- Gina Haspel, nominated for CIA Director, faced tough questions from the Congressional committee yesterday from key Democrats, centered around her involvement and stance on enhanced interrogation. Republican John McCain issued a statement from Arizona urging members not to confirm her nomination. Members dumbed-down their questions to Ms Haspel asking point-blank, “Is torture immoral? Would you torture someone if the President told you to?” These were all set-up questions as members wanted a Yes or No answer and did not want to listen to any context or nuance. Is torture bad? Sure it is – but so is chopping off heads which is what ISIS likes to do. Also lost in this entire hearing was how many Waterboarding ‘victims’ there were during the time period when enhanced interrogation techniques were used. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) asked about the “92 torture victims,” as if Haspel had waterboarded them herself — No wait, I mean, As if there were that many! Dianne confused the number of interrogation tapes there were (92) with the number of people who were actually waterboarded (3). Three. Blame the interns, Dianne, you were prepared they let you down.
- Three hostages were released last night from a North Korean labour camp ahead of the Summit meeting. President Donald Trump met the three hostages at the airport to greet them at 2:00 AM this morning. Media is struggling with assigning credit to either Trump or Secretary of State Mike Pompeo.
- A date has been set for the talks with North Korea on denuclearization: June 12, in Singapore (a.k.a. Pirate Island).
- Michael Cohen is still in the news, this time his bank records revealed he was collecting “consulting fees” from some major corporations seeking his advice on the Trump Administration. Look, if anyone gave Michael Cohen money and expected something good in return, that’s on you. Your fault.
- On the day President Trump withdrew the United States out of the United Nations Iran Nuclear Deal, Iran shot back at the President saying they could enrich uranium within days of restarting their nuclear program. And in Syria, Iranian-backed rebels fired 20 missiles into Israel, just to put a finer point on in case anyone missed it. No injuries were reported.
- Media is asking questions related to Michael Cohen’s bank records and how Stormy Daniels’ attorney Michael Avenatti got hold of them. Hmm, documents from the Southern District of New York, who could that be? Recently fired NY AG Eric Schneiderman? Probably. He hated Trump and shielded Harvey Weinstein from prosecution for decades, namely because Schneiderman himself is now a disgraced abuser of women. Character guy. Interesting side note, some of the records Avenatti got were from a different “Michael Cohen,” having nothing to do with the stupid one in Trump Tower. Anyone with that name should probably lay low for awhile for this to blow over in 7 years. – BC
