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
For assorted reasons the potential of a new Supreme Court vacancy has been much discussed in recent months. Balladeer’s Blog takes a look at the various Supreme Court nominees who were REJECTED by the Senate. I’m omitting John Rutledge since – because he was a recess appointment – he actually served as Chief Justice for one of the Court’s terms before the official Senate vote rejecting his nomination by President Washington. 
ALEXANDER WOLCOTT 
JOHN C SPENCER
Deneen Borelli, one of Balladeer’s Blog’s Martin Luther King People of Courage, is another of the countless African-Americans proving that the old “Left vs Right,” “Democrat vs Republican” paradigm is more and more outdated the further we get into the 21st Century. 
Sharyl Attkisson, the Ida Tarbell of the 21st Century, weighed in with some more clarity in the midst of all the bizarre anti-Trump fascism coming from the Democrats. On social media she posted a reminder that even the Democrats at Politico had run an article about Hillary Clinton’s 2016 campaign colluding with Ukraine against Trump’s presidential campaign. 
We need Third Parties! Democrat Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard once again spoke for so many of us former Democrats during the recent presidential debate when she pointed out why the Democrats have driven so many of us to #WALKAWAY from that increasingly repulsive political party. 
Fresh off her trouncing of the execrable Hillary “Bugsy” Clinton, Gabbard pointed out the failings of the entire Democrat Party. Gabbard said during Wednesday night’s primary debate: “Our Democratic Party, unfortunately, is not the party that is of, by and for the people.”
The highly respected, non-partisan Monmouth Poll has shown that – despite the 24/7 attacks from the Democrats’ media outlets, de facto Third Party President Donald Trump has higher favorability ratings than the 2020 Democrat candidates for president. (And that’s the YEAR 2020, not the number of candidates the Democrats have running for president. Although …) The link is below. 
Happy Veterans Day from Balladeer’s Blog! In keeping with the whole “Eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month” tradition here are eleven World War One figures who were awarded the Medal of Honor. 
JAKE ALLEX 
Welcome back to Independent Voter site Balladeer’s Blog! The organization Black Voices For Trump was launched on Friday to help campaign for the reelection of de facto Third Party President Donald Trump.
The prominent racists of the Republican Party like the Bush Family, Mitt Romney, Karl Rove, the National Review crowd and others seem to resent Trump for this and it fuels their attacks on him. 
“Trump said that Democrats had taken the black vote for granted, criticizing them for failing urban communities by opening up the Southern borders to crime and drugs and failing to reduce crime.”
ARTHUR R.”RAY” BROOKS – Captain Ray Brooks graduated from MIT in 1917 and immediately volunteered to serve in the World War that the U.S. had just entered. Brooks got his first 3 kills with the 139th Squadron and 6 more after transferring to the 22nd Aero Squadron. FOUR of Captain Brooks’ kills came in one dogfight as he tackled a squadron of 8 Fokker planes single-handedly. Seriously.
De facto Third Party President Donald Trump received praise from the parents of Kayla Mueller, the international humanitarian worker raped and killed by Islamic State officials when Obama was in office. They praised the president for the recent raid in which Abu bakr al Baghdadi, current head of ISIS and one of Mueller’s rapists, was killed. Al Baghdadi’s likely replacement was also killed over the weekend. 
The Democrats at the Washington Post (Motto: Democracy dies at our hands) eulogized al Baghdadi as “an austere religious scholar” who “dies at 48.” The Democrats in Congress – all of them white-collar criminals – bemoaned the fact that President Trump wisely did not inform them of the raid beforehand, thus blocking them from leaking the information prematurely. 
