[NR] However implausible it may seem now, there was a time when Carter Page was treated like a dangerous character. So much so that Special Counsel Robert Mueller was specifically tasked with investigating the onetime foreign-policy adviser to candidate Donald Trump. Once his placement and access was lost, he was free to go.
After naming Mueller special counsel, Acting Attorney General Rod Rosenstein penned two secret memoranda detailing Mueller’s powers and focus. Rosenstein told him he "had been authorized since his appointment to investigate allegations that three Trump campaign officials ‐ Carter Page, Paul Manafort, and George Papadopoulos ‐ ’committed a crime or crimes by colluding with Russian government officials with respect to the Russian government’s efforts to interfere with the 2016 presidential election.’" Page was not just tagged as an explicit target of Mueller’s probe; he was first on the list. Given what soon befell Manafort and Papadopoulos, one might have expected Page to be wearing the new black. And yet, not only is Carter Page a free man, Mueller never even managed to get him on an overdue parking ticket. The question isn’t so much what happened as what didn’t. Poor form, arresting your own sources. Who knows what they may say in their own defense.
If anyone should have been prosecutable, it should have been Page ‐ if he had committed any crime, that is. For starters, the FBI had Page under surveillance and all of his communications in their possession for a full year. How many political players could survive such colonoscopic scrutiny?
Add to this that Page behaved in ways that would have made it easy for any aggressive prosecutor to go after him. He allowed himself to be interviewed by the FBI repeatedly. He testified before a grand jury. He not only raised red flags, he waved them: Having been excoriated for his July 2016 trip to Moscow, where he gave a Putin-friendly speech, he went back to Moscow in December and tried to drum up some business. He appeared before Congress and made bold claims under oath.
Consider his opening statement before the House Intelligence Committee in November 2017: "Whereas I have never done anything wrong in Russia, no documents, records, electronically stored information including email, communication, recordings, data and tangible things could reasonably lead to the discovery of any facts within the investigation’s publicly announced parameters as it relates to actions by the Russian government." If Mueller had anything at all on Page, nothing would have been easier than to add a lying-to-Congress charge to the indictment. Hey, I reported all my foreign travel and contacts. I provided you copies, remember? I have no intention of losing my clearance.
Nor is Page the sort of evil genius who would be needed to outwit some of the DOJ’s top lawyers. Read the transcript of Page’s House testimony and you’ll be struck by the witness’s odd and awkward responses. Trying to be his own lawyer, he keeps making legalistic distinctions, such as whether his contact with someone had been a "meeting" or a "greeting." Page makes the mistake of talking about being careful rather than actually being careful. Being a careful deponent is rather like being a pilot with the right stuff. If you talk about having the right stuff, you don’t have it; if you testify that you’re being cautious with your answers, you’re not being nearly careful enough. The perfect beltway-insider 'wannabe' source. Hey watta ya want me to do ....."wear a wire."
Even the Republican members quickly lost patience with Page: "You seem to draw a distinction between a meeting, a greeting, a conversation, and you hearing a speech," said Representative Trey Gowdy. "So to the extent you may have said that you have met with senior members of Russian Government or legislators in Russia, were those meetings, greetings, conversations, or were you sitting in the audience listening?"
Gowdy was referring not only to Page’s reliance on inconsequential legalisms, but also to his unfortunate habit of self-puffery. Page would take information he heard in a speech and present it to the Trump campaign as though he had learned it in a private conversation. For example, as Mueller puts it, "In communications with Campaign officials, Page also repeatedly touted his high-level contacts in Russia and his ability to forge connections between candidate Trump and senior Russian governmental officials." Talk up your "high-level contacts in Russia" enough and people might just start to suspect that you’re a little too tight with Russian officials. Well, that, or a certain sort of political operative might get the idea to spread suspicion about you. I find the term 'useful idiot' comes to mind.
Page was in a bad enough position: Abandoned and shunned by Team Trump and annoying to Capitol Hill Republicans, Page was short on allies to help him contend with the Mueller squad. So what did he do? He painted a prosecutorial target on his back by refusing to accept Mueller’s enterprise as legitimate. Loudly and relentlessly he declared that the entire investigation was the outgrowth of a fraud perpetrated by Clinton operatives. Page demanded that what he calls the "dodgy dossier" itself be investigated. Potentially having only limited knowledge of the extent of the Deep State operation, it is likely Page at some point, had a 'woke' moment.
#4
"You seem to draw a distinction between a meeting, a greeting, a conversation, and you hearing a speech," said Representative Trey Gowdy.
As would I or any other above room temp IQ person. There's a reason they all use different words, Trey - you useless piece of fluff, because they ARE different
Posted by: Frank G ||
04/21/2019 11:08 Comments ||
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#5
While I am not deeply knowledgeable on the whole Deep State vs. Trump subversion efforts.
I,like a majority in America, find myself extremely piss-off that we have yet to have a serious unbiased Hillary / Obama /IRS /Clinton's / DNC Media Collusion / DNC primary election rigging/Illegal Foreign donations/Solar Power funding for donations etc. etc. etc. DOJ-FBI investigation.
All these scandals have been well documented as having been actual organized felony level crimes. Yet not 1 beltway Insider has even been to trial. They usually get to walkaway from their jobs and then get rewarded by 3rd parties for the illegal activities.
We have seen a clear attempted and failed Political Coupe/ act of treason (so far) and we must have a special counsel seriously dig into it.
By our US Constitution the The US Gov. answers to the US Citizens. It is not allowed to break laws any one of us NON-DC Players would go to jail over. We must drain the swamp before Trump and other like him meet the faith that others were dealt for bucking the their system since 1950's.
[Wash Times] This is unfortunate. The Mueller investigation gives two opportunities for both parties to come together ‐ on FISA and on law enforcement’s treatment of innocent-until-proven guilty suspects.
But politics, once again, appears to have taken precedence over the American people. What a shame.
"At Best, The FISA Application Shows FBI Misled The Court To Wiretap Trump Campaign," Investor’s Business Daily wrote back in July of 2018.
It was that FISA document that brought on the feds’ scrutiny of then-candidate Donald Trump’s campaign aide, Carter Page. The Department of Justice released a heavily redacted version of the FISA warrant that was used as justification to surveil Page.
And guess what?
Sen. Lindsey Graham put it this way: This whole FISA fiasco was but a fiasco.
"I think that the whole FISA award process needs to be looked at," Graham said on CBS "Face the Nation" back in July, 2018. "The warrant on Carter Page was supported mostly by [the] dossier that came from [British spy guy Christopher] Steele who is being paid by the Democratic Party to do opposition research ... and if you ask the FBI today how much of the dossier on Trump has been verified ‐ almost none of it. ... If the dossier is the reason you issued the warrant, it was a bunch of garbage."
Agree with Graham or not, the fact is FISA stands for Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, and the court proceedings authorized by it are to enable surveillance of foreigners believed to be spies, or on agents working with foreign powers ‐ the key word here being foreign.
#1
The very idea of a secret court would make the Founders puke. Remember whenever anti 2A people say that the 2nd Amendment only makes sense for muzze loaders those same jerks are probably fine with FISA rubber stamps and ECHELON. Boosh!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
04/21/2019 6:42 Comments ||
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#2
It is evident that the 2020 Elections need to have a Candidate like Trump to clean up the Garbage of the Democrats and their methods of providing corruption and TWO kinds of Law) the Steele Dossier paid for by Hillary ) in the United States...one for the Comeys and the Bosses and another for the ordinary non'Democrat deplorables..The duly elected but let's impeach the Constitution while we are at it...election riggers Party.
The Democrats who rig the elections and use a level of the "Law" meant only to imprach anyone who protects the Peons.
The Mueller Report for absolutely NO EVIDENCE of Russian Collusion. Trump is innocent so let's impeach him ANYWAY because Democrats simply don't LIKE him. ANY charge will do... screw the rule of Law, make it up and use that. Make it up out of Democratic Party Garbage. Make it up out of Cheese, Make it up like the whole phony "Russian Collusion" paid for by Hillary used Hillary underwear paid for by the American taxpayer. Phony Democratic Party BS coup ( Comey and FBI approved ).
Two kinds of "Law" in the United States...piss on Elections by the common ordinary Voters. Impeach Elections...get Trump and make it up. Elect Hillary and replace True with Biden. The US citizens are stupid and Deplorable. They need to elect Democt=rats who are prepared and "deserve" to tell us what to Think.
When Democrat tell you to bend over....don't think about the economy improving as soon as Obama was gone. Don't think about Mexicans wo want a free ride and ignoring the Borders and the Laws and the American way of avoiding El Jefe culture.
Wrong. Pedophilia is an unacceptable kink, and pedophiles are made as a result of an accumulation of life experiences. Someone has gone native, as it were.
[BigLeaguePolitics] Psychologist Madeleine van der Bruggen advises law enforcement on sex crimes in the Netherlands and is arguing for pedophiles’ rights.
Psychologist Madeleine van der Bruggen is an adviser to the Dutch National Police, as a supposed expert on sex crimes. She is using her position of authority to lobby on behalf of pedophiles, arguing at TEDxSittard-Geleen that they are "born" with this "sexual orientation."
"We’re talking about biology, we’re talking about sexual orientation," she said. "Something that we simply cannot change, and on top of that, everyday new people are born with the same difficulty, so its not practical to eliminate these people from society."
"They haven’t done anything wrong," van der Bruggen said of individuals who find sexual attraction to children.
The talk was given last year at the TEDxSittardGeleen conference, a spin-off of the popular Ted talks series that is organized independently. It can be seen in full here:
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The Dutch psychologist argued during her speech that more leniency is needed for pedophiles. She built her argument using emotional appeals to the audience.
"In fact, sex offenders aren’t all those violent gruesome men waiting in the bushes for children they can attack," she said.
Van der Bruggen even seemed to imply that because some pedophiles have friends, family and ties to the community that these individuals should be coddled by the system instead of punished for their acts.
Then she took it a step further and had the audacity to suggest to the audience that their fathers, husbands, and sons could very well be pedophiles.
"What if this time the offender is your neighbor, your colleague, your football mate?" she asked the audience. "What if this time the offender is your husband or your son? What if this time the police show up at your doorstep?"
She made note that pedophiles should be jailed if they have "committed a lot of offenses," but seemed okay with letting child sex offenders free if they had only committed a handful of crimes.
"We shouldn’t think about this problem only from a criminal justice perspective... Of course when someone has committed a lot of offenses and doesn’t ever intend to stop, we should punish them, but the criminal justice system is only meant to be a last resort, and we should keep it that way," she said.
After a bizarre non-sequitur about #metoo hysteria, she concluded her speech arguing that society needs to "break the taboo" surrounding pedophilia and sex crimes.
"Let’s stop with hate. Let’s stop with negative vibes in the media, and let’s stop with throwing rocks at offenders’ houses because it’s not going to take us anywhere," van der Bruggen said.
Van der Bruggen’s speech is apart of a global trend to mainstream the sexualization of children and remove social stigma for pedophiles. Drag queens are openly grooming children at public libraries, children as young as eight are being drugged for gender reassignment surgery, states are doling out millions to entities promoting child abuse, and gyrating kids are centerpieces for strip shows at bars.
Modern liberals are enthusiastically sacrificing the innocence of children on the altar of diversity and tolerance. The West will continue down the slippery slope toward Sodom and Gomorrah until progressivism is brought to an end.
#2
Be it so. This burning of widows is your custom; prepare the funeral pile. But my nation has also a custom. When men burn women alive we hang them, and confiscate all their property. My carpenters shall therefore erect gibbets on which to hang all concerned when the widow is consumed. Let us all act according to national customs.
Napier, William.
#4
I believe gays are born gay and bisexuals are born bisexual so I'm ready to believe pedophilia is also something one is born with.
Having said that, you generally can't 'fix' things we are born with so I'm not sure pedophiles are going to like the prescription to the problem because tolerating the victimization of children is not something an society can do and survive.
#5
The only pedophile offender I"d let free is one that has no offense to their record and keeps their mouth shut o that nobody knows their issues. I'd say that if people are born with the problem even psychiatrists should be forced to report them as a danger to society.
#6
well if it really is a genetic issue, deal with it eugenically. Eliminate all carriers of the undesirable trait so it doesn't get passed on to the next generation.
That being said, I doubt the bulk of pedophiles result from genetic predisposition. I think they had a sexual experience at an early age with a similarly young person and are trying to recapture the moment. Solution: since psychological treatment is pretty much useless in this instance, see solution #1 above.
Posted by: Jack Clomp4234 ||
04/21/2019 8:35 Comments ||
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#7
First questions for this ‘expert’: would you let your kids alone with a pedophile?
#9
I don't know if this is going to go away. At one time, homosexuality was considered an abomination. The it became more and more acceptable, until today, gays are a protected class. Immediately after gay marriage was established as a "right", trans became the next big thing. Now, pedophilia is seen as an abomination in today's society. Someday, we may see demands for LGBTQP rights as well.
Mind you, I don't support any of this, but given current circumstances in society, I could see it happening.
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
04/21/2019 12:12 Comments ||
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#10
I wonder if they realize that the converse truism to "they're born that way" is "they die that way".
Not that I'm advocating anything in particular...
Posted by: ed in texas ||
04/21/2019 12:21 Comments ||
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#11
Then she took it a step further and had the audacity to suggest to the audience that their fathers, husbands, and sons could very well be pedophiles.
She seems to confine the behavior of pedos to men; women as well are pedos.
She doesn't give any consideration to the victims of pedos and the harm they cause in society.
No substantiation, Skidmark. But it looks like a learnt response rather than intrinsic behaviour. Otherwise the victims would have gloried in and enjoyed it, rather than being afraid and ashamed. And in other mammal species one sees examples of homos3xuality, but not, as far as I am aware, with the immature. I suspect the good psychologist grew up reading Marion Zimmer Bradley and certain other popular science fiction/fantasy authors in her youth.
#13
I suspect the good psychologist grew up reading Marion Zimmer Bradley and certain other popular science fiction/fantasy authors in her youth.
Interest premise, nurture over nature. Some minor research of mine suggests that the late writings of Heinlein, Asimov, et.al. were sexually charged, not because of psychedelic imagery and social comment as Huxley and Ellison but simple (?) declining years dementia expressing primal systems thinking.
#14
Nature vs. nuture — precisely. My mother’s professional area of interest, so my childhood was saturated with that approach.
I always assumed those writers did it because it had become fashionable after Stranger in a Strange Land, and their editors thought it would increase sales.
#16
She doesn't give any consideration to the victims of pedos and the harm they cause in society.
Must be a democrat. Doesn't give a rats ass about the real victims but would rather manufacture 'victims' so they can blame society - or vaguely defined groups.
#17
"I don't know if this is going to go away." I don't know, it seems one of the many signs of a growing decadence, like Weimar Germany. At some point a big event will shake things up and end the naval gazing that leads to decadence, or we will be replaced by a less decadent society.
#19
My wife the psychotherapist almost had an aneurysm reading this.
She says you cannot rehabilitate a pedophile they are rabid dogs that should be shot on sight.
She has spent a number of years working with the victims and the mental damage is beyond descriptions
She said she would quit if this crap ever showed up in the DSM
[Rudaw] This is the first of a two-part series on the potential impact of the Ottoman Turkish local-election results on the geopolitics of the region.
The Istanbul electoral board offices' decision to declare the Ottoman Turkish opposition party candidate the winner of the mayoral race may seem like an event of relatively minor importance for a region that generates a disproportionately large amount of international news. But for those who monitor broad political trends of the Middle East and North Africa region, the April 17 scenes of cheering supporters of the secularist CHP's Ekrem Imamoglu in Istanbul's Caglayan district receiving the mandate hold the symbolic significance of a political earthquake.
Maybe, just maybe, the high noon of political Islam, or Islamism, has passed.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
04/21/2019 00:00 ||
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[PJ] As Democrats privately admit to themselves that there was no Russian collusion, they’ve also shifted gears to focus on the question of obstruction of justice. Despite the Mueller investigation being loaded with anti-Trumpers, even they weren’t able to say that any obstruction occurred. If there’s anything the release of the Mueller report has exposed, it’s not criminal behavior or even impeachable offenses of President Trump, but rather the hypocrisy of Democrats who are willing to call anything an impeachable offense with Trump but pretended the corruption that occurred under Barack Obama was all above board. By any reasonable standard, Congress had multiple impeachable offenses they could have gone after Obama for, but didn’t. Their turning a blind eye to Obama’s corruption completely undermines their efforts today to scandalize Trump and proves that they see two standards of justice: one for Democrats, and one for Republicans. Here are five examples of impeachable offenses that Obama should have been held accountable for, but wasn’t.
[American Thinker] For the last two years we have all been forced to endure the temper tantrum thrown by Hillary Clinton over her second Presidential campaign loss just as the spectators in a grocery store aisle watch the young mother attempt to discipline her out-of-control toddler as it thrashes itself screaming across the floor.
The American people defeated Hillary in the Democrat Primary season of 2008. The popular version of that loss is that Obama overwhelmed the party with his charm. The reality is that Democratic Party voters chose his inexperience, melanin level, and vacuous campaign of "Hope and Change" over the known petulance and criminality that they had witnessed during the 1990s by the Clinton administration and didn't want to give the keys of the republic to the Clintons again.
Hillary and Patti Solis-Doyle ran a disastrous campaign in 2008 that was only superseded in its ineptitude by Hillary's and John Podesta's campaign of 2016. Barack Obama became the candidate and then president for two terms because of the second worst presidential campaign in American history.
Hillary's overarching personal ambition was that she was destined to be President of the United States. It wasn't that she was a popular candidate. It was merely her turn.
#1
She was assured by Brennan and the Deep State fixers that it was a sure thing. Had it not been for Electoral College process, she would have made it.
#4
Hillary has the ultimate "entitlement mentality." She thought she was owed the presidency despite being a psychopath and a really poor and lazy candidate. She isn't endowed with charm and personality. She has the charm of a sidewinder.
[Powerline] The left’s obsession with Trump Russia Collusion and Obstruction has become the dead parrot sketch of American politics. It’s pushing up daisies, singing to the choir invisible. It’s an ex-scandal. No, CNN, it’s not just stunned, or pining for the fjords of decent ratings. The fat lady is singing. In fact she’s back in her dressing room starting her low-carb diet. It’s more over than your grandma’s overcooked roast beef. CNN anchors will be lucky to find work in a mime troupe, having been rendered laughable by the internet’s meme troupe. MoveOn, the left once said. No matter: this show is going to play off-Broadway probably for another five and a half years. Heh.
A sample:
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
04/21/2019 00:00 ||
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[DAWN] THE BJP government has unequivocally stated that it will repeal Articles 35-A and 370 of the Indian constitution if it is voted back into power. Article 370 provides an autonomous status to Jammu and Kashmire and Article 35-A prevents settlements or the acquisition of immovable property by non-Kashmiris in the occupied territory. These articles solely authorise the [occupied Kashmire] legislature to define "the classes of persons who are, or shall be, permanent residents of ... Jammu and Kashmire".
India’s constitutional absorption of occupied Jammu and Kashmire in the 1950s remains illegal under international law because the princely state (that includes Azad Kashmire and Gilgit-Baltistan) was to decide its own fate through a plebiscite carried out, as outlined under UN Security Council Resolution 47, under the auspices of the United Nations ...an organization conceived in the belief that we're just one big happy world, with the sort of results you'd expect from such nonsense... Commission for India and Pakistain (UNCIP) formed under UN Security Council Resolution 39. Nevertheless, today, any protections taken away from the Kashmiri people or attempts to change the demographics of Indian Kashmiree by India would seriously compromise the right to self-determination and human rights ...not to be confused with individual rights, mind you... of the Kashmiri people; it would also alter the status quo over Kashmire, violating Pakistain’s due process and international legal rights as a recognised state party to the Kashmire dispute.
Through these measures, such as its endeavour to define (or redefine) the permanent residency of India-occupied Jammu and Kashmire, India is openly violating numerous UN resolutions on Kashmire. Under UNCIP’s resolution of Jan 5, 1949, "all persons (other than citizens of the State) ... shall be required to leave the State" and "[a]ll citizens of the State who have left ... will be invited and be free to return". It is clear from this language that pending a plebiscite, any attempts to change the demographics of Kashmire or effect a transfer of its population would be illegal.
Posted by: Fred ||
04/21/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
India is mot obliged to adhere to any UNCIP resolutions. Looks like the real estate market is going to open up in the beautiful state.
Let's hope citizens get access to locations before the BJP's friends lap up all the the good ones.
[Breitbart] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a "Dear Colleague" letter Wednesday with warnings about the high prevalence and risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among transgender individuals.
"Transgender women and men are at high risk for getting HIV," stated CDC in the letter signed by Eugene McCray, M.D. and Jonathan H. Mermin, M.D., MPH, of the agency’s National Center for HIV/AIDS, Viral Hepatitis, STD, and TB Prevention.
CDC, a component of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS), stated:
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.
[American Thinker] For the last two years we have all been forced to endure the temper tantrum thrown by Hillary Clinton over her second Presidential campaign loss just as the spectators in a grocery store aisle watch the young mother attempt to discipline her out-of-control toddler as it thrashes itself screaming across the floor.
[Breitbart] The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) released a "Dear Colleague" letter Wednesday with warnings about the high prevalence and risk of human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) among transgender individuals.
