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Update: The Able AUSAs Answer Tom Barrack’s Unavailing Dodge: It Is No Defense To 15 USC § 951 Liability, To Complain That Bill Barr Buried Your Crimes For Nearly Two Years.

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

I’ll honestly, if unattractively, admit… that I like seeing Tangerine-donors / billionaires get caught red handed, in the commission of crimes against our national interest. [My backgrounder is here, on him.]

I like it, because I believe the very same rules that apply to low car-boosts, on the street — should apply to guys who live in 11,000-plus square foot mansions, on Aspen Mountain. That is, I think Barrack needs to go to jail — for brazenly acting as an agent for a brutal, human rights stomping foreign power, while meeting with Tangerine at 1600 Penn., and not telling “we, the people” that he did NOT have the interests of the American people at heart. At all.

He had only his… wallet. And T. (of course!) was happy to siphon some graft off, too. As we’ve seen — in subsequent Barrack contributions to Tangerine’s 2020 campaign coffers (that’s how these crooks… play the game).

So it is, that this guy (inartfully covered/prepped by Tangerine — in that someone in T.’s camp tipped him that he was under investigation — and so he went to talk to the FBI, but told a passel of obvious lies, in the process) now faces the music (in an overnight filing in Brooklyn, from the able AUSAs), as they say:

…During the interview, Barrack repeatedly and materially lied about the events and activities that underlie Count One and Count Two of the Indictment, including, but not limited to, making misstatements about whether Al
Malik proffered policies or requests to Barrack on behalf of the UAE, whether he was ever asked to download a messaging application or acquire a dedicated telephone to communicate with UAE officials, whether he facilitated communications between President-Elect Donald Trump and UAE officials after the 2016 Presidential Election, and whether he provided any guidance or input in arranging a former U.S. official’s meeting with a senior UAE official. Indictment ¶¶ 91-92, 98-107….

The above makes out a rock-solid 18 USC § 951 charge for lying to the FBI. It is time to see him either plea, and get some jail time — or go to trial… and… (yup!) get some jail time. Grin.

नमस्ते

No Surprise: Tangerine Is LYING Again, About His Record, On NATO — And Ukraine…

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He seems to think the American people are dumber than… he is.

They are not. [His latest Gab.com published lies are thus… just silly.]

He may be the least capable liar in the history of… politicians… or, liars. But I repeat myself.

There is no doubt that he weakened NATO (at Putin’s insistence). There is no doubt that he delayed aid to the people of Ukraine, until and unless they’d cook up a bogus investigation of Hunter Biden in that country.

This man tried to condition aid voted by Congress — on the repaying of personal vendetta level politics against the family of the current President.

This man… is unfit to be a Panamanian dictator or a dog-catcher for that matter.

Go to hell, Donald Trump.

Scott Johnson Parrots Victor Davis Hanson — And Stupidly, So. Shut It, Boys.

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Both of them would purport to take aim at the facts of the Tangerine time at 1600 Penn., in order to blunt the truth of it: Putin repeatedly was handed favors from Baby-T. Baby-T “owed” him, quite literally.

But most damning — in their desire to discredit Col. Vindman’s accurate accounting — is the fact they that do not address the central charge of Col. Vindman: that Trump intentionally withheld military and humanitarian aid (aid voted by Congress, ordered to be sent), in order to try to force the (as we now learn, very brave) Ukraine President to lie and say he found some kind of dirt on Hunter Biden (of all people, someone whose never held public office of any kind).

These hard right a-holes never answer that fact. Because they cannot.

They also never answer for the fact that their boy, Paul Manafort, went to prison for a time at least, for acting as an unregistered agent for a foreign power (Russian oligarchs), while serving in Tangerine’s White House. He ALSO got Trump to add softened language — about the GOP’s stance relative to Putin’s desired outcome (i.e., no freedom for Ukraine) in the Crimean peninsula.

These were both vast “wins” for Putin, over the former Obama positions, and both are essentially no longer a matter of serious dispute.

But both Johnson and Hanson… simply pretend they never happened.

That’s the GOP’s “alternate facts” machine spewing steam, yet again.

As much as Putin, Trump is responsible for the innocent Ukraine blood being spilled each night, as are these apologists… for monsters.

Sit down Scott.

So Much Has Accelerated, Since The Not-Petya Attack Four Years Ago…

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

As we write this, EU leaders are closing Western European airspace to Russian airlines, the SWIFT network is locking out certain state connected Russian banks, there are moves to track Bitcoin, to be sure Russian state affiliated actors cannot use it to launder money, and evade sanctions. . . and there is talk of a widening war against Ukraine infrastructure by Putin’s cyber-espionage teams.

In sum, the world has accelerated — in the four years since Merck was collateral damage in a political ransomware hack, out of Russia-affiliated forces.

We shall see, but I suspect that in this new world, Putin has underestimated what it takes to conduct a ground war in Central Europe — there are reports of tanks out of diesel, on the highways outside Ukraine cities, and Russian tank commanders sending their charges off to scrounge food, of all things. I think Putin expected the “shock and awe” would work. It doesn’t look like it did.

Of course, longer term, the Russian supply lines will reach these tanks. And it may all still be a puppet regime we see installed there. But I would not count out the ability of these “new economy” measures. . . to deeply impede old Vlad.

Meanwhile, Tangerine at CPAC continues to speak against his own nation. He is a useless tub of goo. Let’s get him a rest home (permanent!) in Moscow. . . like stat!

नमस्ते

Not With A Bang. But With A Whimper… See Ya’ — Paul Mirengoff.

~ condor ~ 2 Comments

This week — it seems clear, Steve and John and Scott. . . voted Paul off the island. Or Paul decided he could no longer support traitors against the American way, as detailed here — all week.

Either way, I think his run at Powerline is over. And he will be a better man, at his final accounting, for that fact (no matter how it went down).

Steve, on the other hand… will clearly have some ‘splainin’ to do.

In any event, Paul remains on the “About” page… though I don’t think that state of affairs is going to last very much longer… so I imaged it, and made a derivative, at left.

Onward, laughing, on a sunny last Sunday of February 2022. And those boys will breathe easier knowing that our Black History Month ends tomorrow, officially. These stooges are last century news.

Y A W N. No Surprise. Tangerine Is Back To Shilling For Putin On Saturday/Sunday Shows…

~ condor ~ 1 Comment

The former occupant of 1600 Penn. is calling America a “stupid country” (I guess that’s better than a “shit-hole country”), and saying Putin is very smart to be butchering civilians in Ukraine, with each passing night.

And so, I will update the satire / send-up “2016 campaign” poster I used to run, at right. I’ll add his latest conscription into the Russian regulars, complete with a jaunty Ushanka — gratis. Here it all is, in context:

…“The problem is not that Putin is smart, which, of course, he’s smart,” Trump said. “The problem is that our leaders are dumb… and so far, allowed him to get away with this. . . .”

“Putin is playing [President Joe] Biden like a drum and it’s not a pretty thing to watch,” he continued….

Would somebody please just deport this tub of useless goo to Moscow, permanently, please?

Please!?

Good News: The Militarized Policing “Star Chamber” — Of Tangerine’s Making — 2018 To 2021… Is G O N E.

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This is just a very short note — to document that the 21st Century Version Star Chamber, of Tangerine and Bill Barr, for militarized policing…

Is officially… dead. [Just two of my prior backgrounders, of several here — and here, from the beginning of it all.]

The federal DC District Court litigation was settled Friday, after the US government turned over (as plain black letter law has required for decades) all the missing reports, and transcripts of meetings — disbanded the initiative, and paid the NCAAP’s legal fees, to boot. We are done with that deplorable chapter now. Onward.

नमस्ते

Hinderaker Offers Conclusions, For Matters… Not In Evidence. Some Poll?! Silly.

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John would condescend to tell us this evening, that Putin would never have moved into Ukraine, if only Tangerine would never have LOST the 2020 election by about eight million votes.

Uh-huh.

That is — ironically, likely true. But not for the reason Hinderaker posits.

Putin, as we’ve repeatedly said, would have had NO NEED to take Ukraine, as Manafort and his contacts were carving the Ukraine oil fields spoils up, daily, between Tangerine and Moscow / Putin.

Why buy the cow, when one can just sell the milk? [C’mon Hinderaker — think like an analytical adult.]

Geez John, how stupid do you think the readership at Powerline is?

Nah… don’t bother. We already know: THAT stupid.

Well — Candace Owens-Farmer Again Proves… Irony Is DEAD To Her.

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She is crowing, on Twitter this morning (I won’t link it, but at right is the edited version of her graphic!), that CPAC had a couple of randos mention her name, IF Tangerine runs in 2024, and IF he replaces his running mate.

R-i-i-i-i-i-ght.

That would be… precious: a bought and paid for Russian asset, sitting one heart-beat away from the leadership of the free world.

But, in truth, we were already ZERO-heartbeats away from that — in Tangerine “Manchurian Version 1.0” 2016-21.

So… she’s hardly the bottom of the CPAC barrel. And, the billboards would be great. “Candace = A Vote for… ‘Hitler Light‘”.

Hilarious.

In Which Hinderaker Decries Biden’s Efforts — In Ukraine — After Trump Golfed For Months AS COVID Exploded INSIDE US.

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There are at least five levels of hypocrisy, here.

While a lethal scourge was accelerating inside the US — now having killed well over 900,000, here alone — inside the country he had supposedly sworn to protect — Trump golfed three days a week for at least two months. During that time, the virus took root — spread wildly… he absolutely hamstrung the response efforts. And the rest, as they say… is a global catastrophe.

Ukraine, for all its other attributes, is a land Hinderaker has firmly minimized… essentially forever. He didn’t complain when Tangerine refused to send the people there aid Congress authorized to save their lives. [“…Diana Denman, a Republican delegate who supported arming U.S. allies in Ukraine, has told people that Trump aide J.D. Gordon said at the Republican Convention in 2016 that Trump directed him to support weakening that position in the official platform….” That position was weakened, by the GOP.]

John and his fellow Russian shill / stooges were… silent as the tomb. John did not complain about the deplorable deal Tangerine made with the Taliban, clearly to protect Putin’s back door.

Notable here is that John STILL refused to admit, let alone condemn (in 2021!) the FACT that Trump paid off the Taliban — but then savaged the Obama administration for doing a very much smaller (but admittedly similar) version of the same thing. Charming.

And it is now clear beyond doubt, that it didn’t change Putin’s aims. He is attacking Ukraine now very likely because he already got everything he wanted (or could, at least), when Trump was at 1600 Penn., and Putin now correctly surmises Baby-T… will never return to that office. If Putin is anything, he is… shrewd, about the ebb and flow of power. And he’s taken a measure of the nation. We won’t want T., come 2024.

Or only about ten per cent of us will. The other 70 (or so) per cent will want… honest government.

So it is a little too precious that Hinderaker thinks Mr. Biden is not working hard enough. As my graphic indicates, Tangerine spent more than any POTUS in any era on his own golf and other boondoggle vacation days, and made his own personal properties richer by doing so.

But Hinderaker is butt-sore that Mr. Biden worked from home last night. Wow.

Here’s to the special kind of stupid John embodies.