quote:
Sweden dropped the charges long ago because of the passage of time.
They dropped the investigation, but the Swedish statute of limitations doesn’t run out until August next year. There are calls to reinstate the charges and I hope they do.
I’d like him to be extradited to Sweden because it makes him safer from being sent to the U.S. - despite what he says. And because the Swedish charges were what he was really running from.
I wouldn't have thought an extradition request could be made without charges, but apparently in the case of a European Arrest Warrant it can (Q&A: Julian Assange and the law):
quote:In Sweden, charging comes much later in the process of a criminal investigation than it does in many other countries. ... Despite the lack of formal charges, in its judgement in May 2012, the UK Supreme Court found that the Swedish public prosecutor was a judicial authority capable of issuing the warrant, in the same way as a judge or a court would be.
quote:But Gemma Lindfield, for the Crown Prosecution Service, said in court that the European Arrest Warrant "quite clearly states [Assange] is wanted for prosecution".
Mr Justice Ouseley, the head of the administrative court who rejected the appeal against Assange's bail, acknowledged the dispute in his judgment: "There is a debate, which may yet be had elsewhere, over whether the warrant is a warrant for questioning or a warrant for trial." He was proceeding, he said, on the basis that it was an extradition warrant for trial. A charge by the requesting country is a prerequisite for a valid EAW.
One account I read said that Assange left Sweden in September of 2010 after agreeing to return in October for more questioning, then reneged on that agreement, so Sweden issued a European Arrest Warrant in November.
I also read that Assange will have to serve any British jail time for skipping bail before being extradited. If Sweden issues another extradition request and Assange is extradited to Sweden then he could still eventually end up in the US with whom Sweden has an extradition agreement. Before Assange is extradited anywhere there will be a protracted court battle, so it will be years.
For me the biggest mystery is why Assange chose to imprison himself for years over charges he and his lawyers say are trumped up. Some speculate that his real fear was extradition from Sweden to the US.
You've heard of Big Pharma? Well now there's Big Bulba. Let me explain.
This is, of course, about light bulbs. A 100 watt incandescent light bulb that is used an average two hours a day where electricity costs 12.6 cents/kilowatt-hour (the average in the US) will cost $9.20 to run over the course of a year. Replacing the 100 watt incandescent bulb with an equivalent 14 watt LED bulb would reduce the annual cost to only $1.29, a savings of $7.91. A 14 watt LED bulb costs anywhere from $$3-$4 (I'm looking at multipacks from Amazon Prime). An LED light bulb pays for itself in less than half a year, and after that it's all gravy.
But it gets better. The average lifetime of an incandescent bulb is only 1250 hours, an LED around 50,000 hours. At 2 hours a day you would have to replace the incandescent bulb every 20 months, the LED every 68 years. If you live in a house with this bulb for ten years you will never have replaced the LED bulb, but you'd have replaced the incandescent bulb six times. Incandescent bulbs are too cheap to worry much about the price, but it adds up, then there's the cost of transportation for the trip to the store, and then there's the annoyance.
The average house has around 40 light bulbs. If just five of them are used 2 hours a day then the total savings that first year is ($7.91 - $4) * 5, or around $20. After that first year the annual savings is around $40. If you live in a state where the electricity is more expensive like I do (around 16 cents/kilowatt-hour) then the first year savings is $30, and the annual savings in subsequent years is around $50.
The example of savings for my own house is substantial just on the outside alone. We have an intelligent light switch that turns on the outside lights (for driveway and front walk) around sunset and keeps them on until around 10 PM. How many hours they're on each day varies by time of year, but winters are long here in New Hampshire, so let's say it averages about 3 hours a day. There are 20 fixtures at 60 watts each for a total of 1200 watts, so it costs $210 annually to run these lights. Replacing them all with LEDs reduces the annual cost to $25, an annual savings of $185. A lot of these lights are candle-style, which are a little more expensive and make the initial outlay more, but they still pay for themselves in less than a year.
Now that I've bored people to death with how much money one can save with LED light bulbs, it's time talk about Big Bulba. Incandescent bulbs are cheaper to make, have a higher profit margin, and people have to buy them more often, so the light bulb industry, Bib Bulba, has little motivation to switch to LED light bulbs. Government standards put in place years ago require the higher efficiency that LED bulbs provide, but only for normal light bulbs. Three-way, reflector, globe-shaped or candelabra-style bulbs were not part of the standard until the Obama administration added them in 2017, with a deadline in 2020.
Now the Trump administration, under pressure from Big Bulba, has proposed rolling back this modification to the standards, which, according to the Appliance Standard Awareness Project and the National Resources Defense Council, will require us to keep and maintain 25 more 500-megawatt power plants than we would otherwise need, costing us more and contributing greatly to the greenhouse gases causing climate change.
quote:I don't believe the 2017 revisions misconstrued existing law. Please do not roll back the revisions. Please continue to encourage the light bulb industry to make highly efficient light bulbs widely available.
Just saw this on you Tube. My question is whether the people have any collective check against the emergency powers act?
Chance as a real force is a myth. It has no basis in reality and no place in scientific inquiry. For science and philosophy to continue to advance in knowledge, chance must be demythologized once and for all. ~RC Sproul
"A lie can travel half way around the world while the truth is putting on its shoes." ~Mark Twain " ~"If that's not sufficient for you go soak your head."~Faith
You can "get answers" by watching the ducks. That doesn't mean the answers are coming from them.~Ringo
Subjectivism may very well undermine Christianity. In the same way that "allowing people to choose what they want to be when they grow up" undermines communism.~Stile
Independent of the accuracy of the information in the video, be aware that the music, images and narrator's tone are all manipulative. Your reaction would likely have been different (e.g., you wouldn't have posted at all) had the same information been neutrally presented in a series of text-only powerpoint slides.
That being said, Directive 51 seems like a good idea when you have good presidents like Bush and Obama and a bad idea when you have a president like Trump.
It is split into two volumes, both contained in the above PDF. Volume I's last page is 199 on PDF page 207. Volume II begins immediately after on PDF page 208.
Volume I is about possible coordination between the Trump Campaign and the Russian government in the Russian government's efforts to interfere in the 2016 presidential campaign. Volume II is about obstruction of justice.
The Barr letter exonerating Trump of obstruction of justice does not accord with the Mueller report. Mueller decided not to make a "traditional prosecutorial judgment" because of the OLC's (Office of Legal Counsel) finding that "the indictment or criminal prosecution of a sitting President would impermissibly undermine the capacity of the executive branch to perform its constitutionally assigned functions" in violation of "the constitutional separation of powers." (see PDF page 213 of The Mueller Report).
The Mueller decision not to exonerate or charge Trump had nothing to do with the sufficiency or lack thereof of the evidence, but upon Justice Department policy. Mueller makes clear that were it not for this policy that a "traditional prosecutorial judgment" would have been made.
Barr, governed by the same OLC findings, cannot personally declare Trump exonerated, and in any case has provided no legal justification for that judgment.
Congress could still impeach, and the Justice Department could still bring charges after Trump leaves office.
Back now from the store to pick up some more popcorn. One of the benefits to being retired is that I've been watching the coverage of the release of the redacted report all day, a major part of which has been reading out loud what it says. I guess a lot of members here have/had to wait until they got home from work before they can try to catch up.
One of the remarks I heard on MSNBC expressed amazement at how much journalists had gotten right over the past two years plus. Trump tried repeatedly to interfere with the investigation (obstruction of justice), but was thwarted by his staff among other problems, including his own incompetence. Mueller's ability to investigate was hampered by repeated lies, plus there is evidence of evidence having been destroyed. There is ample evidence of obstruction of justice, but because of that DOJ policy based on a memo Mueller could not indict Trump for it, so he left that to Congress to determine based on the evidence he is passing on to them, but which William Barr wants to redact and keep them from ever seeing. Of course, the appropriate committees want to see the full unredacted report; at the very least the intelligence Gang of Eight (ie, top leaders of the House and Senate plus chairmen and ranking minority leaders of the intelligence committees) should see it and are fully cleared and authorized to see it.
The day started out with Bill Barr's press session before anybody else had had a chance to see the report -- except for the White House lawyers who started getting copies of the report on Tuesday in order to prepare the White House "response". A couple hours later, the public version was released. As for Congress' version, Congress is out of town on break -- gee, kind of like Barr had timed it that way. As with his four-page summary, Barr's press session misrepresents Mueller's report. Barr repeatedly referenced "no collusion", yet the report itself, even the unredacted parts, repeatedly demonstrate collusion. Barr claimed no obstruction, yet Mueller repeatedly describes Trump's attempts to obstruct. Why didn't Mueller indict Trump for it? According to that ad-hoc DOJ policy, he couldn't. It was far above his pay grade. Rather, that is the job of Congress, so Mueller explicitly passed it on to Congress (which Barr neglected to mention) and provided Congress with all the evidence they need (which Barr wants to redact and keep from Congress).
One of the new details I heard regarded that collusional meeting in Trump Tower between Don Jr. et alia. with the Russians et alia. The Russians had dirt on Hillary and Don Jr. was eager to get it. The Russians reported that Russian oligarchs, the Simt Brothers (or Zimt Brothers -- transliteration from Cyrillics is something of a crap shoot) had made contributions to the Clinton campaign in violation of campaign laws against foreign contributions. Don Jr. asked for evidence of that so they could use it. Sorry, no evidence exists. Don Jr asked Manafort? (his "plus et al." as I recall) why they are wasting their time there.
I switched over to FOX News (AKA "the Fake News Network") for a few minutes. Some of what they were reporting about the Mueller Report was factual. But then they brought up a false equivalency by mentioning that AG Eric Holder was referred to as "Obama's wingman". Later, some guest commentator was viciously attacking Mueller and his integrity. OK, I've seen enough of this shit.
The end result for AG Barr is that he has exposed himself as a shill for Trump. More than one guest on MSNBC who had worked closely with Barr in the past and had respect for him as a consummate legal professional now express contempt for him. Truly, everybody Trump touches becomes corrupted (a play on the book, "Everything Trump Touches Dies.")
But there's another scandal in Barr's past, as Rachel Maddow reported two nights ago: William Barr Record Of Deception For Bush Calls Credibility Into Question. George H.W.Bush (AKA "Bush 41", AKA "the father of Dubya") had tried an indirect plan for the Panamanians to rise up and revolt against Manuel Noriega, which of course failed (not being able to learn from his mistakes, he tried the same thing at the end of Desert Storm where he expected the Iraqi people to rise up in revolt against Saddam Hussein, which did not happen. Of course that did not happen for the second time, which led to Dubya (AKA "Bush 43", AKA "the smart one" compared to Texas Governor Rick Perry currently Secretary of Energy, an agency he could not remember the name of in his Presidential run) working on "daddy issues" to clean up the mess that his father could not, leaving us all with a never-ending war.
Anyway, out of some unidentifiable nether orifice Bill Barr pulled out a legal interpretation, but only provided a 13-page summary of it, as I seem to recall, that the FBI could go into any country and apprehend any perpetrator (AKA "perp") we wanted to go after without the permission of the host country (maybe I just overstated that, but that's still the gist). With that Barr summary, we could justify invading Panama to arrest Manuel Noriega and Bush 41 was good with it. At the time when anyone wanted to see the actual interpreting document, Barr informed them that it was classified, so just trust me and my summary of it. A year and a half later, well after the Bush Administration, the "supporting document" finally surfaced and it turned out that Bill Barr had misrepresented it. And now he's doing it again with the Mueller Report.
I downloaded a pdf of the report, if for no other reason than to have it as a reference.
What I'm seeing so far is, Mueller tied up the evidence relative to Russian interference in 2016, and obstruction, with a bow. Congress has a shit load of stuff to investigate now and prosecutors know right where to look when Trump is out of office.
Boy, there were a lot of Russia contacts! The Russians have a very sophisticated on going program to disrupt our government and our society and they turned Trump and his family and supporters into pawns and dupes and it is still in operation.
It's interesting that Mueller didn't do face to face interview with any of the Trump family.
There is nothing in the non-redacted portions about business, financial, money laundering, fraud, or taxes, as far as I can tell.
I suspect that things are not humming along like a well oiled machine in the White House right now.
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
PDF page 284 of The Mueller Report covers Sarah Sanders role in the firing of James Comey.
After FBI Director James Comey was fired on May 9, 2017, Sarah Sanders met with President Trump and then briefed reporters on two separate occasions:
On the first occasion Sarah Sanders stated that "most importantly, the rank and file of the FBI had lost confidence in their director." The Mueller report says, "When a reporter indicated that the 'vast majority' of FBI agents supported Comey, Sanders said, 'Look, we’ve heard from countless members of the FBI that say very different things.' But the Mueller report continues, "Sanders told this Office that her reference to hearing from “countless members of the FBI 'was a 'slip of the tongue.'"
On the second occasion the Mueller report says that Sarah Sanders "also recalled that her statement in a separate press interview that rank-and-file FBI agents had lost confidence in Comey was a comment she made 'in the heat of the moment that was not founded on anything.'"
In other words, Sarah Sanders lied to reporters, and knew she was lying to reporters, on two occasions when she stated that Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI members.
Sarah Sanders next appearance before reporters should be an interesting one.
In other words, Sarah Sanders lied to reporters, and knew she was lying to reporters, on two occasions when she stated that Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI members. Sarah Sanders next appearance before reporters should be an interesting one.
I don't think she cares. Sanders has been performing for an audience of 1 her entire career at the White House.
It was just a 'slip of the tongue' according to Sarah:
quote:It was just a slip of the tongue.
That’s the explanation that White House press secretary Sarah Sanders is doubling down on after the redacted version of the Mueller report released Thursday revealed that her statements to the press following the firing of FBI Director James Comey were not founded on anything. And critics including April Ryan want her axed over it, with #FireSarahSanders trending on Twitter on Friday morning.
In other words, Sarah Sanders lied to reporters, and knew she was lying to reporters, on two occasions when she stated that Comey had lost the confidence of rank-and-file FBI members. Sarah Sanders next appearance before reporters should be an interesting one.
It is humorous when sycophants like Huckasand end up leaving their mark on history labeled as a proven public liar in an official investigative report that is never going to go away.
I suspect that before this whole science fiction version of America is over there will be a bunch of people remembered by history as crooks, dupes, idiots, and frauds, and most of all liars, every single one.
What if Eleanor Roosevelt had wings? -- Monty Python
One important characteristic of a theory is that is has survived repeated attempts to falsify it. Contrary to your understanding, all available evidence confirms it. --Subbie
If evolution is shown to be false, it will be at the hands of things that are true, not made up. --percy
The reason that we have the scientific method is because common sense isn't reliable. -- Taq
So what we're saying is that Mueller's team determined that Sarah stood at her podium day after day and lied through her teeth, something everyone already knew from multiple experiences through several years.
Revelation.
What are we to expect next? That Mueller couldn't proceed against Trump because of the presidential shield?
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