Was a Drunken Conversation Really All the Probable Cause the FBI Needed to Investigate a Presidential Campaign?

Via Billy

Today the New York Times ran a piece that could best be described as either “alternative history” or “propaganda” that appears sourced from inside the FBI. The gist of the story is that George Papadopoulos, a guy no one had heard of before his indictment by Robert Mueller on some chickensh** charges of lying to federal investigators (essentially this means you gave them answers they didn’t like) started the whole investigation.

You can believe this story if you wish but there is no more reason to believe it than anything more substantial than the email Brian Ross talked about a couple of weeks ago.

More @ Red State

Who Wanted $700,000 to Get Someone to Accuse Donald Trump of Sexual Harassment?

Via Billy

 

During the latter stages of the 2016 presidential campaign ambulance chasing attorney Lisa Bloom presented a series of women she alleged had been sexually harassed, or worse, by Donald Trump at some previous point in his life. One of the accusers was a woman named Jill Harth who claimed Trump cornered her in his daughter’s bedroom (+10 for a salacious detail) and “groped” her. Another client alleged that Donald Trump had raped her when she was 13, but she backed out of a scheduled news conference and her identity remains unknown (at least to me).

Today the New York Times did a story on how sexual harassment claims have been weaponized by political partisans. One of the cases they focused on was the Trump allegations.

More @ Red State

Adam Smith’s Theory of Moral Sentiments

Via L

This series, in its unrevised form, was posted in Summer  2005.  I thought it was lost forever, but Allen Wilson has been kind enough to send me dozens of old pieces that have disappeared from the old website.

Part One:  Capitalism

1776, the year of the Declaration of Independence, was marked also by the publication of Adam Smith’s path-breaking book on economics, The Wealth of Nations. This is no accident, according to a familiar myth put out by American classical liberals who call themselves conservatives, because America is a land of individualists who came to a New World seeking freedom from monarchy, aristocracy, the patriarchal family, religion, and tradition, and our way of life is based on the principles of John Locke and the Scottish Enlightenment: human equality, natural rights, the consent of the governed. These principles are the basis of the democratic capitalism revealed to the world by Adam Smith. Since Adam Smith was also a great moral philosopher and even a moral theologian, modern capitalism is essentially a moral proposition.

This thumbnail sketch of American exceptionalism and the significance of Adam Smith is, like most of what we have been taught to believe, ahistorical buncombe.

More @ The Fleming Foundation

Justice Dept. Officials Gave Clinton More Than $416,000 in 2016 Campaign Contributions

 

More than 2,600 individual contributions collectively worth in excess of $416,000 were made to 2016 Democratic presidential nominee Hillary Clinton by persons who listed the Department of Justice (DOJ) as their employer, according to federal campaign data compiled by opensecrets.org.

Contributions to President Donald Trump were paltry by comparison, coming from only 61 individuals listing DOJ as their employer and making 54 donations collectively worth $20,252. All of the data covered the election cycle from Jan. 1, 2015, through the 2016 election on November 8.

More @ Lifezette

Trump wishes a Happy New Year to his supporters, haters, enemies and fake news

Via Billy

 

President Trump wished Americans a Happy New Year from his Mar-a-Lago luxury resort in south Florida on Sunday, saying that his New Years wishes extened to not just his supporters but also his "enemies" and the "fake news" media.

"As our Country rapidly grows stronger and smarter, I want to wish all of my friends, supporters, enemies, haters, and even the very dishonest Fake News Media, a Happy and Healthy New Year. 2018 will be a great year for America!" Trump tweeted.

More @ The Hill

Trump administration shuts down $13 billion Obama-era Amtrak non-existent 'agreement'

Via Billy

The Trump administration has shut down a $13 billion federal spending plan to rebuild an Amtrak project between New York and New Jersey.

According to a letter obtained by Crain’s New York Business, the administration called the deal proposed by former President Barack Obama — which would have been half paid for by the federal government — “non-existent.”

“Your letter also references a non-existent '50/50' agreement between [the Department of Transportation], New York, and New Jersey. There is no such agreement," wrote Federal Transit Administration deputy administrator K. Jane Williams in a Friday letter. “We consider it unhelpful to reference a non-existent 'agreement' rather than directly address the responsibility for funding a local project where nine out of 10 passengers are local transit riders.”

More @ Washington Examiner

Iran accounted for 55% of all recorded judicial executions in the world during 2016 & Protests Take Important Centers, Will The Regime Be Toppled?

 

This is my mum & her friends in Iran before the Islamic revolution. All were professional, independent & free women.

 

 The lady with the gun is my mum.

President Trump should take decisive action in 2018 to support the ouster of the virulently anti-American theocracy that has ruled Iran with an iron fist and threatened its neighbors for the past four decades.

The president’s first step should be to throw American support behind the brave anti-government protesters who have taken to the streets in mass demonstrations across the Islamic Republic since Thursday. The street protests continued Saturday, with demonstrations in cities including the capital of Tehran and Kermanshah.

In a good first step, the U.S. State Department announced Friday that the America “strongly condemns the arrest of peaceful protesters. We urge all nations to publicly support the Iranian people and their demands for basic rights and an end to corruption.”

More @ Fox

*********************

  Excerpt

To walk towards the path of a liberal, and progressive nation, every young Iranian must have a willingness to take up available arms, if any. In addition, If there are no arms, the GCC and Saudi in particular will likely be happy to lend a hand. Indeed, conspiracy theorists are blaming the CIA, Israel, the UAE, Saudi Arabia for being behind the Iran protests. Whatever the truth is the battle for Tehran will have ramifications for Syria and the wider middle East.

 Protests Take Important Centers, Will The Regime Be Toppled?

Most key federal agencies have cut staff under Trump

Via Billy

A number of key federal agencies have seen their staff numbers decrease under the Trump administration, according to a report from The Washington Post.

The Post reported that every Cabinet agency has seen their permanent staff numbers shrink under Trump, with the exception of the departments of Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs and Interior.

The staff cuts represented a fulfillment of President Trump's campaign promise to make cuts in the federal bureaucracy and reverse former President Obama's hiring expansion.

Trump is set to announce new cuts as part of the 2019 budget, which is aimed at decreasing the deficit to pay for the recently passed GOP-backed tax law.

More @ The Hill

Woodward/Bernstein decry media's 'smugness' & 'self-righteousness' toward Trump + Graham: 'We should all want to help' Trump

Via Billy

Veteran journalists Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein hit the news media Sunday for adopting an unnecessarily hostile "tone" in their coverage of the White House.

Appearing Sunday on CNN's "State of the Union," the two longtime reporters said there should be less pettiness and outrage in the media when it comes to President Trump.

"We oughtn’t be too provocative, which we sometimes are with a president who’s putting a lot of bait out there and sometimes we take the bait and get a little petty," said Bernstein.

More @ Washington Examiner

************************************* 

Graham: 'We should all want to help' Trump

Intoxicated man found with small arsenal on top floor of Hyatt Regency downtown

Evidently three guns instead of 300 is now a small arsenal.....

  A man has been arrested on multiple charges after police located a small arsenal of guns on the top floor of the Hyatt Regency on Louisiana Street downtown, Houston police said.  

Police at the hotel called for backup around 1:30 a.m. Sunday after they attempted to arrest the man for being intoxicated and trespassing. When help arrived, police noticed ammunition laying around the man's hotel room, Lt. Gordon Macintosh with Houston police said. 

The man was arrested for unlawfully carrying a weapon and trespassing. When investigators looked into his room further, they located an AR-15, a shotgun, a handgun and lots of ammunition, Macintosh said.

More @ Click 2

Democrats should get on board with making Trump tax cuts permanent

Via Billy

On Christmas Eve, CNN’s Jake Tapper told Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.), “Next year, 91 percent of middle income Americans will receive a tax cut.” Tapper asked, “Isn’t that a good thing?” Sanders replied, “Yeah, it is a very good thing. And that’s why we should’ve made the tax cuts for the middle class permanent.”

Could it be that a bipartisan policy consensus has finally emerged on Capitol Hill? The leaders of both parties and most rank and file members agree that the middle class tax cuts in the new tax law should be permanent. These cuts include lower income tax rates on the middle class, the doubling of the standard deduction, and the additional $1,000 per child tax credit, all of which are set to expire after 2025. So lawmakers should make them permanent now.

More @ The Hill

Trump: Dem Elections In 2018 Would ‘Totally Kill’ Wealth Created In 2017

 

President Donald Trump warned voters of a Democratic party victory in the 2018 midterm elections saying it would reverse the economic gains seen under his presidency.

The president also blasted his former opponent Hillary Clinton in an earlier tweet saying the stock market would have lost 50 percent of its value if she had been elected in 2016.

The economy has boomed under Trump’s presidency so far with 87 new highs for the Dow Jones since the president was elected. There’s also been a three year high GDP growth rate despite two massive hurricanes and an unemployment hovering around 4 percent. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta recently told a roundtable attended by The Daily Caller that he expects nearly two million new jobs to have been created under Trump.

More @ The Daily Caller

Weiner Laptop Doc: Assange Warrant Issued 2 Weeks After Swedish Election Leaks Warning

 

A confidential document found on Anthony Weiner's laptop reveals that the United States Embassy in Stockholm, Sweden expressed concerns in 2010 that WikiLeaks would release classified US documents related to Sweden ahead of the September 19 Swedish election, tipping the vote towards the Pirate Party. The subject of the cable reads "Wikileaks: The Pirate Party's White Horse Into Sweden's Parliament?"

On June 29, 2010 a US diplomat met with three members of the Pirate Party - which is described in the cable as a "mixture between communism and libertarianism," yet whose members are "well-salaried professionals, independent  from the party for income." Two of the "pirates," according to the report, were active in the "youth branch of the conservative party currently leading government."

The Embassy cable notes the "grim electoral outlook for Pirates" - as confirmed by a Pirate party member interviewed by the US diplomat, "Unless WikiLeaks Saves the Day." 

More @ Zero Hedge

Mossad sense of humor

Via David

4 VN Photos

Via Dung Cao Tran

 

Via Quan Nguyen Thanh