[Townhall] Government watchdog group Judicial Watch last week filed a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request with the State Department. The group believes prominent conservative journalists, public figures and those with ties to President Donald Trump were being monitored by the State Department in Ukraine under the direction of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was appointed to her post by President Barack Obama.
"Judicial Watch has obtained information indicating Yovanovitch may have violated laws and government regulations by ordering subordinates to target certain U.S. persons using State Department resources," the watchdog group said in a press release. "Yovanovitch reportedly ordered monitoring keyed to the following search terms: Biden, Giuliani, Soros and Yovanovitch."
Specifically, Judicial Watch believes the following people were being monitored:
Jack Posobiec, One America News Network Host
Donald Trump Jr., son of President Donald Trump
Laura Ingraham, Fox News Host
Sean Hannity, Fox News Host
Michael McFaul, President Obama’s Ambassador to Russia
Dan Bongino, Fox News Contributor
Ryan Saavedra, Reporter at the Daily Wire
Rudy Giuliani, President Trump's Personal Attorney
Dr. Sebastian Gorka, Former Strategist for President Trump and host of Salem's "America First" Radio Program
John Solomon, Executive Vice President at The Hill
Lou Dobbs, Fox Business Host
Pamela Geller, Political Commentator
Sara Carter, Investigative Reporter and Fox News Contributor
The FOIA includes any documents relating to the "monitoring of any U.S.-based journalist, reporter, or media commentator by any employee or office of the Department of state between January 1, 2019 and the president."
Although the watchdog group is waiting for the State Department to return paperwork outlining this specific issue, those on the list aren't surprised at the possibility.
#1
Although the watchdog group is waiting for the State Department to return paperwork outlining this specific issue, those on the list aren't surprised at the possibility.
Nor should anyone else.
Yovanovitch studied at the Puskin Institute did she? Also had an interesting string of FSU (Former Soviet Union) satellite assignments. You decide.
#3
Curious that Soros was one of the terms she was interested in. He's not running for any office...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
10/15/2019 7:33 Comments ||
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#4
were being monitored by the State Department in Ukraine under the direction of ousted U.S. Ambassador Marie Yovanovitch, who was appointed to her post by President Barack Obama.
And in other news, the sun rises in the east at Ursinum poohs is likely to be found in the woods.
[Babylon Bee] SACRAMENTO, CA‐California is being heralded as a progressive utopia after eliminating electricity entirely.
Working by candelight at his desk, Governor Gavin Newsom signed a new law that bans electricity, propelling the state into a progressive futuristic paradise. Newsom said he got the idea while experiencing the latest round of rolling blackouts in the state. He decided to make the blackouts the law of the land.
"Other, backward states still use carbon-heavy electricity, gas for heating and cooking, and wasteful air conditioning," he said proudly as people applauded around him. "But not on my watch. California has progressed beyond these archaic concepts."
The law also bans vehicles, forcing pedestrians to use innovative new horseless carriages.
Next on the legislative docket? The elimination of water-wasting toilets, to be replaced by just going on the sidewalk. A pilot program in San Francisco has been very successful, according to the homeless population there.
#1
Haha. If the Left had any brains at all, they'd take it as a lessons learned opportunity on what to do, although a lot of political domains in Florida and the Gulf Coast have had experience with the non-manmade consequences. Imagine this happening during the civil war they are so hard in seeking. Whatcha going to do when this becomes common in your big blue counties?
#2
As they move closer to mother nature new living accommodations are on the horizon. Caves of one size or another. Overcoming the issues of spiders, snakes and the most grievous issue for women, no toilet seats. Ah yes, for men a hunting we will go. High ho the Derry o away I must go.
#6
Yes, we'll all be eating nuts and berries. We might try hunting but are we gonna eat the meat raw or can we make a fire by rubbing two sticks together for cooking? Won't the smoke emit carbon? Maybe we'll all have to go vegan.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/15/2019 10:54 Comments ||
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#7
I'm afraid Mrs. Uluque will be very unhappy without ice cream.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/15/2019 11:15 Comments ||
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[NYPost] Ottoman Turkish President His Enormity, Sultan Recep Tayyip Erdogan the First ...Turkey's version of Mohammed Morsi but they voted him back in so they deserve him. It's a sin, a shame, and a felony to insult the president of Turkey. In Anatolia did Recep Bey a stately Presidential Palace decree, that has 1100 rooms. That's 968 more than in the White House, 400 more than in Versailles, and 325 more than Buckingham Palace, so you know who's really more important... has pitched his tent at New York’s glitzy Peninsula Hotel this week, where he will be dining (but not wining) American Moslem leaders on the sidelines of UN meetings.
During his 2017 New York visit, Erdogan met with then-freshman U.S. Rep. Ilhan Omar
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/15/2019 00:00 ||
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Link ||
[336094 views]
Top|| File under: Islamic State
#1
Because, to hear the left tell it, Yippie's a "moderate," and an "ally..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/15/2019 14:17 Comments ||
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[American Thinker] House Intelligence Committee chairman Adam Schiff, a California Democrat, stands at the center of the impeachment of the president scam.
And as word gets out about his real game and how he got it ‐ through a spying operation aimed at the White House that he directed, he's starting to get weirdly wobbly.
Two instances just from the weekend are starting to stand out.
First, in stark contrast to the big hullabaloo he made about hearing from the so-called "whistleblower" in Congress ahead of the planned Trump execution, Schiff suddenly doesn't think the whistleblower is so very, very necessary to testify at his hearings at all:
"We don't need the whistleblower who wasn't on the call to tell us what took place during the call," he claimed.
#3
Events are not going as planned. His directorship is looking rather doubtful. Perhaps he should contact former Congressman Mike Rogers for assistance.
#4
"... two backtracks in a very short space of time. It sounds as though Schiff is in retreat as the walls close in, hoping, just hoping everyone forgives him for his lying, which lit the fuse to the impeachment debacle, and then pays no attention to his missing witness, who, again, got the impeachment ball rolling."
Gee, sounds almost exactly like the playbook for Pissfest At The Metropole.
Or the playbook for accusing Kavanaugh of rape, er, gang rape, 'n' passive-prick-popping or whatever.
One can imagine a script - actually, Schifferbrains the aspiring West Hollywood Screenwriter probably already has a high concept pitch prepared on his laptop - a modern version of Hogan's Heroes with
- Schifferbrains in the Col. Klink role
- Nadler as Sgt Schultz
- Brennan as General Burkhalter ...
#9
When i visited Hamburg in the 90s I was surprised to find they loved Hogans Heroes. Schultz was a Bavarian stereotype that they thought hysterical. I suspect the show was filled with that sort of thing that US audience didn't really get.
[Breitbart] Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi reframes the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry ‐ and its latest development in the arrest of two associates of Rudy Giuliani ‐ as a "permanent coup" against President Trump playing out more slowly than coups he has experienced firsthand in other nations.
Taibbi’s article comes after he criticized corporate media’s framing of the Deep Stater as a non-partisan "whistleblower," despite being a registered Democrat who worked with former Vice President Joe Biden in the White House.
From Taibbi’s newsletter:
The men who are the proxies for Donald Trump and Rudy Giuliani in this story are asserting that "official channels" have been corrupted. The forces backing impeachment, meanwhile, are telling us those same defendants are obstructing a lawful impeachment inquiry.
My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.
The Trump presidency is the first to reveal a full-blown schism between the intelligence community and the White House. Senior figures in the CIA, NSA, FBI and other agencies made an open break from their would-be boss before Trump’s inauguration, commencing a public war of leaks that has not stopped.
I don’t believe most Americans have thought through what a successful campaign to oust Donald Trump would look like. Most casual news consumers can only think of it in terms of Mike Pence becoming president. The real problem would be the precedent of a de facto intelligence community veto over elections, using the lunatic spookworld brand of politics that has dominated the last three years of anti-Trump agitation.
CIA/FBI-backed impeachment could also be a self-fulfilling prophecy. If Donald Trump thinks he’s going to be jailed upon leaving office, he’ll sooner or later figure out that his only real move is to start acting like the "dictator" MSNBC and CNN keep insisting he is. Why give up the White House and wait to be arrested, when he still has theoretical authority to send Special Forces troops rappelling through the windows of every last Russiagate/Ukrainegate leaker? That would be the endgame in a third world country, and it’s where we’re headed, unless someone calls off this craziness. Welcome to the Permanent Power Struggle.
#4
No need to impeach. Just help him crater the economy and Warren (or...) wins. Though I suspect he's doing plenty to crater the economy without help - pumping bubbles which have to be close to popping.
On October 7, U.S. President Donald Trump announced a partial withdrawal of U.S. forces from Syria. Soon after, Turkish forces began moving south across the border to strike Kurdish forces which had been until extremely recently under American protection. Two days later the partial American withdrawal was upgraded to a full evacuation of all forces.
Wailing and gnashing of teeth across the American political spectrum quickly erupted, with many condemning the tactical and political aspects of the president’s decision. I’m of mixed minds:
On the one hand, the Kurds ‐ whether in Syria or Iraq ‐ have been America’s only reliable regional allies since America’s first major confrontation with Iraq back in the early 1990s. When we have asked, they have answered. Every single time. In many cases U.S. forces didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support. Without the Kurds’ assistance the overthrow of Saddam Hussein would have been far nastier affair, post-Saddam Iraq would have been far less stable, the defanging of ISIS and the destruction of the ISIS caliphate would not have happened. In Syria in specific, the Kurds habitually provided at least five times the forces the Americans did.
On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.
The primary reason American forces remain in Syria at this point is to limit Iranian penetration. That battle was lost six years ago when then-President Obama allowed the Syrian government to cross Obama’s own red line on the use of chemical weapons against Syrian civilians. Obama made it crystal clear that any U.S. military action would be small scale, focused on Special Operations Forces, and largely dedicated to backing up the Syrian Kurds. Whether under Obama or Trump, an American withdrawal has always been inevitable. It’s just taken seven years of Syrian-Russian-Iranian victories on the battlefield and the large-scale dismemberment of the ISIS Caliphate to make it imminent.
Aside from the Iranian vector, American national and strategic interests in Syria are utterly nonexistent. Syria ‐ even backed up by Iran ‐ is a military pigmy that Israel could easily shatter. If Jerusalem really wanted to, it could roll into Damascus in a long weekend. (Sticking around, of course, would be a barrel of shiv-wielding monkeys.) American interests in Lebanon are less than American interests in Syria. Jordan has been a de facto Israeli client state for years. And that is quite literally all she wrote.
The far more important fact ‐ comfortable or uncomfortable depending upon your view ‐ is that the evolving American view of Syria is really little more than a microcosm of an evolving American view of the Middle East writ large. American troop deployments throughout the region have been plunging for a decade and are now down to about one-tenth of their peak. America now has more troops in Afghanistan than the rest of the region combined, and that deployment is well on its way to a complete phase out. CENTCOM HQ in Qatar will almost certainly be closed soon (you don’t need a forward command center if there’s nothing to command). The Iraq advisory force is leaving. Kuwait, once the launchpad for multiple wars, has been reduced to lilypad status. The Turks are certain to eject U.S. forces from the Incirlik base within a year.
Within two years the total regional deployment figure will be in the low-to-mid single digits of thousands, at most one-fifth of what is there today.
#1
[The US] ...didn’t even do the heavy lifting, but instead relegated themselves to providing intelligence and materiel support.
Without intel and materiel the Kurds otherwise didn't have, there would be no "lifting" at all, heavy or otherwise.
On the other hand, the United States was always going to leave Syria. If the Americans were unwilling to commit 100,000 troops to the overthrow of Syria’s Assad government and its subsequent forcible reconstruction, then there was little reason to become involved in a decades-long, grinding multi-sided civil war.
Ding! Ding! Ding! We have a winner!
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/15/2019 11:18 Comments ||
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#2
"forcible reconstruction" only seems to work on non-tribal civilisations.
#4
Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Europeans controlled the place.
Middle East was semi-peaceful when the Ottomans controlled the place.
Europe isn't up for the task, but I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance. Let them start with Syria and see how it goes.
#9
"MBS is not a friend, nor is Saudi Arabia an ally. America used to have to put up with this sort of activity from the Saudis during the Cold War because without Saudi oil, the global trading system would have collapsed and taken the American alliance network with it. Courtesy of America’s shale revolution, those days are over."
Man, Zeihan is just hitting these out of the park.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/15/2019 13:52 Comments ||
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#10
I'm willing to give the Ottomans another chance.
Erdogan is Muslim Brotherhood in Turkey. His ultimate goal is a worldwide caliphate with himself as caliph. In typical MB style, he is willing to use the soft jihad of the law to move in a step-wise progression that doesn’t scare the frogs out of the heating pot. For the past few years we’ve watched him driving secularists and Gulenists out of public life at home and taking over all the Gulenist private schools around the world, whose excellent curriculum looks to Turkey as the center and definer of Islam. According to Russia Today, Turkey is building a second military base in Qatar, in addition to which this chronically nearly bankrupt country has bases or military personnel
...in Azerbaijan, Northern Cyprus, northern Iraq, Somalia and northern Syria.
And Turkey has been on a mosque building spree around the world — including a $100 million behemoth on 60 acres in Maryland — funded by the Diyanet, the government office of Muslim religious affairs, with an annual budget around 2 billion Euros the biggest item in the Turkish budget, plus another 100 million or so Euros in zakat extracted from current congregations “donated” to the project.
In the old days ribats were caravanserais on the Muslim trade routes, also serving the quietly invading force as fortresses and weapons depots. What odds these modern, donated Turkish mosques are not planned to serve a similar duty by the man who proudly said, “The mosques are our barracks, the domes our helmets, the minarets our bayonets and the faithful our soldiers,” and has told Turkish immigrants in Germany that "assimilation is a crime against humanity."
[VOX] A wave of would-be returnees could rekindle terrorism on the continent.
With the surprise withdrawal of US forces in Syria and the subsequent ‐ and immediate ‐ commencement of Turkish military operations against Syrian Kurdish forces, chaos has ensued. Kurdish forces are claiming that hundreds of ISIS prisoners have escaped at the Ain Issa detention facility while fighting raged nearby, while two officials told the New York Times that the US military had failed to secure 60 or so high-value detainees before its forces departed.
President Donald Trump, however, has assured Americans that his new approach would not prove a threat to the US homeland, saying, "They’re going to be escaping to Europe."
Europeans, to be sure, will not find this reassuring. Given the thousands of Europeans who went to fight for the Islamic State and the problems Europe has had with jihadist terrorism in general, they should be alarmed by the US abandonment of the Syrian Kurds and the possible escape of large numbers of ISIS prisoners. The good news is that the potential threat illustrates the counterterrorism progress made in the years since 9/11, but the end of the US role in Syria is clearly bad news.
Europe has a painful record when it comes to jihadist terrorism, suffering repeated mass casualty attacks in the post-9/11 era, including an ISIS-orchestrated set of strikes in Paris in 2015 that killed 130 people. European states, however, have made strides on this front, bolstering intelligence collection and sharing, toughening up their laws, and otherwise improving counterterrorism measures. The latest crisis in Syria highlights the need for Europe to continue its aggressive counterterrorism policies, improve how it handles terrorists in jail, and develop a more coherent set of policies to handle suspected terrorist detainees.
#3
Author: Daniel Byman is a professor in the School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University and a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution. This essay draws on his new book....
Typical of our fake "journalism" that, instead of doing real reporting-- like Thomas Wictor @ThomasWic@social.quodverum.com, who has actually been observing this war in situ, on the ground, and who knows what the hell hes talking about-- they ask an academic to speculate and build an entire 5,000+ word article about a hypothetical event that he attributes to Trump but has zero evidence for.
So instead of clear reporting and fact-based analysis we get more "I can't verify this but remember: OrangeMan Bad"
Clowns.
Stop calling what these outlets do "journalism." Nothing of the sort.
#5
It's only a nightmare for Europe because they don't have sense enough to secure their borders.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
10/15/2019 11:06 Comments ||
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#6
If Europeans are so concerned, let them deploy their own troops in Syria.
If they don't, we can only conclude the whole thing is a tempest in a teapot.
Although I am deeply enjoying the rank hypocrisy of the far left outraged that peace is breaking out and endorsing the military-industrial complex that they so long vehemently opposed.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/15/2019 12:30 Comments ||
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#7
If only there was a modern industrialized nation with skin in the game near to that region that could do something....
#8
Given the thousands of Europeans who went to fight for the Islamic State and the problems Europe has had with jihadist terrorism in general, they should be alarmed
Yes, it's all good fun playing both ends against the middle until the lone wolves start coming home. As the saying goes, "Ya get what ya play for..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/15/2019 13:36 Comments ||
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#9
Europe just pulled their troops out, over 1,000, leaving the 50 US troops without any support. The news wont tell you they had an ODB and a couple A teams and that's all there...
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/15/2019 15:07 Comments ||
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#10
ODB = Operations Detachment Bravo, operations and planning cell. Can have one or more Operational Detachments (ODA's) attached. Usually led or commanded by a Major.
[Jpost] Syrian army units loyal to Bashir al-Assad entered the Kurdish town of Tall Tamr near the Ottoman Turkish border on Saturday.
The abrupt US withdrawal from the eight-year Syrian war, and the potential return of the Syrian army to the Kurdish-controlled northeast, are major victories for Syrian Hereditary President-for-Life Bashir Pencilneck al-Assad Light of the Alawites... and his allies Russia and Iran.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife ||
10/15/2019 03:42 ||
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[336099 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
You fund the subjects that result in high paying jobs (return on investment for taxpayers). That gets rid of 90% of the idle hands on both the student and faculty side. The rest can go to trade school to learn a useful skill.
#5
An Arizona resident has to pay to go to ASU, yet illegals and dreamers get to go for free... Please bring common sense to AZ... When the Alum society calls and askes for funding I direct them to Mexico..
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/15/2019 14:55 Comments ||
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#6
Who wants to fund a course in 'African Studies' for a gal who won't even go to Africa later ?
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] SACRAMENTO, CA‐California is being heralded as a progressive utopia after eliminating electricity entirely.
[Breitbart] Rolling Stone contributing editor Matt Taibbi reframes the House Democrats’ impeachment inquiry ‐ and its latest development in the arrest of two associates of Rudy Giuliani ‐ as a "permanent coup" against President Trump playing out more slowly than coups he has experienced firsthand in other nations.
This day was always going to happen.
[VOX] A wave of would-be returnees could rekindle terrorism on the continent.
