[The Hill] For most of the past three years, the FBI has tried to portray its top leadership as united behind ex-Director James Comey’s decision not to pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for transmitting classified information over her insecure, private email server.
Although in the end that may have been the case, we now are learning that Comey’s top lawyer, then-FBI General Counsel James Baker, initially believed Clinton deserved to face criminal charges, but was talked out of it "pretty late in the process."
The revelation is contained in testimony Baker gave to House investigators last year. His testimony has not been publicly released, but I was permitted to review a transcript.
During questioning by Rep. John Ratcliffe (R-Texas), Baker was unequivocal about his early view that Clinton should face criminal charges.
"I have reason to believe that you originally believed it was appropriate to charge Hillary Clinton with regard to violations of law ‐ various laws, with regard to mishandling of classified information. Is that accurate?" Ratcliffe, a former federal prosecutor, asked Baker.
Baker paused to gain his lawyer’s permission to respond, and then answered, "Yes."
#4
Intent is not required to be shown to be guilty, this is a huge misdirection ploy to cover political powerful have different standards of accountability than mere citizens.
[VDH Private Papers] As the 2020 election nears, there is as yet no coherent Democratic response to the Trump agenda. If Trump himself is unpopular and polarizing, his agenda is for the most part in sync with a majority of Americans who like the 3% annualized GDP growth; near-record peacetime unemployment; record natural gas and oil production; young, scholarly and constructionist justices; pro-Israel Mideast politics; and realism about NATO laxity, the flawed Iran Deal, and the Paris Climate Accord, Chinese mercantilism, and the past inability of the U.S. to translate battlefield victories abroad into lasting security and strategic advantages.
Yet hatred of Trump himself, as well as fear of a successful Trump agenda, has unhinged his opposition. From 2017-19, progressives sought to abort the Trump presidency through furor at his person and often pathetic attempts to invoke the Emoluments Clause, the 25th Amendment, the Logan Act, Articles of Impeachment, the Mueller special counsel investigation, former Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe’s counter-intelligence investigation of Trump, and cherry-picking federal justice to stay Trump initiatives. All failed. Now the Left has decided to offer not just invective, but a new array of alternatives‐often of a radical sort that we have not seen or heard about since the 1960s.
The Democratic Party is now in the hands of newcomer establishment figures such as Senators Corey Booker, Kirsten Gillibrand, Kamala Harris, Mazie Hirono; socialist Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren; newly elected representatives Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib; and activists like Linda Sasour, Al Sharpton, Maxine Waters, and the usual Hollywood celebrities‐all of whom Sen. Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, Speaker Nancy Pelosi, and former Vice President Joe Biden futilely try to appease.
#3
"Nihilists! *bleep* me! Say what you will about the tenets of National Socialism, but at least it's an ethos."
"The Democratic Party is now in the hands of..."
Not to insult their mothers, but all of these people seem to be either incompetents or power-mad grifters who couldn't be trusted to run a bake sale. That does not bode well for the country. But hey, at least we'll get a lot of free stuff, right?
[Victory Girls] President Trump’s State of the Union address, as well as his speech at Florida International University today, hit back hard against the sludge-covered wave of socialist thought that has infested parts of our country. It was a big, glorious middle finger to the likes of Bernie Sanders, Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez, and Rashida Tlaib ‐ a bold statement of defiance informing these socialists that their dream of a Marxist plague will not happen.
"And to those who would try to impose socialism on the United States, we again deliver a very simple message: America will never be a socialist country," Trump said toward the end of his speech in Miami on Monday.
This is exactly the type of rebellion we need in the US today, as a cancerous scourge of socialism tries to attach itself like so many pubic lice to the life source of our nation. Those unwilling to put in the effort to support themselves and to succeed are voting for politicians who will steal from their neighbors at the point of a government gun, while at the same time working to disarm those from whom they steal to ensure a "peaceful" transfer of wealth.
I’m thrilled that Donald Trump is standing up to these parasites, and brazenly telling them their dream is not going to happen, because the wholesale condemnation of those who have achieved economic success in this country is worrisome.
Men and women who have studied, worked, taken risks, and bled to achieve what only a few could are being condemned as parasites and told they shouldn’t exist.
#3
I read somewhere that flee-ridden dogs would take a stick in their mouth and slowly wade into water, giving the flees a chance to migrate to the stick. Then eventually the dog would let the stick, and flees go, and emerge from the water.
I don't know if that story is true but replace dog with USA, Stick with California, and Flees with Socialists and you have modern America.
#4
There was the old song about "...Owing my soul to the company store."
Under Socialism the Government IS the Company and everyone is a sharecropper, a modern day serf.
[SovereignMan] On October 31, 1517, an obscure German theology professor put the finishing touches on a paper he had written about the current state of the Catholic Church, and sent it off to Archbishop Albert of Brandenberg for review.
The professor’s letter was polite and professional, with a formal tone that one might find in a modern academic work. It could hardly be described as revolutionary.
Yet within a few years, the professor would find himself excommunicated by the Pope, branded an outlaw and heretic and living in hiding under the protection of an army of followers.
His name, of course, was Martin Luther. And the publication of his famous paper, the 95 Theses, is often viewed as the start of the Protestant Reformation, one of the most important social movements in history.
The reformation was a European-wide rejection of Church authority. But its origins far predate Luther or his 95 Theses.
Mini revolts against the Church go back to the late 1300s, more than 150 years earlier.
But historians often focus on a single watershed moment to mark the beginning of a major movement or trend, even though there are always multiple events leading up to it.
There have been several watershed moments recently that future historians might view as the start of this modern Socialist Revolution… including possibly today with Bernie Sanders announcing his 2020 presidential bid.
But I think a less obvious choice would be when Amazon surrendered to the Socialists last week over its proposed headquarters in New York City.
Amazon’s expansion into New York would have brought 25,000 well-paying jobs to the city, plus state-of-the-art green construction, $10+ billion in tax revenue, land for a new school, a tech and art incubator, etc.
In exchange, the city government would give up some tax credits that were completely trivial by comparison.
But… the Socialists couldn’t keep their mouths shut.
They were disgusted that a behemoth like Amazon, headed by the richest man in the world, would receive any benefits whatsoever.
#1
Always open hands, open mouths and always that irritating pointing finger. In the old days a scammer (slicker) could work their craft and move on before capture. Nowadays as a politician they can ply their trade uninhibited. No arrest. No refunds. Dipping back again and again till the host is bled dry.
[France24] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday relations with the United States had rarely been so bad and that sanctions imposed by the Trump administration targeting Tehran's oil and banking sectors amounted to "a terrorist act".
Animosity between Washington and Tehran - bitter foes since Iran’s 1979 revolution - has intensified since U.S. President Donald Trump withdrew from an international nuclear deal with Tehran last May and reimposed sanctions lifted under the accord.
"The struggle between Iran and America is currently at a maximum. America has employed all its power against us," Rouhani was quoted as saying in a cabinet meeting by the state broadcaster IRIB.
"The U.S. pressures on firms and banks to halt business with Iran is one hundred percent a terrorist act," he said.
Trump has reimposed the sanctions with the aim of slashing Iranian oil sales and choking its economy in order to curb its ballistic missile programme and its activities in the Middle East, especially in the conflicts in Syria and Yemen.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[France24] Iranian President Hassan Rouhani said on Wednesday relations with the United States had rarely been so bad and that sanctions imposed by the Trump administration targeting Tehran's oil and banking sectors amounted to "a terrorist act".
