The End of the EU?

Thanks, Hillary....

Why Do the World's Elite Hate 'Populism' and ESPECIALLY Populist LEADERS So Much?

Socialism...Good Idea?

China Trade

If Harvey Weinstein Deserves Jail, What Do His "Willing" Female Stars Deserve?

Hungary's Solution to Europe's Immigration Crisis

America doesn't only need a "wall"... it also needs a "transit zone" between Mexico & Canada.

The Inspector General's Report Will Expose the MSM as Treasonous

from PJ Media

One of the more notable differences between Watergate and the metastasizing scandals involving the FBI, our intelligence agencies, and the Obama administration -- subjects of the soon-to-be-released inspector general's report -- is that the media exposed Watergate. They aided and abetted the current transgressions.

By providing a willing and virtually unquestioned repository for every anonymous leaker (as long as he or she was on the "right" side) in Washington and beyond, the press has evolved from being part of the solution to being a major part of the problem. Gone are the days of the true "whistle-blower." Here are the days of the special interest provocateur, shaping public opinion by passing on half-truths and outright lies to their favorite reporter. One might then even call the media, in Orwell's words, "objectively pro-fascist," functioning much in the manner of Pravda and Izvestia during that famous author's time, covertly or overtly pushing the party line in the most slavish and orthodox manner while feigning "objectivity."

CNN, NBC, the Washington Post and The New York Times -- misinforming the public as it hasn't since the days of their great Stalin-excuser Walter Duranty (still pictured on their Pulitzer wall of honor) -- are particularly egregious in this regard. But there are many others.

And the current scandal is far, far worse than Watergate, which, bad as it was, was the coverup of a completely unnecessary buffoon-like break-in during an election that was already won in a landslide. What is being exposed now is an attempt by our highest law enforcement agency working in concert with our intelligence agencies and, evidently, the blessing of the former administration itself to block the candidate of the opposing party, even to defraud and spy on him, that is to, as others have said, "set him up." And then, if they were unsuccessful, make it impossible for him to govern. In addition, in all probability, the same players conspired to make certain Hillary Clinton was not indicted for a crime for which virtually any other American would have done jail time.

Forget Donald Trump. Forget whoever is running. It could be your Aunt Fanny or Willam Buckley's random person from the Boston telephone directory. Forget whatever party we are talking about. This is the stuff of high treason of a type not imaginable to almost all of us in our lifetimes as American citizens. I and others have compared this plot to Lavrentiy Beria and the NKVD. At first, I admit, I was exaggerating a bit for effect. Now, not so much.

What we have here are people who think they are "good" driven to evil by their own self-righteousness.

So what will the mainstream media who participated so heavily in this, who were in effect the enabler of this disgraceful anti-democratic enterprise, do when the inspector general's report is finally published?

We may have gotten a taste in the nervous reaction of CNN's Jake Tapper to an informative series of tweets from the WSJ's Kimberley Strassel on the matter. Roughly a year ago, Mr. Tapper famously accused Donald Trump of himself being a purveyor of "fake news" for alleging he was being wiretapped (what an understatement that turned out to be!). Instead of apologizing for being wildly wrong or even acknowledging his mistake, Tapper tweaked Ms. Strassel for accidentally tweeting "Hurricane Crossfire" rather than "Crossfire Hurricane" (the name the FBI cribbed from Mick Jagger as a trendy name for their repellent activities).

Tapper is considered one of the more intelligent and putatively responsible of the MSM crew. If he is unable to face this coming press Armageddon, few will be. They bet the house that Donald Trump was the worst man in the room, but it turned out, and will be made quite explicit I would imagine, that there were many men and women far worse than he. It's not even close.

An interesting sidelight is the degree to which Watergate itself inspired the present level of reportorial corruption by launching "leaks" (i. e. Deep Throat and company) as the royal road to journalistic success, Pulitzer prizes, and Hollywood fame. In a sense, that would put journalism today in its Robespierre period, going further and further out onto a limb for a story until the limb falls off.

Whether Barack Obama himself will be looped definitively into the IG's report, we don't know at this time. But we all know where the fish rots from and we also know that Obama, despite his denials, knew well that Hilary was using an illegal server. He wrote her there himself under an assumed name, showing he was only slightly more computer savvy than John Podesta.

These next few weeks are going to be among the most interesting in our lifetimes -- especially for our friends in the press. We know from the NYT earlier this week they are preparing their excuses. Let's hope they don't have enough.

So how DID the Russia investigation into Trump REALLY begin?

from the BBC

On 15 October (2016), the US secret intelligence court issued a warrant to investigate two Russian banks. This news was given to me by several sources and corroborated by someone I will identify only as a senior member of the US intelligence community. He would never volunteer anything - giving up classified information would be illegal - but he would confirm or deny what I had heard from other sources.

"I'm going to write a story that says…" I would say. "I don't have a problem with that," he would reply, if my information was accurate. He confirmed the sequence of events below:

Last April (2016), the CIA director was shown intelligence that worried him. It was - allegedly - a tape recording of a conversation about money from the Kremlin going into the US presidential campaign.

It was passed to the US by an intelligence agency of one of the Baltic States. The CIA cannot act domestically against American citizens so a joint counter-intelligence taskforce was created.

The taskforce included six agencies or departments of government. Dealing with the domestic, US, side of the inquiry, were the FBI, the Department of the Treasury, and the Department of Justice. For the foreign and intelligence aspects of the investigation, there were another three agencies: the CIA, the Office of the Director of National Intelligence and the National Security Agency, responsible for electronic spying.

Lawyers from the National Security Division in the Department of Justice then drew up an application. They took it to the secret US court that deals with intelligence, the Fisa court, named after the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act. They wanted permission to intercept the electronic records from two Russian banks.

Their first application, in June, was rejected outright by the judge. They returned with a more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again. Finally, before a new judge, the order was granted, on 15 October, three weeks before election day.

Neither Mr Trump nor his associates are named in the Fisa order, which would only cover foreign citizens or foreign entities - in this case the Russian banks. But ultimately, the investigation is looking for transfers of money from Russia to the United States, each one, if proved, a felony offence.

A lawyer- outside the Department of Justice but familiar with the case - told me that three of Mr Trump's associates were the subject of the inquiry. "But it's clear this is about Trump," he said.

I spoke to all three of those identified by this source. All of them emphatically denied any wrongdoing. "Hogwash," said one. "Bullshit," said another. Of the two Russian banks, one denied any wrongdoing, while the other did not respond to a request for comment.

The investigation was active going into the election. During that period, the leader of the Democrats in the Senate, Harry Reid, wrote to the director of the FBI, accusing him of holding back "explosive information" about Mr Trump.

Mr Reid sent his letter after getting an intelligence briefing, along with other senior figures in Congress. Only eight people were present: the chairs and ranking minority members of the House and Senate intelligence committees, and the leaders of the Democratic and Republican parties in Congress, the "gang of eight" as they are sometimes called. Normally, senior staff attend "gang of eight" intelligence briefings, but not this time. The Congressional leaders were not even allowed to take notes.

from the American Spectator

David Corn and Michael Isikoff, authors of Russian Roulette, gingerly refer to this anti-Trump spying operation as the “working group at Langley,” an undertaking so outré that even Brennan called it an “exceptionally sensitive issue.”

Since they are engaged in propaganda and stenography rather than investigative journalism, Corn/Isikoff and the Times are content to leave this part of the story fuzzy. As the most crucial period in this debacle — the period that would bring out its unfounded, partisan origins the most clearly — they don’t want to look too closely at it. Better to dispatch it all quickly with the Times’s line, “Intelligence agencies began collaborating to investigate that operation.”

But make no mistake about it: that the FBI and the CIA, on little more than the say-so of a virulent Trump hater like Brennan, were meeting to spy on the campaign of Hillary’s opponent makes Watergate look like a tenth-rate burglary. Nixon, at his most Machiavellian, wouldn’t have thought to form a “working group at Langley” against McGovern. But Obama, via Brennan, did the equivalent for Hillary.

For all intents and purposes, Crossfire Hurricane did not begin in July 2016 but at the moment Trump emerged as Hillary’s rival. Brennan, shortly thereafter, was bringing CIA agents, FBI agents, NSA agents, and an assortment of Obama’s political aides together in one room at CIA headquarters to bat around ideas on how to smoke out the campaign of Hillary’s opponent. Out of these meetings came the plot to infiltrate the Trump campaign.

Notice the timing of all the grooming and entrapment of George Papadopoulos, a twentysomething Trump campaign volunteer in London whom the Australian ambassador, Alexander Downer, suddenly wanted to meet in May 2016 for an evening of sozzled political chitchat. That timing corresponds perfectly with the brainstorming meetings of Brennan’s Langley group.

British intelligence, through various planted stories, has bragged about its role in helping Brennan spy on the Trump campaign. It must have served as the bridge between Brennan and Downer. Famous for greasing the wheels of the Clinton Foundation, Downer was looking for ways to ingratiate himself with what he presumed was the next administration. So he was happy to serve as a cog in Brennan’s dirty machine.

One can only laugh at the sheer brazenness of the propaganda in the Times’s opener about Downer:

"Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Their assignment, which has not been previously reported, was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos."

First of all, Downer had no “evidence.” All he had was the memory of speculative remarks (the kind anybody following the news could have made) that he had pumped out of a minor campaign volunteer during a meeting he set up, according to the Daily Caller.

The threadbare character of this episode (not to mention the possibility that Papadopoulos might have simply been regurgitating speculation fed to him by a mole) is almost too stupid for words. But then Brennan’s Langley group needed something, anything, to get the dolts over at the FBI to open up a formal probe. Presumably, it was Brennan and other Obama political appointees who participated in the “tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra.” Or did Obama himself get on the phone with the Australian PM to discuss how to break through a diplomatic impasse touching on a matter as grave as the Downer-Papadopoulos pub crawl?

What a farce. But it is an entirely plausible one given the partisan progenitor at the heart of it, John Brennan, whose idea of a normal day at the CIA was to turn its offices into the Clinton War Room.

And on an intimately related matter:

BREAKING: IG Horowitz has found "reasonable grounds" for believing there has been a violation of federal criminal law in the FBI/DOJ's handling of the Clinton investigation/s and has referred his findings of potential criminal misconduct to Huber for possible criminal prosecution

— Paul Sperry (@paulsperry_) May 17, 2018

The 1st Draft of the 2nd Amendment...

Evidence of New York Times Manufacturing Alibi's for Traitors

The Origin of The Feces – Corrupt Intelligence Community Now Leaking To Justify Unlawful Election Surveillance: Operation “Crossfire Hurricane”…
from The Conservative Treehouse

U.S. intelligence officials who participated in the 2016 Russian interference narrative/scheme are now attempting to justify their conspiratorial conduct with leaks to the New York Times and Washington Post. Their leaks are a transparent effort to justify prior conduct. This cover-up endeavor has been their primary focus since congress started demanding documentary evidence from the DOJ, FBI, State Department and intelligence participants in the scheme.

Before breaking-down and explaining the recent obfuscations allow me to posit one simple but central example that highlights the gross intelligence misconduct.

On October 21st, 2016, the DOJ and FBI used the Steele Dossier as the foundation for their FISA Title-1 Surveillance application against Carter Page. Surveillance was a key part of the FBI counterintelligence operation to investigate Russian interferance in the 2016 election. However, almost three months later, on January 4th, 2017, when John Brennan, James Clapper, and James Comey produced their Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), the same individuals who created the FISA application did not include the Steele Dossier in their ICA report.

Think about the contradiction in this example. It is within this contradiction, and many more, where we discover the origin of the feces. If the Dossier was valid enough to present to a FISA court as evidence of Russian involvement; then why wouldn’t that same Dossier be valid enough evidence to include in their January Intelligence Community Assessment?

When you start asking these irreconcilable common sense questions, you begin to realize -and expose- how insufferably corrupt the entire intelligence scheme really was. The entire scheme was an assembly of individual lies; each lie a thread rolled into a bigger ball of entwined nonsense. Look at it from a distance and it looks like a vast Russian conspiracy ball; however, pull any single strand out, look at it, and there’s no truth to it.

It’s all an illusion.
This illusion was on full display today when the Senate Intelligence Committee asked John Brennan (CIA), James Clapper (ODNI), and Mike Rogers (NSA) to come to a closed door hearing so the corrupt senate politicians -who were also involved in the scheme- could coordinate talking points and generate synergy in their excuses and justifications. Not surprisingly former FBI Director James Comey refused to attend.

Today’s motive for the Senate Intelligence Committee hearing was exactly that: coordinate talking points, circle the wagons and reach a consensus on justification. As we have outlined exhaustively the Senate Intel Committee is the second most corrupt deep-state assembly in Washington DC.

Another example of fraudulent threads is the 2018 indictments of Russian entities by Robert Mueller. This week, as specific threads are pulled out for legal challenge, we discover that Mueller indicted Russian organizations that didn’t even exist during the time they were supposed to have been engaged in election trouble. Another corrupt thread example is Robert Mueller having to lean on 2006 and 2009 tax avoidance schemes (financial crimes) of Paul Manafort in order to justify a Special Counsel indictment of Paul Manafort for involvement in… (?)… well, no-one really knows, except it’s NOT 2016 Russian election interference?…

Where did Mueller get his collapsing foundational intelligence for his Russian indictments?… Well, from the Russian investigative evidence inside the ICA… DUH. An ICA that was based on false and thin threads.

Look deeper at the Russian use of Twitter… OK, but wait, when they do, there’s no ‘there’ there either. Social media? Same/Same… Look at Russian spending on campaign events…. OK, but wait, when they do, the same outcome… Comrade nothingburger.

Which leads to all of these Special Counsel endeavors simply trying to justify the existence of an investigation into something that never existed. And it should be noted many of the same players attempting to create the current justification are the same players who participated in the scheme to create the illusion. It’s all nuts…. and as each thread is removed and reviewed, the illusion is collapsing.

The more the Russian Conspiracy Collusion-illusion collapses, the harder those corrupt officials are having to work in an impossible effort to retain it. There are so many holes appearing in their dam, they’ve run out of fingers and toes to plug ’em. James Comey, skipping out on today’s meeting, appears to have invested in scuba gear.

This backdrop is the reason for the corrupt intelligence operators turned to the New York Times for help. However, their leaked excuses/justifications are so ridiculous they are transparently desperate. Consider:

New York Times – Within hours of opening an investigation into the Trump campaign’s ties to Russia in the summer of 2016, the F.B.I. dispatched a pair of agents to London on a mission so secretive that all but a handful of officials were kept in the dark.

Ha, ha, ha…. stop. Just stop. Now you’re being silly… Ooooh, so secret FBI Agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page were text messaging each other about it?

…Their assignment, which has not been previously reported,..

Yes it has.

Sorry NYT, no exclusive here. Anyone who read the actual text messages six months ago read all about the U.K. assignment. There are dozens of reports; just not from The Times or Washington Post.

…was to meet the Australian ambassador, who had evidence that one of Donald J. Trump’s advisers knew in advance about Russian election meddling. After tense deliberations between Washington and Canberra, top Australian officials broke with diplomatic protocol and allowed the ambassador, Alexander Downer, to sit for an F.B.I. interview to describe his meeting with the campaign adviser, George Papadopoulos.

Oh, see the motive here?

We already knew about all this – but the leakers are trying to frame justification for the upcoming released name of apparatchik Stefan Halper, and how he participated in organizing all of these “unofficial” meet-ups.

The agents summarized their highly unusual interview and sent word to Washington on Aug. 2, 2016, two days after the investigation was opened. Their report helped provide the foundation for a case that, a year ago Thursday, became the special counsel investigation. But at the time, a small group of F.B.I. officials knew it by its code name: Crossfire Hurricane.

THIS –right.flippin’.here– is why I’ve been yelling at people to read the damned Page/Strzok text messages. This paragraph is written by the New York Times because Andrew McCarthy finally broke down and read the darned messages and wrote about this specific meeting and what the FBI did upon Strzok’s return from London. {SEE HERE}

[…] Agents considered, then rejected, interviewing key Trump associates, which might have sped up the investigation but risked revealing the existence of the case. Top officials quickly became convinced that they would not solve the case before Election Day, which made them only more hesitant to act. When agents did take bold investigative steps, like interviewing the ambassador, they were shrouded in secrecy.

Fearful of leaks, they kept details from political appointees across the street at the Justice Department. Peter Strzok, a senior F.B.I. agent, explained in a text that Justice Department officials would find it too “tasty” to resist sharing. “I’m not worried about our side,” he wrote.

Only about five Justice Department officials knew the full scope of the case, officials said, not the dozen or more who might normally be briefed on a major national security case.

See what they’re doing here? Political spin. Attempted justification etc.

Mr. Comey was briefed regularly on the Russia investigation, but one official said those briefings focused mostly on hacking and election interference. The Crossfire Hurricane team did not present many crucial decisions for Mr. Comey to make.

Top officials became convinced that there was almost no chance they would answer the question of collusion before Election Day. And that made agents even more cautious.

The F.B.I. obtained phone records and other documents using national security letters — a secret type of subpoena — officials said. And at least one government informant met several times with Mr. Page and Mr. Papadopoulos, current and former officials said. That has become a politically contentious point, with Mr. Trump’s allies questioning whether the F.B.I. was spying on the Trump campaign or trying to entrap campaign officials.

D’oh, there it is again… keeping Comey in the ‘willfully blind’ dark again.

I can’t go on – it’s one thing to read propaganda, it’s another thing entirely to submerge yourself in the parseltongue obtuse obfuscations and lies.

The leaky obfuscation goes on to say in retrospect the FBI and DOJ couldn’t tell President Trump about their spying, wire-tapping and campaign surveillance…. because it would reinforce Trump’s impressions of the FBI and DOJ wire-tapping, spying and surveillance upon him….. Seriously, that’s their excuse.

I’m done with this nonsense. The third-phase of IG Horowitz looking into the FISA court abuse will reveal much of this; and I prefer to outline bite-sized portions of corruption one thread at a time.

The Obama Intelligence Community is screwed.

They know it, and their justifications in the New York Times proves they know it.

Mark the date.

The tide has turned.

They, all of them, are now left attempting to control the severity of their exposure.

“Muh Russia” is dead.

Political operatives, contractors, used deep-state access to FBI and NSA databases for campaign opposition research. Then they needed justification… then came the sketchy counterintelligence operation…. Then they needed justification…. then came the use of the sketchy Dossier to get a FISA warrant….. Then they needed cover…. then came the Russian Conspiracy…. Then they needed cover…. Then came the Special Counsel….

FBI/CIA/NSA Spying on Trump under cover of Fake Russia Investigation was Codenamed 'Crossfire Hurricane'

from The Hill

The FBI investigation into the Trump campaign's ties to Russia was originally known as "Crossfire Hurricane" before it was widely known to the public and even the bureau itself, officials told The New York Times.

The case, named after a Rolling Stones lyric, was used by only the small group of agents sent to interview the Australian ambassador to the United Kingdom, who had (no) evidence of possible collusion between Russia and a Trump adviser.

Five agents embarked to London in the summer of 2016 for a rare interview with the diplomat after deliberations between American and Australian officials, where they gathered information that would provide the basis for the Russia probe that is still ongoing.

The Times previously reported that a young foreign policy aide on the Trump campaign, George Papadopoulos, revealed he knew of hacked Democratic Party emails to Australian Ambassador Alexander Downer over late-night drinks in London.

Downer reportedly notified U.S. intelligence officials of his run-in with Papadopoulos after the emails, which contained damaging information about 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton just as the aide had said, began to leak to the public.

From there, the tight group of FBI agents went forward in interviewing Trump associates, which was kept secret for fear of leaks that could sway the campaign.

The official look into the Trump campaign reportedly began just days after the bureau closed its investigation into Clinton for her use of a private email server while serving as secretary of State.

More

Singapore Slings

Anti-Trust, YES! Big-Government, NO!

Efficiencies of scale are no argument for the legalized privileging of non-universal and self-selected groups of investors.

The World's Greatest Troll - Trumpy McTrumpface!

...proving to the world that things as important as democracy cannot be left in the hands of the mob, and must be "mitigated" through insurance policies designed by Deep-State IC elites.

Free for Who? Community Colleges to Become Tuition Free for Some

from the Washington Post

ANNAPOLIS, Md. — Going to community college may soon be much more affordable for Maryland residents.

Gov. Larry Hogan plans to sign a bill this week the covers tuition costs at community colleges for qualifying residents.

The legislation was approved near the end of this year’s legislative session. It will create a $15 million program to provide scholarships of up to $5,000 to students from families earning less than $125,000 a year. Single adults earning less than $90,000 also would be eligible for the money.

To qualify, prospective students must enroll in a Maryland community college within two years of finishing high school or obtaining a GED. Students would have to take 12 credit hours and have a high school GPA of at least 2.3.

The program will go into effect in 2019.

Medical Marijuana Dispensary Opens in Harford County

The Indian Student: or, Force of Nature

FROM Susquehanna’s farthest springs,
Where savage tribes pursue their game,
(His blanket tied with yellow strings,)
A shepherd of the forest came.

Not long before, a wandering priest
Express’d his wish with visage sad—
“Ah, why (he cried) in Satan’s waste,
Ah, why detain so fine a lad?

“In white man’s land there stands a town,
Where learning may be purchased low—
Exchange his blanket for a gown,
And let the lad to college go.”

From long debate the council rose,
And viewing Shalum’s tricks with joy,
To Cambridge Hall, o’er wastes of snows,
They sent the copper-color’d boy.

One generous chief a bow supplied,
This gave a shaft, and that a skin;
The feathers, in vermilion dyed,
Himself did from a turkey win:

Thus dress’d so gay, he took his way
O’er barren hills, alone, alone!
His guide a star, he wander’d far,
His pillow every night a stone.

At last he came, with foot so lame,
Where learned men talk heathen Greek,
And Hebrew lore is gabbled o’er,
To please the muses,—twice a week.

Awhile he writ, awhile he read,
Awhile he conn’d their grammar rules—
(An Indian savage so well bred
Great credit promised to the schools.)

Some thought he would in law excel,
Some said in physic he would shine;
And one that knew him passing well,
Beheld in him a sound divine.

But those of more discerning eye,
Even then could other prospects show,
And saw him lay his Virgil by,
To wander with his dearer bow.

The tedious hours of study spent,
The heavy moulded lecture done,
He to the woods a hunting went,
Through lonely wastes he walk’d, he run.

No mystic wonders fired his mind;
He sought to gain no learn’d degree,
But only sense enough to find
The squirrel in the hollow tree.

The shady bank, the purling stream,
The woody wild his heart possess’d,
The dewy lawn, his morning dream
In fancy’s gayest colors drest.

“And why,” he cried, “did I forsake
My native wood for gloomy walls;
The silver stream, the limpid lake
For musty books, and college halls.

“A little could my wants supply—
Can wealth and honor give me more;
Or, will the sylvan god deny
The humble treat he gave before?

“Let seraphs gain the bright abode,
And heaven’s sublimest mansions see—
I only bow to Nature’s God—
The land of shades will do for me.

“These dreadful secrets of the sky
Alarm my soul with chilling fear—
Do planets in their orbits fly,
And is the earth, indeed, a sphere?

“Let planets still their course pursue,
And comets to the centre run—
In him my faithful friend I view,
The image of my God—the sun.

“Where nature’s ancient forests grow,
And mingled laurel never fades,
My heart is fix’d and I must go
To die among my native shades.”

He spoke, and to the western springs,
(His gown discharged, his money spent,
His blanket tied with yellow strings,)
The shepherd of the forest went.

- Philip Freneau