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Today: 64 articles and 145 comments as of 19:50.
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Area: WoT Operations    WoT Background    Non-WoT        Politix   
Sanaa University launches weekly lectures to ‘analyze’ Houthi leader speeches
Today's Headlines
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Page 4: Opinion
2 15:39 Ebbavirt Clunk4147 [4] 
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4 08:55 Jim Cramer6666666 [5] 
14 13:26 regular joe [2] 
1 09:27 g(r)omgoru [5] 
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Page 6: Politix
1 20:03 Anomolous Sources [6]
5 18:12 Bobby [9]
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13 16:54 Silentbrick [1]
1 04:09 Bright Pebbles [2]
2 01:46 g(r)omgoru [7]
4 14:51 Frank G [2]
9 19:56 Frank G [5]
3 16:35 jpal [4]
8 18:27 charger [5]
-Lurid Crime Tales-
Mueller hauled before secret FISA court to address FBI abuses in 2002, Congress told
[The Hill] Robert Mueller, the former FBI director and current special prosecutor in the Russia case, once was hauled before the nation’s secret intelligence court to address a large number of instances in which the FBI cheated on sensitive surveillance warrants, according to evidence gathered by congressional investigators.

For most of the past 16 years, Mueller’s closed-door encounter escaped public notice because of the secrecy of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC).

But thanks to recent testimony from a former FBI lawyer, we now have a rare window into documented abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and how the courts handled the matter.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 00:33 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under:

#1  But thanks to recent testimony from a former FBI lawyer, we now have a rare window into documented abuses of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrants and how the courts handled the matter.

Which appears to illustrate that:

a. The FBI was adept at warrant abuses of the system and had been called out on it previously.

b. The FISA court knew the FBI abused the system and evidently did little or possibly nothing about it.

c. Warrant abuses and cheating appear to have become institutionalized.

d. The fellow that was called to answer for the cheating 16 years ago (Former FBI Director Robert Mueller), is now head of an investigation examining evidence obtained by FISA warrant abuses and cheating.

e. The documented FISA abuses essentially represent unlawful surveillance activities based on deception and the omission of facts.

f. 'Omission of facts' point to Mens rea (Law Latin for "guilty mind") the mental element of a person's intention to commit a crime; or knowledge that one's action or lack of action would cause a crime to be committed. In this case, illegal surveillance or surveillance for the purpose of 'inadvertent collection' of other US Persons. ('Inadvertent collection' was a term used by former DNI James Clapper in congressional testimony).

As stated here previously, it is my belief that Carter Page was little more than a decoy. He was the subject of FBI surveillance for the sole purpose of 'inadvertent collection' (or legal process circumvention) of the Trump campaign. The goal being criminal discovery and entrapment of campaign members or Donald Trump himself.

Former FBI Director and FISA expert Mueller is the designated clean-up hitter, collecting unrelated scalps and guiding everyone around the bases for the score and win. Who could possibly know more about the FISA process and avoiding the pitfalls of associated criminality than Bob Mueller? I would have picked him as well !

The FISA process, with a 95% approval rate. The 5 inch putt, what could possibly go wrong ?


Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 0:54 Comments || Top||

#2  Just once? Howie Carr has detailed quite a few others.
Posted by: Raj || 02/07/2019 1:01 Comments || Top||

#3  His response?
Yeah, I'll get right on it.
Posted by: ed in texas || 02/07/2019 7:41 Comments || Top||

#4  All my current passwords are some variation of “death to Robert Mueller.” I look forward to the day I can change them.
Posted by: Jim Cramer6666666 || 02/07/2019 8:55 Comments || Top||


-Land of the Free
From The VG Bookshelf: David Harsanyi's First Freedom
[VictoryGirlsBlog] If you have a gun aficianado in your life, or a history buff, David Harsanyi (a senior editor at The Federalist) has written First Freedom, which traces America's unique relationship with guns and how they have evolved over the centuries.

The book reads as both a light technical manual (Harsanyi's descriptions of arms and the mechanical components involved is readable for novices, but might not satisfy those who want all the details) and a historical account of American colonization, revolution, defense, expansion, and war. It also highlights the characters along the way that either improved or popularized certain firearms – these include still-recognizable names like Samuel Colt, John Browning, Buffalo Bill Cody, Wild Bill Hickok, Horace Smith, and Daniel Wesson. Here are some of the highlights from First Freedom that I found to either be highly interesting or very relevant to the here and now.

GUNPOWDER SEIZURE AND SHORTAGE NEARLY STOPPED THE AMERICAN REVOLUTION
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: 746 || 02/07/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:


Africa North
What can counter-sectarianism committee achieve in Egypt?
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] Egypt’s Higher Committee to Counter Sectarian Violence was formed on December 30, 2018.

The committee, headed by the president’s advisor on security and counter-terrorism affairs, includes members from the military, military intelligence, central intelligence, national security, and the Administrative Control Authority.

According to law 602/2018, representatives of other relevant entities can take part in the committee’s work depending on the nature of the issues tackled. The committee is supposed to look into and deal with sectarian incidents as well as develop a strategy to prevent them from taking place in the future.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred || 02/07/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [5 views] Top|| File under: Arab Spring

#1  Best case scenario, nothing.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/07/2019 9:27 Comments || Top||


Great White North
What drives ISIS to stalk free Yezidis in Canada?
[Rudaw] This week, five Yezidi women in Canada as refugees ‐ including a 14-year old girl ‐ filed a complaint with Canadian police about continued harassment from Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
(ISIS) supporters. The women have been receiving threatening phone calls, graphic e-mails and abusive messages.

According to Canadian news source W5, the women "have handed over to police recordings of the phone calls and screen grabs of the texts, which reference the Islamic State and include pictures of beheadings and armed Jihadis. W5 has listened to the phone calls. In one, a man laughs as he says in Arabic: ’I am the man who f****d you. I am your rapist.’ A second caller denounces Yazidis as devil worshippers. And a third caller makes a graphic reference to rape. The callers appear to have Iraqi, North African and Gulf state accents. York Regional Police have assembled a team to try to track where the calls are originating."
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: trailing wife || 02/07/2019 00:00 || Comments || Link || [3 views] Top|| File under: Islamic State


Home Front: Politix
Day After Airing $5.2M Ad, WaPo Buried Assault Claim Against VA Dem Justin Fairfax
[Breitbart] During Sunday’s Super Bowl the far-left Washington Post spent $5.2 million to run a self-aggrandizing ad about the importance of capital "J" Journalism.

Big movie star Tom Hanks closes the ad with this: "There’s someone to gather the facts, to bring you the story ‐ no matter the cost because knowing empowers us. Knowing helps us decide. Knowing keeps us free."

Knowing, y’all. Knowing.

You see, that’s why journalism is so gosh-darned important ‐ it’s journalists letting the rest of us know about stuff we need to know about.

It’s the knowing that helps us decide and the knowing that keeps us free, and without journalism and journalists letting us know we wouldn’t know how to decide or know how to be free, so thank the Good Lord for the journalists who let us in on the know, ya’ know?

But less than 24 hours after this pompous ad aired, we learned that the ad was missing a key piece of information about the stuff journalism and its journalists don’t want us to know, and of course I am speaking about that which is harmful to a Democrat.

Case in point: the sexual assault allegation against Justin Fairfax, the lieutenant governor of Virginia ‐ a Democrat.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 02:11 || Comments || Link || [7 views] Top|| File under:

#1  And the $5.2m for the Ad, where did it come from again ?
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 2:15 Comments || Top||

#2  the WaPo did get the scoop on the Texas bar application of Fauxahauntus which had her handwritten "Native American" on it - so at least give them that
Posted by: lord garth || 02/07/2019 5:14 Comments || Top||

#3  ...which is like a blind squirrel finding the occasional acorn.
Posted by: Raj || 02/07/2019 7:48 Comments || Top||

#4  Nah, she was white toast (as someone said here, yesterday). The WaPo was just piling on. Virtue signalling.
Posted by: Bobby || 02/07/2019 8:42 Comments || Top||

#5  Knowledge keeps us free and helps us decide so WAPO suppresses knowledge.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/07/2019 12:44 Comments || Top||

#6  Dumbocracy survives on Kakness...
Posted by: M. Murcek || 02/07/2019 17:54 Comments || Top||


Gov. Cuomo Falsely Blames Trump for New York's $2.3 Billion Budget Shortfall
[Breitbart] Gov. Andrew Cuomo (D-NY) is blaming President Trump for his state’s $2.3 billion budget shortfall.

According to Cuomo, it was Trump’s tax cut that caused "many of the state’s richest residents ‐ who pay 46 percent of the state’s income tax ‐ to either change their primary residence or leave New York entirely."

Let me back up a bit...

What Trump’s tax reform did was to restore fairness to the tax code, was to put an end to the injustice of all Americans ‐ including those in the middle class ‐ paying for the sky high tax rates in states like New York.

You see, before Trump reformed the tax code, all Americans were subsidizing the rich.

It used to be that you could write off every penny of your state income tax on your federal income tax. Trump put an end to this outrage. Here’s how it works...

In the state of New York, if you earn over $1.078 million per year, you pay an income tax to the state of almost nine percent.

In other words, using round numbers, a New York resident who earns $10 million owes the state of New York close to $900,000 in income taxes. But...

Democrat-run states like New York knew that their rich residents would not feel the sting of that $900,000 tax bill because that $900,000 could be written off of their federal tax bill.

Basically, this was a sleazy way for Blue States to steal money from federal taxpayers, to make all of us pay for their grotesque tax rates. These Democrat-run states not only got all of this tax money, they also avoided getting voted out of office for over-taxing because the federal write-off removed most of the sting for the wealthy taxpayer.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 00:26 || Comments || Link || [2 views] Top|| File under:

#1  The other reason this is pure bullshit - think of a state tax return that allows for Federal itemized deductions, as the NY state income tax return does. When you eliminate those deductions, your taxable income becomes higher, does it not? Cuomo tries to describe a situation that does not exist; far more likely the drop in tax revenue is due to people leaving the state. This will come out in the following days.
Posted by: Raj || 02/07/2019 1:10 Comments || Top||

#2  ....far more likely the drop in tax revenue is due to people leaving the state. This will come out in the following days.

Here in Georgia you can see them arriving daily. NY car tags, NJ tags, California tags.
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 1:57 Comments || Top||

#3  First thing they do on arrival is register as D voters?
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/07/2019 3:05 Comments || Top||

#4  I'm sure they are already registered in the state as Demonrat voters. Along with all their dead relatives.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 02/07/2019 7:36 Comments || Top||

#5  Registered and voting in both
Posted by: Frank G || 02/07/2019 8:56 Comments || Top||

#6  Make them feel welcome by slashing their tires.
Posted by: Jim Cramer6666666 || 02/07/2019 8:59 Comments || Top||

#7  Unfortunately, the people fleeing vote for the same things that made where they came from a shithole.

I call it the "Locust Effect". They move from place to place destroying it so they can't stay and with no understanding of what they did to destroy it.
Posted by: DarthVader || 02/07/2019 9:02 Comments || Top||

#8  I call it the "Locust Effect".

A biblical metaphor. I like it!
Posted by: Besoeker || 02/07/2019 9:06 Comments || Top||

#9  ny is run by morally bancrupt beasts.
Posted by: Ebbavirt Clunk4147 || 02/07/2019 9:56 Comments || Top||

#10  We should wall NYC off, dump the population of California in it and install cameras every where. Last one alive gets to leave. Oh and everyone will be issued with either a rock, tennis ball, eraser or other democrat approved way to 'fight' an active shooter.
Posted by: Silentbrick || 02/07/2019 10:03 Comments || Top||

#11  The way I understand it certain states like NY and California have been taking advantage of the Federal tax code allowing one to take high state taxes as a deduction. Trump closed that idiocy so now the high taxes in those states are very, very, obvious to even the dimmest folks.

So he's probably right to some extent, although it's like blaming the guy who turned on the lights for everyone seeing the room is messy.
Posted by: rjschwarz || 02/07/2019 10:18 Comments || Top||

#12  Back in the 1970s it seem every other car in southern California had New York or New Jersey plates. A lot of them had Texas plates. Not my fault if some of those loose fruits and nuts who rolled into California are now rolling out.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/07/2019 12:59 Comments || Top||

#13  But then, in the 1970s, the people who were leaving New York were not rich. They just didn't like living in a hell hole. If the very rich Manhattan and Hamptons types are moving into your state it might be a good thing.
Posted by: Abu Uluque || 02/07/2019 13:03 Comments || Top||

#14  Here I thought Emmanuel Goldstein was to blame.
Posted by: regular joe || 02/07/2019 13:26 Comments || Top||


Home Front: Culture Wars
Tell The Social Justice Warrior Mobs To Go Pound Sand
[Townhall] I’m not going to pretend to be "better than that" because I am loving this Virginia clusterfest of liberal hypocrisy and I hope it never, ever ends. Wreck-It ("It" being the VA Democrat Party) Ralph Northam may well resign by the time this column posts, and his allegedly Weinsteiny lieutenant governor Justin Fairfax may be just-inaugurated and just-tossed out not long after. This is so great. It couldn’t happen to a couple of nicer hypocrites. Guess that Ed Gillespie Deathracist 2000 ad is looking pretty awkward right now, huh guys?

It’s called "Alinsky Rule No. 4," pals. "Make the enemy live up to its own book of rules." Cue the sad trombone. Somewhere, Brett Kavanaugh is laughing into his Budweiser.

I know I am, except it’s Dos Equis.

But this hilarity does bring up something serious we need to consider on the conservative side. We need to prepare for the next time some Republican gets besieged by SJW witch-burners, and be ready with our response to their unwarranted demands for his/her/xir’s head.

Our response should be, "Go pound sand."

Now, that’s not necessarily the phraseology we should use. Mine would be more colorful, and anatomically challenging, but the point is the same. They don’t get a head for their wall. They don’t get to win. Not over silliness.

...Now yes, I am advocating two different sets of standards, one for Democrats and one for the GOP. That dual-track rule thing is itself a New Rule imposed by the left, and when you see Felonia Milhous von Pantsuit in an orange jumper doing the pokey time we would all do for classified stuff shenanigans we can talk about having one set of rules again. The fact is that the Democrats have embraced the SJWs, and they should get the full brunt of their fussy outrage good n’ hard. Let them take these wailing nuts and their phony hysterics seriously. We Republicans are supposed to reject their overwrought nonsense, hence the pounding of sand suggestion.
Look at what they do every place/time they get power, and realize they are enemies general of humankind, to be dealt with as wolves are.
Posted by: g(r)omgoru || 02/07/2019 03:07 || Comments || Link || [4 views] Top|| File under:

#1  I prefer "F**k off A$$hole"
Posted by: AlanC || 02/07/2019 12:41 Comments || Top||

#2  Democrat Representative.

A person told what to wear (white), when to clap, when to sit, when to stand by the people Pelosi.
Posted by: Ebbavirt Clunk4147 || 02/07/2019 15:39 Comments || Top||



Who's in the News
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1Thai Insurgency
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1Hamas

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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.
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Two weeks of WOT
Thu 2019-02-07
  Sanaa University launches weekly lectures to ‘analyze’ Houthi leader speeches
Wed 2019-02-06
  Turkish-backed rebel groups use heavy weapons to attack one another in Afrin
Tue 2019-02-05
  German ISIS terrorist that starred in mass execution video of Syrian soldiers wants to go home (video)
Mon 2019-02-04
  C. Africa reaches peace deal with rebels: government
Sun 2019-02-03
  Report: Fire in Iranian space center kills 3 scientists
Sat 2019-02-02
  60 people reportedly killed from a fresh attack by Boko Haram
Fri 2019-02-01
  Syrian Army unleashes large-scale attack across northern Hama
Thu 2019-01-31
  Haftar's son-led brigade arrests al-Wakwak
Wed 2019-01-30
  Egypt police arrest 54 Muslim Brotherhood members, foil terrorist plot: Ministry
Tue 2019-01-29
  Deir Ezzor: Hundreds of civilians, fighters flee IS stronghold in Syria
Mon 2019-01-28
  Interior ministry: Six Islamic State militants apprehended in Mosul
Sun 2019-01-27
  Bombs kill at least 19 outside cathedral in southern Philippines
Sat 2019-01-26
  ‘SOS’ call from Chinese embassy in Islamabad keeps law enforcers on their toes
Fri 2019-01-25
  Israel deploys 'Iron Dome' after Syria warns of retaliatory strike on Ben Gurion airport
Thu 2019-01-24
  Iraqi forces eliminate 43 ISIS terrorists along Syrian border


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