Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

Posted on | November 22, 2019 | Comments Off on Friday Fiction: 100 Word Challenge

by Smitty

Sometimes they put you in a bad position, and blame you for being there.

The end of the day, the end of the week, the end of the month: somebody comes up to you and needs data access.

You kinda know who this is; you’ve seen him around the office, but this request is really weird.

Your car keys are on the desk, so he doesn’t worry when you declare the need to use the restroom before “We get on that”.

True enough; a great roadtrip begins on an empty bladder. Thank god for the spare key under the frame.
—
via Darleen

Category: Friday Fiction

The Impeachment Carnival Is a Distraction From What Really Matters

Posted on | November 22, 2019 | 1 Comment

While the televised circus in the House Intelligence Committtee was consuming the attention of the national media, the real news was happening behind the scenes with the Horowitz report:

Justice Department Inspector General Michael Horowitz has found evidence that an FBI lawyer manipulated a key investigative document related to the FBI’s secretive surveillance of a former Trump campaign adviser — enough to change the substantive meaning of the document, according to multiple reports.
The show-stopping development comes as Senate Judiciary Committee Chairman Lindsey Graham, R-S.C., told Fox News that Horowitz’s comprehensive report on allegations of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) warrant abuse against former Trump campaign aide Carter Page will be released on Dec. 9. “That’s locked,” Graham said.
The new evidence concerning the altered document, which pertained to the FBI’s FISA court warrant application to surveil Page, is expected to be outlined in Horowitz’s upcoming report. CNN first reported the news, which was largely confirmed by The Washington Post.
The Post, hours after publishing its story, conspicuously removed the portion of its reporting that the FBI employee involved was underneath Peter Strzok, the FBI’s since-fired head of counterintelligence. The Post did not offer an explanation for the change, which occurred shortly after midnight. Earlier this week, the DOJ highlighted a slew of anti-Trump text messages sent by Strzok when he was leading the Hillary Clinton email investigation and the probe into the Trump campaign.
Horowitz reportedly found that the FBI employee who modified the FISA document falsely stated that he had “documentation to back up a claim he had made in discussions with the Justice Department about the factual basis” for the FISA warrant application, the Post reported. Then, the FBI employee allegedly “altered an email” to substantiate his inaccurate version of events. The employee has since been forced out of the bureau.
In its initial 2016 FISA warrant application, the FBI flatly called Page “an agent of a foreign power.”

Democrats and the media (but I repeat myself) have endlessly condemned as a “conspiracy theory” — “unsubstantiated,” with “no evidence” — every suggestion that the origin of the investigation of the Trump campaign was tainted by partisanship and corruption.

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Category: Corruption, Democrats, Donald Trump, Media Bias, Ukraine

In The Mailbox: 11.21.19

Posted on | November 21, 2019 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
357 Magnum: Cops Never Use Drop Guns To Justify a Shooting
EBL: Discovery Will Be Especially Hilarious – Jussie Smollett Sues!
Twitchy: This Totally Believable Overheard Conversation Proves Trump’s Support Is Collapsing
Louder With Crowder: Fascist Left-Wing Protesters Form Human Chain To Block People From Entering Ann Counter Event

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
Adam Piggott: Your Backyard Is An Endangered Ecosystem
American Greatness: Ukraine’s Top Prosecutor Expands Probe Against Burisma Founder – Who Has Gone Missing
American Thinker: Obama Tells Greta, “You And Me, We’re A Team”
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Daily Luxury News
Babalu Blog: Castro Dictatorship Launches Desperate Smear Campaign Against Imprisoned Opposition Leader
BattleSwarm: Dispatches From The Ukraine Corruption Investigation
Cafe Hayek: Please, People, Learn Some Basic Economics
CDR Salamander: USA Becoming The Cheshire Cat Superpower?
Da Tech Guy: To Ensure Victory Next Year, The GOP Desperately Needs To Learn How To Fight
Don Surber: The Derp State Flunks Impeachment
First Street Journal: Tom Steyer & The Democrat Clown Cavalcade Are Going To Reorganize Your Neighborhood
The Geller Report: President Trump Tells Navy – No, You’re Not Taking Eddie Gallagher’s SEAL Trident Pin, also, Iran’s Senior Leader Vows To Hang Protest Leaders
Hogewash: Team Kimberlin Post of The Day, also, Double Plus Ungood
Hollywood In Toto: Richard Jewell Paints Press As “Reckless, Corrupt, & Immoral”
Joe For America: Tulsi Gabbard SMASHES Democrats At Debate – “Not The Party That Is Of, By, & For The People”
JustOneMinute: The Walls Are Closing In On Trump
Legal Insurrection: Clinton Foundation Struggling Financially With No More Influence To Sell, also, Iranian Regime Deploys Snipers Against Protesters, Death Toll Over 100
The PanAm Post: Chileans Protest Against System That Has Fueled Their Prosperity
Power Line: The Sound Of Sondland, also, Why No One Cares About Impachment
Shot In The Dark: Minneapolis – Let’s Get Scientific!
The Political Hat: Gender Heretics – Purged For Questioning The Number Of Genders, Retaliation Against Real Women, & The Gender-Medical Complex
This Ain’t Hell: Thursdays Are For Cooking, also, Trump Lays Down The Law On Pardoned SEAL
Victory Girls: In Praise Of Warren’s “Freeloading Billionaires”
Volokh Conspiracy: Cali Supremes Strike Down Law Requiring Presidential Candidates to Disclose Income Tax Returns
Weasel Zippers: Nunes – I Yield To Schiff For Story Time Hour, also, FBI Official Reportedly Under Investigation For Altering Russia Probe Documents
Mark Steyn: How The Science Got Settled

Amazon Warehouse Deals

Category: Linkagery

Billionaire Dictator Tom Steyer Has a ‘Solution’ for the Housing ‘Crisis’

Posted on | November 21, 2019 | 2 Comments

Anyone who has read Thomas Sowell’s The Vision of the Anointed: Self-Congratulation as a Basis for Social Policy understands the worldview of “progressive” billionaire Tom Steyer. There is no problem that cannot be solved, such people believe, if (a) we put “enlightened” people in charge, and (b) we give them unlimited power and taxpayer dollars to provide a “solution.” If you voice objections to these grandiose schemes — e.g., explaining that similar plans have failed in the past, or pointing out the fiscal problems involved — you will discover that it is impossible to dissuade the Anointed from their cherished Vision. Facts don’t matter, past precedents prove nothing, and even basic arithmetic must be ignored, because the status quo is “unacceptable,” the problem involved is a “crisis,” and only a coward or a fool could oppose a “solution.” The man who bought his way into the debate is all-in on the housing “crisis”:

Democrat presidential hopeful Tom Steyer claimed he would “force” American towns to accept new, affordable housing in certain areas while speaking at the Democrat presidential primary debate held in Atlanta, Georgia, at Tyler Perry Studios on Wednesday.
Steyer’s remarks came as he was asked about affordable housing, particularly in his home state of California, which includes Los Angeles and San Francisco.
“When you look at inequality in the United States of America, you have to start with housing,” Steyer claimed. “Where you put your head at night determines so many things about your life. It determines where your kids go to school, it determines the air you breathe, where you shop, how long it takes you to get to work.”
“What we’ve seen in California is as a result of policy,” Steyer continued. “We have millions too few housing units and that effects everybody in California. It starts with a homeless crisis that goes all through the state, but it also includes skyrocketing rents that effect every single working person in the state of California.”
Steyer then claimed he knows “exactly what needs to be done” to address the housing crisis, and discussed the impact on the climate regarding certain liveable locations.
“I understand exactly what needs to be done here, which is why we need to change policy and we need to apply the resources here to make sure that we build, literally. millions of units,” Steyer said. “Where people live has a dramatic impact on climate and sustainability.”
Steyer then claimed that his administration would “force” towns to accept new housing units that are affordable for its residents.
“So, we’re gonna have to direct dollars, we’re gonna have to change policy and make sure that the localities and municipalities who have worked very hard to ensure that there are no new housing units built in their towns that they change that and we’re gonna have to force it,” Steyer added. “Then we’re gonna have to direct federal dollars to make sure that those units are affordable.”

People will say, “There’s no way Steyer’s going to get the nomination,” and this is obviously true. However, the point of all these debates — with Democratic hopefuls vying to out-bid each other on what fantastic amounts of money they’ll spend to provide “solutions” to every imaginable “crisis” — is that it moves The Overton Window. When allegedly Serious People spend hours spewing radical nonsense on national TV, it makes this nonsense seem possible, or even practical.

Category: Debates, Democrats

‘The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly, But Grind Exceedingly Fine’

Posted on | November 20, 2019 | Comments Off on ‘The Wheels of Justice Turn Slowly, But Grind Exceedingly Fine’

Travis Lee Stroud, a transgender novelist also known as “Meredith Russo,” was exposed in 2016 as the alleged perpetrator of abuse against his/“her” ex-wife, Jennifer Marie Russo. Yet this record of accusations against Travis/“Meredith” was ignored by the literary community, which is devoted to promoting the transgender agenda, especially to children.

Anna Slatz interviewed the author’s ex, Juniper Russo:

“Domestic violence is insidious and slow, like the proverbial boiling frog,” Stroud’s ex-wife, Juniper Russo, said. “It’s hard to say when it all started.”
Juniper Russo alleges she was subjected to a campaign of sexual and emotional abuse at the hands of her former partner, abuse she says was so severe that the marriage culminated in a divorce in early 2015.
“We met on OKCupid in 2011 and got married in 2013,” Russo said, claiming the physical abuse started shortly after the wedding. “We had a lot of shared interests at the time, and I was naive enough to think that shared interests are the foundation of a healthy relationship.”
Russo shared disturbing details of some of the alleged abuses she suffered during her marriage to Meredith Stroud.
“When my son was born in 2014, I had severe pre-eclampsia and injuries from giving birth. I had to have major reconstructive surgery. I was extremely weak and in severe pain,” Russo said.
“Meredith was extremely abusive to me during this time, calling me a ‘feeding station, not a parent’ because breastfeeding my son was one of the only things I could do, and because I was asking [Meredith] to help with things like diapers,” Russo also alleges.
During this same time, Juniper says Stroud would tell her to commit suicide. “[Meredith] kept mocking me when I was in pain, and told me I was so useless as a parent I should just kill myself.”
Russo says she was first forced to call the police in late 2014, “[Meredith] was having an outburst. I got scared and called 911. [Meredith] took the phone from me, and was heard trying to prevent me from calling for help.”
As a result, Stroud was booked on charges of interfering with an emergency call. . . .

Read the whole thing.

Category: The Transgender Cult, Violence Against Women