It's time for a new Apology Tour

Hat tip Peoples Cube, where we learn,

The former U.S. president. Barack Obama, has surprised reporters with the announcement that he will travel abroad on his Second Apology Tour. The purpose of the trip, said the former leader, is to "Make America Small Again," and more importantly, he added for emphasis, to make America's enemies feel better about themselves.

Mr. Obama said, "If North Korea chooses to build ICBMs on which they intend to fit Multiple Reentry Vehicles and attack their neighbors and the U.S., it's their business, not ours. I believe in choice, and it should be our choice to look the other way. Those are their missiles and their nukes, not ours. Think about it. Who are we to talk? After all, we have a few of these ourselves, even if they're half century-old rusted heaps of scrap metal that haven't worked in decades."
~
The former president said that the final straw in his decision to go on another apology tour was President Trump's speech at the United Nations that was entirely bereft of repeated apologies for the existence of the United States. As for Israel, Mr. Obama admitted that he did not take kindly to seeing a smiling Bibi Netanyahu in the room filled with important human beings.

"The most insulting prospect," offered Mr. Obama, "is the idea of American Exceptionalism that implied that the United States has a more important role on the world stage than North Korea." He insisted that such thinking is unfair and bigoted. "How do you think Kim Jong-Un feels?"

Glaring angrily at reporters who were shaking their heads, Mr. Obama said the North Korean leader and the entire world must resist the evil that is Trump, and he will support the resistance by promptly flying to Pyongyang to act as a human shield against American militaristic criminals. And then he will apologize from the capital of the unjustly-maligned state to everyone who is offended by America, by Japan, by prosperity, and a humanity that appreciates the tyrannical and racist idea they call "freedom."

Read more here.

Is the FBI protecting itself from inquiry into unlawful conduct of the FBI?

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance reports,

the FBI is protecting itself from inquiry into unlawful conduct of the FBI.

...People often talk about ‘conflict of interest’ in matters of personal or organizational conduct when the investigative apparatus itself is a participating entity into the originating issue. However, the FBI refusing to allow investigative oversight into actions taken by the FBI takes ‘conflicted interest’ concerns into stratospheric levels.



...If the issue was simply a one-time request by the FBI to delay inquiry it might not hold the same level of consequence it does right now.

But when you combine this intentional action by Robert Mueller to block oversight into the potentially illegal action of a rogue agency with the previous actions within the DOJ as they relate to the IRS targeting, well, what you get is a stunning picture of a weaponized FBI apparatus attempting to avoid accountability.

Read much more here.

Puerto Rico Teamsters Union is refusing to deliver supplies

At The Conservative Treehouse, Sundance reports that although there is a huge response from our federal government in Puerto Rico, the Puerto Rico Teamsters Union is refusing to deliver supplies, using the Hurricane Maria as contract leverage. Read about it here.

Will the Panda be magnanimous?

Hat tip Conservative Treehouse where there is much more on US/China because of Secretary of State Tillerson's visit there today here.
Also, we learn that Sundance is not a fan of Steve Bannon!

Cultural totalitarianism!

She talks this way precisely because she was educated in America! Taught to hate America, its laws, its history!

And then there is that terrible racist Dr. Suess. Suessgate!

Mark Steyn says we may be making ourselves a society too stupid to survive if we go down this path. "Common sense presupposes that a society has something in common!" Do we have enough in common to hold together? If everything is racist, nothing is racist!

A Satanist named Lucien Graves wants to force Christian bakers to violate their beliefs. Tucker asks him why he is spending time bothering other people. Lucien responds, "We're upholding pluralism." Tucker responds, "No you are not upholding pluralism, you are seeking out people to bother!"

Peter Schweizer comes on to discuss insider trading by staffers of members of Congress. Politico had a story about it this week and Schweizer wrote about it several years ago.

Peter Kirsanow of the US Commission on Civil Rights talked about the profound consequence of police withdrawing from proactive policing. False narrative feeds the outrage which feeds the protests which resulted in police withdrawing from black communities which results in the spike of crime rates.

Senator Bob Menendez from New Jersey is in trouble facing 18 counts of fraud and bribery.

Fraudulent underpinnings

Andrew McCarthy writes at National Review about the NFL kneeling protests. He thinks they were an appalling fraud.

...given that the NFL does not hesitate to suppress expression to which it objects — its decision to allow the exhibition of contempt for symbols of nationhood is a free choice, an implicit endorsement.

If the commissioner and the owners are now made uncomfortable because President Trump pointed out that they need not tolerate the exploitation of their forum by athletes who insult the nation and slander its police, good.

It is beyond cavil that the president’s impetuous remarks, his at times reckless and even offensive blathering, often make things worse, including for the president himself. To take just one example (there are numerous we could cite), his tweets accusing President Obama of tapping his Trump Tower phone lines were not just ill-informed and indecorous; they detracted from what may be a real political-spying scandal. They gave the media a rationale for focusing on Trump’s misstatements to the exclusion of indications that the Obama administration abused its foreign-intelligence collection power in order to monitor the opposition party’s presidential campaign.

But the spiteful public debate over the NFL’s kneeling protesters? He didn’t make that worse. He drew attention to its fraudulent underpinnings.

Was that his intention? I doubt it. Trump is not adept at governing, but he is a master culture warrior. He is president because he knows his Middle American, working-class supporters, what angers and energizes them. He also seems to get, in a way his Beltway betters do not, the chasms between elite opinion and grassroots sensibility. His antennae detect when the former is woefully out of touch.

I don’t think Trump has given much thought to what the kneeling exhibition has been about. I believe he saw and exploited an opportunity to put himself on the side of America, the flag, the anthem, and the police and soldiers putting their lives on the line. In other words, to put himself on the right side of a debate against millionaire left-wing athlete–activists, the left-wing media (including its sports-journalism cohort) that is driving its audience away in droves, and Democrats — especially in the mold of New York City Council crackpots. Last seen demanding the release from prison of FALN terrorist Oscar López Rivera (later honored at the city’s Puerto Rican Day parade), the Council reacted to Trump’s comments by, of course, protesting the Pledge of Allegiance.

...The higher incarceration rate of blacks (particularly, young black males) versus other groups is a straightforward function of their higher crime rate — which also explains why black populations are inordinately victimized by crime and need active police protection. Though just 13 percent of the population, African-Americans committed 52 percent of homicides between 1980 and 2008; they are responsible for well over 90 percent of the homicides committed against other black people. In 2015, nationwide, 258 black people were killed by police gunfire (the number of white people killed in police shootings was 494). By contrast, according to the Daily Wire’s Aaron Bandler, nearly 6,000 black people were killed by other black people.

The NFL well knew what the kneeling protest was about. It was a claim that police were hunting down black men and other people of color. As we’ve seen, Colin Kaepernick could not have been clearer about that. That same year, after five Dallas cops were slain by a sniper, the Dallas Cowboys requested permission to wear small “Arm in Arm” decals on their helmets, in honor of police killed while serving and protecting their community. The NFL said no, that message would not be permitted. Free speech, right? If we’re going to make a list of people who made this controversy worse, there will be a lot of names on it before Donald Trump’s.

Read more here.

"Empowerment"

The Babylon Bee reports,

According to reports from around the nation, Americans who think of themselves as progressive and forward-thinking in their support for women’s rights and the dignity of females everywhere were celebrating the life of Hugh Hefner, for some reason, after his death Wednesday at the ripe old age of 91.

“RIP Hugh Hefner!” one man whose online profile described him as a “feminist, activist, social justice warrior” wrote. “Thanks for supporting the liberation of women!”

Newspapers and other media outlets across the country released touching memoirs, obituaries, and photographs of the mogul who made a fortune parading nude women in public like pieces of meat dangled in front of wild animals, heralding him as a progress-oriented leader of a sexual revolution. These very same news organizations like to think of themselves as modern and progressive, sources confirmed, despite Hefner’s empire being built upon women being reduced to nothing but objects meant for the sexual gratification of men.

Celebrities who have previously championed the cause of women’s rights joined in throughout the day Thursday, memorializing the man who made millions of dollars pioneering the mainstream objectification of women across the nation and world, as he continuously slept with hordes of ladies who were young enough to be his great-granddaughters and relentlessly perpetuated the notion that all women should be impossibly proportioned and absolutely gorgeous.

“RIP to the legendary Hugh Hefner! I’m so honored to have been a part of the Playboy team! You will be greatly missed! Love you Hef! Xoxo” tweeted Kim Kardashian after news broke of his death.

At publishing time, several hundred think pieces explaining that Playboy’s rampant and shameless objectification of women was actually “empowerment” had been published, sources confirmed.

Persuading China to cut financial ties to North Korea

The Atheist Conservative reports,

President Trump may have actually persuaded China to stop all financial transactions with North Korea.

According to the Washington Times –

Treasury Secretary Steven T. Mnuchin called the head of China’s central bank very early Thursday to alert him that Mr. Trump was preparing an executive order to sanction any financial institutions doing business with North Korea. He asked for the cooperation of China, the main source of North Korea’s cash. Hours later, the People’s Bank of China announced it was directing all other banks in China to halt financial transactions with North Korea.

China is complying with US demands?

Will it really happen? Will the freeze last as long as it needs to?

Mnuchin said the sanctions will be more effective than previous efforts because Treasury now has the authority to “freeze or block any transactions, with any financial institution, anywhere in the world”.

If the US Treasury now has that power and uses it fully, then this is, as the Washington Times report says, “a major diplomatic victory” for President Trump.

It will surely be impossible for Kim Jong-un’s totalitarian Communist regime to survive such sanctions. The regime has been almost wholly dependent on China, and only able to fund its missile and nuke arsenals because China supported it.

So this is an enormously important – as well as extremely dramatic – development in world affairs. Not only because it can defeat Kim Jong-un, but perhaps even more importantly, because it has brought China into compliance with America’s wishes.

If it really happens, it is a towering achievement of President Trump.

Oddball fringe, or mainstream Democrat Party?

From a booklet by David Horowitz entitled The Left’s Racist War Against Trump and America:

...In a nation which for eight years was headed by a black president, had two chief law enforcement officers who were black, has recently had two black secretaries of state and three black national security advisers, and has elected more than 10,000 black government officials; in a nation that has been governed for fifty years by statutes that outlaw discrimination by race and whose national culture is saturated with non-white heroes and icons – in such a nation, people who refer to America as “white supremacist” would normally be dismissed as an oddball fringe …

Read more here.

"Okay, I Lied! I don't actually have any sheep herding experience!"

hat tip Paul Bronks

"5-10% have a thoughtful explanation for why they are there protesting and what they believe

Do you know about Fleccas Talks on YouTube? I had not heard of him. Tucker Carlson brings him to our attention here.

Assange wants to make a deal with Trump. Will Kelly and McMaster allow it?

Debra Heine reports at PJ Media,

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has offered to provide evidence that the Russian collusion narrative is false in exchange for a pardon from President Trump.

...Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.) told The Daily Caller that Trump is being blocked from knowing about the potential deal with Assange. “I think the president’s answer indicates that there is a wall around him that is being created by people who do not want to expose this fraud that there was collusion between our intelligence community and the leaders of the Democratic Party,” Rohrabacher said.

..."The congressman spoke to the chief of staff John Kelly two weeks ago about the potential deal with Assange," The Daily Caller reported. "The Wall Street Journal reported that Kelly told Rohrabacher to bring the information to the intelligence community."

...Rohrabacher called the collusion narrative "a massive propaganda campaign" and "historic con job" meant to conceal the ideological conspiracy between the intelligence community and the Democrat party.

Read more here.

"Is the media complicit with AntiFa, or do they just suck at their jobs?"

That is the question asked by Steven Crowder after he and his producer went undercover with AntiFa and no one from the media showed any interest in their findings.

Dr. Seuss a racist? Puerto Rico mess

Greg asks, "Do you remember when librarians weren't self-righteous left-wing jackasses?" A librarian in New York snubbed Melania Trump, who donated some Dr. Suess books to that library. Dr. Suess racial overtones?

Puerto Rico really a dire situation. Trump going there Tuesday to evaluate and show support. He has sent a three-star General. It is going to require more of a military response. Of course, Juan Williams tries to make it Trump's fault. Greg Gutfeld explains how Puerto Rico is different from Texas and Florida. Location and infrastructure plus a gigantic storm are the variables. Twenty years of corruption in Puerto Rico.

Lefties are celebrating all over social media and the media today at the resignation of Tom Price as Secretary of Health and Human Services.

Read more here.

Reality Winner

Ace reports today on Reality Winner.

Reality Winner, given a security clearance by Obama's secret police, says that "America is the worst thing to ever happen to the world."

The woman suspected of leaking U.S. secrets to a news organization claimed she stuffed a classified report into her pantyhose and walked out of a National Security Agency office in Georgia, mainly because she hates America "like three times a day."
...

In their latest filing Wednesday, prosecutors also included a partial transcript of a Facebook chat between Winner and her sister in February.

"Look, I only say I hate America like 3 times a day," Winner wrote. “I'm no radical. It's mostly just about Americans obsession with air conditioning.”

Her sister asked: "But you don’t actually hate America, right?"

Winner replied: "I mean yeah I do it’s literally the worst thing to happen on the planet. We invented capitalism the downfall of the environment."

She had other good reasons to hate America: Like that the NSA played Fox News on some of their TVs. Guess which "news" channel she would have preferred?

Reality Winner, the former National Security Agency contractor accused of leaking a classified report, apparently complained to her bosses that Fox News was playing in her office – suggesting Al Jazeera would have been a more appropriate choice.
...

The transcripts offer additional insight into both her political leanings and media preferences.


"I've filed formal complaints about them having Fox News on,” she told FBI agents. “… Uh, at least, for God's sake put Al Jazeera on, or a slideshow with people's pets. I've tried everything to get that changed."

It's not an accident Obama granted people like her access to top secret information -- it's deliberate.

And meanwhile, McMasters fires people loyal to Trump and retains Obama loyalists.

$30 million dollars spent against Judge Roy Moore in Alabama, against his 2 and one-half million

Steve Bannon says it was a victory for Trump. After Alabama, Bannon flew to Colorado to interview populist candidates. Who would that be? Anyone know?

What? Our rights come from God, not the government?

Excerpts from JJ Sefton's morning rant:

The weekend is here, and despite the fiasco of Graham Cassidy, on aggregate it was a pretty good week for America. The NFL's willingness to shill for Marxism and Balkanization has backfired spectacularly, the GDP has had over 3% growth for the second straight quarter after eight straight years of planned contraction courtesy of you-know-who, the DC Circus has surprisingly upheld concealed-carry and Steve Scalise made a surprise appearance in Congress yesterday 15 weeks after nearly being assassinated in a Democrat-inspired terrorist attack.

...From hither and yon, F. Chuck Todd is either stupid, ignorant, lying or all three at once. Roy Moore, as expected, is taking withering attacks for having the gall to unseat an establishment pick as well as defending G-d and the Constitution. And Todd, the dolt, smugly derided Moore for being dumb enough to believe that your rights come from, get this, G-d and not the government.

Read more here.

NRO Editor calls out #NeverTrumpers

Does Trumpism corrupt? Ace of Spades writes,

Indeed it does -- but it seems to have primarily corrupted the NeverTrumpers themselves, who are now taking 180-degree-opposite positions than they used to claim to believe in just because of the happenstance that Trump also took that position.

Nationalism -- which every conservative used to believe in -- is now a species of #Racism, just like the left always claimed, according to these folks corrupted by their hysterical reaction to Trump.

Read more here.

Give credit to National Review editor Rich Lowry, who takes on #NeverTrumpers Jonah Goldberg, Jay Norlinger, and David French.

One way to respond to Hollywood elitists

Manhattan Infidel has an exclusive interview with actor Judd Apatow, who says,

...You Trump supporters are all from the lower class. Probably do manual labor for a living instead of working with your mind like I do. And like all lower class people, you’re violent and when drunk rape women. Just like Donald Trump who had his Secretary of Education rescind Obama’s, may his holiness live in our hearts and minds forever, campus sexual misconduct policies. You see Trump had to pander to his rape base.

It doesn't end well for Mr. Apatow here.

Gruesome murder in Manhattan

Manhattan Infidel has an exclusive news story that you are not going to like. Mighty Mouse has been murdered, and he will no longer be saving your day. He had lots of enemies, but police have a definite suspect in mind. Read the gruesome details here.

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Free Speech?

hat tip 90 Miles from Tyranny

Stay warm!

At Sciencealert.com David Nield reports,

Dropping temperatures and changes in atmospheric pressure can lead to an increase in the risk of heart failure for elderly people, according to a large-scale study – and more care needs to be taken to counter the effects.

...the body reacts naturally to the cold: our heart starts beating faster to keep us warm, for a start, and the body also tightens its arteries in response to cold, decreasing thermal conduction in the skin and raising blood pressure as a result.

What's more, hormone changes in response to the cold make the blood more likely to clot. Any of these biological changes can trigger cardiovascular issues as the temperature goes down, perhaps by making existing conditions worse.

Read more here.

He saw the writing on the wall

Kurt Schlichter writes at Town Hall today,

We tried being nice; that was the Tea Party, and the Establishment trashed it. Welcome to moderately mean.

Don’t make us get even meaner.

...So the base went with Roy Moore, who is super-colorful in a potentially Todd Akin kind of way because Roy Moore constitutes a giant middle finger to the crowd that failed to summon up the cajones to repeal Obamacare yet found endless investigations of RUSSIA! TREASON! OK, IT’S JUST SOME ADS ON FACEBOOK BUT WE’RE STILL GOING WITH TREASON! and amnesty for middle-aged Dreamers muy simpatico.

You almost feel sorry for Mitch because he’s dealing with sanctimonious crones like Susan Collins and liars like John McCain, but then you realize that the only way he manifests his frustration at their slimy duplicity is with that pursed-lip tortoise frown of his. Do the RINOs face any consequences for defying him? Does Mitch ever play hardball with them? Who’s afraid of him? No one. They laugh at him, and he chooses to do nothing. Okay, that’s fine. If he won’t lay down the iron discipline on his apostates, we’ll just burn the heretics ourselves.

...Did Bob Corker, the noted Iran Agreement enabler, ditch his safe Tennessee Senate seat because he needed to spend more time with his family? Was it because he believes in only serving two terms? Perhaps Chet the Unicorn recommended it? No, he saw the writing on the wall.

...Are you listening? GOP, can you hear us normals now?

See, we’re serious. The ritual sacrifice of Eric Cantor was not a fluke. The election of Donald Trump was not a fluke. None of this is a fluke. We really mean it. We want change. And if you won’t give it to us, we’ll fire you and elect someone who will.

Primarying incumbents is a high-stakes play, but hey – it’s only our country that’s at stake. We face an enemy that hates us, that wants us suppressed and silenced, that will do everything it can to take our First, Second, and every other Amendment’s rights from us and condemn us to a future of baking liberals’ cakes and fearing that we might be jailed for using the wrong pronoun. There’s a real threat to the United States continuing as we know it. We see it. Do you? If you Republicans are too weak and cowardly to fight, then we lose it all, and we know it. We’re woke – ask one of your Millennial interns what that means.

...Strange, Corker, and Dent are just the beginning – if this isn’t the end of your long streak o’ losing. Sure, our strategy may backfire, but what have we got to lose? If we aren’t going to get what we want, you aren’t either. Maybe that’s sub-optimal game theory, but then this isn’t a game – not for those of us who will bear the consequences of your failures. And if moderately mean doesn’t work, we’ll take it up a notch. We have nothing to lose.

GOP, can you hear us normals now?

RedPillBlack, Hugh Hefner, Tax reform

Andrew plays a clip of Hugh Hefner on Firing Line with William F. Buckley. Hefner brags about "the new morality." Hugh said there had never been a code regarding premarital sex, except, "Thou shalt not? Buckley retorts, "That's a code, isn't it?"

Andrew said when he was thirteen-years-old (in the 60s) everybody assumed we would be virgins when we got married. By the time we were fifteen, we were all sleeping with each other! What was the main reason for this rapid change? Birth control! The death of Hugh Hefner this week is what spurred this discussion.

Though Andrew lives and advocates a conservative life, he always wants to err on the side of freedom. But, "just because you have the freedom, the right, doesn't mean it is right." Andrew prefers to advocate chastity with joy, rather than promiscuity with condemnation.

At about the 22 minute mark in the video Andrew has a guest named Candace Owens. She is brilliant and her story is compelling. Her website is RedPillBlack. Milo , Ben Shapiro and others are speaking on college campuses, when invited by conservative groups. Candace wants to speak to Blacks and liberals. Andrew said "If Black people wake up to what the Democrat Party has done to them, the party will vanish!

Donald Trump wants to "cut taxes for the middle class, make the tax code simpler and fairer for everyday Americans, and bring back the jobs and wealth that left our country."

Death of Hugh Hefner

Hugh Hefner died this week at age 91. What is his legacy? Slipping quaaludes to young girls? Did he lead to an increasingly pornified culture that has objectified women? He was selling a fantasy. Did America buy it? Did you buy into his libertine lifestyle?

No more kneeling

Zack Kelberman reports,

The Denver Broncos are standing together -- literally and figuratively.

In a statement released Thursday via the team's Twitter account, billed as a "message from our players," the Broncos announced they will not kneel during the national anthem at home on Sunday against the Oakland Raiders -- or at any time going forward.

Although the players don't regret their demonstration in Week 3, as "our voices needed to be heard loud and clear," they've decided "we're a team and we stand together -- no matter how divisive some comments and issues can be, nothing should ever get in the way of that."

Read more here.

Liars

Excerpts from Victor Davis Hanson writing at American Greatness:

Rarely has an intelligence apparatus engaged in systematic lying — and chronic deceit about its lying — both during and even after its tenure. Yet the Obama Administration’s four top security and intelligence officials time and again engaged in untruth, as if peddling lies was part of their job descriptions.

So far none have been held accountable.

...Former Obama United Nations ambassador and National Security Advisor Susan Rice was rarely credible in any of her major public statements. Her dissimulation bordered on the pathological. Indeed, it went beyond even the demands put upon her for partisan spinning.

On five occasions, Rice lied to the media that the murder of Americans in Benghazi, Libya by al-Qaida affiliated-terrorists was a result of spontaneous rioting—in response to an obscure, rogue, and right-wing Coptic filmmaker. She later attributed such dissimulation to a lack of information, when we now know that the truth of Benghazi—and the larger landscape of events that ensured something like a Benghazi—were only too known. The video was a canard.

Rice assured the nation that the AWOL and traitorous Bowe Bergdahl was a hostage taken during combat and had served nobly (“with honor and distinction”). In fact, the renegade Bergdahl likely was exchanged for terrorist prisoners for two reasons: one, to diminish the number of terrorists held at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility as promised by Obama during his campaign, and two, to highlight the humanitarian skills of Barack Obama in bringing home an American “hero,” especially defined as one who was so loudly aware of his own country’s foibles.

Rice also assured the nation that her administration, through its diplomatic brilliance, had eliminated Bashar Assad’s arsenal of weapons of mass destruction. “We were able to get the Syrian government to voluntarily and verifiably give up its chemical-weapons stockpile,” she lied. That supposed coup was worth the price of inviting in the Russians to the Middle East after a 40-year hiatus. In fact, almost immediately after entering office, President Trump was forced to bomb Assad’s WMD depots to prevent Syria’s air force from dropping more nerve gas on civilians.

Once House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) announced that key administration officials illegally might have unmasked and leaked the names of U.S. citizens on government intercepts connected to the Trump campaign and transition team, Rice issued a blanket denial (“I know nothing about this”). That assertion predictably was untrue, as Rice herself was forced to concede when she altered narratives to later justify rather than deny her role in such improper leaking.



Rice displayed an eerie habit of broadcasting her lies by preemptive denial that she was about to lie. In her case, the privileged Rice sometimes fell back on the boilerplate victimhood defense of racism and sexism. More likely, as with many Obama officials, she felt certain she could deceive with impunity out of contempt for the American non-elite and, like her associate Ben Rhodes, with full confidence in the obsequiousness and incompetence of the “know-nothing” media.

Former FBI Director James Comey long ago lost his carefully crafted Boy Scout image of a truth-teller, buffeted in a sea of Washington deception. Like Rice, when Comey signals he cannot lie or that others are lying, we know that his own duplicity is forthcoming. The list of his untruths and unprofessionalism is growing, as continuous disclosures cannot be synced with either his congressional testimony or his public statements.

Examples follow.

Rather than telling the truth and thereby gaining a reputation even among his enemies as transparent and honest, Comey simply told the perceived stronger party of the day what it wished to hear in hopes of careerist gratitude to come.

Similar was the serial lying of CIA Director John Brennan, before, during, and after his CIA tenure. Brennan had a weird habit of becoming outraged at any who quite accurately alleged that he was mendacious, such as when he deceived the Senate Intelligence Committee officials that he had never unlawfully surveilled the computers of particular U.S. senators and their staffs (e.g., “beyond the scope of reason in terms of what we would do”).



...Brennan also told a series of whoppers to establish his new politically correct bona fides, among them that jihad was “a legitimate tenet of Islam, meaning to purify oneself or one’s community.” Tell that to the incinerated victims of self-proclaimed jihadist Mohammed Atta or those beheaded by ISIS.

...It is hard to mention Brennan without bookending the similar careerist trajectory of Obama’s former Director of National Intelligence, James Clapper.

Indeed, it is uncanny how Clapper emulated the Brennan model: the former Bush appointee reinventing himself as an Obama partisan after assuring the country that Saddam Hussein’s WMD depots were transferred to Syria; lying about the rise of ISIS and pressuring others in military intelligence to mimic his pre-planned deceptions; not being forthcoming about surveillance of the Trump campaign and transition; becoming a loud and partisan accuser of Trump’s supposed mendacities on cable television, while finding himself increasingly exposed at the center of the growing unmasking scandal.



...The deceptions of Comey, Brennan, and Clapper are perhaps far more disturbing than the partisan untruths of Susan Rice, a chronic political appointee who calibrated her national security fictions with Obama’s efforts to ensure reelection and later a presidential legacy.

But what extenuating excuse do the supposedly nonpartisan trio of intelligence and investigative directors offer?

They would like us to believe that only their nonpartisanship ensured subsequent tenures with the Obama Administration. In fact, their willingness to reinvent themselves and deceive were precisely why Obama retained and promoted them as sufficiently malleable and useful careerists—and why their post-government careers are today characteristically partisan and deceptive.

In truth, Obama used Rice as a political hatchet-woman masquerading as an elite thinker and strategist. Clapper, Brennan, and Comey were partisan careerists playacting as disinterested public servants sworn to put our security above politics.

Instead, they said what was necessary for their own agendas and so naturally too often what they peddled was simply untrue. And it is now not surprising that all three ended up orphaned and discredited—once their obsequious utility to their masters was exhausted.

Read more here.

Police State: "egregious banana republic behavior by the Obama administration"

Mark wonders if you think it is odd that in the 2016 election both candidates for president were under federal investigation. How about the fact that James Comey was not only the law enforcement officer in charge of the Hillary investigation, but he also appointed himself prosecutor when he decided to give her a pass on her criminal activities.

Nobody has named a single thing that Donald Trump did that was illegal. Yet, he has been under investigation by the same FBI for well over one year. Mueller's men picked the lock of former Trump campaign manager's home, then searched his wife in her pajamas. The New York Times admiringly called that "setting a tone!" Usually, when police state behavior like this happens, it is in the service of the ruling regime. But in this case, it is in the service of the permanent bureaucracy! The tone he is setting is banana republic secret police!

The justification for picking the lock is that Manafort is going to destroy evidence. But Manafort is represented by big-time attorneys who have cooperated with every request for documents. The reason they took away everything is to find some infraction he has committed, and then they'll offer him a deal to serve up Trump to them! The Department of Justice wins 97% of the cases they take to court, which is a rate of conviction that Kim Jong Un would find impressive!

The FBI was wiretapping Manafort from 2014-2016. They didn't get the goods on him, so they stopped. Then not the FBI, but the Obama administration resumed the wiretapping in late 2016 and continuing to 2017, eavesdropping on the conversations between Manafort and the incoming president.

The Obama administration is using national security for eavesdropping on its domestic opponents.

"I'm 21 percent victim!"

hat tip Bookworm Room

"Sad situation you leaders have allowed."

For whatever it's worth, I just sent this to John Elway and the Denver Bronco's Football Club.
Guest post by COLONEL CURTIS D. DALE, PhD, USAF (Ret)
11523 Sagewood Lane, Parker, CO 80138
28 Sept 2017
Mr. John Elway
President, Denver Broncos Football Club,
13655 Broncos Parkway
Englewood, CO 80112
Dear Mr. Elway,
I will be respectful but very frank in this letter. I’m incredibly disgusted with the organization we call the National Football League, and that includes the Denver Broncos. I have incredible respect for the Flag of the United States and for the National Anthem. I spent 27 years in the United States Air Force, flew three combat tours in Vietnam, completing 153 combat missions. I and many of my comrades to arms are now suffering from Agent Orange, and we are the lucky ones who got to come home. I lost dear friends over the Ho Chi Minh Trail. I was shot at, rocketed and fortunate to be among the survivors. I cannot abide what I was seeing of a high percentage of the NFL players, coaches, owners, leaders and staffs of the various teams. I consider it despicable to the highest order.

The term “players’ is appropriate to you men who get dressed in pretty uniforms and go out on pristine fields and deign even getting a grass stain on those prissy outfits. It’s really kids play by great big, muscular men who earn huge amounts of money for chasing around the field with or chasing after a weird looking pigskin covered ball.

The truly uninformed refer to all of you who play(ed) football as HEROES. Naw, that’s a gross representation of what the term means. Merely entertainers, no more, no less. Major Hank Brauner, a dear friend killed over the Ho Chi Minh trail by a rocket that shot down his AC-130 Blackbird and scattered him and the crew all over some part of Cambodia, Vietnam and Laos, is a hero. My Uncle Jim who was killed on the beach at Anzio in WWII is a hero. Uwes Torston Scobel, a friend with whom I was flying in 1959 was shot down in an Bird Dog FAC airplane over the Central highlands. A real hero. A squadron mate, Major Gerald O. Young, with whom I worked in Cheyenne in the Atlas ICBM, returned to flying helicopters as the Vietnam War started. He was killed when his helicopter was shot down in a heroic rescue attempt, carried out, but he didn’t survive his injuries. He is a recipient of the Congressional Medal of Honor. Captain Arthur Bollinger, my student as a Navigator and Mission Director, checked out as a top notch crewmember in the EC-47Q for Electronic Reconnaissance over Vietnam. He was flying a mission in the last plane shot down over Vietnam, a final mission over the trail at war’s end. He left a beautiful young wife and two children. His dog tags were recovered. Now these people I mention are heroes. I consider every man I flew with in Vietnam a hero.


The closest relationship I see between behavior about those real heroes and behavior on the football field is a bucket of water over the head or a hosing down on the “fini” flight. On my 153 missions, I crawled out the airplane, got the bottom of the stairs and was drenched. Not much of a hero, but it did cool me off.

You, Miller, Braxton, et al, are not heroes, just entertainers with athleticism, not even the super patriotism you seemed to have in past years. Guess money suppressed it!
I thought you were a patriot when I sat behind Mitt Romney and heard you endorse him at the Wings Over the Rockies Museum. In fact, your knee was in my back as you and Mrs. Elway came up into the seating. I even gave you and her a hand as you traversed the bleachers. I’m the old Vietnam Vet who sat right in front of you with a vest full of Republican campaign badges. I was proud to sit next to you because I had a picture to give my son, and he saw us on TV. Alas, when the hard decision was on the line, you didn’t stand up for honoring Old Glory and the National Anthem.

My son has been a huge Bronco fan for years. I, however, was a fair weather fan at best, but supported him and the rest of my children who were fans. Three weeks ago, when the Broncos joined the disgusting protest, he wrote me, “Dad, I’ll wish my Broncos luck but I won’t be watching any more. I’ll root for West Virginia University.” I got sad notes from the other children with the same sorts of sentiments. You all overplayed your hand in supporting what you perceive as political correctness. It’s purely liberal destruction of our national pride, patriotism and sovereignty. Money speaks to loudly to you employees of the NFL. Jerry Jones wimped out with the Cowboys.

I went out for the team a couple of years at WVU, but soon learned that I hated the game after being blasted a few times too often by Sam Huff, Bruce Bosley, Chuck Howley, Stubby Carr, etc. I quit and never watched another football game for 30 years until I was passing the TV during a game and you did something pretty spectacular. So I joined my son in watching. Since then, I’ve been a Broncos fan. But that just ended, big time. Sad situation you leaders have allowed.

I feel President Trump has it perfectly right. I’m a non-profane Mormon, but the President said exactly what I wish I could say to all of you in the NFL. I won’t even wish the Broncos good luck. I don’t think any team in NFL deserves any luck, only my abhorrence.
Curt Dale

"Response and recovery operations from Hurricanes Maria and Irma.”

News from FEMA:

“There are more than 8,800 federal staff, including more than 600 FEMA personnel, on the ground in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands engaged in response and recovery operations from Hurricanes Maria and Irma.”

FEMA, working in coordination with federal partners, provided more than 4.4 million meals, 6.5 million liters of water, nearly 300 infant and toddler kits to support 3000 infants for a full week, 70,000 tarps, and 15,000 rolls of roof sheeting to the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico since Hurricane Maria’s landfall.

FEMA is delivering food and water to territorial points of distribution (POD) locations in 7 municipalities in Puerto Rico. Please reach out to municipality officials for specific locations. More PODs will continue to open as areas become accessible.

Officials in the U.S. Virgin Islands and Puerto Rico opened points of distribution (POD) in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Virgin Islands for survivors to get meals, water, and other commodities. The Governor of the U.S. Virgin Islands announced that PODs in the islands will be closed Wednesday, but 16 locations in St. Thomas, St. Croix, and St. John are scheduled to be open tomorrow.

In Puerto Rico, fuel was delivered to 19 hospitals for power generators. 200 gas stations received fuel yesterday for distribution to residents of Puerto Rico.

hat tip Glenn Reynolds

Danger to Democracy

hat tip Oregon Muse

The Left loses again

Steve Scalise returns to the House of Representatives. Read about it and watch it here.

The future must not belong to those who spy on Americans to protect Islamism

At Sultan Knish, Daniel Greenfield writes,

...Susan Rice and the White House didn’t just eavesdrop on the political opposition. There was an agenda so urgent that they were willing to pull out all the stops to protect it.

Even right down to committing what has become the ultimate crime in the White House.

It was the same agenda that dragged us into a war in Libya. The same agenda that was at the heart of the diplomatic efforts of the administration over eight years. That agenda was empowering Islamists.

The Obama edition of Watergate wasn’t committed merely for domestic political gain. It was carried out for a reason that was encompassed in his address to the United Nations after the Benghazi massacre.

“The future must not belong to those who slander the prophet of Islam.”

This foul slogan led to the first arrest of a filmmaker for political speech in almost a century. It led to the sordid betrayal of our national security and our allies. And to domestic espionage against Americans.

The future must not belong to those who spy on Americans to protect Islamism.

Read more here.

Democrat candidate in Alabama Senate election is for no restrictions on abortion

Ace reports that the GOPe establishment is criticizing the voters of Alabama for choosing Judge Roy Moore, but his Democrat opponent in the December election is for absolutely no restrictions on abortions whatsoever! Read more here.

If North Korea came to you for advice on how to understand Trump, what would you tell them?

Should Twitter expand its character count?

The drain the swamp movement is growing!

The media thinks the Alabama voters showed that Trump has no coattails. The people in Alabama realized that Trump needed Judge Roy Moore to help move Trump's agenda forward. Trumpism is bigger than Trump. The media is reveling. If the media had any sense, it should shock them. They are so eager to see Trump damaged. Corker is leaving. He is a #Never Trumper.

Some of the establishment Senators want to get out, rather than accommodate the mood of the voters. How difficult would it be to accommodate the mood of the voters? Cut taxes, rebuild the economy, stop illegal immigration, rebuild the military and support police, repeal and replace Obamacare.

The FBI has been running an investigation of college basketball. Ten people indicted. Rick Pitino has been fired. Bribery scandal! Charges of fraud and corruption. Adidas funneled $100,000 to the family of a recruit. Rush says, wait until they get into college football!

The media is also trying to establish a narrative that Trump doesn't care about Puerto Rico. Comparing to Hurricane Katrina.

Big trouble for the Steelers in Pittsburg. The majority of funding for Heinz Field comes from the taxpayers, and all but one of the players refused to come out for the national anthem.

Jared Kushner registered to vote as female

The Left has a new joy today. Jared Kushner is registered to vote in New York as a female. He registered in 2009. Prior to that he registered in New Jersey as "gender unknown," according to this article at The Hill.

President Trump is preparing an executive order to let Americans purchase health insurance across state lines.

Gabby Morrongiello has the story at The Washington Examiner.

Homeland Security said it began construction Tuesday on the prototypes for President Trump’s new border wall.

Stephen Dinan reports at the Washington Times,

Homeland Security said it began construction Tuesday on the prototypes for President Trump’s new border wall.

In a short notice, U.S. Customs and Border Protection said the building began in San Diego on eight prototypes, which had been awarded over the summer.

Four of the prototypes are concrete walls and four are nonconcrete designs, all selected from dozens of proposals submitted by contractors earlier this year.

...The designs are between 18 and 30 feet, and will be evaluated on how well they deter climbers, how well they withstand breach attempts and what sort of awareness they allow agents who patrol the border. The prototypes are expected to be finished within 30 days.

...The concrete designs are less useful right along the border, officials said, and will likely be used as secondary fencing set back a bit.

About 354 miles of the 1,952-mile border are currently protected by some form of wall. Another 300 miles have vehicle barriers, which allow easy penetration by pedestrians or animals but are designed to stop trucks and cars from barreling over the border.

...His 2017 budget called for money for replacing some outdated parts of the current wall, while his 2018 plan asked for $1.6 billion to erect 32 miles of new fencing in Texas, another 28 miles of new levee wall, also in Texas, and 14 miles of replacement fencing in San Diego.

The House has approved the money, but the Senate has yet to take up the bill, and Democrats have announced they will try to derail any legislation that includes border wall money.

There is enough money in the current 2017 budget to pay for the prototypes.

Read more here.

Trump should now support our allies the Kurds in their effort to create a sovereign nation.

Jordan Schachtel reports at Conservative Review that President Trump should follow the lead of President Truman in 1948. Truman ignored the advice of the foreign policy establishment and recognized the nation of Israel. Trump should now support our allies the Kurds in their effort to create a sovereign nation.
Read more here.

Is the Left ginning up this whole controversy over the NFL?

At Hot Air, Jazz Shaw has a different take on the NFL controversy. He believes

This has little or nothing to do with police shootings, racial profiling or any of the rest of it. What we’re seeing is an almost brilliant and concerted effort to damage, if not eliminate, the National Football League.

Why? Because the activist Left has despised the NFL for years. They hate everything about it. It’s a game filled with big, tough, manly men engaging in the closest thing to warfare you can manage without guns. It’s a game rife with symbolism and, yes… nationalism. Even people who would never buy an album from a country singer could feel their blood heating up when Hank Williams used to sing, Are you Ready for Some Football. The military loves football and they fly jets over the stadiums in formation and send our nation’s finest out to pay tribute. And it’s not just the military. Our police and other first responders are frequently called out for honors at the games. Everything about it screams of apple pie, fireworks and patriotism. (Or, if you prefer, God, guns and flags.) And the activist Left hates it. Probably the only sporting event they despise more is NASCAR.

Read more here.

Breaking free from the squeeze of the progressive octopus

At National Review, Victor Davis Hanson's latest piece is about the Progressive Octopus.

As the progressive octopus squeezes the country, its dominance comes at a price. Lately fewer and fewer want to waste precious time watching the pampered adolescents of the NFL. Fewer wish to blow an afternoon viewing preachy mediocrities from Hollywood. Madonna is a tiring bore who needs to go away and age gracefully. Ditto ESPN.

Read more here.

It's a start!

Saudi Arabia King Salman has issued a decree allowing women to drive cars. Read more here.

Our moral cowardice

Spengler is beyond angry at Washington's foreign policy elite for not supporting the independence vote today by the Kurds in Iraq.

Since September 11, 2001, we've been told that America has to ally with moderate Muslims against "extremism." There are in fact moderate Muslims in the world. The Kurds are "moderate Muslims." The Kurds do not persecute nonbelievers. They don't hate Jews and Christians. They don't forbid women to leave the house without a male relative; in fact, their militias are the only effective fighting force in the world that includes women in front-line combat units. They protect Iraqi Christians against ISIS, and Iraq's Christians in turn support Kurdish independence. They have excellent and long-standing relations with the State of Israel. Jewish life is flourishing in the Kurdish Autonomous Region in the north of Iraq.

Most of all, Kurdish fighters are the spearhead of American-backed ground forces fighting ISIS in Syria and Iraq. They do not only act the way we say we want Muslims to act, protecting Christians and Jews and promoting the equality of women. They shed blood for what they believe in.

The Kurds are everything that George W. Bush and Barack Obama told us we should find in the Islamic world, and more. They want nothing but friendship with the United States of America. And we have thrown them under the bus. There isn't an Appalachian outhouse that stinks worse than our foreign policy Establishment.

Read more here.

Hurricane relief efforts in Puerto Rico

Sundance writes at The Conservative Treehouse,

The majority of people who are providing media opinion on Puerto Rico recovery efforts really don’t have any understanding of the scale of the logistics involved when the impact zone is an island.

Hurricane Maria destroyed hundreds of vessels in and around the various PR ports making entry and exit into harbors a maze of submerged vessel and sunken debris avoidance. In addition, the ports’ infrastructure systems (power, utilities, docking equipment, pump stations, fuel depots, etc) were severely impacted, and in many ports 100% wiped out. Buoys, markers, harbor-lights, towers, all gone – completely destroyed.



Puerto Rico is an island, so bringing in relief supplies by cargo ship is the only way to deliver massive tonnage of supplies, heavy equipment and material needed to begin any restoration and recovery effort. Without ports those supplies cannot be offloaded. Especially think about fuel shipments. See the issue?

However, in a stunning feat of skill, ingenuity and determination the harbor entries have been mapped for navigable passage by the U.S. Navy and U.S. Coast Guard while simultaneously the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers have been working on the land-based side of the port infrastructure. [The major port of San Juan was opened Sept. 23rd.]

All of this is happening while the Dept. of Defense is leading FEMA efforts and providing U.S. marine units, fixed wing and helicopter, to deliver supplies to the hardest hit areas.

The U.S. Coast Guard has 13 cutters and 10 aircraft working on this mission and are working hand-in-hand with the U.S. Navy. Their ability to open these ports is a remarkable feat of logistics and speaks to the incredible coordination between the Dept. of Defense and FEMA.

Read more on the current status of hurricane relief in Puerto Rico here.

Changes in racial composition

Antiplanner reports,

Between 2015 and 2016, the total population of the San Francisco-Oakland urban area grew by 13,773 people, but the black population shrank by 5,839, suggesting that Bay Area land-use policies continue to push low-income people out of the region by making housing unaffordable. The Austin urban area, to its shame, saw a decline of 4,439 blacks despite a total population growth of 25,316.

Race is a complicated issue, made more complicated by the increasing (and healthy) mixture of races. According to the 2016 American Community Survey, the number of Americans who are “white alone” declined by 296,061 in 2016, while the number who identify themselves as “two or more races” grew by 445,000; some of the decline of the former and growth of the latter is probably because people are more willing to self-identify as being of mixed races.

In the past, I’ve used blacks as a bellwether of housing affordability problems because black per capita incomes have consistently been about 60 percent of whites’. I’ve previously used “black alone,” but this year that produced some odd results: both white alone and black alone populations declined in sixteen different states. For example, California’s total population grew by 105,000, but its white-alone population shrank by 404,000 while its black-alone population shrank by nearly 12,000. It seems likely that most of the changes in white-alone and black-alone numbers are due to redefinitions, not migrations.

Basic numbers for seven different races–white alone, black alone, Native American alone, Asian alone, Native Hawaiian alone, other races, and two or more races–can be found in American Community Survey table B02001. I’ve downloaded this table for 2006, 2010, 2015, and 2016 for the nation, states, counties, cities, and urban areas and copied the population numbers for into a single spreadsheet. A summary sheet has data for total, white alone, and black alone.

American Community Survey table B01003 shows the total population while B02009 shows the population of “black alone or in combination with some other race.” So I downloaded these tables for the same years and geographic areas and combined them into one spreadsheet for the total population and one for black populations. Even then, I am not certain of the results. I’m a little surprised, for example, that the total population of the Los Angeles urban area declined by 23,106 people while the black population grew by 22,214; I would have guessed it would be the other way around.

Some of the changes in total state populations suggest that the 2016 survey may not be reliable. According to the survey, 13 states lost populations, with Illinois leading at decline of 58,456 people, followed by New York with 50,502 fewer than in 2015. These numbers don’t agree with the official population estimates, which say that only eight states lost population. Illinois still leads at minus 37,508, but New York only lost 1,894. The differences are almost entirely due to adjustments to the 2015 population numbers. Until the 2016 numbers are adjusted, it is probably unsafe to use them as indicators of changes in racial compositions.

"Who is killing these black victims? Not whites, and not the police, but other blacks."

Heather MacDonald brings us the truth about cops and criminals at City Journal.

The FBI released its official crime tally for 2016 today, and the data flies in the face of the rhetoric that professional athletes rehearsed in revived Black Lives Matter protests over the weekend. Nearly 900 additional blacks were killed in 2016 compared with 2015, bringing the black homicide-victim total to 7,881. Those 7,881 “black bodies,” in the parlance of Ta-Nehisi Coates, are 1,305 more than the number of white victims (which in this case includes most Hispanics) for the same period, though blacks are only 13 percent of the nation’s population. The increase in black homicide deaths last year comes on top of a previous 900-victim increase between 2014 and 2015.

Who is killing these black victims? Not whites, and not the police, but other blacks. In 2016, the police fatally shot 233 blacks, the vast majority armed and dangerous, according to the Washington Post. The Post categorized only 16 black male victims of police shootings as “unarmed.” That classification masks assaults against officers and violent resistance to arrest. Contrary to the Black Lives Matter narrative, the police have much more to fear from black males than black males have to fear from the police. In 2015, a police officer was 18.5 times more likely to be killed by a black male than an unarmed black male was to be killed by a police officer. Black males have made up 42 percent of all cop-killers over the last decade, though they are only 6 percent of the population. That 18.5 ratio undoubtedly worsened in 2016, in light of the 53 percent increase in gun murders of officers—committed vastly and disproportionately by black males. Among all homicide suspects whose race was known, white killers of blacks numbered only 243.

Violent crime has now risen by a significant amount for two consecutive years. The total number of violent crimes rose 4.1 percent in 2016, and estimated homicides rose 8.6 percent. In 2015, violent crime rose by nearly 4 percent and estimated homicides by nearly 11 percent. The last time violence rose two years in a row was 2005–06. The reason for the current increase is what I have called the Ferguson Effect. Cops are backing off of proactive policing in high-crime minority neighborhoods, and criminals are becoming emboldened. Having been told incessantly by politicians, the media, and Black Lives Matter activists that they are bigoted for getting out of their cars and questioning someone loitering on a known drug corner at 2 AM, many officers are instead just driving by. Such stops are discretionary; cops don’t have to make them. And when political elites demonize the police for just such proactive policing, we shouldn’t be surprised when cops get the message and do less of it. Seventy-two percent of the nation’s officers say that they and their colleagues are now less willing to stop and question suspicious persons, according to a Pew Research poll released in January 2016. The reason is the persistent anti-cop climate.

Four studies came out in 2016 alone rebutting the charge that police shootings are racially biased. If there is a bias in police shootings, it works in favor of blacks and against whites. That truth has not stopped the ongoing demonization of the police—including, now, by many of the country’s ignorant professional athletes. The toll will be felt, as always, in the inner city, by the thousands of law-abiding people there who desperately want more police protection.

Politicizing professional sports

At Bookworm Room, Wolf Howling writes about the NFL Knee Battle.

By interjecting radical black Marxist/progressive politics into the NFL, the progressive left has just accepted — and indeed, doubled down — in a huge gamble in the culture wars. While half of the nation already buys into the poison the progs are selling, the other half has never been faced with the choice of accepting white guilt and pleading guilty to racism (just by being a non-black American) in order to continue to watch NFL games. The means of voting will be by free market economics — spending dollars at a stadium gate or tuning in to watch the games.

Just to recount the contours of this wager and how it came about: last year, back-up QB Colin Kaepernick (2016 salary $11 million+) began taking a knee to protest all of the horrible racism he and his fellow blacks were being subject to in this country. It caused enough heart burn even in San Francisco, the prog capital of America, that he was let go by the Forty-Niners. And Kapernick has been radioactive since; no team has been willing to sign him. (2017 salary $0). As Giants co-owner John Mara explained when it was reported that the Giants considered signing Kaepernick:

“All my years being in the league, I never received more emotional mail from people than I did about that issue,” Mara told TheMMQB.com’s Jenny Vrentas. “If any of your players ever do that, we are never coming to another Giants game. It wasn’t one or two letters. It was a lot. It’s an emotional, emotional issue for a lot of people, moreso than any other issue I’ve run into.”

A week ago, basketball’s Stephen Curry (2017 salary $34 million) made noises about not accepting a White House invitation, ostensibly because President Trump is racist. Trump responded to Curry by withdrawing the White House invitation. Also in the past few weeks, the media reported that “[a] group of NFL players has asked Commissioner Roger Goodell for a month dedicated to social activism in a letter . . . they titled, “Player Activism for Racial Equality and Criminal Justice Reform.” Kneeling is not enough for them.

Then a few days ago in a speech in Alabama, Trump laid down the wager, so to speak:

When people like yourselves turn on television and you see those people taking the knee when they are playing our great national anthem – the only thing you could do better is if you see it, even if it’s one player, leave the stadium. I guarantee things will stop. . . .

Wouldn’t you love to see one of these NFL owners, when somebody disrespects our flag, to say, “Get that son of a bitch off the field right now. He is fired.”

And over the past few days, many players and several teams in the NFL accepted the wager. A combined total of 23% of all NFL players including the Ravens, Seahawks and Steelers (less former Army Captain Alejandro Villanueva) in toto, either took a knee during the anthem or stayed off the field while it was being played. (Villaneuva has since apologized for standing for the flag instead of standing with his teammates, while the Steelers, after the fact, contend that they stayed in the locker room, not as a statement about the flag, but in an effort to reset matters to 2008, when teams appeared only after the national anthem was played.)

We can say with certainty that not a one of these players has been subject to systemic racism — the oldest players on each roster rarely exceeds 35 years old and thus all were born far too late to have experienced anything like Jim Crow. I’d be surprised if any them had ever experienced more than a smattering of actual racism from some fringe yahoo, if any at all, in their entire lives. They live in a country where they have become millionaires overnight for just signing to play a year of professional sports. They live in a country that supports and idolizes their physical skills, with over 100 million tuning in to watch the Superbowl every year. They agree to provide superb entertainment once a week, and the public agrees to part with their hard earned money at the stadium gate or indirectly by watching their games over the air waves. These athletes are not victims, let alone victims of racism.

And yet almost 25% of these athletes just made overt shows of disrespect to our country and its citizens with incredibly symbolic acts. I am sure a few might have meant it only towards Trump in their minds. Regardless, those of us who pulled the lever for Trump or who do not buy into the toxic narratives being taught in victim’s studies classes are being soaked in the backwash. You might as well have played Hildabeast braying on loudspeaker overtop of our national anthem declaring half of America “deplorables.”

The genesis of these acts by the footballers comes from the heart of Marxist progressive politics, where each person is wholly defined by the color of their skin (or their gender, etc.) and not by the content of their character. It has its genesis in radical black academia where professors inculcate the most vile of ideological excreta into their students, painting a dark fantasy of permanent black victims and America as Selma circa 1952 writ large. All whites — but for the progressive whites — are damned as inherently racist. Racism is still systemic in America, the Constitution is the political instrument of black oppression written by white slavers, and capitalism is the concomitant economic system of black oppression. It is an ideology impervious to facts, as it is founded on post-modernism and the execrable claim that all reality is subjective. All of this is not something taught by fringe nuts on the left, it is the progressive’s bread and butter.

The progs cover this poison with words like social justice, equity, fairness, etc., with the result that few people, even if they have an inkling of what is happening, pay it much attention. Few grasp that they are seeing a deeply radical and separatist attack not only on the fundamental tenets of our nation, but on the character of our people.

In that, it is almost like Rev. Wright of a decade ago, whose anti-American, black liberation screed was preached into the ears of the Obama family for twenty years. If Wright’s screed had come from Obama’s mouth, Obama wouldn’t have been elected President (and certainly not on a promise to “heal the racial divide”). Obama downplayed Wright’s obscenities, and the progressive media was not about to delve into what Obama’s multi-decade attendance at Wright’s church meant, so it was ignored.

Until now, a similar thing went on in halls of academia largely below the national radar. The professors teaching this toxin were teaching it to blacks and other progressives. It has only become a real problem — and the sticks of capitalism kicked in — when their toxic waste spilled out into the national news, as happened with Missouri State University and Evergreen State College.

And sure, we’ve watched the progressive left toss the race card around with wild abandon ever since they found out in the 60’s just how powerful charges of racism could be. It could not only end debates and protect prog policies, it could end careers. But those charges of racism were almost always hurled not at the average American, but at this or that politician for daring to take a position on some topic that the progressive did not like.

But this most recent foray, into politicizing professional sports, is different. One, it is a clear slander landing on average Americans. Two, it could not be more visible. It’s Mizzou and Evergreen to a factor of 100 on the visibility scale.

We don’t pay to have these professional athletes insult us — and I can think of no greater insult to me personally, having lived a life in the highly integrated U.S. military, having never acted in a racist manner nor having tolerated racism, then to be tagged a racist. And given the utter paucity of stories about actual racist incidents in our deeply progressive media, it is safe to assume, in 2017, that the vast majority of Americans are likewise not animated by racism in their lives. But every one of them has been slimed by the almost quarter of NFL athletes taking a knee or refusing to stand publicly for our national anthem as they act out the bankrupt ideology being taught by victim’s studies professors across the length and breadth of our nation.

So now the bet becomes, will the tens of millions of non-black, non-racist football fans meekly accept the progressive charge that they are inveterate racists in order to continue being entertained by people who hold them in contempt? Will some not realize the stakes? Or will a large number realize and vote “no” with their dollars and Sunday time? Or perhaps even take it up a notch and start boycotting those who advertise during NFL games (Hmmm, I wonder who might have a list?).

I think that the ramifications of this vote could be almost as important for this country as the 2016 election itself. It puts the issue of full frontal toxic prog politics — not the deliberately misleading campaign happy talk — front and center in America in a way nothing else could.

Go here to see all of the links.

Back when the president didn't mind if you took a knee

hat tip Oregon Muse

Moment of clarity

NFL, Alabama primary

Did you know that Colin Kaepernick wore socks with pigs dressed up as cops?

Greg: "You protest on the clock, a businessman is going to want to fire you."

The Left finally has an issue!

Wow! The Left is on fire! They finally have an issue! Jared Kushner and other Trump team officials have used private email servers to conduct White House business. The Left is screaming with joy, "Lock 'em up! Quoting Matt Apuzzo and Maggie Haberman from the New York Times: "At least six of President Trump’s closest advisers occasionally used private email addresses to discuss White House matters, current and former officials said on Monday." In addition to Kushner, it may also be Steve Bannon, Reince Priebus, Stephen Miller, Gary Cohn, and Ivanka Trump.

Rush is sad about the NFL

For the first time in 45 years, NFL football fan Rush Limbaugh sadly made the decision yesterday not to watch any NFL games, including his beloved Pittsburg Steelers.

Rush asks, "If you are an owner of an NFL team, do you side with your players, or do you side with your customers?" He makes the analogy with the Republican Party: They are more afraid of pissing off their donors than they are of pissing off their voters. The owners are scared of their players throwing a tantrum more than they are of pissing off their fans, who have shown that they will put up with a lot already.

"This situation requires a really futile and stupid gesture on somebody's part, and we're just the guys to do it!"

One more day of warm sunshine

The weather is supposed to change tomorrow, so I thought I would get one more picture of the marigolds. My neighbor Carolyn in Parker, Colorado gave me the seeds when I moved to New Mexico.

"We prefer a free society based on personal liberty and mutual respect. But if you leftists veto that option, that leaves us either a society where you rule and oppress us, or one where we hold the power."

Kurt Schlichter writes today at Town Hall,

...I took it seriously when Conservative, Inc., promised to fight the leftist blitzkrieg against normal Americans. It was all a scam, a lie, a pose for us rubes. The Tru Cons didn’t actually mean it.

There’s a lot of that not meaning it going on in the GOP right now. Exhibit A is John McCain, who ran ads touting how he was leading the way in opposing Obamacare only to give it aid and comfort when someone in the White House would actual sign its repeal. He’s the guy the establishment designated to lose to Barack Obama in 2008, and he was sure up to the task. But in retrospect, thank goodness, because McCain’s inevitable presidential betrayal of conservatives by breaking his word then and treating GOP voters like he treated his first wife would have done exponentially more damage to conservatism than Trump being prevented from keeping his word today ever could.

It’s so good to know that, despite his wonderful, close, awesome friend humiliating him while lying to Arizona’s voters, Lindsey Graham is still the blue falcon’s buddy. No hard feelings!

...Conservativism forgot about the real world conservatives we expected to line up behind us. While we were talking about free trade, we were ignoring that GOP voter who fought in Fallujah, came home, got a job building air conditioners, raised a family, and then one day watched the video of the oh-so-sorry CEO – who looked remarkably like Mitt Romney, because all these guys look remarkably like Mitt Romney – sadly informing his beloved employees that their jobs were getting shipped to Oaxaca. And our response to the 58-year old Republican voter who asked us how he was going to keep paying for his mortgage and his kid in college? Pretty much, “Well, that’s how free enterprise works. Read some Milton Freidman and go learn coding.”

...How about the guy who wanted to be a roofer in Fontana but he couldn’t because the contractors were only hiring illegals? What was our answer to him? “Oh well, the big corporate donors need their serfs, and if some pack of tatted-up MS-13 dreamers gang-rapes your daughter that’s just a price we’re willing to pay!”

They try to crush our religion and Conservative, Inc., cowers because Apple’s CEO might say mean things. “Just bake the cake,” they say – it’s not worth the fight! They demand our tax money to kill babies and Conservative, Inc., passes the spending bills – “Gosh, we can’t risk the WaPo saying we’re mean!” They diss our National Anthem, we react, and Conservative, Inc., wags its soft, spindly fingers – “So, so very unpresidential! My word!”

Conservatism has become a racket, and everything happening now is a result of its members hoping to wait out Trump and the demand for change he represents. Maybe if they do nothing, but say all the right things, we normals will get tired and go back to our jobs and keep providing those votes and renting those cruise cabins. But that’s not happening. We aren’t going away; business as usual is over. We aren’t just giving up, tossing away our country, and submitting to the ruling caste. We were nice with the Tea Party. Trump’s not as nice. What’s coming after is going to be much, much less nice.

Who are the normals? The Americans who built this country, and defended it. When you eat, it’s because a normal grew the food and another normal trucked it to you. When you aren’t murdered in the street or don’t speak German, it’s because a normal with a gun made those things not happen. We normals don’t want to rule over others. We don’t obsess about how you live your life, but also we don’t want to be compelled to signal our approval or pick up the tab. We are every color and creed – though when someone who is incidentally a member of some other group aligns with normals, he/she/xe loses that identity. The left drums normals who are black out of its definition of “black,” just as normal women get drummed out of womanhood and normal gays get drummed out gayhood. In a way, the left is making E pluribus unum a reality again – to choose to be normal is to choose to reject silly identity group identification and unite. Instead of saying “normal Americans,” you can just say “Americans.”

...Who are the normals? The Americans who built this country, and defended it. When you eat, it’s because a normal grew the food and another normal trucked it to you. When you aren’t murdered in the street or don’t speak German, it’s because a normal with a gun made those things not happen. We normals don’t want to rule over others. We don’t obsess about how you live your life, but also we don’t want to be compelled to signal our approval or pick up the tab. We are every color and creed – though when someone who is incidentally a member of some other group aligns with normals, he/she/xe loses that identity. The left drums normals who are black out of its definition of “black,” just as normal women get drummed out of womanhood and normal gays get drummed out gayhood. In a way, the left is making E pluribus unum a reality again – to choose to be normal is to choose to reject silly identity group identification and unite. Instead of saying “normal Americans,” you can just say “Americans.”

...But we’re not giving up, and we’re not going to sit back and just take it. Militant normalcy is the result of normal people roused to anger and refusing to be pushed around anymore. We prefer a free society based on personal liberty and mutual respect. But if you leftists veto that option, that leaves us either a society where you rule and oppress us, or one where we hold the power. So let me break this down, both for the left and for their fussy Fredocon enablers: You don’t get to win.

2017 timeline of surveillance of Americans

2017 excerpts from Sharyl Attkisson's compilation of comprehensive timelines cross-referencing Obama-era surveillance of whistleblowers, journalists and other U.S. citizens with Russia surveillance allegations.

February 2, 2017:

The news reports that five information technology (IT) computer professionals employed by Democrats in the House of Representatives are under criminal investigation for allegedly “accessing House IT systems without lawmakers’ knowledge.” The suspects include three brothers identified as Abid, Imran and Jamal Awan “who managed office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers.” The brothers were said to have been employed by three Democrats on the Intelligence Committee and “five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs which deal with with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.”

by sattkisson on September 24, 2017 in News 77 Comments
You can find many timelines that follow allegations of Russia tampering in the U.S. election and alleged involvement of Trump officials. But I couldn’t find any comprehensive timelines cross-referencing Obama-era surveillance of whistleblowers, journalists and other U.S. citizens with Russia surveillance allegations. So I built one. Please note: temporal proximity of events doesn’t necessarily imply a connection.

January 21, 2009:

President Obama takes office; pledges unprecedented transparency.





April 2009:

Someone leaks the unmasked name of Congresswoman Jane Harmon to the press. According to news reports, the Bush administration NSA incidentally recorded and saved Harmon’s phone conversations with pro-Israel lobbyists who were under investigation for espionage. The story is first broken by Congressional Quarterly’s Jeff Stein.



Preorder Attkisson’s new book “The Smear: How Shady Political Operatives and Fake News Control What You See, What You Think and How You Vote.”


December 17, 2009:

The Obama administration prosecutes FBI contractor Shamai Leibowitz for leaking documents to the media in April 2009. Leibowitz says he leaked because he felt FBI practices were “an abuse of power and a violation of the law” which he reported to his superiors at the FBI “who did nothing about them.” (According to the ACLU: “Amazingly, the sentencing judge said, ‘I don’t know what was divulged other than some documents, and how it compromised things, I have no idea’.”)



2010:

The IRS secretly begins “targeting” conservative groups that are seeking nonprofit tax-exempt status, by singling out ones that have “Tea Party” or “Patriot” in their names.

Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning begins illegally leaks classified information to WikiLeaks revealing, among other matters, that the U.S. is extensively spying on the United Nations.

Obama Attorney General Eric Holder renews a Bush-era subpoena of New York Times reporter James Risen in a leak investigation.

Obama administration pursues espionage charges against NSA whistleblower Thomas Drake. (According to the ACLU: spy charges were later dropped and Drake pled guilty to a misdemeanor. The judge called the government’s conduct in the case “unconscionable.”)



May 28, 2010:

The government secretly applies for a warrant to obtain Google email information of Fox News reporter James Rosen in a leak investigation, without telling Rosen.




James Rosen of Fox News


September 21, 2010:

Internal email entitled “Obama Leak Investigations” at “global intelligence” company Stratfor claims Obama’s then-Homeland Security adviser John Brennan is targeting journalists.

“Brennan is behind the witch hunts of investigative journalists learning information from inside the beltway sources,” writes one Stratfor official to another.

The email continues: “Note — There is specific tasker from the [White House] to go after anyone printing materials negative to the Obama agenda (oh my.) Even the FBI is shocked. The Wonder Boys must be in meltdown mode…”

“The Wonder Boys” reportedly refers to the National Security Agency (NSA). Brennan later becomes President Obama’s CIA Director.




John Brennan, former CIA Director and Homeland Security Adviser


Early February 2011:

After receiving an anonymous tip, CBS News investigative correspondent Sharyl Attkisson begins researching the Department of Justice “gunwalking” operation nicknamed “Fast and Furious” that secretly let thousands of weapons be trafficked to Mexican drug cartels. One of the “walked” guns had been used by illegal aliens who murdered U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry in December 2010.




U.S. Border Patrol Agent Brian Terry


February 22, 2011:

CBS’ Attkisson breaks news about “Fast and Furious” on The CBS Evening News.

After the story airs, the government issues an internal memo that seeks to “push positive stories” to contradict the news.

Given the negative coverage by CBS Evening News last week…ATF needs to proactively push positive stories this week, in an effort to preempt some negative reporting, or at minimum, lessen the coverage of such stories in the news cycle by replacing them with good stories about ATF.



March 4, 2011:

CBS News’ Attkisson exclusively interviews sitting ATF special agent John Dodson. He gives a firsthand account contradicting government denials re: Fast and Furious.


ATF Special Agent John Dodson


May 2011:

White House recruits democratic operative Eric Schultz to spin on Fast and Furious and to counter the House Oversight Committee’s investigative work on the case. (Schultz previously served as intern to Sen. Charles Schumer and Hillary Clinton.)


Former Obama operative Eric Schultz
Spring 2011:

Obama intel officials capture and record incidental private communications between Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, and a Libyan official. The recordings are later leaked to the press.



2011:

Fox News reporter Mike Levine is subpoenaed by the Department of Justice regarding a story he reported about a federal grand jury’s indictments of terrorism suspects. The subpoena is later dropped.



June 2, 2011:

Republican Mitt Romney announces he’ll challenge President Obama in campaign 2012.



June 28, 2011:

Obama U.S. Attorney for Arizona Dennis Burke secretly leaks sensitive government information to Fox News, allegedly to retaliate against ATF whistleblower John Dodson in the Fast and Furious case. (Burke is former chief of staff to former Arizona Governor Janet Napolitano.)



August 2011:

U.S. Attorney Burke resigns while under investigation for the improper leak of sensitive information about Dodson. The Inspector General later confirms the leak and Burke apologizes.



September 2011:

White House operative Schultz invites Attkisson and several other national journalists to off the record backgrounder about Fast and Furious documents subpoenaed by Congress. Later, on the phone, Shultz screams and cusses at Attkisson as she asks questions raised by the Fast and Furious documents.



October 3, 2011:

Obama administration secretly changes longstanding policy. The change creates a “loophole” that Sen. Ron Wyden would later say allows the NSA to conduct “backdoor searches” of “incidental collection” of U.S. citizens’ domestic communications.

The same day, CBS News airs Attkisson’s report on newly-uncovered memos that contradict Attorney General Eric Holders’ denials about Fast and Furious.


Former Attorney General Eric Holder


October 4, 2011:

In an internal email, Attorney General Eric Holder’s top press aide Tracy Schmaler emails White House operative Schultz calling Attkisson “out of control.” Schultz replies, “Her piece was really bad for the AG.”



November 2011:

CIA Director Gen. David Petraeus, who’s married, allegedly begins an affair with his biographer, Paula Broadwell. (The FBI would later say it “stumbled” upon evidence of the affair incidentally during an unspecified, much broader investigation.)



December 2011:

Amid much criticism, Justice Department finally, officially retracts the false letter it had submitted to Congress in February. The letter had stated that the Fast and Furious allegations of gunwalking were untrue.



February 13, 2012:

At approximately 10:30pm, remote intruders secretly download new spy software proprietary to a federal agency onto Attkisson’s CBS work computer. (The software was secretly attached to a legitimate Hotmail email and downloaded in the background after a pop-up ad appeared).



April-May 2012:

The Department of Justice (DOJ) and FBI publicly announce vast expansion of cyber related efforts to address alleged “national security-related cyber issues.”

In violation of longstanding practice, DOJ secretly and without notice seizes personal and phone records of journalists from Associated Press from this two-month period in a leak investigation.



June 2012:

Attorney General Holder secretly initiates investigations into AP and the New York Times regarding government leaks.



June 28, 2012:

The House of Representatives holds Attorney General Holder in contempt of Congress for refusing to turn over subpoenaed documents related to Fast and Furious.



July 2012:

The Department of Justice designates U.S. Attorneys’ offices to act as “force multipliers” in further stepped-up cyber efforts in the name of national security.

Intruders remotely “refresh” ongoing surveillance of Attkisson’s CBS News Toshiba laptop.



Summer 2012:

The FBI incidentally stumbles across emails revealing CIA Director Petraeus’ affair with his biographer Broadwell. FBI Director Robert Mueller is notified of the affair on a date the government will not disclose. The FBI later says it interviewed Petraeus and Broadwell, and concluded national security hasn’t been breached. The FBI keeps all of this information secret.

In late summer, on a date the government won’t reveal, the FBI notifies Attorney General Holder of the Petraeus affair.



September 11, 2012:

Four Americans, including U.S. Ambassador Christopher Stevens are murdered in Benghazi, Libya during attacks by Islamic extremist terrorists. Despite internal communications that acknowledge the terrorist nature of the attacks within minutes, the Obama administration falsely reports to the public that the attacks were instead a protest gone awry after an anti-Islamic YouTube video.

Some Obama officials become frustrated with CIA Director Petraeus and his post-Benghazi attack behavior, as he opposes efforts to edit out mentions of terrorism from the public Benghazi talking points. Petraeus deputy Mike Morell is given authority over the edits, and aligns with Hillary Clinton’s State Department against Petraeus’s desires.



October 2012:

CBS begins airing Attkisson’s Benghazi stories which rely on whistleblowers and numerous government-linked confidential sources. These sources report that the Executive Branch is clamping down on leaks to reporters re: Benghazi.

DOJ continues its stepped-up National Security Division cyber efforts, holding specialized training at DOJ headquarters for the National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS) network and the Criminal Division’s Computer Crime and Intellectual Property Section (CCIPS).

President Obama issues top secret presidential directive on Oct. 16 ordering intelligence officials to draw up a list of overseas targets for cyberattacks. According to The Guardian, the directive also “contemplates the possible use of cyber actions inside the US.”

As CIA Director Petraeus’s interagency relationships become increasingly strained over his stance on Benghazi, unnamed FBI agents reach out to Republicans in Congress to tell about Petraeus’s affair. They eventually land at the office of Republican majority leader Eric Cantor. With the presidential elections about a week away, Cantor stays mum on the Petraeus rumors and instead contacts the FBI about them.

The FBI interviews Petraeus and Broadwell a second time.



November 2, 2012:

The FBI questions President Obama’s vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright in a leak investigation regarding material in a book written by a New York Times reporter. Cartwright denies being the source (but later admits he was, and is convicted in the case).



November 6, 2012:

President Obama defeats Mitt Romney in Campaign 2012.

CIA Director Petraeus is scheduled to testify to Congress next week about the Benghazi attacks.

Officials claim this day is the first time Director of National Intelligence Clapper is notified about the Petraeus affair by an unspecified official at the Justice Department. Clapper calls Petraeus and urges him to resign.



November 7-9, 2012:

Attorney General Holder hosts a national training conference at DOJ headquarters for the expanded efforts of DOJ’s National Security Cyber Specialists (NSCS).

The Obama administration says somebody unspecified notifies someone at the White House about the Petraeus affair on Nov. 7. The President is reportedly looped in for the first time on Nov. 8 and accepts Petraeus’ resignation on Nov. 9. Petraeus’ planned appearance before Congress to testify on Benghazi is canceled.



November 13, 2012:

The F.B.I. initiates a body of cyber security case investigations that would later relate to Attkisson’s computer intrusions.



December 2012:

Two intelligence-connected sources separately suggest to Attkisson that she’s likely under government surveillance due to her reporting. One source tells her the government has pushed the envelope like never before and that public would be shocked to “learn the extent that the government is conducting surveillance of private citizens.”

As Attkisson arranges a forensic exam of her computer, evidence later shows the intruders then attempted to cover their tracks and to erase evidence of their intrusion. However, the erasures leave additional forensic evidence.



December 27, 2012:

Sens. Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) and Mark Udall (D-Colo.), who have classified knowledge as members of the Senate Intelligence Committee, publicly warn of the “back-door search loophole” or searches of incidental collection of innocent Americans.

As it is written, there is nothing to prohibit the intelligence community from searching through a pile of communications, which may have been incidentally or accidentally been collected without a warrant, to deliberately search for the phone calls or e-mails of specific Americans.—Sen. Mark Udall, D-Colorado


Sen. Mark Udall


2013:

Obama administration brings court martial against Army intelligence analyst Bradley Manning, who has changed his name to Chelsea, for a 2010 leak of classified information to WikiLeaks that revealed American military and diplomatic activities across the world. Manning is sentenced to 35 years in prison, the longest punishment ever given in a U.S. leak case.



January 2013:

Two forensics examinations confirm unauthorized remote intrusions and monitoring of Attkisson’s work and personal computers. The information is not publicly reported at this time.



January 23, 2013:

The Obama administration prosecutes CIA whistleblower John Kiriakou for leaks to a reporter as he blew the whistle on the CIA’s secret torture program. He’s the first CIA officer convicted of providing classified information to a reporter.



March 12, 2013:

Director of National Intelligence James Clapper testifies to Congress, falsely stating that intelligence officials are not collecting mass data on tens of millions of Americans.





April 12, 2013:

The government Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Agency (FISA) court secretly approves the latest FBI request to continue obtaining daily telephone records of millions of U.S. Verizon customers. The judge orders Verizon to turn over the information to the National Security Agency (NSA). This directly contradicts Clapper’s March 12 testimony to Congress.



April 2013:

A secret government memo later exposed by NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden discusses how the U.S. is collecting information “directly from the servers of …Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, PalTalk, AOL, Skype, YouTube, Apple.”



May 10, 2013:

After longstanding denials, the IRS admits to and apologizes for targeting Republican Tea Party groups for mischief, which included discussing developing pretenses for prosecution, leading up to the 2012 election.



May 13, 2013:

The Associated Press (AP) publicly announces that it has learned of the Justice Department’s secret subpoena of phone records for 20 AP reporters, in a leak investigation. Attorney General Holder personally approved the subpoenas, which were issued to Verizon rather than AP. AP calls it a “massive and unprecedented intrusion” into news-gathering operations.



May 17, 2013:

Fox News learns that the Justice Department secretly labeled reporter James Rosen a possible “criminal co-conspirator” and “flight-risk” in obtaining warrants to monitor Rosen’s State Department movements, phone records and emails in a leak investigation starting in 2011.



June 2013:

The FBI secretly opens a case on Attkisson’s computer intrusions under the auspices of a national security issue. The FBI contacts CBS without Attkisson’s knowledge, but fails to contact or interview Attkisson. (The FBI later withholds Attkisson’s FBI file in its entirety without explanation, and other documents, despite multiple Freedom of Information Act requests.)

News of the FBI case involving Attkisson’s computer intrusions is circulated internally to the Justice Department’s national cyber security group, and grouped with a set of cases opened in November 2012.



June 2013:

Former National Security Agency NSA contractor Snowden begins releasing documents showing extensive efforts by the government to surveil and collect information on U.S. citizens.

Snowden is charged with three felonies in his absence from the U.S.


NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden. Photo by Laura Poitras


June 6, 2013:

At a hearing, Sen. Mark Kirk, R-Illinois, asks Attorney General Eric Holder if the NSA spies on members of Congress. Holder answers that the NSA has no “intent” to spy on Congress, but that the issue is better addressed in private.



July 2, 2013:

Director of National Intelligence Clapper apologizes to Congress for his false testimony in March regarding widespread collection of data on Americans.



August 6, 2013:

Armed Coast Guard agents under the Department of Homeland Security raid the home of reporter Audrey Hudson at 4:30am with a search warrant for her husband’s firearms. As they searched the house, they read Hudson her Miranda rights and confiscated documents that contained “confidential notes, draft articles, and other newsgathering materials” belonging to Hudson including the identities of whistleblowers at the Department of Homeland Security. (Hudson sues and later receives a settlement from the government.)



August 7, 2013:

CBS News publicly announces confirmation of Attkisson’s computer intrusions.

“Attkisson’s computer was accessed by an unauthorized, external, unknown party on multiple occasions late in 2012…This party also used sophisticated methods to remove all possible indications of unauthorized activity, and alter system times to cause further confusion.—CBS News



September 19, 2013

The Obama Justice Department charges FBI agent and contractor Donald Sachtleben with leaking to an AP reporter details of disrupted terrorist bomb plot. He’s sentenced to 43 months in prison.



January 23, 2014:

Sen. Bernie Sanders asks the NSA if it spies on members of Congress. The NSA does not provide a direct answer and states that Congress is afforded “the same privacy protections as all U.S. persons.”



March 2014:

Congress accuses the CIA of improperly accessing Senate Intelligence committee computers. CIA Director Brennan denies it.

Director of National Intelligence Clapper bans intelligence community officials from unauthorized contact with reporters.



April 2, 2014:

Former state department contractor Stephen Jin-Woo Kim is sentenced to prison for disclosing classified information to Fox News reporter James Rosen.



July 31, 2014:

CIA Inspector General reveals that five CIA officials improperly accessed Senate Intelligence Committee computers and searched certain staff emails. The findings contradict denials made in March by CIA director Brennan. Brennan apologizes to Senate staff.



October 2014:

The government pays a settlement to reporter Audrey Hudson after the 2013 Coast Guard raid of her home during which her work notes were improperly seized.



December 2014:

Attorney General Holder seeks to subpoena a 60 Minutes producer in connection with a terrorism trial, but pulls back the request after public criticism.



Spring 2015:

The Obama administration finishes secretive negotiations of an Iran nuclear deal that will return billions of dollars in frozen funds to the world’s largest state sponsor of terrorism in return for assurances from that country. It’s later reported that Obama intel officials have been incidentally capturing communications of U.S. members of Congress and organizations in the U.S. while secretly recording Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s discussions about the Iran deal, which he opposes.

As of now, the New York Times reports “since 2009, six current or former government employees and two government contractors have been indicted or prosecuted under the Espionage Act for leaking information to the public. There were only three such prosecutions under all previous U.S. presidents combined since 1917.”



May 2015:

Former CIA employee Jeffrey Alexander Sterling is convicted on espionage charges for leaks to New York Times reporter James Risen. He’s sentenced to 3 1/2 years in prison.



December 2015:

The Cybersecurity Information Sharing Act (CISA) passes. It requires private Internet companies to “transmit cyber-threat indicators” to the Department of Homeland Security and granting the companies immunity from prosecution for sharing customers’ personal data in those cases.

The Wall Street Journal reports that the Obama administration incidentally collected private communications by members of Congress while it spied on Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu.

The NSA sweeping up “private conversations with U.S. lawmakers and American-Jewish groups… raised fears [of]—an ‘Oh-s— moment,’ one senior U.S. official said—that the executive branch would be accused of spying on Congress.”–Wall Street Journal, December 29, 2015



July 2016:

Donald Trump wins the Republican nomination for president.





According to later news reports, after Trump’s nomination, internal White House logs show Obama National Security Adviser Susan Rice begins to show increased interest in National Security Agency (NSA) intelligence material that included “unmasked” Americans’ identities.


Former Obama national security adviser Susan Rice


Summer 2016:

The FBI reportedly obtains a secret FISA court order to monitor communications of Trump adviser Carter Page, convincing a judge there’s probable cause to believe Page is acting as a Russian agent. Surveillance of Page theoretically allows government officials to “incidentally” collect communications of Trump associates (or Trump himself) if they communicate with Page.

Read: When “Incidental” Intel Collection Isn’t Incidental


Former Trump adviser Carter Page


2016:

It’s not yet known publicly, but CNN later reports that the Obama Justice Department wiretapped Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort before the 2016 election over Russia ties, closed the investigation, then began surveillance anew sometime in the fall and continued it through the early part of 2017.



Fall 2016:

Trump opponents “shop” to reporters a political opposition research “dossier” alleging Trump is guilty of various inappropriate acts regarding Russia. The information is unverified (and some of it is false) and the press doesn’t publish it, but a copy is provided to the FBI.



September 26, 2016:

It’s not publicly known at the time, but the government makes a proposal to the secretive Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISC) court to allow the National Counter Terrorism Center to access “unmasked” intel on Americans acquired by the FBI and NSA. (The Court later approves as “appropriate”.)



October 7, 2016:

Former vice chair of the Joint Chiefs of Staff James Cartwright pleads guilty in a leak investigation to lying to the FBI about his discussions with reporters regarding Iran’s nuclear program.



October 26, 2016:

At closed-door hearing before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court, the Obama administration disclosed that it had been violating surveillance safeguards, according to Circa. It disclosed that more than 5 percent of its searches of the NSA’s database violated safeguards promised in 2011.



November 8, 2016:

Donald Trump is elected President.





November 2016-January 2017:

News reports claim Rice’s interest in the NSA materials accelerates after President Trump’s election through his January inauguration. Surveillance reportedly included Trump transition figures and/or foreign officials discussing a Trump administration.



December 2016:

FBI secretly monitors and records communications between Russian ambassador, Sergey Kislyak and Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn, who later became President Trump’s national security adviser.




Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak


After Trump’s election, Obama officials take steps to ensure certain intelligence gathered regarding Trump associates is “spread across the government.” One Obama official would later say it’s because they were afraid once Trump officials “found out how we knew what we knew,” the intelligence would be destroyed. However, Obama critics later theorize Obama officials were working to mount opposition to Trump’s presidency.



January 10, 2017:

The media reports on the leaked anti-Trump “dossier” compiled by a political opposition research group containing unverified and at least partly untrue allegations of misconduct involving Trump and Russia.



January 12, 2017:

The Obama administration finalizes new rules allowing the National Security Agency (NSA) to spread certain intelligence to 16 other U.S. intel agencies without the normal privacy protections.

President Obama commutes all but the last four months of Manning’s sentence for leaking intelligence information to WikiLeaks.



February 2, 2017:

The news reports that five information technology (IT) computer professionals employed by Democrats in the House of Representatives are under criminal investigation for allegedly “accessing House IT systems without lawmakers’ knowledge.” The suspects include three brothers identified as Abid, Imran and Jamal Awan “who managed office information technology for members of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and other lawmakers.” The brothers were said to have been employed by three Democrats on the Intelligence Committee and “five members of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs which deal with with many of the nation’s most sensitive issues and documents, including those related to the war on terrorism.”



February 9, 2017:

News of the FBI recordings of Lt. Gen. Flynn speaking with Russia’s ambassador is leaked to the press. The New York Times and the Washington Post report that Flynn was captured on wiretaps discussing current U.S. sanctions, despite Flynn’s earlier denials.

The Washington Post also reports the FBI reviewed Flynn’s calls with Russian ambassador and “found nothing illicit.”

March 2, 2017:

In an interview on MSNBC, Obama Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense Evelyn Farkas says that once President Trump was elected, she urged her former colleagues to “get as much information as you can, get as much intelligence as you can [about Trump and his associates] before President Obama leaves the administration” and get it to “people on Capitol Hill.”

March 4, 2017:

President Trump tweets: “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire tapping’ a race for president prior to an election? Turned down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!” and “How low has President Obama gone to tapp my phones during the very sacred election process. This is Nixon/Watergate. Bad (or sick) guy!”

March 10, 2017:

Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a Democrat, steps forward to support Trump’s wiretapping claim, revealing that the Obama administration recorded his (Kucinich’s) communications with a Libyan official in Spring 2011.

March 20, 2017:

At a hearing, lead House Intelligence Committee Democrat Adam Schiff places Trump adviser Carter Page at the center of a theoretical alleged collusion with Russia. (It’s not yet publicly known that the FBI has been surveilling Page.) Some critics see Schiff’s storyline as an attempt to establish public justification for the Obama administration intel community’s controversial surveillance of the Trump adviser during the 2016 political campaign.

March 22, 2017:

Chairman of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes publicly announces that he has reviewed evidence of U.S. citizens associated with Trump being “incidentally” surveilled by Obama intelligence officials, and that the names and information of the Trump associates were illegally leaked and/or used, mostly in November, December and January. Nunes attends a meeting at the White House to discuss. He’s criticized for viewing the evidence and speaking of it publicly.



In an interview on PBS, former Obama National Security Adviser Rice says “I know nothing about this…I really don’t know to what Chairman Nunes was referring.”

March 24, 2017:

The political firm that compiled the Trump “dossier” that was leaked to the press, Fusion GPS, declines to answer questions or document requests from Sen. Charles Grassley.



March 31, 2017:

Democrat Schiff is invited to the White House to review intel material Republican Nunes saw earlier.

April 3, 2017:

Multiple news reports state that prior to the election, Rice had requested and reviewed “unmasked” intelligence on Trump associates whose information was “incidentally” collected by intelligence agencies.



April 4, 2017:

In an interview on MSNBC, Rice seems to reverse herself (having earlier said she knew “nothing” about unmasking of surveilled Trump associates) and admits having asked for names of U.S. citizens previously masked in intelligence reports. Rice says her motivations were not political or to spy. When asked if she leaked names of U.S. citizens,

Rice replies, “I leaked nothing to nobody.”

April 6, 2017:

House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes recuses himself from the Russia part of his committee’s investigation.

April 11, 2017:

Someone leaks to the Washington Post, and the Post reports, that the FBI secretly obtained a FISA court order last summer to monitor Trump campaign associate Carter Page. Trump critics say the existence of the order proves there was possible criminal activity by Trump associates. However, Trump supporters say the leak is an attempt to frame damning revelations as they are coming to light: that the Obama administration was, indeed, surveilling the political campaign of at least one opponent.

April 28, 2017:

The NSA announces it “will no longer collect certain internet communications that merely mention a foreign intelligence target.” This after it secretly disclosed mass violations to the FISA court last October.

The NSA also begins deleting prior collected data. It says it’s doing this to avoid further violations.

May 2, 2017:

Members of Senate Intelligence Committee go to CIA headquarters to get briefed on Russia-Trump connections. The following day, CNN asks Senate Intelligence Committee member Dianne Feinstein if there is evidence of “collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign.” “Not at this time,” replies Feinstein.

May 3, 2017:

Obama’s former National Security Adviser Susan Rice declines Republican Congressional request to testify at a hearing about the unmasking and surveillance.

May 4, 2017:

It’s revealed that in the election year of 2016, the Obama administration vastly expanded its searches of NSA database for Americans and the content of their emails and phone calls: From 9500 searches involving 198 Americans in 2013 to 30,355 searches of 5,288 Americans in 2016.

May 14, 2017:

Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper and ex-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates, Obama administration officials, admit to reviewing “classified documents in which Mr. Trump, his associates or members of Congress had been unmasked.” They won’t provide further details in public.

June 1, 2017:

House Intelligence Committee issues 7 subpoenas including for information related to unmaskings requested by ex-Obama officials national security adviser Susan Rice, former CIA Director John Brennan and former U.S. ambassador to the U.N. Samantha Power. Chairman Devin Nunes says the intelligence community has been stonewalling the committee’s March request for a list of all the unmaskings that occurred during a certain time period.

Sept. 13, 2017

Under questioning from Congress, former Obama adviser Susan Rice reportedly admits having requested to see the protected identities of Trump transition officials who were “incidentally” captured by government surveillance. (For their privacy protection, identities of U.S. citizens captured during surveillance of foreign foreign targets are supposed to be protected or “masked” from other government officials. Applications by federal officials to “unmask” the names or see the identities are supposed to be rare and carefully considered.

Sept. 18, 2017

CNN reports that the Obama Justice Department wiretapped Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort before the 2016 election over Russia ties, closed the investigation, then began surveillance anew sometime in the fall and continued it through the early part of 2017.