Finally got my daily Round Tuit and watched the news. It said the memo was “to be released Friday”, so thought I’d put up a posting for discussion… then saw in comments that it was already released.
OK, h/t to the fast guns here!
From: https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/01/19/w-o-o-d-19-january-2018/
we have:
jim2 says:
2 February 2018 at 4:37 pm (Edit)What a great headline! :)
“Media’s longtime crusade for transparency ends with Nunes memo as ‘The Post’ remains in theaters”
First out the gate about 2 hours ago. Then Larry gives an update, and P.G. links to the memo almost the same time and only a little before me ( I was making coffee ;-0 )
Larry Ledwick says:
2 February 2018 at 5:30 pm (Edit)The memo has just been released – link to the memo included
p.g.sharrow says:
2 February 2018 at 6:03 pm (Edit)Intel memo
https://www.scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#from_embed
…pg
So I’m going to go ahead and open this posting for discussing it. I’m also going to past some links and text in here as I get it read.
The News has Democrats claiming important information was removed from the memo in order to make it look bad. Not sure how removing information can make an existing fact look bad, but I’m sure leaks will fill that in.
The Memo page 1
The Memo Page 2
The Memo page 3
The Memo page 4
The Memo page 5
The Memo page 6
Musings from the Chiefio 
Observations about the FISA-Memo:
1. I see absolutely nothing that exposes sources and methods (which the FBI and some Democrats have been alleging), other than the obvious that they got that piece of crap dossier from the source everyone already knows about. No new names were named it just confirms what is already in the public domain that deep inside the bureaucracy there are small groups of like minded individuals trying to poison the Trump presidency and bring it down or cripple it.
2. This Memo is only a very small extract of the IG’s report which dramatically raises my interest in what is in the full IG support.
3. It validates the assertions by Trump that his campaign was being improperly spied upon through subterfuge using nation state resources. The only question is who was in on this plot in the Obama administration. I presume it goes all the way to the top of the Obama administration, the HRC campaign and the DNC as a more selective list would make no sense.
4. The Media was clearing involved (only question were they knowingly involved or were they just being useful idiots and being played by Obama, HRC and the DNC)
Like water gate this will only get bigger this just unlocks the door and pushes it ajar a bit, now there will be flood of folks trying to CYA and misdirect attention away from themselves.
Pelosi’s statement is nothing but rhetoric, and I see no reason to take her protests seriously at this point.
Just to have it all together in the same thread a link to the FISA-Memo
Click to access Read-the-GOP-memo.pdf
“This Memo is only a very small extract of the IG’s report”
That is what blows the meme of the YSM and democrats to bits. It is not “THE Nunes” memo. It is THE IG memo extract. And he was appointed by Obama.
@Larry:
You have an error in your comment:
“Pelosi’s statement is nothing but rhetoric, and I see no reason to take her protests seriously at this point.”
Ought to read:
“Pelosi is full of nothing burger rhetoric, and I see no reason to take her seriously at all'”
Fixed it for ya…
9-)
You are right EM anyone who takes her seriously obviously has not been paying attention for the last 10 years or so. ;)
There is a strong presumption in Liberal/Western democracies that you do not prosecute political misdemeanors from the previous administration, and for good reasons. In many of what we used to call Third World countries, to lose an election is to go to prison, or worse. The Obama administration toyed with going after a few people from the Bush 43 era based on their advice on such things as waterboarding but ultimately did not,
This is something far beyond a misdemeanor! If you imagine the participants in uniform, you would have people screaming “coup.” That would be in error, but it would be an utterly unconstitutional intrusion into civilian affairs. We probably need a new term for what is often called the “Deep State” attempting to control the political process. If there is not a real investigation based on what we know, and know is coming, in the future Civil Servants will again believe they are “Civil Masters.”
OK, I’ve read it all now.
No real news in it. BUT it does fully confirm what had been asserted about how tainted the whole FBI / FISA / “Dossier” thing was.
Frankly, I’m a bit startled just to read the phrase “with his mistress” about an FBI agent… Last time I looked, having a “mistress” was not conducive to honesty integrity and trust…
Given that Comey looks to have been playing both sides of the fence, it’s pretty obvious he had to go.
OK, one swampy mud puddle drained 1/2 way. 5,056,129,837 to go…
@Tregonsee:
How about “Soft Coup”?
Or maybe “Office Holder Coup” (as opposed to the “Military Coup” you point out is the norm).
One of the common refrains lately has been why did Trump leave certain people in place in his administration. I think the answer to that will be “give them rope to hang themselves”!
If he knew up front they were playing political games and sidestepping legal protections the longer he could observe their actions the more certain it was that they would eventually step in it and fully expose their long term pattern of behavior. If shut down when he took office they could assert that they were trying to survive in a toxic political environment, but now having been under President Trump for a year, they no longer have that excuse, they have fully exposed and demonstrated they were involved in an intentional conspiracy to cripple the President and or bring his administration down.
That’s a pretty good summary of it.
WHEN you find a rat, the first thing you do is follow them home to see where the nest is located. Only after you have fully scoped the problem do you craft a repair.
Remember Trump is a builder. He knows you don’t just start pouring foundations. You get a soils test done, and some appraisals and a market survey and… So long before the first shovel hits the muck, you have gathered all the information needed to assure success.
He’s used to building things with 5 and 10 year lead times. No need to run after every passing car yapping at the tires…
What will be interesting to watch now, since they’ve lit a tiny backfire under the frontline folks, is just where it spreads and how the folks in the shadows start to tip their hand by scuttling away…
Comey and Co. have be-clowned themselves with their protests as is apparent to any observer who has read the memo. They will never be taken seriously again.
The question I raised over on CBTS is that given the squeaking of Schiff/Pelosi, what are they afraid will (or will not) happen with the removal of the signatories from office?
The new info in the memo is how the FISA warrant was obtained sans full disclosure of the source, who paid for it, and the bias of Steele. Lying by omission to the FISA court is still a lie. There has to be a lot of cover-up here, starting with the FBI covering up for Billary. The reason Mueller got such a fast start out of the gate is because he knew this day could come. I hope that rat bastard’s lack of integrity runs him out of Washington forever. A$$hole!
@E.M.Smith re: 2 February 2018 at 7:21 pm
I think what everyone appears to be missing is that the ‘back fire’ to see who runs out, may have been in place for a while. It is probable that Trump with hands on control of the NSA through more trusted members may have been watching the watchers and already have a lot more information on them than they believe they may get on him.
This is only one of the earlier shots in the swamp draining exercise, it will get worse.
One interesting aspect, the Mueller has already appeared to take note of, is if the FISA warrants are considered to now be worthless due to malfeasance by those requesting them, then all actions taken afterward that use those activities as their pretext, also become suspect (see fruit of the poisonous tree). This could lead to Flynn, Manafort and Papadopolous being released uncharged (and presumably suing individuals back). It could even lead to Rosenstein having to stop the Mueller inquiry.
E.M.
Link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/heh-33.html
Dimowits are saying Comey is clean because he re-opened the Billary investigation and thereby nuked her run for President. I’m wondering if it wasn’t that Comey knew he had no right to “pardon” Billary, so he made a public show of “investigating” her to make it appear he was “against” her.
Bernard “Barney” P. Milton Oliver Fife could haver run the FBI with greater skill.
Summary of the issues in the memo
https://lawandcrime.com/high-profile/heres-the-most-troubling-part-in-the-nunes-memo-and-why-it-matters-legally/
From twitter:
Stealth Jeff Retweeted
Alex Behzade
@ABPatriotWriter
44 minutes ago
4) In United States v. Leon, the Supreme Court stated that if there is any false or misleading information in a warrant, then the warrant is quashed and all evidence procured from it would be suppressed. Misleading the judge about the source of the Dossier counts as that
If that citation is accurate, and the Memo’s assertions are accurate that means that all legal actions stemming from that dossier and the FISA warrant are tainted, should be thrown out.
At also suggests there are directly related ground to reopen investigations into the DNC, HRC and their political operations.
Another Memo is in the works stemming from activities in the State Department which will likely open the door to other actions agains HRC and her cohorts.
My question; will the main news outlets do anything other than downplay the story here?
Because without a piercing focus I have a notion that this will be nothing more than a forgotten blip on the radar screen in six months. The general population will wonder what are those Republicans talking about come election time.
Well this is interesting
From twitter
Larry Schweikart
@LarrySchweikart
2 hours ago
3) I really, really hope Thomas is right. That would be so much cleaner, and as he points out, the libtards are 100% set up for a fail on this by supporting Mulehead.
4) I doubt if this was deliberate, but the convenient timing of the new FOIA Cankles’ emals dump is interesting
Larry Schweikart
@LarrySchweikart
2 hours ago
5) If this is truly coincidence, then it was it nevertheless had the fortune of being one of the least observed document dumps in history, FULLY implicating Cankles in gross negligence of the highest order involving classified National Security stuff.
Larry Schweikart
@LarrySchweikart
2 hours ago
6) While everyone was rummaging through the memo, we learned that the PRESIDENTIAL DAILY BRIEF was being delivered to Cankles’ server. What we don’t know is if this was the one in her bathroom or other unsecured location.
Sooooooo – – – – – – –
If this is true, and her bathroom server was hacked by hostile intelligence agencies, then we were in effect sending our Presidential Daily Brief to Russia every day!
No wonder Obama got stopped short on everything he tried to do and the Russians were playing him and the state department like a fiddle.
This is the link to the emails but I cannot get it to display search results. It tells me how many results it gets but no links to the found documents.
https://foia.state.gov/search/results.aspx
‘Hi ChiefIO,
OK, this is obviously a perspective from an outsider looking in. I don’t get the same news as you guys and gals do.
To be honest, I’m a little deflated with the release of the Memo, but only because I’ve been watching things unfold over the last year, so none of the things that are in it are a surprise. I’m befuddled as to why he (Nunes) didn’t include the fact that there had been unmasking done of other people, that had nothing to do with “Russia”. That’s a big own goal to my mind.
That really would have got people talking. Instead we have a memo that *only* absolves President Trump. I’m sure that that will be great comfort to him and his family, who God knows, deserve a break, but anybody with half a brain cell already knew that there was no “there” there. So, given the level of noise that has been created around it, I think it has been over-hyped.
Which I hope is not going to diminish the amount of interest that people have in this issue going forward, because this really is only the top of the tip of the iceberg. Given the amount of bad stuff that has been revealed so far, versus the amount of bad stuff that has actually happened, it looks like we are going to be drip-fed all the way to the 2018 elections, and even beyond.
Using a market analogy, a “hard landing” means a reversal of roughly two-thirds or more, whereas a soft landing means a reversal of one third or less. Politicians have always been corrupt, but to my mind, things took a significant turn for the worse twenty years ago, from the beginning of Clinton’s second term, and not just in America. It probably dates back to the seventies for Europe.
So, allowing me my analogy, that means in political terms, it will take six or so years (“Trump time”, a hard landing, if you will) for the full extent of the corruption to be revealed, and excised. He’s got the heart and the stamina, I just hope he continues to get the backing he has had so far, to see it through.
I’m seeing a slow awakening (very slow) over here. The British and Irish media are not quite so vitriolic towards PDJT, although still ‘cucked’. Cancelling the British visit, and making the visit by French President Macron the first State visit, has definitely had an effect on the Brits, particularly in light of Brexit, and also in light of their interference in the US elections. The dynamic between PDJT and May at Davos was weird.
PS. I’m noticing that on a lot of wordpress.com blogs, I’m automatically getting set to moderated status, including here. Is there anything I can do to undo this? It kills spontaneity.
Picking off bureaucratic leadership is very difficult work. They are well protected by the politicians that they protect. In this case the YSM protects them all. I wonder if Mueller is part of the setup or a foolish old man that was set up on this wild goose chase. By now it should be obvious to him that there is no there there.
A house cleaning at the top of the FBI and loose the lower FBI dogs on the rest would be in order if the media starts to shift, and they have to to save their reputations as journalists.
It feels to me that that shift is beginning. Public opinion is shifting and the YSM must get in front to look like they are on the ball.
The Old top Dogs of the Democratic Party are beginning to look weak. A bad thing, there are a lot of hungry young dogs in their pack…pg
Comey’s comment “Is that all you have”…….shows he is not just corrupt………he is clueless as well.
The main points in the Nunez memo were published by Sean Hannity at Fox News many months ago. Exposing this corruption is a slow process because the senior officials involved used their immense power to protect their reputations, their jobs, their pensions or even their freedom.
The Nunes memo confirms that the situation is even worse than what Hannity reported. It has been described as the “Tip of the Iceberg” but the pace of disclosures will accelerate, so a better metaphor may be the “Snowball That Starts the Avalanche” or the “Crack in the Dike Before the Flood”.
I feel sorry for Adam Shiff and Nancy Pelosi who have lied in public about the Nunez memo. I feel sorry for the Democrats on House Intelligence Committee who voted against allowing the American people to learn about abuses of power by the Obama administration.
“We the People” will not support “Swamp Creatures” of either party who want to hide their corruption from us. The Nunes memo makes it clear that more public hearings are required under penalty of perjury and without permitting corrupt officials to hide behind flimsy assertions that their bad behavior is somehow “Classified”. If officials “Plead the Fifth” as Lois Lerner did they should lose their jobs, pension and be prosecuted to the full extent of the law.
I feel pretty strongly about this because the federal government has come down like a ton of bricks on a family member who is a retired military officer with 25 years of service for trying to protect his child from abuse.
http://www.tampabay.com/news/courts/criminal/retired-macdill-centcom-officer-charged-with-international-parental/2287607
“A Brief History Of James Comey”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/a-brief-history-2.html#comments
Next salvo
“Chuck Grassley Memo Comes Next – Question Surrounds FBI Knowledge of Steele Shopping Dossier To Media…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/03/chuck-grassley-memo-comes-next-question-surrounds-fbi-knowledge-of-steele-shopping-dossier-to-media/#more-145405
SDA and links
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-fbi-do-10.html
Sorry, this is all going to evaporate, without a ripple to show for it. The Trump supporters will know what the Memo means but it will remain a nothing burger to the rest of the nation.
I noted Trump in the SOTU address called for more flexibility in getting rid of Federal Agency Deadwood, including I’m sure Rotten Wood. I’m sure there are plenty of that in the FBI.
Maintenance of this veneer of integrity of the TLAs is very much less important to us citizens than enforcement of the principles laid out in the Constitution and making sure our elected officials run the government instead of a bunch of rogue spies.
Trump has disappointed me in that he is for continues mass surveillance of us citizens. I also cringed at the thought the government would supply and run 5g.
Could it be that a lot of this data that is in the Nunes Memo has actually come from the Mueller investigation?
It certainly seems that way, especially the links to the DNC, Fusion and HC.
Spreading
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/the-people-versus-the-deep-state-fbi-working-as-a-wing-of-the-democrats/
Anyone interested in what the other side has to say? Maybe not!
Click to access FINAL%20DRAFT%20–%20Dear%20Colleague%20on%20Nunes%20Memo.pdf
“The other side” is so proud of their work that they failed to take credit for it’s creation. Shall we suppose that it is a Democratic Party set of talking points?…pg
Serioso says: 3 February 2018 at 11:16 pm
So one of the Dimorat’s argument is: “Look! There’s a Papadopoulos!”
Right.
I finally found a link to that email that refers to the Presidential Daily Brief being sent to HRC’s illegal email server.
Click to access C06134278.pdf
Note the date this was in March of 2010, so it is possible / likely that the Presidential daily briefings were being exposed to hostile governments for most of Obama’s Presidential term.
This if true ranks right up with the Soviet government plain language discussion we taped in an unencrypted undersea cable
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Ivy_Bells
Serioso – did you actually read the Steele dossier? Your link says “the Nunes memo does not provide a single shred of evidence that any aspect of the Steele dossier is false or inaccurate in any way.”, yet we know the Steele dossier talks about whores giving Trump “golden showers” (peeing on him) and we know that Trump is so OCD over germs that he doesn’t shake hands with people. Pretty obviously, therefore, there is at least one example of glaring falsehood in the Steele dossier.
https://archive.org/stream/TheSteelDossierTrumpIntelligenceAllegations/The%20Steele%20Dossier%20-%20Trump-Intelligence-Allegations_djvu.txt (obviously somewhat badly converted by OCR, so some words are garbled, but readable). You’ll find a set of pictures of the pages at https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-01-10/here-full-35-page-report-alleging-trump-was-cultivated-supported-and-assisted-russia if you prefer that.
It seems that Steele didn’t check on his sources but simply swallowed what he was told. The Russians are happy to provide disinformation, and even happier to get paid for it.
It’s pretty amazing that communications in the FBI and in the Clinton group went missing when they were seen to be important. Clinton’s 30k emails, those between Strzok and Page, and those from Obama to Clinton’s private server as an example. There are likely to be other examples coming up where communications go missing once the magnifying-glass gets turned on them.
That the Russians interfere in the politics of other countries is not news. They’ve been doing it all my life. It’s pretty certain that most governments try to interfere in other countries in order to try to advance their own interests. Maybe Bhutan doesn’t try to interfere in other countries’ politics, though.
If you’ve been watching the technical news recently, you’ll have seen that “deepfake” is a technique to change videos, often putting well-known actresses’ heads on the bodies in a porn video. A great thing for the Russians to make their “kompromat” and a reminder that you can’t believe everything you see or read. There’s also software that allows a video to be altered in real time to make it appear that someone is saying something completely different, and you’d probably need to spend a while analysing a video to be reasonably certain that it wasn’t faked. These are interesting times. Hollywood has of course had these techniques available for decades.
After a year of investigation, basically Mueller doesn’t seem to have turned up that much. As far as I can see, if you look hard enough you’re bound to find someone has broken the law in some way. There are so many laws that it is impossible to avoid breaking some, simply because you won’t know about them. It’s probably the work of a lifetime or two just to actually know them all. Anyone driving a car probably breaks a few each day.
I haven’t got a dog in this fight. I do however see the media united against Trump (and also against Brexit, which does affect me) and the very distinct bias with which the information is presented. Trump, however, does seem to say things that upset people – the truth can be annoying at times. I’d define a shithole country as one I wouldn’t want to take my family on holiday to or to go and live there. Unsurprising that people would want to leave them, therefore, but since the reason it’s a shithole is cultural, they’ll tend to take the weather with them where they go. I’ve found that the first step in fixing a problem is to acknowledge that there is one, and PC-speak (where problems cannot be mentioned) is thus a real problem in itself. Hypocrisy is rife – why is Mexico so set against a wall between them and the USA when they have built their own between Mexico and Guatemala?
Trump states he’ll put America first, and it seems he’s implementing policies that back that up. The success of those policies over the year is pretty obvious on the ground, even though it is not much publicised. Brexit is about putting the UK first, rather than being a subject nation used as a cash-cow. Putin obviously puts Russia first, Xi Jing-ping puts China first. It’s what leaders ought to be doing. The best way to stop excess immigration would be to make conditions in those shithole countries somewhat better, so people want to stay there instead. Give people hope that their children’s lives will be better than theirs and they’ll stay and work towards that, and if that doesn’t happen then the best people will leave and the level of the people who remain will go down. That’s of course part of the problem with total free movement within the EU before all the countries are at about the same level – all the Polish plumbers are in the UK so it’s hard to find a plumber in Poland. Pretty obvious, really. They can earn around 5 times as much by going to the UK. Total free movement in the USA means that places like Detroit had a brain-drain once the industry started to decline, and when the best people find they can do better elsewhere they’ll go there instead. People vote with their feet.
Politicians and businesspeople understand that if you can get a competent immigrant who will work for lower pay than the native, then they can make more profit. The young natives who then can’t get a job tend not to vote much anyway. Trump, on the other hand, will ensure that the locals get employed because the cheap immigrants are kept out. That’s got to be a good thing for the USA and the people who are legally residents.
Wallace on Fox News Sunday finally found a truffle. Nothing in what I relate below is a direct quote.
W. had a R and a D to discuss the FISA court application. The R reiterated that the application did not disclose the dossier was financed by the Dimorats. After questioning, the D finally says the names of the payers was “masked.” He then went on to offer a false equivalence. He said people complained when names of Trump’s team were unmasked to Obama’s staff (for political purposes we now know), but now people are complaining because the payer’s names were masked. What a crock that is. You don’t omit the fact that the DNC and Billary paid for the dossier to a Top Secret entity like the FISA judge.
But the bottom line is that we Citizens now have more proof the R’s are telling the truth. The facts were misrepresented to the FISA court.
Hi Chief. First a simple definition:
Treason- the crime of betraying one’s country, especially by attempting to kill the sovereign or overthrow the government.
I think the FISA memo clearly demonstrates plotting this. Firing squads at sunrise! The talking heads are saying this memo is very divisive. The country was already divided, the memo is just highlighting that. Wake up people! We the people, You the people … Where are those people?
Second, there is a long precedent of not using evil, questionable, immoral, or other bad misdeeds that a representative or senator committed before being elected to office to remove that individual or prevent them from serving.
Where’s the beef? Drain the swamp! Go Donny!
sincerely
Sandy, Minister of Future
X
@Bruce Ryan:
I think the importance of it will depend directly on the legal actions that stem from it. IF HRC & Co get indicted for something or IF the “Russians Did It!” farce gets quashed or IF someone already charged gets a “get out of jail free” card from it; then it will retain currency. IF nothing happens, it’s just political noise and smoke and exits stage right…
@Serioso:
Always interested in “the other side” of just about everything. Either as “sanity check” on personal beliefs or as “opposition research” as the case may warrant.
Feel free to present “the other side” of things. Do not feel free to insult individuals here (non-public-persons) and all is well. Fair game to slander politicians of any side and other Public-Persons as they have chosen that legal category. (So saying, for example, “Elvis was a fat pig when he died” comes under the public person exception to slander laws in the USA.)
@Simon:
Trump knows the importance of keeping plans private. In real estate, you may need secrecy for years as you (via proxy) buy up land to consolidate a large block. Part of what he does is to toss squirrels in front of the Barking Dog Press so the run until exhausted chasing fantasies. That they’ve not caught on yet speaks to their level of competence…
The other thing he does is speak obvious truths openly and clearly with “rough” language. He’s a guy who’s comfortable talking to plumbers and bricklayers and truck drivers and hod carriers. We’re comfortable listening to him too. It’s fun to watch the prissy prissy types go bat shit crazy over something like calling a shit-hole country a shit-hole country. Anyone with the slightest clue knows Venezuela is NOT a vacation paradise and that South Sudan is not a place to put your company HQ and that an order of ham & eggs gets you shot in much of north Africa / M.E. So yes, they most certainly are “Shit Hole Countries” and we ought not be sending one penny to any of them nor defending their governments.
So Trump gets “2 fer” out of that kind of comment. “The Base” sees a clear truth spoken plainly and honestly, while watching the show of the slobbery bootlick Barking Dog Press rabid over another Squirrel Moment. Gotta love it! 8-)
@interzonekomizar (Sandy):
I don’t know if you can extend “treason” to actions to prevent a government from forming. Is it an “overthrow” to spread malicious dirt about political opponents in an election? If so, every single elected official would be lined up at dawn…
I think the most you can get is lying to a judge under oath and obstruction of justice for doing so; plus the tossing everything derived from it as fruit of the poison tree. Then, MAYBE, a cause of action to investigate HRC, her election staff, and the involved DNC members. Most likely there will be a private “Go quietly into this good night” and the players allowed to quietly exit the political theatre with a promise that if they return, they WILL get a Special Prosecutor…
I think you will find we are witnessing a long term political chess game. The memo was just the opening move of a pawn into the middle of the board so other more powerful pieces are unmasked and able to begin their moves.
This drama will take years to unfold, and is likely timed to reach crescendo near midterms, when it will do the most good to set up a Republican massacre of Democrats in the senate or the onset of position stake outs for the next presidential election cycle.
https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/959625030660444160.html
Somewhat off topic, has anyone else come across this?
H.R.193 – American Sovereignty Restoration Act of 2017
This bill repeals the United Nations Participation Act of 1945 and other specified related laws.
The bill requires: (1) the President to terminate U.S. membership in the United Nations (U.N.), including any organ, specialized agency, commission, or other formally affiliated body; and (2) closure of the U.S. Mission to the United Nations.
The bill prohibits: (1) the authorization of funds for the U.S. assessed or voluntary contribution to the U.N., (2) the authorization of funds for any U.S. contribution to any U.N. military or peacekeeping operation, (3) the expenditure of funds to support the participation of U.S. Armed Forces as part of any U.N. military or peacekeeping operation, (4) U.S. Armed Forces from serving under U.N. command, and (5) diplomatic immunity for U.N. officers or employees.
https://www.congress.gov/bill/115th-congress/house-bill/193
@Simon Derricutt
Alas, it is YOU who didn’t read the Steele dossier, so I’m quoting the relevant section below for your edification. In brief, the prostitutes didn’t pee on Trump, but on the bed the Clintons has slept in. What you said was a serious distortion of the truth.
“However, there were other aspects to TRUMP’s engagement with the
Russian authorities. One which had borne fruit for them was to exploit
TRUMP’S personal obsessions and sexual perversion in order to obta
suitable ‘kompromaf (compromising material) on him. According to
Source D, where s/he had been present, TRUMP’s (perverted) conduct in
Moscow included hiring the presidential suite of the Ritz Carlton Hotel,
where he knew President and Mrs OBAMA (whom he hated) had stayed
on one of their official trips to Russia, and defiling the bed where they had
slept by employing a number of prostitutes to perform a ’golden showers
(urination) show in front of him. The hotel was known to be under FSB
control with microphones and concealed cameras in all the main rooms
to record anything they wanted to.”
Serioso says: 4 February 2018 at 10:35 pm
A lie using any other story is still a lie. Your nitpicking is a waste of time and electrons.
I’m sorry, Mr. Smith, that at times it becomes necessary for me to insult some of your correspondents. I caught Simon in a lie/distortion, and Jim2 says I’m wasting my time by trying to tell the truth. Is there an honest person among your followers? They seem more interested in winning an argument than in discovering what is true. Have you read the Steele dossier? Do you know what is true and what is not? Do you care? Or is this discussion all about something else, maybe team spirit or solidarity. It sure as Hell doesn’t seem to me like an honest search for what is true. What is your purpose? Sure beats me!
@Serioso:
And you were doing so well….
So now you resort to name calling and reputational assaults. Implying false purposes and insinuating ulterior motives and ill will.
Let me make it simple for you;
I ALWAYS and for ALL TIME will be interested ONLY in TRUTH. Period. Full Stop.
The problem, of course, is that identifying it is often hard, more so in political games / processes.
Per the Steele Dossier: Yes, I’ve read it. A couple of times. Carefully.
Does it REALLY matter if the “golden shower” was on the bed or on the person? Perhaps in that Simon’s “defense” is weaker for having got it wrong. BUT: It just reeks of fraud to me to assert Trump in the presence of “prostitutes” for the purpose of peeing. I expect one could get lots of folks to pee on a bed for far less than the cost of a prostitute ( about $3000 / throw per a TV report on Mustang Ranch in Nevada). Trump, being a cheapskate will not be paying $3000 for a $100 maid peeing on a bed. But can I *KNOW*? Not at all, so I say nothing. To comment on the unknowable is a waste of time.
BTW, it is, IMHO, NEVER EVER necessary to insult folks to make your point. See classical British and Japanese cultural norms for examples. There’s all sorts of more effective indirect methods, from “Damning with faint praise” to “apologizing for not understanding ones opponents limits” and so many more polite slanders that can be used… ( I once praised a ‘singer’ who was intellectually as well as vocally inadequate by saying she had “such imaginative note selection!” … her sister or friend with her – who was brighter – gave me a subdued grin…. the ‘singer’ never realized…) So your major offense to me is simply your clumsy approach, frankly. There are some very polite ways of expressing that someone has missed the boat…
So you love to cast stones. Either improve your method of insults to be less insulting or shut the hell up. This has nothing at all to do with your political point of view, expressing it, or calling out errors in others. It has to do with your clumsy and ham handed methods. I will NOT tolerate insults “to the person” (though I’ll tend to let slide things that are couched in the polite forms of indirection… like “I think you have missed this fact, from this source, that must have escaped your observation…” ) So statements like “necessary for me to insult” and “caught … in a lie” when “was in error” would do, and “is there an honest person” all point to your hard style and inflammatory purpose. I will not tolerate flame wars and grenade tossers.
What is my purpose? Simple.
I am interested in the world. I am interested (and good at) technology. I am curious about (and less good at) political machinations; so encourage discussion of it as it seems (after WAY too many years of my life digging into the technical side) that the whole “Global Warming” BS is entirely a political gambit based on lies and fraud – so I need to “go there” even if against my will and learn more about how this political lying game works. That has resulted (as I suspect 50.05% of the USA voters have figured it out) in Trump being elected; so now I’m watching The Trump Character Assassination Show unfold; and learning how this all works.
I have ZERO DESIRE to deal with politics. The slime involved offends me. Yet it has become clear it is a necessary skill and “thing” to understand. Rather like re-doing my bathroom floor and reseating the toilet (done about 2 months ago). I don’t *LIKE* the shit involved, but I had to go under the house and lay on the dirt in the spilt sewage to redo my sub-floor, so I did. Yes, I really really do equate ALL of politics with that job. From Pelosi to McCain, it’s the same shitty stink.
Now Trump, he’s a different guy. He speaks to me in plain words and says the swamp is full of shit and gators and he is putting on hip waders and packing a .45… I’m OK with that. So far, I’ve seen ZERO PROOF he is anything other than a concerned citizen nearing end of life looking to do some good cleaning out the sewer under our national house. Doesn’t mean I’m a 100% ra ra promoter, but does mean given the ASTRONOMICAL sink from HRC and Obama/DNC he’s the best smelling skunk in the skunk house. Maybe even just a weasel. IF I’m really lucky, he’ll be a mink (same family as the first two but much better….) and clean too. A fella can hope.
So I’m “cautiously hopeful” that Trump can actually clean up a load of the shit under the floor. IF he can’t, and turns out to be as bogus as all the “Real Politicians”, I lose nothing (though we as a nation move closer to national revolt). I’ll take that over the clearly criminal behaviours of HRC and Obama (and the DNC) any day.
Remember, I voted for Bernie as he was an HONEST Socialist. I did not think his socialist agenda would work, but I’d take his honesty over the corrupt Clintons / DNC. Similar thing for Trump. I’ll take HIS honesty and plain spoken character over the corrupt RNC games players.
That’s pretty much my whole thing. Honesty. Polite conversation. Support for the actual Constitution. Despising corruption. Even at the FBI, DNC, RNC, CIA, etc. etc.
@Chiefio, a
Comrade Lenin would call Serioso a “Useful Idiot”. While Lenin appreciated the support of such people so I am surprised that you give him credibility by responding to his nonsense at length.
If Serioso has evidence to falsify anything in the unfolding FBI corruption scandal he should present it instead of insulting the intelligence of people who follow your blog. The Nunes memo is just getting the ball rolling on the greatest US political scandal ever.
Yes the memo is the opening salvo. ( The IG report is 1.2 million pages! ) Sessions currently has THREE investigations into HRC and the Clinton Foundation.
Even James Comey called the fake dossier ” salacious and unverified”
There is no investigation into Trump colluding with Russia, nor is their evidence of that. Trump is not under investigation. ( Yet the media and the democrats say that he is)
This is a witch hunt without question, using the investigation into RUSSIAN EFFORTS TO INFLUENCE A U.S. ELECTION to find anyone who EVER had any RUSSIAN contacts and ever also had contacts with Trump, and then tangentially spy on Trump and his people in the hope of finding ANY crime.
The clear ” headquarter special”
treatment of HRC – DNC…
( nothing to see here HRC exoneration letter written before KEY witnesses including HRC were even interviewed.
Changing of the wording in that letter from legally guilty terms to calling her careless.
Acceptance of Daft excuses for multiple times destroying supeoned evidence using bleach bit, hammered phones and lost records.
Strange and useless for investigation purposes immunity agreements to key operatives that yielded nothing.
Special interview without recording of HRC allowing her to portray herself as completely clueless over 18 times for such things as rudimentary knowledge of what is classified and not calling her on her signature of handling of classified material which SHE signed, which also informed her that claiming she was careless or did not understand, was not an excuse from legal responsibility. Etc…)
Clear hate of Trump from key FBI officials, and the purported author of the “dossier”
( Unreported to the FISA court despite being known at the time)
So clear bias for HRC and prejudice against Trump based on the above exoneration of HRC despite clear evidence of guilt and obstruction, and clear aggressive persecution of anyone associated with Trump for process charges 100 % unrelated to Trump or to Russian influence on the election.
1.2 million pages of reveal will expose the democrat corruption all the way to Obama and possibly Sorros.
as well as the hate of Trump
E.M.
Have you read this?
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/01/29/imagine-you-are-not-a-politician-yet-you-are-running-for-the-presidency/
Serioso – Yep, looks like I was misled on the “golden showers” statement since when I first heard it on the BBC they described it as peeing on Trump, and I didn’t notice that in the Steele dossier it was simply stated that he watched it. In various places in the Steele dossier, though, Trump’s “sexual perversions” are mentioned. From what we know of Trump’s personal hygiene attitudes, though, this strikes a false note since he dislikes personal contact to the point of not shaking hands without cleaning them afterwards. It also doesn’t make sense that Trump would do this in Russia, where it is well-known that hotel rooms will have surveillance when anyone of possible importance occupies them.
As far as I’ve gathered from the news, Steele didn’t go and collect the data for the dossier, but asked people he knew. Since the statements on sexual perversions don’t make sense, in that Trump would be stupid to do that in Russian hotels (and he’s not stupid), then it seems that some of the contents of the dossier must be lies. Since when I find one lie in what someone says I suspect that other statements will also be lies, I’d take the whole dossier with a pinch of salt unless there is a trusted corroboration from some totally unconnected source. Maybe difficult to find such a totally-disconnected source in Russia.
I find it pretty amazing that US politicians can enter with not a lot (relatively) of money, get the odd $150-200k as salary, and amass a serious fortune during their tenure. Where does all that money come from? The evidence points to massive corruption. The efforts to stop the Nunes memo before it was released, saying that it would expose intelligence procedures, and then after it was released the efforts to call it a nothing-burger, again don’t make sense. The people trying to stop its release had in fact read it before and if there was noting worth worrying about then they’d not have been trying to stop its release. Watch for the changing story as new things come to light.
Add to that the Strzok communications “going missing”, HRC’s destruction of phones with hammers, HRC’s missing emails, and it is pretty obvious that there’s been a deliberate massive destruction of evidence. Evidence of what? It must be pretty bad for the Democrats, since otherwise they wouldn’t have taken the risk of being so obvious about destroying it. Chiefio is right – it stinks.
E M, there was a comment over on WUWT that you should be aware of, if true it is truly shocking.
The comment
Reg Nelson February 2, 2018 at 3:04 pm
Some have asked how could something like this happen.
From 1979-2013 there were 35,529 FISA warrant requests. Only 12 of those requests were denied.
@G.C.:
Why respond? 2 reasons. First, when asked a direct question it is only polite to respond. Second, something I learned in my folks restaurant. About 1 in 10 folks will complain about something, the rest will just talk dirt to all their friends. So when the village idiot or the town drunk or the chronic complainer says you are serving cold coffee or asks why you have way too much salt in the soup, you check the coffee and taste some of the soup. IF it is in fact wrong, you fix it. If it is fine, you inform them it is fine. That also takes care of the other 9 who also thought the coffee was cold or the soup salty.
So Serioso doesn’t understand what motivates me (AGAIN trying to make it “about me”…). easiest thing to do is state what my motivations are. That also answers the other 9 wondering the same thing (and perhaps for very different reasons or from different POV).. It also lets the rest of the “customers” at the counter see me check the temperature of the coffee and taste the soup and do a QA check… even when it’s only the chronic complainer asking… and thus they know I really do care about the quality and any rumor to the contrary is BS.
@Another Ian:
Not yet, but soon ;-)
@A.C. Osborn:
It is most likely true. Rarely are warrant requests denied. Police know how to “spin” the applications. All sorts of “no knock” raids are carried out on innocent folks all the time, based on “sellers puff” in the warrant request.
@Jim2
I think it is simpler than that. Unlike McCabe (and his paramour), Comey was covering all his bases. On the outside chance Trump was elected, he was currying favor. On the chance that Hillary was elected, he had the Steele Dossier as his blackmail. (she would be hesitant to let what is coming out, come out).
@Simon:
Yeah, that whole “dossier” reads like bad fiction. Just doesn’t match what someone with $Billions and a lot to worry about would be doing nor where he would be doing it. Hell, I’ve got nearly nothing to lose or worry about and if I wanted “dirty tricks” done I’d hire it out and get an encrypted video in return. Give me a few $Million of net worth and I’d have someone ELSE arrange for the proxy… at least 2 steps removed and anonymous.
Then there is the fact that there’s been zero indication of any kind of depravity from the guy. Doesn’t even drink, smoke, or eat greasy burgers from what I’ve seen. Took years to get over one spouse leaving and “move on” to the next one. (At first I thought he was cheating on one spouse with that breaking the marriage, but looking into it; he was in a relationship that wasn’t working and tried to not admit it. Only after a long time failing to get back together did he get involved again.) I’ve got a pretty damn good “People Reader” and he reads as tough guy who likes a bit of rumble / challenge, but fights fair and lives clean. A moral core that is offended by folks cheating, corrupted, and sleaze. That kind of guy just doesn’t pay good money for pee fests on hotel beds. It’s cheap tawdry political fiction with depravity at the core. That’s the Clinton’s character and specialty, not his.
@Another Ian:
OK, I’ve read it now. A couple of comments:
The “I could not believe the FBI would be corrupt, can you see it now?” angle doesn’t work for me. Maybe it’s just a case of knowing my history. I lived through the FBI scandals about J. Edgar Hoover cross dressing and having blackmail dossiers on every politician he could find. It’s been a tradition at the FBI from early on to be corrupt. After Kennedy was assassinated, it was pretty clear the TLAs were in control too. When J. Edgar died, a super-fast team took over his office and “collected” his files. I doubt they were burned… You don’t destroy that much leverage.
So to my mind the question was always “who’s being corrupt now?” not “Has the FBI been cleaned up?” and despite the public push to tidy up the FBI post J. Edgar, there was lingering doubt.
When “Daddy Bush” (ex of the CIA) got the presidency, it was also pretty likely that the CIA was strongly involved in “controlling political domestic outcomes”. IMHO, this started with their teaming up with the Mafia to take out Kennedy. Since then, they have felt it was too risky to let The People choose their government. Seeing as their major line of work was influencing / overthrowing foreign governments, it was “just another government” so why not?
The problem being that once power corrupts, it doesn’t know where to stop. Eventually something important rots and things start to fail… Vis HRC & Co.
Now the rest of the thesis has some merit, IMHO, with the exception that I don’t see the Arab connection as being that strong and do see the Israeli one as bigger. My GUESS as pure SPECULATION is that the real “alternate intel agency” being used was the Israeli one via his family connections. The Arabs were then brought in on the side with a “As long as you accept Israel, we’ll take the USA intel community off your neck and you can clean up your neighborhood.”. Then the two agencies can work together on cleaning up things. Trump gets intel from both to “compare and contrast” with domestic sources and it’s pretty easy then to spot the spin. (Similar to my watching RT, France24, Sky News, Al Jazeera, CNN, MSNBC. It becomes quite clear what the “spin” is from each and what the agenda are.)
Were I Trump, in that context, I’d have most of the IC Worry Stuff held very close to the vest. Myself, maybe the son-in-law/daughter team to work with the Jewish connection, pick one very trusted contact to work the Arab connection, and have a couple of guys who can be dropped if needed to wade into the domestic IC situation and beat the bushes, see what snipers poke their heads up… Any more that that, you will have leaks.
So I think the basic thesis (leveraging overseas agencies) is likely sound, but that the degree of direct involvement and the degree of Arab involvement in particular are over stated.
In major real estate deals, there’s a fair amount of cloak and dagger secret stuff. It is always held very close to a small circle of insiders. You get a proxy agent or two to buy up the holdings before you “spill the beans” of what you are building as that shifts the “property values”. That’s how Trump will have worked it.
@E.M.
The foibles of old age – I just read a comment that discussed that very subject, but cannot remember where. The origins in the colonies was from English Law, where indeed, a plot against the King or Succession, was high treason. So until it was more narrowly redefined by the new States of America (even before they were the United ones), it was treason. Now, the crime is merely malfeasance. The primary distinction is that Treason is punishable by death. Malfeasance, just a long visit to a prison.
Update: Fortunately it was very recent, and I did find the comment – https://tallbloke.wordpress.com/2018/02/03/treason/#comment-133697
Sorry Serioso, it is NEVER necessary to insult others. It is clearly a sign of a lack of intellect where one has to descend into childish ad hominems, instead of debating the subjects in a rational and mature manner.
TO claim it is necessary is merely an admission you are incapable of rational discussions, and cannot climb out of a juvenile stage of development.
Maybe I’m just more jaded about government corruption. Near as I can tell, all governments are corrupt and always have been. Only the degree and particular players changes. Given that, I’ve had no illusion of a clean and trustworthy USA Federal Government, so no shock at losing that belief. Even Jefferson, who wrote and formed much of our founding documents, ignored them and the law they espoused for the expediency of buying the Louisiana Purchase. Does it make it OK that he ignored the very law he wrote because “it was a good deal”? How about the prohibition on the Federal Government owning land other than DC and postal facilities? Didn’t stop the Feds from buying up about 1/2 of western States lands…
So I guess very early on I realized Government was all about power and outcomes, laws not so much and honesty and integrity not at all… After that “it all just fits”… and you don’t get surprised very often anymore.
An early start
https://idahoconservatives.com/national/fisa-memo-obama-fusion-gps/
Via
http://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/weekend-unthreaded-197/#comment-1980136
Various bits here and in comments
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-fbi-do-11.html#comments
Might be a splash with this tossed into the mix!
“In March 2016 Carter Page Was an FBI Employee – In October 2016 FBI Told FISA Court He’s a Spy…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/05/in-march-2016-carter-page-was-an-fbi-employee-in-october-2016-fbi-told-fisa-court-hes-a-spy/#more-145498
By the way looking at Facebook today there is an effort to cement the image that the Special Prosecutor Muller investigation is “investigating Trump”. This is a handy sound bite, but as most already know an inaccurate representation of his charter, all you need to do is read the title of the investigation charter he is:
INVESTIGATING RUSSIAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE 2016 PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION AND RELATED MATTERS
For those looking for a link to the original appointment :
https://www.justice.gov/opa/press-release/file/967231/download
Chiefio says:
“Maybe I’m just more jaded about government corruption. Near as I can tell, all governments are corrupt and always have been. ”
I can’t disagree with that statement. Here in the USA we relied on the “Fourth Estate” to keep politicians honest but now the press/media are in bed with the corrupt ruling class. We need to fix that problem if we want to regain the freedoms that our “Founding Fathers” bestowed on us.
In Mexico politicians are exempt from prosecution for malfeasance while in office which ensures that corruption is institutionalized (make hay while the sun shines) although once in a while somebody goes too far and ends up on the wrong end of a murder rap.
The Taiwan government is modeled on ours (Executive, Legislature and Judiciary) but they lack a “Free Press”. To keep the government honest they invented a “Fourth Estate” known as the Control Yuan that includes the Ministry of Audit.
The Control Yuan has the power to audit the other three branches of government under simple rules that remind one of the US constitution. The penalties for stealing public money while in office are much more severe than stealing similar sums from your neighbor. Since the year 2000 the Control Yuan has been weakened but still retains some deterrent power.
Another quaint Taiwan law makes armed robbery a capital offense.
Thus it should be no surprise that the government of Taiwan is less corrupt than most and you can wander around the dingier parts of Taipei without any fear of being mugged.
Another Ian says: 5 February 2018 at 10:52 pm
“In March 2016 Carter Page Was an FBI Employee – In October 2016 FBI Told FISA Court He’s a Spy…”
That looks like a real problem for the whole lot of them.
They already new all about Page due to the previous Trial of the Russian.
What a wicked web they have woven.
The memo is giving us a glimpse of an elephant size conspiracy that may amount to treason given that the aim appears to be to overthrow a duly elected president.
https://www.politico.com/story/2018/02/02/nunes-memo-treason-paul-gosar-386089
Clearly it is time to open the DOJ and the FBI to some cleansing sunlight and stamp on the cockroaches that emerge.
“When The President Does It, That Means That It’s Not Illegal”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-fbi-do-13.html
“Bill’s Wife”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/bills-wife-163.html#comments
““Mike” is Out – Michael P Kortan Quits FBI…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/08/mike-is-out-michael-p-kortan-quits-fbi/#more-145649
@Another Ian:
Loved this comment in your SDA link:
It really is the case that the DNC and all their connected parties are a “Family Business”…
IMHO, Makes the Mafia look like armatures…
The thing that gets me is that with so much effort expended to cover up what Madam Clinton did (is doing?) it is astoundingly clear that she is a major security risk and entirely corrupt. While I suspected some of that during the campaign, the post-campaign coverup is just putting a giant spot light on it all.
On MSNBC today, some talking head numpty was banging on about how the Uranium One deal was clearly devoid of any interest… such a bright shining spotlight “Dig HERE!!!!” I”ve not seen in a long time. Is there anything in recent news that warrants bringing up Uranium One? Nope. This is clearly a prescribed protective measure. Want to know what’s going on in the DNC / Dimocrats head? Watch MSNBC and invert what they say…
The swamp critters are beginning to feel the heat!
Who?
“The Enigma Man – E.W. “Bill” Priestap…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/08/the-enigma-man-e-w-bill-priestap/
And just up
“October 2016: James Comey Friend Benjamin Wittes Discusses “The Insurance Policy” Against Trump…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/08/october-2016-james-comey-friend-benjamin-wittes-discusses-the-insurance-policy-against-trump/
Adding to Another Ian’s list – My senator busted for collusion – https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/08/senator-mark-warner-and-entire-senate-intelligence-committee-compromised-corrupt-and-finally-exposed/
No wonder he was out there talking about the investigation had to go on because of “…the lack of corroboration of the dossier”!
Another one out
http://thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/breaking-third-highest-ranking-justice-department-official-resigning/
Via a comment at CTH
The latest attack on the Prez’s people is now Physical Abuse, they are being outed, whereas you never here of anybody else losing their jobs for “Domestic issues”.
I am in no way condoning Physical Abuse, but this is total hypocrasy.
@A.C.Osborn:
It’s an all out war on All The President’s Men. Some may have fact to back up the alleged issues, but some are just fabrications and innuendo. In all cases, “Due Process” is long gone… and “innocent until proven guilty” has been replaced with “He’s A WITCH!!!” and a good burning at the stake.
We’ve lost about 300 years of legal progress, IMHO.
In the meantime, so much is breaking on the TLA’s, Billary, the DNC, and the Dimorats – it’s getting hard to keep up!
“After months of secret negotiations, a shadowy Russian bilked American spies out of $100,000 last year, promising to deliver stolen National Security Agency cyberweapons in a deal that he insisted would also include compromising material on President Trump, according to American and European intelligence officials.
The cash, delivered in a suitcase to a Berlin hotel room in September, was intended as the first installment of a $1 million payout, …”
http://www.breitbart.com/tech/2018/02/10/nyt-u-s-spies-paid-100000-to-russian-claiming-to-have-damaging-info-on-trump/
@Jim2:
“There’s a sucker born every minute”…. Just didn’t expect to see them in the “Intelligence” agencies…
This sure makes sense given what we know right now.
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/10/game-over-judge-jeanine-interview-with-hpsci-rep-chris-stewart/
It is not a question of if the house of cards collapses but when, and most likily that will be in the run up to the mid terms, when it can result in a Democrat massacre.
The Dems are trying to create enough FUD to blunt that attack but I don’t think it will work.
‘For purposes of justifying a warrant, it does not matter that, in a totally unrelated
investigation (involving corruption at FIFA, the international soccer organization),
the FBI judged that the hearsay information provided by Steele, then a British
agent,checked out. In his anti-Trump research, Steele could not verify his sources.
Furthermore, he was now a former foreign intelligence officer who was then working
for private clients — which is the advocacy business, not the search-for-truth business.’
Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/456287/grassley-graham-memo-affirms-nunes-memo-fisa-steele-dossier
Meet the (De)Press(ed) this morning is focusing on the abuse accusations and Demorat memo, criticizing Trump on both counts. No mention so far of the DNC/Villainary/Obummer crimes.
beththeserf says: 11 February 2018 at 8:25 am
One big ommission in that article is that Page is a former FBI Undercover Employee, not an actual agent, but someone they used in a previous Investigation.
He was then used as a patsy for the Trump Investigation.
Doing the globe spanning news rotation has one very significant effect: You get to see clearly when real News is not being reported. So, for example, RT is busy covering a plane crash. That’s new, so news (even if more Russia centric). The US Domestic news is just banging the same old “We Hate Trump!” drum in various ways. Israel lost a plane attacking Iranian sites in Syria – US News on that? Crickets… (maybe someone has covered it, but while it was on Reuters, I didn’t see it on the “big three”).
So its very clear the USA coverage is Trump Bashing and if that has to displace real news, so be it. It’s propaganda first, infotainment second, news if nothing else is available.
So for actual news, I look elsewhere. Thus my news rotation.
I’d really really rather have just ONE channel I could look at to see a quick and unbiased news summary, but that isn’t possible.
Yes the Israeli F-16 was on twitter last night but I’ve seen no mention of it on the major news feeds.
They shot down a Syrian drone with an attack helicopter and then made strikes on Syrian positions. That is when the F-16 went down about 30 miles inside Israel, with the pilots ejecting. So far no confirmation of exactly how the F-16 was lost (mechanical failure, ground fire, or anti-aircraft missile ).
https://www.haaretz.com/israel-news/red-alert-sirens-sound-heavy-aerial-activity-in-northern-israel-1.5806508
http://www.dw.com/en/israel-launches-heavy-syria-strikes-after-f-16-downed/a-42532624
https://www.timesofisrael.com/condition-of-f-16-pilot-in-downed-jet-improves-after-emergency-surgery/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/israel-carries-out-large-scale-attack-in-syria-after-israeli-jet-crashes-under-anti-aircraft-fire/2018/02/10/89e0ca2c-0e33-11e8-95a5-c396801049ef_story.html
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2018/02/10/israeli-fighter-jet-shot-syrian-anti-aircraft-fire-military/
Finally CNN has an item this morning:
http://www.cnn.com/2018/02/10/middleeast/israel-military-jet-crash/index.html
I think it will be difficult for the YSM to cover up the Dimowits misdeeds for 9 more months. With that news getting out via other channels, it seems they would have to start covering it at some point – or look even more like biased charlatans than they do now.
It was reported on by AP and that article on Fox News:
http://www.foxnews.com/world/2018/02/10/israel-downs-iranian-drone-and-strikes-syria-f-16-crashes.html
Chiefo says: IMHO, Makes the Mafia look like armatures…
I dunno. The Demos spin even better than the Mob…. :)
I think I may have a CNN feed available on the Roku, but I must “activate” it. Rather like the Fox options. As I’m moving away from “cable” the idea of using my “cable” credentials is a non-starter. Yes, I did that to watch The Orville on Fox… though a month? or two later it is demanding re-entering of the “credentials” so I’ve not bothered (as The Orville is between seasons).
I’m at 1.5 months and counting until the Satellite account goes POOF! so now’s the time to make the “taper” out of it into a hard push.
I suppose at some point I ought to see if Fox has a general direct paid subscription. We paid for CBS All Access (mostly to sample S.T. Discovery, though most of the spousal shows are there so we’re going to keep it even though S.T.D. is sucky). I’d likely pop the $10 for Fox if it included their film library too. As it stands, I’m not sure The Orville is enough to get me to pay for a “cable” or even an internet-ersatz-cable account. It’s way better than S.T.D., but not compelling for it alone.
So it’s PBS, ABC, NBC, CBS and some stuff on Pluto TV ( CNBC, Bloomberg, TYT, Headline News… and a few more) along with a bunch of local news from all over the country. Oh, and there is a Blooomberg App along with a dozen others I’ve not generally had time to get to. (DW and Euro News among them. Sampled a couple of times but not made it to the daily rotation – too propaganda laden). Frankly, I’ve got more “real news” than I have time, so don’t feel compelled to go searching for more in the Legacy Cable “sign up” stations nor in the “also ran” minor Apps.
In fact, I largely only cycle through Reuters, ABC, NBC, CBS news to get a flavor for the degree of spin and propaganda percent being shoved out the pipe. I’ve usually got the real news stories already by the time I get to them. (France24, Sky, Al Jazeera, RT, and a quick dip in some of the minor channels does it, as does just launching Youtube, Yahoo! or AOL for the headlines.)
It’s kind of sad, really. I hit the “big three” networks just to measure their degree of bias and crap. I’ve gotten to where I don’t expect them to inform, or have News. Reuters is about 50/50. About 1/2 the stories are “Slime Trump!” and about 1/2 have some news content, though that news half is also left biased (lots of SJW Friendly stories) and often “infotainment” (“world in photos” is great photography, but not news nor ever showing a non-left bent in those with a political angle – like LOTS of sob stories and sob photos of the “poor refugees” and Rohinga (but nothing on the destruction of European peace and rule of law; nor why law ought to determine immigration policy instead of just sob stories.) ) So I now only look at them to “measure their bias” as opposition research. If I want to know what’s happened in the world, I start elsewhere.
I do kind-of miss Fox News. They would cover what was missing from the Big Three and often missing or biased from CNN. But they had lately become more “Pretty Talking Heads” infotainment biased middle to right and less real news too. Lots of political arguing, dispassionate world events not so much. Their “information per unit time” had dropped enough to notice as their “grumpy per unit time” went up. Then some of my favorite shows either ended or got re-mixed. O’Reilly getting dumped for “PC Violation Accusations” and Then Greg Gutfield changing roles. The “biting news” dropped and the “Political Banter” went up diluting the real news points.
Oh Well. I’ve got plenty of real news sources so I don’t need them. Certainly not at the expense of a “cable” subscription. At this point, most “breaking news” actually comes via the internet. Often from folks commenting here(!) or on other sites. In that milieu, waiting for it to show up at 6 PM on the video is sort of silly…
So the Dims have a LOT invested in The Nightly Propaganda Show; but at this point I’m not sure who’s watching it anymore. Newspapers are The Incredible Shrinking Circulation show ( I have more “circulation” than my home town newspaper, more than the population of my old home town for that matter) and I’m of the opinion that rags like the NYT and Washington Post are mostly sent to libraries, Universities (and other Progressive Strongholds) and waiting rooms where they are rarely read. My kids NEVER watch news (thus the aged demographic of those who are in the CNN / Fox audiences) since IF they ever want news, their phone will give them the Cliff’s Notes. So it’s got to be almost entirely True Believers looking for affirmation and Folks Like Me doing opposition research. Maybe a modest percent of folks who “want to feel smart but aren’t” staring blankly at the screen…
Oh Well (again). Life moves on.
The Dimocrats busy pushing all the Spin Control they can, to an audience that either does not care or is already in their camp. The Donald slowly tightening the noose in a quiet poker face way. Republicrims confused and wanting to stop him AND enjoy the show of him Roasting Dims On An Open Fire at the same time (while vaguely noticing their pants are starting to scorch…)
Lots of fun to watch. Lots hanging in the balance. Wish it was less of a nail biter and less bitter.
@Beng135:
Spelling Correction strikes again… I know there is no R in it, so it will have been misspelled in some other way and auto-correct decided wrongly. I’d fix it, but now it’s got the humor angle attached and I just can’t abide reducing the humor in the world ;-)
I’m tempted by this $35/mo offering that included Fox News and Discovery.
https://www.directvdeals.com/directv-now/channels/
If there are (and I hope there are!) any indictments of Dimowits, the YSM will have to cover that! Of course, they will spin it until they are so dizzy that can’t keep track of their lies.
E.M.
Heard anything like this?
“since the FISA-gate scandal broke big, I am getting “security alerts” on certain websites that cover it, including Washington Free Beacon. ”
More at http://joannenova.com.au/2018/02/weekend-unthreaded-198/#comment-1981750
@Another Ian:
I’d not heard that. However… In my experience, such “observations” are usually tied to some general security level tightening that affects all sorts of web sites, but folks just notice it on the few they frequent, so think it’s targeted when it wasn’t.
We saw this with the general move to tighter and abandoning older levels of TSL SSL certs. Note, too, that there’s a looming issue with Symantec certs. Story link here:
As news papers are rarely the most technical of folks, and the smaller ones often have the most cheap I.T. budgets: I’d fully expect a lot more of them to have CERTS Issues on general tightening of requirements than “The Big Media” companies that have folks dedicated to such things.
FWIW, I worked in the group at Disney for a while (as a contractor) that did just this kind of thing. The SPAM Filter guy was a couple of doors down from me and the folks doing phishing protection not far away. Later I worked in the building with the folks doing Tiger Team work and participated in some of it. The certs guys were on the floor above me, I think. Basically several hundred folks devoted to various tech issues. Think a news outlet with maybe one I.T. guy who mostly does Microsoft Desktop upgrades will have that same ability to track and respond to “new security level needed – upgrade now” notices?
I’ve seen this movie a couple of times now, so while it is possible it is ‘shenanigans’, I’ll require exceptional proof so show it isn’t just the typical Stupid Administrator Tricks kind of problem in the context of the constantly escalating security needed.
Yes have been seeing that for some time now. It seems to selectively assert problems with conservative sites which are troublesome to the progressive agenda. I seem to never have issues with sites that are pushing progressive content.
Although they have backed off some of it (specifically things like their attempt to label certain sites as being fake news sites or to otherwise imply they were not trust worthy) because folks started to treat those warnings as an attention flag to click through and see what the fuss was.
Like shadow banning on twitter, there is some monkey business going on, but very hard to document it and determine it is in fact due to political correctness or it is some obscure security issue that they might be selectively enforcing.
There are some sites that simply will not load on my Brave browser giving a warning “this site is unreachable” yet on fire fox it loads just fine. They may be declaring it unreachable due to some certificate issue but I am really upset that they give a misleading error. It IS reachable if they have a complaint about some configuration issue specify the configuration issue they are intentionally blocking.
Looks like a little back room war is getting setup on the digital advertisers and the major media platforms like Facebook and google.
http://money.cnn.com/2018/02/12/media/unilever-advertising-facebook-google-swamp/
The question which wins, PC content, advertisers getting full control over what content their advertisements are shown with or open season.
The only fair way I see here is for advertisers to specify what “class” of content they are willing to advertise along side ( and indirectly monetize). The question is who defines the classes, does a violent video of an ISIS beheading get lumped in the same category as some right wing guy spewing racial hate, or does one get a ride and the other get cut off.
Right now, folks who are doing videos covering immigrant violence in Europe are getting shut down but the most abhorrent content from the left is ignored.
“Obama Portrait Unveiled At Smithsonian Museum”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/obama-portrait-.html
http://pickeringpost.com/story/obama-opened-his-play-lunch-in-iran-and-then-walked-away-/8000
“@jpodhoretz Susan Rice wrote a memo to herself on the last day of the administration about an intelligence meeting with Comey and Obama and Yates two weeks earlier? Why? What is this? ”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-presid-74.html#comments
More on the above
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/12/senator-chuck-grassley-questions-susan-rice-about-unusual-documentary-letter-to-herself/
You write a “letter to yourself” to document things that you wish to be able to point at later as exculpatory. Yes, it’s a garden variety CYA memo so YOU can not be the one under the bus.
“Where is Adam Schiff’s Memo?…”
“UPDATE: Schiff now says he doesn’t want it released.”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/13/where-is-adam-schiffs-memo/
And
“Republican Senator Ron Johnson Tells President Trump “it makes no sense to try and bring back high labor manufacturing jobs”…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/14/republican-senator-ron-johnson-tells-president-trump-it-makes-no-sense-to-try-and-bring-back-high-labor-manufacturing-jobs/
“Why Susan Rice wrote an email to herself;”
Links at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-presid-75.html
Don’t forget the convention in government – “I want this done by the book” wink wink nod
Which really translates to, do what you need to do, but be sure you have a plausible tie to “the book” or some sort of “but I thought it meant” assertion to back up your actions – – – – or Don’t get caught ! doing what you need to do.
“Someone’s Doing The DOJ and FBI Interrogations and It’s Not Congress…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/14/someones-doing-the-doj-and-fbi-interrogations-and-its-not-congress/
More echo chambers in the second link
“The fake “Fake News”;”
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/your-moral-and-490.html#comments
More questions in the link at
http://www.smalldeadanimals.com/2018/02/when-the-fbi-do-15.html
“General Mike Flynn, Rudolph Contreras and The Increasingly Sketchy FISA Application…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/15/general-mike-flynn-rudolph-contreras-and-the-increasingly-sketchy-fisa-application/#more-145908
From this link in the above link to TCT by Another Ian:
http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/15/media-stopped-reporting-russia-collusion-story-helped-create/
That about sums it up…
The whole article is pretty good.
“What Did James Comey Tell President Trump About Clinton-Steele Dossier…”
https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/15/what-did-james-comey-tell-president-trump-about-clinton-steele-dossier/