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U.S. Politics 2018

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As more facts are uncovered and more and more wrongdoing is exposed, the "narrative" of the post election period becomes increasingly shredded. One issue, however, is that simply exposing people like Comey, Strzok etc. is only a small part of what needs to be done. Actually holding them accountable is still the missing part of the equation. Dredging the swamp is going to be a long, hard process:

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/reckoning-fbi-begun/

The Reckoning of the FBI Has Begun
BY ROGER L SIMON MARCH 16, 2018

Friday's firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, based on a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility, is only the beginning of what is likely to be the most explosive series of revelations in American history.

Forget Watergate. It will be the distant past once the inspector general's reports—there apparently will be more than one—start to come out. This will be the "Gate of Gates."

From the FBI and across the intelligence agencies an astonishing number of people are going to find themselves accused, one can safely predict at this point, of some atrocious behavior in a free republic. And it will not just be the small change of Peter Strzok (the dimwitted director of counter-intelligence) and his gal pal Lisa Page. It will include—on one level or another—James Comey, Loretta Lynch, John Brennan, James Clapper, Susan Rice and, almost inevitably, Barack Obama, not to mention others known and unknown.

All these people's reputations will be damaged forever for the pathetic purpose of getting Hillary Clinton elected president and later for their determination to manipulate the FBI and intelligence agencies to wound as severely as possible Trump's presidency. That they didn't stop to think that they might be wounding America at the same time is extraordinarily selfish and nauseating.

Further, that a Russia collusion investigation was employed by these people for their nefarious purposes is darkly ironic because their technique itself reeks of Stalin's NKVD.

In the case of Mike Flynn particularly, they worked under the famous dictum of Comrade Beria: "Show me the man and I'll show you the crime."

This is, however, a great day for our country since so many of our citizens have lost confidence in the FBI. This can be the beginning of a new and better FBI.

Democrats, who are all over Twitter at the moment defending McCabe, are making a huge mistake. They will be embarrassed when the details come out. The Office of Professional Responsibility is not a partisan adjunct of the Republican Party or anything close. Furthermore, it was the Democratic Party that called for the inspector general to investigate. He was appointed by Obama. As the old saying goes, be careful what you wish for.

The same goes for the Democrats' determined and ever-loyal media allies. It is time for them to think twice. The press, of all people, should want the government to be accountable to the citizenry. That's supposedly their job. They should also want organizations like the FBI to be unbiased. Given what has happened in the past few years, however, even typing those sentences seems laughable. But we are at a turning point. Who knows? Even some of the media may wake up. A large number of facts will be appearing shortly that they will have to digest, facts that will not be especially easy to spin. We shall see how they respond.

The real draining of the Swamp has finally begun. Jeff Sessions may have quietly been engineering it in ways his critics, even Trump himself, didn't realize. It is time for every concerned citizen to keep up the pressure.  At moments like this, it's easy to be cynical and think, oh, this is a good moment, but it will go back to business as usual soon. By thinking that way, you become part of the part of the problem. Don't. Act.
 
Thucydides said:
Collusion isn't turning out to be the story we have been being fed:

https://townhall.com/columnists/kevinmccullough/2018/03/18/the-coming-collusion-bloodbath-n2462040

"Lengthy posts and fully quoted articles are posted here. Link to these large posts in the regular boards."
https://milnet.ca/forums/threads/127641.0.html




 
Fired FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe has been offered a job by a congressman so he can get full retirement. It just might work: http://nationalpost.com/news/world/fired-fbi-deputy-director-andrew-mccabe-has-been-offered-a-job-by-a-congressman-so-he-can-get-full-retirement-it-just-might-work

That’s one way of protesting Andrew McCabe’s firing as deputy FBI director, roughly a day before he was set to retire: At least one Democratic congressman has offered McCabe a temporary job so he can get full retirement benefits — and McCabe appears to be considering.

Rep. Mark Pocan, D-Wis., announced Saturday afternoon that he has offered McCabe a job to work on election security in his office, “so that he can reach the needed length of service” to retire.

“My offer of employment to Mr. McCabe is a legitimate offer to work on election security,” Pocan said in a statement. “Free and fair elections are the cornerstone of American democracy and both Republicans and Democrats should be concerned about election integrity.”

A spokeswoman for McCabe, Melissa Schwartz, didn’t immediately rule out a job with one of the most liberal members of Congress, which might only need to last for a day or so for him to get his full retirement benefits: “We are considering all options.”

Rep. Seth Moulton, D-Mass., tweeted that he’d consider hiring McCabe, too.

It’s not immediately clear if getting fired from the FBI on a Friday and going to work on Capitol Hill on a Monday would solve McCabe’s problems for certain, though at least one former federal official with knowledge of retirement rules says it probably would.

McCabe’s team is confident that he had at least 20 years of law enforcement work under his belt — defined as carrying a weapon or supervising people who do — which made him eligible to retire on his 50th birthday on Sunday, with full retirement benefits.

Thank god for congress.
 
Another long article at the link. This is the first pass by a historian (Michael Doran), which should give us an idea of the outline of what the story really looks like. More congressional investigations and Inspector General's reports will flesh out the details. Pulling on these threads is a bit like the scene in "The Hurt Locker" where the spider web of detonators is revealed through the sand, ultimately it points at the DNC, the Clinton campaign and the Obama White House:

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/russia-collusion-real-story-hillary-clinton-dnc-fbi-media/
 
Thucydides said:
Friday's firing of FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe by Attorney General Jeff Sessions, based on a report from the Office of Professional Responsibility, is only the beginning of what is likely to be ....
That’s a pretty long narrative to be launched from a supposition.  Is that guy a clairvoyant?
 
Thucydides said:
...a historian (Michael Doran)...
If that's supposed to provide credibility to a Republican sycophant, his degree is in Middle Eastern politics.  Stating he was a POTUS 43 staffer may have suggested more Washington insight than highlighting his background in Arab dictatorships...
 
More on Andrew McCabe from the Washington Post by way of Newsmax. The Post article is not available due to pay per view. I expect other outlets to pick it up soon. Here is the text from the Newsmax page. I wonder if the Congress job offers to McCabe still stand.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/andrew-mccabe-fbi-investigators-james-comey/2018/03/20/id/849737/

Andrew McCabe may not have been completely truthful with FBI investigators who grilled him the same day the agency's director James Comey was fired, The Washington Post reports.

Sources told the newspaper that McCabe's less than upfront answers came as he questioned by FBI probers looking into media leaks.

And The Post says it weighs considerably in an upcoming report expected to charge McCabe with misleading investigators about giving information to Te Wall Street Journal.

McCabe, who took Comey's place, was fired from the FBI last week at the recommendation of the Justice Department. He alleges his firing was politically motivated in a bid to throw special counsel Robert Mueller's investigation into Russia's 2016 election meddling into chaos.

He has also stated that "when I thought my answers were misunderstood, I contacted investigators to correct them."
 
Trump has congratulated Putin on his sham re-election just  weeks after the UK nerve gas attack.

https://www.npr.org/2018/03/20/595299071/president-trump-congratulates-putin-on-re-election

President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday for winning re-election, in a contest marred by ballot-box stuffing and forced voting. Trump's words drew an immediate rebuke from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a longtime Putin critic.

Good guy John McCain, who has been on point criticizing Trump's constant snafus, is having none of it.

http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/379339-mccain-rips-trumps-congratulatory-call-to-putin-as-insult-to-russian-people

President Trump congratulated Russian President Vladimir Putin Tuesday for winning re-election, in a contest marred by ballot-box stuffing and forced voting. Trump's words drew an immediate rebuke from Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., chairman of the Armed Services Committee and a longtime Putin critic.

The congratulatory phone call came a day after the White House said no such message was anticipated. Officials noted on Monday that Putin's election to a fourth six-year term as president was not a surprise.
 
Looks like some of my headlines got cut out in formatting.  Apologizes I can't edit the posts. 
 
Interesting that while there is a huge amount of huffing and puffing about Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data, the media is surprisingly quiet about the use of the same or similar data sets by the Obama campaign in 2012 and the Clinton campaign in 2016. One thing this did make clear is there is now a monetary value attached to your data: Facebook could be fined $40,000 per person who's data was used, for a possible total of $2 trillion dollars.

Since you now have a numeric value for the data you provide to companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc., the best lesson from the entire kerfuffle is to treat your data with the same care and consideration you do with any other $40,000 asset.
 
Thucydides said:
Interesting that while there is a huge amount of huffing and puffing about Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data, the media is surprisingly quiet about the use of the same or similar data sets by the Obama campaign in 2012 and the Clinton campaign in 2016. One thing this did make clear is there is now a monetary value attached to your data: Facebook could be fined $40,000 per person who's data was used, for a possible total of $2 trillion dollars.

Since you now have a numeric value for the data you provide to companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc., the best lesson from the entire kerfuffle is to treat your data with the same care and consideration you do with any other $40,000 asset.

Great post, especially about the $40k. I hope Facebook gets nailed hard, they can probably afford the 2 trillion but it still would get me right in the feels.
 
Thucydides said:
Interesting that while there is a huge amount of huffing and puffing about Cambridge Analytica's use of Facebook data, the media is surprisingly quiet about the use of the same or similar data sets by the Obama campaign in 2012 and the Clinton campaign in 2016. One thing this did make clear is there is now a monetary value attached to your data: Facebook could be fined $40,000 per person who's data was used, for a possible total of $2 trillion dollars.

Since you now have a numeric value for the data you provide to companies like Facebook, Twitter, Google etc., the best lesson from the entire kerfuffle is to treat your data with the same care and consideration you do with any other $40,000 asset.

Source for $40,000 value, please?

Others figure much less... ( http://www.visualcapitalist.com/much-personal-data-worth/ )

Of course, all of this $40k whatever is based on the fact that people who read and acknowledge terms of acceptance didn't really understand the terms and should be absolved of any accusations that they like the benefit for 'free' social media access, but after the fact, don't like any of the outcome of accepting the terms and allowing their data to be used as fully-described within those terms.

:2c:

G2G
 
I think I may need to have a forced rest on reading American news stories.

This one has me shaking my head even more than usual.

In Pennsylvania the GOP had gerrymandered electoral districts to greatly favor their party. The matter was taken to the state's courts where eventually the state's Supreme Court held that the previous map "clearly, plainly and palpably" violated the free elections clause of the state's constitution and upheld a redrawn map prepared by an independent, non partisan expert.

Last week the US Supreme Court in a nine vote unanimous decision declined to hear an appeal by GOP legislators so that the new districts now stand.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-refuses-to-stop-new-congressional-maps-in-pennsylvania/2018/03/19/128d9656-215e-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html?utm_term=.04e2baabb21b

So what does the Pennsylvania GOP legislature do? Why they filed a motion in the legislature to impeach four of the five Democrat judges on the state's Supreme Court, of course. (They didn't move to impeach the one who was prepared to hold implementation of the new map off to 2020)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-republicans-move-to-impeach-supreme-court-democrats-for-gerrymandering-ruling_us_5ab16875e4b0decad044dee0

:brickwall:

 
FJAG said:
I think I may need to have a forced rest on reading American news stories.

This one has me shaking my head even more than usual.

In Pennsylvania the GOP had gerrymandered electoral districts to greatly favor their party. The matter was taken to the state's courts where eventually the state's Supreme Court held that the previous map "clearly, plainly and palpably" violated the free elections clause of the state's constitution and upheld a redrawn map prepared by an independent, non partisan expert.

Last week the US Supreme Court in a nine vote unanimous decision declined to hear an appeal by GOP legislators so that the new districts now stand.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/supreme-court-refuses-to-stop-new-congressional-maps-in-pennsylvania/2018/03/19/128d9656-215e-11e8-badd-7c9f29a55815_story.html?utm_term=.04e2baabb21b

So what does the Pennsylvania GOP legislature do? Why they filed a motion in the legislature to impeach four of the five Democrat judges on the state's Supreme Court, of course. (They didn't move to impeach the one who was prepared to hold implementation of the new map off to 2020)

https://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/pennsylvania-republicans-move-to-impeach-supreme-court-democrats-for-gerrymandering-ruling_us_5ab16875e4b0decad044dee0

:brickwall:

Fake news!

Drain the swamp!

Make America Great Again!

To quote Napoleon: “Le sigh...”
 
Conrad black has an article in the National Review, also dissecting the disintegrating narratives of "collusion". The people pushing this have damaged their credibility, and more importantly, the credibility of the organizations they work for. The long term effects are difficult to imagine right now, certainly the idea of tearing institutions down and rebuilding from scratch, while theoretically appealing, would be a monstrous effort and require decades of work to accomplish to any real standard.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/donald-trump-andrew-mccabe-impeachment-effort-backfires/

The Anti-Trump Effort Backfires
By CONRAD BLACK
March 20, 2018 12:49 PM

Don’t try to impeach your opponent without legal cause.

No one following the Russian-collusion and related dramas should be in any doubt about the steady flow of the balance of damaging evidence away from Trump and on to his accusers. It is clear that the hierarchy of the FBI and analogues in the Justice Department and intelligence services, horrified at the thought of a Trump victory though confident it would not occur, took liberties — in the soft treatment of Hillary Clinton’s email and uranium problems, and in abetting the Clinton campaign’s effort to smear Trump with the Russian-collusion argument.

As the parallel investigations and diluvian leaking have unfolded, the anti-Trump Resistance has received a series of gradually suppurating mortal wounds. The Steele dossier was commissioned and paid for by the Clinton campaign; over a hundred FBI agents and Justice Department lawyers expected Hillary Clinton to be charged criminally, and President Trump was correct in saying conversations by his campaign officials had been tapped, a claim that was much ridiculed at the time. Deputy FBI director Andrew McCabe testified that the Steele dossier was essential to obtaining a FISA warrant on a junior Trump aide (Carter Page), and McCabe and former director James Comey’s rabidly partisan helper Peter Strzok, and his FBI girlfriend Lisa Page, texted suggestions for influencing the FISA judge in the case. The judge recused himself, voluntarily or otherwise, after granting the warrant. Mueller set up his “dream team” of entirely partisan Democrats; McCabe failed to identify to the Bureau his wife as a member and beneficiary of the Clinton entourage and political candidate in Virginia; and the fourth person in the Justice Department, Bruce Ohr, met with Steele, and Mrs. Ohr helped compose the Steele dossier.

Read the rest at the link
 
The $40,000/person was the maximum fine that Facebook could face, giving a potential fine of $2 trillion dollars. This is a good metric as to what you are considered worth to Government regulators in this area (much like looking at WISB payouts for various injuries to determine what you are considered worth to the Government). While an imprecise metric, it is certainly a hard number to start with.

Alternatives to Facebook:

Minds: https://www.minds.org/#/

Idka: https://www.idka.com/en/

I'm sure there are others out there.
 
Thucydides said:
Conrad black has an article in the National Review, also dissecting the disintegrating narratives of "collusion". The people pushing this have damaged their credibility, and more importantly, the credibility of the organizations they work for. The long term effects are difficult to imagine right now, certainly the idea of tearing institutions down and rebuilding from scratch, while theoretically appealing, would be a monstrous effort and require decades of work to accomplish to any real standard.

https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/03/donald-trump-andrew-mccabe-impeachment-effort-backfires/

Read the rest at the link

No, thank you. I'm just not into Black. ;D
 
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