THE GRANT WRITING PROCESS

The whole grant-writing process is an industry unto itself.

With the kind of “free” money floating around it is ripe for fraud and abuse…much like the government wasting taxpayer dollars…those involved in the “grant” seeking business do NOT see a victim when they fudge a little here and exaggerate a little there…

But, the DuKies?!!??!

And, in the middle of the drama of March Madness.

Zion can’t help with this one…

“We expect Duke researchers to adhere always to the highest standards of integrity, and virtually all of them do that with great dedication,” Duke President Vincent Price said yesterday.

However…

Duke University has agreed to pay $112.5 million to settle claims ! that it knowingly included fake data in applications for federal grants !!! that brought more than $200 million ! into that school and other nearby universities.

“When individuals fail to uphold those standards, and those who are aware of possible wrongdoing fail to report it, as happened in this case, we must accept responsibility, acknowledge that our processes for identifying and preventing misconduct did not work, and take steps to improve.” Price added while breaking the agreement news to the media and press.

Duke said a team of internal investigators reviewed more than 50 grants and determined that certain researchers falsified or fabricated data ! that went into a number of grant and payment requests submitted to the National Institutes of Health and other agencies.

Research integrity.

Academic scandals.

Admission bribery.

False scholarship occupancy.

ah, The Road to Perdition.

 

“treasonous” people guilty of “evil” deeds

“In War: Resolution,
In Defeat: Defiance,
In Victory: Magnanimity
In Peace: Good Will.” ~ WSC

NOT that I was surprised.

NOT that I expected anything to play out differently.

NOT that I’m embarrassed to say that I was terribly disappointed.

But, why such a deep venomous response??!

NO one should be in a state of shock over the fact that the current president has NEVER consume a word of Churchill, nor truly understood the word, statesman, but, come on…

Yesterday, as if right on que, Donald John Trump went on the offensive a day after the special counsel investigation reported NO conspiracy with Russia, suggesting that critics who pursued such suspicions were “treasonous,” guilty of “evil things” and should be investigated themselves.

“I’ve been looking at them for a long time,” Trump added, “and I’m saying why haven’t they been looked at? They lied to Congress, many of them, you know who they are. They’ve done so many evil things.”

Under counsel from my Number One son, this is a good time to take a few steps back and acknowledge the limited scope of the special counsel’s report.

Trump indicated that he would support releasing the full report ! by Mueller, as demanded by congressional Democrats. “Up to the attorney general,” he said. “Wouldn’t bother me at all.”

Aunts and uncles, don’t for a second believe that crap!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

What’s sad, but completely typical of Trump is that instead of looking at the conclusion of this two-year long saga as an opportunity to move forward, unify the country, his first reaction is to turn ! on the completely legitimate investigation and just as reasonable questions by the media, press and many Americans about what truly happened.

Continue to look at the totality of Trump’s behavior where the topic is Russia: the lying; his vitriol towards federal law enforcement and the intelligence community; the connections with Kremlin-connected businessmen; the extreme solicitousness towards Russian interests; and, Vlad Putin as an individual.

How in the world could there be an innocent explanation for ALL of this?

The great white whale is still out there!!!

THE SUMMARY RELEASED…

According to a summary, released moments ago, of the special counsel’s findings made public by Attorney General Billy Barr, it indicates that neither the 45th president nor any of his aides conspired or coordinated with the Russian government’s 2016 election interference.

Joy in Mudville, aunts and uncles…

Barr’s summary also said that the special counsel’s team lacked !!! sufficient evidence to establish that Donald John Trump illegally obstructed justice, but added that Mueller’s team stopped short ! of exonerating Trump.

“While this report does not conclude that the president committed a crime, it also does not exonerate him,” Barr quoted Bobby Mueller as writing.

Here’s a copy of Barr’s summary…

https://www.wsj.com/public/resources/documents/dojletter0324.pdf?mod=article_inline

You can expect over the next month, and beyond…

NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION, NO COLLUSION…yada, yada, yada!

I’m hanging my hat on “…it also does not exonerate him.”

What do you think the victory laps will look/sound like from The Weave and the White House?

God help me…please.

 

PLAYOFF BOUND!

With a 7-3 win over the Florida Panthers last night, my Boston Bruins became the second Eastern Conference team to clinch a playoff spot ! and assured it will finish with a better record than Montreal.

At 46-20-9 (101 points), they reached the century mark in consecutive seasons for the first time since 2010-12.

In addition to clinching a playoff berth, the Bruins also signed 42-year old future Hall of Famer Zdeno Chara to a contract for next season.

Is Zdeno drinking avocado juice from Brady’s kitchen?

IT AIN’T OVER ’til IT’S OVER

The fight to expel the Islamic State from its last piece of territory in Syria may be over.

But the US and its partners still face significant battles ! against the terrorist group, its affiliates and other networks that are less formally aligned with it elsewhere, in Afghanistan, West Africa and the Philippines [those are just the regions that we now know of, at this point].

The Islamic State has shifted gears.

The organization that once staked out a self-proclaimed caliphate across Iraq and Syria has now metastasized into a more traditional terrorist group – an atomized, clandestine network of cells engaged in guerrilla attacks, bombings and targeted assassinations.

Thousands of American troops are helping the Afghan Army and security forces combat the Islamic State and other terrorist groups in Afghanistan.

Armed American drones are hunting Islamic State cells in Libya.

And, American forces are advising and providing intelligence to local troops fighting the Islamic State in Burkina Faso [country in West Africa], and in the Philippines.

Terror analysts are indicating roughly 1,200 of the extremists have returned to Europe alone.

The so-called liberation of the declared caliphate – an area that nearly five years ago stretched to the size of Britain – has NOT eradicated !!! the Islamic State’s potency.

A WEEKEND with KID ROCK

Spending quality time with Kid Rock at the southern White House…if that doesn’t tell you ALL one needs to know, I can’t imagine what else might.

Mar-a-Lago.

Solitude for the needy.

While Billy Barr was reviewing the Mueller Report at the Justice Department yesterday, working closely with deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein and their top advisers; while House congressional members were on loop-emergency conference calls most of the day; and, while the balance of Western Civilization repeatedly showed signs of ‘high anxiety,’ the current president got jiggy with Michigan’s favorite son, Robert James Ritchie. 

Calls for the public release of the aforementioned report, or at least its immediate delivery to Congress permeated the small and large hands of clocks/watches.

Key questions for the Justice Department will center around:

• How to handle release of classified material or information sourced from a grand jury?
• How to share information with the White House?
• When to share information with the White House?
• Whether to allow select members of Congress to review the report?
• What must be redacted for security reasons?
• Will the American public ever see the complete [unredacted] report?

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) yesterday called for ALL briefings to committees to be unclassified so that lawmakers can then speak freely about the report.

Republicans, for their part, are calling for a measured approach, asking for the Justice Department to release as much as laws and norms allow.

What the hell am I typing?

‘Laws and norms’ as it relates to this human landfill occupying residence at 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, my apologies…

My mind is in the early stages of fracturing!!!

NOT TODAY

CNN is reporting that Billy Barr will NOT be releasing the “primary conclusions” from the Mueller Report today.

Barr is said to have been working, along with the help of the deputy AG Rod Rosenstein, at the Justice Department, since early this morning.

Working hand-to-hand; glove-to-mitt; peanut butter-to-chocolate, etc., etc.

Read and analyze.

Keep your eyes off the clock, gents.

There’s NO rush…just get it right!

While doing what’s right!!! 

please, STAY HYDERATED

The beat will go on…even without Bobby.

Federal and state prosecutors are/will be pursuing about a dozen other investigations that largely grew out of the Russian investigation, ALL but ensuring that a legal threat will continue to loom over Donald John Trump.

For starters, the Southern District of New York’s reputation for nonpartisanship – and history of autonomy from the Justice Department in Washington, giving it the nickname “Sovereign District” – may make it less vulnerable to attacks from the president and his cronies.

Perhaps some prosecutorial brilliance, from the Southern District, can be mustered to challenge ! the constitutional interpretation of the rule prohibiting lawsuits against a sitting president and find an exception for felony indictment.

This interpretation needs to have a serious group of eyes look at…

In addition to the folks at the Southern District, most of the investigations focus on Trump or his family business or a cadre of his advisers and associates, according to the Wall Street Journal, Washington Post and New York Times, ALL familiar with court records on these investigations.

They are being conducted by officials from Los Angeles to Brooklyn, with about half of them being run by the United States attorney’s office in Manhattan.

Unlike the Mueller investigation, whose mandate was largely focused on links between the Trump campaign and the Russian government’s interference in the 2016 presidential election, the federal prosecutors in Manhattan take an expansive view of their jurisdiction.

Such authority has enabled them, along with FBI agents, to scrutinize a broader orbit around the president, including his family business.

Goggle: RICO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Michael Dean Cohen, the president’s former lawyer and fixer, aka “The Rat” – the gift that keeps on giving.

The precise number of federal investigations around the country that have grown out of the special counsel’s work remains unknown because such inquiries are conducted in secret.

But, what we do know, with a high level of certainty, is Bobby’s office farmed out strands of its inquiry to at least three other United States attorneys’ offices, including in Brooklyn, the District of Columbia and the Eastern District of Virginia.

And, the best part of ALL these investigations, the cost will NOT have to picked up by the taxpayer(s), thanks to ALL of the assets of Paulie Manafort being frozen by the courts.

Hip, hip…

 

MULTIPLE HUMAN CRATERINGS

Allow me to make an open confession…

It was a little after 3:45 pm ET yesterday afternoon, as I was flipping around, during timeouts of the NCAA tournament games, that I began to notice visible sweating; nervous coughing; rapid eye movements; weird camera angles; limited commercial breaks; incoherent conversation(s) on set; and, on-screen cable news talking-heads getting voices in their ears from off-stage producers, that I suddenly suspected the Ark of the Covenant may be on a path of discovery by Indiana Jones.

Translation: The Mueller Report was about to be dropped.

Bang!

Winner, winner, chicken dinner, aunts and uncles.

Then, until almost midnight, America [some – those who are news nerds like the old Lobsterman!] watched a continuous series of human emotional explosions across the cable news networks.

MSNBC called BOTH Rachel Maddow and Lawrence O’Donnell back from their respective long-weekend hiatuses – Maddow appearing in a studio in Tennessee, while O’Donnell was helicoptered into a studio in Miami…literally.

Live TELEVISION…the way America was meant to be seen and judged.

FOX News acting, NO matter the presence on the screen, like they had discovered the ‘fountain of youth.’ Tucker, Sean and Laura behaving like they were high school sophomores, on their fourth corn dog…while washing it down with mugs of 3.2 beer.

CNN displaying a continuous sense they had been given the wrong news to break…maybe we haven’t gotten it ALL yet, so let’s talk amongst ourselves, while Jeffrey Tobin was seen constantly dropping his head reading news on his iPhone.

And, then, the piece de resistance, we ALL had the hilarious opportunity to take in the stable of malcontents at MSNBC, from Nicolle Wallace, Chuck Todd, Ari Melber, Chris Matthews, Chris Hayes, Rachel, Lawrence, up to the 11th Hour with Brian Williams…come apart separately, then collectively…in a complete and utter display of journalistic embarrassment.

I’ve been told medical tents have been set-up at 30 Rockefeller Plaza for the balance of the month of March.

 

BILLY’S GOT the BALL!!!

Now that the special counsel, Bobby Mueller, has provided Attorney General Billy Barr with his report about the Russian investigation, what will Billy do?

What happens next is totally up to Billy…

Barr has the document and notified lawmakers yesterday…

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/708-attorney-general-william-barr-letter-mueller/b7fd3a05ab618bad8544/optimized/full.pdf#page=1

The 45th president aside, Barr can unilaterally decide if the Congress, NOT to say the public, get to see the independent counsel’s report on interference on our democracy and if our president has any part in it?

I, for one, do NOT have ‘full faith and confidence’ that will happen…hope I’m wrong.

Just another example of my coming to the realization, over these last 22 months, how much power certain individuals have within this incredible Civics lesson we’ve ALL been witnessing.

Keeping in mind that Mueller was charged with investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election, and regardless of what crimes/indiscretions Trump may have committed, lets ALL hope/demand this report will provide impetus to clean up !!! our electoral process so we do NOT have yet another election debacle.

In a sentence, the country doesn’t need Billy Barr’s Cliff Notes!