ET Williams

The Doctor of Common Sense

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Russia’s Foreign Minister Sergey Ryabkov cancells upcoming meeting with the US over Santions

Why Don’t We Put Sanctions In Iran and Saudi?

Russia’s deputy foreign minister Sergey Ryabkov cancelled an upcoming meeting with the US Under Secretary of State for Political Affairs Thomas A. Shannon, Jr., according to AP, in retaliation to the Trump administration’s announcement on Tuesday that it has imposed sanctions on 38 Russian individuals and firms over Russian activities in Ukraine.

Ryabkov said that “the situation is not conducive to holding a round of this dialogue” that was scheduled for Friday and criticized the U.S. for “not having offered and not offering anything specific” to discuss.

“We have said from the very beginning of Washington’s exceptionally destructive policy in regard to applying anti-Russia sanctions, that [such measures] will not and cannot have an effect desired by the US on our individuals or entities,” Ryabkov told  RIA Novosti Tuesday.

The decision to widen the list came as President Trump met with Ukrainian President Petro Poroshenko at the White House.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Kremlin said it regrets the new U.S. sanctions against Russia and warned of possible retaliation. Vladimir Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that the U.S. move wasn’t constructive, adding that “various options are being considered on expert level.”

Russia also said the new U.S. sanctions continue the “destructive trend” set by Obama administration.

On Tuesday, the Trump administration announced it has imposed additional sanctions on 38 Russian individuals and firms over Russian activities in Ukraine. Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said that the penalties are designed to “maintain pressure on Russia to work toward a diplomatic solution.” However, overnight Democrats were furious after House Republicans stalled the recently passed broader Senate bill expanding sanctions on Russia further – and which led to loud protests by European allies over potential fines over use of the Nord Stream 2 gas pipeline – stating the bill violated the origination clause of the Constitution.

http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-06-21/russian-diplomat-cancels-us-meeting-protest-over-sanctions-and-exceptionally-destruc

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Megyn Kelly’s Ratings Are Tanking NBC Wants Fox To Take Her Back

Megyn Kelly Is A Fraud

Controversy usually creates cash and big ratings—except if you are NBC News’ Megyn Kelly.

After Kelly’s controversial and much-hyped interview with Alex Jones tanked by again failing to beat out reruns of 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos, New York radio host Mark Simone tweeted on Monday that NBC is trying to unload Kelly and convince Fox News to take her back.

But a high-ranking Fox News source told Breitbart News that there is “no way” Kelly could come back to the network. Quite simply, the source told Breitbart News, Kelly “would not be welcomed back.”

 Simone also suggested that if Kelly becomes more toxic and her ratings tank even more, “NBC will have to take her off the network,” and “if they are stuck with her, they’ll give her an MSNBC show.”

 Before she bolted to NBC, Kelly anchored The Kelly File on Fox News. During the 2016 election cycle, Kelly won praise from mainstream media journalists when she tried to undercut Donald Trump during the first Republican presidential debate in August of 2015 in Cleveland, Ohio. She also gave “Never Trumpers” a forum on her primetime show to constantly slam Trump throughout the election cycle.

And as the Daily Beast’s Lloyd Grove noted, Kelly also “hastened [Roger] Ailes’ forced resignation last July with her fateful decision to recount his misconduct to a team of lawyers hired by 21st Century Fox to investigate allegations made in the sexual harassment and retaliation lawsuit filed by Fox News anchor Gretchen Carlson.” New York magazine’s Gabriel Sherman reported that Kelly “told investigators that Ailes made unwanted sexual advances toward her about ten years ago when she was a young correspondent at Fox.”

As Grove pointed out, Kelly, in her book, said there was some “poetic justice” in the role she played in helping boot Ailes out of Fox News.

“I worked my tail off… I established myself as a serious person,” Kelly wrote. “I built my own power. And when the allegations against Roger hit, I used it. Perhaps there is some poetic justice in that.”

NBC reportedly invested nearly $20 million a year to bring Kelly to the network, and NBC’s investment has not paid any dividends at all. After her interview with Russian President Vladimir Putin, Kelly was mocked for being way out of her league. And when HuffPost obtained the full unedited interview in which a “nervous” Kelly lobbed Putin “softballs,” Kelly was subjected to another round of criticism.

Her interview with Jones did not have any news value and may have damaged NBC’s and her reputation more than it helped. Advertisers like J.P. Morgan Chase fled while Kelly lost credibility in the eyes of many when, in a leaked recording that Jones released, Kelly is heard telling Jones, “It’s not gonna be some gotcha hit piece, I promise you that.” NBC did not help matters when it released a photo of Kelly and Jones that, as The Hill’s media columnist Joe Concha described, looked “like they were on a Tinder date pulling up to a drive-thru.”

Yet despite all of the hype, Kelly’s interview with Jones still flopped. 60 Minutes and America’s Funniest Home Videos reruns even beat Kelly’s show by nearly 40 percent in the coveted 18 to 49-year-old demographic, as Concha noted.

A television executive told CNN over the weekend that NBC’s “fundamental mistake” was thinking that Kelly was actually a “superstar.” NBC executives have already reportedly determined that viewers are not going to tune in to Sunday Night with Megyn Kelly just to watch Kelly and are “freaking out” over the “ratings disaster” that is Kelly.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2017/06/20/exclusive-fox-news-source-megyn-kelly-would-not-be-welcomed-back/

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Cosby Trial Concluding: He Faces Life Sentence

Prosecutors nearing end of case against Bill Cosby

NORRISTOWN, Pa. (AP) — Prosecutors’ case against Bill Cosby drew toward a close Friday with the jury hearing the comedian’s damaging, decade-old testimony about giving to women he wanted to have sex with.

Testifying under oath in 2005, the TV star said he had obtained several prescriptions for the now-banned sedative in the 1970s but didn’t take them himself, according to the deposition read to the jury.

“When you got the quaaludes, was it in your mind that you were going to use these quaaludes for young women that you wanted to have sex with?” Cosby was asked.

“Yes,” he said.

Cosby, 79, is on trial on charges he drugged and sexually assaulted former Temple University employee Andrea Costand at his suburban Philadelphia home in 2004. He has said it was consensual.

In the deposition, Cosby said he gave Constand three half-tablets of the cold and allergy medicine Benadryl. Prosecutors have suggested he gave her something stronger — perhaps quaaludes, a highly popular party drug in the 1970s that was banned in the U.S. in 1982.

Prosecutors evidently saved the quaalude testimony for practically the end of their case, for maximum effect.

Defense lawyer Brian McMonagle, clearly wanting to move past Cosby’s talk about giving drugs to women, asked no questions about it on cross-examination.

Prosecutors were expected to rest their case later Friday, setting the stage for the defense to begin presenting its side on Monday.

Cosby gave the deposition as part of a lawsuit filed by Constand and later settled for an undisclosed sum. The deposition was sealed for years until portions were released by a judge in 2015 at the request of The Associated Press.

That, in turn, spurred Pennsylvania prosecutors to reopen their investigation of Cosby and arrest him a decade after the district attorney at the time decided the case was too weak to prosecute.

For the jury at his sexual assault trial, the deposition could be the closest it comes to hearing from Cosby himself, since he said recently that he did not intend to take the stand.

Constand, 44, testified this week that Cosby penetrated her with his fingers against her will in after giving her pills that left her paralyzed, unable to tell him to stop. Cosby could spend the rest of his life in prison if convicted.

In the deposition, Cosby also recounted a telephone conversation he had with Constand’s mother, saying he apologized for the sexual encounter with her daughter because he was afraid she thought of him as “a dirty old man.”

“I apologized to this woman. But my apology was, my God, I’m in trouble with these people because this is an old man and their young daughter and the mother sees this,” he said.

Cosby also worried about the repercussions from public disclosure.

“Do you think there would be a financial consequence to you if the public believed that you gave Andrea a drug that took away her ability to consent and then had sexual contact with her?” Cosby was asked in a passage read Friday.

“Yes,” he said.

Cosby also recounted calling Constand’s family and offering her money for graduate school. Constand refused the offer and reported Cosby to police, suing him after prosecutors failed to file charges.

Prosecutors also put on the stand a psychologist who testified that victims of celebrities are often afraid to come forward because of the possible backlash. Constand did not go to police until a year after the alleged assault.

“If it’s a well-known person, the victim takes on a lot of responsibility for that person’s reputation, especially if that person is well-liked or beloved,” Veronique Valliere testified.

Cosby’s lawyers asked for a mistrial, complaining that Valliere was offering observations about Cosby even though she was only allowed to testify generally about victim behavior. The judge rejected the request.

During a break Friday, Cosby’s spokesman dangled the possibility the comic might testify after all. Doing so would carry enormous risk for Cosby, exposing him to cross-examination about some of the lurid things in his deposition.

The spokesman, Andrew Wyatt, said some members of Cosby’s family will join him in court as the trial wears on. He said Cosby told wife Camille to stay away from the courthouse so she wouldn’t have to endure the “media circus.” She has yet to be seen in court.

Some 60 women have come forward to say Cosby sexually violated them, but the statute of limitations for prosecution had run out in nearly every case.

The AP does not typically identify people who say they are victims of sexual assault unless they grant permission, which Constand has done.

___

For more on Cosby, including trial updates, historical photos, videos and an audio series exploring the case, visit: www.apnews.com/tag/CosbyonTrial

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Man Not Guilty of Rape Because He Was Sleepwalking

He goes to sleep and rapes women. Yeah right.

Man found not guilty after blaming sleepwalking for sex attack

Sleepwalking might just get you off.

A Manhattan jury Friday found Nick Liu, 27, not guilty of molesting his roommate’s bikini-model girlfriend after his lawyer Dan Ollen argued that he was sleepwalking at the time.

“Not guilty,” read the forewoman in Manhattan Criminal Court on one count each of misdemeanor forcible touching and third-degree sex abuse.

Liu’s mother, Lisa Philips, burst into sobs of relief. As Liu left the courtroom, accompanied by his girlfriend, his parents and sister, he said, “I’m very happy to have my life back.”

The Georgetown graduate got into hot water after a night of heavy drinking Sept. 11, 2015. Early the next morning, he sleepwalked into his roommate Shane Payne’s bedroom in the StuyTown pad they once shared.

Payne’s horrified girlfriend awoke to find Liu kissing her neck and putting his fingers inside her, she told jurors. The brunette bodybuilder, who has posed for Hooter’s bikini calendar, yelled “Stop! Stop!” as she shoved the 155-pound intruder off of her.

During her weepy testimony, she insisted that Liu was fully conscious when he attacked her.

But the mild-mannered defendant told jurors he has suffered from sleepwalking since he was a young child. He said he fell asleep that morning and his next memory was of “someone jostling me quite aggressively.” He was distraught when he realized it was his pal’s girlfriend.

The out-of-work investment analyst ran back into his bedroom and started hyperventilating. “I was breathing quite fast, I just felt horrible,” he said.

His girlfriend of 5 years, Alexandra Berg, testified about his sleep disturbances. She said that he grabs her breasts and vagina about twice a month in his sleep.

“The first few times it happened, I didn’t know he was asleep,” she said. “He woke up during it, and you could see his eyes going from unconscious to confused.”

http://nypost.com/2017/06/09/man-found-not-guilty-after-blaming-sleepwalking-for-sex-attack/

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Pelosi Has Mental Health Meltdown While She Questions Trump’s Sanity

 

Need I say more?

Shortly after calling into question President Trump’s mental health on MSNBC’s ‘Morning Joe,’ House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi’s own mental health came under scrutiny, as the 77-year-old California congresswoman referred to President Trump as “President Bush” and forgot what day of the week it is.

A reporter quickly helped her correct the gaffe, interjecting “Trump,” but Pelosi appeared oblivious she slipped up.

An aide then emerged from the sidelines, passing Pelosi a note, notifying her she got the two presidents mixed up again.

Pelosi’s confusion came just two hours after suggesting Trump was losing his mind. “I am concerned,” she said on MSNBC, about Trump’s “fitness for office.”

“I think his family should be concerned about his health,” Pelosi said. “The fact is that this is hopefully not reparable — he’s the president of the United States.”

“You mean you hope it is reparable?” Joe Scarborough asked, apparently confused.

“Yeah, yeah,” she replied.

Asked if she had advise for Trump, she said, “go to sleep, get some sleep. Bring yourself to a place where your synapses are working.”

During her weekly press conference, Pelosi not only became confused over who is president, but also what day of the week it is.

“I spoke with the speaker a week, a week and a couple days ago, about — oh, no, just last Friday,” she said. “What is today? Is it Friday again?”

https://news.grabien.com/story-moments-after-trumps-mental-health-pelosi-has-senior-moment

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Rat Bastard Comey Testifies

Liar liar

COMEY SAYS HE WAS FIRED BECAUSE OF RUSSIA INVESTIGATION

WASHINGTON (AP) — Former FBI Director James Comey asserted Thursday that President Donald Trump fired him to interfere with his investigation of Russia’s role in the 2016 election and its ties to the Trump campaign.

“It’s my judgment that I was fired because of the Russia investigation,” Comey told the Senate intelligence committee in explosive testimony that threatened to undermine Trump’s presidency.

“I was fired in some way to change, or the endeavor was to change, the way the Russia investigation was being conducted,” Comey testified under oath. “That is a very big deal, and not just because it involves me.”

Comey also accused the Trump administration of spreading “lies, plain and simple” about him and the FBI in the aftermath of his abrupt firing last month, declaring that the administration then “chose to defame me and, more importantly, the FBI” by claiming the bureau was in disorder under his leadership. And in testimony that exposed deep distrust between the president and the veteran lawman, Comey described intense discomfort about their one-on-one conversations, saying he decided he immediately needed to document the discussions in memos.

“I was honestly concerned that he might lie about the nature of our meeting, so I thought it really important to document,” Comey said. “I knew there might come a day when I might need a record of what happened not only to defend myself but to protect the FBI.”

The revelations came as Comey delivered his much anticipated first public telling of his relationship with Trump, speaking at a packed Senate intelligence committee hearing that brought Washington and parts of the country to a standstill as all eyes were glued to screens showing the testimony. The former director immediately dove into the heart of the fraught political controversy around his firing and whether Trump interfered in the bureau’s Russia investigation, as he elaborated on written testimony delivered Wednesday. In that testimony he had already disclosed that Trump demanded his “loyalty” and directly pushed him to “lift the cloud” of investigation by declaring publicly the president was not the target of the FBI probe into his campaign’s Russia ties.

Comey said that he declined to do so in large part because of the “duty to correct” that would be created if that situation changed. Comey also said in his written testimony that Trump, in a strange private encounter near the grandfather clock in the Oval Office, pushed him to end his investigation into former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn.

Democratic Sen. Joe Manchin of West Virginia asked Comey the key question: “Do you believe this rises to obstruction of justice?”

“I don’t know. That’s Bob Mueller’s job to sort that out,” Comey responded, referring to the newly appointed special counsel who has taken over the Justice Department’s Russia investigation.

In a startling disclosure, Comey revealed that after his firing he actually tried to spur the special counsel’s appointment by giving one of his memos about Trump to a friend of his to release to the press.

“My judgment was I need to get that out into the public square,” Comey said.

Trump’s private attorney, Marc Kasowitz, seized on Comey’s affirmation that he told Trump he was not personally under investigation. Though Comey said he interpreted Trump’s comments as a directive to shut down the Flynn investigation, Kasowitz also maintained in his written statement that Comey’s testimony showed that the president “never, in form or substance, directed or suggested that Mr. Comey stop investigating anyone, including suggesting that that Mr. Comey ‘let Flynn go.'”

The Republican National Committee and other White House allies worked feverishly to lessen any damage from the hearing, trying to undermine Comey’s credibility by issuing press releases and even ads pointing to a past instance where the FBI had had to clean up the director’s testimony to Congress. Republicans and Trump’s own lawyer seized on Comey’s confirmation, in his written testimony, of Trump’s claim that Comey had told him three times the president was not directly under investigation.

Trump himself was expected to dispute Comey’s claims that the president demanded loyalty and asked the FBI director to drop the investigation into Flynn, according to a person close to the president’s legal team who demanded anonymity because of not being authorized to discuss legal strategy. The president has not yet publicly denied the specifics of Comey’s accounts but has broadly challenged his credibility, tweeting last month Comey “better hope there are no ‘tapes'” of the conversations.

“Lordy, I hope there are tapes,” Comey remarked at one point Thursday, suggesting such evidence would back up his account over any claims from the president.

Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California asked the question that many Republicans have raised in the weeks since Comey’s firing as one media leak followed another revealing Comey’s claims about Trump’s inappropriate interactions with him.

Discussing the Oval Office meeting where Comey says Trump asked him to back off Flynn, Feinstein asked: “Why didn’t you stop and say, ‘Mr. President, this is wrong,’?”

“That’s a great question,” Comey said. “Maybe if I were stronger I would have. I was so stunned by the conversation I just took it in.”

The hearing unfolded amid intense political interest, and within a remarkable political context as Comey delivered detrimental testimony about the president who fired him, a president who won election only after Comey damaged his opponent, Hillary Clinton, in the final days of the campaign. Clinton has blamed her defeat on Comey’s Oct. 28 announcement that he was re-opening the investigation of her email practices. “If the election were on Oct. 27, I would be your president,” Clinton said last month.

Thursday’s hearing included discussion of that email investigation, as Comey disclosed that then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch instructed him to refer to the issue as a “matter,” not an “investigation.”

“That concerned me because that language tracked how the campaign was talking about the FBI’s work and that’s concerning,” Comey said. “We had an investigation open at the time so that gave me a queasy feeling.”

Many Democrats still blame Comey for Clinton’s loss, leading Trump to apparently believe they would applaud him for firing Comey last month. The opposite was the case as the firing created an enormous political firestorm that has stalled Trump’s legislative agenda on Capitol Hill and taken over Washington.

Under questioning Thursday, Comey strongly asserted the intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia did indeed meddle in the 2016 election.

“There should be no fuzz on this. The Russians interfered,” Comey stated firmly. “That happened. It’s about as unfake as you can possibly get.”

Trump has begrudgingly accepted the U.S. intelligence assessment that Russia interfered with the election. But he has also suggested he doesn’t believe it, saying Russia is a “ruse” and calling the investigation into the matter a “witch hunt.”

http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_COMEY?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMPLATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-06-08-12-37-50