Althouse: At the Thursday Night Cafe...

August 30, 2018

At the Thursday Night Cafe...

... you can talk your way to Friday.

60 comments:

mccullough said...: Larry Fitzgerald is by far the best person at McCain’s funeral.

It would be great if our politicians were a tenth as good at their jobs as our athletes are.; 8/30/18, 9:01 PM
mockturtle said...: Yes, Fitzgerald is not just a great football player but a man of good character.; 8/30/18, 9:07 PM
Birkel said...: Now do the worst person.; 8/30/18, 9:26 PM
JackWayne said...: 34 year old Aaron Rodgers gets $100 million guaranteed for 4 more years. That’s insane.; 8/30/18, 9:30 PM
MayBee said...: Larry Fitzgerald is also so very handsome.; 8/30/18, 9:45 PM
buwaya said...: Limbaugh, today, goes where he hasn't before.
This is very "Q"-like, which is unlike him.
He is partisan, but not paranoid. I am paranoid, so I can tell.
Based on my paranoid senses, I suspect he knows something.

What Dark Secret

"...Again, there’s something about all of this that the longer it goes on, the more incredulous I am at it. When you realize the depth, the planning, the number of people involved in this...
...
... they must at some point in the 2016 presidential race, they must have been really scared about something.
They had to have been very deeply troubled about something to arrange and do all this."
...
Everybody is slowly starting to realize that prevailing at the ballot box may not even mean that much, as is evidenced by what happened in 2016.
...
Something scared the hell out of these people in the deep state. Something that we haven’t even contemplated yet."; 8/30/18, 9:52 PM
Bay Area Guy said...: Yeah, I like Larry Fitzgerald too. He ain't one of those kneeling weasels.; 8/30/18, 10:07 PM
Bob Boyd said...: @ buwaya

Any ideas?; 8/30/18, 10:07 PM
Two-eyed Jack said...: I watched Biden's eulogy for John McCain today. What struck me is the blindness of a veteran politician to the tectonic changes that have fundamentally changed politics.

Biden, of course, praises bipartisanship and comradeship across party lines. At one point he says

"The Senate was never perfect, John, you know that. we were there a long time together. I watched Teddy Kennedy and James O. Eastland fight like hell on civil rights and then go have lunch together, down in the Senate dining room."

What is remarkable about this is that he does not even seem to notice that both Kennedy and Eastland were both Democrats. There was a time when both parties had both conservative and liberal wings, so Senators were always caucusing and lunching with ideological opponents. Before the Civil Rights era, the Democrats were a coalition of Big-city ethnic and Southern racialist elements. Over the last 50 years the parties have realigned so that the most conservative Democrat was finally more liberal than the most liberal Republican only rather recently. Biden lived through this (and pushed it along at times), but he doesn't seem to understand what happened, yet this is what is driving the lack of comity. I view this as one way in which the Civil War has lingered in American politics for both ill and good.; 8/30/18, 10:10 PM
traditionalguy said...: As I recall, Hillary screamed that they would all hang if Trump won. She knew what was going to come out if the Military Intelligence guys who had picked Trump to win decided to clean house. What comes next will be incomprehensible level of disclosed evils and corruption. If the Catholic Papacy does that stuff and gets away with it for hundreds of years until today, why would the other world organizations based in the same Papal rulership model of control over its victims not have been doing the same things.

The truth is on the loose.; 8/30/18, 10:12 PM
traditionalguy said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/30/18, 10:18 PM
traditionalguy said...: As for Songbird, he was that difficult case of a half good man who had a need to be his Mr. Hyde other half. The Soros/Clinton/ Obama gang used him and he enjoyed every minute of duping everyone with his fiercely loyal hero facade cover.; 8/30/18, 10:18 PM
buwaya said...: "Any ideas?"

No. Go read Q, but there is no way to know what is true or what is disinformation.
The only thing for certain is that we don't have access to information about the stakes of this conflict, and we don't even truly know the players.

We assume with our modern communications and media and internet that we know what is going on, the nature of the power struggles. But the truth is that we don't even understand reasonably well what went on decades ago. And we may never know.

Secrets are much better kept than we assume.; 8/30/18, 10:19 PM
traditionalguy said...: Buwaya seems to understand that the Julian Assange actions have likely opened up pandora's box on Intelligence files on the CIA activities since 1945. That means disclosure of the CIA's Drug Rings, human trafficking rings and the peadophilia for blackmail for control rings. And likely it also means that similar too the corrupt FBI and DOJ at top levels, these CIA criminal complexes were run from the highest level of DC politicians, including our Presidents.; 8/30/18, 10:30 PM
William said...: Hitler committed some monstrous crimes. They all came to light although belatedly. I don't think we know a fraction of the crimes committed in the Soviet Union and Red China. I read somewhere that only three people were ever convicted of the crimes committed by the Pol Pot regime. I would recommend to all those who enjoy mass murder to do it for a Communist cause. You have an excellent chance of dying in bed and being given a state funeral......The Islamic mass murderers have a bad press and an extremely high mortality rate. I don't think any group in history committed more murders to less opprobrium than the Communists,; 8/30/18, 10:41 PM
Bob Boyd said...: How about this for a grand scale conspiracy theory?

In 1945 the US dropped atomic bombs on Japan to show them that everything had changed. Japan saw that it was so and surrendered.
In 2008 China dropped a bomb on our financial system to show us that everything had changed. Those in power saw that it was so and surrendered our sovereignty without a fight.
The Chinese plan was to gradually do to the US what we did to Japan. Remake our country in their own image. Evolve America into a two-tier society with a one-party, socialist system. The top people in both parties were carrying out the plan.
Then along came Trump, who didn't know and who couldn't be counted upon to go along if he found out.; 8/30/18, 10:45 PM
Yancey Ward said...: Buwaya,

I still think that they plotted against the Trump Campaign because they were convinced Clinton was going to win and win big. I think the plan was to destroy Trump and the Republican Party after the election with Clinton in firm control. I think they believed all the polls, and expected to win, at a minimum, the presidency and the Senate with a good chance at the House, too. About a 100,000 people in WI, MI, and PA put a wrench into the works.

Why I do I believe this? Because it was apparently so ineptly done- people truly worried about crimes coming to light would not have been this fucking incompetent- they never expected Trump to win.; 8/30/18, 10:57 PM
Ray - SoCal said...: I view what happened as Obama playing Chicago Rules at a national level. Everyone assumed Hillary would win, and everyone knew she kept track of those that helped and hurt her. And nobody thought Trump could actually win.

I’m surprised at the fight against Trump since he was elected. The slow pacing of confirmations is amazing.

The rise of popularism in Western Countries has surprised me. Especially since it’s winning. Historically popularism has not gained power in the us. Trump is appealing to the non elites, and walking the talk. Most politicians once elected forget their campaign promises.

And Trumps cutting back of the administrative state is a first, I hope it’s continued for a long time. Politicians talk of it, but to actually do it?

The use of lawfare against Trump is terrifying. Palin was an earlier victim. I hope something is done to stop this. The Democrats are so lucky the Republican don’t do lawfare. Until they do, I don’t think it will stop.

If Trump manages to peel away a slice of the Black vote, it will for force the Democrats to change if they want to be elected.

Soros and Steyner money are forcing the Democrats more left.

Higher education is having huge issues.

Pensions are another ticking time bomb...

Trump is forcing huge changes in the internationally order. NAFTA is just the start.

So many Overton windows are being shattered by Trump! And his technique is getting many positive results.

I did not expect Trump to get as many positive results as he has. What a nice change from our last couple of Presidents!; 8/30/18, 10:59 PM
narciso said...: It's possible, although considering when Lehman collapsed may be another party was involved, certainly some economic warfare was responsible.; 8/30/18, 11:03 PM
narciso said...: The company is not terribly competent, rather than deliberately malevolent Fidel certainly fooled them, Nasser probably as well as saddamm.; 8/30/18, 11:16 PM
narciso said...: You can probably add qaddaffi to that list, when they sent Edwin Wilson then, they may not have considered what might result.; 8/30/18, 11:33 PM
Jon Ericson said...: Google removed this from search; 8/30/18, 11:39 PM
StephenFearby said...: I've been wondering why the videotape of Steel's London deposition hasn't landed yet on Grassley's desk. Now I know why (I don't usually read Fox News):

The first part of Grassley's July 25th letter to Gubarev’s lawyer in the USA:

Valentin Gurvits, Esq.
Boston Law Group, PC

Re: Deposition of Christopher Steele in Gubarev et al. v. BuzzFeed, Inc., et al., 0:17-cv60426
(D. Fl.)

Mr. Gurvits:

According to press reports, Christopher Steele was recently deposed as part of the
ongoing litigation between your client, Mr. Gubarev, and BuzzFeed.1

The press reports further indicate that his videotaped deposition was designated as confidential under the Amended Protective Order in place in Mr. Gubarev’s lawsuit. As you know, paragraph 16 of that Amended Protective Order specifically includes a process for the parties to disclose material designated as confidential in response to a request by a Congressional Committee.2

Accordingly, please produce to the Senate Committee on the Judiciary the transcript and video of Mr. Steele’s deposition, as well as any exhibits used during the deposition and all other discovery materials received from Mr. Steele..."

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y9p2adhv

August 7, Washington Examiner:

'...Gurvits told the Daily Caller that he will comply. “My client has instructed me from the very beginning of this lawsuit to fully cooperate with all U.S. government requests,” he said.

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y86rjh9l

So what's the hold up?

August 9, Fox News:

"...The videotaped deposition of David J. Kramer, confidant of Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., is sealed as well. Kramer pleaded the fifth before Congress but was deposed in the Gubarev case."

'...In a statement to Fox News, [another] Gubarev attorney [from a different law firm] Evan Fray-Witzer said his client is happy to work with Grassley, writing: "From the start, Mr. Gubarev has been adamant that he would cooperate with any request for information from the United States Government and so it is our intent to comply with the request from the Senate Judiciary Committee if we're permitted to do so."

... "Under the terms of the protective order, however, we were required to notify Mr. Steele's counsel and Mr. Kramer's counsel of the request and give them the opportunity to ask the Court to block the government's request, which we've done. We don't know if they intend to file anything with the Court. If they choose to do so, then we will wait for instructions from the Court on how to proceed."

Fray-Witzer noted to Fox News that Kramer's attorney must be notified about the committee's request for Steele's deposition because "Kramer's testimony was discussed at the Steele Deposition and Kramer's testimony is also subject to confidentiality."

...Next up for a videotaped deposition in the Gubarev litigation against Buzzfeed and Christopher Steele is Glenn Simpson, co-founder of Fusion GPS.

Fray-Witzer said, "We expect the deposition to take place before the end of the month, as ordered by the Court."'

https://preview.tinyurl.com/yan3zotx

Can't say that Evan Fray-Witzer doesn't have a cheeky sense of humor:

ABA Journal 3/30/2017
Lawyers mimic defendant BuzzFeed in motion with clickbait heading and adorable kitten photo

“We try to keep our filings with the court interesting, though this is about as interesting as we’ve gotten,” Fray-Witzer told Law.com. “We take the case very seriously, but it was hard to believe that even BuzzFeed was serious about this motion. Rather than get annoyed about it, we decided to inject a little levity. And a kitten.”

BuzzFeed was not amused. “We’re surprised by the plaintiffs’ desire to make light of this matter, and we are confident in our motion to dismiss,” said spokesman Matt Mittenthal in an email to Law.com.'

https://preview.tinyurl.com/y94hqkvw; 8/30/18, 11:43 PM
Francisco D said...: "I still think that they plotted against the Trump Campaign because they were convinced Clinton was going to win and win big. I think the plan was to destroy Trump and the Republican Party after the election with Clinton in firm control.

I somewhat disagree on the latter point.

Hillary wanted to destroy the competition, being the totalitarian she is. She needed tame Republicans to maintain the facade of a two party democracy. Trump is anything but tame, Hence, they need to destroy him and allow the GOPe to return to power.

The shit will really hit the fan after the midterms if Trump is able to go after the Deep State. They will fight furiously.; 8/30/18, 11:49 PM
narciso said...: Regardless of which bill:

https://www.google.com/amp/s/amp.news.com.au/finance/economy/world-economy/south-african-bank-says-customers-must-honour-home-loan-payments-even-if-land-is-seized/news-story/dff832edcbf1672c060f6568658c3210; 8/31/18, 12:03 AM
Jon Ericson said...: 🐸; 8/31/18, 12:22 AM
Qwinn said...: Holy crap on that last link narciso.; 8/31/18, 12:40 AM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/31/18, 12:45 AM
readering said...: How did Althouse come to assemble such followers? She's come a long way from NYU.; 8/31/18, 12:49 AM
n.n said...: south-african-bank-says-customers-must-honour-home-loan-payments-even-if-land-is-seized

Progressive Constitution.; 8/31/18, 12:53 AM
n.n said...: From racism that normalized color supremacy to diversity that denies individual dignity.
From scientific principles to political congruence.
From one-child enforced by a minority regime to selective-child advocated by a minority regime. From denying life deemed unworthy to denying life deemed unworthy.
Progress or monotonic change.; 8/31/18, 12:57 AM
Etienne said...: This comment has been removed by the author.; 8/31/18, 1:04 AM
Ralph L said...: Or wrap it 'round the axle like Isadora Duncan.; 8/31/18, 1:36 AM
Lewis Wetzel said...: Funny bits from a Miami Herald about people having their Bank of America accounts reportedly frozen because they were suspected of being illegal immigrants or having improper dealings with foreigners: https://www.miamiherald.com/news/business/article217095125.html
From a non-American grad student whose papers were not in order, according to Bank of America: “Immigration officers are different from Bank of America—with a bank, I would like to feel respect…[and be treated] how they treat other customers. But they treat me as an alien.”
From an American citizen of Cuban background who started an account in the name of "Cuban Missile, Inc.":
“I started screaming that this was racist,” he said. “Like, did you go through every company that had ’Jewish bagels’ in its name, or how about calling someone with ‘Korean BBQ’ to see if they’re doing business with Kim Jong Un?”; 8/31/18, 3:07 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Boy, in America, you just can't trust anybody: GOP Gubernatorial Nominee Ron DeSantis Moderated Racist, Conspiratorial Facebook Group

If they're not promoting psychics, they're a bunch of racists, pretending to be normal while giving lectures to their victims.; 8/31/18, 3:44 AM
Ralph L said...: Mediate doesn't name the Facebook group, so they're full of shit. It's probably the Tea Party or something.; 8/31/18, 5:38 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: The biggest problem the modern world faces is a ignorant population that doesn't change it's collective mind when faced with evidence - and an educated class that doesn't insist on it.; 8/31/18, 5:59 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Ralph L said...

"Mediate doesn't name the Facebook group, so they're full of shit. It's probably the Tea Party or something."

I am really disappointed by how often conservatives throw out their assumptions as good reasons for blowing shit off.

They're really not that different from NewAge liberals in the end.; 8/31/18, 6:01 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Oh, I feel fine about the way things are going. Do you feel fine about the way things are going?

Kiosk-Gate: LAPD told Masterson accuser its Hollywood site was compromised by Scientology; 8/31/18, 6:04 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I thought questions like this would be limited to Muslim nations:

Should Religion Ever Be a Defense in the Death of a Child?

Silly me. I thought this was a civilized country....; 8/31/18, 6:08 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: AG Shapiro: We have evidence Vatican knew of widespread clergy sex abuse

That's nothin': I have evidence this whole society is one big sexually-frustrated cult, desiring nothing more in life than to molest an innocent and one-up another adult in any way they can. Hopefully for money. And before attending Sunrise Yoga.; 8/31/18, 6:14 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Australia's smarter than we are about this shit:

Reclusive Muslim sect that refuses to recognise Australian law is ordered to knock down its illegal bush compound and stop using the land for religious worship; 8/31/18, 6:16 AM
Obadiah said...: readering said...

How did Althouse come to assemble such followers? She's come a long way from NYU.

Yeah. The level of conspiracy-mongering bullshit that is taken seriously here is remarkable. Althouse generally doesn't comment on it, but I guess it is good click bait.

If there are public officials that have abused their authority and broken laws, fine, root them out and prosecute them. And incompetent weasels like Comey deserved to be fired - Trump should have done that on day one. I've got no issue with cleaning house in a new administration.

But Q presents the worst kind of stage-whisper accusations about the supposed "deep state" that get innocents fired up and worried but can't and won't be proven. A healthy skepticism is in order all the way around - including Q's identity. How does anyone know that Q isn't an agent of a foreign government?

After all, these guys like Q and Alex Jones (and now I guess Rush too, given the article linked above) are having the effect most desired by enemies of the US - to undermine American's trust in its own institutions and the rule of law. While the US sinks into self-doubt and internal bloodletting, they won't have to worry about us being effective on the world stage.

Look, I get the discomfort lots of people have about the FBI infiltrating a presidential campaign to find lawbreaking activity. That ought to be severely limited, precisely for the reason that the motives of the investigators will always be suspect, and the power they have to place a thumb on the scales of justice has got to be an overwhelming temptation. There should be a very high bar for justifying such investigations in the first place - something better than a secret FISA court ruling on a questionable memo.

I hope that ends up being one of the lessons drawn from all of the turmoil of the last two years. But I am afraid that the bitterness and distrust on both sides, and the conspiracy theorizing they breed, will lead to lasting damage to institutions that actually do make American great.

-O; 8/31/18, 6:35 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I didn't know if I should post this here, until I read the post above: Judge Rules Against Alex Jones And Infowars In Sandy Hook Lawsuit

How conservatives decided this asshole was their hero I'll never know.; 8/31/18, 6:46 AM
Rusty said...: "How conservatives decided this asshole was their hero I'll never know."

Because you don't know conservatives.; 8/31/18, 6:52 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: Rusty said...

"Because you don't know conservatives."

Not the new breed of idiot anyway, no. I'm old enough to remember the John Birch Society, tho, so y'all stay strong.

I'ma stay sane.; 8/31/18, 7:15 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Pensions are another ticking time bomb...”

Not pensions in general, but pensions for State and local government employees, and esp in Blue states and cities. These are a big Dem constituency, and provide them with a lot of cash and warm bodies for elections (or did until the Supreme Ct opinion this year). Up until two years ago, I think that there would have been a federal bailout for them. I don’t think that is going to happen ay more, and esp if the Republicans can somehow hold onto Congress this election. I think that they showed what to expect with the capping of the SALT deduction, which continues, into this election, to make Dem politicians squeal, promising to raise taxes on everyone else just so that it’s big contributors can get their unlimited SALT deduction back. But, just as the unlimited SALT deduction mostly benefitted the mega rich elites on both coasts, that is where the public pension problem is the worst. Public pension bailout would benefit the Dem elites over flyover Trump territory, which would be required to pay for it. It’s probably not going to happen in the near future to any significant degree because the people who would have to pay for this politically incestuous largess to a major Dem constituency now have a voice in Trump and conservative Republicans.; 8/31/18, 7:25 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: “Limbaugh, today, goes where he hasn't before.
This is very "Q"-like, which is unlike him.
He is partisan, but not paranoid. I am paranoid, so I can tell.
Based on my paranoid senses, I suspect he knows something.”

He may not know something in particular, but senses something happening, senses a rising storm. A good friend, and avid Q reader, pointed out a couple days ago that Q posts have all of a sudden gotten significantly longer, and are more explicit. For example, it looks like Nellie Ohr (besides being a Stalin apologist) appears to be a US intelligence asset. He thinks CIA, which, of course, would look that much worse for Brennan (another Stalinist), who seemed almost to keep within the law about CIA not operating in the US, with the use of CIA (and FBI) assets Halper, Downer, and Misfyp in Europe to give the FBI a pretext to surveil the Trump team. Nellie Ohr being an Intelligence Community (IC) employee would ultimately be really big - not only did she work closely with Steele, but a comparison of writing styles would apparently suggest that the bulk of the Dossier was written by Ohr and her protege, Edward Baumgardner, and not Steele. She has the better Russian, and very likely better Russian govt contacts. Think about that for a minute - the Dossier, while funded by the DNC, Crooked Hillary, the FBI, and a Russian oligarch close to Putin, appears to maybe have been written primarily by a US IC employee living in DC and married to the #4 at the DoJ at the time. (Supposedly, Bruce Ohr, this week, in closed testimony before House committees, admitted that his wife worked for the US govt, but upon advice of counsel refused to say for which specific agency - which Q is apparently suggesting was the CIA). The same #4 at the DoJ who had some 70 conversations in the second half of 2016 and first half of 2017 with Steele and/or Simpson, and worked as a back channel between them and the FBI Counterintelligence Division (notably, of course, Peter Strzok), after they were officially fired by the FBI for going to the press with their Dossier. And remember, that Dossier has been established as forming the basis for the four FISA warrants for the conversations of Carter Page, and of those he communicated with at the time - which means of the Trump campaign staff.

There is just a feeling right now that something, or somethings are getting ready to break right now. I think that the upcoming election is driving everything, and esp with the Dems seriously threatening to take the House, which would mean an immediate termination of the FISAgate, etc scandal investigations by House committees, and pivot by those committees to investigating impeachment. The Dems have now used lawfare to force last minute reapportionment of a second big state, which, together, may give them 10 of the maybe 25 new seats they need. The one thing that most likely could save this for the Republicans would be to fire up the 2016 Trump base, and force honest Dem voters to the sidelines, by showing to the public that the Obama Administration weaponized our Justice Dept and IC against the opposition party, and worked closely with the Clinton campaign and used significant govt resources to try to prevent Trump from winning, and then, when he did, to destroy his Presidency from within by the Deep State bureaucracy. This is the type of scandal that would get those Trump supporters to crawl across broken glass to vote this Nov. We seem to be talking the biggest political scandal for this country in at least the last century.

It should be an exciting two months. Stock up on popcorn.; 8/31/18, 8:18 AM
narciso said...: Yes but for whose side, this is why I brought up alias, last night, what is the quality of this so-called intelligence provided, if Steele was in fact litvinenko's handler, he was three scoops of crazy himself,; 8/31/18, 8:37 AM
Jaq said...: How conservatives decided this asshole was their hero I’ll never know.

I am pretty sure you will never know, because the press made him out as a conservative hero, we just view him as a canary in the coal mine of free speech.; 8/31/18, 8:46 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: tim in vermont said...

"I am pretty sure you will never know, because the press made him out as a conservative hero, we just view him as a canary in the coal mine of free speech."

Good call - about as good as you saying homeopathy is harmless.; 8/31/18, 8:53 AM
buwaya said...: Obadiah,

You miss the big picture. In ANY country a conspiracy by the intelligence and security agencies against an elected government would be a historic crisis. This is critically abnormal, this is coup de etat territory anywhere.

You also miss the DOJ and CIA contributions to this mess. Its not a few bad apples but entire institutions. And we still don't know how far this extends. Add to that that the issue is still in doubt. The coup or a variation of it may yet prevail. This is not over and done with, it is an active conflict.

This is not a quirk about FISA. If not FISA it would have been some other mechanism. And its not an organizational problem, of procedures and structures. The same people with the same direction and motivation would have exploited whatever system there was. The great Peter Drucker said you cannot organize your way around a personnel problem.

It is a problem with the people who run these institutions, the permanent staff, and very likely those under them, these senior people having trained and promoted a generation under them. This poisons organizations, and very quickly. And given the state of your cursus honorum, its not clear you can find a trustworthy replacement in any case.

As for American institutions, these official security and intelligence agencies did not make America great. They are, in their bloated state, simply leftovers of the Cold War and the Pax Americana. And besides that the US was not made great by its bureaucracy.

The other implicit attitude is one I find everywhere. It is a temporal fallacy, of assuming understanding of the present based on obsolete information. Of thinking that your experience of decades ago describes the immediate situation. Limbaugh refers to his comfortable reliance on the ideological soundness of the FBI based on his experience with them - which he now acknowledges is obsolete.

The world is dynamic. Things change.; 8/31/18, 9:05 AM
Ingachuck'stoothlessARM said...: trust the plan; 8/31/18, 9:28 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: "Look, I get the discomfort lots of people have about the FBI infiltrating a presidential campaign to find lawbreaking activity. That ought to be severely limited, precisely for the reason that the motives of the investigators will always be suspect, and the power they have to place a thumb on the scales of justice has got to be an overwhelming temptation. There should be a very high bar for justifying such investigations in the first place - something better than a secret FISA court ruling on a questionable memo. "

No. That isn't what happened. Not even close, though I can understand the Dems and the left trying to recast the wrongdoings as mere misguided FBI trying to find lawbreaking. They weren't merely legally using the tools at hand to find lawbreaking, but were illegally creating the basis, out of thin air, to electronicly surveil the Trump campaign, transistion, and Administration. This is after getting caught letting contractors illegally access NSA databases through illegal FISA 702 database queries for partisan political opposition research. Some 85% of the FBI 702 (USPERS) accesses during the second half of 2015 and first half of 2016 were determined by the NSA to have been in improper, which means illegal. We are talking thousands of queries about US citizens and legally present aliens, here in the US, whose government records were being queried by Democratic operatives just because they were Republicans (or probably, also, because they supported Bernie instead of Crooked Hillary). Why does CNN so desperately want Michael Cohen, Trump's former atty, to have gone to Prague, when he demonstrably did not? Because the inclusion of that information in the Steele Dossier is a smoking gun that the source of at least some of the Steele Dossier, and thus information used for the Title 1 FISA warrants came from those illegal contractor FISA 702 queries. That is because the only credible source for that incorrect information was a name search of ICE (Customs) databases, and those are looked up tight against illicit access - except, apparently, through FISA 702 misuse. ICE information has to have been some of the first govt records included in the FISA databases because FISA was expanded to include this information, with the addition of Title VII, after the 9/11 hijackers disappeared into our population, mostly after overstaying their student visas.

The original purpose of FISA was to provide for wiretapping of our enemies, notably the USSR and the ChiComs while in this country. This was greatly expanded, after 9/11, under the PATRIOT Act, to facilitate fighting terrorism domestically. And a big part of that expansion was to collect electronic records from within and without the govt that could be queried in databases to prevent the next 9/11. 702 provided extremely limited ability to make queries about USPERS (US citizens and legally present aliens) in the US - because they are protected by the 4th and 5th Andts. Normally, you need a court approved warrant to get this sort of information, but 702 allowed a govt analyst to sit at his computer and retrieve the information without such. But there were a number of safeguards built in, that were blown to pieces by the Obama DoJ (and DAG Yates in particular) in late 2015 and early 2016, and the FBI illegally allowed contractors to access this information without supervision.

We are not talking overzealous FBI agents trying to prevent Russian interference in our elections, but far more - the political militarization of our intelligence and law enforcement capabilities for political advantage. First they used 702 searching for opposition research, and then, when caught, used the CIA to generate a pretext and evidence, out of thin air, to acquire FISA Title I warrants that allowed wiretapping of the Trump campaign, transition, and top level Administration.; 8/31/18, 11:02 AM
The Crack Emcee said...: I'm doing everything I can to get my song on FOX - with hardly any help from Republicans, thanks - while one of my best friends gets on Drudge and The Daily Mail without even trying. I've had to ask him to start mentioning it in interviews.

I'm on the wrong team, I tell you.; 8/31/18, 11:16 AM
Bruce Hayden said...: A couple of more things of interest were apparently said by Bruce Ohr this week in closed session. I mentioned above him apparently admitting that his wife worked for the US govt (but wouldn't identify the agency involved). He also apparently told the House committees that she had gone to work for Fusion GPS in 2015, and not may/June of 2016, right after NSA Dir Rogers shut down FISA 702 searching by the FBI, after having discovered rampant abuse, including heavy access by contractors. This is significant because this means that there was overlap between Nellie Ohr working for Fusion, and the contractor use of 702 (USPERS) queries. He also apparently admitted that she had written some of the Steele Dossier (which had been strongly suggested by a comparison of writing styles). We don't know for sure whether Fusion was one of the contractors given illegal 702 access to the NSA databases (that information has been redacted in the FISC opinion detailing the abuses that Adm Rogers discovered), but the wrong Michael Cohen going to Prague strongly implies it. And that means that the wife of the #4 (and most senior career employee) at the DoJ was very likely doing political opposition research illegally utilizing NSA databases developed to help prevent terrorism attacks on this country (paid for by the DNC, Crooked Hillary, and a reclusive Russian billionaire close to Putin).

Another interesting tidbit apparently came out of the hearings, where Ohr admitted routinely talking to AAG Bob Carlin, head of the DoJ NSD, and both Strzok and Page at the FBI about the Steele Dossier after Fusion had been terminated by them for Steele talking to the press (and lying about it). The point here is that both the DoJ and the FBI had hard evidence of Steele's unreliability as a witness, and thus the credibility of the facts in the Carter Page FISA warrants, but didn't relay this information to the people signing the warrant applications, and may be why Carlin resigned at about the time that the first FISA warrant was submitted to the FISC. This is what is termed a "Woods" violation, and is legally strong evidence that the 4th (and maybe 5th) Amdt rights of the target (Carter Page) were violated. Oh, and guess who else he talked to about the Dossier? Andrew Weissman, Mueller's lead investigator, maybe a month before Mueller was appointed, and Weissman was reassigned from prosecuting organized crime. Which seems to strongly suggest that the FBI and DoJ Deep State Were already planning to outsource their investigation and legal harassment of Trump well before Coney was fired and Mueller appointed.; 8/31/18, 11:39 AM
Jon Ericson said...: "Conspiracy theory" leads to sedition courts martial.
Pain.; 8/31/18, 11:45 AM
Jon Ericson said...: Do you believe actual 'polls' were conducted?
Pre-election polls: HRC favored 90-98%?
Reconcile against results.
Why is there emphasis put on polls?
Define 'Human Nature'.
: the general psychological characteristics, feelings, and behavioral traits of humankind, regarded as shared by all humans?
[Point 1 - FAKE NEWS LOGIC]
If people believe the odds are hopeless their candidate will win…
Do they still make the effort to vote?
[Point 2]
If people believe the odds are overwhelming their candidate will win….
Do they still make the effort to vote?
Does 1 cancel 2?
[Point 3 - FAKE NEWS LOGIC]
If people believe the 'majority' of people feel a certain way about something….
Do they 'go with the majority' to feel accepted?
If the 'majority' of people believe something does that imply it must be RIGHT?
Does this give rise to 'we are the majority' mindset?
Define 'Echo Chamber'.
: a metaphorical description of a situation in which beliefs are amplified or reinforced by communication and repetition inside a closed system?
Prior to new platforms [networks] connecting people….
Did the OLD GUARD have FULL CONTROL?
Did the OLD GUARD 'learn' from this mistake (2016 election) and now tasking all new platforms [networks] to censor?
When you are awake you can see CLEARLY.
Q; 8/31/18, 12:31 PM
Jon Ericson said...: https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/
UTAH
What are the odds of that?
Q; 8/31/18, 12:38 PM
mockturtle said...: https://nsa.gov1.info/utah-data-center/

Hilarious. Kind of like The Onion.; 8/31/18, 10:04 PM