WE (The US) Started This War

 Here's one man's opinion.  Read the whole thing ...

KREMLIN SPOKESMAN SAYS UKRAINE MUST AMEND CONSTITUTION AND REJECT CLAIMS TO ENTER ANY BLOC

UKRAINE MUST RECOGNISE CRIMEA AS RUSSIAN, AND DONETSK AND LUGANSK AS INDEPENDENT STATES

IF THESE CONDITIONS ARE MET, THEN RUSSIAN MILITARY ACTION WILL STOP IN A MOMENT - SPOKESMAN

• We, the United States, repeatedly promised Russia when the Iron Curtain came down and the Warsaw Pact dissolved that we would not expand NATO eastward toward the Russian border.  Go look at the nations our Senate admitted by formal treaty in 2004.  We did this.  We deliberately and intentionally lied and by doing so proved to Russia that we were not to be trusted and our word was worthless on the international stage.
  
  
• We, the United States, formally and openly supported the shooting revolution at Maidan Square during the 2014 timeframe which included the killing of civilians and installation of Zelenskyy.  There was a serious sniping incident during that time.  Not one person who was involved in same was arrested and prosecuted.  This ought to inform you as to which side committed said offense since the other side, the sitting government at the time, was deposed.  If you're so ****ing stupid as to believe that the sitting government of the time committed that atrocity and Zelenskyy's government then "forgave and forgot" about the snipers rather than arresting, prosecuting and executing them you are so ****ing stupid you deserve to be nuked, especially considering that Ukraine just summarily executed one of their peace negotiators who they deemed "disloyal."  The current Ukrainian government certainly has no problem with capital punishment, even when employed summarily without triaRea d

• We're risking a nuclear war to protect a corrupt piece of **** named Zelenskyy and an entire ******ned family of corrupt *******s who was proved long ago have sucked off that source of corruption, the head of which is currently the President of the United States and who directly and personally profited from it.

The real Ukraine controversy: an activist U.S. embassy and its adherence to the Geneva Convention

John Solomon:

The first time I ever heard the name of U.S. ambassador to Ukraine Marie Yovanovitch was in early March of this year. It did not come from a Ukrainian or an ally of President Trump. It came from a career diplomat I was interviewing on background on a different story.

The diplomat, as I recall, suggested that Yovanovitch had just caused a commotion in Ukraine a few weeks before that country’s presidential election by calling for the firing of one of the prosecutors aligned with the incumbent president.

The diplomat related that a more senior State official, David Hale, was about to travel to Ukraine and was prepping to be confronted about Yovanovitch’s comments. I remember the diplomat joking something to the effect of, “we always say that the Geneva Convention is optional for our Kiev staff.”

The Geneva Convention is the UN-backed pact enacted during the Cold War that governs the conduct of foreign diplomats in host countries and protects them against retribution. But it strictly mandates that foreign diplomats “have a duty not to interfere in the internal affairs of that State” that hosts them. You can read the convention’s rules here.

I dutifully checked out my source’s story. And sure as day, Yovanovitch did give a speech on March 5, 2019 calling for Ukraine’s special anticorruption prosecutor to be removed. You can read that here.

Read the whole thing.

Gregg Jarrett: It Appears the ‘Whistleblower’ is Just an American Spy in Our Intel Agency Spying on President Trump

“To put this in plain language, a spy who allegedly spied on the president does not have a legitimate whistleblower complaint against that president under the law. The ICWPA is a mechanism to report alleged misconduct by members within the intelligence community, of which the president is not,” Gregg Jarrett argued.

OTOH, this could also be a great way for Trump to bring bribery by Biden to the front.

DEMOCRATIC IT AIDE SAYS IMRAN AWAN SOLICITED BRIBE FROM HIM IN EXCHANGE FOR CONTRACT WITH THEN-REP. GWEN GRAHAM

Democratic IT aide Imran Awan solicited a bribe from an IT vendor in exchange for contracting opportunities with the office of then-Rep. Gwen Graham, the vendor alleged to The Daily Caller News Foundation, adding that Imran spoke to him in detail about his alleged financial fraud schemes in the House.

The Department of Justice knows of the source — the longtime owner of a major House IT company — and what he is prepared to testify, a high-level official in Jeff Sessions’ DOJ with knowledge of the investigation confirmed. But the vendor said no law enforcement ever even tried to interview them.

Washinton Post, leading DC paper,

The vendor, a well-respected professional Democrat, approached TheDCNF only after sending detailed information to The Washington Post in February 2017 but, he said, getting no response. He believes that Imran’s alleged breach is a major national security and public corruption incident and wants to pursue the truth — but no one is asking.pikes the story.

Bundy Mistrial Highlights Why the Right Distrusts the Feds

Debra Saunders at Townhall

As Washington conservatives question whether partisan FBI officials working for Special Counsel Robert Mueller have stacked the deck against President Donald Trump, a criminal case in Las Vegas points to the sort of federal prosecutorial abuses that give the right cause for paranoia.

On Wednesday, U.S. District Judge Gloria Navarro declared a mistrial in the infamous 2014 Bunkerville standoff case against rancher Cliven Bundy, his sons Ammon and Ryan, and co-defendant Ryan Payne, on the grounds that federal prosecutors improperly withheld evidence.

Conservatives were once unquestioning supporters of the FBI and other law enforcement agencies. When it became painfully obvious that many of these agencies are now staffed by the Left, and are willing to use their police powers to punish their political enemies (see the IRS and DOJ), that trust has evaporated. And rightly so.

There are rules designed to create trust that people with police powers,the power of the gun, the power to imprison, will treat the people fairly and equally.  Anything else is oppression.

REPORT: Fed Agency Committed ‘Militaristic’ Operation Against Nevada Rancher

An investigation into the Bureau of Land Management’s (BLM) handling of the 2014 Nevada standoff with rancher Cliven Bundy revealed “incredible bias,” widespread misconduct and likely illegal actions by the BLM.

The investigation’s report, made by BLM Special Agent Larry Wooten and addressed to the Department of Justice, was publicized last week after Washington state Rep. Matt Shea posted it on his Facebook page, according to The Wall Street Journal.

Wooten’s 18-page report discussed some of what he witnessed during his three-year investigation, such as a BLM agent’s “kill list” featuring people who had committed suicide while under investigation by the agency, BLM agents and officials referring to the Bundys as “retards” and “douche bags,” agents bragging about “grinding” a Bundy family member’s face into gravel, and lead prosecutor and Nevada’s acting U.S. Attorney Steve Myhre’s “preferred ignorance” of investigation details that would benefit the Bundys’ defense case.

Link to report HERE 

Botched Russia assessment raises questions of intel chiefs’ motives

Fourteen days before President Trump took the oath of office, the Obama administration’s intelligence chiefs made public a unanimous assessment claiming Russian operatives, under orders from President Vladimir Putin, had orchestrated an influence campaign to help Mr. Trump win the presidential contest.

It was a watershed moment: the CIA, National Security Agency and FBI challenging the legitimacy of a U.S. presidential victory.

The conclusions in the Jan. 6 document were sharp, but the findings unraveled 10 months later, raising questions about the basis for the evidence and the motives of the Obama appointees leading the nation’s intelligence and law enforcement agencies.

“It left me scratching my head,” said one intelligence source with personal access to former Director of National Intelligence James R. Clapper and former CIA Director John O. Brennan, two of the men who had signed off on the assessment.

HERE IT IS… Guccifer 2.0 Releases CLINTON FOUNDATION DOCS! – Dems Funneled TARP Funds to their PACs!

5,300 Wells Fargo employees fired over 2 million phony accounts

If you think that having an account with a large financial institution is a good idea, you may want to reconsider.

On Thursday, federal regulators said Wells Fargo employees secretly created millions of unauthorized bank and credit card accounts -- without their customers knowing it -- since 2011.

The phony accounts earned the bank unwarranted fees and allowed Wells Fargo employees to boost their sales figures and make more money.

"Wells Fargo employees secretly opened unauthorized accounts to hit sales targets and receive bonuses," Richard Cordray, director of the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau, said in a statement.

Wells Fargo confirmed to CNNMoney that it had fired 5,300 employees over the last few years related to the shady behavior. Employees went so far as to create phony PIN numbers and fake email addresses to enroll customers in online banking services, the CFPB said.

The scope of the scandal is shocking. An analysis conducted by a consulting firm hired by Wells Fargo concluded that bank employees opened over 1.5 million deposit accounts that may not have been authorized.

The way it worked was that employees moved funds from customers' existing accounts into newly-created ones without their knowledge or consent, regulators say. The CFPB described this practice as "widespread." Customers were being charged for insufficient funds or overdraft fees -- because there wasn't enough money in their original accounts.

Protesters storm Brazilian capital after bugged phone call goes public which reveals President gave senior government position to her predecessor so he could avoid arrest over corruption

It seems other corrupt administrations are also having problems.

Protests have erupted in Brazil's capital after a recorded phone call between President Dilma Rousseff and her once-popular predecessor was released, suggesting that she appointed him to her cabinet to spare him from arrest for corruption.

Rousseff appointed Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva as her chief of staff on Wednesday hoping that his political prowess can save her administration.

The president is battling an impeachment attempt, a deep recession, and the fallout of an explosive corruption scandal at state oil giant Petrobras.

If McDonnell is sent to jail for corruption, should Hillary share his jail cell?

Former Virginia Governor Bob McDonnell’s conviction for corruption will be reviewed by the Supreme Court. McDonnell’s attorneys said in a court filing that: “Close relationships between business leaders, lobbyists and public officials are commonplace,” Mr. McDonnell argues that politicians routinely reward their donors and friends with access to themselves and other officials.

Allowing prosecutors to file criminal charges when a gift or donation can be connected to any action by a politician would “radically reshape politics in this nation,” the filing said. “If Gov. McDonnell can be imprisoned for giving routine access to a gift-giver, any official could equally be imprisoned for agreeing to answer a donor’s phone call about a policy issue.”

McDonnell and his wife got a $20,000 New York shopping spree for the first lady, a $6,000 Rolex watch for the governor, $25,000 to pay for their daughters’ weddings, and another $130,000 in gifts or loans.

In return, McDonnell is accused of (from the Wall Street Journal)

“…hosted a product launch for Anatabloc at the governor’s mansion, arranged meetings with state and university officials to discuss the product and passed along proposals regarding research into the supplement, which he told at least one official he was using himself, the government said.

From the Washington Post who vigorously applauded McDonnell’s trial and conviction.

McDonnell’s contributions, they said, came in the form of meetings arranged to connect Williams with state officials, a luncheon Williams was allowed to throw at the governor’s mansion to help launch the product and a guest list Williams was allowed to shape at mansion reception meant for health-care leaders.

Defense attorneys argued at trial that there was no evidence McDonnell even knew what Williams wanted. And what he did want — state-funded studies of the product, Anatabloc — he never got.

But Williams, who was granted immunity by prosecutors, testified that the governor always knew why he was being so generous with the McDonnell family.

Prosecutors built a strong circumstantial case. In one instance, McDonnell directed a subordinate to meet with Williams the same night he returned from a free vacation at the businessman’s lake house. In another, six minutes after emailing Williams about a loan, McDonnell emailed an aide about studies Williams wanted researchers at a public university to conduct on his product.

In a brief to the court, Noel J. Francisco, an attorney for McDonnell, said such “courtesies” were not the kind of official actions that the corruption laws contemplate. He said prosecutors never showed that McDonnell exercised any governmental power to help Williams or pressured others to do so.

“This is the first time in our history that a public official has been convicted of corruption despite never agreeing to put a thumb on the scales of any government decision,” he wrote.

McDonnell’s attorneys had compiled an impressive list of supporters to tell the court that his appeal raised important issues. Eleven groups filed amicus briefs, among them 66 former state attorneys general, 31 governors and a collection of former high-ranking federal officials, including a retired judge.

The government replied that the law does not require a showing of “pressure.” Nor does it matter that Williams did not get what he wanted, Verrilli wrote. “The failure of a bribery scheme does not make it lawful.”

The prosecution maintains that not putting pressure on agents to benefit a friend or benefactor doesn’t mean that the governor is not corrupt or has been bribed. As long as there us a “quid” there does not have to be a “pro quo.”

The focus of the trial and the media attention has always been on the gifts that Williams gave the McDonnells rather than what the McDonnells did for Williams. The things that Bob McDonnell actually did for Williams and his company are actually peanuts and hard to define as anything other than constituent service.

Is allowing the use of the Virginia governor’s mansion for an event for a Virginia company corrupt? If so, lots of Virginia governors need to join McDonnell in prison.

Is supporting the commercial interests of any company in the state, or the nation, by public officials corruption? Off to prison go virtually all office holders.

How about if the company made campaign contributions to the office holder, or gave a gift to the office holder or her private foundation?

Say you are the Secretary of State and the likely next President. And the Bill, Hillary and Chelsea Clinton Foundation accepts tens of millions of dollars in donations from Saudi Arabia, UAE, Kuwait, Oman, Qatar and Algeria at the very time Hillary ran The State Department. Even ignoring the fact that the State Department had issues before it at the time these governments were so generous to the Clintons, anyone who does not see through the obvious fact that these were down-payments on future acts by Hillary Clinton is a credulous fool.

Why is the Supreme Court hearing this case?  It's possible that some of the justices beleive the case was without merit.  There is also the possibility that by raising the bar, they Court is making it harder to prosecute and convict the Clintons of corruption.

If Bob and Maureen McDonnell go to jail, justice demands that Bill and Hillary Clinton share the cell.

As a final note.  Bob and Maureen McDonnell were relatively poor when he ran for governor.  When offered gifts and loans to help them with money problems they took them rather than resisting the temptation and saying "no."  For that Bob McDonnell and his wife lost their marriage, their reputation and may end up in prison.  I don't beleive they committed a crime, but they fractured certain moral standards that - as Christians - they should have maintained.  It's a lesson for all of us who are tempted and fall.  

Leftists Use Government Power to Silence Political Opponents

Good article on the corrupt John Doe investigations in Wisconsin.

A “John Doe” is an investigatory tool similar to grand juries, which allows prosecutors to silence their targets ostensibly for their own “protection.” The reality is quite different. Some of Chisholm’s worst abuses are by now well-known: A man spends hours in jail, his orange-jumpsuit-adorned mugshot blasted across local television for no official reason. Pre-dawn paramilitary raids force an unclothed woman to run toward her door lest armed apparatchiks batter it down. A 16-year-old boy home alone told he can’t call his parents or school as government agents rummage through his house. Millions of documents seized, hard drives and cell phones confiscated, gag orders imposed; astronomical legal fees. And all based on a legal theory the Wisconsin Supreme Court declared in July completely invalid.

Gag orders are blatantly wrong.

New Docs Reveal DOJ, IRS, and FBI Colluding to Prosecute Obama Opponents

The newly obtained records include an official “DOJ Recap” report detailing an October 2010 meeting between Lois Lerner, DOJ officials and the FBI. The documents also reveal that the Obama DOJ wanted IRS employees who were going to testify to Congress to turn over documents to the DOJ before giving them to Congress.

I have said it before and I'll say it again, the custom of not prosecuting law breaking of officials of previous administrations has to go.  

“A jail sentence doesn’t matter anymore. The only thing that gets you shunned in New York society is poverty.”

The Liberal fat cats seem hell-bent on proving Muslims are right when they call Americans degenerate perverts.

Last spring, Epstein completed a 13-month sentence for soliciting prostitution from a minor in Palm Beach. Now he was hosting a party for his close friend, Britain's Prince Andrew, fourth in line to the throne.

When a photo later surfaced of the two men walking in Central Park that weekend, the British press seized on the story, spinning out weeks of headlines about the 16-year relationship between Epstein and Andrew, with salacious details of underage "masseuses" and even a cozy weekend in Balmoral. ... But the uproar over "The Prince and The Perv"—as the British headlines screamed—mysteriously drowned in the Mid-Atlantic. New Yorkers barely batted an eye about the scandal-mongering across the pond. "A jail sentence doesn't matter anymore," says David Patrick Columbia, founder of New York Social Diary. "The only thing that gets you shunned in New York society is poverty."

"In the Midwest, where I am from, he would be a social pariah," says Lorna Brett Howard, a political activist and wife of Irving Post Capital CEO and Aeropostale director John Howard. "What I see here is if you have big money or are famous then you get a pass."

Just so. Keep in mind that Hollywood still supports Roman Polanski even after he was convicted of raping a 13 year old girl.

The Problem with Philadelphia's Police

For years, Philadelphia police have had to live in the city, resulting in a department that largely mirrors the city’s demographics. That department, however, has been rife with corruption, mismanagement and excessive use of force.

The Hunter Biden Chronicles

This is why we need an "alternative media."  Because you won't get this from the New York Times and the rest of the mainstream media.

Michelle Malkin

Everything you need to know about Beltway nepotism, corporate cronyism and corruption can be found in the biography of Robert Hunter Biden. Where are the Occupy Wall Street rabble-rousers and enemies of elitist privilege when you need them? Straining their neck muscles to look the other way.

...

 

Hunter's first job, acquired after Joe Biden won his 1996 Senate re-election bid in Delaware, was with MBNA. That's the credit card conglomerate and top campaign finance donor that forked over nearly $63,000 in bundled primary and general contributions from its employees to then Sen. Biden. ...

Hunter zoomed up to senior vice president by early 1998 and then scored a plum position in the Clinton administration's Commerce Department, specializing in "electronic commerce" before returning to MBNA three years later as a high-priced "consultant." ...

Hunter got himself appointed to multiple corporate board positions, including a directorship with Eudora Global. It's an investment firm founded by one Jeffrey Cooper, head of one of the biggest asbestos-litigation firms in the country. ...

Hunter also was previously a top official at Paradigm Global Advisors, a hedge fund holding company founded with Vice President Biden's brother, James, and marketed by convicted finance fraudster Allen Stanford. ...which went bust amid nasty fraud lawsuits.

Continually failing upward, Hunter snagged a seat on the board of directors of taxpayer-subsidized, stimulus-inflated Amtrak, where he pretended not to be a lobbyist, but rather an "effective advocate" for the government railroad system serving the 1 percenters' D.C.-NYC corridor.

Read the whole thing as the MSM keeps its gave averted.

Who got the $300 million from Oregon's Obama Care website flop?

Oregon pissed away $300 million on a website to enroll people in ObamaCare that has - to date - signed up ZERO people. That's right, not one person has actually been able to sign up for health insurance using this system.

That leads many people to shake their heads in wonder, but leads us to ask "who got the money?"

Democratic Governor John Kitzhaber promised to lead the nation on ObamaCare and he did—from behind. The worst-in-America launch collapsed even harder than Healthcare.gov. The exchange website known as Cover Oregon still hasn't enrolled one person, and the state has spent about $7 million signing up merely 69,000 people manually using paper applications.

.... Investigators at the KATU news station uncovered evidence suggesting that Cover Oregon officials created a fake website to create the illusion of progress for the feds, who made ObamaCare grants that totalled $303 million.

"Created a fake website?"  This is not simply colossal, stupendous and world-class incompetence, but it appears to involved a criminal conspiracy involving hundreds of millions of dollars.

Is Team Obama interested in where the money went and who got rich as a result?  You have to be kidding me. Quoting Obama: 'This thing is working," and the press got the message. Attorney General Eric Holder is ignoring this and the race-baiting members of the Liberal media are crowing how great ObamaCare is. Because Obama said so.  Period.

Virginia Gov. McAuliffe rerouted funds for inaugural

And so it begins.

The Cost of Press Corruption

 

The corruption I’m referring to is, of course, hiding the truth about ObamaCare until this monstrous fraud went into effect and imperiled the health care of everyone in the country.  The press knew before the law passed what the truth was, thanks to Congressional hearings Four years ago, GOP showed exactly what was false about Obama’s keep-your-coverage promise.  But in the words of "Instapundit" Glenn Reynolds, even after the truth was revealed:

  ....the press continued to treat Obama’s promise as true — and the critics as lying racists — until, oh, about last week or so.

 

The servile press knew that ObamaCare was designed to completely overturn America’s health care system. They knew that President Obama repeatedly lied when he said that people would be able to keep their health insurance if they like it. They knew that President Obama repeatedly lied when he said that people could keep their doctor if they like him. They knew that President Obama repeatedly lied when he said that people would see their premiums go down by $2500 under ObamaCare. The shameless hacks in the press were aiding and abetting a fraud on the American people knowing full well that it was a sting.   They wanted the American people thinking their health insurance and doctor were going to be there if ObamaCare was not the better bargain they were told it would be. They lied until it was too late.

Make no mistake, the bottom feeding scum suckers of the press were doing the lying. Of course they were repeating the lies of Obama, the father of this lie. But as the spreaders of this shameless propaganda they amplified and drove it home with endless repetition.

But, you say, that the press was fooled by Obama. On the contrary. There were plenty of people who could see the obvious:

• That you could not insure millions more
• Maintain the current level of care
• Insure the chronically ill for the same price as the healthy
• And still cut costs. 

If you genuinely believed that, you are a moron and should not be left unattended.

There were even those who bothered to read this 2000 page monstrosity and knew what the law said and how it was going to be implemented. To see the obvious did not require expertise in insurance or even in math, all it took was the reasoning ability of the average adult.

Of course the members of the press can fall back on the excuses that Obama’s been using: that he is unaware of things that every American knows. That “shovel ready jobs” aren’t, and that buying insurance is complicated. It’s really an admission of stupidity and it’s not beyond the realm of possibility that Obama’s that stupid; that his only skills are giving speeches and telling lies without remorse. But are the members of the press really ready to admit that they’re stupid? I’ll grant you that many are. After all, being able to write in complete sentences with the help of an editor is no guarantee that you can also tie your shoe laces. But there are literally thousands of people who call themselves reporters and editors and when you get that many people focused on an issue there is a certain amount of collective intelligence. Like the million monkeys who eventually end up writing all of Shakespeare by hitting random typewriter keys.   There is no excuse for ignorance in this, they knew. 

No, the logic of this scandal is that the press knew the President was pulling a “sting” and they were his happy co-conspirators. They adored the man, Obama, (he sent a thrill up their legs) and they loved the idea of government control so much that they were willing to scam the American people. And now that the scam’s exposed they are trying to tell everyone that they’re innocent.

But that’s a lie. Obama knew he could not carry off the con without the active connivance of the press. Like Newman and Redford in The Sting, Obama needed a large cast of characters to fool his marks and the press enthusiastically volunteered. Obama got what he wanted, the press got what it wanted and the American people have been fleeced of their money, their insurance and their doctors.  Now the press is busy cleaning up and covering up their part in the scandal.  To convince people to quietly walk away.  This is called "cooling the mark." 

In my local paper this morning there is an article about a public meeting on ObamaCare.  The reporter referred to the ObamaCare lies as "mistakes" and quoted the government shill defending this bill as part of the "social contract."  I want to know who signed this particular contract for me because I didn't.  They are trying their best to get us to walk away and accept their scam after a brief grumble.   Sorry.  There are too many shoes still to be dropped.  The people who get their insurance through their employers are going to find that they have also been scammed, like the  people who bought their insurance as individuals.  The biggest parts of this scam are ahead of us; the effects have barely begun.  The ones who participated in it, Democrats in government and in the press, are going to regret it.  Many of us are not marks and we won't be "cooled."

NOTE: This has been edited since first posted.

TO SPEAK TO A NIGERIAN PRINCE ABOUT YOUR HEALTH CARE, PRESS '1' NOW

In addition to convicted felons, navigators are drawn from labor unions, community organizers, former ACORN staffers and front-groups for the Democratic National Committee.

Call right up and give all your private financial and medical information to those guys! What could go wrong? (Before Obamacare was even online, Minnesota's health exchange emailed the Social Security numbers and other identifying information for about 2,400 Americans to a man applying to be a "navigator.")

If you call today, you can sign up for Obamacare plus learn about a Nigerian prince in exile who's willing to share his vast inheritance with you in exchange for your bank account numbers.

Ann Coulter on ObamaCare and Medicare fraud.