This one should be interesting one way or the other: it is now being reported in this story that John Podesta will testify in front of the House Intelligence Committee next week. Here is more:
The House intelligence committee next week plans to interview John Podesta, Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman whose hacked email account became central to Russian meddling in the US election last year, according to multiple sources familiar with the matter.
Podesta will be one of the committee’s first major witnesses to meet with the panel behind closed doors as it tries to determine the extent of the Russian involvement in last year’s campaign and whether any of President Donald Trump’s associates coordinated with the Russians.
Jeh Johnson testifies: The Democratic National Committee did not want DHS help with potential hacking
Yesterday I wrote about one aspect of the Russia collusion/hacking scandal which was being ignored by the Democrats and the mainstream media and that was the “unmaking” scandal. You can read that post here.
But there is a second aspect to the official Democratic narrative which has been ignored as well and it is a biggie: The Democrats claim the Russians hacked the Democratic National Committee in order to influence the election but they conveniently forget that somebody tried to hack into the Republican National Committee as well.
The FBI warned both National Committees during the campaign that somebody was trying to hack into the systems. The difference is that the Republican National Committee took the warning to heart and implemented the FBI’s recommended changes while the Democratic National Committee did not want the help of the FBI and determined the warning was a “prank call.” In addition to this Barack Obama was also warned about potential Russia interference in the election months before the election and did not do anything about it.
Democrats have vowed to get to the bottom of the Russia collusion scandal and you would think that part of the process would be to interview as many people as possible who might have information they need to actually find any evidence of collusion. But you would apparently be wrong if this story is true–the Democrats are actually blocking key witnesses who VOLUNTEERED to testify from testifying. One of the witnesses they do not seem interested in speaking to just happens to be the man they called the “mastermind” behind the nefarious collusion scandal.
Here is more:
House Democrats are continuing to block testimony from about a dozen witnesses who sought to appear before the intelligence oversight panel investigating Russian interference in the 2016 election.
Congressional officials said one of the key witnesses, former informal adviser to the Trump campaign Carter Page, was scheduled to testify at a closed hearing of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
But Democrats on the committee blocked the testimony, asserting they needed more time to prepare.
“He’s the guy that many Democrats have been pointing to as the supposed mastermind and you would think they were interested hearing his story,” said one Capitol Hill official.
It is interesting to note that all of these people who are being blocked from testifying want to testify, presumably because they want to clear their own names and possibly the President’s name as well, but are not being allowed to. Why would that be? Perhaps the Democrats already know what they are going to say and it does not fit the narrative.
Democrats claim they need more time but they did not need more time to grill James Comey, but of course they thought the former FBI Director would give them what they wanted to hear. Democrats probably really do want more time because their goal, if they cannot take down Donald Trump, is to drag this investigation out to the 2018 election and possibly the 2020 election as well.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Donald Trump is allowing more foreign guest workers into the United States than Barack Obama
One of the biggest reasons that got Donald Trump was elected was that be promised to build the wall, curb illegal immigration, and bring jobs back to Americans. Part of that promise, if I remember correctly, was to curb the guest worker program so that more jobs would be available to Americans which were being taken by foreign workers. This was part of the whole “America First” mantra.
These promises led to many of the protests we have seen in recent months with Donald Trump being called a racist, a nativist, a nationalist, and a xenophobe. But a funny thing has happened between the campaign and now–Donald Trump is actually allowing more foreign guest workers into the country than Barack Obama according to government statistics. Here is more:
President Donald Trump’s administration has seen increases in the number of foreign workers entering the U.S., according to new federal statistics.
Numbers from the United States Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) show that in the Trump Administration’s first three months in office, the number of foreign workers who were given permission to enter the U.S. increased by nearly 25,000 compared to the same time last year under the Obama Administration.
Between January and March 2016, Obama admitted more than 112,000 foreign guest workers. In 2017, Trump allowed close to 137,000 foreign workers to enter the country.
This is not going to sit well with Donald Trump supporters who voted for him based on his stance on immigration but I have to say I am not surprised, I never expected him to make good on these promises in the first place. But I do wonder if the left will acknowledge this… okay, I do not wonder because we all know the answer. The rhetoric will continue and this will be ingored.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The State Department opens a formal inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of government emails
It is now being reported here that the State Department is opening up an inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s handling of official government emails on her personal server. Here is more:
The State Department has opened a formal inquiry into whether former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her aides mishandled classified information while she was the nation’s top diplomat, Fox News has learned. Despite being under investigation, Clinton and her staffers still have security clearances to access sensitive government information.
The department’s investigation aims to determine whether Clinton and her closest aides violated government protocols by using her private server to receive, hold and transmit classified and top-secret government documents. The department declined to say when its inquiry began, but it follows the conclusion of the FBI’s probe into the matter, which did not result in any actions being taken against Clinton or any of her aides.
Charles Grassley has confirmed this as well. I am not sure why we are going to have an investigation into this at this point, we should be moving to the next phase: we already know Hillary Clinton mishandled government emails, James Comey confirmed this when he said she was guilty of extreme carelessness but maybe the former FBI Director’s recent testimony has rekindled questions which remain unanswered.
Judging from the results of all the previous investigations I am not expecting anything to come from this but maybe I will be shown to be wrong. I doubt it though, just another show trial.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
One of the aspects of the whole Russia collusion/hacking scandal which has been forgotten about is one of the only aspects where there is proof of guilt to this point–the unmasking scandal.
While the Democrats and the establishment Republicans and the mainstream media have all forgotten about this Judicial Watch has not and the conservative organization has been trying get the documents through a Freedom of Information Act request.
Judicial Watch has finally gotten an answer and it is quite interesting to say the least. Here is what they were told:
There has been a concerted effort by the left on college campuses to shut down opposition speech, we saw it most recently at Berkeley when Anne Coulter had to cancel a speech due to death threats and it also happened recently to Milo Yiannopoulos.
The left not only does not want to listen to an opposing view but they wish to stifle free speech and limit it to one side so that the other side cannot even be heard by people who are either curious about what the other side thinks, or even by those on campus who might happen to agree with the other side.
Bernie Sanders has suddenly emerged as a voice of reason for the left on this issue. Here is what he had to say about this issue yesterday on CBS:
When James Comey testified last week two things went unnoticed by the mainstream media and by the Democrats. The first is that the former FBI Director admitted he did not feel as if Donald Trump tried to obstruct justice. (The same was said by three people who testified the day before James Comey.)
And the second issue the mainstream media and the Democrats considered a non-story was his testimony that Loretta Lynch did in fact influence the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email scandal and that he was concerned about the now infamous Arizona airport tarmac meeting between she and Bill Clinton.
It is the latter issue we are going to discuss today.
In the wake of the Steve Scalise shooting you would think the Democrats would back down from the violent rhetoric which led a deranged alt-lefter to take matters into his own hands but you would be wrong.
Unlike the aftermath of the Gabby Giffords shooting the left is not calling for people to use language which heals and does not hurt, in fact some of them have been doubling down as can be seen on Twitter.
And speaking of Twitter, a Democratic strategist from New Jersey has actually started a vile Twitter campaign against Republican Congressmen. Here is more:
A New Jersey Democratic strategist is capitalizing on the shooting of Rep. Steve Scalise (R-LA) by launching the hashtags #HuntRepublicans and #HuntRepublicanCongressmen, and he is showing no signs of backing down, claiming “the chickens came home to roost.”
James Devine, a longtime political strategist in the Garden State, tweeted in the wake of the shooting at a Republican baseball practice in Alexandria on Wednesday that “we are in a war with selfish, foolish & narcissistic rich people”:
Even if this is true it does not mean you can start shooting them, here is his Tweet:
https://twitter.com/James_J_Devine/status/875070675106627585
He is not backing down and there are more Tweets, he claims not to condone violence but:
“If you want to behave in an uncivilized and violent manner, which I do not condone, but if you want to operate under those circumstances then you have to be prepared to accept those consequences.”
All the violent rhetoric has come from the left and yet he says the right has to be prepared to accept the consequences. It is pretty clear to me that this man is not in his right mind and despite his claims to the contrary he is advocating violence.
It is time for the FBI and/or the Secret Service to pay a visit to New Jersey.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, June 18th open thread: ‘Hypnotize’
Happy Father’s Day to all you fathers out there! Here is the open thread for Sunday, June 11th. 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.
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System of a Down is a strange band whose songs usually include multiple tempo changes and unusual vocals. Most people either love this band or hate them. Me, I am in the middle. I am not really a fan but when one of their songs comes on the radio I usually listen to it.
The song I have chosen to share this week is called “Hypnotize” but I am not sure what year this video is from. At first listening the song seems to start off with a message before veering off into nothingness. It begins with lyrics about Tienanmen Square before going off course with lyrics about sitting in a car and waiting for a girl.
But when you look at the lyrics it begins to make a little more sense and actually might explain the title. This song might be coming from two viewpoints–the first being the person listening to the news which is fabricated to hypnotize the public and the second being from someone who has been hypnotized into not caring about anything important.
Here are the lyrics:
“Why don’t you ask the kids at Tiananmen square?
Was Fashion the reason why they were there?
They disguise it, Hypnotize it
Television made you buy it
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my…
She’s scared that I will take her away from there
Her dreams that her country left with no one there
Mezmerize the simple minded
Propaganda leaves us blinded
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl
I’m just sitting in my car and waiting for my girl”
But then again it could be about nothing and maybe I am reading too much into it. Listen and decide for yourselves:
frui diem
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