From somewhere the late fascist FBI Director J Edgar Hoover must have been very pleased with the biased Horowitz Report from the Inspector General. Once again an IG report detailed a long list of seemingly intentional abuses by the FBI and the FISA Court process but in an O Henry twist that is no longer the least bit surprising found “no political bias.”
After the sadly predictable media rush to misconstrue and misrepresent this investigation BY corrupt bureaucrats OF corrupt bureaucrats, even a few of the most anti-Trump figures in the “news” business finally realized something: Donald Trump won’t be president forever, and even if he gets reelected, he’ll be gone after four more years but the rot uncovered at the FBI will still be festering.
Back when I was a Democrat, before I left the party to become an Independent voter, I liked the party’s skepticism and criticism of the FBI, CIA, NSA, etc. Unfortunately the party sold its soul and decided that when those organizations’ corrupt behavior benefits Democrats they’re just fine with it.
ROLLING STONE REPORTER MATT TAIBBI, who is very anti-Trump, has once again risen above his own feelings – like reporters are SUPPOSED TO DO – and pointed out that the IG report actually verified the claims made by Congressman Devin Nunes and President Trump himself about the FBI’s political assault on Trump. Taibbi’s Rolling Stone piece shows how damning the IG report was for the FBI, Schiff and the Democrats’ media outlets. “Democrats are not going to want to hear this” are the most appropriate words in his article.
In a previous article, Taibbi (like Sharyl Attkisson one of the few actual “journalists” left in the country) pointed out that the “Russian Collusion” nonsense was “WMD’s times a million” (CLICK HERE ).
Now, in his latest article, Matt points out how the anti-Trump forces need to stop deluding themselves that there isn’t something deeply wrong at the FBI and with the entire FISA process. The link is below, but first some excerpts:
“Horowitz describes at great length an FBI whose “serious” procedural problems and omissions of “significant information” in pursuit of surveillance authority all fell in the direction of expanding the unprecedented investigation of a presidential candidate (later, a president)” (NOTE FROM BALLADEER: The fact that the Democrats are willing to ignore this Gestapo-style approach by the FBI just because they hate the man being investigated shows how low that party has sunk.)
“…Officials on the “Crossfire Hurricane” Trump-Russia investigation went to extraordinary, almost comical lengths to seek surveillance authority of figures like Trump aide Carter Page”
“…Likewise, the use of reports by ex-spy/campaign researcher Christopher Steele in pursuit of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) authority had far-reaching ramifications. Not only did obtaining a FISA warrant allow authorities a window into other Trump figures with whom Page communicated, they led to a slew of leaked “bombshell” news stories that advanced many public misconceptions, including that a court had ruled there was “probable cause” that a Trump figure was an “agent of a foreign power.” There are too many to list in one column, but the Horowitz report shows years of breathless headlines were wrong.” (NOTE FROM BALLADEER: Yes, those headlines were VERY wrong.)
“Press figures have derided the idea that Steele was crucial to the FISA application, with some insisting it was only a “small part” of the application. Horowitz is clear: ‘We determined that the Crossfire Hurricane team’s receipt of Steele’s election reporting on September 19, 2016 played a central and essential role in the FBI’s and Department’s decision to seek the FISA order.”
“… The Steele report reads like a pile of rumors surrounded by public information pulled off the Internet, and the Horowitz report does nothing to dispel this notion. At the time the FBI submitted its first FISA application, Horowitz writes, it had “corroborated limited information in Steele’s election reporting, and most of that was publicly available information.”
“Horowitz says of Steele’s reports: “The CIA viewed it as ‘internet rumor.’” Worse (and this part of the story should be tattooed on the heads of Russia truthers), the FBI’s interviews of Steele’s sources revealed Steele embellished the most explosive parts of his report.” (NOTE FROM BALLADEER: And this is exactly like the way J Edgar Hoover’s FBI would allow even the most salacious and unconfirmed rumors about his political targets to be included in FBI files, knowing that to laymen the fact that something comes from “an FBI file” lends it undeserved credibility.) Continue reading
Here at Independent Voter Site Balladeer’s Blog I’ve made no secret of the fact that I feel neither Bill Clinton nor Donald Trump deserved impeachment. The Democrats’ Kafkaesque distortion of all previous impeachment procedures is alienating Independent Voters, as is their ridiculous reliance on nothing but HEARSAY against de facto Third Party President Donald Trump. 
The Vanity Fair article was even headlined “‘It Is Hard to Read This as Anything but a Warning’: New Polling Suggests Democrats’ Impeachment Push Could Alienate Key Voters.” 
And let’s remember four crucial FACTS:
With America’s increasingly unhinged Democrats pretending it’s some sort of scandal that de facto Third Party President Donald Trump fired the insubordinate and partisan Marie “Tears of a Clown” Yovanovich as Ambassador to the Ukraine, here’s a reminder that ALL PRESIDENTS ARE FREE TO FIRE AMBASSADORS WHENEVER THEY WANT AND FOR ANY REASON. PRESIDENTS SET POLICY, NOT TENURED FUNCTIONARIES. 
Since Democrats are pretending that previously-stated HEARSAY claims about de facto Third Party President Trump are BOMBSHELL “revelations” it’s only fair that the term bombshells should also be applied to everything which exposes the Democrats for the lying and corrupt white-collar criminals that they are. (We need Third Parties). 
The link is below, but first some excerpts from this HOUSE MEMBER UTTERLY DESTROYING THE THIRD AND FOURTH-HAND ACCUSATIONS AGAINST TRUMP:
“In the blink of an eye we are asked to simply forget about Democrats on this Committee falsely claiming they had more than circumstantial evidence of collusion between President Trump and Russians. We should forget about them reading fabrications of Trump-Russia collusion from the Steele dossier into the congressional records”
“And yet here we are,” he continued. “This is a carefully orchestrated media smear campaign.”
Since it’s just an “Inquiry” the Democrat majority in the House of Representatives simply voted for Inquiry “rules” which permit Adam Schiff (cartoon at right) to run this Show Trial. (Two Democrats showed some integrity and voted “No”) 
Here at Balladeer’s Blog I’ve made it clear that I feel neither Donald Trump nor Bill Clinton deserved to be impeached, but at least Bill Clinton faced a fair, ACTUAL impeachment proceeding. The hopelessly corrupt Democrats are subjecting President Trump to a bizarre “Impeachment INQUIRY” which deprives him and the House Republicans of any rights they would have under a REAL impeachment procedure. 
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“But let’s give a look at what he and his cronies claim they are trying to show—some kind of presidential corruption regarding Ukraine. Some so-called whistleblower with a name no one’s supposed to know but everybody does (Ciaramella) accused Trump of threatening Ukrainian President Zelensky umpteen times with withholding U.S. aid if Zelensky did not investigate the activities of his political opponent and the opponent’s son.”
“As it turned out, when the transcript of the actual phone call was produced, it was a good deal less than that. It’s likely the hyperpartisan whistleblower, who never heard the call in the first place, lied through his teeth for political reasons he thinks—in all his virtue-signaling narcissism—are justified.”
“… 
“They all know that the real investigation is in progress—what happened early in 2016 and thereafter that instigated the two-plus years of phony national hysteria known as the Russia probe, the probe that did everything it could, but thankfully failed, to upend the Trump administration. The characters who engineered this shouldn’t just be impeached—some have already lost their jobs—they should be sent to stir.”
As the Democrats’ attempt to railroad de facto Third Party President Trump continues you can buy a limited edition “Read The Transcript” t-shirt to remind people that the Ukraine transcript proves Trump did nothing wrong while he was investigating Biden Family corruption. YOU CAN BUY IT 
President Trump has done more for the working class and poor of ALL colors than any other president of my lifetime. 
No matter how much I despised George W Bush and Barack Obama I would never have wanted them removed under the kind of unconstitutional kangaroo court the Democrats are trying against de facto Third Party President Donald Trump. 
Some Democrats even have this fantasy that both Trump and Pence will be removed from office, elevating Nancy Pelosi to the Presidency. Gosh, if that’s the case, then she’s clearly got a conflict of interest in playing any part in all this, right? She’s trying to use the apparatus of government against a political rival who stands between her and the Presidency. Isn’t that what Democrats are trying to pretend that Trump did? That he followed in the footsteps of Quid Pro Joe Biden? 
As ever, I’m an Independent Voter, and would love to see both the Democrats and the Republicans splinter into multiple smaller parties for awhile. I know there are problems with Coalition Governments but I sincerely believe that in a decade or less we’d be back to just two dominant parties but at least they would not be the Democrats and Republicans as currently constituted. 
By the way, the Democrats love to snivel about Trump’s tax returns. I’d MUCH rather see several years’ worth of tax returns from members of Congress who go into office at six figures but rapidly become MILLIONAIRES in office as virtually all of them do. 
The neither fish nor fowl impeachment “inquiry” continues, violating all precedents and procedures from previous actions regarding Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon and Bill Clinton. 
“My discomfort in the last few years, first with Russiagate and now with Ukrainegate and impeachment, stems from the belief that the people pushing hardest for Trump’s early removal are more dangerous than Trump. Many Americans don’t see this because they’re not used to waking up in a country where you’re not sure who the president will be by nightfall. They don’t understand that this predicament is worse than having a bad president.”
Every day that neither Jeb Bush nor Hillary Clinton are president is a great day. Here at Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog I make a point every single day of taking in ten or more Democrat media outlets and ten or more Republican media outlets. 
Among the reasons I support President Trump is because he is a de facto Third Party President. Plus he’s not a career politician, which in America means “career white-collar criminal.” And he’s done more to help the working class and the poor than any other president of my lifetime. 
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