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You can select photo at any moment since they are snapped a million in series :P

They were holding hands nicely/casually when receiving the Macrons....video matters much more for judgement imo.

Yeah but that was funny how he crept in there with his pinky first, kinda carefully making his way in there since that one time she batted that little hand away, lol. :D
 
Yeah but that was funny how he crept in there with his pinky first, kinda carefully making his way in there since that one time she batted that little hand away, lol. :D

Yeah the pinky was hillarious....yes yes yes???....and NO :P
 
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:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: @kanye tweets + bigly triggering it has caused

@Desert Fox @Hamartia Antidote @undertakerwwefan

Looks like finally, a few black celebrities are making a break out of the groupthink plantation, saying screw the Pravda BS.....and realising its pretty fun mocking those that staunchly remain behind ( who are getting triggered at all of this big time). Hopefully it creates an even larger defection over time.


About first 30 minutes (feel free to skip thru, its pretty hillarious + serious analysis in parts):


If a chunk of woke, red pilled black people form (i.e I have heard as small as 5 - 10% swing needed in some places)....its basically game over for democrat party....they invested all they had into the far left identity politics....now they are getting their comeuppance and karma.

I am watching with interest :p: @Ashes @Mage @Gomig-21

BTW @Desert Fox , I told ya it was just kabuki part II in syria.
 
=====================

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: @kanye tweets + bigly triggering it has caused

@Desert Fox @Hamartia Antidote @undertakerwwefan

Looks like finally, a few black celebrities are making a break out of the groupthink plantation, saying screw the Pravda BS.....and realising its pretty fun mocking those that staunchly remain behind ( who are getting triggered at all of this big time). Hopefully it creates an even larger defection over time.


About first 30 minutes (feel free to skip thru, its pretty hillarious + serious analysis in parts):


If a chunk of woke, red pilled black people form (i.e I have heard as small as 5 - 10% swing needed in some places)....its basically game over for democrat party....they invested all they had into the far left identity politics....now they are getting their comeuppance and karma.

I am watching with interest :p: @Ashes @Mage @Gomig-21

BTW @Desert Fox , I told ya it was just kabuki part II in syria.
I'm not seeing much enthusiasm for Trump among blacks aside from a few cases like Kanye. Though the trend of not caring about both parties definitely feels present.

Didn't Kanye already endorse him before?
 
=====================

:rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl::rofl: @kanye tweets + bigly triggering it has caused

@Desert Fox @Hamartia Antidote @undertakerwwefan

Looks like finally, a few black celebrities are making a break out of the groupthink plantation, saying screw the Pravda BS.....and realising its pretty fun mocking those that staunchly remain behind ( who are getting triggered at all of this big time). Hopefully it creates an even larger defection over time.



About first 30 minutes (feel free to skip thru, its pretty hillarious + serious analysis in parts):



If a chunk of woke, red pilled black people form (i.e I have heard as small as 5 - 10% swing needed in some places)....its basically game over for democrat party....they invested all they had into the far left identity politics....now they are getting their comeuppance and karma.

I am watching with interest :p: @Ashes @Mage @Gomig-21
Wow, man that's good :lol: look at CNN's reaction!! @Mark Dice's facial expressions/reaction is priceless as usual.

I believe Kanye endorsed Trump during the 2016 election campaign. It's good to see his wife and in-laws backing him though and other Black rappers coming out in support for him too.

But the reaction of the MSM is what's extremely childish and rash. Calling Kanye a "darling" of the Alt-Right, like really?
BTW @Desert Fox , I told ya it was just kabuki part II in syria.
True, you were right. Hopefully it will never exceed that point.
 
I'm not seeing much enthusiasm for Trump among blacks aside from a few cases like Kanye. Though the trend of not caring about both parties definitely feels present.

Didn't Kanye already endorse him before?

Point is now the far left (and Ben correctly asks why the hell does far left crap become the mainstream left position in less than 5 minutes?) is overtly (even with those people that are not into politics in social media) taking the position that only their think is the correct one and you are literally evil if you leave them in any way that they also define.

This is exactly what Leia meant when she said "the tighter you grip, the more slips through your fingers".....and with the black community there need not really be a mass shift or anything....just a 10% (or even as low as 5%) swing away from democrats ruins the political strategy for them.

Going after Kanye like this (who now easily solidifies the freethinker position with little effort) for pretty much no reason (Kanye has said he also "loves" Hillary, his wife was a fundraiser for Hillary etc)....after having previously made him into a darling (when he went after Bush as "not liking black people")....is definitely a real stupid, desperate thing to do for the far-left/left (it will only blowback now, and take away sensitive % points of broader support)...but I guess their nature just cannot help it....it is all about absolute control, with strait jackets long term if needed.

I am no fan of Kanye, his wife or the rest of the hollywood/music industry ppl, BUT the point is he has illustrated just how easily triggered the left becomes when you decide to shift from them even a little bit....and more importantly that it is FUN to trigger them :P

I believe Kanye endorsed Trump during the 2016 election campaign. It's good to see his wife and in-laws backing him though and other Black rappers coming out in support for him too.

But the reaction of the MSM is what's extremely childish and rash. Calling Kanye a "darling" of the Alt-Right, like really?

Yep watch the domino effect. Its about time a few woke celebrities called this all out as a free thinking vs controlled 1984 big brother....rather than the plain grey "left vs right" stuff the left wants it to be.

True, you were right. Hopefully it will never exceed that point.

Yep...there is a pattern here of interplay between Trump and Deep State that is quite interesting all by itself.
 
@Mage @Joe Shearer @Gibbs @Godman @jhungary @Vergennes @Ashes

Would like for you all to read this (when you have a little time to spare) and tell me what you think of it.

https://www.heritage.org/political-...overnment-how-government-shapes-the-character

A Moral Case Against Big Government: How Government Shapes the Character, Vision, and Virtue of Citizens
by Ryan Messmore

Introduction

To advocate good government is to recognize the indispensable role that political authority plays in a healthy community. To advocate limited government is to understand that not everything necessary for a community to be healthy is the responsibility of government. A good but limited government is one that serves its citizens by exercising well its particular task and refraining from other tasks. Essential to government's particular task is ensuring that other social institutions are free to exercise their own particular tasks.

Identifying the proper tasks and limits of various social institutions is bound up with a society's understanding of the good life and the good community-its moral vision of its defining goods and purposes. The case for good, limited government is therefore incomplete if it proceeds only in terms of the effects upon individual freedom or the fiscal implications of expanded government programs. Governing is a moral task, and the size and scope of government have moral implications for society, including its members' ability to fulfill their ethical obligations to one another.

The primary task of government is administering judgment according to standards of justice. Because law by its very nature concerns moral judgments, a government that stands under the rule of law presupposes the existence of a moral order, expresses the social concept of that order, and in turn encourages the fundamental moral principles of a society, particularly regarding justice. Citizens' assumptions and expectations of government therefore shape not only their national character, but also their approach to issues like poverty and economic justice. Moreover, our assumptions about government influence the formation of the social bonds required to cultivate virtue, and thus sustain freedom, as well as the way citizens think about and relate to neighbors in need.

Sustaining limited government and freedom turns on the question of how virtue is cultivated and which communities and institutions are most appropriate for this task. Local forms of association, especially the family and religious congregations, generate the thick, personal bonds that unite and motivate individuals toward the good for themselves and others. The proper exercise of political authority articulates a society's understanding of good through law and enacts judgment upon those who violate it through certain acts of wrongdoing. Citizens thus render a proper level of trust and appreciation for the crucial role that good government plays in a healthy society.

As government assumes greater political authority, however, it is more able to shape the terms of public discourse and draw to itself expectations and levels of trust beyond those appropriate to good government, often at the expense of smaller institutions of civil society. Such a shift in the public's attitude toward expansive government can weaken democracy, given that diversification of authority among local associations is a strong check against government tyranny. Moreover, not only does unhealthy reliance upon government social programs discourage genuine compassion and personal relations between wealthy and poor citizens, but the cost of funding such programs actually threatens future generations with unsustainable debt. A good but limited government will thus acknowledge that other social institutions are better able to cultivate virtuous citizens, care for those in need, and further true democratic freedom while exercising its own crucial responsibility to protect its citizens and social institutions from injustice.


How Big Government Shapes Public Imagination

Today the United States government claims responsibility to provide a vast number of goods and services, which increases its potential to influence the attitudes and expectations-the public imagination-of its citizens.

The national government provides all citizens with protection of basic freedoms, national security and defense, a judicial court system, federal prisons, immigration control, stable financial markets, free trade, and a national currency.
It also aims to provide a reliable infrastructure, public schools, affordable energy, clean air and water, safe foods and medicines, innovative technologies, postal service, national parks and recreational sites, arts and humanities programs, emergency relief, space exploration, a national library, railroad corporation, archives, and botanic garden and numerous other goods.
In addition, federal social programs supply money, food stamps, housing, prescription drugs, medical care, transportation, training, counseling, rehabilitation programs, and other forms of care to the persistently poor, the provisionally poor, the elderly, the sick, the addicted, the immobile, the unemployed, the uneducated, the undereducated, the unmarried with children, children without parents, and children who are parents.

On the other side of the equation, the government expects citizens to render due allegiance in a variety of ways. At a minimum, the government asks its citizens to pledge allegiance to its flag; to value certain concepts such as individual freedom, religious liberty, popular sovereignty, and private ownership; to obey the rule of law and the rulings of the judicial process; and to be willing to fight and die for its defense. Most AmericThe Entitlement Mentality's Distortion of Our Vision of Moral Responsibilityans comply with such requests for allegiance, viewing them as both prudential and patriotic measures.

In other areas, government does not ask, but requires, certain actions. Citizens must pay taxes, meet official regulations, and obey specific laws to avoid fine or imprisonment. Most citizens also acknowledge these kinds of demands as necessary for a functioning nation-state (even if they disagree with specific policies and laws).

What goes less noticed is the subtle influence that the government's power of enforcement wields on the public imagination. The official, explicit, first-order authority to mandate payment of taxes and to enforce laws carries informal, implicit, derivative powers. These include the power to promote certain causes, prioritize certain risks, endorse certain values and beliefs, uphold certain standards, encourage certain expectations, and define and interpret certain terms. For example, the government dictates that American taxpayers must contribute to certain retirement savings mechanisms established by the government; give financial support to value-laden programs (such as diversity training in government agencies); and bankroll supposedly secular public schools whose curricula are inevitably embedded with assumptions about the true, good, and beautiful.

Moreover, the expansion of government carries over into the power to define influential legal categories and terms-such as what counts as discrimination, secular, and marriage. It also shapes social expectations and outlooks among citizens-such as where to look for assistance (the welfare state); who to blame in times of crisis (FEMA, the President, the Federal Reserve); and what people are entitled to by right (privacy, cheap prescription drugs, same-sex marriage, etc.).

The central place the government occupies among serious public discussions and debates about such issues as health care or welfare testifies to its centripetal influence over the thoughts and expectations of its citizens. Public discourse often implies that the national government is the primary-if not only-institution responsible for addressing pressing issues that face us as individuals and communities.

Rather than asking who should take responsibility for an issue (whether, family, neighborhood, government, religious congregation, etc.), the public debate too often blithely assumes that the answer is government and instead focuses on how it should address the problem. For example, when the issues of health care and welfare are raised in public discourse, they are often referenced in terms of "the health care debate" or "welfare reform" in general, with government as the implied referent. Seldom does public discourse acknowledge the possibility of other institutions taking an important role in addressing such issues: Seldom does it include talk of "this congregation's health care debate" (i.e., the discussion going on among a group of religious co-congregants about how they will address the health care needs within and around their community) or "that neighborhood's welfare reform" (i.e., the projects a community has undertaken to form a network of mutual support and interdependence for those in need). Government crowds out other institutions from the public imagination, and this is reflected and reinforced by prevailing public discourse.

In short, the powers to pass laws and collect taxes entail the power to define, to some extent, the terms of public understanding, involvement, and debate. In this way, government has power to help shape citizens' thoughts, words, and deeds and influence where they place their trust, hope, and expectations.[16]

Policymakers and government officials should neither ignore the power that comes with the exercise of political authority nor pretend that government's task can be morally neutral. A good but limited government should acknowledge that it governs according to a certain conception of good and right but has a limited role in bringing about or realizing that conception. The government's responsibility vis-à-vis the good and right is judgment: The government judges social relationships and activities in light of a moral vision.[17] This differs from a more expansive understanding of government's role-the kind that justifies the nanny state, whereby, for example, the state replaces local, non-government initiatives that actively pursue public goods with its own programs.

Misplaced Allegiance Threatens Democracy

Citizens' cultural allegiances to family, church, and local associations, claims Nisbet, are some of "the most powerful resources of democracy." [18] The diversification of authority and allegiance among social institutions helps to prevent any one institution from becoming too powerful. In the words of 19th century French priest and political writer Felicite Robert de Lamennais, "Who says liberty, says association." [19]

A healthy democratic society trusts its government to exercise certain defined tasks. Citizens actually weaken democracy, however, by placing in the government the trust, hope, and loyalty that properly belong to local associations. Government officials encourage this erosion when they use rhetoric that implies that they can "save" people from society's most serious problems by top-down social engineering or that government programs are primarily responsible for overcoming these ills. This comes close to utopian thinking, implying that the state has omnicompetence that rivals God's.

When government exercises power outside its proper boundaries, not only does it assume responsibilities that it is not qualified to fulfill, but it also undermines its legitimate task of protecting freedom and justice. By taking over the functions of smaller institutions, rendering them less socially relevant, government weakens the check against tyranny that diversification of authorities provides. A nation-state avoids both explicit and implicit establishment of religion when it encourages citizens to give government only the amount of trust, hope, and loyalty it deserves without diminishing their trust or allegiance in other institutions and authorities. The trust and loyalty that are appropriate to government derive from the indispensable role that it plays in promoting justice and punishing injustice in society, a function without which the social bonds and cooperative behavior that comprise healthy communities would be jeopardized.

In sum, the authority that citizens vest in government carries significant moral implications. The amount of responsibility ceded to or claimed by government can shape attitudes, motivations, expectations, and even the terms in which we debate public issues. Moreover, the government can influence the cultivation of character and the strength of social bonds by protecting virtue-forming institutions such as the family or religious congregations against unjust interference from other institutions, including the state.

Another important aspect of the government's moral influence upon society is its contribution toward a pervasive mentality that interprets the state's responsibility toward its citizens through a hyperindividualistic lens of entitlement. The case for a good but limited government should also recognize the deleterious effects of this mentality and the corresponding cost of government-funded social programs on our moral vision and the social relationships that bind us together.

The Problematic Notion of Government as Provider

The moral vision according to which government officials make judgments about the common good entails fundamental ideas about human nature, justice, moral obligation, and responsibility. Given the power of government to shape the attitudes and discourse of its citizenry, the particular moral notions dominant in government not only depend upon, but also contribute to and reinforce the moral vision of the larger society.

A conception of broad government responsibility to provide for those in need has exercised great influence since the days of Franklin Roosevelt's New Deal. This in turn has fed a notion of individual entitlement. "Necessitous men are not free men," said President Roosevelt in 1944, expounding a long list of goods that government should supply its citizens to ensure their freedom and security-which he called a new bill of rights-including decent housing, health care, and a good job.[20] Those who conceive of government responsibility and individual rights in this expansive way argue that the nation's responsibility to care for its citizens in need calls for more, not less, government power, authority, and spending. They often therefore justify ballooning federal budgets on moral grounds, assuming that corporate care and concern for other human beings must correlate with spending more on government-funded social programs.

A closer examination reveals that raising federal spending is not the only way that we can corporately address need, nor is it the most just, effective, compassionate, or responsible way to meet our moral obligations to those in need. The idea that individuals are owed an ever-increasing number of rights by the government weakens the concept of justice by approaching it only from the side of the isolated individual. Moreover, the "care" provided by government social programs-often in the form of impersonal checks-is less holistic and humanizing than that provided by smaller, more personal approaches.

Beyond being less just and compassionate, expensive government social programs can lead to additional unhealthy moral consequences, including damaging dependence on government handouts and unsustainable budget deficits for future generations. Finally, this "government as provider" mentality can foster a sense of resentment among taxpayers, sapping our propensity to give and receive gifts and misconstruing the social obligations that bind us together, thus further weakening the moral fiber of our nation.


The Entitlement Mentality's Incomplete Notion of Justice

Voluntary sacrifice of one's time or money to give to the poor, the sick, and the elderly is a virtue. Indeed, one could argue that healthy communities depend upon some members giving to other members who are in need. And it is certainly proper for those in need to ask for help from others. However, the notion that people are entitled to or deserve other people's time or money is not the best moral rationale for giving to those who are in need.


The Entitlement Mentality's Ineffective Compassion

The word "compassion" means "suffering with," while care implies acting in ways that provide assistance while avoiding harm. Compassionate care is the kind of aid or attention that comes alongside those who suffer and acknowledges their dignity. In contrast to government social service programs, the myriad unsung heroes who come alongside those who suffer and give of themselves voluntarily and often without compensation better express justice, responsibility, and compassion and can provide more holistic and humanizing care by fostering face-to-face interaction and relationships with those in need.


The Entitlement Mentality's Short-sighted View of Social Obligation

Society has a moral obligation to help the poor, the sick, and the elderly.[23] However, government-funded programs fail to meet such obligations in the most just or compassionate way, and the rising cost of funding these programs also ignores other moral obligations-namely, those directed to all citizens, including the needy, in future generations.


The Entitlement Mentality's Distortion of Our Vision of Moral Responsibility

Government social service programs also shape the way citizens think about and relate to neighbors in need. These programs encourage a vision of their recipients not as holistic persons with dignity, but as bundles of costly needs or, worse, wretched dependents. On the other hand, such programs support a view of the wealthy in impersonal, financially reductionist terms-not as responsible servants, but as revenue sources.


Conclusion

The moral nature of governing and the moral implications for society of the nature, size, and scope of government are inescapable. The case for limited government will therefore inevitably need to take these moral considerations into account. A government that understands its main responsibility to be that of administering judgment in terms of justice will play an essential, and essentially limited, role in sustaining a healthy society. A good but limited government will both exercise the authority it is competent to wield-i.e., the power to use legitimate force to defend right-and provide conditions of justice in which local associations can exercise the authority that rightly belongs to them.

The moral case for good but limited government rests on the competency of other institutions to provide for the needs of citizens and to cultivate the virtues necessary to fulfill the moral obligations that sustain a free society. Not only can the fundamental institutions of family and religious congregations, as well as other communities of civil society, provide more personal, humanizing, holistic, and compassionate care, but they can better engender the trust and responsibility required for citizens to fulfill their moral obligations to each other.

Families and churches, as well as such other institutions as schools, businesses, sports teams, community orchestras, professional organizations, neighborhood watch committees, and faith-based and other nonprofit groups, bind their members not to abstract laws, but to other people. They are premised not on individual autonomy, but on the authority of knowledgeable and competent parents, pastors, teachers, coaches, conductors, and other leaders with the power to discipline. They motivate not solely by fear but by trust, and they are united not only by their opposition to unjust interference, but also by substantial positive goals, commitments, and convictions that they share in common.

It is therefore the responsibility of a modern nation-state that desires to bind its "many" into "one" to limit its power and its purse, leaving primary responsibility for moral formation in the hands of local moral communities. Only these associations and institutions can foster true justice and compassion for those in need-a fact that makes them essential for the cultivation of virtuous citizens and the prevention of governmental tyranny.

-Ryan Messmore is William E. Simon Fellow in Religion and a Free Society in the Richard and Helen DeVos Center for Religion and Civil Society at The Heritage Foundation.
 
Point is now the far left (and Ben correctly asks why the hell does far left crap become the mainstream left position in less than 5 minutes?) is overtly (even with those people that are not into politics in social media) taking the position that only their think is the correct one and you are literally evil if you leave them in any way that they also define.

This is exactly what Leia meant when she said "the tighter you grip, the more slips through your fingers".....and with the black community there need not really be a mass shift or anything....just a 10% (or even as low as 5%) swing away from democrats ruins the political strategy for them.
I find the far left becoming mainstream hard to believe. One of Bernie's top supporters, Keith Ellison ran for Democratic chairman and lost to a Clinton loyalist. Right now the Democract's top Trump counter is simply blaming Russia without trying to come up with a viable strategy to counter Trump while keeping their position the same.

Also doesn't help the media focuses on dumb shit as well, like the Stormy Daniels case. Whether or not he slept with her is relevant, as it does nothing about his public policies.
Going after Kanye like this (who now easily solidifies the freethinker position with little effort) for pretty much no reason (Kanye has said he also "loves" Hillary, his wife was a fundraiser for Hillary etc)....after having previously made him into a darling (when he went after Bush as "not liking black people")....is definitely a real stupid, desperate thing to do for the far-left/left (it will only blowback now, and take away sensitive % points of broader support)...but I guess their nature just cannot help it....it is all about absolute control, with strait jackets long term if needed.

I am no fan of Kanye, his wife or the rest of the hollywood/music industry ppl, BUT the point is he has illustrated just how easily triggered the left becomes when you decide to shift from them even a little bit....and more importantly that it is FUN to trigger them :P
Kanye's character makes sense, just listen to his song "I am a God" and you'll understand him from there.
 
I find the far left becoming mainstream hard to believe.

https://www.investors.com/politics/...t-democrats-have-shifted-to-the-extreme-left/

https://www.vanityfair.com/news/2018/01/will-the-democrats-nuke-the-party-to-win-the-presidency

Ben Shapiro has done a good analysis over many of his episodes on this phenomenon. It may seem somewhat static if you are in California (or some other largely liberal area)....but in the swingy parts of the country, the far-left induced polarisation is really playing a role now.

One of Bernie's top supporters, Keith Ellison ran for Democratic chairman and lost to a Clinton loyalist.

The fact the dems even let him run says a lot compared to the dems just a few decades before (say right before and after the cold war ended).

Right now the Democract's top Trump counter is simply blaming Russia without trying to come up with a viable strategy to counter Trump while keeping their position the same.

Yep agree....this static edifice is now springing major leaks (something like 54% of the US public want a special counsel to investigate the FBI high end actors now too), the timing with the midterms couldn't be worse esp if Trump gets something done on North Korea. I personally know some pretty anti-trumpers who are giving him kudos w.r.t the Norks and likely wont turnout against him (like they were fully planning to earlier) if he gets that stuff done.

Also doesn't help the media focuses on dumb shit as well, like the Stormy Daniels case. Whether or not he slept with her is relevant, as it does nothing about his public policies.

Yah spot on. But they have become mouthpieces of the dem party pretty much, so its not really surprising. They play to Trump's long term strengths and seem to not realise it. A really critical, solid analysis (and giving fair credit/criticism as appropriate from all perspectives) would do them much better in the long run in "defeating" Trump....but instead they want to play hand-over-hand on the emotional-feelz sword hilt....that's Trump's natural game.
 
@RabzonKhan , are you following this crazy stuff that came out from that complete clown of an ignoramus Rudy Guliani and what he said on FOX last night and this morning?
 
@RabzonKhan , are you following this crazy stuff that came out from that complete clown of an ignoramus Rudy Guliani and what he said on FOX last night and this morning?

Rudy is pretty much singlehandedly the reason why NYC is liveable now with regards to its crime rate (as much as Deblashit is trying his best to reverse that back)....I would not label him ignoramus....he has already said everything he said was with the permission of both Trump and his legal team.

There is much strategy why he chose to say what he said (seeing how things are now coming to a head finally)...it will be revealed to you when Mueller ends/wraps up this nothing burger Russian collusion nonsense regardless of what the MSM chooses to cling on to and bray in its delusional pravda groupthink....just like what happened on Nov 8th 2016 ;) .

@Desert Fox
 
he has already said everything he said was with the permission of both Trump and his legal team.

That's the problem. There is NO WAY he had permission to say that crap and the permission he's talking about is some form of power of attorney which doesn't always sit well with clients, trust me, lol, I've dealt with those sharks on several occasions.

This guy is an old bufoon, bro. He went off on a silly tangent that basically proved Trump is a liar and lied about the payment to Stormy Daniels and threw the WH public relations into total chaos today! Oh ma gosh. He's washed up and thinks he's some old, crusty mafia boss who's gonna come in and take control. When he said he's going to push the investigation and get it wrapped up, I just about fell outta my chair loool. Who the frig does this bongo think he is? Can you imagine what Mueller must've thought when he heard that joke? :lol: He must've told his handler to send a special pizza with meatballs to Guliani's new office. :D

There is much strategy why he chose to say what he said (seeing how things are now coming to a head finally)...it will be revealed to you when Mueller ends/wraps up this nothing burger Russian collusion nonsense regardless of what the MSM chooses to cling on to and bray in its delusional pravda groupthink....just like what happened on Nov 8th 2016 ;) .

The election is long gone. That's a thing of the past. This administration has a boatload to worry about between possible campaign finance law violations to obstruction of justice to collusion and the list goes on. We'll see if it's a nothing burger but things are pointing at a huge roast beef sub! :D
 
And here's yet another travesty. This old mafiosi gumba comes out and calls the FBI agents who raided Micheal Cohen's office or home or whatever, "Nazi paratroopers." The top, federal justice department in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who's responsibility is to control the mega criminals in this country he calls them "Nazi Paratroopers." @Nilgiri , this guy is a plump, buffoon. He thinks he's some god or something. He just flipped the white house upside down in less than 1 hour with his total lack of professionalism and off the cuff arrogance.

And those guys whom he's calling Nazi Stormtroopers were all FBI agents out of the NY Southern District! They're all his gumbas! What a disaster.

And now to this clown. How many lies can he say in one sentence?


Guess what, 2 of those prisoners were captured during HIS administration! Baboon, lol.
 
That's the problem. There is NO WAY he had permission to say that crap and the permission he's talking about is some form of power of attorney which doesn't always sit well with clients, trust me, lol, I've dealt with those sharks on several occasions.

No idea what you are talking about now. Please don't rely on the MSM take for this crap (cherry picking with no context)....at least launder it through Ben first....and Ben basically said....a bit of a whoopsie optically, but no biggie in the end really....given the MSM has proven again and again it has done a LOT worse.

I mean just recently the NBC Cohen wiretapping 100% confirmed, the tapes are coming at any moment!!!!......and fake news fact check and rollback with full egg on face.....and just keep believing us anyway :rofl:

This guy is an old bufoon, bro. He went off on a silly tangent that basically proved Trump is a liar and lied about the payment to Stormy Daniels and threw the WH public relations into total chaos today! Oh ma gosh. He's washed up and thinks he's some old, crusty mafia boss who's gonna come in and take control. When he said he's going to push the investigation and get it wrapped up, I just about fell outta my chair loool. Who the frig does this bongo think he is? Can you imagine what Mueller must've thought when he heard that joke? :lol: He must've told his handler to send a special pizza with meatballs to Guliani's new office.

Step away from "no path to 270" CNN blah blah if you want a serious talk :p:

Like @Ashes said indulging in the stormy daniels nothing burger to this level just gonna blowback in the end against "Killary's Bimbo eruption squad = perfectly fine if its a democrat" sort of hypocrites.

God those faces at CNN and MSM were the best friggin part of nov 8th....way more than the celebrations outside their little pravda circlejerk haha. Madcow face, "whitelash" tears...the whole dealio haha.

Now if you have something personal against Rudy, thats fine....he's not for everyone....I mean being all mean to NYC like that and setting it straight and ending the 70s + 80s crime wave (Remember how the bronx was literally a warzone?)....dayum that really sucked. :rolleyes:

The election is long gone. That's a thing of the past. This administration has a boatload to worry about between possible campaign finance law violations to obstruction of justice to collusion and the list goes on. We'll see if it's a nothing burger but things are pointing at a huge roast beef sub!

The election may be over....but the MSM/leftard delusion (which led to that election result) is quite permanent and entrenched. Clear warning signs even among the MSM cabal are propping up, but lets see if they can change the downward loser territory Democrats and co are headed down:

http://time.com/5264153/the-fbi-is-in-crisis-and-america-is-paying-the-price/

The FBI Is in Crisis. It's Worse Than You Think

By Eric Lichtblau May 3, 2018

In normal times, the televisions are humming at the FBI’s 56 field offices nationwide, piping in the latest news as agents work their investigations. But these days, some agents say, the TVs are often off to avoid the crush of bad stories about the FBI itself. The bureau, which is used to making headlines for nabbing crooks, has been grabbing the spotlight for unwanted reasons: fired leaders, texts between lovers and, most of all, attacks by President Trump. “I don’t care what channel it’s on,” says Tom O’Connor, a veteran investigator in Washington who leads the FBI Agents Association. “All you hear is negative stuff about the FBI … It gets depressing.”

Many view Trump’s attacks as self-serving: he has called the renowned agency an “embarrassment to our country” and its investigations of his business and political dealings a “witch hunt.” But as much as the bureau’s roughly 14,000 special agents might like to tune out the news, internal and external reports have found lapses throughout the agency, and longtime observers, looking past the partisan haze, see a troubling picture: something really is wrong at the FBI.

The Justice Department’s Inspector General, Michael Horowitz, will soon release a much-anticipated assessment of Democratic and Republican charges that officials at the FBI interfered in the 2016 presidential campaign. That year-long probe, sources familiar with it tell TIME, is expected to come down particularly hard on former FBI director James Comey, who is currently on a high-profile book tour. It will likely find that Comey breached Justice Department protocols in a July 5, 2016, press conference when he criticized Hillary Clinton for using a private email server as Secretary of State even as he cleared her of any crimes, the sources say. The report is expected to also hit Comey for the way he reopened the Clinton email probe less than two weeks before the election, the sources say.

The report closely follows an earlier one in April by Horowitz, which showed that the ousted deputy director of the FBI, Andrew McCabe, had lied to the bureau’s internal investigations branch to cover up a leak he orchestrated about Clinton’s family foundation less than two weeks before the election. (The case has since been referred to the U.S. Attorney’s office in Washington, D.C., for potential prosecution.) Another IG report in March found that FBI retaliation against internal whistle-blowers was continuing despite years of bureau pledges to fix the problem. Last fall, Horowitz found that the FBI wasn’t adequately investigating “high-risk” employees who failed polygraph tests.

There have been other painful, more public failures as well: missed opportunities to prevent mass shootings that go beyond the much-publicized overlooked warnings in the Parkland, Fla., school killings; an anguishing delay in the sexual-molestation probe into Olympic gymnastics doctor Larry Nassar; and evidence of misconduct by agents in the aftermath of standoffs with armed militias in Nevada and Oregon. FBI agents are facing criminal charges ranging from obstruction to leaking classified material. And then there’s potentially the widest-reaching failure of all: the FBI’s miss of the Russian influence operation against the 2016 election, which went largely undetected for more than two years.

In the course of two dozen interviews for this story, agents and others expressed concern that the tumult is threatening the cooperation of informants, local and state police officials, and allies overseas. Even those who lived through past crises say the current one is more damaging. “We’ve seen ups and downs, but I’ve never seen anything like this,” says Robert Anderson, a senior official at the FBI who retired in 2015.

The FBI’s crisis of credibility appears to have seeped into the jury room. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations has declined in each of the last five years, dropping nearly 11% over that period, according to a TIME analysis of data obtained from the Justice Department by researchers at Syracuse University. “We’ve already seen where the bad guys and witnesses look at those FBI credentials, and it might not carry the same weight anymore,” says O’Connor.

Indeed, public support for the FBI has plunged. A PBS NewsHour survey in April showed a 10-point drop–from 71% to 61%–in the prior two months among Americans who thought the FBI was “just trying to do its job” and an 8-point jump–from 23% to 31%–among those who thought it was “biased against the Trump Administration.”

The FBI, of course, continues to do good work. On April 25, local authorities in Sacramento and the FBI announced the dramatic arrest of the Golden State Killer. That same day it helped bust 39 people in Pennsylvania in a cocaine-trafficking investigation, 14 prison employees in South Carolina in a bribery case and two men in New Jersey in a $5.3 million tax-evasion probe. Assistant FBI Director William F. Sweeney Jr., who runs the New York field office and oversaw the April 9 raid against Trump’s personal lawyer Michael Cohen, says his agents’ response to the turmoil has been to “double down and [say], ‘Hey, we’re gonna keep on moving.'”

Some question whether the FBI has gotten too big and has been asked to do too many things. After 9/11, then FBI director Robert Mueller, who is now the special counsel leading the Russia probe, made massive new investments in counterterrorism and intelligence, shifting resources and investigative focus from white collar crime and bank robberies.

Many of the bureau’s woes developed on Comey’s 3½-year watch. They extend beyond the most visible controversies, like the Clinton email and Russia investigations, to his costly confrontation with Apple over unlocking an iPhone used by one of the terrorists in the San Bernardino, Calif., shooting in 2015, and beyond. Critics say Comey’s penchant for high-profile moral fights has, ironically, undermined the bureau’s reputation. Trump himself has used that line of argument to challenge the FBI.

Democrats have questioned the integrity of the bureau as well, with Clinton and her aides claiming Comey and the FBI helped tip the election to Trump. But the biggest difference between past crises and the current one, according to virtually everyone interviewed for this article, is the President. Trump has continually attacked the integrity of the institution and its leaders, alleging not just incompetence but bad faith in the commission of justice. Ronald Hosko, who retired in 2014 after 30 years at the bureau, compares the moment to a wildfire, saying Trump “is either the spark that creates the flames, or he’s standing there with a can of gas to stoke the flames.”

The bureau’s current director, Christopher Wray, recently said his first priority is to “try to bring a sense of calm and stability back to the bureau.” But the FBI is facing one of the greatest tests of its 110 years. In the coming months, it must fix a litany of internal problems, fend off outside attacks on its trustworthiness and pursue investigations touching on a sitting President, at the same time a growing number of Americans are asking themselves: Can we trust the FBI?

Last May, McCabe, then the FBI’s deputy director, sat down at the table in his seventh-floor office for a meeting with two agents from the inspections division. The agents had some questions about the Clinton Foundation leak just before the election. It was a quick meeting. McCabe, an FBI veteran who rose through the ranks over a 21-year career, told them he had “no idea” where the leak came from. The agents left after just five minutes or so, according to the Inspector General’s April 13 report.

McCabe had offered that same basic assurance months earlier to his boss, then director Comey, investigators said, and had angrily lit into FBI officials under him, suggesting the Clinton leak had come from their offices and telling one senior agent in Washington to “get his house in order.” But as it turned out, McCabe knew exactly where the leak had come from. He personally authorized it, Horowitz’s investigators found, to counter charges that he favored Clinton. (His wife received $467,500 from the PAC of a Clinton ally, then Virginia governor Terry McAuliffe, in a failed 2015 bid for state office.)

The McCabe findings have shaken the FBI. The bureau has massive power, and as a result, it has strict rules. Lying to investigators is considered a dire breach in an organization built on trust. The referral to the U.S. Attorney’s office, which emerged a week after the report was released, could result in charges against McCabe of making a false sworn statement. He has challenged the findings, disputing even the most basic elements, like how many people were in the room. The IG said it did not find many of his objections credible, with some elements contradicted by notes taken contemporaneously by an agent. McCabe previously called his firing part of a “war on the FBI” and the Russia investigation. But viewed against the backdrop of other Horowitz reports, McCabe’s alleged rule-breaking looks like part of a much larger problem.

In September, Horowitz found that bureau investigators had allowed employees with dubious polygraph results to keep their top-secret clearances for months or even years, posing “potential risks to U.S. national security.” In one instance, an FBI IT specialist with top-secret security clearance failed four polygraph tests and admitted to having created a fictitious Facebook account to communicate with a foreign national, but received no disciplinary action for that. In late 2016, Horowitz found that the FBI was getting information it shouldn’t have had access to when it used controversial parts of the Patriot Act to obtain business records in terrorism and counterintelligence cases.

Just as troubling are recent FBI missteps not yet under the IG’s microscope. At 2:31 p.m. on Jan. 5, the FBI’s round-the-clock tip center in West Virginia received a chilling phone call. The caller gave her name and said she was close to the family of an 18-year-old in Parkland, Fla., named Nikolas Cruz. Over 13 minutes, she said Cruz had posted photos of rifles he owned and animals he mutilated and that he wanted “to kill people.” She listed his Instagram accounts and suggested the FBI check for itself, saying she was worried about the thought of his “getting into a school and just shooting the place up,” according to a transcript of the call.

The FBI specialist checked Cruz’s name against a database and found that another tipster had reported 3½ months earlier that a “Nikolas Cruz” posted a comment on his YouTube channel saying, “I’m going to be a professional school shooter.” But neither tip was passed on to the FBI field agents in Miami or local officials in Parkland. After Cruz allegedly killed 17 people with an AR-15 rifle at his old school just six weeks later, the bureau admitted that it had dropped the ball and ordered a full review. “You look at this and say, ‘You’ve got to be kidding me,'” says Anderson, the former FBI official.

The Parkland shooting was only the latest in a string of devastating misses. After Omar Mateen shot and killed 49 people at the nightclub Pulse in Orlando in June 2016, the FBI said it had investigated him twice before on terrorism suspicions, but shut the inquiries for lack of evidence. The year before, after Dylann Roof shot to death nine African-American parishioners at a South Carolina church, the FBI acknowledged that lapses in its gun background-check system allowed him to illegally buy the .45-caliber handgun he used in the massacre. And in 2011, the FBI received a tip from Russian intelligence that one of the Boston Marathon bombers had become radicalized and was planning an overseas trip to join radical Islamic groups. The FBI in Boston investigated him but found no “nexus” to terrorism.

The Orlando shooting provoked more second-guessing in late March, when the shooter’s widow, Noor Salman, was acquitted on charges of aiding and abetting him and obstructing justice. The jury foreman pointed to inconsistencies in the FBI’s accounts of the disputed admissions that agents said Salman had made, according to the Orlando Sentinel. The judge also scolded the government after an FBI agent contradicted the government’s earlier claims that Salman and Mateen had cased the club.

The concerns about FBI testimony in a major terrorist prosecution underscore a larger question: Are people less likely to believe what the bureau says these days? In January, a federal judge threw out all the criminal charges against renegade Nevada cattleman Cliven Bundy, his two sons and a supporter who had been in an armed standoff over unpaid grazing fees. Judge Gloria Navarro accused the government of “outrageous” and “flagrant” misconduct, citing failures by both prosecutors and the FBI to produce at least 1,000 pages of required documents. The judge said the FBI misplaced–or “perhaps hid”–a thumb drive revealing the existence of snipers and a surveillance camera at the site of the standoff.

A related case in Oregon, growing out of the 2016 takeover of a wildlife refuge by Bundy’s sons and their followers, has not gone well for the FBI either. An agent at the scene, W. Joseph Astarita, is now charged with five criminal counts after prosecutors say he falsely denied shooting twice at an occupation leader who was fatally shot by police, who said he appeared to be reaching for his handgun during a roadside encounter. The Bundy sons and five supporters who helped in the takeover were found not guilty of conspiracy and weapons charges, in another jarring setback for the government.

Some legal experts and defense advocates see the string of recent not guilty verdicts as a sign that jurors and judges are less inclined to take what the FBI says in court at face value. Data examined by TIME support that conclusion. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations dropped last year for the fifth consecutive year–from 11,461 in 2012 to 10,232, according to Syracuse University data, which was obtained under Freedom of Information Act requests.

Moreover, TIME’s analysis shows a surprisingly low rate of success for the thousands of cases the FBI investigates and sends to the Justice Department for possible prosecution. Over that same time period, the Justice Department has ultimately won convictions in fewer than half the cases the FBI referred for prosecution, with a conviction rate of 47% last year, the data showed. That fell well below the average of 72% for all agencies. Prosecutors themselves have rejected many of the FBI’s referrals before they ever got to court. The bureau’s low success rate in these cases has remained largely unchanged in recent years.

Federal prosecutors still win the bulk of the thousands of cases they choose to bring based on FBI investigations. Justice Department spokesman Ian Prior says a variety of factors could play into the drop in prosecutions and convictions over the last five years, including “de-emphasizing” some crimes under Obama-era policies and cutbacks in prosecutors in recent years. Prior says that “judging the performance of the FBI based on a minuscule sample of cherry-picked cases” ignores its thousands of annual convictions.

Gina Nichols, a nurse in Minnesota, says she never had strong impressions one way or the other about the FBI until her daughter Maggie Nichols, who was a member of the national gymnastics team, reported three years ago that team physician Larry Nassar had molested her. Gina waited anxiously for the FBI to contact her and interview Maggie. But no one did so for nearly a year as the case languished among different FBI field offices in Indianapolis, Detroit and Los Angeles. Nassar is believed to have molested dozens of additional victims over the course of that year. “It makes you sick,” Gina tells TIME. “I have a child who was sexually abused for 2½ years by an Olympic doctor, and the FBI did nothing.”

The FBI has opened an internal inquiry to determine why the Nassar investigations appear to have dragged on for so long. John Manly, a Southern California lawyer representing many of the women, says he is angry that no one from the FBI has contacted the victims to explain the delay. “Knowing that the best law-enforcement agency in the world knew exactly what he was up to and did nothing–I can’t explain that to them,” Manly says. “You’ve got people who were really hurt here, so fix it,” he says.

Perhaps the easiest problems to address are the internal lapses. Experts say putting assets and management attention back to work on cyber, counterintelligence and traditional crime after Mueller shifted them to counterterrorism would help. “There’s an overextension of the mission,” says Brian Levin, a professor of criminal justice at California State University, San Bernardino, who has worked with the FBI. Most of Horowitz’s reports include measures the FBI can take to address their problems, including stricter rules for investigating polygraph test failures and training to protect whistle-blowers.

A failure of imagination is harder to fix. Mueller’s Russia probe has found that Moscow’s operation against the 2016 election first got under way in 2014, but the FBI failed to grasp the scope and danger of what was unfolding. The bureau missed the significance of the damaging 2015 hack of the DNC database. And when the Russian operation began to heat up in the summer of 2016, the FBI was always a step behind the Russians, struggling to understand intelligence reports they were getting about possible connections between Moscow and Trump aides. The bureau also sat on the disputed “dossier” prepared by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele.

A report released on April 27 by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee found that the FBI was slow to confront the election meddling, especially in its failure to notify U.S. victims of Russian hacking quickly enough. The committee also charged that the bureau’s decision to surveil former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page was influenced by politics. At the same time, the GOP has pointed to text messages between FBI special agent Peter Strzok and FBI lawyer Lisa Page, which were critical of Trump–as well as many Democrats–to argue the bureau is fundamentally biased.

FBI Director Wray says the bureau has started “specific activities” to prevent election meddling by Moscow, but outsiders worry that the U.S. remains vulnerable this fall and beyond.

The most important thing the FBI can do to fix itself? Follow its own rules. In his handling of the Clinton email probe ahead of the 2016 election, Comey acted without telling the Justice Department what he planned to do. Comey is expected to come under fire in the upcoming IG report for breaking with Justice Department rules and norms by assuming authority usually held by prosecutors and speaking in public about a case that did not produce criminal charges, sources with knowledge of the report tell TIME. He will likely also be criticized for weighing in so close to the election in a way that could impact the outcome, sources familiar with the investigation say.

On his book tour, Comey has defended his decisions as the best way out of a bad situation. Facing what he called “a series of no-win decisions,” Comey says he did what he thought was necessary and transparent to protect the integrity of both the FBI and the legal process in such a high-profile case.

As he faces the crises at the FBI, Wray has told his senior aides to “keep calm and tackle hard.” Asked if recent misconduct cases concern Wray, FBI spokeswoman Jacqueline Maguire said the bureau’s 36,000 employees “are held to the highest standards of conduct–but as in any large organization, there may be occasions when an employee exercises poor judgment or engages in misconduct.” While she declined to discuss specific cases, Maguire said claims of misconduct are “taken seriously [and] investigated thoroughly,” leading to discipline when needed.

At FBI headquarters, agents and supervisors say they are keeping their heads down and focusing on their investigations. But the building is literally crumbling around them–Comey kept in his office a slab of concrete that had fallen off the side. Designs for a new complex were scrapped in February. Visible across Pennsylvania Avenue from the main entrance, with J. Edgar Hoover’s tarnished name above it, is the gleaming, gold-plated sign on the newly renovated Trump International Hotel.

Trump’s attacks on the FBI have been filled with inaccuracies and innuendo, wrongly claiming on Twitter, for instance, that McCabe was in charge of the Clinton email investigation. Trump makes a point of praising rank-and-file agents, but his punches have landed inside the FBI and out. Some worry the damage may take years to repair. “I fear Trump’s relentless attacks on the institution are having an effect on the public’s confidence in the FBI,” says Matthew S. Axelrod, a senior Justice Department official in the Obama Administration.

Mueller may play an outsize role in how his old agency gets through the current crisis. If the special counsel finds that Russia did collude with members of the Trump campaign–the central question in his investigation–and any perpetrators are charged and found guilty in court, it would rebut Trump’s charges of a “witch hunt.” If Mueller finds no evidence of collusion, or declines to make it public, it would open the door for Trump and his campaign to paint the FBI as a band of partisan hacks with a reputation, as he has tweeted, “in tatters.”

There may be no immediate way to fix a place with as many missions and masters as the FBI. One official, asked what it would take for the FBI to move past all the controversy, paused and said simply, “Time.” Many hope that the extraordinary confluence of events that drew the FBI into the 2016 election will prove to be, as Comey called it, “a 500-year flood” that won’t repeat itself anytime soon.

Others are doubtful. Jeffrey Danik, a retired FBI agent in Florida who now works with whistle-blowers at the bureau, blames the state of affairs on “a severe lack of leadership” and transparency at headquarters in owning up to recent mistakes. Those damaging failures, he says, “have just about pushed our incredible organization over the brink.” For now, everyone inside and out who cares about the reliability of law enforcement in America is left hoping that the bureau has at least started on the road back.

This appears in the May 14, 2018 issue of TIME.

Comment from a good friend of mine (about the significance of this article), TIFWIW he has not put a foot wrong on what has happened thus far since Trump announced his run @Desert Fox :

And we have just hit the turning point. The key facts are not in the article. The key facts are the existence of the article and where the article was published: Time.

Were a conservative to have written this article, there would be a lot more about the incompetence of the FBI, and it probably would have gone back further than Obama. I watch documentaries when I get sick, and American Experience has two good documentaries on Ruby Ridge and the parts of Waco that led to the Oklahoma City bombing. Both are fair, balanced, have input from both sides, and portray not malevolence, but massive amounts of overconfidence, misunderstanding, poor to no tactical awareness and bull-headed stupidity. Frontline has an even more damning account of the FBI's handling of Waco, and it's very clear their negotiators and tactical operators were not only not coordinated, they were actively working to cross purposes. The final assault plan was sold to Janet Reno on a lie - the abuse of children that didn't happen. We could easily add the mishandling of dozens of cases between 1991 and 2017 to said list, along with a distinct lack of oversight and resistance toward same. Whitey Bulger springs to mind.

But that will come.

It really doesn't matter how badly mishandled and deeply incompetent the FBI is. What matters is that they're being thrown under the bus. Yes, the article has the obligatory jabs at Trump, but we still have both Comey and McCabe being taken down in a prominent, left-leaning news magazine. We have it not only taking the FBI to task for screwing up the 2016 election, but it is actively attacking previous Democrat memes about Muslims, terrorism, and the competence of the Obama Administration to vet. Obama is not mentioned by name, but the FBI's failure to clearly identify Islamic terror - Boston, San Bernadino, Orlando - is prominent. Most importantly, Time is not trying to defend the FBI, and certainly not the integrity of the FBI.

They are showing the loss of confidence in the FBI by the American public as the reasonable response to this mess. That is the kill shot.

Unless there is a massive firestorm in response, we can reasonably conclude Mueller et al. will also go under the bus very shortly, because the entire Insurance Policy rests on one thing - the American public believing the investigation has integrity. That requires believing Mueller has integrity. Which requires believing the FBI has integrity.

Time just shot that belief dead.

And here's yet another travesty. This old mafiosi gumba comes out and calls the FBI agents who raided Micheal Cohen's office or home or whatever, "Nazi paratroopers." The top, federal justice department in the Federal Bureau of Investigation who's responsibility is to control the mega criminals in this country he calls them "Nazi Paratroopers." @Nilgiri , this guy is a plump, buffoon. He thinks he's some god or something. He just flipped the white house upside down in less than 1 hour with his total lack of professionalism and off the cuff arrogance.

And those guys whom he's calling Nazi Stormtroopers were all FBI agents out of the NY Southern District! They're all his gumbas! What a disaster.

Good timing LOL:

Federal judge accuses Mueller's team of 'lying,' trying to target Trump: 'C'mon man!'


A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort – suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking “unfettered power” and are more interested in bringing down the president.

"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller’s team. “You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever."

Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted “scope memo,” a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.
A round of Robert Mueller's Russia Investigation, who's been indicted, how are the tied to President Trump, and who's gotten plea deals? Video
Michael Cohen, Paul Manafort: Mueller's probe key moves

The hearing, where Manafort’s team fought to dismiss an 18-count indictment on tax and bank fraud-related charges, took a confrontational turn as it was revealed that at least some of the information in the investigation derived from an earlier Justice Department probe – in the U.S. attorney’s office for the Eastern District of Virginia.

Manafort’s attorneys argue the special counsel does not have the power to indict him on the charges they have brought – and seemed to find a sympathetic ear with Ellis.

The Reagan-appointed judge asked Mueller’s team where they got the authority to indict Manafort on alleged crimes dating as far back as 2005.
Judge TS Ellis

Judge T.S. Ellis III rebuked Robert Mueller's team.

The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not “arise” out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.

“We don’t want anyone with unfettered power,” he said.

Mueller’s team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo – and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.

Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.

He summed up the argument of the Special Counsel’s Office as, "We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying."

He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: "C'mon man!"
Paul Manafort leaves Federal District Court in Washington, Monday, Oct. 30, 2017. Manafort, President Donald Trump's former campaign chairman, and Manafort's business associate Rick Gates have pleaded not guilty to felony charges of conspiracy against the United States and other counts. (AP Photo/Alex Brandon)

Attorneys for former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort argue that the special counsel does not have the power to indict their client on the charges they brought. (AP)

The judge also gave the government two weeks to hand over the unredacted “scope memo” or provide an explanation why not -- after prosecutors were reluctant to do so, claiming it has material that doesn’t pertain to Manafort.

“I’ll be the judge of that,” Ellis said.

House Republicans have also sought the full document, though the Justice Department previously released a redacted version, which includes information related to Manafort but not much else.

The charges in federal court in Virginia were on top of another round of charges in October. Manafort has pleaded not guilty to both rounds. The charges filed earlier this year include conspiring against the United States, conspiring to launder money, failing to register as an agent of a foreign principal and providing false statements.

Earlier this year, Ellis suggested that Manafort could face life in prison, and “poses a substantial flight risk” because of his “financial means and international connections to flee and remain at large.”

Fox News’ Brooke Singman and Judson Berger contributed to this report.

Guess what, 2 of those prisoners were captured during HIS administration! Baboon, lol.

Who cares honestly....Obummer never got anything done regarding hostages held (or anything really) by the Norks....zilch...nada. That's what Trump is basically saying, if you want to get hung up on the details like MSM cherrypicking wants...you are welcome to.

Meanwhile Kanye pretty much singlehandedly bumped up support among African American males for Trump from 11% (already higher than Romney) to 22% in just one week :lol: (and remember 5% sensitivity is already enough in many c. districts).

Millenial polls show their support to the dems declined from like 56% to 45% (largely because of the dems pushing hard left, leaving distaste in the centrish people)....huge swings are underway right now in sensitive voting blocs....and the MSM will simply tell you to keep believing them after that all rudely transpires in the actual elections yet again lol....and then throw crying faces your way, I suppose their version of screaming at the sky haha.

But hey if you think people really super care about Trump saying "3 hostages" instead of just "hostages" more broadly when it comes to the Norks....after the dems/MSM invested THAT much blood and treasure pushing optics of a nuclear war with the Norks (remember not long ago????....omg Trump is gonna start a nuuuuuuclear waaaaaaaar!!!!)....and now there is strong chance of exact opposite (denuclearisation + even Nobel peace prize suggested by the South korean PM for trump lol).

Really your lot setting up the doom and gloom scenario w.r.t Trump to the level that you did (economy, war, security, waissisississm, X-phobia blah etc) then bunkering into the "russian collusion" as last resort when none of the other stuff caught on (in enough minds or ground reality)........, and what is transpiring instead on the ground (i.e that doom and gloom nowhere near happening, but a lot of good stuff instead) is the biggest fact check for average US voters in the end. Like my buddy said (and remember what Time Warner is):

Unless there is a massive firestorm in response, we can reasonably conclude Mueller et al. will also go under the bus very shortly, because the entire Insurance Policy rests on one thing - the American public believing the investigation has integrity. That requires believing Mueller has integrity. Which requires believing the FBI has integrity.

Time just shot that belief dead.


Truly as Ben said, the dems are going far left (including all the conspiracy nutjob theory territory that come with that) instead of more centre....and they get to lose in the end because of it :P. Combine with polling now saying (54% and increasing) people want to see a special consul for the FBI top elite pertaining to the last cpl years :)

crusty mafia boss

BTW buddy I did enjoy reading your take on it a lot. Please continue haha.... :D
 
@Desert Fox @Hamartia Antidote @KAL-EL @Ashes

https://pjmedia.com/rogerlsimon/is-robert-mueller-destroying-the-democratic-party/

Is Robert Mueller Destroying the Democratic Party?
By Roger L Simon May 6, 2018


It would probably give Robert Mueller a nervous breakdown, not to mention James Comey, Andrew McCabe and the rest of the FBI cabal, past and present, but at this point the special counsel seems to be actually causing the reelection of Donald Trump. Most of the country, other than the greed heads in the media and extreme Democratic Party operatives, no longer gives a hoot in Hades about the "Russia Probe." They're frustrated and sick of it.

There's a dawning national consensus of "enough already" reflected by Judge Ellis when he demanded to know exactly what Paul Manafort's possible money laundering schemes of years ago had to do with Trump colluding with Russia in the 2016 election. The same might be said of Stormy Daniels, whose Russia connection is even more remote.

But let's skip past the subplots of the moment to the greatest of all unintended consequences of this endless investigation -- the decline and fall of the Democratic Party.

White House Says Trump 'Eventually Learned' of Cohen Reimbursement for Stormy Payoff

Yes, you read that correctly. Like a crackhead addicted to the next puff, Democrats and their media allies have spent most of the last sixteen months fixated on whether Trump somehow, some way, colluded with Putin. Meanwhile, a zillion issues slipped by, some important, others less so, but the Democrats barely weighed in on anything, other than to whine about Trump.

What a dumb mistake. And it was compounded by the assumption that the public agreed with them, which was true for a while, to some extent, but has now worn surpassingly thin. It didn't help that the tedious late-night talk show hosts and SNL comics fixated on Trump as well, creating a perfect (but utterly useless) storm.

Mueller and the FBI were the ringmasters in all this along with their media friends whom we might dub the Leak Squad (not to be confused with the Geek Squad at your local Best Buy). This "righteous circle," if we can call it that, continually convinced themselves of the goodness of their calling, when in reality it wasn't a calling at all, but a complete of waste of time and a distraction from discovering what exactly their party stood for.

Finally, the Democrats are waking up, but I strongly suspect it is too late. They are clearly out of practice at making policy or coming up with ideas. That was evident from an article in The Hill over the weekend -- "Dems face pressure to focus on economy, not Trump."

Senate Democratic Leader Charles Schumer (N.Y.) and House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi(Calif.) have unveiled a variety of ambitious proposals, such as raising the minimum wage to $15 an hour and creating a national system of paid family and sick leave.

Ambitious proposals? They sound more like shopworn boilerplate from a Democratic Party platform circa 1992.

Maybe they are better off banging their shoes about Trump. After all, the way the economy's going, $15 an hour may be in the rear-view mirror all by itself before November and the hoary "paid family leave" proposal made irrelevant in an increasingly competitive job market.

So Mueller may be, in the end, the Democrats' best bet. But he is also their bête noir. He is the man of supposed great moral rectitude who promised to rid them of the obvious injustice of the last election. Unfortunately, Mueller turned out to be an extreme moral narcissist who, consciously or not, led the Democratic Party down a primrose path of impeachment that could never happen and would inflate (slowly, but still...) Trump's poll numbers while assuring him a second term and giving plenty of cannon fodder to Republican congressional candidates once embarrassed by the president. Everything is ironic. Nothing, as Lawrence reminded us, is written.

Devin Nunes Says He's Pressing to Have AG Jeff Sessions Held in Contempt of Congress

Novelist and screenwriter Roger L. Simon is the co-founder and CEO Emeritus of PJ Media. You can find a recent interview with him on BookTV here.
 

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