What? You thought we were done? The crimes are limitless.

Remember that canard about Hillary selling out a U.S. Uranium mine (Ridiculous nonsense. Peripherally involved, Canadian company with Russian interests, Operations and Management only- strict export controls.)?

Now we find Jared is selling potentially dual use Nuclear Reactors to The House of Saud.

They actually have a legitimate use for them if they’re reserving Oil for export but they burn enough Methane to power themselves for a year in a day and think nothing of it, not to mention that Sun.

Dual use means of course valuable in making Nuclear Weapons.

I’ve felt The House of Saud had Nuclear capability right along. I would have bought them from Pakistan, highly sophisticated and well tested. Jong Un wishes he could afford these. Still, if a visionary… Prince say, were to decide that future supplies might be, umm… unreliable, a domestic infrastructure could prove remarkably foresighted, hmm…

Top Trump appointees promoted selling nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia over objections from national security officials, House Democratic report says
By Tom Hamburger, Steven Mufson, and Ellen Nakashima, Washington Post
February 19, 2019

Key members of the Trump administration pushed a plan to sell nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia in the months after the inauguration despite objections from members of the National Security Council and other senior White House officials, according to a new report from congressional Democrats.

The 24-page report from the House Oversight and Reform Committee is based on internal White House documents and the accounts of unnamed whistleblowers. It said the objectors — including White House lawyers and National Security Council officials — opposed the plan out of concern that it violated laws designed to prevent the transfer of nuclear technology that could be used to support a weapons program.

Of greater concern to some were potential conflicts of interest on the part of Michael Flynn, the retired Army lieutenant general who was President Trump’s first national security adviser and who had advised a firm pitching the nuclear plan. Yet the effort persisted even after Flynn resigned and left the White House, the report alleges.

The possible sale of nuclear power plants to Saudi Arabia was discussed in the Oval Office just last week. The meeting included Energy Secretary Rick Perry, representatives from the NSC and State Department, and a dozen nuclear industry chief executives, one of the people present told The Washington Post.

The Democrats’ report was released Tuesday morning by Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.), the new chairman of the House Oversight and Reform Committee, who has pledged multiple investigations into the Trump administration. Rep. Adam B. Schiff (D-Calif), chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said Tuesday that his panel would join the Oversight Committee in investigating the proposed nuclear sales.

“Multiple whistleblowers came forward to warn about efforts inside the White House to rush the transfer of highly sensitive U.S. nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia in potential violation” of federal law, the Oversight Committee report says.

The report, key elements of which were confirmed by people directly familiar with the matter, cites whistleblowers who said that the Trump appointees “ignored directives from top ethics advisers who repeatedly — but unsuccessfully — ordered senior White House officials to halt their efforts.”
…
The Trump White House has balked at endorsing intelligence reports suggesting that Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman was involved in the killing of Khashoggi, which was carried out Oct. 2 inside the Saudi Consulate in Istanbul.

Many American experts on proliferation say it is in U.S. interests to sell American nuclear technology to Saudi Arabia to prevent rival Russian or Chinese companies from rushing in, potentially undermining the long geopolitical relationship between Washington and Riyadh.

Recently, the kingdom has been signaling an interest in forging greater ties with countries aside from the United States. It has been cooperating with Russia on oil policy, and a report Tuesday by the Russian news agency Interfax said the two countries were in talks on air defense missiles.

Saudi officials have said they would like to buy nuclear power plants so that their country is not totally reliant on oil, although it has the world’s second-largest known petroleum reserves. The kingdom says it wants nuclear energy to displace oil burned to generate electricity, especially for air conditioning. That would boost Saudi Arabia’s oil export capacity. Saudi electricity consumption doubled between 2005 and 2015.

But Saudi Arabia also sees nuclear energy as a way to compete with Iran, which has one reactor in addition to the uranium-enrichment program it concealed for years. The Saudi crown prince warned in an interview with CBS’s “60 Minutes” last year that his country would develop nuclear weapons if Iran did. That added to concern among U.S. analysts that the Saudis want the atomic power project as a covert way to develop nuclear weapons.

The report released Tuesday notes that one of the power plant manufacturers that could benefit from a nuclear deal, Westinghouse Electric, is a subsidiary of Brookfield Asset Management, the company that has provided financial relief to the family of Jared Kushner, the president’s son-in-law and a senior White House adviser. Brookfield Asset Management took a 99-year lease on the Kushner family’s deeply indebted New York City property at 666 Fifth Ave.

Kushner is preparing for a trip to the Middle East to discuss the economic component of his Middle East peace initiative, according to the report. A lawyer for Kushner did not respond to a request for comment Tuesday.

The Democratic report singles out several top Trump associates at the time as key proponents of the sales, and identifies Flynn as the leader. A plan was initially floated by IP3, a firm led by several former high-ranking military officers, the report said. They called their plan a “Marshall Plan” for nuclear reactors in the Middle East. Flynn described himself in ethics filings as an adviser to a subsidiary of IP3. The company has denied that it hired him.
…
Derek Harvey, a senior director for Middle East and North Africa affairs at the National Security Council, was an advocate of the IP3 plan. In late January 2017, after meeting with IP3 leaders, Harvey sought to put together a briefing package about the nuclear sales for Trump ahead of a scheduled phone call with Saudi King Salman, according to the report, which cited an email from one of the IP3 founders to NSC officials.

Weeks after Flynn resigned, there were indications that he remained involved in pushing a nuclear deal. Harvey said during an internal meeting on March 2, 2017, that he spoke with Flynn every night. The report said his remarks came from separate accounts of five unnamed individuals.
…
Harvey did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday. In July 2017, he became an adviser to Rep. Devin Nunes (Calif.), the ranking Republican on the House Intelligence Committee.

According to the Democratic report, Harvey’s NSC colleagues warned repeatedly that any plan to transfer nuclear technology had to comply with the Atomic Energy Act. The United States imposes limits on uranium enrichment and the reprocessing of spent fuel, both of which could be used to produce material for nuclear bombs. Saudi Arabia does not want to make those commitments.

On Jan. 30, 2017, the report says, NSC staffers, ethics counsel and lawyers alerted the top NSC legal adviser, John Eisenberg, who reports to the White House general counsel. Eisenberg instructed the NSC staffers to stop all work on the plan, according to the report.

It’s not exactly breaking news that Cops have been shaking down innocent people for cash or valuable items.

In this case a car.

Supreme Court says constitutional protection against excessive fines applies to state actions
By Robert Barnes, Washington Post
February 20, 2019

The Supreme Court ruled unanimously Wednesday that the Constitution’s prohibition on excessive fines applies to state and local governments, limiting their abilities to impose fines and seize property.
…
“For good reason, the protection against excessive fines has been a constant shield throughout Anglo-American history: Exorbitant tolls undermine other constitutional liberties,” Ginsburg wrote. “Excessive fines can be used, for example, to retaliate against or chill the speech of political enemies. . . . Even absent a political motive, fines may be employed in a measure out of accord with the penal goals of retribution and deterrence.”

The court ruled in favor of Tyson Timbs of Marion, Ind., who had his $42,000 Land Rover seized after he was arrested for selling a couple hundred dollars’ worth of heroin.

He drew wide support from civil liberties organizations who want to limit civil forfeitures, which they say empower localities and law enforcement to seize property of someone suspected of a crime as a revenue stream.
…
The Constitution’s Bill of Rights protects against actions of the federal government. But the Supreme Court over time has applied it to state and local governments under the due-process clause of the 14th Amendment. In 2010, for instance, the court held that the Second Amendment applied to state and local government laws on gun control.

The Eighth Amendment states: “Excessive bail shall not be required, nor excessive fines imposed, nor cruel and unusual punishments inflicted.” Two of those commands — regarding bail and cruel and unusual punishments — have been deemed to apply to state and local governments. But until now, the ban on excessive fines had not been.
…
Ginsburg’s opinion makes clear that the clause applies, and that it is “incorporated” under the 14th Amendment’s due process Clause. Justices Thomas and Neil M. Gorsuch agreed with the outcome, but said they would have relied on a different part of the 14th Amendment.

It just never stops.

Forget Andrew McCabe, yesterday’s get. Today’s sweeties are Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos, and Michael S. Schmidt. We’ll see how many have airtime tonight.

I find it mildly disappointing in that it’s mostly stuff we already know. Unidicted Co-conspirator Bottomless Pinocchio has been guilty, guilty, guilty of Obstruction of Justice and he confessed it to the Russian Ambassador and Lester Holt! On Tape!

It’s as good a summary as any I suppose.

Cody Fenwick at Alternet has flagged the new stuff this way-

Here are 7 bombshells from the NYT’s devastating report of Trump’s ‘war’ on the investigations into him
by Cody Fenwick, Alternet
February 19, 2019

1. Trump pressured Whitaker to install a crony to oversee the SDNY investigation.
2. Attorneys for the president dangled pardons to both Paul Manafort and Michael Flynn.
3. Even though Michael Flynn resigned voluntarily, Trump pushed the falsehood that he asked for Flynn’s resignation.
4. White House lawyers warned about Press Secretary Sean Spicer’s spreading of misinformation.
5. Trump claims Rod Rosenstein told him the Michael Cohen investigation had nothing to do with him.
6. Rep. Matt Gaetz (R-FL) and other Trump allies decided in July 2017 to actively undermine Mueller.
7. Trump has gone after Mueller and the Russia investigation more than 1,100 times in public.

Anyway, what everybody’s talking about-

Intimidation, Pressure and Humiliation: Inside Trump’s Two-Year War on the Investigations Encircling Him
By Mark Mazzetti, Maggie Haberman, Nicholas Fandos and Michael S. Schmidt, The New York Times
Feb. 19, 2019

As federal prosecutors in Manhattan gathered evidence late last year about President Trump’s role in silencing women with hush payments during the 2016 campaign, Mr. Trump called Matthew G. Whitaker, his newly installed attorney general, with a question. He asked whether Geoffrey S. Berman, the United States attorney for the Southern District of New York and a Trump ally, could be put in charge of the widening investigation, according to several American officials with direct knowledge of the call.

Mr. Whitaker, who had privately told associates that part of his role at the Justice Department was to “jump on a grenade” for the president, knew he could not put Mr. Berman in charge because Mr. Berman had already recused himself from the investigation. The president soon soured on Mr. Whitaker, as he often does with his aides, and complained about his inability to pull levers at the Justice Department that could make the president’s many legal problems go away.

Trying to install a perceived loyalist atop a widening inquiry is a familiar tactic for Mr. Trump, who has been struggling to beat back the investigations that have consumed his presidency. His efforts have exposed him to accusations of obstruction of justice as Robert S. Mueller III, the special counsel, finishes his work investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.

Look, does anyone hear Mueller talking about “finishing up”? I’m convinced he has the goods and is ready to rock and roll, unfortunately new crimes keep rolling in.

What has Hasan Minaj been doing? So happy you asked.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

Astronaut John Glenn becomes the first American in orbit; the Rhode Island nightclub fire; Actor Sydney Poitier born; Tara Lipinski becomes the youngest gold medalist in the Winter Olympics.

If you laugh with somebody, then you know you share something.

Trevor Noah

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My name is Roger Murdock. I’m an airline pilot.

I think you’re the greatest, but my dad says you don’t work hard enough on defense. And he says that lots of times, you don’t even run down court. And that you don’t really try, except during the playoffs.

The hell I don’t! Listen, kid. I’ve been hearing that crap ever since I was at UCLA. I’m out there busting my buns every night! Tell your old man to drag Walton and Lanier up and down the court for 48 minutes.

As you probably know Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid have reached a settlement in their collusion suit against the NFL the exact terms of which have not been disclosed at the insistence of the NFL.

There are rumors that Kaepernick is being looked at by several teams in the AAF League and that his asking price is $20 Million per season. There are also reports that the Patsies are considering him as a backup for Brady who is not getting any younger.

The NFL’s settlement with Kaepernick should just be the start of making amends
by Kareem Abdul-Jabbar, The Guardian
Sat 16 Feb 2019

In one of my favorite sports movies, Vision Quest, the varsity wrestling coach tells his students they can challenge the best wrestler in any weight class if they want to take his place.

“Fairest thing in the world,” he smugly tells them. As soon as one kid raises his hand to make that challenge, the coach quickly dismisses the team, pulls him aside, and says: “You’re out of your mind!”

That’s how I see the NFL. The league talks a very public game about fairness, community, and patriotism, but its moral convictions are bottom-lined based. Now, instead of having played fair with Colin Kaepernick and Eric Reid because it’s the right thing to do, the league has been forced to settle a grievance launched by the pair that alleged the NFL’s team owners had blackballed them for protesting during the national anthem.

While the settlement is a win for Kaepernick and Reid, it’s a severe loss for the meaning of sports in America.

We constantly question the appropriateness of athletes as role models in America. Do they show the qualities of character that we would like our children to embrace?
…
Because of that important influence, we should be vigilant in who we promote as heroes. Hall of fame quarterback Joe Montana did some damage to that ideal when he told a reporter in 2015 that the Super Bowl winning 49ers were known to skirt the rules. “They always say, ‘If you ain’t cheating, you ain’t trying.’” The New England Patriots’ Deflategate saga didn’t help, either.

That’s why we need to apply the same intense scrutiny to sports teams and their owners as we do to the individual players like Kaepernick and Reid.
…
(T)he NFL is putting all that in jeopardy when it refuses to take a leadership role in standing up for the constitution – and the rights of athletes like Reid and Kaepernick to protest peacefully – instead of cowering in the ticket booth counting money, afraid to offend people who place entertainment over ethics.

Compromising the integrity of the sport teaches kids the wrong lesson, which is especially damaging when football is facing such a shaky future. The National Federation of High School Associations’ recent survey, for example, showed a decade-long decline in football. Some of that decline can be attributed to fears over concussion, another topic in which the league has often failed to cover itself in glory.

Even more significant is that professional football has a crisis of conscience – in that it doesn’t really have one. The now familiar on-field patriotic displays and fighter jet flyovers are patriotism-for-hire: the military pays millions to have soldiers parade around the field and sing God Bless America before games. If it were authentic patriotism, wouldn’t the NFL allow these displays to be made for free? And when the league does contribute to the community and social issues, it’s usually to help smooth its image after bad publicity. Following the player backlash to the NFL punishing players who took a knee, the NFL and a group of about 40 players reached an agreement that the league would contribute $89m over seven years to fund projects dealing with criminal justice reform, law enforcement/community relations, and education.

The NFL is like a naughty kid: is it sorry because it did wrong or because it got caught?

In related news-

Sports store that boycotted Nike over Colin Kaepernick ads forced to close
by Adrian Horton, The Guardian
Thu 14 Feb 2019

Last fall, the launch of Nike’s 30th anniversary “Just Do It” advertising campaign, which starred ex-NFL star and social justice activist Colin Kaepernick, generated plenty of criticism. Vitriol poured on to social media; some disgruntled customers burned their Nike shoes on video.

Stephen Martin was upset enough with the choice of Kaepernick – the quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and systemic racism – that he stopped selling Nike products in his Colorado sporting goods store.

Now his store, Prime Time Sports, is going out of business after 21 years. “For everybody that has offered help and support through the ‘Honor The Flag’ memorial wall and Nike boycott, now is your time to help me liquidate,” he posted on Facebook on Monday.Last fall, the launch of Nike’s 30th anniversary “Just Do It” advertising campaign, which starred ex-NFL star and social justice activist Colin Kaepernick, generated plenty of criticism. Vitriol poured on to social media; some disgruntled customers burned their Nike shoes on video.

Stephen Martin was upset enough with the choice of Kaepernick – the quarterback who began kneeling during the national anthem to protest police brutality and systemic racism – that he stopped selling Nike products in his Colorado sporting goods store.

Now his store, Prime Time Sports, is going out of business after 21 years. “For everybody that has offered help and support through the ‘Honor The Flag’ memorial wall and Nike boycott, now is your time to help me liquidate,” he posted on Facebook on Monday.
…
“Being a sports store and not having Nike jerseys is kind of like being a milk store without milk or a gas station without gas. They have a virtual monopoly on jerseys,” Martin told KKTV Colorado Springs.

Martin has been a vocal critic of Kaepernick and the protest he launched during the NFL’s national anthems. In 2016, when Kaepernick, then the starting quarterback of the San Francisco 49ers, started kneeling during the anthem , Martin cancelled an autograph signing with Broncos star and fellow kneeler Brandon Marshall.
…
At the time, Martin said that 50 to 60% of his business involved Nike products, so boycotting the brand would likely have dire consequences for his store.

“Probably won’t be able to keep the doors open,” he said. “I really doubt that I can survive without Nike.” Time has now proved himself right.

Duh.

When You Quit Your Life To Become A Professional Gamer.

Finale, at least for now.

Welcome to The Breakfast Club! We’re a disorganized group of rebel lefties who hang out and chat if and when we’re not too hungover we’ve been bailed out we’re not too exhausted from last night’s (CENSORED) the caffeine kicks in. Join us every weekday morning at 9am (ET) and weekend morning at 10:00am (ET) (or whenever we get around to it) to talk about current news and our boring lives and to make fun of LaEscapee! If we are ever running late, it’s PhilJD’s fault.

U.S. Marines begin landing on Iwo Jima; President Franklin D. Roosevelt gives the U.S. Military the authority to relocate and detain Japanese-Americans.

To be a poor man is hard, but to be a poor race in a land of dollars is the very bottom of hardships. W. E. B. Du Bois

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Trump can’t run the Mueller playbook on New York feds
By DARREN SAMUELSOHN, Politico
02/18/2019

Even as speculation mounts that special counsel Robert Mueller might be winding down his investigation, a parallel threat to President Donald Trump only seems to be growing within his own Justice Department: the Southern District of New York.

Manhattan-based federal prosecutors can challenge Trump in ways Mueller can’t. They have jurisdiction over the president’s political operation and businesses — subjects that aren’t protected by executive privilege, a tool Trump is considering invoking to block portions of Mueller’s report. From a PR perspective, Trump has been unable to run the same playbook on SDNY that he’s used to erode conservatives’ faith in Mueller, the former George W. Bush-appointed FBI director. Legal circles are also buzzing over whether SDNY might buck DOJ guidance and seek to indict a sitting president.

The threat was highlighted when SDNY prosecutors ordered officials from Trump’s inaugural committee to hand over donor and financial records. It was the latest aggressive move from an office that has launched investigations into the president’s company, former lawyer and campaign finance practices. New York prosecutors have even implicated Trump in a crime.

Add it all up and the result is a spate of hard-to-stymie, legally perilous probes that appears on track to drag on well into Trump’s 2020 reelection campaign. SDNY stands poised to carry on Mueller’s efforts whenever the special counsel’s office closes shop, and it’s likely to draw even more attention if freshly confirmed Attorney General William Barr — who now oversees the Russia probe as DOJ head — clamps down on the public release of Mueller’s findings.

“When you combine their experience with the traditional independence of the southern district and the reputation it has, this is like another Mueller investigation going on,” said Nick Akerman, a former SDNY assistant attorney who also worked on the Watergate prosecution team.
…
The New York federal prosecutors are far from finished. They’re still seeking interviews with Trump Organization executives, according to a source with knowledge of the probe. And Trump’s inaugural committee confirmed earlier this month that it had received a wide-ranging subpoena from SDNY for documents as part of a probe into how the group raised and doled out a record $107 million. Investigators are looking at everything from potential mail and wire fraud to illegal foreign contributions and money laundering.

“This is why I’ve been saying for months that the Southern District of New York investigation presents a much more serious threat to the administration, potentially, than what Bob Mueller is doing,” Chris Christie, a former New Jersey governor and former federal prosecutor, told ABC News earlier this month.
…
SDNY poses an potent threat because the office has accumulated a perfect storm of witnesses who have guided Trump throughout his career, from his businesses to his meteoric rise in presidential politics up through his inauguration to the White House.

The list of cooperators includes Allen Weisselberg, the Trump Organization’s longtime chief financial officer; David Pecker, the CEO of the National Enquirer’s parent company who has admitted to working with Trump for years to kill incriminating media stories; and Rick Gates, who served as Trump campaign deputy and then de facto leader of the inaugural committee. Gates pleaded guilty in the Mueller probe to lying to the FBI last February but his sentencing has been delayed while he cooperates in “several ongoing investigations,” according to a filing last month from the special counsel’s office.

Then there’s Cohen, Trump’s longtime fixer who is scheduled to begin serving a three-year prison sentence next month. Christie called Cohen a “tour guide” for SDNY investigators into the president’s orbit.
…
Alumni from the office have said SDNY’s investigative powers and independent streak are so robust that — depending on what it finds on Trump — the office could skirt DOJ legal protocol dating to Watergate that holds a sitting president can’t be indicted.

“I’m thoroughly convinced the SDNY will make its own evaluation. They will not say that’s a department policy,” said Jon Sale, a former SDNY and Watergate prosecutor who is close with Trump personal lawyer Rudy Giuliani. “They’re obviously looking at the president and I wouldn’t rule out that they could decide you can indict a sitting president.”

Trump’s attack-Mueller playbook can’t be replicated in New York. For starters, the bounds of what SDNY is looking at don’t deal with Trump’s tenure in the White House, meaning any push back on executive privilege grounds won’t fly. Trump’s lawyers have said they’ve resisted Mueller’s attempts to get the president to answer questions about potential obstruction of justice matters dealing with his time in the Oval Office. And they continue to signal the president’s team should be allowed to review the special counsel’s finished report to ensure it doesn’t violate the president’s rights.

Well, Bottomless Pinocchio is already an Unindicted Co-conspirator to Election Law Violations and Bank Fraud in the SDNY.

First of all, John Oliver is back!

To do whatever it is that he does. Yay!

Second, I don’t know whether John feels it as keenly as I do, but I really hate repeating myself.

Unfortunately people keep being stupid.

Brexit III: The Sequel To Brexit II: Invasion of the Intergalactic Space Lords