[Breitbart] Victoria Nuland, a senior official in John Kerry’s State Department, gave the green light for the FBI to first meet with former British spy Christopher Steele regarding his infamous, largely discredited dossier alleging wild claims about Donald Trump and Russia, according to a book released this week.
It was at that meeting that Steele initially reported his dossier charges to the FBI, the book relates.
The dossier was reportedly utilized by the FBI to launch its probe into Trump. According to House Republicans, the questionable document was used by Obama administration officials to obtain a FISA warrant to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, who briefly served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser to Trump’s campaign.
The book, "Russian Roulette: The Inside Story of Putin’s War on America and the Election of Donald Trump," is authored by reporters by Michael Isikoff and David Corn.
The controversial Fusion GPS firm hired Steele to do the anti-Trump work that resulted in the compilation of the dossier. Fusion GPS was paid for its anti-Trump work by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign and the Democratic National Committee via the Perkins Coie law firm.
#1
When will the Dems begin to get the idea that just maybe their jury-rigged investigations, FISA kangaroo courts, obstruction of justice, fake dossiers, false narratives, scheming, pay-offs, and lying were not such good ideas?
#4
That's why Mueller has gone off on a hunt for vague violations of tax law and expired tax ID numbers...most of which occurred on previous administrations starting with a D...but presented in the media as if these are new violations.
[Sacramento Bee via Victory Girls] Trump and his cabinet have been making headlines recently in terms of the pushback they’ve given to California for its sanctuary city policies. The president has been characteristically critical toward California’s own brand of liberalism, and he recently singled out Governor Jerry Brown in particular. In response to Trump’s activity involving California, a Tuesday editorial from the Sacramento Bee claimed that President Trump hasn’t seen the real California, and has, thus, vastly mischaracterized the state on the national stage.
Here’s a segment:
As Donald Trump visited California on Tuesday for the first time as president, he limited his view to what serves his agenda ‐ a border crossing in San Diego to inspect prototypes for his proposed wall, Marine Corps Air Station Miramar to speak to service members, and a private home in Beverly Hills for a $35,000-per-person fundraiser.
If only the president and the nation could see the real California. They’d see a state that drives much of the U.S. economy, with diverse and dynamic people leading the way into America’s future.
Granted, I’m on board with the idea that Trump’s rhetorical style often relies on the use of "broad brushstrokes." The same can be said for many politicians. That, and it’s definitely true that California is a diverse state, it’s filled with dynamic people, it’s significantly impactful over the US economy, and Californians do develop tech that will launch us into the future.
But those on the editorial board at the Sacramento Bee are deluding themselves if they think Californians live in some idealistic liberal utopia.
I live in San Francisco. I cherish my city, but it has major problems, none of which the editorial addressed.
The worst problem of all‐ way worse than soaring rents, the high cost of living, unreliable police, ridiculous taxes, less-than-optimal public transit, and laws that hamstring businesses and individuals in the name of liberal ideology‐ is the trifecta of homelessness, mental illness, and addiction that affects people who live on the streets.
To give you an idea: this past Monday, I was walking down the entrance stairway to the Civic Center BART station, and on my way down, I walked in between two homeless men as one passed a crack pipe to the other. They made zero effort to conceal the pipe because it’s just normal in that area of town to do hard drugs out in the open. And several days ago, when my husband and I went to the public library downtown, we saw several plastic pieces that had come off of hypodermic needles laying around. My husband has seen people shooting up before. He once saw someone defecating in the street. I’ve seen someone smoking a pipe in the street. I’ve seen a pregnant woman smoking cigarettes on the street. One time, I saw someone pee on the side of a building downtown, and their bag was laying in the middle of their pee stream as it ran into the street, so when they finished doing their business and picked up their bag, it was dripping urine as they walked away.
#2
California has many beautiful places but they tend to elect some totally unhinged radical politicians. It's a shame these politicos have tried to turn it into a 3rd world sh-thole.
#3
Its in stage I of Third World Undevelopment. The rich at the top, the poor at the bottom and the middle class squeezed out of existence. Classical Latin America patronage.
[Breitbart] Wednesday on MSNBC’s "Live With Velshi and Ruhle," Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) said he was opposing President Donald Trump’s choice to lead the CIA, Gina Haspel, because she "loved the idea of someone being tortured."
Paul said, "One of the things I liked about President Trump is he consistently and loudly opposed regime change in Iraq, the Iraq war. He’s appointing people around him that not only support the Iraq war, never learned the lesson that regime change led to instability and chaos in the Middle East. These are people who he’s appointing Pompeo that have advocated for regime change next door. These are not people who support the notion that the Iraq war was misguided.
He continued, "On Mrs. Haspel, if you read her quotes, when she was present during waterboarding, she was gleeful at the waterboarding and sort of gloating at the fact that the guy is acting as he’s struggling to breathe and drowning in fluid. This is not what America stands for. Torture is not what America is about. I have family members in the armed service. I don’t want to send a message to the world that torture is fine. Our young men and women can be captured at some point too. If the whole world thinks America tortures prisoners, they’ll do the same to ours. This is a woman who is a poster child for what went wrong with waterboarding after 9/11. She should never ever be advanced to any position in the CIA."
He added, "There are many people, if you want a career person, someone who served in the CIA, there are dozens and dozens of people who weren’t involved with waterboarding, not directly involved with torture, that weren’t gleefully showing how much they loved the idea of someone being tortured. I think she’s absolutely disqualified. There are probably dozens of other people, I wouldn’t presume to know the individual names at the CIA, but I think we can find a career person that hasn’t tortured anybody."
#7
Seems to me that when you are a participant in war, actively engaging in operations against a nation and its people, and you are a member of another nation, or affiliated and allied with them in such activities, and you wear a uniform or some form of identifying markings, you should be treated as a legitimate prisoner of war and afforded the protections of the Geneva Conventions. When you are not such a person, you should not expect due process or anything except the wraith of the nation for your use of deception to gain advantage. I for one, think this is a reasonable policy.
Posted by: Dave D. ||
03/15/2018 19:18 Comments ||
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#13
If the world knew that we put our special forces through the same thing they might start to think our Special Forces have magic powers like Mossad. That would be ok in my book.
We could have fed al'Qaeda members through wood chippers a half inch at a time and it wouldn't have violated the laws of war. I'm not even sure it would have been immoral, because those fuckers took the evil choice on every decision set before them.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/15/2018 21:52 Comments ||
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#15
Every time we capture a high value target from ISiS or AQ, I personally believe the ticking bomb scenario is in place.
[Hot Air] "People close to the White House say they expect more major personnel shifts this week," tweeted Maggie Haberman yesterday. Attorney General and National Security Advisor sound pretty major.
Cycling out Jeff Sessions and cycling in John Bolton would be even weirder than bringing in Larry Kudlow to run economic policy in a protectionist White House. Until Trump jumped into politics, Sessions was the most prominent nationalist in the Republican Party, certainly in elected office. Bolton, meanwhile, has been one of the GOP’s most outspoken hawks for decades. Somehow, a little more than a year into his term, a guy who got elected president running as an anti-interventionist "America First" populist is prepared to cashier the former and hire the latter. On what planet does that make sense?
#5
As long as McCabe gets shitcanned in the next four days, I'm cool with it. Sessions has been twiddling his thumbs since he's been AG, and that's as charitable as I'm gonna say it.
#7
If true I'd caution Trump on churning through to many folks to fast. He's got another 7 years to go and might find fewer and fewer people wanting to take up jobs if they know they're likely to be fired at a whim
[LI] President Donald Trump will be spending the day in Southern California, inspecting the border wall prototypes constructed near San Diego and drawing out the #Resistance in the form of organized protests.
It will be interesting to see if Trump gives US Senator Kamala Harris a fun nickname, especially after her tweet touting the Golden State as the future of the nation.
If California is the future, then I feel it is my duty as a resident to give everyone fair warning of what is in store! New regulations approved by the California State Water Resources Control Board allow treated recycled water that comes from city sewers to be added to reservoirs, the source of California municipal drinking water.
The regulations specify the percentage of recycled water that can be added and how long it must reside there before being treated again at a surface water treatment facility and provided as drinking water, according to the Water Board.
"This is a type of indirect potable use ‐ it’s not treated recycle water that goes directly to someone’s house," said Miryam Barajas at the Water Board. "It’s highly treated.
In fact, San Diego is leading the state in carrying out a sewer-to-reservoir operation. I will simply point out that it is only a matter of time before the system fails, and untreated sewer water ends up in the tap to create a public health crisis.
It is a good thing that Trump prefers golfing to biking. The clean-up of the Santa Ana River Bike Trail (after the homeless encampment was officially closed) generated tons of hazardous waste, needles, and other debris.
More than 400 tons of debris, 13,950 needles and 5,279 pounds of hazardous waste were discovered in Santa Ana River Trail in California between January 22 and March 3.
The waste was from a more than two-mile stretch of bike trail from around the I-5 in Orange to Ball Road in Anaheim, the OCR reported. Hazardous waste includes human waste, propane and pesticides.
The Santa Ana River Trail was once populated by homeless people, but the encampments were dismantled in late February.
Here is what it looked like prior the the clean-up:
#3
The homeless camp cleanup offers a few economic insights: The amount of trash indicates that the dwellers are feverish consumers, and we all know consumption is what lefty economists believe keeps the economy afloat. The needles show these camp dwellers are not so much poor as they are "concerned with different recreational modalities..."
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/15/2018 9:05 Comments ||
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#4
California, leading the way to 3rd world status for the United States.
#6
It's called toilet-to-tap. Our politicians from Brown on down keep telling us that we must conserve water. Then they tell us we need more affordable housing. After getting bribes from developers these politicians issue the developers water hookup permits for vast housing tracts in which the average house will cost half a million bucks. How is that conserving water? How is that affordable, especially after the county levies the property tax?
Well, the truth is, they lie.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/15/2018 10:53 Comments ||
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#7
I will simply point out that it is only a matter of time before the system fails, and untreated sewer water ends up in the tap to create a public health crisis.
Love LI, and usually Leslie Eastman, another San Diego resident, but she's an ignorant idiot on this. Not all sewage is going to the Pure Water recycling program, it will never supply all SD's needs and it gets blended with Colorado River water at San Vicente reservoir to dilute/diffuse and further expose to UV. By the way - any idea what all the cities and towns upstream of SD on the Colorado River do with their treated water? She's already been drinking treated and diluted waste water
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2018 10:59 Comments ||
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#8
by the way, the primary treatment plant at Pt. Loma remains in service, even with Pure Water in operation
Posted by: Frank G ||
03/15/2018 11:19 Comments ||
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#9
I couldn't find a ballpark number in a quick search, but it would be interesting to know the breakdown WRT river / reservoir water vs ground water in the fresh water drinking supply of the US.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/15/2018 11:28 Comments ||
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#10
Git yerself one of them new-fangled nuklear reactors and you can distill all the fresh water you want.
#11
Distilled water is a drag to drink, unless the alternative is dysentery or dehydration. Gimme my dissolved oxygen and touch of mineral salts, please...
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
03/15/2018 11:32 Comments ||
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#12
twist of lemon would be nice also and none of that crappy slushy ice either! I want clear cubes no cloudy ice please :)
#16
Yeah, well, San Diego has some excellent breweries too.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
03/15/2018 12:20 Comments ||
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#17
Here in Carlsbad we have a desalinization plant that could provide 10% of our water needs (or something like that). Suddenly half of San Diego was thinking they could share as if it was an endless supply.
Posted by: Mullah Richard ||
03/15/2018 13:11 Comments ||
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#19
Recycled waste water works on the ISS. It'll be interesting to see if some tech genius could make a toilet that does the same for household use.
It'd have to be unique in appearance to allow for proper virtue signaling in order to succeed though, unless they can get the California government to mandate the things.
#26
Hah, you know i’m 70. Ish. How old is old. Is that what the white speckles on my chin are? And the water recycling system on ISS is mine. Partly, the part that makes it work anyway.
[Townhall] U.S. District Court Judge Timothy Black issued a preliminary injunction Wednesday blocking an Ohio law, signed by Gov. Kasich in December, that would’ve banned abortions performed solely due to a diagnosis of Down syndrome.
The law, which would’ve taken effect March 23, makes performing abortions solely on the basis of Down Syndrome a fourth-degree felony. It also requires the state medical board to revoke a doctor's license if convicted but does not penalize the woman obtaining the procedure.
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) and Planned Parenthood sued in February arguing that the law unconstitutionally restricts abortion access.
Judge Black agreed with that argument, saying that the law violates Supreme Court precedent forbidding states from interfering with a woman’s decision to end a pregnancy before viability.
#1
Black is a Harvard Law School grad and Democrat appointed by Soetoro. The slaying of the Down Syndrome inconvenient citizens can now continue.
If it could be determined that some Down Syndrome infants may also be gay or lesbian Islamic Dreamers, perhaps Judge Black's decision could be overturned.
#2
prenatal screening can provide a risk factor in the first trimester
because the 1992 Supreme Court decision (Planned P vs Casey) since during the first trimester no undue burden may be placed on a pregnant woman (somehow this was because of the 14th amendment).
Posted by: lord garth ||
03/15/2018 8:52 Comments ||
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#3
somehow this was because of the 14th amendment
Among the many annals of judicial fiction - 1) to get around Article 5 process and 2) to build the power of the judicial aristocracy, one unaccountable to the people.
#7
How do they know how serveire the Downe's syndrome is?
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
03/15/2018 15:00 Comments ||
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#8
I have a child with Down Syndrome, and there seem to be some misconceptions here. Let me clear them up:
1) Something like 95% of DS births have nothing, genetically speaking, to do with either the mother or father. It's just something that happens to roughly one out of 900 pregnancies.
2) DS is never "severe" nor "mild." There is a list of serious to trivial physical and cognitive impairments which any given person with DS may - or may not - get. Most individuals fall within the middle: moderate cognitive impairment, some modest medical problems.
3) My own daughter is eight, very healthy (if a bit plump), and has an estimated IQ of 42. She loves princesses, YouTube Kids, dolls, and the color yellow. She can read about 80 words and grasps the basics of math. The other children in her school generally like her, and include her in play. Her life isn't - and probably won't be - unhealthy or unproductive. Under current statistics, her life expectancy is about 55 - longer than Alexander the Great lived.
4) Many questions about "mild" or "sever" DS miss the ethical point: namely, that these are human beings with souls. They have inherent rights. They are, on the whole, highly valued by their families and communities. If you don't believe me, go try to adopt an American baby with Down Syndrome of any race. You will find there is a waiting list.
5) I'm not a highly lovable man. I'm opinionated, pushy, and prone to anger. I don't have a vast number of close friends. My marriage isn't exactly a Hallmark Channel love story. But I know -know- my daughter with Down syndrome loves me. And that gives me a reason for getting up each morning, getting behind the mule, and plowing.
#9
I'm not a highly lovable man. I'm opinionated, pushy, and prone to anger. I don't have a vast number of close friends. My marriage isn't exactly a Hallmark Channel love story. But I know -know- my daughter with Down syndrome loves me. And that gives me a reason for getting up each morning, getting behind the mule, and plowing.
This old bastard would be mighty proud to know you Secret Master. Mighty proud. Thanks for sharing your insights. Something going on with my eyes......
Posted by: Rambler in Virginia ||
03/15/2018 18:28 Comments ||
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#11
re #8 I was leaving a hardware store in my town and saw a man and his daughter across the street. She appeared to have downs and I thought 'poor man'. He waited for her and bent down when she approached him. She reached up and gave him a kiss. I thought 'lucky man'.
Look, IMO, if somebody chooses not to raise a Dawn Syndrome child - you gonna force them?
Huh. Almost as if there were no other option...
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/15/2018 21:49 Comments ||
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#13
Look, IMO, if somebody chooses not to raise a Dawn Syndrome child - you gonna force them?
Huh. Almost as if there were no other option...
Indeed. As I mentioned before: a lot of people want these children. Americans are going abroad as far as China and the Ukraine to adopt DS children. And thank you Besoeker. You are too kind.
[American Thinker] Please forgive me for using this crude but appropriate saying: "Don't urinate on my head and tell me it is raining." Leftists urinate lies, deceit, perversion, immorality, and sin on our heads while telling us it's the golden nectar of beauty, love, and compassion. In a nutshell, leftists are using government to make the weird and freaky mainstream while trampling traditional principles and values underfoot ‐ declaring them hateful, intolerant, and laughable.
For example: Everyday people think a movie in which an amphibian injects its sperm into a human is gross. And yet Hollywood deems it a beautiful love story, awarding The Shape of Water Best Picture of the Year. We commoners are too unsophisticated to appreciate the beauty of a woman copulating with a fish.
Back in 2015, Tom DeLay exposed an Obama DOJ memo spelling out 12 perversions it wanted to legalize, including pedophilia and bestiality. So don't call me crazy for saying the movie The Shape of Water is the leftists' step one in warming people up to legalizing bestiality.
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.