It’s no secret that I consider President Trump to be America’s first de facto Third Party President, nor that I consider him to be the new Franklin Roosevelt AND the new JFK. He has accomplished a great deal for the working class and the poor and I’m not going to ignore all that just because the violent fascists and moronic conformists who hate him whine about him 24/7. These are historic times kicked off when Trump shattered the glass ceiling in November of 2016.
JUDGE ELLIS – Judge Ellis has excellently pointed out how out of line and ridiculously crooked Mueller’s absurd “investigation” is. (Most Trump-haters won’t even know who Judge Ellis is since the only thing they know about our political system is that Trump is the president. They’re in over their heads beyond that.)
(And by the way, for you Trump-hating morons who like to sound so butch I’ll advise you right now I’m NOT a conservative, which means I won’t let you get away with lies and misrepresentations like they do and I won’t be the least bit intimidated by what you imbeciles apparently think is blistering language. Okay? Or as you bitchy little boys like to say “M’kay?”)
The link to the whole piece is below, but first some excerpts per Reuters:
“I don’t see what relationship this indictment has with anything the special counsel is authorized to investigate,” U.S. District Judge T.S. Ellis III in the Eastern District of Virginia said.
At a tense hearing at the federal courthouse in Alexandria, Virginia, the judge said Mueller should not have “unfettered power” in his Russia probe and that the charges against Manafort did not arise from the investigation into Moscow’s alleged meddling in the 2016 U.S. election.
“It’s unlikely you’re going to persuade me the special counsel has unfettered power to do whatever he wants[.]” … “Our investigative scope does cover the activity in the indictment,” Dreeben [the Department’s deputy solicitor general] told the judge.
“Cover bank fraud in 2005 and 2007? Tell me how!” Ellis retorted. …
During the oral arguments, Ellis repeatedly chided Mueller’s $10 million budget.
He also asked whether Rosenstein, who oversees the probe and is considered an important witness into whether Trump tried to obstruct justice, is recused from the case.
And he repeatedly claimed that the indictment appeared to serve as a way for Mueller to “assert leverage” over Manafort. …
Rosenstein’s May 2017 order laying out the scope of the probe, [Dreeben] told the judge, did not reveal all the details because they involve sensitive national security and counterintelligence matters that could not be divulged publicly, but were conveyed to Mueller.
Ellis balked, saying Dreeben’s answer essentially means the Justice Department was “not really telling the truth[.]” …
[Ellis] directed Mueller’s office to take two weeks to consult with U.S. intelligence agencies to see if they will sign off so that he can personally review a sealed, unredacted version of the memo.
Dreeben told him the redacted portions did not pertain to the Manafort case.
“I’ll be the judge,” Ellis said.
James Woods, actor, tweeted: “I can’t in my lifetime remember when a case of this import featured a judge calling the prosecutor a liar from the bench. This is a landmark moment.” Continue reading
ONE SEED
TWO SEED
THREE SEED
FOUR SEED
FIVE SEED
TANGAHAU – In my opinion Tangahau is more like an Odysseus of Bellona and Rennell Islands than Takitaki (covered previously). However, Tangahau’s reputation as a wanderer originally from the Duff Islands seems to tip the balance to Takitaki. Here’s a brief look at Tangahau’s cycle of myths.
APPALACHIAN ATHLETIC CONFERENCE: CHAMPIONSHIP GAME – It took SIXTEEN Innings for a winner to be determined in the clash between the two teams still standing in the AAC. Those two teams were the 4 seeds – the POINT UNIVERSITY SKYHAWKS – and the 2nd seeded TENNESSEE WESLEYAN COLLEGE BULLDOGS.
Another look at the make-believe “educators” (LMAO) who have reduced colleges and universities to faith-based institutions that are as irrational as any religious “schools.”
Submissions for the next on-line edition are being accepted through May 13th.
THE AVENGERS
Synopsis: We pick up where we left off, at Cape Canaveral, which in Captain Marvel’s own comic book series by Marvel Comics was depicted as an Area 51 type of base. Sentry 459, one of the Kree Empire’s gigantic, kaiju-sized robots scattered throughout the universe, was being studied by Earth scientists at the Cape. 
Readers of Balladeer’s Blog asked for more May the Fourth material, so here’s an “encore presentation” as they used to call reruns, of my 2015 review of The Humanoid. In my view this is the worst of the Italian Star Wars ripoffs.
Richard Kiel plays the title figure. His real name is Golob but the Darth Vaderish bad guy arranges for Golob to be the guinea pig for a treatment that transforms ordinary people into powerful “Humanoids”. As a Humanoid Golob loses his beard for some reason but – even more comically – the beard suddenly reappears when he is returned to normal late in the movie.
Golob in his amped-up Humanoid form has super-strength, is invulnerable to harm and can deflect energy blasts that the Rebel Alliance-style good guys shoot at him. The bad guys plan to use a warhead to expose every man, woman and child on Earth to the bio-treatment, thus creating an instant army of billions of super-powered Humanoids like Richard Kiel. (Good luck controlling them since the treatment will reduce them to mindless animals like Golob.)
Corinne Clery portrays Barbara Gibson, the spunky Princess Leia pastiche. Barbara is a prominent scientist of Metropolis, which is what the entire Earth has been renamed now that it is just one big planet-wide city in the far future setting of The Humanoid. Barbara studies a gifted Asian lad who controls
Ivan Rassimov plays the main villain Lord Graal, whose entire army dresses exactly like Darth Vader. He does, too, but to stand out from his underlings HIS black helmet and mask have cutouts that let his eyes, mouth and cheeks show. Lord Graal wants to create the aforementioned Humanoid army so he can conquer the entire Milky Way galaxy. He has magical powers like the Asian boy. 

