Filed under: Domestic Policy, Economy, History, Intelligence, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Russia, The United States | Tags: A Little History, Pictures Speak Loudly, Russian President Vladimir Putin
Sometimes pictures do speak more clearly than just words.This excellent compendium came from The Liberty Eagle, and it is fortunately or unfortunately (depending on your attitude towards truth) absolutely correct.
Could someone pass this on to CNN’s Jim Acosta? He whines that he doesn’t understand why anyone is calling it “fake news” and suggesting that today’s journalists seem to be the enemies of the people is just outrageous and without reason. Uh huh.
Filed under: Politics, Foreign Policy, Domestic Policy, Media Bias, Democrat Corruption, Law, The United States, Russia, Intelligence, Election 2016, Bureaucracy, Crime | Tags: President Obama's Scandals, Russian Collusion, Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act
Well, well, well. Representative Trey Gowdy R-SC said that in 18 months, he has not seen “one scintilla” of evidence that Donald Trump colluded with Russia. He added that if such evidence existed that Adam Schiff would have leaked it by now.
Over the weekend the FBI finally released its Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act applications for warrants against former Trump aide Carter Page. Now we know why the bureau resisted disclosing them. Even in heavily redacted form the applications confirm that the FBI relied on very dubious partisan evidence to justify the warrant and withheld relevant information from the court.
The applications also vindicate the criticism of the FBI’s surveillance requests that were laid out last February by House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes. On the basis of an uncorroborated document that was commissioned by he Hillary campaign, the FBI accused a U.S. citizen of being “an agent of a foreign power” who should be wiretapped.
Mr. Nunes also reported that the FBI did not inform the FISA court that the dossier and “trusted source” (Christopher Steele) were paid by the Clinton campaign. The applications for the FISA court do not mention the words Clinton, Democratic National Committee, Fusion GPS (the Clinton-financed oppo research firm that hired Mr. Steele) or Fusion co-founder Glenn Simpson.
The FBI cited a Sept. 23,2016 story in Yahoo News to back up its Steele dossier information with the court — noting that the story said “intelligence reports” and a “well-paced Western intelligence source” had made claims like those in the dossier. But the “reports” were the dossier, and the “Western intelligence source” was Mr. Steele. Some evidence! The media claims that Mr. Page’s history of personal Russian dealings justified the surveillance, but no one has produced evidence that Mr. Page was anything beyond an innocent abroad. There is no justification for the FBI’s use of uncorroborated partisan smears to back up the application. They appear to have played fast and loose with the facts, and the ethical boundaries of the FISA statute to unleash a counterintelligence campaign against a presidential candidate.
Investigative journalist Daniel Greenfield explains the whole thing very clearly at Front Page Magazine, the players and the role of the media.
On Saturday, the former Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper admitted in a CNN interview that former President Obama instigated the ongoing investigations into Donald Trump, his campaign and his associates. In the interview with CNN’s Anderson Cooper, Clapper said:
If it weren’t for President Obama we might not have done the intelligence community assessment that we did that set up a whole sequence of events which are still unfolding today including Special Counsel Mueller’s investigation. President Obama is responsible for that. It was he who tasked us to do that intelligence community assessment in the first place.
I guess if you’re all into beheadings and flag-burning and claims that the country is on the verge of Auschwitz, comparing the President of the United States to Hitler—the previous president’s spying on the campaign of the candidate who opposes his own preferred successor doesn’t seem especially notable. But it is. This is an enormous scandal. And it would not have been possible without the cooperation of a partisan media. It is a direct assault on the rule of law and our free Republic for partisan political purposes.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Capitalism, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Immigration, Intelligence, National Security, Politics, Progressivism, Russia, Taxes, The United States, Unemployment | Tags: The Left At It's Worst, The Worst Case Gets Boring, Wretched Excess
On Saturday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “AM Joy”, whatever that is, host Rachel Maddow announced that “The worst case scenario that the president is a foreign agent suddenly feels very palpable.”
“The basic question, which I think rung so loud for everybody in the country this week was, is our president subordinate to a foreign power? Does our president answer to a foreign government and a foreign leader? And that’s private meeting with Putin, where nobody knows what he promised or what he may have given away, the way that he responded to Putin when we saw him face-to-face, and then the fact that he took under consideration all of these demands from Russia, including handing over Americans to Russia for interrogation. That just — you know, it makes the worst case scenario really palpable. The worst case scenario that the president is a foreign agent suddenly feels very palpable.”
Oh please. The hysteria of the Left just gets sillier. They’ve done the decapitated head, the women’s marches with pussy hats, the Nazi, Hitler, Auschwitz comparisons, the vulgarities, the accusations of authoritarianism (don’t we elect presidents to be an authority and get things done?) They’re big on decapitations, but there’s just so much of excess that you can find and your insults get old and tiresome and boring.
They are furious about lower taxes, a growing economy and low unemployment, but they can’t say that. They are enraged that he dumped the Paris Climate Accords and convince themselves that it means something terrible for the Earth. Outraged at the very idea of a border wall, ripping little children from the arms of their mothers, trying desperately to link him to the pictures from the Obama administration of children in cages. Comedians and comediennes are having a dreadful time trying to come up with significant insults and extreme language to top what is going around and yet attempt to be funny at the same time. They end up simply being disgusting, and do not grasp their failure.
As we learn that there was no evidence of any Russian collusion—no there there, for the FISA Court, no reason for the Mueller Investigation, just a fishing expedition, the hysteria just grows. He spoke to President Putin in private, so there are cries of “treason”, charges that the president is a Russian “asset”, “that remarks at a press conference constitute an impeachable offense” seem as Michael Anton says—unhinged.
“The World Explained: It’s Simple – Everyone is Smart..Except Trump” A must read article by Dov Fischer at The American Spectator, and reprinted by Zero Hedge. Let’s call it a welcome and long overdue rant. A fun read.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economy, Intelligence, National Security, Russia, The United States | Tags: What Was the Interference?, What Votes Changed?, Did The Election Change?
The problem is Russian Collusion, we are told. The Russians interfered in the 2016 election. They hacked into the DNC computers, and into John Podesta’s computer because John Podesta stupidly chose “password” as his password. Then they supposedly read everything on Hillary’s servers because she had no security at all. But then her servers were supposed to be wide open to anybody who wanted to look. So what damaging information did who get and how did that change the election?
And then there were former DNC Chairman Debbie Wasserman Schultz’s aides from Pakistan who reportedly stole information from Congressional computers, or Democrat computers and high-tailed it back to Pakistan but that whole episode and those people disappeared from the news entirely., and vanished down the memory hole.
The hacking or intrusion, or whatever you want to call it, was really old news, yet it still seems to be what we are talking about. But all we know is that they are said to have hacked these computers, but how did that profit them, and what did they do with the information that affected the election?
If, as we are told, they interfered in the election, what was the interference? Whose vote did they change? What precisely did they do that influenced the election and how? There are a remarkable number of dramatic charges out there with any supporting information totally missing. Were election numbers of votes changed? Voting machines hacked? Is there some evidence of that? Is there some evidence of anything whatsoever? So the Russians interfered in our election, by doing what? And why is no one asking this?
ADDEDENDUM: Democrats are going bonkers with claims that the Russians “interfered” in the 2016 election. Which strikes me as an attempt to subtly claim that it is clear that Russian efforts helped Trump to win and Hillary to lose. It has previously been stated by govt. officials (I don’t remember who) that there is no evidence that any voting machines were tampered with nor was the vote count tampered with. (This is in spite of voluminous evidence of vote fraud, illegals voting, people voting in more than once residential district, and the usual number of dead people voting).
In a hearing today before the House Judiciary Committee, “Facebook’s Head of Global Policy Management, Monika Bickert, stated that ‘a few thousand’ of approximately two billion Facebook posts analyzed were found to be linked to Russian entities. Company representatives were unable to give a straight answer when asked if other foreign actors had attempted to use their platforms to influence the election.” YouTube executives revealed their only link was $5,000 in advertising sales and 1,000 YouTube videos to Russian entities.
What do you mean by “influence“? Democrats tried to influence the election with everything from a decapitated head, to incredibly foul language, and the usual comparison to Hitler, his minions and the Holocaust in general. They signed up illegal aliens and got them registered and urged them to vote. Russian “interference,” so far, seems to be limited to looking at the computers of the Democratic Campaign Committee, Hillary Clinton, and John Podesta. So if they looked at information not intended for them, what did they do with it? They hacked Republican computers too, but Mueller does not mention that.
The Democrats are dependent on their expertise in manipulating people with language and pictures. (It’s usually called “propaganda”) And they are good at it, although we have had enough examples of “talking points” where multiple Democrats make the same statement in exactly the same words, to know that to be a favorite technique. We’ve had months of screaming “Impeach” and “Russian Collusion” and “Influencing the election,” and with enough of that people are likely to start believing there is something to it. Now, when Trump was about to meet with the Russian president, suddenly numbers of Russians (who will never be brought before a court) are indicted by Mr. Mueller for what seems to be the same old news. Trump has betrayed the country by meeting with, surrendering to, colluding with the Russians and should be impeached, forced out of office, for meeting with Putin and not physically attacking him as any patriotic president should have.
I suspect this is another Democrat propaganda effort. The operative words are “influencing,” “colluding,” “unpatriotic”and “Russian.” There doesn’t seem to be any “there”—there.
Filed under: Capitalism, Crime, Domestic Policy, Economics, Economy, Education, Foreign Policy, Free Markets, Free Speech, Freedom, Immigration, Intelligence, Law, National Security, Taxes, Unemployment | Tags: "the Resistance", Tiresome Democrats, Wretched Excess
From It’s June and the crush of undocumented immigrants at the U.S. border with Mexico has hit a crisis point.
Government officials are housing migrants in tents and separating some children from their parents. Tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors attempt to cross the southern border; some 90,000 are expected to be apprehended by year’s end. A former top administration official defends the government’s policy: “We have to send a clear message. Just because your child gets across the border, that doesn’t mean your child gets to stay.”
The year was 2014. Barack Obama was president and the quote was uttered by Hillary Clinton, Obama’s secretary of state from 2009 to 2013 who also plainly stated that thousands of children “should be sent back” to their families.
‘The Resistance’ doesn’t seem to be creating a wedge between President Trump and the party. It’s turning off Liberal supporters as well.
From Don Surber:
The Times approach to Trump supporters was laughably offensive. It reported, “In interviews across the country over the last few days, dozens of Trump voters, as well as pollsters and strategists, described something like a bonding experience with the president that happens each time Republicans have to answer a now-familiar question: ‘How can you possibly still support this man?'”
Buried in Paragraph 26 was the answer, from John Westling, 70, of Princeton, Minnesota, who said, “Let’s see. Economy booming, check. Unemployment down, check. Border security being addressed, check. Possible end to the Korean War that started when I was 3 years old, 68 years ago, check.”
Democrats fall in love. It’s the leader of “their team”— the savior who will bring them all good things. who will save them from the perils of life. It’s a romantic relationship. I have been in many Democrat homes where there is a picture of the (Democrat) President on the wall.
Republicans care about what the president does.They argue incessantly about what he does for the country, what Congress should do, whether what they have done will be effective. I have never been in a Republican home where there was a picture of the President (of either party) on the wall.
Filed under: Bureaucracy, Democrat Corruption, Domestic Policy, Economy, Education, Intelligence, Law, Media Bias, National Security, Politics, Progressives, Regulation, Statism, The Constitution | Tags: Politics as a Way of Life, Six Hundred Pages, The Washington Swamp
The breathlessly awaited Inspector General’s report has been released, and Singapore has vanished from the news. The report is some 600 pages long, so everybody is frantically trying to read it all very quickly, and only dribs and drabs are getting out. Those who hoped to see James Comey off to jail promptly will be disappointed. It is quite clear that there has been some improper behavior, but how much and who and whether it amounts to anything significant remains to be seen. Be patient.
What is clear is that there is indeed a swamp. Too many people who have been around too long, feel entitled, and have lost their sense of being servants of the people of the United States working to make the country better have got it all backwards. They believe they are in charge, and entitled to run the show. Throw in a goodly mixture of hard left bias learned from the faculties of the nation’s colleges and universities, and you have a glimpse of the problems. The media suffer from the same delusions. It ‘s going to take some real work to put it all back together.
