SO THAT RUSSIAN DOSSIER? THE CLINTON CAMPAIGN PAID FOR IT. AND LIED ABOUT IT. I am not the least bit surprised that a political campaign paid a foreign source for campaign dirt on their opponent. I am also not the least bit surprised that the attorney for the campaign and multiple campaign staffers lied about their involvement in it. What I am surprised about is that the Washington Post is still digging into the story and reported it! The long and short of it is this. The Clinton campaign and the DNC paid Michael Steele to create a dossier, much of which is extremely salacious and utterly unverified, suggesting that candidate Donald Trump had been compromised by the Russian government with blackmail type information. But the same DNC has been alleging for a year now that candidate Trump actively worked WITH the Russians to collude to swing the election for Trump. My question is, why would a candidate, who had already been allegedly "compromised" want to collude with the people who compromised him?
SHOULD ROBERT MUELLER RECUSE HIMSELF FROM THE RUSSIA INVESTIGATION? It certainly appears that he probably should. From the above story, we know that James Comey's FBI wanted to pay Michael Steele to continue to dig up dirt on Russia until he was outed in the press. But before that, Robert Mueller's FBI withheld information about known wrongdoing by people associated with a uranium deal and kept it from Congress. From today's Opinion pages in the WSJ (behind a paywall):
The purchase and consolidation of certain assets were facilitated by Canadian entrepreneurs who gave large sums to the Clinton Foundation, and perhaps arranged a Bill Clinton speech in Moscow for $500,000. A key transaction had to be approved by Hillary Clinton’s State Department.
Now we learn that, before and during these transactions, the FBI had uncovered a bribery and kickback scheme involving Russia’s U.S. nuclear business, and also received reports of Russian officials seeking to curry favor through donations to the Clinton Foundation.
This criminal activity was apparently not disclosed to agencies vetting the 2010 transfer of U.S. commercial nuclear assets to Russia. The FBI made no move to break up the scheme until long after the transaction closed. Only five years later, the Justice Department, in 2015, disclosed a plea deal with the Russian perpetrator so quietly that its significance was missed until The Hill reported on the FBI investigation last week.
...
The agency, when Mr. Mueller headed it, soft-pedaled an investigation highly embarrassing to Mrs. Clinton as well as the Obama Russia reset policy. More recently, if just one of two things is true—Russia sponsored the Trump Dossier, or Russian fake intelligence prompted Mr. Comey’s email intervention—then Russian operations, via their impact on the FBI, influenced and continue to influence our politics in a way far more consequential than any Facebook ad, the preoccupation of John McCain, who apparently cannot behold a mountain if there’s a molehill anywhere nearby.
Which means that Mr. Mueller has the means, motive and opportunity to obfuscate and distract from matters embarrassing to the FBI, while pleasing a large part of the political spectrum. He need only confine his focus to the flimsy, disingenuous but popular (with the media) accusation that the shambolic Trump campaign colluded with the Kremlin.
Holeeee crap. This is sort of a big deal. Everyone has something to hide and the people investigating other people who allegedly have something to hide have something to hide about the people they are investigating. Got that?
BUT DON'T LET THIS STORY UPSET MEMBERS OF THE MEDIA Who are working hard to tell you it's not a big deal because everyone does it and stuff. Which is true to some extent, but the lying over and over again about something EVERY campaign does takes it to different level in light of current events with Russia.
WE'VE REACHED PEAK STUPIDITY ON COLLEGE CAMPUSES Yes, I know I KEEP saying that only to be proven wrong time and time again, but this may the rock bottom on a never ending race to the bottom of Stupidville. Kent State University created a poster to promote a series of talks where students could talk about hard subjects in a "safe space". So they pushed a poster on Twitter. Read the description and see if you can find where the issue is?
Silhouetted activists on the posters hold a range of placards with messages, overlaid with the rhetorical question “free speech or hate speech?” Alongside provocative expressions including “No More Gays,” “Women Need To Serve Their Man” and “Build a Wall,” the fourth placard bears a nonviolent, basic expression of the Christian faith: “You need Jesus.”
Got that? "You need Jesus" is now possible "hate speech" at Kent State. Too bad they didn't use "Allah Akbhar" instead, I'm sure that would have gotten a stellar reaction.
THE LAS VEGAS SHOOTER'S HARD DRIVE IS MISSING And I'm telling you, this story is bigger than we are being told. Not that the mass carnage he perpetrated isn't horrible already, but how does the hard drive on a laptop "go missing" but the laptop itself doesn't? Why not just destroy the whole thing?
SOCIALIST PIZZA SHOP IN BOSTON CLOSES BECAUSE IT DOESN'T MAKE A PROFIT But I'm sure it was just run by the wrong people. Dudley Dough has been open a whopping two years, paying it's employees FAR more than the average wage for similar jobs while also providing job skills training and other benefits. But it's closing now because the non-profit that started it can't afford to keep subsidizing it's failing business model. This is my shocked face.
ANOTHER TRUMP ERA HATE CRIME FOUND TO BE COMMITTED BY A BLACK MAN In what feels like an all too common update these days, we find that racist graffiti scrawled on the walls of three campuses of Eastern Michigan University was allegedly scrawled by a black former student who has now been charged. I wonder if he attended the multiple campus events on racism and diversity after the graffiti was discovered?
BRANDON MARSHALL WINS HALLOWEEN FOREVER Because he went dressed as Von Miller.
IF TRUMP MAKES YOU WANT TO SCREAM, THIS IS THE EVENT FOR YOU! And I SO hope there is one happening in Denver because I just want to go and watch. It's called "Scream Helplessly At the Sky on the Anniversary of the Election" even though they didn't capitalize it, I think it deserves such deference. And I can't stop thinking about how sad it is that people are going to do this. But hey, if it makes them feel better, c'est la vie. But I still think it's sort of funny.
AND NOW HERE'S A BABY LION TRYING TO ROAR AND IT'S BEYOND ADORABLE.
THE DENVER POST AGREES THAT YOU SHOULD SUPPORT CHOICE IN DOUGLAS COUNTY And the Post's editorial board has endorsed the Elevate slate of candidates.
We support those willing to stay the course: Ryan Abreschin District B, Randy Mills in District D, Grant Nelson in District E, and Debora Scheffel in District G. Collectively they are known as the Elevate Douglas County ticket.
I am in total agreement on this.
YOUR COMMUTE MAY SUCK BUT IT COULD BE A WHOLE LOT WORSE You could live in Miami, or Washington DC or LA. But then you have more sense than that. The average Denver commute is 46.11 minutes, which isn't that bad in the grand scheme of cities. It takes an hour to get into the cesspool that is DC.
WHO AMONG US IS NOT GUILTY OF THIS CRIME? A man in Montreal, Canada was pulled over and fined by police for singing in his car. I know I can't sing, but I would take this one personally.
KIT KAT QUESADILLAS ARE A THING NOW And God bless Taco Bell for coming up with even more food that seems to be specifically designed by and for stoners. It's got me thinking about what other kind of candy I'd put in a quesadilla and then other weird food combinations that people eat. We shall discuss today at 3pm.
THIS IS A CRISIS THAT MUST BE ADDRESSED! THERE IS BUTTER SHORTAGE IN FRANCE! It's true, the tasty and amazing croissants in France are facing a critical shortage of the magical ingredient that makes them so delicious: butter. SOMEONE DO SOMETHING. NOW.
HOLY MACKEREL THE THING COULD BE COMING BACK! I have a great deal of affection for the old VW Thing. Now I find that VW might be bringing it back.