Michelle Obama Lectures Men: 'Y'all need to go talk to each other'

Source: Newsweek Magazine



BY ANNA MENTA ON 11/1/17 AT 3:21 PM

Michelle Obama has a message for the men of the world: Do better, try harder and most importantly, communicate more.

On Wednesday, the former first lady sat down with poet Elizabeth Alexander on the second day of the Obama Foundation Summit in Chicago, the first of an annual event. The topic turned to gender, and Obama had some choice words: She noted that women tend to communicate, reflect and support each other better than men—something she feels needs to change.

"Y'all should get you some friends," she laughed, pointing to the men in the audience. "Y'all need to go talk to each other about your stuff, because there's so much of it! Talk about why y'all are the way you are."

In fairness, Obama also addressed the ways she feels women contribute to sexism and male entitlement. "We raise our girls to be strong, and sometimes we take care not to hurt men. And I think we pay for that a little bit," she said. "Are we protecting our men too much, so that they feel a little entitled, a little self-righteous?"

https://twitter.com/ABCPolitics/status/925782362440351744



Read more: http://www.newsweek.com/michelle-obama-lectures-men-698887

Trump's inner circle admits Mueller indictments mean it's time to plan president's endgame: report

DAVID FERGUSON
01 NOV 2017 AT 14:38 ET

President Donald Trump’s White House is reeling in the aftermath of two high-profile indictments of former campaign aides and the arrest and guilty plea of another, said Vanity Fair‘s Gabriel Sherman on Wednesday.

As panic tightens its grip on the West Wing, some in the president’s inner circle have begun to dread the possibility of impeachment.

“Here’s what Manafort’s indictment tells me: Mueller is going to go over every financial dealing of Jared Kushner and the Trump Organization,” said former Trump campaign aide Sam Nunberg to Sherman. “Trump is at 33 percent in Gallup. You can’t go any lower. He’s f*cked.”

Sherman spoke to a half dozen of the president’s friends and advisers and found that talk has now begun about how to play out Trump’s endgame and that now “impeachment is being considered as a realistic outcome and not just a liberal fever dream.”

As the president’s lawyers take an official line that they are cooperating in every way with the Mueller investigation, behind the scenes Trump’s allies fret that there are no easy outcomes.

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https://www.rawstory.com/2017/11/trumps-inner-circle-admits-mueller-indictments-mean-its-time-to-plan-presidents-endgame-report/

NY publicist says Manafort wanted to pay him for Ukraine work via offshore accounts - to make...

Source: Business Insider




NY publicist says Manafort wanted to pay him for Ukraine work via offshore accounts — to make 'way more money'

A New York publicist who has represented clients including former Trump Organization adviser Felix Sater and Ukrainian billionaire Rinat Akhmetov says he was asked by Paul Manafort and Rick Gates if he could avoid registering with the Justice Department as a foreign agent while he worked for them — and whether he would agree to be paid from offshore accounts.

The claim mirrors some of the details laid out in an indictment of Manafort and Gates as part of an investigation by the office of special counsel Robert Mueller. The two men have pleaded not guilty to the charges, which include money laundering, failure to file reports of foreign bank accounts, and filing false or misleading statements about their foreign lobbying work.

Ronn Torossian, the CEO of 5WPR, told Business Insider he was approached by Manafort and Gates in 2012. On February 22 of that year, Gates emailed Torossian with a request:

"I would like to speak with you regarding an opportunity to support a foreign government client that I represent. I would like to walk you through some of the details via phone and then schedule a meeting with you and others on your team that you might want to bring in."

Reporters grill Sarah Sanders over Trump's hypocrisy: 'Why was he so quick to go political' after NY

Trump's Lawyers Say Calling Women Liars Over Sexual Harassment Was Politics

Source: Bloomberg




By Chris Dolmetsch

November 1, 2017, 11:20 AM EDT Updated on November 1, 2017, 1:40 PM EDT

President Donald Trump’s contention that women who accused him of sexual harassment were lying was just a political opinion expressed during the 2016 campaign, his lawyers argued as they sought to block a suit by a woman who appeared on his reality TV show, “The Apprentice.”

Summer Zervos sued Trump in January, saying he defamed her by denying that he had groped her and calling women who accused him of similar behavior liars. Trump lashed out while on the campaign trail in October against what he called “phony” accusations, saying he was being attacked with lies and slander.

In a filing late Tuesday, Trump’s lawyer called her lawsuit politically motivated. Zervos can’t hold Trump liable for engaging in “political speech in the context of a public debate,” which is protected by the First Amendment, Marc Kasowitz wrote.

“Mr. Trump was merely defending his character and qualifications for office from the false attacks Ms. Zervos leveled against him just a few weeks before the presidential election,” Kasowitz wrote in the filing.

Read more: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-11-01/trump-says-calling-women-liars-over-sex-harassment-was-politics

CIA releases new tranche of materials seized in 2011 bin Laden raid

Source: Reuters




#U.S.NOVEMBER 1, 2017 / 2:42 PM / UPDATED AN HOUR AGO


WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A computer recovered in the 2011 U.S. special forces operation that killed Osama bin Laden contained a video collection that included kids’ cartoons, several Hollywood movies and three documentaries about himself.

The list of the videos was included in the release on Wednesday by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency of nearly 470,000 files found on the computer seized in the May 2, 2011, U.S. raid on the al Qaeda founder’s hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan.

It is the fourth tranche of materials taken from the walled compound where bin Laden and his family lived to be made public by the U.S. government since May 2015.

Materials that still have not been released are being withheld because they could harm national security, are blank, corrupted or duplicate files, are pornographic or are protected by copyright, said a CIA statement.

Read more: http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-binladen-cia/cia-releases-new-tranche-of-materials-seized-in-2011-bin-laden-raid-idUSKBN1D15LX

The social media ads Russia wanted Americans to see (Here they are and no paywall)

A batch of the ads were released Wednesday by members of the House intelligence panel.

By POLITICO STAFF 11/01/2017 03:11 PM EDT



Russian accounts bought thousands of social media ads on hot-button U.S. issues ranging from Black Lives Matter to illegal immigration, according to a batch of the ads released Wednesday by members of the House intelligence panel.

Here is a sampling of ads purchased by Russian-linked accounts and aimed at U.S. Facebook and Instagram users:

‘Buff Bernie’ coloring book

This ad promoted a coloring book called “Buff Bernie,” filled with “very attractive doodles of Bernie Sanders in muscle poses.” It added that “I’ve recently heard some hateful comments from the Hillary supporters about Bernie Sanders and his supporters” — language aimed at stirring up the kinds of intra-party divisions that would later flare after the first release of Russian-hacked Democratic Party documents during the summer of 2016.


This ad, created March 2016, targeted people ages 18 to 65+ in the United States who like “LGBT United”. | Facebook | Democratic House members

Posted on: LBGT United group on Facebook
Created: March 2016
Targeted: People ages 18 to 65+ in the United States who like “LGBT United”
Results: 848 impressions, 54 clicks
Ad spend: 111.49 rubles ($1.92)

Teaching children about guns

This image of an adult and a child wielding guns included the text that “this is the way our children have to be raised,” adding: “Follow us if this video makes you proud!”


This ad, created in April 2016, targeted people ages 13 to 65+ who are interested in the tea party of Donald Trump. | Democratic House members

Posted on: Instagram
Created: April 2016
Targeted: People ages 13 to 65+ who are interested in the tea party or Donald Trump
Results: 108,433 impressions, 857 clicks
Ad spend: 17,306 rubles ($297)



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https://www.politico.com/story/2017/11/01/social-media-ads-russia-wanted-americans-to-see-244423

Looks like Jeff Sessions perjured himself.

Jeet Heer
3 hours ago

Robert Mueller’s investigation into Russian interference in the election has entangled the attorney general. In his sworn testimony during his confirmation hearing in January, Sessions was asked by Senator Al Franken, “If there is any evidence that anyone affiliated with the Trump campaign communicated with the Russian government in the course of this campaign, what will you do?” Sessions responded: “Senator Franken, I’m not aware of any of those activities. I have been called a surrogate at a time or two in that campaign and I didn’t have—did not have communications with the Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.”

But George Papadopoulos’s guilty plea indicates that there were attempts in the Trump campaign to arrange a meeting with Putin, and that Sessions was aware of them. As CNN reports this morning, “The chairman of Trump’s national security team, then Alabama Senator and now Attorney General Jeff Sessions, shut down the idea of a Putin meeting at the March 31, 2016, gathering, according to the source. His reaction was confirmed with another source who had discussed Sessions’s role.”

The good news for Sessions is that he can plausibly claim to have opposed any Russian collusion. The bad news is that, in making those claims, he opens himself up to charges of perjury.

###

https://newrepublic.com/minutes/145614/looks-like-jeff-sessions-perjured-himself

Articles to Impeach Trump To Be Filed By Multiple House Members By Thanksgiving

POSTED BY: BRIAN KRASSENSTEIN NOVEMBER 1, 2017

As it appears more and more likely that the Trump campaign did seek to collude with Russia at the very least, many Republicans have become silent when it comes to the Mueller probe. MeanwhileDemocrats have become more outspoken, pointing to the evidence that’s already been made public, showing that senior campaign advisers gave the go-ahead for campaign officials to meet and talk to Russian officials prior to the election in November of last year.

As this information slowly gets released via court documents, it appears that Democratic members of the House of Representatives — the side of Congress responsible for impeaching a sitting President — are planning something big. What is that plan? A coordinated effort to impeach the President of the United States.

US Representative Luis Gutierrez, from Illinois has just told an audience at the City Club in Chicago that he is helping to spearhead the first coordinated effort to impeach Donald Trump. According to those who heard Gutierrez speak, he said that himself and several fellow members of the House Judiciary Committee intend to “file articles of impeachment against Trump before Thanksgiving.” (November 23).

While this will not be the first articles of impeachment filed against the President, it would be the very first coordinated effort by multiple members of Congress. Representative Al Green filed his own articles back in the beginning of this month, while Representatives Steve Cohen and Brad Sherman have also introduced such articles earlier in the year.

While this, by no means, indicates that Trump will be impeached, especially given the fact that the House of Representatives is tilted greatly in the favor of Republicans, it is the start of a concerted effort to try and remove the President from office.

more
http://ir.net/news/politics/128088/articles-impeach-trump-filed-multiple-house-members-thanksgiving

Russian ads, now publicly released, show sophistication of influence campaign

Source: The Washington Post




By Craig Timberg, Elizabeth Dwoskin and Karoun Demirjian November 1 at 1:04 PM

Lawmakers on Wednesday publicly shared several of the 3,000 Facebook ads bought by Russian operatives as they sought to shape American political conversation during the 2016 presidential election and its aftermath by inflaming some of the nation’s deepest social divides.

The ads — some of which directly praise Republican Donald Trump or denigrate his Democratic rival Hillary Clinton — made visceral appeals to voters upset about illegal immigration, the declining economic fortunes of coal miners or the rising prominence of Muslims in some U.S. communities.

Some ads also explicitly called for people to attend political rallies amid a campaign season that already was among the most polarizing in recent U.S. history.

A Facebook page called “Being Patriotic” bought an ad touting a “Miners for Trump” rally in Pennsylvania, one of several key swing states.

Read more: https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/technology/russian-ads-now-publicly-released-show-sophistication-of-influence-campaign/2017/11/01/d26aead2-bf1b-11e7-8444-a0d4f04b89eb_story.html