Cliff Varnell

6 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

I don’t know if it was “inevitable”, but to label a law professor a “fascist apologist” for compiling a timeline of objectively truthful information is certainly an indication of some form of “decline” in critical faculty.

Let’s do a deeper dive into Jonathan Turley’s apologia for Trumpian fascism.

More willful blindness by the media on spying by Obama administration

https://thehill.com/opinion/white-house/509002-more-willful-blindness-by-the-media-on-spying-by-obama-administration

<quote on>

The Washington press corps seems engaged in a collective demonstration of the legal concept of willful blindness, or deliberately ignoring the facts, following the release of yet another declassified document which directly refutes prior statements about the investigation into Russia collusion. The document shows that FBI officials used a national security briefing of then candidate Donald Trump and his top aides to gather possible evidence for Crossfire Hurricane, its code name for the Russia investigation.

It is astonishing that the media refuses to see what is one of the biggest stories in decades. The Obama administration targeted the campaign of the opposing party based on false evidence. </q>

What’s truly astonishing is Turley’s ignorance of the traditional independence of the Justice Department in general and the FBI in particular.  

The FBI was noisily investigating Hillary Clinton’s e-mails also, which no one claims Obama ordered.

Turley cont’d:

<quote on>
The media covered Obama administration officials ridiculing the suggestions of spying on the Trump campaign and of improper conduct with the Russia investigation. When Attorney General William Barr told the Senate last year that he believed spying did occur, he was lambasted in the media, including by James Comey and others involved in that investigation. The mocking “wow” response of the fired FBI director received extensive coverage. </q>

Apparently Jonathan Turley (or Jeff Carter either) couldn’t bother reading the Inspector General report from December of last year.

https://www.factcheck.org/2019/12/how-old-claims-compare-to-ig-report/

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On Dec. 9, the Department of Justice’s Office of the Inspector General released its report on the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation into whether individuals associated with the Trump campaign were coordinating with Russia’s interference in the 2016 election. That report contradicts some of the claims the president, and other Republicans, have made over the years about the investigation, but it also supports at least one assertion.

Republicans, including President Donald Trump, have claimed that the FBI’s Russia investigation was sparked by a dossier compiled by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele. But the IG report said that “Steele’s reports played no role in the Crossfire Hurricane opening.”

•   Trump repeatedly has accused the FBI of illegally spying on his campaign. But the IG report “found no evidence that the FBI placed any” confidential sources or undercover agents in the Trump campaign or tasked any such sources “to report on the Trump campaign.”
• Trump has accused the FBI of obtaining a surveillance warrant of former campaign aide Carter Page under false pretenses. The IG report didn’t find “intentional misconduct,” but it did find at least 17 “significant inaccuracies and omissions” in court applications for Page’s warrant.
•   The IG report also debunked Trump’s claims that the investigation was motivated by political bias on the part of FBI staff. The report found no “documentary or testimonial evidence that political bias or improper motivation” influenced the opening of the investigation or decision-making during it.

...The FBI investigation, the report said, was launched based on information from a “Friendly Foreign Government” about George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign foreign policy adviser, claiming the Russians had damaging information on Hillary Clinton.  </q>

Turley cont’d:

<quote on>
The new document shows that, in summer 2016, FBI agent Joe Pientka briefed Trump campaign advisers Michael Flynn and Chris Christie over national security issues, standard practice ahead of the election. It had a discussion of Russian interference. But this was different. The document detailing the questions asked by Trump and his aides and their reactions was filed several days after that meeting under Crossfire Hurricane and Crossfire Razor, the FBI investigation of Flynn. The two FBI officials listed who approved the report are Kevin Clinesmith and Peter Strzok.

Clinesmith is the former FBI lawyer responsible for the FISA surveillance conducted on members of the Trump campaign. He opposed Trump and sent an email after the election declaring “viva the resistance.” He is now under review for possible criminal charges for altering a FISA court filing. The FBI used Trump adviser Carter Page as the basis for the original FISA application, due to his contacts with Russians. After that surveillance was approved, however, federal officials discredited the collusion allegations and noted that Page was a CIA asset. Clinesmith had allegedly changed the information to state that Page was not working for the CIA.

Strzok is the FBI agent whose violation of FBI rules led Justice Department officials to refer him for possible criminal charges. Strzok did not hide his intense loathing of Trump and famously referenced an “insurance policy” if Trump were to win the election. After FBI officials concluded there was no evidence of any crime by Flynn at the end of 2016, Strzok prevented the closing of the investigation as FBI officials searched for any crime that might be used to charge the incoming national security adviser.

Turley:

<quote on, emphasis added>
Documents show Comey briefed President Obama and Vice President Joe Biden on the investigation shortly before the inauguration of Trump. </q>

Shortly before?  How could Obama have ordered a politically motivated investigation into Trump shortly before he left office??

Turley:

<quote on>

When Comey admitted the communications between Flynn and Russian officials appeared legitimate, Biden reportedly suggested using the Logan Act, a law widely seen as unconstitutional and never been used to successfully convict a single person, as an alternative charge against Flynn. The memo contradicts eventual claims by Biden that he did not know about the Flynn investigation. Let us detail some proven but mostly unseen facts. </q>

Do tell, Mr. Turley, do tell...

<quote on>
First, the Russia collusion allegations were based in large  part on the dossier funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.</q>

That’s a big fat lie oft repeated by big fat l-i-a-r-s.

1 hour ago, Jeff Carter said:

I don’t know if it was “inevitable”, but to label a law professor a “fascist apologist” for compiling a timeline of objectively truthful information is certainly an indication of some form of “decline” in critical faculty.

But that “objectively truthful information” ignored the FBI’s very public handling of the bogus Clinton e-mail investigation.  The quiet investigation of inconsequential Trumpers was out of line, but the public pillory of Hillary was fine ‘n’ dandy!

Turley accuses “the Obama Administration“ of conducting the investigation into Russian influence on the Trump campaign.  Are we to also accuse the “Obama Administration” of conducting the investigation into Clinton’s e-mails?

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The “Resistance” on this forum has been consistently wrong in their assertions three years running, and consistently apoplectic in their denunciation of anyone who attempts to set the record straight.

Let’s take one example of Team Fascism’s inability to exercise anything like a “critical faculty.”

At the 1:30 mark Julian Assange brings up the subject of the Seth Rich murder.  Since no journalist worth their salt would ever offer up an actual source, even if the source were deceased, we can logically conclude Seth Rich had nothing to do with the DNC e-mail hack.  Moreover, since no ethical journalist would reveal the methods by which their sources obtained the material, we can rule out a DNC leak.

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Turley is surely correct in stating there exist “troubling implications of national security powers being used to target the political opponents of an administration”, although the misuse itself may be reflective of an inevitable decline - a particularly cogent point of conversation lost in all the shouting.

Was Hillary Clinton a political opponent of the Obama Administration?

The FBI investigation into minor Trump campaign operatives was kept quiet while the FBI investigation into Clinton’s e-mails dominated the cable news cycles for the entire last 11 days of the 2016 campaign, effectively throwing the election to Trump.

During the Bill Clinton impeachment drama Turley was a regular on cable news shows claiming that lying about an extra-marital affair was grounds for removal of a twice elected President.  But when Trump tried to extort the Ukrainian government to help his re-election — that was just fine ‘n’ dandy!

3 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

It appears that the Antifas primary goal is to provoke. 

Since the protests were peaceful in Portland before Trump inserted his secret police, it appears the fascists primary goal is to provoke — right out of the Mussolini playbook.

24 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

 

Heard somewhere yesterday. "The people who are complaining about Federal Agents being sent in to cities to protect Federal Court Houses are OK that Federal Agents were sent into the Trump Campaign in the Summer of 2016."

The people who are complaining about the FBI quietly investigating members of the the 2016 Trump campaign are OK with the head of the FBI publicly smearing the Clinton campaign over benign e-mails — effectively throwing the election to Trump.

Turley is a well known apologist for Fascism.

3 hours ago, Greg Doudna said:

These blur episodes in Zapruder indicate five, not three, gunshots.

Simultaneous volleys sound like a single report, so there is no telling how many actual shots were fired.

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#2, Z180-193. Just before disappearance behind the freeway sign. Another shooter (Dal-Tex building) with suppressor fires a bullet matched to Oswald's rifle. JFK is hit in the back and reacts.

He reacts to a shot in the back by raising his fists to his throat? Nonsense.

Isn’t it amazing that Glen Bennett could accurately describe a back shot “about four inches down from the right shoulder” (the bullet holes in the clothes are four inches below the bottoms of the collars) when, according to his statements and Willis 5 (Z202), he was facing to the right?

Did he have an extra eye in his left ear?

Here’s Nellie Connally’s WC testimony:

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Mrs. CONNALLY. In fact the receptions had been so good every place that I had showed much restraint by not mentioning something about it before.

I could resist no longer. When we got past this area I did turn to the President and said, "Mr. President, you can't say Dallas doesn't love you." Then I don't know how soon, it seems to me it was very soon, that I heard a noise, and not being an expert rifleman, I was not aware that it was a rifle. It was just a frightening noise, and it came from the right.  I turned over my right shoulder and looked back, and saw the President as he had both hands at his neck. <\q>

Linda Willis:

<quote on, emphasis added>
Mr. LIEBELER. Did You hear any shots, or what you later learned to be shots, as the motorcade came past you there?

Miss WILLIS. Yes; I heard one. Then there was a little bit of time, and then there were two real fast bullets together. When the first one hit, well, the President turned from waving to the people, and he grabbed his throat, and he kind of slumped forward, and then I couldn’t tell where the second shot went. <\q>

Nellie Connally and Linda Willis got it wrong?

This first-shot/back-shot nonsense is Pet Theorizing run amok, nothing more than implied witness bashing.

👅

6 hours ago, David Josephs said:

That south knoll shot may have cleared the windshield and have been Cliff's shot to the throat 

I didn’t shoot him in the throat...I swear!🥺

I was in Mrs Villanueva’s 3rd grade class at McKinley (!) Elementary in Petaluma, CA.

The wound pattern — entrance, no exit, no bullet found in the autopsy — is consistent with the autopsists speculation JFK was hit with a hi-tech round.

That speculation doesn’t belong to me any more than the throat entrance...just say’n...

Vincent Salandria pointed out in 1965 that any homicide investigation begins with a thorough examination of the physical evidence and the contemporaneous accounts of witnesses in position of authority.

The clothing evidence and the 11/22/63 accounts of 7 men in position of authority establish the T3 back wound and throat entrance.

The JFKA Master Class does not recognize these root facts, as evidenced by the 2017 Oswald Mock Trial, which failed to convince 7 out of 12 jurors of a conspiracy.

Josiah Thompson authored the Pet Theorist Handbook — Six Seconds In Dallas — wherein he obfuscated the T3 back wound and throat entrance wound.  Generations of Pet Theorists have followed, all denying the prima facie case for conspiracy.

21 hours ago, Ron Ecker said:

"Person, woman, man, camera, TV."

"I have, like, a good memory, because I'm cognitively there.”

This must be what Wheeler means by Trump’s enormous appeal to black voters...

https://mobile.twitter.com/QuickTake/status/1287814149347717121?ref_src=twsrc^tfw|twcamp^tweetembed|twterm^1287814149347717121|twgr^&ref_url=https%3A%2F%2Fthehill.com%2Fhomenews%2Fadministration%2F509206-trump-will-not-visit-capitol-to-pay-respects-to-civil-rights-icon

1 hour ago, Greg Doudna said:

Cliff Varnell, in your three-shot reconstruction in which the first was JFK throat from the front, the second JFK in the back, and third the JFK head shot, where do you put Connally being hit?

Not much data available on the timing of the Connally hit, other than Connally’s own statements.

Unlike JFK, there isn’t a witness who saw Connally get hit.

I don’t know how many head shots JFK suffered.  In my book the head shot/s subject is a waste of time.

20 minutes ago, Micah Mileto said:

None of this pertains to the EOP wound. Do you suspect here was no EOP wound? We'll never know until the body is dug up.

The throat wound doesn’t pertain to the EOP wound.  The first shot struck him in the throat, from the front.  That’s why JFK’s initial response was to place his fists in front of his throat.

Why is that fact so difficult to process?

This should have been settled in the 60’s but for an army of Pet Theorists pimping false mysteries.

13 minutes ago, Micah Mileto said:

What's so wrong about thinking the throat wound could be an exit for a bullet or fragment hitting the EOP?

Because you’re ignoring the witness testimonies and neck x-ray in order to promote a Lone Nut talking point.

You’re bashing witnesses who described the throat wound as an entrance, and you’re bashing the most well-corroborated single witness in the case — Secret Service Special Agent Glen Bennett.  Bennett made a contemporaneous written report describing the back shot occurring right before the head shot in a “bang...bang-bang” shooting sequence.  There are 56 ear witness statements to the bang...bang-bang sequence.

Since the second bang was the back shot and the third bang was the head shot that leaves the throat shot first.

You’re ignoring the air pocket overlaying the right C7/T1 transverse processes.

I find this Pet Theorizing repugnant, to put it mildly.

12 minutes ago, Greg Doudna said:

throat exit 

No amount of evidence gets a Pet Theorist off their beloved pet theories.  Ever.

14 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

You are a tool.

Irony lives!

1 minute ago, Robert Wheeler said:

Come on Paul. You are being played.

Are you going to blame Trump for the fake alien invasion?

It’s a fake Fake Alien Invasion. The recently revealed existence of vehicles “not of this world” was met with a collective shrug.

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How do you not see the riots as a continuum?

One outstanding feature of Trumpism is the inability to take responsibility for anything at all. Trump’s fascist power play in Portland has re-ignited protests which Trump will use as a rationale for further State Violence.

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You are still in an R vs. D paradigm, liberal vs. conservative, black vs. white.

It isn’t sand Wheeler has his head shoved into.

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It's insider vs. outsider.

It’s Bible-Thumper fascists against the rest of us.

1 hour ago, Robert Wheeler said:

You are not worth a reply. Most of the others that I disagree with here at least make an effort.

Wheeler declares war then snowflakes when fired upon.

https://m.dailykos.com/stories/1963525

You don't have mail: New postmaster general is generating exactly the anger and distrust Trump wants
Neither rain, nor snow, nor gloom of night may prevent Postal Service employees from visiting the box near you, but across the country there’s evidence that political pressure really can “stay these couriers from the swift completion of their appointed rounds.” In New Jersey, residents say they’re going days without mail. In Chicago, citizens complain that their deliveries are running weeks behind. And California residents are fretting over mortgages and rents put in jeopardy by a mail service that seems frozen. 

There’s no doubt that some of the chatter about a sluggish mail service is of the watched-pot variety; with millions of Americans stuck at home, the visit from the mail person has become much more of a daily highlight than it has been since the days when the Sears catalog was still a thing. But boredom and hyperawareness can’t account for all the claims that have been spreading, particularly ones that suggest specific forms of mail are being privileged while others are left to gather dust. And with Donald Trump complaining about voting by mail, installing a new postmaster general, and constantly threatening the Postal Service’s entire existence, it’s all too easy to believe that service doesn’t have problems; it has sabotage at the highest levels.

More than ever, the COVID-19 crisis is forcing people to not just be aware of the mail, but to be dependent on it. More and more of the day-to-day things that people need are being delivered as packages, which makes stories about undelivered packages and post offices with lines around the block doubly frustrating. Not only are people having to waste time trying to locate items that should have been delivered, their time waiting for service at the post office can expose them to the same health threats that caused them to order a delivery in the first place. That problem can be compounded even further if what’s in the missing box is necessary medicine.

Other customers are finding that bills are late to arrive. That can mean running up additional costs on medical bills, or causing someone to lose a credit card at a time when that card could be a vital lifeline. Many, though far from all, evictions may have been put on hold during the pandemic, but there’s a growing backlog of Americans who could be on the street as soon as protections are lifted; and some of them could be there because they missed critical paperwork in the mail. Many Americans, especially those working at “essential” but somehow still low wage positions, still receive their paychecks through the mail. When that check is late, it has a cascade effect on everything.

So what’s going on?

The critical factor seems to be changes introduced by new Postmaster General Louis DeJoy. DeJoy was a predominate Republican Party  fundraiser who Trump rewarded with the postmaster job in June, after months of complaints and threats by Trump.

As The Washington Post reported two weeks ago, DeJoy immediately implemented a major change in the way the Postal Service operates. The intention seems to have been to reduce overtime and cut back on the number of daily deliveries. The effect is that mail that would have normally been moved along in one day is stuck in place for several days as workers face overwhelming demand and intentionally limited resources. In a memo to workers, DeJoy continually cited his intention to run the Postal Service more “like a business,” and pointed at U.S. companies that had failed in the past. DeJoy did not mention that those companies died from a lack of demand and being outcompeted by lower-price providers, factors that are the opposite of the issues plaguing the Postal Service.

Postmaster generals generally have post office experience and generally stay in place for an extended period, but DeJoy slipped into office with almost no attention from Congress or the press. He’s the first person in half a century to lead the office without having started as a letter carrier.

But if DeJoy doesn’t know how to carry letters, he certainly knows how to carry water for Trump. DeJoy seems to recognize that his entire role at the Postal Service is to breed contempt with the public. Months of late bills, missing checks, and lost packages are exactly what Trump wants to see, both to bolster his argument against vote-by-mail and to make him “right” about the need to privatize mail delivery. 

There’s also the little matter that DeJoy himself has between “$30.1 million and $75.3 million in assets in USPS competitors or contractors.” It’s such a major conflict of interest that DeJoy should never have been accepted into the role. Except that an ideological crony with every incentive to wreck the department he’d been handed was exactly what Trump was looking for.

Chuck Schumer sent a letter to the postal board of governors and representatives from the Trump White House in June, demanding to see the information on how DeJoy was selected for the position. However … it appears his letter got lost. You can bet it will stay lost, right up until Election Day.

8 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

 

“Trump protests that he campaigned on a promise of disengagement from endless wars, but he is blocked from fulfilling the promise.

The isolation of Trump within his own government brings to mind the similar isolation of John F. Kennedy, as described in the 2008 book by James W. Douglass, JFK and the Unspeakable...

Similar isolation?

Disengagement from endless wars?

Trump moved the US Embassy to Jerusalem, pulled out of the Iran nuke deal which slapped crippling sanctions on the Iranian economy, whacked the top Iranian military man — damn! where’s his Nobel prize?

Conflating Kennedy’s considered foreign policies with Trump’s whimsies is absurd.

We’ve had 70 years of Hollywood preparation to accept the existence of aliens.

Alien vehicles...meh...

25 minutes ago, Robert Wheeler said:

The fake Alien Invasion is coming guys!

https://d-state-research.com/home/deep-state-fake-alien-invasion-for-profit-and-distraction/

Wheeler can only hope.  Anything to distract from Trump’s Big Fascist Move.

https://www.rawstory.com/2020/07/trump-deploys-tactical-team-of-dhs-agents-to-seattle-as-judge-blocks-his-troops-in-portland/

No body cares about aliens outside a few hysterics.

2 hours ago, Jeff Carter said:

 

Additionally, CounterPunch - surprisingly - published today a rather sympathetic view of JFK’s foreign policy outlook, comparing it to today’s issues with somewhat more nuance than “The Resistance” has yet managed:

Jeff Carter knows less than nothing about the anti-Trump Resistance.

56 minutes ago, Sandy Larsen said:

 

Nah.

A few weeks ago, googling "walmart" didn't bring up Walmart.com for me. "amazon" didn't bring up Amazon.com. Same thing with a number of others I tried. Google was just broken for a while.

Try again later.

 

 

Why do people Google when they can DuckDuckGo?