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More from Bret Stephens.
Obama turned the IRS into a political Gestapo Machine. Hillary and Comey turned the FBI into an Investigative Gestapo Machine. Biden is turning government upside down and a machine that creates new social welfare programs under the guise of infrastructure necessities.
When the radical progressive Democrats finish, government will be a monster hated and distrusted by most members of the "we the people, Neanderthal, despicable crowd."
If you want more of this then vote the Democrats in again so they can finish what was once a great nation, inhabited by free and creative people, who overcame their conflicted history unlike any nation on the face of this planet and are willing to continue the pace of reformation.
By Victor Davis Hanson
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The Federal Bureau of Dirty Tricks
Actions by the F.B.I. under James Comey have come under scrutiny.
By Bret Stephens
This month’s bombshell indictment of Igor Danchenko, the Russian national who is charged with lying to the F.B.I. and whose work turns out to have been the main source for Christopher Steele’s notorious dossier, is being treated as a major embarrassment for much of the news media — and, if the charges stick, that’s exactly what it is.
Put media criticism aside for a bit. What this indictment further exposes is that James Comey’s F.B.I. became a Bureau of Dirty Tricks, mitigated only by its own incompetence — like a mash-up of Inspector Javert and Inspector Clouseau. Donald Trump’s best move as president (about which I was dead wrong at the time) may have been to fire him.
If you haven’t followed the drip-drip-drip of revelations, late in 2019 Michael E. Horowitz, the Justice Department’s inspector general, published a damning report detailing “many basic and fundamental errors” by the F.B.I. in seeking Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court warrants to surveil Carter Page, the American businessman fingered in the dossier as a potential link between the Trump campaign and the Kremlin.
Shortly afterward, Rosemary Collyer, the court’s presiding judge, issued her own stinging rebuke of the bureau: “The frequency with which representations made by F.B.I. personnel turned out to be unsupported or contradicted by information in their possession, and with which they withheld information detrimental to their case, calls into question whether information contained in other F.B.I. applications is reliable,” she wrote.
Here a question emerged: Were the F.B.I.’s errors a matter of general incompetence or of bias? There appears to be a broad pattern of F.B.I. agents overstating evidence that corroborates their suspicions. That led to travesties such as the bureau hounding the wrong man in the 2001 anthrax attacks.
But it turns out the bureau can be both incompetent and biased. When the F.B.I. applied for warrants to continue wiretapping Page, it already knew Page was helping the C.I.A., not the Russians. We know this because in August 2020 a former F.B.I. lawyer, Kevin Clinesmith, pleaded guilty to rewriting an email to hide Page’s C.I.A. ties.
And why would Clinesmith do that? It certainly helped the bureau renew its wiretap warrants on Page, and, as Clinesmith once put it in a text message to a colleague, “viva la resistance.” When the purpose of government service is to stop “the crazies” (one of Clinesmith’s descriptions of the elected administration) then the ends soon find a way of justifying the means.
Which brings us to the grand jury indictment of Danchenko in the investigation being conducted by the special counsel John Durham. Danchenko was Steele’s main source for the most attention-grabbing claims in the dossier, including the existence of a likely mythical “pee tape.” Steele, in turn, wrote his report for Fusion GPS, an opposition-research outfit that had been hired by a Washington law firm close to the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
Translation: The Steele dossier was Democratic Party-funded opposition research that had been sub-sub-sub-subcontracted to Danchenko, who now stands accused of repeatedly lying to the F.B.I. about his own sources while also having been investigated a decade ago for possible ties to Russian intelligence. Danchenko has pleaded not guilty and adamantly denies Russian intelligence ties, and he deserves his day in court. He describes the raw intelligence he collected for Steele as little more than a collection of rumors and innuendo and alleges that Steele dressed them up for Fusion GPS.
Of such dross was spun years of high-level federal investigations, ponderous congressional hearings, pompous Adam Schiff soliloquies, and nonstop public furor. But none of that would likely have happened if the F.B.I. had treated the dossier as the garbage that it was, while stressing the ways in which Russia had sought to influence the election on Trump’s behalf, or the ways in which the Trump campaign (particularly through its onetime manager, Paul Manafort) was vulnerable to Russian blackmail.
Instead, Comey used it as a political weapon by privately briefing President-elect Trump about it, despite ample warnings about the dossier’s credibility. In doing so, Comey made the existence of the “salacious and unverified” dossier news in its own right. And, as the University of Chicago’s Charles Lipson astutely notes, Comey’s briefing “could be seen as a kind of blackmail threat, the kind that marked J. Edgar Hoover’s tenure.”
If you are a certain kind of reader — probably conservative — who has closely followed the Durham investigation, none of the above will come as news. But I’m writing this column for those who haven’t followed it closely, or who may have taken a keener interest in tales about Trump being Russia’s puppet than in evidence that, for all of his many and grave sins, he was the victim of a gigantic slander abetted by the F.B.I.
Democrats who don’t want the vast power wielded by the bureau ever used against one of their own — as, after all, it was against Hillary Clinton — ought to use the Durham investigation as an opportunity to clean up, or clean out, the F.B.I. once and for all.
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Virginia mothers versus the Loudon Board of Education
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We traded a hard nosed America First, brash New York real estate developer type for a laughing stock,
pathetic incompetent, political hack.
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Yes, time to move on and make sure next and every election is believable:
Fox News Abandons Trump
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In a shocking turn of events, the founder of Fox News, Rupert Murdoch, threw former President Donald Trump under the bus and told him to let go of his past obsessions because he could stagger conservatives as political tension rises across America.
According to Deadline, Murdoch hit Trump and stated, “The current American political debate is profound, whether about education or welfare or economic opportunity. It is crucial that conservatives play an active, forceful role in that debate, but that will not happen if President Trump stays focused on the past. The past is the past, and the country is now in a contest to define the future.”
Currently, Murdoch’s son Lachlan Murdoch serves as the Fox Corp CEO.
This isn’t the first time former President Trump and Fox News have had issues. Trump was furious after Fox News called Arizona for President Biden in the 2020 presidential election, which Trump believed was too early to tell.
Like Trump, Murdoch strongly believes that there is major censorship of conservative voices by social media giants such as Facebook.
“Both of these issues highlight the fundamental need for algorithmic transparency. The idea falsely promoted by the platforms that algorithms are somehow objective and solely scientific is complete nonsense. Algorithms are subjective and they can be manipulated by people to kill competition and damage other people, publishers and businesses,” Murdoch said in the past.
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Who is Florida's governor? Strikes me he is a winner and that is why Democrats hate him, are attacking him and beginning to put out their usual lies in their smear campaign
Anyone who criticizes him - I have a question for you - can you please post your education and service to our country in a resume so we can put things in perspective?
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WHO IS THIS RON DESANTIS, THE GOVERNOR OF FLORIDA?
OUR NEXT PRESIDENT? HOPEFULLY!
“Ronald Dion DeSantis was born on September 14, 1978, in Jacksonville, Florida, the son of Karen (née Rogers) and Ronald DeSantis.
[1] He is of Italian descent.
[2] His family moved to Orlando, Florida, before relocating to Dunedin, Florida, when he was six years old.
[3] In 1991, he was a member of the Little League team from Dunedin National that made it to the Little League World Series in Williamsport, Pennsylvania.
[4] After graduating from Dunedin High School in 1997, DeSantis attended Yale University. He was captain of Yale's varsity baseball team and joined the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity.
[5] On the Yale baseball team, DeSantis was an outfielder; as a senior in 2001, he had the team's best batting average at .336.
[6] He graduated from Yale in 2001 with a B.A. magna cum laude in history.
[7] He then spent a year as a history teacher at the Darlington School.
[8] DeSantis then attended Harvard Law School, graduating in 2005 with a Juris Doctor cum laude.
[9] DeSantis received his Reserve Naval officer's commission and assignment to the Judge Advocate General's Corps (JAG) in 2004 at the U.S. Naval Reserve Center in Dallas, Texas, while still a student at Harvard Law School.
[10] He completed Naval Justice School in 2005.
[11] Later that year, he received orders to the JAG Trial Service Office Command South East at Naval Station Mayport, Florida, as a prosecutor
[12] In 2006, he was promoted from lieutenant, junior grade to lieutenant. He worked for the commander of Joint Task Force-Guantanamo (JTF-GTMO), working directly with detainees at the Guantanamo Bay Joint Detention Facility.
[13] In 2007, DeSantis reported to the Naval Special Warfare Command Group in Coronado, California, where he was assigned to SEAL Team One and deployed to Iraq with the troop surge as the Legal Advisor to the SEAL Commander, Special Operations Task Force-West in Fallujah.[14] DeSantis returned to the U.S. in April 2008, at which time he was reassigned to the Naval Region Southeast Legal Service.
[15] The U.S. Department of Justice appointed him to serve as an Assistant U.S. Attorney at the U.S. Attorney's Office in the Middle District of Florida.
[16] DeSantis was assigned as a trial defense counsel until his honorable discharge from active duty in February 2010.
[17] He concurrently accepted a reserve commission as a lieutenant in the Judge Advocate General's Corps of the US Navy Reserve.
[18] He was awarded the Bronze Star Medal, the Navy and Marine Corps Commendation Medal, the Global War on Terrorism Service Medal, and the Iraq Campaign Medal.
Well obviously, he is NOT qualified to be a Democrat, or serve in a senior political position in our nation’s capital.
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Need to read and digest this:
Why Israel may soon attack Iran
The world's largest state-sponsor of terror, sworn to destroy Israel, is approaching the nuclear threshold. It's not an existential threat for the US. It is for Israel.
Steve Kramer
The world's largest state-sponsor of terror, sworn to destroy Israel, is approaching the nuclear threshold. It's not an existential threat for the US. It is for Israel.
Later this month, representatives of the world powers and Iran will meet in Vienna to discuss reviving the 2015 Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action Cooperation – the Iran nuclear deal. In the runup to the talks, the United States and Israel have reiterated their determination to prevent Iran from producing nuclear weapons. Both have stated their preference for a diplomatic means of achieving that goal. But there the symmetry ends. While the United States can live with an Iran that has the ability to make a bomb but doesn’t do so, Israel simply cannot.
The disparity was clear at a recent press conference with Secretary State Anthony Blinken and Israeli and Emirati counterparts. Blinken reiterated his administration’s longstanding insistence that “Iran cannot be allowed to acquire a nuclear weapon.” By contrast, Israeli Foreign Minister Yair Lapid warned that “Iran is becoming a nuclear threshold country,” and that Israelis “have no intention of letting this happen.”
What is the difference between an Iran that could quickly make a bomb and an Iran that already has one? Why would America implicitly accept a threshold-capable Iran while Israel regards it as a strategic – and potentially existential – threat?
“Threshold” describes a nuclear program that has all the components necessary for swiftly making a bomb. Enriching uranium to the 90% level necessary for weaponization takes as much as two years. But by enriching uranium to 60%, as it does now, Iran has completed the longest stretch of the process and is now installing centrifuges capable of spinning four or even six times faster than the current rate. Once it decides to break out and create a nuclear arsenal, Iran can do so in a matter of weeks or even days – well before the international community could react.
And Iran will inevitably break out. Several countries have what is sometimes called “Japan-like capabilities,” a reference to Japan’s own threshold nuclear program. But Japan is not Iran, a country ruled by the world’s largest state-sponsors of terror, which works to overthrow pro-Western governments, and vows to wipe Israel off the map. Having the ability to make a bomb, no matter how quickly, will not suffice for Iranian rulers. They saw what happened to Saddam Hussein in Iraq and Libya’s Muammar Qaddafi, both of whom forfeited their nuclear ambitions and died, and what didn’t happen to Kim Jung-un, who kept his and become almost untouchable. Yet, beyond regime survival, the bomb is vital for Iranian prestige. A weapon possessed by Sunni Pakistan, Hindu India, and, presumably, by the Jewish State cannot be denied to the Shiite Islamic Republic.
Yet Iran does not have to possess the bomb to damage Israel irreparably. Threshold capacity provides Iranian-backed terrorists with a nuclear umbrella that can open and shield them from retaliation. Responding to rocket attacks from Hezbollah or Hamas, Israel will be hobbled by the fear of an Iranian breakout. Defending the country will be dangerously more difficult.
Such fears are much less pronounced in the United States, a country situated far from Iran and not threatened with national destruction – a United States which, moreover, has no desire to become embroiled in another overseas conflict. For that reason, the Biden Administration pledges to prevent Iran from acquiring nuclear weapons but not to prevent Iran from attaining the ability to make them. For that reason, President Biden vows to consider “other options” should Iran not return to the negotiating table but does not echo President Obama’s warnings of “all options are on the table,” including a military strike.
Israelis view this policy with profound skepticism. A threshold Iran will drive other Middle Eastern states to attempt to achieve the same capability, creating a highly unstable region teetering on a nuclear threshold. Together with its continuing efforts to produce a deliverable warhead – amply documented by the nuclear archive Israel’s Mossad secreted out of Teheran – Iran has developed intercontinental ballistic missiles that can already hit central Europe and will eventually reach the North American coast. Global security will be undermined.
For Israel, though, the timetable for action is much shorter, and while our military capabilities cannot equal America’s, we do have the means to defend ourselves. And though Israel has no expectations of US military intervention, we trust that the United States will provide us with the logistical, diplomatic and legal assistance we need and stand by all its Middle Eastern allies. Doing so will not only deal a decisive blow to Iran’s nuclear ambitions but will also restore America’s regional prestige.
As the nuclear talks resume, Israel will be watching to see if Iran exploits them to camouflage its march toward threshold capability. If so, irrespective of the international backlash, Israel will be forced to act. Recalling that both he and the Secretary of State are the sons of Holocaust survivors, Lapid stressed the need for nations to protect themselves against evil, and especially against an Iran sworn to destroy the Jewish state. “Israel reserves the right to act at any given moment, in any way,” he said. America, and the world, should listen.
AND:
About the speaker: Brigadier General Avivi concluded his service as the Head of the Auditing and Consulting Department of the Israeli Defense Establishment, (including the Israel Defense Force, the Ministry of Defense and Israeli Military Industries). In that position, Avivi managed more than 100 military auditors and advisors. He was responsible for the audit of military readiness, budgeting, procurement, projects, bids, cyber, logistics, infrastructure and operations. Avivi fulfilled various command positions in the Corps of Engineers leading thousands of soldiers in a dynamic combat environment.
Avivi served as Brigade commander, Deputy Division commander and head of the Military School of Engineers. He also served as the aide-de-camp for the Chief of the General Staff of the IDF, Lt. General Moshe "Bogie" Yaalon.
Avivi was at the heart of the policy-making process in the Israeli Government and Defense establishment during that term. Avivi also serves as the Principal of the New State Solution working group. Avivi is the Founder & CEO of Habithonistim.
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They just never give up trying because they are hooked on the need for power
JUST IN: Disgraced Cuomo Considering COMEBACK - Get Ready!
Unfinished business >>++++++++++++++++++++++
11 Classic Lines From Charles Dickens Novels
Considered one of the best writers of the Victorian era, Charles Dickens was lauded for his insightful, honest, and often humorous stories about the underprivileged members of British society. He is often credited with drawing attention to the plights of the common people with his writing, and for helping to bring about social change.
Though he was a prolific writer, composing short stories, nonfiction, and stage plays, he is best known for his longer stories, including Oliver Twist, A Christmas Carol, David Copperfield, and Great Expectations, which were originally published in serial installments in weekly and monthly magazines. Only later were the stories reprinted in the bound forms we’re familiar with today, read over and over for their wisdom and wit. Here, we’ve collected 11 classic lines penned by Dickens, as familiar as old friends.
It was the best of times, it was the worst of times...
— “A Tale of Two Cities”
These famous opening words set the stage for a novel full of contradictions, a story that continuously compares the cities of London and Paris during the French Revolution. The phrase still rings true today as we look around and see a world that’s both deeply troubled and astoundingly compassionate. It can be difficult to hold both realities in our minds. Dickens captured it on the page with one line.
I have been bent and broken, but — I hope — into a better shape.
— “Great Expectations”
The character of Estella is introduced to readers at the beginning of the story as cold and insulting. Though our main character, Pip, pines for her, she cares little for him. It is not until the end of the novel, when Estella speaks this line, that we see how her own trials have changed her over the course of the story. Just as Pip has learned to be honest and hardworking, Estella has learned humility through suffering.
Trifles make the sum of life.
— “David Copperfield”
This novel, which is considered to be at least partly autobiographical, weaves the facts of Dickens’ own life with fiction to tell the story of a young man who loves and loses and learns to love again. Through it all we see how the small, day-to-day decisions we make end up defining our lives as a whole. Even the great turning points of life are reached through incremental steps and solidified by minutiae.
Please, sir, I want some more.
— “Oliver Twist”
In this scene, which takes place early in the book, young Oliver is a resident at the parish workhouse for boys. After being served a meager portion of gruel for his supper, then waiting while a long prayer is said over the food, Oliver finishes his dinner in a few bites. Desperate with hunger, he approaches the master of the house and asks for seconds. The next day, a flyer is posted offering five pounds to anyone who will take the greedy child off their hands — and so the adventure of his life begins.
No one is useless in this world... who lightens the burden of it for any one else.
— “Our Mutual Friend”
Our Mutual Friend is considered by some modern critics to be one of Dickens’ greatest works, but when it was published serially over many months in 1864 and 1865, it did not sell well. Dickens himself was quite ill during this time, and the book would end up being his last completed work. This line, which is spoken in the book to comfort a character who is feeling useless, may also be a subtle nod to the people in Dickens’ life during this difficult time.
It is a fair, even-handed, noble adjustment of things, that while there is infection in disease and sorrow, there is nothing in the world so irresistibly contagious as laughter and good humor.
— “A Christmas Carol”
This reflection comes as grumpy old Scrooge, under the wing of the Ghost of Christmas Present, is given a peek at his nephew’s Christmas celebration. The younger man’s laughter sets the other party guests to chuckling, and Scrooge begins to understand that he too might have enjoyed such happiness, if only he had accepted the invitation from his nephew to join the party.
We need never be ashamed of our tears.
— “Great Expectations”
This line, from chapter 19 of the book, comes as Pip is finally leaving London with the hope of becoming a proper gentleman. When he sees his friends Joe and Biddy and is overcome with nostalgia, he begins to weep. He goes on to say: “I was better after I had cried, than before — more sorry, more aware of my own ingratitude, more gentle.” It’s a sentiment that rings true even after 160 years.
Family not only need to consist of merely those whom we share blood, but also for those whom we’d give blood.
— “Nicholas Nickleby”
The third novel by Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby tells the story of a young man who takes a job at a boy’s boarding school where the pupils are terribly abused. Disgusted with the treatment of the young men, Nickleby gives the headmaster a beating and frees one of the pupils, Smike. The two travel to London and join a touring stage company. The bond between the two friends becomes as strong as the bond between brothers, illustrating how the closest friends can often feel more like family.
It is a far, far better thing that I do, than I have ever done; it is a far, far better rest that I go to, than I have ever known.
— “A Tale of Two Cities”
This passage is pulled from the final chapter of the book and is said by the character Sydney Carton as he [SPOILER] makes his way to the guillotine in place of his doppelganger. His sacrifice is generally seen as selfless, but some argue that this line indicates a degree of self-aggrandizing, a way for Carton to finally do something noble and exit the world on a high note.
Fan the sinking flame of hilarity with the wing of friendship; and pass the rosy wine.
— “The Old Curiosity Shop”
One of Dickens’s lesser-known works, The Old Curiosity Shop was a huge success when it was first serialized. Though this line is often quoted in celebration, it takes on a more sinister tone when considered in context. Spoken by the character of Richard Swiveller, the main character’s scheming, debt-ridden lawyer, it begs the question of who we trust and why.
Whether I shall turn out to be the hero of my own life, or whether that station will be held by anybody else, these pages must show.
— “David Copperfield”
This line, which is the very first of the book, launches us into the story with hardly any context. The speaker could be male or female, young or old, rich or poor, which is precisely why the sentiment is so universal. At times we all feel the hero of our own stories, while at other times we believe ourselves obscured by more dominating characters. It is a rare sentence that so accurately captures what it is to be human.
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