ChrisWeigant.com

Friday Talking Points [470] -- No Smoke, No Gun

[ Posted Friday, February 2nd, 2018 – 17:25 UTC ]

Happy Nunes Memo Day, everyone!

Today, of course, was supposed to be the day when the memo from House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes caused the skies to split and the F.B.I. building to spontaneously implode in upon itself, leaving nothing left but a mysterious rift to some dark and deep otherworld. Bob Mueller was also supposed to make a public announcement that his entire investigation was nothing short of a sham (secretly directed by Nancy Pelosi, Hillary Clinton, and George Soros), and that he would be shutting down his office just as soon as all the documents could be shredded and the hard drives erased.

None of that, obviously, happened. Instead, the reaction in Washington was pretty incredulous: "That's all you got? Seriously?" The memo was a dud. The rightwing news media had been drooling over the prospects of this memo for weeks now (Sean Hannity claimed the memo "makes Watergate like stealing a Snickers bar from a drug store," and predicted it would be "the biggest political scandal in American history"), but a clear indication of the incredible weakness of the memo was the timing Nunes chose for its release: on the Friday just before Super Bowl weekend. That's not when you release a bombshell story, in other words; that's when you release stuff you are embarrassed about.

The memo itself doesn't prove anything. It insinuates a lot, but it doesn't even do that particularly well. It not only doesn't prove its case, it doesn't even do a very good job of making that case. The entire argument boils down to: there was bias in a document used to get a FISA court warrant to tap the phone of Carter Page. That's really it. There's no sweeping case that the F.B.I. is institutionally biased against Donald Trump, there's no case that any of the information collected in the investigation is wrong in any way, there's no case that anything illegal or even unethical took place. To put it in a timely way: the Nunes memo poked its head up, saw its own shadow, and we're all in for six more weeks (months?) of the Mueller investigation.

The only real thing the memo accomplished is to cause everyone to wonder exactly how bad the information from Carter Page is going to turn out to be (if this is an attempt to discredit any such intelligence which was gathered after the warrant was approved). What did Carter get caught saying on his phone? The only other thing it accomplished was to royally piss off the entire F.B.I., which is always a smart move for a president currently under investigation, right?

Here's how one Washington Post article summed this up:

But what does Page have to do with the rest of the Trump/Russia story and the investigation into it? Does Page have anything to do with Paul Manafort's alleged money laundering? Does he have anything to do with Russia reaching out to Papadopoulos? Does he have anything to do with Russia hacking into Democratic email systems to aid the Trump campaign? Does he have anything to do with Michael Flynn's contacts with the Russian ambassador, about which he lied to the F.B.I.? Does he have anything to do with Donald Trump Jr., Jared Kushner, and Manafort meeting with a group of Kremlin-connected Russians to obtain dirt on Hillary Clinton? Does he have anything to do with President Trump firing James B. Comey, which Trump himself admitted was done for the purpose of hindering the Russia investigation? Does he have anything to do with all the other ways Trump may have obstructed justice?

The answer to all those questions is no. Page is a peripheral figure at best. Even if the memo did depict what it sets out to depict about the surveillance of Page, it wouldn't change a thing about the overall Russia scandal. But the memo doesn't even do that.

The one thing Trump really wanted the memo to accomplish was to give him political cover for firing either Rod Rosenstein or Bob Mueller. Whether he does so or not will likely depend on the reaction over at Fox (State) News, one assumes. But if he turns to any other news channel, people are going to be engaged in one big collective yawn. There just is no smoke, and there is no gun.

The other thing the memo did manage to all but bury in the news was official notice that the Trump White House will not be imposing any new Russia sanctions, even though Congress voted almost unanimously to do so. Strange how reluctant Trump is to levy sanctions on Russia, isn't it?

What with all the memo frenzy, it's pretty easy to forget that this was also the week of Trump's first official State Of The Union speech. Granted, it was a pretty forgettable speech, but even so, that's pretty remarkable. In normal times, a State Of The Union speech dominates the news for at least a week, but Trump agreed to let the dud of a memo stomp all over his speech coverage. And in the "life provides perfect metaphors" category, congressional Republicans headed to a retreat after Trump's big speech, and what made the news was the trainwreck that happened along the way.

As for the speech itself, we offered up our own snap reactions to it on Tuesday, if you're interested. Being a Trump speech, so many people were attempting to fact-check it in real time that PolitiFact's website crashed. An after-the-fact fact check (as it were) came up with over a dozen false or misleading statements.

Being a Trump speech, Trump had to lie about his audience size after it was over. Trump claimed his ratings were the "best ever," which wasn't even close to being true (Trump got 45.6 million viewers, far fewer than speeches by the past three presidents, and not even close to Bill Clinton's 1993 record of 66.9 million viewers). This even led Fox News to tweet out evidence that Trump was delusional on crowd size, once again.

Trump's speech also essentially set a new Republican Party policy that they just weren't even going to pretend to do any "minority outreach" any more. One particular line of the speech was appreciated by none other than David Duke, who tweeted in response: "Thank you President Trump. Americans are 'Dreamers' too."

In other GOP minority outreach (with a clenched fist) news, Republicans in Minnesota are apparently terrified that Muslims will be "infiltrating" their party caucuses. Looks like they're way out in front of Trump's call to demonize minorities! No "big tent" here, folks....

One tactic for suppressing minority votes is in danger of being thrown out by a judge down in Florida, as well. Seems the Republicans have been (gasp!) abusing their power to keep their political opponents down. What a surprise! Here's the whole sordid story:

In his opinion, Judge Mark Walker of the United States District Court for the Northern District of Florida noted that in the four years before [Republican Governor Rick] Scott took office, 154,000 people had their rights restored. But since Scott was sworn in, fewer than 3,000 people had their voting rights restored since 2011.

Walker, who was appointed to the bench by President Barack Obama in 2012, said that as it currently exists, the board has absolute discretion over whether to restore voting rights.

"Florida's Executive Clemency Board has, by rule, unfettered discretion in restoring voting rights. 'We can do whatever we want,' the Governor said at one clemency hearing," Walker wrote in his scathing opinion. "In Florida, elected, partisan officials have extraordinary authority to grant or withhold the right to vote from hundreds of thousands of people without any constraints, guidelines, or standards. The question now is whether such a system passes constitutional muster. It does not."

Walker found that Florida's system violated the First Amendment protections on freedom of expression and the equal protection clause of the 14th Amendment. He noted that the board restored voting rights to those who expressed conservative views, while those who expressed views disagreeing with the board members did not. Walker pointed to an example when the board asked a white man about an illegal vote he had cast, but restored his voting rights after he told Scott the vote had been for him. Walker noted the board denied restoring voting rights to five other former felons -- four of whom were black -- for casting illegal ballots.

"If a state cannot disenfranchise for arbitrary reasons, a state cannot disenfranchise convicted felons in a manner repugnant to the First Amendment," he wrote. "A state cannot yank the right to vote from a Republican felon but retain voting rights for Democratic felons."

"If any one of these citizens wishes to earn back their fundamental right to vote, they must plod through a gauntlet of constitutionally infirm hurdles. No more."

The article further notes that of the 6.1 million people disenfranchised for a felony conviction, more than one-forth live in Florida. Also, that one-in-five African-Americans in the state cannot vote because of this situation. The judge hasn't yet ruled on what should happen next, but it bears watching because of the importance of Florida to electoral politics.

A few other stories from this week are worth mentioning before we get to the awards. Two prominent Republicans in the House have decided not to run for re-election: Representatives Trey Gowdy and Rodney Frelinghuysen. We wrote about Frelinghuysen last Friday, in Talking Point number 5, because the Democrats had finally decided to field a challenger this year. This was the congressional district that Michael Moore made infamous when he tried to run a ficus tree for Congress in his The Awful Truth television show. Frelinghuysen's seat was so safe, Democrats didn't even try to take him down, but now that he's got a solid challenger, he decides to retire. More vindication for Michael Moore, it seems.

The Republicans' fundraiser-in-chief had to abruptly step down, as accusations of sexual misconduct arose around casino bigwig Steve Wynn. Meanwhile, one Republican is reportedly stepping up, as Mitt Romney has now almost-officially announced he'll be running to take retiring Utah Senator Orrin Hatch's place in the Senate.

The man the Trump White House had planned to nominate to be our ambassador to South Korea was yanked from consideration after it was revealed that he did not agree with the administration war hawks who have deluded themselves into thinking that America could attack North Korea and not suffer any sort of retaliation. He even wrote an opinion piece denouncing the idea of a so-called "bloody nose" attack, which pretty much signaled that he's withdrawing from consideration for the job.

Let's see, what else? The Consumer Financial Protection Bureau continues to be defanged and destroyed from within, as Mick Mulvaney stripped enforcement powers from an office within the Bureau who "previously used its powers to force payouts in several prominent cases, including settlements from lenders it alleged had systematically charged minorities higher interest rates than they had for whites." What a surprise, eh?

Although the Trump White House promised the website for petitions from the public would be up and running again in January, they quietly missed their deadline for doing so.

And finally, some welcome news from the world of sports. We wrote about our own disgust on this subject years ago, so we are very glad to see that the Cleveland Indians will be (kinda-sorta) permanently retiring their incredibly offensive and racist "Chief Wahoo" logo from their uniforms. Major League Baseball won't allow them to sell any Chief Wahoo merchandise on their web site, although the Indians will still sell such memorabilia at the ballpark. Even so, this is welcome news, since this was the worst example of racism left in modern American sports (next on the list would have to be the Washington football team's name, but one step at a time...).

 

Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week

Joe Kennedy III gave the official Democratic response to the State Of The Union speech this week, and he deserves at least an Honorable Mention for his performance. The speech was fair-to-middlin', Kennedy's delivery was heartfelt, and he certainly didn't embarrass himself or his famous last name Tuesday night. For some bizarre reason, some people focused on his lip balm, but if that's the only thing people are making fun of then it must have been a pretty decent speech.

But this week our Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week was Representative Adam Schiff, the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee (the one Devin Nunes chairs, in other words). Throughout the past year, Schiff has been the Democratic voice on the committee which is supposedly investigating Russian meddling in our elections. He has tirelessly pointed out the incredibly partisan nature of how this investigation is being run, and by default he became the person to deliver the Democratic response to the Nunes memo.

He did so in an impressive way. Rather than just going on the airwaves and complaining about Nunes, Schiff put together his own memo -- a rebuttal of the Nunes memo. Point by point, the Schiff memo reportedly undermines all the insinuations in the Nunes memo and tells the full story (or, at least, the Democratic side of the story).

By creating such a document, Schiff made it obvious what sheer hypocrisy it was for Republicans to swear up and down they were releasing the Nunes memo in the name of "transparency." If they want to be transparent, there's now an easy way to do so -- release both memos simultaneously. Nunes (and, by extension, Paul Ryan) have refused to do so. This makes it painfully obvious to the public what a partisan ploy the entire exercise has always been.

This wouldn't have been possible (or it wouldn't have been anywhere near as effective) without Schiff creating a memo of his own. Schiff saw the opportunity, and he rose to it. Tactically, this was exactly the right thing to do.

By providing a counterargument both in detail (contained within the memo itself) and at a gut level ("Release the Schiff memo!"), Adam Schiff knocked it out of the park politically. Which is why he's a pretty easy pick for Most Impressive Democrat Of The Week this week.

[Congratulate Representative Adam Schiff on his House contact page, to let him know you appreciate his efforts.]

 

Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week

There were plenty of people disappointed in Hillary Clinton this week, for not firing a man accused of sexual misconduct in her 2008 campaign. Her initial response when the story broke was decidedly weak, and then she came back with a longer, more specific explanation which she released 15 minutes before Trump's State Of The Union speech (her own version of "take out the trash day," in other words). But we simply can't get all that excited about Hillary these days, so we'll just give her a (Dis-)Honorable Mention and quickly move on.

Instead, the Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week is a man who just announced he won't be running for re-election this year. Pennsylvania's Robert A. Brady has served 11 terms in the U.S. House, but got caught in a scandal paying off a political opponent. Here are the details:

In October, two of Brady's consultants -- Donald Jones and Ken Smukler -- were indicted in a probe of a $90,000 payment that Brady's 2012 campaign made to challenger Jimmie Moore. The F.B.I.'s probe ensnared Brady himself, though the congressman professed his innocence, even after Jones pleaded guilty last month to making false statements about the payoff.

Brady, who never faced a serious challenge in a seat gerrymandered to elect a Democrat, was already facing opposition on his left. Nina Ahmad, a Philadelphia deputy mayor and progressive activist, launched a primary challenge in November, telling the Philadelphia Inquirer that "we haven't had a progressive voice here from this region" and that after decades of being represented by Brady, "people are ready for a change."

Seriously, when you've got a "seat gerrymandered to elect a Democrat," and when you've been in Congress for two decades, do you really need to pay off challengers to get them to drop out of the race? That's pretty sad, when you think about it.

So while he won't be on the ballot this year for a progressive to defeat, the reason why he's stepping down is more than enough to award him this week's Most Disappointing Democrat Of The Week.

[Contact Representative Robert Brady on his House contact page, to let him know what you think of his actions.]

 

Friday Talking Points

Volume 470 (2/2/18)

From time to time, we don't even attempt to create our own talking points, since they have already been adequately provided by others. Today, we're turning over the entire Talking Points section to three responses to the Nunes memo. One is personally directed at Nunes. One is directed at the partisan process and the damage it has done to our government. Both of these, mind you, are from staunch Republicans, so they cannot be seen as "partisan attacks" in any way, shape, or form. Then to give equal time, our final excerpt is the official Democratic response to the Nunes memo, reproduced in full.

The first of these reactions was admittedly pretty personal. Now, if this had come from a Democrat, we probably wouldn't have even included it, because it would just be seen as partisan spin -- attacking the messenger, as it were.

But this commentary doesn't come from a Democrat, it comes from a Tea Party Republican. Joe Walsh wrote the most scathing takedown of Devin Nunes we've yet read, which paints the picture of a man always willing to put party above country (and just about anything else). So here are some talking points (emphasis added) about who Devin Nunes is, from a hardcore Tea Partier.

I served in Congress with Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.). Based on my experience working with him, nothing about the way he's behaving now as chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence -- overseeing part of the so-called Russia-Trump investigation -- is particularly shocking.

The Nunes I knew was a purely partisan animal. When it comes to exercising good judgment and discharging his duties in service of the Constitution, he's just not up to the task.

He saw everything through a Republican vs. Democrat lens. In weekly conference meetings for Republican House members, Nunes was always one of then-Speaker John A. Boehner's or Majority Leader Eric Cantor's go-to lieutenants, willing to tout the party line and make sure the rest of us lined up like obedient boys and girls. During my brief tenure, I was one of the more outspoken tea party members, regularly at odds with leadership when it came to budget or government-funding legislation. I still vividly recall Nunes lambasting us as obstinate obstructionists on many occasions, trying to bend us to leadership's will on votes that went against our principles. With Nunes, I found it was all about politics, almost never about policy.

. . .

The congressional intelligence committees traditionally function as some of the least partisan committees -- as they should. Oversight for security threats to this country is too great a responsibility to let committee business devolve into finger-pointing and score-settling along party lines, but that's exactly where the level of discourse has gone under Nunes's "leadership." He's not searching for truth, he's running interference for the White House, abdicating his role as a member of a coequal branch of government, dragging his fellow committee members down with him and exposing House leadership as ineffectual and foolish.

. . .

If Nunes's investigation and memo are about transparency, if he and the president have confidence in their case, then the committee should release the memo, with Nunes's version of events -- and the Democrats' memo, with their version of events -- at the same time. To the extent they can do this without disclosing classified sources and methods, they should release the underlying intelligence both memos are based on. Hell, at this point, they should release the FISA warrant the memo apparently alludes to. If they don't, Nunes and anyone who backs him should be ashamed.

Hoo boy. And that's from a Tea Partier, mind you. Next up is a scion of the Establishment Republicans (even though he constantly tries to portray himself as a "maverick"), Senator John McCain. McCain also didn't mince words, but his beef is with the process. After all, it wasn't all that long ago that Republicans were tearing their hair out over the prospect that Hillary Clinton had emails with classified information on an unsecured server, and now they're actively putting out classified information to the public even when the Department of Justice and the F.B.I. strongly advised against such an action.

McCain laid out his case for how flawed and nakedly partisan the memo's release was (again, emphasis added):

In a statement shortly before the memo's release, McCain didn't pull any punches.

"In 2016, the Russian government engaged in an elaborate plot to interfere in an American election and undermine our democracy," McCain said. "Russia employed the same tactics it has used to influence elections around the world, from France and Germany to Ukraine, Montenegro and beyond."

McCain said Russia's interference has, at best, sown political discord and succeeded in "dividing us from each other." Attacking the intelligence community is not how to fix the discord, he said.

Ahead of its impending releases, the FBI took the extraordinary step of issuing a public statement to express its "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the memo's accuracy."

"The latest attacks against the FBI and Department of Justice serve no American interests -- no party's, no President's, only Putin's," McCain added. "The American people deserve to know all the facts surrounding Russia's ongoing efforts to subvert our democracy, which is why Special Counsel Mueller's investigation must proceed unimpeded. Our nation's elected officials, including the president, must stop looking at this investigation through the lens of politics and manufacturing political sideshows. If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin's job for him."

And finally, we end with the full text of the response from Democrats. Call us lazy stenographers if you will, but really just about any sentence or paragraph from the following would make a dandy talking point for just about any Democrat in the future. And, absent the Schiff memo, this is the best response to the Nunes memo that has so far been made public. We considered editing it down, but decided in the end to just reproduce the entire response in full, for such a serious matter. So here is the official Democratic response to the Nunes memo, without any added emphasis or commentary:

Chairman Nunes' decision, supported by House Speaker Ryan and Republican Members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, to publicly release misleading allegations against the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation is a shameful effort to discredit these institutions, undermine the Special Counsel's ongoing investigation, and undercut congressional probes. Furthermore, their refusal to allow release of a comprehensive response memorandum prepared by Committee Democrats is a transparent effort to suppress the full truth.

As the DOJ emphasized to Chairman Nunes, the decision to employ an obscure and never before used House rule to release classified information without DOJ and FBI vetting was "extraordinarily reckless." The selective release and politicization of classified information sets a terrible precedent and will do long-term damage to the Intelligence Community and our law enforcement agencies. If potential intelligence sources know that their identities might be compromised when political winds arise, those sources of vital information will simply dry up, at great cost to our national security.

The Republican document mischaracterizes highly sensitive classified information that few Members of Congress have seen, and which Chairman Nunes himself chose not to review. It fails to provide vital context and information contained in DOJ's FISA application and renewals, and ignores why and how the FBI initiated, and the Special Counsel has continued, its counterintelligence investigation into Russia's election interference and links to the Trump campaign. The sole purpose of the Republican document is to circle the wagons around the White House and insulate the President. Tellingly, when asked whether the Republican staff who wrote the memo had coordinated its drafting with the White House, the Chairman refused to answer.

The premise of the Nunes memo is that the FBI and DOJ corruptly sought a FISA warrant on a former Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, Carter Page, and deliberately misled the court as part of a systematic abuse of the FISA process. As the Minority memo makes clear, none of this is true. The FBI had good reason to be concerned about Carter Page and would have been derelict in its responsibility to protect the country had it not sought a FISA warrant.

In order to understand the context in which the FBI sought a FISA warrant for Carter Page, it is necessary to understand how the investigation began, what other information the FBI had about Russia's efforts to interfere with our election, and what the FBI knew about Carter Page prior to making application to the court -- including Carter Page's previous interactions with Russian intelligence operatives. This is set out in the Democratic response which the GOP so far refuses to make public.

The authors of the GOP memo would like the country to believe that the investigation began with Christopher Steele and the dossier, and if they can just discredit Mr. Steele, they can make the whole investigation go away regardless of the Russians' interference in our election or the role of the Trump campaign in that interference. This ignores the inconvenient fact that the investigation did not begin with, or arise from Christopher Steele or the dossier, and that the investigation would persist on the basis of wholly independent evidence had Christopher Steele never entered the picture.

The DOJ appropriately provided the court with a comprehensive explanation of Russia's election interference, including evidence that Russian agents courted another Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos. As we know from Papadopoulos' guilty plea, Russian agents disclosed to Papadopoulos their possession of stolen Clinton emails and interest in a relationship with the campaign. In claiming that there is "no evidence of any cooperation or conspiracy between Page and Papadopoulos," the Majority deliberately misstates the reason why DOJ specifically explained Russia's role in courting Papadopoulos and the context in which to evaluate Russian approaches to Page.

The Majority suggests that the FBI failed to alert the court as to Mr. Steele's potential political motivations or the political motivations of those who hired him, but this is not accurate. The GOP memo also claims that a Yahoo News article was used to corroborate Steele, but this is not at all why the article was referenced. These are but a few of the serious mischaracterizations of the FISA application. There are many more set out in the Democratic response, which we will again be seeking a vote to release publicly on Monday, February 5th. Unlike Committee Republicans, however, we will ask the relevant agencies to propose any necessary redactions to protect any sources and methods not already disclosed by Chairman Nunes' document.

It is telling that Chairman Nunes put out this memo without bothering to read the underlying materials, and that he ordered changes to the document without informing his own committee members. It is a terrible lapse in leadership that Speaker Ryan failed to intervene and prevent the abuse of classified materials in this way. It is tragic, if all too predictable, that this President would allow the release of the memo despite FBI and DOJ's expressions of "grave concerns about material omissions of fact that fundamentally impact the [Republicans'] memo's accuracy". But most destructive of all may be the announcement by Chairman Nunes that he has placed the FBI and DOJ under investigation, impugning and impairing the work of the dedicated professionals trying to keep our country safe.

-- Chris Weigant

 

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Cross-posted at: Democratic Underground

 

189 Comments on “Friday Talking Points [470] -- No Smoke, No Gun”

  1. [1] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    How much havoc will this president be allowed to wreak before he is stopped?

  2. [2] 
    Paula wrote:

    In some ways the most interesting thing about the entire disgraceful Nunes "Memo" process is how it was developed in front of us all, with everyone aware that it was going to be a bad joke and that its intended purpose was to try to smear Mueller's investigation. EVERYONE KNEW THIS.

    Repubs went through the charade with a straight face. Dems treated it as the obvious obstructionist effort it was - not because of the actual content but because of the process and the intent it embodied. The media bounced between opining about how-it-would-be-perceived and would-it-enable-Blotus-to-fire-Rosenstein? and those of us paying attention waited.

    Then it came out and pretty quickly landed with a splat. Because (with the exception of the pod-people-Trumpers) we all knew what it was.

    I guess we're all going to find out just how far a criminal-POTUS can go with the support of 35% of the electorate because these moves will not win the unfaithful-Sh!thole, the GOP, Acting-President Kelly (who spent some time today claiming he'd warned the WH the memo was a dud) and Resident-Nazi Miller any new supporters.

  3. [3] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    President Trump thinks what is happening in your country is a disgrace.

  4. [4] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    I'm not a Nazi.

  5. [5] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Damn ... I couldn't resist.

  6. [6] 
    Paula wrote:

    Resident Nazi Stephen Miller.

  7. [7] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    That's better. :)

  8. [8] 
    TheStig wrote:

    John McCain thought the whole Nunes thing to be desperate and downright treasonous, Russia-wise. I've "edited" McCains comments for brevity and clarity :)

    If you're blue and you don't know where to go to

    Why don't you go where fascists sit

    Putin in the Ritz

    If you need a visual, Nunes is Gene Wilder, Trump is Peter Boyle.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VfoaWHsdTNU

  9. [9] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Paula,

    In some ways the most interesting thing about the entire disgraceful Nunes "Memo" process is how it was developed in front of us all, with everyone aware that it was going to be a bad joke and that its intended purpose was to try to smear Mueller's investigation. EVERYONE KNEW THIS.

    Spot on! It was incredibly confusing to me that they didn’t even attempt to pull this off in a way where it wasn’t blatantly obvious that this was BS. The only answer I can come up with for this is that Trump has actually tricked himself into believing that he is as intelligent as what everyone around him is forced to say that he is. This was all Trump’s idea and his handlers knew they couldn’t prevent him from doing it once he convinced himself that it was a GREAT plan of attack...so they let him do it and are now hunkering down and praying for daylight!

    TRUMP’S ULTIMATE CONJOB IS THE ONE HE HAS PULLED ON HIMSELF!

    Here’s another thing that Trump fails to realize: if he were to fire Rosenstein, there would be nothing preventing Rosenstein from telling the world what it is that Trump is so terrified of being made public by Mueller’s investigation.

    When all of this starts getting me down thinking of how Trump could possibly get away with all that he has done, I try to remember just how many key Republicans in Congress are packing up and heading for the hills before Trump’s judgement day occurs! I think of it being similar to the way that wild animals know that a major tsunami is coming their way before humans do. They are tucking tail, grabbing whatever they can carry, and getting the heck out of Dodge hoping that they can outrun the storm that is going to hit real soon!

  10. [10] 
    goode trickle wrote:

    CW-

    What no pot shot at DTJ for his flubbed attack on the press?

    While DTJ pecking out "democracy dies in dankness" is pretty hilarious. I have serious concerns about how the auto correct algorithm arrived at that one.

    We might need to have an investigation to see if he is getting some of that "dankness" from one of the foreign immigrant workers at his winery... or should I say whinery?

  11. [11] 
    Kick wrote:

    ** TODAY'S EPISODE OF: THERE'S ALWAYS A TWEET **

    Sarah Sanders?
    @SarahHuckabee

    When you're attacking FBI agents because you're under criminal investigation, you're losing

    Taegan Goddard
    @politicalwire
    ‘The FBI Is Trumpland’ https://politicalwire.com/2016/11/03/the-fbi-is-trumpland/ … via @politicalwire

    2:12 PM - 3 Nov 2016
    ______________________

    “Remember: keep calm and tackle hard.” ~ FBI Director Christopher Wray, 02/02/2018

  12. [12] 
    James T Canuck wrote:

    A delicious week. There we all were, glued to our replica captain's chair, waiting patiently for the Nunes 'Corbomite memo'...another Trumpian let-down to add to my cloud-list. It was no surprise that Nunes' pet project died on the vine, he's not exactly known for lighting up an issue with vigorously poignant input, as his own Tea Partier, Joe Walsh, all but said. (It's refreshing to see that at least Schiff got Nunes' right and Walsh got Nunes's wrong! pithy, meh)
    What most interested me in all of this was what the WAPO article was taking great pains to avoid saying, no doubt to avoid any appearance of overstepping journalistic integrity...why all this attention on Carter page? cui bono? There are several believable reasons for this four page piece of emergency toilet paper, the two most credible ones I can live with are: Nunes is a complete imbecile, so much so, he jumped the gun in order to please his sugar-president. A pleasantly simple reason, one easily digested considering the towering intelects for whom it was intended. The second, more probable beneficiary of this forever thinning plot is more likely some other character, higher up the skullduggerous totem pole, one that will need the FISA credibility seriously shredded to save the whole caper.

    Well, back to penning my screenplay... A rollercoaster of a pamphlet, a biography of Devin Nunes' contribution to the American experience, tentatively Titled...''Finding Memo'', shamelessly titled to pique the interest of Hollywood.

    LL&P

  13. [13] 
    Michale wrote:

    I see things haven't changed around here..

    Everyone ignores the facts and takes their hysterical NeverTrump denial of reality to new heights...

    Odumbo's entire anti-Trump crusade was based on a phony dossier that even the Anti-Trumper who commissioned it thought was too much outlandish bullshit to pursue...

    Of course, that didn't stop the bitch, Hillary Clinton, from scooping up all the bullshit dirt that was spewed in that report and using it for her own (FAILED) purposes..

    But what the memo proves beyond *ANY* doubt is that Odumbo bugged and pursued the Trump campaign thru executive means *SOLELY* and *COMPLETELY* for partisan means...

    In other words, Odumbo used his executive powers to investigate a political opponent..

    How utterly Nixonian...

    Of course, *NONE* of ya'all have a problem with that because, for ya'all, it's PARTY UBER ALLES...

    Ya'all don't care about crimes or the separation of powers if it suits the proper political agenda...

    I read a book recently called PEOPLE'S REPUBLIC.. It shows exactly what happens when Dumbocrats are in power without ANY real Americans are in the way...

    It's an eye-opener and I challenge.. no... I *DARE* any of ya'all to read it...

    Oh.. Yea...

    It's good to be back.. :D

  14. [14] 
    Michale wrote:

    A TALE OF TWO PARTIES
    The DNC is reportedly 'dead broke.' The RNC has nearly $40 million.
    February 2, 2018

    The Democratic National Committee had a rough 2017, plagued by leadership troubles, internal squabbling, and unflattering reports. To top it off, the party ended the year "dead broke," says The Intercept's Ryan Grim.

    The Democratic Party is carrying more than $6 million in debt, according to year-end filings — and has just $6.5 million in the bank. Do the math, and the party is working with just over $400,000 overall. Meanwhile, the Republicans are swimming in pools of money. The Republican National Committee had raised $132 million by the end of 2017 — about twice as much as the DNC — and entered 2018 with almost $40 million to spare, with not a penny of debt.
    http://theweek.com/speedreads/752743/dnc-reportedly-dead-broke-rnc-nearly-40-million

    BBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Don, you better break out those small-dollar donors..

    The Dumbocrats are gonna need 'em!! :D

  15. [15] 
    Michale wrote:

    What with all the memo frenzy, it's pretty easy to forget that this was also the week of Trump's first official State Of The Union speech. Granted, it was a pretty forgettable speech,

    Well, we have ya'all's biased and partisan-based opinion of the speech...

    The State of the Union speech was good—spirited, pointed, with a credible warmth for the heroes in the balcony, who were well chosen. They were beautiful human beings, and their stories were rousing—the cop and his wife who adopted the baby, the hardy North Korean defector who triumphantly waved his crutches, the mourning, dignified parents of the girls killed by MS-13. My beloved Cajun Navy.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-lefts-rage-and-trumps-peril-1517530358

    And then we have THE REALITY of the speech..

    Oh gee.. Which should I believe...???? :D

  16. [16] 
    James T Canuck wrote:

    Michale...Are you ok? can we send emergency services if you're undergoing a breakdown, is there an adult in house that can talk you off the ledge?

    @post 14, That post needs serious help, it's as if it fell off its meds and decided to start cutting itself again. 'Odumba' seriously? to use that in reference to a highly educated person of colour is racism, pure and simple. What still sticks in your craw is the fact that black man strode in, took control then halted and righted the decline of the American economy. I suggest you get over that. Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...by their own admission in the memo you seem to not have read, or did and simply couldn't fathom. Trump's protestations aside, all that memo really unveiled about Trump is, his knack for hiring complete and utter cretins seems to be a trend he's unwilling to break with...Cretins are useful acolytes if you're a dimwitted narcissist, they never tell you things you don't want hear and they are disposable canon fodder when your mistakes need a face. Trump is living the adage ''it's easier to soar like an Eagle when you're surrounded by Turkeys''

    I have heard of 'People's Republic', however, I avoid books on Amazon that include Crayon as a font choice.

    LL&P

  17. [17] 
    Michale wrote:

    Here it should be said of the rising left of the Democratic Party that they are numerous, committed, and have all the energy—it’s true. But they operate at a disadvantage they cannot see, and it is that they are loveless. The social justice warriors, the advancers of identity politics and gender politics, the young who’ve just discovered socialism—they run on rage.

    But rage is a poor fuel in politics. It produces a heavy, sulfurous exhaust and pollutes the air. It’s also gets few miles per gallon. It has many powers but not the power to persuade, and if anything does them in it will be that. Their temperament is no better than Mr. Trump’s . It’s worse. But yes, they are intimidating the Democratic establishment, which robs itself of its dignity trying to please them. It won’t succeed.
    -Peggy Noonan

  18. [18] 
    Michale wrote:

    @post 14, That post needs serious help, it's as if it fell off its meds and decided to start cutting itself again. 'Odumba' seriously? to use that in reference to a highly educated person of colour is racism, pure and simple.

    And yet, you ignore when Weigantians of "accepted political persuasion" mock and ridicule Donald Trump based on HIS skin color..

    Yep. Your political bigotry is well-established...

    What still sticks in your craw is the fact that black man strode in, took control then halted and righted the decline of the American economy.

    No, what I laugh my ass about is you hysterical Dumbocrats have NOTHING but a lame race-card to play.. :D

    I suggest you get over that.

    I have been suggesting that to ya'all for over 10 years now..

    See how well it's worked???

    Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...

    Irrelevant.. Comey is a dedicated Never-Trumper and, by his own admission, a criminal who leaked FBI documents to the press??? "They were his documents to leak", you say??? Then why did Comey do it surreptitiously??? Because he KNEW he was dirty...

    Of course, YA'ALL don't care about that because it furthers ya'all's partisan bigoted agenda...

    I have heard of 'People's Republic', however, I avoid books on Amazon that include Crayon as a font choice.

    TRANSLATION: Yer afraid to be confronted with the REALITY of how Dumbocrats govern without the guidance and example of REAL patriotic Americans..

    I get it.. I don't understand yer fear because I am not a partisan bigot, but I allow you your bigotry... :D

    "Yer welcome"
    -Maui, MOANA

    :D

  19. [19] 
    Michale wrote:

    Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...

    Which is EXACTLY why *PRESIDENT* Trump fired Comey's treasonous ass....

  20. [20] 
    Michale wrote:

    Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...

    LIAR!!!

    At the time that Comey signed those FISA warrants, he was ODUMBO's stooge..

    So, I just caught you in a lie... Comey was NOT "Trump's own appointee" when he signed the FISA warrants.

  21. [21] 
    neilm wrote:

    There is a bit of a problem for the corrupt White House regarding the Page FISA issue - the mechanism for renewals.

    To get the original FISA request approved there has to be suspicion that material evidence will be recovered.

    To get a renewal it has to be proven that in the first 90 days of the surveillance the material evidence targeted has been uncovered. There were several renewals, including those in 2017 by the corrupt White House's own appointees.

    The Nunes memo was a hail Mary thrown by a grade A clown (Nunes) in the hope of saving a desperate regime, so it is no surprise that they didn't really understand the implications of letting the World know that Page has been under repeatedly renewed surveillance.

    The cost of this pathetic exercise in giving the gullible a straw to cling to has been to piss off the FBI.

    It still stuns me how dumb these people are - if they had only come clean at the start they could have used the "we were not professional politicians and got caught being naive, but there was no criminal intent". It would have been all over by Christmas 2016.

  22. [22] 
    neilm wrote:

    The cost of this pathetic exercise in giving the gullible a straw to cling to has been to piss off the FBI.

    I mean, look at Michale's desperate attempts to convince himself that the FBI are all bad cops - this is the guy who always finds an excuse for any police action regardless of the evidence, but suddenly "Mr. There are no bad cops" has thrown the whole FBI under the bus, claiming that they acted in cahoots with Obama with illegal "bugging".

    This is how desperate the gullible are getting.

    It is sad really. And an indictment on the education system that let's far too many people fall for these conspiracy theories.

  23. [23] 
    nypoet22 wrote:

    oh come on neil, do you really have to pile on public education?

  24. [24] 
    neilm wrote:

    oh come on neil, do you really have to pile on public education?

    My son is a school teacher - it saddens me to the core, but if we are churning out gullible adults - perhaps it is society, but isn't the the role of public education to create an educated, sophisticated populace?

    When I grew up being a school teacher was a highly regarded profession, my mother was a school teacher.

    If your argument is that we, as a society, are belittling education and it isn't the fault of the education system, but rather the environment in which it has to operate, I'd agree.

  25. [25] 
    Paula wrote:

    Just a general observation: Hillary Clinton testified in Trey Gowdy's Benghazi Inquisition for 11 hours under oath. The Unfaithful Sh!thole has to try to destroy the investigation because he's afwaid of testifying because he's guilty of crimes.

    Meanwhile Acting-President Kelly/Resident Nazi S. Miller >Corrupt GOP > Unfaithful Sh!thole Blotus are sitting on Russian sanctions because Vladimir Putin told them to. America's movement to satellite state status continues apace, and the pod people who follow them are now firmly against the FBI because they are pod people.

  26. [26] 
    Paula wrote:

    More accurately, the Unfaithful Sh!thole has to try to destroy Mueller's investigation entirely because he's guilty of crimes - testifying or not testifying won't change that. But testifying will solidify that he's guilty of crimes and/or underline that he's guilty of crimes and make him look like a lying sack of shit. And sacks of shit are as sensitive as anyone with embarrassing conditions - in their case they don't want everyone to know the degree to which they stink up the place.

  27. [27] 
    James T Canuck wrote:

    I'm guessing Michale is the house troll, I'm all for that. Nature abhors a vacuum. I'm amenable to the exchange of logical, thoughtful and fruitful debate, and whatever it is Michale brings to the party.

    LL&P

  28. [28] 
    John M wrote:

    [26] Paula

    "Meanwhile Acting-President Kelly/Resident Nazi S. Miller >Corrupt GOP > Unfaithful Sh!thole Blotus are sitting on Russian sanctions because Vladimir Putin told them to."

    Trump and Putin had a talk at the last G20 gathering. No American officials were present. Just Trump, Putin and Putin's translator. Makes you kind of wonder what exactly it was they discussed?

  29. [29] 
    Michale wrote:

    I mean, look at Michale's desperate attempts to convince himself that the FBI are all bad cops -

    Of course, I have never said that..

    THAT is the only way you can delude yerself into thinking you have a rational argument. By lying..

  30. [30] 
    Michale wrote:

    JTC,

    I'm amenable to the exchange of logical, thoughtful and fruitful debate,

    And yet...

    I'm guessing Michale is the house troll

    All you have is name-calling..

    Once again, I have proven you to be a liar..

  31. [31] 
    Michale wrote:

    Trump and Putin had a talk at the last G20 gathering. No American officials were present. Just Trump, Putin and Putin's translator. Makes you kind of wonder what exactly it was they discussed?

    We know what Odumbo and Putin's stooge discussed..

    Hay, stooge.. Tell Putin if he gives me a hand job and helps me win my next election, I'll bend over backwards to help deliver America to Russia
    -Barack Odumbo

    Funny how you didn't care about private deals with Russia then, eh??

    How come, JM??

    Oh, that's right. Because you are only against deals with Russia when a POTUS with an -R after his name does them...

    You are perfectly OK with those kinds of deals when a scumbag POTUS with a -D after his name does them...

    That makes you a hypocrite...

    "Just the facts, ma'am.. Just the facts.."
    -Joe Friday

  32. [32] 
    Michale wrote:

    Just a general observation: Hillary Clinton testified in Trey Gowdy's Benghazi Inquisition for 11 hours under oath. TMM

    And the bitch lied at every opportunity..

    Of course, ya'all don't mind when a Dumbocrat lies. You even celebrate those lies....

    That makes you a hypocrite

    "Just the facts, ma'am.. Just the facts.."
    -Joe Friday

  33. [33] 
    Michale wrote:

    Joshua,

    oh come on neil, do you really have to pile on public education?

    This is the new People's Republic Of Weigantia...

    They shit on ANYTHING in pursuit of their Progressive utopia...

    Even things that they embraced yesterday...

  34. [34] 
    Michale wrote:

    So, who here is rooting for the Patriots today??

    We know Veronica is a sellout and loves a team that cheats..

    Anyone else rooting for the scumbags of the universe?? :D

  35. [35] 
    Michale wrote:

    James T,

    Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...

    You want to address your lie??

    How could Trump's own appointee sign the lion's share of the FISA warrants when those warrants were signed LONG before Trump became POTUS..

    And those warrants were signed as an "insurance policy" to *PREVENT* Trump from becoming POTUS..

    Why would you lie thru your tooth about that??

    Oh yea.. That's right. Because you hysterical NeverTrumpers NEVER have any facts to support ANY of your claims, so ya'all HAVE to lie...

  36. [36] 
    Michale wrote:

    And, in my absence, *PRESIDENT* Trump's numbers have risen to almost 42%... :D

    Funny how ya'all love to point when *PRESIDENT* Trump's numbers drop..

    Yet, ya'all are silent when his numbers rise...

    Nope.. No reality here.... :D

  37. [37] 
    Michale wrote:

    The Nunes Memo confirms that the basis for the FISA warrants to spy on Trump associates was the Steele “dossier,” paid for by the DNC and Hillary Clinton. The Memo reveals that the FBI also paid for it. The persons who signed the FISA applications are James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Sally Yates, Rod Rosenstein, and Dana Boente. The Memo confirms that the political origins of the Steele Dossier, that it was bought and paid for by Hillary and the DNC, were not disclosed to the FISA court.
    http://www.americanthinker.com/blog/2018/02/comey_unhinged__for_good_reason.html#ixzz568uXLBFI

    The end of the Mueller Witch Hunt...

  38. [38] 
    Michale wrote:

    "Dishonest and misleading memo wrecked the House intel committee, destroyed trust with Intelligence Community, damaged relationship with FISA court, and inexcusably exposed classified investigation of an American citizen. For what? DOJ & FBI must keep doing their jobs."
    -FORMER Director Comey

    Comey is becoming unhinged and hysterical, now that his further criminality has been exposed...

  39. [39] 
    Michale wrote:

    Column: Democrats melt down over Nunes memo and enter the Upside Down

    The Democratic Media Complex is once again suffering hysterics, pulling out its hair and screaming over the release of the House Republican report, aka “the memo.”

    The memo alleges abuses by top officials of the FBI and the Justice Department in their investigation of President Donald Trump and suspected Russian collusion.

    Democrats are furious and say the memo is incomplete, full of lies and half-truths, and they’re busy telling their followers not to read the memo, while heaping hate on one of the authors, House Intelligence Committee chairman U.S. Rep. Devin Nunes.

    Democrats, the FBI and the Justice Department argued that the memo should not be made public, because it endangered national security. But after reading it, those claims appear to be nonsense.

    And before the left pulls out one more strand of hair in anger, or makes one more banshee scream of outrage on cable news or in social media over “the memo,” I’d like them to at least have the decency to consider the following:

    What if it came out that a Republican-funded opposition research dossier against presidential candidate Barack Obama was used to obtain a secret FISA warrant to put Obama’s aides under surveillance and take him down?

    And what if the federal judge who granted the warrant wasn’t told that the partisan oppo-research was the basis of the surveillance warrant?

    Or, what if senior FBI officials running the investigation of Obama had expressed loathing for the candidate and his voters?

    What would the Democratic Media Complex be doing?

    What we’re looking at is politics.

    It was politics when the political left loved WikiLeaks boss Julian Assange, back when he released sensitive information, even though it undercut American foreign policy. He was a hero then. But he was hated later, when his work involved Democratic National Committee emails. Then Republicans loved him.

    Republicans were once adamantly in support of the FBI, the CIA and some of the other shadowy agencies with great powers to watch us and to monitor our phones, to listen to what we say in the interests of security and to ignore or avoid the Fourth Amendment. And Democrats were once adamantly opposed to even suspected abuses by federal police and the intelligence agencies — what is now called “the Deep State” — and they railed against those who’d step on American civil liberties in a political hunt.

    But now, Democrats are the champions of shadow warriors in the CIA and the FBI, arguing that we must not challenge these agencies at the risk of national security. And Republicans hammer at the FBI — whose leadership they once respected — including former FBI director Robert Mueller.

    Now that he’s special prosecutor investigating Trump, his final report could provide a political basis for Democrats to impeach Trump, should they gain control of Congress in the 2018 midterm elections.

    So we’re in the Upside Down now. You see how this goes. You can see where it’s going.
    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/columnists/kass/ct-met-republican-memo-kass-0204-story.html

    This is EXACTLY why it's impossible to take you people seriously...

    Because *EVERY* thought you have is SOLELY based on your ideological slavery..

    Do ya'all know why I know for an absolute fact that I am on an even keel and deal in facts and reality??

    Because there are many instances where I disagree with the GOP and with President Trump....

    But ya'all... Ya'all's EVERY THOUGHT is lock step with the Dumbocrat Party agenda.. Ya'all absolutely have NO INDEPENDENT THOUGHT whatsoever...

    What a sad and pathetic way to go thru life...

    And it's really easy to prove...

    Give me *ONE* instance, just *ONE SINGLE INSTANCE* where ya'all were pro-Trump and agreed with President Trump or supported one of President Trump's actions or policies...

    Just one single instance..

    And if all you have is some lame (insert proper term here) whereas you take an anti-Trump claim and try to spin it into a pro-Trump claim, you will simply prove my point..

    Ya'all have absolutely NO INDEPENDENT thought and you are simply a slave to your ideology...

  40. [40] 
    Michale wrote:

    A Reckoning for the FBI
    The House memo reveals disturbing facts about the misuse of FISA.

    Now we know why the FBI tried so hard to block release of the House Intelligence Committee memo. And why Democrats and the media want to change the subject to Republican motivations. The four-page memo released Friday reports disturbing facts about how the FBI and the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court appear to have been used to influence the 2016 election and its aftermath.

    The White House declassified the memo Friday, and you don’t have to be a civil libertarian to be shocked by the details. The memo confirms that the FBI and Justice Department on Oct. 21, 2016 obtained a FISA order to surveil Carter Page, an American citizen who was a relatively minor volunteer adviser to the Trump presidential campaign.

    The memo says an “essential” part of the FISA application was the “dossier” assembled by former British spy Christopher Steele and the research firm Fusion GPS that was hired by a law firm attached to the Clinton campaign. The memo adds that former FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe told the committee in December 2017 that “no surveillance warrant would have been sought” without the dossier.

    This is troubling enough, but the memo also discloses that the FBI failed to inform the FISA court that the Clinton campaign had funded the dossier. The memo says the FBI supported its FISA application by “extensively” citing a September 2016 article in Yahoo News that contained allegations against Mr. Page. But the FBI failed to tell the court that Mr. Steele and Fusion were the main sources for that Yahoo article. In essence the FBI was citing Mr. Steele to corroborate Mr. Steele.

    Unlike a normal court, FISA doesn’t have competing pleaders. The FBI and Justice appear ex parte as applicants, and thus the judges depend on candor from both. Yet the FBI never informed the court that Mr. Steele was in effect working for the Clinton campaign. The FBI retained Mr. Steele as a source, and in October 2016 he talked to Mother Jones magazine without authorization about the FBI investigation and his dossier alleging collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign. The FBI then fired Mr. Steele, but it never told the FISA judges about that either. Nor did it tell the court any of this as it sought three subsequent renewals of the order on Mr. Page.
    https://www.wsj.com/articles/a-reckoning-for-the-fbi-1517617641?shareToken=stb91574105cc048c897828759fb4c6d44&reflink=article_email_share

  41. [41] 
    Michale wrote:

    We don’t know the political motives of the FBI and Justice officials, but the facts are damaging enough. The FBI in essence let itself and the FISA court be used to promote a major theme of the Clinton campaign. Mr. Steele and Fusion then leaked the fact of the investigation to friendly reporters to try to defeat Mr. Trump before the election. And afterward they continued to leak all this to the press to cast doubt on the legitimacy of Mr. Trump’s victory.

    No matter its motives, the FBI became a tool of anti-Trump political actors. This is unacceptable in a democracy and ought to alarm anyone who wants the FBI to be a nonpartisan enforcer of the law.

    We also know the FBI wasn’t straight with Congress, as it hid most of these facts from investigators in a briefing on the dossier in January 2017. The FBI did not tell Congress about Mr. Steele’s connection to the Clinton campaign, and the House had to issue subpoenas for Fusion bank records to discover the truth. Nor did the FBI tell investigators that it continued receiving information from Mr. Steele and Fusion even after it had terminated him. The memo says the bureau’s intermediary was Justice Department official Bruce Ohr, whose wife, incredibly, worked for Fusion.

    Democrats are howling that the memo, produced by Republican staff, is misleading and leaves out essential details. They are producing their own summary of the evidence, and by all means let’s see that too. President Trump should declassify it promptly, along with Senator Chuck Grassley’s referral for criminal investigation of Mr. Steele. But note that Democrats aren’t challenging the core facts that the FBI used the dossier to gain a FISA order or the bureau’s lack of disclosure to the FISA judges.

  42. [42] 
    Michale wrote:

    Why Did the Democrats Lie So Baldly about the Memo?

    Adam Schiff, Dianne Feinstein, Nancy Pelosi, among seemingly dozens of Democrats, not to mention half the mainstream media, had been warning us for days that the release of the memo authored by Republican members of the House Intelligence Committee would place our national security at grave risk. "Sources and methods" would be revealed.

    Now that we have seen the memo, it's clear that was an absolutely bald-faced lie of the most obvious sort. Nothing in it impacts national security in the slightest. There's no mention whatsoever of any "sources and methods."

    Unless they were lobotomized, those Democrats and their dependable PR team (aka the media) must have realized they were blatantly lying to the American public. Evidently, they didn't care. How're we now supposed to trust what these people say about anything? Falsus in uno, falsus in omnibus.

    Their latest meme is "cherry picking." The memo was cherry-picked and therefore to be ignored. That's like saying a murderer who has a clean driving record and is a good cook is not a murderer. Whatever else happened, the FBI clearly used a slanderous fictional document to get a FISA ruling to surveil Carter Page without telling the court the document was a pack of lies paid for by the Clinton campaign and written by a creepy spy with old-line Soviet connections. And they did it multiple times.
    https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/democrats-lie-baldly-memo/

    When it comes to President Trump, the entirety of the Dumbocrat Party, many hysterical right-wing NeverTrumpers, the vast majority of the Media and ya'all.....

    Simply cannot be trusted in ANYTHING ya'all say...

    It's really THAT simple....

  43. [43] 
    neilm wrote:

    I miss the days last week when we didn't have to page thru screens of right wing propaganda to read the comments.

    I know that CW needs advertisers to support the site, but maybe they could be given a bar on the right, the far, far right of the page to place their annoying commercials for 4chan.

  44. [44] 
    Michale wrote:

    I miss the days last week when we didn't have to page thru screens of right wing propaganda to read the comments.

    TRANSLATION: I am sick and tired of FACTS proving beyond a shadow of a doubt what a biased bigot I really am...

    I understand your feelings, Neil.. Facts hurt... :D

  45. [45] 
    Michale wrote:
  46. [46] 
    Michale wrote:

    Democrats: Releasing the memo will destroy the very foundation of our Democracy!
    Memo Released
    Democrats: It's a "nothingburger."
    Damn, you Democrats have run off the rails and over the cliff! :-)

    -Akwekwe

    :D

  47. [47] 
    Michale wrote:
  48. [48] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    neilm et al

    I come to Wiegantia for purposes of educating the Dems/Libs about how the real world (basically, the economy) actually works, and mostly stay out of the politics, where only ideology and not facts seems to count, which causes me to mostly skip over the Michale-type stuff, but I've gotta admit, the guy has got you people by the short hairs over all this Nunes Memo/FBI/FISA stuff.

    He makes a helluva case for his side, and leaves you guys looking foolish.

  49. [49] 
    Michale wrote:

    I've gotta admit, the guy has got you people by the short hairs over all this Nunes Memo/FBI/FISA stuff.

    He makes a helluva case for his side, and leaves you guys looking foolish.

    "I know, right!??"
    -Felix, WRECK-IT RALPH

    :D

    They were hysterical about how the Nunes memo was going to destroy our democracy and yet, they had NO IDEA what was in it..

    When it was released, THEN they said it was a nothing burger...

    They IGNORE the facts and the reality in favor of BS ideology spin......

  50. [50] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Michale,

    Help me understand what the purpose was in declassifying this memo and releasing it to the public.

  51. [51] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    And, welcome back, by the way. :)

  52. [52] 
    Michale wrote:

    Help me understand what the purpose was in declassifying this memo and releasing it to the public.

    Simple...

    Transparency... Something Democrats BEG for when it's to their advantage..

    And, welcome back, by the way. :)

    Thank you.. :D Had a blast...

    Planning our 9-Day Southern Caribbean cruise in Jan of 2019... :D

  53. [53] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    CRS said,

    "He makes a helluva case for his side, and leaves you guys looking foolish."</b"

    CRS wins the prize for quote of the day!

  54. [54] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Transparency? But, a lot of pertinent information was left out of the memo.

  55. [55] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Always use the preview button.

    Always use the preview button.

    Always use the preview button .

    Always ...

  56. [56] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Transparency about what, Michale?

  57. [57] 
    Michale wrote:

    Transparency? But, a lot of pertinent information was left out of the memo.

    Transparency is not a sprint, it's a marathon..

    The stage is being set.. The chess moves are being made and contemplated....

    You can bet there will be more.. The Andrew McCabe transcript is next up..

    And Democrats and NeverTrumpers will scream to high heaven about the end of the country and then will try and pooh-pooh the facts away... Just like they did with the Nunes Memo...

    Transparency about what, Michale?

    About how the Odumbo administration tried to use federal agencies to create an "insurance policy" to prevent President Trump from being elected..

    Dumbocrats did exactly what Nixon did...

    You don't think such criminality should be exposed???

    Assume, for the sake of the argument, that I am correct.. That Obama conspired with the Clinton campaign and used federal agencies to swing the election her way...

    Do you think that such activities should be exposed to the light of day??

  58. [58] 
    Paula wrote:

    [49] Stuck-in-the-past-i: Nope. Wrong.

    Spigot remains a spigot, passing along the rightwing talking points in line with his true love, Vladimir Putin's, desires. Evidently you, too, find their dishonest bullshit and off-the-charts hypocrisy, compelling. Sad.

    Elizabeth remains someone who should know better.

    [44] neilm: yep.

  59. [59] 
    Paula wrote:

    [29] John: Trump and Putin had a talk at the last G20 gathering. No American officials were present. Just Trump, Putin and Putin's translator. Makes you kind of wonder what exactly it was they discussed?

    Sure does!

  60. [60] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Michale,

    You are looking for criminality in all the wrong places.

  61. [61] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Paula,

    Here is what I know well.

    This place has been and continues to be, to one degree or another, a great reliever of stress for me at a time when I need that the most.

    If I happen to stumble into a discussion with anyone here about some of the issues I care about, then so much the better.

  62. [62] 
    Michale wrote:

    You are looking for criminality in all the wrong places.

    And you are dodging the question because you can't handle the answer....

    Assume, for the sake of the argument, that I am correct.. That Obama conspired with the Clinton campaign and used federal agencies to swing the election her way...

    Do you think that such activities should be exposed to the light of day??

    Yes or No...

    Patriots are going down!!!!! :D

  63. [63] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Yes and YES!!!

  64. [64] 
    Michale wrote:

    Yes and YES!!!

    Then you and I are in complete agreement..

    Let's have FULL transparency and expose ALL the wrong doing and let the chips fall where they may..

    There is no National Security issues with full transparency....

    Let it ALL hang out...

  65. [65] 
    neilm wrote:

    I come to Wiegantia for purposes of educating the Dems/Libs about how the real world (basically, the economy) actually works,

    CR Stucki is intelligent, we're all stupid version #1066.

    We'll congratulations CRS, but it is your humility that we all really love you for.

    and mostly stay out of the politics,

    And yet, again and again.

    CRSs Top Delusions:

    1. He's intelligent and we're stupid
    2. He isn't here for the politics, but ...

    And now he thinks we actually care about the stupid memo.

  66. [66] 
    neilm wrote:

    There is no National Security issues with full transparency....

    Let it ALL hang out...

    How do you feel about the President's tax returns?

  67. [67] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    neilm

    You need to shed the hypersensitivity/picked-on complex. There's a big difference between unintelligent and uninformed. I've never accused you of being unintelligent (although I'm getting closer by the post!)

    AND I've also never claimed to be more intelligent myself, just better informed/experienced. You just imagine (unjustly) that I'm somehow implying the more intelligent.

  68. [68] 
    neilm wrote:

    CRS - as I said, delusional.

  69. [69] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    neilm - as I said, hypersensitive.

  70. [70] 
    Michale wrote:

    YES!!!!!!!!!!!

  71. [71] 
    Elizabeth Miller wrote:

    Indeed.

  72. [72] 
    Michale wrote:

    How do you feel about the President's tax returns

    About the same as you feel about Odumbo's School Records...

  73. [73] 
    Michale wrote:

    CR Stucki is intelligent, we're all stupid version #1066.

    If the shoe fits...

    And now he thinks we actually care about the stupid memo.

    You and your Dumbocrats screamed hysterically about the memo to try and prevent's it's release...

  74. [74] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    35

    So, who here is rooting for the Patriots today??

    Not me.

    We know Veronica is a sellout and love a team that cheats..

    I wasn't rooting for the Patriots dumbass; I was rooting against the Jaguars no matter who was playing them. :)

  75. [75] 
    Kick wrote:

    We know Veronica is a sellout and loves a team that cheats..

    As usual, Mugshot Michale gets it wrong, and this time he additionally defines himself as a "sellout."

    Anyone else rooting for the scumbags of the universe?? :D

    I took Philly and 3 points, and somebody owes me a chunk of change now. I've never rooted for the Patriots to win a Super Bowl in my entire life. On the other hand... you absolutely have rooted for the scumbags.

    ________________

    [174] michale wrote:

    PATRIOTS PULL IT OUT!!! :D

    It was obviously Brady's support of President Trump that made all the difference!! :D heh

    http://www.chrisweigant.com/2017/02/03/ftp423/#comment-93583
    _______________

    We already know Trump is a sellout, and now we have your admission that you're a sellout too. I'd say a nice day all around. :)

  76. [76] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    21

    So, I just caught you in a lie... Comey was NOT "Trump's own appointee" when he signed the FISA warrants.

    Mugshot Michale gets another one wrong. In fact, Comey was never "Trump's own appointee" whether or when he signed anything; he was always Obama's appointee, you moron.

    James T. Canuck is correct, in fact, because I believe he was referring to Rosenstein who did sign FISA warrants, and he is indeed an appointee of Trump... one that Trump praised highly when he chose him, and either Rosenstein is one of "the best people" or Your Orange Worship lied through his fat orange blowhole yet again.

    The easily conned can continue to swallow the bait while Trump and the right-wing nut fringe and their ilk keep libeling and slandering the Republicans who are investigating him, but it won't change the fact that Benedict Donald and company sold out this country in a quid pro quo, and the investigation will continue to its conclusion regardless. :)

  77. [77] 
    Kick wrote:

    neilm
    69

    CRS - as I said, delusional.

    I know, right!? Old man Can't Remember Shit posts comment after comment insinuating exactly what you said he does yet still continues with the "aw shucks" routine like you're just imagining things and no one at all can link back to his archived remarks.

    http://www.chrisweigant.com/2017/11/14/interpreting-gop-moves-on-tax-bill/#comment-110401

  78. [78] 
    James T Canuck wrote:

    Trump was right about one thing (who'd of guessed) The now completely disregarded memo did absolve him of any wrongdoing...Well apart from having stunningly bad judgement in his ''hand-picked amazingly smart team''. The Manafort's, Pappadopoulis', Page's and Flynn's of this tidy group are proof enough that Trump couldn't have picked a worse crew if he tried. Then we have Sessions, Kushner and Bannon, the three Shooshketeers, whose selective amnesia seems only to fall on them during congressional hearings, so much so that revolving doors are being fitted so they can come and go more easily as they amend their truth their, whole truth, and nothing but their truth.

    Watching FOX today, as I do on a Sunday morning...The Lads were decidedly shy when talking about the ''memo that would make Watergate look like a parking ticket''Their own pundits. seemingly at a loss for words, looked like they were attending their own funeral...Stark contrast to last weeks cacophony of 'the sky is falling' by Hennity Pennity. It was quite refreshing to see the folks on FOX use words in correct order that didn't sound like something off a conspiracy theory podcast.

    And credit where credit is due, Trump's poll numbers were up slightly this week...up being the only possible direction they could go. I guess the SOTU, in conjunction with the memo shazam were sufficient enough distractions to blur the lack of Russian sanctions, McCabe resignation and Trump's horizontal jogging lessons from Stormy.

    LL&P

  79. [79] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    For a broader view of the repercussions, here is what the folks at Lawfare pointed out at the end of their exhaustive analysis of the Nunes memo:
    ????
    At the end of the day, the most important aspect of the #memo is probably not its contents but the fact that it was written and released at all. Its preparation and public dissemination represent a profound betrayal of the central premise of the intelligence oversight system. That system subjects the intelligence community to detailed congressional oversight, in which the agencies turn over their most sensitive secrets to their overseers in exchange for both a secure environment in which oversight can take place and a promise that overseers will not abuse their access for partisan political purposes. In other words, they receive legitimation when they act in accordance with law and policy. Nunes, the Republican congressional leadership and Trump violated the core of that bargain over the course of the past few weeks. They revealed highly sensitive secrets by way of scoring partisan political points and delegitimizing what appears to have been lawful and appropriate intelligence community activity.

    It was a heavy blow to a system that has served this country well for decades, and it is one that will not be forgotten any time soon.

  80. [80] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Josh Campbell, a supervisory special agent at the FBI, said on Friday in an New York Times op-ed that he was quitting the agency “to join the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the bureau undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security.” These are the stakes as Campbell sees them:

    ????
    When the F.B.I. knocks on someone’s door or appeals to the public for assistance in solving crime, the willingness of people to help is directly correlated to their opinion of the agency. When an agent working to stop a terrorist plot attempts to recruit an informant, the agent’s success in gathering critical intelligence depends on the informant’s belief that the agent is credible and trustworthy. And, as the former director, James Comey, would frequently say in underscoring the importance of high standards, whether a jury believes an agent’s testimony depends on whether it has faith in the bureau’s honesty and independence. To be effective, the F.B.I. must be believed and must maintain the support of the public it serves.

    ????
    The assumption among confused and dismayed F.B.I. employees is that the attacks are meant to soften the blow should the investigation by Mr. Mueller, the special counsel, lead to additional charges. However, these kinds of attacks by powerful people go beyond mere criticism — they could destroy the institution. Although those critics’ revisionist supporters claim their ire is reserved for institutional leadership and not the rank and file, it is the F.B.I. agent on the street who will be most severely affected as public support for federal law enforcement is sacrificed for partisan gain.

  81. [81] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Michale,

    Assume, for the sake of the argument, that I am correct.. That Obama conspired with the Clinton campaign and used federal agencies to swing the election her way...

    Do you think that such activities should be exposed to the light of day??

    If that were the case, wouldn’t they have immediately announced these investigations were being conducted so it could have had a chance to impact the election? You know, the way the FBI did regarding Clinton’s emails! The Obama administration went out of its way to keep the Trump investigation from becoming known.

    I agree that any government activities that were conducted for the purpose of influencing the results of an election should be exposed! Especially when they are a foreign government. To attack an on-going investigation the way Nunes and Trump have chosen to do (by attacking the credibility and ethical integrity of those conducting the investigation with baseless allegations) is as pathetic as it is cowardly!

  82. [82] 
    Kick wrote:

    Russ
    82

    If that were the case, wouldn’t they have immediately announced these investigations were being conducted so it could have had a chance to impact the election? You know, the way the FBI did regarding Clinton’s emails! The Obama administration went out of its way to keep the Trump investigation from becoming known.

    I know, right?! Also:

    ** If the FBI was so determined to use "federal agencies to swing the election her way" (Michale's utter nonsensical statement) and to prevent Benedict Donald's election, why would they wait until less than 3 weeks before the day of the election to obtain a FISA warrant on Carter Page?

    ** The FBI had been following Carter Page since 2013 when he was in contact with 3 SVR spies... 2 in the US legally and posing as Russian diplomats and 1 in the US illegally and pretending to be a businessman. So it is utter nonsensical bullshit to claim that Carter Page wouldn't have been a target of the FBI were it not for "the dossier" when he... in FACT... already had been on the FBI's radar for several years.

    https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/04/04/world/europe/document-U-S-Accuses-Three-Russians-of-Spying.html

    ** So it should be no shock whatsoever that the FBI's radars went up when Trump announced to the editorial board of the Washington Post in 2016 that Carter Page, the guy who wanted to be recruited as an SVR agent for Russia, was one of Benedict Donald's foreign policy advisers.

    ** When asked about the "Nunes memo" by a Fox News "reporter," Devin Nunes himself stated: "The only area that I am familiar with that we left out would be the history of Carter Page... I don't believe somebody like Mr. Page should be a target of the FBI."

    Obviously, the Ignorant Tool Devin Nunes is wrong about this. The FBI has an obligation to monitor American citizens who pal around with the SVR; it's exactly part of the job description.

    ** When Nunes was asked whether or not he actually read the FISA warrant, he admitted that he had... in fact... NOT read the FISA warrant... you know, the one on which his entire memo is based.

    ** As the Nunes memo does admit, the FBI's investigation into Trump/Russia had began months earlier surrounding actions of one George Papadopoulous, another foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign.

    Yes, poor gullible Trump sheeple, when Benedict Donald lies out of his orange blowhole that the investigation was started only because HRC lost the election, it's blatant diarrhea of the mouth... so even Trump knows how stupid you are. :)

  83. [83] 
    Kick wrote:

    Trump again sues over property tax bill for Jupiter golf course

    The suit marks the fifth year in a row that Trump has disputed the property tax bill for the 131-acre course along Donald Ross Road. Even as he fights the county’s $19.7 million estimate, Trump’s financial disclosures in 2016 and 2017 list the value of Trump National Golf Club in Jupiter as “over $50 million.”

    Based on the property appraiser’s valuation, the Palm Beach County Tax Collector sent Trump a bill for $398,315. Trump responded with a lawsuit — and a wire transfer for $296,595.01, which his Tampa-based attorney described as “a good faith estimate” of the sum Trump really owes.

    While Trump’s three-page suit doesn’t say how much he thinks the course should be worth, Jupiter Golf Club pays property taxes at a rate of 2 percent. So by claiming he was overcharged by $101,720, Trump asserts that the property is worth $15 million, and that the appraiser overvalued the course by more than $5 million.

    The latest suit, filed in December, comes as Trump faces allegations of profiting from the presidency and profligate spending on golf weekends.

    “No president in history has burned more public money to sustain his personal lifestyle than Donald Trump,” writes former George W. Bush staffer David Frum in the new book Trumpocracy.

    Meanwhile, journalist David Cay Johnston writes in It’s Even Worse Than You Think that Trump’s hotels and golf courses have enjoyed rising fortunes thanks to his political profile. In an email Monday, Johnston said it’s “unseemly” for a sitting president to boast about his course’s success while also suing local officials to cut his tax bill.

    “Trump tells voters his properties are hugely valuable but claims they are worth far far less for property tax purposes, which unfairly shifts to others the burdens of government,” Johnston said.

    http://www.mypalmbeachpost.com/business/trump-again-sues-over-property-tax-bill-for-jupiter-golf-course/W7ceVDmZuHslCxu3XcAnJK/
    _______________

    For the fifth year in a row, Deadbeat BLOTUS lies about the value of his golf courses and refuses to pay taxes that are far less than the value he reported on his lying financial disclosure. It's property tax dodgers and cheaters like this that cost most everyone else.

  84. [84] 
    Kick wrote:

    So why in hell wouldn't Devin Nunes read the FISA warrant that the "Nunes memo" is based on? Hmmmmm.

    I would wager a guess that Ignorant Tool Devin Nunes actually lost his TS security clearance. There's simply no other explanation that makes any sense. Otherwise, it'd be like writing your impression of a book without having read the darned book.

    TS = Top Secret

  85. [85] 
    Michale wrote:

    Veronica,

    Mugshot Michale gets another one wrong. In fact, Comey was never "Trump's own appointee" whether or when he signed anything; he was always Obama's appointee, you moron.

    Moron... I never said that Comey was Trump's own appointee...

    It was JT who said that..

    Get your facts straight, girl..

  86. [86] 
    Michale wrote:

    Russ,

    I agree that any government activities that were conducted for the purpose of influencing the results of an election should be exposed!

    Then we are in agreement..

    Would you also agree that a sitting American President's illegal use of his own federal agencies to influence the elections and help his own Party win is MUCH worse than a foreign government trying to influence a country's election??

    I mean, the US is guilty of that all the time.. It's what foreign governments do...

    It's a simply YES or NO question..

    Bet you can't give a simple yes or no answer...

  87. [87] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Michale,

    Would you also agree that a sitting American President's illegal use of his own federal agencies to influence the elections and help his own Party win is MUCH worse than a foreign government trying to influence a country's election??

    Yes, it would be worse...unless the winning party was in cahoots with that foreign government because that would then make our president a foreign operative guilty of treason. No wonder Trump is so terrified of Mueller.

    Trump wants to claim that his criticism is only with those in charge and not the “rank and file” agents, but that is utter bullshit! The administration was not the ones who gathered the evidence and sought the FISA warrant, it was the agents who were conducting the investigation! The admin simply signed off on the warrants that the “rank and file” agents sought to further their investigation.

  88. [88] 
    Michale wrote:

    JT,

    Trump was right about one thing (who'd of guessed) The now completely disregarded memo did absolve him of any wrongdoing...

    There is hope for you yet... :D

    We are in complete agreement.. Despite what the little girl, Victoria, says, the Nunes memo DOES completely absolve Trump of any wrongdoing..

    Of course, NOW you will backpedal like crazy, I bet.. :D

    And credit where credit is due, Trump's poll numbers were up slightly this week...

    Yes they are... But you can't say that here.. It's not allowed to give President Trump credit for ANYTHING...

    Get with the pogrom, dood!!!

  89. [89] 
    Michale wrote:

    Speaking of polls..

    Since ya'all embrace polls to the hilt...

    Polls swing toward GOP, easing fears of midterm disaster
    http://thehill.com/homenews/senate/372101-gop-growing-optimistic-about-midterm-chances

    Ya'all will, of course, agree with THIS poll, right?? :D

    Ahhhhh I just LOVE using ya'all's ideological slavery against ya'all.. :D

    But ya'all DO make it WAAAAYYYYY too easy.. :D

  90. [90] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Thought this article was incredibly interesting as it shows that Trump was being pegged for collusion by multiple foreign intelligence agencies that all warned the US about his relationship with the Russians... some well before he decided to even run for president.

    https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-links-russia

    Here is a portion of the article:

    The Guardian has been told the FBI and the CIA were slow to appreciate the extensive nature of contacts between Trump’s team and Moscow ahead of the US election. This was in part due to US law that prohibits US agencies from examining the private communications of American citizens without warrants. “They are trained not to do this,” the source stressed.

    “It looks like the [US] agencies were asleep,” the source added. “They [the European agencies] were saying: ‘There are contacts going on between people close to Mr Trump and people we believe are Russian intelligence agents. You should be wary of this.’

    “The message was: ‘Watch out. There’s something not right here.’”

  91. [91] 
    Michale wrote:

    A Monmouth University Poll released Wednesday showed that Trump’s approval rating had jumped 10 points compared to last month, while the Democratic advantage on the generic ballot had shrunk to 2 percentage points.

    Since polls are sacrosanct to ya'all, ya'all HAVE to accept this poll... :D

    Or else admit ya'all are hypocrites and ONLY the polls that say what ya'all want to hear are sacrosanct.. :D

  92. [92] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    And what about Nunes altering the memo so that the version that went to Trump to review wasn’t the one that they had approved?

    Nunes admitted to it, but claimed that all he was doing was making some minor corrections. Funny, adding just one word — “not” — will change the entire substance of the original message.

  93. [93] 
    Michale wrote:

    And what about Nunes altering the memo so that the version that went to Trump to review wasn’t the one that they had approved?

    Facts to support???

    Nunes admitted to it, but claimed that all he was doing was making some minor corrections.

    Any facts to support that this is not what happened???

  94. [94] 
    Michale wrote:

    The Nunes Memo: Just an Opening Act
    Landmines left behind by the Obama administration and the Clinton campaign might soon start detonating—on Democrats.

    The publication yesterday by the House Intelligence Committee, under the leadership of chairman Devin Nunes, of a four-page summary memo regarding FBI surveillance of a Trump campaign advisor in 2016 is the long-awaited opening act of an extended drama about the Obama administration’s abuse of power—which, when all is revealed, might yet outdo that of the Nixon administration.

    Obama concealed his sharp-edged, Chicago-style machine politics under the rhetorical cover of progressivism. He was protected by a press corps that first enlisted in his administration and then fought to stop Donald Trump. But now that Obama is out of office, his ability to intimidate is much diminished. This past week, a 2005 picture of a beaming Obama next to a bright-eyed Louis Farrakhan surfaced, after having been held back for more than a decade at the behest of a member of the Congressional Black Caucus. Senator Robert Menendez of New Jersey, who had been tried for corruption by Obama’s Justice Department after he refused to toe the party line about the “peace-loving” mullahs of Iran, has now seen the charges against him dropped. Z Street, a hawkish nonprofit supporter of Benjamin Netanyahu’s government in Israel, had been tied up with IRS matters since 2009; it has just been released from its legal chains. Democrats are holding to the line that the prophet of hope and change ran a pure administration, virtually free of scandal. But the memo is probably just the beginning; we’re likely to see many more revelations come out.
    https://www.city-journal.org/html/nunes-memo-just-opening-act-15704.html

    All of this is going to play out in the run up to the 2018 mid terms..

    Dumbocrats will be lucky to be elected county dog catcher...

    Don't worry, Victoria.. yer probably safe.. :D

  95. [95] 
    Michale wrote:

    Technical assistance....

    My monitor is crapping out on me.. I have a really schweet MAC monitor, but it only has a MiniDVI plug and I need HDMI or regular DVI..

    Anyone know where I can get, preferably thru EBAy, a cable of box that allows me to go from MiniDVI to HDMI/DVI ala:

    https://uploads.disquscdn.com/images/ce6dbcb4527093ce3c9150d0f6bf630460664b4e8ba82010b045f8fc982db098.jpg

  96. [96] 
    Michale wrote:

    Thought this article was incredibly interesting as it shows that Trump was being pegged for collusion by multiple foreign intelligence agencies that all warned the US about his relationship with the Russians... some well before he decided to even run for president.

    So, you DON'T mind foreign influence in our elections..

    As long as the influence takes down the candidate you DON'T like..

    Glad you declared yerself.. :D

  97. [97] 
    Michale wrote:

    Yes, it would be worse...unless the winning party was in cahoots with that foreign government because that would then make our president a foreign operative guilty of treason. No wonder Trump is so terrified of Mueller.

    There is no factual evidence to support the claim that *PRESIDENT* Trump is terrified of Mueller or anyone else..

    There is also no factual evidence that supports, even by the barest whiff of a fact that ANY Hillary votes were changed to Trump votes..

    Your claims of Russian influence is based on NOTHING but Party slavery...

    The administration was not the ones who gathered the evidence and sought the FISA warrant, it was the agents who were conducting the investigation!

    Oh pulleeeesseeee...

    These agents were conducting an investigation against a Presidential Candidate of the opposing Party ** DURING THE CAMPAING**!!!!

    Are you going to sit there and try and tell me that these agents operated SOLELY on their own with ANY direction from Odumbo and/or Odumbo's minions???

    Com'on Russ.. I know you. You may have been born AT night but I sure as hell know it wasn't LAST night!!

  98. [98] 
    Michale wrote:

    So far, not one Democrat has broken ranks. They will surely find procedural problems with the House memo. They will continue to wage their fight, a la Hollywood congressman Adam Schiff, on behalf of “the resistance.” But a resistance is not an opposition. The numerous landmines Obama and Clinton left behind them, intending to waylay the initially awkward Trump administration, are starting to detonate—on Democrats.

    The vulgar Trump isn’t constrained by convention. He won’t go soft on politicians who saw no problem in issuing FISA warrants in the midst of a presidential campaign and then keeping them operational into his first term in office. As the information comes out, the Democrats’ FISA subterfuge will be seen by much of the country as a soft coup attempt. There’s no other way to put it.

  99. [99] 
    Michale wrote:
  100. [100] 
    Michale wrote:
  101. [101] 
    Michale wrote:

    Yet, ironically, Trump actually showed surprisingly significant movement toward the Dems in his speech. Sure, he might reverse himself later, as he has in the past. He’s already getting pressure from the right, for example, for his surprisingly progressive offer of a “pathway to citizenship” for immigrants brought here unlawfully as children. Conservative website Breitbart immediately branded him “Amnesty Don.”

    But, as long as the option is available, Democrats, don’t let Trump Derangement Syndrome stop you. You owe it to yourselves and your constituents to work with this president as much as you would want Republicans to work with the next Democratic president.
    http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/opinion/page/ct-perspec-page-trump-derangement-democrats-0204-20180202-story.html

    Word...

    Remember, what does around comes around...

  102. [102] 
    Michale wrote:

    As the information comes out, the Democrats’ FISA subterfuge will be seen by much of the country as a soft coup attempt. There’s no other way to put it.

    Exactly...

    What started out as a Democrat "insurance policy" to prevent Trump from being elected has morphed into an illegal coup.. An attempt to nullify a free, fair and legal election..

    The facts point to no other interpretation but that...

  103. [103] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    Kick [78] If your point in referencing all those explanations I made about how you people (Dems/Libs) are mostly ignorant of fundamental principles of Economics, is that you interpreted them as personal attacks on your intelligence, I suppose it's highly possible that personal attacks on your intelligence actually would have been justified.

  104. [104] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    I'm endlessly amazed at the level of straw-grasping you Dems/Libs are investing in the Mueller investigation of whether Trump colluded with the Russians, I presume in hopes of getting rid of him.

    My recollection is that the first collusion occured on national TV, for gawdsake, when he publicly solicited their help in hacking the DNC and the HRC emails that demonstrated that the Dem primaries were being stacked against Bernie S.

    So having heard Trump "collude with the Russians" on national TV, how much taxpayer money do we need to spend to find out if Trump "colluded with the Russians"??

    The only meaningful question would be, "Is it legal or illegal to get dirt on your enemies from foreigners", and I'm guessing it's probably legal.

  105. [105] 
    Michale wrote:

    The only meaningful question would be, "Is it legal or illegal to get dirt on your enemies from foreigners", and I'm guessing it's probably legal.

    You would guess right...

  106. [106] 
    Michale wrote:

    I'm endlessly amazed at the level of straw-grasping you Dems/Libs are investing in the Mueller investigation of whether Trump colluded with the Russians, I presume in hopes of getting rid of him.

    Yer young, in People's Republic Of Weigantia years..

    Once you have been here awhile the level of desperation and straw-grasping becomes a lot less amazing.. :D

  107. [107] 
    Michale wrote:

    I wasn't rooting for the Patriots dumbass; I was rooting against the Jaguars no matter who was playing them. :)

    Am I the only Patriot here? :)

    *ROTFLMAO*
    http://www.chrisweigant.com/2018/01/19/ftp468/#comment-114524

    Why do you lie, little girl, when you know it's easy to show what a liar you are??

  108. [108] 
    neilm wrote:

    The only meaningful question would be, "Is it legal or illegal to get dirt on your enemies from foreigners", and I'm guessing it's probably legal.

    I'd say the question is: is it legal to assist anybody, including foreigners, who illegally collect information (e.g. by hacking)?

    I'm guessing it isn't.

  109. [109] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    neilm

    Re "Assisting" the illegal collection of e-mail info."

    I'm guessing when it comes to hacking, Trump would be somewhere on the same level I would be (I have to have my grandkids show me how to turn the gawdam electronic gadgets on).

    I'm thinking "encouraging" would be a helluva lot closer to reality, and I REALLY have doubts about the illegality of "encouraging", how about you?

  110. [110] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    86

    Moron... I never said that Comey was Trump's own appointee...

    It was JT who said that..

    Exactly my point, moron; it exactly was not JT who said that; it was... in fact... you. Does it surprise anyone at all that Mugshot Michale's reading comprehension rears it's ugly head again?

    Michale takes an excerpt from a sentence in a comment at [17] by James T. Canuck that reads as follows:

    JTC [17]: Also, it might be news to you, but Trump's own appointee signed the lion's share of those FISA warrants on Page, not Obama...by their own admission in the memo you seem to not have read, or did and simply couldn't fathom.

    So then Michale takes an excerpt from the sentence and quotes it not once, not twice, but three times at [19], [20], and [21]. Each of the three times he quotes it, Mugshot Michale drones on and on about "Comey this" and "Comey that" and calling JTC a "LIAR" when you will not even find the word Comey anywhere in the one post of JTC's at [17] that led Michale to spawn three attacks from half of JTC's sentence.

    As the "Nunes memo" states, and I quote: "The FBI and DOJ obtained one initial FISA warrant targeting Carter Page and three FISA renewals from the FISC."

    So how would Michale know JTC meant Comey at FBI and not Trump appointee Boente and/or Rosenstein at DOJ? He doesn't. He assumes. Not only that, JTC's point was that the Trump sheeple and their ilk are whining about Obama and wire tapping of Trump when Obama had nothing to do with either drafting or approval of the FISA applications by the FBI/DOJ. Duh!

    Get your facts straight, girl..

    As I have said many times, I could rub your nose in shit, and you'd insist that it didn't stink. You should really work on your reading comprehension skills and crack a book or two... unless you just enjoy making a fool out of yourself ad nauseam. :)

  111. [111] 
    neilm wrote:

    As I said at the outset, I think 45 himself is probably innocent of collusion because:

    1. He probably doesn't understand what is going on
    2. Nobody with enough smarts to hack systems would trust a blabbermouth like 45 to keep any secrets

    If I were the Russians and I decided that I wanted my intelligence agencies to disrupt the U.S. elections I'd:

    1. Try to discredit Clinton so if she wins she is a tainted President who has to focus on internal battles rather than be aggressive on the world stage.

    2. Have my agencies hack the DNC and top Democrats to find dirty laundry, and introduce it into the election cycle at the most profitable points (e.g. rights after the "grabbing" tape is released).

    3. Cover my bases in case Clinton loses by compromising the Republicans, e.g. by setting up a very dodgy meeting with the kids in the building owned by the Republican candidate.

    If anybody believes that Russians are pure as driven snow and only had America's best interests at heart in 2016, I've got a "News" channel for them to watch that rhymes with Faux News.

  112. [112] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    108

    "Am I the only Patriot here" was me making fun of you and how you always insinuate that you're the only patriot here. I'm pretty sure everyone else who has heard your utter nonstop nonsensical bullshit about being the only "patriot" understood it, but then I should have known you were too ignorant to understand the damn joke, what with your empty damn head and reading comprehension problem and all that. I keep forgetting that Tea Party nuts and Always Trumpers don't have the intellect to understand nuance and/or sarcasm.

    Regardless of your stupidity and inability to comprehend a damn thing, the Eagles just made me a large sum of money last night after the Patriots did me a solid and kicked the skanky Jaguars' asses back to the stench of Shithole, Florida. So it's all good. :)

  113. [113] 
    Michale wrote:

    Victoria,

    Am I the only Patriot here" was me making fun of you and how you always insinuate that you're the only patriot here.

    Nice dodge, but that's bullshit.. You said "Patriot" not "patriot"...

    You got caught in a lie and now yer trying to weasel yer way out of it like the luser you are...

    Sucks to be you.. :D

  114. [114] 
    Michale wrote:

    As I said at the outset, I think 45 himself is probably innocent of collusion

    Way to talk out both sides of yer ass, Neil. :D

    You DID say that PRESIDENT Trump was probably innocent of collusion.. But then you changed yer tune after you read that John Le'Carre book..

    NOW that the facts are coming out, NOW you are changing yer tune again..

    And ya wonder why ya have no credibility.. :D

  115. [115] 
    Kick wrote:

    James T. Canuck

    JTC: Trump was right about one thing (who'd of guessed) The now completely disregarded memo did absolve him of any wrongdoing...

    Michale: There is hope for you yet... :D

    Like I said, JTC, morons like Michale don't understand nuance and sarcasm. He thinks you actually agree with him because he doesn't understand your sentence in context because ignorance really is bliss. :)

  116. [116] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    So, you DON'T mind foreign influence in our elections..

    As long as the influence takes down the candidate you DON'T like..

    Glad you declared yerself.. :D

    I have no problem with intelligence services from countries we have good relationships with warning us if Russian agents are targeting Americans to become operatives. The fact that the person they were talking about then decided to run for President is the point that you are doing your best to ignore!

  117. [117] 
    Kick wrote:

    Nice dodge, but that's bullshit.. You said "Patriot" not "patriot"...

    You're doing that thing CW calls you on where "you're splitting meaningless hairs, dude." Remember? "Notifying Russian troops is the same thing as notifying Russia."

    http://www.chrisweigant.com/2017/04/06/taser-unswiftly-changes-name/#comment-98243

    And now Patriot/patriot. You keep calling people liars because you're ignorant. We get it. Tea Party nuts and Always Trumpers don't do nuance, sarcasm, and have tiny brains and therefore are easily conned and argue incessantly about stupid stuff that is glaringly obvious to those with brains. :)

    Sucks to be you.. :D

    Since I am me and you're not, I can assure you that you have no idea what you're talking about. Not only that, you're the idiot who left his doublewide trailer in the swamps of Shithole, Florida to go visit Shithole, Haiti. You must really love wallowing in... rhymes with "spit." :)

  118. [118] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Oh pulleeeesseeee...

    These agents were conducting an investigation against a Presidential Candidate of the opposing Party ** DURING THE CAMPAING**!!!!

    Are you going to sit there and try and tell me that these agents operated SOLELY on their own with ANY direction from Odumbo and/or Odumbo's minions???

    No, while they were not acting without oversight, it would have been the agents that would recommend the FISA warrant to wire tap Page. They had enough intel on him that warranted a closer look into his dealings with the Russians, obviously.

    Their investigation was focused on Carter Page at the time, not Trump, specifically. Do you think that our intelligence agencies should sit on their hands and not investigate someone simply because they had been part of a political campaign?

    Why didn’t anyone from Trump’s camp inform our intelligence agencies that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton that they offered Trump? Why protect Putin?

  119. [119] 
    Michale wrote:

    I have no problem with intelligence services from countries we have good relationships with warning us if Russian agents are targeting Americans to become operatives.

    So, like I said.. You don't mind foreign influence in our elections if it helps your candidate..

    No, while they were not acting without oversight, it would have been the agents that would recommend the FISA warrant to wire tap Page.

    Any facts to support that???

    Why didn’t anyone from Trump’s camp inform our intelligence agencies that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton that they offered Trump?

    Why would they???

  120. [120] 
    Michale wrote:

    Not only that, you're the idiot who left his doublewide trailer in the swamps of Shithole, Florida to go visit Shithole, Haiti.

    We stayed out of the shithole parts.. :D

    https://scontent-atl3-1.xx.fbcdn.net/v/t1.0-9/27544908_1781674511864258_8035675856983728021_n.jpg?oh=3395957dc202ae28e3f66795ca9b5838&oe=5ADEE0DA

    Really REALLY sucks to be you.. Living in your welfare house... :D

  121. [121] 
    Kick wrote:

    CRS
    105

    My recollection is that the first collusion occured on national TV, for gawdsake, when he publicly solicited their help in hacking the DNC and the HRC emails that demonstrated that the Dem primaries were being stacked against Bernie S.

    You recollect wrong.

    The only meaningful question would be, "Is it legal or illegal to get dirt on your enemies from foreigners", and I'm guessing it's probably legal.

    Wrong again. There are many other legal questions, you're just not qualified or have the "recollection" to know what they are. :)

  122. [122] 
    Michale wrote:

    Like I said, JTC, morons like Michale don't understand nuance and sarcasm. He thinks you actually agree with him because he doesn't understand your sentence in context because ignorance really is bliss.

    You sure like putting words in JTC's mouth...

    Funny how he hasn't collaborated ANYTHING you have claimed he has said... :D

    Really REALLY REALLY sucks to be you.. :D Another prozac-girl...

  123. [123] 
    Michale wrote:

    Victoria,

    This is where you threaten to release private information about me unless I stop picking on you.. :D

    BBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  124. [124] 
    Paula wrote:

    I don't follow football at all but there seems to be pretty broad rejoicing that the Eagles won the SB. From what I'm gathering, the Patriots QB is widely hated and the team in general as well (though perhaps to a lesser degree).

    Many Eagles players are not going to visit the WH.

    Taking a break from my overwhelming hatred of Blotus I can spare a few seconds to feel some compassion for the chump. Greeting SB winners is probably something he'd thoroughly enjoy. If he hadn't gone out of his way to alienate so many Americans - even apart from being a traitor and criminal - he would at least get to enjoy such a perk. But since he has politicized every move he makes people respond in kind.

    He wanted the Patriots to win. They lost.

    Yay.

  125. [125] 
    John M wrote:

    [120] Michale

    "Why didn’t anyone from Trump’s camp inform our intelligence agencies that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton that they offered Trump?

    Why would they???"

    Because it would have been the right, legal, and patriotic thing to do? Because when a foreign intelligence agency is trying to influence an American election our intelligence agencies should be aware of it? Come on, surely you are not playing that dumb.

  126. [126] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    124

    Victoria,

    This is where you threaten to release private information about me unless I stop picking on you.. :D

    No one on this planet has to release private information on you, Mugshot Michale. You've been releasing your own private information on this board for years. Anyone with two brain cells to rub together can take the information you posted and find links to the multiple mugshots for free.

    Whatever you're paying CW to post your personal information and vacation links to Shithole, Haiti is not nearly enough. :)

  127. [127] 
    John M wrote:

    [120] Michale

    "I have no problem with intelligence services from countries we have good relationships with warning us if Russian agents are targeting Americans to become operatives.

    So, like I said.. You don't mind foreign influence in our elections if it helps your candidate.."

    That's so obviously NOT what was said at all. A warning about to our intelligence operatives about someone else's activiteis is not the same as those intelligence agencies taking part in influence peddling themselves. Come on, you are not that comprehension challenged unless you are deliberately playing dumb.

  128. [128] 
    John M wrote:

    [105] C. R. Stucki

    "I'm endlessly amazed at the level of straw-grasping you Dems/Libs are investing in the Mueller investigation of whether Trump colluded with the Russians, I presume in hopes of getting rid of him."

    And I am totally amazed that you can't seem to see past the end of your own nose.

    You and other Reps/Cons keep grasping at the straw of collusion. When you have been told time and time over and over aagin that Mueller's investigation is NOT about collusion, which isn't even a crime, but IS about:

    1) Obstruction of Justice

    2) Illegal money laundering

    3) Lying to law enforcement agencies like the FBI

    4) perjury, either to Congress, the Grand Jury, etc.

    5) failing to register as a foreign agent

    6) Accepting money for a political campaign from a foreign agency

    All of which are illegal activities.

  129. [129] 
    Michale wrote:

    Prozac-girl

    Many Eagles players are not going to visit the WH.

    Facts to support??

    No?? Of course not...

    He wanted the Patriots to win.

    Once again.. Facts to support??

    No???

    You never have any facts...

  130. [130] 
    Michale wrote:

    And I am totally amazed that you can't seem to see past the end of your own nose.

    You and other Reps/Cons keep grasping at the straw of collusion. When you have been told time and time over and over aagin that Mueller's investigation is NOT about collusion, which isn't even a crime, but IS about:

    And, once again, we see the personal attacks and name-calling from the citizens of the People's Republic Of Weigantia against people who refuse to toe the Party line...

    Sad....

    Pathetically sad....

  131. [131] 
    John M wrote:

    [103] Michale

    "As the information comes out, the Democrats’ FISA subterfuge will be seen by much of the country as a soft coup attempt. There’s no other way to put it.

    What started out as a Democrat "insurance policy" to prevent Trump from being elected has morphed into an illegal coup.. An attempt to nullify a free, fair and legal election.."

    Complete and utter nonsense.

    1) The investigation is being conducted by fellow Republicans, or by non partisan career law enforcement professionals, not by the opposition Democratic party.

    2) Any action taken against Trump would require Republican as well as Democratic participation.

    3) The Constitution itself provides the legal framework for removing a duly elected President from office. As long as that is followed, it in no way can be considered a coup.

    So stop all the stupid coup hysteria nonsense already.

  132. [132] 
    Paula wrote:

    [128] John M: Republicans like the spigot have gone so far down the alley of "anything goes if it helps us win" that they are now vehemently defending Russian intervention in our elections, and the wholesale slandering of our intelligence agencies. They are also just fine with the President harassing individual Americans and with the President trying to turn the apparatus of the state against Democrats and/or anyone he doesn't like. They also don't care that Blotus is being paid directly to do things, both by corporate actors and by foreign powers.

    They will defend Blotus no matter how stupid they sound, or how criminally Blotus and other GOP luminaries behave.

    So, is the spigot "playing dumb?" When that which you defend is indefensible, the defenses become ludicrous. But the spigot will parrot them just the same. I don't know what you call that.

  133. [133] 
    John M wrote:

    [130] Michale

    "Prozac-girl"

    And, once again, we see the personal attacks and name-calling from the citizens of the People's Republic Of Weigantia against people who refuse to toe the Party line...

    Sad....

    Pathetically sad....

  134. [134] 
    John M wrote:

    [89] Michale

    "Trump was right about one thing (who'd of guessed) The now completely disregarded memo did absolve him of any wrongdoing...

    We are in complete agreement.. Despite what the little girl, Victoria, says, the Nunes memo DOES completely absolve Trump of any wrongdoing.."

    Pray tell, just HOW does it do that when:

    1) The major thrust of the memo is supposed to be that the investigation into Carter Paige and therefore the Trump campaign was based solely on the supposedly tainted use of the Steele Dossier to get a FISA warrant, but provides no evidence to back that up.

    2) Doesn't explain how more than one verified source is required to get a FISA warrant even once, let alone multiple times

    3) In the second half the memo contradicts itself by admitting that the investigation actually began months earlier based on the activities of George Papadopoulos

    4) Doesn't mention ANY possible investigation into Trump himself in one way or another.

  135. [135] 
    Paula wrote:

    Is the spigot calling me "Prozac-girl"? He's so cute when he tries to be clever. I give him a point for going a step up from sheer crudity, such as when he called HRC a "bitch" simply because she was willing to testify for 11 hours under oath and his beloved, the Unfaithful Sh!thole, is not. It hurts when your idols turn out to be big-mouthed weaklings.

    But still, Spiggie, you can do better.

    Anyone remember the movie Roxanne, with Steve Martin and Darryl Hannah? I think the spigot's insult skills are about equivalent to the guy who yells "big nose!" at Charlie.

    Perhaps you should consult some of your Russian pals for help?

  136. [136] 
    Michale wrote:

    1) The investigation is being conducted by fellow Republicans, or by non partisan career law enforcement professionals, not by the opposition Democratic party.

    Bullshit...

    The Democrats are pulling the strings of the Republican NeverTrumpers..

    2) Any action taken against Trump would require Republican as well as Democratic participation.

    Republican NeverTrumpers which are no different than Dumbocrats

    And, once again, we see the personal attacks and name-calling from the citizens of the People's Republic Of Weigantia against people who refuse to toe the Party line...

    This is the world YOU have created.. Don't blame me because I kick your ass by your own rules..

  137. [137] 
    Michale wrote:

    Face reality dood..

    Ya'all lost the election and since then ya'all have been as mean and hysterical and hate-filled and intolerant as ya'all accuse Republicans of being..

    "These are the facts of the case. And they are undisputed.."
    -Captain Smilin Jack Ross

  138. [138] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    121

    We stayed out of the shithole parts.. :D

    Every country in the world has "shithole parts," a fact that seems to elude Your Orange Worship Benedict Donald.

    Please continue to post your personal information like you keep doing and have for years on end... all while whining about somebody posting your personal information. *LOL* :)

    Really REALLY sucks to be you.. Living in your welfare house... :D

    Oh, there you go again... confusing posters on this board with your family.

    Since I am me, and you're not me, the FACT is that you have no idea what it's like to be me. No, I don't live in a "welfare house," but I do donate to several local ones on a regular basis so that the veterans who do live there are able to enjoy a whole lot more than the government provides them. These veterans' "welfare" homes sure beat your double wide in Shithole, Florida, all to hell, though. :)

  139. [139] 
    Paula wrote:

    [135] John: notice how Spiggies "response" (137) really isn't? He is incapable of addressing the actual meat of your points, instead he does the equivalent of "nuh uh", followed by broad, meaningless assertions: "Dems are pulling NeverTrumper strings", etc.

    HE CANNOT/WILL NOT address real arguments, he just employs his stock dodges and tries to shift the conversation by ending on a taunt.

    There is no integrity with Spiggie - you can't really "argue" with someone who is intellectually dishonest because all they have to do is tell the next lie and employ another dodge.

  140. [140] 
    Paula wrote:

    because all they have to do is tell the next lie and employ another dodge.

    Like Spiggie #138. Dodgie dodge dodge.

  141. [141] 
    Kick wrote:

    Paula
    136

    But still, Spiggie, you can do better.

    It is rather weak tea, but you must remember how Spiggie gets commenters on this board confused with his family. :)

  142. [142] 
    John M wrote:

    [137]

    "And, once again, we see the personal attacks and name-calling from the citizens of the People's Republic Of Weigantia against people who refuse to toe the Party line...

    This is the world YOU have created.. Don't blame me because I kick your ass by your own rules.."

    Just HOW did I engage in name calling????

    The two things you alluded to were:

    Repubs/Cons which are short hand for Republicans and Conservatives... nothing more

    And... "Can't see past the end of your own nose"

    A statement of fact, and hardly can be construed as name calling in any sense...

    YOU, kick my ass??? That's the funniest thing I ever heard!!!

  143. [143] 
    Paula wrote:

    [142] Kick: Snap!

  144. [144] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    John M [126]

    "Why didn't Trumps campaign inform our intelligence agencies that the Russians had dirt on Clinton?" implying they should have done so "Because when a foreign intelligence agency is trying to influence an American election, our intelligence agencies should be aware of it".

    That makes superficial sense on the assumption that unfriendly foreign govt's would normally be expected to disseminate lies, but that is not the case here. Nobody disputes that the hacked Dem emails were authentic, so you appear to be offended that the Trump campaign failed to warn our FBI to the effect of something like, "Hey, FBI, beware of the Russians, we fear that they are about to tell the truth!!!"

  145. [145] 
    C. R. Stucki wrote:

    John M [129]

    "Mueller's investigation is NOT about dollusion"!

    Really?? You've gotta be the only Dem/Lib that believes that. You can't find a single TV news report, newspaper article, or political blog post where 'Collusion" isn't the leading word!!

  146. [146] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Why didn’t anyone from Trump’s camp inform our intelligence agencies that Russia had dirt on Hillary Clinton that they offered Trump?

    Why would they???

    The only reason I can think of for why they would not be upset that a foreign power was trying to interfere with our elections is because they are working with them. It’s the logical conclusion.

    Why else would they lie about all of their meetings with different Russian agents? Then once those meetings were exposed, they lied about what was discussed during them.

    Why else would Trump expose intel considered “top secret” (as well as which country gave us the intel) to the Russians?

    Why else is Trump a coward when he discusses Putin and refuses to be critical of anything Putin does?

    His choice for Secretary of State was awarded Russia’s highest honor for a non-citizen.

    Why else did Trump fail to issue the new sanctions against Russia as the legislation, that Congress almost unanimously voted in favor of, requires?

    I wonder which child that Trump ignored for their entire childhood, and who throughout their adulthood has had to kiss his fat 239# per cheek ass, will be the one to turn on Daddy Dumbest when they realize the government will seize all of their assets if they were involved in money laundering? My money is on Ivanka.

  147. [147] 
    Kick wrote:

    Trump just called the other people not voting for him "desperate." He does realize he's being filmed, right?

    Also, he left the part about the great stock market out of his stump speech. Anyone have any idea why? ;)

  148. [148] 
    Michale wrote:

    Prozac-Girl,

    HE CANNOT/WILL NOT address real arguments, he just employs his stock dodges and tries to shift the conversation by ending on a taunt.

    You never HAVE any real arguments.

    All you have is hysterical name-calling and immature personal attacks..

  149. [149] 
    Michale wrote:

    Just HOW did I engage in name calling????

    Everyone here does...

    Are you going to deny you have NEVER did any name-calling??

    EVER??

    Don't bother because we BOTH know you would be lying..

  150. [150] 
    Kick wrote:

    CRS
    146

    You can't find a single TV news report, newspaper article, or political blog post where 'Collusion" isn't the leading word!!

    Unless, of course, you were to look at the top of this page or every comment on this page, for that matter, since not a single comment leads with the word collusion... right, old man?

    In fact, anyone with two brain cells can search the page and discover that the first mention of the word "collusion" on this page is in comment [40] by that bastion of Dem/Lib rhetoric by the name of Michale.

    You can do a search, dumb ass, or we can certainly spoon feed you like a toddler since you're spewing pablum.

    http://www.chrisweigant.com/2018/02/02/ftp470/#comment-114995

  151. [151] 
    Kick wrote:

    Trump's stock market is down a few points, and by a "few points," I mean the largest 1-day point drop in market history.

    Since Trump took credit for its rise, I can't wait to hear what the Orange Blowhole says about its record fall. I'm telling you all now that whatever he says will contain a shitload of lies... just a hunch. ;)

  152. [152] 
    Michale wrote:

    JM,

    You can do a search, dumb ass,

    Funny how you don't have a problem with ANY hysterical NeverTrumper who is always name-calling here..

    Which proves you don't really have a problem with name-calling..

  153. [153] 
    Michale wrote:

    Trump's stock market is down a few points, and by a "few points," I mean the largest 1-day point drop in market history.

    Yea, the Stock Market fell to a point it was at a couple days ago..

    BBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    You guys are so pathetic....

  154. [154] 
    Paula wrote:

    Spiggie says I never have any arguments. I certainly don't bother to argue with HIM.

    But Spiggie, John M had a list of points in #135 and you didn't address them. You dodged them because that's all you got.

    Meanwhile Stucki goes on the offense re: "collusion". He seems to think he wins a point by claiming Mueller's investigation isn't about collusion but all we liberals claim it is. When in fact it is about a whole lot of things, collusion included.

    He also appears to have no problem with Russia hacking the DNC in the first place, and handing hacked info to Republicans to do damage with. He presumes the hacked info, btw, has not itself been altered by Russians. You know, coz they just want to help and all.

  155. [155] 
    Michale wrote:

    Market drop was probably due to Welfare-Girl's New England Patriots losing.. :D

  156. [156] 
    Michale wrote:

    Goodness, the market has fallen all the way back to January 4th...what will we ever do???
    -PHB

    :D heh

  157. [157] 
    Michale wrote:

    I also used to trade individual stocks, but found it is too time consuming and also you can't even trust accounting info to be truthful any more.

    Index funds or index linked ETFs are the way to go.

    I regret having traded in and out too much. I was lucky and did not suffer a loss in the big crashes of 2000 and 2008, but then I also sold too soon and missed some substantial gains.

    If you are young, just do as you are doing. 100% equities in an index fund and do NOT sell in a crash, force yourself to buy instead.

    If you can do that, you will be way ahead. Not too many people have the stomach for it.

  158. [158] 
    Michale wrote:

    Prozac-Girl

    Spiggie says I never have any arguments. I certainly don't bother to argue with HIM.

    How do you KNOW what I am saying?? You are supposed to be blocking me..

    I guess I caught you in ANOTHER lie...

    But Spiggie, John M had a list of points in #135 and you didn't address them. You dodged them because that's all you got.

    And I got YOU to prove that you are NOT blocking me.. In other words, I forced you to prove that you are a liar!!!

    BBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Dance lil Prozac Girl, Dance!!! :D

    Yer a puppet on my string...

  159. [159] 
    Michale wrote:

    Josh Campbell, a supervisory special agent at the FBI, said on Friday in an New York Times op-ed that he was quitting the agency “to join the growing chorus of people who believe that the relentless attacks on the bureau undermine not just America’s premier law enforcement agency but also the nation’s security.” These are the stakes as Campbell sees them:

    TRANSLATION: Campbell had a sweet paying gig lined up with CNN that paid 5 times as much as the FBI...

    Yea, that's you Dumbocrats in a nutshell...

    Always chasing the money....

  160. [160] 
    John M wrote:

    145] C. R. Stucki

    That makes superficial sense on the assumption that unfriendly foreign govt's would normally be expected to disseminate lies, but that is not the case here. Nobody disputes that the hacked Dem emails were authentic, so you appear to be offended that the Trump campaign failed to warn our FBI to the effect of something like, "Hey, FBI, beware of the Russians, we fear that they are about to tell the truth!!!"

    It DOESN'T matter whether the involvement of the Russians was about them spreading lies or the truth. What matters is the very FACT of their involvement. That's what should concern you as an AMERICAN. The fact that it is apparently ok with you as long as it harms those Americans that you are politically opposed to, is what IS THE PROBLEM.

  161. [161] 
    John M wrote:

    [146] C. R. Stucki

    "Really?? You've gotta be the only Dem/Lib that believes that. You can't find a single TV news report, newspaper article, or political blog post where 'Collusion" isn't the leading word!!"

    1) That's only because the first words out of Trump's mouth every time the Russia investigation comes up is that Trump himself says that there was no, or he is not guilty of, collusion. The Press is only reporting on what Trump himself is saying.

    2) Even if the Democrats or Liberals believe it is about collusion, and say so, that still doesn't matter. Because collusion is not what Mueller's investigation is about.

    3) Collusion, by either partisan political side, is just a convenient distraction, shiny object, smoke screen, drawing attention away from the real object of the investigation.

  162. [162] 
    John M wrote:

    [153] Michale

    "JM,

    You can do a search, dumb ass,

    Funny how you don't have a problem with ANY hysterical NeverTrumper who is always name-calling here..

    Which proves you don't really have a problem with name-calling.."

    The subject was that you accused me of personally and specifically of engaging in name calling in my response to C.R. Stucki. When I proved you wrong and that that was not the case, suddenly that's when you made it about other people on here engaging in name calling and suddenly my being somehow supportive of and agreeing with that simply because I don't call them out and condemn them sufficiently to your satisfaction.

  163. [163] 
    Paula wrote:

    [159] The spigot dodges again! John M's points in #135 remain unanswered by you - you pop out some insults and run away. But you don't address the points with real counter-arguments.

    Because you got nuthin.

    You are so easy.

  164. [164] 
    Paula wrote:

    Here's something cool: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/

    From a Republican:

    (1) The GOP has become the party of Trumpism.
    (2) Trumpism is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.
    (3) The Republican Party is a threat to democratic values and the rule of law.

    If the syllogism holds, then the most-important tasks in U.S. politics right now are to change the Republicans’ trajectory and to deprive them of power in the meantime. In our two-party system, the surest way to accomplish these things is to support the other party, in every race from president to dogcatcher. The goal is to make the Republican Party answerable at every level, exacting a political price so stinging as to force the party back into the democratic fold.

    Before and after he explains his reasoning. For instance, and apropos of the Nunes Memo debacle:

    Future generations of scholars will scrutinize the many weird ways that Trump has twisted the GOP. For present purposes, however, let’s focus on the party’s failure to restrain the president from two unforgivable sins. The first is his attempt to erode the independence of the justice system. This includes Trump’s sinister interactions with his law-enforcement apparatus: his demands for criminal investigations of his political opponents, his pressuring of law-enforcement leaders on investigative matters, his frank efforts to interfere with investigations that implicate his personal interests, and his threats against the individuals who run the Justice Department. It also includes his attacks on federal judges, his pardon of a sheriff convicted of defying a court’s order to enforce constitutional rights, his belief that he gets to decide on Twitter who is guilty of what crimes, and his view that the justice system exists to effectuate his will. Some Republicans have clucked disapprovingly at various of Trump’s acts. But in each case, many other Republicans have cheered, and the party, as a party, has quickly moved on. A party that behaves this way is not functioning as a democratic actor.

    He doesn't really like Dems. But he knows its no longer about that - it's about a party that is actively threatening our democracy.

  165. [165] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    153

    Funny how you don't have a problem with ANY hysterical NeverTrumper who is always name-calling here..

    So by your logic here, Mugshot, you've also revealed that you don't have a problem with:

    * Commies
    * Liars
    * Traitors
    * Criminals

    Nice breakthrough on your part, cupcake.

    Hey, y'all... wouldn't it be funny if Paula took Michale's lead and referred to his ass as Heart Attack Nearly Dead But Definitely Dead Broke Fat Baldie? :D

  166. [166] 
    Paula wrote:

    [166] Kick: "Heart Attack Nearly Dead But Definitely Dead Broke Fat Baldie" -- Kick, you're making me feel sorry for Spiggie which is the last thing I want to do.

  167. [167] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    154

    Yea, the Stock Market fell to a point it was at a couple days ago..

    Only to the morons like you who insist that a market correction of several weeks' gains is the equivalent of "a couple days ago."

    Too bad your Orange Worship Benedict Donald spent many months tying his economy to the stock market like only a moron would do. So the idiots like Trump who brag about the "Trump Economy" because "look at the stock market" had already taken ownership of this long, long ago, and every time it sinks like it always will... you morons get to own it no matter what foolish bullshit y'all can puke up and fling like poo. :)

  168. [168] 
    Kick wrote:

    Paula
    167

    Kick, you're making me feel sorry for Spiggie which is the last thing I want to do.

    *LOL* My bad!

    He is a particularly pathetic case, though, in that he insists on posting his personal information whilst simultaneously whining about it when he's already accomplished it years prior and continues to add more because he either can't or won't stop posting his personal shit... and it qualifies as about the dumbest thing you'll see on the entire Internet. :)

  169. [169] 
    Kick wrote:

    Paula
    165

    Here's something cool: http://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2018/03/boycott-the-gop/550907/

    Great article; these guys really nail it.

  170. [170] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Kick,

    I was just about to post that article when I saw you had beat me to it. It is a great article from two people who are not typically left-leaning in their views.

  171. [171] 
    Michale wrote:

    JM,

    It DOESN'T matter whether the involvement of the Russians was about them spreading lies or the truth. What matters is the very FACT of their involvement. That's what should concern you as an AMERICAN. The fact that it is apparently ok with you as long as it harms those Americans that you are politically opposed to, is what IS THE PROBLEM.

    And yet, the Russians have "interfered" in our elections since they were the USSR and beyond..

    And THAT has never bothered you for an instant...

    Face the facts, dood.. The ***ONLY*** reason it bothers you now is because your luser of a candidate lost..

    You and I both know that, if that bitch Hillary had won, you wouldn't be bothered ONE IOTA over any Russian interference..

  172. [172] 
    Michale wrote:

    When I proved you wrong and that that was not the case,

    Where, EXACTLY, did you prove me wrong??

    Answer: You didn't.. You simply denied it..

    You got caught in ANOTHER lie, JM...

    Man enough to admit it?

    Nope..

  173. [173] 
    Michale wrote:

    Because collusion is not what Mueller's investigation is about.

    REALLY!!????

    BBBWWAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

  174. [174] 
    Michale wrote:

    If You Love Law Enforcement, You Must Criticize FBI Corruption
    Strong and effective law enforcement must not unfairly deprive American citizens of their rights.

    http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/05/if-you-love-law-enforcement-you-must-criticize-fbi-corruption/

    Ahhhhh That explains a lot..

    Ya'all hate cops.. And you love the FBI and the CIA and all the other acronyms ya'all USED to hate..

    Why??

    Because ya'all are slaves to Party ideology...

  175. [175] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    156

    Market drop was probably due to Welfare-Girl's New England Patriots losing.. :D

    Now, now, Mugshot Michale, it is not nice to refer to the President of the United States using such names just because y'all's team lost this year. According to Your Orange Worship, those who don't cheer on their President are:

    * Like Death
    * Un-American
    * Treasonous

    Does he mean cheering for every president or just him? Oh, how creepy weird too because I sure remember Republicans not clapping for Obama and Trump tweeting out bullshit on a regular basis about President Obama as well as President Bush 43, but I sure don't remember either of those presidents whining about Trump and the Obama and/or Bush haters as "un-American" and "treasonous."

    As I already proved in my earlier post, you cheered on the Patriots last year and even mentioned Brady's support of Your Orange Worship as the reason the Patriots won, and I'm sorry to burst your ignorant bubble, but I'm just not a fan of the Patriots like you and Benedict Fat Bastard. Those Patriot bitches simply served their useful purpose to me by kicking the skanky assed Jaguars' back to y'all's swamps in Shithole, Florida, and their services were then thusly no longer needed... nothing more than that, sunshine. :)

  176. [176] 
    Kick wrote:

    Russ
    171

    I was just about to post that article when I saw you had beat me to it.

    Ain't it awesome!? Paula beat us both to it. :)

    It is a great article from two people who are not typically left-leaning in their views.

    One of them is Benjamin Wittes... the guy who was posting "tick tick tick boom" tweets on Twitter whenever big news was about to drop... until he quit.

    Those guys do nail it, though. I have many friends in the GOP who feel the exact same way and passed that link to them.

    Thanks, Paula! :)

  177. [177] 
    ListenWhenYouHear wrote:

    Paula, [165]

    Great article!

  178. [178] 
    Michale wrote:

    Welfare-Girl,

    No matter how much you spew, Victoria, you'll never get the bad scent of LUSER that permeates yer very pores..

    Wait a min.. It's Feburary, Victoria.. Isn't it about time for your yearly bath???

    BBBWWWAHAHHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA

    Dance, little welfare-girl.. Dance...

    "It's no wonder your single"
    -Metatron, DOGMA

    :D

  179. [179] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale

    I lost count of the family mugshots; you must be so proud of your crime family... a regular little Trumpian group of criminals except the flat broke and living in a double wide in Shithole, Florida part.

    We here in Weigantia totally understand your bitterness and hatred; your hatred is well established for all to see and permeates nearly every comment, along with the obvious poor judgment and ignorance, of course. Paula is right that you really aren't quite living up to our expectations. We here in Weigantia expect so much more in a board troll, and you really still can do better.

    Troll harder, please. :) *LOL*

    We'd like to see things from Michale's point of view, but we can't get our heads that far up our asses. ~ Weigantia

  180. [180] 
    Michale wrote:

    I lost count of the family mugshots; you must be so proud of your crime family...

    So typical of a bitch that is constantly getting her ass handed to her..

    Attack a poster's family....

    Way to prove that you really are nothing but a scumbag bitch...

  181. [181] 
    Michale wrote:

    My mother died about five years ago, bitch.. Maybe you could have some fun with that... :^/

    Every time I think you scumbags here in People's Republic of Weigantia can't go any lower on the scumbag scale...

    You prove me wrong...

  182. [182] 
    Kick wrote:

    You mad, bro?

    But you call this place your "family" in "Weigantia" and even refer to us on a regular basis as "ya'all" and put us down nearly every day as a group. What's a matter, bro? You can't handle it?

    Well, boo-f***ing-hoo. ~ Rod Tidwell, Jerry Maguire

    Please keep posting your made up BS about us along with your personal information while we'll keep posting the facts because they so obviously hurt, and thank you ever so much for letting us all know. We're all expecting so much more from you than this weak shit, bro:

    Troll harder! :) *LOL*

  183. [183] 
    Michale wrote:

    But you call this place your "family" in "Weigantia" and even refer to us on a regular basis as "ya'all" and put us down nearly every day as a group. What's a matter, bro? You can't handle it?

    I can handle it just fine..

    But when a stuck up bitch you like attacks my family!???

    Well, it just shows exactly where you are coming from...

  184. [184] 
    Kick wrote:

    Awwww. You're not handling it "just fine" at all, bro. Please keep making up your bullshit about our family here bro, and we'll continue to post the facts about yours.

    We here in Weigantia don't make the rules, bro; we just kick your pathetic and whiny ass with them. :)

  185. [185] 
    Michale wrote:

    Awwww. You're not handling it "just fine" at all, bro. Please keep making up your bullshit about our family here bro, and we'll continue to post the facts about yours.

    And another threat...

    So, you are going to continue to drag my family into this if I don't toe your line..

    Once again, the bitch proves that there is nothing too low for her to stoop to...

  186. [186] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    186

    And another threat...

    Threat? No, a threat is that thing you do when you talk about using guns on left wingers, but your active and creative right-wing conspiracy theory nut imagination is alive and well and working on overdrive as per usual.

    What's a matter, bro? Somebody hit a nerve? You can sure dish it out, though. :)

    So, you are going to continue to drag my family into this if I don't toe your line..

    What line is that, Alex Jones? It's simple. You continue to insult me and my family and make multiple jokes about me being single when you have no idea what you're talking about, and I'll naturally insult yours right back. What's your problem with that, bro?

    Once again, the bitch proves that there is nothing too low for her to stoop to...

    You're not taking this well at all, bro. If you can't take the shit you dish out to others, then you could at least not whine like a kitty when somebody gives it right back at you.

    Like I said, I don't make the rules here in Weigantia, I just kick your pathetic and whiny ass with them. Sound familiar? It should. :) *LOL*

  187. [187] 
    Michale wrote:

    What line is that, Alex Jones? It's simple. You continue to insult me and my family and make multiple jokes about me being single when you have no idea what you're talking about, and I'll naturally insult yours right back. What's your problem with that, bro?

    So, I insult you personally and ONLY you personally and you attack my family...

    So pathetically sad....

    A trashed up bitch, rode hard and put away wet...

    That's you, Victoria....

  188. [188] 
    Michale wrote:

    and make multiple jokes about me being single when you have no idea what you're talking about,

    Oh.. Multiple divorces..

    OK, that proves you're a luser that no one wants around....

    Thanx for clearing that up for us...

  189. [189] 
    Kick wrote:

    Michale
    188, 189

    Wrong again, moron... as per your usual.

    But when a stuck up bitch you like attacks my family!???

    Euuwwwww. Freudian slip there, and your parapraxis is revealing indeed. You really are pathetic. You just proved it right there.

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