Sunday, July 9, 2017

Comey’s private memos on Trump conversations contained classified material

Via Billy

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More than half of the memos former FBI chief James Comey wrote as personal recollections of his conversations with President Trump about the Russia investigation have been determined to contain classified information, according to interviews with officials familiar with the documents.

This revelation raises the possibility that Comey broke his own agency’s rules and ignored the same security protocol that he publicly criticized Hillary Clinton for in the waning days of the 2016 presidential election.

Comey testified last month he considered the memos to be personal documents and that he shared at least one of them with a Columbia University lawyer friend. He asked that lawyer to leak information from one memo to the news media in hopes of increasing pressure to get a special prosecutor named in the Russia case after Comey was fired as FBI director.

More @ The Hill

Trump Team Met With Kremlin-Connected Lawyer Associated with Fusion GPS, the firm behind anti-Trump dossier

Via Billy

Trump team met with Kremlin-connected lawyer during campaign: report

President Trump’s eldest son, his son-in-law and former campaign chairman Paul Manafort met at Trump Tower with a Kremlin-connected lawyer last June, it was revealed on Saturday.

But Trump’s legal team is raising questions about the June 9, 2016, conclave and is suggesting that the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, misrepresented herself.

“We have learned from both our own investigation and public reports that the participants in the meeting misrepresented who they were and who they worked for,” Mark Corallo, a spokesman for President Trump’s legal team, said on Saturday, just after The New York Times reported that the meeting took place.

Corallo pointed out that Veselnitskaya is associated with Fusion GPS, the opposition research firm behind an anti-Trump dossier compiled by former British spy Christopher Steele. Fusion GPS was paid by a Democratic ally of Hillary Clinton’s to conduct the research.

Can't Make This Crap Up!: HATE CRIME ALERT: Campus Cops Investigate Plastic Wrap On Sidewalk Shaped Vaguely Like Noose

Via Billy


Angry students at the University of Maryland, College Park were in an uproar on Tuesday because someone claimed to discover a piece of plastic wrap vaguely coiled into the shape of a noose.

Two unidentified people found the tangled, frayed strip of plastic lying partially on a sidewalk near fraternity row, reports The Diamondback, the University of Maryland student newspaper.

Who Would Have Thunk'? :) Single-payer healthcare gains traction with Dems

Via Billy


Democrats are increasingly committing to support single-payer healthcare, amid Republican attacks on ObamaCare and pressure from their party’s left-wing base.

What was once considered only a progressive talking point has gained traction as more Democratic candidates have been willing to embrace government-funded healthcare on the campaign trail and more House members have been signing onto the idea.

More @ The Hill

New Research Shows Guccifer 2.0 Files Were Copied Locally, Not Hacked

Via Billy


New meta-analysis has emerged from a document published today by an independent researcher known as The Forensicator, which suggests that files eventually published by the Guccifer 2.0 persona were likely initially downloaded by a person with physical access to a computer possibly connected to the internal DNC network. The individual most likely used a USB drive to copy the information. The groundbreaking new analysis irrevocably destroys the Russian hacking narrative, and calls the actions of Crowdstrike and the DNC into question.

The document supplied to Disobedient Media via Adam Carter was authored by an individual known as The Forensicator. The full document referenced here has been published on their blog. Their analysis indicates the data was almost certainly not accessed initially by a remote hacker, much less one in Russia. If true, this analysis obliterates the Russian hacking narrative completely.

Items Forrest Gump Producers Hid From Fans

 

Forrest Gump is a comedy-drama that was released in 1994. It is based on a novel called Forrest Gump that was written by Winston Groom. It was rated very highly by critics and viewers, and it became a top film that has since been an American classic.

The movie was watched by so many people, yet, there are a few things about this movie that will definitely surprise you. This article focuses on the things that Forrest Gump producers hid from their fans.

What Makes Southern Manners Peculiar?

 Gildersleeve
Basil Lanneau Gildersleeve, born in Charleston, South Carolina, on 23 October 1831, and died in Baltimore, Maryland, on 9 January 1924. He graduated from Princeton at the age of eighteen and received a Ph. D. in classics from Gottingen at the age of twenty-one. In 1856, he became professor of Greek at the University of Virginia, and during his summer vacations, 1861-1864, he fought with the Confederate army.

Southerners live in the 18th century. This common charge is not altogether false, since the peculiar habits, customs, and meanings of words found often in the American South are found also in 18th century English authors. Such a word is manners. Most English-speaking people and some Southerners use the word now in the only senses current during the past two centuries. These meanings are designated in the Oxford English Dictionary (OED) as current: ‘External behaviour in social intercourse’ or ‘Polite behaviour or deportment; habits indicative of good breeding.’ But the oldest meaning for manners and the meaning which has had the longest continual use is now marked obsolete. The first citation in the OED for this meaning is dated 1225; the last citation is dated 1794, when, apparently, this sense fell out of use. The next to last citation for this meaning is dated 1757; it comes from Dr Samuel Johnson. Those who continue to use this sense, as many Southerners do, are living in the 18th century. This obsolete meaning is: ‘A person’s habitual behaviour or conduct, esp. in reference to its moral aspect, moral character.’

The steel industry is in crisis, and it's a national security problem

Via Billy

 Image result for The steel industry is in crisis, and it's a national security problem

Since retiring as a brigadier general after a 30-year career in the U.S. Army, I have continued to work to find ways to strengthen America's national security. To that end, I recently prepared a report that studied supply chokepoints in the American defense industrial base.

One of its conclusions: An increasing reliance on steel imported from international competitors puts our national security at risk.

The international market is awash in steel from China's state-owned mills. Although Washington has erected tariffs to keep Chinese steel at bay, its ripple effects are still felt here. In the U.S. market — one of the most open in the world — mills have idled in response to the cratering prices this flood has created. Imports are taking an increasingly large slice of the pie.

There's nothing wrong with fair market competition, but there's a heavier consideration at play: An overreliance on imports erodes our domestic steel industry's position as a cornerstone of our defensive infrastructure.

The Trump administration is considering that right now. It has turned to U.S. trade law — a Section 232 investigation — to determine whether the situation in the steel market constitutes a national security threat. I believe it does, and it can't be ignored. Steel is a vital input in the manufacture of America's defense and critical infrastructure — used in everything from ships, tanks, and armaments to bridges, rail systems, our electrical grid, and energy infrastructure.

Chicago Police Say 6-YEAR-OLD Committing Armed Robbery on Southside

Via Billy


Police in Chicago’s Southside are reporting the shocking news that a young 6-year-old boy is robbing people at gunpoint.
Detectives are warning Near South Side residents of a robbery crew that includes a 6- to 8-year-old boy who’s armed with a silver handgun.
The offenders struck at least 11 times during June, most recently on June 28th, according to the alert that came out on Saturday.
Each time, between three and nine robbers have approached victims and either demanded valuables or taken property by force before running away.
Robberies have been reported on sidewalks, in parking lots, and in an apartment building hallway, cops said.

Charleston’s Colored Masters

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Many of antebellum Charleston’s free black population owned slaves, and the Brown Fellowship of that city was organized in 1790 by black commercial slaveowners who saw no need to emancipate their black brethren. In 1796, Samuel Holman, a mulatto slave trader from Rio Pongo, West Africa was admitted to that colored society, which preserved the distinction between free persons of color and slaves. On the eve of war in Wilmington, North Carolina, the labor utilized in erecting Dr. John D. Bellamy’s mansion included free black carpenter with slave workers who underbid white carpenters.  The latter petitioned the legislature in the mid-1850s to increase the tax on slaves so white workers could find work. 
Bernhard Thuersam, www.Circa1865.com   The Great American Political Divide

Charleston’s Colored Masters

“Many prominent citizens like Christopher Gustavious Memminger, an influential lawyer and politician of Charleston County, believed that the free black community served a useful role and protected the interest of slaveholders.

Since many of the well-to-do colored persons were slave masters and landholders, the whites concluded that the free black elite would join them in support of the institution of slavery. At the outbreak of the Civil War, the lines were drawn by the free black populace and the views of white supporters of the colored community seemed accurate.

On April 12, 1861 . . . the black masters saw the opportunity to affirm their commitment to South Carolina and sided with the white slaveowners. A group of free blacks from Charleston City, including a number of colored slaveowners, issued the following statement:

“. . . [Our] attachments are with you, our hopes and safety and protection from you . . . our allegiance is due to South Carolina and in her defense, we will offer up our lives, and all that is dear to us.”

The sentiments of the Charleston black slaveowners were shared by the black slaveowners of other counties. For example, William Ellison, a cotton planter and the owner of 63 slaves, offered his aid to the Confederate Army in Sumter County.

As the Confederate Army began to make successful advances in the summer of 1862, the black masters continued their farming operations with slave labor. As the war raged on, shortages of meat and other foodstuffs were not the only dilemma faced by the colored masters. Even the wealthiest colored masters could not always purchase clothing for their families and slaves. Quite often the slave masters employed their female slaves to make homespun clothing.

[After 1863, many black masters] sought to liquidate their human chattel . . . before the Union Army forced them to emancipate their slaves. As the war continued to worsen for the Confederacy, other colored masters probably attempted to sell their slave property but could not find a willing buyer because the Union Army was advancing towards South Carolina.

Yet even as the Confederacy was falling into disarray, many of the black masters refused to sell their slaves, while others chose not to grant their servants nominal freedom. As late as 1865, there were 81 colored slave masters who owned 241 slaves in Charleston City. Many of these slaveowners used their slaves as workers and did not intend to emancipate them.

Among the invading troops [at Charleston in early 1865] were the Twenty-first US Colored Troops. When they reached the city, a crowd of jubilant free blacks and slaves greeted the soldiers; but the colored masters of Charleston perceived the invasion as apocalyptic destruction rather than salvation.”

(Black Slaveowners, Free Black Slave Masters in South Carolina, 1790-1860; Larry Koger, University of South Carolina Press, 1985, excerpts, pp. 189-192)

1.1 Right & Left

Via 4Branch

http://mesosyn.com/mental6-2c.jpg 

“Good people know about both good and evil: bad people do not know about either.” ― C.S. Lewis, Mere Christianity

Putting aside for now which side is which, C.S. Lewis has defined the basic difference between the political Right and the political Left. One side sees the world as a struggle between good and evil.
 The other side battles against those who have such a simple black and white view of the world. I have come to the realization that the words we use to describe our political divide have been defined by the second side, those who do not know about either good or evil. They cannot see the difference. They do not see that the political divide is the ongoing struggle between good and evil. They do not see that evil hides behind good intentions and lives in shades of gray where it rarely reveals its true nature. There is no such thing as an ideological spectrum with Liberals on one end, Conservatives on the other end, and Moderates in the middle. Those on the Left are not Liberals and Progressives fighting against tradition. Those on the Right side are not Conservatives defending tradition. There are no such things as Moderates. Despite the overwhelming acceptance of these perceptions, they are all wrong.

More @ JS Kline

Germany: Chechen Sharia Police Terrorize Berlin

Via Billy

  • Threats of violence against "errant" women are viewed as "acts of patriotism."
  • "They have come to Germany because they wanted to live in Germany, but they keep trying to turn it into Chechnya with its medieval ways." — Social worker interviewed by Meduza.
  • "Everyone's attention is fixed on the Syrians, but the Chechens are the most dangerous group. We are not paying sufficient attention to this." — Police in Frankfurt (Oder).
A hundred Islamists are now openly enforcing Sharia law on the streets of Berlin, according to local police who are investigating a recent string of violent assaults in the German capital.

The self-appointed morality police involve Salafists from Chechnya, a predominantly Sunni Muslim region in Russia. The vigilantes are using threats of violence to discourage Chechen migrants from integrating into German society; they are also promoting the establishment of a parallel Islamic legal system in Germany. German authorities appear unable to stop them.

Dallas County Commissioner Refuses To Honor Assassinated Officers, Blames ‘Police Violence’ For Their Murder

Via Billy

Dallas County Commissioner Refuses To Honor Assassinated Officers, Blames 'Police Violence' For Their Murder

A year ago, five police officers were assassinated by a black nationalist in a horrific massacre in Dallas.

The Dallas County Commission decided to do something nice to honor the officers who had been killed.

But then came a problem.

From CBSDFW:
As the one year anniversary of the ambush approached, the Dallas County Commission voted on a resolution to make July 7 a day to honor all fallen law enforcement officers. All commissioners voted “yes,” except for Commissioner John Wiley Price.
Why did he refuse to honor them?
“Abstained,” yelled Price after the vote. “It’s interesting in this country how you again continue to try to frame a narrative with regards to other people who have lost their lives at the hands of law enforcement. Any loss of life is bad.”