[Red State] U.S. District Court Judge James Boasberg imposed a sentence of one year of probation on Kevin Clinesmth today in connection with his guilty plea to making a "false writing" during the course of his work as an attorney for the FBI on the Crossfire Hurrican investigation at the time it was being run by the Mueller Special Counsel’s Office.
I telegraphed a bit in this story from a few months ago that Special Prosecutor John Durham wasn’t approaching Clinesmith’s sentencing as the first of many dominos that might fall. But that doesn’t mean that Clinesmith was not valuable as a witness who could be extensively debriefed about both Crossfire Hurricane and the Mueller Special Counsel’s Office.
To recap briefly, Clinesmith was an attorney — not a prosecutor — who worked to provide legal support and assistance to the FBI Agents and analysts working on Crossfire Hurricane. He was with the investigation from the very start and continued on the investigation after it was taken over by Mueller’s team.
In that time frame, June 2017, preparation was underway to seek a third renewal — for another 90 days — of the FISA electronic surveillance warrant obtained on Carter Page. The original warrant was obtained on October 22, 2016, and it had been renewed twice prior to June 2017.
In March 2017 Page’s name was leaked to the media as a former Trump campaign official who was suspected of being a Russian Agent, and that he had been under secret surveillance by the FBI for many months.
#1
Twenty five meter target, easy conviction and hand slap. Could the sentence reflect Clinesmith's cooperation with the investigators and potential 'cheese eating' on other Crossfire Hurricane persons of interest? Yes it could, but it probably does not.
[Yahoo] Back in April, Bill Maher went on a hysterical rant against China over the novel coronavirus. The Real Time host insisted that COVID-19 be called "the Chinese virus" because it originated in China, citing the Spanish flu as precedent (which did not come from Spain, unbeknownst to Maher); railed against the "PC Police" for refusing to let him and others call it "the Chinese virus," even though hate crimes against Asian-Americans had risen to 100 cases a day at the time; and compared China’s wet markets, where he said the virus originated, to nuclear bombs.
Well, on tonight’s edition of his HBO show, Maher welcomed a pair of podcast hosts, the husband-and-wife duo of Bret Weinstein and Heather Heying, to discuss the origins of COVID-19. Weinstein and Heying, for the uninitiated, are members of the so-called "intellectual dark web" who in 2017 both resigned from their posts as biology professors at Evergreen State College in protest of a minority-appreciation day, and have since whined about campus speech on a number of libertarian-leaning podcasts.
Maher proceeded to forward the conspiracy theory that COVID-19 was man-made and somehow escaped from a lab in Wuhan.
We’ve heard a lot recently about the fact that maybe the virus did start in a lab," offered Maher. "Let’s talk about that—the fact that there is this lab, I think it’s the only one in the world quite like it, in Wuhan, where it started. It would almost be a conspiracy theory to think it didn’t start in a lab, right? And that theory was demonized at first—Oh, come on, that’s conspiracy thinking, that started in a lab. But it’s certainly 50-50, would you say that?"
"Oh, it’s far more likely than that," replied Weinstein, adding that "it looked to be about 90 percent" probability that it originated in a lab. "We are so politicized and polarized and partisan now as a country that if the wrong guy proposed this to begin with—and for the half the country, it was the wrong guy—then the rest of the country says ’no way, no how, we’re gonna call that a conspiracy theory," added Heying.
Let’s unpack this a bit. The "wrong guy" Heying is referring to is likely alt-right gadfly Steve Bannon, whose anti-China group the Rule of Law Society produced a report alleging that the virus was not produced in nature and had escaped from the Wuhan Institute of Virology. This dubious "report," which was again spread by Steve Bannon (and retweeted by Trump, and parroted by Tucker Carlson), was immediately shot down by prominent members of the scientific community.
"These two features of the virus, the mutations ... of the spike protein and its distinct backbone, rules out laboratory manipulation as a potential origin for SARS-CoV-2," explained Kristian Andersen, an associate professor of immunology and microbiology at Scripps Research, who authored a paper debunking the Bannon theory in March. Andersen’s conclusion was backed by Dr. Anthony Fauci, the country’s top infectious-disease expert, who said all available evidence pointed to COVID-19 not originating in a Wuhan lab but in bats. And this month, Dr. Angela Rasmussen, a top virologist, released an article concluding that: "There is genetic evidence that SARS-CoV-2 has natural origins. There is no evidence to support a lab leak."
While the World Health Organization is currently in Wuhan investigating the origins of the virus, they are visiting a number of sites in the region—from the lab, to the Huanan Market, and elsewhere—and their mission is not to assign blame. "As the pandemic continues to unfold, understanding how the epidemic began is essential to prevent further SARS-CoV-2 virus introductions and help prevent introductions of new viruses in the future," the team said.
So, you can either trust a comedian and a pair of culture-war-obsessed podcast hosts—who were biology professors and are not epidemiologists or virologists—or you can trust the scientific community.
#1
you can either trust a comedian and a pair of culture-war-obsessed podcast hosts—who were biology professors and are not epidemiologists or virologists—or you can trust the scientific community.
Of late I am leaning towards trusting the comedian...
More to the point, I see nothing that indicates it could not have been both - bats AND lab.
#3
All I know is the Democrats were quick to take advantage of the pandemic with their Cheat-by-Mail scheme...almost if the plans were already made and ready to implement.
Posted by: Abu Uluque ||
01/30/2021 13:43 Comments ||
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#4
Glenmore, I'm with you I think . Maher has actually been making some sane statements here lately.
Posted by: Chris ||
01/30/2021 14:26 Comments ||
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[WND] When Uncle Sam threatens some blighted and benighted region of the world — ostensibly on behalf of the American People and for their own good — our representatives call it peace through strength.
It is then that ordinary Americans are encouraged to pipe up in praise of the State's invariably Orwellian peace-through-strength strategies.
But what about peace through strength on our front porches, while being menaced by lowbrow looters and assorted louts? For that you can be incarcerated in the land where the criminal roams free.
And when practiced by pale faces, our Second Amendment rights, exercised on the perimeter of our properties, as we stand vigil against the vilest of human beings — that's tantamount to white supremacy and privilege.
Witness the fate of some courageous home owners (the McCloskeys of St. Louis, Missouri) exercising age-old rights — also American constitutional rights — when they ventured out onto their verandas with firearms, intending to stand their ground and deter mobs from overrunning hearth and home.
[PatriotPost] Expect the media and government to suddenly resent any mention of pushback against a sitting president.
The new AT age — "After Trump" — began on either Election Day, Nov. 3, or on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. But either way, reality as we had known it for four years has been abruptly reinvented.
Pfizer had hinted that a vaccine could be ready in late October. Then, mysteriously, it wasn’t. Then, stranger still, it appeared — a few days after Election Day.
Continued on Page 49
[Townhall] Rush Limbaugh weighed in on GameStop's skyrocketing stock price that currently has hedge funds bleeding billions of dollars. The radio host compared the populist revolt on Wall Street, engineered by a group of Reddit users, to today's political battles between ordinary people and the elites.
"Folks, it’s not just political now. The elites are bent out of shape that a bunch of average, ordinary users have figured out how to make themselves billionaires," Limbaugh told listeners on Thursday. "I’ve been studying it all morning and the best thing I can tell you is that whatever you think is going on in politics — the Washington establishment, the deep state, what have you — it’s the same thing in finance. There are those who are allowed to make all of the money and those of you who aren’t."
Limbaugh compared the traders beating hedge fund managers at their own game to Donald Trump's battles with the deep state. The host said the elites control who makes money and who doesn't and the deep state will come after anyone who learns how to beat the system.
"Now they’re actually making it clear to anybody who has the ability to notice that you’re not allowed to use the stock market the way they do," said Limbaugh. "You’re not allowed to profit. You’re not allowed to make the kind of money they do."
According to the radio legend, the ability to guarantee a financial future for yourself and your family is a privilege reserved by the elites and not intended for the benefit of ordinary Americans.
"You know, everything is rigged in favor of the elites, and this has come along and upset that rigging," said Limbaugh.
#1
Now that the voting booth is no longer an option for the average working patriotic American to affect change you will continue to see these poke-the-elite events.
#7
$800 license to trade plus a psychological evaluation, which involves both covid doses, 36 hour quarantine, 3 anal swabs, and the visit wearing two masks, a faceshield, and buttplug by strict appointment - missing your time will require a reschedule even if it is the office which ran late. Three missed meetings results in a permanent ban.
Current employees of licensed trading firms and brokerages grandfathered in.
[American Thinker] Hedge fund managers are currently learning a lesson the hard way. As reported by Reuters, hedge fund Melvin Capital Management "suffered heavy losses by betting against video game retailer GameStop."
Here’s how that happened. Hedge fund Melvin Capital had opened a large short position (i.e., it sold borrowed stock) on GameStop in hopes that the price would fall and it could buy the stock at a lower price in the future to profit on the difference. Instead, GameStop’s stock price increased meteorically. Facing unknown and unlimited risk, the hedge fund had to cut its losses by closing its short positions, i.e., paying a much higher market price for the stock they’d borrowed and sold, thus absorbing heavy losses.
These losses were so heavy that Melvin Capital had to secure billions in "rescue capital" from other prominent hedge funds, according to the New York Times. These hedge funds are collectively such influential players in the stock market that this event had ripples felt throughout the marketplace, manifesting as a declining market even as GameStop’s stock surged. As Naeem Aslam at Forbes observes, covering these short positions requires the "liquidation of long positions in hedge funds," which causes a "broader sell-off" in the market. This type of thing isn’t new, he writes. "In 1902, we also saw an episode of this when Northern Pacific stock price increased several times while the rest of the market crashed."
From transcontinental railroads to video game retail stock, there’s not much which has changed about short selling in the marketplace, conceptually. And right or wrong, there’s always been a public assumption of devious intent applied to anyone engaged in the business of selling short. As Daniel Defoe wrote in The Political History of the Devil (1726), "every dissembler, every false friend, every secret cheat, every bearskin-jobber, has a cloven foot." And today, there are few entities more detested among the contemporary public than hedge funds.
Though I personally believe that short sales are a natural and enduring feature of a free marketplace, it’s easy to see why our natural human inclination is to be suspicious of someone who has an economic interest in the failure of another enterprise. This feeling is only amplified when those seeking the failure of another enterprise for the sake of profit are those who seem to need profit least.
Now, consider this in the context of how the everyday American sees this. And, more to the point, how two million enterprising young professionals might see this.
The Justin Sun, that is. He is a purported tech billionaire in Xining, Red China. He tweeted his plan to buy more GameStop stock as small investors continue their attempt to shortchange the hedge funds that shorted the stock.
His tweet said, "$1 Mil doesn’t seem enough, I’ll be buying $10 Mil $GME [GameStop stock] instead tonight from Asia when market opens! It’s time to unite & squeeze out those greedy hedge funds! Wallstreetbets, 4 billion Asian community & 20 mil $TRX community supports u! Let’s do this!"
Now we have to be cautious here. Never trust Red China and you don't get to be a billionaire in Red China without kissing Chairman Xi's ring. Sun may buy the stock. He may not. This may be Red China trying some stock manipulation.
But Sun may just be trying to ruin the hedge funders, in which he arrived Justin time. I do not care that these vultures are American.
The narrative is that someone on a Reddit's Wallstreetbets subreddit (chat room) told people he was buying GameStop stock in September. The price of the stock had doubled since that January, even though the company is a bricks-and-mortar merchant of video games that people now get online. Its move to online retail is on. Given its brand name, that may help. More at the link
#1
S/b pretty easy for the ChiComs to compromise and f--- up our financial titans through market manipulation. Pushing on an open door. Yet more evidence of how globalism is this country's greatest enemy
[ISTHESQUEEZESQUOZE] GME shorts have not begun to close their positions in substantial numbers.
THE SITUATION (1/29 10 AM ET):
short interest: 75.54% of float by Ortex, 113.31% of float by S3 Shortsight
short share public availability: 0
Shorts are exiting their positions, but an amount of shares equal or almost equal to float is still shorted.
robinhood and other brokerages didn't have the capital to place buy orders at times yesterday. Robinhood is apparently going so far as to liquidate GME shares in accounts that are not using margin trading(!) If you're still on robinhood, you should find a new broker ASAP. Retail brokers who didn't blow up completely yesterday include:
o vanguard
o td ameritrade
o fidelity
OK, listen up, you late-to-the-party, crayon-eating homunculus, here's what's going on:
Over the past year, hedge fund supervillains have made money by selling shares of Gamestop they don't actually own - they've just borrowed them. Short selling. If they sell enough they can drive the price down so far that when they eventually need to return the shares they borrowed, they can get them cheap. It's free money. They throw a couple hundred mil at this, chill in their offices watching live video feeds of homeless people being exsanguinated on the hoods of their vintage sports cars, write up an investor report, and call it a fiscal year.
They borrowed and sold a record amount - they sold more shares, in fact, than are actually traded, far more than Gamestop's float. This shouldn't have been allowed to happen and probably means they were selling shares they never even bothered to borrow - naked shorts. (Where were you on that one, SEC?) Essentially, they were simultaneously betting on Gamestop going bankrupt and doing their best to drive them into bankruptcy. It's a good tactic when you need to find a way to pay for your old wife's alimony and your new wife's poolboy.
But it presents an opportunity for the savvy degenerate gambler. Because these shares eventually need to be returned - after all, it does cost these funds money to borrow a share. And the higher the price goes, the more unstable it becomes, the more it costs to borrow. This means that at some point, they need to buy back those borrowed shares they sold.
#1
they were simultaneously betting on Gamestop going bankrupt and doing their best to drive them into bankruptcy
Just like Bill Ackman's stunt in March 2020. He took a huge short position and then flooded the zone with media appearances and interviews in which he spread panic and fear. He made a cool billion fir himself in a couple of days. Then he went back in and scooped up shares at a steep discount.
[Southeast Missourian] The new AT age -- "After Trump" -- began on either Election Day, Nov. 3, or on Inauguration Day, Jan. 20. But either way, reality as we had known it for four years has been abruptly reinvented.
Pfizer had hinted that a vaccine could be ready in late October. Then, mysteriously, it wasn't. Then, stranger still, it appeared -- a few days after Election Day.
Suddenly, after Joe Biden's inauguration, Illinois, Michigan and other blue states eased some of their lockdown restrictions to get their economies back on track despite little change in COVID-19 rates.
During the Trump Age, the president was supposedly responsible for every death from COVID-19. Now, the media reports that career scientists and health administrators in the federal government, especially at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, were largely to blame for past slow testing, and were tardy and lax in apprising the nation of the infectious threat.
The Biden campaign's widely reported promises of a new, superior COVID-19 plan turned out to be more of the same old, same old from the Trump Age.
Biden did mandate the wearing of masks on all federal property. But he then immediately undermined his own order during the first few hours on the job by going mask-less during a photo op at the Lincoln Memorial.
Stranger still, President Biden announced during his first few hours in office: "There's nothing we can do to change the trajectory of the pandemic in the next several months."
[PJ] "To the victor belong the spoils." some obscure politician once said when people complained about jobs and perks going to Democrats when Andrew Jackson was elected. The Civil Service Act ended the practice of handing out government jobs to the party that won the election, but Joe Biden is trying to revive it in a different form.
Look carefully at the executive orders Biden is issuing. It’s no accident that subsidies, spending, and incentives are overwhelmingly benefitting blue states and Democratic constituencies.
Meanwhile, the flow of dollars is drying up for red states. After saying he would be president "for all Americans," Biden is doing a pretty good impersonation of a partisan hack who favors Democrats.
Start with energy. Biden killed the Keystone XL pipeline at a cost of 1,000 jobs and diplomatic goodwill with Canada. He banned fracking on federal lands and paused oil and gas lease sales in the Arctic National Wildlife Reserve. According to a White House fact sheet, he told federal agencies to "accelerate clean energy and transmission projects." He is sure to bestow federal largesse on the sons of Solyndra.
The alternative energy sector overwhelmingly favors Democrats. Its political investments have paid off. The old-style extractive industries, mainly based in GOP strongholds, will suffer. In some cases they are targeted for extinction. The knock-on effects are serious. "Wyoming state superintendent Jillian Balow notes that her state depends on some $150 million a year in oil and gas federal royalties to fund K-12 schools," says the Wall Street Journal editorial board.
It follows that red-state governors and state legislators don’t believe fossil fuels are tools of the devil and they’ve spent billions of dollars to develop their energy resources. Meanwhile, blue-state leaders are perfectly content to use those resources from fracking and drilling while cutting them off would only be an inconvenience for their citizens. Red states, on the other hand, are decimated.
Then there are the payoffs to special interest groups that supported his campaign.
#2
I'm sure the Governor of New Mexico (D) is trying to figure out how to pay for the schools after the fiat shutting down oil and natural gas exploitation. It's not like her nearly year long lock down has enhanced state revenue collection.
#3
"Wyoming state superintendent Jillian Balow notes that her state depends on some $150 million a year in oil and gas federal royalties to fund K-12 schools" Just put up toll barriers at the WY state line --$50 to enter, or whatever figure will generate the desired revenue. Tax all passengers on arrival at Jackson Hole airport $1000 per capita, they are in the class that can pay that, no trouble. Tax real estate held by out of state owners 3-10 times more than the rate paid by state residents. Time to get creative!
[American Thinker] Those who remember Star Trek: The Next Generation from the 1980s also remember Captain Picard's epic turn as Locutus of Borg. The once strong, independent captain had been assimilated into the totalitarian Borg. American politics is beginning to feel remarkably Borg-like in the age of Biden.
There was a theme running just below the surface of all the mainstream media talking points this past week. They were telling us, not in so many words, that "resistance is futile." Thousands of troops in the capital served to emphasize the point.
Leftists are the Borg. They are the embodiment of the evil sci-fi collectivist menace. They want us to know they will trample on our rights and our lives, if necessary, to usher in the new America. They have made great strides toward silencing all those who would disagree with them and now they want to begin the campaign to "reprogram" and assimilate us into the collective.
To be a leftist, you must conform absolutely to leftist orthodoxy. You must force a system of beliefs on those who profess to think otherwise, through social pressure, financial pressure, threats, intimidation, and violence. No debate is necessary. Just ask the few Democrats who have had the courage to confront the left.
Leftism's nature is anti-American because its core tenets are antithetical to the Constitution and, especially, the Bill of Rights. Small wonder that leftists seem to hate their country and want to change it into something else.
Many conservative voices are being silenced or censored with little recourse or pushback. It's hard to believe that this is happening right in front of our eyes.
The First Amendment is under assault, and the rest of the Bill of Rights won't be far behind. Joe Biden has made it clear that he wants to destroy the Second Amendment, and Beto O'Rourke stands ready to do the job.
[Free Beacon] Presumptive Democratic nominee Joe Biden has been dinged several times by fact-checkers over claims he has made during the coronavirus crisis, including a total of 11 "Pinocchios" from the Washington Post.
Over the course of three weeks between March 13 and April 3, Biden was fact-checked five separate times for making false or misleading claims concerning the Trump administration's handling of the pandemic.
A Washington Post fact check on March 13 awarded Biden four Pinocchios, the fact-checker's most severe rating, for two manipulated videos the Biden campaign circulated.
The first video claimed to show Trump at a Feb. 28 rally saying Democrats were turning the coronavirus into "their new hoax" after they failed to bring Trump down through impeachment. Biden's video was edited to make it appear that Trump was calling the coronavirus a hoax. Trump, however, was referring to the Democrats' attempts to blame him for the virus, not the virus itself.
The second Biden campaign video showed Trump saying the phrase "the American Dream is dead," which the Post found was taken out of context and missing the second part of Trump's statement where he promised to "bring it back bigger and better and stronger than ever before."
Another Post fact check on March 24 gave the campaign four Pinocchios after adviser Ron Klain accused Trump of silencing Dr. Nancy Messonnier of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
"The president and the White House sent a clear message to scientists in the government—there would be a price for speaking out and speaking up," he said in a campaign video released on March 21.
Messonnier continued to hold routine phone briefings with reporters in the weeks after she raised the alarm about the virus at a press conference with Trump.
#3
Still, I'm surprised the WaPo was fact-checking Biden. That must have been when they were pushing for a real progressive, not a worn-out old glue-factory horse.
Posted by: Bobby ||
01/30/2021 8:56 Comments ||
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#4
Where we find out Pinocchio is no longer an Interesting Italian but a right wing extremist who isn't interested in your train running on time.
Ima predictin' she'll lose that phrase soon, just from the Bee ridicule
[Babylon Bee] During a press conference Thursday, Press Secretary Jen Psaki was asked why Joe Biden was currently wandering around the room getting "a good whiff" of various female reporters' hair.
She deftly handled the question, promising to "circle back" to it before taking another question about which Ninja Turtle is Joe Biden's favorite.
"Yes, um, hi, Press Secretary Psaki. Can you tell me why Joe currently has his nose buried two inches into my bun?" asked a CNN reporter. "And to clarify, I have the utmost respect for you and for the president, may he live forever, so I'm not challenging you. I was just curious. Because I'm a little uncomfortable. But again, that's probably just me!"
"Yes, great question. We'll circle back to that," Psaki said as Biden wandered around the room sniffing woman after woman. "Anyone else? Yes, great question. Joe Biden's favorite Ninja Turtle is definitely Donatello. Everyone knows Don is the best. Haha. You guys are awesome! Great job, team!"
Psaki went on to answer questions about how Joe Biden likes his steaks done, what his favorite color is, and what he orders at Starbucks before closing up the press conference for the day.
I got my $ on 'incompetence is here to stay' with this administration. She'll be there a while, ably assisted with the occasional puff piece from the usual suspects.
Posted by: Frank G ||
01/30/2021 10:42 Comments ||
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#6
Harf Harf !!!!!!!!!!
Posted by: Alaska Paul ||
01/30/2021 11:05 Comments ||
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#7
I used to think they would get rid of Biden not more than 6 to 8 months after swearing in. I now believe they will keep him. He will sign anything put in front of him. He is being kept from the media as much as possible. He is only asked pre-screened questions. Harris would not be that pliable.
Posted by: Deacon Blues ||
01/30/2021 12:34 Comments ||
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#8
#7, agree entirely. So far Joe is the bureaucrat's dream.
And you are right, Kamala might have ideas of her own. The bureaucracy would not like that.
Posted by: Tom ||
01/30/2021 13:27 Comments ||
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[Gregg Jarrett] Another day, another New York Times scandal. Yet, barely any coverage.
Kaveh Afrasiabi, an opinion writer for the New York Times, was arrested and charged with acting and conspiring to act as an unregistered foreign agent for the Iranian government.
Doing his small bit to shape the cultural battlefield in Iran’s favour. And now he’s been arrested, to be followed by either trial and conviction or being PNG’d. This is going to make President Biden’s negotiations more difficult...
If convicted, Afrasiabi could be sentenced to 10 years in prison.
January 8, 2021
[BenarNews] Indonesia’s ban on the hardline Islamic Defenders Front (Front Pembela Islam, FPI) is the latest in a string of long-overdue efforts to curb the power of a group viewed as a catalyst of rising intolerance in the country.
The new stronger stance against FPI — although welcome — may not reduce its socio-political influence; on the contrary, the ban may further radicalize key FPI supporters. Moreover, the move is part of a worrying trend of the executive unilaterally banning civil society organizations.
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.
[WND] When Uncle Sam threatens some blighted and benighted region of the world — ostensibly on behalf of the American People and for their own good — our representatives call it peace through strength.
[Townhall] Rush Limbaugh weighed in on GameStop's skyrocketing stock price that currently has hedge funds bleeding billions of dollars. The radio host compared the populist revolt on Wall Street, engineered by a group of Reddit users, to today's political battles between ordinary people and the elites. 
Now that the voting booth is no longer an option.
[PJ] "To the victor belong the spoils." some obscure politician once said when people complained about jobs and perks going to Democrats when Andrew Jackson was elected. The Civil Service Act ended the practice of handing out government jobs to the party that won the election, but Joe Biden is trying to revive it in a different form.
Ima predictin' she'll lose that phrase soon, just from the Bee ridicule
