The Senate is on the verge of passing a massive budget deal
I do not know about you but I am growing tired of the almost constant threat of a government shutdown because the Congress cannot get its act together and pass a budget. But it is that time once again, and this time it is being reported here that the Senate is on the verge of passing a massive budget deal which would likely be attached to the House stopgap measure.
Here is more:
The Senate is on the verge of a massive budget deal that would increase spending levels for both domestic and defense programs over the next two years, according to congressional leaders and people briefed on the negotiations.
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer met on Tuesday morning to discuss adding that deal into a must-pass spending bill this week, people briefed on the talks said. No final agreement has been reached, but Democrats and Republicans expect one within the day.
The two leaders said after their meeting that they were close to clinching a deal that has eluded Congress for months.
The deal is expected to bust budget caps by $300 billion for both domestic and defense programs over the next two years. It will also achieve near parity between defense and domestic funding increases — a key priority of Democrats — and approach $150 billion in new defense spending to satisfy hawks, according to a person briefed on the talks.
Apparently the Republicans are no longer interested in cutting the budget or in reigning in spending, they are more interested in avoiding any blame for shutting the government down and taking a possible hit in November. In other words, they are blinking because all they really care about is doing whatever they feel it takes to hold on to power.
Donald Trump has threatened to let the government shut down if immigration reform is not dealt with but there is no mention of the wall, DACA, border security, chain immigration, or the VISA lottery program in the article I linked to above, leading me to believe none of this is in there.
I would guess that these issues are going to be dealt with on some level in the House stop gap measure and then attached to the Senate deal but will whatever the House comes up with be enough to satisfy the President or will be follow the lead of the Senate Republicans and blink?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Charles Grassley is seeking a criminal probe of Christopher Steele
As you all know, Fusion GPS was being paid by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign at the time the Russian dossier was being compiled by foreign agent Christopher Steele. This dossier was used as justification to gain a FISA warrant to spy on Trump Tower but this information was withheld from the FISA court.
We also know now that the so-called “second source” which was used to leak information to the mainstream media was also Christopher Steele, it was not really a second corroborating source–it was the same source.
Now we are learning that Christopher Steele was gathering more information from Democratic sources which happened to be allies of Hillary Clinton and Charles Grassley is seeking a criminal investigation into the foreign agent who meddled in the 2016 election in an attempt to help Hillary Clinton defeat Donald Trump.
Here is more:
Two senior GOP senators on Monday released a copy of their request for a criminal probe of Christopher Steele, the author of a controversial dossier on President Donald Trump’s ties to Russia, which alleges that he received information from an ally of Hillary Clinton while the Democrat’s campaign was financing his work.
Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) released their referral for a Steele investigation, sent last month, after approval from the FBI.
That surveillance application, Republicans have said, improperly involved research conducted by Steele that was paid for by the Clinton campaign. Republicans on Friday released a declassified memo they wrote on the subject.
The referral document released Monday regarding Steele cites a second, unpublished research document prepared by Steele, based on material given to him by a source who received it from “a friend of the Clintons.”
This is what Charles Grassley and Lindsey Graham wrote in their request:
“It is troubling enough that the Clinton campaign funded Mr. Steele’s work, but that these Clinton associates were contemporaneously feeding Mr. Steele allegations raises additional concerns about his credibility,” Grassley and Graham wrote in the Jan. 5 referral.
“Simply put, the more people who contemporaneously knew that Mr. Steele was compiling his dossier, the more likely it was vulnerable to manipulation,” the senators wrote.
I also believe this is troubling and it needs to be investigated. This would be a step in the right direction, however I think the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign also need to be investigated for their role in the Russian dossier. It is possible they were simply compiling opposition research and had no idea the dossier would be used to spy on Trump Tower but at the same time they had to have known that Christopher Steele was a foreign agent.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, February 4th open thread: ‘Citizen Erased’
Here is the open thread for Sunday, February 4th. Please feel free to post links to interesting articles and to discuss whatever issues arise during the course of the day. Nothing is off-topic here.
Last week we discussed 7 stories, did you miss any of them? If so there is an easy way to make sure it does not happen again. I understand that all of you are busy and cannot always find the time to check the blog for updates so why not subscribe to America’s Watchtower and receive email updates whenever I write a new post? That is the easiest way to follow the blog to ensure you never miss another post.
In addition to subscribing you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right. But you will get more than that for I often post links to articles probably will not be writing about so it is a great way to keep up with what is happening.
The Twitter widget in the sidebar is fully interactive. This widget updates my tweets in real time and allows you to respond to or retweet my tweets right from the blog. It also allows you to tweet me right from America’s Watchtower.
“Teach us to lie, cover up what shouldn’t be shared. And the truth’s unwinding, scraping away at my mind.” This week’s musical selection is dedicated to the FBI, here is Muse performing “Citizen Erased” live from 2010.
frui diem
GOP memo claims the FBI withheld information from the FISA court when it sought surveillance
I have to admit I was a little disappointed with the GOP memo which was released today because for the most part it just reaffirmed what some of us have been writing for quite awhile now.
We already knew the Russian dossier was used by the FBI in order to obtain a FISA warrant but I think the one big story to come from this memo is that the FBI withheld information from the FISA court when it sought surveillance of Trump Tower.
When the FBI went to the FISA court with the Russian dossier the department failed to inform the secret court that the dossier was unconfirmed and it also failed to disclose that it was paid for by Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee even though they knew this was the case at the time.
Here is more:
The memo prepared by staff of House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) was released today, alleging as expected that the FBI withheld information from the FISA court and going hard after the British intelligence operative who crafted a controversial dossier.
Renewal by the FISA court, the memo states, “is necessarily dependent on the government’s production to the court of all material and relevant facts,” and “should include information potentially favorable to the target of the FISA application.”
“In the case of Carter Page, the government had at least four independent opportunities before the FISC to accurately provide an accounting of the relevant facts,” the memo alleges. “However, our findings indicate that, as described below, material and relevant information was omitted.”
The memo states that the Democratic National Committee “paid over $160,000” to former MI6 operative Christopher Steele, referred to as “a longtime FBI source,” via law firm Perkins Coie and research firm GPS “to obtain derogatory information on Donald Trump’s ties to Russia.”
The October 2016 FISA application to the court, as well “any of the renewals,” the memo continues, didn’t “disclose or reference the role of the DNC” or “any party/campaign in funding Steele’s efforts, even though the political origins of the Steele dossier were then known to senior DOJ and FBI officials.”
It has also been reported in the past that other requests by the FBI for surveillance were turned down by the FISA court it one would think that if the FBI disclosed this information this attempt would have been denied as well.
I have heard the term “fruit of the poisonous tree” bandied about the last couple of days. I had not heard the term before but basically if evidence is gathered illegally it is not admissible in court.
Does this fall into this category? I am not sure but the FBI was required to disclose all relevant information to the FISA court and the department failed to do so, which would mean the FBI got the FISA warrant fraudulently. Or illegally…
If the GOP memo is true and it can be proved I would expect somebody to make this challenge in court. I do not expect anyone to go to jail over this except maybe lower level employees who are forced to fall on the sword to protect the deep state but perhaps this could be the beginning of the end of this witch hunt or, if you prefer, this fishing expedition. Perhaps this is why Robert Mueller is delaying Michael Flynn’s sentencing.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Former DC Attorney claims the Department of Justice Inspector General’s report will show Andrew McCabe had the FBI fabricate evidence
This is something that is not getting much play in the mainstream media so a major hat-tip goes to Bunkerville for finding this little gem. Yesterday I wrote an article about how the Department of Justice Inspector General was looking into Andrew McCabe’s role leading up to the 2016 election, and now a former Attorney for the District of Columbia is claiming this report will show that Andrew McCabe urged the FBI to fabricate evidence in the Hillary Clinton email scandal investigation.
Here is the video:
If this is true and it plays out the way he claims, the Nunes memo is just the tip of the iceberg and it shows us why the Democrats are in panic mode over all of this…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
CNN reporter suggests Melania Trump wore white to the State of the Union to protest her husband
CNN is all over the important aspects of Donald Trump’s State of the Union Address last night. For instance, CNN “reporter” Kate Bennett speculated that Melania Trump was protesting her husband last night. How so? First she reported that the First Lady rode to the address in a separate car than the President–of course it turned out that she decided to ride with her guests and she left in the same vehicle as her husband. The horror!
She then went on to say she found it “interesting” that Melania Trump wore a cream-colored outfit last night:
“She’s wearing a cream-colored suit there, which I find interesting,” she said, Newsbusters reported. “Remember last year the female Democratic senators all wore white, a bunch of them, to protest Trump’s policies against women. There was even a hashtag, #WomenWearWhite.”
“Listen, it could be a total coincidence,” she added, “but I just find a lot of the stuff she does these days, to look at it twice.”
AHA! So because Melania Trump wore an outfit that was almost white it means she is joining the #WomenWearWhite movement (even though the outfit was not white) in order to protest Donald Trump’s alleged anti-women policies. And this is what passes for news nowadays on CNN…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Internal Justice Department probe looks at Andrew McCabe’s role leading up to the 2016 election
A couple of days ago Andrew McCabe stepped down as Deputy Director of the FBI and now we are learning, according to this story, that there is a Justice Department inspector general looking into his role in the weeks leading up to the 2016 election. At question here is his lackadaisical attitude towards Hillary Clinton related emails which were found on Anthony Weiner’s laptop. Here is more:
The Justice Department’s inspector general has been focused for months on why Andrew McCabe, as the No. 2 official at the FBI, appeared not to act for about three weeks on a request to examine a batch of Hillary Clinton-related emails found in the latter stages of the 2016 election campaign, according to people familiar with the matter.
The inspector general, Michael E. Horowitz, has been asking witnesses why FBI leadership seemed unwilling to move forward on the examination of emails found on the laptop of former congressman Anthony Weiner (D-N.Y.)until late October — about three weeks after first being alerted to the issue, according to these people, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss the sensitive matter.
A key question of the internal investigation is whether McCabe or anyone else at the FBI wanted to avoid taking action on the laptop findings until after the Nov. 8 election, these people said.
A major line of inquiry for the inspector general has been trying to determine who at the FBI and the Justice Department knew about the Clinton emails on the Weiner laptop, and when they learned about them. McCabe is a central figure in those inquiries, these people said.
This is very interesting because James Comey became a darling of the left when Donald Trump fired him, but before that they were blaming him for costing Hillary Clinton the election by reopening the email investigation shortly before the election.
But James Comey had no choice because in his testimony before the Congress he said he would bring any new information to the Congress and that is what he did. Ironically it was apparently Andrew McCabe’s decision not to act on new information in order to protect Hillary Clinton which might have cost her the election.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The FBI has a second Russian dossier
It is being reported in this story that the FBI has a second Russian dossier which corroborates some of the stories in the first dossier. This dossier was given to the FBI by the man who authored the first Russian dossier, Christopher Steele, who admitted he could not verify what was in the document but because it corresponded with his research he thought he should hand it over.
The FBI inquiry into alleged Russian collusion in the 2016 US presidential election has been given a second memo that independently set out some of the same allegations made in a dossier by Christopher Steele, the British former spy.
This looks pretty damaging on the surface…until you look at who authored the second Russian dossier:
The second memo was written by Cody Shearer, a controversial political activist and former journalist who was close to the Clinton White House in the 1990s.
So, the first Russian dossier was bought and payed for by the Democratic National Committee and the Clinton campaign and written by a group which states that if you come to them with a problem they will “customize” a solution” and the second Russian dossier was compiled by a person with ties to Hillary Clinton. I am beginning to see a pattern here…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Two anonymous FBI sources say there are no inaccuracies in the GOP intelligence memo
The now infamous GOP intelligence memo is currently sitting on the President’s desk waiting for his decision on whether to release the memo or not. Democrats have been railing against this memo, claiming it is full of lies and GOP talking points designed to undermine the Russian investigation and call into question the FBI and the Department of Justice.
However, according to this story two anonymous sources within the FBI are claiming they could find on inaccuracies with the memo. Here is more:
Two senior FBI officials have now reviewed a controversial Republican staff memo alleging abuses of government surveillance programs during the 2016 presidential campaign, a source familiar with the matter told Fox News – adding that the officials “could not point to any factual inaccuracies.”
The two officials – one from the bureau’s counterintelligence division and the other from the legal division – followed up after an initial review of the memo during a rare Sunday trip to Capitol Hill by FBI Director Christopher Wray.
But some Department of Justice officials said this “characterization” is not true:
The FBI offered no comment to Fox News regarding bureau officials’ review of the document. Senior DOJ officials told Fox News after this story first posted, however, that they “dispute the characterization” that no inaccuracies could be cited.
Senior DOJ officials also had the opportunity to review the memo at DOJ headquarters on Monday.
This all comes from anonymous sources so take it for what it is worth. We are all just speculating at this point but the Democrats seem to be very worried about what is in this memo. This has been hyped up so much at this point that I am getting the feeling we are going to be let down when we see what is in it.
I do find it interesting that the senior Department of Justice officials who “dispute the characterization” that no inaccuracies could be found did not come out and say the whole thing was false…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Andrew McCabe steps down as FBI Deputy Director
At the beginning of December we learned that Andrew McCabe held a meeting in his office with Peter Strzok and Lisa Page (and we do not know who else) in which an “insurance policy” was discussed in the event Donald Trump won the election. It is widely believed that this “insurance policy” was the Russian dossier.
Since that time Andrew McCabe has been under heavy scrutiny and today he announced he is stepping down. Here is more:
FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who has been attacked by President Donald Trump, stepped down Monday, multiple sources familiar with the matter told NBC News.
McCabe will remain on the FBI payroll until he is eligible to retire with full benefits in mid-March, the sources said.
One source said McCabe was exercising his retirement eligibility and characterized his decision as “stepping aside.”
Fox News is reporting that Andrew McCabe was removed:
The timing is very interesting considering this decision came after FBI Director Christopher Wray read the memo which the House just voted to release to the public. I heard one person on the radio today during a news report say that this has nothing to do with the “insurance policy” meeting and that Andrew McCabe was going to retire in March but has decided to use his accrued time to stay on the payroll until he can retire. I apologize for not having the source.
If it is true that Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, and Lisa Page were actively working against Donald Trump–and it appears they were–it is outrageous that he is going to be allowed to stay on the payroll and retire with full benefits but then again Lois Lerner was also allowed to retire with a full pension so this is not surprising…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
America's Watchtower 