July 21, 2018

The flowers of July jeer...

DSC05483

... we can do July! Screw all those other flowers!

If you don't like lilies, get the hell out of Madison in July!

57 comments:

Guildofcannonballs said...

"Like any guild,..." Ha ha I'm going national now: I got me my damn audien e, right 'ere at the Althouse blog.

https://amgreatness.com/2018/07/19/trumping-experts-and-russia/

Ha.

Clyde said...

Today, I was watching the local news on the TV in the break room, and some guy's face popped up briefly and I noticed that he had a toothbrush mustache that might have been trying to straggle toward the corners of his mouth but wasn't doing a very good job. "What's that dude doing with a Hitler mustache?!" I wondered aloud, and someone else in the break room agreed. Because that is the one type of facial hair that a man cannot wear unless he's an actual Nazi sympathizer: The forbidden mustache. You can wear a little pointy goatee like Lenin; you can wear a big bushy mustache like Stalin or a big busy beard like Castro, or a scruffy beard like Che Guevara. You can even wear a Kaiser Wilhelm with the points waxed up. You can wear your facial hair pretty much any way you like, after some of history's greatest monsters. But you can't wear a Hitler mustache, even more than seventy years after his death, and men probably still won't be able to in another seventy years.

Balfegor said...

I saw some lovely lilies in Dumbarton Oaks the other day, here in DC. And some lovely Tiger Lilies (oniyuri) in Shinjuku Gyoen last week . . . I think of water lilies and lotus blossoms as the "summer" flowers, but I guess lilies are up there too. The day lilies by my house have all dried up, though.

Clyde said...

Speaking of facial hair, the Golden Age of presidential facial hair was from 1861-1913. Up until Abraham Lincoln, all American presidents had been clean-shaven. Since William Taft in 1913, all American presidents have been clean-shaven. But between Abraham Lincoln and William Taft, only Andrew Johnson and William McKinley did not have facial hair. Bearded presidents: Lincoln, U.S. Grant, Rutherford Hayes, James Garfield, Benjamin Harrison. Mustachioed presidents: Chester Arthur, Grover Cleveland (x2!), Theodore Roosevelt, William Taft. And since then, more than a century of smooth(-faced) operators.

StephenFearby said...

In other news...

NYT

"...The Trump administration disclosed on Saturday [evening] a previously top-secret set of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page...

...those materials — an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Mr. Page, along with several renewal applications — were released to The New York Times and other news organizations that had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits..."

"...The fight over the surveillance of Mr. Page centered on the fact that the F.B.I., in making the case to judges that he might be a Russian agent, had used some claims drawn from a notorious Democratic-funded dossier compiled by Christopher Steele, a former British intelligence agent."

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/07/21/us/politics/carter-page-fisa.html

"Read the documents here:

https://int.nyt.com/data/documenthelper/95-carter-page-fisa-documents-foia-release/full/optimized.pdf


Reached for comment shortly after The Times published the FISA applications, Page told TheDCNF: “I’m having trouble finding any small bit of this document that rises above completely ignorance and/or insanity.”

http://dailycaller.com/2018/07/21/doj-release-carter-page-fisa/

Michael K said...

The little cactuses are blooming in Tucson. You have to look closely as the flowers are about a centimeter in diameter and are gone a day later.

They are pretty , though.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Why?

“The US State Department pulled a statement that criticized Russia's involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 just one day after President Donald Trump held a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin that appeared to show him siding with Russia over US intelligence agencies.

The State Department created a draft statement that was critical of Russia over the 2014 attack that killed 298 people, but it was never released, Foreign Policy reported.

A cached version of the US embassy's website in Moscow shows that a critical statement of Russia appeared briefly on the homepage on Tuesday before being taken down, according to Foreign Policy. A US official confirmed this account to the magazine.”

http://www.businessinsider.com/state-department-deletes-statement-criticizing-russia-over-mh17-attack-trump-putin-2018-7

Clyde said...

It took the stripey-pants boys four years to come up with a statement about something that happened on Obama's watch? Well, that's the final straw, Inga! Trump must be impeached for that!

/sarcasm

Seriously, some swamper decided to put something up online just before the summit? I question the timing.

rhhardin said...

Why?

“The US State Department pulled a statement that criticized Russia's involvement in the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17 just one day after President Donald Trump held a press conference with Russian President Vladimir Putin that appeared to show him siding with Russia over US intelligence agencies.


Russia is run by gangsters. If you're going to work with them to mutual benefit, the gangsters have to go for the deal. Trump is working on their behavior in the future, not recriminations for anything else.

Only the left thinks a recreational moral display counts more than avoiding nuclear confrontation.

Say we need Russia's help making a deal with NK.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

The US State Department has issued a statement criticizing Russia every year since the 2014 attack on Malaysian Airlines Flight 17 which killed 298 people — but not this year.

The silence came just one day after Trump was accused of siding with Putin over US intelligence agencies at a press conference in Helsinki.
Russia has long believed to be behind the attack, but this year is the first anniversary since international investigators concluded that the missile that downed the plane came from a Russian base.

The State Department was silent this year – and Foreign Policy reports that a draft statement criticizing Russia was never made public.”

https://foreignpolicy.com/2018/07/18/state-dept-mh17-ukraine-russia-netherlands-malaysian-airlines/

Original Mike said...

...The Trump administration disclosed on Saturday [evening] a previously top-secret set of documents related to the wiretapping of Carter Page...

...those materials — an October 2016 application to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to wiretap Mr. Page, along with several renewal applications — were released to The New York Times and other news organizations that had filed Freedom of Information Act lawsuits..."


Dollars to donuts they redacted the shit out of it.

Ralph L said...

Someone should geld that lily.

Seriously, letting flowers go to seed reduces next year's display.

stephen cooper said...

the best display of falling cherry blossoms I have ever seen is in the gardens out back at Dumbarton Oaks

little late (by a couple of months) for that advice this year, I guess

the leading English writer on day lilies (genus hemerocallis) is a guy called Sydney Eddison, no relation to the Zimiamvia guy, I think

the sad little two-acre pond off the edge of the main buildings at GMU used to have a pretty good summertime display of iris and lilies, no more, though, for some reason which I am sure someone, not me, knows. That being said, the next few weeks are the great apogee in the DC area of dragonflies (libellules in French, almost the only European=language word with 3 ls - that is, 3 recurrences of the letter L).

If I lived in Madison, I would head out one of these summer days to a little farm in Milton, or in Whitewater, it is 300 acres and the old farmhouse is there, with four or five new houses near it on about a half acre each, but the other 295 acres or so are pretty much unchanged. There is a pond on that farm and if I were there this afternoon I would see dragonflies with orange and blue shimmers that would make colored precious jewels seen by sharp firelight seem wan. Trust me on that.

Don't let people tell you not to use lots of adjectives when you are talking or speaking, ok?

85 years ago this year a kid who lived on that farm went to work for salary for the first time to another farm near his house and on his first day on the job he and a fellow worker were patching some rough spots on the roof of a barn and his fellow worker slipped and rolled down the roof and fell over, falling 40 feet and dying. His first day of work! The young guy must have thought the work world is a very tough place. He later survived,as a young sergeant, the Bataan death march, and in the early 70s he had just brought into his small row-house home in Janesville a little terrier, with whom I got along very well over the day or two I spent there on a family visit.

Ralph L said...

But you can't wear a Hitler mustache, even more than seventy years after his death

In the 80's, my mother had some wallpaper hung in my bathroom that had a few little swastikas, fortunately all but lost in tropical colors. I don't think it will ever be a fertility symbol again.

Birkel said...

The FISA application is poorly written and displays no logic. It's patently a cover story to spy in violation of the 4th Amendment.

narciso said...


Javelin missiles trainers and further aid count more than some perfunctory statement, that was followed by expulsion of diplomats till 2 1/2 years later


http://mobile.twitter.com/ChuckRossDC/status/10208182

Original Mike said...

Here’s the first sentence of the FISA application:

“The United States of America hereby applies to this Court for authority to conduct redacted

Sheesh.

Michael K said...

Inga got her clipping groove back.

Too bad.

Sebastian said...

The FISA application release shows unmistakably that the FBI relied on Steele.

Why is the involvement of a British spy in dishing dirt on an American campaign not a form of foreign meddling and interference?

narciso said...

Specially someone who could not verify the truth of the statements and was likely receiving dezinformatya right from fsb headquarters

Sydney said...

Another social media mob strike.. This time a Harvard staff member has an altercation with her neighbor and gets placed on leave from her job. Seems harsh just for being a neighborhood asshole.

Sebastian said...

The FISA application looks even worse than we thought.

The redactions make the FBI look even sillier than we thought.

dreams said...

Or stay out. OK.

Original Mike said...

One wonders if the NYT really wanted the FIOA request granted.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

“The FISA application looks even worse than we thought.”

LOL. Um...no.

narciso said...

Of course it does, nine years before the events, page had handled the Gazprom issue successfully, when it came to Rosneft, the carved it up between Qatari Italian and Chinese underwriters.

Original Mike said...

You’ve read it already, Inga?

narciso said...

My pet theory, was this was deripashas revenge against manafort for leaving him high and dry with a vault full of devalued montenegran aluminum, also a bank shot at those who had disdained his cooperation with the levinson case.

At least one mentioned source, Adam Wildman had toes to the dems and the foreign ministry as well as deripasha.

narciso said...

And craig p notes that deal was a dumpster fire, the Chinese disowned It,

Deripasha has since lost about 4 billion when the sanctions took effect.

Original Mike said...

The NYT repeatedly refers to the FISA application as a “wiretap” application.

Nobody tell Chuck.

narciso said...

And one investigates further, klimnik was hired from McCain's think tank, akhnetshin worked with them in Kazakhstan (on behalf of the russians) milan source d, also has ties, probably to Vauxhall cross.

Birkel said...

I read the first 50 pages of the FISA application. It's an illogical mess. The agents who wrote it must have believed the FISC was a rubber stamp.

I'm guessing that stretching the application to 412 pages made the rubber slightly more stampy.

Original Mike said...

They figured it would never see the light of day.

Inga...Allie Oop said...

Nunes is looking like more of a Trump stooge tonight than ever before, if that’s even possible, lol.

narciso said...


Good grief, Kraus only Pelosi is more deranged:

http://powerlineblog.com/archives/2018/07/first-thoughts-on-the-carter-page-fisa-application.php

Sebastian said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Sebastian said...

"They figured it would never see the light of day."

Yes. Besides the obsession to Get Trump, a sense of despair about pre-election machinations also drove the post-election FISA renewals and the Mueller witch hunt. Doubling down was in part a CYA operation.

Even with the absurd redactions, half of it is now exposed as nonsense. But so far, Mueller isn't helping either: he is charging no collusion in the Manafort case, got a minor process plea on Flynn, has charged a bunch of Russians for piddling meddling, and can only salvage his own operation with an obstruction of justice charge.

walter said...

Sebastian,
Where is the "LOL" in that?
Inga wants her LOL, dammit.

walter said...

https://www.jsonline.com/story/news/2018/07/02/watertown-police-recommend-criminal-charges-against-ex-assembly-candidate/753204002/

walter said...

Oh bother..
http://www.aei.org/publication/the-uninformed-economic-views-of-alexandria-ocasio-cortez-in-2-charts/

walter said...

LOL!

exiledonmainstreet, green-eyed devil said...

From Walter's link:

"Watertown police are recommending criminal charges against former Assembly candidate Charisse Daniels for forging signatures on her nomination papers.

In a news release, the Watertown Police Department said investigators are calling on Jefferson County District Attorney Sue Happ to file election fraud and forgery charges in the 37th Assembly District.

Daniels was featured in a CNN story last year on women across the country who decided to run for office in light of the election of President Donald Trump. She had also been been through the 70-hour training program by Emerge America, which recruits female Democratic candidates."

Sounds like Inga's kind of candidate!

Now that's worthy of a LOL!

Yancey Ward said...

Believe it or not, I read the FISA applications in less than an hour. It is 90%+ redacted, so there are about 40 pages of actual material. The bulk of the material that is redacted appears to be nothing related to Page at all- it appears in procedures, minimization, and is connect otherwise to general descriptions of what Russia is thought to do in such areas- in other words, classified means and methods. Indeed, the only portions that are unredacted are the parts related to Page.

Here is the absolute truth- all of the applications rely on the Steele Dossier and the Isikoff story from September 2016- a story that Steele himself was the source for. Those are the only two pieces of "evidence" the FBI supplied to the FISA court that could reasonably be inferred to assign probable cause that Page was a knowing Russian agent. The only other things mentioned in regards to Page are that he lived in Russia for a time, travels there sometimes as an energy consultant, and was approached by Russian agents in the past, one of whom Page himself helped to trap and convict by serving as a willing FBI informant. That last part is incongruous with designating him as a Russian agent, but is included any way as an attempt, not to exonerate him, but to tar him.

Also, if you do a page by page comparison of all four applications, there is little material added from one to the other- if you compared the applications side by side, practically every redacted section is identical in shape and length and page designations. In other words, in each of the renewals, it is apparent that the FBI got jackshit from the surveillance- there was nothing they could add to each application, and so just mostly copied the first application serially.

In addition, none of the applications told the court that the Clinton Campaign is the one who paid Steele and FusionGPS- not a single time. Indeed, the only mention in all the applications of "Candidate 2" is in the very last renewal, and that section wasn't discussing who hired the law firm, but was instead discussing some letters Page wrote criticizing the Clinton Campaign. The FBI knew who hired the law firm- they knew Steele (Source 1) was hired by Glenn Simpson (aka US citizen), and they knew Simpson was hired by a law firm- i.e. the FBI knew which law firm and thus it was the Clinton Campaign. The applications studiously avoid mentioning "Candidate 2" at every point they describe the chain of cutouts- always ending with "law firm".

Finally, it clear the FBI confirmed nothing of the Steele Dossier. At no point does it appear that Steele revealed his sources to the FBI- they are always described as "subsources"- this is FBI legalese for "we don't even know the name so that we can designate them by number".

The House Intelligence Republican memo was correct on all counts. The Democrat memo was extremely misleading- there is nothing else other than the Steele Dossier and the story Steele sourced to Isikoff.

walter said...

"LOL!"

Original Mike said...

Yes but Yancey, we don’t know what Mueller knows, lol.

gilbar said...

walter's link's chart's data shows EXACTLY WHY
WE MUST GET RID OF CAPITALISM!!!!
Since Modern Capitalism began in the 18th century: GDP per person has SKYROCKETED!
This means MORE People Buying MORE Things!
THIS is The Cause of Global Warming!
THIS is the Cause of Inequality!

Only by reducing EVERYONE (except the hard working administrators) back to STONEAGE levels of consumption will we be able to reduce the increase CO2!!!!
Only by reducing EVERYONE (except the hard working administrators) back to STONEAGE
levels of reproduction will we be able to reduce the population and reduce CO2!!!!
Once EVERYONE (except the hard working administrators) are dirt poor and destitute; EVERYONE will be Equal!
Join the Movement! Return the world back to (equally!) living in rags and in huts. Socialism is the Answer!!! Follow the lead of Venezuela!!

tim in vermont said...

Why is the involvement of a British spy in dishing dirt on an American campaign not a form of foreign meddling and interference?

Because reasons, Sir! Reasons!

Remember too, that the money Hillary paid to this foreigner was incorrectly reported as “legal expenses” in violation of the law, but there will be no investigation there, once more because reasons.

gilbar said...

Why is the involvement of a British spy in dishing dirt on an American campaign not a form of foreign meddling and interference?
Why? because They are OUR Allies!!
and by OUR, i of course mean Us Democrats

The Russians were colluding with Known Enemies of the Democratic Party!!

BUMBLE BEE said...

Yancy @ 12:37, We need to see just who signed off on this FISA crap. It reads like a Monty Python script. Steele should be prosecuted to the full extent. Donald declassifies this, the dems are toast. For a long, long time.

Michael K said...

Blogger Inga said...
Nunes is looking like more of a Trump stooge tonight than ever before, if that’s even possible, lol.


As an example of impressive stupidity, this cannot be easily topped.

As the FISA matter becomes more and more obvious as a scam, and the FBI looks worse and worse, the clueless link arms and sit down in the highway.

Michael K said...

If anyone intelligent is interested inan analysis of that FISA warrant application, here it is from CTH.

Why publicly release the FISA application? After all, even with the voluminous redactions, it is very unusual and it would have been exceptionally easy to deny any FOIA request under the auspices of national security. To highlight this question, consider how stunned Fran Townsend was at the release: “Having run The Justice Dept office responsible for #FISA The release of these documents is irresponsible & will irreversibly weaken counterintelligence & Counterterrorism investigations going forward.”

Here is where a similar, I would say parallel, release will be overlooked. Remember, it was April 2017 when ODNI Dan Coats released the 99-page FISA Court ruling/opinion on the historic 2015/2016 FISA abuse by the FBI and DOJ-NSD. That release, like this one, while also heavily redacted, seemed out-of-custom for the intelligence apparatus. Coincidentally FISA Court Presiding Judge Rosemary Collyer is a central figure in both releases.

In the 2017 FISC abuse opinion release, Judge Collyer wrote the ruling. In this 2018 FISA application release, Judge Collyer was the authorizing FISC authority granting the Title-1 search warrant. In an odd way, there’s a particular appearance of connectivity here. For those who are unfamiliar, FISA material is not subject to FOIA;


I think Judge Collyer is going to be the avenging angel when these matters are finally resolved.

Original Mike said...

”We need to see just who signed off on this FISA crap.”

James Comey, Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, Dana Boente, Andrew McCabe.

Original Mike said...

”As an example of impressive stupidity, this cannot be easily topped.”

It was based on nothing more than wishcasting. Typical.

Narayanan said...

@Yanceyward
Interested in your take on FISA dates redactions pointed out by Sundance CTH.

Yancey Ward said...

I will have to read Sundance's essay- I opened it a few minutes ago, but haven't yet read it, Narayanan. I did notice the dates were redacted last night, which is quite odd- what is secret about a date? Who knows.

Lyle Sanford, RMT said...

great pic - full of motion

Narayanan said...

I had another thought ... Could FBI 'claim' Carter Page was an asset / undercover but Russian turned him to justify FISA?