quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
In a letter obtained by Fox News, committee Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., posed a string of dossier-related questions to current and former intelligence, law enforcement and State Department officials. He specifically wants to know when they learned the document was funded by Democratic sources, and how it was used to obtain one or more surveillance warrants at the secret Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court.

In the Feb. 20-dated letter, Nunes even threatened to issue subpoenas.

"If you do not provide timely answers on a voluntary basis, the Committee will initiate compulsory process,” he wrote.

Since I don't understand how all this works, I am wondering if this list of questions is trying to set a trap by Nunes? What I mean is, we pretty much already know Comey, McCabe, and many others are liars, and there is no reason to believe they will not just lie again. But, if there is an active investigation against the recipients of the questions, then they themselves maybe wiretapped and any collusion among themselves to coordinate answers, will be very damning. On the other hand, Nunes already appears to have evidence, or the DOJ IG has evidence (speculated on by an earlier article in this thread), and forcing the recipients to answer these questions squeezes them between contempt, perjury, or trapping them in their lie. Further, what is the point of keeping the list of Obama officials secret, unless it is to disguise how much Nunes knows about who is involved? Yet another opportunity to trip some players up, if they get caught trying to coordinate answers.

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
New explanatory video from Conservative Treehouse for those who might not have been following this as closely as some of us have:

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="408" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/BFrB50Cy-co" width="725"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Much of this is close to what SDY and I speculated about awhile back.

Great minds think alike!

Part 2 from Conservative Treehouse:

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
Part 2 from Conservative Treehouse:

[FLASH_VIDEO]<iframe frameborder="0" height="408" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/qBpMwRSacUk" width="725"></iframe>[/FLASH_VIDEO]

Pretty good summary of what we have gleaned so far.

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Pretty good summary of what we have gleaned so far.

JALLEN, where do you see this thing going?



.

quote:

Originally posted by TigerDore:

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
Pretty good summary of what we have gleaned so far.

JALLEN, where do you see this thing going?



.

My forecasting is none too good, particularly when it pertains to the future. (Thanks, Yogi!)

I wouldn't want to be Bruce Ohr or his wife right now, or Andy McCabe, Agent Strzok or his girlfriend. They seem to be the ones who acted on this stuff. Maybe Comey has plausible deniability. Sally Yates may be in some trouble, too. Hillary is too far removed from all this, too many buffers, as Willie Cicci put it. One never knows when a whistleblower will appear, of course.

I wonder about the lawyers who hired Fusion GPS, and the owners thereof.

I sure would like to see that FISC order, the 99 page document which is considerably redacted, unredacted. That can’t be good. I’ve read and reread that looking for clues.

This is an amazing video clip from Obama on 18 October 2016. (just before the Nov 2016 election)

Please watch this in view of what we know now.

(saw this on Hannity and looked for it on the net)

https://www.cnn.com/2016/10/18...even-over/index.html

from the link of 18 Oct 2016:

President Barack Obama on Tuesday cast Donald Trump's claims of a rigged election as potentially corrosive to American democracy, insisting that the Republican presidential nominee was griping about an invented conspiracy.

Obama echoed those sentiments Tuesday, saying there's " no serious person out there who would suggest somehow that you could even rig America's elections ."

"I'd advise Mr. Trump to stop whining and go try to make his case to get votes," Obama said. "And if he got the most votes, then it would be my expectation of Hillary Clinton to offer a gracious concession speech and pledge to work with him in order to make sure that the American people benefit from an effective government, and it would be my job to welcome Mr. Trump, regardless of what he said about me, or my differences with him on my opinions, and escort him over to the Capitol, in which there would about peaceful transfer of power."

"That's what Americans do," Obama said

^^^^. That quote needs to be on billboards across the nation. Then Barry needs to be dragged into court and tried for crimes against the State.

quote:

Originally posted by EZ_B:
New explanatory video from Conservative Treehouse for those who might not have been following this as closely as some of us have:

Thank goodness for Mike Rogers. There is at least one person of integrity at the leadership level in our intel community. Perhaps the information in the video you linked above is why Admiral Rogers fell into disfavor with Obama, Clapper and others:

https://www.usnews.com/news/ar...table-for-my-actions

------

HALIFAX, NOVA SCOTIA – Navy Adm. Mike Rogers, chief of U.S. Cyber Command and the National Security Agency, said he was "accountable for his actions" following a report published during a security conference he attended here this weekend that senior administration officials have recommended President Barack Obama remove him amid concerns with his performance and the possible splitting of command duties for the two secretive organizations he leads.

"I'm not going to go down that road," Rogers said, interrupting a journalist who asked about The Washington Post story during a forum where the admiral was speaking.

Trump Names Flynn National Security Adviser
He added, "I'm accountable for my actions."

Citing unnamed U.S. officials, the Post reported that Defense Secretary Ash Carter and outgoing Director of National Intelligence James Clapper recommended last month that Obama remove Rogers, with Carter having concerns about Rogers' performance and Clapper's case driven largely by his and Carter's recommendation that leadership of Cyber Command and the NSA be split. Clapper also reportedly prefers that the NSA be led by a civilian.

Per an official, the report said it had been expected that Rogers would be removed from his position in tandem with a shift in the leadership structure of the two agencies before the Nov. 8 presidential election.

Meanwhile, the 57-year-old admiral's recent trip to New York to meet with President-elect Donald Trump on Thursday also caused "consternation" for the Obama administration, the Post said, in part because it appears unprecedented for an officer like Rogers to conduct such a meeting and not inform his superiors.

Trump reportedly is considering Rogers to replace Clapper, who said Thursday he is retiring from his position overseeing all of the U.S. government's 17 intelligence agencies. It is also not believed Carter will stay on in the Trump administration, which continues to vet candidates for defense secretary, including retired Marine Gen. James Mattis.

The Atlantic's Steve Clemons, who was moderating a panel featuring Rogers at the Halifax International Security Forum, hinted at Rogers' meeting with Trump earlier in the forum by jokingly asking the admiral, "How was 'Hamilton'?"

"Next question," Rogers said quickly.

Storied Spy, Snowden Critic James Clapper to…
During the discussion, Rogers advocated for the breakup of the two agencies he leads, though that prospect has concerned some cybersecurity professionals over fears that Cyber Command, a military headquarters, and the NSA, which focuses on surveillance and cryptology, would work at cross-purposes.

Others see a benefit from the largely digitally focused agencies in part competing against one another, particularly amid accusations highlighted in the Post report that Cyber Command has been slow to counter the digital activities of the Islamic State group.


"I believe in the long run pulling them apart but keeping them closely aligned is the right thing to do," Rogers said. "We spent years building this. I think it's going to take some period of time to make sure we prepare to separate them and ensure the long-term successes of both organizations."

"The worst outcome is that we pursue a course of action that results in risking the mission for either organization."

It will be very interesting to learn the details of ADM Rogers role and activities in this debacle.

Based on what I've seen, he was the hero, maybe the first of several, in bringing it to light.

Link to original video: https://youtu.be/w7I_y5qCUPc

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:
It will be very interesting to learn the details of ADM Rogers role and activities in this debacle.

Based on what I've seen, he was the hero, maybe the first of several, in bringing it to light.

I agree, and I hope that is the case. I don't think the good guys win without a hero or two from the inside.



.

This editorial was in the Sunday Arizona repugnant.

Copied below, link here: https://www.azcentral.com/stor...true-grit/344560002/

Boas: How can Trump supporters back someone so crude? This 1969 movie has the answers

Philip Boas, opinion columnist Published 3:51 p.m. MT Feb. 16, 2018 | Updated 4:19 p.m. MT Feb. 16, 2018

Phil Boas: Donald Trump is crude. He lacks character. But evangelicals and senior citizens wanted a 'greasy vagabond' to fight on their behalf.

True Grit
Col. G. Stonehill: Do you entertain plans of ever leaving this city?
Mattie Ross: Yes, I'm off early tomorrow morning for the Indian nation. Marshal Rooster Cogburn and I are going after the murderer, Tom Chaney.
Col. G. Stonehill: Cogburn. How did you light on that greasy vagabond?
Mattie Ross: They say he has grit. I wanted a man with grit.
Col. G. Stonehill: Well, I suppose he has that. He's a notorious thumper. He's not a man I would care to share a bed with.
Mattie Ross: Nor would I.
- From the 1969 motion picture “True Grit”

* * *

Why were we so wrong about Trump?
Donald Trump was not supposed to be president. The national demographic had been trending to greater diversity, more women and ethnic minorities mobilizing and voting.

But Trump won. And we in media needed to understand why.

At The Arizona Republic we invited groups of Trump voters to talk about their choice for president. I began one of those meetings saying, “I’m angry at you. Like me you’re conservative, Republican and college-educated, and you don’t see what I see in that guy?”

The response was brief.

They do.

Trump goes against all of their values
Evangelicals are leaping to President Trump’s defense over his alleged 2006 encounter with porn star Stormy Daniels. Nathan Rousseau Smith (@FantasticMrNate) explains why. Buzz60
It’s one of the most intriguing questions about Trump. How could conservative voters, the rank and file of the GOP, vote for a man so crude and lacking in personal character?

Why are the elderly who grew up with values of faith and family, modesty and humility, the biggest cheerleaders of a man whose personal conduct violates virtually all of their bedrock values?

GABRIEL: Evangelicals are hypocrites to support Donald Trump
And why have Evangelicals embraced a politician
who beds other women, brags to excess, belittles people with disabilities, practices “textbook racism” and whose lawyer admitted paying hush money to a porn star?

How did they all “light on that greasy vagabond”?
The answer is Rooster Cogburn.
They traded values for rough justice

Donald Trump is Rooster Cogburn – a fat, undisciplined, ornery old cuss who became the man of the moment just because he is all of those things and worse.

The novel “True Grit” and its two film adaptations tell the tale of a 14-year-old girl who hires a besotted badass past his prime to go get the man who killed her father.

Mattie Ross has nothing in common with one-eyed Rooster. Or so it would seem. She’s a tiny thing, a Southern Presbyterian, prim and proper on her pony, Little Blackie. Well scrubbed and fond of quoting scripture, she's the very opposite of Cogburn, whose wild hair and overlapping gut testify only to a life of overindulgence.

But Mattie hires Cogburn because the gunman Tom Chaney murdered her father and she wants, not justice, but rough justice, someone of exceptional brutality who will take the job and finish it.

* * *

'I want (him) to hang'
"It's little to me how many dogs and senators he killed in Texas," Mattie Ross says in the 1969 movie.
"It's little to me how many dogs and senators he killed in Texas," Mattie Ross says in the 1969 movie.
"[Mattie comes to get Rooster and finds him talking with Texas Ranger LaBoeuf]
Mattie Ross: This man (LaBoeuf) wants to take Chaney back to Texas. That's not what I want.
Rooster Cogburn: He wants him caught and punished - so do you.
Mattie Ross: I want Tom Chaney to hang for killing my father. It's little to me how many dogs and senators he killed in Texas.
Rooster Cogburn: You can tell him to his face, you can spit in his eye, you can make him eat sand out of the road, you can shoot him in the foot and I'll hold him for you - but first we gotta catch him."
- From the 1969 motion picture “True Grit”

* * *

Our politics have become tribal
Among national news stories, it wasn’t much. “People who practice yoga contribute to white supremacy, professor claims.”

If ever a headline induced eye rolls it was this one.
But there it was in the New York Post, over the story of actually two professors who argue white Americans have ruthlessly appropriated yoga, “while ignoring the well-being and liberation of Indian people.”

Graciously, the professors offered a way out.
“(White people) must ask,” they wrote, “in what ways are we complicit in a system that harms people of color, queer and trans people, poor people, people with disabilities, and immigrants?”

Even liberal Democrats see the idiocy in this – that white people contorting their bodies in spandex amount to cultural theft. If that’s true, give back spaghetti, all you non-Italians who savor noodles with marinara.
A story of such wretched excess is valuable only because it illustrates in the extreme an attitude gaining currency as the United States grows more racially and ethnically diverse. Minority politics have become more tribal, with blacks, Latinos, gays and women demanding greater acceptance and influence in the public square.

Donald Trump is how white people riot
The United States decided long ago to open its doors to immigrants and has benefitted greatly from that rich milieu. We are highly creative society that adopts from cultures the world over thanks to our immigrants who bring them here. I love this about the United States. I think it’s our anchor.

Our immigrants and other minorities are doing the most American of things – they’re “leaning in.” They’re demanding what is theirs. The Democratic Party, which became the home of the mistreated and disadvantaged, has encouraged this tribalism and has helped raise the prosperity of all groups on the margins.
But identity politics have their limit. And when every tribe is pointing its finger at the white majority and calling it oppressor, eventually the white majority grows weary of its assigned role in the drama.

ROBB: Trump will win in 2020 if the left keeps calling him a racist
When you add to that a generational recession and the palpable sense among that majority that their own economic prospects are in perpetual decline, you get revolt.

Donald Trump is what white people look like when they riot. Donald Trump is the resistance.
And the people who hired him to do a job are untroubled by his character. If he is cold blooded, all the better. If he is unburdened by conscience, great.

They were sending a miserable man to do a miserable job.

* * *

'I never shot nobody I didn't have to'
Jeff Bridges took on the John Wayne role of Rooster Coburn in the 2010 remake of "True Grit."
Jeff Bridges took on the John Wayne role of Rooster Coburn in the 2010 remake of "True Grit." (Photo: Paramount Pictures)

"Goudy: [lawyer cross-examining Rooster] How many men have you shot since you became a marshal, Mr. Cogburn?
Rooster Cogburn: I never shot nobody I didn't have to.
Goudy: That was not the question. How many?
Rooster Cogburn: Uh ... shot or killed?
Goudy: Oh, let's restrict it to killed so we may have a manageable figure.
- From the 1969 motion picture “True Grit”

* * *

Trump's campaign had no manners
In the primary and general election he broke every mannered tradition. He launched his campaign boasting of great wealth and undeniable intelligence. Then he instantly slipped into his more natural role of loud-mouthed provocateur, bashing, blaming and fuming on Twitter.

A man who operates on pure impulse, he was the “notorious thumper” in debate, slinging crude insults at Republican opponents “Little Marco,” “Low-energy Jeb” and “Lyin’, Lyin’ Ted.”
He joked about the size of his genitalia on national television and paraded women before the cameras to accuse his opponent’s husband of being a vulturous lech – the same vulturous lech at least a dozen other women claimed Trump had been to them.

And his supporters didn’t care.
When the Access Hollywood tape surfaced with Trump confessing to grabbing this and mounting that, the Trump legions held.

He's an asshole. But he's our asshole

To them, as one Trump supporter told us, Barack Obama is the radical, dropping massive health-care reform on a country stalled in recession. His runaway regulatory state added to the burden of small business and turned a Great Recession into a jobless recovery.

Further, the Washington swamp is more than Democrats. It is also do-nothing Republicans, who grow fat in the wallet while the country goes to hell.

They had tried more polite conservatives – the McCains and Romneys – but they couldn’t win elections. So they found someone who would brawl.

He embodied virtually all of the worst qualities of human behavior, and they knew it, yes, they knew it. And they didn’t give a damn. “There’s a large block of people, including sophisticated people, who are just so sick of Washington, who will overlook almost anything as long as he shapes it up,” said former House Speaker Newt Gingrich.

Putting it more succinctly was Duncan Hunter, conservative congressman from California: “He’s an asshole. But he’s our asshole.”

In the growing tribalism of American politics, Trump was taking a page from the Democrats. He was turning white people into their own tribe, filled with resentment, nursing grievances, wallowing in their own palpable sense of victimhood. If the left could go scorched earth, so could the right.
We all waited to see if Trump would shape up as president, but his serial bad behavior through the transition and first weeks of the White House told us he was incapable of good behavior. This is what scrappers do. They don't do protocol.

“We’re tired of being kicked around by Barack Obama and his leftists,” said Tony Perkins, president of the evangelical activist group Family Research Council. “I think (evangelicals) are finally glad that there’s somebody on the playground that is willing to punch the bully.”

Asked why the Christian right isn’t turning the other cheek, he said, “You know, you only have two cheeks. Look, Christianity is not all about being a welcome mat which people can just stomp their feet on.”

Why this is bad for our country
The entire country now is factional. The blacks have their tribe. The Latinos have theirs. The gays are a tribe and so are the feminists. And now a white faction filled with resentment has formed ranks behind Trump.

None of this is good for the country. Show me a family in which all the members look out only for themselves and I’ll show you an unhealthy family.

The Founders warned of factionalism and created a government to blunt it. But factionalism is here and it's overrunning the republic.

Everyone is out for themselves in a primal contest for power and influence. And the Trump supporters are no different. They just got an old brute to do their bidding.

We can fix this. But everyone has to change.
And it can’t just be the white people.

* * *

"Mattie Ross: [watching Rooster load his revolver] Why do you keep that one chamber empty?
Rooster Cogburn: So I won't shoot my foot off.”
- From the 1969 motion picture “True Grit”

Reach Boas at phil.boas@arizonarepublic.com.

quote:

Originally posted by Hunthelp:
This editorial was in the Sunday Arizona repugnant.


>> snip <<

Entertaining, to some, nonsense to anyone who knows the history of the US and the more or less constant friction between the folks here a long time and the new arrivals. Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, Catholics, and all variations, abd others, all faced a struggle to assimulate and establish themselves here.

This is a reaction to Obama’s effort, with some success, to “fundamentally transform America” into a socialist hellhole, and many don’t like that, won't have it.

Look around. Female capitalists do well. Black capitalists do well. Hispanic capitalists do well. Those socialists, not so much, so often. There isn’t enough free shit to go around, and never will be.

Those groups who came to these shores in their turn had to struggle, but they were more or less free to do so, within the limits of their energy, intelligence and desire. Now government is the limit all too often.

Andrew McCarthy who has written informatively and knowledgeably about all these matters has a very complete essay about Presidential power, indictment, impeachment, the special counsel, etc. too lengthy to cut and paste, but worth the read.

Link

Jim, once in a while you come up with something that deserves to be chiseled in stone, or at least in internet text.

A story about one of the primes sources of the Steele dossier has resurfaced.

In the dossier, Steele identifies the sources as A-G

A senior Russian Foreign Ministry
B former top level Russians intel officer / still in the Kremlin
C senior Russian financial official
D close associate Donald Trump
E ethnic Russian close associate Donald Trump
F female staffer at hotel
G senior Kremlin official

The story that has resurfaced is that source D and E is the same person - one Sergei Millian.

http://dailycaller.com/2018/02...vestigation-dossier/

Congressional committees investigating Russian interference in the presidential campaign have tried for months to track down Sergei Millian, a Belarus-born translator who serves as chairman for a small trade group called the Russian-American Chamber of Commerce, ABC News reported.

Millian was identified by The Wall Street Journal, ABC News and The Washington Post in 2017 as the unwitting source for some of the dossier’s most jarring and unverified allegations, including that the Kremlin is blackmailing President Donald Trump and that members of the campaign coordinated with Russian operatives.

It remains unclear whether the FBI or Special Counsel Robert Mueller have interviewed Millian, who is believed to reside in New York City.

yes. one of the main sources is thought to live in NYC

Millian has denied being a source for Steele, but he has avoided speaking directly to the media about whether he may have provided information that ended up in the dossier without his knowledge.

Millian, whose real name is Siarhei Kukuts, has had some contact with at least one Trump campaign adviser and has claimed to have worked as a broker for Trump’s real estate company.

Millian’s strongest known connection to the campaign is through George Papadopoulos

Papadopoulos’s fiancé, Simona Mangiante, confirmed to The Daily Caller News Foundation that Millian approached Papadopoulos after he joined the campaign in March 2016. The pair struck up a friendship, said Mangiante.

A source who spoke with Millian during the campaign told The Daily Caller in 2017 that he believed he would obtain a position in the Trump administration in the event of a Trump victory. The source said they believed that Millian was overly enthusiastic about his chances of working with the Trump team.

That assessment fits with what others have said about Millian. One friend of the entrepreneur’s told The Washington Post in 2017 that Millian “presented himself with grandeur.”

another wannabe

Michael Cohen, a lawyer for the Trump Organization, has also accused Millian of misrepresenting his connections to Trump.

In an interview with The Daily Caller in 2017, Cohen called Millian a “phony” and claimed that he instructed Millian to stop contacting him shortly before the election after he emailed trying to set up a business event with Trump in New York or Switzerland.

The Daily Caller has also reported that Millian was spotted just days before Steele began work on his dossier at an economic summit in St. Petersburg, Russia. Millian’s Facebook account includes photos showing him speaking with Oleg Deripaska, a Russian oligarch who is a former business partner of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort

Deripaska’s American lobbyist, Adam Waldman, claimed in text message exchanges in 2017 with Virginia Sen. Mark Warner, a Democrat, that he was in touch with Steele.

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

So Millian is a "close associate of Donald Trump" but his strongest connection to the campaign is Geo Papadoplous, an unpaid low level volunteer.

Amazing that Christopher Steele, the super Russian expert of MI6, would get some of the "dossier’s most jarring and unverified allegations" from a guy who lives in NYC.

Those jarring allegations were in Steele's first report of 20 June 2016 that he took to the FBI on 5 July 2016.

BTW, one thing that is true is that DEM senator Mark Warner secretly negotiated w Waldman for months to meet one on one w Christopher Steele.

If this conspiracy ever gets sorted out, I think some of these strange associations
will be shown to be set ups.

If all of this seems terribly confusing, this article might help to clarify some of it:

http://dailycaller.com/2018/02...investigation-links/

quote:

Originally posted by JALLEN:

quote:

Originally posted by Hunthelp:
This editorial was in the Sunday Arizona repugnant.


>> snip <<

Entertaining, to some, nonsense to anyone who knows the history of the US and the more or less constant friction between the folks here a long time and the new arrivals. Irish, Italians, Poles, Germans, Catholics, and all variations, abd others, all faced a struggle to assimulate and establish themselves here.

This is a reaction to Obama’s effort, with some success, to “fundamentally transform America” into a socialist hellhole, and many don’t like that, won't have it.

Look around. Female capitalists do well. Black capitalists do well. Hispanic capitalists do well. Those socialists, not so much, so often. There isn’t enough free shit to go around, and never will be.

Those groups who came to these shores in their turn had to struggle, but they were more or less free to do so, within the limits of their energy, intelligence and desire. Now government is the limit all too often.

Fantastic observation. Bravo.

Mueller files a host of new charges against Manafort and Gates.

First read looks like all these are bank fraud and tax evasion many involving foreign accounts.


new charges:

https://www.politico.com/f/?id...6b-ade9-fffc2bee0001


https://www.politico.com/story...anafort-gates-422335

Special counsel Robert Mueller turned up the pressure on former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and aide Rick Gates, as a federal grand jury returned a new indictment Thursday charging the two men with tax and bank fraud.

The new 32 count indictment returned by a grand jury in Alexandria, Virginia comes after Mueller separately charged the pair in Washington last year with money laundering and failing to register as foreign agents for their work related to Ukraine.

The new indictment accuses Manafort and Gates of repeatedly understating their income on federal tax returns and of bank fraud surrounding three loans Manafort applied for in connection with various homes he owns.

Prosecutors said the case against Manafort and Gates that was previously filed in Washington will continue, although it appears a few charges from that indictment are being moved to the Virginia case.

The parallel legal cases will increase the complexity and cost of the legal defense for Manafort and Gates. Gates' legal team is already seeking to withdraw for reasons that have not been explained publicly.

Awesome CPAC speech!