Wednesday, June 28, 2017

I Won't Vote Democrat For The Rest Of My Life (But After That, I Probably Will)

HARRISONBURG, Va. — A man paid to register Virginia voters prior to the 2016 Presidential Election will spend at least 100 days in prison for submitting the names of deceased individuals to the Registrar’s Office.
James Madison University student Andrew J. Spieles, 21, of Harrisonburg, pled guilty Monday in the United States District Court for the Western District of Virginia. As part of the plea agreement, Spieles agreed to a prison sentence of 100 to 120 days.
Spieles worked for Harrisonburg Votes when he committed the crime, according to acting United States Attorney Rick A. Mountcastle.
Harrisonburg Votes is a political organization affiliated with the Democratic Party.

Tuesday, June 27, 2017

Circa News: Acting FBI Director Under Investigation For Violation Of Hatch Act

Hey Diogenes! Don't bother taking you lantern to the FBI. The Woodward and Bernstein of this era, Solomon and Carter, report:

The Office of U.S. Special Counsel, the government’s main whistleblower agency, is investigating whether FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe’s activities supporting his wife Jill’s Democratic campaign for Virginia state senate in 2015 violated the Hatch Act’s prohibition against FBI agents campaigning in partisan races.

More from the Dynamic Duo:

Oh, and the Glimmer Twins hit the daily double with this FBI scoop.

The FBI launched a criminal probe against former Trump National Security Adviser Michael Flynn two years after the retired Army general roiled the bureau’s leadership by intervening on behalf of a decorated counterterrorism agent who accused now-Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe and other top officials of sexual discrimination, according to documents and interviews.

 Full Story:




Not Exactly A Movie Review: "Get Me Roger Stone"

As with my not exactly book reviews, my not exactly movie reviews tend to ramble a bit. No particular format. Just random observations tossed to the wind.

I wonder if the Roger Sterling character on "Mad Men" was based on Roger Stone. John Slattery, the actor who portrays Sterling physically resembles Roger Stone. Both the character and the person have that "The world is my hot tub" quality to them. Roger Stone would fit in well on the cast of that great TV show. Fine threads, cold drinks, good cigars, lots of action between the sheets.

We see Stone at his most dapper. Pinstripe suits and fancy limousines. If the director was trying to hammer home the point that Stone has expensive tastes, is motivated by dollars and gilded opulence, and that he can be boldly superficial, the documentarian probably made his points. There are a lot of parallels between Roger Stone and his friend, Donald Trump.

I came to familiarize myself with Roger Stone about three years ago when I read "The Man Who Killed Kennedy." Stone makes a good circumstantial case against LBJ but as with every other JFK book, it does not take us beyond the shadow of doubt standard. I thought of Stone as a writer of popular history. I was not aware of his colorful biography.

In 2016 I started watching Alex Jones' Infowars on Youtube. I am not a 9/11 "Truther" and I always considered Jones to be an amusing sideshow act that was not always so amusing. In recalling 2016, you might remember that the MSM dropped all pretense of honesty and served up a barnyard of Hillary Cannot Lose nonsense. Jones kept it real. To his harshest critics I will say that Jones was more accurate than Phil N. DeBlanc MSM pundit. Right, Nate Silver? Right, Larry Sabato? Right, Rachel Maddow?

I digress. I mention Jones because Roger Stone was featured regularly on his network. It seemed like an odd fit. I have affection for both Stone and Jones but they are both weirdly eccentric. Gracie needed a George for a counterbalance. You can't have two Lucys on the set. Yet, somehow Stone and Jones worked like Rogers and Astaire. (Well not really but the analogy machine is already working overtime and that one will have to suffice.)

"Get Me Roger Stone" is reminiscent of "Bush's Brain", a documentary about Karl Rove, a man once thought to be an evil genius. Rove would lose some zip off the old fastball starting in 2012. In the Trump era, he would join the chorus of fools who predicted and repredicted Donald's Demise. It's a wonder that he is still employed but 10 years ago "The Architect" was on top of the world. Unable to acknowledge that George W. Bush had a working brain, his two victories were explained away by the influence of the vile Karl Rove. "Get Me Roger Stone" takes a similar tack to explain how the idiot Donald Trump defeated the high-minded and brilliant Hillary Clinton.

"Get Me Roger Stone" was meant to be a hit piece on Stone and ultimately Trump but it just does not turn out that way. Stone has a Bugs Bunny quality that makes him hard to dislike. Parts of the vid are laugh out loud funny. The talking heads trucked in to assert a tone of moral superiority fail in their endeavor, Just more fake news icons coming across as fake. It is the trickster Roger Stone and his presidential counterpart who seem more genuine, despite the editor's obvious intentions.

Roger Stone has lead an interesting life even without his public outing as a "swinger". You know anyone else who has a Nixon tattoo? Me neither. Know anyone else who collects Nixon bongs? Me neither? Know anyone else who was put in charge of a presidential campaign in three states at the ripe age of 20? Me neither.

Netflix has hit a grand slam with "Get Me Roger Stone". Highest recommendation.





FOLLOW THE MONEY: HOW THE DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE FUNDS PROGRESSIVE ACTIVISTS

Government Accountability Institute is affiliated with the renowned investigative reporter, Peter Schweizer. Schweizer might have tipper the electoral scales in 2016 with "Clinton Cash". The following report was released in October 2016 and given that we have not had a slow news day since then, it has been largely ignored.

 The DOJ has created a system whereby they can legally extract monies from the private sector and redistribute the proceeds to third party organizations outside of the Congressional appropriations process, resulting in an extraordinary transfer of wealth. The Department circumvents Congress’s authority to tax and appropriate by use of technical legal gymnastics.

115 pages of ugliness.  The Obama Administration had more abuses of power than we could keep track of. Take a stroll down Memory Lane with the largest organized crime syndicate in American History.