Monday, July 23, 2018

Nationally Acclaimed, Locally Detested

 

The Tricentennial celebration of New Orleans has stirred much interest into different facets of the city’s history. The search for the quintessential old New Orleans novel yields few results.

The rich culture of New Orleans makes it one of America’s great cities. The Crescent City has served as muse for a litany of writers, accomplished and rising, yet it remains a near impossible place for fiction writers to capture and receive both popular acclaim and approval from the natives. Only a few pieces written about New Orleans are truly beloved locally. And the city has plenty contrarians who argue against celebrated works such as A Streetcar Named Desire and A Confederacy of Dunces. This isn’t a new development: New Orleanians have rarely embraced creative representations of the city, even when they are popular.

The U.S. Needs to Face Up to Its Long History of Election Meddling

Via Doug

What many Russians, but few Americans, know is that 20 years before Russia tried to swing an American presidential election, America tried to swing a presidential election in Russia. The year was 1996. Boris Yeltsin was seeking a second term, and Bill Clinton desperately wanted to help. “I want this guy to win so bad,” he told Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott, “it hurts.”
Last Sunday morning, CNN’s Jake Tapper interviewed Kentucky Senator Rand Paul about Russian interference in the 2016 election. At 7:40 AM, a CNN analyst named Josh Campbell tweeted some of Paul’s comments. He quoted the senator as declaring that the Russians “are going to spy on us, they do spy on us, they’re going to interfere in our elections. We also do the same ... We all do it. What we need to do is make sure our electoral process is protected.” He also quoted Paul as labeling Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s investigation into the Trump campaign and Russian interference with the 2016 election a “witch hunt.”

More @ The Atlantic

Neutralizing Maryland

                                      Image result for A Southern Star for Maryland, Maryland and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861, Lawrence M. Denton,

                                       First Confederate Soldier Killed In The WBTS

After the armed resistance by Marylanders against Northern troops passing through their State in April 1861, the “Northern press howled for revenge on Baltimore and for the subjugation of Maryland.” Business in that city was at a standstill and the Potomac was patrolled by an armed flotilla aimed at cutting off Maryland from Virginia and the Southern Confederacy. On May 2, the New York Times suggested employing the same “experiment so successfully tried in Maryland” on Virginia. Secession, wrote the newspaper, was simply the result of a mob, and the “army . . . should immediately advance South to act as a local police. The mob at Richmond would prove to be as cowardly and contemptible as at Baltimore.”
Posted at  www.Circa1865.org  The Great American Political Divide, Bernhard Thuersam.

Neutralizing Maryland

“While other States of the South seceded peacefully and of their own free will, Maryland could not. In the final analysis, Maryland was forced to stay in the Union.

The end of the secession movement in Maryland, at least the de jure end, came on November 6, 1861, with the Union Party’s overwhelming victory in the State legislative contests and the election of their candidate, Augustus W. Bradford, as governor.

The election destroyed secessionist hopes of taking Maryland into the Confederacy, and many Marylanders who sympathized with the South fled across the Potomac to join fellow citizens who had already been recruited to Confederate arms by a station set up in Baltimore.

Following the election, federal authorities with State cooperation “promptly suppressed all signs of secession sympathy of an active nature . . . Maryland became in fact as well as in name a loyal State.”

Bradford, until 1861 a relatively little known politician, was an unconditional Unionist and therefore received the support of the Lincoln administration, as did his Union Party. Indeed, he scored an impressive victory – the margins of which were so skewed that many question their authenticity. Bradford won with 57,000 votes to his opponent’s 26,000, and his party won sixty-eight seats in the House of Delegates to only six for the opposition. Secessionists and others opposed to Lincoln naturally cried foul.

The Baltimore South gave its “Union friends . . . great credit for the moderation exercised as there was no earthly reason, beyond the expense of ticket printing, why the majority (in Baltimore) should have been 40,000 instead of 14,000.” The journal had been “reliably informed that the Federal troops from every section of the country kindly aided their Union friends here, and deposited their ballots in as many wards and precincts as suited their convenience.”

This wry report from a secessionist newspaper should be read for what it is, but [one writer] makes the compelling point that, “The size of the majority made no difference for the Lincoln administration could have made it what it chose by applying the test oath more strictly, and by arresting the State Rights men.”

Bradford did appear to be elected by fraudulent means, and some question, given the results, why an election was held at all. It was held, of course, because the Lincoln administration badly wanted the country, and the European governments closely watching developments across the Atlantic, to believe that, constitutionally speaking, things were still working normally and that most Americans supported the Administration.

Once Lincoln and the War Department determined that Maryland had to be neutralized, they were forced to implement drastic policies.”

(A Southern Star for Maryland, Maryland and the Secession Crisis, 1860-1861, Lawrence M. Denton, Publishing Concepts, excerpts pp. 116-119)

Donald Trump: FISA Warrant to Spy on Campaign ‘a Disgrace to America’

 US President Donald Trump gestures as he addresses a press conference on the second day of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) summit in Brussels on July 12, 2018. (Photo by Brendan SMIALOWSKI / AFP) (Photo credit should read BRENDAN SMIALOWSKI/AFP/Getty Images)

President Donald Trump highlighted Monday the revelation of the FISA warrant used to spy on one of his foreign policy advisers Carter Page.

The heavily redacted set of documents were released to the public on Saturday, revealing that the unverified dossier created by Christopher Steele and paid for by the DNC was used to spy on the Trump campaign.

“So we now find out that it was indeed the unverified and Fake Dirty Dossier, that was paid for by Crooked Hillary Clinton and the DNC, that was knowingly & falsely submitted to FISA and which was responsible for starting the totally conflicted and discredited Mueller Witch Hunt!” Trump marveled on Twitter.

The president cited Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton who appeared on Fox and Friends to discuss the newly published information.

More @ Breitbart

UK to Hand Over Jihadists to US Without Death Penalty Assurances


 Image result for Kotey and El-Sheikh
The report said the Home Secretary was concerned that British law "may not be robust enough to ensure a successful prosecution." 
The cell was responsible for the beheadings of U.S. journalists James Foley and Steven Sotloff, U.S. humanitarian worker Peter Kassig, and British aid workers David Haines and Alan Henning.

A report in a British newspaper says the British government has "secretly abandoned its blanket opposition to the death penalty and Guantanamo Bay" so that two jihadists -- members of the so-called Beatles group of Islamic State terrorists -- can face criminal prosecution in the United States.
In a report posted on The Telegraph's website late Sunday, the paper said it had seen documents that the government is willing to hand over Alexanda Kotey and Shafee El-Sheikh to the U.S. without any "assurances" that they will not be executed.

British law does not allow for the death penalty.

More @ VOA

A Short List of the Most Lethal CIA Interventions in Latin America

Via Billy

 

In its 200 year history, the USA has intervened in, invaded or militarily occupied the following Western Hemisphere nations: Canada, Confederate States of America, Mexico, Cuba, Haiti, Dominican Republic, Guatemala, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua, Costa Rica, Colombia, Panama, Venezuela, Surinam, Brazil, Ecuador, Peru, Bolivia, Paraguay, Uruguay, Chile, Argentina, Puerto Rico, Grenada. The article below enlarges upon the 10 most lethal coups.

More @ LRC

Manafort Judge Releases Names of Five Witnesses Granted Immunity

 Image result for Manafort Judge Releases Names of Five Witnesses Granted Immunity

Last Tuesday, Robert Mueller sought to give immunity to five potential witnesses in the Paul Manafort trial according to a court filing.

Mueller filed the requests under seal; Manafort is facing charges of bank and tax fraud and his trial begins Wednesday in the Eastern District of Virginia.

In a ruling Monday, Judge T.S. Ellis, a Reagan appointee ordered Mueller to publicly name the five witnesses who got immunity–a huge blow to the Special Counsel.

The identities of the five witnesses were revealed Monday and Judge Ellis delayed Manafort’s trial until July 31st.

Mystery Solved: Democrats behind purchase of websites implying US senators 'for sale'

Via Billy

 The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee has quietly purchased dozens of web addresses implying U.S. senators were "for sale," according to the Associated Press.
The mysterious "forsale" purchases set off alarms. AP's review found roughly 280 political web addresses registered under the "forsale" domain, targeting President Donald Trump, the GOP, Supreme Court and National Rifle Association, as well as individual Democrats and Republicans. The Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee said it was responsible for at least 27 of them targeting U.S. senators and didn't provide further details.
Dozens of web addresses implying U.S. senators were "for sale" have been quietly and mysteriously purchased online, amid heightened concerns on Capitol Hill that foreign agents -- especially Russians -- might be trying to meddle in upcoming midterm elections.

An Associated Press investigation found the responsible party: Democrats.

More @ Fox

New FISA Evidence Shows Dirty Rod Rosenstein Is Corrupt to the Core — Needs to Be Questioned and Punished

Via Billy



The Obama FBI PAID FOR the Phony Trump pee-pee dossier — Then used the junk memo to spy on the Trump campaign–

 

Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein testified before the House Judiciary Committee in December 2017.
Rep. Ron DeSantis asked Rosenstein,
“The Russia investigation. Who started it? Who was the agent? Was it Strzok who started it? Who opened the case?”
Rosenstein fidgeted as he answered,

The Arrest of Maria Butina Is Another Hoax


Image result for The Arrest of Maria Butina Is Another Hoax

The Guardian Neswspaper, which once was an honest newspaper that spoke for the British working class has now been suborned, in my opinion, by the CIA and British Intelligence (sic).

Perhaps you remember a few years ago that The Guardian complied with illegal orders from the corrupt UK government to destroy the Wikileak files that revealed US felonies and deceptions of so-called “allies,” who are nothing but Washington’s vassals.

What disturbs me about The Guardian is that it no longer guards truth and the working class. Instead The Guardian guards the extraordinary lies that serve the agenda of the US hegemonic state.

John Brennan, Melting Down and Covering Up

Via Billy

 

It isn’t a pretty face, but one scarred from a dark past, repackaged now by the frenzy of “resistance.” Accusing Donald Trump recklessly, implying he knows more than he lets on, promising redemption:
  John Brennan is the face of American politics in 2018.

But before all that, Brennan lived in a hole about as far down into the deep state as one can dwell while still having eyes that work in the sunlight.

He was Obama’s counterterrorism advisor, helping the president decide who to kill every week, including American citizens. He spent 25 years at the CIA, and helped shape the violent policies of the post-9/11 Bush era. He was a fan of torture and extrajudicial killing to the point that a 2012 profile of him was entitled, “The Seven Deadly Sins of John Brennan.” Another writer called Brennan “the most lethal bureaucrat of all time, or at least since Henry Kissinger.” Today, however, a New York Times puff piece sweeps all that away as a “troubling inheritance.

Gowdy: If There Was Evidence Trump Committed Crime, 'Adam Schiff Would Have Leaked It'

 
“I have not seen one scintilla of evidence that this president colluded, conspired, confederated with Russia, and neither has anyone else, or you may rest assured Adam Schiff would have leaked it,” Gowdy said on “Fox News Sunday.” “That’s why they’ve moved off of collusion onto obstruction of justice, which is now their current preoccupation,” he added.

 Washington has always been a leaky town, but it's turned into a veritable sieve these days.

Rand Paul to ask Trump to eliminate Brennan's security clearance

 Rand Paul to ask Trump to eliminate Brennan's security clearance

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) said he will meet President Trump on Monday and ask the president to revoke former CIA Director John Brennan's security clearance.

"Is John Brennan monetizing his security clearance?" Paul asked on Twitter. "Is John Brennan making millions of dollars divulging secrets to the mainstream media with his attacks on [Trump]?"

More @ The Hill