When the Congress only agreed to give Donald Trump $1.3 billion of the $5 billion he requested to build a border wall the President declared a national emergency and ordered the Pentagon to come up with the additional money by reallocating funds which have already been awarded for national defense.
In late April it was reported that the Pentagon had found and authorized the transfer of roughly $1 billion for the border wall and it was also reported there would be more on the way. Now it is being reported the Pentagon is set to transfer another $1.5 billion for border wall construction. Here is more:
Acting U.S. Defense Secretary Patrick Shanahan has approved the transfer of $1.5 billion to build more than 80 miles (130 km)of barriers on the border with Mexico, U.S. officials said on Friday, including taking about $600 million from an account meant for Afghan security forces.
“The funds were drawn from a variety of sources, including cost savings, programmatic changes and revised requirements, and therefore will have minimal impact on force readiness,” Shanahan said in a statement.
It goes without saying that the Democrats oppose this move but there is nothing they can do about it at this point other than to complain, and they are going to do that anyway. Slowly but surely Donald Trump is making good on another campaign promise.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Newly released document shows the FBI knew the dossier was fake while applying for a FISA warrant
The FBI’s alleged mishandling of the Steele dossier and its use in gaining a FISA warrant to spy on the Trump campaign is finally under investigation, and while these allegations have been around for awhile a newly uncovered document seems to provide more evidence the FBI did indeed know the document was fake when it used it as evidence. Here is more:
The FBI did indeed have proof that the Steele dossier was a fraud when they used it to obtain the FISA warrant to spy on candidate Trump. Yet they lied to get the FISA warrant.
Yesterday John Solomon from the Hill reported that a State Department employee had evidence that the Steele dossier was a fraud before it was used by the FBI to obtain a FISA warrant to spy on candidate Trump
Newly unearthed memos show a high-ranking government official who met with Steele in October 2016 determined some of the Donald Trump dirt that Steele was simultaneously digging up for the FBI and for Hillary Clinton’s campaign was inaccurate, and likely leaked to the media.
The concerns were flagged in a typed memo and in handwritten notes taken by Deputy Assistant Secretary of State Kathleen Kavalec on Oct. 11, 2016.
Her observations were recorded exactly 10 days before the FBI used Steele and his infamous dossier to justify securing a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant to spy on Trump campaign adviser Carter Page and the campaign’s contacts with Russia in search of a now debunked collusion theory.
It is important to note that the FBI swore on Oct. 21, 2016, to the FISA judges that Steele’s “reporting has been corroborated and used in criminal proceedings” and the FBI has determined him to be “reliable” and was “unaware of any derogatory information pertaining” to their informant, who simultaneously worked for Fusion GPS, the firm paid by the Democratic National Committee (DNC) and the Clinton campaign to find Russian dirt on Trump.
These concerns were typed up a full 10 days before the FBI went to the FISA court and swore the document was valid. Not only that but the FBI knew the document was constructed for political reasons in order to sway the 2016 election:
Kavalec’s written account of her Oct. 11, 2016, meeting with FBI informant Christopher Steele shows the Hillary Clinton campaign-funded British intelligence operative admitted that his research was political and facing an Election Day deadline.
Steele’s client “is keen to see this information come to light prior to November 8,” the date of the 2016 election, Kavalec wrote in a typed summary of her meeting with Steele and Tatyana Duran, a colleague from Steele’s Orbis Security firm. The memos were unearthed a few days ago through open-records litigation by the conservative group Citizens United.
After two years of investigating Donald Trump for allegedly trying to interfere with the 2016 election it looks as if the only conspiracy which was uncovered the Democrats’ plan to steal the election from him.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Just about one month ago a Federal judge issued an injunction against the portion of Donald Trump’s immigration policy which sent immigrants seeking asylum who did not enter through a port of entry back into Mexico to await their hearing, halting the program awaiting adjudication.
Last night the 9th Circuit Court of Appeals reversed this decision and the policy is to be reinstated:
This is rare indeed from one of the most liberal circuit courts in the nation, but the 9th Circuit Court has actually handed Donald Trump a pretty major victory on part of his immigration policy.
One of the things that has gone unnoticed since Donald Trump became the President is his success in appointing lower court judges, perhaps this is a sign of things to come in the future.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Over the last couple of days the war of words between the United States and China has been heating up and the possibility of a trade war looks more real. This of course has many people worried, but not good ole Joe Biden. The Presidential hopeful does not take the threat of China seriously, here is more on that:
Just over a week into his 2020 run, Joe Biden is already putting his foot in his mouth by telling Americans not to worry about China.
At an Iowa rally last week, the former veep went after a straw man: “China is going to eat our lunch? Come on, man,” he said, noting weaknesses like endemic corruption and uneven economic development.
Then he summed up with a couple of whoppers: “They’re not bad folks,” and “they’re not competition for us.”
Mr. Glad-Hands sounded a bit like Barack Obama when he called Iran a tiny little country that was no threat because it was thousands of miles away. Joe Biden must have forgotten about this:
With the world’s second-largest economy, Beijing is aggressively looking to dominate global markets — stealing intellectual property wherever it can and bribing and bullying other nations with its Belt and Road program to lock up markets across the globe, among other cheats.
As for “not bad folks”: Uncle Joe should tell that to the 1 million Uighurs that China’s government has sent to re-education camps. Or to the countless other citizens arrested and tortured for dissent.
So why is Joe Biden so willing to dismiss the China threat? Could it have anything to do with his son?
Beijing is also busy making Big Brother a 21st century reality. Biden should know that, since his son Hunter is an investor in a firm, Bohai Harvest RST, that’s deeply involved in Face++ — a mobile phone app that Beijing built to spy on its own public.
Indeed, the younger Biden has long been in deep with China’s “not bad” elite, as Peter Schweizer revealed in his book “Secret Empires.” Notably, Hunter’s private equity firm, Rosemont Seneca Partners LLC, swung a $1.5 billion investment deal with the state-owned Bank of China even as his then-vice president dad was engaged in high-end diplomacy with Beijing.
One of the biggest knocks the left has against Donald Trump is their claim that he has to many personal interests in foreign countries and therefor has a conflict of interest and yet Joe Biden is currently the Democratic front-runner by a large margin. Go figure…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Democratic Representative Al Green from Texas is one of many Democrats who want to see the President of the United States impeached but he has some interesting reasoning behind his motivation. He is afraid if the Democrats do not impeach Donald Trump he will be reelected. Here is what he had to say:
Saturday on MSNBC, Rep. Al Green (D-TX) said he is concerned is the Democrats do not begin impeachment proceedings in the House President Donald Trump will win the election in 2020.
Green said, “I’m concerned if we don’t impeach this president, he will get re-elected. If we don’t impeach him, he will say he’s been vindicated. He will say the Democrats had an overwhelming majority in the House and didn’t take up impeachment. He will say we had a constitutional duty to do and we didn’t. He will say he’s been vindicated.”
He went on to blather some lunacy about a constitutional crisis but the bottom line here is that this proves the calls for impeachment have nothing to do with high crimes and misdemeanors and have everything to do with policy disagreements. Why else would Al Green not want to give the American people a chance to vote Donald Trump out of office unless he is afraid the people will reject Democratic policies again? This shows quite a bit of disdain for the will of the American people and proves once again that Democrats think they are smarter and know better what is best for the American people.
That is a chance that Al Green apparently is not comfortable taking and with the state of today’s Democratic party, and the lunacy of the candidates thus far announced, I really can not blame him…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
You might remember the computer and phone problems that seemed to plague the Federal government several years ago. The IRS had computer issues during the heat of the targeting scandal, and Hillary Clinton and her minions had her computer accidentally wiped clean and her phones smashed with hammers at one point during the email scandal and investigation.
Well it seems as if these were not the only ones to have issues with technology during the Obama administration because we are learning according to this story the FBI lost notes on a meeting with Hillary Clinton back in 2015 over the email scandal because a CD was cracked.
The FBI ‘lost notes’ from an August 2015 meeting with the Intelligence Community Inspector General about Hillary Clinton’s private server, according to new FBI docs released Friday.
According to the newly released FBI docs related to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private server, Special Agents (SAs) have been gathering and copying materials in response to FOIA and stumbled across some ‘missing notes.’
A February 2019 email from a Special Agent reveals that a CD containing material and notes from an August 2015 meeting with the ICIG was damaged, therefore the information is considered “missing.”
“On or about February 6, 2019, SAs [redacted] opened [redacted] CYBER-1A27, which contained a CD with a crack on it (a damaged CD). SA attempted to copy the damaged CD at the WFO [Washington Field Office] Computer Analysis Response Team (CART) self-service area, but was not able to do so.” the email read.
Since the CD was cracked, FBI IT specialists indicated it was unlikely the CD could be copied.
The notes from this meeting are also missing.
So the FBI would have us believe there was only one copy of the CD and the notes are also missing so the information is conveniently gone forever. And of course there is no file on the computer used to created the CD which would contain the information.
But there were no scandals during Barack Obama’s time as President so I guess this has to be chalked up to–using the new terminology of the FBI–extreme carelessness, because of course it could not possibly be gross negligence.
Or was it something else like say, oh I don’t know, the willful destruction of evidence?
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
Sunday, May 5th open thread: ‘The Underdog’
“This is the day which the Lord hath made; we will rejoice and be glad in it.” (Psalm 118:24 KJV)
Here is this week’s open thread. 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.
You can subscribe to America’s Watchtower to receive email updates and you can also follow America’s Watchtower on Facebook and Twitter by clicking the links on the right.
Here is Spoon performing “The Underdog” on David Letterman back in 2007:
Elizabeth Warren claims doctors and nurses treat people differently based on the color of the patient’s skin
One of the things I have noticed about Elizabeth Warren is that she is a “one-upper.” We all know people like this, no matter what story somebody tells they always have a better one that can top it.
With the Democratic presidential candidates for 2020 trying to “out-left” each other this is a personality trait which comes in handy, but because “out-left” is synonymous with “out-crazy” it can also be conductive to putting one’s foot in one’s mouth.
And that is what happened to the Senator from Massachusetts the other day; when she heard a Washington State Senator claim that nurses just play cards for their entire shift Elizabeth Warren basically said hold my video prop beer (it’s yucky anyway) and watch this!
According to this story she had the audacity to say that nurses and doctors treat people differently based on the color of the patient’s skin. Here is more:
The data shows that black women are three to four times more likely than white women to die from pregnancy or childbirth-related causes. This trend persists even after adjusting for income and education. One major reason? Racism. In a detailed report, ProPublica found that the vast majority of maternal deaths are preventable, but decades of racism and discrimination mean that, too often, doctors and nurses don’t hear Black women’s health issues the same way they hear them from other women.
Elizabeth Warren seems to have a problem with people who earn money by working hard–remember the you didn’t build that comment?–to get somewhere in their lives and make a little money, but this is just defamatory.
It is a deliberate attempt to pit Americans against Americans for political purposes and a woman with this type of disdain for any American should never be in the running for President. The good news is that she is wallowing in the single digits in the polls behind people we have never heard of so hopefully she will go back to Massachusetts soon.
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
The left was all aghast when William Barr had the audacity to tell the truth about the FBI; namely that the organization was spying on the Trump campaign beyond a shadow of a doubt.
But fast-forward to today and with the news that there are multiple investigations into the 2016 election and the New York Times, in an attempt to salvage whatever journalistic integrity it has left, has actually admitted the FBI did in fact send a spy into the Trump campaign. Here is more:
The conversation at a London bar in September 2016 took a strange turn when the woman sitting across from George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign adviser, asked a direct question: Was the Trump campaign working with Russia?
I guess subtlety is not the FBI’s strong suit, but I digress…
The woman had set up the meeting to discuss foreign policy issues. But she was actually a government investigator posing as a research assistant, according to people familiar with the operation. The F.B.I. sent her to London as part of the counterintelligence inquiry opened that summer to better understand the Trump campaign’s links to Russia.
The American government’s affiliation with the woman, who said her name was Azra Turk, is one previously unreported detail of an operation that has become a political flash point in the face of accusations by President Trump and his allies that American law enforcement and intelligence officials spied on his campaign to undermine his electoral chances. Last year, he called it “Spygate.”
As William Barr said, it is no longer a question of “if” the FBI spied on the Trump campaign but rather a question of whether or not it was justified. The New York Times can no longer afford to deny this truth with these investigations beginning so now it is time to get the spin machine up and running.
The decision to use Ms. Turk in the operation aimed at a presidential campaign official shows the level of alarm inside the F.B.I. during a frantic period when the bureau was trying to determine the scope of Russia’s attempts to disrupt the 2016 election
There you have the spin: the FBI was so alarmed they had no choice but to spy on the Trump campaign so in other words the New York Times is now admitting the spying took place and has already determined it was justified. Slowly but surely the truth is coming out…
malo periculosam libertatem quam quietum servitium
America's Watchtower 