The ‘Deep State’ Is Real: Whistleblower Punished for Pentagon Spy Complaint

Posted on | August 16, 2018 | Comments Off on The ‘Deep State’ Is Real: Whistleblower Punished for Pentagon Spy Complaint

Rowan Scarborough reports at The Washington Times:

A Trump-supporting Pentagon analyst was stripped of his security clearance by Obama-appointed officials after he complained of questionable government contracts to Stefan Halper, the FBI informant who spied on the Trump presidential campaign.
Adam Lovinger, a 12-year strategist in the Pentagon’s Office of Net Assessment, complained to his bosses about Halper contracts in the fall of 2016, his attorney, Sean M. Bigley, told The Washington Times.
On May 1, 2017, his superiors yanked his security clearance and relegated him to clerical chores.
Mr. Bigley filed a complaint July 18 with the Pentagon’s senior ethics official, charging that Mr. Lovinger’s superiors misused the security clearance process to punish him. He said his client complained about excessive “sweetheart” deals for Mr. Halper and for a “best friend” of Chelsea Clinton.
“As it turns out, one of the two contractors Mr. Lovinger explicitly warned his ONA superiors about misusing in 2016 was none other than Mr. Halper,” Mr. Bigley wrote in his ethics complaint, which called the contracts “cronyism and corruption.”
Mr. Lovinger filed a whistleblower reprisal complaint in May with the Defense Department inspector general against James Baker, director of the Office of Net Assessment. The complaint also singles out Washington Headquarters Services, a Pentagon support agency that awarded the Halper contracts totaling hundreds of thousands of dollars. . . .
Mr. Baker was appointed chief of the Office of Net Assessment in 2015 by Defense Secretary Ashton Carter, Mr. Obama’s appointee.
The Washington Headquarters Services, which revoked Mr. Lovinger’s clearance, is headed by Barbara Westgate, who was appointed in 2016. . . .
Press reports identified Mr. Halper as a paid FBI confidential human source, whose mission was to make contacts with Trump campaign workers. The FBI was investigating any Trump ties to Moscow at a time when its intelligence officers were hacking Democratic Party computers.
The Daily Caller website documented Mr. Halper’s outreach to George Papadopoulos, a Trump campaign volunteer. He also contacted another volunteer, Carter Page. . . .
Mr. Halper was paid $411,000 by Washington Headquarters Services on Sept. 26, 2016, for a contract that ran until this March.

Who are these Pentagon bureaucrats, James Baker and Barbara Westgate? Are they partisan Democrat hacks — or adherents to some “internationalist” ideology — burrowed into the civil service? Why else would they seek to destroy the career of Adam Lovinger, who had the temerity to raise questions about the funds paid to Stefan Halper?

It is not a paranoid “conspiracy theory” to say that government bureaucracies often operate in ways harmful to the public interest, and that bureaucrats often display a greater concern for their own job security than for whatever work the bureaucracy is intended to do.

Let us consider the situation in early 2016, when it became apparent that Trump would win the Republican presidential nomination, which was what started this apparent effort to sabotage his campaign with ginned-up accusations of “Russian collusion.” The fact that the Kremlin actually was seeking to influence the election is irrelevant to the propriety of the Obama administration conducting surveillance of its political opponents, using government resources for partisan purposes. The question is why Pentagon bureaucrats like Baker and Westgate would cooperate in this scheme to sabotage Trump. Are they partisan Democrats?

Well, both were appointed to their current positions during the Obama administration, and we might suppose that no bureaucrat known to be a Republican would get a promotion in a Democrat administration. But consider this fact: From 1993-2017, Democrats occupied the White House for 16 years (Clinton 1993-2001, Obama 2009-2017) compared to only eight years for Republicans (G.W. Bush 2001-2009). In other words, a long-serving bureaucrat at the Pentagon (or in any other federal agency) would have become accustomed to working for Democrats who served in presidentially appointed positions as Cabinet secretaries, etc. Regardless of their own political opinions, then, we might expect that senior employees of the Pentagon would be less troubled by the idea of Hillary Clinton becoming president than by the idea of the disruptive outsider Donald Trump winning the 2016 election.

Trump’s avowed intent to reorient U.S. foreign policy, away from the internationalist status quo toward an “America First” approach, may well have concerned Pentagon bureaucrats. We don’t have to debate the wisdom of U.S. post-Cold War strategy (e.g., the effectiveness and utility of NATO) in order to say that Trump was willing to ask questions that no one in the bipartisan Beltway policy-making establishment had bothered asking for many years. Clearly, Trump meant to shake things up, and that almost certainly would have frightened a lot of bureaucrats who had spent years crawling their way up the career ladder at the Pentagon, the State Department, the FBI, the CIA, etc. Thus, to speak of the “Deep State” in the context of efforts to prevent the election of Trump, and to sabotage his presidency after he won, is by no means advancing a paranoid conspiracy theory; it is a realistic conclusion based on a common-sense interpretation of available evidence.

The allegations in Adam Lovinger’s lawsuit show how this “Deep State” conspiracy may have worked at an operational level. Anyone in the bureaucracy who opposed the effort to sabotage Trump — for instance, by asking why Stefan Halper was being paid so much by the Pentagon — would become a target of ostracism and potential disciplinary actions.

Allegedly, I hasten to add. A certain amount of journalistic caution is necessary when you’re dealing with situations like this.

(Hat-tip: Charlie Martin at Instapundit.)

Category: Conspiracy Theories, Corruption, Donald Trump, Russia

Feminist Professor Denounces Belief That ‘Fathers Are Valuable Parents’

Posted on | August 16, 2018 | Comments Off on Feminist Professor Denounces Belief That ‘Fathers Are Valuable Parents’

Males are worthless, according to feminist ideology, and thus government programs encouraging fathers to be involved with their children are bad:

A feminist professor at California State University-Fresno recently published an article lamenting that federal programs to promote “responsible fatherhood” among vulnerable men in fact perpetuate “patriarchy,” “gender norms,” and “hegemonic masculinity.”
The article, “‘Manning Up’ to Be a Good Father: Hybrid Fatherhood, Masculinity, and U.S. Responsible Fatherhood Policy,” was published in the new issue of Gender and Society by Jennifer Randles, who teaches sociology classes at the California school.
The goal of Randles’ research was to assess the feminist implications of “responsible fatherhood” programs. Such programs began in the 1970s, first received federal funding in 1996, and are currently overseen by the Department of Health and Human Services.
“Studies have shown that involved fathers provide practical support in raising children,” according to the government website, which explains that “children with involved loving fathers are more likely to do well in school, have healthy self-esteem, and exhibit empathy.”
Currently, the government funds 36 programs to promote healthy fatherhood. These programs vary in scope and mission, but must align with one of three federal goals: promoting healthy marriage, responsible parenting, or economic stability.
“How can a seemingly progressive revision of fatherhood promoting men’s emotional engagement with children operate as a discursive mechanism for the reproduction of gender, race, and class inequalities?” asks Randles. . . .
She laments: these programs “reinforce patriarchal ideology” by encouraging “hybrid masculinity,” which encourages low-income fathers to be “emotionally engaged,” and perpetuates the myth that mothers “cannot compensate” for the lack of a father.
These programs aim to “reshape men’s gender identities in line with a type of hegemonic masculinity focused on well-paid work and family breadwinning,” she laments, claiming that they “legitimate patriarchal power.”
By teaching men to “man up,” not repress their feelings, and avoid “absentee” fatherhood, these programs promote a “hybridized gender identity” that ultimately does nothing to challenge the patriarchal status quo, Randles writes.
“This strategy reaffirms essentialist ideas that fathers are valuable parents because they are men and legitimates patriarchal ideologies,” she writes, adding that they perpetuate “patriarchy by concealing the power of privileged men and devaluing women.”

(Hat-tip: Instapundit.)

Professor Randles teaches sociology, reminding me of Thomas Sowell’s quote: “The next time some academics tell you how important diversity is, ask how many Republicans there are in their sociology department.”

P.S.: Enrollment at Fresno State is 59% female and less than 20% of Fresno State students are white. That’s what “diversity” means in California — deliberate discrimination against white males.

Category: Education, Sex Trouble

In The Mailbox: 08.15.18

Posted on | August 16, 2018 | 1 Comment

— compiled by Wombat-socho

OVER THE TRANSOM
Ninety Miles From Tyranny: The 90 Miles Mystery Box, Episode #348
EBL: Indigo
Twitchy: Sharyl Attkisson Nukes Developing Media Narrative About White House Trying To “Silence” John Brennan
Louder With Crowder: Sorry, Media, I Don’t Care About Omarosa’s Scandal – And It’s All Your Fault

RIPPED FROM THE HEADLINES
American Thinker: Brennan, The Spooks, And Russian Collusion
Animal Magnetism: Animal’s Hump Day News
BattleSwarm: Twitter Randomly Banning Conservatives Yet Again
CDR Salamander: Emperor Xi And His Troubles
Da Tech Guy: Why Isn’t Gloria Allred In Minnesota? also, The Dog Days Of August
Don Surber: Univision Joins The Trump Schadenfreude List
Dustbury: A Clean Break With The Pasta
Fred On Everything: Decline In The Fall – Or Late Summer, Anyway
The Geller Report: JMU Student Gets 100 Days In Jail For Registering Dead People To Vote Democrat, also, More Than Half Of Foreign Refugees In US On Food Stamps
Hogewash: Subpoenas, Subpoenas, Subpoenas, also, Team Kimberlin Post Of The Day
Legal Insurrection: Colorado Goes After Baker Again, This Time For “Gender Transition” Cake, also, Trump Revokes Brennan’s Security Clearance, Considers Revocation For Other Leakers
The PanAm Post: Maduro Ends Subsidized Gasoline For Political Opponents
Power Line: Jailbreak Legislation Is Back And Worse Than Ever, also, Green Weenie Of The Week – The DNC Reverses Itself
Shark Tank: Rep. DeSantis To Visit Area Affected By Toxic Algae
Shot In The Dark: Happy Hour – Two Standards For The Price Of One
The Political Hat: Ten Reasons We’re Against Unions – A Fisking
This Ain’t Hell: Army Vet Killed Protecting Children On First Day Of School, also, Panhandling Veteran Gets Up From Wheelchair And Walks
Victory Girls: Masterpiece Cakeshop Sues Colorado, Gov. Hickenlooper, Citing Religious Discrimination
Volokh Conspiracy: Muslim Male Inmate Objects To Strip Search By Apparently Female Transgender Guard
Weasel Zippers: DoD Analyst Had Clearance Stripped By Obama Appointees After Questioning Contracts With FBI Spy On Trump Campaign, also, NY Dem Gov Andrew Cuomo Says “America Was Never Great”
Megan McArdle: What Would Jesus Do? Clean House In The Catholic Church
Mark Steyn: The Glamorization of Violence, also, Burqaphobia & Boaterphilia

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Category: Linkagery

The Rocky Horror Middle School Show

Posted on | August 15, 2018 | Comments Off on The Rocky Horror Middle School Show

The town of Achille, Oklahoma, has a population of less than 500. For unknown reasons, a woman who is raising her son to believe he’s a girl decided that this tiny community in rural Bryan County was where they needed to live. Problems inevitably ensued:

Several law enforcement agencies have stepped in after parents made threats to harm a 12-year-old Achille Public Schools student on social media last week.
12-year-old Achille Schools transgender student Maddie’s mother Brandy Rose says her family moved to Achille from Sherman when Maddie was in 5th grade.
“She’s been living as female for years — she started at Achille as Maddie,” Rose said. “We had no problems when we first started.”
Trouble started when Maddie was accused by another student peeping under a bathroom stall.
“My daughter leans very far forward to use the bathroom,” Rose explained. “I can understand why someone seeing her lean forward would think, ‘Oh my gosh, she’s trying to look under.'”
Maddie didn’t get in trouble, but started using the staff bathroom, and had been doing that for the past two years.
That is, until the first day of school Wednesday in the middle school they reopened.
“She hadn’t been told where the staff bathroom was. Before she was able to be told, she had to pee, so she used the girls bathroom one single time.”
One parent found out, and took to a private Achille Facebook group to complain.
That’s where the threats started. Adults called Maddie by “it” and “thing.” Some said she should be stabbed or beat up. One even suggested it was open hunting season for transgender people.
“That’s a threat against her life — that’s scary,” Rose said. “These are adults making threats — I don’t understand it.”
Rose said her usually upbeat and positive daughter is afraid for her life.
“She’s an awesome kid. To see any fear in her,I can’t explain how bad that hurts me for them to hurt her.”
As a precaution, the Bryan County Sheriff suggested closing campus Monday and Tuesday. . . .
The sheriff said the mother filed a protective order against one parent but no other arrests have been made, however several agencies including the FBI are stepping in to see if any comments constitute a hate crime.

Adults making violent threats against a 12-year-old is bad and wrong. Parents teaching their children to be perverts is also bad and wrong.

Child Protective Services
Program Information
Child Protective Services (CPS) are provided through Oklahoma Department of Human Services (DHS) to identify, treat and prevent child abuse and neglect. The two purposes of CPS intervention are to protect the safety of children and to provide services to help families with any difficulties that cause the safety of their children to be at risk. Services are provided either through community resources or through DHS. While every attempt is made to preserve the family, if a child’s safety cannot be controlled, then court intervention, including removal of the child, may be necessary.
If you believe a child is being abused or neglected, you have a legal responsibility to report it. Reports can be made at any time to the DHS Abuse and Neglect Hotline at 1-800-522-3511. The hotline is available 24 hours-a-day, 7 days-a-week.

Just some helpful information you might want to share with folks in Bryan County, Oklahoma, who are concerned about this boy whose crazy mother is training him to believe he’s a girl named “Maddie.”

Category: Education, Oklahoma, The Transgender Cult

The Rocky Horror Democrat Party Show

Posted on | August 15, 2018 | Comments Off on The Rocky Horror Democrat Party Show

Vermont Democrats nominate a transgender socialist for governor:

Christine Hallquist, who is running as a progressive Democrat in Vermont, made history on Tuesday as she became the first transgender gubernatorial candidate nominated by a major political party.
Advancing a progressive platform focused on economic and social justice, including a $15 minimum wage, environmentally sustainable rural development and expanding access to internet services, Hallquist edged out challengers in a crowded primary. She led the field with 39 percent of the vote, according to unofficial results from the secretary of state at the time of The Associated Press projection.
“I am so proud to be the face of the Democrats tonight,” Hallquist said, addressing supporters at a victory party Tuesday night.

Yes, this is “the face of the Democrats” — a man in a dress who wants to impose $100 million in new taxes on Vermont. Kind of like the pro-abortion lesbian feminist the Democrats nominated for Congress in the 23rd District of Texas. Also in Texas, Democrats have nominated a lesbian named Lupe Valdez for governor, because “blue wave,” you see?

Democrats: Not the Party for Normal People!

If that’s their slogan for 2018, how do you think it will work out?

Category: Democrats, Election, Gays, The Transgender Cult

Crazy People Are Dangerous

Posted on | August 15, 2018 | Comments Off on Crazy People Are Dangerous

News from New York:

A Long Island woman who claimed she needed to rid her home of “evil” allegedly stabbed a British woman to death after their lunch together, Nassau County police officials said Tuesday.
Faye Doomchin, 66, of Great Neck, was charged with second-degree murder for the fatal Monday knifing of the 60-year-old victim, whom Doomchin had met earlier that day through a mutual friend from Queens, cops said.
Doomchin, the victim and the pal had lunch and went back to Doomchin’s home on North Road to play piano and have cake and coffee before Doomchin plunged a kitchen knife into the woman’s chest at around 3:50 p.m., police said.
“Sometime during while they were sitting in the living room, they were talking and the [Doomchin] made statements that she did not like the woman from England,” Nassau County Police Det. Lt. Stephen Fitzpatrick said at a press conference.
“She claimed she needed to rid the house of evil,” Fitzpatrick said of Doomchin. “She then appeared from the kitchen with a kitchen knife, walked right over to her and stabbed her in the chest.”
The victim, whose identity was not released, was rushed to a local hospital where she was pronounced dead.
“There was no premeditation to that. There were no incidents prior to that,” Fitzpatrick said. “We’re still looking to find out what may have precipitated this as the investigation continues.”

Why is it that kooks never manage to kill anyone I’d like to see dead? Like, if you’re a homicidal maniac looking for “evil” people to kill, I could give you a long list of names, OK? But no, these murderous lunatics always choose their victims more or less randomly.

However, I can save the police some time in their investigation of this woman’s motive. It’s very simple: Crazy People Are Dangerous.

Category: Crime, New York

CNN’s Chris Cuomo Goes Full Antifa

Posted on | August 15, 2018 | 1 Comment

Never go full antifa:

CNN’s Chris Cuomo argued Monday night Antifa protesters are wrong to hit people, police, and reporters, “but fighting hate is right” and in a clash between hate and those who oppose it, “those who oppose it are on the side of right.”
Cuomo said “all punches are not equal morally” when it comes to bigots. However, he acknowledged that two punches are actually equal “in the eyes of the law.”
“People who show up to fight against bigots are not to be judged the same as the bigots, even if they do resort to the same petty violence,” Cuomo said.
“Fighting against hate matters,” he added.
“I argue to you tonight, all punches are not equal morally,” he said. “In the eyes of the law, yes. But in the eyes of good and evil, here’s the argument: if you’re a punk that comes to start trouble in a mask and hurt people, you’re not about any virtuous cause. You’re just somebody who’s going to be held to the standard of doing something wrong.”
“But when someone comes to call out bigots and it gets hot, even physical, are they equally wrong as the bigot they are fighting? I argue, no. Fighting against hate matters,” Cuomo concluded.

On the remote chance that Chris Cuomo might actually be reading this blog, I must ask: Who gets to define “hate,” Chris? Who is in charge of deciding who the “bigots” are? Because while it may seem obvious to you in this particular case, it is by no means always obvious.

Perhaps, Mr. Cuomo, you are not familiar with the history of fascism, and how the Communists circa 1930, having determined that bourgeois liberals and democratic socialists were their real enemies, pursued a strategy that enabled the Nazis to gain power in Germany. All during the so-called “Popular Front” era, of course, Communists made “anti-fascism” their slogan, up until August 1939, when Stalin and Hitler reached an agreement for the partition of Poland (the Molotov-Ribbentrop Pact), which precipitated World War II.

Endorsing mob violence in the name of “fighting against hate,” Mr. Cuomo, not only raises the question of what constitutes “hate,” but amounts to an endorsement of a might-makes-right ideology, where political decision-making becomes a matter of numerical superiority and the willingness to employ violence to obtain power.

Where does this lead? Cambodia under Pol Pot. Genocide in Rwanda.

No borders! No wall!
No USA at all!

That’s what your antifa buddies were chanting Sunday, Chris. Do only “bigots” disagree with them? Is it “hate” to love America? Are patriotic Americans expected to surrender our country to an anarchist mob?

Nobody here — not me, nor any of the conservatives I know — is endorsing Nazis. We may sometimes joke about helicopter rides for Commies, but we hope this Pinochet-style solution will be unnecessary. We hope that it will be possible to preserve constitutional liberty despite the mob mentality you endorse, Mr. Cuomo, and despite CNN’s dishonest partisan propaganda that portrays all 63 million Americans who voted for Donald Trump as “bigots” who deserve to be attacked by antifa thugs.

We should thank you, Mr. Cuomo, for taking off the mask, exposing yourself as a dangerous totalitarian who endorses lawless violence, so long as the criminal perpetrators are on your side — i.e., on the side of CNN and the Democrat Party. As law-abiding citizens who are not on your side, we hope that America will not descend into the chaos of mob violence that you and your antifa allies advocate, but if worse comes to worse, we have the means to defend ourselves and our families.

Category: CNN

Sudanese Immigrant, 29, Identified as Perpetrator of London Terrorist Attack

Posted on | August 15, 2018 | Comments Off on Sudanese Immigrant, 29, Identified as Perpetrator of London Terrorist Attack

“Rivers of blood” update:

The man being held on suspicion of terrorism after the Westminster car attack on Tuesday has been named as Salih Khater by British newspapers.
The event, in which 15 cyclists and pedestrians were reportedly struck before Khater’s silver Ford Focus hit the Palace of Westminster anti-terror barrier just before 07:40 BST, is being investigated by British counter-terror police. He has been arrested under the 2006 terrorism act.
Police said in a statement that “Given that it appears to have been a deliberate act, the method used and the iconic location, it is being treated as a terrorist incident and the investigation is being led by officers from the Met’s Counter Terrorism Command.”
Described by police at the time of his arrest as a male in his late 20s, the terror suspect has now been named by British newspaper the Daily Mail as 29-year-old Sudanese immigrant Salih Khater, now a British citizen living in Birmingham.
Apparently uncomfortable in identifying the terror suspect using the common nomenclature as an ‘immigrant’, government security minister Ben Wallace instead called Khater a “British citizen [who] came from another country originally” when he spoke Tuesday evening.
According to reports, Khater lived in the Birmingham suburb of Sparkhill in a flat just minutes walk from the address of Islamist terrorist Khalid Masood, the radical who rammed a hired car into pedestrians on Westminster Bridge and stabbed a police officer to death moments later. Masood’s attack took place just yards from where Khater crashed into cyclists and pedestrians — injuring three but causing no fatalities.

Her Majesty’s government does not wish to admit that England has a terrorism problem because it has an immigration problem.