Tychicus, You and I agree on most political and theological issues. For the last year, we have been like two math students working on two completely different trigonometry problems. We keep trying to convince the other that our answer is right. However, we are not going to agree on the underlying facts, at least not until Mr. Mueller finishes his work.
Why should Mueller NOT have something negative to say about the chair of the oversight committee? Every other never-Trumper and left of center publication has negatively speculated, so why would he be any different. 🙄
The real questions are: were those FISA warrants obtained with false documentation (the dossier)?, and would they reasonably have been obtained otherwise? And if the answer is yes to the latter, then why weren’t they?
FISA is a much more troubling issue than the obstruction investigation. If there was substantial obstruction (taking into account the behavior that has become ‘normal’ in the past 20 years) then let the heads roll. But even apart from that, the burning light of day shining on the FISA processes and abuses trumps any obstruction as far as I’m concerned. It’s a much broader and more invasive issue by far. Frankly, it deserves its own investigation. Where are those civil libertarians when you need them. :–/
Mueller is not a NeverTrumper. He is the former head of the FBI. Mueller is not left of center. He is a registered Republican. Debra, I am very confident that Mueller is several notches to the right of you.
@9:40 I have no idea who Tom Nichols is, and if he thinks the Republican party needs to be ‘fumigated’ to rid itself of people who think like me, I have no interest in finding out who he is. But he sounds just like other arrogant, self-righteous elitists who have no idea how much their own cluelessness opened the door for Trump’s election. Good luck getting rid of the real termites. 🙄
For those who are wondering which math problem to work on, this article is a pretty fair description of Christopher Steele, the dossier and Steele’s contacts with the FBI.
Ricky, those who are truly to the right of me should not be supporting FISA at all–or civil forfeiture or anything else in the Patriot Act that is currently being used to abuse civil rights. But unfortunately, the only rights that really seem to matter to establishment Republicans these days are big business corporate rights.
lol. The Washington Post wouldn’t know how to give a ‘pretty fair description’ of ANYTHING having to do with Trump. You don’t hire 5 dozen reporters to dig up dirt on a guy just to give him a fair shake. ;–)
At this point, there’s been so much speculation, advise giving and armchair wisdom that no one will be satisfied with anything the Mueller team comes up with at the end. I don’t know how you could have put a media silencer on a city full of leaking plumbing, but unless Mueller sticks to the rule of law, no one will accept what he says.
Hopefully, he will stick to the rule of law and all those resisters out there, who apparently don’t care about the rule of law, will accept whatever is said.
Too many people doing what is right in their own eyes and telling the rest of us what we should be thinking has made a gigantic mess–which I refuse to participate in.
1. Can you identify any statement in the Post article at 9:57 that is incorrect?
2. Mueller is not “supporting FISA or civil forfeiture or the Patriot Act”. He is conducting an investigation into Russian interference in the recent election, links between Trump (and his minions) and that Russian interference and potential Trump obstruction of justice.
Cheer up! I may be right. Trump may be largely innocent, but simply acted incredibly guilty by a. trying to strong-arm Comey and Rosenstein; b.firing Comey; c. cooking up lies to coverup Junior’s discussion with the Russians; and d. sending out the imbecile Nunes on multiple occasions to confuse and distract.
If Trump simply foolishly framed himself, Mueller will tell us so. If the FBI acted inappropriately, I suspect Mueller will also tell us about that also. Remember, Mueller was the one who demoted Strzok.
I posted these three charts on Saturday, but I want to repost since we are discussing sources of news. None of these charts is perfect, but taken together they are very useful. If your source(s) of news is/are not even on these charts, you may want to broaden your reading.
Ricky,
1) I view the Washington Post much like a Jew might view the Auschwitz Free Press: if I go there it might burn my eyeballs out. I survived several years at Amazon, so Bezos is not my go-to source for information. It is possible that I have trust issues in that regard. It’s also possible that this particular press has earned the distrust.
2) I know Mueller is doing his job, and I’m not even particularly dissatisfied with his progress. I’m afraid I lack patience with the process or at least with the inflammatory way the press is riding it. I’m almost indifferent to the outcome of the investigation as long as it is truly fair and is perceived to be so. I’m also fairly confident that Trump is in the clear.
3) However, I do really see FISA and civil forfeiture and other aspects of the Patriot Act as a much more serious threat the public’s confidence in the rule of law. I would like to see a public debate on the subject. An investigation even.
Michelle, Everyone (left, right and Trumpkin) in Washington agrees that the one person (along with his staff) who has not been leaking throughout this whole process has been Mueller. I think that will help his credibility when he finally presents his report. I think the other factors that will help his credibility are:
A. There will be surprises. Remember that no one had even heard of Papadopoulos until Mueller indicted him.
B. I seriously doubt that Mueller’s report will really please either the Democrats or the Trumpkins.
Black Pigeon explains the “deep state.” Around the 6 minute mark deals with our current issues.
“You might say we have five branches of government. In addition to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, we also have the federal bureaucracy and the media establishment, which are the least accountable to the public.
“The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is an international media-monitoring organization that was founded back in 1982 to promote more accurate, balanced, and complete coverage of Israel and the Middle East.
In addition to its many blogs and longform articles which expose an astonishing amount of errors and omissions, CAMERA also produces original research that evaluates how this skewed information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is filtered into educational programming in various settings, such as in U.S. college campuses, the K-12 educational system, and in churches.”
———————–
“CAMERA is also known for its probing analysis and exposure of media fails from the typical sources: The New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, MSNBC, Associated Press, The Guardian, and Haaretz:
As we’ve highlighted, over the years CAMERA has demonstrated that the handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict by these media outlets has long been slanted against Israel. The New York Times in particular has been “obsessed with the perceived flaws” of the Jewish state while “eager to downplay” the Palestinian role in perpetuating the conflict.
But now CAMERA is launching a new project to further expose the newspaper’s partisan and unprofessional coverage of Israel. Via an interactive online timeline, it’ll provide detailed evidence of the paper’s biased journalism and will help readers keep track of the paper’s many stumbles. Below I summarize the newly launched project’s main features. An exclusive statement for Legal Insurrection from CAMERA’s senior research analyst Gilead Ini is also included.”
Debra, After this is all over, I think there will be certain legislative changes regarding issues that arose as part of this investigation. These may include:
A. Changes to the Patriot Act. I agree with you that we understandably overreacted to 9/11 in many respects.
B. Strengthening of protections against foreign interference in our elections. I am really interested to read what Mueller will say about exactly what the Russians did. We are living in a time where people get their news from so many sources, and many (unbelievably) get their news from Facebook.
C. Strengthening the independence of the FBI from inappropriate political interference. The R’s can point to Bill Clinton meeting on the tarmac while Hillary was being investigated. The Ds can point to the Comey firing, Trump’s loyalty demands and his moronic Tweets urging investigation and/or prosecution of his enemies.
“A group of Republican senators will introduce legislation Monday would put about 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children by their parents on a path toward citizenship while spending $25 billion on border security.
Sens. Chuck Grassley, James Lankford, Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, and David Perdue are co-sponsoring the Secure and Succeed Act. The legislation follows a framework laid out by the White House for a deal on the people covered by, and eligible for, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
“This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while also taking the meaningful steps to ensure nobody finds themselves in the same situation in the future,” Grassley said in a statement. “This is a rare opportunity to fix a real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate way.”
The bill limits chain migration, called family-based immigration by Democrats, to just the nuclear family. Reforms to the chain migration process has become a major tipping point in the debate over immigration reform.
The legislation also closes loopholes the senators say allow criminals to enter the country illegally. It would also “reallocate” the diversity immigration lottery, which would reduce the backlog of people awaiting visas based on chain migration and employer-backed visas.
“President Trump has been very clear on what he will sign into law, and this is it. This is a great deal and the only solution that fully addresses the four pillars in the President’s framework,” Perdue said.”
See AJ’s post at 10:45. “Black Pidgeon Speaks” is actually a guy named Felix Lace who posts YouTube videos. I would encourage each of you to do a little research about the guy.
While people are laughing at major newspapers and posting videos from “Black Pidgeon” and others are posting articles from the Raw Street Journal, we are not going to be able to agree on basic facts.
Pres. Trump was rightly upset that Mueller was appointed in the first place, for two reasons. First, he knew that there was not Russian collusion, and second, he knew that in order to appoint a Special Counsel, it required a specific crime to investigate. None existed. Do we know the crime that Carter Page committed to justify the FISA warrant? He hasn’t been charged with anything.
When did the president obstruct justice? Would obstruction of justice be something like destroying government documents after they had been subpoenaed by Congress?
Lets wait and find out how the FISA court judges appreciate having being lied to not once, but four times with the same political document paid for by the DNC and H. Clinton. I don’t think they will be very happy. Another Special Counsel will probably soon be appointed to investigate specific crimes,
The holdovers from the Obama administration are beginning to be exposed for who they really are, and it is painting a very dark picture of our government attempting to choose who will and will not hold the office of the presidency. It was no coincidence that the Deputy FBI Director was removed from his position within hours of the Director’s review of the congressional memo regarding the FISA warrant. This is just the tip of the iceberg on what should soon be exposed as serious violations of federal laws by high-level government employees.
I did Ricky, and I noted the seemingly baseless slander his opponents use on him, Racist, anti-immigrant, alt-right, the same stuff I hear about us, which tells me what I already knew. When you start taking flak, you’re over the target. He is.
Mueller’s reputation is greatly exaggerated. I’m sure Ricky will attack the source, but when you need to see the story the WaPo and NYT aren’t willing to tell for ideological reasons, this is necessary.
“Coleen Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower. Rowley jointly held the TIME “Person of the Year” award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers.”
“PAUL JAY: So who is Robert Mueller, and what do you make of this appointment?
COLEEN ROWLEY: Robert Mueller had only been director for a few days when 9/11 occurred, so he really didn’t have any responsibility for that, but he also was in charge when this kind of cover-up occurred, where they really weren’t telling the truth. The FBI and all the other officials claimed that there was no clues, that they had had no warning, etc., and that was not the case. There had been all kinds of memos and intelligence coming in. I actually had a chance to meet Director Mueller personally the night before I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was more or less … There was another agent in Phoenix who had, he had done the same with, trying to get us on his side, on the FBI side, so that we wouldn’t say anything terribly embarrassing. And he told me that if I ever witnessed anything like that again, the pre-9/11 failures, that I should call him directly. I should get in touch with him.
He told me this in our office, and yeah, when you had the lead-up to the Iraq War where the FBI, actually Robert Mueller and, of course, the CIA and all the other directors, saluted smartly and went along with what Bush wanted, which was to gin up the intelligence to make a pretext for the Iraq War. For instance, in the case of the FBI, they actually had a receipt, another documentary proof, that one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had not been in Prague, as Dick Cheney was alleging. And yet those directors more or less kept quiet. That included, like I said, CIA, FBI, Mueller, and it included also the Deputy Attorney General at the time, James Comey.
And so when James Comey was appointed to be FBI director by Obama, I wrote this opinion piece for The New York Times, and it appeared the same day of the confirmation hearing, and I suggested that James Comey be asked hard questions about why he had signed off on illegal warrantless monitoring, why he had signed off on the torture tactics. In fact, The New York Times even, they didn’t want me to use the word “torture.” That was still, at the time, that was a verboten term. They wanted me to say “some harsh interrogation tactics” or something, and we settled on saying, “which experts believe is torture,” that’s how it’s phrased in the op-ed. And then he also signed off, this is even worse in a way, James Comey defended a warrantless detention without charges and without right to counsel for three years of an American citizen. This, none of our mainstream news has been going back to what they think is ancient history, which is what the Bush administration did initially on.
Both of these figures, Mueller and James Comey, first of all, they became very close with each other, because this was in the first three or four years after 9/11 when there was essentially a state of emergency that Ashcroft was signing off every 90 days, and this was the creation of John Yoo and those Office of Legal Counsel. They thought that if you declared it was an emergency … By the way, all secretly. The public knew none of this, that there was this emergency, but if you declared it was a national emergency, then you could institute a form of martial law. And if you see the John Yoo memos, they say everything that, in times of war, we don’t have a First Amendment. Those are memos that are written within weeks of 9/11, but it’s based on this emergency. So you get to three years, about three years, out, and people like James Comey, Mueller, and some of the new Office of Legal Counsel lawyers that took over after Comey had left …
I mean, excuse me, after John Yoo had left, they started saying, “How long can we keep saying it’s an emergency?” And they said, “No, we’re going to have to stop this,” and that’s when that famous hospital room standoff occurs, where first James Comey races to Ashcroft’s room and stands up to the Bush administration, Gonzalez and Card. They arrive, and they try to get a very sick Ashcroft to sign off on this every 90 days emergency, again, authorizing a form of martial law, and Ashcroft, to his credit, does not sign it. Of course, the other part of this that people don’t know is that not only did Comey and the other officials go along with it before that hospital room standoff, but then they also went along with it afterwards. They simply found new loopholes and new legal mechanisms, I call it pettifoggery, legalization ways of making the same things happen afterwards.
PAUL JAY: So-
COLEEN ROWLEY: Now, Mueller and Comey both got undeserved reputations as being men of integrity. In fact, Mueller, it was extended. There’s a 10-year term for FBI director, and because he was considered so beyond reproach, and he had skated so well between this morass, and of course, some of this didn’t always come out, he was held on for 12 years. And so, again, these two were close, and when Comey spoke out about that hospital room, a lot of people objected to him and argued with him, and it was Mueller, I believe, that kept notes of the hospital room meeting. And so Mueller backed up Comey for that whole hospital room situation.
PAUL JAY: Coleen, so you look at this appointment now. Rosenstein appoints Mueller. Mueller, as you’ve told me off camera, is a very good friend of Comey, and they’ve worked together for years. Where do you see this appointment falling down? In terms of whose side, there’s clearly, it seems to me, Comey has decided to get Trump, and Trump fired Comey. Trump writes this, Comey writes this memo, and we know, at least according to the press reports in The Washington Post, Comey decides to … This memo is not classified. There’s several reports that say that some of the memos that he would keep after meeting with Trump, he would make classified. Others were unclassified. The memo that’s in question that everyone’s talking about, which is the memo that says that Trump asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn, that memo he consciously decides to click unclassified. Now, how do we know there’s even a memo? We know it because Comey has given the memo to associates. I’m doing question marks here, or quotation marks, because we don’t know who the associates are. Are they in the FBI? Are they outside the FBI?
Some of his associates then leak this information to the Post, apparently also to The New York Times, apparently also to AP, which, if the memo’s not classified, then I suppose it’s not illegal, I guess. But Comey made it so, so Comey wanted this memo to get out, clearly, after he was fired, and now his buddy is being appointed the investigator. Is Rosenstein appointing someone who knows how to be subservient and do whatever his president wants, or is he appointing someone who will work with Comey and others to get Trump?
COLEEN ROWLEY: If you go back to the Obama administration, both Mueller and Comey were close with the Obama administration, and so Obama himself, or people around him, made sure that the memos that they were writing from the summer on of the suspicions about Russia and things like that, they made sure that these memos were shared widely in the intelligence community. That’s actually been reported by mainstream news, that there was a deliberate effort to make sure that this information got out and would not somehow be kept secret. And so if you consider that both Comey and, going further back, Mueller, were very much aware of that, they worked with the Obama administration, and Comey, especially, would just be carrying out what was already begun before Trump took office. That’s what I think. I think the [S 00:09:53] on associates, and again, officials, you’ll see sometimes the sources described as officials.
You never see them described as whistleblowers, and I think that’s good, that the media does not describe them as whistleblowers, and I think there’s a lot of indications that these are leakers, certainly, but that they are not motivated for having witnessed a fraud, waste, abuse, or another illegal act, I think that this is a lot of political motivation. And maybe they can justify it in their own heads, and, again, it’s more than one person. I think there …
Ricky @10:51
A & B: Yes.
C. No! All we need is a loosening of political controls over an unelected and entrenched bureaucracy in the FBI (or God forbid, the CIA) and it would be the death of us and of our freedoms. These agencies are not meant to be independent of political control, and they are already operating with little oversight. Politics will always be a factor. But high level politics are in the public domain and sphere; in other words, they are correctable because they are more easily seen. We knew about the tarmac incident, and we can read the tweets. If we take away the higher level, visible political controls, there will still be politics influencing the agencies, but we will not be able to see it. It will all happen behind closed doors.
Warning: Black Pidgeon’s language is as bad as Trump’s. I will let others judge his other comments. I understand his qualifications are that he used to make travel videos.
I understand your concern @ 11:32. Understand that I was not advocating greater independence of the FBI. I was simply making a prediction. It was an easy prediction to make because Congress took several steps to prevent the abuse of Presidential power after Watergate. Some of them were overreactions. There will be Congressional overreactions to Trump in 2019-2022 even as there were Congressional overreactions to 9/11 in the months that followed.
AJ @11:02 There does have to be some kind of immigration bill and a pathway to citizenship will most likely be part of it. I also don’t want to see disruptive wholesale deportations of people who are otherwise law-abiding and productive. (My exception to that would be gang affiliates, or violent criminals, and the political activists here who are not citizens; those can have a one-way ticket to wherever. )
My hesitation has always been the tendency of politicians to pass deals that give away citizenship, but have very weak security components that somehow never seem to fully materialize. So new people continue to pour in unchecked, and it has a negative impact on our resident labor force–including those who have come legally. I really want to see the security measures implemented before citizenship is given. Otherwise, we just end up right back here in a few years, doing another amnesty.
I don’t think this bill (as I read it here) offers a bad deal for the US as far as it goes. However,
I do not know that it covers any aspect of h1b quotas for new workers coming in (which should be very very low). And I don’t know what it says about numbers for new immigrants or refugees. (We have clients that work with refugees, so I know the numbers have been reduced in their area already.)
There is also a cost to immigration. We have not let in that many people who turned out to be terrorists, but I think their children are at an increased risk for radicalization. Most of us don’t think about it, but being a refugee or an immigrant is very stressful on individuals and on the families. They are leaving behind all the familiar sights, sounds, smells, friends, family , routines, laws, customs and culture. And often they don’t even know the language or don’t know it well. These factors can leave them or their children vulnerable to undesirable influences that cause trouble for everyone. If they are going to come, we need to help them assimilate and adjust. That’s one reason I don’t oppose subsidies and other aid for people who are relocating here.
So I went to Black Pidgeon’s Twitter feed to see if he had any morsels of wisdom about the Rothschilds or international bankers. Instead, I found him attacking and insulting this woman who appears to be a former associate:
Folks, Look at the charts posted @ 10:27. Carefully consider your sources of information. Our own DJ is a professional journalist. As she can attest, it is real work. She is a real professional.
Are there biased journalists? Yes. Are there bad lawyers, doctors, bankers and preachers? Yes. However, when people start relying on the Black Sparrows and the Raw Street Journals as their primary sources of information, they are no longer capable of making wise voting decisions.
Hmmm. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. But since I have no idea at what moment our feathered fowl will make his correct pronouncement, I will have to take a pass on the Pigeon. ;–)
“To a great extent I have taken my bearings on the synthetic scandal of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign from Andrew McCarthy. He knows what he is talking about. He is not a victim of Trump derangement syndrome. He does not seek the removal of Trump from office on a pretext.
In his current NRO column he takes a look at the Grassley/Graham memo that we posted (in the “less redacted” form) here and observes: “In a word, the Grassley-Graham memo is shocking. Yet, the press barely notices. Rest assured: If a Republican administration had used unverifiable hearsay from a patently suspect agent of the Republican presidential candidate to gull the FISA court into granting a warrant to spy on an associate of the Democratic nominee’s campaign, it would be covered as the greatest political scandal in a half-century. Instead, it was the other way around….”
Please read the whole thing. It is devastating.”
—————————-
“In all of the discussions about the political weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, alleged corruption at the highest echelons of those agencies and serial abuse of the secret FISA process surrounding the 2016 election, one name has been conspicuously absent: President Barack Obama.
High-ranking officials and other major players in those agencies — which Obama oversaw — are increasingly embroiled in the growing scandal: James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Andrew Weissmann, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr.
Given the tight control Obama exercised over every part of his administration and agenda, the idea that any of these appointees and loyalists freelanced their activities without at least his tacit approval or that of his White House strains credulity.
These kinds of abuses of power were nothing new, given the Obama team’s long history of this type of misconduct on everything from the Benghazi terror attack to the political misuse of the IRS. They weaponized the most fearsome government agencies to target, monitor and presumably illegally unmask political opponents, including members of Congress, journalists reporting unfavorable stories, Trump allies and average Americans.
These dark institutional offenses didn’t just materialize out of thin air. One of the criticisms of President Nixon was that even though he wasn’t aware of the Watergate break-in, he had created an environment in which such an action was acceptable.
Decades later, Obama created a climate in which the potentially criminal misuse of the DOJ and the FBI, as currently being unraveled, was not just acceptable but perhaps encouraged, thereby giving rise to what could be the most dangerous scandal in American history.
It’s increasingly apparent that these recently exposed abuses of power served two ostensible purposes: to secure Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by shielding her from prosecution stemming from the use of her unauthorized private server, and to derail the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump.”
“Dear America: Your News Media Absolutely Hates You
It’d be nice to say that American media doesn’t hate this country. It’d be nice to claim that the American press, while maintaining objectivity and balancing against bias, is still inherently American – that they are patriots who love this country even as they report on its defects. Recall the quote from Daniel Patrick Moynihan while Ambassador to the United Nations: “Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don’t. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things? Yes, we have. How did our people learn about them? They learned about them in the newspapers.” And that is important.
But we cannot say these things when the American media, time and again, illustrates its utter hatred for the nation and its people in those newspapers and on television. Having judged the American project kaput after the election of Donald Trump, they are now stooping to the level of defending the North Koreans – perhaps the most brutal and heinous regime in the world today – thanks to some side-eye from its minister of propaganda, the sister of Kim Jong Un. If the headlines are to be believed, “North Korea heading for diplomacy gold medal at Olympics” is the story American media want to tell about this moment.
I wish this was an exaggeration. Witness this story from CNN today, with its dripping credulousness in attacking Mike Pence with a story sourced entirely to a diplomatic source close to the North Korean regime.
“The senior diplomatic source said Pence “degraded the image of the United States as a superpower” by meeting with North Korean defectors along with Otto Warmbier’s father, and by speaking strongly against North Korea on multiple occasions.
“Fred Warmbier accompanied Pence during his visit to South Korea. His son Otto was jailed in North Korea and died upon his return to the US last year after suffering extensive brain damage…
“The source also described as “undignified behavior” Pence’s decision to stay seated and to not applaud the unified Korean team at the opening ceremony, adding that the Vice President “took the low road instead of acting like a big brother.”
Let’s be clear about what this is: this is 15 year veteran reporter at CNN, Will Ripley, just straight up delivering North Korean propaganda whole cloth to an American audience, simply because it criticizes the Trump administration. Of course, Pence’s actions were intentional and bringing victims of this brutal regime to light was not taking the low road, it was showing North Korea what we think of them. But leave it to CNN to just parrot what any critic says about this country without a thought to context.
And CNN’s not alone! Bre Payton reports:
“Kim Yo Jong’s brother is starving his own people in order to develop nuclear weapons he’s threatening to use against the United States and other countries, but you might not know that about her based on these headlines.
CNN: “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics”
YAHOO: “All swagger and smiles, Kim Jong Un’s mysterious sister gets her star turn at Winter Olympics”
YAHOO: “Kim Yo Jong: N. Korea’s political princess”
BBC: “Kim Jong-un’s sister: ‘Sweet but with a tomboy streak’”
WASHINGTON POST: “The ‘Ivanka Trump of North Korea’ captivates people in the South”
ASSOCIATED PRESS: “At Olympic Games, Kim Jong Un’s sister takes VIP seat”…”
————————
David French has read the memos and all the commentary written about the memos. He is still not outraged at the FBI and he agrees with Gowdy that the memos do not in any way weaken the Mueller investigation. However we have to ask: Has French listened to what the Black Sparrow has to say about the subject?
There are smart folks who disagree with me, but here's my view so far. Not only is FISA-Gate not "worse than Watergate," I'm not convinced there's a real scandal here. My thoughts in response to the Grassley memo: https://t.co/BSYcHcAIQG
Wandering Views 
I have been wondering if Mr. Mueller might eventually have something to say about the actions of Nunes and his staff.
LikeLike
It seems to me that rather than obstructing justice, Nunes has been promoting and facilitating justice.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Tychicus, You and I agree on most political and theological issues. For the last year, we have been like two math students working on two completely different trigonometry problems. We keep trying to convince the other that our answer is right. However, we are not going to agree on the underlying facts, at least not until Mr. Mueller finishes his work.
LikeLike
Tom Nichols on the current state of the Republican Party:
LikeLike
Why should Mueller NOT have something negative to say about the chair of the oversight committee? Every other never-Trumper and left of center publication has negatively speculated, so why would he be any different. 🙄
The real questions are: were those FISA warrants obtained with false documentation (the dossier)?, and would they reasonably have been obtained otherwise? And if the answer is yes to the latter, then why weren’t they?
FISA is a much more troubling issue than the obstruction investigation. If there was substantial obstruction (taking into account the behavior that has become ‘normal’ in the past 20 years) then let the heads roll. But even apart from that, the burning light of day shining on the FISA processes and abuses trumps any obstruction as far as I’m concerned. It’s a much broader and more invasive issue by far. Frankly, it deserves its own investigation. Where are those civil libertarians when you need them. :–/
LikeLiked by 1 person
Mueller is not a NeverTrumper. He is the former head of the FBI. Mueller is not left of center. He is a registered Republican. Debra, I am very confident that Mueller is several notches to the right of you.
LikeLike
@9:40 I have no idea who Tom Nichols is, and if he thinks the Republican party needs to be ‘fumigated’ to rid itself of people who think like me, I have no interest in finding out who he is. But he sounds just like other arrogant, self-righteous elitists who have no idea how much their own cluelessness opened the door for Trump’s election. Good luck getting rid of the real termites. 🙄
LikeLiked by 1 person
For those who are wondering which math problem to work on, this article is a pretty fair description of Christopher Steele, the dossier and Steele’s contacts with the FBI.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/fact-checker/wp/2018/01/09/what-you-need-to-know-about-christopher-steele-the-fbi-and-the-dossier/?utm_term=.ff0592796383
LikeLike
Ricky, those who are truly to the right of me should not be supporting FISA at all–or civil forfeiture or anything else in the Patriot Act that is currently being used to abuse civil rights. But unfortunately, the only rights that really seem to matter to establishment Republicans these days are big business corporate rights.
LikeLiked by 2 people
lol. The Washington Post wouldn’t know how to give a ‘pretty fair description’ of ANYTHING having to do with Trump. You don’t hire 5 dozen reporters to dig up dirt on a guy just to give him a fair shake. ;–)
LikeLiked by 2 people
At this point, there’s been so much speculation, advise giving and armchair wisdom that no one will be satisfied with anything the Mueller team comes up with at the end. I don’t know how you could have put a media silencer on a city full of leaking plumbing, but unless Mueller sticks to the rule of law, no one will accept what he says.
Hopefully, he will stick to the rule of law and all those resisters out there, who apparently don’t care about the rule of law, will accept whatever is said.
Too many people doing what is right in their own eyes and telling the rest of us what we should be thinking has made a gigantic mess–which I refuse to participate in.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Ricky. it’s clear that you’re working on the wrong math problem when you think that the WashPost is supplying the facts.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Debra,
1. Can you identify any statement in the Post article at 9:57 that is incorrect?
2. Mueller is not “supporting FISA or civil forfeiture or the Patriot Act”. He is conducting an investigation into Russian interference in the recent election, links between Trump (and his minions) and that Russian interference and potential Trump obstruction of justice.
Cheer up! I may be right. Trump may be largely innocent, but simply acted incredibly guilty by a. trying to strong-arm Comey and Rosenstein; b.firing Comey; c. cooking up lies to coverup Junior’s discussion with the Russians; and d. sending out the imbecile Nunes on multiple occasions to confuse and distract.
If Trump simply foolishly framed himself, Mueller will tell us so. If the FBI acted inappropriately, I suspect Mueller will also tell us about that also. Remember, Mueller was the one who demoted Strzok.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Tychicus, Who/what is supplying your facts? Nunes? Hannity? Fox News? Trump?
LikeLike
I posted these three charts on Saturday, but I want to repost since we are discussing sources of news. None of these charts is perfect, but taken together they are very useful. If your source(s) of news is/are not even on these charts, you may want to broaden your reading.
LikeLike
I have never had my portrait painted.
No artist could look at me that long.
I don’t understand “Never Trump”.
Trump is what we have and nothing.
I repeat, nothing will change that.
I know.
but it still won’t change it.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ricky,
1) I view the Washington Post much like a Jew might view the Auschwitz Free Press: if I go there it might burn my eyeballs out. I survived several years at Amazon, so Bezos is not my go-to source for information. It is possible that I have trust issues in that regard. It’s also possible that this particular press has earned the distrust.
2) I know Mueller is doing his job, and I’m not even particularly dissatisfied with his progress. I’m afraid I lack patience with the process or at least with the inflammatory way the press is riding it. I’m almost indifferent to the outcome of the investigation as long as it is truly fair and is perceived to be so. I’m also fairly confident that Trump is in the clear.
3) However, I do really see FISA and civil forfeiture and other aspects of the Patriot Act as a much more serious threat the public’s confidence in the rule of law. I would like to see a public debate on the subject. An investigation even.
LikeLike
Mueller IS the swamp. He’s as establishment as they come.
But I think it’s cute that you think WaPo is credible or fair.
LikeLike
Michelle, Everyone (left, right and Trumpkin) in Washington agrees that the one person (along with his staff) who has not been leaking throughout this whole process has been Mueller. I think that will help his credibility when he finally presents his report. I think the other factors that will help his credibility are:
A. There will be surprises. Remember that no one had even heard of Papadopoulos until Mueller indicted him.
B. I seriously doubt that Mueller’s report will really please either the Democrats or the Trumpkins.
LikeLike
Black Pigeon explains the “deep state.” Around the 6 minute mark deals with our current issues.
“You might say we have five branches of government. In addition to the legislative, executive, and judicial branches, we also have the federal bureaucracy and the media establishment, which are the least accountable to the public.
LikeLike
And why the media isn’t to be trusted.
https://legalinsurrection.com/2018/02/camera-unveils-times-line-exposing-biased-ny-times-coverage-against-israel/
“The Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting in America (CAMERA) is an international media-monitoring organization that was founded back in 1982 to promote more accurate, balanced, and complete coverage of Israel and the Middle East.
In addition to its many blogs and longform articles which expose an astonishing amount of errors and omissions, CAMERA also produces original research that evaluates how this skewed information on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is filtered into educational programming in various settings, such as in U.S. college campuses, the K-12 educational system, and in churches.”
———————–
“CAMERA is also known for its probing analysis and exposure of media fails from the typical sources: The New York Times, BBC, Washington Post, MSNBC, Associated Press, The Guardian, and Haaretz:
As we’ve highlighted, over the years CAMERA has demonstrated that the handling of the Arab-Israeli conflict by these media outlets has long been slanted against Israel. The New York Times in particular has been “obsessed with the perceived flaws” of the Jewish state while “eager to downplay” the Palestinian role in perpetuating the conflict.
But now CAMERA is launching a new project to further expose the newspaper’s partisan and unprofessional coverage of Israel. Via an interactive online timeline, it’ll provide detailed evidence of the paper’s biased journalism and will help readers keep track of the paper’s many stumbles. Below I summarize the newly launched project’s main features. An exclusive statement for Legal Insurrection from CAMERA’s senior research analyst Gilead Ini is also included.”
LikeLike
Debra, After this is all over, I think there will be certain legislative changes regarding issues that arose as part of this investigation. These may include:
A. Changes to the Patriot Act. I agree with you that we understandably overreacted to 9/11 in many respects.
B. Strengthening of protections against foreign interference in our elections. I am really interested to read what Mueller will say about exactly what the Russians did. We are living in a time where people get their news from so many sources, and many (unbelievably) get their news from Facebook.
C. Strengthening the independence of the FBI from inappropriate political interference. The R’s can point to Bill Clinton meeting on the tarmac while Hillary was being investigated. The Ds can point to the Comey firing, Trump’s loyalty demands and his moronic Tweets urging investigation and/or prosecution of his enemies.
LikeLiked by 1 person
Thoughts?
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/gop-senators-to-introduce-bill-providing-path-to-citizenship-for-18-million-daca-eligible-immigrants-25-billion-for-border-security/article/2648793
“A group of Republican senators will introduce legislation Monday would put about 1.8 million illegal immigrants brought to the U.S. as children by their parents on a path toward citizenship while spending $25 billion on border security.
Sens. Chuck Grassley, James Lankford, Joni Ernst, Tom Cotton, John Cornyn, Thom Tillis, and David Perdue are co-sponsoring the Secure and Succeed Act. The legislation follows a framework laid out by the White House for a deal on the people covered by, and eligible for, the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, or DACA.
“This legislation is a reasonable approach to shielding children illegally brought to our country through no fault of their own while also taking the meaningful steps to ensure nobody finds themselves in the same situation in the future,” Grassley said in a statement. “This is a rare opportunity to fix a real problem and protect the country in a thoughtful and compassionate way.”
The bill limits chain migration, called family-based immigration by Democrats, to just the nuclear family. Reforms to the chain migration process has become a major tipping point in the debate over immigration reform.
The legislation also closes loopholes the senators say allow criminals to enter the country illegally. It would also “reallocate” the diversity immigration lottery, which would reduce the backlog of people awaiting visas based on chain migration and employer-backed visas.
“President Trump has been very clear on what he will sign into law, and this is it. This is a great deal and the only solution that fully addresses the four pillars in the President’s framework,” Perdue said.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
See AJ’s post at 10:45. “Black Pidgeon Speaks” is actually a guy named Felix Lace who posts YouTube videos. I would encourage each of you to do a little research about the guy.
While people are laughing at major newspapers and posting videos from “Black Pidgeon” and others are posting articles from the Raw Street Journal, we are not going to be able to agree on basic facts.
LikeLike
Pres. Trump was rightly upset that Mueller was appointed in the first place, for two reasons. First, he knew that there was not Russian collusion, and second, he knew that in order to appoint a Special Counsel, it required a specific crime to investigate. None existed. Do we know the crime that Carter Page committed to justify the FISA warrant? He hasn’t been charged with anything.
When did the president obstruct justice? Would obstruction of justice be something like destroying government documents after they had been subpoenaed by Congress?
Lets wait and find out how the FISA court judges appreciate having being lied to not once, but four times with the same political document paid for by the DNC and H. Clinton. I don’t think they will be very happy. Another Special Counsel will probably soon be appointed to investigate specific crimes,
The holdovers from the Obama administration are beginning to be exposed for who they really are, and it is painting a very dark picture of our government attempting to choose who will and will not hold the office of the presidency. It was no coincidence that the Deputy FBI Director was removed from his position within hours of the Director’s review of the congressional memo regarding the FISA warrant. This is just the tip of the iceberg on what should soon be exposed as serious violations of federal laws by high-level government employees.
LikeLike
I did Ricky, and I noted the seemingly baseless slander his opponents use on him, Racist, anti-immigrant, alt-right, the same stuff I hear about us, which tells me what I already knew. When you start taking flak, you’re over the target. He is.
Now, how about you tell me where he is wrong?
I’ll wait………..
LikeLike
Tychicus,
Mueller’s reputation is greatly exaggerated. I’m sure Ricky will attack the source, but when you need to see the story the WaPo and NYT aren’t willing to tell for ideological reasons, this is necessary.
http://therealnews.com/t2/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=31&Itemid=74&jumival=19120
“Coleen Rowley is a former FBI agent and whistleblower. Rowley jointly held the TIME “Person of the Year” award in 2002 with two other women credited as whistleblowers.”
“PAUL JAY: So who is Robert Mueller, and what do you make of this appointment?
COLEEN ROWLEY: Robert Mueller had only been director for a few days when 9/11 occurred, so he really didn’t have any responsibility for that, but he also was in charge when this kind of cover-up occurred, where they really weren’t telling the truth. The FBI and all the other officials claimed that there was no clues, that they had had no warning, etc., and that was not the case. There had been all kinds of memos and intelligence coming in. I actually had a chance to meet Director Mueller personally the night before I testified to the Senate Judiciary Committee, and he was more or less … There was another agent in Phoenix who had, he had done the same with, trying to get us on his side, on the FBI side, so that we wouldn’t say anything terribly embarrassing. And he told me that if I ever witnessed anything like that again, the pre-9/11 failures, that I should call him directly. I should get in touch with him.
He told me this in our office, and yeah, when you had the lead-up to the Iraq War where the FBI, actually Robert Mueller and, of course, the CIA and all the other directors, saluted smartly and went along with what Bush wanted, which was to gin up the intelligence to make a pretext for the Iraq War. For instance, in the case of the FBI, they actually had a receipt, another documentary proof, that one of the hijackers, Mohamed Atta, had not been in Prague, as Dick Cheney was alleging. And yet those directors more or less kept quiet. That included, like I said, CIA, FBI, Mueller, and it included also the Deputy Attorney General at the time, James Comey.
And so when James Comey was appointed to be FBI director by Obama, I wrote this opinion piece for The New York Times, and it appeared the same day of the confirmation hearing, and I suggested that James Comey be asked hard questions about why he had signed off on illegal warrantless monitoring, why he had signed off on the torture tactics. In fact, The New York Times even, they didn’t want me to use the word “torture.” That was still, at the time, that was a verboten term. They wanted me to say “some harsh interrogation tactics” or something, and we settled on saying, “which experts believe is torture,” that’s how it’s phrased in the op-ed. And then he also signed off, this is even worse in a way, James Comey defended a warrantless detention without charges and without right to counsel for three years of an American citizen. This, none of our mainstream news has been going back to what they think is ancient history, which is what the Bush administration did initially on.
Both of these figures, Mueller and James Comey, first of all, they became very close with each other, because this was in the first three or four years after 9/11 when there was essentially a state of emergency that Ashcroft was signing off every 90 days, and this was the creation of John Yoo and those Office of Legal Counsel. They thought that if you declared it was an emergency … By the way, all secretly. The public knew none of this, that there was this emergency, but if you declared it was a national emergency, then you could institute a form of martial law. And if you see the John Yoo memos, they say everything that, in times of war, we don’t have a First Amendment. Those are memos that are written within weeks of 9/11, but it’s based on this emergency. So you get to three years, about three years, out, and people like James Comey, Mueller, and some of the new Office of Legal Counsel lawyers that took over after Comey had left …
I mean, excuse me, after John Yoo had left, they started saying, “How long can we keep saying it’s an emergency?” And they said, “No, we’re going to have to stop this,” and that’s when that famous hospital room standoff occurs, where first James Comey races to Ashcroft’s room and stands up to the Bush administration, Gonzalez and Card. They arrive, and they try to get a very sick Ashcroft to sign off on this every 90 days emergency, again, authorizing a form of martial law, and Ashcroft, to his credit, does not sign it. Of course, the other part of this that people don’t know is that not only did Comey and the other officials go along with it before that hospital room standoff, but then they also went along with it afterwards. They simply found new loopholes and new legal mechanisms, I call it pettifoggery, legalization ways of making the same things happen afterwards.
PAUL JAY: So-
COLEEN ROWLEY: Now, Mueller and Comey both got undeserved reputations as being men of integrity. In fact, Mueller, it was extended. There’s a 10-year term for FBI director, and because he was considered so beyond reproach, and he had skated so well between this morass, and of course, some of this didn’t always come out, he was held on for 12 years. And so, again, these two were close, and when Comey spoke out about that hospital room, a lot of people objected to him and argued with him, and it was Mueller, I believe, that kept notes of the hospital room meeting. And so Mueller backed up Comey for that whole hospital room situation.
PAUL JAY: Coleen, so you look at this appointment now. Rosenstein appoints Mueller. Mueller, as you’ve told me off camera, is a very good friend of Comey, and they’ve worked together for years. Where do you see this appointment falling down? In terms of whose side, there’s clearly, it seems to me, Comey has decided to get Trump, and Trump fired Comey. Trump writes this, Comey writes this memo, and we know, at least according to the press reports in The Washington Post, Comey decides to … This memo is not classified. There’s several reports that say that some of the memos that he would keep after meeting with Trump, he would make classified. Others were unclassified. The memo that’s in question that everyone’s talking about, which is the memo that says that Trump asked him to drop the investigation into Flynn, that memo he consciously decides to click unclassified. Now, how do we know there’s even a memo? We know it because Comey has given the memo to associates. I’m doing question marks here, or quotation marks, because we don’t know who the associates are. Are they in the FBI? Are they outside the FBI?
Some of his associates then leak this information to the Post, apparently also to The New York Times, apparently also to AP, which, if the memo’s not classified, then I suppose it’s not illegal, I guess. But Comey made it so, so Comey wanted this memo to get out, clearly, after he was fired, and now his buddy is being appointed the investigator. Is Rosenstein appointing someone who knows how to be subservient and do whatever his president wants, or is he appointing someone who will work with Comey and others to get Trump?
COLEEN ROWLEY: If you go back to the Obama administration, both Mueller and Comey were close with the Obama administration, and so Obama himself, or people around him, made sure that the memos that they were writing from the summer on of the suspicions about Russia and things like that, they made sure that these memos were shared widely in the intelligence community. That’s actually been reported by mainstream news, that there was a deliberate effort to make sure that this information got out and would not somehow be kept secret. And so if you consider that both Comey and, going further back, Mueller, were very much aware of that, they worked with the Obama administration, and Comey, especially, would just be carrying out what was already begun before Trump took office. That’s what I think. I think the [S 00:09:53] on associates, and again, officials, you’ll see sometimes the sources described as officials.
You never see them described as whistleblowers, and I think that’s good, that the media does not describe them as whistleblowers, and I think there’s a lot of indications that these are leakers, certainly, but that they are not motivated for having witnessed a fraud, waste, abuse, or another illegal act, I think that this is a lot of political motivation. And maybe they can justify it in their own heads, and, again, it’s more than one person. I think there …
PAUL JAY: But where do you think-
COLEEN ROWLEY: … are people working together.”
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ricky @10:51
A & B: Yes.
C. No! All we need is a loosening of political controls over an unelected and entrenched bureaucracy in the FBI (or God forbid, the CIA) and it would be the death of us and of our freedoms. These agencies are not meant to be independent of political control, and they are already operating with little oversight. Politics will always be a factor. But high level politics are in the public domain and sphere; in other words, they are correctable because they are more easily seen. We knew about the tarmac incident, and we can read the tweets. If we take away the higher level, visible political controls, there will still be politics influencing the agencies, but we will not be able to see it. It will all happen behind closed doors.
LikeLike
Warning: Black Pidgeon’s language is as bad as Trump’s. I will let others judge his other comments. I understand his qualifications are that he used to make travel videos.
LikeLike
Debra @ 11:32
I understand your concern @ 11:32. Understand that I was not advocating greater independence of the FBI. I was simply making a prediction. It was an easy prediction to make because Congress took several steps to prevent the abuse of Presidential power after Watergate. Some of them were overreactions. There will be Congressional overreactions to Trump in 2019-2022 even as there were Congressional overreactions to 9/11 in the months that followed.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t know if he has ever made travel videos, and I understand some may call him an “elitist”, but I think Tom Nichols has an impressive resume:
https://usnwc2.usnwc.edu/getattachment/0a394298-71ee-4e6c-ad29-d409a54b4d0d/Tom-Nichols-CV-09.aspx
LikeLike
I take it from your lack of an answer, that he wasn’t wrong, at least in the one I posted.
While the messenger may be flawed, the message he delivered about the deep state was dead on.
LikeLike
AJ, Why would I waste my time watching a video of the rankings of an Anti-Semite? Why would you?
LikeLike
Sorry. That should be “rantings”. I assume the video contained no “rankings”.
LikeLike
AJ @11:02 There does have to be some kind of immigration bill and a pathway to citizenship will most likely be part of it. I also don’t want to see disruptive wholesale deportations of people who are otherwise law-abiding and productive. (My exception to that would be gang affiliates, or violent criminals, and the political activists here who are not citizens; those can have a one-way ticket to wherever. )
My hesitation has always been the tendency of politicians to pass deals that give away citizenship, but have very weak security components that somehow never seem to fully materialize. So new people continue to pour in unchecked, and it has a negative impact on our resident labor force–including those who have come legally. I really want to see the security measures implemented before citizenship is given. Otherwise, we just end up right back here in a few years, doing another amnesty.
I don’t think this bill (as I read it here) offers a bad deal for the US as far as it goes. However,
I do not know that it covers any aspect of h1b quotas for new workers coming in (which should be very very low). And I don’t know what it says about numbers for new immigrants or refugees. (We have clients that work with refugees, so I know the numbers have been reduced in their area already.)
There is also a cost to immigration. We have not let in that many people who turned out to be terrorists, but I think their children are at an increased risk for radicalization. Most of us don’t think about it, but being a refugee or an immigrant is very stressful on individuals and on the families. They are leaving behind all the familiar sights, sounds, smells, friends, family , routines, laws, customs and culture. And often they don’t even know the language or don’t know it well. These factors can leave them or their children vulnerable to undesirable influences that cause trouble for everyone. If they are going to come, we need to help them assimilate and adjust. That’s one reason I don’t oppose subsidies and other aid for people who are relocating here.
LikeLiked by 2 people
So I went to Black Pidgeon’s Twitter feed to see if he had any morsels of wisdom about the Rothschilds or international bankers. Instead, I found him attacking and insulting this woman who appears to be a former associate:
https://twitter.com/navyhato/status/963057241195560960
LikeLike
He wasn’t done.
https://twitter.com/navyhato/status/963074410012860416
Folks, Look at the charts posted @ 10:27. Carefully consider your sources of information. Our own DJ is a professional journalist. As she can attest, it is real work. She is a real professional.
Are there biased journalists? Yes. Are there bad lawyers, doctors, bankers and preachers? Yes. However, when people start relying on the Black Sparrows and the Raw Street Journals as their primary sources of information, they are no longer capable of making wise voting decisions.
LikeLike
Hmmm. As they say, even a broken clock is right twice a day. But since I have no idea at what moment our feathered fowl will make his correct pronouncement, I will have to take a pass on the Pigeon. ;–)
LikeLiked by 2 people
More willful ignorance by the media.
http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/02/i-was-wrong.php
“To a great extent I have taken my bearings on the synthetic scandal of alleged Russian collusion with the Trump campaign from Andrew McCarthy. He knows what he is talking about. He is not a victim of Trump derangement syndrome. He does not seek the removal of Trump from office on a pretext.
In his current NRO column he takes a look at the Grassley/Graham memo that we posted (in the “less redacted” form) here and observes: “In a word, the Grassley-Graham memo is shocking. Yet, the press barely notices. Rest assured: If a Republican administration had used unverifiable hearsay from a patently suspect agent of the Republican presidential candidate to gull the FISA court into granting a warrant to spy on an associate of the Democratic nominee’s campaign, it would be covered as the greatest political scandal in a half-century. Instead, it was the other way around….”
Please read the whole thing. It is devastating.”
—————————-
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456287/grassley-graham-memo-affirms-nunes-memo-fisa-steele-dossier
LikeLiked by 2 people
This is Obama’s true legacy.
http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/373379-federal-abuses-a-growing-blight-on-obamas-legacy
“In all of the discussions about the political weaponization of the Department of Justice (DOJ) and the FBI, alleged corruption at the highest echelons of those agencies and serial abuse of the secret FISA process surrounding the 2016 election, one name has been conspicuously absent: President Barack Obama.
High-ranking officials and other major players in those agencies — which Obama oversaw — are increasingly embroiled in the growing scandal: James Comey, Loretta Lynch, Andrew McCabe, Andrew Weissmann, Sally Yates, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Bruce Ohr.
Given the tight control Obama exercised over every part of his administration and agenda, the idea that any of these appointees and loyalists freelanced their activities without at least his tacit approval or that of his White House strains credulity.
These kinds of abuses of power were nothing new, given the Obama team’s long history of this type of misconduct on everything from the Benghazi terror attack to the political misuse of the IRS. They weaponized the most fearsome government agencies to target, monitor and presumably illegally unmask political opponents, including members of Congress, journalists reporting unfavorable stories, Trump allies and average Americans.
These dark institutional offenses didn’t just materialize out of thin air. One of the criticisms of President Nixon was that even though he wasn’t aware of the Watergate break-in, he had created an environment in which such an action was acceptable.
Decades later, Obama created a climate in which the potentially criminal misuse of the DOJ and the FBI, as currently being unraveled, was not just acceptable but perhaps encouraged, thereby giving rise to what could be the most dangerous scandal in American history.
It’s increasingly apparent that these recently exposed abuses of power served two ostensible purposes: to secure Hillary Clinton’s candidacy by shielding her from prosecution stemming from the use of her unauthorized private server, and to derail the candidacy and presidency of Donald Trump.”
LikeLiked by 2 people
Breaking….
https://hotair.com/archives/2018/02/12/breaking-white-powder-sends-trump-daughter-law-hospital/
“Breaking: White Powder Sends Trump Daughter-In-Law To Hospital For Observation; Update: AP Reports “Coughing And Nauseous””
LikeLike
I don’t know if Michelle mistakenly posted it in the wrong place, but I’ll re-post it here.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/12/dear-america-news-media-absolutely-hates/#.WoHs19mse8d.twitter
“Dear America: Your News Media Absolutely Hates You
It’d be nice to say that American media doesn’t hate this country. It’d be nice to claim that the American press, while maintaining objectivity and balancing against bias, is still inherently American – that they are patriots who love this country even as they report on its defects. Recall the quote from Daniel Patrick Moynihan while Ambassador to the United Nations: “Am I embarrassed to speak for a less than perfect democracy? Not one bit. Find me a better one. Do I suppose there are societies which are free of sin? No, I don’t. Do I think ours is, on balance, incomparably the most hopeful set of human relations the world has? Yes, I do. Have we done obscene things? Yes, we have. How did our people learn about them? They learned about them in the newspapers.” And that is important.
But we cannot say these things when the American media, time and again, illustrates its utter hatred for the nation and its people in those newspapers and on television. Having judged the American project kaput after the election of Donald Trump, they are now stooping to the level of defending the North Koreans – perhaps the most brutal and heinous regime in the world today – thanks to some side-eye from its minister of propaganda, the sister of Kim Jong Un. If the headlines are to be believed, “North Korea heading for diplomacy gold medal at Olympics” is the story American media want to tell about this moment.
I wish this was an exaggeration. Witness this story from CNN today, with its dripping credulousness in attacking Mike Pence with a story sourced entirely to a diplomatic source close to the North Korean regime.
“The senior diplomatic source said Pence “degraded the image of the United States as a superpower” by meeting with North Korean defectors along with Otto Warmbier’s father, and by speaking strongly against North Korea on multiple occasions.
“Fred Warmbier accompanied Pence during his visit to South Korea. His son Otto was jailed in North Korea and died upon his return to the US last year after suffering extensive brain damage…
“The source also described as “undignified behavior” Pence’s decision to stay seated and to not applaud the unified Korean team at the opening ceremony, adding that the Vice President “took the low road instead of acting like a big brother.”
Let’s be clear about what this is: this is 15 year veteran reporter at CNN, Will Ripley, just straight up delivering North Korean propaganda whole cloth to an American audience, simply because it criticizes the Trump administration. Of course, Pence’s actions were intentional and bringing victims of this brutal regime to light was not taking the low road, it was showing North Korea what we think of them. But leave it to CNN to just parrot what any critic says about this country without a thought to context.
And CNN’s not alone! Bre Payton reports:
“Kim Yo Jong’s brother is starving his own people in order to develop nuclear weapons he’s threatening to use against the United States and other countries, but you might not know that about her based on these headlines.
CNN: “Kim Jong Un’s sister is stealing the show at the Winter Olympics”
YAHOO: “All swagger and smiles, Kim Jong Un’s mysterious sister gets her star turn at Winter Olympics”
YAHOO: “Kim Yo Jong: N. Korea’s political princess”
BBC: “Kim Jong-un’s sister: ‘Sweet but with a tomboy streak’”
WASHINGTON POST: “The ‘Ivanka Trump of North Korea’ captivates people in the South”
ASSOCIATED PRESS: “At Olympic Games, Kim Jong Un’s sister takes VIP seat”…”
————————
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks. I’ve been bewildered by all this attention to a woman whose brother routinely murders people and keeps an entire national enslaved. Sick.
LikeLiked by 1 person
David French has read the memos and all the commentary written about the memos. He is still not outraged at the FBI and he agrees with Gowdy that the memos do not in any way weaken the Mueller investigation. However we have to ask: Has French listened to what the Black Sparrow has to say about the subject?
LikeLike