The PsyOps begin

If Trump wins, it's because of Russia.  Same fake story all over again. They are planting the seeds now; maybe to disallow millions of Trump votes? Or for another impeachment attempt? These people are vile.  I'm no fan of Russia, they are evil too, but this is some serious gaslighting folks. To think, Obama almost managed to get Merrick Garland on the Supreme Court. And Christopher Wray to his right? He has to be gone on Day One of the next Trump administration.

French leftist parties collude with French centrists

In France, the leftist and "centrist" parties are having candidates drop out for the second round of voting to stop the conservative parties from winning an outright majority. Why would the centrist parties do this with the left?  Either they are leftists themselves, or they are being spiteful about their loss, or they realize that they will disappear if there are only left and right candidates holding the vast majority of seats. They don't want to be irrelevant. France may yet succumb to the self inflicted status quo they don't want because of this, joining the U.K. in the sadly, seemingly unstoppable drift leftward that has plagued most of western society, despite the growing desire to stop it.

It's only a bombshell to insular lefties

The CIA colluded with Democrats during the 2020 presidential election campaign.

This is not news to us

Democrats and the media have been colluding for decades. The media is part of the left's arsenal. Big tech is also a (newer) part of the left's arsenal. So this story comes as no shock to anyone with even a modest level of true political awareness:

It's not news, it's reality.

More on Let's Go Brandon corruption, from a real president

President Trump talks about the corruption and the fact that the media is complicit: 

Let's Go Brandon's collusion

 The real collusion is always from Democrats.

Let's Go Brandon super-corruption

Evil on display:

This is much worse than whatever Hunter was up to - it's collusion (that includes federal bureaucrats ) to lie and hide the real story, in order win the 2020 election.  This is corruption at its most evil.

Sally Yates throws James Comey under the bus

It looks more and more like the jig is up on the Democrat-media-complex phony Trump-Russia collusion scandal.  As the Senate investigates what happened and why, and as the Bill Barr and John Durham investigations have entered the criminal investigation phase it really seems like everyone is abandoning ship to save themselves.  But they seem to be doing so in a coordinated way; that is, to blame former FBI Director James Comey as the rogue agent who was the lawbreaker in the scheme. Everyone else was acting in good faith based on falsehoods generated by Comey.

To be clear, James Comey was a bad actor and a scumbag who betrayed his position, his agency and his country. But that alone does not exonerate everyone else. Hopefully the trail that leads inevitably to Comey does not abruptly end there.

Democrats now: Trump colluding with...China

As transparent as it is destined to fail, Democrats are going to go after president Trump for collusion with China.  Wow.  Democrats do not know how to be out of power, which shows that they need to be exactly that.

Timcast calls them out

I don't think I've shared many of Timcast's posts in the past. They're good but they come from a libertarian left viewpoint.  That said, he's an honest leftist and understands where the liberal left media have been dishonest and he calls them out for it.

For that he deserves our respect on the right. Sadly, his approach to things seems to be a minority position despite the common sense and common purpose nature of his arguments and points.

Here from this week, he takes certain members of the mainstream media to task for their deliberate blindness on the Russian collusion issue.

Coming soon: No Russia collusion (from Trump campaign at least)

Tucker Carlson breaks down the details that are soon to come out.

Manafort pleads not guilty to latest charges

The Mueller probe into the Russia collusion on the election, already reaching well beyond the scope of it's mandate, leveled new charges against Paul Manafort in an effort to to squeeze him on the Trump campaign.  In addition to the charges laid by the Mueller team so far being predominantly against Russians, it's another sign that the prosecutor, really has nothing and is on a fishing expedition.

That's because Manafort is pleading not guilty, and apparently is not succumbing to the pressure to make a deal:

Paul Manafort, the former Trump campaign chairman accused of laundering $30 million to support a lavish lifestyle, pleaded not guilty in his first court appearance since Special CounselRobert Mueller unveiled two new indictments against him last week.

Manafort, 68, entered his plea in federal court in Washington, where he was initially indicted in October withRick Gates, his longtime business associate and deputy on the Trump campaign. Manafort previously denied those charges. Now Mueller has intensified the pressure on Manafort by winning a guilty plea and cooperation deal with Gates and filing the new charges against Manafort.

It also proves that the investigation is succumbing to the rules of bureaucracy, which is to say, it's driven by self-preservation: it has to justify it's existence by delivering something...anything. The probe is now interested in primarily one thing: it's own survival. That manifests itself in a relentless pursuit of president Trump, regardless of how far afield they have to go from their original mandate.  They are looking at things that go well beyond the scope of the Russia collusion investigation.  Things that happened longer before there was a Trump campaign. Why would they do that?  In order to find things on the people in the administration, or associated with the campaign so that they have leverage to coerce people into divulging what they think they will find about the Trump campaign.

More charges against Manafort means Mueller has not gotten what he wants out of the investigation or what he thinks Manafort has the ability to divulge.  That Manafort is pleading not guilty, means that Manafort is not intimidated by the Mueller team. All of that adds up to the likely conclusion that this is nowhere near finished.  That isn't what president Trump wants (sure the not guilty makes sense but the ongoing unrelated charges being laid just drags out the probe and delays an exoneration).  It's not what the Democrats want (they'd like an October conclusion that indicts the president to help them win in the midterms).  Bur for the Mueller team, it's exactly what they want as it ensures a longer window, and continued existence.  

Remember this?

An amusing flashback that the media appear to have forgotten: president Obama in 2016 saying that the elections cannot be hacked or rigged:

And here's the inevitable self-contradiction:

The Schadenfreude What-If Scenario on Collusion

Robert Barnes @ Law & Crime asks if the Mueller indictment now means that the Hillary Clinton campaign could be indicted for their involvement with Chris Steele.  Don't hold your breath waiting for it to happen, but could you imagine the apoplexy on the left if Mueller followed the indictments to their logical conclusion, i.e. collusion by the Clinton campaign?

Special Counsel Robert Mueller indicted foreign citizens for trying to influence the American public about an election because those citizens did not register as a foreign agent nor record their financial expenditures to the Federal Elections Commission. By that theory, when will Mueller indict Christopher Steele, FusionGPS, PerkinsCoie, the DNC and the Clinton Campaign? Mueller’s indictment against 13 Russian trolls claimed their social media political activity was criminal because: they were foreign citizens; they tried to influence an election; and they neither registered under the Foreign Agents Registration Act nor reported their funding to the Federal Elections Commission.

First, if Mueller’s theory is correct, three things make Steele a criminal...

Second, if Mueller’s theory is correct, three things make FusionGPS a criminal co-conspirator...

Third, if Mueller’s theory is correct, then three things make PerkinsCoie a potential target... 

Fourth, if Mueller’s theory is correct, then three things make the DNC a potential target...

Fifth, if Mueller’s theory is correct, three things make the Clinton Campaign a potential target: it knew Steele was a foreign citizen; it knew, and paid, Steele to influence an election; and it knew, and facilitated, Steele neither registering as a foreign agent nor reporting his funding from the Clinton campaign to the Federal Election Commission, by disguising its funding of payments to Steele laundered through a law firm as a “legal expense.”

This is the logical extension of the investigation.  Don't expect it to happen but WOW, if it did. 

A visual aid for Democrat voters

I found this on the internet somewhere (Twitter I think it was).  It explains Russia collusion in a simple easy to follow visual for your low information Democrat-voting friends.  Please share liberally.

That's illegal.

3 things you need to know about the left (just from today only)

Things you need to read about the left, from just today:

1. You knew it already, now you have proof.  Democrats want illegal immigration amnesty, because votes:

The Center For American Progress (CAP) Action Fund circulated a memo on Monday calling illegal immigrants brought here at a young age — so-called “Dreamers” — a “critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success.”...

CAP Action’s memo says protecting DACA is not only a “moral imperative” for Democrats, it also key to getting votes.

“The fight to protect Dreamers is not only a moral imperative, it is also a critical component of the Democratic Party’s future electoral success,” reads Palmieri’s memo, obtained by The Daily Caller News Foundation.

“If Democrats don’t try to do everything in their power to defend Dreamers, that will jeopardize Democrats’ electoral chances in 2018 and beyond,” reads the memo. “In short, the next few weeks will tell us a lot about the Democratic Party and its long-term electoral prospects.”

It's already told us a lot about Democrats' cynical views on human worth - a vote is a vote, right? 

2. They don't care about the law, just their agenda. Anti-Trump FBI agent Peter Strzok, he formerly of the Mueller probe on Russia collusion is even more sinister than previously imagined. He may have been one of those leaking of information to the media inapporpriately.

The Hill article says contacts between the FBI and the media aren’t necessarily problematic but given Strzok’s involvement in two major cases (Hillary emails and Russian collusion) and his previously uncovered bias for Hillary and against Trump, what he said to reporters prior to the election seems worth investigating.

3. They advance their agenda at any cost, even if erstwhile allies get hurt in the process. Hillary Clinton was trying to sting Green Party candidate Jill Stein with fake Russia collusion.

“This is a year’s worth of a smear campaign that began actually by some Democratic party operatives after the embarrassing emails revealed collusion by the Democratic party with Hillary Clinton’s campaign in order to interfere with our election,” Stein said. “The same people who launched that smear campaign are now celebrating that I’m being investigated, really as a consequence of this smear.”

Stein then addressed a widely circulated image of her at Russian President Vladimir Putin’s table at a 2015 banquet honoring the Russian propaganda channel RT.

Is there any part of the Democrat party that is not corrupt at this point?

Clinton-Russia collusion's slow walk revelation continues

Got away with erasing a hard drive, now wants to do the same with the truth

Well, well, well. This is sounding more and more like a conspiracy of voter disinformation.

Via Fox News:

The co-founder of the firm behind the anti-Trump ‘dossier’ told House investigators Tuesday that he personally discussed with members of the media allegations of Trump-Russia collusion, though he did not speak to the sources behind the claims, a source told Fox News.

According to a source familiar with the matter, Fusion GPS co-founder Glenn Simpson refused to answer key questions during his seven-hour, closed-door appearance before the House Intelligence Committee. The source said he would not answer questions on his relationship with specific journalists or ties to the Democratic National Committee and Hillary Clinton campaign, which financed the anti-Trump research via the law firm Perkins Coie.

But the source said Simpson acknowledged he did not personally look into certain aspects of the dossier -- which was authored by former British intelligence officer Christopher Steele and contained salacious allegations about the Trump team’s ties to Russia.

Simpson told investigators he never spoke to the underlying sources of the document, never traveled to Russia and did not verify the dossier beyond comparing the claims to “open source” media reporting.

There's a cover-up in progress but it seems like it is slowly unraveling.  At least it's unraveling in terms of credibility.  In court the defense of the Clinton campaign may yet prevail - but each new piece of evidence makes that outcome less likely.

Even The Week sees the Mueller investigation as unhinged

The Week, a formerly centrist magazine that has drifted leftward over the years has an interesting take on the Special Counsel Robert Mueller investigation - it's run amok;

...Dot connectors will, of course, continue to connect dots. It could be that Special Counsel Robert Mueller is hoping to secure testimony from Manafort or Gates that will give him the dirt he needs to bring more appropriate charges. It could be that he already has that information and is just waiting for goodness knows what occasion. At the very least, obsessives will say, the hiring of Manafort indicates — these comments almost write themselves — a very serious lack of judgment on Trump's part. You don't say? The man whose idea of a feel-good national unity speech following an act of domestic terrorism was to suggest a degree of moral equivalence between the KKK and its opponents has horrible instincts, often fails to think things through, is a bad judge of character, etc.? Gosh.

Even George Papadopoulos' guilty plea is no smoking gun. The former foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign admits that he lied about email exchanges with a shadowy figure known as "the professor" who had promised Russian "dirt" on Clinton. But as far as we can tell, his communications with Dr. Dirt went nowhere. Papadopoulos also made vague references in his emails to "meetings" with Russian officials that probably did not end up taking place, which seems important only if you ignore the fact that presidential candidates, especially after securing their parties' nominations, routinely meet with foreign leaders, even heads of state.

The most significant thing about Monday's Mueller bonanza is that it reminds us what is wrong with these hysterical wide-ranging special prosecutor investigations that take place in public. Whitewater went on for nearly a decade before it concluded in 2003.

When you have a magazine that blatantly, incorrectly summarizes president Trump's response to  "an act of domestic terrorism" in such a way as they did, say that the Mueller investigation is hysterical then you know the Mueller investigation is as ridiculous as it is malignantly aggressive.  Despite the liberal slant, the article is peppered with factual debunking of the media narrative associated with the investigation.

For example:

There are many problems with the Mueller probe, not least its show-boating obsession with keeping its business in the newspapers, but the biggest one is that its parameters were never well defined. What would count as actual collusion? Idle language is thrown around about people having "ties" to Russia or being "Kremlin-connected." How do you define "Kremlin-connected"? What would be the broad equivalent in the United States from Russia's perspective? A former congressman? Anyone who does business on K Street having a meeting? Defense contractors? Given the country's autocratic structure, there are very few living Russian nationals of any wealth or distinction who are not "Kremlin-connected."

Their conclusion in this regard, seems entirely reasonable:

If it's not going away, the least we could do is broaden the investigation's scope. Why not appoint another special prosecutor to investigate British meddling in our sacrosanct democratic process? The facts are there in plain sight. A former member of Her Majesty's Secret Intelligence Service collaborated with a presidential campaign in an attempt to alter the outcome of the 2016 election. So did a former member of the British Parliament, who peddled disgusting conspiracy theories on Twitter and even attempted to collude with the Clinton campaign on advertising strategy. The speaker of the British House of Commons attempted to discredit Clinton's opponent.

That's awfully hard to argue, and actually seems aligned with what the president himself has been calling for to happen.

Manic Monday or Panic Monday or no big deal?

As you've probably already heard, 3 people, ostensibly with the Trump campaign, were charged with conspiracy against the U.S. 

Donald Trump sought to distance himself Monday from federal charges leveled against his former campaign chairman, saying on Twitter that the crimes alleged against Paul Manafort concerned activities that took place long before his White House campaign.

'Sorry, but this is years ago, before Paul Manafort was part of the Trump campaign. But why aren't Crooked Hillary & the Dems the focus?????' the president tweeted. Minutes later he insisted in a second tweet: '....Also, there is NO COLLUSION!'

That last note is meant to push back against nonstop claims from Democrats that his campaign worked hand-in-glove with Russia to tilt the results of last November's election.

Trump has lately been on a digital rampage about reports that the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee funded an opposition research project last year that resulted in a discredited 'dirty dossier' full of salacious claims about him.

 The Manafort and company charges likely won't amount to much but there is some concern that the charges against George Papadopoulos might be an issue for the Trump team. Nevertheless, while Manafort and Gates have plead not guilty and George Papadopoulos plead guilty, his actions so far, appear to be arms's length from the Trump campaign.

Timing of indictments is suspect

After Hillary Clinton's worst week since losing the presidential election last year, isn't it a bit curious that suddenly there are suddenly charges going to be laid against someone in the Mueller collusion anything-we-can-dig-up investigation of the White House? And it wasn't really a good week for former president Obama either as his White House has been implicated in the Democrat-Russia collusion scandal now too.

Special Counsel Robert Mueller is facing a fresh round of calls from conservative critics for his resignation from the Russia collusion probe, amid revelations that have called into question the FBI’s own actions and potentially Mueller’s independence.

This week’s bombshell that a controversial anti-Trump dossier was funded by the Democratic National Committee and Clinton campaign has Republicans asking to what extent the FBI – which received some of the findings and briefly agreed to pay the same researcher to gather intelligence on Trump and Russia – used the politically connected material.

Hill investigators also are looking into a Russian firm’s uranium deal that was approved by the Obama administration in 2010 despite reports that the FBI – then led by Mueller – had evidence of bribery involving a subsidiary of that firm.

Previously I suggested Muller was doing this in self defense, but now I'm wondering if maybe he's being told or pressured to hurry up in order to shift the focus of the media off of the unfolding Democrat scandal.  The timing is suspect to say the least.