Sunday, November 24, 2019
The 90 Miles Mystery Video: Nyctophilia Edition #118
Before You Click On The "Read More" Link,
Please Only Do So If You Are Over 21 Years Old.
If You are Easily Upset, Triggered Or Offended, This Is Not The Place For You.
Please Leave Silently Into The Night......
The 90 Miles Mystery Box: Episode #815
You have come across a mystery box. But what is inside?
It could be literally anything from the serene to the horrific,
from the beautiful to the repugnant,
from the mysterious to the familiar.
If you decide to open it, you could be disappointed,
you could be inspired, you could be appalled.
This is not for the faint of heart or the easily offended.
You have been warned.
Saturday, November 23, 2019
Meanwhile, Trump and McConnell Keep Confirming Federal Judges, 'Flipping' Several Circuit Courts
As the impeachment drama sucks up all the energy in the House of Representatives and consumes the attention of the political press, Senate Republicans are taking advantage of the legislative process grinding to a halt -- despite Nancy Pelosi's vow that impeachment would not halt progress on other important issues. Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and the upper chamber's judiciary committee have teed up a nonstop merry-go-round of judicial confirmations, which is spinning ever closer to achieving 'Cocaine Mitch's' stated goal of filling every single vacancy on the federal bench by the end of President Trump's term. They've been grinding away, making steady, consequential, lasting progress:
And, here's what the appeals courts looked like when Obama left office:
(From 2016 graphic: tmsnrt.rs/2blUhmV)
When Trump took office, only four of the 13 appeals courts had a majority of GOP-appointed judges. Now seven of them do. Read more about what it all means here: reut.rs/2KUCJxZ
68 people are talking about this
Even as the House Intelligence Committee on Wednesday heard crucial testimony from pivotal witness Gordon Sondland, the Senate voted to confirm Trump’s latest appointee to the Atlanta-based 11th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals, a regional appeals court handling cases from Georgia, Alabama and Florida. The action represented a new milestone in Trump’s dramatic reshaping of the federal judiciary, with Republican-appointed judges now in the majority in the 11th Circuit, whose majority before Trump took office in January 2017 had been Democratic appointees. Republican-appointed justices tend to be conservative, while Democratic-named judges tend to be liberal. This marks the third time that Trump has been able to engineer the ideological “flip” of...
NYT Names FBI “Resistance” Lawyer Under Criminal Investigation For Fabricating FISA Docs
The New York Times has revealed that the “low-level lawyer” under criminal investigation for allegedly doctoring materials used to obtain renewals of the Carter Page surveillance warrant is Kevin Clinesmith – who worked on both the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the Russia probe, was part of Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team, and interviewed Trump campaign advisor George Papadopoulos.
Clinesmith, a 37-year-old graduate of Georgetown Law, “took an email from an official at another federal agency that contained several factual assertions, then added material to the bottom that looked like another assertion from the email’s author, when it was instead his own understanding,” according to the report.
Mr. Clinesmith included this altered email in a package that he compiled for another F.B.I. official to read in preparation for signing an affidavit that would be submitted to the court attesting to the facts and analysis in the wiretap application.
The details of the email are apparently classified and may not be made public even when the report is unveiled. New York Times
In other words, we won’t get to see whatever the FBI used to trick the FISA court into granting Page’s renewals.
Clinesmith, a former attorney with the FBI’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch while working under FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, resigned two months ago after he was interviewed by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horrowitz’s office. Horrowitz in turn sent a criminal referral to US Attorney John Durham, who was tasked with investigating the Obama DOJ’s conduct surrounding the 2016 US election.
The referral appears to at least be part of the reason that Durham’s inquiry was elevated from an administrative review to a criminal investigation, according to the report. The findings are set to be revealed on December 9, when Horowitz will release his long-awaited report, which Trump’s allies believe will reveal an effort to undermine...
In other words, we won’t get to see whatever the FBI used to trick the FISA court into granting Page’s renewals.
Clinesmith, a former attorney with the FBI’s National Security and Cyber Law Branch while working under FBI’s top lawyer, James Baker, resigned two months ago after he was interviewed by DOJ Inspector General Michael Horrowitz’s office. Horrowitz in turn sent a criminal referral to US Attorney John Durham, who was tasked with investigating the Obama DOJ’s conduct surrounding the 2016 US election.
The referral appears to at least be part of the reason that Durham’s inquiry was elevated from an administrative review to a criminal investigation, according to the report. The findings are set to be revealed on December 9, when Horowitz will release his long-awaited report, which Trump’s allies believe will reveal an effort to undermine...
Sens. Johnson, Grassley Seek Records on Obama Officials’ Meetings With Ukrainian and DNC Officials
Sens. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) and Ron Johnson (R-Wis.) asked for records of White House meetings in 2016 between Obama administration officials, Ukrainian government representatives, and Democratic National Committee (DNC) officials.
Johnson, chairman of the Senate Homeland Security Committee, and Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, asked Archivist David Ferraro to produce records so as to “better understand the nature of these meetings, including who attended and what was discussed,” in a letter sent on Thursday (pdf).
“According to recent reports, in January 2016 Ukrainian governmental officials and corruption investigators met with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Department of State and Department of Justice (DOJ). Obama Administration officials also met with Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor for the DNC, who reportedly worked with Ukrainian officials to undermine the Trump campaign,” Grassley said in a news release.
Their letter, citing those reports, elaborated that in 2016, “some of Ukraine’s top corruption prosecutors and investigators [met] face to face with members of former President Obama’s National Security Council (NSC), FBI, State Department and Department of Justice (DOJ).”
Some of the meetings reportedly included Alexandra Chalupa, a contractor for the DNC. They said Chalupa, who is Ukrainian-American, has been accused of working with Ukrainian officials to undermine Trump’s 2016 campaign.
During the January 2016 meeting, the senators said that officials also brought up investigations into Burisma Holdings, a Ukrainian gas firm that had hired Hunter Biden, who served as a board member.
The letter places focus on Andrii Telizhenko, a former official at the Ukrainian Embassy in Washington who has claimed to have witnessed alleged attempts between the DNC and the Ukrainian government.
“U.S. officials told the Ukrainians they would prefer that Kyiv drop the Burisma probe and allow the FBI to take it over,” he was quoted by the two senators as saying in their letter.
The senators are now requesting records about the five White House meetings listed in the letter and all records related to meetings between and among White House officials, Andrii Telizhenko, Nazar Kholodnytskyy, Oksana Shulyar, and Valeriy Chaly.
“Please provide these documents as soon as possible but no later than 5:00 p.m. on December 5, 2019,” the senators requested in the letter.
Hunter and Joe Biden are one of the key figures mentioned in the House Democrat-led impeachment inquiry into President Donald Trump. Democrats have alleged that Trump...
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