Tuesday, January 18, 2022
Monday, January 17, 2022
Blogs With Rule 5 Links
The Other McCain has: Rule 5 Sunday: Clearing Out The Bodacious Babe Backlog
Proof Positive has: Best Of Web Link Around
The Woodsterman has: Rule 5 Woodsterman Style
EBL has: Rule 5 And FMJRA
The Right Way has: Rule 5 Saturday LinkORama
The Pirate's Cove has: Sorta Blogless Sunday Pinup
Conspiracies as Realities, Realities as Conspiracies
American politics over the last half decade has become immersed in a series of conspiracy charges leveled by Democrats against their opponents that, in fact, are happening because of them and through them. The consequences of these conspiracies becoming reality and reality revealing itself as conspiracy have been costly to American prestige, honor, and security. As we move away from denouncing realists as conspiracists, and self-pronounced “realists” are revealed as the true conspirators, let’s review a few of the more damaging of these events.
Russians on the Brain
Consider that the Trump election of 2016, the transition, and the first two years of the Trump presidency were undermined by a media-progressive generated hoax of “Russian collusion.”
The “bombshell” and “walls are closing in” mythologies dominated the network news and cable outlets. It took five years to expose them as rank agit-prop.
Robert Mueller and his “dream team” consumed $40 million of Americans’ money and 22 months of our time—to find the nothingburger that most of the country already knew was nothing. Yet the subtext of the 2018 Democratic takeover of the House was the media narrative that Trump, as Hillary Clinton put it, was an “illegitimate” president, due to Russian collusion.
Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper claimed on national television that Trump was a “Russian asset.” Former CIA head John Brennan assured the nation that the president was “treasonous,” due to his supposed “lies to the American people.”
All sorts of politicians, retired military, and news anchors echoed the charges. The lies and myths of has-been British spy Christopher Steele made him a leftist hero. They were repeated ad nauseam as truth.
FBI grandees like James Comey, Andrew McCabe, Peter Strzok, Lisa Page, Kevin Clinesmith, and others destroyed their careers in their obsessions over Trump. In the process of destroying themselves, they also nearly wrecked the reputation of the FBI. The Pentagon has the lowest popular support in modern memory. The CIA is more feared by millions of Americans than by our enemies.
Steele could not produce any evidence to back up his scurrilous charges. The inspector general of the Department of Justice found little evidence to substantiate any of the charges. James Comey and Robert Mueller under oath both pleaded either memory problems or denied any knowledge about the FBI’s use of Steele and the role his fake dossier played.
Most of the televised accusers, when under oath before Congress, admitted they had no evidence for their flamboyant charges. Representative Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), who claimed the dossier was authentic and that Trump was compromised, has repeatedly been revealed as a liar. In various televised House hearings, he kept getting caught either fabricating, misrepresenting, or warping evidence before his own committee.
No matter. Hillary Clinton and the Left kept pounding “collusion.” The more it was proven false, the more they shouted the lie.
Finally, special counsel John Durham’s investigations, some authentic media investigative reporting, and the preponderance of evidence showed not only that Trump did not collude with the Russians, but that the entire charge was a sick sort of projection on the part of Hillary Clinton and her vassals.
Steele concocted the election-cycle fantasy using a former Clintonite totem in Moscow. Another source was the now indicted Igor Danchenko ( a “primary sub-source”), who was working at the leftist Brookings Institution while feeding Steele.
A cynic might look at this sad chapter and conclude that Hillary Clinton sought to destroy her opponent by paying Christopher Steele to manufacture fantasies fabricated from left-wing and former Clinton associates. Then she used the media, the FBI, the CIA, and the Justice Department to seed the farce while hiding her own role behind three firewalls including the DNC, the Perkins Coie law firm, and Glenn Simpson’s Fusion GPS.
The ultimate irony?
Hillary Clinton did collude with those claiming to have Russian connections to warp an election, and she projected her likely illegal activity onto the target of her attacks. No conspiracist could trump such reality. Will Merrick Garland look at her role in this episode as he conducts his insurrectionist investigations concerning efforts to undermine an election?
What was the post facto cost when such former “conspiracies” became realities, and former realities became the true conspiracies? The damage done was considerable.
We once realistically used the Russians to balance the Chinese. But the Left, which appeased Vladimir Putin with “reset,” now flipped to create a climate of hate indiscriminately against...
Politics Is Kinda Crazy With A Spooky Mass Murderer Like Hillary Clinton...
If you decide someday
To stop this little game that you are playing
I'm gonna tell you all the things
My heart's been a-dying to be saying
Just like a ghost
You've been a-haunting my dreams
So I propose on Halloween
Love is kinda crazy
With a spooky little girl like you
‘Lady Al Qaeda’ Blamed Jews for Her Conviction. Her Allies Can’t Figure Why A Gunman Attacked Synagogue In Her Name.
CAIR and Siddiqui attorney scramble to avoid blame for terrorist attack on Texas synagogue
The Council on American Islamic Relations denied any connection between the terror attack at a Texas synagogue and its campaign to free imprisoned terrorist Aafia Siddiqui, one day after a fanatical gunman took Jewish congregants hostage to demand Siddiqui’s release.
CAIR has been a longtime advocate for clemency for Siddiqui, a terror operative who was dubbed "Lady al Qaeda" and sentenced to 86 years in prison in 2010 for trying to gun down U.S. FBI and military officials. During a joint press conference with Siddiqui’s attorney on Sunday, CAIR’s Dallas director Faizan Syed said it had no prior relationship to the the assailant, British national Malik Faisal Akram, and that his actions should not detract from efforts to seek clemency for Siddiqui.Syed and Siddiqui's attorney, Marwa Elbially, were pressed by reporters on anti-Semitic remarks by Siddiqui that could lead her supporters to attack a synagogue. During her 2010 trial, for example, she demanded that jurors undergo DNA tests to ensure there were no Jews on her jury. In a letter to President Barack Obama from prison after the trial, Siddiqui wrote that Jewish people have "always back-stabbed everyone who has taken pity on them and made the ‘fatal' error of giving them shelter." The letter said "this why ‘holocausts' keep happening to them."
Elbially acknowledged the anti-Semitism, but suggested Siddiqui was suffering from mental illness during her trial due to alleged abuse Siddiqui was subjected to in CIA custody. When asked by the Washington Free Beacon if Siddiqui had ever renounced or apologized for her anti-Semitic views since 2010, CAIR and Elbially declined to answer affirmatively.
Elbially told the Free Beacon that "nothing excuses anti-Semitic statements," but said Siddiqui "was in a diminished state both physically and mentally when she stood trial."
Syed also excused the anti-Semitic comments by saying they were made after Siddiqui was "put into [CIA] black sites," which "had a serious emotional and mental toll."
Siddiqui, who is serving her sentence at the Federal Medical Center in Fort Worth, Texas, "does not want any violence to be done in her name. She has been stating that since the very beginning and she continues to state that to this day," Syed said during the press conference. Syed said Akram’s decision to attack the synagogue in Colleyville, near Fort Worth, was likely driven by "potential mental illness."
The man was killed during the 10-hour standoff with...
I Been In The Right World, But It Seems Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong, Wrong...
I been in the wrong place
But it must have been the right time
I been in the right place
But it must have been the wrong song
I been in the right vein
But it seems like the wrong arm
I been in the right world
But it seems wrong wrong wrong wrong wrong
Slipping, dodging ,sneaking
Creeping hiding out down the street
See me life shaking with every who I meet
Refried confusion is making itself clear
Wonder which way do I go to get on out of here
Jan. 6 Defendant Says FBI Tried to Recruit Him to Spy on Oath Keepers
Jeremy Brown says his refusal led to 2021 arrest for being at U.S. Capitol on day of violence
A retired U.S. Army Green Beret arrested for being at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021, says the FBI tried to recruit him to spy on the Oath Keepers group a few weeks before the violence at the Capitol.
Jeremy M. Brown, 47, who is being held in the Pinellas County Jail in Florida on federal misdemeanor charges related to Jan. 6, told The Epoch Times he believes his arrest and prosecution are payback for his refusal to become a confidential informant.
Brown said he went to the “Stop the Steal” rally on Jan. 6 dressed in tactical gear to provide security for event organizers and for VIPs who spoke at the rally.
He said FBI agents from the Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) met with him in late 2020 and asked him to become an informant.
“On Dec. 11, 2020, the exact same Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) agents that (later) arrested me attempted to recruit me as a confidential informant,” Brown said in a letter to The Epoch Times from the Pinellas County Jail. “Their ‘pitch’ was intended to gauge my interest in infiltrating law-abiding citizen groups that had no criminal history and certainly were not designated ‘terrorist groups.’”
Jeremy Brown shown on police bodycam footage being told to back away from police lines at the U.S. Capitol on Jan. 6, 2021. (U.S. Department of Justice)The Oath Keepers is an association of former military, police, and first responders whose mission includes defending the U.S. Constitution and protecting constitutional rights. They are often described as a right-wing militia or an anti-government paramilitary organization, labels the group rejects.
Brown joined the Oath Keepers within a week of the November 2020 presidential election. “I joined the Oath Keepers to help them on their path to doing their mission, which is to build an organization that has a community outreach to not only law enforcement and military, but also to citizens,” Brown said on a March 2021 podcast.
Brown said he recorded the FBI meeting for his own protection. He told the agents he wasn’t interested in being an informant. “Of course I declined to pursue any offer from the agents and went on my way,” he said.
Less than a week before he met with the FBI agents, Brown received a visit at his home by two agents who inquired about some things Brown posted on the social media site Parler. Brown later began an email correspondence with an FBI agent in Tampa and was asked to a meeting.
Brown said he met with two agents on Dec. 11 in a restaurant in Ybor City, Fla., and recorded the interaction. Within less than a minute of the start of the meeting, one of the agents made an offhand reference to Brown possibly working with JTTF again. Later in the meeting, they made the pitch to him to be a confidential informant.
The audio from the meeting can be heard on a 2 hour 4 minute video of a podcast interview Brown did with Brandon Gray of JustAnotherChannel.com, posted on a web site Brown set up for his legal defense.
On March 4, 2021, Brown was a guest on the podcast to disclose the FBI’s recruitment attempt asking him to spy on the Oath Keepers.
FBI Recruitment Effort
“In the days and weeks that followed the events of Jan. 6th, I was disgusted and appalled at the blatant lies that were coming from the media, politicians and the Department of Justice,” Brown said.“I went public to counter the false narrative and expose the truth to the American people,” he said. “I know I was making myself a target of the FBI, but I swore an oath to the U.S. Constitution, so the choice to speak out was...
Supply Chain Woes Could Worsen as China Imposes New Covid Lockdowns
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| Xi’an, China, during a coronavirus lockdown last month. At least 20 million people, or about 1.5 percent of China’s population, are in lockdown across the country |
American manufacturers are worried that China’s zero-tolerance coronavirus policy could throw a wrench in the global conveyor belt for goods this year.
WASHINGTON — Companies are bracing for another round of potentially debilitating supply chain disruptions as China, home to about a third of global manufacturing, imposes sweeping lockdowns in an attempt to keep the Omicron variant at bay.
The measures have already confined tens of millions of people to their homes in several Chinese cities and contributed to a suspension of connecting flights through Hong Kong from much of the world for the next month. At least 20 million people, or about 1.5 percent of China’s population, are in lockdown, mostly in the city of Xi’an in western China and in Henan Province in north-central China.
The country’s zero-tolerance policy has manufacturers — already on edge from spending the past two years dealing with crippling supply chain woes — worried about another round of shutdowns at Chinese factories and ports. Additional disruptions to the global supply chain would come at a particularly fraught moment for companies, which are struggling with rising prices for raw materials and shipping along with extended delivery times and worker shortages.
China used lockdowns, contact tracing and quarantines to halt the spread of the coronavirus nearly two years ago after its initial emergence in Wuhan. These tactics have been highly effective, but the extreme transmissibility of the Omicron variant poses the biggest test yet of China’s system.
So far, the effects of the lockdowns on Chinese factory production and deliveries have been limited. Four of China’s largest port cities — Shanghai, Dalian, Tianjin and Shenzhen — have imposed narrowly targeted lockdowns to try to control small outbreaks of the Omicron variant. As of this weekend, these cities had not locked down their docks. Still, Volkswagen and Toyota announced last week that they would temporarily suspend operations in Tianjin because of lockdowns.
Analysts warn that many industries could face disruptions in the flow of goods as China tries to stamp out any coronavirus infections ahead of the Winter Olympics, which will be held in Beijing next month. On Saturday, Beijing officials reported the city’s first case of the Omicron variant, prompting the authorities to lock down the infected person’s residential compound and workplace.
If extensive lockdowns become more widespread in China, their effects on supply chains could be felt across the United States. Major new disruptions could depress consumer confidence and exacerbate inflation, which is already at a 40-year high, posing challenges for the Biden administration and the Federal Reserve.
“Will the Chinese be able to control it or not I think is a really important question,” said Craig Allen, the president of the U.S.-China Business Council. “If they’re going to have to begin closing down port cities, you’re going to have additional supply chain disruptions.”
The potential for setbacks comes just as many companies had hoped they were about to see some easing of the bottlenecks that have clogged global supply chains since the pandemic began.
The combination of intermittent shutdowns at factories, ports and warehouses around the world and American consumers’ surging demand for foreign goods has thrown the global delivery system out of whack. Transportation costs have skyrocketed, and ports and warehouses have experienced pileups of products waiting to be shipped or driven elsewhere while other parts of the supply chain are stymied by shortages.
For the 2021 holiday season, customers largely circumvented those challenges by ordering early. High shipping prices began to ease after the holiday rush, and some analysts speculated that next month’s Lunar New Year, when many Chinese factories will idle, might be a moment for ports, warehouses and trucking companies to catch up on moving backlogged orders and allow global supply chains to return to normal.
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