WTF Community

Day 608

General Discussion
#1

Updated 9/19/2018 8:37 AM PDT

1/ The Trump administration is unable to account for nearly 1,500 additional migrant children who were placed with sponsors after leaving federal shelters. The revelation comes months after a similar admission in April by the Department of Health and Human Services that the government lost track of 1,475 migrants children who were moved out of shelters last year. Since 2016, HHS officials have called sponsors to check on children 30 days after they are placed, but the department has said it can not be held legally responsible for children after they are released from government custody. (New York Times)

This is a companion discussion topic for the original entry at https://whatthefuckjusthappenedtoday.com/2018/09/19/day-608/
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#2

“Yeti pubes and a dick like the mushroom character in Mario Kart…”

:face_vomiting:

I have nothing else valuable to add. Just :face_vomiting:

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#3

This is explosive testimony from a classmate of Dr. Ford. If it isn’t sufficient probable cause for an investigation, I don’t know what is.

A former schoolmate of Brett Kavanaugh’s accuser wrote a Facebook post saying she recalls hearing about the alleged assault incident involving the future Supreme Court nominee, though she says she has no first-hand information to corroborate the accuser’s claims.

“Christine Blasey Ford was a year or so behind me,” wrote the woman, Cristina Miranda King, who now works as a performing arts curator in Mexico City. “I did not know her personally but I remember her. This incident did happen.”

She added, “Many of us heard a buzz about it indirectly with few specific details. However Christine’s vivid recollection should be more than enough for us to truly, deeply know that the accusation is true.” . . .

King has since taken down her Facebook post, which NBC News verified as having appeared on her account. She said on Twitter that she deleted it “because it served its purpose and I am now dealing with a slew of requests for interviews…Organizing how I want to proceed. Was not ready for that, not sure I am interested in pursuing. Thanks for reading.”

She later posted on Facebook: “To all media, I will not be doing anymore interviews. No more circus for me. To clarify my post: I do not have first hand knowledge of the incident that Dr. Christine Blasey Ford mentions, and I stand by my support for Christine. That’s it. I don’t have more to say on the subject. Please don’t contact me further.”

Holton-Arms did not return a call seeking verification of King’s attendance. But a 1982 yearbook lists “Cristina King” as a student, and member of the Holton-Arms Athletic Association, an honor society. In her senior year, she led the school chorus as president, according to the 1983 yearbook. “Cristina King was able to keep the chorus members in tune as they trooped up to Hill and Lawrenceville to dazzle the boys with their talent and good looks,” the club’s yearbook page reads.

Blasey Ford appears in both yearbooks as well. She graduated in 1984.

Here is the Facebook post that King later took down. I found this at: https://twitter.com/jaybookmanajc/status/1042386834284789760.

I apologize for the low resolution image – if I find a crisper image, I’ll post it later.

It seems to me that if King recalls other students discussing the incident, then there may be additional corroboration. The FBI must conduct interviews with King and any classmates she thinks may have discussed this.

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UPDATE: Here’s some more detail from Law & Crime. They are taking a more reserved view of the provenance of this Facebook post than NBC did. Bottom line: King needs to come forward for interviews by the press and FBI – it would be irresponsible to post these recollections to Facebook and Twitter and then not make herself available to back up what she’s said.

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#4

Yes!
King is not wanting any media attention, and is unwilling (now) to answer reporters questions. Wonder if she got an FBI visit, it would more than likely be different.

From Laurence Tribe @tribelaw (Harvard Law Prof)

AND

@tribelaw

The FBI clearly has jurisdiction, without any referral from the WH, to investigate the death threats, the hacking, and the harassment designed to prevent the alleged victim from appearing to testify before the US Senate. That would lead to investigating the alleged arrack itself
11:13 AM - 19 Sep 2018

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#5

And here is another classmate that must be interviewed. Patrick Smyth wrote a letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee stating that Dr. Ford claims he was at the party in question and he claims he wasn’t. I feel strongly that he should be willing to testify to that under oath.

Something is out of whack here. Dr. Ford never publicly named Smyth as being at the party – or brought up his name at all. So why does he believe that he was named by her? Have members of the Judiciary Committee been communicating with him about this incident? – if so, who? If those communications have occurred, they must be made public. My concern is this: we need to make sure that individual members of the committee are not contacting potential witnesses without the knowledge of the entire committee. Such contact might prejudice the witnesses – and that’s putting it politely. To put it more bluntly – Reminder to the committee: witness tampering is a felony crime and, yes, Republicans, I’m looking at you.

Though Smyth states Ford has named him in connection with the party, she did not publicly identify him when she provided her account of what happened to the Washington Post earlier this week. Ford did not immediately respond to a request for comment through her attorneys, nor did the White House.

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#7

More of Mark Judge’s writing and opinions of growing up in his teen years, and how rowdy a group he belonged to.

The Washington Post story that first named Ford mentioned Judge’s memoir, Wasted: Tales of a Gen X Drunk, which features the character Bart O’Kavanaugh, who “puked in someone’s car” and “passed out on his way back from a party.” In a 2016 lament about how social media discourages juvenile delinquency, Judge wrote, “When my high-school buddies and I got together and exchanged memories of that time, we found ourselves genuinely shocked at the stuff we got away with.”

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#8

To me it looked like a self-congratulatory session, slapping each other on the back, because they revere this guy. T country.

@maggieNYT

Maggie Haberman Retweeted Brett Kelman

A local reporter experiencing the president up close for the first time —->

Brett Kelman
‏@BrettKelman

Trump’s storm “briefing” in N.C. was surreal. First, nobody briefed him; politicians mostly just thanked him. Second, he praised local officials for their “talent.” Third, he said we have the strongest economy ever. Fourth, he asked about Lake Norman, where his golf course is.
9:11 AM - 19 Sep 2018 from Havelock, NC

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#9

@dragonfly9 I saw that too. But ya know, when you’re star they let you do anything. :woman_shrugging:t2:

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#10

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As he visited homes destroyed by Florence, Trump spoke with a resident who ended up with someone else’s yacht in their yard.

“At least you got a nice boat out of the deal,” Trump said.

The president assured the resident that he’d try to help with an insurance issue. But the boat, Trump added, was incredible.

“They don’t know whose boat that is,” he said. “What’s the law? Maybe it becomes theirs.”

Happy Wednesday :woman_facepalming:t2:

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#11

I feel like it’s important to note that DHS claims to have lost track of exactly 1488 migrant children. That’s, uh. That doesn’t sound a figure they arrived at by mere coincidence?

Especially after their previous flirtation with white supremacist dogwhistles.

There are white supremacists in DHS and they don’t care that we know. This is going to be ugly.

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#12

President Trump had a suggestion for how Spain could deal with Europe’s migration crisis during a recent meeting with Foreign Minister Josep Borrell, according to reports in the Spanish media.

The idea was simple: “Build a wall across the Sahara.”

He’s so fucking stupid :woman_facepalming:t2:

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#13

If Friday is the deadline for her to decide if she’s coming to testify in front of the Judicial Committee, well, the answer looks clear.

She would need a full written statement on Friday.

They plan to bully her, and slander her. She is not going to go through with it.

Unless there’s an enormous outcry, public demonstration of horror well, they are going to give a pass to Kavanaugh.

Disgusting.

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#14

I suspect the FBI could investigate and the GOP and Trump would trash it because it was done by the FBI.

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#15

The question of Russian influence in our 2016 Presidential campaign is a big one. How could it be that this campaign was waged to an unwitting (or witting) group like Trump, his allies, his employees, his family?

This article pulls together the many fronts of influence, who played along and who has the most to gain from “The Plot to Subvert the election.”

So much is at stake…Mueller’s investigation and the integrity of our Dept of Justice, the vulnerability of a believing voter base, and the security of our nation against what took place.

"The Russian intervention was essentially a hijacking."

But to travel back to 2016 and trace the major plotlines of the Russian attack is to underscore what we now know with certainty: The Russians carried out a landmark intervention that will be examined for decades to come. Acting on the personal animus of Mr. Putin, public and private instruments of Russian power moved with daring and skill to harness the currents of American politics. Well-connected Russians worked aggressively to recruit or influence people inside the Trump campaign.

To many Americans, the intervention seemed to be a surprise attack, a stealth cyberage Pearl Harbor, carried out by an inexplicably sinister Russia. For Mr. Putin, however, it was long-overdue payback, a justified response to years of “provocations” from the United States.
>
And there is a plausible case that Mr. Putin succeeded in delivering the presidency to his admirer, Mr. Trump, though it cannot be proved or disproved. In an election with an extraordinarily close margin, the repeated disruption of the Clinton campaign by emails published on WikiLeaks and the anti-Clinton, pro-Trump messages shared with millions of voters by Russia could have made the difference, a possibility Mr. Trump flatly rejects.

As Mr. Trump emerged in spring 2016 as the improbable favorite for the Republican nomination, the Russian operation accelerated on three fronts — the hacking and leaking of Democratic documents; massive fraud on Facebook and Twitter; and outreach to Trump campaign associates.

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🇷🇺 All Things Trump/Russia! (Resources)
#16

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#6

Yes, there is a lot of behind-the-scenes maneuvering. The party in question must be well known to those who attended, and the Kavanaugh group are circling their wagons around Kavanaugh’s potential judgeship.

It is possible that Ford mentioned by name to the therapist and someone has a copy of those records. Perhaps they have been forwarded to someone, and got purposefully leaked. Kavanaugh, McGahn and his PAC are working night and day to save him…so it is likely someone is wrangling these people. Or Judge set the pace, and they see he is not speaking, so they won’t too.

Interesting of course by contrast that all the women who went to school w/ C B Ford do believe her, and would do anything to defend her claims. They don’t have trouble remembering any rumors to the effect of the drunken assault.

But the R’s are playing it like “take it or leave it, not our problem if she can not testify.” Their boy needs to be ‘brazened through.’

Here’s a copy of K’s yearbook. Pundits are talking about his 'Keg city club." and the “Devil’s Triangle.”

Flabbergasted at all of this… :persevere:

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