[Town Hall] The Comey hearings were always destined to be a Rorschach Test where each side saw what it wanted to see. That being said, reality doesn’t change because of partisan leanings and ultimately, Comey’s public comments turned out to be good for Trump.
1) Despite Multiple Anonymous Reports To The Contrary, Comey Did Tell Trump 3 Times That He Wasn’t Under Investigation In The Russia Probe: Numerous outlets, but most prominently CNN reported that Comey’s testimony would contradict Trump’s claim that Comey told him on three separate occasions that he wasn’t under investigation. As it turns out, Trump was right and the anonymous reports were wrong. Again.
2) The Conspiracy Theory That Says Trump Colluded With Russia To Somehow Steal The Election From Hillary Clinton Is Now Dead: Not only did Comey thoroughly shoot down the idea that Trump was being investigated in the Russia probe, he explicitly denied stories based on anonymous sources that said Trump colluded with the Russians. He added, "Yes, there have been many, many stories based on -- well, lots of stuff but about Russia that are dead wrong." Read it and weep, conspiracy theorists.
3) Loretta Lynch Interfered In The Clinton Investigation: Comey said he was "concerned" that Obama’s Attorney General, Loretta Lynch, asked him to publicly call the criminal investigation of Clinton a "matter" instead. This matched rhetoric used by the Clinton campaign and Comey said he had a problem with it because, "I don't know whether it was intentional or not but it gave the impression that the attorney general was looking to align the way we talked about our work with the way it was describing that. It was inaccurate." Despite the fact that Comey was "concerned" and felt it was "inaccurate," he did as Lynch asked, which doesn’t exactly speak well of his honesty or impartiality.
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"How do you like how we’re flooding the zone?" Bannon asked me. Indeed that perfectly described it. The initiatives were so varied, so widespread, that none could be isolated without giving up on all the others, and therefore, none could be attacked with Alinsky tactics.
But the genius of what followed is still either ignored by even "conservative" writers, or not understood at all. Team Trump also understood that they needed a window of a few months to lay the groundwork for all of this, to get the necessary people in place, and to begin drafting all the paperwork necessary. Their biggest enemy was the leak. If word began leaking out to Republicans, especially, who could be harassed, lobbied, and bullied before the whole package was drafted, many pieces would never see the light of day.
Sometime in this period, I’m convinced Trump (but most likely Trump and Bannon, because this is pure Anti-Alinskyism at work) came up with the "Cheese in the Maze" deception program. The idea was to constantly leak stories of chaos or disaffection within Team Trump in order to get the Fake News media chasing those rather than the policy stories. Hence, the "Bannon-Kushner fight," "Trump Furious with Sessions," "Bannon on the outs," "McMaster Seeking a Coup," and, the latest, "Sessions Considers Resigning." At no time did I ever get confirmation from within Team Trump that any one of these was even remotely true--but on the other hand I couldn’t get Team Trump to admit to the "cheese in the maze" strategy. Nevertheless, along with "Muh Russia," the Fake News media was 100% absorbed in what were essentially National Enquirer headlines while oblivious to the earthquake under their feet.
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#1
Amazing if true. Bannon has been very quiet since the "he lost the power struggle with Kushner" story. Kinda wondered if he was there at all. I sure hope this is all true. Crossing my fingers.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
06/11/2017 12:30 Comments ||
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#2
Even if true, too slow. Every Obama appointee should have been replaced by now. Trump should be signing executive orders all day every day until his fingers bleed. Sure, the courts will knock out some, but he can sign faster than they can rule. (Actually, I'd rather see Trump signing new bills produced by Congress, but we seem to have a lack of enthusiasm there.) We can't count on anything past next year's mid-terms.
Posted by: Matt ||
06/11/2017 13:49 Comments ||
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[FOX] A New York City play appears to depict President Trump being brutally stabbed to death by women and minorities, Fox & Friends reported.
In this year's "Shakespeare in the Park" in Central Park, the protagonist looks very similar to the tall, blond businessman elected president in 2016.
Guy Benson said that while Trump is not named in the play, the fact that his wife is depicted with a "Slavic accent" and he is being stabbed by women and minorities gives it away.
#1
...And yet, the Party of Sympathetic Magic Democrats told us that showing clipart symbols which could be interpreted as bullseyes was a direct threat on the lives of their candidates.
Curious.
Mike
Posted by: Mike Kozlowski ||
06/11/2017 12:13 Comments ||
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...
Who do theater-goers have to thank for this Trump-centric work? Here’s a passage from the “Corporate Partners” page on the Public Theater website (emphasis added):
“The Public Theater has cultivated successful ongoing partnerships with several leading corporations including Bank of America, Delta Air Lines, The New York Times, American Express, and others. We offer sponsorship opportunities which enhance awareness and visibility of your brand, targeted activations, and provide opportunities for client entertainment, unique experiences and exciting benefits for employees. Year-round, season, or program-specific sponsorships can include a multitude of customizable benefits based on a corporation’s needs and initiatives. Whether it’s entertaining clients at Free Shakespeare in the Park…”
The New York Times did not return a request for comment for this report as of press time.
...
#4
We could have a play that shows members of the Play Company having a simulated beheading by ISIS, just to be fair and balanced.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
06/11/2017 18:45 Comments ||
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#5
Sort of skips what happens to the conspirators in the end? Skips probably what happens to those allied with the conspirators shortly after Marc Antony's speech as well.
It’s 2017 and Republicans control the White House, the Senate, the House and more statewide offices than you can shake a big bundle of fake news papers at. And, potentially soon, a Supreme Court that takes its guidelines from the Constitution not Das Kapital and the National Social Justice Party.
Here’s the bad news, Republicans are still Republicans.
The media throws some chum in the water and sits back and watches the bloody fun as Republicans go after Republicans for the entertainment of their enemies. Scandals are manufactured and then strategically aimed to divide and conquer Republicans. But the real target is the conservative agenda.
[RedStateWatcher] Mike Cernovich is usually right about his sources. His latest tweet about FBI James Comey reveals there are no memos to be found. According to Cernovich's sources, the FBI "are unable to locate James Comey's memos on their servers." Cernovich says one of two things could have happened to the memos. Either Comey destroyed them or he's lying about the memos.
#3
I heard they were typed on a laptop. I assumed if true that would have been a government laptop. Could they have been a personal laptop? Maybe that's why he thinks he can just do what he wants with them.
#7
Servers are backef up daily. If he deleted them there would still be copies on backups for prior days. Therefore they were never saved to the in house system.
Posted by: Frank G ||
06/11/2017 8:02 Comments ||
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#9
Also, he could reset the date/time on his computer to the day of his meeting and create whatever memo he wants to create, save, then reset the pc to the current date/time and that will fool any politician.
[EagleRising] Islam is not, repeat is NOT, a religion of peace. It is a religion designed for conquest and it demands submission of all non-Muslims. This should be obvious given its history, yet the truth is vehemently denied by progressives here and in Western Europe. We had an administration that tried to convince us that the Fort Hood massacre was ’work place violence’ and that the war on terror was really just an ’overseas contingency operation.’ That was lunacy. It is also insanity to ignore the real threat the religion of Islam poses to American and Western values.
It would be nice if all of our elected leaders had a working knowledge of history and viewed current events rationally. Sadly progressive leaders here and in Western Europe maintain their delusional world view in spite of all evidence to the contrary. Even most non-progressive leaders refuse to face the reality about Islam. Islam is the antithesis of our values and inimical to our way of life, because Islam is not a tolerant religion. Fundamental Muslims follow the teachings of the Quran and expect everyone else to do so as well. Historically those conquered by Muslims had two choices, you could convert or die, unless you were a Christian or a Jew. Christians and Jews are allowed to live as second class citizens provided they paid a penalty. In ISIS controlled territory today, the penalty is so high and the restrictions so onerous that conversion or death is the reality.
We have only to look at Western Europe to validate this reality. Muslims in those countries have not assimilated and the havoc they are causing in those societies will only grow as their population increases. Their goal is that not just Muslims, but everyone else lives according to the Islamic law. Our progressive leaders and the mainstream media assure us that that won’t happen here. Really?
Continued on Page 49
#3
Both want to destroy Western Civilization. BTW, the Left culturally appropriated the term 'Liberal' to cover its authoritarian and tyrannical agendas.
#4
I don't think leftists worry about being wrong about pisslam. It's just another "anti-western" thing they readily embrace...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
06/11/2017 8:51 Comments ||
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#5
The proof of the pudding will come when a western, "liberal" country falls to the demographics of the Muslim invasion.
Sweden, England, France? When Islam takes over and starts to implement Sharia what will the left do when it is too late? I expect that the trajectory will we similar to Yippees Turkey; democracy till they reach their stop and get off the train......the left will?????
Mohammed and Charlemagne
Henri Pirenne
Dover Publications, 2001
Republication (unabridged) George Allen and Unwin, 1954
Before anyone gets super excited about the title, this book is an anthropological study about the effects of two major ethos coming into contact in the post-Roman Mediterranean culture. It is not about timely maneuvers outside of Tours, though the effects of conflict are noted.
And Mr. Pirenne did not pen this book. He died before he was able to put his notes into publication form. A former associate of Mr. Pirenne and his son, Jacques Pirenne compiled his notes and did their best to write the book as they thought Mr. Pirenne would have written it.
Preface, by Jacques Pirenne, Page 9:
This was the crowning achievement of his last years of work. The problem of the end of Antiquity and the beginning of the Middle Ages had always preoccupied him. Before the War, in his lectures on the History of the Middle Ages, he drew attention to the profound traces which the institutions of the late Roman Empire had left upon those of the Frankish epoch. But is was during his captivity in Germany, when, as a prisoner in the camp of Holzminden, he organized, for the many Russian students who shared his fate, a course of lectures on the economic history of Europe, that the solution of this capital problem seems to have dawned upon him. And during his exile in the village of Kreuzburg, in Thuringia, while he was writing his History of Europe, he emphasized, for the first time, the close relation that existed between the conquests of Islam and the formation of the mediaeval Occident.
I wish I had read this book long ago as it fills in a gap in history little addressed, and does so using empirical methods such as the change in cost of paper, oil, and other day to day items. Mr. Pirenne does get into the cultural differences between post Roman territories, Germanic traditions, and the introduction of Islam to the Mediterranean world.
And he does so in an interesting and fluid way, a testament to the compilers, writers, and editors. The information is very engaging, and well proofed in the footnotes. Mr. Pirenne's topics cover such data systems as commerce and trade, culture and traditions, government and bureaucracy, and covers these topics pre and post major events, and does so with no this group is good, bad, or ugly.
Chapter 11: The Economic and Social Situation After the Invasions and the Mediterranean Navigation - Conditions After the Invasions - Navigation, page 92-94
The fragility of papyrus in the northern climate explains why so little is left; but we must be under no illusion as to the quantity which was formerly employed. And the wealth of information which we possess concerning Gaul, thanks to Gregory of Tours, should not make us forget the fact that still more papyrus must have been used in Italy and Spain, and that this must have necessitated an exceptionally active import trade.
Another article of consumption figured very largely in the commerce of the period. This was oil. There was a demand for it everywhere; in the first place for alimentary purposes, for it seems that in Southern Gaul nearly everything was cooked in oil, as in Spain and Italy. The native olive trees did not suffice to meet the demand. It was necessary to import oil from abroad; all the more necessary inasmuch as the lighting of the churches at this period - doubtless because oil was so abundant - was not by means of wax candles, as it was at a later date, but by means of oil-fed lamps. Now Africa was the greatest oil-producing country in the Empire, and was to remain so until the Musulman conquest. It was exported from Africa in orcae. Theodoric, between 509 and 511, wrote to the Bishop of Salona on behalf of the merchant Johannes, who had furnished this bishop with sexaginta orcas olei ad implenda luminaria, and who wanted to be paid. The rest of the letter shows this was merely a parvitas, that is to say, a bagatelle. Gregory of Tours tells us something about the oil trade at Marseilles; he speaks of a merchant who had seventy orcae of oil stolen on the quay. A diploma grant by Clovis III, in 692, and renewed in 716, but which really dated back to Dagobert I (d. 639) granted the monastery of Saint-Denis an annual subsidy of a hundred solidi, with which the actors regii were to buy oil from the cellarium fisci, in accordance with the ordo cataboli. A formula of Marculf's mentions Marseilles as the port where the oil for the luminaria was generally purchased.
This oil therefore found its way even into the North. The Corbie Diploma of 716, which mentions 10,000 pounds of oil, is further proof of this. It must not be supposed that this was oil from Provence, for it was deposited in the cellarium fisci. A tax which refers to the exportation of oil from Bordeaux gives us reason to believe that this oil was forwarded from Marseilles.
There are other data points noted, such as prices for commodities and trade items in spices and camels, which suggests heavy trade and prosperity along the Mediterranean. Also interesting to me was the evolution of post-Roman Italy, and Mr. Pirenne does well explaining that process.
The Carolingian Coup D'Etat and the Volte-Face of the Papacy, Page 224
The year 751 saw the alliance of the Carolingians with the Papacy. It was planned under Zacharias and completed under Stephen II. Before the situation could be completely reversed the last thread that connected the Pope with the Empire had to be broken, for so long as it existed the Papacy was force to remain, in defiance of its nature a Mediterranean power. It doubtless would have remained a Mediterranean power if Islam had not robbed it of Africa and Spain. But Germany, in the North, was now of greater significance.
Still, tradition was so powerful that if by some impossibility the Emperor could have driven out the Lombards, the Pope would have remained faithful to him. But in 749, with the appearance of Aistulf, the Lombards resumed their policy of conquest.
In 751 they seized Ravenna, and this time they remained permanently in possession of the city. Rome could no longer evade her fate. In 752 Aistulf's army was before the walls. Only immediate assistance could save the city. Stephen began by imploring help of the Iconoclast. He begged him to come with an army and save the city of Rome. But Constantine V contented himself with sending an embassy to the Lombards. Aistulf received it, but refused to make any concession. Pope Stephen II then appealed to Pippin for assistance, but before taking this decisive step he himself went to Pavia, where he besought Aistulf to renounce his conquests. Having suffered a rebuff, he left for the court of Pippin, where he arrived in January 754.
The inevitable had come to pass at last. The tradition which Pippin had broken in 751 was abandoned three years later by the Pope himself.
All said, this is not a beginners book. Readers are expected to have a working knowledge of regional cultures, trade centers and routes, language skills, and major players. In fact, a couple of maps would have gone a long way to making this transcript a bit more accessible. With the greatest library ever created accessible by phone or computer, the education requirements are not a make-or-break problem for the reader, and the research to figure what is meant by orcae or where the Suevi are located is educational in and of itself.
Link is to Amazon. I have run out of sand to discuss emergency bags this time; and I would like to mention that a consistent weekly post is impossible for me at the moment, as I will for sure miss next week's post on account of a celebration (for a change). I may also branch out to other aspects of the Humanities from time to time, as well as cooking.
#1
Trade was critical for transitioning from the Dark Ages on, and the Hanseatic League, for example, was but one confederation formed for the purpose of trade and protecting trade.
#2
I was a bit surprised by how well off post-Roman Europe was; especially Spain. Carthage was a major trade hub. The trade routes and practices excelled until Europe started losing access to Africa, especially Egypt with the wheat, oil, wine, paper. When trade within the Sardinic & Tyrrhenian Seas becomes dicey to non-muslims Gaul begins a great decline (Spain already captured at this point) and everyone starts looking north for resources.
Looking at that, then looking into the future where demand would be even greater, it is easy to see how Venice with its exclusive trade rights in Africa became so wealthy so quickly.
And look at orcae, which I take for plural orca, Latin for whale, which I take as a class of ship, such as clipper or cutter, sloop, etc. which would indicate a standardized ship construction, like saying I would like seven truck trailers of olive oil. There may be small volume differences among trailers, but I would have a good estimate of the volume.
Great book - filled gaps and raised questions at the same time.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.