RUTHFULLY YOURS

Former CIA Director John Brennan’s appearance before the House Intelligence Committee on Tuesday rekindled the hopes of Democrats and others searching for proof that Donald Trump or his associates colluded with Russia to interfere with the 2016 election. But Brennan gave the committee old information — he frankly admitted it was old — that did not take into account what has been learned in recent months from other sources.

In short, this is what Brennan said: In the summer of 2016, I saw contacts between Russians and people in the Trump circle. I worried that the Russians were trying to use the Trump people for their own purposes. I gave the information to the FBI. But I have no idea what the FBI did with the information.

Brennan publicly provided the rationale for beginning the FBI counter-intelligence investigation that former FBI Director James Comey has said began in July 2016.

“I encountered and am aware of information and intelligence that revealed contacts and interactions between Russian officials and U.S. persons involved in the Trump campaign,” Brennan testified. “I know what the Russians try to do. They try to suborn individuals and they try to get individuals, including U.S. persons, to act on their behalf, either wittingly or unwittingly. And I was worried by a number of the contacts that the Russians had with U.S. persons and so therefore, by the time I left office on Jan. 20, I had unresolved questions in my mind as to whether or not the Russians had been successful in getting U.S. persons, involved in the campaign or not, to work on their behalf, again, either in a witting or unwitting fashion. And so therefore I felt as though the FBI investigation was certainly well-founded and needed to look into those issues.”

But Brennan could not tell the Intelligence Committee the results of the FBI investigation, or if the FBI had found, or not found, anything in the course of the investigation, which is now in its 10th month.

“Since you passed that information to the FBI director [in summer 2016], have you reviewed the FBI’s development of that evidence or any other evidence?” asked Democratic Rep. Eric Swalwell.

“I am unaware of what the bureau has done with that information, and I have no knowledge of anything, even, that the [CIA] has done since Jan. 20th,” Brennan answered.

But others do have knowledge of what the FBI has done with Brennan’s information. The FBI has briefed members of the so-called “Gang of Eight” — that is, the top Republican and Democrat on both House and Senate intelligence committees plus the two leaders of each house of Congress — on developments in the case. The bureau has also briefed the top members of the Senate Judiciary Committee, as well.

Dianne Feinstein, the Democratic senator from California who last year was vice chair of the Intelligence Committee, was part of the Gang of Eight until January of this year, and since then has been ranking Democrat on the Judiciary Committee. So she, unlike Brennan, has been kept up on what the FBI did with the information Brennan gave the bureau in the summer of 2016.

http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/byron-york-on-collusion-john-brennans-incomplete-story/article/2624016

In an appearance on CNN May 3, Feinstein noted that she had been briefed by the FBI and had also recently visited CIA headquarters to review documents. “Do you believe, do you have evidence that there was in fact collusion between Trump associates and Russia during the campaign,” anchor Wolf Blitzer asked Feinstein.

“Not at this time,” Feinstein answered.

It was a careful response — most people involved with the investigation have noted that while they haven’t seen proof of collusion to this point, some previously unseen evidence might still emerge. But on May 18, Feinstein appeared again on CNN.

“The last time we spoke, senator, I asked you if you had actually seen evidence of collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, and you said to me — and I’m quoting you now — you said, ‘Not at this time.’ Has anything changed since we spoke last?”

“Well, not — no, it hasn’t,” Feinstein responded, going on to note that she expected the new Robert Mueller special counsel probe could “bring forward any criminal activity.”

“But I just want to be precise, senator,” Blitzer said. “In all of the — you’ve had access from the Intelligence Committee, from the Judiciary Committee, all the access you’ve had to very sensitive information, so far you’ve not seen any evidence of collusion. Is that right?”

“Well, evidence that would establish that there’s collusion,” Feinstein said. “There are all kinds of rumors around. There are newspaper stories, but that’s not necessarily evidence.”

Other members of Congress with access to updated information have said similar things. And Feinstein’s statement was last Thursday, which is considerably more recent that Brennan’s testimony that he gave the FBI information in the summer of 2016 and did not know what had happened with that information since.

That doesn’t mean Brennan’s concerns weren’t real. But it does mean the story he told the House on Tuesday was incomplete.

FOR MY FRIEND AND E-PAL PHIL B …..RSK
The three men on the golf course didn’t look like superheroes. But Nick Bradley, Saul Martinez and Rod Rodriguez are just that. So are the other combat veterans who joined them on the links Monday at this year’s Warrior Open in Dallas. The tournament, sponsored by the George W. Bush Presidential Center since 2011, celebrates wounded veterans’ recovery and their continuing service to America.

For these three comrades in arms, it was another reunion, since they have played in the tournament since its first iteration.

Staff Sgt. Nick Bradley joined the Air Force in 2001. He did two tours in Iraq and a fateful one in Afghanistan providing security for generals in Kabul. On Aug. 3, 2008, his team was moving in a small convoy when a Taliban antitank mine exploded under his Land Cruiser’s gearshift.

The blast broke every bone in his face, right arm, hand, hip, knee, shin and foot. Knitting him back together took 16 surgeries and left Nick with six screws in his face, 51 in his arm and 11 in his hand. The doctors told him he wouldn’t walk for a year or even sit up without assistance.

“I didn’t like that answer,” he says. “It cut me deep.” He taped a picture of his daughter next to his bed. Two days later, he was sitting up. While exploring the ward in a wheelchair, he discovered a putting green. Against doctor’s orders, he was soon standing and hitting balls one-handed. Two months after arriving at Walter Reed, Nick walked out of the hospital.

On Tuesday he celebrated this year’s Warrior Open by fixing dinner for his wife and daughter, Khaila, who will turn 11 next month, a few days after her baby sister is due. Nick credits his family and golf for his recovery. While he brags that he “played great” this year, the highlight was having his daughter meet the former president, who he says “inspires me every day to get better in life.”

Army Sgt. Saul Martinez enlisted because of 9/11. He served in Iraq during the 2007 surge, when an explosively formed projectile ripped apart his vehicle. The blast killed two friends and left him a bilateral amputee—without most of his legs.

Saul says he made it back mostly because of his wife, Sarah: “She pushed me, motivated me, and told me I could do things I never thought I could do again.” After leaving the service in 2010, he moved to Montana, where he is director of services for Warriors and Quiet Waters. This program, inspired by Psalm 23—“He leads me beside quiet waters, he restores my soul”—uses fly-fishing to help veterans regain their physical health and overcome post-traumatic stress and traumatic brain injuries.

Sgt. First Class Michael “Rod” Rodriquez joined the Army in 1992, later becoming a Green Beret. He had dozens of concussions in training and combat. Then, more than a decade ago in Afghanistan, he suffered three traumatic brain injuries within a few weeks, including one from a bomb that temporarily cost him sight in his left eye. As his team’s senior medic, he hid his injuries to stay with his comrades.

During the Obama years, the National Security Agency intentionally and routinely intercepted and reviewed communications of American citizens in violation of the Constitution and of court-ordered guidelines implemented pursuant to federal law.

The unlawful surveillance appears to have been a massive abuse of the government’s foreign-intelligence-collection authority, carried out for the purpose of monitoring the communications of Americans in the United States. While aware that it was going on for an extensive period of time, the administration failed to disclose its unlawful surveillance of Americans until late October 2016, when the administration was winding down and the NSA needed to meet a court deadline in order to renew various surveillance authorities under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).

The administration’s stonewalling about the scope of the violation induced an exasperated Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to accuse the NSA of “an institutional lack of candor” in connection with what the court described as “a very serious Fourth Amendment issue.” (The court is the federal tribunal created in 1978 by FISA; it is often referred to as a “secret court” because proceedings before it are classified and ex parte — meaning only the Justice Department appears before the court.)

The FISA-court opinion is now public, available here. The unlawful surveillance was first exposed in a report at Circa by John Solomon and Sara Carter, who have also gotten access to internal, classified reports. The story was also covered extensively Wednesday evening by James Rosen and Bret Baier on Fox News’s Special Report.

According to the internal reports reviewed by Solomon and Carter, the illegal surveillance may involve more than 5 percent of NSA searches of databases derived from what is called “upstream” collection of Internet communications.

As the FISA court explains, upstream collection refers to the interception of communications “as they transit the facilities of an Internet backbone carrier.” These are the data routes between computer networks. The routes are hosted by government, academic, commercial, and similar high-capacity network centers, and they facilitate the global, international exchange of Internet traffic. Upstream collection from the Internet’s “backbone,” which accounts for about 9 percent of the NSA’s collection haul (a massive amount of communications), is distinguished from interception of communications from more familiar Internet service providers.

Upstream collection is a vital tool for gathering intelligence against foreign threats to the United States. It is, of course, on foreign intelligence targets — non-U.S. persons situated outside the U.S. — that the NSA and CIA are supposed to focus. Foreign agents operating inside the U.S. are mainly the purview of the FBI, which conducts surveillance of their communications through warrants from the FISA court — individualized warrants based on probable cause that a specific person is acting as an agent of a foreign power.

The NSA conducts vacuum intelligence-collection under a different section of FISA — section 702. It is inevitable that these section 702 surveillance authorities will incidentally intercept the communications of Americans inside the United States if those Americans are communicating with the foreign target. This does not raise serious Fourth Amendment concerns; after all, non-targeted Americans are intercepted all the time in traditional criminal wiretaps because they call, or are called by, the target. But FISA surveillance is more controversial than criminal surveillance because the government does not have to show probable cause of a crime — and when the targets are foreigners outside the U.S., the government does not have to make any showing; it may target if it has a legitimate foreign-intelligence purpose, which is really not much of a hurdle at all.

So, as noted in coverage of the Obama administration’s monitoring of Trump-campaign officials, FISA section 702 provides some privacy protection for Americans: The FISA court orders “minimization” procedures, which require any incidentally intercepted American’s identity to be “masked.” That is, the NSA must sanitize the raw data by concealing the identity of the American. Only the “masked” version of the communication is provided to other U.S. intelligence agencies for purposes of generating reports and analyses. As I have previously explained, however, this system relies on the good faith of government officials in respecting privacy: There are gaping loopholes that permit American identities to be unmasked if, for example, the NSA or some other intelligence official decides doing so is necessary to understand the intelligence value of the communication.

Only in Florida. A white supremacist man converted to Islam and confessed to killing two of his roommates, who were also white supremacists. A third roommate (and again, white supremacist), who was away during the killings, was also arrested for homemade explosives.

Tampa police arrested 18-year-old Devon Arthurs Friday night, after the young man brought them to the bodies of two men he confessed to killing that very evening, Fox 13 News reported. The Miami Herald reported that Arthurs told police he killed his roommates “because they disrespected his new-found Muslim faith.” As he was arrested, Arthurs made several references to “Allah Mohammed.”

Around 5:30 p.m., Arthurs came into the Green Planet Smoke Shop near his apartment, wielding a gun and announcing that he had killed two people. He reportedly said he was upset “due to America bombing his Muslim countries.” He also warned employees not to leave the store, but the shop’s manager was able to break away and call the police.

“He came in there with a gun, never faced it at [the employees],” manager Fadi Soufan told Fox 13 News. Arthurs started “telling them the world’s corrupt, crazy stuff like that, and that he just shot someone.”

Police officers came and took Arthurs into custody, but then he told them where to find the bodies. He also reportedly added, “I had to do it. This wouldn’t have to happen if your country didn’t bomb my country.” Officers identified the victims as 22-year-old Jeremy Himmelman and 18-year-old Andrew Oneschuk. Investigators reported that all three of the men lived in an apartment together.

In a press release, the Tampa Police Department announced that “due to concerns about possible explosives, the Tampa Police bomb squad and the Tampa Fire Rescue Hazmat team worked through the night to ensure that it was safe to enter the condominium.”

Arthurs was booked into the jail early Saturday, and faces first-degree murder and kidnapping charges.

But the story gets crazier. On Sunday afternoon, police arrested a fourth roommate, Brandon Russell, whom Arthurs also identified as a white supremacist. According to Arthurs, this man had participated in neo-Nazi chat rooms where he “threatened to kill people and bomb infrastructure,” according to the FBI report.

Inside Russell’s bedroom, police found a framed photograph of Timothy McVeigh, the convicted and executed bomber responsible for attacking the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City on April 16, 1995. They also found Nazi and white supremacist propaganda, and radiation sources — thorium and americium. CONTINUE AT SITE

To a social justice warrior, there is nothing so awful as a white male. For one like Linda Sarsour, that is especially true, which she recently illustrated at Dartmouth College.

On May 12, during a question and answer period with Sarsour, someone in the audience asked a question about a tweet Sarsour made regarding genital mutilation survivor Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Arab Christian Brigitte Gabriel.

In that tweet, Sarsour said:

I wish I could take their vaginas away – they don’t deserve to be women.

The Daily Wire reported on the question, and Sarsour’s response:

The young man confronted Sarsour:

Hi. So, um, this question is really important because I believe that women’s rights are also human rights. So I really want to know: under what circumstances it’s acceptable to say that “I wish I could take their vaginas away. They don’t deserve to be women.” Just to give that context, that’s one of the tweets off your Twitter.

There was a long pause while Sarsour decided how to mitigate the effect of the truth being thrown at her. She finally responded by evading the question:

So, let’s give some context here, because, y’know, we have — Uh, this is an event organized by an Asian American, right? Let’s just get — let’s get some context to what is going on here. Celebrating a community, right? Talking about communities of color who are being directly impacted by this moment and I have a young white man in the back who is not directly impacted by any of the issues I mentioned.

That elicited applause from the supine audience, which apparently didn’t care about the massive hypocrisy of a woman posing as a fighter for women’s rights who had called for literally ripping away the vaginas of women that she hated.

Sarsour continued by astonishingly claiming she never issued the tweet: “A copy and paste that he got from a right-wing blog. He doesn’t even know if it actually came from my Twitter account because he has a screenshot of it. He never actually went to my Twitter to see if it’s actually there. Right? That never happened. ”

Never happened, huh? Then what’s this?
A screenshot of Linda Sarsour’s tweet.

Sarsour then tried to deflect the criticism by pretending it was simply a case of saying “stupid s***” when one is younger — yet she never disavowed the sentiment in that tweet.

She could have simply apologized. But she didn’t. Instead, she simply argued that people say things that may be “stupid” — but of course, she alone gets a pass on what she said and did in the past.

Meanwhile, the progressive movement she so proudly supports has ruined people for saying and doing much less. CONTINUE AT SITE

Talk to anyone who has tried to run a business and ask them how hard it is. I can speak from experience when I tell you that it isn’t easy. Long hours, sleepless nights, and concerns you never even thought about as an employee are the norm. Add in the fact that you get paid last, which can mean some very lean times, and the challenges of owning a business become rather obvious.

Now, you may also have to consider the idea that Social Justice Warriors think you have the wrong DNA for your line of work, because they’re horrible.

Reason.com reports that some have put together a spreadsheet of Portland, Oregon, restaurants that allegedly engage in “cultural appropriation”:

The list, a Google Docs spreadsheet, includes about 60 Portland-area restaurants, the names of their white owners, and the kind of cuisine they serve. (For example, the list informs us that Burmasphere “was founded by a white man who ate Burmese food in San Francisco.”) The spreadsheet also lists competing restaurants that are owned by people of color and urges customers to try them instead.

“This is NOT about cooking at home or historical influences on cuisines; it’s about profit, ownership, and wealth in a white supremacist culture,” wrote the spreadsheet’s authors. “These white-owned businesses hamper the ability for POC [people of color] to run successful businesses of their own (cooking their own cuisines) by either consuming market share with their attempt at authenticity or by modifying foods to market to white palates. Their success further perpetuates the problems stated above. It’s a cyclical pattern that will require intentional behavior change to break.”

The spreadsheet seems to be a response to the controversy over Kooks Burritos, a Portland-area pop-up food truck run by two white women. In an interview with Williamette Week, Kooks owners Kali Wilgus and Liz Connelly explained how they fell in love with authentic Mexican tortillas during a visit to Puerto Nuevo, Mexico.

It’s funny that these oh-so-caring and tolerant individuals fail to understand how outright insulting they are to everyone, whether white or minority.

Restaurants open and close all the time for a variety of reasons. To say that minorities can’t compete simply because white people are cooking the same type of food? That implies that minorities are incapable of succeeding without these benevolent white knights who compiled the listing.

They are literally saying that “people of color” can’t possibly make it without a group of SJWs to clear the road for them.

Sounds like this is about the SJWs own self-esteem more than anything else. CONTINUE AT SITE