for your health because you’re taking better care of yourself. Or it could be that, in the long run, retirement has a negative effect. You can think of how a retiree slowly withdraws from the world because he no longer has any reason to engage,” she told the WSJ.
After all, the retirement brings new risks into life: “If you don’t go to work, you have more hours of the day to be driving around,” the professor said.
“Medical literature suggests when older men are more sedentary, they’re more likely to be at risk for infection. When they lose their jobs, they increase their smoking rate, linked to the types of deaths we see such as COPD [chronic obstructive pulmonary disease] or respiratory illness.”
The bottom line, says Fitzpatrick, is that the retirement “may be bad for the health of men, particularly for men who retire at the relatively early age of 62.”
While she is not advising people against not retiring, especially if their health is poor, people should take precautions and commit to fairly active yet stress-free lifestyle.
“Stay healthy, see a physician, don’t just sit on the couch, but don’t overdo it either. Be careful about driving. Just be careful. It is a tricky time,” she said.

Justice for Gemmel Moore? Family wants answers in escort's death at Dem donor's home

Democratic donor Ed Buck is seen at left in the fall of 2015 with Hillary Clinton. Gemmel Moore, at right, was found dead inside Buck's apartment on July 27, 2017.  (Facebook)

Family and friends of a male escort found dead in the West Hollywood home of a high-powered Democratic Party donor last year continue to press for answers—in a case that has eluded the national media spotlight on incidents of sexual misconduct and racial injustice.

Gemmel Moore, 26, was discovered by police on July 27 inside the apartment of Ed Buck, 63. Buck is a well-known Democratic contributor, and has given more than $500,000 to an array of Democrats including Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama, Los Angeles Mayor Eric Garcetti, Los Angeles County District Attorney Jackie Lacey and a variety of state and local organizations in California.

The Los Angeles County Coroner’s office initially ruled the death an accidental methamphetamine overdose. But the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office Homicide Bureau on Aug. 14 announced they would investigate if there is any criminal culpability, after Moore’s family and friends disputed the initial finding.
Investigators told Fox News they would like to have the inquiry wrapped up in the near future—but have had trouble interviewing certain witnesses.
“We should have all the information, so we can make a good evaluation of everything that transpired to see if there’s any criminal culpability,” Lt. Joe Mendoza, a spokesman for the Los Angeles County Sheriff’s Office homicide bureau, told Fox News in a recent telephone interview.
Detectives have already interviewed “numerous” witnesses who have information to share about their interactions with Buck, according to Mendoza. But investigators are trying to schedule additional interviews with people who may have useful information.

The death of Gemmel Moore, 26, is being investigated by the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Office.  (Facebook)

According to the July 31 coroner’s report, Buck’s apartment was riddled with drug paraphernalia. Among the items found were 24 syringes containing brown residue, five glass pipes with white residue and burn marks, a plastic straw with possible white residue, clear plastic bags with white powdery residue and a clear plastic bag containing a piece of crystal-like substance.
The report also states coroner’s investigators spoke with a woman who said Moore told her someone whose name is redacted tied him up “over a year ago” and “held him against his will at the residence in West Hollywood.”
“We don’t want to move forward with anything else without every single piece of information,” said Mendoza, adding that investigators have worked with the district attorney’s office to give immunity to witnesses for unrelated minor crimes so they can speak freely. “We’re just in a holding pattern until we can get those people interviewed.”
Mendoza said investigators are “trying to leave no stone unturned.”
Buck's attorney, Seymour Amster, told Fox News that his client has done nothing wrong.

“If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”

- Gemmel Moore, in his journal

"There’s nothing there. As we always stated, this was an accidental overdose that Ed Buck had nothing to do with and it’s a tragedy," Amster said in a recent phone interview. "The coroner has not changed his opinion from an accidental death. Until that happens, and that’s not going to happen, we’re done."
Once the probe is concluded, investigators will determine whether the findings should be turned over to a district attorney or brought before a grand jury. “I think a detective would probably present it to a DA, but a grand jury is not out of play either,” said Mendoza.
Among the items being investigated is a journal that Moore appears to have kept, which investigators discovered among his belongings. The writings in the journal, which Moore’s mother, LaTisha Nixon, discussed with Fox News, describes his drug use and interactions with Buck.
“I honestly don’t know what to do. I’ve become addicted to drugs and the worst one at that,” a December entry reads. “Ed Buck is the one to thank. He gave me my first injection of crystal meth it was very painful, but after all the troubles, I became addicted…”
Moore’s final journal entry, dated December 3, 2016, reads: “If it didn’t hurt so bad, I’d kill myself, but I’ll let Ed Buck do it for now.”

A page of Moore's journal is seen in the screen grab above.  (Courtesy of LaTisha Nixon)

According to Jasmyne Cannick, an advocate for Moore’s family, a number of other gay black men have claimed Buck would invite them to his house, then pay them several hundred dollars to take drugs.
The coroner’s report also said investigators spoke with a woman who said Moore told her another man, whose name is redacted, was tied up by Buck “over a year ago” and “held him against his will at the residence in West Hollywood.”
Moore’s family has set up a website where people can come forward with information. “Gemmel deserves justice. What’s done in the dark always comes to the light,” Nixon told Fox News. “I’m happy Ed Buck got exposed for what he was doing.”
Amster told Fox News that the two men were “friends” and that Buck was “legitimately trying to help” Moore.

Gemmel Moore is seen with his mother, LaTisha Nixon, above.  (Facebook)

“These are merely accusations. This situation has turned into an attack on Mr. Buck’s personal life,” Amster told Fox News.
Moore family attorney Nana Gyamfi told Fox News she hoped a “substantive investigation can now take place with the statements of the additional victims who will corroborate certain details in Gemmel Moore’s journal, but also recount their own experiences with Ed Buck.”
Gyamfi said no wrongful death lawsuit has been filed, but that it’s “on the dry-erase board as one way in which some modicum of justice for Gemmel can be achieved.”
Moore’s mother is clear on what justice means for her:
“Getting Ed Buck off the streets and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law for preying on and taking advantage of my son and others like him."

CNN Fake News Cartoons

CNN'S Newest Heroine

President Trump Touts GOP Tax Bill as Companies Continue to Dish Out Bonuses

President Trump is once again touting the achievements of the GOP tax bill and says more successes are still to come.
The president praised the fact more than four million Americans have received bonuses or pay increases because of the Republican tax legislation, he wrote in a tweet Sunday.

Several companies have dished out bonuses to their employees, citing the tax bill as their motivation.
Chipotle became the latest major company to give their employees added income, serving up a one time cash bonus of up to one thousand dollars and broadening parental leave benefits.
Other companies making similar actions include Walmart, Starbucks and Disney.

CNN slammed for glowing puff piece about Kim Jong Un's sister at Olympics

CNN is getting dragged online for writing a glowing puff piece about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister appearing at the Olympics in Pyeongchang, South Korea — with a headline claiming she was “stealing the show.”

The article, published Saturday afternoon, began with these cooing words about the woman who gave South Korean President Moon Jae-in an invite to visit North Korea:

“If ‘diplomatic dance’ were an event at the Winter Olympics, Kim Jong Un’s younger sister would be favored to win gold. With a smile, a handshake and a warm message in South Korea’s presidential guest book, Kim Yo Jong has struck a chord with the public just one day into the PyeongChang Games.”
It barely referenced the North Korean regime's murderous ways -- and critics called out CNN for it. Still, despite the almost-immediate backlash from people on both sides of the political aisle, CNN has not taken down its story.
When Fox News reached out for comment, CNN would not say whether it would remove the story or discipline any editors over the controversial article.
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo defended his left-leaning network by throwing in a dig at President Donald Trump. He tweeted to one reader, “You don’t think having a President who lies about what is ‘fake’ and actively maligns the free press out of convenience is a bigger reason for animosity toward us than how some decide to cover this?”
He also bashed a Reuters story on Kim Yo Jong, writing, “This is a murderous regime that is stifling a population. Progress has to be evidenced by a lot more than this no?”
Jonathan Chait, writer for New York magazine, mockingly cheered the CNN piece: “Also stealing her country’s meager wealth to live in opulence while they starve. But doing it in style. You go, girl!”
Conservative commentator Michelle Malkin chimed in, tweeting: “Next up: An EXCLUSIVE @CNN investigative report on Kim Jong Un’s sister’s workout playlist, favorite boba tea flavors, and nighttime skin care routine. #SLAYGIRLFRIEND”
Fox News’ Brit Hume tweeted: “Does this puff piece mean she’s gotten over her dictator brother’s murder of her other brother?”
Speaking for the millennial audience, David Mack of BuzzFeed tweeted: “yasss kweeen! werk it as you oppress your people! gettttt that crime against humanity, gurlllll!”
The CNN piece did mention at one point that Kim Yo Jong's brother, the North Korean Supreme Leader, “has ruled with an iron fist since coming to power,” running prison camps and killing senior officers to preserve his power.
The article did not mention the reign of terror brought about by their father, Kim Jong Il.
CNN is getting dragged online for writing a glowing puff piece about North Korean leader Kim Jong Un’s sister, Kim Yo Jong, 30, who sat among world dignitaries at the Olympics in Pyeongchang. Other news outlets including The Washington Post had their own articles.
The New York Times put out a story of its own about Kim Yo Jong on Sunday. It included quotes from multiple critics slamming the dictatorship.
Kim Yo Jong, 30, is an increasingly prominent figure in her brother’s government and the first member of the North’s ruling family to visit the South since the end of the 1950-53 Korean War. The North Korean delegation to the Olympics in Pyeongchang also included the country’s 90-year-old head of state, Kim Yong Nam.
In dispatching the highest level of government officials the North has ever sent to the South, Kim Jong Un revealed a sense of urgency to break out of deep diplomatic isolation in the face of toughening sanctions over his nuclear program.
“Honestly, I didn’t know I would come here so suddenly. I thought things would be strange and very different, but I found a lot of things being similar,” Kim said while proposing a toast at Sunday’s dinner, according to the office of South Korean President Moon Jae-in. “Here’s to hoping that we could see the pleasant people (of the South) again in Pyeongchang and bring closer the future where we are one again.”

NBC fires Olympic analyst after comment on Japan's role in South Korea's development: report

Joshua Cooper Ramo was benched after NBC said his on-air remarks Friday were seen to have 'insulted' Koreans.

NBC reportedly fired one of its Olympic analysts who praised Japan’s role in South Korea’s economic development, and disregarding Tokyo’s rule with an iron first from 1940 to 1945, which is still a sensitive subject to many in Seoul.

MarketWatch, citing The Korea Times, reported that an NBC official said it is no longer possible for Joshua  Cooper Ramo to work with the network.

Ramo made the remark during NBC's prime-time telecast of Friday's opening ceremony in pointing out the presence of Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe.
“Every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural and technical and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation,” Ramo said.
An online petition quickly circulated demanding an apology, and NBC did on its NBCSN cable network Saturday and formally to the Pyeongchang Olympic organizing committee.
Japan occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945. Petitioners said anyone familiar with Japanese treatment of Koreans during that time would be deeply hurt by Ramo’s remark. They also criticized the accuracy of giving Japan credit for South Korea’s resurgence.
The petition had more than 10,000 supporters on Sunday.
"During our coverage of the Parade of Nations on Friday we said it was notable that Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe made the trip to Korea for the Olympics, 'representing Japan, a country which occupied Korea from 1910 to 1945 but every Korean will tell you that Japan is a cultural, technological and economic example that has been so important to their own transformation,'" Manno said. "We understand the Korean people were insulted by these comments and we apologize."
Ramo is reportedly sits  on the board of several companies, including  Starbucks and FedEx.

West Virginia woman dragged out of capitol for reading list of corporate donors

Lissa Lucas pictured on the left.

Lissa Lucas, a candidate in this year’s Democratic primary for West Virginia delegates, was escorted out of the Charleston state house because she read a list of House members and how much they pocketed from oil and gas companies.

Newsweek reported that the meeting was about a proposal, the Co-Tenancy and Majority Protection Act, or H.B. 4268, that would allow these companies to drill on “minority mineral owners’ land without their consent.”

The report said that some landowners worry that the bill will allow these companies to drill on their properties for the minerals located below.
The West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association tweeted a poll that showed the majority of Republicans and Democrats in the state approve the bill.
Lucas approached the rostrum Friday and, right off the bat, she corrected the person who introduced who mispronounced “Lissa.”
Lucas went on to claim that there would be no jobs created by the proposal and the only delegates in favor are in the oil companies’ pockets.
“I have to keep this short, because the public only gets a minute 45, while lobbyists can throw a gala at the Marriot with whiskey and wine and talk for hours with the delegates,” she said.

Lissa Lucas, left, pictured with businesswoman Charlotte Pritt.  (LissaLucas.com)

Common Dreams, a progressive website, reported that Lucas said she was dragged out of the room simply because she was defending the community’s “constitutional property rights.”
While Lucas was rattling off names, John Shott, the chairman, could reportedly be heard telling her that personal comments are not allowed and told her to address the merits of the bill. She insisted that she was not making personal comments and she was eventually ordered to be removed.
Newsweek reported that the bill passed and will likely be signed into law. Lucas reportedly believes that, by and large, oil and gas firms have done more damage in the state than create jobs.

Amtrak Cartoons

In secret deal, tax-backed Amtrak pays for private railroads' screwups: report

A CSX coal train, right, moves past an idling CSX engine at the switchyard in Brunswick, Md., Oct. 16, 2012.

The Amtrak passenger rail line receives more than $1 billion in annual federal subsidies, but private railroads own 97 percent of the tracks upon which Amtrak trains travel.

As part of the relationship between the publicly financed passenger rail service and the private carriers, it’s the tax-supported railroad that will typically foot the legal bill when accidents happen – even when a private railroad is at fault, the Associated Press reported.

So as federal investigators look at how crews from privately owned CSX routed an Amtrak train into a parked freight train in Cayce, S.C., last weekend, tax-supported Amtrak will likely end up paying crash victims' legal claims with public money -- even if CSX should bear sole responsibility for the accident, AP reported.
Both Amtrak and freight railroads fight to keep their contracts secret in legal proceedings, AP reported. But whatever the precise legal language, plaintiffs' lawyers and former Amtrak officials say Amtrak generally bears the full cost of damages to its trains, passengers, employees and other crash victims -- even in instances where crashes occurred as the result of a freight rail company's negligence or misconduct.
Railroad industry advocates say that freight railways have ample incentive to keep their tracks safe for their employees, customers and investors. But the Surface Transportation Board and even some federal courts have long concluded that allowing railroads to escape liability for gross negligence is bad public policy.
“The freight railroads don't have an iron in the fire when it comes to making the safety improvements necessary to protect members of the public," said Bob Pottroff, a Manhattan, Kan., rail injury attorney who has sued CSX on behalf of an injured passenger from the Cayce crash. "They're not paying the damages."

"The freight railroads don't have an iron in the fire when it comes to making the safety improvements necessary to protect members of the public. They're not paying the damages."

- Bob Pottroff, rail injury attorney, Manhattan, Kan.

Beyond CSX's specific activities in the hours before the accident, the company's safety record has deteriorated in recent years, according to a standard metric provided by the Federal Railroad Administration. Since 2013, CSX's rate of major accidents per million miles traveled has jumped by more than half, from 2 to 3.08 -- significantly worse than the industry average. And rail passenger advocates raised concerns after the CSX CEO at the time pushed hard last year to route freight more directly by altering its routes.
CSX denied that safety had slipped at the company, blaming the change in the major accident index on a reduction of total miles traveled combined with changes in its cargo and train length.
"Our goal remains zero accidents," CSX spokesman Bryan Tucker wrote in a statement provided to the AP. CSX's new system of train routing "will create a safer, more efficient railroad resulting in a better service product for our customers," he wrote.
Amtrak's ability to offer national rail service is governed by separately negotiated track usage agreements with 30 different railroads. All the deals share a common trait: They're "no fault," according to a September 2017 presentation delivered by Amtrak executive Jim Blair as part of a Federal Highway Administration seminar.
No fault means Amtrak takes full responsibility for its property and passengers and the injuries of anyone hit by a train. The "host railroad" that operates the tracks must only be responsible for its property and employees. Blair called the decades-long arrangement "a good way for Amtrak and the host partners to work together to get things resolved quickly and not fight over issues of responsibility."
Amtrak declined to comment on Blair's presentation. But Amtrak's history of not pursuing liability claims against freight railroads doesn't fit well with federal officials and courts' past declarations that the railroads should be held accountable for gross negligence and willful misconduct.

After a 1987 crash in Chase, Md., in which a Conrail train crew smoked marijuana then drove a train with disabled safety features past multiple stop signals and into an Amtrak train -- killing 16 -- a federal judge ruled that forcing Amtrak to take financial responsibility for "reckless, wanton, willful, or grossly negligent acts by Conrail" was contrary to good public policy.
Conrail paid. But instead of taking on more responsibility going forward, railroads went in the opposite direction, recalls a former Amtrak board member who spoke to the AP. After Conrail was held responsible in the Chase crash, he said, Amtrak got "a lot of threats from the other railroads."
The former board member requested anonymity because he said that Amtrak's internal legal discussions were supposed to remain confidential and he did not wish to harm his own business relationships by airing a contentious issue.
Because Amtrak operates on the freight railroads' tracks and relies on the railroads' dispatchers to get passenger trains to their destinations on time, Amtrak executives concluded they couldn't afford to pick a fight, the former Amtrak board member said.
"The law says that Amtrak is guaranteed access" to freights' tracks, he said. "But it's up to the goodwill of the railroad as to whether they'll put you ahead or behind a long freight train."
A 2004 New York Times series on train crossing safety drew attention to avoidable accidents at railroad crossings and involving passenger trains -- and to railroads' ability to shirk financial responsibility for passenger accidents. In the wake of the reporting, the Surface Transportation Board ruled that railroads "cannot be indemnified for its own gross negligence, recklessness, willful or wanton misconduct," according to a 2010 letter by then-Surface Transportation Board chairman Dan Elliott to members of Congress.
That ruling gives Amtrak grounds to pursue gross negligence claims against freight railroads-- if it wanted to.
"If Amtrak felt that if they didn't want to pay, they'd have to litigate it," said Elliott, now an attorney at Conner & Winters.
The AP was unable to find an instance where the railroad has brought such a claim against a freight railroad since the 1987 Chase, Md., disaster. The AP also asked Amtrak, CSX and the Association of American Railroads to identify any example within the last decade of a railroad contributing to a settlement or judgment in a passenger rail accident that occurred on its track. All entities declined to provide such an example.
Even in court cases where establishing gross negligence by a freight railroad is possible, said Potrroff, the plaintiff's attorney, he has never seen any indication that the railroad and Amtrak are at odds.
"You'll frequently see Amtrak hire the same lawyers the freight railroads use," he said.
Ron Goldman, a California plaintiff attorney who has also represented passenger rail accident victims, agreed. While Goldman's sole duty is to get the best possible settlement for his client, he said he'd long been curious about whether it was Amtrak or freight railroads which ended up paying for settlements and judgments.
"The question of how they share that liability is cloaked in secrecy," he said, adding: "The money is coming from Amtrak when our clients get the check."

"The question of how they share that liability is cloaked in secrecy. The money is coming from Amtrak when our clients get the check."

- Ron Goldman, California plaintiff attorney

Pottroff said he has long wanted Amtrak to stand up to the freight railroads on liability matters. Not only would it make safety a bigger financial consideration for railroads, he said, it would simply be fair.
"Amtrak has a beautiful defense -- the freight railroad is in control of all the infrastructure," he said. But he's not expecting Amtrak to use it during litigation over the Cayce crash.
"Amtrak always pays," he said.

Former Obama campaign manager says 'all public pollsters should be shot'

Jim Messina, a former campaign manager for Barack Obama, apparently isn't one to mince words.

During an appearance Friday on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe,” Messina spoke about the irrelevance of public polls so early in an election year, Mediaite reported.

Then he underscored the point to host Joe Scarborough.
"Joe, you know how I feel about public polls," he said. "I think all public pollsters should be shot.”
Messina said there were other, more important yardsticks at this point to determine a candidate's viability.
“What you care more about is passion and intensity,” he said. “When I ran President Obama’s campaign, the number I looked at every day was intensity. Are my voters more motivated than Republican voters?”
He said in the interview that “our voters are more intense,” the report said.
Messina said recent Democratic electoral performances in Missouri, New Jersey and Virginia demonstrate that intensity levels are in the Democrats,' the Washington Times reported.
A recent column by Fox News contributor Jen Kerns, however, may have revealed the source of Messina's frustration.
According to Kerns, new polling shows that Democrats have lost a recent 15-point lead over Republicans, dropping to only a 2-point lead heading toward the 2018 midterms.

California school science project that connected race and IQ is pulled after complaints

A science fair project at a California high school faced criticism earlier this week after it compared race and IQ levels in connection to participation in an elite program at the school, The Sacramento Bee reported Saturday.

The project, titled “Race and IQ,” was put together by a C.K. McClatchy High School student who is part of the school’s elite Humanities and International Studies Program. It was displayed in the fair on Monday, the outlet said.

In comparing intelligence levels, the project reportedly questioned whether particular races were smart enough for the school’s magnet program and whether a racial disparity was justified.

High school science fair project questioning African American intelligence sparks outragehttps://t.co/qYbrMDqYAG

— diana lambert (@dianalambert) February 10, 2018

“If the average IQs of blacks, Southeast Asians, and Hispanics are lower than the average IQs of non-Hispanic whites and Northeast Asians, then the racial disproportionality in (HISP) is justified,” the hypothesis said, according to the outlet.
HISP, according to The Bee, is a separate program at the school that is meant to encourage cultural awareness and helps to provide students with different perspectives on historic moments.
Of about 500 students, there are a dozen African-Americans, 80 Latino students and about 100 Asian-American students, according to data from the school district that was obtained by the outlet. The program has reportedly been criticized for its lack of racial and ethnic diversity.
The student who conducted the experiment was not spoken to or identified by The Bee.
To test the proposed theory, the student had a variety of unidentified teenagers with different racial backgrounds take an internet IQ test, the outlet said.
The project’s final conclusion reportedly found that “the lower average IQs of blacks, Southeast Asians, and nonwhite Hispanics means that they are not as likely as non-Hispanic whites and Northeast Asians to be accepted into a more academically rigorous program such as HISP,” the report said. “Therefore the racial disproportionality of HISP is justified.”
After complaints from students, parents and faculty, the project was removed from the science fair on Wednesday, the outlet said, and the district is currently investigating the incident, Alex Barrios, said the spokesman for Sacramento Unified district.
“We are looking into the appropriate response to a situation like this,” Barrios told The Bee. “We understand it concerns a lot of people and doesn’t reflect our culture here.”
In a Thursday email to parents, the school’s principal Peter Lambert said they were taking the “incident very seriously” and noted that the school strived to “promote and embrace an inclusive environment and way of thinking which excludes any form of discrimination.”
Chrysanthe Vidal, a senior high school student in the program, told The Bee, “I think that a lot of people, especially of color, are really hurt and upset by this.”

College Republicans' Patriot Prayer rally disrupted by counter-protesters

Torn pieces of an American flag lie on the ground at the University of Washington, Feb. 10, 2018.

Five people were arrested as fights broke out and at least one American flag was burned Saturday after a college Republican rally in Seattle drew counter-protesters.

College Republicans at the University of Washington had invited members of Patriot Prayer, a group in Vancouver, Wash., to speak in the university's Red Square for a "freedom rally," the Seattle Times reported.

The goals were to bring conservatives together and promote free-speech rights, College Republicans President Chevy Swanson told the Times. As the event got underway, supporters chanted "U-S-A!, U-S-A!," and signs included one that read, "We died for liberty not socialism."
But more than 1,000 counter-protesters showed up to oppose the event.
"I learned that they thought my vote was a hate crime,” Kathryn Townsend, who said she voted for Donald Trump in 2016, told Seattle's Q13 Fox.

"I learned that they thought my vote was a hate crime."

Some counter-protesters voiced their goals.
“We’re here to fight back against the far right and fascism on our campus,” one counter-protester said.
Added another: “I’m not a fan of the president, and these people are fans. So I want to come out here and say this is not OK. And what you’re doing is not OK.”
After several skirmishes broke out, police responded with pepper spray. University of Washington police said those arrested were charged with disorderly conduct.
No officers were injured, they said.
University officials were worried about the potential for violence at the rally, and the school's president had warned students to avoid the area.

Stock Market Cartoons 2018

Let the games begin! A week of Olympic-sized bias on stocks and dictators, and assorted media failures

The Winter Olympics have begun in PyeongChang in South Korea, but unfortunately for American journalists, media bias is not an Olympic sport. If it was, they’d be breaking records for most medals won.

Instead, members of the U.S. news media will have to settle for beating up on President Trump as compensation. But since it is the Olympics, let’s pick medal winners.

The Gold Medal of Bias goes to horrific network coverage of the stock market downturn. The broadcast networks spent 2017 burying good economic news to the point where they failed to report 75 percent of all stock market highs when they happened. You read that right. Sixty-two out of 82 stock market highs didn’t make it on the evening news of ABC, CBS or NBC.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average, you’ll recall, was on quite a run up. It began 2017 at 19,762, defying Paul Krugman-like predictions of economic collapse. One year after the election, the Dow Jones Industrial Average witnessed “its biggest post-Election Day gain in more than 70 years,” according to CNBC.
Yet Americans saw little of it.
That included milestone records like the Dow hitting 21,000, 22,000, 23,000, 24,000, 25,000 and 26,000. At one point, “ABC World News Tonight” skipped like a broken turntable, missing 30 records in a row – nearly a 3,000-point market gain from August to January.
But when the Dow started to drop, the media hyped it like they had images of 1929 dancing in their heads. After a big drop Monday, media chaos ensued.
The Washington Post referred to an 8-percent drop as “free fall.” Irresponsible Vox called the drop “this week’s stock market crash.” (This is a prime example of what happens when news organizations hire people who don’t even recall the last stock market collapse in 2007-2009).
The coverage was so incredibly uninformed and awful that the Poynter Institute, which promotes journalism education, published a piece headlined: “Journalists: Don't feed the stock market panic.”
“You will do your readers/viewers/listeners a disservice if you scare them with uninformed headlines,” senior faculty member Al Tompkins wrote in the article.
He might as well have saved himself the trouble. The media were unhinged, even predicting a “recession.”
It’s a weird thing watching media types practically celebrate a market downturn just to get at President Trump. But that’s 2018. Remember, 2019 will be worse and 2020 will be unimaginably bad.
CNN Snares The Silver: Sometimes bias is a team sport, like the Jamaican bobsled team, with less heart, humor or style. Think Jim Acosta, April Ryan, Brian Karem and more. It seems that all it takes to get a job on CNN these days is be anti-Trump. CNN is diverse. It will take anti-Trump voices from the right or the left – and even from the discontented ranks of law enforcement.
On Feb. 2, former FBI Supervisory Special Agent Josh Campbell wrote an op-ed headlined “Why I Am Leaving the F.B.I.” for The New York Times. He wrote that he was joining “the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the bureau undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security.”
That was Friday. By Monday, it was announced that he had been named CNN’s new law enforcement analyst. It’s possible that CNN staff simply read the op-ed and hired him on the spot. Or perhaps he had been negotiating with the network for some time. We might never know, but it casts a pall on all of CNN’s recent FBI reporting and immediately undercuts the credibility of CNN’s new anti-Trump expert.
That alone is probably bronze worthy. But CNN’s team did so much more this week. Chief White House Correspondent Jim Acosta attacked Trump Chief of Staff John Kelly for daring to criticize so-called Dreamers – young immigrants brought to the U.S. illegally as children who are seeking protection from deportation. Acosta called Kelly’s remark “one of a long line of offensive comments coming out of the White House.” That’s your neutral CNN journalist.
CNN Political Analyst Brian Karem pretended Trump hates immigrants and argued that “every immigrant in this country isn’t a killer and a thug and a thief.”
And, in case that wasn’t enough, the Senior Diplomatic Correspondent Michelle Kosinski retweeted a famously phony North Korean satirical account. I might let this one go if the network weren’t so unforgiving of the failings of others. That, and the fact that Kosinski is famous for one of the most bogus news videos in modern times.
Back in 2005, when Kosinski was working for NBC News, the “Today” show aired her report on a massive New Jersey flood – or so viewers initially thought. As she was paddled through the flood, a couple pedestrians walked by, revealing the waters were only a couple inches deep.
Parade Coverage Grabs The Bronze: “I love a parade.” More than 85 years after that song was released it still resonates – everywhere but with journalists. All it took for the media, which promote the Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade and the Rose Parade, to turn anti-marching was for President Trump to suggest we needed a parade to honor the U.S. military and its heroic service members.
Those opposed to troops trooping filled the airwaves like ticker tape. NBC Pentagon Correspondent Hans Nichols compared the idea to the old Soviet Union and to present day North Korea in one breath.
“For the most part, U.S. presidents have avoided displays of military power that are often associated with the former Soviet Union’s Red Square celebrations, or more recently, Kim Jong Un’s parades in North Korea,” Nichols told the audience in a nice, one-sided way.
CNN (them again) “New Day” Co-host Chris Cuomo repeated the identical talking point, saying it is “the whole deal that you usually see out of North Korea.”
Senior Legal Analyst Jeffrey Toobin added during a panel discussion on CNN that “we're getting more North Korean every day in this country.”
Fellow CNN Host Don Lemon, who hasn’t appeared noticeably drunk recently, even asked: “Would there be nuclear weapons, like some countries?”
Honorable Mention, Who Gets The Tin Medals?: In true Olympic propaganda spirit, NBC did its best to ignore the fact that North Korea is a giant prison camp where there are no human rights, run by a maniacal and murderous dictator. (NBC is running the Olympics. PR fails must come with the contract.) The “reporting” discredited all those involved.
The “Today” show featured Correspondent Keir Simmons promoting his “week inside North Korea.” Only, instead of spending days showing concentration camps, poverty, starvation and psychotic tyranny, he rode bumper cars in a Pyongyang amusement park.
Simmons then interviewed anti-American North Koreans and one boy explained how “America gave unfathomable pain to our people.” That left out how North Korea tried to conquer the South in the Korean War that resulted in millions of dead and wounded.
That was about as tone deaf as Director Quentin Tarantino’s defense of convicted child rapist Roman Polanski. When asked about Polanski by radio shock jock Howard Stern, Tarantino inexplicably became a rape truther. “That’s statutory rape, you know, he had sex with a minor. Alright, that’s not rape,” he argued, because it wasn’t “violent, throwing them down.”

Pennsylvania GOP submits new plan for congressional map, meeting court deadline

Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Wolf has until Feb. 15 to decide whether to accept a proposal submitted by state Republicans for redrawing the state's congressional map.  (Reuters)

Leading state Republicans in Pennsylvania on Friday night submitted a proposal to Democratic Gov. Tom Wolf for redrawing the state’s congressional map -- just hours before a court-ordered deadline.

State Democrats, however, called on Wolf to reject it.

The state’s Supreme Court had ordered Jan. 22 that a new map of the state's 18 congressional districts be drawn after ruling that the current map -- created in 2011 by the state's GOP-controlled General Assembly -- was unconstitutionally gerrymandered to favor Republicans.
The GOP dominates Pennsylvania's congressional delegation, 12-5, with one seat currently vacant. Republicans also lead both chambers of the state's General Assembly: They lead the Senate, 34 seats to 16, and the House, 121 seats to 82.
Friday's proposal came after the U.S. Supreme Court rejected an emergency appeal of the state high court's 5-2 ruling earlier this week, claiming the current district lines violate the state’s constitution, Reuters reported.
Pennsylvania Senate President Pro Tempore Joe Scarnati, R-Jefferson, and House Speaker Mike Turzai, R-Allegheny, who submitted the proposed new map, said in a joint statement that it “complies fully” with the court’s request.
The new proposal keeps more municipalities and counties within a single congressional district, PennLive.com reported.
"It's decent map. It's good. And most importantly, it hits all the constitutional markers," Drew Crompton, chief of staff to Scarnati, told PennLive.com.
It was unclear Friday if Republicans sought or received any help from Democrats in preparing the new map.
Wolf said he would review the proposal, but a spokesman for the governor seemed to suggest it wouldn’t pass.
Wolf has until Thursday to decide whether to approve the proposal, the Philadelphia Inquirer reported. If an agreement cannot be reached next week, the state’s Supreme Court said it would create a new political map.

White House seeks revisions to Dems' FISA rebuttal memo, halting release

The White House on Friday told Democrats on the House Intelligence Committee to redraft their rebuttal to a controversial GOP memo alleging government surveillance abuse during the 2016 campaign, saying sensitive details need to be stripped out before the document can be made public.
The message was sent to the committee Friday in a letter from White House Counsel Don McGahn.
"Although the president is inclined to declassify the February 5^th Memorandum, because the Memorandum contains numerous properly classified and especially sensitive passages, he is unable to do so at this time," McGahn wrote.
"However, given the public interest in transparency in these unprecedented circumstances, the President has directed that Justice Department personnel be available to give technical assistance to the Committee, should the Committee wish to revise the February 5^th Memorandum to mitigate the risks identified by the Department," McGahn continued. "The President encourages the Committee to undertake these efforts. The Executive Branch stands ready to review any subsequent draft of the February 5^th Memorandum for declassification at the earliest opportunity."
A letter signed by Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray accompanied McGahn's response. In that accompanying letter, the two men noted "a version of the document that identifies, in highlighted text, information the release of which would present such concerns in light of longstanding principles regarding the protection of intelligence sources and methods, ongoing investigations, and other similarly sensitive information.
"We have further identified, in red boxes, the subset of such information for which national security or law enforcement concerns are especially significant. Our determinations have taken into account the information previously declassified by the President as communicated in a letter to HPSCI Chairman Devin Nunes dated February 2, 2018."
Earlier this week, the House Intelligence Committee approved the release of the Democrats' memo, giving Trump five days to consider whether he should block publication for national security reasons.
For the moment, the White House letter halts the release.
Here's how U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes, chairman of the House Inteligence Committee, responded to the president's decision:
“The President’s double standard when it comes to transparency is appalling," Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., said in a statement after the release of McGahn's letter. "The rationale for releasing the Nunes memo, transparency, vanishes when it could show information that’s harmful to him. Millions of Americans are asking one simple question: What is he hiding?”
Added House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif.: "America’s intelligence and national security are being politicized. Why won’t the President put our country before his personal and political interests?”
Democrats have been expected to use their memo to try to undermine Republican claims that the FBI and DOJ relied heavily on the anti-Trump dossier to get a warrant to spy on a Trump associate -- and omitted key information about the document's political funding. Democrats claim the GOP memo was misleading.
"We think this will help inform the public of the many distortions and inaccuracies in the majority memo," California Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the panel, said Monday.
But it had been expected that the Democrats' memo might raise red flags during the review period.
A source who read the FISA rebuttal memo told Fox News earlier this week that it is filled with sources and methods taken from the original documents. The source argued that this was done to strategically force the White House to either deny release of the memo or substantially redact it, so that Democrats could accuse the White House of making redactions for political reasons.
INTELLIGENCE COMMITTEE APPROVES RELEASE OF DEMS’ REBUTTAL TO FISA MEMO
U.S. Rep. Trey Gowdy, R-S.C., a member of the committee, said during an interview this week on Fox News’ “The Story with Martha MacCallum” that Democrats “are politically smart enough to put things in the memo” that have to be redacted.
“Therefore, it creates this belief that there's something being hidden from the American people,” Gowdy said.
Last Friday, Republicans on the intelligence committee released their much-anticipated memo from Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif.
It also said the FBI and DOJ “ignored or concealed” dossier author Christopher Steele’s “anti-Trump financial and ideological motivations" when asking the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court for permission to eavesdrop on former Trump adviser Carter Page.
Democrats have been pushing back against those claims and accusing Republicans of exaggerations.
CRIMINAL REFERRAL BACKS UP NUNES ON DOSSIER CLAIMS, AS DEMS PUSH REBUTTAL MEMO
Earlier this week, a newly released version of a letter from Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley, R-Iowa, and Sen. Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., appeared to support key claims from the GOP memo.
The surveillance applications, they said in a criminal referral for Steele sent in early January to FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, “relied heavily on Mr. Steele’s dossier claims.”
Further, they said the application “failed to disclose” funding from  the Clinton campaign and DNC.
The referral also helped explain a point of contention in recent days, after Nunes seemed to admit on “Fox & Friends” that the FBI application did include a “footnote” acknowledging some political origins of the dossier. This admission helped fuel Democratic claims that the dossier’s political connection was not concealed from the surveillance court as alleged.
According to Grassley and Graham’s referral, the FBI “noted to a vaguely limited extent the political origins of the dossier” in a footnote that said the information was compiled at the direction of a law firm “who had hired an ‘identified U.S. person’ – now known as Glenn Simpson of Fusion GPS.” A subsequent passage in the letter is redacted. But they said the DNC and Clinton campaign were not mentioned.
Republicans have seized on the Nunes document to make the accusation of widespread anti-Trump bias at the top of the FBI and DOJ that sparked inquiries into Trump campaign relations with Russia during the election.
The president has repeatedly said there was “no collusion” between his campaign and Russia. The White House responded to the Republican memo last week by saying it “raises serious concerns about the integrity of decisions made at the highest levels of the Department of Justice and the FBI to use the government’s most intrusive surveillance tools against American citizens.”

Bill Maher tries to rain on Trump's parade

Comedian and TV host Bill Maher blasted Trump over his plan for an extravagant military parade on his show Friday night. 

Thanks to President Donald Trump’s recent call for a military parade in Washington, comedian Bill Maher had some material for Friday's edition of his HBO show.
The host of “Real Time With Bill Maher” said there was one item Trump still hadn't checked off on the “Dictator’s Checklist” that Maher introduced last season, Deadline reported.
“Military costume,” Maher said.
Mocking things military is nothing new for Maher. In 2005, he referred to those who enlist in the armed forces as "low-lying fruit," a remark that an Alabama congressman responded, "borders on treason."
This time, Maher’s comic bit followed a recent story in the Washington Post that the Pentagon was preparing plans to meet Trump's request for the military parade. The president reportedly said he got the idea after attending France’s Bastille Day parade last July.
Meanwhile, Maher also made a “list” for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., the Wrap reported.
Titled “25 Things You Didn’t Know About Me,” the list mocked Nunes, who released a memo earlier this month that detailed alleged surveillance abuses by FBI and Justice Department officials.
“When they told me they were putting me on the Intelligence Committee my first reaction was, ‘Ha-ha, guys, good one,’” one read.
Ha-ha, Bill. Good one.