Monthly Archives: May 2017

05/31/17

A Relatively Quiet Day

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

Markets were generally little changed as politics and interest rates appear to dominate the conversation. Regarding interest rates, Fed Funds futures are all but guaranteeing an increase at the upcoming meeting. This outlook may change dramatically following Friday’s release of May’s employment data. I can argue if the data is considerably stronger than expected, the conversation will change to the probability of a 0.50% increase at an upcoming meeting.

Wow! Such a scenario has not been remotely discussed.

Speaking about not being discussed, until last Friday I read nothing about further production cuts from OPEC. The narrative was all about extending the status quo until December and maybe to March. To the best of my knowledge, there were no firms expecting greater production cuts.

The selloff in crude both today and Friday was blamed on the lack of further cuts in volume. Against this backdrop, if Friday’s job report surprises on the upside, perhaps the discussion of a 0.50% in the intermediate future is not as outlandish as it may appear.

And then there are politics. Like most, I do not know what to believe. Perhaps the accurate statement to make is almost the entire political establishment is against Donald Trump.

As a student of political science with an emphasis in international relations, “back channels” are necessary for realpolitik. Throughout modern history such has permitted a dialogue that in many instances may have prevented war. All administrations have utilized “back channels” and to condemn a vital and irreplaceable venue demonstrates the total ignorance of the person or group perpetuating such comments.

According to Facebook, 72% of adults receive their news via a social media, a venue that has no attribution. The potential for misrepresentation is gargantuan.

It is often written President Obama was the first president who utilized social media to win an election. President Trump is on steroids as compared to President Obama.

For what it is worth department, according to the polling firm FiveThirtyEight, Donald Trump has a higher rating than Bill Clinton had at this point in 1993. In early June 1993, Clinton’s approval rating was 37%. Today Trump is at 41%. Clinton tried to change the world and could not, so he changed. The economy also recovered.

Wow! Will history repeat itself?

What will happen today? In many regards, many blue-chip forecasters are extrapolating the last 8 years into eternity.

Last night the foreign markets were mixed. London was up 0.40%, Paris was up 0.22% and Frankfurt was up 0.44%. China was up 0.23%, Japan was down 0.14% and Hang Sang was down 0.16%.

The Dow should open quiet ahead a near certain interest hike next month. The 10-year is off 4/32 to yield 2.23%.

05/31/17

How Trump Hatred Is Designed to Save Iran

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Under the Graham family, the previous owners of The Washington Post, it was always a liberal Democratic Party newspaper. Everyone knew that. Under Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, it has become a left-wing rag, running stories against the Trump administration that are so extreme as to be laughable. The paper’s descent is something to see, especially in regard to Iran’s aggressive and terroristic behavior in the Middle East.

Consider the story that ran in the print edition of the paper, “Trump’s visit to Saudi Arabia incites conflicts in Middle East, analysts say.” Who are these analysts? The only one cited is Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East studies at the London School of Economics who says that the Trump visit was “related” to the “tumult” that ensued.

So the word “incites” in the title—which implies deliberate intent—becomes “related” in the article, whatever that means. And the “analysts” is just one professor who doesn’t actually make the charge of incitement.

This is a case of a Post headline going far beyond what the story actually says. The word “incites” is another way to blame Trump for anything bad that happens around the world. It was just one of many anti-Trump stories in this edition of the paper. The bias is never-ending and only seems to get worse each day.

But this story was more unusual than most, since it pins the blame on Trump for problems in the Arab/Muslim world that go back hundreds of years. Trump’s crime is supporting Sunni Saudi Arabia against Shiite Iran.

Both regimes are noxious, and the case can be made to stay out of the Middle East and let them fight it out. But Trump has come to the conclusion that Saudi Arabia has to be supported at this time because of Russia-backed Iran’s desperate pursuit of strategic nuclear weapons and its export of terrorism.

Somebody at the Post apparently realized the headline blaming Trump for incitement was a vast overstatement of what was in the story itself, so it was changed in the online edition to “By backing Saudi Arabia’s vision of the Middle East, Trump may be sowing the seeds of conflict.”

Trump was supposedly inciting the Middle East, but now his pro-Saudi stand “may” be “sowing the seeds of conflict.”

How can any self-respecting journalist write for a paper that distorts the news in such a blatant partisan fashion to make a president look bad?

Here’s the critical paragraph in the story:

“‘Donald Trump now accepts the view of Saudi Arabia as a strategic bastion in the Arab and Islamic World,’ said Fawaz Gerges, a professor of Middle East studies at the London School of Economics. And his visit was ‘related’ to the tumult that ensued, Gerges said.”

So because Trump decides to stand with Saudi Arabia against Iran, the “tumult,” which has been going on for many years, continues. And Trump is to blame for this because his visit was “related” to the “tumult.”

The Post’s reporters, Kareem Fahim and Erin Cunningham, said that “…far from uniting the region, Trump’s words had only aggravated its divides.” Since when did Trump say he intended to paper over Iran’s pursuit of terrorism and nuclear weapons for some mythical unity in the Middle East?

This is not reporting, but left-wing pro-Iranian garbage.

Indeed, Trump’s anti-Iran comments in Riyadh were “vociferous,” the Post reporters said. They quoted a senior military aide to Iran’s supreme leader as saying the U.S. weapons deal with Saudi Arabia was “an attempt to destabilize the region.”

The only thing “vociferous” was the language in the Post article that was meant to convey support for Saudi Arabia and other Sunni states as divisive and provocative.

One of my favorite paragraphs in this “news” story was this one:

“And leaders in Iran, Saudi Arabia’s principal rival, where voters earlier this month reelected a reformist president, went on the offensive, condemning Trump’s announcement of billions of dollars in weapons sales to the Saudis while revealing the existence of an underground ballistic missile facility.”

A “reformist” president is running a regime pursuing nuclear weapons. The regime went “on the offensive” by “revealing the existence of an underground ballistic missile facility.” How about using words like “destabilizing the Middle East” and providing the rationale for U.S. support for Saudi Arabia? The Post can’t say those things because they would make Trump’s visit sound sensible.

Defense News points out that Iran has missiles that can travel 1,200 miles, placing much of the Middle East, including Israel, within range.

A small item in a “News Roundup” section in the Post mentioned the Iranian development. It said, “Iran has built a third underground ballistic missile production factory, the semiofficial Fars News Agency quoted a senior commander of the elite Revolutionary Guard Corps as saying. The development is likely to fuel tensions with the United States.”

But isn’t it Trump who is causing conflict and tumult in the region?

The Post is so determined to make Trump look bad that it blames Trump for “tensions” created by the Iranian regime and its pursuit of strategic nuclear weapons.

Who is this professor quoted by the Post? Not surprisingly, he’s also a favorite of The New York Times, which noted that Gerges had appeared on an Arabic talk show before the Trump visit to Saudi Arabia and said, “Donald Trump is a ridiculous man. He’s a childish man. This man is seen in the United States as a joke, as racist, a man who has nothing, no view, no vision, no values.”

Now we know why the Post and Times quoted this professor. He thinks and talks the way they do. And even when he does not say precisely what they think about Trump, they will distort his comments to make Trump look bad. Blaming Trump for bad relations between Arab/Muslim states is ridiculous, but nothing is beyond the pale for The Washington Post.

The media go to people like Gerges because he was a supporter of the unsigned and unenforceable Obama nuclear deal with the Iranian regime that is permitting the fanatical Mullahs to develop strategic nuclear weapons. Gerges had said about the agreement, “It’s a good day for diplomacy, it’s a good day for compromise, it’s a good day for a new beginning between Iran—a pivotal state in the Middle East—and the United States.”

It’s no wonder he’s a source for the liberal media in their Trump-bashing. They are desperate to save the Obama agreement propping up Iran’s nuclear weapons program.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

05/31/17

CUNY Professor Mucahit Bilici‏ blames ‘Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric’ for Bernie-supporting murderer Jeremy Christian

By: Renee Nal | New Zeal

Mucahit Bilici

Jeremy Christian brutally murdered two men and wounded another who were allegedly protecting Muslim women on a train from Christian’s “racist insults,” as reported at KATU.

From the article:

“Multiple witnesses told KATU the suspect was hurling racial insults at two women, at least one of whom was wearing a hijab. Police wouldn’t confirm their ages, but referred to them as ‘girls’ and ‘young women.’

Sgt. Pete Simpson with Portland Police added the suspect appeared to be acting erratically and wasn’t necessarily focused on anti-Muslim insults during the attack.”

From a distance, Jeremy Christian looked like a perfect candidate for the left’s narrative. Soon Jeremy Christian would become as much of a beloved bogeyman for the mainstream media as Dylann Roof, the “Jihadist for White Hate.” Breathless “news” articles cited Christian’s horrific attack and many tied “Trump’s rhetoric” with the violence.

But when it started to unfold that Christian is in fact an anti-Semetic Bernie Sanders supporter based on numerous Facebook posts, the mainstream media backed off of the Trump connection, only to refer to him as a “white supremacist.”

Here is Jeremy sharing Democratic Socialist’s photo in June of last year:

Here he chastises anyone who supported Donald Trump or Hillary Clinton:

But according to the Slate article Turkish CUNY Professor Mucahit Bilici‏ shared on Twitter, murderer Jeremy Christian is a “right wing extremist.” Mucahit Bilici‏ laments that the killings are “normalized” by “Trump’s Islamophobic rhetoric.” According to his CUNY bio, Bilici‏’s interests include “American Islam, Religion, Islamophobia…”

The Slate article, written by Daniel Politi, a self-described “Journalist” living in Argentina, also quotes Heidi Beirich of the Southern Povery Law Center as making this determination “after examining his Facebook page.”

Here is the Muslim Professor’s tweet:

Here is a tweet from the painfully partisan Southern Poverty Law Center:

And, of course, Slate:

Just more #FakeNews.

05/30/17

Welcome To The Un-Official Start Of Summer

By: Kent Engelke | Capitol Securities

Welcome to the unofficial start of summer. Markets typically languish during this period, but since when have times been typical? For the first time in many years, earning estimates for the S & P 500 are rising not falling. Confidence levels are surging and economic activity appears to be accelerating.

Many times I have commented about the narrowness of the markets, a narrowness that is now greatly discussed. Typically, narrowness is associated with waning days of an advancing market. I will argue differently. Today, I believe the narrowness is the result of the massive proliferation of ETFs and technology based trading that benefits only the largest capitalized issues.

I believe breadth will expand if economic activity accelerates. Like many, I desire tax and regulatory change, but just the mere freeze of additional regulations is refreshing, equivalent to how it feels when one stops banging one’s head against the wall… great.

In my view, perhaps one of today’s greatest values is in the energy sector. Bloomberg writes the group trades at its lowest level relative to the S & P 500 in 14 years and represents the lowest capitalization of the S & P 500 in 18 years.

According to the IEA, global demand is now 1 million barrels more per day than supply. What happens if growth accelerates?

As noted last week, consensus has extrapolated the anemic growth rate of the last 10-years into eternity. Many times I have remarked the last ten years is the longest period in history where the economy has not grown at a 3% annual rate in history, crushing the previous record of 4 years from 1930-34.

As noted above, today is everything but “typical.” There are negative real treasury yields across almost the entire curve, an environment normally associated with inflationary growth. Monetary velocity is at 58-year lows and bank excess reserves are at gargantuan levels. Infrastructure spending has been virtually nonexistent during the last ten years, spending required to increased productivity and growth.

I think we are at the cusp of the mirror image of the last 10 years. If the economy accelerates, so does energy demand.

Change is the only constant with only the velocity of change that is different. What are the odds the oil sector will partially reverse today’s undervaluation as compared to the S & P in the next 12 months? Great if my economic outlook materializes.

This week’s economic calendar is robust. There are various manufacturing indices, personal spending and income statistics, housing information and jobs data. All can offer evidence to my view of accelerating growth.

Last night the foreign markets were down. London was down 0.54%, Paris was down 0.83% and Frankfurt was down 0.23%. China was up 0.07%, Japan was down 0.02% and Hang Sang was up 0.24%.

The Dow should open nominally lower. The 10-year is up 3/32 to yield 2.24%.

05/30/17

Rob Bonta wanted to legalize Communists in California government – has Maoist family background

By: Trevor Loudon | New Zeal

This article has been cross-posted from Bombthrowers.

In May, anti-communist California State Assemblywoman Janet Nguyen (R-Santa Ana) pushed back hard against Assembly colleague San Francisco Democrat Rob Bonta‘s Assembly Bill 22.

Rob Bonta

Bonta’s Bill was intended to amend an existing statute for removing a public employee who “is knowingly a member of the Communist party,” or a member of an organization that “advocates the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of any state by force or violence.”

Bill 22 would have allowed communists to work legally in the California government.

On May 10, the bill passed the Assembly and was headed for a rubber stamp Senate vote, but with the support of her district, often referred to as “Little Saigon,” Nguyen launched a petition to oppose the legislation.

Claiming that his bill didn’t “endorse communism or encourage communism,” Bonta maintained that he was protecting “people’s rights” and “following constitutional precedents that made it illegal for a government to fire employees due to their political affiliations.”

On May 18, after intense pressure from Nguyen and Assemblyman Travis Allen who called it “blatantly offensive to all Californians,” Bonta withdrew the Bill and apologized to US military veterans and refugees from the Vietnamese communist regime.

Communist Ties Run Deep for Rep. Rob Bonta

Rep. Rob Bonta should not get off the hook so lightly. Far from protecting innocent political activists from government overreach, Rep. Bonta was much more likely protecting serious security risks from legal consequences for their subversive activities.

It turns out that Assemblyman Rob Bonta has close personal and family ties to a network of activists with histories of “advocating the overthrow of the Government of the United States or of any state by force or violence.”

These activists were never members of the old pro-Soviet Communist Party USA, but were members of the even more radical Katipunan ng Mga Demokratikong Pilipino, commonly known as the KDP or Union of Democratic Filipinos.

KDP, San Diego

This organization advocated the forceful overthrow of both the United States and Philippines governments. Many former KDP activists continue to network with each other and other communist organizations, and many hold influential California government jobs to this day.

Cynthia and Rob Bonta

Rob Bonta’s mother Cynthia Bonta, was a very active member of the KDP and both mother and son remain close to many ex-KDP comrades.

Until recently, Rob Bonta served on the board of Filipino Advocates for Justice, under former KDP member and Cynthia Bonta’s long time comrade Lillian Galedo.

Rob Bonta wrote on Facebook in April 2017, that he is “so proud to honor Filipino Advocates for Justice on the well-earned retirement of their incredible executive director Lillian Galedo after 37 years. You are my friend and all of our inspiration!”

Rob Bonta praises Lillian Galedo on Facebook

Founded in 1973, in a retreat in the Santa Cruz mountains, the KDP “was a nationwide collection of Fil-Ams and Filipino immigrants who were involved in community organizing around social justice issues in the US and democratic nationalism in the Philippines. They openly supported the Communist Party of the Philippines and the New People’s Army.”

KDP was founded as a response to President Ferdinand Marcos’ martial law crackdown on a growing insurgency mounted by the Maoist Communist Party of the Philippines and its military wing, New People’s Army.

New Peoples Army, 1986

Philippine Communists work with Americans for Revolution in Both Countries

Among the KDP’s founders were radical Filipino-Americans, as well as movement veterans from the Philippines. In the spring of 1970, a series of mass protests in Manila, known as the First Quarter Storm, threatened to topple President Ferdinand Marcos. The movement was brutally suppressed by the military, prompting many anxious parents to send their activist children to sanctuary in the United States.

Many of these young expatriates continued with their political work by joining the KDP, providing to their American comrades direct ties to the Communist Party of the Philippines and the underground New People’s Army.

Cynthia Maglaya immigrated to the United States in 1970 and settled in the San Francisco Bay Area. Maglaya had been a student leader in the Kabataang Makabayan, a Communist Party of the Philippines-controlled student organization prominent during the First Quarter Storm. Before leaving the Philippines, she was charged with building support for the Philippine revolution in the US.

Cynthia Maglaya would later become one of the three main founders and national leaders of the KDP.

Many US-born KDP leaders traveled to the Philippines to work with the underground. Some were arrested, but as American citizens, received comparatively lenient treatment, usually a short stint in jail, followed by deportation.

Initially, the KDP had two main purposes – supporting revolution in the Philippines and instigating revolution in the US.

Circa 1980, the KDP merged with the Line of March, a re-grouping of many strands of the fractured US Maoist movement. While part of Line of March, the KDP continued to operate as a semi-autonomous entity.

After 1982, the KDP lost many of its ties to the Philippines underground and shifted its focus to the American revolution. The KDP completely submerged into Line of March after the 1986 death of Philippines President Ferdinand Marcos.

The Impact of the KDP is Felt Today

In 1990/91, the Line of March folded with many ex-members moving into the Democratic Party, where many of them still continue to operate. For example several ex KDP/Line of March activists, including Florante Ibanez and Rose Ibanez, David Kimbrough and Carol Ojeda-Kimbrough held a Grassroots Fundraiser on May 28, 2010, in Los Angeles to help elect Karen Bass to the US Congress. Rep. Bass had very close ties to Line of March through the early 1980s.

Many ex-KDP and Line of March activists still network extensively in California and Washington. They are still very influential in Los Angeles and especially the Bay Area where local government is heavily infiltrated by former Maoists from Line of March, Communist Workers Party, the League for Revolutionary Struggle and the still highly active Freedom Road Socialist Organization.

Rob Bonta’s successful 2012 campaign got a big boost with the endorsement of Wilma Chan, an Alameda County Board of Supervisors member and former California State Assembly Majority Leader (2002–2004). Chan was a former leader of the League for Revolutionary Struggle.

Many former KDP activists hold government, or quasi-government jobs in California. Given that the organization was never more than 300 strong, it is likely that Rob and Cynthia Bonta know most, if not all of them personally.

They include:

  • Maria Abedesco – An ex-KDP and Line of March member. Now a Labor Specialist with the UC Berkeley Labor Center. Working with the National Democratic Institute as a consultant-trainer, Abadesco traveled to Cairo, Egypt and Morocco, working with the newly-established Arab Network for Democracy. Maria Abadesco has served on the State Central Committee of the Democratic Party.
  • Edwin Batongbacal – Philippines born and educated, Batongbacal was former aide to Luisito Balgos de la Cruz aka “Ka Rexie”, one time executive committee member of the eastern central Luzon regional organization of the Communist Party of the Philippines. An ex KDP member Batongbacal now serves as Director of Adult and Older Adult Service for the Community Behavioral Health Services as a Member of Governing Board at San Francisco Health Plan. Batongbacal traveled to Cuba, circa 2013 on a “research and educational” trip.
  • Emil de Guzman – An ex-KDP member, now a Mediator with the San Francisco Human Rights Commission. Emil de Guzman was Part of a 2016 labor delegation to communist Vietnam, led by former Communist Workers Party member Kent Wong.
  • Estella Habal – An ex-KDP and Line of March member. Now Assistant Professor of Social Science and Asian American Studies at San Jose State University.
  • Florante Ibanez – An ex-KDP member. In 2014, Ibanez was appointed to the California Library Services Board by Governor Jerry Brown.
  • Rose Ibanez – An ex-KDP member, now working at the Los Angeles County Community Development Commission. Active in the Democratic Party.
  • Bruce Occena – An ex-KDP member and Line of March leader. Now the Project Director for Health Access’ Video Medical Interpretation project, working to implement this new technology to assist patients in getting linguistically appropriate care in Oakland. Previously, he ran the Substance Abuse Program at the San Francisco Department of Public Health.
  • Carol Ojeda-Kimbrough – An ex-KDP leader, now a member of the Los Angeles County Commission on Public Social Services. Active in the Democratic Party.
  • Melinda Paras – An ex-KDP member and Line of March leader. Paras was deported from the Philippines in the early 1970s for working with the underground communist resistance. She named her daughter after a close friend who joined the New People’s Army and died fighting Philippines government forces. Paras runs the Translation Network, a company that works with state healthcare providers.
  • Felix Tuyay – An ex-KDP member. Now a Professor. Department: School of Arts, Communication and Social Sciences. Southwestern College, Chula Vista.
  • Victor Uno – An ex-KDP and Line of March member. Appointed by then Oakland mayor Jean Quan (a former member of the Communist Workers Party) to the Oakland Port Board Of Directors.

There are thousands of ex and current communists working in the California State government. Some are Maoists, some are Trotskyists, some are orthodox communists, some are Democratic Socialists of America crypto-communists.

We can safely assume that most consider it their revolutionary duty to use their government posts to advance socialism at every possible opportunity.

Rob Bonta’s Bill was of more than symbolic importance. It would have made it easier and safer for Californian revolutionaries to use their taxpayer funded positions to destroy the freedoms of the very people who pay their (usually very generous) salaries.

In 2013, Bonta introduced legislation that would require California public schools to teach students the contributions of Filipino Americans in the farm labor movement. It was signed into law in October of that same year by Governor Brown. As most prominent Californian Filipino labor leaders, such as Philip Veracruz, Fernando Gapasin, Larry Itliong or Cynthia Bonta, they were revolutionaries of some stripe, it is easy to see the potential for communist propaganda in this measure.

Assemblyman Bonta is doing the communists’ dirty work for them.  He should be publicly held to account for his communist sympathies, his lies and subterfuge.

05/29/17

Memorial Day Prayer

By: James Simpson | BombThrowers

This is the day we remember those who have fallen in battle, thereby making the supreme sacrifice in service to our great nation. Too many of us don’t fully recognize what this day symbolizes. So I am offering a Memorial Day prayer, both to give my thanks and hopefully help us all be a little more appreciative.

Here it is:

Dear God:

I pray for the fallen, those brave souls who gave their all for this country, never flinching from their duty, whatever they were called to do, and whether the leadership decisions that brought them to their last mission were well considered or not. They have given all they had, without question.

But I pray especially for the fathers and sons, mothers and daughters of these fallen princes, for they have to live on without, and doubtless would have taken their place without question, even if only to save themselves from such unbearable pain. Nothing can compare to the suffering endured by a mother who loses her child, or a child who loses his mother or father before their time. The fallen sacrifice their lives; the family sacrifices the rest of their lives. They will never see what their beloved’s life could have become, will no more share life’s trials and triumphs with them, never again see their smile or share their warmth on a cold winter’s night. They live in a sea of grief and will carry that wound for eternity. So, please God, bestow Your Tenderness and Grace especially on these families, whose loss can never be repaid.

But God, I pray also for the rest of us, for we lose too. We lose what could have been, from among the most selfless, principled, promising souls of our living generations. I would gladly exchange any ten Harvard graduates for one serviceman who willingly walks at the knifepoint. He has more guts, more integrity, more fortitude and likely more resourcefulness than the lot of them combined.

So, God, please let not their ultimate sacrifice be in vain. See to it that the objectives they were deployed to obtain are achieved. See to it that we have the satisfaction of realizing their mission successfully concluded. God, preserve this country for which they gave their lives, and give us all the wisdom, humility, and virtue to fully comprehend and gratefully acknowledge their sacrifices for what they are; for “Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends.” (John 15:13).

Amen

05/29/17

The Real Russia-Gate Scandal

By: Cliff Kincaid | Accuracy in Media

Josh Gerstein’s Politico story about the owners of a Russian bank suing BuzzFeed for publishing the “Trump Dossier” containing “unproven claims” doesn’t go far enough. These “unproven” and even disproven claims that have guided the FBI’s dead-end investigation of President Donald Trum, are one reason that former Director James Comey deserved to be fired.

The real Russian disinformation has been the notorious “Trump Dossier,” which has been serving as the “roadmap” for the FBI.

Weeks after Accuracy in Media exposed the nature of this phony document in a three-part series, “The Final Truth About the Trump Dossier,” Wall Street Journal columnist Holman W. Jenkins, Jr., has stumbled upon the truth, saying the dossier smells like a Russian plant. Our verdict was that the dossier compiled by former British intelligence agent Christopher Steele was part of a Russian effort, financed by Hillary Clinton donors, to smear Trump. That’s what the evidence shows.

In his column, “The Trump-Russia Story Starts Making Sense,” Jenkins writes that it is likely that Steele “was the semi-witting vehicle for Russian rumors designed expressly to undermine Mr. Trump…”

Thank you, Mr. Jenkins, for confirming what we have been saying all along.

In addition to the latest lawsuit over the dossier, Politico’s Gerstein reported that BuzzFeed was sued in February by Russian Internet entrepreneur Aleksej Gubarev over claims in the dossier that he and his firms used “botnets and porn traffic” to conduct cyber operations against Democratic Party leaders. “At about the time the suit was filed, BuzzFeed apologized and redacted the information about Gubarev and his companies from the document [the dossier] on BuzzFeed’s site,” Gerstein said.

So some of the “unproven claims” have been disproved and retracted.

Remember that Senator Charles Grassley (R-IA) had asked Comey about the FBI’s relationship with Steele and the dossier:

Grassley: On March 6, I wrote to you asking about the FBI’s relationship with the author of the Trump-Russia dossier, Christopher Steele. Most of these questions have not been answered, so I’m going to ask them now. Prior to the Bureau launching the investigation of alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia, did anyone from the FBI have interactions with Mr. Steele regarding the issue?

Comey: That’s not a question that I can answer in this forum. As you know, I—I briefed you privately on this and if there’s more that’s necessary then I’d be happy to do it privately.

Grassley: Have you ever represented to a judge that the FBI had interaction with Mr. Steele, whether by name or not, regarding alleged ties between the Trump campaign and Russia prior to the Bureau launching its investigation of the matter?

Comey: I have to give you the same answer, Mr. Chairman.

Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) asked Comey about Fusion GPS, which was financed by Hillary donors and acted as an alleged foreign agent for the Russians in Washington, D.C. Fusion is reported to have financed the dossier. Mollie Hemingway of The Federalist pointed to this exchange:

Graham: Are you familiar with Fusion?

Comey: I know the name.

Graham: Are they part of the Russian intelligence apparatus?

Comey: I can’t say.

Graham: Do you agree with me that if Fusion was involved in preparing a dossier against Donald Trump, that would be interfering in our election by the Russians?

Comey: I don’t want to say.

The liberal media will not admit, as the Journal’s Jenkins now does, that the dossier was a piece of Russian disinformation. But The Washington Post and other liberal media are now admitting that Comey used a “dubious” piece of Russian intelligence to conduct part of the investigation into Hillary’s emails.

The Post reports that a secret document that played a key role in Comey’s handling of the Hillary Clinton email investigation “has long been viewed within the FBI as unreliable and possibly a fake…” CNN now says Comey “knew that a critical piece of information relating to the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s email was fake…[but] did not let on to lawmakers that there were doubts about the veracity of the intelligence…”

The media can’t bring themselves to admit that the “Trump Dossier” was also “dubious” or fake. No wonder that the May 2017 Harvard-Harris Poll found that that 65 percent of voters believe that the mainstream media contain “a lot of fake news.”

There are so many fake pieces of information that it’s hard for the public to keep up with them. And they keep coming!

Consider The Washington Post claim that Jared Kushner and Russia’s ambassador to Washington Sergey Kislyak “discussed the possibility of setting up a secret and secure communications channel between Trump’s transition team and the Kremlin…”

Even if the story is true, there is nothing inherently wrong with such a channel.

But at the end of a long Politico story about this alleged back channel, we are told that “this latest controversy could be part of a more advanced Russian plot, especially because the Washington Post report cited intelligence reports in which Kislyak talked with his superiors about Kushner’s alleged proposal.”

A former State Department official said, “Typically, the Russian clandestine subversion specialists, being the best in the world in this demonical art form, operate in double, triple and sometimes multiple tactical plot lines.” The report that the U.S. has “intercepted a message from Kislyak to the Kremlin saying that Kushner had proposed a backchannel connection during the transition period” has to be understood in the context that “Kislyak knows perfectly well that all his communications are being intercepted by the U.S.”

Finally, we are hearing from an anonymous source who understands Soviet/Russian active measures operations.

Kislyak would know that the information would be leaked for the purposes of confusing people about the Russian role. The Post and other media lap it up, making them active participants and dupes in Russia-gate.

Even worse than manipulation of the liberal press is what has happened to the FBI.

The headline over an Opinion Journal video interview with Holman Jenkins captured the nature of the Russian operation: “How Moscow Manipulated the FBI.” That’s indeed what has happened. And you can add the CIA and the NSA to the mix.

But is it worse than that? What we now have to investigate is whether some of the leakers are in fact Russian moles in the FBI circulating this material to the press.

What we can now say with certainty is that the operation looks like a successful effort by the Russians to tie the U.S. government in knots and drain important resources away from the battle we urgently need to wage against terrorism.

However, we are now depending on a special counsel to get to the bottom of this corruption in the agency he once ran. How likely is it that Robert Mueller will blow the whistle on FBI corruption when he presided over corruption in the anthrax letters probe and got sued by an FBI agent for his mishandling of the inquiry?

It means that the Russia-gate disinformation operation will continue for months, if not years, and that an FBI director who blew one major investigation is now being entrusted to successfully conclude another.

As President Trump would say, what a waste.

Cliff Kincaid

Cliff Kincaid is the Director of the AIM Center for Investigative Journalism and can be contacted at [email protected]. View the complete archives from Cliff Kincaid.

05/29/17

We’ve Left Montana: Georgia Here We Come!

By: Lloyd Marcus

Our Conservative Campaign Committee team left Montana still basking in the after glow of We the Peoples’ victory over the Democrats’ Trump-resistance operative Rob Quist. Mary and I are in a van with the Conservative Campaign Committee team headed to Georgia.

The Georgia Trump-resistance candidate Jon Ossoff is leading in the polls against Republican Karen Handel in the June 20th congressional special election. A Facebook patriot sister in Georgia gave me a heads up that guys wearing pink Planned Parenthood shirts were in her neighborhood putting Ossoff literature on doorknobs.

Losing every special election, Democrats are desperate to energize their fake America-regrets-electing-Trump narrative. Leftists continue to pour millions into the Georgia race, putting all their hate-Trump eggs into Ossoff’s basket. http://washex.am/2qthSoc

In typical Democrat bait-and-switch fashion, Ossoff is running as a moderate. In reality, Ossoff is an extreme far left radical, backed by off-beat anti-America groups from Occupy Wall Street to Black Lives Matter and numerous other counter-culture weirdo groups; rabidly obsessed with bringing down Trump. http://bit.ly/2r7vGqk

Isn’t the whole idea of Democrats boldly launching a Trump-resistance movement pretty outrageous? Remember the media firestorm over Rush Limbaugh saying he hoped Obama’s agenda failed? http://bit.ly/2qpqZa6 Leftists practically demanded that Rush be removed from the air and crucified in the public square, stabbed through the heart with his golden EIB microphone. Rush was excoriated for being a traitor to his country.

And yet, fake news media is orchestrating and praising the Trump-resistance movement as on the moral high ground. These people on the Left who are consumed with out-of-control rage over Hillary losing the election do not give a rat’s derriere about their blatant hypocrisy.

Speaking of Hillary, she’s back! Hillary hit the airways spewing more anti-Trump bitterness to keep the flames of hate, rage and insanity burning in her minions. http://bit.ly/2r8IT4f My fellow patriot Americans, we must remain extremely vigilant in our efforts to keep these Leftist wackos out of power. I still scratch my head, puzzled over what Leftists feel they must so passionately resist from Trump’s presidency.

Why is Trump proclaiming his desire to “make America great again” as repulsive to Leftists as showing Dracula the cross? If you are a Leftist, wouldn’t you still want your country, your homeland to be made great? These people are simply not right in the head folks.

The Left has gone totally insane. Cable news has become 24/7 destruction of Trump. It is as if nothing in the world matters other than removing Trump from office.

On Fox News, Bill Bennett noted how fake news media was far more outraged over the Montana Republican candidate tussling with a reporter than they were over the 22 people killed in the Manchester terrorist attack and 26 Coptic Christians murdered in Egypt. Fake news media’s passion and interest is only in events which further its Trump-must-be-removed narrative. Clearly, they have lost their minds, obsessed beyond reason.

A majority of Americans, 65%, believe the media publishes fake news. http://bit.ly/2rqZIbM In a Montana store, I overheard an employee expressing her support of Trump to another employee. She said she believes nothing reported in the media.

Fake news media have thrown all pretense of being fair and balanced out the window. They are in full-court-press remove Trump mode. My bottom line is it is us against them, folks. Thanks and may God bless you for your faithful support of our efforts. http://bit.ly/2r8IT4f I’ll report in again from Georgia.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American
Author: “Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.”
Singer/Songwriter and Conservative Activist
http://LloydMarcus.com

05/28/17

Report: 23,000 Jihadis Living in Britain

By: James Simpson | BombThrowers

About 23,000 jihadis — potential terrorists — are living in Great Britain today, British intelligence recently revealed.

Approximately 3,000 of these are considered active threats and are being monitored or investigated, the Times of London is reporting. The remaining 20,000 either have been monitored and dropped from the list or cannot be monitored for lack of law enforcement resources. Salman Abedi, the Manchester bomber, was among the latter group. He had been investigated, but was no longer considered a threat. The same is true of Khalid Masood, the terrorist who killed five people and injured 49 in an attack on the Westminster Bridge earlier this year.

The 3,000 currently under surveillance are reportedly the subject of 500 separate investigations. MI-5, Britain’s counterpart to the FBI, does not have sufficient resources to monitor more than 3,000 at any one time. Consider that here in the U.S., the FBI currently has 2,000 ongoing investigations of jihadi terrorists, of which approximately 300 are refugees.

How many are we overlooking? As of 2010, the Muslim population of Britain was 2,869,000. The U.S. Muslim population is 2,595,000, so if other proportions hold, we could be looking at a similar total for jihadis.

“The figures reveal the scale of the challenge from terrorism in the 21st century,” British security minister Ben Wallace said. “Never has it been more important to invest in intelligence-led policing.”

This underscores the importance of limiting immigration and refugee resettlement from these dangerous parts of the world. It also highlights the absurdity of the Obama-rigged court’s obstruction of Trump’s immigration policies. Joining in with the “resistance” strategy that is now official Democrat policy, these judicial activists are now literally putting American lives at risk. Despite the Manchester attack, Thursday the Democrat-packed U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit upheld the lower court’s block on Trump’s travel ban in a 10 to 3 decision.

One of the dissenters, Judge Dennis Shedd, wrote:

Regrettably, at the end of the day, the real losers in this case are the millions of individual Americans whose security is threatened on a daily basis by those who seek to do us harm.

To add insult to injury, despite this deadly state of affairs, the Trump State Department quietly announced on Friday that it was lifting the limits on refugee resettlement. According to a New York Times article, the decision was not based on the court decision but rather the funding made available in the FY 2017 budget bill passed earlier this month. Despite the court order, funding constraints had nonetheless forced reductions in refugee resettlement until the latest spending measure was enacted. At this point, resettlement advocates predict that weekly resettlement will double from its current average of about 830 to 1,500. This will include a significant number of Syrians and others from Middle East terrorism hotspots.

President Trump was elected largely on the strength of his promise to restore sanity to our immigration policies, build a wall, end mass illegal immigration and rein in the corrupt, dangerous, out of control refugee resettlement program.

Should Trump renege on this key promise, voters will abandon him and the GOP overall in droves. The Democrats may yet get their midterm blowout. If so, kiss the entire Trump agenda goodbye and with it all hope for the future of our nation.

05/27/17

Dr. Carson Compassionately Spoke the Truth About Black Poverty

By: Lloyd Marcus

Dr Ben Carson being under fire for saying “poverty is a state of mind” during an interview is a prime reason why black Americans should end their insane loyalty to Democrats. http://bit.ly/2qrbii2

In essence, Dr Carson compassionately gave his fellow blacks a crucial key to personal success and overcoming poverty. And yet, Democrat and Leftist self-proclaimed advocates for black empowerment rushed to silence him; beating the crap out of him in the media. As a black man, I am so frustrated.

Up until around age 9, I was raised in the Baltimore projects. My mom, dad, four younger siblings and I were so excited moving from our leaky roof ghetto into a brand new 11 story government high-rise.

In a very short time, the new building became a huge ghetto; elevators out-of-order much of the time due to vandalism. The stairwells smelled of urine and were dark due to busted light bulbs, perfect for muggings. After school walking up to our 6B apartment, the sound of me walking on broken wine bottles echoed off the concrete walls. A few residents kept their apartment nice. The majority had no pride in keeping their no-skin-in-the-game free housing nice.

At a very young age, I realized taking the poor out of the ghetto was not enough when their ghetto mindset was alive and well.

Despite free housing, food and health-care, the vibe of the projects was angry and violent. Thank God in 1952, my dad broke the color barrier to become a Baltimore City firefighter. Our family moved out of the projects into a black suburban community in Pumphrey, MD. Sadly, my cousins who lived in fatherless households stayed in the projects, enslaved to government. Government is a poor substitute for real daddies. And yes, I felt my cousin’s daddy envy. Their tragic lives were filled with drug and alcohol abuse, out-of-wedlock births, more poverty and AIDS.

Incredibly, most of my cousins died extremely young; never experiencing the joy of personal achievement or pursuing a dream. Insidiously, government provided just enough to get by and keep them voting for Democrats.

In major cites controlled by Democrats like Chicago, Baltimore and Washington DC, I see the same cycle of government dependency and poverty I witnessed while growing up, but far worse. http://bit.ly/2bFUj4T

Meanwhile, Democrats and Leftists are doing the same thing to Dr Carson that they do to anyone who dares to compassionately offer real solutions to ending black poverty. Democrats and Leftists seek to silence and destroy this extraordinary black role model and advocate of real black empowerment.

Democrats and Leftists despise blacks who have achieved extraordinary success the old fashion way by earning it; businessman extraordinaire Herman Cain, Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas, world renowned retired neurosurgeon Dr Ben Carson and former secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to name a few.

These successful blacks expose the Democrats’ and Leftist’s lying narrative that America will always be a hellhole of racism for blacks in which blacks’ only hope is to continuously vote for Democrats to keep evil white racist Republicans and conservatives at bay. The Democrats’ and Leftist’s scheme is extremely destructive and evil.

Please, please, please Dr Carson, continue telling the truth.

Lloyd Marcus, The Unhyphenated American
Author: “Confessions of a Black Conservative: How the Left has shattered the dreams of Martin Luther King, Jr. and Black America.”
Singer/Songwriter and Conservative Activist