The Sleazy Saucer-Eyed Political Conspirator

Last week while the President’s son testified before the House Intelligence Committee for nearly eight hours, ranking member Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA) left the room several times.  Did he leave the room to go make pishy?  Well…

Trump Jr.’s attorney, Alan Futerfas, submitted a letter to Chairman Michael Conaway (R-TX) demanding an investigation into leaked details of his interview while he was still inside the Capitol testifying.  The letter reportedly took aim at three Democrats: Schiff, Eric Swalwell and Jackie Speier, all from California, for subsequent TV appearances that characterized Trump Jr.'s testimony.

Schiff, the guy with the 1000-yard stare, rarely misses a chance to publicly characterize the non-public information that he claims to have seen. This raises the question of whether he’s violating the rules of the committee on which he serves by discussing classified intelligence and launching allegations of treasonous behavior.

His favorite “go to” for disseminating his weaponized political messaging is CNN, the most busted name in news.

In August of this year, Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced a broad crackdown on unauthorized disclosures of classified information, warning both would-be leakers and the media as he demanded that the "culture of leaking must stop." 

In the video linked in the previous paragraph, Sessions declared, “The FBI has created a new counterintelligence unit to manage these cases…these National Security breaches do not just originate from within the Intelligence Community.  They come from a wide range of sources with the government, including the Congress…That significant increase has necessitated an increase in resources.  And so we have re-prioritized our cases within the National Security Division, we’re providing appropriate supervision at a high level, we’ve created a new unit within the FBI to focus on those leaks and we’re going to devote whatever resources are necessary to get them under control.”

I would be less than honest if I did not confess I hope the weasel finds his way into the snare that has been set for leakers. 

Comedian Joe Piscopo mocked Schiff who he described as a character from the movie “Children of the Damned.”

Dear CNN, Your Bananas Are Showing

In October CNN released an ad intended to battle claims the cable news outfit was fake news and to stem the tide of “CNN Is Fake News” memes.

New CNN ad. pic.twitter.com/GMrkQKojcZ

— Yashar Ali 🐘 (@yashar) October 23, 2017

The ad copy should read:

“This is a banana.  CNN might try to tell you that it’s an apple.  They might scream apple, apple, apple over and over and over again.  They might put APPLE in all caps.  You might even start to believe that this is an apple.  But it’s not.  This is a banana.”

FACTS FIRST

Yesterday, CNN advanced a story claiming to show collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia; a talking point they have hung onto for dear life since last year.

Reporters Manu Raj and Jeremy Herb insinuated that Donald Trump, Jr. was given advanced notice on September 4, 2016 about hacked documents before they were made public by WikiLeaks.  Raj and Herb claimed to have spoken to two sources who “confirmed the date”.

In a nutshell, one of the sources was a mysterious “Mike Eckerson” who no one has been able to identify or confirm as a real person.  CBS followed up on the story and made the very same claim.  The problem for CNN is the emails at the heart of this fake news story were discussed in the House Intelligence Committee two days earlier.  The Washington Post, of all places, called out the piece as completely false.  The folks at the Post had actually seen the email for themselves and verified it was, in fact, sent on September 14.  The files were already in the public domain and being widely discussed online.

The story turned out to be completely meaningless.

BREAKING: That WikiLeaks email was actually from Sept. 14, not Sept. 4 — which means it is far less significant https://t.co/kMON9rQT7m

— Aaron Blake (@AaronBlake) December 8, 2017

I'm seeing lots of tweets saying CNN should out the sources that misinformed @MKRaju. But @CNNPR says the network does not believe that the sources *intended* to deceive... https://t.co/wKl9rX7Ibc

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) December 9, 2017

You've just completely surrendered the ability to defend any story you do based upon unnamed sources. Surely someone there understands that? https://t.co/eEgaDVLL35

— DanRiehl (@DanRiehl) December 9, 2017

UPDATE:  Welcome Flopping Aces readers.  We wish to thank Brother Bob for linking to this post. 

Two Conjoined Twins, An Ex-KGB Spy And A Circus Bear

NBC and The Associated Press are cocksure they’ve got the nails necessary to crucify President Trump and Donald Jr.

The Russian lawyer who met with Donald Trump Jr. and others on the Trump team after a promise of compromising material on Hillary Clinton was accompanied by a Russian-American lobbyist—a former Soviet counterintelligence officer who is suspected by some U.S. officials of having ongoing ties to Russian intelligence, NBC News has learned. 

The lobbyist, who denies any current ties to Russian spy agencies, accompanied the lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, to the June 2016 meeting at Trump Tower attended by Donald Trump Jr.; Jared Kushner, the president's son-in-law; and Paul Manafort, former chairman of the Trump campaign. 

The Russian-born American lobbyist served in the Soviet military and emigrated to the U.S., where he holds dual citizenship. 

The Associated Press identified the lobbyist as Rinat Akhmetshin, and said he acknowledged attending the meeting, though he said it was not substantive. “I never thought this would be such a big deal, to be honest,” he told the AP. 

The presence at the meeting of Akhmetshin is likely to be of interest to special counsel Robert Mueller and the House and Senate panels investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 presidential election.

Senator Chuck Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee, is pursuing information on Akhmetshin charging he had been working with Fusion GPS, the oppo research firm hired by Democrats to research and write an “intelligence report” senior members of the Obama Administration widely circulated in pushing the narrative of Russian collusion with the Trump campaign.

BREAKING: a 1,387th person was in the room with Don Jr. pic.twitter.com/s1tQzMGKi8

— Cuffy (@CuffyMeh) July 14, 2017

Nothing Is Proven Yet

After news of an email chain between Donald Trump Jr. and a British go-between was disclosed by The New York Times, viewers on CNN were told this is the long-awaited “smoking gun” on Trump/Russia collusion.

Trump Jr. was told by a business acquaintance that a Russian lawyer, Natalia Veselnitskaya, had information implicating Hillary Clinton and the Democratic National Committee in illegal foreign campaign contributions from Russia.

Jonathan Turley writing for The Hill believes President Trump’s eldest son “fell for a classic bait-and-switch.  Veselnitskaya was representing people seeking to lift the adoption ban and it was certainly amateur hour in Trump Tower.  If this is the best the Russians can do as their big play, we have little to worry about.”

“It is common for foreign governments to withhold or take actions to influence elections in other countries. Information is often shared through various channels during elections from lobbyists, non-government organizations, and government officials. This includes former Clinton aide Alexandra Chalupa, who allegedly worked with Ukrainian government officials and journalists to come up with dirt on Trump and Manafort,” Turley continued.

The game the media is playing is dangerous.  It is effective.  If you keep your attention on the news of the day, it is easy to become disillusioned, disappointed and even depressed.  This is what journos want.

Donald Trump has defiled the office of the President of the United States!  He must resign!  We must impeach.  We must resist!

Charles Hurt (whom I love) opined in his piece in The Washington Times, “The Clintons would NEVER search for dirt against a political opponent.  Just ask Bernie Sanders, Vince Foster or Barack Obama.  Or Monica Lewinsky!  And if they ever did accidentally stumble upon the dirt of an opponent, the Clintons would be TOTALLY forthcoming about it when asked about it. It is the Clinton way. Just ask Ken Starr.  And, famously, President Obama would never stoop so low as to allow the world’s most powerful espionage apparatus to spy on his political opponents—except for all the times he did. In the past year. That we know about.”

The pull quote from Hurt’s piece is worth remembering from this point forward:

“This whole hyperventilating media drive-by investigation is nothing more than pure hysteria, the phantom pain from having lost everything—when you were so, so certain that you would win everything.”

The American people are wise to the game being played. Their trust in the legacy media, an arm of the DNC, has been lost and likely will never be regained.

Speed with which Democrats and journos went from mocking GOP saying "the cold war is over" to "Russia is our enemy" makes me laugh so hard

— Comfortably Smug (@ComfortablySmug) July 12, 2017

SEE ALSO:  This Was A Set-Up