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And finally, there it is: Rumors circulating that Bloomberg wants Hillary Clinton for running mate

Rachel Sharp
The Daily Mail
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 17:35 UTC
Bloomberg hillary clinton
© Associated Press ; Getty Images
Mike Bloomberg (left) is considering making Hillary Clinton (right) his running mate, a source close to his campaign has told Drudge Report
Mike Bloomberg is considering making Hillary Clinton his running mate, a source close to his campaign has told Drudge Report.

Polling found the Bloomberg-Clinton combination would be a formidable force to take on Trump in the race for the White House, the source said.

Former New York City Mayor and Democratic candidate Bloomberg is said to be considering even changing his official residence from New York to Colorado or Florida - where he also has homes - because the electoral college makes it difficult for US president and vice-president to reside in the same state.

Under the Twelfth Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides the procedure for electing the president and vice-president, it states that the two people could not both inhabit the same state as the elector.

Comment: Bloomberg has blatantly bought his way onto the Democratic platform of candidates Will his candidacy be the means by which Killary will try to claw her way back into the White House? Apparently the matchup polls well within his organization.

Killary is playing coy for the moment:
Clinton, 72, won the nomination in 2016, but lost the presidential election to President Donald Trump.

She said last week during an appearance on The Ellen DeGeneres Show how she wouldn't agree to be on the 2020 ticket if she were asked.

"Well, that's not going to happen," Clinton said, per the New York Post. "But no, probably no."

She added: "I never say never because I believe in serving my country, but it's never going to happen."
Answers to Matt Drudge's tweet on the matter were cynical about the idea:







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Bullseye

Kafka redux and a victory: Mistrial declared in D.C. trial of Venezuela embassy protectors

Alan Macleod
MintPress News
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 17:01 UTC
Venezuela embassy protectors
© Embassy Protection Collective
Left to right, David Paul, Margaret Flowers, Adrienne Pine and Kevin Zeese pose in front of a D.C. court house before deliberations began on Feb. 14, 2020.
The word "Kafkaesque" is thrown around liberally in the modern era, often without warrant. The Trial, a 1925 novel written by Bohemian writer Franz Kafka, tells the story of Josef K., a man arrested and prosecuted in a nightmarish kangaroo court while unable to properly defend himself. But nearly 100 years later, another real trial took place in our modern American dystopia, one which easily qualifies for the moniker. Starting February 11, four anti-war activists, Adrienne Pine, Kevin Zeese, Margaret Flowers and David Paul, were facing a year in prison and a $100,000 fine each for interfering with the protective function of the State Department. Today, despite a hostile judge and a host of constraints against the defense, prosecutors were unable to convince a jury that any crime had been committed and the events ended in a mistrial.

The four are members of the Washington D.C. Venezuelan Embassy Protection Collective, a group that last year, at the behest of the government of Nicolas Maduro, entered and occupied the Venezuelan embassy for over a month. In 2019, the Trump administration sponsored a series of coups against the democratically elected Maduro, bizarrely announcing the virtually unknown politician Juan Guaidó as the legitimate president of the country. Each coup was less successful than the last, and Maduro remains in complete control of the country, while Guaidó has become an overwhelmingly unpopular figure, jeered and assaulted wherever he goes.

Comment:

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Snakes in Suits

Why is Bloomberg's long history of egregious sexism getting a pass?

Laura Bassett
GQ
Fri, 14 Feb 2020 17:05 UTC
bloomberg
In December 2015, employees at Everytown for Gun Safety, the gun control organization funded by Mike Bloomberg, arrived at work to find a holiday gift on their desks from their employer: the former mayor's 1997 autobiography, Bloomberg by Bloomberg. Flipping through the book, staffers found themselves uncomfortably reading their billionaire founder's boasts about keeping "a girlfriend in every city" and other womanizing exploits as a Wall Street up-and-comer.

"A few people started immediately going through it and sending the cringe-iest parts around on email chains," one former Everytown employee told me. "Hardly the most controversial things he's said, but it's still a bad look."
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Arrow Up

Roger Stone requests a new trial, citing revelations about anti-Trump juror

Chuck Ross
Daily Caller
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 08:58 UTC
Roger Stone
© Win McNamee/Getty Images
Defense lawyers for Roger Stone requested a new trial for the GOP operative Friday in a secret court filing that, according to a source familiar with the matter, focuses on revelations that came out this week about the foreperson of Stone's jury.

Revelations about Tomeka Hart, the lead juror at Stone's trial, prompted the last-ditch effort by Stone's legal team. He is scheduled to be sentenced in his case on Feb. 20.

Hart, a Democrat who ran for Congress in 2012, came forward on social media Wednesday to defend prosecutors' handling of Stone's case. She spoke out after four of the prosecutors withdrew from the case in protest after officials at the Justice Department publicly questioned a nine-year prison sentence recommendation for Stone.

The U.S. Attorney's Office in Washington, D.C., recommended Monday that Stone serve between 87 months and 108 months in prison on charges that he obstructed Congress and tampering with a witness as part of the House Intelligence Committee's Russia probe.

Comment: See also:

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Light Saber

Common sense: Blackburn proposes bill to ban funding for states that give drivers' licenses to illegal immigrants


National Review
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 16:45 UTC
MarshaBlackburn
© cnsnews.com
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.)
Senator Marsha Blackburn (R., Tenn.) announced on a conference call Wednesday that she was proposing a bill to block grant funding from the Department of Justice for local law enforcement in states with sanctuary policies that allow illegal immigrants to receive drivers' licenses.

"When I look at the situation we have with immigration here in our country, I say let's leave the system in better shape than we found it, because it's a broken system," Blackburn said. She echoed the passing of the Real ID Act after 9/11 as rationale for additional measures.

"Now, states are beginning to really get back to where they were before 9-11, that they are going to provide these," Blackburn stated. "And we think it is important to file legislation that would prohibit these sanctuary entities and these entities that are refusing to comply with federal immigration law, to prohibit them from receiving taxpayer dollars through the grant programs over at DOJ."

Comment: Sometimes you have to get out the stick. A driver's license would either allow an illegal immigrant to register to vote, or automatically registers them. The potential for election fraud is enormous. Any wonder the Democrats have backed the policy from the beginning? And suspiciously:

Pew report: Illegal alien population booming in red states ahead of 2020 election

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Bullseye

Andrew McCabe's case shows hypocrisy of Democrats claiming 'No one is above the law'

Nebojsa Malic
RT
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 16:35 UTC
mccabe
© REUTERS/Joshua Roberts
After months of hearing that President Donald Trump must be impeached because "no one is above the law," America found out that this talking point doesn't actually apply to Democrats such as ex-FBI deputy director Andy McCabe.

As his lawyers triumphantly announced on Friday, the Department of Justice decided not to press criminal charges against McCabe "after careful consideration" of the inspector-general's report that said he lied to investigators and leaked to the media.

"Based on the totality of the circumstances and all of the information known to the Government at this time, we consider the matter closed," said the DOJ letter. It sent waves of glee through the 'Resistance' establishment, which set up and propagated for years the 'Russiagate' hysteria aimed at removing Trump from office.
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Question

DOJ declines to pursue criminal charges against McCabe

Brooke Singman
Fox News
Fri, 14 Feb 2020 16:14 UTC
McCabe
© Eric Thayer/Reuters
Ex-FBI Director Andrew McCabe
The Justice Department said Friday it will not pursue criminal charges against former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, after a nearly two-year-long investigation into accusations brought by the agency's independent watchdog who found that he lacked "candor" when questioned about leaking to the media.

In a letter to McCabe attorney Michael Bromwich obtained by Fox News, Justice Department attorney J.P. Cooney said the investigation is now "closed."

"We write to inform you that, after careful consideration, the government has decided not to pursue criminal charges against your client, Andrew G. McCabe," Cooney wrote.

Comment: The Washington Examiner adds some detail:
DOJ Inspector General Michael Horowitz released a report in 2018 detailing multiple instances in which McCabe "lacked candor" with FBI Director James Comey, FBI investigators, and inspector general investigators about his authorization to leak sensitive information to the Wall Street Journal that revealed the existence of an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation.

Horowitz concluded that McCabe's account of his May 2017 interview "was wholly unpersuasive" and believed the former FBI leader misled his team too.

McCabe was fired and is suing the Justice Department for wrongful termination, seeking to regain his job and back pay and claiming that Trump was behind the firing.

The former FBI deputy director claims that being fired was part of a broader plan by Trump to "discredit and remove DOJ and FBI employees who were deemed to be his partisan opponents because they were not politically loyal to him" in the suit against the DOJ, Barr, and FBI Director Christopher Wray.

"Andrew McCabe FIRED, a great day for the hard working men and women of the FBI — A great day for Democracy," Trump tweeted just after midnight after McCabe's 2018 firing. "Sanctimonious James Comey was his boss and made McCabe look like a choirboy. He knew all about the lies and corruption going on at the highest levels of the FBI!"

McCabe also accused then-Attorney General Jeff Sessions, along with Wray and others, of serving as Trump's "personal enforcers" rather than as "the nation's highest law enforcement officials" and of catering to Trump's "unlawful whims" instead of "honoring their oaths to uphold the Constitution."

McCabe caught Trump's attention during his time working alongside Comey, whom Trump also fired.

For months, McCabe's lawyers repeatedly expressed frustration with the Justice Department, denying that McCabe did anything wrong and saying that "this investigation has been fatally flawed from its inception." McCabe said he would "absolutely not" accept a plea deal.
Social media was abuzz over the ruling:


Others counseled calm:




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Russian Flag

Stronger than sanctions: What's driving countries from Turkey to India to buy Russia's S-400?

Shishir Upadhyaya
RT
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 16:29 UTC
S-400
© AFP / Alexander Nemenov
The S-400 'Triumf' air defense system is taking the globe by storm. After NATO member Turkey, India is next in line and even Iraq is reportedly interested, despite US threats of sanctioning anyone who buys weapons from Moscow.

At the Lucknow DefExpo 2020 last week, Russian officials confirmed that India will receive its first shipment of S-400s by September 2021. The $5 billion deal signed in 2018 will be moving ahead despite US warnings that such a purchase could trigger sanctions under the CAATSA (Countering America's Adversaries Through Sanctions Act), which President Donald Trump signed in August 2017 as part of a wider program aimed against Russia.
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Newspaper

'We did not forget, we did not forgive': India marks one year since bombing of troops in Pulwama, Kashmir


RT
Fri, 14 Feb 2020 00:00 UTC
Pulwama wreckage 2019
© REUTERS/Danish Ismail
Forensic officials inspect the wreckage of a bus after a suicide bomber rammed a car into the bus carrying Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel on Thursday, in Lethpora in south Kashmir's Pulwama district, February 15, 2019.
India has unveiled a memorial for the 40 troops killed in a suicide bombing in the Indian-controlled part of Kashmir a year ago on Friday. The incident sparked a tense standoff that brought the region to the brink of war.

Tributes to the servicemen that lost their lives in the February 14, 2019 attack in Kashmir's disputed Pulwama district were led by PM Narendra Modi and other top government, as well as military, officials.

"They were exceptional individuals who devoted their lives to serving and protecting our nation. India will never forget their martyrdom," Modi tweeted early Friday morning.

Comment: In the latest cross-border shelling between India and Pakistan, one civilian was killed and 3 were injured in Shahpur, Jammu & Kashmir:
One civilian was killed and several others were injured by artillery fire near a mosque after the Pakistani army violated a ceasefire in disputed Kashmir, India's police chief has said.

Pakistani troops fired heavy mortars and small arms toward army outposts in the Line of Control (LoC) in the Poonch District of India's Jammu and Kashmir region on Friday, Indian media reported, citing military officials.

The district's Superintendent of Police Ramesh Kumar Angral said that a shell exploded near a mosque in the Shahpur area, killing a civilian and injuring three others when they were heading for Friday prayers. Other reports said that four people were injured. The Pakistani military did not comment on the alleged incident.

On Thursday, the Indian army and police busted a weapons cache belonging to local militant groups, recovering several pieces of firearms and ammunition.


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Question

Bojo seeks to govern like Trump, 'a populist with less austerity and big spending projects' - Galloway on cabinet reshuffle


RT
Sat, 15 Feb 2020 00:43 UTC
bojo
© REUTERS/Hannah McKay
Britain's Prime Minister Boris Johnson leaves Downing Street in London, Britain February 12, 2020.
The cabinet reshuffle undertaken by PM Boris Johnson clearly shows he seeks to be a true populist leader just like US President Donald Trump - and signals the end of austerity measures in the UK, ex-MP George Galloway tells RT.

"Boris Johnson has signaled that he intends his government to be a populist one, where he controls not just the important decision-making, but his office controls the infrastructure and everyone else's departments," Galloway said on Thursday.

Sacking well-known ministers is hardly surprising, then, as populist leaders prefer technocrats in their governments, while all the attention revolves around their own persona. The rest of Johnson's team will therefore be "just window dressing and administrators," as Galloway put it.

"Who are Donald Trump's ministers? - Nobody knows. Donald Trump is the one and only in the United States. And Boris Johnson is now the one and only in the British government," he added.

Comment: Bojo's actual accomplishments and legacy remain to be seen, but If Bojo's time in regional and national government positions are anything to go by, the future doesn't look too bright for the UK:

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