[Legal Insurrection] It was clear after the release of the Mueller Report that Attorney General William Barr was determined to get to the bottom of the spying on Trump and his campaign.
Because of that expressed determination, Barr became a public enemy. On May 2, 2019, I wrote, Bill Barr is going to expose Spygate, and the Democrat-Media Russia Collusion Complex is panicking:
It was Barr’s comments about spying on the Trump campaign, and his pledge to investigate that spying, that explains the frenzy to take down Barr. That spying, regardless of whether lawful, has the potential to be a scandal that could touch deep into the Obama administration, and some former officials who loom large in the anti-Trump resistance.
It also could reach deep into the media, with the involvement of Fusion GPS in feeding Russian-provided, Clinton/DNC paid-for, disinformation to the mainstream journalist community.
So the stakes are huge. The Russian collusion scandal may be a Democrat and media scandal. People may go to jail for that collusion, and if so, they may be the first people to go to jail over Russian collusion involving the 2016 election.
Barr is the single greatest threat to the Democrat-Media Russia Collusion Complex. That’s why Democrats, with help from the mainstream media, will spare no effort to tarnish Barr as a way of discrediting the investigative train that is rolling down the tracks.
When Barr appointed John Durham to handle the investigation, later in May, the finger-pointing among those involved in investigating Trump started, leading to the the pressing question was Who’s going to cut a deal first in Spygate?
Following an all too familiar theme, a compliant media was the initial first step. This was soon to be followed a weaponized federal law enforcement system and judiciary.
[Townhall] Liberals are blaming California's wildfires on "climate change." Apparently, climate change now causes wildfires, but only in the state of California. Before this week, liberals thought rising sea levels would wash the state away. Now, they believe it will go up in flames unless we do something immediately to stop "climate change." But climate change hasn't turned California into a tinderbox, the environmentalists have.
California power company PG&E is preparing to pull the plug on 850,000 of its customers. PG&E has been deliberately cutting power to its customers in an effort to avoid wildfires. It isn't working. Massive wildfires erupted in areas where PG&E provides service. The Tick Fire has burned down several homes and caused the evacuation of more than 40,000 people so far, and other wildfires are burning throughout the state. In Sonoma County, the Kincade Fire has already torched 34 square miles and destroyed 49 homes. That fire was likely caused by a broken transmission line belonging to PG&E.
But PG&E's equipment couldn't start these huge wildfires without a bunch of dead brush fueling the flames. As Chuck Devore writes in Forbes, "the outrageous cost to remove a few dead trees from private land is a consequence of California's Byzantine environmental regulatory patchwork." It's not climate change that's responsible for these massive fires, "it's decades of environmental mismanagement that has created a tinderbox of unharvested timber, dead trees, and thick underbrush."
#3
That transmission line isn't broken. It's delivering 120KV of power exactly the way it was designed to do. You just need to be a little careful around it.
Posted by: Matt ||
10/26/2019 10:30 Comments ||
Top||
#4
"the outrageous cost to remove a few dead trees from private land is a consequence of California's Byzantine environmental regulatory patchwork." It's not climate change; it's ...
... The Shitshow, Part 152
#5
Wealthier parts of the state have the power lines below ground. The tinderbox areas have them above ground.
During the 90s internet boom California had all the money they could ever dream of and didn't do the basic infrastructure upgrades. Somebody really should be tarred and feathered.
#6
didn't do the basic infrastructure upgrades
didn't do the basic road maintenance
didn't do the basic law enforcement and deport illegals
didn't do the basic drought management and build more reservoirs to capture rainwater
didn't do the basic employment law enforcement
didn't do the basic energy policy and permit drilling in the Monterey Shale
didn't do the basic education policy and stop Common Core etc malpractice
didn't do the basic funding of the UC System, instead filling nearly half the seats with ChiCom millionaires' brats and other inferior out of state applicant's who pay 3x the tuition rate paid by Californians
The triangle of fire? Never heard of it. You say you need
fuel
ignition source
oxygen
Well, I say, get rid of the oxygen, then.....no problem.
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
10/26/2019 13:14 Comments ||
Top||
#8
California is America's exercise in socialism. As a state it had one of the top ten economies in the world. After Jerry brown and the current rash of socialist/democrat California's state run power company is shutting its power to almost a million paying customers because they don't have the money to trim the trees next to the power lines. Its not the fire, heat, or old equipment, its no funding for basic safety maintenance.
Posted by: 49 Pan ||
10/26/2019 13:58 Comments ||
Top||
#9
It's basic graft, but most graft metastasises in socialist countries because there's no competition.
#13
California worked when it fluxuated between GOP and Democrat Govenors. Schwarzenegger screwed up the balance because he wasn't really a conservative of the normal GOP type so he couldn't undo the damage.
Similar thing has happened to the US with W being not really Conservative and not undoing the economic/budget damage Democrats typically do while in office.
h/t Instapundit
Very long. Very well thought out. Some excerpts
[NewStatesman] ...No discussion in polite society of the state of politics is complete without a reverential genuflection to the 18th-century parliamentarian. Get rid of Cummings and Boris Johnson, along with the right-wing libertarians in the cabinet, recover Burkean moderation, and all will be well.
It is a familiar narrative in the opinion-forming classes, and all the more appealing for being baseless. The notion that Conservatives have ceased to be conservative ignores transformations in other parts of the political spectrum. Labour has also abandoned any small-c conservative disposition and become a vehicle for anti-Semitism and a version of Marxism that deems working-class values of place and community racist when they are expressed as concern about continuing mass immigration. The Liberal Democrats have become hyper-liberals, making the nullification of a clear democratic mandate their signature policy. Nigel Farage’s Brexit Party is not simply a right-wing splinter movement but a response to a state of affairs in which large sections of the population are unrepresented. Rather than being the creation of Boris Johnson and a fanatical Eurosceptic minority, Tory populism is a sign of the Conservative Party reinventing itself ‐ as it has done many times before ‐ in order to survive.
...But there is something more powerful here than mere snobbery: the belief that politics can be governed by formulas derived from some large theory. In the past, such theories were derived from Marxism and positivism, utilitarianism and Fabianism, among other ideologies. Today they emanate from the prevailing variety of rights-based liberalism promoted by philosophers such as John Rawls and Ronald Dworkin. The key feature of this liberalism is that it transfers decision-making from political to judicial institutions. Liberals are turning to law to entrench values and policies for which they cannot secure democratic assent.
...The haute-Remainer mind is an example of what the 20th century’s subtlest and most original conservative philosopher called political rationalism. Michael Oakeshott (1901-90) used the term to describe totalitarian ideologies such as Leninism and National Socialism, but he was clear that any kind of political tradition could succumb to rationalist ideology ‐ including conservatism.
...The core of rationalism in politics is an idea of politics itself. Rather than being a practice in which people negotiate the terms on which they co-exist with one another, politics means the imposition of an idea. The idea is self-evidently true; anyone who questions it is ignorant and stupid, or else wilfully malignant.
...Today the tacit understanding of liberals in all parties is that the world would be far more civilised if the grubby business of politics was replaced by the legal adjudication of justice and rights. The evidence for this view is ‐ shall we say ‐ patchy. In the US, Donald Trump’s capture of the White House enabled him to begin reshaping the judicial system, including the Supreme Court. When political issues become the province of courts, the law is politicised. At the same time, because so many are unrepresented and the void left by liberal legalism must somehow be filled, politics becomes more polarised and vicious.
...The technologists of power are today’s true rationalists. That superior intelligence is found among the practitioners of populism is a fact of our time. When liberals talk about reason they mean a mishmash of ideas they picked up at university. Scraps of Rawls, Dworkin and Thomas Piketty, together with a smattering of modish conspiracy theories, form the folk wisdom of the thinking classes. Rationality means deferring to this ragbag of ephemera and ignoring enduring truths about the deciding forces in politics.
...The Remainer elite has been guided by the ruling philosophy of liberal legalism, which is essentially anti-political. But sooner or later, politics is bound to assert its primacy over legal and procedural manoeuvres.
#1
Inevitably, there will be more lawsuits attempting to overturn what were once accepted to be political decisions. As a consequence, it may not be long before judges are chosen by a political process, as in the United States.
Both judges in the open system as well as those in the unseen, secret FISA court system.
[Twitchy] Sebastian Gorka noticed something oh so very telling about John Brennan in social media and especially on Twitter.
Technically it’s been seven days BUT still a decent amount of time.
Honestly a week wouldn’t be a big deal if Brennan wasn’t usually on Twitter talking smack about the president and babbling about the Constitution this, fundamentals of this country that.
But yeah.
Where has the angry old man who yells at clouds run off to? Where oh where could he be?
[American Thinker] Once again, cheers for Senator Lindsey Graham. I say "again" because Senator Graham was brilliant in his defense of Judge Brett Kavanaugh a year ago.
We just learned that Senator Graham has 40-plus fellow GOP Senators to support a resolution against the current "impeachment" process in the U.S. House. 50 signed now
This is how the senator explained it:
"They’re creating a shadow process that, I think, is just denying basic fairness. And we’re urging them to go back to what worked before," Graham said.
The resolution is just a statement and nothing more. It won't get the 60 votes to make it to a floor vote.
Nevertheless, it makes it clear that getting 20 GOP Senators to flip on President Trump will be very difficult, if not impossible.
Yes, the resolution is nonbinding but it shows that the Democrats will need a better case to persuade GOP Senators to convict and reverse a presidential election.
Let the voters decide this next year! I guess that's what Democrats must really be scared of.
#1
"They’re creating a shadow process that, I think, is just denying basic fairness. And we’re urging them to go back to what worked before," Graham said.
Shadow government creates "shadow process." Who knew ?
[American Thinker] With Quid Pro Joe Biden's confession to using U.S. resources to pressure a foreign government to benefit his son, maybe in the next Democrat debate, one of the questions will be why, if fossil fuels are evil, the Democrats are committed to ending their use, and we have a decade or so to live before we freeze our hoohahs to death, it was okay for Hunter Biden to sit on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas holding company. Seems Hunter had his very own greenback new deal.
As President Trump's speech at the Shale Insight Conference in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania on Wednesday noted, Joe Biden's mythical claim that Trump inherited a booming economy from President Obama falls flat in the face of the reality that this is Trump's economy, fueled by deregulation, tax cuts, cutting of EPA shackles, and a booming energy industry allowed to use the latest technology to free a seemingly endless supply of oil and natural gas from the earth under our feet. The conference was staged by some very appreciative energy groups such as the Marcellus Shale Coalition, the Ohio Oil and Gas Association, and the West Virginia Oil and Natural Gas Association.
This energy abundance has put downward pressure on energy costs for consumers and industry and made us energy independent and immune from Middle East instability, quite possibly preventing a global oil recession or major war with the likes of a belligerent and aggressive Iran.
While noting that he has opened up ANWR in Alaska for exploration and development, exited the job-killing and economy-choking Paris Climate Accord, and green-lighted the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines, Trump pointed out the economic benefits shale development in general and the Marcellus shale formation stretching beneath Pennsylvania in particular as most significant, noting that the Dems have promised to ban fracking of shale rock to release the vast quantities of oil and natural gas within. Trump warned that the Democrats want to take away our energy as well as our guns and that the current prosperity spawned by shale and facking could end. As noted by David Lenery at The Center Square:
[American Thinker] Highly educated "experts" rule today's advanced societies, but their advice on how the rest of us should live ‐ often enforced by government coercion ‐ is increasingly exposed as premature at best and mistaken, incomplete, ignorant, or fraudulent at worst.
Yet another bit of diet advice from "experts" is turning out to be an exploding cigar. High cholesterol, particularly LDL cholesterol, has been demonized for allegedly bringing on heart attack deaths. But an intriguing analysis of data published at Medium.com seems to show that total mortality risk is reduced by high cholesterol levels, even LDL cholesterol. As author P.D. Mangan writes:
[F]rom a public health standpoint, it seems a mistake to focus on changing something that lowers the risk of death from one cause only to raise that risk from another.
Here is one of the key charts showing that people with high cholesterol levels live longer than those with low levels. This one is from Japan: Concord Cafe, Concord, GA. buffet - Chops, chicken, catfish and collards so good you'll wanna spank yo mama.
[BBC] Scientists believe they could be on the cusp of a breakthrough, after a drugs company said it had the first treatment of its kind for Alzheimer's.
The drug, which is called aducanumab, cannot cure it but Biogen says it slows down the rate at which it progresses, essentially meaning people stay more like themselves for longer.
This came as a surprise as the company had suspended the drug trial in March 2019 because of disappointing results.
But now a larger dataset has been analysed and Biogen says it shows that higher doses of aducanumab can provide a significant benefit to patients with early Alzheimer's.
The BBC has been to University College London to find out how the drug works.
A high-salt diet may negatively affect cognitive function by causing a deficiency of the compound nitric oxide,
...
The research team determined that the high-salt diet was causing cells in the small intestine to release the molecule interleukin-17 (IL-17), which promotes inflammation as part of the body's immune response.
IL-17 then entered the bloodstream and prevented the cells in the walls of blood vessels feeding the brain from producing nitric oxide. This compound works by relaxing and widening the blood vessels, allowing blood to flow. Conversely, a shortage of nitric oxide can restrict blood flow.
Based on these findings, Dr. Iadecola, Dr. Faraco and their colleagues theorized that salt likely caused dementia in mice because it contributed to restricted blood flow to the brain, essentially starving it. However, as they continued their research, they realized that the restricted blood flow in mice was not severe enough to prevent the brain from functioning properly.
"We thought maybe there was something else going on here,'" Dr. Iadecola said. In their new Nature study, the investigators found that decreased nitric oxide production in blood vessels affects the stability of tau proteins in neurons. Tau provides structure for the scaffolding of neurons. This scaffolding, also called the cytoskeleton, helps to transport materials and nutrients across neurons to support their function and health.
"Tau becoming unstable and coming off the cytoskeleton causes trouble," Dr. Iadecola said, adding that tau is not supposed to be free in the cell. Once tau detaches from the cytoskeleton, the protein can accumulate in the brain, causing cognitive problems. The researchers determined that healthy levels of nitric oxide keep tau in check.
#3
Sure am glad I studied at the cattle mutilation institute and did not allow myself to believe their bullshit ! Hey how is that biological delivery system and the food chain?
Posted by: newc ||
10/26/2019 00:21 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[9 views]
Top|| File under: Sublime Porte
#1
Anything that tells these benighted souls that Booshism is over is good.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/26/2019 0:49 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Reposted by many in "The pro shop" as what it's about.
And I tend to agree. I hated the lack of coordination in pullout, but like the result thus far.
[Hudson Institute] One of the benefits of attending the Valdai Club annual meeting in Sochi is the opportunity to understand were and how strong the wind is blowing in Russian foreign policy. The speeches are not enough. Brief words exchanged in the empty halls of the large hotel up in the Polyana mountains speak much louder ‐ sometimes with an echo. snip
The problem is acute in Syria. Russia has maneuvered itself into a preeminent position and has even succeeded in forcing the United States to conclude that its position in the country is unsustainable. Trump has just announced a withdrawal. But the problem with being in charge is that no one else can provide order. Trump wasn't forced. It was the right decision, one in the interests of the American people. It wasn't in the interest of the tiny number of globalists in America, thus their fury at their war being taken away from them.
Russia perhaps feels that it can do it on its own, but it knows it must find new tools and adopt a new mindset in this expanded role. In Valdai, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov again assumed the role of indefatigable mediator between all factions and interests in Syria ‐ although a certain exasperation now seems to be creeping in.
When Putin meets Tayyip Erdogan in Sochi this week, he may well feel that his life mission has been accomplished. For the first time, he sits at the apex of the world order. In what concerns Syria at least, no one is above him. Syria is a worthless piece of desert. He can have it. Now he owns all of the problems there. A big win for America. We have no interests there.
But that also means that no one else can solve the problems arising everywhere. He must bring together Turkey and the Syrian Kurds, the latter still under the leadership of a violent armed organization. Then he must conciliate the Kurds and the Assad regime and, finally, prevent a war between Turkey and Syria. If Russia fails, all these actors will quickly turn against it.
The question thus is: if Russia is under the obligation of creating political order in Syria, what makes us believe that it is up to the task and willing to pay the associated costs ‐ when even the United States is powerless to create order and does not see the benefits of doing so? Who the hell said that was our job? None of these people have ever questioned their assumptions.
The moment reminds me of the idea advanced after Davos two years ago that China would replace America as the lynchpin of globalization and free trade. As Machiavelli could have told us, things are never so simple.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/26/2019 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[7 views]
Top|| File under:
#1
The Great Game is now a drunken arm wrestling match over a cesspool. Since the US does not need ME oil anymore we don't need to be involved. We do have to stick with our ally Israel but we and they should look to border security and strategic Missile defense as our long term posture. Let the sarascens gut each other, on their dirt, on their dime.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/26/2019 0:09 Comments ||
Top||
#2
Syria is a worthless piece of desert. He can have it.
The Russians care about a warm water port on the Med. That's it. All the Calvinball squabbling over parts of Syria is just local politics. If they have to take strong measures like flying strategic bombing strikes from the Motherland to damp down the indigenous inhabitants, they'll do it. Again.
#4
Now we have the option of supporting anti-Russian forces in the region if we want to be shits. I suspect the Russians have been doing as much for the last 20 years.
#5
Modest proposal: peace conference. Assad gets safe passage to Crimea and a nice villa for him and his wife. Ba'athist Party sans Assad remains. If that government wishes to allow the Russians a Mediterranean port on Syrian soil, it's their call. All parties agree to keep the Turks in Turkey, the Iranians out, and Syrian Kurds submit to Syrian rule.
Agreement on mopup operations to clean out remaining ISIS cells, to be followed by a multi-national peacekeeping force made up of Gulf Arabs, Gurkhas, maybe some Danes, Dutch, and East European NATO troops.
#6
A somewhat more Modest proposal: peace conference. Assad remains president of Syria. Ba'athist Party with Assad remains. If that government wishes to allow the Russians a Mediterranean port on Syrian soil, it's their call. Russians and Syrians agree to keep the Turks in Turkey, the Iranians out, and Syrian Kurds submit to Syrian rule. 30km safe zone remains for repatriation of Syrian refugees now in Turkey. Russia responsible for security there. Kurds abandon this area.
Agreement on mopup operations to clean out remaining ISIS cells, to be followed by a multi-national peacekeeping force made up of Gulf Arabs, Gurkhas, Russians, maybe some NATO troops as agreed to by sovereign state of Syria. The one with a seat at the UN.
#8
I am just a opinionized dude with a $400 computer. I trust our beloved and duly elected POTUS to reach an answer infinitely better than I could conceive. There is a way forward. I am sure of that.
#7
Herb says preventing children from being mentally and medically abused is evil. Words fail.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/26/2019 10:51 Comments ||
Top||
#8
Like clockwork, the mime in the square
Signs, "Yankee, come home!" with a glare
And twirls on his chair,
As a 'Murican there
Sez, " A delicate dance... for a bear."
#9
Once again, someone puts words in my mouth I didn't say, and then trashes me for the position he invented.
The Feminazis and the Trans-Commies are both bad guys. A pox on both their houses.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/26/2019 13:44 Comments ||
Top||
#10
10% more clarity might get you less grief, Herb. Instead of talking about evil vs evil tell us what you are in favor of.
Posted by: M. Murcek ||
10/26/2019 15:03 Comments ||
Top||
#11
I literally stated that it's red on red. You understand that I'm not in favor of either side? I just don't understand how I could be clearer.
All I understand is people here consistently read what I wrote, imagine it was something else, and then try to rip me a new asshole for what they imagined I said. This is something the Left has done for years and is a big part of why they hate us so much. I sure didn't expect Right-wingers to be doing the exact same thing. It's distressing.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/26/2019 15:56 Comments ||
Top||
#12
Perhaps it's your track record, hmmmm?
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/26/2019 16:18 Comments ||
Top||
#13
My track record of people imagining I said something I didn't? I literally didn't do that.
Posted by: Herb McCoy ||
10/26/2019 16:26 Comments ||
Top||
#14
By your track record of actual comments. I don't particularly like you, but I don't spamcop you. Your comments alone make people not like you. Congrats, asshole
Posted by: Frank G ||
10/26/2019 16:53 Comments ||
Top||
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.
[Legal Insurrection] It was clear after the release of the Mueller Report that Attorney General William Barr was determined to get to the bottom of the spying on Trump and his campaign.
[Twitchy] Sebastian Gorka noticed something oh so very telling about John Brennan in social media and especially on Twitter.
[American Thinker] Once again, cheers for Senator Lindsey Graham. I say "again" because Senator Graham was brilliant in his defense of Judge Brett Kavanaugh a year ago.
[American Thinker] With Quid Pro Joe Biden's confession to using U.S. resources to pressure a foreign government to benefit his son, maybe in the next Democrat debate, one of the questions will be why, if fossil fuels are evil, the Democrats are committed to ending their use, and we have a decade or so to live before we freeze our hoohahs to death, it was okay for Hunter Biden to sit on the board of Burisma, a Ukrainian natural gas holding company. Seems Hunter had his very own greenback new deal.
[American Thinker] Highly educated "experts" rule today's advanced societies, but their advice on how the rest of us should live ‐ often enforced by government coercion ‐ is increasingly exposed as premature at best and mistaken, incomplete, ignorant, or fraudulent at worst.
