#1
Thoughts about this as well as the impeachment limbo.
The US is of 330 million people. Enough people to easily support a small number (227) members of DC house dims comfortably. If 47 percent of the pop are pro Dem, that is 155 million people who support what the 200 or so House Dems do. With that many happy campers, the Dems know they can live in comfort.
We are no longer "One Nation Under God" because God is no longer in the picture. This country is ready to be divided and conquered by godless politicians.
#2
By the way, the Dems knew if they could get articles of impeachment it would get now where. All they are trying to accomplish is one anti-Trump skirmish after another until a miracle comes there way. In 2020 their resistance will continue, it will not diminish.
The House of Reps is a lost cause unless Nov 2020 brings it back Republican. Until then, the Dems will use the impeachment to rally their base.
#3
They still haven't come to accept that Dorthy Trump has pulled the curtain on their game. Being the Washington Generals was a good paying gig, damn him!
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 11:11 Comments ||
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#10
Soon we'll have to scrap these labels, as they designate more or less the opposite of what the words really mean.
US "liberals" are reactionary thugs who seek to replace due process and other liberties with sham proceedings that yield politically-correct outcomes.
US "conservatives" are elitist radicals whose extreme market mania and anti-US worker globalism don't conserve American communities and families but undermine them instead.
A proposal: call the above Uniparty the "globalists" and Trunp and his supporters the "nationalists." That's the division that matters now.
#14
If I'm never ruled over by anyone Rick Wilson worked for I will die knowing God loves me...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/21/2019 15:40 Comments ||
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#15
^ Absolutely. He's a piece of shit
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 17:11 Comments ||
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#16
What Lex said. Evidence suggests it's all really between Nationalism and Globalism.
The plodding efforts of anti-nationalists to subvert, deny and neutralize their own countries' sovereignties and have their people surrender to a global order. This collective assaults the established conservative idea of self-contained Republics in myriad ways. What stands in the way is people like us. We appear to the globalists as radicals and idiots trying to hold on to an outdated concept because 'we are afraid of change'.
Many conservatives will fall away to the reasoning and false evidence the globalist can provide. They will make the excuse of making the republic more progressive and adapting to global realities, but really they'll be giving up, selling out.
#17
Globalism refutes the natural instincts of humankind.
Place matters.
People who do not live in a world of abstractions - ie everyone except intellectuals and Woke Warrior maroons - are attached to a place, a thing called home, and the people who make that place welcoming. Even if they are uprooted by their profession, they still consider themselves part of the soil from which they originated. The trendy BS concept of a "global citizen" is literally unthinkable to them: What would be your home? You can't say your home is the globe. Ridiculous. It's the town you grew up in, which is part of a region or state, which is part of a nation.
There is no such thing as loyalty to a trans-national "home." That's nothing more than dedication to a gravy train-- which is a lite version of prostitution.
From this comes a moral sense that's embodied by the old, simple wisdom that one's first obligation is to one's own: to the people you brought into the world.
The global citizen nonsense becomes downright terrifying in this, the moral realm. Dickens nailed it in Bleak House, in his foolish gentry character Mrs. Jellyby, who was constantly seeking to raise funds to support her charity project of a piano-leg factory (!) in Africa-- even as Mrs. Jellyby's children were going hungry.
An apt metaphor for this insane-- and morally indefensible-- trillion-dollar transfer of jobs, manufacturing capacity, supply chains and wealth from the US to China lo these past 30 years.
#18
One possible exception to the above is loyalty to the Church, or the faith. Perhaps globalism is just a substitute for the one true holy and apostolic Faith.
But the Church put any social or religious obligation above the family, which is ultimately the source of what makes a home and a place meaningful.
Christianity long ago made its peace with local and national sovereignty. Westphalian doctrine refined and solidified it.
Christ said to render unto Caesar that which is Caesar's. He didn't say, "All your wealth are belong to the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change."
#19
* But the Church did notput any social or religious obligation above the family, which is ultimately the source of what makes a home and a place meaningful.
#20
Tucker quotes a brilliant op-ed piece that sums it up - it was written by an anti-Corbyn, Labourite union leader in London, Paul Embery, who neatly spells out the anti-Globalist case. Watch the whole thing.
Curious because this piece describes the CIA asset quite differently: Zelimkhan Khangoshvili, a Georgian of Chechen background living in Germany as a political exile
#12
Bild adds the role played by the Russian diaspora in Germany in espionage, as well as a prominent part played by the Russian Orthodox Church in clandestinely serving the Kremlin abroad.
I always wondered (paranoid old bastid that I am) about the large RU Orthodox church in the village of Ramstein. After our second visit, we were assigned an attractive young translater, ha, no joke. Holding the hymnals upside down I suspect. Perhaps EC has more into on all of that (or not), he's very familiar with the region.
#13
From Dusan Makaveyev's classic, Montenegro (1981):
Marilyn Jordan to Tirke, the delicious young Serbian student age meets in the Stockholm nightclub, Zanzi-Bar: What were you doing each summer in Dubrovnik?
#14
Worse and worse. We have an article in the archive about Mr. Khangoshvili’s assassination here, in which the Kremlin accuses him of having been a fighter in the separatist group Caucasian Emirate— a vicious bunch associated first with Al Qaeda, then with ISIS that originally fought to establish a caliphate at home.p. Many of them fled Chechnya for Syria when Russia started hunting them down. The Germans figured this out once they got his real name — he filed for asylum under the name “Tomike K.” — and rejected his asylum application.
What an ugly play by the German Deep State. It’s analogous to protesting against ICE ignoring the Constitutional rights of those personable young lads of MS-13. I thought Germany’s spy masters were supposed to be intelligent.
#18
Sounds like we're about ready to bring back some of the good, old-fashioned spy novels set in Berlin that made the Cold War so much fun.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2019 11:39 Comments ||
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#19
Can't have a good spy novel without Russians but throwing in a few Chechen terrorists makes it even more fun. And now we have the Deep State which is arguably even more sinister than the old Soviet Union.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2019 11:54 Comments ||
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#20
No one recall how infiltrated the old West German government was by the Eastern Block intel services? Nothing has changed, just the actors involved.
[Politico] A former FBI analyst was sentenced to seven days in jail and a $500 fine Friday for illegally accessing a neighbor's email account in a bid to head off an apparent smear campaign against special counsel Robert Mueller.
Mark Tolson, 60, pleaded guilty in September to a single misdemeanor charge of computer fraud and abuse for his unusual effort last fall to derail eccentric Washington lobbyist Jack Burkman's attempt to obtain information to be used in sexual misconduct allegations against Mueller.
Tolson admitted he unlawfully accessed Burkman's emails in October 2018, after the conspiracy-minded lobbyist announced plans to hold a news conference to air sexual harassment allegations against Mueller.
After snooping through Burkman's account, Tolson sent screenshots of the messages and offered the password to an unspecified journalist, court filings say.
Tolson's wife, Sarah Gilbert Fox, facilitated the illicit access by providing Burkman's email password, which she had obtained for work she'd previously done for him.
At Tolson's sentencing Friday morning in Alexandria, Va., the longtime FBI employee told U.S. District Court Judge Leonie Brinkema that he acted out of a desire "to protect Director Mueller" from what Tolson believed were false allegations. "It was because of the press conference, your honor," the ex-FBI official said.
"This is actually a very serious offense," Brinkema said. "You're lucky. Your wife is lucky. The government could have prosecuted her as well."
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 06:41 ||
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#1
Tolson, huh? That's a name with a history at the bureau.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/21/2019 7:22 Comments ||
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#2
Very light sentence...
Sets a precedent for the max sentence that Assange can look to as he didnt even do any illegal entry to servers.
The charges carried a maximum of five years in prison, a $250,000 fine and three-years probation, but Kernell only spent 10 months in a minimum-security prison.
"He was released in 2011 and placed on supervised probation through 2013."
[RedState] On Friday, in response to Nancy Pelosi withholding articles of impeachment from the GOP-controlled Senate, Donald Trump decided to fight fire.
According to the President, the Speaker of the House should be impeached.
Nancy’s holding onto the articles ’cause she’s concerned a trial in the other chamber may be...brace yourself...biased and political.
Partisan, even.
Yes ‐ partisan.
Personally, I don’t understand why she’s fighting so hard for the future ‐ according to Pelosi, when the Republican tax plan passed last year, that was "Armageddon" (watch her literally proclaim that exact thing here).
Donald J. Trump
✔
@realDonaldTrump
Nancy Pelosi is looking for a Quid Pro Quo with the Senate. Why aren’t we Impeaching her?
#4
Pelosi impeached for obstructing Congress/justice by holding back the articles of impeachment from the Senate? She is in contempt of Congress. She is denying POTUS his due process. This woman is not in a position to dictate what McConnell and the Senate should do. She is totally crazy. She is an embarrassment to the country and unfit to serve.
#7
It is quite obvious to me.... that the whole Ukraine bit was a way to launder US foreign aid into politician's children's pockets.
It takes a crooked country, like the Ukraine, to properly implement that laundry.
#10
The Democrats no longer recognize anything outside of what the Democratic party controls, the President, the Senate, half of the population.
They are officially hostile towards anyone but them. Even to the point of violence at campaign events. They give Antifa more credit than the Senate or the President.
[WAR ROOM] With the 2020 election season underway, there’s been no shortage of media-driven mudslinging about presidential candidates, as well as scandals both real and manufactured.
It may, therefore, seem pretty unremarkable that a few journalists have rehashed Democratic frontrunner Joe Biden’s reputation for using his political career to turn favors for family members and business partners.
But in season and out, my mission is to stand in solidarity with the vulnerable.
That means particularly those with the least access to media megaphones. I’m no investigative journalist, but for that mission, I can play the role of truffle pig. And when it comes to Joe Biden, I smell a big one–the one scandal if any that must not be lost amid this election season’s mud.
#3
Is it really all that much worse than the sweetheart developers and politicians in California?
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
12/21/2019 11:14 Comments ||
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#4
I wonder if part of the reason the impeachment was pushed so hard was precisely to dislodge some powerful politicos who would be tainted after the inevitable mud fight.
That would allow certain youthful politicos more prominence.
Pelosi doesn't act wonderfully eager about the impeachment.
Posted by: James ||
12/21/2019 12:48 Comments ||
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[RedState] CNN just came out with a poll and it reveals why Democrats have been pushing impeachment so hard, even without facts and evidence to support their position.
It’s because they’re desperate to figure out a way to stop President Donald Trump from being re-elected.
As my colleague Bonchie reported, CNN’s latest poll is now showing that Trump is leading Democrats in battleground states after a substantial surge since October.
...So Alisyn Camerota asks Harry Enten, "Do we have any sense why" this huge move since October?
Enten explains the incredible booming economy numbers which must have been hard for CNN to report, but they did report the highest ratings in almost two decades.
Bolded part at bottom is highly interesting
[Fox News] The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court's presiding judge has sent another directive to the Justice Department, ordering officials to identify previous surveillance requests from an FBI lawyer linked to the 2016 warrant from former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
In an order unsealed Friday, Judge Rosemary Collyer asked the Justice Department to identify steps to ensure the accuracy of those filings and whether the unnamed DOJ lawyer was ever disciplined.
DOJ inspector general Michael Horowitz recently identified in a scathing public report numerous mistakes and omissions in the warrant used against Page that launched the FBI investigation into Russian meddling in the 2016 election.
The letter unsealed Friday was dated Dec. 5, which was four days before Horowitz's report was released.
Collyer had earlier this week ordered DOJ to identify by January 10 what steps it was taking to correct problems with the FISA warrant process. The FBI had promised to work with DOJ to comply.
Sources have said the unidentified FBI lawyer in question has since resigned his post, and the Horowitz report said he faces possible criminal prosecution.
In a rare public order earlier this week, Collyer strongly criticized the FBI over its surveillance-application process, giving the bureau until Jan. 10 to come up with solutions, in the wake of findings from Horowitz.
Horowitz said he did not find significant evidence that FBI agents were involved in a political conspiracy to undermine Trump's candidacy in 2016. However, the report did find numerous errors and inaccuracies used by FBI agents to obtain permission to monitor Page's phone calls and emails.
While Collyer's order earlier this week did not specify exactly what reforms the FBI needed to implement to its policies for obtaining permission to wiretap people under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or FISA, the order did say that the FISA court will weigh in on whether the reforms are deemed sufficient.
The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court deals with some of the most sensitive matters of national security: terror threats and espionage. Its work, for the most part, cannot be examined by the American public, by order of Congress and the president. Its work is mostly secret, and its structure largely one-sided.
It was also revealed Friday that Collyer, who is also a senior judge on the DC federal court, will resign her position as presiding judge on the FISA court at year’s end. Her current term was set to expire in March 2020.
Chief Justice John Roberts will replace Collyer with James Boasberg, a colleague of Collyer on the FISA court and DC federal bench. He was named to the FISA court in 2014 and is one of 11 judges on the rotating FISA court.
Sources say Collyer, 74, is leaving her presiding judge post because of health reasons.
While Collyer is stepping down as presiding judge, she will remain on the FISC until her term expires in March 2020.
Twitter is saying Chief Justice Roberts is the supervisor of Collyer in her position as head of the FISA courts so the whole FISA court operation can be seen as being under the Chief Justice..... Now the Chief Justice has to preside over any Presidential Impeachment in the Senate Trial - so should Roberts be recusing himself?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
So... cue Bud & Lou:
"Who's on First - that's the Senate trial that's not happening because the House Speaker who launched the process says the process won't be a fair process.
"What's on Second - that's the Chief Justice who ought to preside over the Senate trial but likely can't because he's the boss of Why...
"Why's on Third - that's the Judge who heads the not-secret-anymore secret FISA Court, who's quitting, but not before complaining about I Don't Know ...
"I Don't Know (that's our shortstop) = the the Junior Copy Editor at FBI and the Mysterious Weaselblower Whom Everyone Knows ..."
#3
Chief Justice John Roberts will replace Collyer with James Boasberg, a colleague of Collyer on the FISA court and DC federal bench. He was named to the FISA court in 2014 and is one of 11 judges on the rotating FISA court.
Why would Roberts appoint an Obama judge to replace Collyer? About this time everything Obama did is suspect.
#4
Roberts is the link hidden in plain sight to much of Obama's treachery. A kind of insurance policy.
Posted by: Whiskey Mike ||
12/21/2019 8:35 Comments ||
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#5
First an apology. I have no idea why spellcheck put a 's' on the end of supervisor.
2nd: So... will Roberts order the sale of a Trump Tower near the water somewhere to a slimy real estate development firm?
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 11:13 Comments ||
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#7
If Trump appoints one more Justice, I'd guess there will be a sit-down with Roberts. The court votes who is Chief Justice. Robert's isn't a lock to continue in that role. Unless he maybe explains himself and offers a thread to unravel...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
12/21/2019 13:25 Comments ||
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#9
This FISA court is just another dead skunk in the middle of the road, and everyone connected with this court smells like the aforesaid skunk. Deep state goes deep.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
12/21/2019 22:14 Comments ||
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That sound you heard was the simultaneous slamming shut of Obama/Rice/Comey/Clapper/Brennan sphincters. Rogers appears to be the only ethical man in this
[Hot Air] Earlier today Ed noted that John Durham's investigation was taking a close look at former CIA Director John Brennan and his involvement with the Steele dossier. This afternoon, the Intercept reports that former NSA Director Mike Rogers is cooperating with the investigation and has already met with Durham several times.
Retired Adm. Michael Rogers, former director of the National Security Agency, has been cooperating with the Justice Department's probe into the origins of the counterintelligence investigation of the Trump presidential campaign's alleged ties to Russia, according to four people familiar with Rogers's participation.
Rogers has met the prosecutor leading the probe, Connecticut U.S. Attorney John Durham, on multiple occasions, according to two people familiar with Rogers's cooperation. While the substance of those meetings is not clear, Rogers has cooperated voluntarily, several people with knowledge of the matter said...
Rogers’s voluntary participation, which has not been previously reported, makes him the first former intelligence director known to have been interviewed for the probe.
"He's been very cooperative," one former intelligence officer who has knowledge of Rogers's meetings with the Justice Department said.
It's a bit hard to tease out but it appears that there is some bad blood between Rogers and former Defense Secretary Ash Carter as well as former director of national intelligence James Clapper. In November of 2016, after Trump's election, the NY Times reported that Obama was considering firing Rogers from his post at NSA and was being urged to do so by Carter and Clapper...
Posted by: Frank G ||
12/21/2019 00:00 ||
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#1
Good news. Could be tide turning.
This, plus the end of Schiff/Pelosi's theatrics
= not the Beginning of the End [of the you-know-what].
But maybe the End of the Beginning.
As in 1942, perhaps great victories in store for 2020?
#4
Farming out signals collection to the Brits? Not a bad notion unless you're targeting US Citizens here in CONUS.
Whichever analyst or team, brought this non-trivial anomaly to the attention of the DNSA, thank you. To the DNSA, who had the courage to alert the Orange Man, thank you as well.
One must wonder if NSA was invited to the party by the Klingons, but declined.
#5
I recall some discussion in the media about internecine fights between 3-letter agencies sometime back. This might bode well for Flynn. Have been disappointed in Judge Sullivan's decisions up to now.
#11
Do not forget the departure of the British Director of their NSA equivalent immediately after the Trump inauguration. It was remarked on at the time how early in his term he chose to depart for “family reasons”. Seems like a desire to get away from a possible blast radius early on. It figures deeply in the five eyes mess Brennan and ValJar dragged them into.
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.
