Dead Cats: BreakTime 06/04/18, (31)04 James Brody

Posted on June 3, 2018 by jamesbrody

“Civilization, in fact, grows more and more maudlin and hysterical; especially under democracy it tends to degenerate into a mere combat of crazes; the whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, most of them imaginary.”

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Brody – Taking a break; Hanson – California Conservatives; McCarthy = Papadopoulos?

HEALTH CARE: Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

LEADS: Schoen – May Jobs Report; Restuccia & Toosi – Ramadan Dinner; Durden – FBI early spying on Trump; Durden – Starbucks uncomfortable; Durden – Fake News in Ukraine.

Recommended: Mark Levin 6-1-18; Convention of States.

Dead Cats has missed one issue in seven years . . . time for a two-week rest . . . . James Brody

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “California and Conservatism”

“I share some of the sentiments of Jay Nordlinger’s Corner post expressing confidence that some day in the future there may be hope for California conservatism. That’s why I continue to live in the house that I grew up in, despite vast changes in the nature of the rural community I was born into. But I would take sharp issue with Jay’s statement that current critics of the direction of the state are somehow either prejudicial or dispirited:

“A lot of us conservatives have long written it off. California is too changed: too brown, too illegal, too bloated, too listless. All the good people have left, and all the bad people have stayed. You know the rap. Usually, we don’t put it this crudely, but this is what it amounts to.

“Actually, I don’t believe that conservatives’ worry amounts to any of that at all.

Conservatives know that the problem with California is not skin color, ethnic affinity, or race, but rather a juxtaposition of historically unprecedented great wealth on the coast and the culture it spawns — especially in high technology, government, finance, entertainment, and academia — with dire poverty in the state’s north and interior, some the result of years of open borders and illegal immigration. The result is a state in which the pernicious consequences of elite policymaking are never quite experienced by their insulated architects.

“Open borders are fine, but then so are their proponents’ gated communities and the growth in coastal private academies and prep schools, as the public schools score near bottom in the nation’s test scores. Water transfers are the obsolete projects of a bygone age, but not those such as Hetch Hetchy, vital to Bay Area survival. Expensive gas and electricity are good green policies, but their deleterious consequences fall most heavily on the distant inland poor of the much hotter and colder interior. The nation’s highest basket of income, sales, and gas taxes can be either avoided or easily paid by those who are most in favor of them.

“And, yes, there are enormous demographic changes in the state going on. One in four residents was not born in the U.S. Somewhere near 4 million Californians have left in recent years. The Democratic party has largely bifurcated into a pyramidal, medieval organization of the few very wealthy and the many very poor, the former pursuing iconic green and identity politics and gender issues, the later increasingly dependent on social services.

“California is a state with the nation’s most billionaires and some of the highest per capita income communities in the country, while home to one-third of the nation’s welfare recipients, with a fifth of the population living below the poverty line. My own rural community is now part of a tri-county region that is more impoverished than Appalachia; most of my former neighbors’ farmhouses now have ad hoc trailers and shacks behind them, often resulting in ten or 15 residents per home. Sheriff raids to break up drug production, prostitution rings, and gang violence are not trumped-up conservative angst, but common in our rural neighborhood.

“Is there some hope? A recent April poll from the liberal UC Berkeley Haas center proved a shock in reporting that 24 percent of the survey’s participants agreed that it’s “very important” for the U.S. to increase deportations of undocumented immigrants, while 35 polled said it was “somewhat important” — an aggregate majority result expressing a desire for future legal immigration only. The poll included a majority of Hispanic residents, upon whose schools, communities, and social services open borders and illegal immigration most heavily fall. Currently there are early pushbacks against the new steep gasoline taxes; high-speed rail, whose half-built overpasses are our modern Stonehenge, has lost most public support.

“What, then, is the chance of California’s recalibrating as a conservative state? It largely hinges on meritocratic, measured, diverse, and legal immigration that studies show most successfully leads to assimilation, intermarriage, and integration, a melting pot that makes residents see their particular tribal affiliations as incidental rather than essential to their characters.

“When that happens, millions of Californians of all backgrounds will more likely vote for issues such as reducing taxes, encouraging energy development and middle-class housing construction, and investing in infrastructure such as freeways and reservoirs (rather than building impossible utopian high-speed rail projects), reforming pensions, curbing teacher unions, and allowing more charter schools and school choices. In other words, the present-day Democratic voter will someday question why such high sales, income, and energy taxes result in such poor social services, as the state’s highways and schools rank near last in the nation.

“The new federal tax-reform bill will be devastating to California’s mostly blue coastal professional class that can no longer write off from their federal taxes their huge state income-tax bills and the staggering property taxes they pay owing to spiraling home prices and reassessments. When that reality hits, no one quite knows whether it will prompt further flight of the well-off (only about 150,000 tax returns in a state of 40 million account for half the state’s income-tax revenue) or lead to popular outrage over the state’s high income taxes (the top-level brackets reach 13 percent). . . “

https://www.nationalreview.com/corner/california-and-conservatism/

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “The Papadopoulos Case Needs a Closer Look”

“. . . There has always been something fishy about the charge filed by Special Counsel Robert Mueller against Papadopoulos, who was a green-as-grass 28-year-old when he made the big primary-season move from Ben Carson–campaign novice to Trump-campaign novice. Peruse the “Statement of the Offense,” filed by Mueller’s lead prosecutor on the case, Jeannie S. Rhee (who is fresh from a stint representing the Clinton Foundation — and donating $5,400 to the Hillary Clinton campaign). You find that there is collusion with Russia pouring off every one of the document’s 13 pages — meetings with shadowy figures portrayed as Kremlin operatives, apparent schemes to undermine Mrs. Clinton, ambitious plans for pow-wows between candidate Trump and strongman Putin.

“Yet . . . there is no charge having anything to do with ‘collusion’ — in the criminal-law sense of conspiracy between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin to commit “cyber-espionage” or otherwise sabotage the 2016 election.

“Instead, after the big 13-page wind-up, Papadopoulos ends up pleading guilty to a minor false-statements charge — one that is convoluted and, in the scheme of things, trivial. In essence, Papadopoulos is said to have lied about the timing and scope of his contact with the Maltese academic Joseph Mifsud. Mueller, Rhee & Co. allege that Papadopoulos falsely claimed that the contacts started before he joined the Trump campaign. It turns out that they started on March 14, 2016; this was some time after he ‘learned he would be a foreign policy advisor for the campaign’ (page 3, paragraph 4) but a week before the campaign’s March 21 announcement that he was a campaign “policy advisor” (page 4, paragraph 6).

“In concluding that this seems picayune, it is not my purpose to challenge the technical legal sufficiency of the charge. The requirement to prove a false statement was “material” (see Section 1001 of the federal penal code) is a very low hurdle. My point is — and has been — that, since allegations of “collusion” have roiled the nation and threatened a presidency for nearly two years, a ho-hum false-statements charge is a strange way to treat the one and only guy who, according to the special counsel, colluded up a storm.

“But this only scratches the surface of strangeness.

“While much that has gone on in the Mueller investigation is curious, I have assumed the candor of the special counsel’s portrayal of the Papadopoulos case: The young man was approached by an agent of Russia, who eventually informed him (on April 26, 2016) that the Kremlin had “dirt” on the Democratic party’s nominee, Hillary Clinton, in the form of “thousands” of “emails of Clinton” (pages 3–7). To my mind, then, the only questions involved (a) the nature of Mifsud’s relationship to the Putin regime and (b) whether the emails in question were the hacked DNC emails (which Democrats have suggested) or the thousands of emails Clinton deleted from her homebrew server (which seemed to me more likely).

“Yet, important reporting by the Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross, the Wall Street Journal’s Kim Strassel, and Lee Smith at Real Clear Investigations calls for a more exacting perusal of Mueller’s allegations. Specifically: (1) Is Mueller really claiming that Papadopoulos was approached by an agent of Russia and (2) did this agent actually claim that the Russians’ “dirt” involved emails — and if so, is there reason to believe he knew what he was talking about? . . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/george-papadopoulos-case-needs-closer-look/

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

“The map below contains a listing of public addresses and website links to 607 DPC practice locations in 47 states + DC (we still have not located any DPC practices in North Dakota, South Dakota, or Iowa,). Website readers should note that these practices met our three part definition of DPC, although they may not always self-describe as DPC. Both “Pure” DPC practices and DPC hybrids are included in the mapper, and they are now color coded! I’m happy to report that over 70% of the practices in the mapper are known to be pure.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

LEADS:

John Schoen, CNBC: “The May jobs report is great news for everyone — except Democrats running for office”

“Friday’s monthly employment report was great news for anyone looking for a job in America – unless you happen to be a Democrat running for Congress.

“That’s because voters who are employed are historically more likely to favor incumbents than those who are out of work.

“With the jobless rate now down to 3.8 percent, Democrats in 435 House districts and 35 Senate races face a major challenge as they try to unseat Republican majorities in both chambers.

https://www.cnbc.com/2018/06/01/may-jobs-numbers-are-bad-news-for-democrats.html

Andrew Restuccia & Nahal Toosi, Politico: “Trump to host Ramadan dinner”

“President Donald Trump will host an iftar dinner at the White House next week to recognize the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, according to a White House official, a departure from last year’s decision not to host the traditional post-sundown meal.

“The iftar dinner is scheduled for Wednesday. The White House official declined to provide a list of attendees.

“During the month of Ramadan, Muslims fast from dawn to sunset and they break the fast with a meal known as an iftar.

“The White House faced criticism last year for neglecting to host an iftar dinner, breaking with a long-standing tradition embraced by Presidents Bill Clinton, George W. Bush and Barack Obama.”

https://www.politico.com/story/2018/06/02/trump-ramadan-dinner-white-house-618763

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “FBI Spying on Trump Started in London, Earlier Than Thought, New Texts Implicate Obama White House”

“A new report from John Solomon of The Hill ties together several loose threads floating around over the genesis of the FBI/DOJ espionage operation against the Trump campaign, who was involved in the “setup” of campaign aides, and how text messages between FBI employees suggest that the Obama White House was not only aware of the operation – but possibly directing it.

“Not only is the timeline moved up from the summer of 2016 to spring, Solomon provides clarification on early contacts between the players involved in DOJ/FBI sting and Trump campaign aides.

“The bridge to the Russia investigation wasn’t erected in Moscow during the summer of the 2016 election.

“It originated earlier, 1,700 miles away in London, where foreign figures contacted Trump campaign advisers and provided the FBI with hearsay allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, bureau documents and interviews of government insiders reveal. These contacts in spring 2016 — some from trusted intelligence sources, others from Hillary Clinton supporters — occurred well before FBI headquarters authorized an official counterintelligence investigation on July 31, 2016.

“The new timeline makes one wonder: Did the FBI follow its rules governing informants? –The Hill

“The revelation of purposeful contact initiated by alleged confidential human sources prior to any FBI investigation is troublesome,” Rep. Mark Meadows (R-N.C.), an ally of President Trump and chairman of a House subcommittee that’s taking an increasingly aggressive oversight role in the scandal, told me. ‘This new information begs the questions: Who were the informants working for, who were they reporting to and why has the [Department of Justice] and FBI gone to such great lengths to hide these contacts?’ . . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/fbi-spying-trump-started-london-earlier-thought-new-texts-implicate-obama-white

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “‘Uncomfortable’ Starbucks Employees Respond to Becoming “World’s Biggest Public Toilet”

“Starbucks employees are bristling after being forced to sit through an entire day of training on racial bias on Tuesday, following an April incident in which a Philadelphia manager called the police on a pair of black men who were sitting in the store without having purchased anything, which sparked a nationwide protest and culminated with Starbucks becoming ‘America’s largest public toilet.’

“In order to atone for the now-fired manager’s poor judgement, Starbucks rolled out a new ‘inclusiveness’ policy – shuttering 8,000 locations for a day of ‘Color Brave’ training which included several documentary videos, notebooks for employees to record their ‘private thoughts,’ and a 68-page employee guidebook which teaches employees about topics such as institutional racism and the history of prejudice.

According to the WSJ, ‘they also listened to a series of audio recordings of Starbucks employees describing interactions they have had with customers in which their own biases became apparent.’

“The whole thing made many employees, especially African Americans, highly uncomfortable . . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-01/uncomfortable-starbucks-employees-respond-becoming-worlds-biggest-public-toilet

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: Ukraine’s Fake News II

“The Ukrainian government’s staged assassination of anti-Putin journalist Arkady Babachenko has taken an even stranger turn, as evidence has emerged that his would-be “Russia-ordered” assassin and the man who supposedly hired him, both say they worked for Ukrainian counterintelligence, casting serious doubt on the official story.

“To review, Ukrainian authorities announced last Tuesday that Babachenko had been assassinated after returning home from the store. On Wednesday, Babachenko appeared at a press conference with Ukrainian authorities who said that the faked assassination was an elaborate sting to bust an actual hit planned by Russia.

“Only now we find that the hitman, Oleksiy Tsimbalyuk, is an outspoken critic of Russia who says he worked for Ukrainian counterintelligence – a claim Ukraine initially denied but later admitted to be true. Meanwhile the guy who supposedly hired Tsimbalyuk, Boris L. German, 50, also says he worked for Ukrainian counter-intelligence, a claim Ukraine denies as itn immediately destroys the carefully scripted, if rapidly imploding, Ukrainian narrative meant to scapegoat Russia for what has been a ‘fake news’ story of epic proportions, emerging from the one nation that not only was the biggest foreign donor to the Clinton foundation, but has made fake news propaganda into an art form. . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-02/real-assassin-arrested-staged-kiev-hit-linked-ukrainian-intelligence-official-story

“Don Lemon, Jake Tapper, Samantha Bee, the Democrats and so many others are the progenitors of progressivism. Some do it knowingly, others unwittingly but all are activists for this agenda. The left would have us surrender the Constitution. They consistently blaspheme our founding as being devoid of morality and principle, therefore it must be replaced with resistance to our declaration of Independence. We are experiencing soft tyranny when we cannot say certain things on college campuses and the workplace. The left is replacing America’s intellectual infrastructure with Barack Obama’s ideas, Samantha Bee’s ideas, Don Lemon’s ideas and promote tribalism and groupthink through emotively promoting progressivism disguised as justice equality and freedom.

“Also, liberty means different things to different people. Some people believe you get liberty out of government – free college or free healthcare. That’s not liberty. Liberty is a personal and private matter, the freedom to move, invest or collect. Isaiah berlin put it best with positive and negative liberty. Positive liberty isn’t liberty at all – it’s what Bernie Sanders believes. Negative liberty is what we find in the Bill of rights.

“Finally, Michael Walsh calls in to discuss his new book, The Fiery Angel: Art, Culture, Sex, Politics, and the Struggle for the Soul of the West.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/06/01/june-1-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

‘I support the Convention of States Project; a national effort to call a convention under Article V of the United States Constitution, restricted to proposing amendments that will impose fiscal restraints on the federal government, limit its power and jurisdiction, and impose term limits on its officials and members of Congress.”

https://conventionofstates.com/

Dead Cats: DonutDay 06/01/18, (31)03 James Brody

Posted on June 1, 2018 by jamesbrody

“Every normal man must be tempted, at times, to spit upon his hands, hoist the black flag, and begin slitting throats” Ch. 6, “The New Poetry Movement” HL Mencken, Prejudices, First Series (1919) https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

McCarthy – FBI spied on Trump; Goldberg – No communists.

LEADS: WaPo – Donut Day; Coulter – Clinton protection racket; Strassel – Mr. Downer; Crowe – retracted; Durden – Danes ban burqas.

HEALTH CARE: Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

Recommended: Mark Levin 5-29-18; Convention of States.

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “Yes, the FBI Was Investigating the Trump Campaign When It Spied”

“Trey Gowdy and Marco Rubio evidently paid little attention to testimony before their own committees on how Obama officials made the Trump campaign the subject of a counterintelligence investigation.

“Well, well, well. The bipartisan Beltway establishment has apparently had its fill of this “Trump colluded with Russia” narrative — the same narrative the same establishment has lustily peddled for nearly two years. The Obama administration recklessly chose to deploy the government’s awesome counterintelligence powers to investigate — and, more to the point, to smear — its political opposition as a Kremlin confederate. Now that this ploy has blown up on the Justice Department and the FBI, these agencies — the ones that went out of their way, and outside their guidelines, to announce to the world that the Trump campaign was under investigation — want you to know the president and his campaign were not investigated at all, no siree.

“What could possibly have made you imagine such a thing?

“And so, to douse the controversy with cold water, dutifully stepping forward in fine bipartisan fettle are the Obama administration’s top intelligence official and two influential Capitol Hill Republicans who evidently pay little attention to major testimony before their own committees.

“Former National Intelligence director James Clapper was first to the scene of the blaze. Clapper concedes that, well, yes, the FBI did run an informant — “spy” is such an icky word — at Trump campaign officials; but you must understand that this was merely to investigate Russia. Cross his heart, it had nothing to do with the Trump campaign. No, no, no. Indeed, they only used an informant because — bet you didn’t know this — doing so is the most benign, least intrusive mode of conducting an investigation.

“Me? I’m thinking the tens of thousands of convicts serving lengthy sentences due to the penetration of their schemes by informants would beg to differ. (Mr. Gambino, I assure you, this was just for you own good . . .) In any event, I’ll leave it to the reader to imagine the Democrats’ response if, say, the Bush administration had run a covert intelligence operative against Obama 2008 campaign officials, including the campaign’s co-chairman. I’m sure David Axelrod, Chuck Schumer, the New York Times, and Rachel Maddow would chirp that “all is forgiven” once they heard Republicans punctiliously parse the nuances between investigating campaign officials versus the campaign proper; between “spies,” “informants,” and other government-directed covert operatives.

“Sure! . . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-campaign-spying-obama-administration-investigation/

Jonah Goldberg, NRO: “Like the McCarthy Era, but with No Communist Threat to Support It”

“How many divisions does the Deep State have?

“During the so-called McCarthy era, a single question cut across all partisan and philosophical lines: Were you on Senator Joe McCarthy’s side or not? McCarthy’s conspiratorial, bullying, blunderbuss anti-Communism and “red-baiting” was either defensible or it wasn’t.

“Remarkably, for many on the right, the question of whether you were “with” McCarthy almost completely crowded out the question of whether or not you were right-wing or left-wing, Democrat or Republican, or even where you stood on the question of Communism itself. The pressing issue was whether McCarthy went too far in his accusations of vast Communist conspiracies within the government and in other insinuations of treason on a mass scale.

“The Trump era is very different from the McCarthy era in many important ways. Chief among them: In the 1950s, Communism was on the march — across borders in Europe and through the institutions of government and academia here at home. Say what you will about Communism (starting with its murderous barbarity), it was a large cause, worthy of the passion it invited.

“In the Trump era, the passions are large, but the cause seems terribly small by comparison. Faith in conspiracies and the people who peddle them are once again a major dividing line, but the conspiracies themselves lend themselves to the conclusion that history is repeating itself as farce. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/06/deep-state-debate-like-mccarthy-era-but-no-communist-threat/

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

LEADS:

Tim Carman, WaPo: “National Donut Day”

“With its roots in wartime, National Doughnut Day is now just a caloric fun ride. Here’s where to get your freebies.

“War is hell. Doughnuts are not.

“When a reluctant America entered World War I in 1917, the Salvation Army was not far behind. Literally. Several women from the evangelical Christian organization volunteered to make a ‘home away from home’ for the soldiers of the 1st Ammunition Train, 1st Division in France, according to food writer and historian John T. Edge’s book, ‘Donuts: An American Passion.’ This makeshift ‘home’ was not far from the trenches where front-line troops were battling for every inch in the world’s first modern war.

“The Salvation Army’s ‘Lassies,’ as the female volunteers were known, often darned socks, mended uniforms or provided chocolates to the troops, Edge wrote. But the boys wanted more, so Ensign Margaret Sheldon and Adjutant Helen Purviance jury-rigged a method to fry doughnuts, either using a galvanized trash can or a soldier’s helmet filled with lard. “Accounts varied, Edge noted. However the women fried the snacks, the doughnuts soon became popular with the troops, who would eagerly wait in line for them. Edge continued:

‘[T]here is no doubt that their decision to fry donuts would transform fried dough from a vaguely foreign food, loosely associated with the Dutch, into a symbol of American home and hearth, a gustatory manifestation of the ideals for which the soldiers fought. That first day, the two Lassies fried just 150 or so donuts. But as word of their loaves-and-fishes miracle spread, other Lassies took up the cause.’

“The Salvation Army’s doughnut ministry in World War I would become legend, which the organization gladly promoted to any interested media outlet. The Lassies were immortalized in films, magazines and even song. But it took the Great Depression for the Salvation Army to turn the Lassies’s efforts into an annual campaign: The first National Doughnut Day — it falls on the first Friday in June annually — started in Chicago in 1938 as a way to raise money for the needy, of which there were many back in the 1930s.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/voraciously/wp/2018/06/01/with-its-roots-in-wartime-national-doughnut-day-is-now-just-a-caloric-fun-ride-heres-where-to-get-your-freebies/

Ann Coulter, Breitbart: “Coulter: Harvey Weinstein and the Clinton Protection Racket”

Harvey Weinstein’s recent perp walk reminds me of another great thing about Trump winning the election: Hillary Clinton isn’t president.

“A New York Times article on Weinstein’s court appearance noted how the “ground shifted” last year, finally ending the “code of silence” surrounding powerful men. Why “last year,” if this has been going on for decades?

“The article explained that Weinstein’s power was enormous, his connections extensive and his willingness to play dirty without bounds. Did Harvey lose his money and connections “last year”?

“Nope. But “last year” was the first year of Trump’s presidency, or as I like to think of it, the first year of Hillary not being president. Ever.

“The liberal protection racket for sexual predators was always intimately intertwined with the Clintons. The template used to defend Bill Clinton became a model for all left-wing sexual predators. They all hired the same lawyers and detectives and counted on the same cultural elites to mete out punishment to anyone who stood in the way of their Caligula lifestyles. It was Total War against the original #MeToo movement.

“Even Teddy Kennedy never plotted revenge on reporters or smeared his sexual conquests as bimbos, trailer park trash and stalkers. That was the Clinton model.

“Showing how incestuous it was, in 2000 — two years after Clinton’s impeachment — Weinstein used his publishing company, Talk/Miramax, overseen by Tina Brown, to take revenge on anyone involved in Clinton’s impeachment. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/30/coulter-harvey-weinstein-and-the-clinton-protection-racket/

Kimberley Strassel, WSJ: “The Curious Case of Mr. Downer”

“His story about the Papadopoulos meeting calls the FBI’s into question.”

“To hear the Federal Bureau of Investigation tell it, its decision to launch a counterintelligence probe into a major-party presidential campaign comes down to a foreign tip about a 28-year-old fourth-tier Trump adviser, George Papadopoulos.

“The FBI’s media scribes have dutifully reported the bare facts of that “intel.” We are told the infamous tip came from Alexander Downer, at the time the Australian ambassador to the U.K. Mr. Downer invited Mr. Papadopoulos for a drink in early May 2016, where the aide told the ambassador the Russians had dirt on Hillary Clinton. Word of this encounter at some point reached the FBI, inspiring it to launch its counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign on July 31.

“Notably (nay, suspiciously) absent or muddled are the details of how and when that information made its way to the FBI, and what exactly was transmitted. A December 2017 New York Times story vaguely explains that the Australians passed the info to ‘American counterparts’ about ‘two months later,’ and that once it ‘reached the FBI,’ the bureau acted. Even the Times admits it’s ‘not clear’ why it took the Aussies so long to flip such a supposedly smoking tip. The story meanwhile slyly leads readers to believe that Mr. Papadopoulos told Mr. Downer that Moscow had “thousands of emails,” but read it closely and the Times in fact never specifies what the Trump aide said, beyond “dirt.”

“When Mr. Downer ended his service in the U.K. this April, he sat for an interview with the Australian, a national newspaper, and ‘spoke for the first time’ about the Papadopoulos event. Mr. Downer said he officially reported the Papadopoulos meeting back to Australia ‘the following day or a day or two after,’ as it ‘seemed quite interesting.’ The story nonchalantly notes that “after a period of time, Australia’s ambassador to the US, Joe Hockey, passed the information on to Washington.”

“My reporting indicates otherwise. A diplomatic source tells me Mr. Hockey neither transmitted any information to the FBI nor was approached by the U.S. about the tip. Rather, it was Mr. Downer who at some point decided to convey his information—to the U.S. Embassy in London.

“That matters because it is not how things are normally done. The U.S. is part of Five Eyes, an intelligence network that includes the U.K., Canada, Australia and New Zealand. The Five Eyes agreement provides that any intelligence goes through the intelligence system of the country that gathered it. This helps guarantee information is securely handled, subjected to quality control, and not made prey to political manipulation. Mr. Downer’s job was to report his meeting back to Canberra, and leave it to Australian intelligence. We also know that it wasn’t Australian intelligence that alerted the FBI. The document that launched the FBI probe contains no foreign intelligence whatsoever. So if Australian intelligence did receive the Downer info, it didn’t feel compelled to act on it.

“But the Obama State Department did—and its involvement is news . . .”

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-curious-case-of-mr-downer-152780907

Jack Crowe, NRO: “Russian Journalist Critical of Putin Shot Dead in Ukraine”

FAKE NEWS – IT NEVER HAPPENED!

“A Russian journalist well known for his scathing criticism of the Kremlin was shot dead in his Kiev apartment Tuesday night, apparently in retaliation for his activism, according to Ukrainian national police.

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Denmark Approves Burka Ban”

Authored by Soeren Kern via The Gatestone Institute,

“Denmark becomes the sixth European country to enact such a ban, after France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Austria.

“The face is your passport. When you refuse me to see you, I am a victim.” — Jacques Myard, a former conservative MP who supported the ban in France.

“[S]ome people do not want to be a part of Danish society and want to create parallel societies with their own norms and rules.” — Danish Justice Minister Søren Pape Poulsen.

“The Danish Parliament has passed a ban on Islamic full-face veils in public spaces. The new law, sponsored by Denmark’s center-right government, and backed by the Social Democrats and the Danish People’s Party, was passed on May 31 by 75 votes to 30.

“As of August 1, anyone found wearing a burka (which covers the entire face) or a niqab (which covers the entire face except for the eyes) in public in Denmark will be subject to a fine of 1,000 Danish kroner (€135; $157); repeat offenders could be fined 10,000 Danish kroner.

“In addition, anyone found to be requiring a person through force or threats to wear garments that cover the face could be fined or face up to two years in prison.

“Denmark becomes the sixth European country to enact such a ban, after France, Belgium, the Netherlands, Bulgaria and Austria. Bavaria in Germany, Catalonia in Spain and Ticino in Switzerland also have imposed regional burka bans, while Norway has tabled a law to ban burkas in public schools. The bans seemingly seek to restrict the proliferating expression of political Islam in Europe. . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-06-01/denmark-approves-burka-ban

“On Thursday’s Mark Levin show, The treatment of the Trump family is un-American and it’s like nothing we’ve ever seen in America before. TBS’s Samantha Bee is representive of what the democrat party and media have become. She said vile things about Ivanka Trump and should be banned from TV, yet she’s still on the air. Roseanne Barr is out but Bee, Joy Reid and Al Sharpton hang on. If you’re a leftist, you can be a bigot, a homophobe or a misogynist and you can be celebrated as heroes.

“Also, James Comey in 2017, said that the FBI was investigating the Trump campaign. But now they are changing their tune saying they aren’t investigating the Trump campaign, they are investigating the Russians only. Everytime we get closer to these police state tactics to spy on the Trump campaign they change their language and arguments.

“Later, the White House will add a 25% import tariff on steel and a 10% tariff on aluminum. These tariffs are a disgrace and will drive up the cost of our cars, trucks and homes. This is not a make America first issue when you are driving up costs for American families.

“Finally, Steve Lonegan calls in to discuss his primary this Tuesday for NJ’s 5th Congressional district.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/05/31/may-31-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

https://conventionofstates.com/

Posted in Conservative | Tagged Coulter, Donuts, FBI, Trump | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: Roseanne 05/30/18, (31)02 James Brody

Posted on May 30, 2018 by jamesbrody

“The public…demands certainties…But there are no certainties.”

HL Mencken, Prejudices, First Series (1919)

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

ROSEANNE: Drudge Links 5-30-18

MUELLER: Cunningham – Muellers hot summer.

HEALTH CARE: Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

STARBUCKS: Infowars – Soros paid . .

LEADS: Simon – Trump takes Nashville; Wong – US/S. China Sea; French – Obama’s media; Pollak – Spygate; Crowe – Putin critic shot in Ukraine.

Recommended: Mark Levin 5-29-18; Convention of States.

ROSEANNE:

Drudge Links 05-30-18

DIVIDED STATES OF AMERICA:
Liberals Killed Roseanne…
Conservatives Crushed NFL Protests…
Everybody Happy Now?
Valerie Jarrett blames Trump…

DISNEY CANS ‘ROSEANNE’…
SHE SAID WHAT?!
THE AMBIEN…
DISNEY Shares Drop Following Soft ‘SOLO’, ‘ROSEANNE’ Drama…

MUELLER:

Nelson Cunningham, Politico: Bob Mueller’s White Hot Summer”

“The special counsel’s investigation is likely hurtling toward a conclusion. Buckle up.

“. . . Last week, I argued here in Politico that Mueller will want to avoid interfering with the November midterms, and so will try to conclude by July or August. On this one we can believe Trump’s new lawyer, former prosecutor and New York mayor Rudy Giuliani, who claims Mueller’s target is September 1.

“How will Mueller wrap up his investigation? What will he produce? And then – what can we expect from the other players in this saga: Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, President Trump and his lawyers, and the Republican and Democratic leaders in Congress?

“As a former prosecutor and Senate Judiciary and White House lawyer who has carefully studied presidential investigations since Watergate, the next steps in this constitutional dance seem clear. Mark Twain was certainly right when he said, “History does not repeat itself, but it often rhymes.” And this summer may well be the most consequential in presidential politics since 1974, the year Watergate came to a head. Here’s what could happen:

Mueller will not indict the president, but will issue a comprehensive and detailed report.

“None of us outside the famously tight-lipped Special Counsel’s Office can know what Mueller will conclude. Will it rival Watergate? Not yet clear. But we do know that the modern standard for impeachment was set in 1998, when independent counsel Kenneth Starr and a Republican House concluded that one instance of lying under oath about a sexual indiscretion was enough. Starr even concluded that he had the authority to indict President Clinton on those grounds, though he did not do so. If that is the standard, Mueller’s findings involving President Trump will easily clear that very low bar.

“But a presidential indictment would take Mueller down a constitutional rabbit hole from which he might not emerge for years. It would also be contrary to long-standing Justice Department policy, and Mueller, a careful institutionalist, is required to follow department policy where he can. So no indictment. Here too, we can believe Giuliani.

“There may well be other indictments, against lesser figures involved in Russian meddling, obstruction of justice and other alleged crimes. Mueller might even name Trump an “unindicted co-conspirator” in some of these crimes, just as Watergate Special Prosecutor Leon Jaworski named Richard Nixon in 1974. A bold move, but with a clear historical precedent, and just what we could expect from a former Marine, homicide prosecutor and FBI director known for hitting fairly – but hard.

“Still, Mueller’s principal product will likely be a comprehensive, detailed report and set of recommendations – just like the Starr Report of 20 years ago. But unlike the Starr Report, Mueller’s may never see the light of day. Under the special counsel regulations guiding his appointment, Mueller would submit his report to Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein, not to Congress or the public. And under those regulations, his report will remain confidential unless Rosenstein decides to release it.

“That takes us to the next couplet in this classic Washington rhyme of history. What will Rosenstein do? . . .”

https://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2018/05/29/bob-mueller-trump-rosenstein-fired-218549

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

STARBUCKS:

InfoWars: “SOROS’ OPEN SOCIETY LITERALLY BEHIND STARBUCKS’ SENSITIVITY TRAINING”

“Starbucks’ obsession with race about to hit high gear

“The organization conducting Starbucks’ racial sensitivity training, The Perception Institute, receives “generous” contributions from globalist kingpins George Soros and the Ford Foundation.

“With campaigns such as ‘Black Male Re-imagined,’ The Perception Institute aims to put an end to accusations of discrimination after a Starbucks worker called police on two black customers.

“However, with such ‘generous supporters’ as the Ford Foundation, the W.K Kellogg Foundation and Open Society Foundation, chaired by Soros, Starbucks’ obsession with race is about to hit high gear.
“Soros and the Ford Foundation, for instance, have been behind such racial initiatives as the Black Lives Matter movement, which nurtures a black people versus police mentality, and ignores police violence against other Americans.

“As other companies follow suit, The Perception Institute will ensure racial division remains a key part of your coffee-buying experience.

https://www.infowars.com/soros-open-society-literally-behind-starbucks-sensitivity-training/

LEADS:

Roger Simon, PJMedia: “Trump Wows in Nashville”

“The first thing I noticed when I walked into the Trump rally in Nashville Tuesday night—shades of my Mad Voter days—was that Trace Adkins was singing. Not bad! (Hey, it’s Nashville.)

“The second thing I noticed was that Jim Acosta wasn’t smiling, virtually the only person in the auditorium who wasn’t. If you don’t like Adkins, either you don’t like music or your Trump Derangement Syndrome is so great you couldn’t even groove to Bach or The Beatles in their heydays. Too bad for Jim.

“I also couldn’t help cogitating on the drama of the day — the defenestration of Roseanne by ABC. Nashville is a city of the arts and your mind tilts that way. I suspect Roseanne wanted to shoot herself in the foot with that dumb tweet in a ‘can’t stand prosperity’ kind of way after the amazing success of the second coming of her series. There are plenty of bad things to say about Valerie Jarrett, none of which have anything to do with race, but plenty to do with blood spilled all over the Middle East. VJ has a lot to answer for with the Iran Deal, for which she was, likely in significant part, one of the main instigators. The evil that came from that dwarfs anything Roseanne said or could say in one of her infamous loudmouth moments. I’m sure that goes flying well over the heads of ABC solons.

“Which leads me to another Nashville moment. Being here in Music City, isn’t it high time for the right to take back the arts, or at least some decent part of them? Why is it CBS, NBC, and ABC are all slavish soldiers of the moribund and increasingly boring left? (Can you watch ‘Good Morning America’ without feeling you are having your brains drilled?)

“The fault is not so much the artists as it is the financiers. I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again—conservative fat cats support Beethoven at the Philharmonic but shy away from contemporary artists. I love Beethoven too, but he’s not moving the culture in 2018. Time for the financial community to get on this. Maybe Nashville’s the place to start.

But enough diversion. Trump’s on. They clearly love him in Nashville, but not Lamar Alexander and, especially, Bob Corker when they are introduced. Corker get roundly booed. (The Iran deal again?)

Congresswoman and senatorial candidate Marsha Blackburn is then introduced. She, however, is loved by the crowd. A clear favorite and early supporter of Trump, she looks and talks like a winner and likely will be. . .”

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/trump-in-nashville/

Kristina Wong, Breitbart: “Mattis: U.S. Will ‘Confront’ Out of Step Behavior in South China Sea”

“ABOARD A MILITARY AIRCRAFT — Defense Secretary Jim Mattis said Tuesday that the U.S. would confront behavior out of step with international law, in response to a question about U.S. defense policy towards China’s increasing deployment of military weapons on territories in the South China Sea that are claimed by multiple nations.

“‘We are going out of our way to cooperate with Pacific nations. That’s the way we do business in the world, but we’re also going to confront what we believe is out of step with international law, out of step with international tribunals that have spoken on the issue,’ he said.

“Mattis made the remarks to a group of reporters traveling with him, including from Breitbart News, to Hawaii for a change of command ceremony at U.S. Pacific Command from outgoing commander Adm. Harry Harris to Adm. Philip Davidson on Wednesday.

“He will then head to Singapore for the annual Shangri-La defense forum, where he will meet with a number of regional defense leaders and experts. A key topic expected to be discussed will be how to confront China’s increasing militarization of the South China Sea. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/29/mattis-u-s-will-confront-out-of-step-behavior-in-south-china-sea/

David French, NRO: “A Twitter Fail Reveals That Media Narratives about Obama Still Trump the Truth”

“. . . My own timeline filled with tweets and retweets. Prominent activists like Linda Sarsour shared the image, as did journalists like CNN’s Hadas Gold and Jake Silverstein of the New York Times.

“Unfortunately for Favreau and his ilk, this isn’t ‘happening now.’ It turns out that the picture is from 2014, when the Obama administration still ran U.S. immigration policy. In the lingo of Twitter, that’s what you call a “self-own.” And this weekend was full of them.

It turns out that both administrations have had trouble accounting for unaccompanied, illegal-immigrant minors after they’ve been placed with adult sponsors. For example, a 2016 inspector general’s report ‘showed that the federal government was able to reach only 84 percent of children it had placed, leaving 4,159 unaccounted for.’ That’s on Obama’s watch.

Did you see a picture of a ‘prison bus for babies’? Well, that’s from the Obama era as well, and it was designed to assist in ICE-organized field trips from the Karnes County Residential Center in Karnes City, Texas.

“Yes, I know that much of the nation is in the grips of Trump Derangement Syndrome, but does that fully explain the gullibility on display here? After all, while some of the images and stories were shared by activist hacks, some of those who jumped on the outrage train were smart and careful people who ordinarily know better.

“This is what happens when narrative trumps truth: Even responsible people are primed to believe lies. We see this all the time in the wars over our current president. We’re forgetting, however, the extent to which narrative still trumps the truth about the Obama administration. This is particularly true when the dominant narrative serves both sides of our ideological divide. . . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/jon-favreau-twitter-fail-obama-media-narratives/

Joel Pollak, Breitbart: “Spygate: More Vindication for Breitbart, Mark Levin, Donald Trump”

“. . .In February, a House Intelligence Committee memorandum confirmed that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Trump aide Carter Page, and that it had obtained a warrant to do so from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, based in part on a “dossier” that had been funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee — facts that the FBI failed to disclose directly to the court.

“The new reports of an “informant” — again, provided by mainstream media sources like the New York Times and the Washington Post, the preferred outlets for “deep state” leakers within the Department of Justice — further vindicate suspicions that the outgoing administration spied on the opposing presidential campaign.

“The reports add some new information, such as the existence of a “human intelligence” operation, in the form of alleged informant Stefan A. Halper, that may have complemented the “signals intelligence” operation centered on Carter Page (and perhaps others).

“The reports also provide reason to question recent claims that the surveillance was only triggered by reports from a foreign diplomat in July 2016 about claims made in a bar by junior Trump aide George Papadopoulos. As Byron York of the Washington Examinerargues, there is now reason to believe the surveillance began months earlier.

“Former Obama administration officials are no longer trying to deny that a spying operation exists, but have been reduced to justifying it as an attempt to protect the country — and resisting efforts to uncover more information. Former FBI Director James Comey, among others, claims that efforts to investigate “Spygate” — a term invented Tuesday by President Donald Trump — pose a danger to the country . . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/23/spygate-more-vindication-for-breitbart-mark-levin-donald-trump/

Jack Crowe, NRO: “Russian Journalist Critical of Putin Shot Dead in Ukraine”

“The first and the most obvious is his professional activities,” Kiev police chief Andriy Krishchenko said of the victim, Arkady Babchenko, who joins the growing ranks of anti-Kremlin activists and journalists who have died under suspicious and/or violent circumstances in recent years.

“Babchenko, 41, began his journalistic career as a contract soldier in the Chechnya civil war, chronicling his experience in a bestselling book before serving as a military correspondent for several Russian outlets. He later fled Russia for Ukraine in February 2017 after receiving unspecified threats, which were likely prompted by his extensive reporting on Russian involvement in the conflicts in Ukraine and Syria.”

“Much of Babachenko’s published opinion work also made him deeply unpopular among Kremlin loyalists, and even led to calls for his citizenship to be revoked. In one particularly incendiary column, Babchenko said he did not feel sorry for members of the Russian Army choir that died in a plane crash en route to entertain soldiers serving in Syria.”

https://www.nationalreview.com/news/russian-journalist-critical-of-putin-shot-dead-in-ukraine/

“On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, Sen. Marco Rubio and Congressman Adam Schiff tell ABC News that informants are not spies and there’s no evidence to support that the FBI spied on President Trump. Schiff sat there doing the work of the Russians while obstructing Congressmen Devin Nunes, Ron DeSantis, and others from looking into Russian interference. The real road to colluding with the Russians does not lead to the Trump campaign, it leads to the federal government under Barack Obama.

“Democrats interfered in a huge way through the FBI, CIA, DNI, and others. The Democrats and media are in lockstep trying to discredit Trump on the Sunday shows echoing that he is a liar and a conspiracy theorist. Meanwhile, Ted Kennedy colluded and conspired with the Kremlin to defeat Reagan. Where’s Bob Mueller when you need him?

“After, President Johnson used the federal government to spy on Barry Goldwater’s campaign but the media then, and now, are silent on this.

“Also, what Roseanne Barr tweeted was disgusting, but are we supposed to spend all week talking about her? Barr paid the price but why is Joy Reid still around with her homophobic attacks? Why is the Jew hater Louis Farrakhan still around?

“Later, former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice’s son, John David Rice-Cameron, started his conservative journey when he listened to Rush Limbaugh in middle school and then found his ‘political hero’ Mark Levin. He is intellectually curious and Mark uses his books, TV and radio shows to bring conservatism to the table and make you think about things like our founders and philosophy.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/05/29/may-29-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

https://conventionofstates.com/

Posted in Conservative | Tagged Babchenko, China, Jarrett, Obama, Spygate, Starbucks | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: MemorialDay 05/28/18, (31)01 James Brody

Posted on May 28, 2018 by jamesbrody

“Time is the great legalizer, even in the field of morals.”

HL Mencken, A Book of Prefaces (1917) Ch 4.

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Spiering – Trump on remembering . . .”

MUELLER: McCarthy – Spy name games; Root – Time to impeach Obama.

HEALTH CARE: Washington Examiner – Irish nihilism; Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

STARBUCKS: Berr – Lost mojo?; Durden – Steve Jobs product or marketing?

LEADS: Durden – Tommy Robinson arrested; Investors – NKor art of the deal; Durden – Musk crony capitalist; Durden – Student debt.

Recommended: Convention of States.

Charlie Spiering, Breitbart: “Donald Trump’s Memorial Day Proclamation: ‘We Revere Those Who Have Died in Noble Service”

“On Memorial Day, we pause in solemn gratitude to pay tribute to the brave patriots who laid down their lives defending peace and freedom while in military service to our great Nation. We set aside this day to honor their sacrifice and to remind all Americans of the tremendous price of our precious liberty.

Throughout the history of our Republic, courageous Americans have purchased our cherished freedom with their lives. Our 151 national cemeteries serve as the final resting place for millions of people, including veterans from every war and conflict, many of whom died while serving our country. We remain duty bound to honor those who made the ultimate sacrifice on our behalf and to remember them with thankfulness and unwavering pride. The fallen — our treasured loved ones, friends, neighbors, and fellow citizens — deserve nothing less from a grateful Nation. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/28/donald-trumps-memorial-day-proclamation/

MUELLER:

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “Spy Name Games”

“Isn’t it a fact that you’re a scumbag?”

“Our contretemps over the nomenclature of government informants has me unable to shake this arresting moment from my memory. In Manhattan, about 30 years ago, I was among the spectators basking in the majesty of Foley Square’s federal courthouse when we were suddenly jarred by this, shall we say, rhetorical question. The sniper was a mob lawyer in a big RICO case; the target was the prosecution’s main witness, the informant.

“Until this week, I’d always thought the most noteworthy thing about this obnoxious bit of theater was the reaction of the judge, a very fine, very wry trial lawyer in his own right.

“The prosecutors, of course, screamed, ‘Objection!’

“The judge calmly shrugged his shoulders and ruled: ‘He can answer if he knows.’

“Did he know? I don’t remember. I was laughing too hard to hear any response.

“The court’s deadpan was not just hilarious. In its way, it was trenchant.

“The judge was not insouciant. He was a realist. The witness had done what covert informants do: He pretended to be someone he wasn’t, he wheedled his way into the trust — in some instances, into the affections — of people suspected of wrongdoing. And then he betrayed them. But that’s the job: to pry away secrets — get the bad actors to admit what they did, how they did it, and with whom they did it, until the agents and prosecutors decide there is enough evidence to convict the lot of them.

“The judge understood that. For all the melodrama, whether the informant was a hero or a villain hinged on how one felt not about him but about the worthiness of the investigation.

“And just as the mob lawyer served his case, the government lawyers served theirs, portraying the informant as noble — or at least as noble as you can be when your job is to deceive people into confessing things they shouldn’t. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/obama-administration-politicized-intelligence-law-enforcement-apparatus/

Wayne Allyn Root, Townhall: “It’s Time to Impeach the President”

“. . . It’s time to impeach former President Barack Obama. And of course, prosecute him too.

“Many are starting to come to this conclusion. Tom Fitton, the legal genius behind Judicial Watch (the number one government watchdog in America), has come to the same conclusion. Fitton said this week that amidst a climate of impeachment fervor, the actual evidence points to Obama’s actions warranting impeachment far more than Trump. Fitton reports that ordering surveillance and sending spies into the Trump presidential campaign are all grounds for post-Presidency impeachment and more importantly, prosecution.

“None other than greatly respected former White House Press Secretary Ari Fleischer said this week, “I guarantee the answer is yes” as to whether Obama knew the FBI had planted spies into the Trump campaign. He says no FBI Director would dare infiltrate a presidential campaign without the direct approval and authorization of the sitting president.

“Welcome to my world. I’ve screamed about Obama’s illegal actions for years. Starting of course with his attempt to use the IRS to destroy my life. But I’m just one of thousands of victims. I have always understand the lengths Obama would go to, to destroy his political opposition.

“Obama didn’t just authorize illegal spying, surveillance and FISA warrants based on fraud, paid for by Hillary and the DNC. He ordered it all. . .”

https://townhall.com/columnists/wayneallynroot/2018/05/27/its-time-to-impeach-the-president-n2484577

HEALTH CARE:

Washington Examiner: “A victory for nihilism in Ireland”

“. . . Perversely, the U.S. Supreme Court invented a constitutional right to abortion, supposedly infused in emanations from the penumbras of the document. The issue has become such a political battlefield that there is no way the U.S. could today pass an amendment to protect the right to life of the unborn.

“A country that doesn’t respect the right to life of the unborn, that indeed makes an exception for lives whose humanity is hidden, whose presence may be inconvenient, and whose voice is inaudible, is a morally sclerotic country, where we can expect all sorts of evils to bubble up.

“In a country such as Ireland from 1983 until now, where the right to life was enshrined and exalted, a culture of life develops. Pregnant women and their babies found better treatment in Ireland than almost anywhere in the world. Maternal deaths have been extremely low in Ireland, ranked by the United Nations as “one of the safest places in the world for a mother to have a baby.”

“Ireland on Friday gave up its pro-woman and pro-life constitution, at least for now. The health minister grotesquely declared that Ireland would now be a more compassionate society. But this surely won’t be the end of the issue. Government protection of human life is not a religious issue or the tangential concern of a special interest. It has for millennia been enshrined in the Hippocratic Oath, and was restated as recently as the passage of the Geneva Conventions. But this most fundamental human right is now widely ignored or disparaged. History will not smile tomorrow on those who consider it expendable today.”

https://www.washingtonexaminer.com/opinion/editorials/a-victory-for-nihilism-in-ireland

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

STARBUCKS:

Jonathan Berr, Moneywatch: “Is Starbucks losing its mojo?”

“After Howard Schultz purchased Starbucks in 1987, he wowed coffee fans with his concept for hand-crafted lattes and impressed investors with the chain’s fast growth. But the novelty of the Seattle-based company appears to have worn off.

“Same-store sales, a key retail metric measuring the performance locations opened at least a year, rose 2 percent in the most recent quarter, a far cry from the 7 percent growth recorded as recently as 2015. Competition from rivals such as Dunkin’ Donuts and McDonald’s McCafe is siphoning off business from the chain.

“Given its slowing growth, it may be no surprise that Starbucks has also lost its luster on Wall Street. Shares of the coffee chain have barely budged this year. As a result, some who closely follow Starbucks argue it might make a tempting target for an activist investor.

“‘Certainly if we don’t see improvement in the U.S. numbers over the next couple of quarters, I think that’s a reasonable possibility,’ said R.J. Hottovy, an analyst with Morningstar, who expects the coffee chain to close a few hundred locations in the U.S. over the next 18 to 24 months ‘The leash on (CEO) Kevin Johnson is getting shorter by the day.’

“Starbucks didn’t respond to a request for comment.

“Now executive chairman, Schultz owns about 3 percent of Starbucks’ common shares, which isn’t a big enough stake to thwart activist investors who target companies they believe are underperforming. And when it comes to Starbucks, there is plenty for an activist not to like.

“Starbucks’ sales are especially weak during the afternoon hours, even though coffee consumption during that time period is on the rise, according to Bernstein analyst Sara Senatore. In a recent presentation to clients, Senatore noted that growth in the company’s My Starbucks Rewards Program and gift card purchases have slowed. Profits for newly opened locations have also fallen. . .”

https://www.cbsnews.com/news/is-starbucks-losing-its-mojo/

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “In 1995, Steve Jobs Explained Exactly How Apple Will Fail”

“With Apple’s share price hitting record highs as the mainstream media, asset-gatherers, and commission-takers once again reflect on it as a “no brainer” investment that everyone and their pet rabbit should own, we are reminded of none other than Steve Jobs ‘lost interview’ from 1995 on how tech monopolies die…

“I have my own theory about why the decline happens at companies like IBM or Microsoft.

The company does a great job, innovates and becomes a monopoly or close to it in some field, and then the quality of the product becomes less important.

The company starts valuing the great salesmen, because they’re the ones who can move the needle on revenues, not the product engineers and designers. So the salespeople end up running the company.“

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-27/1995-steve-jobs-explained-exactly-how-apple-will-fail

LEADS:

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Tommy Robinson Arrested Outside UK Court, Jailed For 13 Months as Judge Orders Orwellian Media Blackout”

“UK activist and English Defence Leage founder Tommy Robinson was arrested on Friday outside of Leeds Crown Court for reporting on a pedophile grooming trial. Within six hours of his arrest, Robinson was handed a 13 month prison term for violating a prior suspended sentence for a similar offense, while media outlets were banned from covering the incident by the court – with several removing reports which had already been published.

“Footage shows Robinson, 35, being arrested while livestreaming to his Facebook page outside the courthouse. He can be heard shouting to a friend ‘Please, George, get me a solicitor, I’m on a suspended sentence, you see.’

“‘A big police van with about seven police officers pulled up and arrested [Robinson] and told him to stop live streaming,’ Robinson’s producer told RT (before their article (archived) was scrubbed from the internet). ‘They said it was incitement and a breach of the peace. No peace has been breached – there were two other people there and he’s been perfectly quiet talking into his phone. [The police] said nothing about the court proceedings. It’s very strange.’

“Disturbingly, the judge who sentenced Robinson, Geoffrey Marson QC, ordered an Orwellian media blackout – which resulted in several publications deleting their articles from the web covering Robinson’s arrest.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/tommy-robinson-arrested-outside-uk-court-jailed-13-months-judge-orders-orwellian

Investors: “North Korea’s Kim Just Met ‘Art of the Deal’”

“. . . In pulling out of the meeting, Trump sent a formal letter that deployed surprisingly deft diplomatic reasoning.

“Based on the tremendous anger and open hostility displayed in your recent statement, I feel it is inappropriate, at this time, to have this long-planned meeting,” Trump said in his letter. “Therefore, please let this letter serve to represent that the Singapore summit, for the good of both parties, but the detriment of the world, will not take place.”

“The letter came a day after North Korea’s Vice Minister of Foreign Affairs Choe Son Hui sharply criticized Vice President Mike Pence, calling him “ignorant” and “stupid” after Pence commented that North Korea risked ending up like Libya if it didn’t make a nuclear deal with the U.S.

“So it’s off. A disaster? Hardly.

“Now we will see whether Kim Jong-un, just as his grandfather Kim Il-sung and his father Kim Jong-il did, is playing the U.S. to win pre-summit concessions — or really is serious about seeking a nuclear rapprochement.

“Trump was right to be wary.

“In recent days, Kim shifted from a months-long charm-offensive to just plain offensive, abruptly cancelling a meeting with South Korea, complaining about routine U.S. military exercises in the region and seeking to remove North Korea’s nuclear program from the summit agenda — despite that being the main reason for the summit in the first place.

“Given the abrupt shift and increasing demands, Trump really had no choice.

“As for Kim’s claim to have destroyed a remote nuclear research site Wednesday in North Korea as a goodwill gesture to the U.S. and South Korea, he allowed only journalists and a handful of other foreigners in as observers — but no one with nuclear technical expertise to determine what really was being demolished, and whether it was of any consequence to Pyongyang’s nuclear program at all. . .”

https://www.investors.com/politics/editorials/north-korea-meets-art-of-the-deal/

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Elon Musk, Crony Capitalist”

Authored by Lee Enochs via The Mises Institute,

“Elon Musk is at it again. The billionaire tech magnate continues to get richer and richer on the American taxpayer’s dime, highlighting the need to do as Murray Rothbard advised of reassessing the “partnership” of government and business.

“At first glance, Elon Musk appears to be a quintessential capitalist success story. The South African born-American technology magnet, lead designer of SpaceX, and product architect of Tesla, Inc. is now ranked 25th on Forbes Magazine’s list of the World’s Most Powerful People, and as of February 2018, Forbes has Musk listed as the 53 rd richest person in the world.

“One might conclude that Musk’s staggering wealth was produced via faithful adherence to the timeless and inexorable principles of laissez-faire capitalism, where personal wealth is accrued through the federal government leaving commerce alone and staying outside the affairs of private industry. However, this perception of Elon Musk’s economic independence from government interventionism is largely a fabrication and carefully manufactured distortion since Musk has personally enriched himself through a whole lot of government favoritism and statist interference in the private sector economy.

“At this point, Musk has received well over $5 billion in government support. . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/elon-musk-crony-capitalist

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “There Are 101 Americans With Over $1 Million In Student Loans”

“Astronomically high college tuition facilitated by a bottomless ocean of student loans has saddled Americans with a record $1.48 trillion in non-dischargeable debt – an amount which has more than doubled since the 2009 lows.

“As we reported in January, nearly 40% of student loans taken out in 2004 are projected to default by 2023 according to the Brookings institute.

“While in March we noted that debt-laden millennials were set back an average of $140,000 vs. their parents – a problem compounded by the fact that students aren’t just borrowing money for tuition; their student loans cover rent, food and other bills, leaving them with massive interest payments and in many cases, little prospect of getting ahead – much less saving for retirement. . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-26/there-are-101-americans-over-1-million-student-loans

Jonah Goldberg, NRO: “Conservatives Need to Argue About Ideas, Not about Trump”

“. . . Neal Freeman, a battle-scarred veteran of the conservative movement — he was a correspondent for National Review and the producer of William F. Buckley’s TV show, Firing Line, among other tours of duty — recently echoed Goldwater’s clarion call for a different cause. It is time for conservatives to get to work on updating or even reinventing what it means to be a conservative. The conservatism of the last 50 years, programmatically, politically and psychologically, is in dire need of rejuvenation.

“One sign of the exhaustion ‘is that the largest and most urgent issues are left unaddressed by any of the entrenched interests,’ Freeman writes. ‘Incumbent politicians deal with old issues. Movements ride new issues.’

“The most obvious such issue is the exploding debt, which both parties have decided is something they should care about only when trying to unseat their rivals, if at all.

“But the challenge of the debt is a bipartisan or, more aptly, a nonpartisan one, simply because the math doesn’t care about your politics. The pressing question for conservatives is, simply, ‘What is a conservative?’

“The most obvious such issue is the exploding debt, which both parties have decided is something they should care about only when trying to unseat their rivals, if at all.

But the challenge of the debt is a bipartisan or, more aptly, a nonpartisan one, simply because the math doesn’t care about your politics. The pressing question for conservatives is, simply, ‘What is a conservative?’

“‘Are we free traders or fair traders?’ Freeman asks. “Do we want open borders or high barriers? Can we save public education, or should we euthanize it?”

Part of the dilemma is that in the modern era, Republican presidents define for many Americans (particularly in the media) what conservatism is, just as Democratic presidents tend to define what liberalism is. That may not be true in the eggheadier or more ideologically pure corners of the Left and Right, but for lots of normal Americans, that’s just how it works. Conservatism, in journalistic shorthand, is largely whatever constitutes the ‘Trump agenda’ at any given moment, just as liberalism was whatever Barack Obama wanted to do when he was president.

“But this is a remarkably recent development, and the fact that we assume it should work this way is a symptom of the polarization of the moment, which recasts partisan loyalty as philosophical principle. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/conservatives-must-argue-about-ideas-not-trump/

MUELLER:

Drudge Links:
BBC BOMBSHELL: Cohen ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks…
Mueller Moves To DELAY Russian Collusion Trial…
FBI appears ready to miss another deadline…
What Changed? Same Media Who Excuse Special Counsel Abused Ken Starr…

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

LEADS:

Monica Crowley, The Hill: “Latest scandal revelations raise questions on Obama agencies’ roles”

“Much of the focus regarding the infiltration and surveillance of the Trump team has been on the Obama DOJ and FBI. But what role, if any, did the Obama CIA play? Did it help concoct the Russian collusion story as a pretext to spy on domestic political adversaries? And if the CIA did act on a prefabricated deception, did it work independently of the DOJ and FBI or in conjunction with them?

“In recent weeks, Brennan has escalated his Twitter assault on Trump while watching him dismantle Obama-era foreign policies, from withdrawing from the Iran nuclear deal, the Trans-Pacific Partnership and the Paris Climate Accord to moving the U.S. embassy in Israel to Jerusalem. Trump is smothering Obama’s progressive “achievements,” halting his leftist revolution; that’s the driving reason behind the Obama team’s obsession with crushing him.

“Brennan was uniquely positioned to assist with that, including helping to shepherd the Russia fable right into the waiting maw of multiple investigations which have been used, just as intended, to undercut Trump and ultimately serve as grounds for his removal from office.

“Consider some of the Obama team’s critical intelligence gathering moves. As investigative journalist Sharyl Attkisson reminds us, in 2011 the “U.S. intel community vastly expand[ed] its surveillance authority, giving itself permission to spy on Americans who do nothing more than ‘mention a foreign target in a single, discrete communication.’ Intel officials also [began] storing and entering into a searchable database sensitive intelligence on U.S. citizens whose communications are accidentally or ‘incidentally’ captured during surveillance of foreign targets.”

“The groundwork was thus laid for future potential abuses, including surveilling and unmasking U.S. citizens who happened to be political opponents of the Obama administration. . .”

http://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/389173-latest-scandal-revelations-raise-questions-on-obama-agencies-roles

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “North Korea Comes Crawling Back: Stresses ‘Desperate Need’ For Summit ‘Whenever, However’”

“Update: As if the earlier begging was not enough, it appears Kim wants to make sure that President Trump is aware of his efforts and desire to meet.

“Yonhap reports that North Korea’s state media said Friday the demolition of its only known nuclear test site has demonstrated its ‘peace-loving’ efforts and pursuit of a ‘total halt’ to nuclear tests.

“As we detailed yesterday, North Korea officially demolished the test-site overnight, inviting a number of reporters to witness the event.

And today, the Korean Central News Agency (KCNA) said in English.

‘The dismantlement of the nuclear test ground is a vivid manifestation of the DPRK government’s fixed peace-loving stand to join in the international aspiration and efforts for total halt to the nuclear test and make positive contribution to building a nuclear free world,’;

“The KCNA added that the demolition of the tunnels and other surrounding facilities, including a communications center, power systems and observation centers, was carried out ‘completely’ and ‘with transparency.’ . . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-24/north-korea-comes-crawling-back-stresses-desperate-need-summit-whenever-however

Yahoo: “The rising tensions between China, US”

“Washington (AFP) – President Donald Trump has often bragged of his friendship with his Chinese counterpart Xi Jinping, but recent events point to growing stresses between Washington and Beijing.

“This week, the Pentagon pulled its invitation for China to participate in maritime exercises in the Pacific, then Trump on Thursday scrapped a summit with North Korea after suggesting Xi may have exacerbated a breakdown in communications.

“And all this against a backdrop of simmering trade tensions — and a bizarre case involving a US official and a possible “sonic attack.”

“- Summit sunk –

“Trump on Thursday scrapped the historic summit with Kim Jong Un — set to take place June 12 in Singapore — to discuss the “denuclearization” of North Korea.

Before he pulled the plug, Trump had suggested Xi might have played a role in a recent toughening of North Korean rhetoric.

“‘There was a difference when Kim Jong Un left China the second time,’ Trump said.

“‘There was a different attitude after that meeting and I was a little surprised. … And I think things changed after that meeting so I can’t say that I am happy about it.’ . . .”

https://www.yahoo.com/news/rising-tensions-between-china-us-014346160.html

Jim Sciutto & Jenna McLaughlin, CNN: “Assange’s refuge in Ecuadorian embassy ‘in jeopardy’”

Sidetrack for Mueller . . .

“…While Assange has in the past claimed his position in the embassy was under threat, sources say his current situation is “unusually bad” and that he could leave the embassy ‘any day now,’ either because he will be forced out or made to feel so restricted that he might choose to leave on his own. His position there is ‘in jeopardy,’ one source familiar with the matter said.

“Assange’s exit from the embassy could open a new phase for US investigators eager to find out what he knows.

“CNN reported in April 2017 that the US has prepared charges to seek the arrest of Assange, who US intelligence agencies believe Russia used as an intermediary to distribute hacked emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign during the 2016 presidential election.

Assange and his lawyers say he has been detained without charge for 2,720 days — 53 of those ‘gagged’ and isolated from visitors and outside communications — and that there is ‘not a shred of evidence that Assange has done anything but publish material just as the establishment media do every day,’ according to a tweet by his lawyers on May 19.

“‘The concern from day one until the present is that if Julian Assange walks out of the Embassy, he will be extradited to face what the executive director of the ACLU described as an ‘unprecedented and unconstitutional’ prosecution under the US Espionage Act,’ his lawyer Melinda Taylor told CNN. . . .”

https://edition.cnn.com/2018/05/24/politics/julian-assange-ecuador-embassy-jeopardy/index.html

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “This Is How Amazon’s Alexa Records and Shares Private Conversations without Your Permission”

“As it turns out, the scandal over Amazon’s Alexa voice-controlled personal assistant recording and sharing private conversations both with hackers and with people on the users’ contact list is much more serious than the company had feared.

As Bloomberg reported, Amazon responded to a KIRO 7 news report about a couple who received a call from a friend saying “unplug your Alexa devices right now. You’re being hacked” after the company’s device had shared a private conversation without explicit permission. Amazon offered a complex, meandering “explanation” for the series of strange coincidences that triggered Alexa to record and share a couple’s private conversation. It started with Alexa being triggered when it heard a word that sounded like “Alexa” – the command for the technology activate. Here are the details:

Amazon explained the series of events that triggered the episode in an emailed statement. The Echo woke after hearing a word in the couple’s conversation that sounded like ‘Alexa’ — the usual trigger to begin recording. The speaker later heard “send message” during the conversation, at which point the device asked, “to whom?” The pair continued talking in the background and the Echo’s system interpreted part of the chat to identify a name in the couple’s contact list. Alexa then asked aloud if they wanted to send a message to that contact and heard “right” in more background conversation.

“‘As unlikely as this string of events is, we are evaluating options to make this case even less likely,’ the company said.’ ‘The report invigorated privacy concerns as internet-connected devices like the Amazon Echo become ubiquitous in homes. Amazon in 2014 introduced the new line of devices, which can also stream music and order goods from Amazon via voice command. It has been busy introducing updated versions and adding features to sell more devices than rivals like Alphabet Inc. and Apple Inc., which offer their own versions.

“The ‘explanation’ suggests that consumers should be extremely careful of what they say around their personal assistants to the point where more users should consider deactivating the device when it’s not in use. And there’s plenty: more than 60 million U.S. consumers will use a smart speaker at least once a month this year, with more than 40 million of them using Amazon’s devices, according to eMarketer Inc. . . .”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-25/how-amazons-alexa-records-and-shares-private-conversations-without-your-permission

“On Thursday’s Mark Levin show, The extent to which the American media hates America and speaks with one progressive radical voice is troubling. The media says they are defending themselves under the first amendment when they go against President Trump and say they have never seen a President like this. But this wouldn’t have been possible without Barack Obama who actually targeted journalists. Obama abused the media and the freedom of the press more than any modern president and he’s celebrated by the media. Trump hasn’t done any of that and yet he’s said to threaten freedom of the press because he defends himself against the media attacks. When Hillary lost the election the media rose up and they want to remove Trump because he fights back; they want you to think he’s mentally unstable and moronic but he’s not.

“Also, Trump has handled the North Korean situation beautifully. Three Americans were released, the Navy is positioned and three aircrafts are positioned off the peninsula of Korea. We have economic sanctions in place – Trump is doing everything he can to protect us.

“Finally, the NFL was right to require players to stand and those that don’t should stand inside and not come back out. It’s the players that need to love their fans not the sports media that needs to love the players. NFL hall of famer and actor Fred Dryer calls in to discuss the new NFL rule on standing during the national anthem.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/05/24/may-24-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

https://conventionofstates.com/

Posted in Conservative | Tagged Alexa, Assange, Mueller, NKor | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: PakiThefts?, 05/23/18, (30)28 James Brody

Posted on May 23, 2018 by jamesbrody

“The bitter, of course, goes with the sweet. To be an American is, unquestionably, to be the noblest, grandest, the proudest mammal that ever hoofed the verdure of God’s green footstool. Often, in the black abysm of the night, the thought that I am one awakens me with a blast of trumpets, and I am thrown into a cold sweat by contemplation of the fact. I shall cherish it on the scaffold; it will console me in Hell. But there is no perfection under Heaven, so even an American has his small blemishes, his scarcely discernible weaknesses, his minute traces of vice and depravity. HL Mencken, The Smart Set (October 1919), p. 139 https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Drudge Links, 05-23-18

LEADS: McCarthy – Trump/Russia started; McCarthy – Hillary’s emails, Pollak – Spygate; Athey – Hannity endorsed Jordan; Durden – $400K bribe; Nolte – Russia & Pres. Hillary; Boyle – GOP 6-point lead; Simon – Extraordinary circumstances.

Health Care: Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

Recommended: Mark Levin 05-22-18; Convention of States

Drudge Links:
REPORT: Cohen ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks…
‘SPYGATE’: Trump blasts ‘Criminal Deep State’…
Comey Returns Fire…
Growing signs counterintelligence operation was deployed against campaign…
NYT Columnist Worries Mueller Investigation HELPING President!
Manafort to ask federal judge to exclude evidence from raids…
What Changed? Same Media Who Excuse Special Counsel Abused Ken Starr…
RUDY REVERSES: WANTS TRUMP TO DO MUELLER INTERVIEW…

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “The Real Origination Story of the Trump-Russia Investigation”

“The Trump-Russia investigation did not originate with Carter Page or George Papadopoulos. It originated with the Obama administration.

“Exactly when is the “late Spring”?

“Of all the questions that have been asked about what we’ve called the “Origination Story” of the Trump-Russia investigation, that may be the most important one. It may be the one that tells us when the Obama administration first formed the Trump-Russia ‘collusion’ narrative.

See, it has always been suspicious that the anonymous current and former government officials who leak classified information to their media friends have been unable to coordinate their spin on the start of “Crossfire Hurricane” — the name the FBI eventually gave its Trump-Russia investigation.

The Original Origination Story: Carter Page

“First, they told us it was an early July 2016 trip to Moscow by Carter Page, an obscure Trump-campaign adviser.

‘As we’ve observed, that story became untenable once a connection emerged between the Bureau’s concerns about Page and the Steele dossier. The dossier, compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele, portrayed Page’s Moscow trip as seminal to a Trump-Russia conspiracy to hack Democratic email accounts and steal the election from Hillary Clinton.

A project, the main allegations of which were based on third-hand hearsay from anonymous Russian sources. Worse, though the allegations could not be verified, the Obama Justice Department and the FBI used them to obtain surveillance warrants against Page, in violation of their own guidelines against presenting unverified information to the FISA court. Worse still, the Obama Justice Department withheld from the FISA court the facts that the Clinton campaign was behind the dossier and that Steele had been booted from the investigation for lying to the FBI. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-russia-investigation-obama-administration-origins/

Andrew McCarthy: “How the Clinton-Emails Investigation Intertwined with the Russia Probe”

What about the Pakistanis who took material from Debbie W. Schultz . . .

“. . . Cruz just dropped out of the race. It’s going to be a Clinton Trump race. Unbelievable.”

“It was a little after midnight on May 4, 2016. FBI lawyer Lisa Page was texting her paramour, FBI counterespionage agent Peter Strzok, about the most stunning development to date in the 2016 campaign: Donald Trump was now the inevitable Republican nominee. He would square off against Hillary Clinton, the Democrats’ certain standard-bearer.

“The race was set . . . between two major-party candidates who were both under investigation by the FBI.

“In stunned response, Strzok wrote what may be the only words we need to know, the words that reflected the mindset of his agency’s leadership and of the Obama administration: “Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE.”

“MYE. That’s Mid-Year Exam, the code-word the FBI had given to the Hillary Clinton emails probe. . . “

“It sure does,” responded Page. Mind you, she was not just any FBI lawyer; she was counsel and confidant to the bureau’s No. 2 official, Deputy Director Andrew McCabe.

If the thousands of text messages between Ms. Page and Agent Strzok are clear on anything, they are clear on the thinking of the bureau’s top brass.

In its Trump antipathy, the media-Democrat complex has admonished us to ignore the Strzok-Page texts. FBI officials are as entitled as anyone else to their political opinions, we’re told; and if they found Trump loathsome, they were no different from half the country.

That’s the wrong way to look at it. Regardless of their politics (which, the texts show, are not as left-wing as some conservative-media hyperbole claims), these FBI officials are a window into how the Obama administration regarded the two investigations in which Strzok and Page were central players: Mid Year Exam and Trump-Russia — the latter eventually code-named “Crossfire Hurricane.”

The two investigations must not be compartmentalized. Manifestly, the FBI saw them as inseparably linked: Trump’s victory in the primaries, the opening of his path to the Oval Office, meant — first and foremost — that the Hillary investigation had to be brought to a close.

And that is because bringing it to a close was already known, by May 4, to mean closing it without charges — opening her path to the Oval Office.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/trump-russia-investigation-clinton-email-fbi-linked-cases/

Joel Pollak, Breitbart: “Spygate: More Vindication for Breitbart, Mark Levin, Donald Trump”

“. . . In February, a House Intelligence Committee memorandum confirmed that the Obama administration had conducted surveillance on Trump aide Carter Page, and that it had obtained a warrant to do so from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court, based in part on a “dossier” that had been funded by Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee — facts that the FBI failed to disclose directly to the court.

The new reports of an “informant” — again, provided by mainstream media sources like the New York Times and the Washington Post, the preferred outlets for ‘deep state’ leakers within the Department of Justice — further vindicate suspicions that the outgoing administration spied on the opposing presidential campaign.

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/23/spygate-more-vindication-for-breitbart-mark-levin-donald-trump/

Amber Athey, Daily Caller: “Sean Hannity Endorses Jim Jordan for Speaker”

“Fox News host Sean Hannity and Republican Rep. Matt Gaetz endorsed Rep. Jim Jordan for next House Speaker on Wednesday night.

“Gaetz and Jordan were guests on Hannity’s show and discussed appointing a second special counsel to investigate alleged corruption and intelligence abuses in Mueller’s Russia probe. Gaetz praised Jordan at the end of the interview and said he wants him to be the next Speaker of the House after Paul Ryan.. .”

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/23/sean-hannity-endorses-jim-jordan/

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Trump Lawyer Received $400,000 ‘Secret Payment’ to Arrange Meeting between Ukraine President and Trump”

“The BBC claimed on Wednesday that President Trump’s personal lawyer, Michael Cohen, was paid $400,000 by Ukraine to arrange a meeting between Trump and Ukraine’s billionaire oligarch President, Petro Poroshenko, an allegation Cohen and two Ukrainians deny.

The payment was arranged by intermediaries acting for Ukraine’s leader, Petro Poroshenko, the sources said, though Mr Cohen was not registered as a representative of Ukraine as required by US law. -BBC

The alleged payment occurred in advance of a White House meeting last June between Trump and Poroshenko, while the BBC notes that Ukraine’s anti-corruption agency halted an investigation into Trump’s former campaign manager, Paul Manafort “shortly after” the meeting.

A high-ranking Ukrainian intelligence officer in Mr Poroshenko’s administration described what happened before the visit to the White House.

Mr Cohen was brought in, he said, because Ukraine’s registered lobbyists and embassy in Washington DC could get Mr Poroshenko little more than a brief photo-op with Mr Trump. Mr Poroshenko needed something that could be portrayed as ‘talks’. -BBC

The report states that there is no indication that Trump knew about the alleged payment, while buried towards the end of the article the BBC admits: “None of our sources say that Mr Trump used the Oval Office meeting to ask Mr Poroshenko to kill the Manafort investigation.”

https://www.zerohedge.com/news/2018-05-23/trump-lawyer-received-400000-secret-payment-arrange-talks-between-ukraine-president

John Nolte, Breitbart: “Nolte: Imagine How the Russia Probe Would Have Gone Under President Hillary”

“. . .Thought experiment: Imagine how the Russia probe would look today with Hillary Clinton as president and Donald Trump a helpless citizen. Because, believe me, whatever horrors you are imagining, that was the plan.

“Certain Hillary would win, the Deep State and their confederates in the establishment media held on to that Russian dossier for only one purpose: to destroy Trump, his business empire, and most especially the MAGA movement.

“No rational person can honestly believe our media held on to the hoax-dossier out of some sense of journalistic responsibility. Are you kidding me? I promise you — PROMISE YOU — that the moment Trump won the presidency, straight through to this very moment, straight through to end of their miserable, bitter, corrupt lives, the media deeply regret not releasing the hoax-dossier prior to Election Day. And they should regret it. My guess is, had they, things were close enough it would have tipped the scales to Hillary.

“So why, then, did the media hold on to the hoax-dossier? Three reasons, the first being the most important: 1) The media were absolutely certain it was not necessary, that Hillary would defeat Trump — the dossier was merely the “insurance policy”. 2) Why give Trump fodder for his “rigged election” narrative? 3) The media (and Hillary) were salivating at the thought of using the hoax-dossier after the election against a utterly helpless Citizen Trump.
“In the real world, the world where Trump won, there are three heroes in this saga: 1) Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) who, despite all media and Deep State attempts to smear and intimidate him, has refused to back down in his demands for transparency. 2) The alternative media, which has been dig-dig-digging, demanding documents and answers while laying out the facts for the public — not to mention tirelessly exposing and dismantling the MSM’s fire hydrant of fake news. 3) Trump, who has been fearless in the face of a withering fusillade of leaks, lies, fake news, and demonization campaigns that would have put any other Republican in the fetal position.

“But if you return to our alternative world, the one where Hillary is Madam President and Trump is a helpless citizen, everything changes. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/big-government/2018/05/22/nolte-imagine-how-the-russia-probe-would-have-gone-under-president-hillary/

Matthew Boyle, Breitbart: “GOP Takes Six-Point Lead in Midterm Generic Tracking Poll”

“. . . While House prospects remain turbulent for the GOP, Senate chances–given the map of who’s up for re-election this year–remain much more promising for President Trump’s party. At least ten Democrats face re-election to U.S. Senate seats in states that President Trump won in 2016, including states he won with commanding victories over Democrat Hillary Rodham Clinton. Republicans have just a couple of seats that are in potential jeopardy of loss to the Democrats, in Arizona and Nevada, but Republicans have pickup opportunities in West Virginia, Montana, Missouri, Florida, Wisconsin, Michigan, Pennsylvania, Indiana, Ohio, and North Dakota. . .”

http://www.breitbart.com/2018-elections/2018/05/22/gop-takes-six-point-lead-in-midterm-generic-tracking-poll/

Roger Simon, PJM: “Mr. Sessions, Your ‘Extraordinary Circumstances’ Are Here”

“ . . .Now we have a situation that qualifies as an “extraordinary circumstance” if anything does. It is becoming increasingly clear that there was and is a plot at the highest levels of our government involving the FBI, the intelligence agencies, and the Obama administration to block and then undermine the administration of Donald Trump.

“On top of that, we now learn there were spies — plural. Spies! (I don’t mean to ‘trigger’ the children at the New York Times who chose to call them “informants.”) Not just this Halper dude (aka ‘The Walrus’ — how Le Carré is that!) in Cambridge, whose identity everyone is pretending to hide, but now former Trump advisor Michael Caputo reports he was approached by multiple individuals.

“Think about that again. Spies — in action long before James Comey said the investigation began — paid (large amounts in at least one case) to spy on the political opposition. Are we a Banana Republic or the very Russia we are supposedly probing? I can’t imagine how my liberal and progressive friends justify this. Hold their ears, I guess, but this is a loud explosion. (I’ve already seen how James Clapper does. He lies.)

“The reaction to Watergate proved the strength of our democratic republic. Thus far this does exactly the opposite. It threatens it as never before since WWII. . .”

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/mr-sessions-your-extraordinary-circumstances-are-here/

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

“On Tuesday’s Mark Levin Show, Professor Steven Calabresi explains his opinion that the appointment of Robert Mueller by Rod Rosenstein is unconstitutional because it violates the Appointments Clause. Mueller is more like a principal officer than an inferior one since he’s not nominated by the President and confirmed by the senate. Additionally, four attorneys reporting to Mueller claimed to have “Special Assistant US Attorney” status which confirms that Mueller has “Special US Attorney” status confirming that he is acting as principal officer without nomination by the President or the advice and consent of the US Senate as the Constitution requires.

Later, former New Orleans mayor, Mitch Landrieu, was presented with the JFK award for removing Confederate statues. We are now destroying our own history and giving awards for it. These statues help us remember history, good or bad.

“Finally, a good friend of the show Clint Walker passed away at 90 years old. He was a former merchant seaman who became an actor; he was best known for his role in Cheyenne and the Dirty Dozen. He was a solid conservative and very supportive of President Trump.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/05/22/may-22-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

https://conventionofstates.com/

Posted in Conservative | Tagged Hillarym Russia, Theft, Trump, Ukraine | Leave a comment

Dead Cats: Disparation?, 05/21/18, (30)27 James Brody

Posted on May 20, 2018 by jamesbrody

“The virulence of the national appetite for bogus revelation”

A Book of Prefaces (1917), Ch. 1, HL Mencken

https://en.wikiquote.org/wiki/H._L._Mencken

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: Politicized Justice.

Muller: Murdock – The Probe.

LEADS: Rusty – John Brennan; French – ISR arms; Caruso – Red line; Fanell – China’s strategy.

Health Care: Hannity – Josh Umber sites.

Recommended: Mark Levin 05-18-18; Convention of States

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “In Politicized Justice, Desperate Times Call for Disparate Measures”

“ We wuz robbed. That’s the theme Democrats and their media allies are working hard to cement into conventional wisdom. And robbed in a very specific way: The 2016 presidential election, we’re to believe, was stolen from Hillary Clinton by disparate treatment. As Democrats tell it, the FBI scandalized their candidate while protecting Donald Trump.

“You might think peddling that story with a straight face would be a major challenge. But they figure it may work because it was test-driven by the FBI’s then-director, James Comey, in his now infamous press conference on July 5, 2016 — back when the law-enforcement and intelligence apparatus on which we rely to read the security tea leaves was simply certain that Mrs. Clinton would win.

“If you or I had set up an unauthorized private communications system for official business for the patent purpose of defeating federal record-keeping and disclosure laws; if we had retained and transmitted thousands of classified emails on this non-secure system; if we had destroyed tens of thousands of government records; if we had carried out that destruction while those records were under subpoena; if we had lied to the FBI in our interview — well, we’d be writing this column from the federal penitentiary in Leavenworth. Yet, in a feat of dizzying ratiocination, Director Comey explained that to prosecute Mrs. Clinton would be to hold her to a nitpicking, selective standard of justice not imposed on other Americans.

“So it was that the New York Times, in this week’s 4,100-word exposé on the origins of the FBI’s Trump–Russia probe, recycled the theme: Government investigators were savagely public about Clinton’s trifling missteps while keeping mum about the Manchurian candidate’s treasonous conspiracy with Putin.

“As we contended in rebuttal on Thursday, the Times’ facts are selective and its narrative theme of disparate treatment is hogwash: Clinton’s bid was saved, not destroyed, by Obama’s law-enforcement agencies, which tanked a criminal case on which she should have been indicted. And the hush-hush approach taken to the counterintelligence case against Donald Trump was not intended to protect the Republican candidate; it was intended to protect the Obama administration from the specter of a Watergate-level scandal had its spying on the opposition party’s presidential campaign been revealed.

“But let’s put that aside. Let’s consider the disparate-treatment claim on its own terms. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/clinton-email-trump-russia-probes-justice-department-double-standards/

MUELLER:

Deroy Murdock, NRO: “The Mueller Probe: A Year-Old Hyperpartisan Circus”

“. . . Team Mueller should be scrupulously nonpartisan (e.g. no donors to either party or 2016 nominee) or at least look like America (split dialectically between Democrats and Republicans). Instead, as the Daily Caller confirms, Mueller’s 17 prosecutors resemble a local Democratic club.

“14 are Democrats

“Three are party-unaffiliated

“None is a Republican

“Twelve are Democratic donors

“One also is a Republican donor

“Two maxed out as Hillary Clinton donors . . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/robert-mueller-russia-probe-democrats-dominate-staff/

Drudge Links 05-19-18

REVEALED: Secret FBI source for Russia investigation…
Met with three Trump advisers during campaign…
WASH POST HOLDS BACK NAME!
NYT: Was investigating, not spying…
‘You know about hacking the emails from Russia, right?’…

LEADS:

Rusty, The Political Insider: “Former US Attorney: Obama’s CIA Director John Brennan Led Group Trying to Frame Trump”

“Labeling it ‘the most unbelievable scandal in the history of this country,’ former US attorney Joe DiGenova believes the effort to frame President Trump in a counterintelligence investigation was led by one man – Obama CIA Director, John Brennan.

“To be sure, the overall operation involved many top operatives according to DiGenova.

“What you have here is a criminal plot by senior people: John Brennan, James Comey, James Clapper, senior Department of Justice officials to suborn the presidency of the United States through the use of false evidence,” he charged.

“Brennan, however, was the man who allegedly spearheaded the operation.

“It is quite obvious that John Brennan was at the head of the group of people who were going to create a counterintelligence investigation against Trump,” DiGenova believes, “by creating false information that was going to be fed through Carter Page, and fed through George Papadopoulos so that it would be picked up, reported back to Washington and provide the basis for … a fake, counterintelligence investigation.”

https://thepoliticalinsider.com/john-brennan-trump-frame/

David French, NRO: “Israel Has the Right and Obligation to Defend Its Border with Deadly Force”

“A nation has the right to protect the integrity of its border, and that right is supplemented by an inherent right of self-defense in the face of a hostile foreign power. Hamas — which rules Gaza — rejects Israel’s right to exist and remains in a state of perpetual, declared war with Israel. Any reasonable person contemplating the consequences of a border-wall breach knows that chaos and bloodshed may result.

“Moreover, every reasonably informed person knows that Hamas has a long history of using human shields, including women and children, to drum up international sympathy and deceive gullible foreign critics into believing that Israel is using lethal force against peaceful protestors who merely seek a peaceful resolution to an intractable conflict. Yet still yesterday we saw tweets and articles not just from the single-minded anti-Israel Left but also from far more thoughtful observers:

“What would you have Israel do when thousands of people march on the border, some armed, some not? What would you have Israel do when you know that terrorists are certainly mixed in that crowd, people who’d gladly shoot or stab Israeli civilians if they were ever to gain access to Israeli towns?

“You can’t let the wall come down. You can’t let thousands (or perhaps tens of thousands) of people flood into Israeli communities.

“Oh, and you’re not allowed to presume that the Israeli military has superhuman ability to do what no military force has ever been able to do: effectively and reliably control hostile armed mobs with exclusively nonlethal means. In other words, tear gas won’t get the job done.

“One of the enduring problems in international dialogue about Gaza is that the Palestinian resistance is, quite simply, more vicious and violent — with ultimate eliminationist goals — than well-meaning leftists want or believe it to be. . .”

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/israel-has-right-obligation-defend-border-with-deadly-force/

Justin Caruso, Daily Caller: “Devin Nunes: Spies Targeting Trump Campaign Is an ‘Absolute Red Line’”

“The Daily Caller’s Chuck Ross reported that Stefan Halper, a professor and former CIA spy, was spying on advisers to candidate Trump’s campaign. (RELATED: Cambridge Professor Spied On Trump Campaign Advisers)

“Most critically, it looks like Halper’s surveillance of the Trump campaign started before the FBI opened an investigation, apparently due to George Papadopoulos bragging about Russian information on Hillary Clinton.

“‘If they paid someone, it’s an absolute red line, and this is over with,’ Nunes also said.

“There is no possible way, that we should be allowing, even if it was legal, we should never allow this in this country. Congress should not allow for anything like this to ever occur again to any political campaign, if it in fact happened. . .”

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/20/devin-nunes-absolute-red-line/

James Fanell, “China’s Global Naval Strategy and Expanding Force Structure: Pathway to Hegemony”

“. . .You know that by trade I’m a U.S. Navy Intelligence Officer. I’m a different kind of China hand than the ones that usually testify before your committee. My expertise is not in interpreting what Chinese Communist Party officials really think, or analyzing what think tank scholars say. Instead, I spent 28 years watching what China does with its navy — like Jane Goodall watching gorillas — every day, observing and recording their movements. Then I analyzed their activities and projected what they’ll do next. Today I will share my projections regarding China and its increasing–and increasingly threatening–global expansion. The strategic balance has shifted in the PRC’s favor and against America’s security and interests. China’s unilateral expansion into and through the international waters within the First Island Chain—or what Beijing now calls China’s “Blue Territories”—over the past six years has dramatically altered the strategic balance of power in the Indo-Asia Pacific region.

“In addition to building of a modern, blue-water Navy, the PRC has taken a wide range of destabilizing actions that pose an increasingly threat to global security. These actions include the PRC’s construction of naval air stations atop buried coral reefs in the South China Sea, including Mischief Reef within the territory of our ally the Philippines; their declaration of an Air Defense Identification Zone (ADIZ) in the East China Sea near Japan, their claims of sovereignty over the Senkaku Islands, and their flat out repudiation of the authority of the Permanent Court of Arbitration, the world’s oldest standing international law arbitral body.2 The threatening actions also include China’s unprecedented and increasing naval operations in the Western Pacific, South Pacific, Indian Ocean, the Mediterranean and Baltic Seas, the Arctic and Antarctic and finally into the Atlantic Ocean: these actions are clear empirical indicators of China’s future malign intentions and actions. . .”

https://intelligence.house.gov/uploadedfiles/james_e._fanell_hpsci_testimony_-_final_-_17may18.pdf

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

“Josh Umber free market program: Standard fee: $50/month for an adult, $10 per child; no limit on number of visits; medication is purchased in bulk and sold to the patient at a 90% discount.

http://www.dpcfrontier.com/mapper/

On Friday’s Mark Levin show, We’re not doing enough to protect our kids, we need to harden our schools. There are certain things that need to be done as basic safety measures in our schools. There needs to be armed security personnel, not just one resource officer. When new schools are built they need to take safety into consideration. This won’t stop every situation, but it will help. Dan Patrick, Lieutenant Governor of Texas, calls in and explains that Texas allows teachers to be armed in schools but they leave it up to the parents and the individual school boards to decide. School board members better go off their butts and do something – they are in charge.

“Also, the Obama Administration used their power like none other in history to try and influence 2016 election. There are things President Trump needs to do as soon as Robert Mueller turns in his report to Deputy AG Rod Rosenstein. Trump should appoint a special counsel to investigate the interference in the election by the CIA, FBI, and the Obama administration’s top intelligence officials. Trump should also appoint a commission to reform the government to prevent this from happening to any future president of the United States.

“Finally, UN Human Rights Council voted to send war crimes investigators to probe the shootings of Gaza protesters by Israeli forces. The UN is such an anti-Semitic operation, they take the side of terrorists and it’s appalling we subsidize them with our money. We ought to get out of UN and start one of free and democratic countries.”

http://www.marklevinshow.com/2018/05/18/may-18-2018/

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

https://conventionofstates.com/

Posted in Conservative | Tagged China, ISR, McCarthy, Mueller | Leave a comment

Dead Cats has missed one issue in seven years . . . time for a two-week rest . . . . James Brody

Victor Davis Hanson, NRO: “California and Conservatism”

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “The Papadopoulos Case Needs a Closer Look”

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

LEADS:

John Schoen, CNBC: “The May jobs report is great news for everyone — except Democrats running for office”

Andrew Restuccia & Nahal Toosi, Politico: “Trump to host Ramadan dinner”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “FBI Spying on Trump Started in London, Earlier Than Thought, New Texts Implicate Obama White House”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “‘Uncomfortable’ Starbucks Employees Respond to Becoming “World’s Biggest Public Toilet”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: Ukraine’s Fake News II

RECOMMENDED:

Mark Levin 01-01-18

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “Yes, the FBI Was Investigating the Trump Campaign When It Spied”

Jonah Goldberg, NRO: “Like the McCarthy Era, but with No Communist Threat to Support It”

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

LEADS:

Tim Carman, WaPo: “National Donut Day”

Ann Coulter, Breitbart: “Coulter: Harvey Weinstein and the Clinton Protection Racket”

Kimberley Strassel, WSJ: “The Curious Case of Mr. Downer”

Jack Crowe, NRO: “Russian Journalist Critical of Putin Shot Dead in Ukraine”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Denmark Approves Burka Ban”

RECOMMENDED:

Mark Levin 05-31-18

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

MUELLER:

Nelson Cunningham, Politico: Bob Mueller’s White Hot Summer”

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

STARBUCKS:

InfoWars: “SOROS’ OPEN SOCIETY LITERALLY BEHIND STARBUCKS’ SENSITIVITY TRAINING”

LEADS:

Roger Simon, PJMedia: “Trump Wows in Nashville”

Kristina Wong, Breitbart: “Mattis: U.S. Will ‘Confront’ Out of Step Behavior in South China Sea”

David French, NRO: “A Twitter Fail Reveals That Media Narratives about Obama Still Trump the Truth”

Joel Pollak, Breitbart: “Spygate: More Vindication for Breitbart, Mark Levin, Donald Trump”

Jack Crowe, NRO: “Russian Journalist Critical of Putin Shot Dead in Ukraine”

RECOMMENDED:

Mark Levin 05-29-18

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

Charlie Spiering, Breitbart: “Donald Trump’s Memorial Day Proclamation: ‘We Revere Those Who Have Died in Noble Service”

MUELLER:

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “Spy Name Games”

Wayne Allyn Root, Townhall: “It’s Time to Impeach the President”

HEALTH CARE:

Washington Examiner: “A victory for nihilism in Ireland”

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

STARBUCKS:

Jonathan Berr, Moneywatch: “Is Starbucks losing its mojo?”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “In 1995, Steve Jobs Explained Exactly How Apple Will Fail”

LEADS:

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Tommy Robinson Arrested Outside UK Court, Jailed For 13 Months as Judge Orders Orwellian Media Blackout”

Investors: “North Korea’s Kim Just Met ‘Art of the Deal’”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Elon Musk, Crony Capitalist”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “There Are 101 Americans With Over $1 Million In Student Loans”

RECOMMENDED:

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

Jonah Goldberg, NRO: “Conservatives Need to Argue About Ideas, Not about Trump”

MUELLER:

Drudge Links: BBC BOMBSHELL: Cohen ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks… Mueller Moves To DELAY Russian Collusion Trial… FBI appears ready to miss another deadline… What Changed? Same Media Who Excuse Special Counsel Abused Ken Starr…

HEALTH CARE:

Hannity: Josh Umber Site

LEADS:

Monica Crowley, The Hill: “Latest scandal revelations raise questions on Obama agencies’ roles”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “North Korea Comes Crawling Back: Stresses ‘Desperate Need’ For Summit ‘Whenever, However’”

Yahoo: “The rising tensions between China, US”

Jim Sciutto & Jenna McLaughlin, CNN: “Assange’s refuge in Ecuadorian embassy ‘in jeopardy’”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “This Is How Amazon’s Alexa Records and Shares Private Conversations without Your Permission”

RECOMMENDED:

Mark Levin, 5-24-18

Convention of States: Free Pocket Guide

Andrew McCarthy, NRO: “The Real Origination Story of the Trump-Russia Investigation”

Andrew McCarthy: “How the Clinton-Emails Investigation Intertwined with the Russia Probe”

Joel Pollak, Breitbart: “Spygate: More Vindication for Breitbart, Mark Levin, Donald Trump”

Amber Athey, Daily Caller: “Sean Hannity Endorses Jim Jordan for Speaker”

Tyler Durden, Zero Hedge: “Trump Lawyer Received $400,000 ‘Secret Payment’ to Arrange Meeting between Ukraine President and Trump”

John Nolte, Breitbart: “Nolte: Imagine How the Russia Probe Would Have Gone Under President Hillary”

Matthew Boyle, Breitbart: “GOP Takes Six-Point Lead in Midterm Generic Tracking Poll”

Drudge Links:
BBC BOMBSHELL: Cohen ‘paid by Ukraine’ to arrange White House talks…
Mueller Moves To DELAY Russian Collusion Trial…
FBI appears ready to miss another deadline…
What Changed? Same Media Who Excuse Special Counsel Abused Ken Starr…