Let's Do Popcorn! News & Markets for 2-12-18
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Bill Priestap is cooperating!
E.W. “Bill” Priestap is the head of the FBI Counterintelligence operation. He was FBI Agent Peter Strozk’s direct boss. If anyone in congress really wanted to know if the FBI paid for the Christopher Steele Dossier, Bill Priestap is the man who would know everything about everything.
FBI Asst. Director in charge of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap was the immediate supervisor of FBI Counterintelligence Deputy Peter Strzok.
Bill Priestap is #1. Peter Strzok was #2.
The investigation into candidate Donald Trump was a counterintelligence operation. That operation began in July 2016. Bill Priestap would have been in charge of that, along with all other, FBI counterintelligence operations.
FBI Deputy Peter Strzok was specifically in charge of the Trump counterintel op. Strzok would be reporting to Bill Priestap on every detail and couldn’t, according to structure of the FBI, make a move without Priestap's approval.
March 20th 2017 congressional testimony - James Comey was asked why the FBI Director did not inform congressional oversight about the counterintelligence operation that began in July 2016.
FBI Director Comey said he did not tell congressional oversight he was investigating presidential candidate Donald Trump because the Director of Counterintelligence suggested he not do so.
Comey doesn’t use Priestap’s name, but refers to his position and title.
Based on what has been learned since March 2017,it is understandable why the FBI would want to keep hidden that they were running a counterintelligence operation against a presidential candidate.
After all, as FBI Agent Peter Strzok said it in his text messages, it was an “insurance policy”.
FBI Director James Comey told Congress on March 20th, 2017, that the reason he didn’t inform the statutory oversight “Gang of Eight” was because Bill Priestap (Director of Counterintelligence) recommended he didn’t do it.
According to Comey, Bill Priestap carries a great deal of influence if he could get his boss to NOT perform a statutory obligation simply by recommending he doesn’t do it.
ROTFLOL I was born at night but not last night.
Comey’s was creating a “fall guy”. FBI Director James Comey was chucking responsibility in March 2017 by blaming FBI Director of Counterintelligence Bill Priestap for not informing congress of the operation that began in July 2016.
FBI Director James Comey was attempting to create his own exit from being ensnared in the consequences from the wiretapping and surveillance operation of candidate Trump, President-elect Trump, and eventually President Donald Trump.
Bill Priestap was James Comey’s fall guy. Bill Priestap has too much to lose by allowing James Comey to set him up. LOL
That Comey is too cute. His testimony was motive for Bill Priestap to flip and become the primary source to reveal the hidden machinations. I mean I would. LOL
Why should he take the fall for the operation when there were multiple people around the upper-levels of leadership who carried out the operation?
There has been no mention of Bill Priestap in any future revelations of the scheme, despite his being in the middle of it.
Bill Priestap would have needed to authorize Peter Strzok to engage with Christopher Steele over the “Russian Dosssier”
Bill Priestap would have needed to approve of the underlying investigative process used for both FISA applications (June 2016, and Oct 21st 2016)
Bill Priestap would be the person to approve of arranging, paying, or reimbursing, Christopher Steele for the Russian Dossier used in their counterintelligence operation and subsequent FISA application.
Without Bill Priestap, the entire Russian/Trump Counterintelligence operation just doesn’t happen.
Everyone around Bill Priestap, above and below, were caught.
Above him: James Comey, Andrew McCabe and James Baker.
Below him: Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Jim Rybicki, Trisha Beth Anderson and Mike Kortan.
Parallel to Priestap his peer John P Carlin resigned, Sally Yates fired, Mary McCord quit, Bruce Ohr was busted twice, and Dave Laufman, resigned. All of them caught and only Bill Priestap remained, quietly invisible, still in position.
I know if I were Bill Priestap I would have made the decision after James Comey’s testimony on March 20th, 2017.
Priestap is well-off financially; he has too much to lose. He and his wife, Sabina Menschel, live a comfortable life in a $3.8 million DC home; she comes from a family of money.
No one in his position would willingly allow themselves to be the scapegoat for the unlawful action that was happening around them.
There is no-way the participating members inside this small group can escape accountability with Mr. Bill Priestap cooperating with the investigative authorities.
Appearing on NBC's "Meet The Press," White House legislative director Marc Short said that Schiff included confidential sources and methods in his 10-page rebuttal which he knew would require redaction thus setting the stage for Democrats to cry foul.
“We believe Congressman Schiff intentionally put in there methods and sources that he knew would need to be redacted. And if we redacted it, there would be an outcry that says the White House is trying to edit it,” Short said. “So, we said take it back, work with the FBI, clean it up and we'll release it.”
Democrats noted that the White House ignored DOJ warnings not to release the Nunes memo without redactions, calling it "extraordinarily reckless" without a DOJ review. The FBI reportedly wanted names redacted from the Nunes memo, while the White House claims that sources and methods are divulged in the Schiff memo.
The FBI did review the Nunes memo and only wanted names redacted, according to journalist Sara Carter.
Marc Short confirmed this on "Meet The Press," telling the panel that the FBI's concern over the Republican memo wasn't over sources and methods, rather, the agency didn't want the names of its agents involved in "FISAgate" exposed.
“There were not sources and methods of concern in that memo. There was concern of us releasing it because they didn't want the same transparency,” Short said of the FBI.
Time to go.
Secretary of Defense James Mattis stated on or about February 2nd, 2018 that the United States has “no evidence” that the Syrian government used the banned nerve agent Sarin against its own people in attacks in 2013 and 2017.
Why are they still in business?
Senator Warren and committee member Sen. Mark Warner (D-VA) have introduced the Data Breach Prevention and Compensation Act, which will hold credit reporting agencies accountable for data breaches - fining them $100 for each customer who had one piece of personal data stolen, and $50 for each additional set of compromised data.
These guys are useless and have caused so many problems.
Get rid of them! My two cents of course!
Despite launching a new initiative to compete with ground carriers like UPS and posting openings for thousands of jobs in the Seattle headquarters, Amazon is laying off hundreds of corporate employees.
Amazon stated it was necessary after an explosive hiring spree, its Seattle headquarters has gone from 5,000 employees to more than 60,000 since 2010, leaving several departments overstaffed and over-budget, according to the New York Times.
Amazon was the subject of a New York Times story back in 2015 that described a workplace culture where employees were constantly pitted against each other, and managers were expected to be on call day and night. The culture reportedly came from Jeff Bezos, who has frequently pushed for the company to cut inadequate performers.
Amazon denied that story, but the Seattle Times says managers are under pressure from Bezos to weed out the lowest-performing employees.
A manager in one unit making cuts said his team was briefed that Bezos and the Amazon heads wanted to put more pressure on managers to weed out lower performers and enforce spending discipline after the rapid growth of recent years.
"People are in terrible shape," he said. "There is so much stress on campus."
The company recently instituted a mandate that managers who oversee other supervisors must have at least four people reporting to them. The aim, the company says, is to reduce layers of redundant management and keep the company flexible and fast-moving.
Note - All reasonable to me. I dislike the 24x7 caca but there are so many large corporations out there that do that it isn't surprising. I worked for a hospital, research center and they acted like that. They were very upset when I told them too bad. I was not going to check my email every 2 hours. LOL That's just me.
The company has several strategies for "managing out" weak performers without resorting to layoffs.
The first few months of the year brings Amazon’s employee performance reviews and, for some, notices that they need to improve or face consequences.
Such performance improvement plans, dreaded among Amazon’s rank-and-file, come with a requirement that employees demonstrate improvement over a set period of time. Amazon introduced a career coaching program, called Pivot, described as a tool to help lower performers make it through such programs.
Note - been there done that and if they want to get rid of you they just put you on this and then let you go at the end of it saying no improvement. It is all subjective and whatever the manager thinks it is and ok. That's they way of the world regardless.
Employees put on notice can also choose to contest their manager’s determination that led them into the improvement plan in the first place. Now that's a joke too. They will side with the manager every time. Or opt not to participate at all and take a severance package to leave the company.
Some current and former employees say that some managers wield improvement plans to trim the size of teams without resorting to layoffs.
“It’s a well-loved strategy” to cut employees, one former Amazonian said, adding that during his time at the company he saw several talented employees “managed out” that way.
The Times notes that the company has recently been laying off people at its various subsidiaries, which are based around the US. Cuts at Zappos, Createspace and Quidsi have cost nearly 500 jobs.
According to its Q4 earnings report, Amazon's total global workforce stood at 566,000 in December, up 66% from a year earlier.
Counting only corporate jobs outside of its warehouses, the company has a total of 12,500 open jobs.
Amazon denies that its "improvement plans" are used to achieve tacit job cuts.
Dennis Gartman - what a great guy! Bless his heart! Market rallied. Big!
Mr. Tusa came out again and I am sure his tag team partner is not far behind trying to trash GE once again. This time he had nothing new to report but he imagined all sorts of things that could happen.
LOL well so can I. GE is going to rally big. Despite his Debbie Downer show the stock, although it did close down 13 cents, was not pounded as it has been in the past when he has come out to trash it. That is good news! It also made a higher low and a higher high so I expect the rally in GE will begin slowly but it will begin. It should have a fantastic year.
S&P 500 Resistance – 2682, 2715, 2730, 2759, 2785, 2811, 2842, 2876, 2905
S&P 500 Support – 2655, 2638, 2607, 2575, 2560, 2530, 2505, 2478, 2422, 2400, 2375
Target 3200 remains
Cryptos - Bitcoin
Appears to be making a base here in the 8k area. Looks like the bottom is in and if you wish to play this areas seems to be a good place to stick a toe in. Add if it falls to retest the low.
Take care,
Rita