Wednesday, February 07, 2018
It's Not Enough to Get Paid for Not Working: These L.A. Police and Firefighters Figured Out How to Double It - Hit & Run : Reason.com
It's Not Enough to Get Paid for Not Working: These L.A. Police and Firefighters Figured Out How to Double It - Hit & Run : Reason.com:
"Take a program that lets a public employee earn both a pension and a salary at the same time.
Add an extremely generous disability leave and workers' compensation program that allows public employees to be paid while not working for months or even years on end.
What do you get?
Massive corruption, obviously.
...The corruption that follows is fairly predictable.
The Times includes several stories of public safety employees who spend months or years of their final period on the job out on medical leaves.
But they're hardly bedridden or fighting their way through physical therapy.
One couple, a captain and a detective in the LAPD, spent around two years each on medical disability, spending some of their time at their condo in Cabo San Lucas starting a family theater production company.
A firefighter who injured his knee just weeks after entering the DROP program shares the same name and hometown as a man who ran a half-marathon two months later, but he and his lawyers would not confirm or deny to the Times whether they were the same person.
Unsurprisingly, this easily abusable program was sold by claiming it would accomplish the opposite of what it actually does..."
Read on!
"Take a program that lets a public employee earn both a pension and a salary at the same time.
Add an extremely generous disability leave and workers' compensation program that allows public employees to be paid while not working for months or even years on end.
What do you get?
...The corruption that follows is fairly predictable.
The Times includes several stories of public safety employees who spend months or years of their final period on the job out on medical leaves.
But they're hardly bedridden or fighting their way through physical therapy.
One couple, a captain and a detective in the LAPD, spent around two years each on medical disability, spending some of their time at their condo in Cabo San Lucas starting a family theater production company.
A firefighter who injured his knee just weeks after entering the DROP program shares the same name and hometown as a man who ran a half-marathon two months later, but he and his lawyers would not confirm or deny to the Times whether they were the same person.
Unsurprisingly, this easily abusable program was sold by claiming it would accomplish the opposite of what it actually does..."
Read on!
Exceptional Work by Sharyl Attkisson – Did FBI Violate Woods Procedures?… | The Last Refuge
Exceptional Work by Sharyl Attkisson – Did FBI Violate Woods Procedures?… | The Last Refuge:
"Because the consequences of this type of surveillance are so comprehensive; and because the severity to the immediate loss of constitutional protection (privacy and liberty) is so stark; the U.S. Government -through the FISA court- intentionally makes it very difficult to gain FISA Title I surveillance authority over a U.S. citizen.
Sharyl Attkisson picks up from there with her deep dive into exactly what protections are in place, and the extraordinarily high-bar the DOJ needs to pass in order to gain Title I surveillance authority.
The point is: "
"Because the consequences of this type of surveillance are so comprehensive; and because the severity to the immediate loss of constitutional protection (privacy and liberty) is so stark; the U.S. Government -through the FISA court- intentionally makes it very difficult to gain FISA Title I surveillance authority over a U.S. citizen.Sharyl Attkisson picks up from there with her deep dive into exactly what protections are in place, and the extraordinarily high-bar the DOJ needs to pass in order to gain Title I surveillance authority.
The point is: "
Counterfeit Elitism - American Greatness
Counterfeit Elitism - American Greatness:
"Those damn dairy farmers. Why do they insist on trying to govern?
Or, put another way:
Why are Republicans trusting Devin Nunes to be their oracle of truth!? A former dairy farmer who House intel staffers refer to as Secret Agent Man because he has no idea what’s going on.
Thus spoke MSNBC panelist, Yale graduate, former Republican “strategist,” and Bush administration speechwriter Elise Jordan.
Jordan likely knows little about San Joaquin Valley family dairy farmers and little notion of the sort of skills, savvy, and work ethic necessary to survive in an increasingly corporate-dominated industry.
Whereas dairy farmer Nunes has excelled in politics, it would be hard to imagine Jordan running a family dairy farm, at least given the evidence of her televised skill sets and sobriety.
...“Elite” is now an overused smear.
But it is a fair pejorative when denoting a cadre that is not a natural or truly meritocratic top echelon, but is instead a group distinguished merely by schooling, associations, residence, connections and open disdain.
If this is supposed to translate into some sort of received wisdom and acknowledged excellence, ordinary Americans may be pardoned for missing it..."
Read on!
"Those damn dairy farmers. Why do they insist on trying to govern?
Or, put another way:
Why are Republicans trusting Devin Nunes to be their oracle of truth!? A former dairy farmer who House intel staffers refer to as Secret Agent Man because he has no idea what’s going on.
Thus spoke MSNBC panelist, Yale graduate, former Republican “strategist,” and Bush administration speechwriter Elise Jordan.Jordan likely knows little about San Joaquin Valley family dairy farmers and little notion of the sort of skills, savvy, and work ethic necessary to survive in an increasingly corporate-dominated industry.
Whereas dairy farmer Nunes has excelled in politics, it would be hard to imagine Jordan running a family dairy farm, at least given the evidence of her televised skill sets and sobriety.
...“Elite” is now an overused smear.
But it is a fair pejorative when denoting a cadre that is not a natural or truly meritocratic top echelon, but is instead a group distinguished merely by schooling, associations, residence, connections and open disdain.
If this is supposed to translate into some sort of received wisdom and acknowledged excellence, ordinary Americans may be pardoned for missing it..."
Read on!
History for February 7
History for February 7 - On-This-Day.com:
Sir Thomas More 1478 - Saint Thomas More, lawyer, author, Renaissance humanist, John Deere 1804 - Blacksmith, manufacturer, Charles Dickens 1812 - Writer, social critic
Frederick Douglas 1817, Sinclair Lewis 1885, Garth Brooks 1962
1795 - The 11th Amendment to the U.S. Constitution was ratified.
1913 - The Turks lost 5,000 men in a battle with the Bulgarian army in Gallipoli.
1922 - DeWitt and Lila Acheson Wallace offered 5,000 copies of "Reader's Digest" magazine for the first time.
1940 - "Pinocchio" world premiered at the Center Theatre in Manhattan.
1943 - The U.S. government announced that shoe rationing would go into effect in two days.
1944 - During World War II, the Germans launched a counteroffensive at Anzio, Italy.
1984 - Space shuttle astronauts Bruce McCandless II and Robert L. Stewart made the first untethered space walk.
1986 - Haitian President-for-Life Jean-Claude Duvalier fled his country ending 28 years of family rule.
Tuesday, February 06, 2018
Mark Levin on FISA Memo Revelations: 'Hillary Clinton Paid for a Warrant - That's the Easiest Way to Put It' - Breitbart
Mark Levin on FISA Memo Revelations: 'Hillary Clinton Paid for a Warrant - That's the Easiest Way to Put It' - Breitbart: "Partial transcript as follows:
This is bad. Let me tell you a couple of things here. Now we know why [Adam] Schiff and the rest of them are fighting so hard. Now we know why the left-wing praetorian guard Democrat media are fighting so hard, trashing [Devin] Nunes, me, you, and others. Let’s walk through this quickly. Who are they trying to protect? Hillary Clinton. Sean, who else are they trying to protect? Barack Obama. His name never comes up.
So, let me help everybody with this. Loretta Lynch knew about these FISA warrants. [Sally] Yates, the deputy attorney general, the extensions Rod Rosenstein, now the deputy attorney general. He knew. FBI Director [James] Comey, Deputy Director [Andrew] McCabe, [Peter] Strzok, the head of counterintelligence, [Lisa] Page — his girlfriend."
So, let me help everybody with this. Loretta Lynch knew about these FISA warrants. [Sally] Yates, the deputy attorney general, the extensions Rod Rosenstein, now the deputy attorney general. He knew. FBI Director [James] Comey, Deputy Director [Andrew] McCabe, [Peter] Strzok, the head of counterintelligence, [Lisa] Page — his girlfriend."
In March 2016 Carter Page Was an FBI Employee – In October 2016 FBI Told FISA Court He’s a Spy… | The Last Refuge
In March 2016 Carter Page Was an FBI Employee – In October 2016 FBI Told FISA Court He’s a Spy… | The Last Refuge:
"Because “FISA Title I” surveillance authority against a U.S. citizen is so serious (the U.S. government is essentially calling the target a spy), only a few people are authorized to even apply for such surveillance warrants. One of the four people authorized to make such a filing is the Asst. Attorney General who is head of the National Security Division of the DOJ. That person is John P Carlin.
The same John P Carlin who, together with the FBI counterintelligence unit, hired Carter Page as an FBI Under-Cover Employee, turns around and six months later accuses Page of being a Russian Spy – because the DOJ-NSD and FBI CoIntel needed to find a legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became that legal way. [“The Insurance Policy”]"
The same John P Carlin who, together with the FBI counterintelligence unit, hired Carter Page as an FBI Under-Cover Employee, turns around and six months later accuses Page of being a Russian Spy – because the DOJ-NSD and FBI CoIntel needed to find a legal way to spy on the Trump campaign. The 2016 FISA Title 1 surveillance of former FBI employee Carter Page became that legal way. [“The Insurance Policy”]"
IRA STOLL: The Other FBI Scandal. So long as Congress and the Trump White House are taking a loo…
Instapundit » Blog Archive » IRA STOLL: The Other FBI Scandal. So long as Congress and the Trump White House are taking a loo…:
IRA STOLL: The Other FBI Scandal.
IRA STOLL: The Other FBI Scandal.
But remember, if you dare to criticize the FBI you’re provoking a constitutional crisis or something.---Posted by Glenn ReynoldsSo long as Congress and the Trump White House are taking a look at FBI shenanigans, let them not forget the case of Supervisory Special Agent David Chaves.He is the one whose interactions with reporters for the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times were described by federal prosecutors in a January 2017 court filing as “unquestionable misconduct by an agent of the Government…improper and inexcusable.” The federal judge presiding over the insider trading case affected by the illegal leaks of grand jury information, P. Kevin Castel, was so worked up about the issue that he ordered the Justice Department to provide updates every three months on the status of the leak investigation.
The latest of those updates appears here, with enough redaction to make it resemble a late Rothko painting. . . .Chaves, like McCabe, has now apparently retired, according to his page at the speaker’s bureau that represents him...''
Pilot Checklists Are A Direct Result Of B-17s-Here's The Horrific Reason Why - World War Wings
Pilot Checklists Are A Direct Result Of B-17s-Here's The Horrific Reason Why - World War Wings
"B-17 Left More Than One Mark In History.
When thinking of B-17s, many things come to mind.
The slogan “if it ain’t Boeing I’m not going” is one. Known for their ability to keep flying even after they’ve been severely shot up, B-17s were incredible feats of engineering.
The advent of the B-17 has much more to do with today’s aviation than you think though.
What most people don’t know is that the very thing all pilots use nowadays is a direct result of a great, yet unavoidable fault of B-17s.
At the time, they were considered one of the most difficult planes to fly.
With four engines and a slew of other new features, pilots had to go through countless tasks to get them started and keep them flying.
It took a real tragedy in order for Boeing to realize this however.
Before they were ever called “Flying Fortresses,” Model 299 as it was designated, had to be tested.
The man for the job was the famous Boeing test pilot, Leslie Tower..."
Read on!
"B-17 Left More Than One Mark In History.
When thinking of B-17s, many things come to mind. The slogan “if it ain’t Boeing I’m not going” is one. Known for their ability to keep flying even after they’ve been severely shot up, B-17s were incredible feats of engineering.
The advent of the B-17 has much more to do with today’s aviation than you think though.
What most people don’t know is that the very thing all pilots use nowadays is a direct result of a great, yet unavoidable fault of B-17s.
At the time, they were considered one of the most difficult planes to fly.
With four engines and a slew of other new features, pilots had to go through countless tasks to get them started and keep them flying.
It took a real tragedy in order for Boeing to realize this however.
Before they were ever called “Flying Fortresses,” Model 299 as it was designated, had to be tested.
The man for the job was the famous Boeing test pilot, Leslie Tower..."
Read on!
FBI authorized Christopher Steele payments for dossier information - Washington Times
FBI authorized Christopher Steele payments for dossier information - Washington Times:
"The FBI officially authorized payments to Christopher Steele, who wrote the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, but then fired the former British spy for lying to agents about his covert leaks to the news media.
The sequence of events is outlined in the declassified memo released Friday by Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Nunes memo is the first official confirmation that the FBI hierarchy made a decision to start paying Mr. Steele and why the deal fell through. Justice Department witnesses in public have declined to confirm such a deal."
"The FBI officially authorized payments to Christopher Steele, who wrote the infamous Trump-Russia dossier, but then fired the former British spy for lying to agents about his covert leaks to the news media.
The sequence of events is outlined in the declassified memo released Friday by Rep. Devin Nunes, California Republican and chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence.
The Nunes memo is the first official confirmation that the FBI hierarchy made a decision to start paying Mr. Steele and why the deal fell through. Justice Department witnesses in public have declined to confirm such a deal."
JustOneMinute: Making Stuff Up At The Times (Gun Control Safety, Ongoing...)
JustOneMinute: Making Stuff Up At The Times (Gun Control Safety, Ongoing...):
"The NY Times editors are back to gun control and back to making stuff up.
This morning, their target is Gayle Trotter, who spoke at the Senate hearing last week.
Her message, ever so vexing to the Times - women with guns are safer against criminals.
The debate over what to do to reduce gun violence in America hit an absurd low point on Wednesday when a Senate witness tried to portray a proposed new ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines as some sort of sexist plot that would disproportionately hurt vulnerable women and their children.
"The NY Times editors are back to gun control and back to making stuff up.
This morning, their target is Gayle Trotter, who spoke at the Senate hearing last week.
Her message, ever so vexing to the Times - women with guns are safer against criminals.
Their intro:
Dangerous Gun Myths
The debate over what to do to reduce gun violence in America hit an absurd low point on Wednesday when a Senate witness tried to portray a proposed new ban on assault rifles and high-capacity magazines as some sort of sexist plot that would disproportionately hurt vulnerable women and their children.
The witness was Gayle Trotter, a fellow at the Independent Women’s Forum, a right-wing public policy group that provides pseudofeminist support for extreme positions that are in fact dangerous to women. She told the Senate Judiciary Committee that the limits on firepower proposed by Dianne Feinstein, a California Democrat, would harm women because an assault weapon “in the hands of a young woman defending her babies in her home becomes a defense weapon.” She spoke of the “peace of mind” and “courage” a woman derives from “knowing she has a scary-looking gun” when she’s fighting violent criminals.
The Times editors promptly descend into fantasy and fiction:
It is not at all clear where Ms. Trotter gained her insight into confrontations between women and heavily armed intruders, since it is not at all clear that sort of thing happens often.
What is very clear is that the Times editors either did not read her testimony or chose to misrepresent it..."
Read on!
Read on!
The Obama Coverup for Hillary Clinton Was Worse Than Collusion
The Obama Coverup for Hillary Clinton Was Worse Than Collusion
Who in his administration conspired to withhold damaging facts about failed Democrat candidate's mishandling of classified info?
Records available through the FBI Vault prove beyond any doubt that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle of trusted aides, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, were subjects of a formal investigation into the mishandling of classified information, beginning July 10, 2015.
Yes, you read the above correctly: A formal FBI investigation commenced well before any 2016 Democratic presidential debates and primaries.
Yet how many times did Clinton and her political and media allies claim that, whatever may have been happening, the review of her private servers and unsecured devices during her years as America’s chief diplomat was nothing more than a “normal security review,” not an “investigation”? Or, as then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch instructed then-FBI Director James Comey to describe it, just a “matter”?...
Read on!
Records available through the FBI Vault prove beyond any doubt that former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and her inner circle of trusted aides, including Huma Abedin and Cheryl Mills, were subjects of a formal investigation into the mishandling of classified information, beginning July 10, 2015.
Yes, you read the above correctly: A formal FBI investigation commenced well before any 2016 Democratic presidential debates and primaries.
Yet how many times did Clinton and her political and media allies claim that, whatever may have been happening, the review of her private servers and unsecured devices during her years as America’s chief diplomat was nothing more than a “normal security review,” not an “investigation”? Or, as then-Attorney General Loretta Lynch instructed then-FBI Director James Comey to describe it, just a “matter”?...
Read on!
Keep calm and Comey on | Power Line
Keep calm and Comey on | Power Line:
"CNN, USA Today, the Daily Caller, Judicial Watch and other outlets brought a Freedom of Information Act lawsuit against the FBI to obtain copies of the memos former FBI Director James Comey wrote to document his conversations with President Trump. Comey, you may recall, strategically leaked a memo or two to his friend Daniel Richman, a professor at Columbia Law School, under orders to leak the contents to the New York Times. When President Trump fired Comey, Comey sought the appointment of Special Counsel to remove Trump from office. And not just any Special Counsel — Comey desired the appointment of his friend Robert Mueller."
Whoopi Goldberg Refuses to Call Trump the 'President'
"Co-host on 'The View' is latest liberal celeb who still seems incapable of accepting the 2016 presidential election results.
In a recent interview on CNN’s “The Axe Files,” actress and comedian Whoopi Goldberg revealed that she refuses to refer to Donald Trump as “President Trump.”
The outspoken liberal said she is unwilling to use the word “president” in conjunction with Trump’s name.
She added that if “people don’t like that I don’t do it, I’m fine with that.”...
Read on!
The Most Dangerous Aspect of Obamagate | The American Spectator
The Most Dangerous Aspect of Obamagate | The American Spectator
"The alleged journalists of the legacy media spent all weekend denouncing President Trump and the GOP for ignoring their warnings against the release of the infamous FISA Memo.
The party line from the New York Times, the Washington Post, and countless lesser outlets that parrot their “news” stories is that the memo was both a “nothingburger” and a dangerous attempt to undermine federal law enforcement agencies.
Immediately upon its release the Times published a column titled, “Devin Nunes’s Nothingburger.”
Then, 24 hours later, the Gray Lady published another piece under the headline, “The Memo Doesn’t Vindicate Trump. It’s More Proof of Obstruction.”
The problem here isn’t that the fabled “newspaper of record” would have us accept the proposition that the memo proves nothing while also providing proof that the President is guilty of obstructing justice.
The danger is that the media is largely controlled by people who are so committed to a dead statist ideology that they are willing to ignore objective facts and contradict themselves on a day-to-day basis in order to participate in what amounts to a coup attempt against a duly elected President.
Doubt that this is their goal?
Read what a sitting Congressman wrote in Esquire, which had just the day before echoed the nothingburger line, yet was still willing to publish this rubbish...}
Read on!
"The alleged journalists of the legacy media spent all weekend denouncing President Trump and the GOP for ignoring their warnings against the release of the infamous FISA Memo.
Immediately upon its release the Times published a column titled, “Devin Nunes’s Nothingburger.”
Then, 24 hours later, the Gray Lady published another piece under the headline, “The Memo Doesn’t Vindicate Trump. It’s More Proof of Obstruction.”
The problem here isn’t that the fabled “newspaper of record” would have us accept the proposition that the memo proves nothing while also providing proof that the President is guilty of obstructing justice.
The danger is that the media is largely controlled by people who are so committed to a dead statist ideology that they are willing to ignore objective facts and contradict themselves on a day-to-day basis in order to participate in what amounts to a coup attempt against a duly elected President.
Doubt that this is their goal?
Read what a sitting Congressman wrote in Esquire, which had just the day before echoed the nothingburger line, yet was still willing to publish this rubbish...}
Read on!
China Will 'Pull the Trigger' in the South China Sea | The National Interest
China Will 'Pull the Trigger' in the South China Sea | The National Interest
"The National Interest has recently hosted a debate on whether China wants a confrontation in the South China Sea.
In a January 24 piece, “China Wants Confrontation in the South China Sea,” I argue what the title states.
James Holmes, in “No, China Doesn’t Want Confrontation in the South China Sea,” takes a different view.
In this piece, I show China wants more than just to provoke a confrontation in that contested body of water.
It wants to “pull the trigger.” Beijing, we should recognize, will almost certainly use force if it gets the opportunity.
That’s more than just a prediction.
It is an extrapolation from past Chinese behavior..."
Read on!
"The National Interest has recently hosted a debate on whether China wants a confrontation in the South China Sea.
James Holmes, in “No, China Doesn’t Want Confrontation in the South China Sea,” takes a different view.
In this piece, I show China wants more than just to provoke a confrontation in that contested body of water.
It wants to “pull the trigger.” Beijing, we should recognize, will almost certainly use force if it gets the opportunity.
That’s more than just a prediction.
It is an extrapolation from past Chinese behavior..."
Read on!
Ingraham: Memo Shows Comey FBI, Obama DOJ & Clinton Campaign 'Colluded' Against Trump | Fox News Insider
""There was collusion after all, you bet. The collusion was between the Comey FBI, the Obama Justice Department and the Hillary Clinton campaign."
Watch her "Angle" monologue above."
The End of Global Warming? | Answers in Genesis
The End of Global Warming? | Answers in Genesis:
"A century ago, scientists feared global cooling.
Now they fear global warming.
What do the numbers really show us?
Global cooling is the talk of the town.
“Will we slip into another Ice Age?”
“Will the earth be able to support its population if the global temperatures continue to drop?”
“Could increasing carbon dioxide emissions save the day by offsetting the cooling?”
You might think this is a parody of the current global warming discussion.
However, global cooling truly was a serious concern at the end of the 1800s.
...New Equilibrium
If CO2 is causing global warming, it will eventually reach a saturation point, and temperatures will level off at a new equilibrium.
The last point needs more explanation.
The earth is a system of complex interactions that tend to balance out (called equilibrium).
Suppose water is flowing into a plastic bottle with different holes punched around the sides.
If the amount of water increases, the level of water will rise, but the water will also stream out the holes faster.
The level of water will rise until it reaches a new, stable level where the amount of water entering the bottle equals that which is leaving.
In a similar manner energy enters the earth through sunlight and leaves through infrared radiation from the earth.
Adding CO2 traps some energy, but more energy also begins leaking out of the earth’s atmosphere through radiation as the temperature rises.
Eventually the temperature will stabilize at a new equilibrium..."
Lots here, read on!
"A century ago, scientists feared global cooling.
Now they fear global warming.
What do the numbers really show us?
Global cooling is the talk of the town.
“Will we slip into another Ice Age?”
“Will the earth be able to support its population if the global temperatures continue to drop?”
“Could increasing carbon dioxide emissions save the day by offsetting the cooling?”
You might think this is a parody of the current global warming discussion.
However, global cooling truly was a serious concern at the end of the 1800s.
...New Equilibrium
If CO2 is causing global warming, it will eventually reach a saturation point, and temperatures will level off at a new equilibrium.
The last point needs more explanation.
The earth is a system of complex interactions that tend to balance out (called equilibrium).
Suppose water is flowing into a plastic bottle with different holes punched around the sides.
If the amount of water increases, the level of water will rise, but the water will also stream out the holes faster.
The level of water will rise until it reaches a new, stable level where the amount of water entering the bottle equals that which is leaving.
In a similar manner energy enters the earth through sunlight and leaves through infrared radiation from the earth.
Adding CO2 traps some energy, but more energy also begins leaking out of the earth’s atmosphere through radiation as the temperature rises.
Eventually the temperature will stabilize at a new equilibrium..."
Lots here, read on!
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