Please note the following two Tweets:
So the gap in Strzok-Page texts begins right after their "secret society" discussion and ends just as Robert Mueller is being appointed Special Counsel. I'm sure it's nothing.— John Sexton (@verumserum) January 23, 2018
.@SenRonJohnson on alleged 'secret society' mentioned in @FBI agents' texts: "That 'secret society' - we have an informant that's talking about a group, they were holding secret meetings offsite." #SpecialReport https://t.co/0NPVFhqWiY pic.twitter.com/NaXelnfaJP— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 23, 2018
Related...If This is True, Our Republic is at an End: Either the FBI engaged in partisan behavior or partisans are trying to undermine basic institutions of law and order by Erick Erickson. Excerpt (emphasis mine)
...[T]he reality is this: if FBI agents collaborated to fabricate or exaggerate allegations about Donald Trump and/or tried to bring down his Presidency through partisan motivations, it is game over on the republic. If the civil institutions we have put in place to ensure law and order apart from politics are infiltrated by politics, there really is no turning back. We are already at a "they started it" mentality in our politics and this will just escalate the breakdown. We have already seen this in the IRS twice in the past fifty years, first with Nixon then with Obama, and the second time was largely given a pass by press.Read the rest HERE.
There are now real and troubling allegations stemming from text messages that include agents meeting to discuss an "insurance policy" and agents meeting in a secret society. There are possible missing or willfully deleted text messages.
To be sure, and this is very important, there is also a lot of partisan exaggeration by people trying to protect the President. There is a lot of conflation. But there are serious allegations and there is enough evidence now that we need an investigation. I do not believe we need a special counsel as it would only serve to undermine the existing special counsel and would be seen as such. The Department of Justice should investigate and fully and publicly release its findings.'...
What say you about "the insurance policy," over 50,000 missing text messages, and a "secret society" — all within the FBI — and apparently related to the 2016 Election?
The entire leadership of the FBI needs to be fired. Clean house.
ReplyDeleteRegardless of whether any felonies were committed, this is unprofessional, dangerously close to police state activities, and it brings suspicion and shame upon the entire FBI.
We need this institution, and We The People need to know we can trust the FBI. After this, perpetrated under Obama's JustUs Department, its all in doubt, and that is a shame for the FBI rank and file, who most likely didn't even know these cocky bastards were doing any of this.
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DeleteCatona Hottinroof said
DeleteWHATEVER HAPPENED to "TIMELESS TWAIN?"
HE'S SCHEDULED toAPPEAR, but SO FAR HAS BEEN a NO SHOW.
HMMMMMMPH!
"Timeless Twain" will appear on Monday morning. I accidentally published it ahead of schedule, then pulled it back.
DeleteImagine the reaction if we found out that in 2008 a cabal of military Generals were passing such communications back and forth about candidate and then President Obama.
ReplyDeleteSF,
DeleteOh, Lordy! The screeching would have been deafening and on constant autoplay!
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DeleteFT,
DeleteEvery time I tune in to a news channel (always briefly these days), or glance at a headline I feel much as Alice must have felt when she attended the Mad Hatter's Tea party.
Perfect analogy! I feel the same and am now studiously avoiding "the news" for most of my day. I'm now sleeping better at night!
"At what point then is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." --Abraham Lincoln
ReplyDeleteAbe was right. The GOP, no longer the party of Lincoln, today hastens the demise of our democratic republic.
ReplyDelete56 years from now, when my oldest grandchild is my age, he will understand by far better the dangers demagogues like Trump present our nation. Because he will have lived through it all. As well as the aftermath.
Or ... demagogues like everyone in the DNC. The mind is like a parachute; it only works when it is fully deployed.
DeletePoint taken. Point valid. The challenge is to increase the number of fully deployed parachutes.
DeleteDemagoguery is decidedly a bipartisan affair. You apparently understand that Sam.
Don't worry...the media and Schumer's bunch will manage a way to squelch this information with some huge story they've been keeping against Trump just for this occasion.
ReplyDeleteZ,
DeleteThat wouldn't surprise me in the least.
The defense rests. Its case having been proven by its adversaries.
ReplyDeleteWhat do we have here.
ReplyDeleteA couple of phrases without context and a claim of some missing texts. In other words, not much.
You can just as easily see this as an attempt to discredit and squeeze the Mueller investigation.
Seems as ginned up as the Nunes memo.
Nunes got in there and fabricated all those messages?
DeleteThis may just be smoke and no fire, but I refer you to my comments above. Unprofessional and casts opprobrium upon the FBI. At the least, the top corporate leadership was arrogant, sloppy and stupid. Fire them all.
yyyyeeeeaaaaa.....and the 18 minutes of erased Nixon tape were nothing either.
DeleteI'm still wondering how Putin benefits from Trump's tax cut plan, as Trump does not even comb his own hair without permission from Moscow. Perhaps we'll know more after the Davos trip to meet with all the Russian bankers.
ReplyDeleteOf greater concern is the potential loss of President, er, WH Cheif of Staff John Kelly, who has had the thankless job of running the country and exploiting Donald Trump's mental retardation with faked orders from Putin and porn stars spanking him with copies of Forbes magazine.
If we lose President, er, Chief of Staff Kelly, we're doomed. The FBI will continue to expose Russian's exploitation of Trump's mental retardation and rob Republicans of their exploitation of Trump's mental retardation. No good.
Who let the MSNBC clown in?
DeleteWe really need to feel sorry for Trump. That retard has been exploited more often than a Filipino pre-teen outside a Navy base.
DeleteSubic closed in '92, beamish. Didn't the Russian Twitterbots post an update to you in Facebook?
Delete"Filipina" For gawd's sake, if yer gonna sling insults at least get it right, unless yer accusing US Sailors of preying on Filipino men. Sheesh, and yer callin' other people retards? Get a life, nancy.
DeleteDon't ask, don't tell, Biff. TMI
DeleteOK, we won't ask ya, nancy boy. You wasn't even in the Navy so you must have gone over there on a homosexual sex tourism vacay.
DeleteNah, just a cultural reference you are perhaps too elaborate about. Keep it in your
Deletefootlocker, "Biff" lol
Waaaaal boy, you can have the Filipinos and I'll take the Filipinas!!!
DeleteRunning with scissors is bad, mmmkay.
DeleteRunnin with Billy Boys is even more dangerous. Be careful out there!
DeleteSnatchurally.
Delete"Biff"
DeleteY'are what you eat, Dick!
DeleteThis secret society thingy does nothing for the cause... it it used as depicting that we are nothing but tin foil hats and conspiracy theorists.. Something doesn't seem right to me.. the top echelon of the FBI texts this stuff on a government account? They had to know....eyes were on them.
ReplyDeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
ReplyDeleteThese are the lines of those unwilling to believe a retard could beat Hillary Clinton.
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ReplyDeleteThe problem is this....News gets the label of "fake news" when that bit of news contradicts one's world view.
DeleteI heard that Pope Francis got a lot of bad press lately -- in Latin America. I haven't had time to verify this bit of news.
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DeleteI am unable to agree with your conclusions. Catholic simply means universal, and the meaning of church is "community." In this sense, protestants were, at one time, part of the universal Christian community (separated from the community in protest of corruption within the Roman church). Yet, protestant liturgy is the same as that found in Catholic churches, along with the more important rites of the Christian faith. To say that Catholicism had little to do with the framing of American values simply isn't based on actual history. As a Catholic, I have no great disagreement with Pope Francis' ideals; they are Christian, after all. I simply disagree with his approach to problem solving. He is a socialist; I am not. Charity rests within our conscience; we should reach out to others because of our Christianity -not because of government imposed mandates. Still, there is an explanation why there was only one Catholic signer of the Declaration of Independence (Charles Carroll); that reason was the discrimination of protestants against Catholics -which was itself a contravention of Christian behavior, but it is what it is. Apparently, these biases continue to exist today.
DeleteMaryland was founded as a Catholic Colony, FT.
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DeletePerhaps FJ could also give us a discourse on Pope's Day or Pope's Night, as "celebrated" by colonial America.
DeleteIt was rank anti-Catholic bigotry by the vulgar masses, but...
We cannot criticize the enlightened thinkers of that time, who rightly saw the Catholic Church as opposed the Lockean liberalism.
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DeletePope Night, for the interested.
DeleteFreeThinke,
DeleteWe are in agreement. I just wanted to point out that there was indeed anti-Cathoic bigotry in the Colonies, while also pointing out that Catholicism at that time was not compatible with the establishment of a liberal state ruled by We the People and founded upon Enlightenment ideals.
Although I doubt the founders indulged in vulgar anti-Catholic tumults, I am pretty sure they did not look to Church writings and philosophy for inspiration.
An interesting question related to this: Why are Canada and the US so prosperous, and Latin America so screwed up?
Protestant v. Catholicism?
Anglo-Saxons v. Iberians?
My favorite book on Latin American Dysfunction is Paracitism and Subersion - The Case of Latin America
It is scholarly, and it is the absolute best, most comprehensive explanation of why our neighbors to the south have so many problems.
Read that book, The Penguin History of Latin America and dry wit Ryszard Kapuściński's The Soccer War and you will have a better understanding of Latin America in all its ugliness and beauty than 99% of the phoney baloney University of Taco Bell Hispanic Studies professors.
FreeThinke, You comment about the Founders' "Cultural Christianity" is spot on.
DeleteFarmer, Thanks for the link. Sounds almost like proto-Klansmen...
DeleteAlso, for some strange reason, it reminded me of a posited origin of caroling I once read a long time ago, that basically, it was roving bands of drunkards careening about the better neighborhoods of London, besmirching the solemn Holy Day with revelry and shouting choruses at rich peoples' houses until someone came out and gave them food or treats.
So, in that light, "Bring us some figgy pudding" and "We won't go until we get some" make a lot more sense.
:P
DeleteIn Philly, you'd better give the New Year's Shooters what they wanted. These mummers, Morris dancers, belsnickels and callithumpians were "armed".
DeleteAnd then he went back into his gilded redoubt and said the world needs moar socialism....
ReplyDeleteThe problem is that we might never be able to discern what actually is going on. Not from lack of data but because of a glut of irrelevant data. The Clinton machine perfected this method.
ReplyDeleteStall, stall, stall, deny, deny, deny, obfuscate, dump a mountain of irrelevant documents, make up another false narrative, rinse and repeat. If questioned about some inconstancy or past allegation, repeat ad nauseum, "That's old news and thoroughly debunked."
The problem of predicting the chance of all these things being coincidence begins to mirror the predictability that all of the oxygen in the room migrates to one corner and you suffocate. The longer it takes the more evidence that will be destroyed or hidden.
May they enjoy the 8th circle of Hell!
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DeleteI completely agree. The strategy is to overwhelm people with information, carefully engineered IMO to cause people to "drop out" of the process of civic involvement. Add to this politicization of our most important government institutions. If our government was just, our agencies would guard against the worst forms of corruption imaginable: everyone, no matter what political party they belong to, would be held to the standard applied to the rest of us. The Clinton corruption is but the tip of the iceberg; the Bush family is equally guilty, and yet no one investigated "gifts" given to George H. W. Bush by the Kuwaitis after the first gulf war. If corruption works to the benefit of the Bush cartel, then it must be okay for the Clinton's too. Final point: why has Soros never been made to account for funding the Ferguson riots? It is no wonder that sensible people have dropped out of the process. America is in a dangerous spiral; we are in a place where the politicians win the game and the rest of us (and our progeny) are losers.
DeleteFinal point: why has Soros never been made to account for funding the Ferguson riots?
Delete-------------------------
Because he didn't and the mainstream media responsibly left this parcel of lies to fringe right favorites like Breitbart, The Washington Times and Limbaugh.
Soros did indeed help fund groups who demonstrated responsibly in Ferguson but he had nothing to do with the riots.
The real final point is why we should bother to listen to conspiracy theorists.
You almost strayed into the truth there, Ducky.
DeleteBehind most partisan propaganda is a grain of truth from which it sprung.
Soros funds all kinds of anti-American Community Disrupter organization. He doesn't give two figs about whether they "demonstrate responsibly," or not.
The quicker that old Satan crosses the river Styx, the better, and may the devil take all his spawn as well.
SF,
DeleteToo many spawn!
Sam,
DeleteThe strategy is to overwhelm people with information, carefully engineered IMO to cause people to "drop out" of the process of civic involvement.
I personally know some 18-25 year olds who have indeed dropped out. They are disgusted by what they see in politics and no longer go to the ballot box. Of course, these same young people rely on Facebook and Buzz Feed for their "news." They have no interest in reading The Federalist Papers and the Constitution.
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DeleteFT, does it "really MATTER" to whom or what?
DeleteIt seems off topic but an interesting question.
I can repost the question as another topic.
Well, the missing texts have been recovered and the "secret society" reference has been revealed as a joke.
ReplyDeleteMy guess is that the fringe right media ignores the "secret society" gaffe.
Nostradumbass, not that I disagree about the worthiness of "secret society" being anything other than piffle, but your insistence that it "has been revealed as a joke" has all the intellectual credibility of a worm eating its own castings.
DeleteIn other words, you don't know the context and you can't possibly know the context at this point in time. (You haven't read the text.) Your uninformed opinion has no greater validity than any other uninformed opinion, probably less given your proclivity for leftist BS. Given that I call you Nostradumbass for your ability of almost always getting your predictions wrong, it swings my opinion in the opposite direction.
Granted the blind squirrel effect, there is a remote possibility that you could be correct.
"all the intellectual credibility of a worm eating its own castings"
DeleteBrilliant!
You're joking, right Warren?
ReplyDeleteI doubt it.
Delete@ RN, about which part?
DeleteSomeone asked me what I thought about the Strzok-Page texts, specifically the "Secret Society" comment; I said, sounds to me like Strzok is trying to impress his girlfriend (only in more vulgar terms). Given the other supposed texts sounding like 12 year olds passing notes in class, how 'should' I react?
If you're talking to the passing reference I made to Ducky's breath; I will swear on a stack of Bibles that I have never been close enough to Ducky to actually smell his breath! It was just an educated guess.
Warren,
Deletesounds to me like Strzok is trying to impress his girlfriend
Junior high braggadocio, to which I alluded in the title of this blog post.
I find it astounding that FBI agents, whose salaries I am helping to pay, would be engaging in these texts on government-provided devices.
Hell, when I'm at work, I barely have a moment to check blog comments. I'M TOO BUSY! -- and my job certainly isn't of the same gravitas as being an FBI agent.
The Republic is NOT over.
ReplyDeleteWe are ferreting out the truth and some will be held accountable as an example.
The Teapot Dome was not the end of the Republic.
You're right Ed, it's not over.
DeleteI'm just dreading how far it will go before the accountability.
Ed,
Deletesome will be held accountable
Really?
Think HRC and Lois Lerner -- to name only two examples of those who have skated instead of being held accountable.
You are right Ed, our framework is solid and our institutions of government strong. Yes, we will ferret out the truth and responsible parties will be held accountable.
ReplyDeleteAs long as the politics of one party don't ever get and maintain the upper hand.
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ReplyDeleteTarzana Joe sez:
ReplyDeleteI Believe (or What is Truth Anyway?)
Tell me that, by Newton’s Law
A rock stays where you leave it
Tell me 1 plus 1 is 2
I simply don’t believe it
Tell me that the sky is blue
Or Philly fans are louts
Swear to me you know it’s true
I’ll say I have my doubts
I seek the kind of certainty
That bites you on the nose
I wouldn’t be one to say I saw
The Emperor’s New Clothes
I measure thrice before I cut
I read before I sign
A drop of my distrust
Could all the seas incarnadine
But tell me that the texts are gone
There’s no way to retrieve them
How can you doubt the DOJ?
Of course, we must believe them
And I can see quite clearly
Through these rosy colored glasses
Every text deleted
Was about their yoga classes
So what if they can’t find their phones
Or if the phone’s a burner?
I put my trust in them
The way I trusted Lois Lerner
So what if he was texting
While he cheated on his wife
The insurance he was after
Was a quote on his Term Life
And I believe Jim Comey
For he is an honest lawyer
That Hillary had no intent
To circumvent the FOIA
Perhaps you think I’m blowing smoke
Or trying to be funny
I know someone who’ll vouch for me
My friend, the Easter Bunny
You brood of Doubting Thomases
You trouble and disgust me
I know truth when I hear it
I guarantee it. Trust me.
Ed,
Delete**smile**
Here's a jaw dropper:
ReplyDeleteNew Texts Show Anti-Trump FBI Agents Communicated via Unsecured Gmail Instead of thru Bureau Email Servers.
Excerpt:
First it was communications via burner phones among FBI brass, acting like drug cartel members.
Now, it’s discussions via Google’s unsecured gmail platform.
How many other FBI brass are employing Gmail to discuss classified and top secret national security matters?
I believe the Hatch Act prohibits government employees from engaging in certain kinds of political activism; if FBI agents have conspired to use non-government electronic platforms to engage in prohibited political activity while on duty, (I'm quite sure the Inspector General in the FBI could determine whether this actually occurred), then whoever engages in prohibited activity should be fired. So far, I have not seen much of an interest by the Trump Administration to enforce existing laws in this regard.
DeleteThe FBI's behavior isn't a "Hatch Act" violation, it's TREASON, pure and simple.
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DeleteTarzana Joe.
Deletehttp://www.tarzanajoe.com/believe-truth-anyway/
The last time any American was charged with treason, Moby Dick was a minnow.
ReplyDeleteThe English have a much better "conception" of it.
DeleteUnder English law effective during the ratification of the U.S. Constitution, including the Treason Act 1351, there were essentially five species of treason. Of the five, the Constitution adopted only two: levying war and adhering to enemies. Omitted were species of treason involving encompassing (or imagining) the death of the king, certain types of counterfeiting, and finally fornication with women in the royal family of the sort which could call into question the parentage of royal successors. James Wilson wrote the original draft of this section, and he was involved as a defense attorney for some accused of treason against the Patriot cause.
Mustang,
DeleteThe last time any American was charged with treason, Moby Dick was a minnow.
And why is that?
Meanwhile, the knives come out for Nunes. That #releasethememo he wrote must be a doozy!
ReplyDeleteFJ,
DeleteMeanwhile, the knives come out for Nunes.
And the beat goes on.
What a turn-off!
I am not so sanguine about the durability of our governmental structures and institutions.
ReplyDeleteA government gets by with whatever the people allow it, and ours is careening off the rails.
Congress hasn't followed standard annual budget processes in over a decade
Obama took billions from the treasury and gave it to insurance companies without congressional authorization.
I could go on, but we all know the tune...
Thanks to Fat Teddy's Immigration bill that guarantees neverending waves of need Democrat voters, We The People have lost the ability to preserver our unique American culture that all creeds, colors and religions participated in, before progressives turned us into a smoldering Smelting pot.
so much for the "Spirit" of the Constitution (as written in the Preamble):
DeleteWe the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America.
The people are powerless against our arrogant government. Does anyone in the administration or congress give a damn what the people think about any of their shenanigans? Individual congress-critters may be held to account (emphasis on "may"), but the body continues unabated. The smugness of these cretins is palpable; none of it bodes well for the future of the Republic ...
DeleteRome's Senate negated itself in 44 bc when it went after it's Executive. The same is happening now. The Republic is over.
DeleteShould have elected Lindsey Grahamnesty. You could have had all the capitulation to Democrats without the Twitter feed.
ReplyDeleteHesiod, "Works and Days"
DeleteAnd now I will tell a fable for princes who themselves understand. Thus said the hawk to the nightingale with speckled neck, while he carried her high up among the clouds, gripped fast in his talons, and she, pierced by his crooked talons, cried pitifully. To her he spoke disdainfully: `Miserable thing, why do you cry out? One far stronger than you now holds you fast, and you must go wherever I take you, songstress as you are. And if I please I will make my meal of you, or let you go. He is a fool who tries to withstand the stronger, for he does not get the mastery and suffers pain besides his shame.' So said the swiftly flying hawk, the long- winged bird.
I wonder if all the redhats will now take amnestied border jumpers into their homes.
DeleteAnd, still, some Dems say that Trump's recent statement about immigration isn't enough. It's also racist according to certain Dems. Of course!
DeleteThe Dems continue to make themselves look moronic.
I wonder when the butthurt never Trumpers will ever stop whining.
DeleteDouglas Kittredge of the Isle of Shoals said
ReplyDeleteAin't it about time The Tree of Liberty got refreshed once again with the blood of patriots and tyrants?
Sure looks like it to me? Lotta people gonna hafta DIE before this nation could ever hope to get back on track again.
Douglas,
ReplyDeleteSyndicalist Progs have blown up the tracks. There is no going back; only forward.
We're in an epochal shift. Half the planet lives in extreme privation and/or suffers under some form of tyranny. What's different now, they can see through little animated electronic windows how the other half is living, and they want it. Suffering poor people will not stay put. They will fill the vacuum created by narcissistic fools in the west who are systematically destroying all their forbears worked and fought so hard to build.
We're entering a brave new world. Everything will probably be OK, but it will never be like it was; and why should it? There was a lot of bad stuff back there, too.
When, at last, North America's specific gravity is the same as that of the rest of the world, when there is no more American to dream of, aspire to, and escape to, some energetic young people will create a new one...
...or we will be plugged-in milk cows to the global elites.
What if Szrock and Page weren't having an "affair." What if an "affair" was a cover-up to explain their conspiracy?
ReplyDeleteInteresting theory, but the Con Treehouse is a little to out there for me.
DeleteI wouldn't be surprised to hear one day that the Conservative Treehouse blogger was shot for poaching on Alex Jones' land.
There are two sides to every conspiracy "theory".
Delete...but I suppose that you shouldn't 'f with Ockham. THAT is something best left to "lawyers" like Susan Page.
Deleteerratun - Lisa Page
Delete...I obviously need a new errata.
Deletebtw - How do you spell "criminal conspiracy"?
DeleteRebuke them where the sun don't shine
DeleteQuiet, beamish. Just pass the butter!
Delete