[Washington Examiner] Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein said "the rule of law is secure" with a Justice Department led by Attorney General William Barr.
Rosenstein's brief profile of Barr appeared in Time's 2019 list of 100 most influential people, published online just one day before Barr's redacted release of special counsel Robert Mueller's report is expected to spur a fierce partisan battle over transparency.
"The enthusiasm in and around the Department of Justice was palpable when President Trump announced his nomination of Attorney General William Pelham Barr," Rosenstein wrote. "A brilliant and principled conservative lawyer, Barr brings unique experience to the challenge of working at the intersection of law and politics."
#1
I saw the press statement that Barr did and was very impressed with his professionalism and his ability to discuss the actual procedures and legal limits he had.
He also stressed that the President had the ability to keep large portions of the report from the public due to executive privilege, but Trump didn't use it and allowed all of the report to be published. The left will ignore that little bit and still try to claim that Barr is covering up for the President.
[Breitbart] About one in four federal inmates are either an illegal alien, legal immigrant, or suspected foreign-born criminal, a new federal report concludes.
In total, there were nearly 240,000 inmates in the federal prison system as of 2018, a Department of Justice (DOJ) report finds. Of that total, nearly 60,000 of those prisoners were illegal aliens and legal immigrants who have been ordered to be deported, were in proceedings to be deported, or were currently under investigation by the Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) to confirm their foreign-born status.
This dictates that about one in four ‐ or about 25 percent ‐ federal inmates are born outside the U.S. and came to the country either illegally or legally.
In Bureau of Prisons (BOP) custody, alone, foreign-born prisoners account for more than 20 percent of the total federal prison population. This confirms that about one in five federal inmates in BOP custody are foreign-born. There were nearly 40,000 foreign-born inmates in BOP custody as of 2018.
Similarly, about 38 percent of inmates in U.S. Marshals Serice (USMS) custody are foreign-born, including more than 21,000 either illegal aliens or legal immigrants out of the more than 56,000 inmates in custody as of 2018. The data concludes that more than three in eight inmates in USMS custody are foreign-born, and 70 percent have already been ordered to be deported.
Most recent cost estimates find that the foreign-born federal prison population costs American taxpayers about $1.42 billion every year, according to a 2018 report by the Government Accountability Office (GAO).
[WSJ] ’I think spying did occur," Attorney General William P. Barr told a Senate subcommittee last Wednesday. He was speaking about the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s probe into possible coordination between Russia and the Trump campaign, as well as the resulting special-counsel investigation.
I can tell Mr. Barr what I know from experience. There’s nothing to "think" about: The spying happened, and it happened to me. The real question is why it happened. What drove U.S. intelligence organizations during the Obama administration to use unvetted information and inconclusive spy operations against the Republican nominee and his staff?
During my time as an adviser to the Trump campaign, federal intelligence and law-enforcement organizations used operatives to contact me in person and by email on multiple occasions. Their goal? To discuss rumored coordination efforts with Russia and extract evidence of a collusion crime.
"Operatives" is a euphemistic term for these men. Spies is a more fitting label. One is Stefan Halper, a professor at the University of Cambridge who runs intelligence seminars and has ties to the Central Intelligence Agency. The Washington Post named him as the FBI informant who approached at least three members of the Trump campaign. Then there’s Alexander Downer, who had the lofty title of Australian high commissioner to the U.K. and was an adviser to the British private intelligence firm Hakluyt & Co. Finally there’s Joseph Mifsud, who taught at Rome’s Link Campus University, where many faculty members have ties to intelligence agencies.
These men spied on me. As spies, they hid behind the cloak of their public personas while trying to ferret out information about the campaign and Moscow, and prod me into corroborating their bad intelligence. Major newspapers have confirmed that Mr. Halper reported to the FBI and Mr. Downer reported to Australian intelligence. Mr. Mifsud’s handlers remain unidentified.
I have spent two years thinking about my bizarre interactions with these spooks. If Mr. Barr really wants to understand what happened, he needs to examine them and their motives. If he does, he will likely find three men and their government backers acting in concert to inflict damage on a U.S. presidential candidate whose views apparently scared the hell out of them.
What might have motivated these spying efforts? On the British side, Mr. Trump was a vocal proponent of Brexit, which was opposed by most of the British political establishment. Similarly, Mr. Trump had spoken out against the Trans-Pacific Partnership, a trade agreement that Australian politicians support.
In the U.S., Obama appointees James Comey at the FBI and John Brennan at the CIA were deeply rattled by Mr. Trump’s rhetoric about restoring relations with Russia. They were also hoodwinked by poorly sourced, unvetted reports from overseas, including the Steele dossier. Their agencies stitched together the reports to create the collusion narrative and open the investigation.
Mr. Barr may not be able to find a smoking gun that definitively proves Obama loyalists plotted to use specious allegations to wound a Republican candidate for president. But he won’t have to look very hard to confirm the existence of spy operations. Subpoenas for the spies who approached me would go a long way.
Mr. Barr could also investigate whether those operations crossed the bold line that separates a serious, apolitical investigation from paranoid prosecutorial overreach. The intelligence agencies and the spies they employed devised a conspiracy to create the appearance of a conspiracy.
I look forward to the attorney general’s findings. Emphasis added at para #7.
#1
The real question is why it happened. What drove U.S. intelligence organizations during the Obama administration to use unvetted information and inconclusive spy operations against the Republican nominee and his staff?
Could it be they were quite anxious that Hillary Clinton win the 2016 Presidential election ?
[Texas Hill Country] If it was perfected in Texas, you can bet someone from this state is proving it’s good for you. Such is the case for brisket and ground beef! Researchers out of Texas A&M have found that not only does it make for some of the tastiest food you’ll ever try, but (believe it or not) it comes with some health benefits too. Fredericksburg, TX 'Sunday House' with Weber.
Their findings confirmed that high levels of oleic acid can be had in beef brisket. You want this because it lowers LDLs (the "bad" kind of cholesterol,) and produces high levels of HDLs (the good kind, which are said to promote better heart health). Dr. Stephen Smith, a research scientist from Texas A&M AgriLife Research, explained the findings. "Brisket has higher oleic acid than the flank or plate, which are the trims typically used to produce ground beef," he said. "The fat in brisket also has a low melting point, that’s why the brisket is so juicy." Researchers in this study have also found that the same applies to ground beef, but to a lesser degree.
[Townhall] Get out, illegals. Go home. Or don’t go home ‐ I don’t care where you go. You just can’t stay here in America.
This is my elegant, uncomplicated comprehensive immigration reform plan. If we did not invite you in ‐ if you didn’t have the basic courtesy and respect for this country to ask to come here, then get out. And don’t come back ‐ if you snuck into America, you don’t get to come back.
It’s simple and fair. The fair part is important, because it’s about time that our immigration laws be fair to the only people who should matter when we make our policies ‐ American citizens.
Yes, the goal of our immigration system should be one thing ‐ to benefit American citizens. It may scandalize the elite to prioritize our own people, but that’s okay ‐ in fact, I hope they run in 2020 on a platform of putting foreigners first.
In the meantime, the Big Bamboozle is coming back around again. It shows up every few years with a new name, but it’s always the same thing ‐ a bogus promise to halt the illegal invasion facilitated by Democrats seeking replacement voters for you disobedient Normals and by Chamber of Commerce-types shilling for the big corporations that want an endless supply of pliable, obedient, and cheap labor.
It’s amnesty, and amnesty by any other name still stinks.
With more of the theoretical border getting erased by the day as tens of thousands of foreigners heed the call of the Democrats to march north (or overstay their visas), the Fredocons are sensing yet another opportunity to jam down their open borders agenda on an unwilling GOP base. They are already talking about trying to trick the Trump into signing on.
[The Federalist] Last week, three U.S. service members were killed in an improvised explosive device attack near Bagram Air Base, an operation subsequently claimed by the Taliban. The deaths of Christopher Slutman of Newark, Delaware, Robert A. Hendriks of Locust Valley, New York, and Benjamin S. Hines of York, Pennsylvania take the number of U.S. troop fatalities in Afghanistan this year to seven.
It’s the latest grim reminder of a war that has proceeded on an almost autopilot for more than a decade and a half. Hitting its 17th anniversary last October, the conflict has gone on for such a long time that new recruits are being reminded by their drill sergeants about why the United States is involved.
The American people are justifiably exhausted by the Afghanistan conflict, which continues every year with little light at the end of the tunnel. U.S. policy has been defined throughout by muddled thinking, hubris about what the United States can achieve, and an endless stream of troop deployments in support of a strategy that holds little if any chance at success.
The amount of resources and attention Washington has allocated in pursuit of the unattainable‐a fully democratic Afghanistan free of corruption and patrimony, governed by the rule of law rather than the rule of the gun‐would be the stuff of comedies if it weren’t for the price tag attached to the effort: 2,242 U.S. troop fatalities, tens of thousands of additional injuries (many life-altering), and nearly $1 trillion in American treasure.
U.S. officials owe the soldiers and diplomats in the field and the American people at home a realistic appraisal of what Washington can accomplish in a country that has been in the throes of armed conflict for four decades. If we hope to finally reach the day American troops can pack up their belongings and come back to their families, Washington must start viewing the war with clear eyes. Several hard truths about Afghanistan are in order.
#1
Should be obvious by now. It is very difficult to prevail in a conflict where adjacent sanctuary states are involved. Until Pakistan is fixed, forget everything else. Their tribalism and broken religion are no help as well.
#2
about 14,000 soldiers there now with some contract personnel and quite a few civilians
Posted by: lord garth ||
04/18/2019 7:26 Comments ||
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#3
Turning the place into glass would have communicated a message 17 years has failed to do. This is what happens when you don't really go to war. People seem to skip over we bombed the **** out of Germany and Japan first before we decided to play nation building. They knew they were defeated.
#4
17 years of attempts told Islam we were low towing and weak.
This is another good lesson to come out of the war. You must have a serious end game and a non-Muslim state cannot influence a Muslim population these days, we can’t/won’t do what is necessary so anything we try will end up as a propoganda victory for enemies.
We should have:
• Supported Northern alliance and left them in charge. Then helped them as we deemed necessary but kept our fighting troops free as a threat to others.
• Done a full-force attempt to support non-wasabi mosques.
• Put massive pressure on Saudis to clamp down on rogue princes and other support to our enemies
• Pushed for nuke power to replace oil as soon as was possible (fracking worked but took way to long).
• IF we went into Iraq we should have handed the place over to Jordan and supported them but not gotten involved in internal politics.
#7
...on the lesser note, the legs finally got equipment and materials they would have never gotten in the bureaucratic hierarchy prioritization of funding usually reserved for gee-whiz billion dollar tech platforms.
#8
Some modern thinker on the subject (trying to search on who that was) has pointed out that "killing is the sine qua non of war." Burning poppy fields, arresting people and arming locals who turn around and kill our guys is not war, but whatever it is, it's shockingly wasteful and impossible to defend, if you ask me.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/18/2019 14:48 Comments ||
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#9
Areas with groups of warring tribes can not and never will be able to become a nation.
[AlAhram] The real significance of what has just happened in Sudan is not the departure of Omar al-Bashir, but rather exposure of the ruin that Moslem Brüderbund rule brought to the country.
The failed Moslem Brüderbund organization is attempting, through its tentacles in Qatar ...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi... and The Sick Man of Europe Turkey
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/18/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
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Top|| File under: Muslim Brotherhood
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.
[Breitbart] About one in four federal inmates are either an illegal alien, legal immigrant, or suspected foreign-born criminal, a new federal report concludes.
...an emirate on the east coast of the Arabian Peninsula. It sits on some really productive gas and oil deposits, which produces the highest per capita income in the world. They piss it all away on religion, financing the Moslem Brotherhood and several al-Qaeda affiliates. Home of nutbag holy manYusuf al-Qaradawi...
