Governance

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Emails Show FBI-Media Collusion against Trump, CA Begins 1.5 Million Inactive Voter Cleanup | Judicial Watch

Source: Judicial Watch/YouTube

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Assange psychologically tortured to ‘breaking point’ by ‘democratic states,’ UN rapporteur tells RT | RT.com

Jailed WikiLeaks co-founder Julian Assange shows clear signs of degrading and inhumane treatment which only adds to his deteriorating health, UN Special Rapporteur on Torture Nils Melzer told RT.

Assange has “all the symptoms typical for a person who has been exposed to prolonged psychological torture,” Melzer told RT’s Afshin Rattansi. This adds to the toll of his deteriorating physical state caused by a lack of adequate medical care for several years, he said.

Melzer said he was judging from two decades of experience in working with POWs and political prisoners, and only after applying “scientific” UN methods to assess Assange’s condition. But the journalist’s case still “shocked” him.

An individual has been isolated and singled out by several democratic states, and persecuted systematically… to the point of breaking him.

Earlier this month, a UK court sentenced the WikiLeaks co-founder to nearly a year in jail for skipping bail in 2012. The courts are now deciding whether to extradite Assange to the US where he is wanted for 17 charges under the Espionage Act. He can end up serving up to 175 years in prison if proven guilty.

Also in May, Sweden reopened an investigation into the allegations of rape by Assange, which he denies. The probe was originally dropped in 2017.

WikiLeaks warned that the journalist’s health had “significantly deteriorated” during the seven years he spent living in the Ecuadorian Embassy in London, and continued to worsen after he was evicted in April and placed in a British prison. According to WikiLeaks, he was recently moved to the prison’s “hospital wing.”

 

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European Parliament elections: 5 takeaways from the results | NBC News

The dust has settled on the world’s second largestdemocratic exercise, a continent-wide vote that has left Europe’s political landscape reshaped.

Last week, some 373 million citizens across 28 countries took part in elections for the European Parliament, which makes laws that bind the political and economic bloc. The results rolled in on Sunday night.

Far-right populists had some wins, but it wasn’t quite the dramatic, widespread surge seen in recent elections at the national and local level across the continent.

What is clear is that the mainstream parties from the center-left and center-right hemorrhaged votes, with much of their support going to a fragmented collection of environmentalists and pro-European Union liberals.

Here are five key takeaways.

1. The far-right surge never quite came

Steve Bannon, the former adviser to President Donald Trump, called for these elections to be a referendum endorsing his right-wing populist vision for Europe. But while there were some victories for this camp, the full-blown tsunami that some predicted failed to materialize.

Right-wing populists fell short of expectations in Austria, the Netherlands and Denmark, while Germany’s AfD party made only slight gains.

Even in France, where Marine le Pen’s National Rally came first, beating President Emmanuel Macron’s En Marche party, its provisional vote share was down on the last European Parliament elections in 2014.

“The big story is that the nationalist populists have not managed to turn this into a referendum on the E.U.,” said Jose Ignacio Torreblanca, a senior policy fellow at the European Council on Foreign Relations, a Brussels-based think tank. “People like Bannon have failed.”

That said, while the gains might not have been as dramatic as some forecast, the election arguably cemented far-right populism as a European force that isn’t going away soon. Such parties are often anti-migrant, anti-Muslim and anti-E.U., or at least wish to radically reshape the bloc from within.

There were clear victories for the right in Poland, Hungary and Italy. “The rules are changing in Europe,” said Matteo Salvini, the leader of Italy’s far-right League party which got around 34 percent of the vote there. “A new Europe is born.”

Britain’s Brexit Party was also victorious, securing around one-third of the vote and relegating the ruling Conservatives to fifth place at a dismal 9 percent. However, the U.K. should perhaps be seen as a special case due to the country’s protracted and messy attempts to leave the European Union.

2. The collapse of the mainstream

For the first time, the traditional center-left and center-right parties will not have a majority in the European Parliament’s 751-seat chamber.

The Social Democrats and the European People’s Party, groupings which have dominated for years, lost 39 and 36 seats respectively, according to provisional results.

“This is a profound change,” said Janis A. Emmanouilidis, director of studies at the European Policy Centre, another Brussels-based think tank. “The two biggest parties have lost a significant number of seats.”

However, voters often use the E.U. elections to give major parties a bloody nose, secure in the knowledge that it will not cause upheaval in their own national parliaments.

Even so, Sunday’s results represented a seismic rejection of the traditional ruling parties across the continent.

“We are facing a shrinking center of the European Union parliament,” Manfred Weber, chairman of the European People’s Party said. “From now on, those who want to have a strong European Union have to join forces.”

The one exception was in Spain, where the Socialists looked set to gain 20 of the country’s 54 seats. The Socialists belong to the wider Social Democrats group, however, for whom the general outlook was far more bleak.

“If you lose an election, if you lose seats, you have to be modest,” added Frans Timmermans, the lead candidate for the Social Democrats. “We have lost seats and this means that we have to be humble.”

3. More than Green shoots

Riding something of an environmentalist wave washing over Europe, the continent’s Green group made big gains.

This was most evident in Germany, where the Greens doubled their provisional vote share to 21 percent and overtook the country’s traditional center-left Social Democrats in the process.

In France and Britain, the Greens also did well, placing third and fourth respectively. More subtly, environmental issues were given increased prominence in the manifestos of other parties, too.

This shift comes on the back of months of demonstrations demanding action over climate change. In May, the United Nations released a report warning 1 million species of plants and animals were under threat of extinction.

“We will work tirelessly. For people. For Europe. For our planet!” the European Greens tweeted.

4. Pro-E.U. liberals make gains

Another group that mopped up support from the traditional parties was the pro-Europe, pro-business liberal centrists.

Parties allied with the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe — known as ALDE — looked set to increase their number of seats from 68 to 109, although this was largely thanks to Macron’s En Marche party joining them.

ALDE is led by Guy Verhofstadt, one of the E.U.’s most ardent defenders against populist forces that wish to dismantle or disrupt the union.

The boost in support suggests that voters, especially young people, came out to back their side of the argument.

“When Europe is threatened, you have seen the youth mobilizing to defend it,” said Torreblanca at the European Council on Foreign Relations.

The BBC also reported that turnout in the U.K. surged in areas that supported the country staying in the E.U. in the 2016 Brexit referendum. Britain’s Liberal Democrats came second with 20 percent of the vote. They were one of the parties to explicitly oppose Brexit, and gained huge support in Remain-backing areas, including beating Labour in that party’s erstwhile stronghold of London.

5. Good luck trying to govern now

This was the first time in Europe’s history that turnout for these elections has risen, climbing from 43 percent to an encouraging 51 percent.

“This is noteworthy,” said Emmanouilidis at the European Policy Centre, calling the leap “remarkably higher.”

Yet the results spell a European Parliament that is going to be far more fragmented than it has been in recent years.

The two centrist giants bled support and will be unable to form the kind of “grand coalition” that they had before. Instead they might need another coalition partner or two, meaning more compromise and room for disagreement on key issues.

Timmermans, of the Social Democrats, has already ruled out attempting to build a coalition with the far-right, calling instead for a “progressive” grouping to be formed.

“It will become quite messy,” said Emmanouilidis, describing attempts to find consensus in Brussels “an uphill struggle” at the best of times.

Source: NBC News

 

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Jerrold Nadler: another socialist in Congress | Metro Voice

Editor’s Note: What is particularly disturbing is that the Judiciary Committee chairman was associated with the Socialist Party long before he was a U.S. Congressman. Afterwards, he led the Congressional Progressive Caucus which from a policy standpoint is synonymous with the Socialist Party. 

Jerrold Nadler, the socialist we will be exposing may surprise many people that really do not know who they elected. Let us hope that becomes true so we can get rid of these socialists within our Congress and Senate and replace them with people who will follow the Constitution rather than the ideology of the socialists they work for.

It was way back in the 1940s when the Socialist Party realized that the Democratic Party had begun to follow the same ideology as the Socialist Party. Just how can we make such a strong statement about the Democratic Party? It is simple.  It started with the man who tossed his Socialist Party into the Democratic Party after making the following statement.

“Norman Thomas, the six-time Socialist Party candidate for U.S. President, said the following in a 1944 speech:

“The American people will never knowingly adopt socialism. But, under the name of ‘liberalism,’ they will adopt every fragment of the socialist program, until one day America will be a socialist nation, without knowing how it happened…. I no longer need to run as a Presidential Candidate for the Socialist Party. The Democratic Party has adopted our platform.”

You must be wondering what this has to do with what is going on today.

We will now expose the man named Jerrold Nadler, the man who is working on impeaching or setting up impeachment ideas against President Donald Trump. We decided to look at Nadler because what he was stating sounded an awful lot like what prior socialists such as Elijah Cummings, among others, were saying. After a quick look into Mr. Nadler’s background, we found a very deep association and links to the Socialist Party and links to the Communist Party. Many will say, “So what?” but go back and read just what the Socialist and Communist Parties represent and you will quickly find that they both hate the United States Constitution and they both hate freedom. Both of those very far left parties work toward destroying our nation from within by placing their puppets, like Nadler and others, in office to slowly work their ideology into the American dream.

Here’s the truth about Jerrold Nadler, what he is and why he should never be in the position he is in now or ever.

Nadler got his start in 1992 as shown below.

“In 1992, longtime Democratic U.S. Congressman Ted Weiss died one day before his party’s primary election for New York City’s newly redrawn Eighth District. Using a weighted voting system, a convention of nearly 1,000 Democratic county committee members selected Nadler to replace Weiss on the November ballot. Nadler won easily and has had no serious challenge in any of his congressional re-election bids since then.” 

Here we see he won an election from a man that died in office. While there is not much in that, it does go downhill and deep into the socialistic ideology from there.

“Upon his election to the House of Representatives, Nadler promptly joined the Congressional Progressive Caucus and became a leader of the Congressional Pro-Choice Caucus. For an overview of his voting record on a number of key issues during the course of his legislative career, click here.”

So, just after his election, he joins the “Congressional Progressive Caucus.” This is not a good group to be in, but he was very quick to join showing his socialistic ideology was set before his election. Now, just what is the Congressional Progressive Party? Basically speaking, it is just a cover name for the Socialist Party.

But let’s take a brief look at this group that is ever expanding in the Democratic Party.

“The Congressional Progressive Caucus (CPC) was founded in 1991 by Bernie Sanders, a self-identified socialist who had recently been elected to the U.S. House of Representatives. Sanders’ CPC co-founders included House members Ron Dellums, Lane Evans, Thomas Andrews, Peter DeFazio, and Maxine Waters. The Institute for Policy Studies (IPS) was also involved in CPC’s founding and in Caucus activities thereafter; IPS continues to advise CPC on various matters to this day.

Another key player in establishing CPC was the Democratic Socialists of America(DSA), which has maintained a close alliance with the Caucus ever since. In 1997, DSA’s political director, Chris Riddiough, organized a meeting with CPC leaders to discuss how the two groups might be able to “unite our forces on a common agenda.” Among those who participated in the meeting were Bernie Sanders, labor leader Richard Trumka, professor Noam Chomsky, feminist Patricia Ireland, Rev. Jesse Jackson, Senator Paul Wellstone, journalist William Greider, and the socialist author Barbara Ehrenreich.

Beginning in 1997, CPC worked closely with the newly launched “Progressive Challenge, a coalition of more than 100 leftist organizations that sought to unite their activities and objectives under a “multi-issue progressive agenda.” To view a list of many of the major groups that co-sponsored the Progressive Challenge, click here.”

The first thing that should jump out from the page is that this group was started by none other than Bernie Sanders, a very strong socialist. Also, take notice that Maxine Waters is also involved with this, and there will be more on her in a future article. Getting back to Nadler’s association with this group, we also see that it is closely associated with the Democratic Socialists of America, just another Socialist branch of the now-defunct Democratic Party.

Let’s take a look at what Jerrold Nadler has aligned himself with.

“Throughout his years in politics, Nadler has maintained close ties to socialist organizations. In 1977, for instance, he was a member of the Democratic Socialist Organizing Committee (DSOC), and by 1983 he had joined the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA), which grew out of DSOC. On May 1, 1989, Nadler served on the sponsoring committee for a New York DSA screening of the pro-union film Matewan. That same year, he personally asked New York’s DSA to endorse his candidacy for NYC Comptroller. In 1990, Nadler endorsed the New York mayoral campaign of DSA member David Dinkins. In July 1996, DSA’s Political Action Committee endorsed Nadler for Congress. Each year from 1995-97, Nadler spoke at the DSA’s annual Socialist Scholars Conferences, where he participated in panel discussions with such notables as Stanley Aronowitz, William Kornblum, and Frances Fox Piven. According to DSA’s rival Social Democrats USA, Nadler remains a DSA member to this day.”

Here, we see that Jerrold Nadler has maintained very close ties to the Socialist Party and organizations. Do the people in New York know this? Do the People of New York understand what this means? We would have to guess that if they do, they do not understand what the socialist ideology is trying to do to our nation.

Jerrold Nadler was on a panel with known anti-United States individual, Frances Fox Piven, that is a lady who worked hard to destroy the United States and the idea of freedom.  Look it up and see her background.  Just what we have shown here should be enough for a normal group of people to have an idea that Nadler is not good for their freedom.  After all, socialism does not promote freedom.  Just look at Venezuela, Cuba, and so many other socialist states.

“In 2003 Nadler, urged on by the ACLU and People For the American Way, introduced legislation aimed at defeating the Bush administration’s Terrorism Information Awareness (TIA) program, which sought to help the government root out terrorists by analyzing and cross-referencing various databases for evidence of suspicious patterns of Internet activity, travel, credit-card purchases, and donations to charities and political causes. By Nadler’s reckoning, the TIA initiative constituted a massive “assault on our rights” and represented “perhaps the closest realization of an Orwellian ‘Big Brother’ government to date.”

Nadler fought to stop a program that would root out terrorists. That does not sound like someone that is out to protect the people who voted for him. However, Nadler doesn’t care because he believes he can never be defeated.  Yet, maybe it is just that the people who vote for him have not been told he is a flaming socialist.  Nadler is even making a statement that terrorists should not be drawn out if they have in mind to harm this nation. Just look at his words and try to understand how could this man have the people in his district in mind when he stated that. Let us take a look at something that he says below and see how close it resembles what he is now trying to do with President Trump.

“In a similar spirit, Nadler characterized the PATRIOT Act as an example of unnecessary “governmental intrusion” into the lives of Americans. Especially outrageous to Nadler was a PATRIOT Act clause enabling FBI investigators to access library records in the course of a terrorism investigation. “If [Attorney General] John Ashcroft has his way, bookstore customers could be investigated for something as arbitrary as buying Hillary Clinton’s new book,” warned Nadler. “People are outraged,” he added, “by the loss of civil liberties…. The government … should not be in the thought-police business.” Further, Nadler denounced the PATRIOT Act as “little more than the institution of a police state.”

Today, Nadler is making the very statement he hates in the paragraph above.

“People are outraged,” he added, “by the loss of civil liberties…. The government … should not be in the thought-police business.” Further, Nadler denounced the PATRIOT Act as “little more than the institution of a police state.”

Notice the phrase, “The government should not be in the thought police business.” But today he is using that very idea to go after President Trump even after President Trump has been cleared of all charges, or in Nadler’s case, all thoughts. Let us show just what Nadler thinks about our Constitution.

“In January 2011, when the new Speaker of the House, Republican John Boehner, announced his intention to open the year’s first session of Congress with a reading of the U.S. Constitution, Nadler complained that Republicans “are reading it [the Constitution] like a sacred text.” Boehner’s “ritualistic reading” was “total nonsense” and “propaganda,” said Nadler, adding that the document’s need for amendments to abolish slavery and other injustices showed that it was, from its inception, “highly imperfect.”

Here we see that Nadler complained about the reading of our Constitution, calling Boehner’s reading, “Total Nonsense and propaganda.” This is what seems to show his total dislike for the Constitution.

Now, let us show his connections to the Communist Party.

“* In 1997 Nadler was one of 33 original co-sponsors of the Job Creation and Infrastructure Restoration Act which was introduced into Congress by California Rep. Matthew Martinez. This emergency federal jobs legislation, supported by the New York State Communist Party, was designed to create jobs at union wages in financially foundering cities by putting the unemployed to work on infrastructure projects such as rebuilding schools, housing, hospitals, libraries, public transportation, highways, and parks. Rep. Martinez had already introduced an earlier version of this bill in the previous Congress at the request of the Los Angeles Labor Coalition for Public Works Jobs, whose leaders were known supporters or members of the Communist Party USA. To view a list of all the co-sponsors, click here.”

This shows that Jerrold Nadler supported a bill pushed forward by a group associated with the Communist Party.  Notice here how the Communist Party works:  placing people into jobs for which that may or may not be paid. This is how the Communist Party works:  it makes people think it is great because it creates certain jobs and after they get you into their group, then they use you to do their evil bidding. Of course, we all know that Communism has failed everywhere it has grown because it cannot sustain what it lays claim to be.

Let us close with a final show of what Nadler will do to keep his office.

“* During a June 2014 House briefing with Obama administration officials on the recent trade of five high-ranking Taliban commanders in exchange for American Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl, Nadler suggested that the Taliban, as non-state actors, had a status comparable to that of American soldiers who had fought the British during the Revolutionary War. When reports of Nadler’s statement sparked some public controversy, the congressman clarified: “I was told they [the Taliban] were unprivileged combatants, not prisoners of war, and I was trying to figure out the extent of that legal distinction. I was told they wore no uniform so I was curious if that gave them the legal status of militias in the American Revolution — who also did not wear uniforms…. In no way was I comparing their values, their efforts, and their cause to that of our founding fathers, and to suggest otherwise is absurd.”

Nadler quickly changed his tone when people questioned his words.

Maybe today “WE THE PEOPLE” should once again drag him across the rug to explain why he is thinking of placing impeachment charges on President Trump when he has been cleared of everything, not to mention the entire mess began with a very false report about collusion with Russia. By the way, does Nadler even know that once it comes up that the entire Russia idea was false it could overturn everything?  No doubt, he would once again be giving a very different explanation to the people.

With all this, we have to wonder if maybe the voters in New York were blindfolded when they voted for him, but he did not have anyone run against him. That is another way the socialists keep winning.  They set up districts where no one wants to challenge them.

Jerrold Nadler is a Socialist in Democrat clothing and has ties to the Communist Party too. Why in the world would people vote for an individual who has ties to groups that do not honor or like the Constitution?  Don’t you think it is time to get rid of this socialist and replace him with a person who honors the Constitution and freedom?

Source: Metro Voice

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Unsealed documents shed new light on efforts to verify Trump-Russia dossier | CNN

Documents unsealed this week lend credence to a theory about Russian election meddling that was first put forward in the Trump-Russia dossier, however they do not corroborate the more explosive claims that the Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin in the 2016 campaign.

A report from a retired agent who worked for the FBI’s cyber division, submitted as expert testimony in a civil lawsuit, presented new evidence about how Russian intelligence might have exploited a private web hosting company when it fooled top Democratic targets into giving up their passwords. The fruits of those hacks formed the basis of the WikiLeaks email dumps that roiled the race.

The controversial dossier had accused Russian hackers of using those companies, Webzilla and its parent company XBT, as part of their scheme to meddle in the presidential election. The memos, written by a retired British spy, Christopher Steele, also claimed that Russian entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev assisted the cyberattacks “under duress” from Russian intelligence.

Gubarev vehemently denied those allegations and sued BuzzFeed for defamation after it published the dossier. That prompted BuzzFeed to commission the expert witness report from FTI Consulting’s Anthony Ferrante, who is also a CNN contributor. A federal judge dismissed the lawsuit in December, and ordered that dozens of documents be released to the public this week. The judge ruled on First Amendment grounds and did not assess the hacking-related allegations.

Details of the report

The FTI report concluded that one of the hyperlinks the Russians designed to trick Hillary Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta into giving up his email password was created on an internet protocol address owned by Root S.A., an XBT subsidiary.
In his deposition, retired FBI cyber official Ferrante admitted the evidence didn’t conclusively show XBT was aware of the Russian campaign against Democrats.

“I will further state that other than the fact that XBT employees did little to nothing to detect, stop and prevent the significant malicious activity, I have no evidence of them actually sitting behind a keyboard,” he said.

Gubarev’s team argued that an internet hosting company couldn’t be held responsible for the activities of people who use its services.
A rebuttal on Gubarev’s behalf, filed by a former CIA cybersecurity expert, Eric Cole, stressed that he and his staff were frequently unaware of the specific activity conducted on its servers.

“XBT/Webzilla is not responsible for every bit of data that a bad actor passes over its infrastructure any more than a post office is responsible for the actions of the Unabomber,” Cole wrote.

“Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted the 12 Russians responsible for the hacking. Those are the folks responsible, not us,” Evan Fray-Witzer, an attorney for Gubarev, told CNN. The 11-count indictment against those hackers, which was filed in July 2018, did not mention Webzilla or XBT.

BuzzFeed News characterized the report as vindication of its decision to publish the Trump-Russia dossier. “We knew already that publishing the dossier was in the public interest,” spokesperson Matt Mittenthal told CNN. “Now, because BuzzFeed News published the dossier, we’re learning more about the facts of foreign influence in the 2016 presidential election.”

Gubarev sued BuzzFeed in 2017 and sought damages for defamation. As part of the legal process, some of the key players in the dossier saga were deposed, including Steele.

The court unsealed one page of that deposition, which happened last year in London. Steele testified that he tried to verify the allegations against Gubarev by doing, among other things, an “open source search,” which would likely include scouring news clippings and public records.

Steele has years of experience as a British spy in Moscow and has been a trusted source for the FBI. Allies of Democratic nominee Clinton funded Steele’s investigation in 2016. But he was so concerned by his findings that he shared his memo with senior US and UK officials.

In her decision to throw out the case, the judge confirmed that BuzzFeed got the dossier from an associate of Republican Sen. John McCain in December 2016, weeks after the election.

The memos were circulating in Washington, and CNN soon broke the story that senior US intelligence officials had briefed President-elect Trump and President Barack Obama about some of the unverified allegations. Hours later, BuzzFeed published the complete dossier online.
The most salacious allegations in the dossier remain unverified to this day. But the claims that form the bulk of the memos have held up over time, or at least proved to be partially true.

This notably includes Steele’s claim that Russian President Vladimir Putin oversaw an effort to interfere in the 2016 election. It also includes allegations of secret contacts between Trump’s team and the Russians during the campaign. Steele gathered this stunning information months before the Russian meddling campaign was publicly confirmed by US intelligence agencies and in court filings from special counsel Robert Mueller.

Kevin Collier, a cybersecurity reporter for CNN, previously worked for BuzzFeed News.

Source: CNN & BuzzFeed News

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FBI releases part of Russia dossier summary used to brief Trump, Obama | Politico

The FBI released for the first time Friday night a two-page summary former FBI Director James Comey used to brief President-elect Donald Trump nearly two years ago on a so-called dossier about Trump’s ties to Russia.

The version made public Friday could reignite previous criticism from Republicans and Trump allies that the FBI was too vague in its description of the fact that the dossier was funded by the campaign of Trump’s nemesis in the 2016 presidential election, Democratic nominee Hillary Rodham Clinton, as well as the Democratic National Committee.

Comey, who was fired by Trump in May 2017, acknowledged during a book tour earlier this year that he did not inform Trump who paid for the research.

The brief passage the FBI left unredacted in the newly released memo gives some background on the former British intelligence officer who compiled the dossier, Christopher Steele, although Steele’s name does not actually appear in the newly released version. The released portion of the synopsis is vague about who financed the project, referring to it as sponsored by “private clients.”

“An FBI source … volunteered highly politically sensitive information … on Russian influence efforts aimed at the US presidential election,” the memo labeled as “Annex A” says. “The source is an executive of a private business intelligence firm and a former employee of a friendly intelligence service who has been compensated for previous reporting over the past three years. The source maintains and collects information from a layered network of identified and unidentified subsources, some of which has been corroborated in the past. The source collected this information on behalf of private clients and was not compensated for it by the FBI.”

“The source’s reporting appears to have been acquired by multiple Western press organizations starting in October,” the document from January 2017 declares.

Comey has said he did not show or give Trump the memo, but used it as a reference when briefing him on the dossier, which U.S. intelligence officials feared Russia might try to use as blackmail against Trump. The synopsis was also used to brief President Barack Obama, officials have said.

Republicans had previously complained that the FBI failed to inform a federal court about the dossier’s provenance — that Steele’s work was commissioned by Fusion GPS, a research firm that had been hired by the Clinton campaign’s law firm, Perkins Coie, to dig up information about Trump’s business relationships overseas. Based in part on the dossier’s information, the court granted an FBI application to surveil a former Trump campaign associate in October 2016.

Aspects of the FBI’s surveillance application have since been released and revealed that the FBI did inform the court that Steele had political animus toward Trump and that it was funded by a politically motivated backer.

The document was released Friday in response to a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit brought by a POLITICO reporter and the James Madison Project, a pro-transparency group.

In January, U.S. District Court Judge Amit Mehta ruled that that the FBI was legally justified in refusing to confirm or deny the existence of any records related to the dossier, despite several tweets from President Donald Trump that described the document as “fake” or “discredited.”

However, shortly after that ruling, Trump declassified a House Intelligence Committee memo that included various claims about the FBI’s handling of the dossier. In August, Mehta said the official release of that material vitiated the FBI’s ability to claim that it had offered no public confirmation of its role in vetting or verifying the dossier, a collection of accurate, inaccurate, unverified and sometimes salacious claims about ties between Russia and various figures in Trump’s circle.

“It remains no longer logical nor plausible for the FBI to maintain that it cannot confirm nor deny the existence of documents” related to attempts to verify information in the dossier, Mehta wrote.

The FBI withheld the remainder of the two-page synopsis on a variety of grounds, including that the material remains classified either Secret or Top Secret. The law enforcement agency also indicated the information is exempt from release because it pertains to ongoing investigations or court proceedings, originated with a confidential source or describes confidential investigative techniques or procedures.

The FBI said Friday it lacked any records indicating final conclusions about any information in the dossier, said Brad Moss, one of the attorneys pressing for release of the records.

“After two years of legal games, the FBI today finally confirmed two pieces of speculation about the scandalous allegations regarding which Director Comey briefed President Trump in January 2017: all of those allegations remain part of the ongoing Russian ‘collusion’ investigation, and the FBI has not rendered final determinations about the accuracy of any of them,” Moss said. “Far from being debunked, the issues that raised concerns for the Intelligence Community in 2017 remain unresolved to this day.”

Moss said he plans to challenge the FBI’s withholdings in the case and to ask Mehta to order more of the information released.

Source: Politico

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Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already pulling back the curtain on the inner workings of Congress | CNBC

By Carmen Chapell

Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez is already pulling back the curtain on the inner workings of the Capitol.

The New York Democrat, along with other incoming freshman lawmakers, is trying to usher in a culture of openness that is enabled by a vast social media following. With nearly 3 million followers combined on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter, Ocasio-Cortez has used the platforms to involve her supporters during the transition period before she takes office.

Her enthusiastic and often pugnacious transparency campaign has earned her praise from inside and outside the Beltway. Yet it has also drawn criticism from several corners, including from President Donald Trump’s eldest son. Ocasio-Cortez hasn’t given any indication that she will let up, however.

In a series of pictures and videos on Instagram dubbed “Congress Camp,” she gave an inside look into new-member orientation, from choosing an office to voting for House leadership, while also showcasing the unique quirks of life on Capitol Hill.

“Guys, there are secret underground tunnels between all of these government buildings!” she whispers in one video. In another post, she polls her followers on whether she should choose an office with more space or one “close to our friends.”

But Ocasio-Cortez isn’t just focusing on the novelty of her experience. Last week, she tweeted sharp criticism of an orientation for new members of Congress hosted by Harvard. The event featured corporate CEOs but no labor representatives.

“Our ‘bipartisan’ Congressional orientation is cohosted by a corporate lobbyist group. Other members have quietly expressed to me their concern that this wasn’t told to us in advance,” she tweeted. “Lobbyists are here. Goldman Sachs is here. Where’s labor? Activists? Frontline community leaders?”

Fellow freshman member Rashida Tlaib, D-Mich., echoed her criticisms. Tlaib said that Gary Cohn, former chief economic advisor to President Donald Trump and former Goldman Sachs executive, told the new members at orientation that they don’t “know how the game is played.”

“No Gary, YOU don’t know what’s coming – a revolutionary Congress that puts people over profits,” Tlaib tweeted.

‘Those little things are very real’

Ocasio-Cortez rose to the spotlight after defeating longtime incumbent Joseph Crowley in the Democratic primary for New York’s 14th Congressional District, which encompasses parts of Queens and the Bronx. A self-identified Democratic socialist, she ran on a liberal platform and chose to emphasize her identity as a young woman of color. The 29-year-old’s victory in the general election anointed her as the youngest woman ever elected to Congress.

Ocasio-Cortez’s comments about her new role have also renewed longstanding debates on the financial challenges facing members of Congress and their staff. She has made it personal by revealing her own insecurities about her finances during the transition period.

“I have three months without a salary before I’m a member of Congress. So, how do I get an apartment? Those little things are very real,” she told The New York Times in an interview.

Many lawmakers struggle with the cost of living in Washington, D.C., even on the $174,000 congressional salary, going so far as to sleep in their offices to save on rent costs.

Ocasio-Cortez has also made it a point to talk about the economic conditions of congressional staff. Last week, she tweeted: “It is unjust for Congress to budget a living wage for ourselves, yet rely on unpaid interns & underpaid overworked staff just bc Republicans want to make a statement about ‘fiscal responsibility.'”

Low salaries as well as the prevalence of unpaid internships, which are often the first step to a full-time role, are seen as barriers to a more diverse congressional staff. Ocasio-Cortez pledged to pay her office’s interns $15 an hour, inspiring other lawmakers to make the same commitment.

She has also shared experiences that reveal the growing pains of an increasingly diverse Congress. “People keep giving me directions to the spouse and intern events instead of the ones for members of Congress,” she tweeted during orientation.

The changing face of Congress

Ocasio-Cortez is just one of the 42 women, 38 of them Democrats, part of Congress’ freshman class. They are being heralded as the faces of a new “Year of the Woman.” Ilhan Omar, D-Minn., and Michigan’s Tlaib are the first Muslim women elected to Congress, while Ayanna Pressley, a Democrat, is the first black woman elected to represent Massachusetts. Ocasio-Cortez posted a picture of the four women together on Instagram last month, captioning it “Squad.”

As a result of her high profile, Ocasio-Cortez’s unabashed takes on congressional life have frequently come under fire.

Eddie Scarry, a writer for the Washington Examiner, disputed Ocasio-Cortez’s account of her financial hardships based on her clothing choices.

“Hill staffer sent me this pic of Ocasio-Cortez they took just now,” Scarry tweeted. “I’ll tell you something: that jacket and coat don’t look like a girl who struggles.” The tweet has since been deleted after widespread backlash.

Rep. Sean Duffy, R-Wis., condemned the media for what he viewed as preferential treatment in coverage of Ocasio-Cortez. As a freshman congressman in 2011, Duffy received negative reactions after telling a constituent that he struggles to pay his bills.

“Hmm which headlines and article does media give to GOP and which to a Dem?” Duffy tweeted alongside screenshots of articles referencing himself and Ocasio-Cortez.

Last week, Donald Trump Jr., the president’s eldest son, shared a doctored image on Instagram in which Ocasio-Cortez asks, “Why are you so afraid of a socialist economy?” In the post, President Trump responds, “Because Americans want to walk their dogs, not eat them.” Trump Jr. captioned the meme “It’s funny cuz it’s true!!!”

Ocasio-Cortez fired back, tweeting: “Please, keep it coming Jr – it’s definitely a ‘very, very large brain’ idea to troll a member of a body that will have subpoena power in a month.” Democrats have made clear that they plan to use their new subpoena power in the House to further investigate potential Russian interference in the 2016 elections.

The representative-elect has also received praise for revealing parts of the political system that are typically left in the shadows.

Actress Kerry Washington, who stars in the political drama “Scandal,” commended Ocasio-Cortez’s behind-the-scenes revelations, tweeting, “@Ocasio2018 speaking truth to power. Sharing the NEEDED #BTS of our democracy at work. So grateful.”

“I’m learning more details about how the House actually works over the past two weeks than I ever did in the past 20 years,” one follower tweeted in reply to Ocasio-Cortez.

“Thank you so much for giving us the window into the inside baseball of Congress,” another follower said.

Paul Musgrave, assistant professor of political science at University of Massachusetts Amherst, praised Ocasio-Cortez on Twitter for “treating voters as neither super-sophisticated DC insiders, nor as people who can’t be trusted to make up their own minds, but rather as people who are curious and intelligent but who aren’t experts in DC process.”

“Sometimes,” he added, “you don’t need a new theory of politics to make change, just a willingness to state the obvious.”

Source: CNBC

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JFK to 911 Everything Is A Rich Man’s Trick (film) | YouTube & IMDB

Authoritatively written and narrated by Francis Richard Conolly, the film begins its labyrinthine tale during the era of World War I, when the wealthiest and most powerful figures of industry discovered the immense profits to be had from a landscape of ongoing military conflict. The film presents a persuasive and exhaustively researched argument that these towering figures formed a secret society by which they could orchestrate or manipulate war-mongering policies to their advantage on a global scale, and maintain complete anonymity in their actions from an unsuspecting public. Conolly contends that these sinister puppet masters have functioned and thrived throughout history – from the formation of Nazism to the build-up and aftermath of September 11.

Source: IMDB & YouTube

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Weekly Update: Mueller Hypocrisy Exposed By Podesta Docs Release | Judicial Watch

Top Hillary Aide John Podesta Records Released – Show Ties to Podesta Group

Those of us who have been watching the Mueller Circus avoid the real collusion with Russia are no longer surprised when we see even more hypocrisy oozing from the Swamp.

Consider:

We just uncovered new documents from the U.S. Department of State showing the Podesta Group working on behalf of the pro-Russia Ukrainian political group “Party of Regions.” The documents also show then-Obama White House Counsel John Podesta lobbying on behalf of his brother’s firm.

We obtained the documents in a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit against the State Department filed on November 20, 2017, (Judicial Watch v. U.S. Department of State (No. 1:17-cv-02489)). The lawsuit was filed after the State Department failed to respond to a September 13, 2017, FOIA request for:

  • All records of communication between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of State and any principal, employee, or representative of Podesta Group, Inc.
  • All records produced related to any meetings or telephonic communications between any official, employee, or representative of the Department of State and any principal, employee, or representative of Podesta Group, Inc.
  • All records regarding the European Centre for a Modern Ukraine.
  • The FOIA request covers the timeframe of January 1, 2012 to the present.

A March 28, 2013, email from now-Deputy Executive Secretary in the Office of the Secretary of State Baxter Hunt shows the Podesta Group, led by Tony Podesta, a Clinton bundler and brother of Clinton’s 2016 campaign chairman John Podesta, represented the Party of Regions, a pro-Kremlin political party in Ukraine.

In the March 2013 email, to a number of officials including then-U.S. Foreign Service Officer John Tefft (who would go on to be U.S. Ambassador to Russia in 2014) and State Department Director for the Office of Eastern Europe Alexander Kasanof, Hunt writes:

See below, I also stressed to them the need for GOU to take concrete steps to get new SBA with IMF and avoid PFC/loss of GSP. Podesta Group is noted among host of Ukraine lobbyists in article I’ll forward in article on low side.

Ben Chang and Mark Tavlarides of the Podesta Group, which is representing the Party of Regions, told us they were working with Klyuyev on a visit he plans to make to Washington in early May. They are working to broaden the POR’s contacts on the Hill, including setting up a meeting for Klyuyev with Chris Smith, and have advised Kyiv to stop trying to justify their actions against Tymoshenko in Washington. They also noted that during his recent meeting with former EC President Prodi, HFAC Chairman Ed Royce said that Congress would not be enacting sanctions legislation against Ukraine.

The Party of Regions served as the pro-Kremlin political base for Ukraine’s former President Viktor Yanukovych, who fled to Russia in 2014.

Like Paul Manafort, who is currently under indictment in the errant special counsel Russia investigation, the Podesta Group had to retroactively file Foreign Agent Registration Act disclosures with the Justice Department for Ukrainian-related work. The filing states that the Podesta group provided for the nonprofit European Centre for a Modern Ukraine “government relations and public relations services within the United States and Europe to promote political and economic cooperation between Ukraine and the West. The [Podesta Group] conducted outreach to congressional and executive branch offices, members of the media, nongovernmental organizations and think tanks.” Unlike Manafort and his partner Rick Gates, the Mueller special counsel operation hasn’t indicted anyone from the Podesta Group.

Also, the new emails show then-Obama White House Counselor John Podesta lobbying on behalf of the Podesta Group’s efforts to secure a maintenance facility from Jet Blue and Lufthansa for Puerto Rico.

In a June 27, 2013, email former U.S. Ambassador to Germany and current New Jersey Gov. Philip D. Murphy writes to John Podesta, Minister-Counselor for Economic Affairs at the American Embassy in Berlin Seth Winnick, and others:

Jet Blue and Lufthansa are considering 2 locations for a maintenance center – Puerto Rico or Mexico. The Governor of PR wants this badly. The question is can we get to LH at the right levels to make the case. Either John or colleague OR John’s brother Tony or colleague will get to us with more details.

Winnick then writes to John Podesta: “Washington alerted us to this advocacy issue and we are on it. Phil will try to connect in the next few days and we will follow up.”

Later that day, in an email sent to his brother Tony Podesta and Winnick, John Podesta writes: “Thanks Seth. The Governor is a friend of mine. My brother Tony represents Puerto Rico and will follow up with details.”

Winnick replies to John and Tony Podesta: “Happy to help on this one. I think we have the details we need for now from SelectUSA at Commerce but will come back if any issues arise.”

Puerto Rico was selected by the airlines for the facility to service A320s in 2014.

Judicial Watch is waiting to hear on any additional documents the State Department may produce in response to our Podesta Group FOIA lawsuit.

By the standards of the Mueller special counsel operation, these emails alone would have been enough for the Podestas to have been hauled before a grand jury or worse. These emails are a stark reminder that the Mueller’s special counsel operation seems more interested in the alleged foreign ties of the Trump team, rather than Hillary Clinton’s (and Barack Obama’s) associates.

Do you think Robert Mueller’s partisan prosecutors have even thought of looking into this? I had a few choice things to say about his spurious quest in this interview with Lou Dobbs. If and when we get more Podesta documents I’ll be updating you here.

Arizona Border Ranchers Live in Fear as Illegal Immigration Crisis Worsens

Our southern border is an abstraction for most people, a topic for talking heads on TV. But for those who call it home, life on the border is a gritty and dangerous reality. And the reality is, despite dramatic change in approach to border issues the Trump administration, our Southern border remains largely open to illegal aliens.

Our Corruption Chronicles blog provides an unsettling and astonish first-hand look.

More than half a million illegal immigrants of several dozen nationalities have been apprehended on John Ladd’s sprawling cattle ranch in southeastern Arizona. Ladd has also found 14 dead bodies on his 16,500-acre farm, which has been in his family for well over a century and sits between the Mexican border and historic State Route 92. The property shares a 10 ½-mile border with Mexico, making it a popular route for human and drug smugglers evading a meager force of Border Patrol agents in the mountainous region. “As big as that number sounds, many more got away,” said National Border Patrol Council President Brandon Judd of the hundreds of thousands arrested on Ladd’s parcel. Judd spent a chunk of his decades-long career with the agency patrolling the area and he knows it well. “It’s gotten more violent. It’s gotten worse.”

As part of an ongoing investigation into the critical security issues created by the famously porous southern border, Judicial Watch visited frustrated ranchers and residents in Sierra Vista, a Cochise County town located 75 miles southeast of Tucson with a population of around 44,000. The town sits in the picturesque Sonoran Desert and is surrounded by the scenic Huachuca Mountains. Illegal immigrants and drug smugglers are devastating the area and many longtime residents live in fear. Some are too scared to enjoy a simple pastime—horseback riding on their own land. “I can’t guarantee there’s not a dead body somewhere in my ranch right now,” said Ladd pointing to his property as he stood in front of the U.S. government’s border fence, an area known as the “shit ditch” because illegal immigrants use it as a toilet and trash. Sporting a thick, gray mustache and a dapper cowboy hat, Ladd said 200 to 300 illegal aliens are caught daily passing through his property. “We don’t have any control of the border,” he said. “I see it every day.”

A 60-foot wide dirt road, known as a federal easement, separates Ladd’s ranch from Mexico. Some portions have an 18-foot iron fence along the border that Ladd says illegal immigrants “easily climb with a pack of dope.” Other sections have a laughable wire fence that has been repeatedly penetrated with vehicles speeding through from Mexico. Some areas have been visibly patched where holes were carved out for passage. The fence is such a joke that the Border Patrol installed concrete barriers along a busy two-mile stretch across the 60-foot dirt road, right in front of the barbwire barrier on Ladd’s property line to stop smugglers. “Smugglers even put a hydraulic ramp, so a car or truck could blow through,” Ladd said. He estimates that around 70% of the traffic that comes through his ranch is human smuggling and 30% is drug smuggling. In the last three years most of the illegal border crossers have been Central American, Ladd said. The veteran rancher first became concerned with the unprotected border decades ago because sick Mexican cows threatened his herd. The problem became more serious over the years. “First it was Mexican cows, then people then dope,” Ladd said. “Now it’s really bad.” Ladd has traveled to the nation’s capital seven times to bring attention to the crisis in Sierra Vista, but Washington bureaucrats have failed to take any action.

Instead, the federal government has placed ineffective or faulty surveillance equipment in the region that smugglers easily evade. “The smugglers know the radio range and avoid it,” Judd said, adding that cameras are installed in the wrong spot and don’t have great resolution. On a hill adjacent to Ladd’s ranch stands an imposing camera tower that could never capture illegal border crossers because its view is completely blocked by a sea of lush trees below. The government spent $1.3 million on the useless equipment and never bothered to study the terrain’s impact on the technology. The Department of Homeland Security (DHS) simply installed the equipment based on a predetermined formula that separates the cameras by a fixed number of miles without considering the landscape, according to Judd. “They didn’t do any research on the topography,” he said. These kinds of failures frustrate local ranchers, who feel increasingly threatened by the barrage of illegal crossers rampaging through their property. With both thumbs resting on his thick, bronze belt buckle, Ladd looked up at the pointless camera tower smiling and quipped: “Now that’s a big boondoggle right there, a total waste of taxpayer dollars.”

Another troubled property owner, John Guerrero, took Judicial Watch on a nighttime tour of a nearby smuggling route that is inexplicably unprotected. The dirt road runs through the Coronado National Forest and Guerrero, a retired U.S. Army Ranger and intelligence officer who served in Iraq and Somalia, has felt the impact of the government’s failure to adequately guard it. Five strands of barbwire serve as the physical boundary between the U.S. and Mexico in a remote portion of the park, which is closed to the public at night and is heavily transited by drug and human smugglers. Illegal immigration has had such a devastating impact on the area that Guerrero wrote a book offering detailed anecdotes of what he and his family endure because they live near the Mexican border. This includes drugs and illegal immigrants piling into vehicles on the road adjacent to his four-acre property and ultralight aircraft flying near his rooftop, just above the trees, en route to make a drug drop. “Local residents are increasingly fearful,” Guerrero said.

The event that has most impacted Guerrero occurred when smugglers burned down a beloved chapel, Our Lady of the Sierras, situated on a hill across the road from his home. A 75-foot Celtic cross outside the chapel remains lit through the night and serves as a navigational tool for smugglers and the grounds are regularly used to transfer drugs. In 2011, illegal immigrant smugglers started the fire along the border to escape the Border Patrol during a pursuit. Besides the chapel, which has since been rebuilt, the fire destroyed nearly 30,000 acres and dozens of homes. Guerrero and his family were forced to evacuate. Widespread media coverage omitted that illegal immigrants were responsible for the fire, but a local news station finally reported that the Cochise County Sheriff confirmed the fire started 200 yards north of the Mexican border in an area known as Smuggler’s Gulch. “There was absolutely no mention by the federal government as to the true origin of the fire,” Guerrero said.

Judd, who heads the union that represents some 16,000 Border Patrol agents nationwide, says the border can be secured. “There has to be political will to secure the border,” he said. The frontline agency had tremendous faith that the Trump administration would finally get the job done, but the stats tell a different story. Shortly after Trump became president there was a dip in the number of illegal immigrants entering the U.S. through Mexico, Judd said. However, “by April 2018 we were back to the Obama high of illegal border crossers,” Judd confirmed. Sierra Vista residents like Ladd and Guerrero continue to suffer the consequences of anemic border control and worry about the crime that has infested their once-idyllic town. The problem is so rampant that Ladd often sees smuggling spotters from his property on the nearby mountains in the Mexican side. “They’re right there every day,” he said. “They live in camps and have solar generators. Their job is to look out.” Residents in Sierra Vista feel no one is looking out for them.

Thanks to our Judicial Watch team who traveled to the Southwest border to compile this report. We will follow up with more investigations and, I’m sure, lawsuits as part of JW’s efforts to secure our borders through the rule of law!

Source: Judicial Watch