[The Daily Wire] On Thursday, the House Democrats made their impeachment inquiry into President Trump official, pushing through their resolution by a largely party line vote of 232 to 194. Though Democrats have been pushing to impeach Trump since even before his inauguration, the trigger that finally resulted in an official inquiry was a complaint by an unidentified whistleblower who heard second-hand about Trump’s much-analyzed July 25 call to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky asking him to "look into" the allegations of corruption involving former Vice President Joe Biden and his son, Hunter Biden.
Though Democrats have been working hard to keep the identity of the whistleblower under wraps, reports this week published his alleged identity ‐ and conservative talk radio host Rush Limbaugh says that now that more details are out, it’s painfully clear why Trump’s political enemies wouldn’t want the whistleblower identified.
"The guy was a plant in the White House by the CIA to do exactly what he did," Limbaugh said Thursday. "We know his name. He’s one of a dime-a-dozen Yale or Harvard graduates, literally a 30-year-old Pajama Boy doing the bidding of John Brennan in the White House."
On Wednesday, RealClearInvestigations’s Paul Sperry reported on the alleged identity of the whistleblower, which he describes as an "open secret inside the Beltway." Citing "officials with direct knowledge of the proceedings," Sperry reports that the whistleblower’s name is allegedly Eric Ciaramella.
#2
/\ Ciaramella has worked for the Central Intelligence Agency for several years and was assigned to the White House during the end of the Obama administration.
Mole (espionage) - Wikipedia
In espionage jargon, a mole (also called a "penetration agent", "deep cover agent", or "sleeper agent") is a long-term spy (espionage agent) who is recruited before having access to secret intelligence, subsequently managing to get into the target organization.
#5
At what point does an institution become more of a threat to the republic than any foreign threat? Once its been compromised, it can never be reformed only dissolved and start anew.
#6
Ref #5: At what point does an institution become more of a threat to the republic than any foreign threat? Once its been compromised, it can never be reformed only dissolved and start anew.
Excellent question. The frightening thing is we're only learning what is released or we stumble across in open source reporting.
#8
My crude understanding is that the function of the CIA is to collect information, analyze it, and report to the President. Clearly no President should take what the CIA reports at face value; but in Trump's particular case he would be justified in assuming that whatever the CIA reports is disinformation intended to support the ongoing coup. National politics aside, that's a potentially catastrophic situation. If the CIA reports that the mullahs are days away from launching, how should Trump react to the report? We might as well offer the Chinese or the Russians input into the President's Daily Briefing.
#7, I have no idea, but just walking down the street in DC requires advice of counsel. What a snakepit.
Posted by: Matt ||
11/03/2019 11:07 Comments ||
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#9
Sen. Daniel P. Moynihan during his long and brilliant career repeatedly asked
why this nation needs the CIA,
...what if anything it gets for the billions we piss away on the CIA, and
...whether we would not be better off shutting down the CIA.
W e have the answer now. Shut it down. Save the Republic.
#13
If the CIA reports that the mullahs are days away from launching
You'll only know that by when multiple Virginia families and some in Chicago book charter flights out the US, at the same time and are seen racing to the hangars.
Jokes aside - thankfully, there are still loyal men and women out there content to protect what must be protected, not just remfs waiting for a pat on the head from Washington pashas.
#14
If the Orange Man can achieve a second term, he should immediately begin the task of discretely and incrementally de-funding the 'secret' budget(s) of these people. Their branch affiliations in Foggy Bottom should suffer a similar downsizing or elimination.
#15
Dissolve the agencies. Fire EVERYONE. Worthy people can get hired by the new single agency: The OSS. Don't have a massive office in DC, spread it out around the country.
#16
If the Orange Man can achieve a second term, he should immediately begin the task of discretely and incrementally de-funding the 'secret' budget(s) of these people.
We could probably repay the federal debt then.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/03/2019 14:42 Comments ||
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[Babylon Bee - Satire, Herb] WASHINGTON, D.C.‐As the end of Daylight Saving Time approaches, President Trump has declared that instead of turning the clocks back one hour, Americans will be turning them back to January 20, 2017, granting him an entire redo of his first term in office.
"I hereby order all Americans, at the end of DST, to turn all their clocks back to January 20, 2017," Trump said in a speech Wednesday. "This time change will be beneficial for both homes and businesses as I am granted more years to make America great again."
Constitutional scholars desperately searched for a way around the executive order, but since they let the previous president get away with pretty much anything he wanted with his executive orders, they had no precedent to stand on.
"All we can do is put on an outraged face and try to live out 2017, 2018, and 2019 again," said one Harvard professor grimly.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
No prize. Too easy, this one: Bee from a mile away.
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐New billboards have been popping up in California with the slogan "Move to Texas: We have electricity!"
Many see this as a play to lure jobs away from California, as many jobs rely on electricity, especially in the modern economy. This could especially be attractive to jobs in the tech sector.
Roy Rivera, a tech analyst with decades of experience in cutting edge technology, explained that "a lot of tech uses electricity." He then pointed to a chart showing that tech businesses can be at least 300% more effective when they have power.
California Governor Gavin Newsom was dismissive of Texas's claims, though. "They’re making false claims of being able to deliver electricity 24/7," Newsom said, "but it just can’t be done." Newsom was also dismissive of the Lone Star State's other claims, such as affordable housing, plenty of water, cheap gas, plastic straws, and not constantly being on fire. "It sounds made up," said Newsom. "I don’t even think there is a Texas."
California plans to fight back. It’s now working on a wall to keep people and jobs from leaving California. The planned wall should extend along the entire California border, except for the southern part.
[NYPOST] Is the city’s biggest bank getting ready to flee? That worrisome question flared up this week following a Bloomberg News report that JPMorgan Chase & Co. ‐ the largest private employer still based in the city ‐ may move thousands of jobs from New York to its other outposts, including in Texas, Ohio and Delaware.
In fact, although the bank itself didn’t officially comment, it seems clear the reality is not so dire. JPMorgan isn’t abandoning its ancestral home ‐ not yet, anyway.
After all, site-preparation work is continuing at JPM’s planned new 270 Park Ave. headquarters, a 70-story supertower slated for completion in the mid-2020s.
The possible JPMorgan job shifts described in the Bloomberg story are actually part of an old story: For decades now, major banks have been shifting back-office and support functions from Manhattan to less pricey areas across the country.
Yet, even as Manhattan loses solid middle-class jobs in finance, New York city and state tax revenues are at record levels. That’s largely because ‐ for now at least ‐ a large share of Wall Street’s top earners remain concentrated in the city.
In that context, a more telling harbinger of trouble ahead was the announcement last month that Carl Icahn plans to move himself and his hedge fund to Florida by early next year.
Yes, Icahn is just one (very) wealthy guy. The legendary corporate raider’s investment shop is a micro-business if measured by headcount alone. But like the securities industry as a whole, which generates 17% of state taxes while employing just 2.4% of private-sector workers, even small investment firms tend to have outsized economic footprints.
Based on published estimates of his investment earnings, Icahn has paid tens of millions a year in city and state income-tax revenues. Confronted by a new federal tax law likely to personally cost him millions more in lost state and local tax (SALT) deductions, the 83-year-old Queens native decided to move to a less expensive state where SALT barely matters.
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Middle class leaving California too, the kind who pay taxes and make good neighbors. Illegal aliens and homeless freaks are still coming into the state.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
11/03/2019 14:55 Comments ||
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[Jpost] When US special forces disembarked from eight helicopters to raid a compound where ISIS ...embracing their inner Islamic Brute... leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi was holed up, they had good intelligence from various sources in Iraq and Syria that confirmed the terror leader’s location. They were also just a few kilometres from the Ottoman Turkish border. They were so close their flight path took them into Ottoman Turkish airspace and they had to tell The Sick Man of Europe Turkey ...the only place on the face of the earth that misses the Ottoman Empire... and Russia about the request to raid the area. They didn’t tell them all the details of the operation.
Mildly damning, thus far. Darning, perhaps?
How did Ottoman Turkish intelligence not know what was going on within shouting distance of their border? How did a NATO ...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. A cautionary tale of cost-benefit analysis.... ally, as sophisticated as Turkey, with UAVs and signals intelligence and observation posts throughout Idlib where Baghdadi was living not know he was there?
To be fair, they’ve purged all the Gulenists they could find, and nobody else understands how to use all that stuff. Besides, it’s not Turks but their allied paramilitaries manning the observation posts. They know how to rape and torture, but not much about soldiering.
Ottoman Turkish media which is almost all pro-government and often rapidly nationalist, has claimed that Baghdadi was only able to get to Idlib by crossing areas held by the Syrian Democratic Forces. The Daily Sabah headline on October 29 claimed "Al-Baghdadi’s death exposes YPG-ISIS ties."
But Ottoman Turkish intelligence monitors the YPG presence because Turkey claims the YPG is linked to the Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK) and Turkey demanded to take over part of eastern Syria to remove the YPG from the border. Turkey says this is a serious security concern.
Turkey says it is also fighting ISIS. Turkey invaded Afrin, another Kurdish area, in January 2018, also under the pretense of "security concerns." Yet, its intelligence agencies could not find Baghdadi, even though Turkey asserts that he had "YPG-ISIS ties." Turkey claims that its intelligence "played a key role in the death of ISIS terrorist leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi," because it detained and extradited a local aide to Iraq. This man was named Ismael al-Ethawi.
"He provided US authorities with critical information." Turkey claims it found him in Sakarya province on February 8, 2018. Turkey says he "entered Turkey through a PKK-linked controlled area." But wait, he entered Turkey, so shouldn’t Turkey have stopped him when he entered?
Why would they do that? Waiving ISIS people through is part of the Turkish border guard job description. And since the Gulenists there were rounded up, too, it isn’t realistic to expect the remainder to actually think about anything.
If his passage through a PKK controlled area is evidence of PKK not being vigilant then his ability to enter a NATO country would also reveal the same evidence of an intelligence failure.
[Heavy] Alexandra Chalupa is a former Democratic National Committee contractor and staffer who calls herself a "human rights hobbyist" and runs a Washington D.C. political consulting firm. Chalupa is Ukrainian-American. Her investigations, focusing on former Donald Trump Campaign Chairman Paul Manafort and Trump’s ties to Russia during the 2016 presidential election, have provoked controversy.
Skipping down a few paras:
In 2017, she wrote, "Congresswoman Maxine Waters who is one of the strongest voices on Russia. We had a great meeting tonight. She’s fearless." Her Facebook page is full of photos of anti Trump protests. The Maxine Waters piece is probably all we really need to know.
#9
What are your thoughts, Herb? Should US taxpayer dollars buy this thing?
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/03/2019 9:07 Comments ||
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#10
Political hack who enlisted foreign agents to create dirt on opponent to swing an election for her candidate accuses Other Side of ... trying to enlist foreign agents to create dirt on opponent to swing an election for their guy.
WaPo (short version) on rape illegal aliens. If it's not perfect and uncrossible, why try. Just lay back and enjoy it
[WaPost via SDUT] Smuggling gangs in Mexico have repeatedly sawed through new sections of President Trump's border wall in recent months by using commercially available power tools, opening gaps large enough for people and drug loads to pass through, according to U.S. agents and officials with knowledge of the damage. Individuals, rather than masses
The breaches have been made using a popular cordless household tool known as a reciprocating saw that retails at hardware stores for as little as $100. When fitted with specialized blades, the saws can slice through one of the barrier's steel-and-concrete bollards in a matter of minutes, according to the agents, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak publicly about the barrier-defeating techniques.
After cutting through the base of a single bollard, smugglers can push the steel out of the way, allowing an adult to fit through the gap. Because the bollards are so tall ‐ and are attached only to a panel at the very top ‐ their length makes them easier to push aside once they have been cut and are left dangling, according to engineers consulted by The Washington Post.
The taxpayer-funded barrier ‐ so far coming with a $10 billion price tag ‐ was a central theme of Trump's 2016 campaign, and he has made the project a physical symbol of his presidency, touting its construction progress in speeches, ads and tweets. Trump has increasingly boasted to crowds in recent weeks about the superlative properties of the barrier, calling it "virtually impenetrable" and likening the structure to a "Rolls-Royce" that border-crossers cannot get over, under or through.
The smuggling crews have been using other techniques, such as building makeshift ladders to scale and overtop the barriers, especially in the popular smuggling areas in and around San Diego, according to nearly a dozen U.S. agents and current and former administration officials.
Posted by: Frank G ||
11/03/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Same as the complaints about Missile defense: Your cancer cure does nothing for the common cold. It's a failure.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
11/03/2019 1:43 Comments ||
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#2
When you know a bollard is being sawed through and people oozing in, can't your guys just start firing from this side at the opening ? Then just hold position until it's welded back.
#8
Nah, just stack radioactive waste up against the back side of the wall, by the time they get through, they might manage to get 100 yards. Put up signs saying "If you cross this fence, you WILL die." The average IQ will rise a few hundredths of a percentage point.
[DAWN] YOU can define seven kilometres in so many delightful ways. Seven kilometres is 275,591 inches unrolled; 7km is 87.5 minutes of journey if walked leisurely; 7km is seven minutes of drive time if travelling at 60km per hour.
And 7km is what separates Maulana Fazlur Rehman ...Deobandi holy man, known as Mullah Diesel during the war against the Soviets, his sympathies for the Taliban have never been tempered by honesty... from Imran Khan
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
11/03/2019 00:00 ||
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[Rudaw] The threat of an intra-Shiite conflict in Iraq is rising after the deputy head of the Popular Mobilization Forces (PMF), also known as Hashd al-Shaabi in Arabic, Abu Mahdi al-Muhandis warned that they will interfere against the protests "at the right time", while some PMF fighters published a video refusing to obey the orders to confront the protesters.
In a video uploaded Sunday, al-Muhandis denounced the current protests in Iraq as a "temptation" driven by a foreign agenda to destabilize Iraq.
"We are aware that a temptation is being driven by foreign agendas in order to destabilize Iraq through the protests" al-Muhandis said.
Continued on Page 49
[UNZ Review] During World War I, seven of the medical schools attached to the University of London decided to start admitting female students, as did Oxford and Edinburgh University. But by 1928, five of these London colleges had decided to stop admitting women, with the other two heavily restricting female numbers. Oxford voted for a ratio of no more than one female for every six males. Male academics and students were concerned that the presence of female students, let alone staff, would "alter the character of the teaching" and lead to "feminine government" of universities [Discussed in Education, by Carol Dyhouse, in Women in Twentieth Century Britain, 2014.] In other words, the "masculine" dimension to academia‐rigorously, unemotionally and coldly examining facts and arguments‐would be wrecked by the increasing presence of emotional and over-empathetic girls. As females increasingly take over Western universities, now constituting the majority of students in the USA [Why Do Women Outnumber Men in College?, NBER Working Paper No. 12139, January 2007 ], it is becoming clear that these skeptics were right.
A recent column by Christopher DeGroot looked how feminization is destroying academia. [The University of Narcissism, October 25, 2019] A recent video by British independent scientist "The Jolly Heretic"‐Dr Edward Dutton‐has gone even further, claiming that female dominance of universities is destroying the "genius" type that is critical to the generation of original ideas (This idea is developed further in The Genius Famine, by Edward Dutton & Bruce Charlton).
DeGroot highlighted the appalling case of Eric Thompson of Moreno Valley College in California, who was ultimately fired for being what, in less female-dominated times, would have been described as good academic. Three complaints were made against Thompson by his, naturally Woke and mainly female, students. Each was upheld.
In 2014, Thompson was naïve enough to chair a seminar on the "Nature vs Nurture" debate with regard to same-sex attraction. This is indeed very much a "debate," because 60% of the variance in male sexuality is to do with environment, in contrast to 80% of the variance in female sexuality [The evolution of human female sexual orientation, by A. Jeffrey et al., Evolutionary Psychological Science, 2019]. But Thompson’s presenting both sides of the argument mortified some of his students, who hold to the Politically Correct dogma that everything is caused by environment except sexual orientation, which is supposedly 100% genetic.
In 2015, DeGroot reports, Thompson, still foolishly believing he should teach students to explore the evidence, chaired a seminar on the Supreme Court ruling on gay marriage, again presenting both sides of the argument. In this case, the complainant maintained that, simply by presenting the other side of the argument, Thompson was effectively "targeting" LGBTQ students and even "placing them at risk" of abuse or psychological damage. Their "precious feelings," to quote de Groot, far outweighed students’ rights to have an in-depth understanding of an important debate.
Finally, Thompson gave a D-grade to lesbian. She complained that he’d done this because she was a lesbian. He emailed her, explaining the situation calmly, after she’d complained. But in doing so, he violated a bureaucratic "no contact order," reached his "third strike" and was dismissed.(This was so obviously unjust that he has actually been reinstated by a court (twice) but the college is still appealing the reinstatement‐College furious after non-woke professor reinstated, by Bob Kellogg, OneNewsNow, August 6, 2019.
#8
Back in the 1920's political correctness didn't exist in its current form. They had a different term for it. It was called "socially acceptable behavior", or being polite. That form of self control still permitted comments to be aired which offended others. Today its declining as a proportion of the populace. The party being criticized, in this case women in colleges, simply were polite enough to know they had to accept criticism as part of being a part of society. Today the rant and scream, yell and disrupt others from venting criticism. As a result facts take a back seat to emotional behavior.
[Townhall] In case you’ve been living under a rock or been trapped deep inside an ultra-leftist bubble, allow me to enlighten you. There is a definite, concerted, war on gender in our society today. And if you had even the slightest doubt about it, look no further than the November edition of GQ magazine.
There, on the front cover, stands singer and fashion designer Pharrell Williams, adorned gorgeously in a long, flowing robe and looking quite ladylike. And there, around Pharrell’s beautiful form, the theme of this special edition of GQ is spelled out: The New Masculinity.
I kid you not.
According to editor-in-chief Will Welch, GQ has been working on this special edition since January, not only tackling abusive aspects of masculinity in our culture, but also featuring an article from "a gender-nonbinary actor who is simultaneously advocating for greater inclusivity in Hollywood and acknowledging their own privilege (Asia Kate Dillon)."
Exactly what you’d expect to find in a gentlemen’s magazine. (Sarcasm intended.)
Another article is from "an anthropologist who is debunking the idea that testosterone determines male behavior (Katrina Karkazis)."
But of course! How did other researchers miss this for so long?
#1
"a gender-nonbinary actor who is simultaneously advocating for greater inclusivity in Hollywood and acknowledging their own privilege (Asia Kate Dillon)."
WTF do these words mean?
Is there any logic beneath this word salad?
The degradation of language heralds the demise of thought.
We are ruled by morons.
Our children are taught by imbeciles.
#5
All the people writing these articles everyday need too realize that 99% of the people in this country do not give 1 fuck about this shit and are tired of hearing it.
Posted by: chris ||
11/03/2019 10:57 Comments ||
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#6
99% of the people
Their market is the one percent — the rest would never buy the magazine no matter what is printed between the covers.
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.
[Babylon Bee - Satire, Herb] WASHINGTON, D.C.‐As the end of Daylight Saving Time approaches, President Trump has declared that instead of turning the clocks back one hour, Americans will be turning them back to January 20, 2017, granting him an entire redo of his first term in office.
[Babylon Bee] U.S.‐New billboards have been popping up in California with the slogan "Move to Texas: We have electricity!" 
...embracing their inner Islamic Brute...
[Townhall] In case you’ve been living under a rock or been trapped deep inside an ultra-leftist bubble, allow me to enlighten you. There is a definite, concerted, war on gender in our society today. And if you had even the slightest doubt about it, look no further than the November edition of GQ magazine.
