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Russian, Syrian warplanes unleash all-out attack on ISIS in northeast Hama as army prepares to eliminate pocket
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Page 4: Opinion
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5 15:48 Sock Puppet of Doom [] 
11 15:56 newc [2] 
11 20:36 Seeking cure for ignorance [2] 
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Page 3: Non-WoT
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Page 6: Politix
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5 21:59 Sock Puppet of Doom [1]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
WSJ Michael Mukasey: 'The Memo and the Mueller Probe’
[WSJ] If the investigation arose from partisan opposition research, what specific crime is he looking into?

The memo released Friday by the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence was the product of necessity, not choice. Even before its release, the debate over its provenance, motive and effect was obscuring the crucial point that it is the underlying facts the memo alleges that present the real issues.

The committee’s memo says that yet another memo, which goes by the cloak-and-dagger title "Steele dossier," provided at least part of the basis for a wiretap of Carter Page, a U.S. citizen who had volunteered as a foreign policy-consultant to the Trump campaign. The Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court granted the wiretap application from the FBI and Justice Department two weeks before the 2016 election. In order to obtain the warrant, the government had to show probable cause that Mr. Page was acting as the agent of a foreign power and that in so doing he had committed a crime.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 11:09 || Comments || Link || [0 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Wow, a copy and paste of the article. Usually it's off to WSJ.com and the article poster doesn't think that we all might not have paid subscriptions.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 || 02/05/2018 12:53 Comments || Top||

#2  From Mr. Mukasey’s Wikipedia page, because I couldn’t remember why that name was familiar:

Michael Bernard Mukasey[1] (/mjuːˈkeɪzi/; born July 28, 1941)[2] is a lawyer and former federal judge who served as the 81st Attorney General of the United States. He was appointed as Attorney General by President George W. Bush following the resignation of Alberto Gonzales. Mukasey also served for 18 years as a United States District Judge of the United States District Court for the Southern District of New York, six of those years as Chief Judge. He is the recipient of several awards, most notably the Learned Hand Medal of the Federal Bar Council.
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/05/2018 13:23 Comments || Top||

#3  This is very interesting. Seems Carter Page was working FOR the FBI.
Posted by: Deacon Blues || 02/05/2018 13:52 Comments || Top||

#4  #1 Wow, a copy and paste of the article.

Cease and desist letter to follow.
Posted by: Choter Whatle6422 || 02/05/2018 15:09 Comments || Top||

#5  Oh Ho Ho,

A former Attorney General weighs in on the argument...interesting on his opinion.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/05/2018 15:48 Comments || Top||


OOPS: Steele took ‘Trump dossier' to the STATE DEPT under Obama too…
[Right Scoop] Former State Dept. Spokeschick Nuland admitted that Christopher Steele provided a version of the Trump dossier to the State Department under Obama as well.

She explains what they did:

Former Assistant Secretary of State Victoria Nuland tells that Christopher Steele, author of the Russia dossier, shared similar information with the State Department: pic.twitter.com/4QS32hAlQq

‐ Face The Nation (@FaceTheNation) February 4, 2018
Is she just covering the State Dept’s hind quarters on this one? There are indications that the next "memo" will be about the State Department, and that there are already investigations underway....
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 04:18 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  Strategic Damage Control.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 7:58 Comments || Top||

#2  Steele always had aspirations to make it big in creative writing and the novel-writing business. I wonder if the State Dept. dossier is any better than the DOJ version. Did Steele pick up another paycheck from State? This guy, with Hillary's and the DNC's help, was intent upon launching a fiction writing career.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/05/2018 10:44 Comments || Top||

#3  You don't suppose Michael Wolff ( Fire and Fury) was a ghost writer on Steele's projects?
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/05/2018 10:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Why was Steele, as widely reported, "desperate" for Mr. Trump to not get elected?

Seems a little over-the-top for a (supposedly) rational non-American. Did someone "desperate" him?
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/05/2018 10:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Dick Morris: Did Cody Shearer Make Up the Lies in Christopher Steele’s Dossier?
Posted by: F. Ulerelet1030 || 02/05/2018 10:54 Comments || Top||


#7  Did Steele pick up another paycheck from State?

Good question.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/05/2018 10:57 Comments || Top||

#8  Why was Steele, as widely reported, "desperate" for Mr. Trump to not get elected?
Seems a little over-the-top for a (supposedly) rational non-American.


Well I'm non-American and, I hope, rational - and I was desperate for Hillary not to be elected.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/05/2018 12:26 Comments || Top||

#9  @#8: Desperate enough to have done what Mr. Steele did?

Not to put too fine a point on it, but is there something more than political "desperation" behind Mr. Steele's actions? Something a little more personal maybe?
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/05/2018 12:41 Comments || Top||

#10  Desperate enough to have done what Mr. Steele did?

150,000 $
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/05/2018 13:21 Comments || Top||

#11  You thought you could hide all this?

Ha ha ha ha ha
Posted by: newc || 02/05/2018 15:56 Comments || Top||


Kim Strassel - Did Christopher Steele Really Snooker the FBI?
[WSJ] The House Intelligence Committee memo about 2016 surveillance abuses, released Friday, lays out grave evidence that the FBI wasn’t fully forthcoming with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court as it sought an order to wiretap former Trump adviser Carter Page. It’s possible the FBI’s lack of candor was even worse than the memo describes.

Democrats are disputing the memo on lots of grounds, but they’ve said little about the FBI’s failure to inform the court that the bureau had itself decided one of its main sources, dossier author Christopher Steele, was unreliable. Mr. Steele in October 2016 gave Mother Jones an unauthorized interview about the dossier. As a former British intelligence officer, Mr. Steele would have known that sources are not supposed to blab to the press. The interview appeared but a few days before the election, was at the direction of his paymaster, the opposition-research firm Fusion GPS, and was clearly designed to help the ultimate client: the Hillary Clinton campaign.

Stuck with a source now brazenly using the FBI for political purposes, the bureau suspended and then terminated Mr. Steele. Only nine days before the Mother Jones interview, the bureau had filed its application for the Page wiretap order, which rested on the Steele dossier. Yet the FBI did not immediately go back to tell the court it no longer trusted Mr. Steele, the author of a crucial piece of evidence.

And the Mother Jones interview wasn’t the first time Mr. Steele went to the press. A month earlier he had sat down with an array of media outlets to brief them on the dossier that he’d given the FBI in July. Out of this came a Sept. 23, 2016, article by Michael Isikoff in Yahoo News, published under the headline "U.S. intel officials probe ties between Trump adviser and Kremlin." The story was a bombshell, blowing the FBI investigation into the public sphere.

The FBI and Justice Department intimately knew this article, as they relied on it as part of their wiretap application. And while Mr. Isikoff did not name Mr. Steele as his source, the FBI should have been able to figure out his identity. The Isikoff article relates specific dossier details, though the dossier wasn’t public at the time. It explains that the "intelligence reports" the FBI was reviewing‐the dossier‐came from a "well-placed Western intelligence source." Sen. Chuck Grassley last month referred Mr. Steele to the Justice Department for a criminal investigation of whether he lied to the feds about his contacts with the press. From this we can assume that the FBI’s FISA court application claimed Mr. Steele had not worked with the press.

The House memo gives the FBI the benefit of the doubt, stating that Mr. Steele "improperly concealed from and lied to the FBI about those contacts." Then again, what was the date of this claim? If Mr. Steele told the FBI when he first met with them in July that he’d not briefed media, that would have been accurate as far as we know. Did the FBI ask him again after the Isikoff article?

Even if it did and if he denied talking to reporters, the FBI would have had every reason to believe he was lying. The provenance of the Isikoff article is exceptionally clear. And the FBI could easily have checked Mr. Steele’s recent whereabouts (Britain or the U.S.) or even asked Mr. Isikoff, though he might not have answered. While Mr. Steele might have proved unreliable, there’s reason to wonder if he’d lie outright to the FBI.

The Grassley referral needs be fully declassified, just as the House memo was. The FBI needs to answer straightforward questions about Mr. Steele’s claims, and he needs to provide his version.

The FBI got fooled by a source, or it knew its source was lying, or it didn’t bother to check, or it was too incompetent to see the obvious. Take your pick. None of the possibilities look good, especially if you’re a FISA judge.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 03:40 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  How does it go "You can't cheat a honest man"?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/05/2018 4:30 Comments || Top||

#2  I'm being constantly amazed at the venality of the gov't since I've been cynical about them for 40 years.

It just gets worse & worse.
Posted by: AlanC || 02/05/2018 8:07 Comments || Top||

#3  Steele was instrumental in constructing and selling a 'cover for action' which facilitated (made legal thru FISA) the monitoring of selector (telephonic) signals of US Pesons.

I'm not sure how much more obvious or what further evidence is necessary to reveal the criminal activity.

Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 8:17 Comments || Top||

#4  US Peons?
Posted by: Skidmark || 02/05/2018 8:37 Comments || Top||

#5  Like all con's it plays upon the susceptibility of the target. Same game the boys and girls at the FBI use in a sting operation. One thing that we've all seen is the near total lack of self awareness and Freudian projection of those on the Left.
Posted by: Procopius2k || 02/05/2018 9:44 Comments || Top||

#6  I don't buy that the FBI was hoodwinked. Suppose the "premier U.S. domestic intelligence agency" was hoodwinked in which case the upper eschelon of the FBI should be fired for incompetence. Criminality is the more believable explanation.
Posted by: JohnQC || 02/05/2018 11:18 Comments || Top||

#7  JohnQC,

:-bd
Posted by: F. Ulerelet1030 || 02/05/2018 11:19 Comments || Top||

#8  I would suspect that the FBI and DoJ were asked to spy on the Trump campaign and responded that they had no grounds to go to FISA for permission. Zero then passed that back the Shillary who then had her minions and a couple of million bucks conjure up the Steele "dossier."

The reason the FBI jumped on the dossier is that they were desperate for an excuse to tap into the Trump campaign (because some of them were realistic enough to recognize that she was in trouble in her blue wall states). That desperation made them very gullible and they took the dossier hook, line, and sinker.

I suspect some of that eagerness to pursue the dossier's fiction is circular. Shillary wanted inside info on Trump for an October surprise and went to Zero who went to the FBI. Then when the dossier arrived, Shillary told Zero, not the NSC weekly briefing, about the "dossier" which then had Zero "inquire about it" and then press the FBI to use it to get a FISA warrant.

Common sense says the FBI was pressed to spy on Trump and needed an excuse to do so. It is too convenient that the dossier arrived. The timing is too good.

I bet buried in those emails the FBI and DoJ don't want to release are communications about spying on Trump and further communications about why don't they use the "dossier" to spy on Trump.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/05/2018 11:37 Comments || Top||

#9  :-bd translate to

Yes I had to look this one up, I thought it was glasses wearing tongue sticking out emoticon or something, Surprise, it's something else!

The whole usable list can be found at:
http://www.gomotes.com/messenger-emoticons/
Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance || 02/05/2018 11:56 Comments || Top||

#10  I am an old fashion keyboard emoji guy. My kids tease me about it.
Posted by: F. Ulerelet1030 || 02/05/2018 12:16 Comments || Top||

#11  Hey! It's all good! Keep us on our toes! :)
Posted by: Seeking cure for ignorance || 02/05/2018 20:36 Comments || Top||


Trey Goudy: With Steele 'Dossier,' FBI Covered for Clinton and the Democrats
[PJ] Trey Gowdy, who was instrumental in the writing of the Nunes memo, and who will not run for re-election to the House this fall from South Carolina, has this to add about apparent FBI malfeasance in the whole "Russian collusion" mess:
The House’s top investigator on Sunday said the FBI failed to notify a surveillance court it was relying on material funded by Democrats and the Hillary Clinton campaign when it asked to snoop on an adviser tied to the Trump campaign.
Rep. Trey Gowdy, South Carolina Republican and chairman of the House Oversight Committee, also said judges wouldn’t have authorized and repeatedly renewed a warrant to spy on the former Trump aide, Carter Page, if it hadn’t been for that very material, compiled by investigator Christopher Steele in a controversial dossier.

"They could have easily said it was the DNC and Hillary Clinton. That would have been really easy," Mr. Gowdy told CBS’s Face the Nation, referring to footnotes in the agents’ request to the court. "It took longer to explain it the way they did, than if they just come right out and said, ’Hillary Clinton for America and DNC paid for it.’ But they didn’t do that."

Mr. Gowdy was involved in drafting a four-page memo by the House Intelligence Committee that details the FBI’s decision to rely in part on Clinton-backed material to spy on Mr. Page in October 2016. It also explores the role of top Justice Department officials in renewing those snooping powers.

The Friday release of the memo has led to much media masticating over the past two days, very little of it about the underlying issues of institutional bias and politicization on the part of the FBI and the Obama Justice Department, and almost all of devoted to harum-scarum and partisan poo-flinging.

Related: Daily Caller - Gowdy Attacks Dems For Focusing On Whats Not The Memo Instead Of What Is
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 03:23 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:


Home Front: Politix
The GOP memo proves the ‘deep state' is real
[NYPost] Now that we know what the declassified House memo says about government misconduct, we also know what it means: The Washington swamp ‐ the deep state ‐ is bigger, more vicious and more dangerous to American liberty than even a cynic could have imagined.

Because of the memo and previous revelations, we know that swamp creatures are embedded in the top of the FBI and the Department of Justice. Some used their power to try to tip a presidential campaign based on their personal politics.

They conducted a sham investigation of the Democratic candidate and misled federal judges to spy on at least one associate of her Republican challenger.

To block exposure of their misdeeds, these officials falsely claimed that national security would be damaged. Add that despicable lie ‐ issued in the name of the FBI itself ‐ to their shameful records.
Thanks to the battle over the memo, we also know with 100 percent certainty that the mainstream media is part of the swamp. The efforts by The New York Times and The Washington Post, among others, to keep the memo from ever seeing sunshine were appalling.
...
The choice we face is especially stark given that the case at hand potentially implicates other top aides to former President Barack Obama. Recall that Page and others linked to Trump were accused of having ties to Russia, then their names were leaked to the media in a bid to sway the election and then to topple the president. There may be other flimsy FISA applications covering other Trump associates we don’t yet know about.

The memo is a giant step in ­uncovering what appears to be an unprecedented conspiracy, but it is not the endgame. More documents, congressional hearings, investigations and criminal prosecutions are unavoidable.

Hysterical Trump haters greeted the memo’s release by declaring that we face a constitutional crisis. They are right ‐ and they are creating it.

Posted by: Anomalous Sources || 02/05/2018 00:00 || Comments || Link || [1 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And the beast called us deplorables.
Posted by: E. Ebbomomble9848 || 02/05/2018 9:02 Comments || Top||

#2  Speaking of the FBI Fusion GPS hits. STONE: “Lawyers for General Mike Flynn will shortly file a motion to dismiss all the charges filed against him, based on reports now confirmed by The Hill, Circa News and Infowars, that Assistant FBI Director Andrew McCabe told a teleconference of law enforcement officials, “first we f*ck Flynn, then we f*ck Trump.”

Stone’s report comes amid news that Special counsel Robert Mueller has requested the postponement of Flynn’s sentencing.
Posted by: Woodrow || 02/05/2018 13:19 Comments || Top||

#3  Well, it came out last week that Strzok's FB-302s were a misrepresentation of the information from their ambush "interview" of Flynn and the contradictions between his statements to Mueller's team and those in the 302's is the basis of the "lying to the FBI" charges.

I think this is to be expected AND if the charges ARE dismissed...I think it will be the beginning of the end for the Mueller inquiry. He will then have no scalps of any Trump cabinet or staff to show.
Posted by: Sock Puppet of Doom || 02/05/2018 15:52 Comments || Top||

#4  Fire every SES level executive in every agency, every Clinton and Obama hold over and all the ones burrowed in. If you can't fire them, transfer them to Adak Alaska.
Posted by: Wheack Smiter of the Apes6693 || 02/05/2018 15:52 Comments || Top||

#5  Seems like the appropriate response to any Mueller question is, "I can't recall."
Posted by: F. Ulerelet1030 || 02/05/2018 15:56 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Fiat Chrysler takes flak for Ram truck Super Bowl ad featuring MLK speech
[Market Watch] Fiat Chrysler used the 50th anniversary of a Martin Luther King Jr. speech to sell pickup trucks during Sunday’s Super Bowl LII, setting off a mostly negative Twitter response to the commercial use of one of his final public sermons.

And although the estate of the late the Civil Rights icon approved the speech’s use, social media response reflected mixed feelings among his family members and viewers.

King’s voice airs over the top of the ad for Ram Trucks FCAU, -0.58% , in which ordinary people are shown carrying out acts of love and compassion, mostly using their vehicles. In his "The Drum Major Instinct" sermon, one of his final public addresses before his assassination two months later, King called on people to show greatness through kindness and service.

Ram’s tagline and twitter hashtag: "Built To Serve."
Thor wasn't too happy about RAM trashing Vikings either.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/05/2018 14:16 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  With apologies to Willie: "Mama's, don't let your babies grow up to be marketing majors."
Posted by: Vast Right Wing Conspiracy || 02/05/2018 14:40 Comments || Top||

#2  Well, perhaps we shouldn't sell the Dems short too much. Perhaps even THEY are tired of this nonsense; hence, their move toward the "Dreamers" and Hispanics in general. Blacks aren't THE minority anymore, and they've priced themselves out of the market.
Posted by: DooDahMan || 02/05/2018 16:46 Comments || Top||

#3  What Would Jesus Drive?
Posted by: SteveS || 02/05/2018 23:17 Comments || Top||



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Two weeks of WOT
Mon 2018-02-05
  Russian, Syrian warplanes unleash all-out attack on ISIS in northeast Hama as army prepares to eliminate pocket
Sun 2018-02-04
  Bomb blast kills top military commander in S. Yemen Zoom
Sat 2018-02-03
  Ahrar Al-Sham’s top commander in northern Idlib has been assassinated
Fri 2018-02-02
  Four Migrants Critical after Being Shot in Calais Brawl
Thu 2018-02-01
  Robert Mueller Requests Postponement of General Mike Flynn Sentencing… It was a set up
Wed 2018-01-31
  Southwest State Confirms The Death Of Burhakabo Military Commander
Tue 2018-01-30
  Iraqi court sentences Al-Qaeda member to death over executing eight civilians in 2007
Mon 2018-01-29
  McCabe Resigns
Sun 2018-01-28
  Top Houthi leader killed in Sanaa by unknown individuals
Sat 2018-01-27
  Taliban kill 40 63 90 95 with ambulance bomb in Afghan capital Kabul
Fri 2018-01-26
  Mosul clean up continues: 21 turbans permanently unwound, 9 more jugged
Thu 2018-01-25
  Double car bombing kills 33 in Benghazi
Wed 2018-01-24
  Two suicide attackers, Islamic State member killed as troops repel attack in Baghdad
Tue 2018-01-23
  1.5K al-Nusra troops surrounded in Idlib
Mon 2018-01-22
  Tunisian forces kill top aide of Al Qaeda leader in Maghreb

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