Ace of Spades Pet Thread

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Welcome to the almost world famous Ace of Spades Pet Thread. Tell the 4 legged kid to take a break so you can.

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A Little of This. A Little of That.

How to hold a cat.

Funny cats.

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Meet The PetMorons

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(959)

Greetings, Pet Thread,

So two of my parakeets thought it would be a blast to build a nest, and a blast to lay eggs and hatch them, but when it came time to raise the babies, Mama bailed out and left the grandhuman in charge. Yeah, me. The two smaller chicks unfortunately died within hours. The oldest chick was seven or eight days old, bald as Patrick Stewart, weighed 14 grams, and as you can see from photo 713, she looked like a space alien. Rowdy looked so weird that it took about a week for me to figure out she was a she.

I ran to the pet store, grabbed some birdie baby formula, and for the next week fed her warm mush every two hours. Made her an incubator in a small box by placing her atop a plastic lunch meat container filled with warm water, setting a hamster igloo around her, and covering it all with a hand towel.

She let me use a tiny bottle to feed her the first day, then her personality kicked in and she demanded the dignity of a spoon. If she didn't get her way, she threw dignity on the linoleum and resorted to screaming fits, flapping her stubs of wings and kicking her legs, hence her name. Rowdy ate whatever appeared in front of her. Within ten days she'd doubled her weight and sprouted tiny feathers.

In photo 861 she's 24 days old, her life was no longer in danger, she'd started letting me sleep some at night because she only needed to eat every four hours, and I finally realized her feet were malformed. That's food all over her face, by the way. At that age, she loved diving face first into things, especially breakfast. But because her feet are twisted and at the time her legs stuck straight out behind her, she can't walk and wouldn't try to stand.

On Monday Rowdy met the avian vet and hated the poor woman on sight. A hobble made from a paperclip and medical wrap put Rowdy's legs where they belong, but they swelled during the treatment and we have to wait for that to go down before we can do anything about her poor little curled toes. Oh, and the anti-inflammatory medicine keeps her hungry, so we're back to every two hours on the feeding. Figures, huh?

Photos 959 and 960 were taken Friday night. She's 32 days old and looking more like a parakeet. She weighs 34 grams and still eats like a pig. Enclosing a photo with her wings down so you can see their yellow and black-brown pattern, and one with her wings up so you can see the gorgeous blue color she's going to be. It's an unusual combination. In both photos her swollen leg is visible. Here's hoping that swelling goes down soon so we can teach her to sit up and grip with her feet and I can move her onto my shoulder and out of my left palm, because typing this one-handed is a bitch, let me tell you.

And then Rowdy can be our company mascot. She's gonna need a blog, and a Twitter account, and…

Cheers,

Gunnar Grey, lurker

Wow, that is quite the adventure Gunnar Grey. We thank you for taking the time to submit one heck of an interesting story. Keep us posted as time flies along.

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Did you ever have a dog that cannot ever be replaced? Well, meet Charlie. He's been gone nearly 7 years. Here we are taking a break on an ATV trip. He still is my wallpaper on the work pc. -Mis. Hum.

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Good morning!

I'm a relative newbie to the site but have found it an absolute refuge - thank you! I joke with my friend who shared the site with me that it might be the best part of our friendship. I've been meaning to share a few pictures of my girl Piglet but had not made the time. Sadly now I write to you as she passed away about 2 weeks ago and has probably just begun to stir things up in heaven.

Piglet found me about 13 years ago. The dog that probably should not have blossomed but did anyways and along the way shared with me an entertaining journey of love and laughter. Always a patriot, the 2 attached pictures are from a 12 Months of Pig calendar we put together a few years back - Piggy Bank and the Bay of Pigs - both her ideas I might add. She loved food, country and naps, in that order.

Keep up the inspiring work and Godspeed Piglet. My heart is broken but I wouldn't change a thing.

Sincerely,

Shelly

Hey Shelly thank you for the submission of Piglette. We are really sorry that she passed on. Sounds like she was one of a kind.

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Thanks everyone for the photos and stories.

Do you have something pet or animal related you wish to share? Please contact us at petmorons at gmail dot com

Have a great weekend!!!!

Close it up

Saturday Gardening Thread: Garden Challenges [KT]

—Open Blogger

Don in Kansas has a great post up on the history of this orchid, popular in Japan before the tropical orchids hit the big time. He decided to grow this orchid, too. Be sure to read it.

And check out orchid photos he took during a visit to college greenhouse facilities recently. There are special instructions for getting the best visual experience. Fun!

Garden Challenges

We have discussed some big garden challenges before, like hurricanes, tornadoes, floods, wildfires, etc. But here are some that are a bit more unusual:

How about a volcanic curtain of fire?

This one is not as serious, but still. tumbleweeds burying a neighborhood. Dang Siberians.

American Digest had a long thought piece up on how progressivism can produce, over time, resistance to traditionalism.

One of my favorite stories of this kind is the local apiarist (beekeeper) in my neighborhood. He told me that the first seven years of him keeping bees he never had more than a couple of jars for himself. Even though he had gotten into it with the idea of selling honey, he found that he neighbors were so hostile to the idea of having bees around that he had to walk around the neighborhood after every harvest and hand out jars of honey. Hundreds of kilos every year was given away. Over time the neighbors figured out that the bees were not dangerous and that this man was not abusing their neighborhood but actually making it a better place. More people started keeping flowers in their gardens and eventually the man could start selling his produce rather than giving it away.

We have some bees. I guess the folks around here are not quite as "urban" as the ones in the story above.

Plant Identification

CaliGirl took some photos of plants at a newly remodeled motel in the Santa Ynez Valley. This one was in what was once the parking area, but is now a landscaped area that reminds her of the Palm Springs area. Which makes sense.

Here's a closeup from a similar, more mature plant:

These plants are related to the following plant, and require similar care, including avoidance of phosphorus fertilizer. Apparently, plants in this family just love phosphorus to death. And a low water use environment is best. Not the easiest plants to grow, but remarkable cut flowers:

Protea aristata (aristata = sharp-tipped leaves), was first collected by the botanists T. P. Stokoe and R. Primos in 1928 near the town of Ladismith in the Cape Province, South Africa. In spite of being locally common in the Seweweekspoort the plant species could not be found again until 1953, prior to which it was considered to be extinct.

More plants from the motel to ID:

Gardens of The Horde

Gordon in Minnesota says that the soil temperature has risen rapidly to 42, and the raspberry plants say it's spring.

Probably red raspberries. We haven't had any fruit yet. Last year some idiot from across the alley parked on them, so they were recovering from that. I think they're everbearing.

I used to do maintenance in a mobile home park that had three raspberry patches that no one else knew about, apparently. About July 4 I could go around and harvest quarts of them. So when Independence Day rolls around, I look for those little dots of red all over. They can be found, if one looks, even in the city. I used to have a great mulberry patch that produced bushels of them, only a mile away in the town next door.. But some idiot built three houses on it.

Idiots can get in the way of a harvest . . . .

This is interesting:

Well, not exactly flowers....but they fooled me the first (and only) time they 'bloomed' one morning in south Texas until I touched them and they crumbled and melted.

TomInSA

Bonecrusher sent a photo of a Mandevilla:

There is a Four o-clock somewhere in computer limbo, too. We'll have to catch it later.

Thanks for the input and photos, everybody!

Anything going on in your garden?

If you would like to send information and/or photos for the Saturday Gardening Thread, the address is:

ktinthegarden
at g mail dot com

Include your nic unless you want to remain a lurker.

Close it up

Thread before the Gardening Thread: California: Leading the Way? Or not? [KT]

—Open Blogger

Since I am still here in this place, I thought that today I might concentrate on some news items that have some connection to California. Like for example:

The perennial comparison between the cost of prison and a Harvard education

The average annual cost of keeping an inmate in a California prison is now $75,560. More than enough for an average year at Harvard, they say. The cost per inmate has doubled since 2005. Don't know about the cost per Harvard student.

Since there are several prisons here in the Central Valley, I happen to have some insight into some of the reasons why these prisons are so expensive. You probably wouldn't be very surprised that unions, the feds and Sacramento all come to my mind when I think of irrational prison costs. But Stephen Hayward has a twist on this news item that would surprise the Los Angeles Times:

The trouble is, sending a young criminal offender to Harvard might be worse than sending him to prison. Seriously--I don't mean this as one of my usual sarcastic sideswipes. At least in prison you might learn something true and useful. Whereas at Harvard, the latest shiny thing is a "social justice certificate course." My favorite among the social justice offerings is the course on "Chocolate, Culture, and the Politics of Food."

Weird News Dump

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

EMT 05/05/18

—krakatoa

May.

May?

How did it get to be May already?

May the Fourth Be With The ONT

—WeirdDave

Yes, it's May the 4th, a day which all Star Wars geeks look forward to so they can giggle over a stupid pun. Quick quiz, to test your Star Wars chops: Which of the following is Darth Vader, and which is Billy Joel?

May the Farce Be With You

Star Wars: ranking Every Movie From Worst to Best

Any list that claims “What Rian Johnson did next was both the brave and correct thing — he made an entirely different type of movie. Where Force Awakens drew on the past, The Last Jedi moulded Star Wars’ future. It’s unravelling of the force through the lens of spirituality and mysticism was a distinctly contemporary and absorbing move.” is full of shit.

Lord Vader, We've Located the Rebel Bass!

Gah! Enough already,

Fear is the Path to the Dark Side

Springfield Armory Cuts Off Dick's

No, that is not the title they used for the article. Yes, it absolutely should have been. Talk about missed opportunities.

A More Wretched Hive of Scum and Villainy

Ace covered the story of Michael Caputo, a former Trump communications adviser
who is being financially ruined by the Mueller witch hunt. This week he blew up at Democratic Senate aides with this memorable quote:

'I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election. I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.'

He's been forced to sell his house to cover his legal bills. Well, a GoFundMe was set up to help him out, and in just a couple of days $150K has been raised. Score one for the millions of little guys over the DC swamp.

Your Focus Determines Your Reality

Reunion Recalls Orphanage`s Atmosphere Of Love

I suppose that a loving family is the best atmosphere to raise a child in, and our foster system does attempt to create that, but you'd have to have your head stuck in the sand to not know that there are lots of problems with it. On the other hand, as the story above illustrates, the orphanage system wasn't always a Victorian Oliver Twist nightmare either.

Wars Not Make One Great

Hamas: "Can we use rock slings?"
Us: "Sure, knock yourselves out." pic.twitter.com/4FzEkBcMwS

— The Mossad (@TheMossadIL) April 27, 2018

I've Got a Bad Feeling About This

My wife’s girlfriend moved in with us, and balancing work, life, and leisure has never gone better.

The mating call of the soy-boy cuck.

So This is How Liberty Dies…With Thunderous Applause

Prof compares charter schools to Jim Crow, Bill Ayers agrees

Trump's approval rating among black men doubled this week to 22%. It's also up, although not as much, among black women. This, along with Kanye West, has to have the Democratic overseers terrified. If 25% of the black population moves off of the Democrat plantation, the Dems are DONE as a national party.

Truly Wonderful, the Mind of a Child Is

Progressives can’t remodel the country through politics—and it’s making them miserable.

It's Not My Fault!

Got my days wrong and ended up alone in a room with my boss and the President of Ireland while I was on ketamine. https://t.co/gSjPY8WjKL

— The Every Single Mention Reader (@shockproofbeats) May 3, 2018

Click on the tweet and read the whole story. It's funny AF.

The DAWWWWW is Strong With This One.

We don't deserve dogs ���� pic.twitter.com/d8GkImqMmn

— Nature is Amazing �� (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 29, 2018

Mind Tricks Don’t Work On Me

On another front of the Democrat war to hold onto their slaves subjects, this week saw a resurgence of the despicable lie that somehow the parties “switched sides” after the Civil Rights Act of 1964. It's always been a lie, here's a fairly concise debunking.

The Party of Civil Rights

Tonight's ONT brought to you by milk:

Close it up

Early Open Thread With Diversity & Comics

—Ace of Spades

I visited the Federalist's radio booth today to talk with Ya Boi Zack from Diversity and Comics, to talk about the SJW takeover of a major part of Americana -- the comics books industry -- and how to fight it.

We also talked about his attempt at a DIY upstart competitor to the SJW comics industry, his book about low-level superheroes who decided to make a buck by hiring themselves out as mercenaries.

It's not a charity request -- he's already got $130,000 in the bank and might hit $150,000. But if you check out the indiegogo page and like the art and concept, why not spend $25 for a 112 page graphic novel?

You'd be striking a blow against The Patriarchy.

Excuse me -- I mean for The Patriarchy, of course.

Let's face it, The Patriarchy has done a pretty good job running the world until now, we might as well vote them into office for another 1000 years.

Whoops: We actually recorded two podcasts back-to-back. You'll just have to wait for the dramatic readings from Jake Tapper's remarkable Great American Novel, The Hellfire Club.

It's got all of the style of Dan Brown, combined with all the musky, girthy sexual charisma of Jake Tapper.

I think that drops on Monday, maybe.

Department of Education Dismissing Nuisance Suits by the Bushelfull

—Ace of Spades

Sigh. I wish we could have done the Christian Moral Thing and elected Hillary Clinton.

The Education Department's Office for Civil Rights has begun dismissing hundreds of civil rights complaints under a new protocol that allows investigators to disregard cases that are part of serial filings or that they consider burdensome to the office.

Department officials said the new policy targeted advocates who flooded the office with thousands of complaints for similar violations, jamming its investigation pipeline with cases that could be resolved without exhausting staff and resources.

...

Among the changes implemented immediately is a provision that allows the Office for Civil Rights to dismiss cases that reflect "a pattern of complaints previously filed with O.C.R. by an individual or a group against multiple recipients," or complaints "filed for the first time against multiple recipients that" place "an unreasonable burden on O.C.R.'s resources."

So far, the provision has resulted in the dismissal of more than 500 disability rights complaints.

...

According to the Education Department, 41 percent of the 16,720 complaints filed in the 2016 fiscal year came from three people. The next year, of the 12,837 total cases, 23 percent of them did.

The department calls the complainants "frequent fliers."

So Betsy DeVos is defanging the Title IX Kangaroo Courts and dismissing complaints from people who literally file thousands and thousands of ticky-tack complaints every year.

But you should have voted for Hillary Clinton, you #FakeChristians.

Hey, that's not me saying so; that's grandstanding sanctimonious c**t David French saying that.

Apparently it's not Christians' chief mission in the world to accept Christ and try to follow his example, and lead others to Christianity. Nor is it Christians' highest political priority to oppose abortion or encroachments upon their own ability to freely worship their god.

No, according to French, a Christian's primary duty is to Ostentatiously Pour Moral Condemnation on Trump, doing so in a public place so that others might see you praying and showing off your own alleged morality.

That doesn't sound quite right to me.

But what do I know. I'm not as moral as this strutting, preening peacock.

For Some Reason, Revelation That FBI's Highest Officers Were Leakers and Liars Is Undermining Their Credibility in Trial Courts

—Ace of Spades

The FBI, like the media, is wondering why the public stopped believing them.

Hint: I think it had to do with all the lies and incompetence. But I can't be sure. You should wiretap me and raid my office to find if I have any other additional information about it.

In the course of two dozen interviews for this story, agents and others expressed concern that the tumult is threatening the cooperation of informants, local and state police officials, and allies overseas. Even those who lived through past crises say the current one is more damaging. "We've seen ups and downs, but I've never seen anything like this," says Robert Anderson, a senior official at the FBI who retired in 2015.

The FBI's crisis of credibility appears to have seeped into the jury room. The number of convictions in FBI-led investigations has declined in each of the last five years, dropping nearly 11% over that period, according to a TIME analysis of data obtained from the Justice Department by researchers at Syracuse University. "We've already seen where the bad guys and witnesses look at those FBI credentials, and it might not carry the same weight anymore," says O’Connor.

Indeed, public support for the FBI has plunged. A PBS NewsHour survey in April showed a 10-point drop–from 71% to 61%--in the prior two months among Americans who thought the FBI was "just trying to do its job" and an 8-point jump--from 23% to 31%--among those who thought it was "biased against the Trump Administration."

Rudy Giuliani Has Some Kind Words for Comey the Redeemer

—Ace of Spades

Giuliani also said that Sessions should "step in" to exert some oversight on the Cohen raid.

Yeah, good luck with that.

Wide Majority of Public Believes Trump Had Sex With Stormy Daniels and Knew of Payment to Her; Even Wider Majority Doesn't Give a Shit

—Ace of Spades

The Clucking Hens of the NeverTrump movement should come out of their carefully-curated cocoons and Emotionally Validating listservs and, for once in their lives, talk to Americans who aren't the same old jackasses.

The Quinnipiac University poll, released on Tuesday, found that a majority of voters, 58 percent, believe the affair actually did happen, compared to 14 percent who believe it did not happen...

But a whopping 73 percent of voters said they do not believe the affair is an "important issue." That includes a majority of Democrats (51 percent), independents (79 percent) and Republicans (90 percent).

Quinnipiac also asked about the $130,000 payment that Trump attorney Michael Cohen made to Daniels in 2016, which Daniels alleges was in exchange for her silence. A majority of voters, 59 percent, said they believe Trump knew about the payment, compared to 24 percent who said they believe Trump was not aware.

But once again, the poll found that voters tended not to care whether or not the president knew about the payment. Fifty-nine percent of voters said whether or not Trump knew about the payment is not an important issue.

"Yes he did it. No we don't care. A big yawn from voters on Stormy Daniels, President Trump, and the payoff," summarized Quinnipiac University poll assistant director Tim Malloy.

Meanwhile, Rassmussen had Trump's approval rating at 50% on Thursday.

And meanwhile, CNN shows why it's the least trusted name in news.

Judge to Mueller's Team in Manafort Case: "Come On, Man," You're Just Trying to Railroad Manafort to Get to Trump

—Ace of Spades

Brutal.

A federal judge on Friday harshly rebuked Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s team during a hearing for ex-Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort -- suggesting they lied about the scope of the investigation, are seeking "unfettered power" and are more interested in bringing down the president.

"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort," U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III told Mueller's team. "You really care about what information Mr. Manafort can give you to lead you to Mr. Trump and an impeachment, or whatever."

Further, Ellis demanded to see the unredacted "scope memo," a document outlining the scope of the special counsel’s Russia probe that congressional Republicans have also sought.

...

The special counsel argues that Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein granted them broad authority in his May 2, 2017 letter appointing Mueller to this investigation. But after the revelation that the team is using information from the earlier DOJ probe, Ellis said that information did not "arise" out of the special counsel probe – and therefore may not be within the scope of that investigation.

...

Mueller's team says its authorities are laid out in documents including the August 2017 scope memo -- and that some powers are actually secret because they involve ongoing investigations and national security matters that cannot be publicly disclosed.

Ellis seemed amused and not persuaded.

He summed up the Special Counsel's Office as, "We said this was what [the] investigation was about, but we are not bound by it and we were lying."

He referenced the common exclamation from NFL announcers, saying: "C'mon man!"

This CNN article has some extended quotes:

"You don't really care about Mr. Manafort's bank fraud," Ellis said to prosecutor Michael Dreeben, at times losing his temper. Ellis said prosecutors were interested in Manafort because of his potential to provide material that would lead to Trump's "prosecution or impeachment," Ellis said.

"That's what you're really interested in," said Ellis, who was appointed by President Ronald Reagan.

Ellis repeated his suspicion several times in the hour-long court hearing...

"We don't want anyone in this country with unfettered power. It's unlikely you're going to persuade me the special prosecutor has power to do anything he or she wants," Ellis told Dreeben. "The American people feel pretty strongly that no one has unfettered power."

When Dreeben answered Ellis' question about how the investigation and its charges date back to before the Trump campaign formed, the judge shot back, "None of that information has to do with information related to Russian government coordination and the campaign of Donald Trump."

In other words, how can an authorization of power written in 2017 to investigate crimes that supposedly happened in 2016 reach back to include 2005 crimes? How can 2005 crimes be said to have "arisen" out of the 2017-2018 investigation?

That's what he's talking about when he talks about "unfettered power." These prosecutors are saying they don't care what the "scope memo" says their powers are, they have All the Powerz.

Fusion GPS will be doing some vicious opposition research on the judge, maybe paying Russian sources for confabulated charges, starting within the hour.

FAQ (Feminist-Asked Question): Is Giving Someone a Compliment The Same as Sexually Harassing a Stranger?

—Ace of Spades

Short answer: no.

Longer answer: Also no. (That contains twice as many words, hence, "longer answer.")

Sexton's piece on this is good. Also worth considering is this observation noted the other day by Instapundit:

Social groups create their own tropes and codes of behavior. The internet has empowered a group with a fringe fascination for finding "problematic" behavior where no problem exists. They get valorized for this, retweeted and praised, which then encourages other people to similarly get offended by every fucking thing.

If you subsidize something, you get more of it.

I'm aware that there is a possible "bullying" aspect to telling these people to grow up, butch up, and shut up. Piers Morgan lit this woman up, and, presumably, a mob then joined in and told her to shut up.

That, I have to admit, tends to pressure her to remain silent.

However, people like her have had an open field for leading mobs to get other people to remain silent. We're all walking on eggshells due to them, wondering when the time comes that we get savaged by a mob.

While I would tend to offer the advice, "Let her have her speech, unencumbered by jumping down her throat just for expressing an opinion you don't like" in ordinary circumstances -- circumstances in which the Censorious Left (joined by their enablers in the Speech Patrolling Right) did not have such excess power and did not condition so many people to adopt their group norms of never-ending speech patrolling and mob-shaming -- given that these people do in fact have an open field for constant social mugging of everyone else, I think it's acceptable, bordering on necessary, to mob up on them and tell them to grow up, butch up, and shut up until people can once again express a trivial sentiment ("Tell someone you see something beautiful in them") without having a pack of pussyhat hyenas hounding them.

Once social norms have been changed so that this kind of behavior is not valorized and not encouraged, then we can let the fringe idiots who still love speech patrolling do their thing without bothering them about it.

There's a saying in medicine: It's the dose that makes the poison. Many, many substances are potentially poison, but only in high concentrations. Even water is poisonous in very high doses.

A society can afford to let loudmouthed, perpetually aggrieved neurotic malcontents shriek hysterically about everything to give their empty lives some sense of struggle and purpose. But only when the dose of that is beneath the level that makes it a poison.

The current dosage of this is well and truly poisonous, keeping us from speaking freely. Hell, keeping us from thinking freely -- how many of you have stopped yourself from writing something because your Survival Instincts kicked in and warned you "You'll get incredible grief for expressing this inoffensive, normal opinion"?

I double-think myself all the time: And I hate the League of Censors (on both the left and right) for this.

Until the dosage of this brain-crippling poison is brought to low, nonlethal levels, I think it's fair to begin offering the antidote, which itself does, I admit, include some possibility of shaming and making people walk on eggshells, and hounding these people until they begin observing the Silver Rule of Leaving Other People the Hell Alone Unless You Have a Really Good Reason to Bother Them (and No, Your Outrage Over Every Trivial Thing is Not a Really Good Reason).

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

"So we've all seen conservatives suddenly go liberal, right? David 'Media Matters' Brock is the first example that comes to mind. And there have been others. Sh* happens, right? And of course, the opposite happens as well, some liberals become conservative. But here's the funny thing: there are a number of black liberals who have gone conservative, but not the opposite: I don't think I've ever seen a black conservative go liberal. Maybe it's like what Harriet Tubman said about seeing hundreds of escaped slaves but never saw one who was willing to go back and be a slave."

(h/t Candace Owens)

Yeah, He's Just Too Uppity:

Hosts of a Detroit radio station say they'll no longer play Kanye West's songs, saying they've had enough https://t.co/jPU9iRTnoU

— CNN (@CNN) May 3, 2018

Totes Not Racism:

One can only imagine the hair-on-fire outrage if this was a headline on Fox News.

The 'Everybody Does It, So It Must Be OK' Defense:

Not sure this defense is helpful to NBC...

The police ought to just shut down 30 Rock, that wretched hive of scum and villainy, and give it to nuns who take care of widows and orphans. It's not like the present owners were doing anything good with it.

Get A Load of This Idiot:

"Not a pretty picture." $SNAP pic.twitter.com/AD1JWXDDuv

— Rudolf E. Havenstein (@RudyHavenstein) May 2, 2018

JackStraw - The Early Years:

(h/t Kurt Schlicter)

Close it up

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

The Lord is my Shepherd
Thomas Hart Benton

The Morning Report 5/4/18

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. Here comes the weekend and in the lead for this Friday is the Mueller Witch Hunt/Deep State coup against the President and the citizenry. Specifically, the Rudy Giuliani non-kerfuffle kerfuffle over his revealing the payment made to Stormy Daniels. Some are saying it was a total bonehead maneuver that could be the thing to actually bring President Trump down. Umm... no. First, Rudy's no dope; considering his political pedigree, his legal acumen in his role in kneecapping the mob in NYC and the fact that he absolutely understands hardball politics as well as Robert Mueller and all the players involved that should be a given. Second of all, the Gestapo-like raid on Michael Cohen's office obviously vacuumed up the details of the payout, so all Rudy is doing is getting out ahead of this in the media. Lastly, and most importantly, the money involved was not campaign funds, so this whole thing is a tempest in a Teapot Dome. But of course the Democrat-Media-Cuckservative Complex will be hocking this tchainik to death, so 'nuff said.

In the real world, Paul Manafort's attorneys have stated that Mueller has not one shred of evidence that their client had any contacts at all with Russians in context of PDT and the election. And yet they nailed him to the wall. We are also learning that Jimmy Comey's "friend" at Columbia Law school, whom he leaked to, turns out to have worked for the FBI and helped defend his buddy to the media at the climax of the Hillary e-mail server non-investigation. Lastly, echoing Allan Dershowitz, Tucker Carlson went off on the goon-squad Gestapo-like police state tactics being used on Michael Cohen as well as anyone and everyone associated with the President to overthrow the results of the 2016 presidential election. Period. Full stop.

During the darkest of the darkest days of the eight years of Obama's Reign of Error, Rush Limbaugh always used to tell listeners who thought the country and the culture were lost not to give up; he'd tell them when it was "time to panic." Well, although this is not necessarily the same situation (although certainly elements of our cultural rot over these past decades no doubt helped get us here) it is alarming indeed. So, with all we have witnessed since at least the election, if not before considering the words and deeds of Comey, the Clintons, Obama, Lynch, Brennan, Clapper and their underlings put into context, my question to Rush and all of you is is this the time to panic? On the plus side, if you can describe it that way, Hillary Clinton's loss in November of 2016 or more specifically the reaction to that loss has confirmed for all but the willfully blind that our political system is a rigged game and that the instrumentalities of government - most frighteningly the ones we are supposed to rely on for our safety and security - have been and are being used to sabotage any efforts to effect a correction.

Beyond what was done to Flynn, Manafort and Caputo, this is why conservative voices are being silenced in all media, and that "conservatism" in general is blood-libeled as evil. This is why Kanye West must be destroyed. This is why the Left wants to run Chick-Fill-A out of NYC. Why a college "professor" derogates and humiliates a student who dared defend the US military in class. This is why a parent who takes his son to a gun range is investigated for child abuse. This is why what happened to Steve Scalise and Rand Paul happened. And on and on and on. It may not be what you were thinking of, Mr. Limbaugh. But I'd say the time to hit that panic button has arrived.

Moving along, I mentioned Kanye West and the tolerance, love, understanding and openness of the Left has been demonstrated with calls for Adidas to end their sponsorship of him and a Detroit radio station announcing a ban on all his music. Even his wife is taking to Twitter to disavow her husband's views as reflective of her's. Anyone still think this is all a stunt?

In any case, despite what has been hurled at our President, the fact that he is still here and accomplishing things with or mostly without the help of his putative party is damned amazing. In Amnesty news, PDT is going to the mattresses to push for an end to catch and release policies before the election and there's been a huge drop in asylum cases this year compared to the same time period two years ago.

On the political front, have fun watching Keith "X" Ellison flee from a reporter who wants to know why the DNC is shoveling millions of dollars at Hillary Clinton for her e-mail mailing lists, the Democrat governor of North Carolina is starting to squirm over a growing Medicaid fraud scandal, the Dems want to derail Gina Haspel from being the next CIA director because she ran a black site (to me that's a feather in her cap, as opposed to John Brennan who was, to put it mildly, "with the opposition"). In any case, the GOP is going to pressure red state Dems to give her a thumbs up, and lastly Jon Tester is a textbook case of what swamp fever can do to a candidate who runs on reform.

Speaking of Islamic tyranny, former French PM Nikolas Sarkozy and several other prominent French political evidently sent an open letter to a leading Muslim institution in Egypt, asking them to consider revising the Koranic precepts to kill Jews and infidels. You can imagine the reaction. And evidently a gangly, pimple-faced teen in Texas has been arrested for planning to shoot up a mall. Little Shitler Hogg and Shaved Guevara were unavailable for comment.

Good news on the Global Warming Hoax front, the Competitive Enterprise Institute has won a FOIA suit against Leftist NY AG Eric Schneiderman who is leading a campaign to essentially destroy the oil industry and a Texas court has ruled in favor of Exxon as it seeks to depose some of Schneiderman's cronies in the other blue state hellholes seeking to crush big oil.

Lastly, James O'Keefe's latest sting has netted two teacher union bosses who admit on camera covering up for teachers who have been known to abuse students. Horrible as that is, we have a couple of pieces about the mass brainwashing of America's children that will ensure future generations of anti-American drones to populate all levels of our society. Or what will be left of it if we don't somehow stop the madness. Well, look on the bright side; at least it's now out in the open for all who have eyes to see.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

MUELLER WITCH HUNT

• Tu-Ca: Feds' Michael Cohen Investigation Tactics "Orwellian" - "A Grotesque Violation of Civil Liberties"
  
• Revealed: Comey's Law Professor "Friend" Worked for the FBI and Defended His Actions in Clinton E-Mail Server Investigation During Run Up to 2016
  
• Manafort's Lawyers: Mueller "Has Not Produced Any Materials" Showing Manafort Contacts with Russians
  
• Giuliani's Media Blitz Providing Ammo for PDT's Foes
  
• Rush: Why Rudy Brought Up the Payment to Stormy Daniels
  
• Defining Deviancy Up
  
• Porn Star Payment Likely Not Illegal, Says Former FEC Chair
  
• Terms of Entrapment: Trump Should Demand Hillary's Deal
  
  CLINTON SCANDALS
  
• Time to Declare the Clinton Foundation the Biggest Charity Fraud Ever
  
  AMNESTY, IMMIGRATION
  
• PDT to Make "Major Legislative Push" Ahead of Midterms to End "Dangerous Catch and Release"
  
• 67.5% Drop in Refugee Admissions in First 4 Months of 2018, Over Same Period in 2016
  
• A Broken Immigration System, and the "Fix" That Would Make it Much Worse
  
  FIRST AMENDMENT
  
• Liberal Activists Now Targeting Kanye West's Adidas Sponsorship to Silence Him
  
• Detroit Hip-Hop Station Kicks Kanye West Off Its Airwaves
  
  POLITICS, 2018 MIDTERMS
  
• North Carolina Medicaid Scandal Broadens Under Democrat Governor Cooper's Watch
  
• Senate Critics Cite Gina Haspel's Work at So-Called "Black Sites" in Attempt to Derail Nomination to Head the CIA
  
• Jon Tester: The Ultimate Argument for Term Limits
  
• Watch Keith "X" Run as He's Asked About Millions Paid by DNC to Hillary for Her Mailing Lists
  
  SECOND AMENDMENT
  
• NRA Members Grow Impatient as GOP Fails to Deliver Key Pro-2A Agenda Items
  
  FOREIGN POLICY, INTERNATIONAL
  
• PDT Orders Pentagon to Prepare Options for Possible Korean Troop Drawdown
  
• Pentagon Confirms Chi-Com's Fired Lasers at American Pilots Flying Near Commie Base in Djibouti
  
• Cracks in FARC Peace Deal as Violence, Cocaine Production Surge in Columbia
  
• Emmanuel Macron: The So-Called "Leader of the Free World"
  
• White House Reaffirms Pick of Candidate with Anti-Islam Tweets to Lead UN Migration Agency
  
  ISLAM, TERRORISM, SHARIA, DHIMMITUDE
  
• "Go to Hell!" Most Prestigious Muslim University Responds to French Calls to Revise the Koran
  
• Greenfield: Texas Muslim Teen Wanted to Please Allah by Attacking a Mall
  
  THE ECONOMY, STUPID
  
• Data Reveals Companies Have Indeed Used Tax Cuts to Increase Capital Spending
  
  DOMESTIC POLICY
  
• Ben Carson: Left's "Propaganda" on Housing Reforms is "Garbage"; People Won't Be "Thrown Out"
  
  HEALTHCARE
  
• Planned Mengele-hood Sues Trump Administration for Favoring Abstinence Programs Over Family Planning with Title X Grants
  
  EDUCATION, INDOCTRINATION
  
• Project Veritas Catches Teachers Union Boss Admitting He Hides Teacher Abuse of Students
  
• K-12: Let the Peasants Eat Popcorn
  
• How Schools Quietly Indoctrinate Your Kids on Abortion and Transgenderism
  
  RED-GREENS, CLIMATE CHANGE, ETC.
  
• Competitive Enterprise Institute Wins Big FOIA Suit Against Leftist NY AG Eric Schneiderman
  
• Ruling in TX Brings Exxon a Step Closer to Deposing Key Players in AG Lawfare Oil Company Persecution
  
• Ford and the Folly of Federal Fuel Economy Mandates
  
  CULTURE WARS, HITHER and YON
  
• Google's Insane Campus is What Happens When You Politicize Everything
  
• The Sexual Revolution's Angry Children

12:00PM, UPDATE: The story about President Trump asking the Pentagon to prepare a plan to draw down US troop strength in Korea has been denied by the Administration. It's fake news.

Tonight's ONT Is What It Is

—WeirdDave

It's a beautiful day. I'm bopping along through the fields of Carroll County, top down under a clear blue sky. Van Halen is blasting on the radio, in the seats next to and behind me dozens of red plastic gas cans are vibrating in time with the music. Life is great, when suddenly I realize....

I FORGOT TO COME UP WITH A THEME FOR THE ONT!

Well, here goes nuthin'.

Donald Floyd

Did you ever notice how many pictures of Trump could be Pink Floyd album covers?

It's not just Trump, I had another one I make of North Korea's leader (Dark Side of the Un), but I cant find it.

Cultural Appreciation

Chinese dress at US prom wins support in China after internet backlash

Ever notice how many times the people SJWs are outraged on behalf of aren't themselves outraged? I have. And while I'm on the subject, just how condescending is that?

Speculative “History”

How We Lost the Great Pacific War

Hypothetical letter from the Admiral commanding the Pacific Fleet following the defeat of the US in 2024. A bit inside baseball at times, but a good read.

Never Gets Old

This video never gets old. I still chuckle at it every single time.

This will forever be the best video on the internet ���� pic.twitter.com/2rgsZgwvk3

— Nature is Amazing �� (@AMAZlNGNATURE) April 29, 2018

News From The Insurance Wars

Trump saves millions of working-class families from Obamacare penalty

I've long wondered why anyone would pay the penalty, there are so many holes and exemptions available that it's a joke, but Trump has added 4 more exemptions. The big one is a conscience exemption: If no ACA provider in your area offers plans that do not cover abortion, you can apply to be exempt from the shared responsibility penalty and it's retroactive to 2016 (if you paid and want to file an amended return). Not tired of winning yet.

Sad News From the Lacrosse World

Dick Edell Passes Away

I always hated staring across the field and seeing Coach Edell standing on the Terps sideline back in the 80s and 90s. He was a hell of a coach and Maryland was always a hard out because of it. RIP Big Man.

Public Service Announcement

Interesting Analysis

Click on the embedded tweet and read the entire thread. It's long, but there are some thought provoking bits.

I've lately been recommending to people that they read Sir John Glubb's "Fate of Empiraes" in response to various questions about trends in American current events, both culturally and politically.

In this thread I'm going to explain a little bit about that.

— Bixxy Noodles (@BixterN) April 28, 2018

Thoughts from the Horde?

Tonight's ONT brought to you by dirty restrooms:

The Yahoo Group wouldn't know what to do with a bar of soap if it bit them.

Close it up

Clapper Claims He Didn't Leak the Briefing; The Washington Post, of Course, Vouches for the Integrity of a Notorious Liar

—Ace of Spades

I can't wait for the full story I know to come out.

In the meantime, enjoy Sean Davis' real fact check on Glenn Kessler's #FakeNews "Fact Check."

Glenn Kessler is massively ignorant of basic facts here.

The stupid are always easier to lie to. Alas, they tell stupider lies, too.

#FakeNews: Media Retracts Claim Michael Cohen Was "Wiretapped;" Now Says Only The Numbers Coming In Or Dialing Out Were Captured

—Ace of Spades

That is, a pen register, not a tap.

This means that Mueller could not have learned that "Cohen was about to destroy evidence," unless he can psychically infer that from a phone number.

Ken Dilanian has so much heat you'd think he's fusion.

I'm old enough to remember when the media freaked out when Trump said his office was wiretapped but it turned out no, only surveillance orders for people in his orbit, some in Trump Tower, were handed out.

Think the media will similarly rap itself for its own loose language with the term "wiretap"?

I don't. I think they'll forgive that little problem with #FakeNews they have all the time.

By the way: Giuliani predicted this.

President Donald Trump's lawyer Rudy Giuliani said on Thursday he doubted the veracity of a bombshell NBC News report from earlier in the day that federal authorities wiretapped the president's longtime counsel, Michael Cohen.

"Us lawyers have talked about it, we don't believe it’s true," Giuliani told The Daily Beast. "We think it's going to turn out to be untrue because it would be totally illegal. You can't wiretap a lawyer, you certainly can't wiretap his client who's not involved in the investigation. No one has suggested that Trump was involved in that investigation. So they're going to wiretap the lawyer, his client, and his client the president of the United States? I don't think so, not if they want to stay out of jail. Disclosing a wiretap is a federal felony. I never took 'em home when I was a U.S. attorney."

Comey: The NRA "Sells Fear" to Keep Us From Imposing Common Sense Gun Grabbing Laws

—Ace of Spades

I keep hearing this guy is a "Republican."

It should be noted that "DC Republican" isn't the same as a real Republican.

Fish drink the water they swim in, don't they?

Also, I've noticed that many government Republicans have a faith in government's capacity to re-make people for the better nearly equal to liberals'. I imagine this is a matter of self-selection as well as ego -- everyone tends to believe the groups they're in are the Best Groups with the Greatest Capacity to Do Good. And government Republicans tend have a greater faith in their fellow, mostly-liberal coworkers that non-government Republicans just don't share.

Former FBI director James Comey criticized the National Rifle Association during a book-tour appearance in Miami Wednesday, arguing that the group of "sells fea"” to gun owners to ward off popular support for restrictions on gun rights.

Asked what policies he would support to prevent mass shootings like the one that claimed 17 lives in Parkland earlier this year, Comey said he would support "reasonable restrictions" on gun ownership but declined to provide specifics.

The FBI director-turned-author recounted the experience of being held at gunpoint by a home invader in high school in explaining his nominal support for the Second Amendment, but firmly rejected the argument that any modification to current gun laws would lead to a total ban on gun ownership.

"It's not a slippery slope, it's a concrete set of stairs built by America's founders," he said. "Let's have these conversations standing there, holding the rails."

#MuhPrinciples: NeverTrumpers Decide It's Now Not About the Crime, It's About the Sex

—Ace of Spades

NeverTrumpers, as a group, maintained, like most Republicans, that Clinton's sexual dalliances were not the serious problem -- not commendable behavior, to be sure ("simply reprehensible," as Democrats looking for a half-in-half-out position would bleat), but also not really the concern of the public, at least not in any official sense.

Personally, I wasn't lying when I maintained that. I did not care that Clinton had an affair with Monica Lewinsky, whether in the Oval Office or not; I knew about his history from The New Republic, which supported him but frequently alluded to the almost-certainly-true rumors of rampant infidelity in his past.

What bothered me was the crime -- he lied to a federal judge when he could easily just settle without admitting anything, just saying "I'm settling so I can focus on the job the American people elected me to do."

Instead, he lied. Under oath. The Chief Law Enforcement officer of the United States lied under oath.

NeverTrumpers surely echoed this "It's not the sex, it's the perjury" sentiment.

But now #MuhPrinciples demand a reversal.

As for the lying (not under oath): I have to say I really don't care much about a guy lying about something which quite frankly isn't any of my business and which most people like about. Even if you ask a guy about a woman he might have slept with in a non-adulterous way (i.e., they were single, it was just a casual hook-up), he will probably publicly lie about it because well, you're kind supposed to keep your sexual history secret, and you're supposed to keep other people's sexual histories secret, too.

And really -- you're not supposed to even ask. So if you get lied to about a question you weren't supposed to ask, well, that's on you, Busybody.

Clinton's first lies about Lewinsky weren't public lies -- they were official lies, perjuries in fact, made under oath. He made public not-under-oath-lies after that but only to protect his lies under oath.

But Eternal Principles and all.

Ben Howe makes a somewhat different point: he says he at least wants to see people "condemning" this, rather than "applauding" it. (He claims that people "demand" that he "applaud" Trump when he does something praiseworthy, and says he wants that reciprocated by people "condemning" Trump when he does something bad.)

Well, no one's applauding his infidelity, Ben. Literally no one, except maybe a wag who posts Pepe Memes and is goofing about praising Trump for his Dragon Energy.

As for condemning it -- yeah, infidelity and lying about it are bad.

So there: Considered this condemned.

I'm not sure what that matters. I'm also not sure how we were all elected to the position of Morality Police and Sexuality Scolds. I personally don't really envision myself in that role, and I don't rush to it gladly.

But if I'm being asked "Is this good?" then the answer is: No, this is not good. In fact, it's bad.

But that's not really want Ben Howe wants, or what David French wants, or what Steven Hayes wants.

What they want is for people to say "Oh, we were wrong for voting for Trump to keep Hillary Clinton from the presidency; we should have done what you guys did and supported her, either openly (and somewhat honorably) like Ben Howe did, or covertly (and thus less honorably) like French and Hayes did."

And on that: Sorry, guys. I'm afraid that you guys, like Hillary Clinton, must one day give up your bitterness and blame-shifting over Hillary Clinton's loss.

Trump is a very flawed man, and of course was a flawed candidate, and is a flawed president. While there are some who genuinely dispute this -- wrongly, I'd say -- most people's eyes are open to his flaws, and have always been open to his flaws.

We don't claim he doesn't have flaws.

However, we will hold to our November 2016 position that Trump, even with his flaws, was a better choice of president than the corrupt totalitarian serial-lawbreaking serial-perjuring grifter Hillary Clinton.

You lot disagree with that. You supported Hillary Clinton, whether passive aggressively and dishonestly (French, Hayes) or aggressive-aggressively and virtue-signalling (Howe).

I'm sorry your gal lost, but the election is now fucking seventeen months in the past.

It's time to come out of the woods and put aside the Chardonnay, fellas.

No one believes you're arguing about "principles" here. It's obvious to everyone that you're not arguing about Eternal Principles or American Values; you're arguing about a much smaller and shabbier thing: You're whining that You were right, and damnit, other people should admit we were right!

With a big side of: We've got to protect our phony-baloney jobs!

You were not right. You were right as to many of your assumptions (that Trump is a dishonest guy with barely any knowledge about policy or conservative principles) -- but then, few even argued with you about those.

You are, and were, completely wrong in your conclusion -- that this therefore made the most corrupt presidential candidate in ages and a determined Identity Politics Cultural Warrior a better choice.

Hell, some of you (French, Hayes) are so ashamed of that conclusion you can't even speak it honestly. You have to pretend you were fighting for some imaginary Third Way, instead of admitting you preferred Hillary Clinton.

At some point, you will have to make peace with the thinking that rational people made peace with ages ago, that an election is not an up or down (binary choice!!!) referendum on the moral and characterological qualities of one man, but a comparison on the moral and characterological qualities of two candidates, one of which would be president, as well as -- as if this matters (apparently it doesn't matter so much); the NeverTrumpers are all-in on character questions and treat policy questions as if they were silly distractions -- the policy choices each candidate would make, the legislation each would support, the policy of either enforcement or nonenforcement of immigration laws each would champion, and the judges each would nominate.

You continue treating this as a game where you win if you can merely prove Trump was flawed.

Wrong. We almost all agree that Trump is, was, and will always be deeply flawed.

The actual question, which you continue to avoid in your passive-aggressive childlike evasions, is whether or not, given Trump's flaws as well as your favored candidate Hillary's flaws, Hillary was preferable.

And, as I say: You're so dishonest you can't even admit that what you actually were/are arguing for.

(Ben Howe partly excepted from this, though he doesn't bring up the Hillary-Trump comparative analysis up very often, if at all.)

I get that you guys are Morally Outraged and Deeply Offended.

Let me explain this to you as I would explain it to a Social Justice Warrior (a breed you endlessly-emotional moral scolds increasingly resemble): I don't care if you're Morally Outraged and Deeply Offended.

I don't have time to coddle your infinite sensitivities and smooth over your endlessly ruffled feathers.

Life is hard. Some choices are harder than others. Serious men make hard choices; honest men admit what choices they actually made, instead of serially lying about it.

Deal with it.

And until Hayes, Kristol, Goldberg, and French stop lying and admit that they supported Hillary Clinton for president over Trump, they cannot criticize Trump for lying.

Your only job, your only purpose, is to inform the public about your actual beliefs and preferences.

You had one job: to tell your readers honestly who they should support for president, and who you supported.

You lied in that regard.

You continue lying.

In all likelihood, you will go to your graves lying.

But yeah, let me get all worked up about a notorious sexual braggart now on his third wife banging a porn star.

More: A friend writes (paraphrased), "Something no one talks about is that the NTs actually favored Hillary from a policy perspective as well. Internationalist interventionism, 'free trade', corporate cronyism. That was their candidate."

I'd add in: They actually are largely open borders as well. Free trade absolutists are very sympathetic to, if not outright supportive of, the idea that just as goods should be free to cross borders unimpeded, so too should labor.

This is the position of the Wall Street Journal, which used to declare, every 4th of July, something like, "The immigration policy of the United States shall consist of five words: 'There shall be open borders.'"

They stopped declaring that forthrightly that after 9/11 (whoopsie!), but you can hear this echoing in their rhetoric.

Gale King: I Feel "Sick to My Stomach" Over New Charlie Rose Accusations

—Ace of Spades

Sorry, I have to ask: Are you really saying you had no idea this was going on?

Or is this an attempt at insulating oneself from accusations of complicity?

Women talk, I've heard it said. They don't talk to me, certainly, but I do hear they talk among themselves and sometimes to men who bother to take a shower every now and again.

Twenty-seven women is a lot of women. It's difficult to believe they all kept this silent, or that management didn't hear rumors or even direct reports.

On this one: Tried?

How hard did he try? Probably not that hard if your date remained with you. I mean, no homo and all, but Charlie Rose seems to be, on a surface level, to be more of a catch than sad Jon Podhoretz.

More details from The Washington Post report:

The new allegations follow an earlier Post report on Rose's behavior at his namesake PBS program, in which eight women accused the TV star of making lewd phone calls, walking around naked in their presence, or groping their breasts, buttocks or genital areas. Rose issued an apology. His PBS show was canceled and he was fired from CBS News.

...

The new allegations against Rose date to 1976, when, according to a former research assistant, he exposed his penis and touched her breasts in the NBC News Washington bureau where they worked.

Although many of these women are anonymous to avoid retaliation (retaliation for telling #TheirTruth -- in a liberal industry? Shocking!), some put their name under their accusations:

"I had been there long enough to know that it was just the way things went," said Sophie Gayter, now 27, who worked at "60 Minutes" in 2013 when, she said, Rose groped her buttocks as they walked down an office hallway to a recording studio. "People said what they wanted to you, people did what they wanted to you," Sophie Gayter said of her time at "60 Minutes."

Note Gayter is accusing Charlie Rose, but she's also saying "people" -- including other people than Charlie Rose, one assumes -- did this.

A Culture of Harassment?

...

The first instance identified by The Post in which a CBS News employee said a manager was told of Rose's conduct was in 1986, when he was filling in as an anchor on "CBS Morning News."

There, Annmarie Parr, a 22-year-old news clerk, delivered a script to Rose. He had made "lewd, little comments" about her appearance before, Parr said, but that day Rose took it further. "Annmarie, do you like sex?" she said he asked her. "Do you enjoy it? How often do you like to have sex?" She said she laughed nervously and left.

Parr said she reported Rose's comments to her boss -- a senior producer whom she declined to name -- and said she didn’t want to be alone with Rose. The producer laughed, Parr said, and told her, 'Fine, you don’t have to be alone with him anymore.'

That same year, seven women sued CBS claiming that the workplace on the network's overnight broadcast "Nightwatch" was "offensive and hostile" to female employees.

Rose wasn't named in the lawsuit but he was a co-anchor of the show. So, do the math.

And executives -- at least one -- did know, according to claims:

When Susan MacArthur was interviewing in the late 1990s for a job to be Rose's assistant, she said, a CBS News executive told her to "steer clear" because of the host’s history of "questionable behavior."

"She looked me dead in the eyes and said, 'You are going to be working alone with this man and being alone with this man in his hotel, and you need to think really hard about whether you want to do this,'" MacArthur said, declining to name the executive. MacArthur heeded the advice and stopped returning Rose's calls.

Here's one of his interns, signing her name to the accusation:

On the plane, Collins said, Rose insisted she drink wine and began to "paw" her. Collins became drunk, she said, and threw up in the plane's bathroom.

Rose squeezed her breast during the car ride from the airport, Collins said. She said he insisted that they work in his hotel room, where he told her, "I want you to ride me." She quickly left his room....

Back in New York, Collins said she shared concerns about Rose with Yvette Vega, the executive producer of Rose's PBS show, who she said replied that he was harmless. Vega did not respond to a request for comment.

Charlie Rose issued a statement to the Washington Post: "Your report is unfair and inaccurate." Then he invited the Post to take a shower, exposed his penis to it, and offered it a Complimentary Mustache Ride.

Some claims of sexual harassment are debatable, even if you assume they're true -- men and women do like each other romantically some times, and it's long been the species assumption that the man should initiate any romantic overture.

But these allegations do not seem to fall into the category of flirtation-taken-too-far or even clumsy passes. According to these accusers, this stuff is just straight-up groping or overt sexual overtures made in the workplace to an inferior that wouldn't pass muster even in the Free Love 70s.

I cannot believe the gall of these people to preach to us as if they were Televangelists every single day while some of them were pulling shit like this, and many of them were practicing the art of tactical ignorance.

One angle: I remember that Howard Stern and Robbin Quivers were reminiscing about their days in Washington, DC radio. Rose was at that time based in DC. The radio duo were talking about Charlie Rose's reputation as a ladies' man, or really, a Lothario.

Several questions:

1, assuming the exploits they were talking about were consensual, why did Rose feel the compulsion to also harass and paw women at work?

2, maybe let's not assume that Rose's reputation as a ladykiller was based on entirely consensual encounters. Did Stern and Quivers hear about Charlie Rose's "cocksmanship" from Charlie Rose himself? Was Charlie Rose depicting himself as Don Juan when in reality he was molesting women against their will?

Worth asking, I think!

The Kanye Effect? Reuters Poll Shows Trump's Approval Rating With Black Men Doubling from 11% to 22% in a Week

—Ace of Spades

The overall approval from blacks, male and female, nearly doubled as well, from 8.9% to 16.5%.

A few more news bits I don't have much to add to:

And of course news is breaking that "the feds" had a wiretap on Trump lawyer Michael Cohen before the raid on his offices. When they say "the feds," this seems to be a euphemism for Robert Mueller, given that the southern district of New York was informed by Mueller of allegations that led to the raid. Ergo, it seems likely the information came from the wiretap, and it was Mueller that provided that information to the FBI and southern district of NY attorney's office.

So: Mueller's doin' wiretaps on Trump's lawyer.

One big caveat to the story: the source for this claim might be the pornographer's shyster.

PS, who's paying this guy's bills? Could the money be coming from those 10 Democrats who put $50 million into the kitty to continue Fusion GPS' oppo research?

Update: No, the sourcing doesn't seem to be the pornographer's lawyer. How he knows about it, I don't know.

Yas Queen Slay

—Ace of Spades

The Morning Rant: J.V. Edition

—CBD

Breast Cancer Scan Error May Have Led to Death of 270 Women in England

The deaths of as many as 270 women in England are being investigated for connections to a computer error that led them to miss crucial breast cancer screenings.

Secretary of State for Health and Social Care Jeremy Hunt said Wednesday that some 450,000 women aged 68 to 71 didn't receive notice they were due for a breast cancer screening because of a major 2009 glitch, and that between 135 and 270 women who recently died of breast cancer could have missed the opportunity for early diagnosis.

Although the error occurred almost a decade ago, Public Health England only recently discovered it in January. An independent investigation has been initiated.

This sad story reminded me of Samuel Adams' great quotation...

If you love wealth greater than liberty, the tranquility of servitude greater than the animating contest for freedom, go home from us in peace. We seek not your counsel, nor your arms. Crouch down and lick the hand that feeds you; May your chains set lightly upon you, and may posterity forget that you were our countrymen.

The natural liberty of man is to be free from any superior power on Earth, and not to be under the will or legislative authority of man, but only to have the law of nature for his rule.

******
Misanthropic Humanitarian used this last night and stole my thunder! New federal backup camera rule honors LI boy's tragic death

Car safety advocates heralded the move. “This is long overdue. The technology has been around for 10 years,” said Jason Levine, executive director for the Washington-based Center for Auto Safety.

Back-over accidents kill about 200 in the United States every year and injure another 12,000, Levine said. Many involve children struck in their own driveway, sometimes by someone who loves them dearly, he said.

“I have long said that one of the most dangerous places for a child to be is in the family driveway,” said Sen. Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.), who supported the rule change. “No family should have to go through these tragedies.”

As sad as this story is, why do I have to pay extra for bells and whistles on my car that function as nothing so much as a virtue-signalling FOR THE CHILDREN? This father certainly feels guilty, but maybe he should work out his psychological problems privately, and not cost me money. And...anyone care to bet that he had a few drinks in him when he ran over his kid?

And another thing, I can't find any data to back up these wild claims of thousands of deaths and injuries being avoided. I think that is self-serving crap that is being foisted on us by a government body in thrall to publicity, and desperate to make itself relevant. Let's face it, cars are damned safe already. Can we please let the market dictate technological change?

******
Palestinian leader's remarks spark Israeli, US, EU outrage

In rambling remarks that were part of a lengthy speech to the Palestine Liberation Organization parliament on Monday, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas said it was the Jews' "social function," including money lending, that caused animosity toward them in Europe, citing what he said were books by Jewish authors. He also portrayed the creation of Israel as a European colonial project, saying "history tells us there is no basis for the Jewish homeland."

He seems nice.
******

******
My Twitter Feed

Close it up

Mid-Morning Open Thread

—CBD

Napoléon Bonaparte Abdicated In Fontainebleau
Paul Delaroche

The Morning Report 5/3/18

—J.J. Sefton

Good morning kids. The Mueller Witch Hunt dominates this morning but for the lead, I have chosen a not unrelated essay by Michael Ledeen, in which he rips former CIA chief Michael Hayden's anti-Trump op-ed screed in Slim's Slimes. With all that has been revealed about the DoJ, FBI, NSA and CIA vis a vis its role in fabricating a pretext to engineer a soft coup against a sitting President - one that continues albeit on another tack since the intelligence aspect of it has utterly collapsed - Hayden has the unmitigated temerity to take to the pages of arguably the worst example of anti-American bilge to call the President either a liar or demented for being "post-truth" whatever the hell that means.

Putting this aside for a moment, the mission of the CIA et al is to protect this nation from real-world security threats both abroad and at home. Instead, it has abrogated that duty in order to preserve, protect and defend itself and an elitist mindset that has minimally ill-served this nation's interests, especially during the period of 2009-2016. Stop and ponder for a moment the fact that John Brennan, Obama's head of the CIA, is a Muslim convert and admitted to voting for Gus Hall, a bust-out Bolshevik who ran for President under the Communist Party ticket with Angela Davis as her running mate. The mind just boggles.

Amen. And that leads us directly into the insane farce that the President, his administration and ultimately we the people have to deal with smack dab in the middle of a Middle East that could explode at any minute, a delicate situation with North Korea and an increasingly belligerent China and Russia. Well, so be it. That said, Rudy Giuliani was on Hannity last night and it turns out that Michael Cohen was reimbursed for paying off Stormy Daniels but with his personal money, not campaign funds. And mercifully both Rudy and new Trump lawyer Emmett Flood are saying that no way will the President sit down with Mueller. And PDT is on the warpath with the DoJ slow-walking/stonewalling release of documents. Meanwhile backbencher ankle-biting stooge Steve Cohen is threatening any and all Trump allies that they too will get the same treatment as Dr. Ronny Jackson did. Finally, Mark Levin has had enough and yelled at Congress to do its duty to rein in Mueller. Considering that too many in Congress want the exact opposite of that, I think that that ain't gonna happen.

On to other things, specifically the Amnesty front. Unfortunately it looks as if quite a few of the asylum seekers are going to be getting just that. Feh. Looks like Daniel Greenfield's warning about them may fall on deaf ears. In any case a gaggle of illegal aliens and assorted homegrown criminals and degenerates took to the streets of Grand Rapids to, get this, "demand drivers licenses" and other rights. Would've been nice if ICE agents could've been on hand to give them their "rights" and a hickory shampoo, but mostly a hickory shampoo.

Well, Facefarce has tapped former Senator Jon Kyl to look into allegations of anti-conservative censorship at the socialist media outlet (I feel much better, don't you?) and the Southern Poverty Law Center has amassed a half billion war chest to fight racism and hate speech muzzle political opponents to the counter-American Revolution. Now that's a racket that needs to be looked into; I have a feeling that a lot of that money came from the Budapestilence.

On the gun front, students around the country staged a walkout in support of the Second Amendment while Dick's Sporting Goods officially wants to destroy itself as we have learned they hired three gun control lobbyists last month.

Somewhat slow news day on the political scene; Cuck and Palsi are spewing inanities, the bastard out'a Chappaqua has yet another excuse to blame for her electoral wipeout and it's a doozy, and the Senate Republicans have added their names to a House letter nominating PDT for a Nobel Peace Prize. Considering its past recipients, I take the Groucho approach of not wanting to be in a club that would have me as a member. But considering the global political climate, I don't think PDT would even be considered, even if Whoa, Fat! keeps his promises and peace does indeed break out in Korea.

In environmentalism news, the latest insanity out of Hawaii is an effort to ban sunscreen because its ingredients kill coral reefs. To even attempt to explain how ludicrous this crackpot theory is would be a waste of pixels and time. Aside from Elon Musk's sham of a company about to collapse there is a very sobering piece about coal and how the Chi-Coms are pushing the phony environmentalism angle to destroy us.

From hither and yon, Iowa's effort to ban abortions could have the rippling effect of potentially overturning Roe vs. Wade, a stoned out black Harvard student is the latest Gentle Giant to inflame the race baiters, far too many Americans are falling for the Marxist "guaranteed job" lie (despite the contradictory poll that youths are turning away from Dems because of the economy) and finally, the girl who went to the prom in a Chinese cocktail dress (the cultural appropriation horror!), has told her critics to die in a fire, but in the nicest possible way. Sum Ting Wong there. Or Sum Ting White.

Anyway, links from around the world, across the nation and up your street. Have a better one and remain blessed.

IN THE LEAD

Wednesday Overnight Open Thread (5/2/18 )

—Misanthropic Humanitarian

Quote I

For the past 40 years, the Palestinian leadership has missed opportunities again and again, and rejected all the offers it was given. It’s about time that the Palestinians accept the offers, and agree to come to the negotiating table — or they should shut up and stop complaining." Prince Salman

Quote II

"I don't find his impression to be comical. Because, like I said, I know the way his politics lean and it spoils any surprise. There's no possible surprise. He so clearly hates the man he's playing."Rob Schneider

Quote III

"You can't conquer a free man; the most you can do is kill him." - Robert Heinlein

Quote IV

'Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election.

'I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.' Michael Caputo

*****

How long before the Pussy Scouts are thing gone by?

(Reuters) - The Boy Scouts of America will drop “boy” from the name of its signature program for older youths as it seeks to widen its appeal to girls, the 108-year-old organization said on Wednesday.

Enrollment dropped when they allowed homosexuals. Numbers will continue to plummet IMHO.

*****

My Give A Damn Meter is broken.

GUANTANAMO BAY NAVY BASE, CUBA
Brain scans conducted on the man accused of orchestrating the 9/11 attacks show damage consistent with abuse he might have suffered in CIA custody, his lawyers reveal in a war court memo obtained by McClatchy. If proven, the development could make it less likely that he would face the death penalty.

Lawyers for Khalid Sheik Mohammed, 53, who revealed the terror suspect's brain damage in a memo to be raised at pretrial hearings this week, are seeking more sophisticated studies.

***

Nanny state? Or a proper rule? Every brand new car in the US is now required to have backup cameras.

All newly manufactured vehicles to be sold in the U.S. are required as of Tuesday to have backup cameras equipped as a standard feature.

Advocates for the rule, which was mandated by the National Highway Transportation Safety Agency in 2014, hope today’s milestone will lead to fewer instances of drivers backing into people due to a lack of visibility.

“This day is so important because we don’t have a choice” when it comes to children’s safety around cars, said Janette Fennell, founder and president of KidsAndCars.org, an advocacy group that works to prevent accidents involving children and motor vehicles. “This measure will save countless lives, especially of children.”

I think the free market would have solved the need.

*****

Could a spatula become the next weapon of union goons? It could at this fast food restaurant.

The vote was a big win for the members of the Burgerville Workers Union which is recognized as a part of the larger Industrial Workers of the World (IWW) whose members refer to themselves as “Wobblies” and they will now use their collective power to push for a $5 an hour wage from management.

BVWU, which is part of the international union group the Industrial Workers of the World, hopes to negotiate a raise of $5 an hour for hourly employees, consistent scheduling, child care and affordable healthcare.

*****

If you know New York or New Jersey residents who think their shit doesn't stink. The residents of Parrish, Alabama disagree.

The only thing that smells worse than your poop is tons of other people's poop. If you don't believe me, take a road trip to the town of Parrish, Alabama. They'll back me up on this one: According to the Associated Press, the citizens of Parrish were forced to endure the stench pouring off a train full of sewer sludge from New York and New Jersey for close to two months.

*****

The crime wave in London explained the Paul Joseph Watson way. NSFW-Language

*****

Is that a modesty poncho or a Sears poncho? h/t yankeefith

DEARBORN, Mich. (WJBK) - WEB UPDATE: After receiving backlash, Dearborn Divine Child has changed course, saying it will not have the so-called modesty ponchos at prom.

Divine Child High School said in a letter to parents, dated May 1, that the ponchos will not be handed out at prom. For the most recent story detailing the change, CLICK HERE. The original story is below.

***

Never, I repeat NEVER STICK YOUR DICK IN CRAZY!h/t ibguy

A teen mom with an obsession for male sacrifice has been jailed for 11½ years after she stabbed her lover five times during sex.

Zoe Adams, 19, dressed in clown makeup and put a pillow over Kieran Bewick’s head “to make it kinkier.”

*****

How they vacation in Siberia.

*****

Shedding light on our Genius Award Winner.

CASSELBERRY, Fla. - A Florida man told his roommate, "The next one's going in you!" after shooting at him following an altercation over cat hair, according to a police report obtained by WFTV.

The incident occurred April 26 at a home in Casselberry.

*****

Happy Birthday!!! Tonight's Feel Good Story of The Day.

A family surprised their dad over the weekend with a very special birthday celebration.

Two years ago, Bruce Becke received life-saving bone marrow from a 26-year-old donor he had never met. The donor and his family made the trip from Baltimore, Maryland to Battle Creek, Michigan to surprise him.

Bruce's daughter, Amber, filmed the surprise and posted the special moment on Facebook.

*****

Tonight's ONT has been brought to you by Disappointment.

Notice: Posted with permission by AceCorp, LLC.

Close it up

Cruise Captain Biff Kristol Tries to Gin Up an Online Mob Against Trump's New Lawyer

—Ace of Spades

North Korea Releases Three US Prisoners Demanded by John Bolton

—Ace of Spades

I am still not buying any of this.

That's why I don't bother mentioning it: I think this is yet another sham to cadge money and concessions and oil and food from the US, while permitting North Korea to build bombs, test missiles, and proliferate nuclear technology.

I think North Korea is playing Trump as they've played three presidents before him, and as they play South Korea every third month.

But this is certainly good news for the prisoners themselves:

North Korea has released three US citizens detained there, the Financial Times reported Wednesday, citing a South Korean activist.

The three Americans -- Kim Dong-chul, Kim Sang-duk, and Kim Hak-song -- were released from a labor camp and given health treatment and ideological education in Pyongyang, the report said.

President Donald Trump's hawkish national security adviser, John Bolton, has called for the Americans' release as a way for North Korea to demonstrate its sincerity ahead of a summit with the US.

Former Trump Communications Adviser Michael Caputo Complains of Being Run Into Bankruptcy By Senate Intelligence Committee Inquiry; Accuses Senators of Working With Fusion GPS

—Ace of Spades

"God Damn you to Hell."

A former campaign communications adviser to Donald Trump blew up at Democratic U.S. Senate aides on Tuesday at the end of a behind-the-scenes grilling connected to their wide-ranging Russia investigation.

New York-based political consultant Michael Caputo said he has spent $125,000 on attorneys to help him navigate the committee's demands for documents and testimony, ruining his children's economic future and forcing him to sell his family home.

Calling the probe a 'witch hunt,' Caputo demanded to know who is funding a secretive effort to continue digging into unsubstantiated allegations that Trump has ties with the Kremlin.

'What America needs is an investigation of the investigators,' he said. 'I want to know: Who is paying for the spies’ work and coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump?'

'I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election. I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.'

Here's his opening testimony. It's a corker.

In 2009, my wife and I moved to my hometown of East Aurora, New York to have a family. Making far less money back home, we had a far better quality of life. That is, until the Trump-Russia narrative took off. Today, I can't possibly pay the attendant legal costs and live near my aging father, raising my kids where I grew up.

'Your investigation and others into the allegations of Trump campaign collusion with Russia are costing my family a great deal of money -- more than $125,000 -- and making a visceral impact on my children.

'Now I must to move back to Washington, New York City, Miami or elsewhere, just so I can make enough money to pay off these legal bills. And I know I have you to thank for that.

'Here's how I know: how many of you know Daniel Jones, former Senate Intelligence staffer for Senator Dianne Feinstein? Great guy, right? Most of you worked with him. One of you probably just talked to him this morning.

'Of course, very few of us in flyover country knew Daniel until recently. Now we know that he quit his job with your Senate committee not long ago to raise $50 million from ten rich Democrats to finance more work on the FusionGPS Russian dossier. The one the FBI used to get a FISA warrant and intimidate President Donald Trump, without anyone admitting -- until months after it was deployed -- that it was paid for by Hillary Clinton.

'In fact, good old Dan has been raising and spending millions to confirm the unconfirmable -- and, of course, to keep all his old intel colleagues up-to-speed on what FusionGPS and British and Russian spies have found. Got to keep that Russia story in the news.

'Of course Dan's in touch with you guys. We know from the news that he's been briefing Senator Mark Warner, vice chairman of this committee. Which one of you works for Senator Warner? Please give Danny my best.

'I saw some of his handiwork just last month. Remember this lede paragraph, from McClatchy on April 13?

'The Justice Department special counsel has evidence that Donald Trump's personal lawyer and confidant, Michael Cohen, secretly made a late-summer trip to Prague during the 2016 presidential campaign, according to two sources familiar with the matter.'

'That's your pal Dan, isn't it? He came up with some kind of hollow proof that Michael Cohen was in Prague meeting with Russians when he wasn't. He tried to sell that to reporters, and they didn't buy it because it doesn’t check out. So, to get a reporter to write up his line of bull, he gave the documents to the Office of Special Counsel.

'We know that’s likely, because he's told people he's briefing investigators.

'So, technically, the special counsel's office has evidence. Your pal Dan gave them more of the Democrats' dossier, funded by more Democrats, provided again by Russian and British spies. Information no reporter would write up, but now there's an angle: the Special Counsel has it. Now it's a story.

'It's a clever but effective ruse. That's a story, just like when reporter Michael Isikoff of Yahoo News wrote this gem on September 16, 2016:

"...'U.S. officials have since received intelligence reports that during that same three-day trip, Page met with Igor Sechin, a longtime Putin associate … a well-placed Western intelligence source tells Yahoo News. That meeting, if confirmed, is viewed as especially problematic by U.S. officials..."

'Dozens of stories were written from the Isikoff piece, doing real damage to the Trump campaign. Of course, now we know Isikoff's reference to "intelligence reports" was just him renaming a dossier funded by Democrats and dug up by his longtime pal Glenn Simpson and some foreign spies. Once Simpson gave his Clinton campaign opposition research to the feds, it was news.

'This was especially true after Isikoff intentionally labeled the campaign materials as intelligence -- just like McClatchy called Dan's information "evidence."

'What America needs is an investigation of the investigators. I want to know who is paying for the spies' work and coordinating this attack on President Donald Trump? I want to know who Dan Jones is talking to across the investigations -- from the FBI, to the Southern District of New York, to the OSC, to the Department of Justice, to Congress.

'Forget about all the death threats against my family. I want to know who cost us so much money, who crushed our kids, who forced us out of our home, all because you lost an election.

'I want to know because God Damn you to Hell.'

Sean Davis of The Federalist, who the NeverTrumpers despise because he reports true things that hurt their cause, reported that Dan Jones had left Feinstein's staff to act as Fusion GPS' coordinator/fundraiser a long while back. The House has now confirmed that.

$50 million -- as a friend points out, most CIA foreign-government-subversion ops don't have anywhere near that level of funding.

The Starbucks 2 Settle Lawsuit With Company for "Undisclosed Sum" and Promise of a Free College Education; They Settle With City for $1 and a Promise of the City Putting Aside $200,000 to Fund Young Entrepreneurs

—Ace of Spades

Say -- weren't the Starbucks 2 trespassing while waiting to hear from a guy about investing?

Doesn't that mean they're entrepreneurs?

Well, they did manage to generate a combined eight (or more) years of college tuition -- something like $800,000 or so, I reckon -- for twenty minutes' work.

This has to be the most profitable theatrical production in history, on a ROI basis.

Two black men arrested for sitting at a Philadelphia Starbucks without ordering anything settled with the coffee-shop chain Wednesday for an undisclosed sum and an offer of a free college education.

Separately, they reached a deal with the city for a symbolic $1 each and a promise from officials to set up a $200,000 program for young entrepreneurs.

The men and their lawyer said the agreement with the city was an effort to make sure something positive came out of the April 12 incident, which touched off a furor around the U.S. over racial profiling.

"We thought long and hard about it, and we feel like this is the best way to see that change that we want to see," said Donte Robinson, one of those arrested. "It's not a right-now thing that's good for right now, but I feel like we will see the true change over time."

What selfless samaritans. They had to think long and hard about accepting a "undisclosed sum" of money and a promise of having their college tuition paid.

LOL: Canadian PM Justin Trudeau, Who Invited Immigrants to Come As They Will, Blames US for Its, Get This, Illegal Immigrant Problem, And Wants Us to Share Some of the Load

—Ace of Spades

Yeah we'll get right on that, Chiachi.

Breaking: Twitter-Certified BlueCheckmark Genius Convinced That Kanye West is a RUSSIAN OPERATIVE

—Ace of Spades

Lee Smith: Are NBC and CNN Paying Off Spies Who Leaked Classified Information With High-Paid Jobs?

—Ace of Spades

Cozy.

The White House Correspondent’s Dinner Saturday night was a platform for the media to push back against the most powerful man in the world, the president of the United States. While Donald Trump constantly derides the top brands in American journalism as Fake News, the WHCA's prize committee presented the Merriman Smith Award for broadcast journalism to CNN's Evan Perez, Jim Sciutto, Jake Tapper, and Carl Bernstein for their Jan. 10, 2017 story reporting that Barack Obama's four intelligence chiefs briefed Donald Trump that Russia had compromising information on the President-elect.

The compromising information--ranging from allegations of the Trump team's criminal activities to the sexual depravities of Trump himself--was sourced to a 35-page-long opposition research file allegedly authored by the ex-British spy Christopher Steele. The so-called Steele dossier was funded by the Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee, which hired the Washington, D.C. opposition research firm Fusion GPS to produce and disseminate it to the press. As the award citation explains: "Thanks to this CNN investigation, 'the dossier' is now part of the lexicon."

CNN has never disclosed the close relationship between Evan Perez, one of the reporters on the Jan. 10, 2017 story, and his former Wall Street Journal colleagues who went on to start Fusion GPS, including the company's founder Glenn Simpson. Nor did the Merriman Smith prize committee acknowledge how the dossier on which the leading lights of the news business have again staked their institutional credibility was disseminated to the public.

That story is now coming into focus with the recent release of seven government documents that together detail a working partnership between spy agencies and the press that helped a political attack meme go viral, even though the evidence on which it was based was demonstrably false. While this type of relationship--let's call it collusion--may be routine in Third World countries, it does not bode well for the health of the American press, or our democratic institutions.

Smith turns the breathlessly report that the Russian lawyer Veselnitskya is an informant for the Kremlin -- but he notes this has been reported, including by his own magazine, Tablet, for a year. So this isn't breaking a story; it's re-breaking a story, to try to push it again.

And he notes the New York Times then gets very crafty about what it's willing to say about Veselnitskaya -- and who her American partners are.

More detail in the Times story would show that one of Veselnitskaya's partners in the anti-Magnitsky campaign was Fusion GPS. Glenn Simpson's opposition research shop had been brought on to run a smear campaign against Browder [the financier who lobbied for the Magnitsky Act after the Russian government murdered his whistleblower friend] in the press. The talking points on Magnitsky and Browder that Veselnitskaya recited in the Trump Tower meeting, talking points that she previously shared with Russia's prosecutor general, were quite literally written by Fusion GPS.

But wait. Fusion GPS--that's the same firm that was hired by the Clinton campaign and the DNC to produce the Steele dossier. So Fusion GPS disseminated reports of the Trump team’s ties to Russia in order to warn America of a possible criminal conspiracy that would sell out U.S. interests in exchange for help securing the presidency--while it also worked on a campaign defending Kremlin interests by undermining an American law. How, you ask, is that possible? And why didn’t the Times report that salient fact?

Because the Times was in bed with Fusion GPS too. William Browder told me that when he was trying to get various journalists to report on Fusion GPS’ role in the campaign against him and the Magnitsky Act, he found that the company’s founder Glenn Simpson "was so deeply embedded as a source for different stories, no one wanted to write a story about him."

He quotes Simpson's testimony to Congress, claiming that the dossier has been substantiated by way of his Russian P-I-C Veselnitskaya meeting with Trump, Jr. on a pretext of offering up Hillary dirt (but really there to carry out the joint Russian Government/Fusion GPS project of lobbying against the Magnitsky Act).

...

So, according to Simpson, the Trump Tower meeting proved the part of the Steele dossier that claimed the Trump team was taking the Kremlin’s dirt is true--meaning that Simpson is virtually admitting that the meeting between Trump Jr. and Veselnitskaya, his business partner, was a set up.

Read the whole thing.

The thing is, if Trump really was colluding with Russia, Fusion GPS would be running ops in his favor, not ops against him.

Comes a Hero

—Ace of Spades

The Morning Rant

—OregonMuse

"So yesterday, our former Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said that President Donald Trump should not engage directly in the details of negotiation with North Korea. Really? Think about that for a bit. This is a man who negotiated his way through the corrupt NY real estate market for decades. This is the man who wrote 'The Art of the Deal'. If Trump can't cut a permanent, lasting deal with the Norks, then who can? Plus, he might just get Kim Jong-un in a headlock and give him an Atomic Noogie, and who wouldn't want to see that?"

May 2, 2011 - Osama Bin Laden attempted to stop rounds of 5.56 with his face and failed. pic.twitter.com/aW9GBphY5l

— lancer (@aguyfromtx) May 2, 2018

(h/t ThunderB)

The New Socialism Monopoly:

(h/t Drill Thrawl)

AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!!

Some pics never get old.

Remember:

AoSHQ Weekly Prayer List

For submission guidelines and other relevant info, please contact FenelonSpoke, who is managing the prayer list. You can contact her at

fenelon direction 18 circle 'a' gmail dot com

(All one word, no spaces)

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4/15 LinDuh asked for prayer for her husband who had been out of work for a year and has developed a phone application for Apple that has been approved. She asks for prayers for success for this venture.

4/17 TonyPete- whose wife R needs healing from an auto immune disorders.

4/17 Josephistan- needs a new job and strength to deal with impending downsizing at current job.

4/17 Miley- Prayers for Evan, a young man who needs healing from brain damage after something fell on him.

4/17 Big V. asked for prayers for the family and friends of his friend "Battleship Sailor" who died in a accident while preparing a birthday dinner for his wife.

4/17 Jane D'oh- Family and friends of a church friend of hers and his family. He died after being in hospice with liver failure.

4/17 ibguy-My Baby Sister Joyce has an inoperable glioblastoma (brain tumor). Altjhough we've been remarkably blessed by an extra year with her, it appears that her fight for life has taken a downturn and she is under hospice care. She seems to be failing more rapidly now. Is incontinent. Would appreciate Horde prayers that her journey be as pain-free and dignified as possible.

4/17 update from a prayer request of two months ago from poster "Some Guy In Texas": Little girl with brain cancer. Has been accepted in a study for this particular disease so in that respect prayers have been answered. Continued prayers for healing. Thanks for the continued prayers, horde

4/17 A poster wrote: A friend from high school lost his daughter to cancer. She was diagnosed three weeks after getting married, and died 6 months later. Parents should not outlive their children. Pray, please, for consolation and peace of mind for her parents and widower, and the
repose of the soul of dear Adeline.

4/24 OregonMuse- PT on shoulder has reached a "plateau" where there hasn't been much improvement. The surgeon is now going to do a procedure where he puts in some kind of temporary nerve block after which he has about 10 minutes where he can do some aggressive manipulation of the shoulder in order to break up some of the scar tissue that's restricting range of motion. If successful, this will be followed up with some more intensive physical therapy to see if we can retain any of the gains we've achieved. Prayers would be appreciated for success for this therapy. Will be scheduled ASAP, not sure when, yet.

4/24 Hobbitopoly- Prayers for continued and complete healing for dad who had surgery for a detached retina.

4/24 Tim in Illinois needs sleep. Wants to "give up". Prayer request from Slapweasel that he have a relationship with the Lord and have some peace

4/25 From "Lee Also"- A friend of mine has ALS, and it looks like she is going to have to have a nasal gastric tube and a tracheostomy soon. Her ability to swallow is getting dangerously weak. I'm praying she'll get to hold her grandbaby, due in the summer.

4/25 From "Sulla- My dad's full test results came back today, and unfortunately it is cancer: adenocarcinoma. They'll be doing more this week to determine a course of treatment. My mom seems more shaken than Dad at the moment, but we're all still concerned. Prayers for healing.

4/26 Pooky's Girl-Bad news: Pooky is still struggling with PTSD nightmares and flashbacks.
Good news: He is now seeing a PTSD-focused therapist and the med adjustments have really helped. He is showing enthusiasm for our move, which is an improvement from the last two years. He's also joking and playing with Pookette a lot more. There has been a lot of divine intervention in our lives lately, and I'm grateful for that.

4/28 Jewell's daughter had been in hospital ER. Having a lot of pain under breastbone. Prayers for medical people to determine what's going on and how to best treat it. Prayers for complete healing and for concerned mom.

5/01 Moki's daughter has chronic Lyme Disease which affects immune system and has some other medical conditions. Now has strep throat during college exam time. Prayers for healing and strength.

Prayers for anyone who have loved ones with serious medical conditions or concern about loved ones.

I apologize for any errors. Please send corrections or updates to FenelonDirection18 at sign gmail.com as I cannot be on all the threads. Keep on praying!

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Please contact FenelonSpoke through email, as she cannot be around for many of the posts in threads. Feel free to copy and paste emails to her for Prayer Requests.

Please remember the Prayer of St. Francis:

http://www.prayerguide.org.uk/stfrancis.htm

Let us console others, O Lord.

Close it up