Whistleblower attorney worked directly for Clapper
Clapper is, of course, allegedly involved in SpyGate up to his neck. Much of SpyGate involved information from the Ukraine. The whistleblower was complaining about Trump getting cooperation from Ukraine on investigating SpyGate in that country (along with alleged corruption involving the Bidens and Burisma).
That seems like a substantial conflict of interest at a minimum. More likely, the attorney was heavily involved with the complaint as a way to defend his former boss.
UPDATE: The talking head twice uses the uncomfortable terminology "appears to show" when describing the Knob Creek video as depicting the Turkish assault. That sounds to me like he knows it doesn't even as he airs the video.
Judicial Watch investigates monitoring of journalists
If this list is even halfway accurate, this is huge news. This list is filled with journalists who have been heavily reporting on the SpyGate scandal. If they were monitored, and the monitoring ordered by the ousted Ambassador to Ukraine (who was likely involved in SpyGate itself)... "BOMBSHELL" has been a bit overused but certainly explosive.
Does this mean the operation of the special counsel itself will come under scrutiny? We can hope so. The special counsel's operation was certainly part of the whole "insurance policy".
A Seattle man was arrested and his guns seized under a red flag law. The "cause" was supposedly online threats about the Joker movie. As described in the article, as a joke it was in bad taste. Apparently he had prior social media posts that some people found disturbing and threatening, but apparently none of those were legally actionable. Aside from the joker post, they describe a few things: "guns in his home, tucked into his waistband, or displayed in wooded areas." I don't see anything illegal or disturbing about that. He had photos of standard capacity magazines for a rifle. Nothing problematic there.
One post mentioned using gun kits to make "ghost guns" by scrubbing the serial numbers off; that's illegal if it is described, but that's not what you do with a gun kit. The normal way this works is: you manufacture a lower receiver (the regulated "firearm" part) from a rough blank and then assemble the full firearm from parts obtained separately. If you do it right, it's legal, with some limitations (like you can't sell it).
Don't try this without researching the laws yourself or ideally with a lawyer. I'm not one and I haven't ever done this. But I understand it's legal when done right.
And the man obtained a concealed carry license in May, which was later revoked. No word on whether it was revoked because of the recent red flag confiscation, but that seems a logical assumption. And they issued it in May, meaning at that time he didn't have a felony criminal record.
And they confiscated his guns "without incident", which sort of suggests he was not a threat, just someone who posted a bad joke on social media and happened to own guns.
Assuming my read is correct, I hope this guy sues.
Giuliani investigators arrested on campaign finance charges
No idea about the validity of the campaign finance charges, but it's telling that these are people Giuliani has been working with to investigate Ukraine collusion with Obama to influence the 2016 election. It's also telling that the FBI has apparently been monitoring their communications. Their arrest on campaign finance charges is very, very convenient timing for the Deep State and takes them out of play in the short term, while monitoring their communications and possibly those talking to them (two hop rule?) would give the Deep State a window into what Giuliani is doing and planning.
Furthering that view, the investigation was carried out by the Manhattan office, a known hotbed of anti-Trump views
This is the defense Susan Rice was setting up with her "By the book" email to herself. The defense will be "Gosh we thought this was legit info and we had to look into it. The president said to do it by the book."
Except the origination of the information was known to be BS opposition research fantasies with almost no basis in reality, and the information was presented to the courts to obtain a warrant was falsely presented as verified when it was not and could not be because it was false.
Was Journalist John Solomon spied on? How many others?
His sources say yes, and based on his journalism about SpyGate, he has very good sources. He's far from the only person to be inappropriately spied on lately, too. According to a new report from the FISA court, the FBI/CIA/NSA did not stop abusing their surveillance capability in 2016. They continued to abuse it through 2017 and 2018, with illegal searches in the tens of thousands.
Details here. Notable: multiple handheld explosive devices (grenades), helmet with a mounted camera, livestreamed.
It's getting really disingenous to claim that there is no desire for fame contributing to these attacks when the attackers go to the substantial trouble and expense of purchasing the gear to livestream them. And the livestream makes me wonder who the audience was.
There was an arrest in truck incident with 8 victims, "not being treated as terrorism" for some reason known only to Merkel.
I'm reserving judgment on Horowitz until we see his report on FISA abuse. He's generated referrals before, even if they were not actually acted on. His report on the Clinton email investigation did seem tough, but generated little in terms of consequences. (No, "bias training" for all FBI employees is not "consequences").
Disturbingly, the linked article reports Horowitz did not interview Page, which seems a major oversight. And seeing articles like this appear -- with people expressing doubts -- sounds to me like battlespace preparation for a nothingburger. Not because there's no meat, but because the chef was unwilling to fry it.
Did Obama order Democrats to get dirt on Trump from Ukraine?
Asking a foreign government to cooperate with an investigation of credible allegations of corruption with real evidence (even a video recording of an admission!) is legitimate, even if the suspect is running for the nomination to oppose you. You don't get a pass from corruption laws because you run for office -- or rather, you shouldn't, even though it seems to work that way for Democrats. Thatg's what Trump has been doing: asking for cooperation with legitimate investigations.
Giuliani seems to be saying Obama actually ordered Democrats to dig up "dirt" on an opposition candidate.
If true, there's a substantial difference between the two. A legitimate investigation versus a political hit job.
Now, we don't know yet what Giuliani is describing. We'll have to evaluate that when we see the evidence. But we do know what Biden admitted to doing -- conditioning US aid on firing a prosecutor investigating the company his son worked for. That seems corrupt on its face.
Mind you, we know a little about what came out of Ukraine in 2016 about Trump. This was the "black ledger" allegations against Manafort. There is speculation they might be straight up fakes. If that's what Obama ordered and what Ukraine delivered, it's election interference by fraud and abuse of office.
Obama has shown no reluctance to interfere in foreign elections himself, so it wouldn't be surprising to see him soliciting interference to help his party at home.
This shouldn't be news to anyone who has been paying attention for the past 20 years. In particular, the Tea Party was a major attempt to force the Republican party to respect the actual beliefs of its voters. This was followed by Trump, with a similar goal (combined with a broader populist appeal). It's an ongoing struggle, and even if Trump wins a second time and practical control of the party, it will inevitably be necessary to repeat the process eventually.
The Democrats went through a similar process with Hillary v Obama. Their populists won when Obama was nominated, but Obama failed to fully seize control of the party itself. This led to Hillary in 2016. Now the Democratic civil war between the major factions -- party, or populism -- continues in the run up to 2020.
