Memogate. The cover-up.

This memo fiasco might finally open the eyes of the American people and expose republicans like Devin Nunes for the contemptible and loathsome human beings that they truly are.

The following article from Bill Palmer might help to break down the memogate conundrum for you.

"Donald Trump’s earlier foolish decision to rely on Devin Nunes has now forced him into a no-win choice: either release the Nunes memo and face the consequences, or don’t release it and face never-ending questions about it. By all accounts, Trump is going to release the memo. This means that after having been brought to the brink by a complete idiot like Nunes, Trump is now betting everything he has left on another idiot: Carter Page.

 Yeah, that guy. The bald guy who randomly appears on MSNBC and confesses to a new crime every time. The guy who has admitted to the media that he’s associated with Russian spies in recent years. The guy who went to Russia while he was a Trump campaign adviser and met with a Russian government official, then lied about it for months, then finally admitted he was lying. Trump has bet his presidency and his life on that guy’s merits.

The Nunes memo is centered around supposed abuses by the FBI in its use of FISA warrants to surveil Carter Page. Now that Trump has decided to release the memo, his apologists in government are already trying to explain how the memo somehow exposes FBI abuses in general. Paul Ryan is floating the notion that if the FBI can spy on Page, next it’ll spy on you and me. The trouble with that logic: we’re not Carter Page.

Have you ever given documents to Russian spies? Have you traveled to Russia and met with foreign officials while you were working for a U.S. Presidential candidate? If you’ve answered yes to all of the above, then you should really be worried that the FBI might have a secret FISA surveillance warrant on you. But guess what? If you’ve done the things that Carter Page has done, there should be a surveillance warrant on you. We still don’t know if Page’s highly suspicious antics translated to actual crimes. But that’s what the warrant is for. There’s certainly probable cause.

Donald Trump is on the ropes. His presidency is failing. He’s in danger of going to prison, not only for his original crimes, but for the subsequent crimes he’s committed (and is still committing) while trying to cover up the original crimes. He’s taking desperation shots because he knows he’s about to lose. Now he’s betting everything, his presidency, his future, and even his freedom outside of a prison cell, on the notion that the average American is going to beli eve the FBI shouldn’t have had a surveillance against Carter Page. Good luck with that." [Source]

One day soon Mr. trump will throw a Hail Mary pass. And he is hoping that by releasing the [edited] republican version of how the FBI did their job, he will muddy the waters of the Mueller investigation and give him cover to fire the special prosecutor.

*Pic from salon.com

Russian Bots and Devin Nunes are working overtime to protect the president. We the people just want the truth.

Those Russian bots are going to get their wish. The republicans in Washington decided to release a controversial and classified memo that seeks to make the investigators look bad and muddy the waters in the investigation of Mr. trump. The democrats have a memo as well, but the republican majority on the intel committee made sure that the democratic version was not released.

Don't you just love American democracy?

This all comes on a day when we learned of the ouster of Andrew McCabe from the FBI. The poor man was investigating Mr. trump, and that is a sure way to get removed from your job in Washington. 

From what we know trump really hated this guy, and he wanted him gone at all cost.


"NBC News is reporting that the day after FBI Director James Comey was fired, President Donald Trump called then-acting FBI Director Andrew McCabe to complain that Comey was able to fly home on a government plane.

And during the call, he decided to take a shot at McCabe after the acting FBI chief said that while he hadn’t been asked to authorize the flight but would have if asked.

The president was silent for a moment and then turned on McCabe, suggesting he ask his wife how it feels to be a loser — an apparent reference to a failed campaign for state office in Virginia that McCabe’s wife made in 2015.
McCabe replied: “OK, sir.” Trump then hung up the phone.

This NBC News story comes out just hours after it was reported that McCabe would be  stepping down from his post as deputy FBI director. While McCabe was apparently looking at leaving this spring, his departure comes weeks ahead of schedule and during a time when he’s clearly been in the crosshairs of the president."

Nothing pisses off Mr. trump like folks looking into his Russia connections. Whether it's golden showers or money laundering, we are learning more and more that there has to be some fire to go along with all all this smoke coming from Moscow.   

Of course, as is to be expected, the right-wingnuts are doing their best to protect Mr. trump. Devin Nunes is looking more and more like an individual who is doing his best to undermine democracy and the rule of law while he tries to protect Mr. trump. 

Adam Schiff had this to say:

“We have votes today to politicize the intelligence process. To prohibit the FBI and the department of justice from expressing their concerns to our committee and to the house and to selectively release to the public only the majority’s memo without the full facts. A very sad day I think in the history of this committee. As I said to my committee colleagues during this hearing, sadly, we can fully expect that the President of the United States will not put the national interests over his personal interests, but it is a sad day indeed when that is also true of our own committee because today this committee voted to put the president’s personal interests, perhaps their own political interests above the national interests in denying themselves, even the ability to hear from the department and the FBI.”

I suspect that we are now on an inexorable march to a constitutional crisis. 

Grab your popcorn.

*Pic from voanews.com




 

 

Tuesday News Day.

There is an interesting special congressional election race going on north of Atlanta tonight. The latest democratic golden boy, Jon Ossoff , will need 50% of the votes in a crowded field to go to Washington and embarrass our sitting president. It's going to be close, but my prediction is that there will be a runoff with the republican, and she will squeeze by in a two person race.

Still, this is a district that Mitt won by 25%, and it is in the heart of republican country. Dems should take heart, though, because win or lose some good things might happen in the mid-terms for them if they actually go out to vote.

I am not sure if trump will even still be our president come mid-terms, there are some serious people trying to impeach his ass, and that Russian cloud is not going away. This latest stuff with the dossier is a doozy. 

Then there is this Devin Nunes fiasco. The guy allegedly created a fake scandal and dragged a good woman and public servant through the mud because of pressure from the trump White House. If this is true he should resign from congress immediately.  Don't even wait for the ethics committee to complete their investigation. Just get out of town and save your family and your constituents the embarrassment.   

"According to a report from The New Yorker‘s Ryan Lizza, an unnamed intelligence source believes Nunes may have felt some heat from the White House to “manufacture a fake scandal.”

From the report:

The intelligence source told me that he knows, “from talking to people in the intelligence community,” that “the White House said, ‘We are going to mobilize to find something to justify the President’s tweet that he was being surveilled.’ They put out an all-points bulletin”—a call to sift through intelligence reports—“and said, ‘We need to find something that justifies the President’s crazy tweet about surveillance at Trump Tower.’ And I’m telling you there is no way you get that from those transcripts, which are about as plain vanilla as can be.”

Nunes recused himself from the Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russian manipulation in the 2016 election, and is currently the subject of a House Ethics Committee probe into whether he leaked classified information.

But according to Lizza, “this is like getting Al Capone for tax evasion. The bigger scandal is the coordinated effort to use the American intelligence services to manufacture an excuse for Trump’s original tweet.”' [Source]

Finally, the head pig over at FOX VIEWS might finally have to leave harassment central. This latest alleged incident of harassment from Billo involves sexism, misogyny, and racism.   

"In a Twitter post on Tuesday, Bloom said that the woman called in to report a complaint on the Fox News hotline (the anonymous hotline is for all of 21st Century Fox, Fox News’ parent company, according to a spokeswoman). The woman’s identity was not disclosed.

“She is an African-American woman who was a clerical worker in 2008 at Fox News,” Bloom said in an interview with HLN. “She did not work directly for Bill O’Reilly, but she worked near him and she alleges that he engaged in a campaign for months of sexual harassment against her. He wouldn’t speak to her, other than to say things like, ‘Mmm Hmm,’ make grunting noises like an animal, she alleges, leering at her, looking at her cleavage and her legs, and he would call her ‘hot chocolate,’ which she found to be very offensive.”

Bloom said that the woman found the situation “upsetting and distressing.” She said that they have spoken to a family member, a boyfriend, and a roommate who back up her claims.

“She wanted to keep her job, she didn’t complain at the time, but now she knows that Fox News is considering whether or not to keep him, and although she is very scared and wishes to remain anonymous, she felt that she had to add her story and speak out, and so we called that into the hotline today,” Bloom said. She said that her client is not asking for money, but wants “accountability.”
Bloom spurred the internal Fox News investigation by calling the company’s HR hotline with Walsh’s complaint earlier this month. That triggered an investigation by 21st Century Fox’s outside law firm, Paul, Weiss, Rifkind, Wharton & Garrison.

In an interview, Bloom said that one or more accusers are “very likely” to come forward “soon,” although she declined to get into specifics. Responding to the statement from O’Reilly’s attorney, she said, “I am representing all of my O’Reilly accusers for free, and I am sure that Mr. Kasowitz is being compensated handsomely for his representation of accused serial harasser Bill O’Reilly.”
Bloom also has called for an independent investigation of harassment and retaliation at Fox News by state authorities in New York. She has called on O’Reilly to be fired, but says that even if that were to happen, she it would still like to see a state investigation to proceed." [Source]

It couldn't have happened to a nicer guy.  

His next book will be called Killing The Urges.

Don't worry Billo, you can always get a job with the "grab em by the pussy" president.