“Report in haste, repent at leisure. ABC is no longer alone this week in wiping the dripping egg off its face over a Trump “scoop” that never was. Today it was Bloomberg’s turn to correct the record, rendering yesterday’s breaking news about subpoenas at Deutsche Bank from a four-alarm Mueller Alert to a nothingburger, at least as far as it concerns Donald Trump.”
————
“So much for the big scoop. We already know that Mueller has targeted Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates, thanks to the long indictment that his office released and the multimillion-dollar bail arrangements for both defendants. Subpoenaing bank records for an already-indicted defendant in a money-laundering case barely qualifies as news at all, let alone a major development.
Bloomberg tries to pretty it up by first noting that the subpoenas “pertain to people affiliated with President Donald Trump,” but that’s nonsense as well. None of the counts in the Manafort indictment have anything to do with the Trump campaign or with the Russian-collusion investigation, except that Manafort was a potential target in that probe. For some weird reason, they also kept all of the reporting on Trump’s financial partnership with Deutsche Bank, even though they have corrected the main claim to note that the subpoenas have nothing to do with that partnership.
For the second time in a week, a major media outlet has blown its coverage of Trump with shoddy reporting and a lack of editorial oversight. The end result in both cases are false reports that unfairly painted Trump in a bad light, and in this case also did the same with Robert Mueller. When media outlets lament the fact that their consumers don’t trust them to tell the story correctly, we can refer them to these “scoops” of bupkis.”
“Actor Corey Feldman said he went to law enforcement in 1993 and gave them the names of sexual predators, but the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said that wasn’t true. Now the California sheriff’s office is saying differently.
Feldman, 46, has long insisted there are people in Hollywood who are guilty of abusing child actors. He has alleged that actor Jon Grissom and former child talent manager and convicted sex offender Martin Weiss both molested him when he was younger. Feldman said he went to the police in 1993 and nothing happened. Fearful of retaliation, he never went back to the authorities.
Now, the authorities say they have found the tapes from Feldman’s 1993 visit to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
In a statement first released Tuesday night, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Kelly Hoover wrote:
Following the recent inquiries into the Sheriff’s Office interview of Mr. Feldman in 1993, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office conducted an additional review for any stored items remaining from the Michael Jackson investigation. In a container which included the original reports from the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office located some detective working copies of audio recordings made during the investigation. A copy of Mr. Feldman’s interview was located. The recording is being turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Due to the fact that this case involves the alleged sexual abuse of a child, we are unable to comment further and any documentation or evidence related to this case is exempt from release.”
——————————
“Up until Wednesday, the Democrat talking points on Franken’s many alleged sexual misdoings were: 1) he made a “mistake” and 2) what Franken (allegedly) did was not nearly as bad as other recently unmasked sexual predators.
The second may be true, but that doesn’t make Franken’s alleged actions (see also: allegedly sticking his tongue down a woman’s throat without consent) excusable.
Franken, they argued, was too politically valuable to scrap over a series of butt-grabbing allegations. With allegations piling up, Franken apologized and Democrats seemed satisfied enough.
So what changed? Word of Franken’s plans to resign, that’s what.
Wednesday, the Democrat chorus changed its tune and finally began calling for Franken to step down.”
Speaking of people defending Franken, here are Trumpkins Ingraham and Gingrich doing just that. Could they be trying to protect someone large and orange or perhaps his Alabama disciple?
FOX News of all channels has Trumper Laura Ingraham doing segment where d-list FOX News Trumper Newt Gingrich is defending #Franken and #Conyers and showing no concern for the alleged victims. pic.twitter.com/bsH1eAhKUq
This is the most important part of Stephens’ speech:
The third question: What is our attitude toward failure?
Several years ago, the great historian Bernard Lewis made an important observation about the destiny of nations.
“When people realize things are going wrong, there are two questions they can ask,” he wrote. “One is, ‘What did we do wrong?’ and the other is, ‘Who did this to us?’ The latter question leads to conspiracy theories and paranoia. The first question leads to another line of thinking: ‘How do we put it right?’”
Lewis is an expert in the Middle East. Why are so many countries in that part of the world such failures? Why have they squandered their national energies on hating their neighbors, instead of thinking a little more critically about their own behavior? What might Syria, Iraq or Libya have looked like today if they had respected their Jewish citizens instead of scapegoating and persecuting them, both out of appreciation for their contributions and as a guarantee of tolerance for other ethnic or religious minorities?
True, there’s a point at which self-criticism can become neurotic, paralyzing and perversely self-satisfied. But it’s also true that individuals, communities and nations that habitually ask “What did we do wrong?” instead of “Who did this to us?” are also the individuals, communities and nations that, in the long run, succeed.
Lately, I’ve wondered: In which camp do we Americans fall? For many years there has been a grievance culture on the left, with a habit of turning statistical inferences into allegations of systemic biases, and treating bad personal habits as syndromes or diseases beyond the control of moral discipline.
Now that’s been joined by a grievance industry on the right, which seems to think that every factory closure in Ohio is the result of devious trade negotiators in Beijing, and that everything else wrong in the world is the fault of Goldman bankers, Beltway “cucks” and the Fake News Media.
This is a turn that can only be described as un-American. For generations, one of our advantages over our competitors in Europe and Asia is that we have had a greater tolerance for personal or business failures. We’re a country of second chances. But tolerance for failure has to be predicated on an acknowledgment of failure, a sense that we must first blame ourselves before we can hope to do better.
This is the third day in a row of no idiocy from Trump on Twitter. That is an unofficial new record. It started the day the Mueller/Deutsch Bank record request story broke. Trump has not commented on that story. Coincedence? Something sure seems to have sobered up Trump. Let’s see if he falls off the wagon.
I think Muller was an investigator who was assigned the duty to investigate without a charge.
So Muller spends his time and dollars looking for something to investigate.
I think he should look at the Clemson/Carolina game. Something wrong there.
“The review process comes as the committee also threatens to move forward with a contempt resolution against top DOJ and FBI officials barring an imminent breakthrough — after the agencies did not comply with a deadline to hand over long-sought information that goes well beyond text messages.
Strzok is a focus of their efforts. House investigators have long regarded him as a key figure in the chain of events when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump “dossier” and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has sought documents and witnesses from the DOJ and FBI to determine what role, if any, the dossier played in the move to direct the surveillance.
Strzok briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, sources said. But within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was “documentary evidence” that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.”
Don’t be naive. Ingraham and Gingrich are telling folks to back off because they’re well aware that the R party has sleazeballs too, and they don’t want them held to account or pressured to resign for it.
Gingrich of all people should keep his yap shut. He has no standing for lecturing anyone on matters of morality.
“Add this infamy to all the other crimes of the liberal establishment – its poisonous influence has converted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the eyes of the American people, from a proud institution dedicated to upholding the law into just another suppurating bureaucratic pustule. Where once we saw FBI agents as heroes – many of us ancients grew up watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., every Sunday night – now we see careerist hacks looking to suck-up to the Democrat elite while bending the law and subverting justice to do it. Truly, everything liberals touch dies.”
————————-
“You see that sanctimonious clown James Comey on Twitter presuming to quote the Bible, and it’s all you can do to keep your lunch from launching. These timeserving ladder-climbers are not what the FBI is, but their petty institutional gamesmanship has now seared that impression into the consciousness of millions of Americans. When you would say “FBI” to a liberal, he/she/xe would snarl, seething at the Bureau’s reputation for taking out the foreign and domestic terrorists progs love to play footsie with. But the tragedy is that when you say “FBI” to a conservative today, you get a sad shake of the head because we can no longer trust the Bureau because the top ranks are manifestly riddled with vindictive partisans angling for their own advantage.
Mueller, then Comey, and their progeny have done this. As liberals inevitably do, they have disgraced yet another proud institution. Imagine yourself a field agent, dedicated to upholding the law, and having to not only live under this corrupt regime but to have to share in the contempt the American people have learned to feel for it.
It’s heartbreaking, because the reality of the FBI is not the Muellers and the Comeys and the McCabes and the Strozks and whoever Strozk was having an affair with. It’s Special Agent Benjamin Grogan, Special Agent Jerry Dove, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles, Jr. and thousands of others who put their lives on the line for us every single day. They aren’t in the big upper-floor offices at HQ hiding documents from Congress or leaking to their pals at the WaPo. They aren’t mingling with Democrat bigwigs, schmoozing for their next step up the ladder. They’re doing their job.
Maybe the FBI can recover its reputation someday – I sure hope so. Maybe it can earn our trust and respect again. But the first step is for the President and Congress to pop this bureaucratic zit and clean out the pus.”
AJ @12:57 Yes, the Fox Trumpkins are protecting sleazeballs. The two biggest are Southern Trump (Moore) and The Real Donald Trump. I understand there may be additional problems with Republicans in Congress, but do you know of any Republicans in Congress who bragged about being able to sexually assault women into a live NBC microphone. Your guy wins the prize and his pedophile follower picks up the silver medal.
I agree with you about Gingrich keeping quiet. It is no coincidence that the amoral Gingrich backed the amoral Trump. At this point Gingrich and Ingraham have made it clear that their loyalty is not to the Republican Party. They don’t like Paul Ryan. They have both become Trumpkins.
“Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said Wednesday he interviewed a recently retired FBI supervisor who told him he was instructed by Deputy Director Andrew McCabe not to call the 2012 Benghazi attack an act of terrorism when distributing a report on the FBI findings to the larger intelligence community.
The agent found the instruction concerning because his unit had gathered incontrovertible evidence showing a major al Qaeda figure had directed the attack and the information had already been briefed to President Obama, the lawmaker said.
In the days after the 2012 attack, Obama administration officials initially said it was related to spontaneous Muslim anger over an anti-Islam video tape and not a planned-out act of terrorism.
DeSantis argued the example highlights the politicization of the FBI.
“What operational reason would there be to issue an edict to agents telling them, in the face of virtually conclusive evidence to the contrary, not to categorize the Benghazi attack as a result of terrorism? By placing the interests of the Obama administration over the public’s interests, the order is yet another data point highlighting the politicization of the FBI,” DeSantis said.”
——————–
““The data points we have regarding politicization are damning enough but appear all the more problematic when viewed against the backdrop of investigations whose ferocity seemed to depend on the target: the Clinton case was investigated with an eye towards how to exonerate her and her associates, while the Russia investigation is being conducted using scorched earth tactics that seek to find anything to use against Trump associates,” DeSantis told The Hill.
He said he also had talked to another whistleblower who witnessed a video teleconference last February between bureau leadership and their special agents in charge on the day former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned over lying to Vice President Pence over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to making false statements to the FBI.
DeSantis said the person he spoke with said a senior FBI executive made an inappropriate comment suggesting the bureau had a personal motive in investigating Flynn and ruining his career. DeSantis wants the FBI to tell him if the videotape was saved.”
“Meanwhile, the Justice Department inspector general and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel are both investigating whether McCabe, the FBI deputy director, violated the Hatch Act or engaged in improper ethical conflicts when his wife ran for Virginia state senate in 2015 as a Democrat.
His wife received $700,000 in campaign support tied to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a Clinton ally who was under investigation by the FBI at the time. Records show McCabe attended a meeting in March 2015 with McAuliffe designed to secure the governor’s support of Jill McCabe’s candidacy.
McCabe has said he sought FBI legal advice on how to deal with his wife’s campaign. He nonetheless presided over the Clinton email case until just a few days before it was closed, when he unexpectedly recused himself.”
Franken has resigned from the Senate. It will be interesting to see if he begins a Presidential campaign since it has been established that his actions would not disqualify him for that office.
Ricky, NewsMax, Att.net and others say that Al Franken has resigned.
He has not resigned. He has SAID that he will resign someday.
I’m certain that he also MAY NOT resign if he changes his mind.
I think he’s waiting for the Alabama election.
Jo. I made a comment about that on the Daily Thread.
Jo, It’s a gutsy move, and it’s the fulfillment of a campaign promise. This administration, more than most, has really tried to make good on campaign promises. And it’s the right thing to do. Jerusalem is the rightful capital of Israel.
“I lived in Jerusalem, Israel, for two happy years, and much of my work ever since has involved U.S.-Israel relations. I should know better, yet still I am surprised at the rending of garments and apocalyptic predictions pouring forth from western pundits over something that will not change a single stone in the holy city, or a single person’s access to its holy sites, or a single border—and that overwhelming majorities of Congress and virtually every president and presidential candidate has endorsed for decades. Chalk it up in part to the hysteria that has characterized our political debates in the past two years, and also in part to the enormous influence that former Obama administration officials have in setting media narratives and frames for covering issues on which the current president repudiates the approach of the previous one. So here are some notes of calm, in no particular order:
One of the first arguments critics make against recognizing Jerusalem is that it would so anger the Palestinians that the peace process would never recover. But the Palestinians have rejected every offer of statehood, and have not been willing to engage in real talks with Israel since the Bush administration. They’re already unwilling to negotiate, and were especially unwilling during the Obama years, when the president was openly acting as their advocate. If they are so incensed that the United States is finally acknowledging the plain fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel that they will never talk again, it tells us that a negotiated agreement was never possible in the first place. Despite the likelihood of protests and perhaps some violence in the next few days, U.S. recognition of Jerusalem will actually promote peace in the long run because it will help disabuse the Arab world of its fantasy of Israeli impermanence. It will also show Palestinians for the very first time that their rejectionism has costs, and will not permanently paralyze U.S. policy toward Israel. The cause of peace is weakened so long as the Arab self-delusion about Israel’s impermanence is encouraged by U.S. policy.
Another argument common among Middle East pseudo-sophisticates is that recognizing Jerusalem would drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab states, right at the moment when the threat from Iran is bringing them together. This sounds plausible, but the opposite is probably true. The Arab states’ recent rapprochement with Israel is not ideological—it is expedient, because the Arabs are comparatively weak and are seeking protection from a stronger power. Israel’s embrace of U.S. recognition doesn’t change this reality. Indeed, by confidently demonstrating its willingness to assume risk, and by showing its closeness to America, Israel’s attractiveness to the Arab states who need its help against Iran only increases. Arab regimes will howl in public, but in private they will understand that only a strong, determined country can protect them. And that understanding will draw them closer to Israel.
The most craven argument against recognition is that it will spark Arab violence. This argument is being aggressively promoted by former Obama administration officials and their media allies, and by Palestinian and Jordanian officials, who barely attempt to conceal their mau-mauing of western countries with threats of rioting and terrorism. The United States’ response to this tactic should be to tell them to pound sand. The United States cannot allow Middle Eastern rent-a-mobs to exercise a veto over our foreign policy, especially not on an issue in which the threat of violence originates in the rank anti-Semitism of Islamists who deny Jewish history in Israel and Jewish political rights in the region. If the King of Jordan wants to send crowds of his subjects into the streets to riot, that is his problem. What has been pathetic and depressing to witness is the astounding number of western reporters and pundits who are happy to retail a messaging campaign that is barely distinguishable from blackmail.”
Speaking of westerners who are happy to promote Islamist blackmail: The hypocrisy of their sudden concern for violence in the Middle East can only be described as shameless. The very same people—the Obama administration officials and their media and think tank friends—who made endless excuses for doing nothing about the mass slaughter in Syria or Iran’s takeover of Iraq/fueling of war in Yemen, and who cheered the nuclear deal with Iran, which filled the coffers of the leading state sponsor of terror with billions and put it on a glide path to nuclear weapons—these very same people are now so concerned about peace and stability in the Middle East that they need fainting couches over a speech that recognizes Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. How stupid do they think we are?”
“A senior Justice Department official was demoted this week amid an ongoing investigation into his contacts with the opposition research firm responsible for the anti-Trump “dossier,” the department confirmed to Fox News.
Until Wednesday morning, Bruce G. Ohr held two titles at DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, a post that placed him four doors down from his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), a program described by the department as “the centerpiece of the attorney general’s drug strategy.”
Ohr will retain his OCDETF title but has been stripped of his higher post and ousted from his office on the fourth floor of “Main Justice.”
——–
“Additionally, House investigators have determined that Ohr met shortly after the election with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm that hired Steele to compile the dossier with funds supplied by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. By that point, according to published reports, the dossier had been in the hands of the FBI, which exists under the aegis of DOJ, for some five months, and the surveillance on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign, had started more than two months prior.
Former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before the House in March, described the dossier as a compendium of “salacious and unverified” allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump and his associates. The Nunes panel has spent much of this year investigating whether DOJ, under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, used the dossier to justify a foreign surveillance warrant against Page.
The contacts between Ohr and Steele, and between Ohr and Simpson, have not been publicly disclosed nor shared with HPSCI staff.”
“Nunes has sent out a subpoena today “specifically covering Ohr and his files.” He has also told staff of the HPSCI “to draft contempt-of-Congress citations against Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Nunes and his colleagues have sent many “subpoenas for documents and witnesses related to the dossier but claims DOJ and FBI have ‘stonewalled,’ an assertion that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., seconded in a rare public statement in October.””
“While Arab and Muslim leaders were calling for blood on the streets with ‘new Intifada’ and ‘days of rage’, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU leaders were lining up to join the chorus to condemn President Donald Trump for daring to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, leading Indian politicians such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist BJP party called the government follow US President’s example and move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem.
“Israel has international recognition of a part of Jerusalem as its territory, hence India should shift its embassy to this part of the city,” senior Indian politician Dr. Subramanian Swamy wrote on Twitter. Former Commerce Minister and one-time Harvard professor, Dr. Swamy, is regarded as one of the chief architects of India’s economic liberalization that began three decades ago. The sentiment was echoed by another senior BJP leader and eminent journalist Tarun Vijay, who expressed his hopes that the Indian embassy will soon move to the “right place” in Jerusalem.
Indian TV network Republic reported Dr. Swamy’s statement:
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday called for shifting of India’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Taking to Twitter, the BJP MP said, “Israel has international recognition of a part of Jerusalem as its territory, hence India should shift its embassy to this part of the city.””
Aj,: correct.
It won’t change a thing, but it gives them an issue. That’s all they need, an issue.
The Palestinians’ will not be satisfied as long as there is an Israel.
The Palestinians want the Israelis gone, preferably dead.
“President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, will face a different judge to be sentenced than the one who took Flynn’s guilty plea to a felony false statement charge last week, court records show.
Judge Emmet Sullivan was randomly assigned to take over the case after Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself.
A court spokeswoman confirmed to POLITICO that the reassignment of the case was due to Contreras’ recusal, but did not immediately respond to a query about the reason.”
My son and daughter-in-law toured the White House, the Supreme Court and the Capitol today. They didn’t get to tour the entire Capitol building because of these folks:
Democratic Lawmakers Among 200 Activists Arrested at DACA Protest | via Splinter_newshttps://t.co/HV6SIYfb6b
Wandering Views 
More yellow journalism.
https://hotair.com/archives/2017/12/06/bloomberg-remember-yuuuge-trump-scoop-yesterday-well/
“Report in haste, repent at leisure. ABC is no longer alone this week in wiping the dripping egg off its face over a Trump “scoop” that never was. Today it was Bloomberg’s turn to correct the record, rendering yesterday’s breaking news about subpoenas at Deutsche Bank from a four-alarm Mueller Alert to a nothingburger, at least as far as it concerns Donald Trump.”
————
“So much for the big scoop. We already know that Mueller has targeted Manafort and his business partner Rick Gates, thanks to the long indictment that his office released and the multimillion-dollar bail arrangements for both defendants. Subpoenaing bank records for an already-indicted defendant in a money-laundering case barely qualifies as news at all, let alone a major development.
Bloomberg tries to pretty it up by first noting that the subpoenas “pertain to people affiliated with President Donald Trump,” but that’s nonsense as well. None of the counts in the Manafort indictment have anything to do with the Trump campaign or with the Russian-collusion investigation, except that Manafort was a potential target in that probe. For some weird reason, they also kept all of the reporting on Trump’s financial partnership with Deutsche Bank, even though they have corrected the main claim to note that the subpoenas have nothing to do with that partnership.
For the second time in a week, a major media outlet has blown its coverage of Trump with shoddy reporting and a lack of editorial oversight. The end result in both cases are false reports that unfairly painted Trump in a bad light, and in this case also did the same with Robert Mueller. When media outlets lament the fact that their consumers don’t trust them to tell the story correctly, we can refer them to these “scoops” of bupkis.”
LikeLike
And speaking of yellow journalism…..
When will Barbara Walters be apologizing for re-victimizing this victim on national TV?
https://www.yahoo.com/entertainment/audio-corey-feldman-allegedly-naming-173028859.html
“Actor Corey Feldman said he went to law enforcement in 1993 and gave them the names of sexual predators, but the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office said that wasn’t true. Now the California sheriff’s office is saying differently.
Feldman, 46, has long insisted there are people in Hollywood who are guilty of abusing child actors. He has alleged that actor Jon Grissom and former child talent manager and convicted sex offender Martin Weiss both molested him when he was younger. Feldman said he went to the police in 1993 and nothing happened. Fearful of retaliation, he never went back to the authorities.
Now, the authorities say they have found the tapes from Feldman’s 1993 visit to the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office.
In a statement first released Tuesday night, Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office public information officer Kelly Hoover wrote:
Following the recent inquiries into the Sheriff’s Office interview of Mr. Feldman in 1993, the Santa Barbara County Sheriff’s Office conducted an additional review for any stored items remaining from the Michael Jackson investigation. In a container which included the original reports from the investigation, the Sheriff’s Office located some detective working copies of audio recordings made during the investigation. A copy of Mr. Feldman’s interview was located. The recording is being turned over to the Los Angeles Police Department.
Due to the fact that this case involves the alleged sexual abuse of a child, we are unable to comment further and any documentation or evidence related to this case is exempt from release.”
——————————
How convenient for them, right?
LikeLike
How brave of them. 🙄
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/democrats-wait-until-word-of-impending-franken-resignation-to-call-for-franken-resignation/
“Up until Wednesday, the Democrat talking points on Franken’s many alleged sexual misdoings were: 1) he made a “mistake” and 2) what Franken (allegedly) did was not nearly as bad as other recently unmasked sexual predators.
The second may be true, but that doesn’t make Franken’s alleged actions (see also: allegedly sticking his tongue down a woman’s throat without consent) excusable.
Franken, they argued, was too politically valuable to scrap over a series of butt-grabbing allegations. With allegations piling up, Franken apologized and Democrats seemed satisfied enough.
So what changed? Word of Franken’s plans to resign, that’s what.
Wednesday, the Democrat chorus changed its tune and finally began calling for Franken to step down.”
LikeLike
Speaking of people defending Franken, here are Trumpkins Ingraham and Gingrich doing just that. Could they be trying to protect someone large and orange or perhaps his Alabama disciple?
LikeLiked by 2 people
Bret Stephens’ speeches are generally even better than his columns:
LikeLike
This is the most important part of Stephens’ speech:
The third question: What is our attitude toward failure?
Several years ago, the great historian Bernard Lewis made an important observation about the destiny of nations.
“When people realize things are going wrong, there are two questions they can ask,” he wrote. “One is, ‘What did we do wrong?’ and the other is, ‘Who did this to us?’ The latter question leads to conspiracy theories and paranoia. The first question leads to another line of thinking: ‘How do we put it right?’”
Lewis is an expert in the Middle East. Why are so many countries in that part of the world such failures? Why have they squandered their national energies on hating their neighbors, instead of thinking a little more critically about their own behavior? What might Syria, Iraq or Libya have looked like today if they had respected their Jewish citizens instead of scapegoating and persecuting them, both out of appreciation for their contributions and as a guarantee of tolerance for other ethnic or religious minorities?
True, there’s a point at which self-criticism can become neurotic, paralyzing and perversely self-satisfied. But it’s also true that individuals, communities and nations that habitually ask “What did we do wrong?” instead of “Who did this to us?” are also the individuals, communities and nations that, in the long run, succeed.
Lately, I’ve wondered: In which camp do we Americans fall? For many years there has been a grievance culture on the left, with a habit of turning statistical inferences into allegations of systemic biases, and treating bad personal habits as syndromes or diseases beyond the control of moral discipline.
Now that’s been joined by a grievance industry on the right, which seems to think that every factory closure in Ohio is the result of devious trade negotiators in Beijing, and that everything else wrong in the world is the fault of Goldman bankers, Beltway “cucks” and the Fake News Media.
This is a turn that can only be described as un-American. For generations, one of our advantages over our competitors in Europe and Asia is that we have had a greater tolerance for personal or business failures. We’re a country of second chances. But tolerance for failure has to be predicated on an acknowledgment of failure, a sense that we must first blame ourselves before we can hope to do better.
LikeLiked by 1 person
This is the third day in a row of no idiocy from Trump on Twitter. That is an unofficial new record. It started the day the Mueller/Deutsch Bank record request story broke. Trump has not commented on that story. Coincedence? Something sure seems to have sobered up Trump. Let’s see if he falls off the wagon.
LikeLike
I think Muller was an investigator who was assigned the duty to investigate without a charge.
So Muller spends his time and dollars looking for something to investigate.
I think he should look at the Clemson/Carolina game. Something wrong there.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mueller is simply following the money.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/www.newyorker.com/news/our-columnists/robert-mueller-jumps-onto-the-trump-money-trail/amp
LikeLiked by 1 person
No, Mueller is simply fishing.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Well, well, well………
Looks like someone WAS obstructing justice, but it wasn’t Trump.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/06/over-10000-texts-between-ex-mueller-officials-found-after-discovery-anti-trump-messages.html
“The review process comes as the committee also threatens to move forward with a contempt resolution against top DOJ and FBI officials barring an imminent breakthrough — after the agencies did not comply with a deadline to hand over long-sought information that goes well beyond text messages.
Strzok is a focus of their efforts. House investigators have long regarded him as a key figure in the chain of events when the bureau, in 2016, received the infamous anti-Trump “dossier” and launched a counterintelligence investigation into Russian meddling in the election that ultimately came to encompass FISA surveillance of a Trump campaign associate.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., has sought documents and witnesses from the DOJ and FBI to determine what role, if any, the dossier played in the move to direct the surveillance.
Strzok briefed the committee on Dec. 5, 2016, sources said. But within months of that session House Intelligence Committee investigators were contacted by an informant suggesting that there was “documentary evidence” that Strzok was purportedly obstructing the House probe into the dossier.”
LikeLike
Ricky,
Don’t be naive. Ingraham and Gingrich are telling folks to back off because they’re well aware that the R party has sleazeballs too, and they don’t want them held to account or pressured to resign for it.
Gingrich of all people should keep his yap shut. He has no standing for lecturing anyone on matters of morality.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Sure seems like it.
https://townhall.com/columnists/kurtschlichter/2017/12/07/liberals-have-turned-the-fbi-into-a-disgrace-n2419165
“Add this infamy to all the other crimes of the liberal establishment – its poisonous influence has converted the Federal Bureau of Investigation, in the eyes of the American people, from a proud institution dedicated to upholding the law into just another suppurating bureaucratic pustule. Where once we saw FBI agents as heroes – many of us ancients grew up watching Efrem Zimbalist, Jr., every Sunday night – now we see careerist hacks looking to suck-up to the Democrat elite while bending the law and subverting justice to do it. Truly, everything liberals touch dies.”
————————-
“You see that sanctimonious clown James Comey on Twitter presuming to quote the Bible, and it’s all you can do to keep your lunch from launching. These timeserving ladder-climbers are not what the FBI is, but their petty institutional gamesmanship has now seared that impression into the consciousness of millions of Americans. When you would say “FBI” to a liberal, he/she/xe would snarl, seething at the Bureau’s reputation for taking out the foreign and domestic terrorists progs love to play footsie with. But the tragedy is that when you say “FBI” to a conservative today, you get a sad shake of the head because we can no longer trust the Bureau because the top ranks are manifestly riddled with vindictive partisans angling for their own advantage.
Mueller, then Comey, and their progeny have done this. As liberals inevitably do, they have disgraced yet another proud institution. Imagine yourself a field agent, dedicated to upholding the law, and having to not only live under this corrupt regime but to have to share in the contempt the American people have learned to feel for it.
It’s heartbreaking, because the reality of the FBI is not the Muellers and the Comeys and the McCabes and the Strozks and whoever Strozk was having an affair with. It’s Special Agent Benjamin Grogan, Special Agent Jerry Dove, Special Agent Edmundo Mireles, Jr. and thousands of others who put their lives on the line for us every single day. They aren’t in the big upper-floor offices at HQ hiding documents from Congress or leaking to their pals at the WaPo. They aren’t mingling with Democrat bigwigs, schmoozing for their next step up the ladder. They’re doing their job.
Maybe the FBI can recover its reputation someday – I sure hope so. Maybe it can earn our trust and respect again. But the first step is for the President and Congress to pop this bureaucratic zit and clean out the pus.”
LikeLike
AJ @12:57 Yes, the Fox Trumpkins are protecting sleazeballs. The two biggest are Southern Trump (Moore) and The Real Donald Trump. I understand there may be additional problems with Republicans in Congress, but do you know of any Republicans in Congress who bragged about being able to sexually assault women into a live NBC microphone. Your guy wins the prize and his pedophile follower picks up the silver medal.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I agree with you about Gingrich keeping quiet. It is no coincidence that the amoral Gingrich backed the amoral Trump. At this point Gingrich and Ingraham have made it clear that their loyalty is not to the Republican Party. They don’t like Paul Ryan. They have both become Trumpkins.
LikeLike
McCabe again. Like Stozk, his name keeps coming up.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/363666-gop-lawmakers-cite-new-allegations-of-political-bias-in-fbi
“Rep. Ron DeSantis (R-Fla.) said Wednesday he interviewed a recently retired FBI supervisor who told him he was instructed by Deputy Director Andrew McCabe not to call the 2012 Benghazi attack an act of terrorism when distributing a report on the FBI findings to the larger intelligence community.
The agent found the instruction concerning because his unit had gathered incontrovertible evidence showing a major al Qaeda figure had directed the attack and the information had already been briefed to President Obama, the lawmaker said.
In the days after the 2012 attack, Obama administration officials initially said it was related to spontaneous Muslim anger over an anti-Islam video tape and not a planned-out act of terrorism.
DeSantis argued the example highlights the politicization of the FBI.
“What operational reason would there be to issue an edict to agents telling them, in the face of virtually conclusive evidence to the contrary, not to categorize the Benghazi attack as a result of terrorism? By placing the interests of the Obama administration over the public’s interests, the order is yet another data point highlighting the politicization of the FBI,” DeSantis said.”
——————–
““The data points we have regarding politicization are damning enough but appear all the more problematic when viewed against the backdrop of investigations whose ferocity seemed to depend on the target: the Clinton case was investigated with an eye towards how to exonerate her and her associates, while the Russia investigation is being conducted using scorched earth tactics that seek to find anything to use against Trump associates,” DeSantis told The Hill.
He said he also had talked to another whistleblower who witnessed a video teleconference last February between bureau leadership and their special agents in charge on the day former Trump national security adviser Michael Flynn resigned over lying to Vice President Pence over his contacts with Russia’s ambassador to the United States.
Flynn pleaded guilty on Friday to making false statements to the FBI.
DeSantis said the person he spoke with said a senior FBI executive made an inappropriate comment suggesting the bureau had a personal motive in investigating Flynn and ruining his career. DeSantis wants the FBI to tell him if the videotape was saved.”
LikeLike
“Meanwhile, the Justice Department inspector general and the U.S. Office of Special Counsel are both investigating whether McCabe, the FBI deputy director, violated the Hatch Act or engaged in improper ethical conflicts when his wife ran for Virginia state senate in 2015 as a Democrat.
His wife received $700,000 in campaign support tied to Virginia Gov. Terry McAuliffe (D), a Clinton ally who was under investigation by the FBI at the time. Records show McCabe attended a meeting in March 2015 with McAuliffe designed to secure the governor’s support of Jill McCabe’s candidacy.
McCabe has said he sought FBI legal advice on how to deal with his wife’s campaign. He nonetheless presided over the Clinton email case until just a few days before it was closed, when he unexpectedly recused himself.”
LikeLike
FBI Director Wray defends FBI against charges of deranged Trump:
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/929034001
LikeLike
Franken has resigned from the Senate. It will be interesting to see if he begins a Presidential campaign since it has been established that his actions would not disqualify him for that office.
https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.usatoday.com/amp/930997001
LikeLike
any thoughts on Jerusalem as the capital of Israel? The world seems upset.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ricky, NewsMax, Att.net and others say that Al Franken has resigned.
He has not resigned. He has SAID that he will resign someday.
I’m certain that he also MAY NOT resign if he changes his mind.
I think he’s waiting for the Alabama election.
Jo. I made a comment about that on the Daily Thread.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Jo, It’s a gutsy move, and it’s the fulfillment of a campaign promise. This administration, more than most, has really tried to make good on campaign promises. And it’s the right thing to do. Jerusalem is the rightful capital of Israel.
LikeLiked by 4 people
I was just reading this on the Jerusalem topic.
http://freebeacon.com/blog/days-of-media-rage-about-jerusalem/
“I lived in Jerusalem, Israel, for two happy years, and much of my work ever since has involved U.S.-Israel relations. I should know better, yet still I am surprised at the rending of garments and apocalyptic predictions pouring forth from western pundits over something that will not change a single stone in the holy city, or a single person’s access to its holy sites, or a single border—and that overwhelming majorities of Congress and virtually every president and presidential candidate has endorsed for decades. Chalk it up in part to the hysteria that has characterized our political debates in the past two years, and also in part to the enormous influence that former Obama administration officials have in setting media narratives and frames for covering issues on which the current president repudiates the approach of the previous one. So here are some notes of calm, in no particular order:
One of the first arguments critics make against recognizing Jerusalem is that it would so anger the Palestinians that the peace process would never recover. But the Palestinians have rejected every offer of statehood, and have not been willing to engage in real talks with Israel since the Bush administration. They’re already unwilling to negotiate, and were especially unwilling during the Obama years, when the president was openly acting as their advocate. If they are so incensed that the United States is finally acknowledging the plain fact that Jerusalem is the capital of Israel that they will never talk again, it tells us that a negotiated agreement was never possible in the first place. Despite the likelihood of protests and perhaps some violence in the next few days, U.S. recognition of Jerusalem will actually promote peace in the long run because it will help disabuse the Arab world of its fantasy of Israeli impermanence. It will also show Palestinians for the very first time that their rejectionism has costs, and will not permanently paralyze U.S. policy toward Israel. The cause of peace is weakened so long as the Arab self-delusion about Israel’s impermanence is encouraged by U.S. policy.
Another argument common among Middle East pseudo-sophisticates is that recognizing Jerusalem would drive a wedge between Israel and the Arab states, right at the moment when the threat from Iran is bringing them together. This sounds plausible, but the opposite is probably true. The Arab states’ recent rapprochement with Israel is not ideological—it is expedient, because the Arabs are comparatively weak and are seeking protection from a stronger power. Israel’s embrace of U.S. recognition doesn’t change this reality. Indeed, by confidently demonstrating its willingness to assume risk, and by showing its closeness to America, Israel’s attractiveness to the Arab states who need its help against Iran only increases. Arab regimes will howl in public, but in private they will understand that only a strong, determined country can protect them. And that understanding will draw them closer to Israel.
The most craven argument against recognition is that it will spark Arab violence. This argument is being aggressively promoted by former Obama administration officials and their media allies, and by Palestinian and Jordanian officials, who barely attempt to conceal their mau-mauing of western countries with threats of rioting and terrorism. The United States’ response to this tactic should be to tell them to pound sand. The United States cannot allow Middle Eastern rent-a-mobs to exercise a veto over our foreign policy, especially not on an issue in which the threat of violence originates in the rank anti-Semitism of Islamists who deny Jewish history in Israel and Jewish political rights in the region. If the King of Jordan wants to send crowds of his subjects into the streets to riot, that is his problem. What has been pathetic and depressing to witness is the astounding number of western reporters and pundits who are happy to retail a messaging campaign that is barely distinguishable from blackmail.”
Speaking of westerners who are happy to promote Islamist blackmail: The hypocrisy of their sudden concern for violence in the Middle East can only be described as shameless. The very same people—the Obama administration officials and their media and think tank friends—who made endless excuses for doing nothing about the mass slaughter in Syria or Iran’s takeover of Iraq/fueling of war in Yemen, and who cheered the nuclear deal with Iran, which filled the coffers of the leading state sponsor of terror with billions and put it on a glide path to nuclear weapons—these very same people are now so concerned about peace and stability in the Middle East that they need fainting couches over a speech that recognizes Jerusalem is the capital of Israel. How stupid do they think we are?”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Hmmmm…….
So this is the second demoted for their improper actions during the Trump/Russia fishing expedition.
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/12/07/top-doj-official-demoted-amid-probe-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm.html
“A senior Justice Department official was demoted this week amid an ongoing investigation into his contacts with the opposition research firm responsible for the anti-Trump “dossier,” the department confirmed to Fox News.
Until Wednesday morning, Bruce G. Ohr held two titles at DOJ: associate deputy attorney general, a post that placed him four doors down from his boss, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein; and director of the Organized Crime Drug Enforcement Task Forces (OCDETF), a program described by the department as “the centerpiece of the attorney general’s drug strategy.”
Ohr will retain his OCDETF title but has been stripped of his higher post and ousted from his office on the fourth floor of “Main Justice.”
——–
“Additionally, House investigators have determined that Ohr met shortly after the election with Glenn Simpson, the founder of Fusion GPS – the opposition research firm that hired Steele to compile the dossier with funds supplied by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. By that point, according to published reports, the dossier had been in the hands of the FBI, which exists under the aegis of DOJ, for some five months, and the surveillance on Carter Page, an adviser to the Trump campaign, had started more than two months prior.
Former FBI Director James Comey, testifying before the House in March, described the dossier as a compendium of “salacious and unverified” allegations against then-candidate Donald Trump and his associates. The Nunes panel has spent much of this year investigating whether DOJ, under then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch, used the dossier to justify a foreign surveillance warrant against Page.
The contacts between Ohr and Steele, and between Ohr and Simpson, have not been publicly disclosed nor shared with HPSCI staff.”
LikeLike
More contempt of Congress charges are coming, this time for Rosenstein and Director Wray.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/doj-official-demoted-during-investigation-into-contacts-with-trump-dossier-firm/#more-235296
“Nunes has sent out a subpoena today “specifically covering Ohr and his files.” He has also told staff of the HPSCI “to draft contempt-of-Congress citations against Rosenstein and FBI Director Christopher Wray.
Nunes and his colleagues have sent many “subpoenas for documents and witnesses related to the dossier but claims DOJ and FBI have ‘stonewalled,’ an assertion that House Speaker Paul Ryan, R-Wis., seconded in a rare public statement in October.””
LikeLike
Looks like some folks like the idea of moving embassies to Israel’s capital, Jerusalem.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2017/12/move-indian-embassy-to-jerusalem-senior-party-leader-urges-prime-minister-modi/
“While Arab and Muslim leaders were calling for blood on the streets with ‘new Intifada’ and ‘days of rage’, and German Chancellor Angela Merkel and other EU leaders were lining up to join the chorus to condemn President Donald Trump for daring to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital, leading Indian politicians such as Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s nationalist BJP party called the government follow US President’s example and move the country’s embassy to Jerusalem.
“Israel has international recognition of a part of Jerusalem as its territory, hence India should shift its embassy to this part of the city,” senior Indian politician Dr. Subramanian Swamy wrote on Twitter. Former Commerce Minister and one-time Harvard professor, Dr. Swamy, is regarded as one of the chief architects of India’s economic liberalization that began three decades ago. The sentiment was echoed by another senior BJP leader and eminent journalist Tarun Vijay, who expressed his hopes that the Indian embassy will soon move to the “right place” in Jerusalem.
Indian TV network Republic reported Dr. Swamy’s statement:
Senior Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Subramanian Swamy on Wednesday called for shifting of India’s embassy in Israel to Jerusalem from Tel Aviv.
Taking to Twitter, the BJP MP said, “Israel has international recognition of a part of Jerusalem as its territory, hence India should shift its embassy to this part of the city.””
LikeLike
Aj,: correct.
It won’t change a thing, but it gives them an issue. That’s all they need, an issue.
The Palestinians’ will not be satisfied as long as there is an Israel.
The Palestinians want the Israelis gone, preferably dead.
LikeLike
Now this is odd.
https://www.politico.com/story/2017/12/07/michael-flynn-judge-sentencing-287001
“President Donald Trump’s former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, will face a different judge to be sentenced than the one who took Flynn’s guilty plea to a felony false statement charge last week, court records show.
Judge Emmet Sullivan was randomly assigned to take over the case after Judge Rudolph Contreras recused himself.
A court spokeswoman confirmed to POLITICO that the reassignment of the case was due to Contreras’ recusal, but did not immediately respond to a query about the reason.”
LikeLike
My son and daughter-in-law toured the White House, the Supreme Court and the Capitol today. They didn’t get to tour the entire Capitol building because of these folks:
LikeLike
AJ @12:57 and RW @1:11: I am giving the bronze medal to this guy. If Moore is Southern Trump, Farenthold is Texan Trump.
LikeLike
Makes me want to run for Congress.
😆
LikeLiked by 1 person