Infuriating.

CBS News uses a picture from a Trump rally to illustrate a Biden rally. Did they think no one would notice the signs, hats, and so on?

Of course, when you look at the pictures from the actual Biden rally, it's understandable. The media are desperate.

This move is long overdue. Wray has been keeping the cover-up going and has been a thorn in the side of investigators and the public seeking to understand Spygate. The question will be whether a replacement can be confirmed before the election, and if not, will an "acting" Director be able to change course quickly enough to matter?

Flynn's attorney Sidney Powell has apparently been floated as a candidate. She has been absolutely amazing in representing Flynn. I don't know enough about her qualifications for the post to be really sure if she would make a good director, but I am absolutely sure she would shake things up and the FBI needs a damn good shaking up.

Some people are saying Trump shouldn't fire Wray before the election because it might cause fallout similar to what happened when Trump fired Comey. That's certainly a risk. But there are risks to accepting that argument too -- should Presidents really be held hostage to their own FBI and DOJ under threat of investigations and special counsels for simply making hiring and firing decisions?

Mr President, I say, damn the torpedoes -- full steam ahead!

Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg has died of complications from cancer. I disagreed with her on many things, but I won't celebrate her death.

However, with only a few weeks to go before the election, the left will see the chance of losing control of the Supreme Court for real. (Despite the supposedly conservative majority, enough Justices go wobbly that the left has had significant influence on cases that matter to them). They will go absolutely crazy to prevent Trump from successfully nominating and confirming a replacement. And if they manage to block a confirmation before the election, the election itself will have massively increased levels of violence, fraud, riots, and everything else. The left will see this election as being for all the marbles. The right, among which I count myself, will see a chance to make lasting gains on goals long denied.

This election was already tense, with figures on the left openly threatening succession and civil war if they lose. This will only increase the tensions. Civil war is now a real possibility.

Apparently, universities think they can regulate off-campus speech and opinions. The political environment on campus these days is absolutely toxic. Another student at a different school gets the police called on him after writing an email mocking diversity demands.

Angus McThag has video of police abuse. That's not how officers need to be interacting with the public.

Sara Carter discusses the emails, which appear to reference a confidential informant inside the White House.

PJMedia has the news. Obviously, a search isn't proof of anything, but they got a warrant which requires probable cause. And just because the individual got himself in trouble doesn't really mean Biden or the campaign knew anything about it. But Biden can be pretty creepy himself.

Summary of other allegations about Biden's creepy behavior.

People are trying to deny that arson is a (partial) caquse of the wildfires on the west coast. This is a collection of links to alleged arson cases related to those fires.

Man admitted he used molotov cocktail to start brush fire in Portland. He was released and shortly thereafter arrested again for setting 6 more fires.

Four more arrests in Oregon, California, and Washington State for arson.

Eight suspicious fires in two hours being investigated in Oregon.

Up to 84% of wildfires are ignited by humans (and 21% deliberate arson). I bet many of those in the 84% but not in the 21% are attributed to downed power lines. And guess what? Someone is cutting down power lines.

Another Portland arrest for arson. Not a wildfire, though. He allegedly tried to set the natural gas pipeline of a hotel on fire. The police asked the witness to take down her posts "to avoid incitement"; I call bullshit on that. They just don't want people to know what is really going on.

Police on the ground seem to know what's going on.

ISIS calls for US Muslims to look for places to set fires.

Aggregator site for news reports about wildfires and arson.

(Hat tip for many of these links)

As of January 2017 Steele was fully discredited, and yet the investigation continued for years. More analysis here.

The activity by Durham behind the scenes appears to be picking up. That's making Mueller and his team nervous to the point of writing misleading opinion pieces attempting to defend their investigation.

Just The News has more information on the released documents. Noteable, Strzok himself (one of the agents on the case, and famously fired for being anti-Trump among other misconduct) fisks an article in the New York Times for extensive incorrect information against Trump.

Declassifying the FBI interview with Danchenko has shaken loose a lot of information and implications.

Universal mail-in voting is a complete disaster for election security, which is why Democrats are so eager to use it in 2020.

The federal system moves slowly and isn't intended to deal with local issues, but once it begins it can grind exceedingly fine... unless Biden gets elected.

Reinoehl was killed while police tried to take him into custody, details are unclear. He had previously been interviewed for Vice News, in which he confessed to the shooting while claiming self-defense but leaving details unspecified.

His comments support my earlier post. He thinks he's in a civil war.

New York Post

“Honestly, I hate to say it but I see a civil war right around the corner. That shot felt like the beginning of a war,” he added.

You could easily assume from that he wanted to start the war, especially given his death while being arrested.

The local FBI office is denying reports that "extremists" were responsible for setting the fires. Since people have actually been arrested and charged, we can only take that as a denial that the people involved were "extremists" with, presumably, links to the two groups known to be actively burning things down lately: Black Lives Matter and Antifa. But, there are also reports that several of the arson incidents were coordinated.

The allegation is that Biden "cupped the breast" of a Secret Service agent's girlfriend during a photo op, and the agent was pissed enough to shove Biden. The Secret Service admitted documents existed but claimed they were destroyed. The allegation itself doesn't speak well of either the agent or Biden, but it would serve as crucial confirmation that Biden's groping is a real problem and not just people looking uncomfortable in pictures.

Of course it would be better if the agent personally came out to talk about it, but there are likely a lot of career reasons and even legal reasons he might not want to do that.

Gleeson filed his amicus brief in the Flynn case. No surprise, he's arguing that the dismissal should be denied and alleges without evidence that it is a pressure campaign by Trump for political purposes. (Clue: Trump is President and doesn't need pressure campaigns; he can validly issue orders if he so chooses. Barr has denied both orders and pressure campaigns.)

Notably, Gleeson was assisted in his brief by colleague David O'Neil, who is representing ex-DOJ official Sally Yates. Yates is a material witness to the events of the Flynn case and clearly has personal interests in how it is resolved.

Note that even under Wray and Barr, they still have to sue.

It's complicated.

This mass phone wipe by Mueller's special counsel team is strong evidence that they knew they had something to hide. Weissmann apparently did this to two of three phones. Details.

A refresher on what we know about this task force. It's not much, but the existence seems solid.

Unlike Obama, he actually did something to deserve the nomination. Specifically, he brokered peace between Israel and the United Arab Emirates and improved relations with North Korea, with other negotiations ongoing, all while avoiding US involvement in additional wars.

UPDATE: Another nomination for the Kosovo-Serbia peace agreement. Bahrain has joined the deal with UAE and Israel.

Well, it's perhaps better to ask why he is making that claim now. It's because there is an FBI rule about making announcements that could influence election results within a 60 day window before the election, and we are just now inside the window. Strzok figures he is safe from being contradicted (or charged!) between now and the election. And he figures that if Biden wins, he's safe permanently.

He's probably right about being safe if Biden wins. But there's a flaw in the other part of the plan.

Almost no one was involved in the Spygate conspiracy is currently running for office. So Strzok and all of his FBI friends may not be as safe as they think. The only one involved who is actually running for anything is Biden, and no one expects Durham to actually try to reach that high. The rest of the conspirators are basically hiding under Biden's umbrella. If Durham is serious, that may not turn out well for them.

FISC issues report claiming widespread violations of the querying standard by the FBI.