My take on the Georgia indictments

Fascinating. Nineteen people are indicted so this is a contrast to the federal charges where Trump was the only named defendant. There is a lot of common territory though because Trump's plans to get states to overturn their elections results happened in Georgia as one of the primary places. These indictments are state-level charges, not federal, because states (unsurprisingly) also have laws against election hijinks. Nineteen defendants, 41 counts, and an average of over 7 counts per defendant since many counts have multiple offenders listed. 

Some of the charges:

A Rico conspiracy to do a bunch of bad shit with many threads and tentacles. 

Solicitation of violation of oath by public officers - trying to get officials to do illegal or unethical shit. 

Impersonating a public official, forgery, false statements for pretending you're an elector when you're not. 

Perjury and false statements galore - to the GA legislature, to investigators, committees. I assume that the perjury charges are based on lying when under oath in a legal proceeding. 

Can the Rico charges stand? Can defendants be charged in Fulton county with offenses that occurred in Coffee County? Is it a criminal false statement to wrongly characterize action in a video, or just a mistake that isn't criminal? This applies to statements about video of counting from the State Farm Arena. However before the State department of GA clarified the actions shown in the video, it may reasonably have been misinterpreted. 

When does conferring with a witness cross the line to the criminal act of influencing witnesses? 

Some of the incidents: Lying about the State Farm Arena video. Lying about election workers. Harassing election workers. Pressuring election workers over their testimony. Falsely saying and signing documents as a presidential electors. Unsanctioned access to voting machines in Coffee County. Lying about what you were doing with those voting machines. Pressuring the secretary of state of GA to find 11780 votes. 

These are the most satisfying indictments yet because the major players will be having to answer for their acts, unless they decide not to mount a defense. It's less complicated when Trump is the sole defendant, but it's fully complete when his henchman are there too. It's also great that they all had to come in and get mug shots. 

Image: PBS

Extras. The report from the investigative grand jury. They were considering indicting Sen. Lindsay Graham too. 

Conservative media lies again, Chapter XXX

For all the complaints about the real bias in the MSM, they have standards for not lying, and they rarely do what conservative media has just done. A couple days ago I saw reports that perhaps the former ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch had committed perjury in her testimony in closed hearings in the House. This story was featured in prime time by Fox News opinion host Tucker Carlson, who has now shown himself to be a bald-faced liar, as are many at Fox News. From their website:

However, emails obtained by Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" showed that in fact, Yovanovitch had responded to Carey's initial Aug. 14 email, writing that she "would love to reconnect and look forward to chatting with you."

They pretend that this doesn't square with Yovanovitch's testimony. However, that impression is due to them ignoring the rest of the email from Yovanovitch, which says:

I would love to reconnect and look forward to chatting with you. I have let EUR [Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs] know that you are interested in talking and they will be in touch with you shortly.

So Yovanovitch told the congressional staffer that she was letting her higher-ups know about the communication, which is the above-board operating procedure.

So did Carlson neglect to get the entire email, which would be poor journalistic practice? Or did he ignore her clear statement in order to make it seem like she was having secret communications with House staff? Either way, Carlson was unethical. Big surprise!

This story was picked up by various conservative media outlets, but not by MSM. Not because the MSM is biased, but because they have standards and probably smelled a rat, or maybe even saw that it was a lie when one read the entire email.

There don't appear to be any retractions or clarifications by various conservative outlet, so, as usual, they aren't correcting their mistakes, and just letting the lies stand. That is so despicable. Plus I found this gem of disinformation too, also about Yovanovitch. Conservative media seems not to have principles that include telling the truth. Everyone watching/reading them should be aware of that.

Image: bitchute.com

Update 3/30/20. Another example. Somebody fabricated a screenshot supposedly showing a tweet by Schumer. It's debunked, but some conservative news sources picked it up and haven't written retractions or corrections. The New York Times, they do heavily highlighted corrections. Not Fox News. Not the Washington Times. Courtesy of a lying, partisan troll who barely admitted the mistake after being pounded on it.

Weather-gate and Trump's stubbornness

Trump lies again and again. This isn't a surprise by now, but it's getting dumber. Trump made a mistake by saying Alabama was in range of a hurricane. Instead of correcting his mistake, or just letting it go, he doubled down repeatedly. It got too much media coverage because it was such foolish behavior. Even cowardly agencies under his thumb got involved.

It's hard to say what was the worst part of this unnecessary debacle. It wouldn't have been at all bad if it had ended with this (after Trump erroneously said Alabama could be hit):

[The] Birmingham office of the National Weather Service, in response to a flurry of calls and inquiries, issued a correction on Twitter, saying, "Alabama will NOT see any impacts from #Dorian." -- GQ magazine

But, nooooo, Trump couldn't let that stand. He couldn't admit even a tiny mistake. He had to blather (incorrectly) that Alabama had been a very likely target in the storm, including nonsense that there was a 95% chance of Alabama being hit at one point in the modeling. That was Trump being his usual fucking egotistical maniac self. 

Then Trump marked up an official weather service map to include Alabama. This is almost like changing the answer key on a test. Trump is so divorced from the truth that he'll pretend official information doesn't say what it says. And of course he used it as another skirmish in his war on the media, particularly CNN. 

This is all a game to Trump. The guy has no respect for truth or science, just for power. I'm absurdly eager for a break from this stupidity.

Wait, where did that black line come from?

Image: newshounds.us

Update 9/9/19. A number of officials in the weather/oceanic agency are loudly standing up for the scientists and accurate reporting and are pointing out how the mealy-mouthed communications supporting Trump are wrong. It looks like they are daring Trump to fire them. I don't think they'll be fired because it would be too obvious. How will Trump react? We'll see.

Update 9/11/19. An opinion column on this debacle with a some new info. The Secretary of Commerce ordered the support of the naked prez on pain of beheading, or similar. Sigh. Truth is not an option. 

Epstein death cranks up the conspiracy machines

I've written about Epstein, the pedophile, before. He's a favorite of those who like to lie about Bill Clinton because Epstein was so vile in his sexual predations of teenage girls. However, people who do this rarely base their claims in fact or careful research of news sources. They usually repeat garbage without a care that it is garbage.

Now many of those same people believe that Epstein was murdered, not that he killed himself in a locked cell that he didn't share with anyone. Again, facts are simply an impediment to the story they want to believe and tell.

This article, by someone who has worked in the penal system, calls those stories regurgitated misinformation. That's kinder than I would be, as you shall soon see. Another article by a convict goes into detail of how one could commit suicide in prison, and it sounds fairly doable unless you have a minder in the cell with you, which Epstein didn't. He adds that soaping the sheet will make it move more easily and cause fractures in the neck, as the autopsy found.

Here is a piece of stupidity from Judith Miller. Of course, anyone who would go from the NYT to Fox isn't interested foremost in accurate journalism. The headline makes me roll my eyes. Miller claims it's almost impossible to kill yourself in prison? Well, there are plenty of reports of suicides in prison - did she miss those? Of course the article doesn't actually dwell on Miller's tiny knowledge of prisons, so it doesn't live up to the hyped headline. I hope Miller enjoys her dirty pay to write such trash.

So to all the people who believe so passionately that Epstein was murdered, start producing some definite evidence, like defensive wounds, payments to the guards, video even. Otherwise your tales are full of bullshit, and just plain ridiculous. And you probably believe a lot of other rubbish too. I'll be ridiculing your stupidity as loudly as I can.

Image: nypost.com

Those crazy Trump people

Trump, or rather his quisling Wilbur Ross, was caught trying to change the census form on false pretenses. False pretenses, hokey lies, no surprise there. The Supreme Court ruled against it, and people, including the DOJ, thought that was the end. But not with Trump. He blathered that he'd still do it, and finally had to back down. Dum de dum dum. Wapo  Salon

By the way, how did the conservative media report this climb-down? Fox News got around to mentioning it was a climb-down after 10 paragraphs into the story. In the headline, it was the 'Executive Action' as promised.

Then there was a dust-up at some media conference in the White House Rose Garden. A former adviser to the prez was pretending to be a media person, and Trump called on him to ask a question. Can you say 'set-up?' To be clear, the former adviser was Sebastian Gorka, who has a bit of a reputation as less than a moderate.

Later on, Gorka got into a dust-up with a journalist, and nostrils flared, and insults were thrown, and someone would certainly have gotten their ass kicked.. if any punches had been thrown. Luckily the White House lawn isn't a space where impromptu fistfights are allowed. There are scores of secret service agents, and their job doesn't include standing by as fistfights developed. In the videos of the dust-up, there seem to be a few agents moving in while angry words are tossed. So blather but no punches. Just older out-of-shape men pretending to be tough guys. Video and more video.

Hey, in this internet age, everyone's a tough guy. I ought to know, as the toughest hombre on this blog.

Image: washingtonexaminer.com

A third case of conservative distortion: The Attorney General

Benjamin Wittes, who writes for Lawfare and lately also for The Atlantic, rakes Bill Barr (the new Attorney General) over the coals. Barr is the successor to Trump's previous punching bag, Jeff Sessions. Incidentally, maybe no cabinet officer received such shabby treatment as did Sessions.

Wittes' complaint is that Barr misrepresents what Mueller's meticulous investigation found. A more concise version is also available from the New York Times. Both are worth reading. The NYT version has direct comparison of Barr's statements versus what Mueller reported. It's quite scathing, even though the author doesn't call Barr a liar. The author does highlight phrases from Mueller, and shows how Barr distorted them. Barr did it so shamelessly that he comes out looking horrible.

Wittes' takedown is more complete, pointing out precisely the twists and turns in Barr's distortions. For example, Wittes shows how Barr claims there was no collusion, when in fact Mueller found evidence of interactions between Russia and Trump's campaign. How is that nothing? Because there wasn't enough evidence to make charges with confidence of a conviction.

The conservative site Washington Examiner methodically rips Barr apart. Or moreso, it rips apart the idea that Trump should be the judge of whether he is being investigated unfairly:

"No man, not even the president, should be allowed to adjudge his own case... The very notion of such power runs counter to the entire basis of America’s constitutionally limited government... "

That is a simple, elegant explanation. Even the president has to allow an investigation to go forth. It's not for him to declare his innocence and shut down the process.

McGahn, the White House counsel during much of the investigation, is quite a contrast to Barr. He would push back against Trump, refused to fire Mueller, gave 30 hours of testimony to Mueller if I remember correctly. He also consulted with his chief of staff, who made written notes of McGahn's meetings with Trump. It sounds as though Trump didn't want notes taken, which hampers clear instructions and the ability to review what's been decided. McGahn has been subpoenaed to testify before Congress. I certainly hope he does. I'd like to hear some of what Mueller's investigators heard, directly from the source. But McGahn may not be willing to discuss private and privileged conversations. 

Image: foxnews.com

Extras. Reviewing how the Congressional response when Mueller was appointed from three sources (one, two, three). More wrangling over the Mueller report, this time by the lawyers for Roger Stone. They are trying to say "No collusion, so there was no cover-up, and obviously no lying to Congress." But maybe there was lying to Congress, and maybe some cover-up, and perhaps a wisp of collusion.

Update 6/7/19. Another good article showing precisely what the lies are.

Two cases of conservative distortions

Double header!! First up is an article from WaPo detailing how Fox News distorted one news story from January 2018. The New York Times reported that Trump had told the White House counsel (McGahn) to have Mueller fired. The rumor that Trump wanted to fire him was going around like crazy, largely because Trump regularly fed the impression. Also Trump was known for firing people, including the head of the FBI, his chief of staff, communications director, and assorted others. Oh yes, he fired people on his reality show too.

But the NYT doesn't report the odd rumor, and it had details. Fox, however, exists in a separate universe and doesn't believe the stinking NYT, even though they have a much better track record for accuracy.

Trump claimed it was fake news. Hannity repeated that. Then Hannity had to back down as actual news operations at Fox confirmed the report. Then spin took over. Trump has the right... This was six months ago... Who cares anyway. Immigration is more important...

The Mueller report confirmed this, by the way. Eye roll for Fox News.

Fox News Spins DOJ Letters

Fox News, as the defender of the Almighty, Protector of the Faith, etc. had an article on an official letter from the White House counsel complaining about the Mueller report. This was perhaps counterprogramming against a letter from Mueller leaked on 4/30/19 where Mueller complains that summaries of his report are inaccurate so the summaries he wrote himself should be released. (They were leaked.)

The letter from the White House counsel complains that Mueller didn't draw conclusions, and he should have. However, the arguments there completely ignore what the rationale that Mueller plainly gave in his report, which was that DOJ policy didn't allow him to make an indictment against the president, so he was doing what he could legally and ethically do considering those restriction. Mueller cites OLC in the first page of Volume II, concerning obstruction of justice inquiries. The White House counsel just ignores that. Plus it veers into an addition Trump probably requested complaining about leaks and claiming Trump is the highest official in the country so blah blah blah he gets to decide everything within the executive branch -- as though conflict-of-interest doesn't happen.

This isn't exactly a legal clown car because there is some coherence. However, it doesn't touch on the most important points, so the goal of the letter seems to be to blow smoke. Sad.

... but it was true.

Image: thedailybeast.com

Lies, damned lies, and GOP lies

The Mueller report is finally out. As I wrote earlier, there weren't many surprises. Most of the information had been revealed either in the press or in indictments. As I noted, the MSM has been fairly accurate and good at self-correction, at least from what I've seen and how I've interpreted it. Maybe when I read hyperbolic speculation, I shake my head and move on, not remembering MSM declarations that Trump worked with Russia. My impression was that most reporters and most left-of-center folks were waiting for Mueller to sort it out. Of the regular commenters I knew on Bloomberg, only two were declaring that Trump had conspired. That leaves most of them not expressing that opinion.

The GOPers/conservatives were usually exaggerating what others said, and they were definitely still doing it as the report was released. They accused others of being WRONG, WRONG, WRONG, while failing to notice what others had actually said. Frankly, I don't know how often talking heads on CNN or MSNBC declared that Russia owned Trump. My guess would be that they hedged. I asked my sweetie, who is more left than me. My sweetie expected about 50% chance of a conspiracy where there was enough evidence to indict. So maybe I'm not in touch with those further left without being the looney left.

1. So the first GOP lie is that all of the left prejudged Trump as guilty and are now pretending that they didn't do this. <------- LIE

Another GOP lie is that the MSM hasn't been reporting the facts. In fact, the MSM has been out front on this. I recall the NYT reporting on the Trump Tower meeting. Reporting a bit, waiting for the Trump team to respond, which it did usually with a cover story replete with lies. Then the NYT would release a bit more, and finally it released the emails of Trump Jr. that showed what was going down.

Now I expect a certain amount of spin from the presidency, but a news org should be as honest as it can be (an idealistic hope). However, there is no comparison. The MSM was telling the truth here, and the administration was lying. This was repeated over and over. That's one reason why I wasn't surprised by the Mueller report - because I followed the news, mainly through online MSM sources, and they were very accurate.

2. The MSM spread FAKE NEWS about the investigation. <------- LIE

Should I move on to some of the crazier lies? Maybe so, and turn the rest of this post into a rant against the lies.

3. All the Russian contacts were entrapment attempts by the deep state FBI/CIA. Cue the search for rumors that each contact actually was aligned with the deep state, not the Russians.

4. The Steele dossier was believed by the left. (No, it was labeled from the very beginning as unverified in screaming letters.)

5. The left took over the CIA, NSA, FBI, State Department, and God knows what else.

6. They all conspired to create this Russian hoax and try to overthrow Trump.

7. The coup was orchestrated by Clinton, Obama and their minions all over government and the MSM.

7.1 Obama didn't do anything about the Russian hacking and interference while it was happening, and instead spied on Trump's campaign.

8. Clinton, Obama, et al are going to jail in a streak of rightful payback.

9. Mueller is part of the deep state and hired Cllinton lackeys to help with the frame job.

10. The Mueller report found there was NO COLLUSION AND NO OBSTRUCTION AND NO EVIDENCE OF WRONGDOING by the Trump campaign.

11. The Dems are going to continue with the hoax because the coup attempt can't stop.

12. The real enemies of America are the Dems. Russians are preferable to them.

Image: twitter@Rob_Rogers

Extras. The FBI warned Trump about contacts with Russians. GOP liars deny this.

Update 4/23/19. I just found an example of GOP lies. Here's an article full of speculation, but it's not labeled as speculation. It's not attributed to unnamed sources (presumably vetted), which news organizations with ethics use. Instead, it's presented as ... um, fact? The big assumption in the article is that the woman Russian lawyer at the Trump Tower meeting was working for FusionGPS to entrap Trump campaign leaders. They also state (wrongly, if I'm not mistaken) that the Trump Tower meeting was used as evidence to secure a FISA warrant. I've looked at the redacted copy of the FISA warrant and didn't see anything about the Trump Tower meeting. I suspect that the author was making it up or repeated unsubstantiated rumors floating around Wingnutlandia.

Update 6/14/19. Trump had an interview with ABC news and he flat out lied about telling McGahn to fire Mueller. Read his lying words.

Finally there is a real voter fraud scandal

Conservatives have been lying about voter fraud for nearly two decades. Or let me clarify. They have vehemently been making unsubstantiated claims repeatedly. Their goal seems to be to cast unwarranted doubt on any Democratic victories, and has nothing to do with telling the truth about election processes. So calling them liars is completely deserved.

Finally there is a big, undeniable voting fraud scandal. It has nothing to do with false impersonation or non-citizens voting. Instead, it involves the area that is most rife with fraud, which is absentee ballot voting. Why haven't the GOPers focused on this before? Because they're liars and were hoping to institute measures that nominally hurt Dem voters.

In this scandal, consultants for a GOP candidate running for a house seat hired a known local operative to round up absentee ballots. He paid relatives, neighbors, and friends to help with the work, which involved knocking on doors, getting people to sign the ballots, walking away with unsealed ballots, and filling them in later. Maybe I need to add 'allegedly.' However, there are numerous affadavits about the activities, including how the operative would get a $40K bonus if his candidate won. It looks very likely that a new election will be called. This is rare, but the level of fraud is substantial and the candidate thoroughly tainted. It would be travesty to certify the election, and it appears that will not happen, so a repeat election will be necessary.

This happened in North Carolina, but it could easily have happened elsewhere. The fraudsters are on the GOP side, but it could have been otherwise. However, make no mistake, the GOP chased other non-frauds and ignored this sort.

Will GOPers change their talking points about voter fraud? One would hope, but that wouldn't be typical of the GOP. They cling to their lies.

Image: ajc.com

Right-wing media lie, again

The Washington Times was sued about a Seth Rich story it published, and has had to settle the case with a full retraction. That's how much work it takes to get most right-wing media outlets to correct their lies--a court case. And this might have been lucky too, because the Times made the mistake of making claims about Seth Rich's brother, who was the plaintiff.

So whereas the Times claimed that it was 'well known in intelligence circles' that Rich and his brother leaked the DNC emails, it turns out that's completely wrong.

So, is that the only punishment? The settlement is sealed, so we don't know if money was involved. However, there is no report of the Washington Times firing anyone for the mistake. That makes it like the other lies from other right-wing outlets. No one gets fired for birther nonsense, or Shirley Sherrod, or any other fabrication. There's basically no downside in conservative media for lying because no one is held to account. Yet again.

Image: the must trusted foxnews.com

Update 4/22/19. I'm still seeing comments from people who believe the Seth Rich story. It's similar to those who still believe the Pizzagate story, except a bit more plausible. This article describes how Russians laid out the misinformation and set up the discoveries of that misinformation. Right-wingers are such useful idiots for the Russians.

Update 7/23/19. Even more about how the Russians planted fake news pointing to Seth Rich as the DNC leaker, and how conservatives lapped it up. Oddly, and casting some doubt on the thoroughness of the reporting, there is no mention of the Seymour Hersh tape and its role.

Update 8/17/19. This article points out that conservative media pushed the Seth Rich lie, and they deserve the blame. I can't argue with that.

Update 3/27/21. This got lost in all the post-election activity. Fox News settled with the family of Seth Rich, and got to delay the announcement until after the election. 

Crazy week in Russia-related matters

Trump, glowingly thinking he does great at summits, decided to have a summit with Putin. It was set for a Monday. The Friday beforehand, Mueller released indictments against 12 Russian military personnel for hacking the DNC and related crimes. The indictment document is an interesting read concerning who, what, where (including Indonesia) and how. A piece of icing in the indictment: a congressional candidate and a lobbyist are in big PR trouble because they requested dirt from those lovable Guccifer guys.

Then Trump went to Europe and had a one-on-one talk with Putin. Many people get very nervous about such a meeting--I don't. Trump doesn't live up to the promises he makes out loud in front of thousands of people, so he's not going to live up to any promises he makes behind closed doors. Also, I fully expect him to say foolish shit, and so does everyone else. Maybe he'll blab secrets, but our national security is aware of that so they won't brief him with anything that shouldn't be blabbed. And what he heard last week, he won't remember. Ok, clearly I'm not worried.

Prior to the summit, some GOPers were urging Trump to confront Putin about election interference, including Trey Gowdy and Ben Sasse. Yeah, likely Trump is going to stand up and do that. Trump is known mostly as a glad-hander at these summits with our frenemies. He wants to be liked, and he doesn't play tough. It was the same here. Praise for Putin.

A reporter asked him a gotcha question whether, in light of the indictments, he told Putin not to meddle. Trump meanders and essentially says that Putin denies it, and 'why would he do it?' I think 'nothingburger, Trump being a wuss again.' I was wrong.

Why is this something that finally causes a firestorm? Even Newt Gingrich came down on him--for one tweet. Some of the hosts on Fox News, especially Neil Cavuto, came down hard. More than the usual number of GOP congressmen did too, but does that really matter? It hasn't before.

I don't know why, but this time it was different. One day later (Tuesday), Trump is offering the explanation that he misspoke. It was pretty tepid, and not very convincing (though good enough for Gingrich, that louse). Here's an interesting analysis of how Trump apologizes or backpedals: "Insult, grudging apology, double down. Repeat." These were his exact words:

Let me be totally clear in saying that — and I’ve said this many times — I accept our intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia’s meddling in the 2016 election took place. [Pause] Could be other people also. A lot of people out there.

So Trump didn't really walk it back. Another attempt on Wednesday. This time, Trump finally seems more definite. Plus it's an interview with CBS, an MSM outfit instead of his softball friends at Fox News. No apology for his mistakes in the previous days, but a much stronger statement that Putin and the Russians were responsible. Currently, it's still Wednesday. Trump hasn't yet contradicted himself or softened what he said about Russian interference. Perhaps he has finally learned that he can't play that game of wink and nudge about Russian interference. Time will tell. Maybe if a month goes by and he's still on that page, it will be believable.

However, Trump is losing something--the narrative that Russian interference is a hoax by the deep state intelligence services. This isn't a small loss. So many conservative outlets have run with this fake story, as have plenty of lying congressmen. Now what?

It may be much harder for conservative media, Trump, and GOP congressmen to claim that the whole Russia accusation is a hoax and the Russia investigation is a witch hunt. I'll have to update this post in a month with info on what's happened. Real change? That would be amazing. [I'm a bit more sober today. It's hard to believe Trump will get the lesson through his thick skull. I expect more equivocation in the future, so no change.]

Image: mintpressnews.com

Extras. The plans of some congressmen to impeach Rosenstein will probably fizzle. Trump OK'ed the indictments prior to the summit. An explanation for why it's stupid to ask for the servers to be impounded. How White House staff got Trump to back pedal from Bloomberg and Vanity Fair. A bunch of theories about Trump's behavior toward Putin. Russia wants to move ahead on some of the agreements from the summit, but no US government officials know what those agreements are. Welcome to Trumpland! Get in line. We're still waiting for the beautiful healthcare plan.

Update maybe 7/24/18 (misplaced at first). Did Trump make deals with Putin? This is hilarious to me. I thought it would be great if the Russians had to deal with the shifting stories from Trump like we Americans have had to. Supposedly, it's been a problem. Per CNN, the Russian press has claimed there are deals, but not so fast. If they are only known to our idiot president, they don't actually count. Welcome to our world! And the cabinet and intelligence agencies have to try to figure out what Trump said. Good luck with that. It might be like analysis of a literary classic where the narrator can't be trusted--uncertain, full of speculation, and maybe fruitless. I predict no disasters because Trump isn't in control. He's basically a figurehead with no one pulling the strings.

Update 7/25/18. The Russians aren't getting anywhere, and have nothing hard to back up any claims. According to this article, they're settling for making the Americans uncomfortable by hinting. I'm surprised that's possible. Well, maybe for someone who takes Trump a bit seriously, which I don't.

Making stuff up

I think there is a lot of fake news floating around, and I suspect conservatives channel a lot of it. Remember the scare about Jade Helm? How Seth Rich was murdered because of the DNC hack? Pizzagate? Ambassador Stevens sodomized before he was killed?

Here's one that I learned today. Peter Strzok grew up in Iran, and then moved to Saudi Arabia. From that snippet, plus a letter signed by Peter Strzok where he is identified as a Section Chief, a fake news generator spins the most marvelous stories.

Peter Strzok didn't work for the FBI but was a deep state guy who slid into whatever position was required, working both for the FBI and CIA. This is all based on Strzok's signature on an FBI letter.

According to another fake news article, Strzok was:

...the key Middle Eastern Intel operative for the Iranian airline Mahan Air’s purchase of United States government planes during the Obama administration from 2011 to 2013. -- Big League Politics

Did this actually happen? I looked into it, and found an article about Iran trying to skirt sanctions and buy planes. 

The fake news article goes on to accuse Strzok of fixing the email investigation and then conveniently getting in on the Mueller investigation. What is this based on? "An insider." Or maybe someone making shit up.

With a quick search, I find that the FBI does indeed have 'section chiefs.' So that conclusion that Strzok really worked for the CIA was nothing but a lie.

I don't know how many people in our country work at fabricating these stories. Or how many more repeat them on youtube, websites, or fake news sites like InfoWars? How many more people then read this trash and believe it? It's insidious, and it should be exposed whenever possible. With extreme prejudice to the purveyors.

Image: bigleaguepolitics.com

Spies from the FBI, oh my!

Since it was leaked that the FBI had an informant contact members of the Trump campaign, Trump has been trying to frame it as though his campaign was infiltrated and spied on for political purposes. This is most likely a mountain of hogwash, as it so often is when Trump opens his mouth or gets on twitter. The guy is such a glib liar that he probably only accidentally utters the truth. As a person who cares deeply about truth, I find this appalling. Trump, on the other hand, finds lies to be completely normal.

So Trump says his campaign was being spied on, and he calls it 'Spygate.' What do others, who perhaps remember what truth means, say about this?

There's an interesting contrast between this article from Huffpost and this one from Fox News. The Huffpost article focuses on a former Trump aide who's embarrassed by his conspiracy theorizing. The Fox article, starting at the headline, exaggerates the FBI operation as a 'web of informant contacts.'

If you swallow the story that this was politically motivated spying, then it looks terrible. Trump wants people to swallow that. Along those lines, Trump regularly claims that the Russia issue is a hoax, ignoring all the parts of it that are real and are known to really have occurred. Again, Trump doesn't care about the truth, just his narrative.

Trey Gowdy, as a former prosecutor, has some idea what is required in an investigation. He has spoken clearly that he supports this part of the FBI investigation:

"Based on what I have seen, I don’t know what the FBI could have done or should have done other than run out a lead that someone loosely connected with the campaign was making assertions about Russia..."

But conservatives can't agree on this, not even at National Review. To some of them, the FBI crossed a line that must not be crossed! They don't bother to say what intelligence agencies or the FBI are supposed to do when there is somewhat credible information of foreign influence on a campaign. Only that it is forbidden to investigate by covertly asking questions of the campaign.

Well, that argument is so weak that it crumbles as soon as someone asks what the FBI should do when it hears of criminal activity like hacking our elections. Critics are left sounding as though they want the FBI to 'stand down' -- not do anything. Maybe the FBI should go on twitter and label it all a hoax. Maybe the FBI no longer needs to do investigations and work to protect the US and enforce the laws, but can become a post-reality entity where truth is optional and random. But I'd kind of prefer them to continue the role they had before reality TV took over the presidency and so much of the electorate.

Image: philsp.com

Memo frenzy

House Republican Devin Nunes, who did some underhanded shit to cover up for Trump last spring, now has a new plan. He's claiming that he has secret information that shows how the FBI and maybe Justice Department (DOJ) had conspired to illegally surveille on the Trump campaign, and other such nefarious acts.

It's a bunch of hogwash. Nunes doesn't have new information -- that's my prediction. He has a hodge-podge that he's carefully piled up to make the FBI look as bad as possible, mostly by editing out info that shows the FBI doing their job, while playing up anything that makes them look bad.

I have no inside info at all, so my prediction of the contents of the memo are based on existing leaked information that is all over the press. Both the Washington Post (link above) and Reuters have detailed stories about what is in the memo. Nunes' memo shows the FBI used information from the Steele dossier to obtain FISA warrants to surveille Carter Page. Maybe there's a bit of a surprise, and someone else from the campaign was watched too.

Maybe there will be some innuendo that information was shared with the Clinton campaign. You know, hints that it was possible, but no definite evidence that such illegal information sharing actually happened.

It will leave out the information that Papadoupolous told a Danish Australian somebody that he was getting dirt on Clinton from the Russians. That this info was given to the FBI, and they obtained warrants based on that, and maybe other sources too. How this leads to a warrant to watch Carter Page--that I don't know right now. That interesting piece of the puzzle will probably be revealed sometime.

The memo probably pretends that there wasn't anything to worry about the Russians and the Trump campaign until all that misleading info from the Steele dossier, and that was the excuse to spy on the Trump campaign.

True and Not True

However, parts of the Steele dossier have been verified as true, parts have been shown to be wrong, and parts are very scandalous and the kind of delicious misinformation that some source enjoyed feeding to a gullible mark.

Too many Trump supporters would love to pretend that there is nothing to see in Trump's closeness to the Russians. There was no Russian misbehavior. Instead, the misbehavior was on the part of the Obama administration and its subverted spy network embedded in the FBI and DOJ.

What a cynical ploy this is. The Dems on the committee want to blow the whole issue open with their own version of the events. But somehow it's OK for the GOPers to publish their case, but not for the Dems to do the same. I wonder why? This is so obviously partisan that no one should see it any other way.

If and when Nunes' memo is published, there will be hew and cry, and hundreds of journalists will be working to dig out as much of the rest of the story as possible. We \probably won't have to wait very long to find out all the mitigating information that the Dems wanted to tell but weren't allowed to.

Hide and Seek

High-ranking officials in both the DOJ and FBI don't want the memo released either:

“We have grave concerns about the material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo’s accuracy,” the FBI said.

They'll be painted as part of a Dem-aligned spy group within these agencies. Maybe they don't want certain embarrassing details out there. Maybe they don't want internal methods revealed. Maybe they're pissed off about being accused when they were doing their jobs and looking into Russian influence.

Are Trump and Nunes hoping the hew and cry will be enough to shut down the Mueller investigation? Maybe that's what they hope, but I doubt it will happen. I doubt there is much that will smudge the investigation. Mueller will continue to work meticulously gathering the information that's out there, and maybe parts that are currently hidden--though I don't think there will be any more major revelations. I'm so looking forward to the detailed reports--reports are full of real evidence, honestly collected and presented without partisan spin.

What if the memo contains much more than I thought? Then I was wrong and will need to reevaluate. However, if it contains what I've outlined here, this memo is perhaps the biggest example of a shiny object so far in this presidency. A nothing-new-here that dominated the news cycle for several weeks, and that was called "shocking" and "far worse than Watergate." Yep, that's what I'm predicting: a bunch of GOP hype-tripe pretending to be shock and awe.

Image: twitchy.com

Extras. Is it a coincidence the Trey Gowdy is calling it quits? Gowdy may be an intense conservative, but he seems to have limits on stupid partisanship.

The head of the CIA, a conservative appointed by Trump, says that he's expecting more interference by Russians in the midterm elections. Fake news, I guess.

The Roy Moore saga

I'm late writing about this story, but that's OK because the themes of the story are timeless. (I'm also going to be more free-form in writing.)

Roy Moore is a former judge in Alabama who displays a lot of the worst characteristics of evangelicals. He thinks God is on his side. He thinks he's right and anyone who agrees with him is wrong. His beliefs are more important than American law. He thinks he's right when he defies court rulings, laws, whatever. He's been removed from the Alabama Supreme Court twice (TWICE!) for this kind of behavior. The first was for refusing to remove a stone statue depicting the Ten Commandments. (The order was due to that whole 'separation of church and state' nonsense.) The second time was for lying about his directions on how to handle (errr, avoid) marriage for same sex couples, which the US Supreme Court approved a few years ago.

So, although he was controversial, he ended up as the GOP nominee for Senate for a special election in Alabama to replace Jeff Sessions, who left the Senate to become Attorney General. This shows yet again that too few regular people vote in primaries. People shouldn't be so lazy because primaries are important for getting the best possible person in the office.

The GOP had the main primary and then a run-off between the top two. Only after this process were there national reports alleging that Roy Moore had chased, bothered, and even molested at least one 14-year-old girl when he was single, a prosecutor, and in his 30's.

This isn't news to me. I hadn't heard it about Roy Moore, but I've heard it before and even witnessed it with my own eyes. There are too many men who take liberties with women as though men have prerogatives and women must simply comply and supply. So I'm not disposed to believe a man's denials. But beyond my own bias, the preponderance of the evidence is against Roy Moore and with his accusers. There is a pattern, plus there are plenty of people confirming that he gave unwanted attention to teenage girls. There's even a video of a male worker at a store in the mall talking about Moore being banned from the mall, including the name of the police officer to contact if Moore came around. This isn't a guy with an ax to grind, so his story is very credible and very damaging to Moore. The denials are Moore and his friends circling the wagons. Again, this is typical entitled male response (actually, circling the wagons is typical of many groups).

Moore, just as one might expect from a self-righteous person, denies the reports and calls his accusers liars. What is much more likely is that Moore is an abject liar himself.

Only one Republican that I can point to has acted honorably, and that's Senator Richard Shelby. He clearly said that Roy Moore isn't a good candidate, that he wasn't going to vote for him, and that Alabamians shouldn't vote for him. Most other GOPers were weasels about Roy Moore.

The good news is that Roy Moore lost. That's a good reflection on the majority in Alabama, and what a pleasant surprise to give the rest of the country. The Dems were very happy because there hasn't been a Dem senator from Alabama in 20 years. The Republicans aren't completely upset because Roy Moore is a loose cannon that they won't have to worry about, so a bit of relief for them.

Image: al.com

Extras. Lots. Breitbart lies about the inscription in a yearbook. It was clearly a combination of different writers, so this isn't a revelation... to anyone with a working brain. Breitbart then whines about being labeled liars. Another woman shows a greeting card from Roy Moore, who dated her when she was 17. Check out the handwriting.

Fox News interview with a pretty fair analyst. The anchor is trying to skew things, and it's interesting how the info about Sen. Shelby is buried at the end. Probably no accident. Roy Moore never conceded the election (because he's God's choice, you know) and even tried to prevent the certification of the election. He wasn't successful because there is a reality beyond Moore's belief systems. Thank God for that.

December links

I collected a bunch of links in November but didn't get to write about them. Here they are. As usual, an interesting bunch.

White nationalist bad behavior. I'm not sure why this struck me as important, but it did. It turns out that a white nationalist who was caught on video repeatedly shoving a woman at a Trump rally has also been involved in organizing white rallies. This includes Charlottesville. Maybe this detail will be important sometime, but I hope not. On a related note, extreme violence at neo-Nazi rallies didn't start at Charlottesville. This report from 6/26/16 shows that it started over a year earlier. Seven were stabbed at a rally in Sacramento.

Roy Moore bad behavior. Roy Moore is the notorious judge in Alabama who has twice substituted his superior knowledge of God's will over the judgments of higher courts. Now he's running for Senate, and has been accused by several women of chasing them when they were teenage girls and he was in this 30s. He's called them liars, which is the traditional patriarchal response. This video shows an interview of a worker who knew of Roy Moore being banned from a mall in the 1980s for that behavior. Doesn't look like this guy is lying. Updating--another woman who dated Moore when she was 17 is sharing her story, and a card that looks very much like Roy Moore's writing.

Senator gets fed up. Humorous story about Sen. Orrin Hatch getting tired of being accused of wanting to cut taxes for the rich. Well, if he doesn't like the accusation, maybe he should stop repeatedly performing the action of which he is accused. If you don't want to be called a wife-beater, stop beating your wife. Ever.

Was Trump's election racist? This is a long article, but I liked the last third. That part starts with "History has a way of altering villians..." It argues that perhaps whites in the US can't see their own racism even as it worsens in a very scary way. I don't know if I agree, but it's definitely worth keeping in mind.

Why care about a crime 25 years ago? I started reading this article about the conviction in a genocide trial, and my initial reaction was that European justice is too slow and too weak. Then my focus changed, and I was surprisingly happy that this murderer was forced to face justice. He didn't get to escape justice as so many others have.

Immigrant gangs. No, this isn't just a conservative talking point. This is real. Maybe the MSM is mostly burying this information because it's not a story that fits their political bias.

Congressmen have sex. Joe Barton was getting divorced, but he was still interested in having sex with women. Sounds normal to me. He actually sent some nude selfies to some women (not out of the blue). Sounds like the 21st century, right? However, it's trouble for a congressman. Unfortunately, TMZ scrubbed their copies of the pic. It's what you'd expect for a guy his age. This ought to be a non-story, shouldn't it be?

Conservative sting bad behavior. Project Veritas, an organization that exposes liberal causes in not so honest ways, tried a sting on the Washington Post, but was caught instead. Their operative concocted a lie about Roy Moore, was discovered, videotaped, and written about at length. James O'Keefe, the swarmy head of Project Veritas, of course isn't going to be honest about this.

Deregulation improves economy. According to The Economist, the major decrease in new regulations during the beginning of the Trump administration has been helping the US economy. No shit, Sherlock.

Interesting factoid about Israel. The Greek Orthodox church is one of the major landowners in Israel. I never thought about it, but it makes sense. What if it has owned land there for nearly 18 centuries? What are the implications when the church sells some of its holdings?

Media bias in one picture and two stories. Picture below. Malia Obama, bad girl or embattled?

Image: news.google.com

Antifa Apocalypse bust

I guess no one but fevered corners of the media want a repeat of Charlottesville. A couple weeks ago, White Lives Matter rallies in Tennessee were pretty much a bust, thank God. This week, a pop-up anti-fascist organization called Refuse Fascism was trying to stage rallies in 20 cities. Note that it wasn't even antifa.

They took out a large ad in the New York Times announcing the plan. That's interesting because 1) they had the money, and 2) they decided to announce just a few days before the rallies. I wonder whether this is a real group or not. I wonder who financed it.

Parts of the conservative media lost their shit. (Yes, the term applies so I'm using it.) Most of all was InfoWars. They were going to have live coverage of the rallies, hoping to show all the carnage. Or maybe hoping for a (relative) advertising bonanza.

Because carnage didn't materialize, they went to Plan B. Hype what was available. Oh My God, they're calling for the ouster of Trump and Pence. And also, laugh at the puny Austin, Texas rally where the anti-Trumpists were outnumbered by real Texans. So hype and then declare victory when the rallies don't live up to the hype.

Back in reality, the protests were minor. In Austin, anti-Trump protesters were outnumbered. In New York City, the anti-Trump forces were about 300. The pro-Trump counterprotesters were about five.

Despite the concerns, revolution didn't break out anywhere. Somehow I'm not surprised.

InfoWars: wrong again.

Image: infowars.com

Extras. Two articles about the smallish white supremacists rallies in Tennessee. A British site joined the hype-and-dismiss crowd. The Washington Post had a round-up of some of the hysteria. Fox News is coy, asked questions rather than doing any searching. It also gave a platform to the spokesman for the group but didn't question his credibility at all.

Links (1 of 2)

My tabs overfloweth.

Decoding anonymous sources. A good guide from Lawfare. How to interpret what reporters write, indicating how many sources they have and where they are. A good news organization follows these unwritten rules. Bad organizations pretend they follow the rules, but actually make up sources, use known unreliable sources, misleadingly edit and quote, and don't fire reporters and editors who don't follow good standards.

Now, one of those sources. Seymour Hersh is implicated in the Seth Rich-to-Wikileaks story. He claims it's just a rumor. I should dedicate a post to the Seth Rich story, but I'm too lazy. Briefly, Rich was a low-level staffer at the DNC or Hillary campaign and was killed in his DC neighborhood. Cue the conspiracy theories. Fox News got ahead of itself and coerced a contributor to say stuff he didn't actually believe, prompting him to sue. Seymour Hersh is involved because he is supposedly the source of some of that info. There's a tape of Hersh talking about the case. Strangely the tape begins and ends abruptly. I have suspicions that Hersh contradicts or says it's mostly his speculation. I haven't trusted edited tapes since Shirley Sherrod as smeared. Nonetheless, Hersh isn't saying what he knows. He ought to clear it up since the concern about a conspiracy is important here.

Sheriffs as the supreme law. Here is another right-wing idea to counter big, bad government. The concept is that the sheriff, being locally elected and accountable, is the supreme authority in a county, and doesn't have to enforce national laws. Remember Bull Connor and this doesn't seem so good. Joe Arpaio is supposedly an advocate for this idea. Luckily, he lost his last bid for reelection.

Another worrisome tactic to watch. Using Freedom-of-Information requests to undermine and sue small local school districts. Tactic supported by Steve Bannon. The goal is mirky, but maybe it's hidden in the settlements.

Russian election interference (another example). Something to watch. Fake accounts on Facebook bought ad time from Facebook. The purchase was automated, so even Facebook didn't know it was happening. Parking this timeline of Russia interference denial here. Hoping I can find it again.

Image: bostonglobe.com

Interesting links again

How to lose your job at Google. Write a memo about how Google is mishandling diversity issues and has an intolerant leftist bias. While the author did make some blanket statements that I consider erroneous and patronizing, he emphasized evaluating people as individuals, and was against group discrimination. He seems to have lost his job because views he expressed outraged too many within the company. Simply put, his views didn't line up with a dogma of many, and he lost his job because of it.

Signs of war in Korea. The military choices in Korea aren't great. If the US decides on a military offensive against N. Korea, typically there would be a build-up of military resources and a withdrawal of civilians. Of course, that signals a military step to N. Korea, and they might strike because of it. It seems to me that an unannounced, substantial attack would be more effective. However, a deadly response from N. Korea has to be expected. I don't see any military response with minimal casualties. A write-up of the possibilities and their disadvantages.

Rational approach to Russia. I'm suspicious of most American opinions about Russia. Political blogs are awash with Russian shills and bots commenting. Partisan politics has overshadowed clear thinking. So I wondered what the Germany policies toward Russia are. Here's a summary.

New strategy in Afghanistan. Actually, somewhat the same strategy, but with some more troops and maybe stronger tactics. Afghanistan will not be fit to defend itself anytime in the foreseeable future, so it makes sense to try to minimize the terrorists Afghanistan would harbor. Trump talked of winning and peace, but reality is that the military mission is successful with much less than that--such as the avoidance of Afghanistan becoming a major terrorist training and safe zone.

An archive of Trump's lies. This might be handy. However, I wonder whether the Washington Post would be archiving the lies of Hillary Clinton as carefully.

Image: washingtonpost.com

Late additions. List of Arpaio outrages in honor of his pardon by President Trump. This is only a partial list. I visit my parents in Phoenix, and remember Arpaio having a peaceful speaker arrested at an evening meeting because he didn't like her viewpoint. Arbitrary arrests didn't even make the outrage list.

Description of Hurricane Harvey. The aspects that caused it to flood so much of east Texas.

A bundle of important stories

Conservative media fabrication revealed. This should be so big. Fox News fell for a peddled fake story about (murdered) Seth Rich and Wikileaks. Now there's a suit, and the papers filed contain a wealth of evidence about how the lies got on the air. Update 8/2/18. The suit was dismissed by the judge for not being egregious enough--not rising to the necessary standard of 'intentional infliction of emotional distress.'

CNN skews its reporting. "Federal investigators ... seized on Trump and his associates' financial ties to Russia as one of the most fertile avenues for moving their probe forward... The web of financial ties could offer a more concrete path toward potential prosecution than the broader and murkier questions of collusion..." This is supposed to be an investigation, not a fishing expedition bent on prosecution. CNN seems to have forgotten that.

Sessions skews his condemnation of leaks. Great story with analysis of a logical trick that Sessions uses. He probably does it knowingly.

Lies are the family business. Donald jr. lied about a meeting with a Russian lawyer. Well, lied at first and then told the truth. It turns out Donald sr. lied about it too. Is anyone surprised?

Stats about the cost of tax deduction. This is important hard information. What costs the government more: mortgage interest deduction, 401K's, or the earned income tax credit? It didn't know, and I was a bit surprised.

Trump the wimp. Putin is disrespecting America, and what is Donald doing about it? Why?

Image: thecoldplayer.deviantart.com