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Gem

Gems amid garbage? Sifting through the Senate Intel report on Obama's response to 2016 'Russian meddling'

Capitol/Garbage
© Reuters/Jim Young
Much of the new Senate report about 'Russian meddling' in the 2016 election consists of Obama administration officials covering their posteriors - but is also unwittingly revealing about its (false) premises, sources and methods.

A day after its members voted along party lines in the impeachment trial of President Donald Trump, Republicans and Democrats on the Senate Intelligence Committee joined forces to publish yet another fan-fiction in the 'Russian meddling in 2016 US presidential election' saga, this time focusing on the Obama administration's responses.

The problem obvious right from the start is that the committee presupposes the existence of said meddling, citing the intelligence community assessment commissioned by Obama and Mueller indictments as evidence rather than unproven assertions. The "geopolitical context" of events in the report is a perfect example of how rotten assumptions and circular reasoning lead to garbage conclusions.

Star of David

Just how low can Israelis go?

IsraeliJet
© Israeli Airforce/Eran Kaplan/Instagram
Not only is Israel bombing neighboring Syria in acts of aggression, the Israeli air force is compounding its criminality by using civilian airliners as cover for their assaults.

That's the assessment from Russia's Ministry of Defense which says flight data shows that an air raid by four Israeli F-16 warplanes this week near Damascus deliberately put in danger a civilian airliner with 172 passengers onboard.

Russian MOD spokesman Maj. Gen. Igor Konashenkov said the Israeli jets effectively hid behind the radar signal of an Airbus A-320 as it approached Damascus international airport in order to launch airstrikes on targets near the Syrian capital.

It was only due to the skill of the Syrian air defense operators that the passenger plane was correctly identified and escorted out of the firing line. The aircraft was diverted to a safe landing at the Russian air base at Hmeymim further north at Latakia.

Comment: If tables were turned and another country was breaking international law by using an Israeli passenger jet as cover for its illegal bombing operation, the cry and furor over such an incident would echo around the globe. Israel's retaliation would be quick and merciless. Yet Israel gets a 'ho-hum' pass, a slap on the wrist, even from Moscow. Is that how insidious Israeli indoctrination has become?

See also:
Russian MoD charges Israeli airstrikes on Damascus suburbs put civilian flight with 172 passengers at risk


Star of David

Russian General Gorbenko slams IDF: 'Almost certainly knew' schedule of civilian plane nearly shot down over Syria

Israeli F-16 fighterjet
© AP Photo/ Str/HO
Israeli F-16 fighterjet
On Friday, the Russian military revealed that a Syrian Cham Wings Airbus A320 with 172 passengers onboard was forced to land at the Russian airbase in Hmeymim to prevent it from being accidentally shot down by Syrian air defences responding to an Israeli missile attack.

The Israeli Air Force's tactic of hiding behind unarmed and civilian aircraft to try to prevent the Syrian military from staging an effective air defence has become all too common, Lieut. Gen. Valery Gorbenko, former commander of the Russian Air Force's 4th Air and Air Defence Army, has said.

Dollar

The height of economic idiocy

Debt and Deficit
© CNN.com
"The only element in the universe more common than hydrogen is stupidity." - Einstein

I'm not a fortune teller. In fact, the only things anybody knows about predicting - even if you gussy the concept up by calling it "forecasting" - are 1.) Predict often and 2.) Never give both the time and the event.

The worst offenders are those who pretend they know where the economy's headed.

Statistics - so often the basis of conjecture with regard to the economy - are so subject to interpretation, and so easy to take out of context, that most of the time they're best used as fodder for cocktail party conversations. Still, as potentially wrong-headed and tendentious as the subject is, "the economy" is occasionally worth talking about simply to establish a clear point of view.

In fact, I place the phrase "the economy" in quotes because I don't even accept the validity of the concept, nor that of "the GDP"; they're both chimeras.

Book 2

A key witness told Mueller team that Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine was a fabrication

Mueller
© Unknown
Robert Mueller
One of Robert Mueller's pivotal trial witnesses told the special prosecutor's team in spring 2018 that a key piece of Russia collusion evidence found in Ukraine known as the "black ledger" was fabricated, according to interviews and testimony.

The ledger document, which suddenly appeared in Kiev during the 2016 U.S. election, showed alleged cash payments from Russian-backed politicians in Ukraine to ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort.

"The ledger was completely made up," cooperating witness and Manafort business partner Rick Gates told prosecutors and FBI agents, according to a written summary of an April 2018 special counsel's interview.

In a brief interview with Just the News, Gates confirmed the information in the summary. "The black ledger was a fabrication," Gates said. "It was never real, and this fact has since been proven true." Gates' account is backed by several Ukrainian officials who stated in interviews dating to 2018 that the ledger was of suspicious origins and could not be corroborated.

If true, Gates' account means the two key pieces of documentary evidence used by the media and FBI to drive the now-debunked Russia collusion narrative — the Steele dossier and the black ledger — were at best uncorroborated and at worst disinformation. His account also raises the possibility that someone fabricated the document in Ukraine in an effort to restart investigative efforts on Manafort's consulting work or to meddle in the U.S. presidential election.

Snakes in Suits

Supreme Court Justices ruling in favor of a crackdown on nationwide injunctions

US SupremeCourt
© Stock photo
Justice Neil Gorsuch issued a concurring opinion about the threat nationwide injunctions present to separation of powers and the role of the courts under the Constitution.

On Monday, the Supreme Court issued a 5-4 ruling that the Trump administration may deny green cards to foreign nationals who use taxpayer-funded social services. The ruling freezes several nationwide injunctions issued by lower federal courts late last year. Monday's vote also fell along ideological lines, as the five Republican-appointed justices voted in favor, while the four Democrat-appointed justices dissented.

According to the Immigration and Nationality Act (NIA), foreign nationals are prohibited from acquiring a green card if they are "likely at any time to become a public charge." The issue at hand on Monday was what fit the criteria of a "public charge." In recent years, the phrase was characterized as an individual who was reliant on a cash assistance program.

Back in August 2019, the Trump administration implemented this new rule to take into account immigrants' use of government benefits, such as Medicaid and food stamps, when determining whether to provide individuals with permanent status. The policy exempts refugees and asylum seekers.

Yoda

Duterte counter-sanctions by 'terminating' US military's immunity from prosecution in the Philippines

US military tents
© Reuters/Romeo Ranoco
US military forces' annual Philippines-US live fire amphibious landing exercise near Manilla.
Philippines President Rodrigo Duterte is "terminating" the Visiting Forces Agreement, which provides legal immunity to US military drills, in retaliation for the US canceling the visa of a political ally and fellow drug-warrior.

"The president said he is terminating the VFA," Defense Secretary Delfin Lorenzana told ABS-CBN News on Friday. "I asked for clarification and he said he is not changing his decision." The agreement provides legal immunity for US soldiers conducting military exercises in the Philippines.

Enraged by the US decision to cancel the visa of former police chief and Senator Roland dela Rosa last month, Duterte had given Washington a month to fix its 'mistake,' refusing to back down even as other members of his government urged him to reconsider.

"I'm warning you... if you won't do the correction on this, I will terminate the... Visiting Forces Agreement," Duterte said last month, daring the US to call his bluff. "I'll end that son of a b*tch."

Comment: Here's the full interview, in which Duterte excoriates the United States for its "total lack of respect for our sovereignty" and its representatives "coming to the Philippines like they own the place..."




Satellite

NATO's 'hysteria' over Russia stalking their satellites is a ploy to get more money, say MPs

US satellite illustration
© Reuters/NASA
Conceptual illustration of a US satellite
Claims that Russia is using its spacecraft to spy on NATO satellites have no real backing and are used to justify funding requests as the US and its allies are militarizing space, Russian MPs said.

Earlier this week, French General Andre Lanata, who is NATO's supreme allied commander transformation, sounded the alarm over a recently-launched Russian satellite synchronizing its orbit with an American surveillance spacecraft.

"It is a threat to our allies," Lanata told the Washington Examiner. "It's a key question. We need to be sure that we give to our forces this space asset support." The commander went on, saying that space used to be considered "a safe haven," but now, thanks to the actions of Russia and China, "it's not the case anymore."

Washington and NATO have been increasingly accusing Moscow and Beijing of developing technologies for space warfare in order to cripple the US military communications and GPS networks, but as often happens the claims were never backed by any convincing proof.

"We can imagine many different ways and many different kinds of aggression in space," Lanata said.

Cell Phone

US senators demand censorship of Iranian leaders, threaten Twitter with sanctions

Zarif/Khamenei
© Reuters /Khalid Al-Mousily/Mike Blake/Official Khamenei website handout
Iranian FM Javad Zarif • Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei
US senators have demanded that Twitter ban the accounts of two top Iranian officials, or face the wrath of US sanctions, in a thinly veiled threat to naïve free speech-believers who might fall out of favor with Washington next.

Despite an Obama-era provision exempting certain internet platforms - including social media - from a raft of sanctions imposed on Iran, the four Republican lawmakers insisted in a joint letter that Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei and Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif enjoyed no such protection, demanding that Twitter ban them immediately.

"Twitter is aware of these accounts and their links to the Iranian regime," yet "continues to provide [them] Internet-based communications services," the senators said, calling it a "sanctionable offense."

The senators argued that by allowing Iranian officials to share their country's position with the rest of the world, Twitter was providing a "service" in violation of an executive order signed by President Trump last June prohibiting Americans from any exchange with Tehran.

The letter was signed by Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marsha Blackburn (R-TN), Tom Cotton (R-AR) and Marco Rubio (R-FL), all of whom have taken a hard line on the Islamic Republic. Twitter has yet to respond to the blatant demand of selective censorship.

Yoda

Tucker Carlson warns of bill AOC and other House Democrats are backing: 'New Way Forward' legislation will protect migrant criminals from deportation

Tucker Carlson
© Fox News

Comment: This article is a lightly edited transcript of Tucker Carlson's monologue on "Tucker Carlson Tonight" on Feb. 6, 2020.


At this moment there is a bill pending in Congress called the New Way Forward Act. It's received almost no publicity, which is unfortunate as well as revealing.

The legislation is sponsored by 44 House Democrats, including Reps. Ilhan Omar of Minnesota and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of New York. At roughly 4,400 words, it's almost exactly as long as the U.S. Constitution.

Like the Constitution, this legislation is designed to create a whole new country. The bill would entirely remake our immigration system, with the explicit purpose of ensuring that criminals are able to move here, and settle here permanently, with impunity.

You may think we're exaggerating for effect. We're not - not even a little.

Comment: Tucker continued his commentary on the appalling "New Way Forward Bill" the next day.


Breitbart posted an adaptation of Carlson's second segment:
Crime and violence are the clearest possible signs that a society isn't functioning as it should. If they increase to a certain point, societies don't function at all, and we should be worried about that always. We ought to be doing all that we can to build a place, a country where people who follow the law are rewarded; those who flout it are punished, and above all, children can live in peace and safety.

They used to be obvious. It's not obvious anymore. At this moment, there's a bill pending in the Congress called the New Way Forward Act. It's received almost no publicity, and that's unfortunate, as well as revealing. The legislation is sponsored by 44 House Democrats, including Ilhan Omar and Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. It is roughly 4,400 words long. That means, it's almost exactly as long as the U.S. Constitution. Like the Constitution, it is designed to create a whole new country.

The bill would entirely remake immigration system with the explicit purpose of ensuring that criminals are able to move to the United States and settle here permanently with immunity. They may think we're exaggerating for effect, but we're not exaggerating, not even a little bit. The New Way Forward Act is the single most radical piece of legislation we have ever seen proposed in this country — ever. It makes the Green New Deal like the status quo. The document produced by Democrats to promote the bill says this, and we're quoting it verbatim, "Convictions should not lead to deportation."

Now, keep in mind, we're not talking about convictions for double parking or even for DUI. The bill targets felony convictions, serious crimes that could send you to prison for years, and should. A press release from Congressman Jesus Garcia of Illinois is explicit about this. Garcia brags that the bill will break the "prison to deportation pipeline." Something most of us are for. So how does the bill do that? Well, under current U.S. law, legal U.S. immigrants can be deported if they commit "aggravated felony" or a crime of moral turpitude that is a vile, depraved act like molesting children.

Under the New Way Forward Act, crimes of moral turpitude are eliminated entirely as justification for deportation and the category of aggravated felony gets eliminated, too.

So what does that mean? Consider this. Under current law, immigrants who commit serious crimes, robbery to fraud to child sexual abuse, must be deported regardless of the sentences they receive. Other crimes, less severe ones like racketeering require deportation if the perpetrator receives at least a one-year sentence.

Under this bill, they will no longer be any crime that automatically requires deportation. None. And one crime, falsifying a passport would be made immune from deportation, no matter what, because apparently, 9/11 never even happened, and we no longer care about fake government documents. By the way, if you just renewed your driver's license to comply with the Real ID Act, you must feel like an idiot. Because immigrants are getting a pass, you're not.

Under the proposed legislation for crimes that would still allow deportation, the required prison sentence would rise from one year to five years. We checked the Bureau of Justice Statistics. According to Federal data, crimes like car theft, fraud and weapons offenses all carry average prison sentences of fewer than five years. And that's just looking at averages. There are people who commit rape, child abuse, even manslaughter, and get sentences with fewer than five years. Lots of them actually.

If the New Way Forward Act passes, immigrants who commit those crimes and receive those sentences would remain in this country, and of course, they will be eligible for citizenship day one, too, of course. But even that is understanding the law's effect. Even a five-year prison sentence wouldn't necessarily be enough to trigger deportation. The bill would grant sweeping new powers to immigration judges allowing them to nullify a deportation order.

The only requirement for that is, "The immigration judge find such an exercise of discretion appropriate in pursuant of humanitarian purposes to ensure family unity, or when it is otherwise in the public interest." Talk about open-ended. In other words, anti-American immigration judges, and there are a lot of those in this country would have a blank check to open the borders. You would not be voting on this. It would happen anyway.

Is this shocking you yet? Because we're just getting started. We read this proposed legislation. Here's another point.

Current U.S. law makes drug addiction grounds for deportation, because why wouldn't it? This bill would eliminate that statute. Current law also states that those who have committed drug crimes abroad or "any crimes involving moral turpitude are ineligible to immigrate here." The New Way Forward Act abolishes that statute. So a Mexican drug cartel leader could be released from prison, can freely come to America immediately. And if he wants, he can come here illegally, and it still wouldn't be a crime because — and you are waiting for this part — the bill also decriminalizes illegal entry into America even by those we've previously deported.

In other words, you break our law, we send you out, you come back, you break it again, you can stay.

According to a document promoting this bill. Criminalizing illegal entry into America is "white supremacist." That's a quote, white supremacist. Now, by this point, you're beginning to wonder, are we making this up? We're not making it up. In fact, we're barely halfway through the bill. The legislation doesn't just make it harder to deport illegal immigrants who commit crimes. It doesn't just make it easier for criminals to move here illegally, though it does both, the bill would also effectively abolish all existing enforcement against illegal immigration.

To detain illegal immigrants, I.C.E. would have to prove in court that they are dangerous or a flight risk. But of course, I.C.E. wouldn't be allowed to use a detainee's prior criminal behavior as proof of danger. That's banned. I.C.E. would have to overcome even more hurdles if the detainee claims to be gay or transgendered. If they're under 21 or if they can't speak English, an interpreter isn't immediately available, they get a pass.

In other words, it would be much harder to arrest an illegal alien in this country than it is to arrest you. They're the protected class here. You're just some loser who's paying for it all.

But believe it or not, we save the nuttiest part of this legislation for last, and here's what it is. What could be more destructive than changing U.S. law specifically to allow rapists, child molesters, and drug dealers to stay in America? How about this: using taxpayer money to bring deported criminals back into America. That's right. This bill would not only abolish your right to control who lives in your country, but it invents a brand new right, "the right to come home."

It orders the government to create a "pathway for those previously deported to apply to return to their homes and families in the United States" as long as they would have been eligible to stay under the new law. It's retroactive in other words. D.H.S. must spend taxpayer dollars transporting convicted criminal illegal aliens back into the United States. I am not making this up.

So who would be eligible for these flights? Tens of thousands of people we kicked out of this country for all kinds of crimes: Sexual abuse, robbery, assault, drug trafficking, weapons trafficking, human trafficking. From 2002 to 2018, four hundred and eighty thousand people were deported for illegal entry or re-entry into America. And under this bill, you'd have to buy each of them a plane ticket to come home.

Those tickets alone would cost about a billion dollars, and that's before Democrats make you start paying for these criminals free healthcare, too, which they plan to do and have said so. The New Way Forward Act fundamentally inverts every assumption you have about this country. Under this legislation, the criminals are now the victims. Law enforcement is illegitimate. It's racist, just like the country you live in, just like you are.

Now, the only solution is to get rid of both. America would be better off as a borderless rest stop for the world's predators and parasites. That's the point of this. And we're not overstating it, go read it. This is a big deal. This is not a small thing. It's not renaming a Post Office. It's hard to believe any American would put these ideas on paper, much less try to pass them into law. And yet remarkably, that's happening.

And even more remarkably, the press has ignored it. This isn't happening in secret. It is happening in the House of Representatives. Scores of Democrats have backed this bill. But the legislation has not been mentioned in The New York Times. It has not been mentioned on CNN, a news or even in self-described conservative outlets like National Review. No mention.

Consider if this were working the other way. If a lone — I don't know, Republican state legislator from Minot, North Dakota had proposed to build this extreme that would remake America completely, the President himself would be expected to answer for it. CNN would demand that he disavow it even if you've never heard of it before. But when one-fifth of the entire Democratic Caucus backs a bill demanding that you import illegal alien felons and then pay for it, it's a non-event in the American media. They don't think you should know about it. And that's dangerous, if we're being honest.

Whether the press cares or not, these are the stakes of the 2020 election, and you have a right to know what they are. A growing wing of the Democratic Party views America itself as essentially a legitimate, a rogue state in which everything must be destroyed and remade — our laws, our institutions, our customs, our freedoms, our history, our values.

And of course, what's the point of all of this? An entirely new country in which resistance is crushed, and they're in charge forever.