It appears Rosenstein had serious discussions with people inside the government on invoking the 25th Amendment against Trump to try to force him out of office.
There are also reports that he "contemplated" (and maybe did) secretly record conversations, much as is claimed by Omarosa.
There are also apparently memos, contemporaneously taken, that describe at least some of this -- which the FBI has never disclosed.
In other words there are two sets of files -- one that Trump and the rest of the FBI have, and then one that has other material in it.
In the corporate world keeping two sets of books -- one for public consumption and one for private, internal use with materially different content is a serious offense. It is an instant fireable offense everywhere and in many cases is felonious.
The so-called "denial" was amusing in that it actually confirmed the presence of the memos:
“A set of those memos remained at the F.B.I. at the time of his departure in late January 2018,” the lawyer, Michael R. Bromwich, said of his client. “He has no knowledge of how any member of the media obtained those memos.”
Oh, so you admit they exist?
Now isn't that nice.....
Has Rosenstein been fired by Mr. Trump? Nope.
What do you do with a subordinate who directly seeks to undermine you?
You fire them.
Immediately.
Without exception, every time, period.
Especially when it appears that they are keeping two sets of records -- one set for consumption by other members of the organization and a second that contains different information you are or intend to use for some other not-above-board purpose.
I have no idea if the NY Times reporting is factual -- but if it is, and is as-alleged, then those who continue to support this President who refuses to fire the people responsible for covering this up and letting it happen in the first place, along with failing to take immediate action on same -- a list that at least includes Jeff Sessions and Rosenstein himself, are in fact doing this on a minute-by-minute basis:
And by the way, dude, that bongwater is disgusting -- and it sounds like you're dying out there...
Email kairia.rocks@gmail.com to put this unique piece on your wall today!
Yes, I mean it -- heroin.
The newest tool in the fight against opioid overdoses is an inexpensive test strip that can help heroin users detect a potentially deadly contaminant in their drugs.
Sales of fentanyl test strips have exploded as a growing number of overdose-prevention programs hand them out to people who use illicit drugs.
Though they weren't designed for it, the test strips can signal the presence of fentanyl in illicit drugs. Some health officials question their accuracy, but they have proven to be so popular that some programs can't get enough to satisfy demand.
This is a product that was designed to prove that patients were actually using the drugs prescribed for them - that is, they weren't diverting them to others "out the back door." You peed on it and the metabolites and drug itself, if present, would be indicated. As it turns out it's also quite effective in detecting fentanyl, which is much stronger than heroin, in a sample before being used -- in other words it's a specific test not for opioids generally but for fentanyl specifically, so if you have a sample that has all heroin in it you will not get an indication on it.
It's not perfect -- it misses some samples, and I assume it also probably misses carfentanyl, since that's a different drug -- but close relative, and even more-deadly (and, so far, more-rare too.)
But the answer to junkies ODing on fentanyl that they don't know is in their drugs isn't to make test strips available to them so they can check first. It's to sell the stuff in pharmacies to anyone with ID for 21 who wants it in known purity and concentration, thereby both destroying the underground market (and all of the violence that comes with it) and stopping the accidental ODs -- essentially all of them.
You cannot stop drugs from being produced and used by arresting people. All you can do, in the end, is create a violent subculture and illegal marketplace, powered by people shooting one another because they can't sue over their disputes.
I've known plenty of people with addiction issues, including in my own family. Some of those issues are more-serious than others and in one recent instance in my family has taken a life, but all are nasty. Drug addiction is drug addiction when you get down to it, and although that sounds cliche, it's not; most junkies have their specific drug of choice but if they can't get it for some reason they will use something else. Some "graduate" to multiple drugs, but most addicts have their specific favorites and that's what they use.
Making drugs illegal -- even the nastiest ones -- doesn't stop people from using them. What it does is destroy any ability of the user to know what they're buying in every case. Cocaine, meth and heroin on the street are increasingly being laced with fentanyl because it's cheap and easily-available with most of the precursors for the illegal trade coming from China and routed through Mexico. Since we refuse to not only stop the flow of illegal invaders and insist on so-called "free trade" there is literally no way to shut this completely down, as these synthetic opioids are very small in mass and volume compared to their intoxicating capacity.
The solution is to legalize and regulate all of it, from weed onward. For weed and its derivatives this means a liquor-store like system, much as some states have now. For hard drugs it means selling them in pharmacies over the counter to anyone who can prove they're 21, properly labeled and regulated as to purity and strength -- and to have medical outreach on the streets and available to provide support and intervention for those who want treatment.
No, you won't decrease the number of junkies doing this, and you might even increase them -- a bit. Those who do not want to be a junkie or who want to stop won't be given an incentive to become one if the stuff can be bought through legal channels, but those who currently wind up ODing by accident will cease doing so immediately, especially those who have no reason to believe there is any fentanyl in their drugs at all.
Street interceptions are now showing that a large percentage of street drugs -- not just heroin but meth and cocaine as well, along with some others -- are laced with fentanyl. Traffickers and dealers are doing this because fentanyl is cheap, especially compared with drugs like cocaine.
Opioid ODs are killing 70,000 people in the US a year at present -- and rising. Declaring "war" on drugs hasn't worked -- not now and not ever. Portugal faced an HIV epidemic due to injectable drugs, took them off the criminalization list entirely, and stopped that in its tracks. Instead of prison being caught there means referral to psychological and treatment resources, including for opioid users methadone handouts, but not prosecution. The results are dramatic -- the nation has an OD rate one fiftieth that of the United States and one tenth of other European nations that have our (arrest and prosecute) model. Their HIV infection rate from IV drugs dropped 90%.
It's easy to be skeptical of the idea of a van rolling around with a psychologist and medical workers in it, providing needles but insisting they be used on-the-spot and returned (so as to prevent what you have in San Francisco), along with handing out methadone on a daily basis to those who want to try to get and stay clean and -- in the meantime -- remain productive in society. But what do we have now? Tens of thousands of people dying, streets littered with used (and dangerous) needles and junkies defecating on the street, never mind dealers shooting one another over territorial and payment disputes.
Treating addiction as a medical problem and making safe supplies available to those who fall into the trap is a better option. You can't do it under the present model, and as a result I'm forced to conclude that even for hard drugs there is no path forward with prohibition and incarceration that works. Where there is demand there will be supply, and with illicit, untested and unknown purity of supply you get disease and death. We don't tolerate that anywhere else in society so why do we put up with it here?
Getting off our high horse and facing reality is a better option and the only way we're going to stop this epidemic.
I have said this before recently -- I want a divorce.
I mean it.
The current insanity with the US Senate's display is outrageous -- and directly caused by the situation under the 17th Amendment. No state legislature would permit this crap to go on were we to not have same.
The people have their representation in the US House. The Senate was designed to be the more sane and deliberative body; not a body that intentionally sandbags an allegation of assault with sexual overtones that bears on the nomination of a Supreme Court justice.
But The Senate did exactly that.
Then, much worse, the Senate leadership, which is Republican, refused to call bull**** on the tactics and take the vote anyway. Yeah, I get it -- Collins and Murkowski might have voted no. Let them die on that hill if they want to and die they will if they had done that, derailing the nominee.
Flake probably doesn't care (just as McCain didn't) but everyone else does. Further, reality on this is that in the election that is just around the corner Democrats have more Senators up for re-election than Republicans and they are extremely vulnerable on this point. Kill a nominee as a result of a directly and intentionally unfair smear campaign -- and that's what it is when you wait until the last second to raise it despite actual knowledge two months prior and they can die on that hill too.
But no! Senate leadership has no fear of recall by the legislatures because they no longer are subject to same.
They used to be -- but no more.
Never mind McCain himself, who would have never survived in the Senate under a pre-17th system, nor would have Flake, Murkowski or Collins.
I repeat -- we must insist on a divorce and if we cannot get rid of the 17th by consent, and you know damn well we cannot since the Senate would have to vote itself out of a job then the chips fall where they may.
This nation is going down the toilet because we are no longer willing to stand up and call bull**** on this sort of thing, displaying righteous rage when it occurs. Yet it must -- now -- or the hair-thin cooperation and social fabric that remains will fracture, and when it does you won't be able to put it back together again.
I've had a pretty good 55 years but my daughter -- and the other young lady in my family who is of roughly the same age deserve better than to live in a third-world, Rwanda/Bosnia-style hellhole, which is exactly where this nation is headed if this crap is not stopped now.