One person is claiming to have seen Bill Clinton on Epstein's orgy island. Someone else is claiming, separately, that Clinton was seen on Epstein's plane a lot more often than he admits to being there, and that the purpose of the plane trips was to have sex with Ghislaine Maxwell. Of course, these claims are just claims for now, and the Clintons being tawdry and having sex scandals is nothing new. But... Ghislaine doesn't exactly seem like the kind of person who has an affair out of a loving sense of emotional involvement with someone who happens to be married to a harridan. No, if Ghislaine is sleeping with you, there's likely to be a camera filming the room and someone waiting with a blackmail offer later.
So here's what I think: I think "Clinton slept with Ghislaine" is a cover story to hide all the other young ladies naked in the same bed at the same time. An "affair" with Ghislaine is tawdry but forgivable. Sleeping with anyone else on the plane is likely not.
Brennan buried evidence Putin favored Hillary in 2016 election
It's not really a big deal which candidate Putin favored; it's a big deal that Brennan suppressed evidence to support his Russia Hoax narrative in the Intelligence Community Assessment.
Court strikes down California's ammunition check law
California has a law requiring a background check before purchasing ammunition (and banning importation of ammunition across state lines). Or, I should say, had such a law. A court just struck it down on 2nd Amendment grounds.
Given that this is California, an appeal seems likely, but it's possible they don't want to risk setting broader precedent.
"Independent" autopsy finds Floyd died from asphyxiation
The autopsy was ordered by the Floyd family. That's not "independent"; it has a bias exactly in the opposite direction of the government autopsy, which found the presence of fentanyl and metamphetamines.
That doesn't mean you get to kneel on someone's neck for 8 minutes while they complain they can't breathe. That's still callous and potentially homicide, and the officer who did it should be charged (as he has in fact been) and potentially convicted.
But if you are doing honest journalism, you can't call either autopsy independent.
They really are organized, assuming the linked photo is real. They have organized communications, identification signs (including law enforcement), rules for violence and use of weapons, even a named DA (District Attorney?) as a point of contact.
Rosenstein testifies to the Senate Judiciary Committee
Feinstein, who was involved on the Senate Intel Committee when this was going on, is the ranking minority member. Lindsey Graham chairs the committee, a Republican whose bark is louder and more painful than his bite.
So far, my impression is that Rosenstein is not going to do well, and claim to be basically ignorant of anything. With regard to the FISA approval he signed, he claims he relied on what he was told was in the application -- meaning he is claiming he signed it without reading it. He can't identify anything McCabe lied to him about, even in hindsight, though he does admit there were some things that he felt McCabe was not candid about. So far he's trying to defend his decisions based on what he claims to have known at the time (versus what we know now). That's basically claiming ignorance of everything his subordinates were doing.
One sticky point is that he was asked if any of the investigative steps Mueller took relied upon the Steele dossier. Rosenstein says he doesn't know about individual steps. That's a dodge. Mueller got at least one renewal of the Page FISA which was almost entirely based on Steele's "information".
Dana Boente forced to resign from FBI over SpyGate
We get a kind of backwards confirmation that there were multiple FISA warrants on Flynn, because one of the justifications for letting Boente go was that he signed them. I'm not sure if that is accurate or if the story is confusing the warrants on Page with warrants on Flynn. But Boente was definitely involved and is now gone.
I call this progress, but justice will require more than resignations.
This is an obvious attempt at influencing the election, and should result in Twitter being denied any protections against suits for those tweets it does not correct or remove, as Twitter has now claimed for itself an editorial role rather than being a content-neutral service provider. Trump has responded with an executive order emphasizing the importance of free speech and declaring that, by stepping back from political neutrality, Twitter has become a publisher making editorial decisions instead of a platform, thus stripping their protections from suit under section 230 of the Communications Decency Act.
Flynn-Kislyak transcripts released, no discussion of sanctions
What this means is that Flynn did not lie to the FBI when they interviewed him about the call; the FBI lied to Flynn, the court and the public about the contents of the call. They made it up.
Surpreme Court moots New York gun case, but more on the way
After mooting a New York case due to New York changing their law specifically to avoid a Supreme Court ruling, the court distributed ten more 2nd Amendment cases for the next term. The Supreme Court can't duck these forever. The question is why they are ducking them now; Roberts and Kavanaugh voted with the liberals to moot the New York case, but the latter suggested he agreed with the dissenters about taking a different case. That leaves Roberts as a problem, and Kavanaugh as a question mark still.
It appears that the family of George Floyd, a man who died during the course of his arrest, has hired Ben Crump as their lawyer. The name may seem familiar to you. If so, give yourself a gold star. Ben Crump also represented the Trayvon Martin family in their efforts to get someone to pay them after their son attacked George Zimmerman and was shot and killed during the resulting fight.
Based on the performance of Ben Crump in that case, including a literally incredible witness swap allegation, I am now prepared to discount anything coming from the family or their legal team in this case.
Yes, the video looks really bad and the cases are not parallel. I don't believe the police officer kneeling on Floyd's neck or chest for 8 minutes was defending himself.
This declaration is actually long overdue given how ANTIFA has been involved in basically nothing but riots. That's basically the definition of violence against civilian population for political purposes. What will be really interesting here is how far AG Barr will be able to follow the communications from the organizers and funders. I suspect those communications lead to known political figures and organizations.
Steele also testified he was paying his sources, meaning they had a financial incentive to make things up. Steele said he got some of his information from Hillary's lawyers, and names Susan Rice as someone at the high level of the Obama administration who knew or was involved as early as July. That's the first direct information linking this to Obama's inner cycle, aside from occasional Strzok-Page texts referring to the White House.
Steele got Alfa Bank story directly from Clinton, DNC lawyer
So thje FBI knew this story was coming from the DNC and Clinton campaign when Sussman pitched to the James Baker, a top FBI official at the time. The two had worked together previously and so knew each other. The FBI can't claim ignorance of the politics by hiding behind Steele here. Steele was involved to give this frame-job a "credible" front, but it seems it was all made-up bullshit and Clinton lies.
The downside: it looks like they figured out a way to hack iPhones, even if it took them 5 months. This is a case where that is a good thing... but the technology can be applied to everyone, so there's some inherent risk.
Minneapolis calls for National Guard support to suppress riots
I hate to say it, but: it's a trap. The mayor wants to blame Trump (or really anyone else, but preferably Trump) for the resulting violence.
Who is really to blame? Possibly the policeman in question, who has a history of conduct complaints, and Democrat Amy Klobuchar for declining to prosecute them. It's funny how all of these problems occur in Democrat-controlled areas.
So just to be clear in how I characterize this: The reporter standing in front of a burning building describes it as "mostly a protest, not generally speaking unruly" while different reporters are egging people on to vandalize police buildings or bring pitchforks and torches to a Trump fundraiser.
Also, reality check: when you burn down someone's home or business, riot in their city, loot the stores they shop in, and then they hate you... that's not racism. That's cause and effect based on your actions.
The veto threat is basically the exact opposite of DOJ's recommendation to veto. Trump wants more protections. DOJ wants less. But they both want the bill vetoed. And if it doesn't get renewed, the surveillance authority goes away and is left in the hands of the President and his national-security discretion. Whether that's better or worse is a complicated debate, but burning down the current FISC and starting over seems like a good idea at this point.
But using personal and political connections in this case is hardly unprecedented. The judge who accepted Flynn's guilty plea almost immediately had to recuse himself when it became clear he was friendly on a personal level with the infamous Strzok, and the text messages suggest a desire by Strzok to discuss the case with the judge off-the-record using a personal event as cover.
More interesting reading from the comments at Meaning in History, linked above. It's speculation about the why behind this frantic cover up effort. The author thinks it's all about the Iran nuclear deal, and Flynn knows stuff about that that he can't talk about with criminal charges hanging over his head. That's part of it. But the other big thing that's being protected, I think, is the extensive use of the US (and allies) intelligence assets to manipulate elections. That's the prize that the deep state is frantic to protect.
