Unmasking the unmaskers: Republicans pounce

The New Neo Posted on by

They told us more revelations in the Russiagate plot would be forthcoming, and they certainly didn’t lie about that.

First, a little background as to what it’s all about:

So now Grennell has released the list:

There are 16 “authorized individuals” who requested the unmasking of Flynn between November 8, 2016 and January 31, 2017. Included among that list are the following Obama administration officials:

Vice President Joe Biden
FBI Director James Comey
CIA Director John Brennan
Director for National Intelligence James Clapper
Obama’s Chief of Staff Denis McDonough

Grenell sent the list to Republican senators on Wednesday. “I declassified the enclosed document, which I am providing to you for your situational awareness,” Grenell wrote in a letter accompanying the list.

Unmasking American citizens for political purposes is a criminal act.

No doubt they will say it was because of bona fide suspicions and not political reasons at all. But we already know the entire investigation was done under rigged and phony pretenses. They will deny it anyway, and the MSM will back them up, and the Democrats will cry “foul, foul, Republicans!”

More:

“Joe Biden’s limp claim that he doesn’t know anything about the railroading of Gen. Michael Flynn just got even more unbelievable,” said Trump campaign manager Brad Parscale. “Biden is listed among the Obama administration officials who requested the unmasking of Flynn. We already knew Biden was briefed on the Flynn case before President Trump took office and now we know that he wanted Flynn unmasked. Americans have a right to know the depth of Biden’s involvement in the setup of Gen. Flynn to further the Russia collusion hoax.”

Biden can also use the dementia defense. And perhaps he really doesn’t recall any of this.

Here’s the timing:

The list revealed that then-U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Samantha Power made unmasking requests seven times between Nov. 30, 2016 and Jan. 11, 2017. The list revealed that Clapper made three requests from Dec. 2, 2016 through Jan. 7, 2017; and that Brennan made two requests, one on Dec. 14 and one on Dec. 15, 2016. Comey also made a request on Dec. 15, 2016. On Jan. 5, 2017, McDonough made one request, and on Jan. 12, 2017, Biden made one request.

The day McDonough requested the information is the same day as an Oval Office meeting that has drawn scrutiny in the wake of the Flynn developments. The meeting included Obama, Biden, Clapper, Brennan, Comey, then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice and then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

That meeting was the first time Yates learned about Flynn’s calls with then-Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, according to notes from her special counsel interview which were released last week. Yates, in her interview, indicated Obama was aware of Flynn’s intercepted December 2016 phone calls with Kislyak during the presidential transition period.

Not only was Flynn unmasked, but the information was then illegally leaked. Who did it? So far everyone who’s addressed the issue has denied being the culprit. But it happened, and there is a culprit or culprits, plural.

Note also how that CBS article I just linked spins the whole thing in favor of the Democrats; it’s a good example of what’s typical in the MSM on this. Another example is this Politico article, which almost immediately gives the news a “Repubicans pounce” angle. The very second paragraph, after a brief intro stating that the names were released, is this:

The release comes amid a furious campaign by President Donald Trump and his allies to accuse former President Barack Obama and his top deputies of illegally targeting the Trump campaign and the incoming Trump administration. In recent days, the president has coined the term “Obamagate” to accuse his predecessor of seeking to undermine him and target his top associates — though he has struggled to articulate or prove any specific wrongdoing.

That tells the reader what he or she ought to think about it all: Republicans making vague and politically motivated accusations.

Judge Sullivan says the Flynn case isn’t over yet and the fat lady hasn’t sung

The New Neo Posted on by

There’s so much breaking news these days that for this story I’ll rely on someone who knows a great deal more about the legal angle than I do. So please read Professor William Jacobson’s take on it at Legal Insurrection.

ADDENDUM: More here from Andrew C. McCarthy. I really can’t do justice to it by summarizing or excerpting. So I strongly recommend you read the whole thing.

I will add, however, that although this case is about getting Flynn and always was, it is about a great deal more than Flynn and it always was. Originally, it was about bringing Trump down in addition to harming Flynn. Now it’s still about those things, but the focus this time is on the November 2020 election. To have a chance in November, it is absolutely vital to the left to preserve the somewhat-shaky facade of respectability of the Flynn prosecution, and to continue to accuse the Republicans of being the ones motivated by politics in their opposition to what happened to Flynn at the DOJ’s and FBI’s hands. To do that, the left must preserve the fiction that Flynn is guilty of something. Otherwise, the entire edifice might crumble – which not only could lead to Trump’s re-election, but to the further tarnishing of Obama’s reputation and the rise of #Obamagate as a thing.

That must be protected at all costs. I cannot emphasize that enough.

GOP does well in special elections for Congress

The New Neo Posted on by

[See UPDATE below.]

Special elections are – well – special. Turnout is often different than in the general, for example. And this year they are especially special, because of the virus, which meant that these were almost entirely mail-in in California, and about half mail-in in Wisconsin.

Then again, mail-in at least theoretically would seem to favor the Democrats.

And yet, the GOP held into a red seat in Wisconsin and may have won a previously blue seat in California. I say “may have” because they’re still counting ballots, and even though it really isn’t close at all at the moment, we know the history of Democrats “finding” the requisite number of ballots marked “Democrat” and managing to squeak out a victory.

UPDATE 6:45 PM:

Garcia’s opponent Christy Smith concedes. I guess the Democrats couldn’t find enough car trunks with ballots in them. Or perhaps it just wasn’t worth their while, since this seat will be re-contested in November, and the House is dominated by the Democrats right now anyway.

COVID-19: making predictions

The New Neo Posted on by

I have gotten to the point where I no longer put any trust in the prognostications of scientists about COVID-19 and the comparison of various social policy tactics for dealing with it. These people have lost credibility – and I was already skeptical in the first place.

Some no doubt are well-intentioned and trying their best to do a good job. Others probably have a political agenda. But at this point I think even the first group simply doesn’t know. The country-by-country data gives us some information, to be sure – enough to bring me to the conclusion that there is no simple relationship between any of the rules and the outcomes claimed to be a result of those rules. But it doesn’t tell us what to do going forward.

Sweden is encouraging in terms of relaxing the rules, but the US is not Sweden. Georgia, likewise. But it still doesn’t tell us enough.

However, I also concluded a few weeks ago that we must go forward and open up the economy or the amount of human suffering as a result of the shutdown will be absolutely enormous, too. In fact, it already has been. Those at greater risk (like me) will have to make our own decisions about how and when we’ll venture forth. But the greater good requires that we end this stalemate.

I’m with Rand Paul who said this today to Dr. Fauci:

We need to uh, observe with an open mind what went on in Sweden, where the kids kept going to school. The mortality per capita in Sweden is actually less than France, less than Italy, less than Spain, less than Belgium, less than the Netherlands, about the same as Switzerland. But basically I don’t think there’s anybody arguing that what happened in Sweden is an unacceptable result. I think people are intrigued by it and we should be, I don’t think any of us are certain when we do all these modelings, there’ve been more people wrong with modeling than right. We’re opening up a lot of economies around the, around the U S and I hope that people who are predicting doom and gloom and saying, Oh, we can’t do this, there’s going to be, the surge will admit that they were wrong…

…We can listen to your advice, but there are people on the other side saying there’s not going to be a surge and that we can safely open the economy and the facts will bear this out.

About two months ago I wrote a post entitled “Gone are the days: assuming the risk.” In it I wrote:

Of course, I wasn’t around in 1918. I wasn’t around when smallpox and tuberculosis or the Black Death killed far far more of the people on earth than any of the plagues of my lifetime have come close to killing. I cannot even imagine how terrible those things were; I don’t even want to imagine. And I doubt that people took them in stride at all. And I think a good part of the dread and fear now is that in the back of our minds – or for some people, even the front of our minds – we know that such catastrophes are still possible. Human beings know they are intensely vulnerable.

But COVID-19 is not shaping up to be that sort of event, and there’s no reason to think it will be. However, although many measures are prudent – handwashing, increased testing, hospital preparedness, some measure of social distancing at least for a while – the degree of fear I see and hear is far greater than anything I can recall in my lifetime around a medical event.

And COVID-19 still isn’t shaping up to be that kind of event. We have a lot more information now. It seems, though, that people have become less able to assume any risks at all, and more demanding of total or nearly total safety. Meanwhile, to achieve that safety, many advocate the continuation of measures that are bound to sink this country – not to mention causing people to die of or suffer from other diseases or phenomena such as domestic abuse or suicide.

Of course, some who advocate continual shutdown have other motives than near-total safety. Some on the left would like the economy to sink and are merely using the fear sparked by COVID to achieve those aims. And there are plenty of people who would like to use all of it to destroy Trump’s and the GOP’s chances of victory in November.

The FBI’s versatile 302

The New Neo Posted on by

One of the most interesting things about the Flynn case is how the recent documents have merely repeated and/or verified things we on the right already knew or suspected. Now we have a more complete story. But it’s not as though the general outlines haven’t been fairly clear from the start – although ignored, covered up, denied, and/or lied about by the left.

Actually, they’re still being ignored, covered up, denied, and/or lied about by the left.

If you go back in time, you can find articles such as this one from December of 2018:

On Tuesday, attorneys for Michael Flynn filed a sentencing memorandum and letters of support for the former Army lieutenant general in federal court. The sentencing memorandum reveals for the first time concrete evidence that the FBI created multiple 302 interview summaries of Flynn’s questioning by now-former FBI agent Peter Strzok and a second unnamed agent, reported to be FBI Special Agent Joe Pientka.

Further revelations may be forthcoming soon following an order entered late yesterday by presiding judge Emmet Sullivan, directing the special counsel’s office to file with the court any 302s or memorandum relevant to Flynn’s interview.

Sound familiar? As they say, “the wheels of justice grind slow.”

More from that same 2018 article:

While Flynn’s sentencing memorandum methodically laid out the case for a low-level sentence of one-year probation, footnote 23 dropped a bomb, revealing that the agents’ 302 summary of his interview was dated August 22, 2017. As others have already noted, the August 22, 2017 date is a “striking detail” because that puts the 302 report “nearly seven months after the Flynn interview.” When added to facts already known, this revelation takes on a much greater significance…

Congress has been trying to get to the bottom of this question for months upon months…

“Did the FBI agents document their interview with Lt. Gen. Flynn in one or more FD-302s? What were the FBI agents’ conclusions about Lt. Gen. Flynn’s truthfulness, as reflected in the FD-302s? Were the FD-302s ever edited? If so, by whom? At who’s direction? How many drafts were there? Are there material differences between the final draft and the initial draft(s) or the agent’s testimony about the interview?”…

The most recent iteration of Sullivan’s standing entered in the Flynn case required Mueller’s office to produce “any evidence in its possession that is favorable to defendant and material either to defendant’s guilt or punishment.”…

Of course, this all assumes that the special counsel’s office still has copies of the initial 302s created, which might not be the case given that when Mueller’s “pitbull,” Andrew Weissmann, led the Enron Task Force, his team, among other things, systematically destroyed draft 302s.

Again – that was written in December of 2018, about a year and a half ago.

Fast forward to an interview with Devin Nunes that occurred two days ago:

BARTIROMO: Let me ask you about this…And that is the so-called Flynn 302. Now, the 302s is a reference meaning that this is notes that FBI agents took after they met with Flynn.

Explain what you think is in the 302 of Flynn. And why have we not seen the exchanges, the notes that the FBI agents took after their meeting in January 2017, when they ambushed General Flynn? Where is the Flynn 302, Congressman?

(LAUGHTER)

NUNES: Well, the 302 is still missing, Maria.

So here is what we know. This report, when it was taken down, after that report was transcribed, we had people at the highest level, the FBI, come and brief us. Plus, we have other sources that also gave us the same information that the FBI agents essentially said, look, there’s nothing to see here, Flynn wasn’t lying.

And that’s what we were told on the record. So we knew this at the beginning of 2017. So you can imagine my astonishment when it began to leak out in the press that General Flynn was being busted for lying to the FBI, and that that’s what the Mueller team, the dirty Mueller team, that’s what they were going to bust him on.

BARTIROMO: Yes.

NUNES: And I told people at the highest levels of the FBI and the DOJ, I said, what are you doing here? Like, we have, on the record, from the highest-level people that he didn’t lie to the FBI…

If that’s what you’re using, if you’re going to drop the charges on Flynn’s son or whatever conspiracy theory they were pedaling against General Flynn they had no possible way to bust him or indict him for lying to the FBI, because then that means that the FBI had lied to us, OK?

Now, so what happened? What happened is that that report was doctored, Maria.

And that report, we know it was doctored, because the lovebirds, we have the text messages of them doctoring the report. But here is the problem.

BARTIROMO: That’s right.

NUNES: The original report that was used to brief the United States Congress, that report is missing. It’s gone. Poof. It’s out of — we can’t find it.

BARTIROMO: Unbelievable. And it was doctored. OK.

You may also recall that the public became more widely aware of the FBI’s method of “recording” interrogations, the 302, back during the “investigation” of Hillary Clinton’s emails. It was a shock to many of us who previously had been unfamiliar with the FBI’s use of the 302, which relies on the agents’ words. In this day and age of recordings of ordinary police interrogations, it is stunning that the FBI continues to employ the 302 instead, but it is exceptionally useful if the agency wants to retain the ability to exonerate someone like Hillary Clinton and frame someone like General Flynn.

In July of 2016 I wrote a lengthy post about 302s in the context of the Hillary investigation. In it, I quoted this article from June of 2011 which described the way the 302 works:

FBI procedure calls for agents to take notes during interviews and use them as the basis for a typewritten summary report, called a form 302. These 302s become exhibits at trial. Along with an agent’s own testimony, they serve as the primary record of an interviewee’s statement.

Because the substance of the reports is so important — and because the reports are inherently subjective — defense lawyers often seek to pick them apart. putting the agent on the defensive. This is particularly the case when defendants are charged with obstruction or lying to FBI agents…

The FBI’s policy allows for statements to be recorded on a limited, highly selective basis; such recordings must have prior approval from bureau chiefs. Former agents say this is extremely rare…

Those in favor of the current FBI approach to audiotapes allege that any blanket, one-size-fits-all policy would be a logistical nightmare for the already-taxed agency. Furthermore, recordings could reveal FBI interview tactics or strategies.

That last sentence takes on special significance in the light of the Flynn interrogation and subsequent coverup of documents, doesn’t it?

The Flynn case: ask a liberal friend

The New Neo Posted on by

I’ve been thinking about talking to some of my liberal friends about the Flynn case revelations. I’m wondering if they’re even familiar with them, since their news source is the usual MSM. And if they are aware of the latest disclosures, I wonder what they think of them. Do they dismiss them as lies? Do they shrug them off as unimportant? Do they approve of them as justified? Or are they disturbed by the excesses and violations that occurred?

If I do get around to finding someone willing to talk about it in a relatively calm manner, I’m also going to try to explain how the MSM has been deceptive in its coverage in order to protect the Obama administration. And then I plan to ask the following question: During Watergate, what would you have thought if the press had been part of the coverup?

If any of you decide to do something similar, I’d be curious what responses you get.

China, China, and more China

The New Neo Posted on by

From Richard Fernandez:

We are learning more and more about how many people, countries, and institutions are sympathetic to China for political and/or financial reasons. For example, please see this chilling article about how beholden Italy is becoming to China, and about China’s plans for the rest of Europe, particularly its southern tier.

And then there’s this [much more at the link]:

While it remains unclear what proof the FBI and DHS possess, it does seem extremely likely that Beijing is using cyber espionage to snoop on U.S. efforts against the coronavirus. Furthermore, it would fall in line with Beijing’s notorious lies and malfeasance during the coronavirus crisis.

The British think tank the Henry Jackson Society (HJS), which claimed that the G7 countries should sue China for damages in excess of $4 trillion over the coronavirus crisis, laid out a digestible timeline of the virus’s spread and China’s lies about the disease and failure to contain the spread…

According to unpublished, unconfirmed Chinese government reports seen by the South China Morning Post, the first recorded case of the coronavirus dates to November 17, 2019, weeks before The Lancet‘s claim that the first recorded case came on December 1.

Or was it earlier, perhaps back in October? I have no trouble believing that’s possible.

Plus, we have a story from Germany that the Chinese wanted WHO to delay announcement of a global warning on COVID.

Speaking of COVID and China, see this:

The San Antonio City Council passed a resolution that designated the terms “Chinese Virus” and “Kung Fu Virus” as hate speech in response to the Wuhan coronavirus outbreak.

No doubt calling Lyme disease “hate speech” is next on the San Antonio agenda.

By the way, I always use COVID-19 or COVID or coronavirus to refer to the illness. It’s my preference to use the more scientific neutral terms whenever possible. But that’s my preference. The idea that using a place name to refer to a disease’s origins is some form of hate speech is a leftist absurdity. If people attack Asians in this country because of it, that’s a crime, but it’s not because of the labeling. The truth is that the disease originated in China and China has behaved absolutely abominably. And that’s not hate speech.

[ADDENDUM: New York Governor Andrew Cuomo is now referring to COVID as the “European virus.” I kid you not.]

John Durham: going “full throttle”?

The New Neo Posted on by

This report says:

U.S. Attorney for Connecticut John Durham is going “full throttle” with his review into the origins of the investigation into suspected Russia-Trump coordination in the 2016 election, with additional top prosecutors involved in looking at different components of the original probe…

How nice. Whatever does it mean? And in particular, how does the timing relate to the upcoming November election, whose hot breath I can already feel on the back of my neck?

Durham was appointed one year ago. That’s a long time, but thorough investigations take time. However, this one has a sort of Election Day deadline, because the timing of revelations and of decisions to prosecute or not to prosecute, and whom to prosecute, could be vitally important to what happens on that day and beyond.

That’s why the Democrats are working overtime to discredit such investigations before anything is even announced.

I wonder whether Durham is just going along on his own schedule with no recognition of how the timing relates to the huge political ramifications. I also wonder how much throttle he was opening up prior to this. Shouldn’t it have been “full throttle” right along?

[NOTE: My very first car was a 1965 Vovlo 122S (red) looking pretty much like this:

That car didn’t have power anything. To park it required muscle. Nor did it have a radio. But it was mine (a hand-me-down, but mine). I didn’t get it till I was in law school.

The point of all this reminiscing is that it had a throttle the driver could operate, a black knob on the left that could be pulled open or pushed close. Haven’t seen one of those in half a century.]

[ADDENDUM II: Then again, perhaps it was a choke.]

Why did Chuck Todd lie so blatantly about what Bill Barr said?

The New Neo Posted on by

Todd used the old technique of deceptive editing:

It’s easy to demonstrate what Todd did. So his method is quickly exposed, and he is shown to be biased and deceptive. So, why would he do something as blatant and easily-uncovered as this?:

(1) At this point, after the revelations concerning the Flynn prosecution and the recommendation by Barr that the case not be pursued, discrediting Barr is of the utmost importance to the Left, the Democrats, and the MSM (that list is redundant, I know).

(2) Todd is confident that the rest of the MSM will not point out his deceptions, and will also advance their own claims of Barr’s perniciousness in a myriad of ways, adding to the anti-Barr din.

(3) Todd knows that the corrections will come from the right, and that the vast majority of his listeners will not see those corrections.

(4) Todd has learned that a lie gets halfway around the world before the truth has time to get its pants on. That is especially true if the lie is promulgated by someone with a vast and trusting audience, and repeated by others.

(5) Todd is also aware that the much of his audience who do somehow manage to become aware of what he actually did and its deceptiveness won’t care, because they know that he’s expressing a Higher Truth in a Greater Cause.

There are thousands of Chuck Todds in the press today.

[ADDENDUM: In the comments, “physicsguy” asks an excellent question:

Why do we keep beating this dead horse? Yet, just another example of the duplicity of the MSM, the left, and the Dems. As we all know, the only ones who care about this are “us”. And as we all keep saying, the regular folks will never know about it. So let’s stop getting worked up over it. It’s going to to take a cataclysmic shift to change this situation, and I don’t see it happening. We should just stop wasting energy on this.

I also ask myself that question. But my answer is that some people on the right keep being puzzled by how blatantly and obviously the press lies, and this post is an attempt to answer why they do that and why they will continue to do that.

This post and others like it also are attempts to give anyone who might care to discuss journalistic lies with relatives and friends some information that could be part of that discussion. I’m mulling over doing that myself, and considering who I might discuss such things with so that I don’t waste my time. I think there are a few people I know who are open-minded and willing to have such a discussion without descending into screaming and insults. I’ve been planning my approach. It’s not easy, but I think it needs doing.

I may post on that topic in the not-too-distant future, if I come up with a plan.]

Happy Mother’s Day!

The New Neo Posted on by

[NOTE: This is a repeat of what has become my annual Mother’s Day post. It was written while my mother was still alive.]

Okay, who are these three dark beauties?

A hint: one of them is the very first picture you’ve ever seen on this blog of neo, sans apple. Not that you’d recognize me, of course. Even my own mother might not recognize me from this photo.

My own mother, you say? Of course she would. Ah, but she’s here too, looking a bit different than she does today—Mother’s Day—at ninety-eight years of age. Just a bit; maybe her own mother wouldn’t recognize her, either.

Her own mother? She’s the one who’s all dressed up, with longer hair than the rest of us.

The photo of my grandmother was taken in the 1880’s; the one of my mother in the teens of the twentieth century; and the one of me, of course, in the 1950s.

Heredity, ain’t it great? My mother and grandmother are both sitting for formal portraits at a professional photographer’s studio, but by the time I came around amateur snapshots were easy to take with a smallish Brownie camera. My mother is sitting on the knee of her own grandfather, my grandmother’s father, a dapper gentleman who was always very well-turned out. I’m next to my older brother, who’s reading a book to me but is cropped out of this photo. My grandmother sits alone in all her finery.

We all not only resemble each other greatly in our features and coloring, but in our solemnity. My mother’s and grandmother’s seriousness is probably explained by the strange and formal setting; mine is due to my concentration on the book, which was Peter Pan (my brother was only pretending to read it, since he couldn’t read yet, but I didn’t know that at the time). My mother’s resemblance to me is enhanced by our similar hairdos (or lack thereof), although hers was short because it hadn’t really grown in yet, and mine was short because she purposely kept it that way (easier to deal with).

My grandmother not only has the pretty ruffled dress and the long flowing locks, but if you look really closely you can see a tiny earring dangling from her earlobe. When I was young, she showed me her baby earrings; several miniature, delicate pairs. It astounded me that they’d actually pierced a baby’s ears (and that my grandmother had let the holes close up later on, and couldn’t wear pierced earrings any more), whereas I had to fight for the right to have mine done in my early teens.

I’m not sure what my mother’s wearing; some sort of baby smock. But I know what I have on: my brother’s hand-me-down pajamas, and I was none too happy about it, of that you can be sure.

So, a very happy Mother’s Day to you all! What would mothers be without babies…and mothers…and babies….and mothers….?

They laugh at gravity

The New Neo Posted on by

There are women performers in Russian and Ukrainian folk dancing. But they’re really just decorative window-dressing.

The men are the thing. And yes, they have ball bearings for knees, and springs in the soles of their feet.

I first saw this sort of dance when I was about nine years old, when during the Khrushchev “thaw” the Moiseyev Dance Company performed in New York. I will never forget my stunned delight. I didn’t think the human body was capable of such feats.

I’m still not sure it is. But seeing is believing:

NOTE: And by the way, this is professional, highly-trained and polished, mega folk dancing. I very much doubt it looked quite like this at village festivals. But it’s based on folk dance moves and forms, and “Moiseyev’s work has been especially admired ‘for the balance that it maintained between authentic folk dance and theatrical effectiveness.'”