The coming release of a secret House memo, hotly sought by conservatives, will intensify the great muddying of the Russia investigation in the public's mind.The first metaphor is "muddying." The memo isn't making anything clear, just part of a strategy to disorient and confuse.
Why the memo matters: Trump's allies are betting that when all is said and done — and when special counsel Bob Mueller has completed his report — the American people will be so thoroughly disgusted with everyone that the political outcome is a wash.
I have been flooded with email from conservatives who have been ignited by the #ReleaseTheMemo campaign that has flourished online, fed by Fox News.
That smoldering fire ignited yesterday after the House Intelligence Committee voted along party lines to release the memo, with the final decision up to President Trump....
Last night, I saw how hot the House was burning when I interviewed Rep. Adam Schiff of California, the Intelligence Committee's top Democrat....
The second metaphor is water. There's a "flood" and maybe all the confusing mud will just be resolved by declaring the whole thing "a wash."
Third, there is fire, and that's just political fervor. The water could take care of the fire as well as the mud.
When did we start using "wash" like that, to mean "A balanced outcome; a situation or result which is of no net gain or loss"? The OED has that meaning only as a draft addition. It calls it "U.S. colloq." with the first usage in 1976:
1976 National Observer (U.S.) 10 Apr. 5/4 If Humphrey were the more Democratic nominee, it would be more or less of a wash, because Humphrey is an old Washington hand too, and he carries many of the same scars as Ford.By the way, did you know the word "wash" can refer to a measure for oysters and whelks? "Each smack takes about 40 wash of whelks with her for the voyage" (1879). What's a "smack"? Some kind of woman? No, the "her" is for a ship — "A single-masted sailing-vessel, fore-and-aft rigged like a sloop or cutter, and usually of light burden, chiefly employed as a coaster or for fishing, and formerly as a tender to a ship of war."
Oh, the things we are learning today. I'm so glad I have existing tags for "mud" and "mollusks."
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«Oldest ‹Older 201 – 237 of 237Francisco D,
An economics professor at my B-School told us (quoting someone else, doubtless) that to understand the market one should not study economics, but abnormal psychology.
In other disappointing news for lefties, a founder of Hamas has died from an accidental self-inflicted gunshot wound.
One less potential immigrant being beckoned by the poem on the Statue Of Liberty.
No one tell Jim Acosta.
the rumor mill is full of good news
For one, none of our foreign creditors and suppliers (e.g. "green" sources) have stopped payment and denied us access, yet. Also, the performance of Fannie/Freddie part deux a.k.a. Obamacare, was exposed before it superheated the economy. So, there is cause for optimism, but corruption and dysfunction are still clear and progressive risks. As are the social justice adventures throughout Africa, Middle East, and Eastern Europe; and excessive immigration and Planned Parenthood are direct threats to America, her People, and our Posterity's viability.
The rumor mill is re corporate earnings reports.
Granted, its possible that the recent rapid run-up merely anticipated that.
Of course, I don't really know what a "memo" means. Glenn Greenwald has suggested that it is essential to declassify the evidence behind the memo as well. Of course, that might be a lot riskier in terms of declassifying things that we can't afford to declassify, and of course, Glenn Greenwald doesn't care.
But he may have a point: We need to know that whatever is in the memo is reliable, or the Democrats' memo will just say the opposite.
“But since, we have very strong evidence that the DNC hack was an inside job...”
What is the evidence?
The evidence pointed out in The Nation (hardly a hotbed of conservative or pro-Trump conspiracy theorizing) back in August 2017 -- the metadata points to a local copying of the files on to an external drive, rather than a hack and download via the Internet. The time zone information puts the recipient machine in the Eastern Time Zone, while the speed was too high for any usual consumer ISP in the Eastern Time Zone (but perfectly reasonable for USB).
Now, of course, it isn't physically impossible to get Internet transfer speeds fast enough to cover the transfer, and it isn't physically impossible for a foreign computer to be set on Eastern time. So while the far most likely scenario is a copying to a thumb drive, and a hack from an institution in the Eastern time zone is not entirely incredible, a hack from overseas isn't actually impossible.
But as the medical aphorism says, if you hear hoofbeats, think horses, not zebras. The local leak is the horse. A hack from someone with an institutional-class high-speed Internet connection in the Eastern Time Zone is a zebra escaped from the zoo or a circus. And the Russian hackers theory is a downright kiang.
Rumor mill says unusual security precautions going on, for a SOTU speech.
Threats received or detected.
We know from history that J Edgar Hoover was corrupt, a doer of the unconstitutional, and a blackmailer, he died in office in 1972. Then Grey took over with Mark Felt as assistant and he engineered a leaking coup against Nixon when he should have publicly indicted him for some crime if applicable, a bad deed is not remedied by another. So the FBI has been corrupt from the beginning to 1976. Then came the cheating FBI crime lab liars. The anthrax case injustice. So it is fair to ask, at what point in time did the FBI decide to become honest? What evidence can they offer to support that they did in fact become a lawful organisation? Now we have the present drama, if the FBI did one thing wrong in the "Collusion" matter, why should the whole lot not be s***canned.
“But he may have a point: We need to know that whatever is in the memo is reliable, or the Democrats' memo will just say the opposite.”
Yes indeed. Without supporting documents, it’s just a story from Nunes and the White House. BTW, why did Nunes refuse to answer when he was asked if he coordinated with the White House in creating this “memo” of his.
@Inga,
why did Nunes refuse to answer when he was asked if he coordinated with the White House in creating this “memo” of his.
Of course, the House Repubs on the Intel Committee did. It's the President who ultimately has to de-classify the intel sources referenced in the memo. Do you think that the House would release a purported blockbuster like the memo & not co-ordinate with the WH? That would be political insanity of the highest order!
So, do you think Republican Congressman co-coordinating with a Republican President is "collusion"? I think it's ordinarily called "politics".
Coordination before the memo was even begun or during the creation of it, not after its been completed. We all know that the President has to declassify it after its completion and before releasing to the public.
“Of course, the House Repubs on the Intel Committee did. It's the President who ultimately has to de-classify the intel sources referenced in the memo. Do you think that the House would release a purported blockbuster like the memo & not co-ordinate with the WH? That would be political insanity of the highest order.”
The Mueller Investigation - like the River Platte - a mile wide and an inch deep.
This is what I’m talking about YH,
“The Republican chairman of the House intelligence committee refused to answer when a colleague asked him if he had coordinated his incendiary surveillance memo with the White House, The Daily Beast has learned.
During Monday’s contentious closed-door committee meeting, Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat, asked Nunes point-blank if his staffers had been talking with the White House as they compiled a four-page memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses over surveillance of President Trump’s allies in the Russia probe.
According to sources familiar with the exchange, Nunes made a few comments that didn’t answer the question before finally responding, “I’m not answering.”
https://www.thedailybeast.com/devin-nunes-wont-say-if-he-worked-with-white-house-on-anti-fbi-memo
The FBI has already reviewed the House report and no inaccuracies were identified.
Duh.
The House Report is a summary based on FBI/DOJ/NSA/IG information.
Thats why Schiff-ty and the dems are crapping bricks and tried to hide every single fact that has emerged.
But that little game is over. House Report this week, massive IG Report in Feb.
Mueller better get his team of dems moving more quickly if he hopes to bury all the other stories.
"...sked him if he had coordinated his incendiary surveillance memo with the White House"
Thank you Admiral Rogers for letting Trump know he was being illegally spied upon and for letting Nunes know about the corrupted Presidential Daily Briefs which Nunes clearly reviewed in the White House SCIF.
That started us on the road to discovery of how LLR Chucks lefty allies compketely corrupted and weaponized the govt.
While we're on the topic of delusional lefties... saw a bumper sticker today said "Billionaires can't buy Bernie". Must not have heard about Bernie's lakefront purchase after his "failed campaign".
sheesh
I can’t imagine rooting for the use of the FBI to remove a political opponent from office. How low can one go?
Can't wait to read the memo. And Adam Schiff is a smarmy tool.
Now, of course, it isn’t physically impossible to get Internet transfer speeds fast enough to cover the transfer,
The network path would have to have been provisioned, meaning that there would be a paper trail.
Two Senior FBI officials have now reviewed the Republican staff memo, alleging abuses of government surveillance programs during the 2016 election, a source familiar with the matter tells Fox News, adding that the officials “could not point to any factual inaccuracies.”
I don't remember people defending Nixon they way Inga is defending the FBI, but I am sure it happened.
The investigation isn’t just about Russian. Watched Fox News with Brett Baier, first time in forever. They commented that the investigation is going into the Trump business and deep into the family finances. I’m guessing the sainted Mueller knew that the Russian collusion story was trumped up but used it as cover to go elsewhere. Funny how we aren’t allowed to give him the Ken Starr treatment.
And the WI AG is going DAMN! I wish I thought about bringing In the big guns!
@Inga,
@Inga,
During Monday’s contentious closed-door committee meeting, Rep. Mike Quigley, a Democrat, asked Nunes point-blank if his staffers had been talking with the White House as they compiled a four-page memo alleging FBI and Justice Department abuses over surveillance of President Trump’s allies in the Russia probe.
I say again: so what? Nunes is being rude to a fellow House member, that's it. That's not crime nor unusual. If there's something here that's even morally objectionable, much less illegal, then spell it out, because I don't see it.
I simply fail to see what's the problem with co-ordination between a Republican controlled House & a Republican controlled WH. On anything. That's what we want our politicians to do -- work with each other, right?
"I simply fail to see what's the problem with co-ordination between a Republican controlled House & a Republican controlled WH. On anything. That's what we want our politicians to do -- work with each other, right?"
The lefties take time out from coordinating democrat political campaigning and the weaponization of our national intelligence and investigatuve agencies against republicans to complain about the constitutionally mandated congressional oversight committee chairman performing his constitutional oversight duties by properly reviewing secured classified documents in a proper SCIF as the law requires.
Discuss.
Hey Inga--
Close your eyes and repeat after me:
"I believe in fairies! I do! I do!"
Clap your hands...and Tinkerbell will pull through.
Dems sound desperate. It is not a good look.
Clap your hands like a Pelosi-Schiff-Colbert trained seal.
arf arf arf!
@Kelly,
They commented that the investigation is going into the Trump business and deep into the family finances. I’m guessing the sainted Mueller knew that the Russian collusion story was trumped up but used it as cover to go elsewhere.
The question here is whether the American electorate will stand for taking out Trump via a "fishing expedition" rather than "here's the specific charge we tasked with investigating & here's what we found".
My guess is that the answer for the Repubs & many of the Independents will be "No". The reason why is that both of those groups know that HRC could under no circumstances withstand the same sort of "fishing expedition" against her administration, had it come to pass. So both candidates would have been found wanting. But, wanting by who? Does American democracy have to explain its choices to the Deep State to see if they pass muster?
I say this to my liberal friends, & they are not happy to hear it: if Trump gets removed from office, every T must be crossed & every I dotted. If not, you're apt to find out just what 300 million guns can do, & it ain't gonna be no "Benedict Option".
Hillary used a private server while Secretary of State, so she could fill her personal family foundation, (a fake charity), with international cash. (Russians) The FBI and Obama's DOJ let her do it.
While reading through the earlier comments here, it occurred to me that former President Obama has been extremely low profile the last few weeks as this whole situation heats up. Am I missing something? I haven't seen a single news item about him or comment from him at all for a couple of weeks now. Nothing.
Maybe Mueller isn't the target of Team Trump; maybe it's Comey. He was in charge of the FBI while a lot of this happened. The Office of the Inspector General was charged (at the request of the Democrats) with reviewing Comey's behavior in connection with the 2016 election. Horowitz's office hasn't leaked much yet, unlike Mueller's. I wonder if Comey should be nervous.
Sally Kohn - This is how the leftwing brain works. Point and laugh.
So the FBI has been corrupt from the beginning to 1976. Then came the cheating FBI crime lab liars. The anthrax case injustice. So it is fair to ask, at what point in time did the FBI decide to become honest?
And then there was Ruby Ridge, an already-trumped up case by ATF, where the FBI gave an illegal shoot-to-kill order (called murder if any of use were to do it) to a sniper who then shot and killed. And of course Waco, with again hyped up charges used as pretext to go all military attack against a disfavored group, ultimately leading to an inferno of death.
"On Monday, the committee voted to make the Democratic memo available to all House members – but not the public. Conaway said he was open to making it public after House members have a chance to review it.”
Here is what appears to have happened. Over much of the last year, Rep Nunes has been building evidence of what he sees as corruption in the DoJ and FBI. As a member of the Gang of 8, he has the clearance to see almost anything (including those Obama PDBs, the FISA warrant applications, FISA opinions, etc).As a result of his investigations, he drafted a menu that he submitted to his committee several weeks ago. The committee voted, along party lines, to make the memo available to the entire House in their SCIF. Many, if not most, of the Republicans, availed themselves of the opportunity to read the memo there, as did maybe a dozen curious Democrats. The next step was to vote to release the memo to the public, which was done yesterday. It was then hand carried over to the White House, that has 5 days to approve, or disprove release to the public, and what needs to be redacted, if anything. Meanwhile, the DoJ and FBI had requested access to the memo, presumably so that they could better their defense. But since their malfeasance was the subject of the memo, this was refused, until a couple days ago, right before the vote to send the memo to Trump for declassification, at which time Dir Wray of the FBI was invited by Nunes to view the memo (still in the House SCIF). As we know, the next day, he fired his #2, Dep Dir McCade. Now, that the Executive Branch now has a copy (after it was walked to the WH), both the DoJ and FBI were allowed to send someone to read it, and see if they could find any discrepancies with the underlying data. It is believed that since the memo was primarily related to FISA, the people sent were the heads of their respective national security divisions. Apparently, neither could find anything wrong with the memo. As noted, Trump has 5 days to review the memo. He could do it faster. Could even have done it but today, except that today was the day he gave his first SOTU address. Maybe We'd or Thurs, but it is thought more likely Friday, so as not to walk over his SOTU address.
Meanwhile, the pencil necked leakomatic, Nunes' Dem counterpart, Adam Schiff, wrote his own counter memo, and apparently, maybe, presented it to their committee at the same meeting that authorized Nunes to send it to the WH. This is where things get a bit murky. Schiff seems to have given the impression in interviews after the meeting that he had proposed his counter memo for declassification at the same time as the Nunes memo. The problem there is that the Republicans, at that point had not yet seen Schiff's memo. In any case, a vote was taken to run the Schiff memo through the same process of declassification that the Nunes memo had gone through, which means a couple weeks in the House SKIF, for viewing by any interested member thereof, followed by another committee vote, and then possibly on to Trump at the White House for declassification and release to the public. Just like what was done with the Nunes memo.
The problem for Schiff is that he is running maybe two weeks behind Nunes. If he had been planning ahead, he would have had his memo ready when Nunes submitted his to their committee in order to start the declassification and release process. He didn't. I think that the 2 week delay will turn out to have been a major screwup on the part of Schiff, because the Nunes memo will be old news by the time that the Schiff memo is finally released to the public. I think that it will be too little and two late to seriously impact Nunes' meme of DoJ/FBI corruption at the highest levels. Moreover, it may well be overshadowed by the upcoming release of the DoJ OIG investigation results due about the same time. Plus, it is expected that Schiff threw in a lot of classified information as a poison pill, making declassification problematic, absent signicant redactions.
It should be interesting.i
It would seem like, you know, if the Democrats wanted to get to the bottom of the hack and pin it on Putin and Trump, that they would have let law enforcement look at the servers.
Corey Booker doesn't want the memo release. He must be afraid it contains nothing.
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