Trump’s State of the Union: Australians may have no idea

Something great is happening in the US

Here’s a smattering of US news that isn’t being heard much in Australia. 75% of Americans liked Trump’s speech, and 80% felt proud. Trumps tax reforms means companies are returning to the US for the first time in decades. (How will Australia compete?) In the last month, approval for his tax bill has tripled as people figure out they will get to keep more of their money. Meanwhile James Delingpole notes a big moment in the climate debate: “It’s over” he says. Climate change didn’t rate a mention in The State of the Union or in the Democrat rebuttal.

On the other hand, the Australian ABC said Trump’s State of the Union call for unity falls on deaf ears. Sure. Listen to the crowd. There is so much applause you will get bored of it. The ABC spin is the sanitized reference to how the left half the crowd sits, stony faced, wearing black, with sad expressions, apparently disapproving of wages rising and other good news. Black jobs. Tax cuts. Car companies coming back to the US. Who cares? Meanwhile, the other half of of the audience is doing a fitness workout, up, down, up, down. Stand, sit, clap, clap, more clapping. At least Bernie Sanders could clap. Give him a point.

All the links below.

All those stories:CBS newspoll shows 75% of Americans who watched the State of the Union, liked it.

Eight in 10 Americans who watched tonight felt that the president was trying to unite the country, rather than divide it.  Two-thirds said the speech made them feel proud, though just a third said it made them feel safer.  Fewer said the speech made them feel angry or scared.

James Delingpole marks a turning point in the climate debate: ” It’s over”

‘Climate change’ just officially ceased being an important issue in U.S. politics.

President Trump didn’t mention it in his State of the Union address. But nor, much to the disgust of environmentalists – did the Democrats in their rebuttals.

Trumps tax reforms are starting to hit and the popularity of change is “skyrocketing”. In December, only 14% of Americans thought the bill would reduce their taxes and half thought it would raise their bills. Now 44% approve of the bill. Blame the ideological media-commentariat for yet another failed prediction.

Donald Trump is teaching Republicans how to fight, by Michael Goodwin.

It’s an observation so strikingly true that you wonder why you didn’t think of it earlier. “Donald Trump,” a friend said the other day, “is teaching the Republican Party how to fight and how to win.”

The evidence is everywhere every day, and it was on vivid display Tuesday night. The president remains in a fighting mood, determined to keep punching his way forward.

Sourpuss Democrats Self-Immolate at State of the Union

The Democrats have no arguments, just tribal love or hate.

Roger L Simon on PJ Media:

Let’s give them the award straight up: Worst Performance by a Minority Party at a State of the Union Address. (Hey, it’s awards season, right?)

They broke the record. They get the prize with no runner-up for years to come. Steny Hoyer and Nancy Pelosi watching  Trump’s speech looked like a pair of sullen six-year olds on a sugar crash the day after Halloween.  Bernie Sanders looked mummified.  Schumer was slumped so deeply in his chair he was almost falling through the crack. Other Democrats, even ones who should have known better or secretly felt otherwise, sat on their hands.  You could see them glancing at each other, wondering whether they were allowed to applaud or stand up. What a bunch of cowards. It was a disgraceful display of bad manners, but even more it was incredibly stupid because “the whole world was watching.”  The camera was getting them all in close-up.

It was “the death of the Democratic Party”

Trump: “Americans are Dreamers, too!”. By Don Surber.

That was no State of the Union address tonight. That was the death of Democratic Party. President Trump was positive, optimistic, and energized as he pointed out one success after another. The stock market soars. Wages rise. Factories return. Taxes fall. Bonuses arrive.

I’m sure the Democrats won’t die, but it could be the death of Australian manufacturing. Invest downunder! Get high taxes, high labor costs, expensive unreliable energy, and a tiny market. We’ve got lots of land and resources, but a Titanium Shield of Red Tape, no free speech, barely any real media, and government funded anti-business activists. Joy!

Australian ABC viewers hear Trump talked to himself, no one really liked his speech

The ABC digs deep — Trump gives a rousing speech, popular with many Americans, but the ABC talks about what he said a week after his last State of the Union a year ago.

Thanks to commenter Pat (and thanks for your letter Pat) 🙂 .

1 Feb: ABC: Donald Trump’s State of the Union call for unity falls on deaf ears

By Washington correspondent Zoe Daniel
But the President faces deep trust issues with the electorate, after a year in which he’s repeatedly attacked his allies and members of  his own party, and undermined his own intelligence agencies who are investigating Russian meddling in the 2016 election and  possible collusion by the Trump campaign…

Last year, for example, after a joint address to Congress, many dubbed the speech capital “P” presidential. Less than a week later, he accused his predecessor, Barack Obama, of wiretapping him — setting off a chain of events that lasted months…

Zoe Daniel does not use the words applause or clap, but she can find a “jeer”.

When he called for an end to so-called “chain migration” through tighter family reunification policies, he was jeered…

While some saw the irrational Democrats protests as childish, the ABC uses them to judge Trump as a failure. It’s all reported through Democrat-eyes.  Republicans don’t exist except when they embarrass themselves.

Unmoved by his rhetoric

While the President was calling for unity and bipartisanship, Democrats remained stony faced for most of the address.

In response Democratic Congressman Joe Kennedy (who happens to be a great-nephew of JFK) said: “Many have spent the past year anxious, angry, afraid. We all feel the fault lines of a fractured country. We hear the voices of Americans who feel forgotten and forsaken.”

In less than two weeks, the very Congress that Donald Trump just addressed will once again attempt to avoid another government shutdown over the issue of protection for Dreamers.

Based on the reaction to his plans, that appears fraught.

As Pat says: “unbelievable, but Zoe will keep her taxpayer-funded job!”

And we all know who Zoe Daniel would have voted for if she was a US citizen. It used to be that ABC reporters at least tried to hide which team they barracked for.

The SMH headlines:

When is “waving the flag” a “but” after calling for unity? Are American citizens meant to resent the flag?

h/t David.

9 out of 10 based on 101 ratings

182 comments to Trump’s State of the Union: Australians may have no idea

  • #
    Unemployed Taxpayer

    God helps those who look after themselves.

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      Roger

      The Nunes memo – which has been referred to in comments below – can be seen here:
      https://wattsupwiththat.files.wordpress.com/2018/02/370598711-house-intelligence-committee-report-on-fisa-abuses.pdf

      It is titled “Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act abuses at the Department of Justice and Federal Bureau of Investigation”.

      There are those in the Democrat party and in both DoJ and FBI who will not be feeling very ‘comfortable’ with this in the public domain …….

      The Democrats are in real trouble after a year of Trump’s presidency and it looks set to get worse.

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      Geoff

      The corruption that is the Democratic Party is going to be exposed. It was not their hate that was apparent for all to see. It was their fear. The Clintons have destroyed them. Many countries have joined in this corruption by supporting the Clinton Foundation. Australia is just one.

      The FBI and the DoJ management have been shown to be crooks. Anointing their choice of the presidency by collusion with President Obama and Hilary Clinton.

      Many are about to fall in a cleansing purge. Our MSM remains oblivious dependent on feeds from the NBC, the NYT, the WP and CNN.

      Meaning the US economy is booming. A greater growth not seen since Eisenhower. This will affect our fake economy, now strangled by regulation and political spivery.

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        Dennis

        Our close friends and allies are going to reflect badly on the Australian socialist political partnership.

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        yarpos

        Most of out MSM is a colonial cut and paste organisation for the groups you mention. Their downplaying of this will reflect whatever happens there unless it gets to big to avoid.

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        James Poulos

        Geoff,

        I don’t think it will be fully exposed publicly as was done in this memo. This was a taste of things to come for the Democrats and the FBI if they don’t toe Trump’s line. Don’t be surprised to see many voluntary retirements and resignations as well as a sudden partisan support for Trump’s immigration policies. He has an awful lot to bargain with now and he holds all the cards.

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      yarpos

      Yeah, she is like that

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    • #
      Phillip Bratby

      Every country needs a Trump clone.

      30

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  • #
    Mikky

    The BBC and similar MSM in the UK feasted on the debunking of the Trump claim that the audience was the biggest evah, typically broadcasting only for its favoured listeners, everyone else eye rolling at the shallowness and bias of the BBC.

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      yarpos

      SBS did the same here in OZ tonight. Nothing about the content but had to talk about audience numbers, in depth journalism right there.

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  • #
    TdeF

    So the doctors say Trump is fit. The doctors say Trump is not insane. The FBI do not want their own memo released. The Democrats say it will embarass Britain somehow, that it has been edited (even by Democrats).

    Was there anything but good news in Trump’s speech?

    When the people of America realise the impact of his tax cuts personally, his popularity will soar. Meanwhile the Global elites are fuming, especially Malcolm Turnbull and Julie Bishop. At stake are the mid term elections when the Democrats hoped to take over Congress. That has gone from probable to possible and now to unlikely.

    Most importantly, the Hispanics and Black peoples are realising that Trump is doing more for them than the Democrats ever did, that closing off the drug trade across the Mexico border is a good thing and that immigration does not create jobs. Even California might change, which is why Pelosi and Schumer could just scowl. Who needs electric cars anyway? They are only for rich posers and worse for everyone.

    As for isolationism, that is not what Trump is saying at all. He wants to trade with the world. He just wants a better deal. America first. Really that’s his job, isn’t it?

    Trump just keeps getting better and fights the very left activist media on their own turf of Twitter. There ought to be a law against the President using Twitter. Ha. Even Kim Jong Un hates Trump’s comments on twitter. Himmler was not pleased with Churchill’s speeches either.

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      TdeF

      Plus as Delingpole points out, ‘Climate’ was not mentioned once. I did not know it was lawful for a politician to make a speech without mentioning climate. The biggest moral dilemma of our generation was not mentioned. As for Global Warming caused by increased CO2 caused by people and bleaching the Great Barrier Reef, there is no part of that which is true. So why mention it?

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      Peter C

      The FBI do not want their own memo released.

      I think the memo was composed by Republican Senators on the House Intelligence Committee. They name names of people in the FBI and Department of Justice who may =have exceeded their authority or acted illegally.

      We may see it before the weekend is over.

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      • #
        RAH

        It was composed by the Republican Representatives on the House of Representatives “permanent select committee on Intelligence”. Devin Nunes, Congressman for the 22nd District of California, is the Chairman. Adam Schiff the democrat congressman for the 28th District in California is the ranking minority leader on the committee. Per it’s charter this committee is tasked with oversight of:
        The committee oversees all or part of the following executive branch departments and agencies:
        Office of the Director of National Intelligence
        Central Intelligence Agency
        Defense Intelligence Agency
        Department of Defense
        Department of Energy
        Department of Homeland Security
        Department of Justice
        Department of State
        Department of Treasury
        Drug Enforcement Administration
        Federal Bureau of Investigation
        National Geospatial-Intelligence Agency
        National Reconnaissance Office
        National Security Agency
        Office of Naval Intelligence
        Air Force Intelligence, Surveillance and Reconnaissance Agency
        United States Army Intelligence and Security Command
        United States Coast Guard Intelligence
        Marine Corps Intelligence Activity

        A fundamental point to understanding how the US Government works is recognizing that ALL of the above are funded by the US House of Representatives (HR). The HR in fact voted along with the Senate to creat almost all of them by law in the past. And so it is quite necessary that they have oversight of the activities these entities all filled with appointees, in the name of the people. It is also necessary to understand that the Republicans are not going after the institutions of the FBI and DOJ as a whole, but after bad actors that used their positions to take an active hand in partisan politics to sway the results of an election in violation of the law. That is mostly the chiefs, with a few of their underlings that did the actual dirty work.

        The “memo” is a 3 1/2 page document that summarizes some of what has been found in the materials supplied by the DOJ (Department of Justice) and FBI in records and documents demanded by the committee from those institutions. Both institutions delayed providing the materials as long as they could and both tried to not provide all the information and records asked for but finally had to give in. The democrats have tried everything they can to prevent the any of this happening.

        The thing is this memo represents just a whiff of a huge pile of excrement that the committee has been wading through. There is more, lots more to come, that will be even more damaging to deep state. This memo is just the first of several and what is to follow will be even more damaging to the deep state. Thus this memo is just the beginning of what will be a long dirty trial that hopefully will end up making any political appointee have second thoughts when an administration tries to use their agency as a political weapon.

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      • #
        RAH

        An article that explains in a brief form the ramifications of what is going on in this very complex situation.
        https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/02/02/tip-of-the-iceberg-the-pending-intelligence-memo-is-the-beginning-not-the-end/#more-145354

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        • #
          Extreme Hiatus

          This site has been way ahead of this story for months, and the just released memo corroborates their investigations and reporting. Well worth reading more older posts there to see how it developed and where it is going. It is indeed a very complex situation but the Trump team is more than up to this job.

          It is fun to watch the Dems and media keep falling into traps. Right now they’re screaming that this memo is ‘disputed’ and ‘unsubstantiated’ so to make them happy they’re going to have to release more information – information that will make things far worse for them. LOL. Its almost as if ‘climate change’ lowered their IQs like bearded lizards (not all reptiles have beards).

          In the meantime the MSM propaganda machine is getting fully exposed for their complicity and the lies they have told the public (the ones who still pay attention to them) and their credibility is rapidly being flushed even further down the toilet.

          If the Hillary-Obama cabal had won the election NONE of this would have come out and the whole globalist program – including their CAGW project – would have become further entrenched and possibly irreversible. So this is good news for all countries where this Gang has been operating, including Australia.

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      • #
        graphicconception

        We may see it before the weekend is over.

        It has just been released: https://www.scribd.com/document/370598711/House-Intelligence-Committee-Report-On-FISA-Abuses#from_embed

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          TdeF

          Amazingly, it just repeats what has been written except it has the imprimatur of an official report. Rumour, leaked information has become fact. At least one American citizen was wiretapped because of a salacious report funded entirely by the Clinton campaign.

          The absurd reasons given by the Democrats to prevent the release of this memo are now exposed. Where is the revelation of British methods? Where is the revealing of names? All these names and facts are well known.

          What it does do though is show that the Deep state opposition to candidate Trump passed into criminality and started at the very top of the FBI and DOJ who were encouraged by the Clinton campaign team with the flimsiest pretext to spy on Donald Trump. Watergate was a simple breakin.

          The former President and Secretary of State knew all about it and more, as evidenced by the tarmac meeting between President Clinton and Loretta Lynch. The whitewashing of the server in the garage is beyond belief.

          The Secretary of State is the highest, most secure role in US government. That Hilary’s emails were found in plain English on Weiner’s computer is beyond belief. Huma Abadin’s role in all this and the coverup is amazing. Even President Obama communicated via the garage email server under and alias and denied knowledge of this arrangement. All of the Secretary of State’s emails in plain English on Yahoo? So much for all the US spy movies.

          This confirms all the rumours, now facts. How do you put the former President, the former Secretary of State, the former head of the DOJ and the former head of the FBI in jail? To name only a few.

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          • #

            former President, the former Secretary of State, the former head of the DOJ and the former head of the FBI in jail?

            That has already been predetermined. Two executive orders in December set the stage.
            The first one carefully defines “unlawful enemy combatants” as those who commit treason. It goes further to determine that such unlawful enemy combatants” are treated to a military court rather than a civilian court.
            The second executive order maintains GITMO as the necessary housing for such “unlawful enemy combatants”. As further details are released, those tried before a military tribunal will be rounded up from among the highest ranking officials in the previous administration, including the legislative, executive, and judicial branches of the government.

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            • #
              Greg Cavanagh

              OMG, Clinton in Gitmo? I wouldn’t stop laughing for a month.

              The military trial is interesting. Obviously a shorter time frame, but I thought they were 99% closed to any outside reporting too?

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            • #
              Spetzer86

              As cheerful as about half of America would be with that outcome, I’m thinking the other half would not be that sanguine. Not even sure how you’d really lock ‘er up, but it’s been a long time needing to be done.

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              Extreme Hiatus

              Here’s the sledgehammer for cleaning up the Clinton Foundation and the rest of the cabal that’s ultimately behind this corruption:

              https://www.whitehouse.gov/presidential-actions/executive-order-blocking-property-persons-involved-serious-human-rights-abuse-corruption/?utm_source=twitter

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              • #
                Greg Cavanagh

                Holy Mackerel. I’ve ignored this link several times while reading through WUWT and other sites covering the matter. But I’ve just read it and WOW. Ouch!

                Not just the Clinton’s but many besides. God Trump just gets better by the day. MAGA!!!

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              John F. Hultquist

              The USA has a history of NOT putting members of the previous administrations is jail.

              Look for that history to prevail.

              Most of the names that might be mentioned from previous times were not administrative types, but rather “operatives.”
              One name, as an example, is G. Gordon Liddy, lawyer known as the chief operative in the White House Plumbers. He seems part of the administration but came from General Counsel, Finance Committee of the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP).

              This is orders of magnitude below someone like Hillary, who will not go to any jail, including GITMO.

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                John,

                I sincerely hope you’re wrong about that, “Look for that history to prevail,” statement.

                This is no small matter. Whether it amounts to treason or not I cannot say for sure. But we had the nation’s highest law enforcement arm colluding with a political candidate to get her elected instead of the candidate that an objective election outcome determined. And they have had the brazen nerve to make that same accusation against a man against whom they have shown no credible evidence whatsoever to this very day.

                I can think of nothing that does more harm to the country than to kill the public’s confidence in the integrity of an election. But that is what has happened. It is the worst possible crime against our republic, an attempt to foil it’s constitutional process for determining who will hold what office for the next 4 or 6 years.

                For some things I can say, OK, you screwed up, we caught and exposed you and now you go your merry way as you please. But not this. Elections are sacred ground and you may not work to foil the honest will of the voters. And we have had that going on for a long time and Judicial Watch can document it with the documents obtained by FOIA requests directly from the guilty parties — then this adds its weight to the scale of justice. How much is too much? Now it’s comeuppance time.

                They are apparently caught with their hands — both left and right — in the cookie jar for the first time. This memo is almost as good as video with audio of them making their plans. How much more should we tolerate? If we don’t make examples of them it will destroy us.

                I apologize if I sound angry, I don’t mean to take that anger out on any of Jo’s readers. But I am angry and I want real justice, not the usual slap on the wrist.

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                Roy Hogue

                Hillary may yet go to jail. I don’t know how deep her nose has been in all this. But she has played fast and loose with the rules for a long time and I would not be disappointed to see her in jail. Certainly not in Gitmo however.

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                Greg Cavanagh

                Roy; from what I gather and from what I hear about the Clinton Foundation, they’ve been building this house for a very long time. If she does not go to jail it will demonstrate how inept the law is in the face of power people. Justice has never been blind, but this will test the system with a very obvious example.

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                Roy Hogue Feb 03,18 at 12:11 pm
                John,

                … apologize if I sound angry, I don’t mean to take that anger out on any of Jo’s readers. But I am angry and I want real justice, not the usual slap on the wrist.

                To reiterate from blood-moon:
                Will Janoschka Feb 01,18:21:45

                Please folk! stop with the small stuff! Between the members of the US CFR (council on foreign relations), the Soros crime Cartel, the Goldman crime Cartel, the Bush crime Cartel, and the Clinton crime Cartel, all is easily recognized. Why oh why stick your head in the sand, while leaving your young ass up waving in the breeze, knowing what must be next? 🙁

                21

              • #
                Binny

                I agree, the evidence would have to be overwhelming and impossible to ignore, because it would need total bipartisan support.
                The reason being, using the law or the illussion of the law as a political tool is the stuff to tyrants.

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              • #
                Roy Hogue

                Binny,

                I can’t see how bipartisan support will be possible. We have a very small window of opportunity to take action and turn this matter over to the justice department. And the DoJ is first going to need the dismissal of anyone who has the slightest hint of involvement in this scandal. And that is not a very politically tenable thing to do because it will bring even more complaining and suspicion down on Republicans.

                Then Congress under Republican majority using that majority as power enough to expose the wrongdoing must act and refer anything found to DoJ for action. It hasn’t a ghost of a chance of being bipartisan.

                The Democrats are already howling like they have been just stung by a hive of bees. They aren’t going to go along.

                Then if we were smart, and in spite of the fact that I’m no fan of special counsel investigations, I’m going to agree with several people I heard last night and say we need one to investigate this, including whether Mueller’s investigation is supported by probable cause.

                Brian Williams, already discredited for his dishonesty in the past was very busy last night on MSNBC trying to poke holes in the memo. And the memo does indeed have one glaring fault. By all the statements from those in congress who should know, there is much more detail to be made public. This memo is but an outline of the problem.

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                Roy Hogue Feb04,18:4:59

                Binny, By all the statements from those in congress who should know, there is much more detail to be made public. This memo is but an outline of the problem.

                The corruption is in the structure of US congress itself! never constructed to be purchased by Global high bidder; each congress-critter must take oath to preserve the US Constitution and faithfully represent its own electorate in all matters! Not one congress-critter has abided in that oath of office since 1892AD. All are “party hacks”..
                All need be retroactively and forcefully thrown into the volcano along with any possible progeny. Capice?
                OH Woha are we!

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          RAH

          The memo is more damaging than I thought it would be.

          1. It proves a work of political fiction created as political opposition research (the so called Steele Dossier) was presented as the vital piece of “evidence” to a FISA judge by the FBI, with the collusion of others at the DOJ and CIA, as hard intelligence to provide the evidence to spy on an American citizen that was a candidate for president. The FISA judge was never told the origin of the so called “intelligence”.
          2. It proves that same piece of fiction was used to get three renewals for continuing that spying on that same American citizen right through when he was President elect.
          3. That same piece of fiction was the “evidence” to justify the creation of a special counsel to investigate supposed collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians.
          4. It proves that the democrats and every other person that claimed the release of the memo should not be released to the public because it would “reveal source and methods” are liars.
          There is more but that’s a start.

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      sceptic56109

      Tdef, I agree 100%. If America succeeds then the world succeeds. The IMF estimate for World DGP growth is up 1/2% solely because of Trump.

      The stock market plunge in the US today (Friday), was caused because the Democrats refuse to acknowledge that the criminal activity of the Obama administration is a constitutional crisis, and they want no part of reining in the FBI and DOJ

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      • #

        The stock market plunge in the US today (Friday), was caused because the Democrats refuse to acknowledge that the criminal activity of the Obama administration is a constitutional crisis, and they want no part of reining in the FBI and DOJ

        A valid reaction (physical measurable; to the current is rather than claims of political insane addicted idiots!
        The available Solar (redundant) insolation upon Earth’s surface provides sufficient power for this Earth itself to provide necessary nourishment\sustenance for each and every life form anywhere on planet Earth!
        Only the criminal Earthling politicians wish to make plants, critters, and bugs worry enough to give fee to Earthling corrupt politicians!

        11

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Guys,

          There is no constitutional crisis. The constitution is in good health as it has been since it was ratified. All we need to do is return to following it instead of what suits someone’s political or personal power agenda and we will come through this with the stars and stripes held up as high as ever.

          The constitution is alive and well.

          10

  • #
    robert rosicka

    The ABC like most MSM are still in denial over him winning .

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      yarpos

      The long distance obession/hate fest with Trump is getting to the weird stage. My first thought when they start is “really ? a year down the track and you are still crapping on about Trump and looking for nits to pick?” Its not as if we dont have a long list of local issues to cover.

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      Mark D.

      Worse than denial they’re going bat shit crazy that he got elected. Bat shit crazy that there are enough people left in the back woods, plains and farm country that WOULD elect him.

      The left is frothing at their collective mouth with fever pitched ranting, wailing and a palpable sense of panic over not just his election but because he is winning on nearly every level. He’s very craftily stealing or neutralizing all of their favorite causes!

      The state of the union speech was the best of any president since Reagan and may even have been better than Ron Reagan as far as being motivating. Everyone that I know of that watched it was thoroughly happy with his delivery and impressed by the content.

      Long live the Donald! Long live the Donald! Long live the Donald.

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    • #

      The entertainment value of watching Fox News is astonishing. What is reported cannot be surpassed by anything Hollywood could put out let alone ABC or any other television. The reporting is second to none, and the left/right debates you don’t see here are so entertaining. Sara Carter and John Solomon are star reporters amongst many other good efforts you find on mainstream media. Even the comedy is much better watching The Five, Greg Gutfeld and Jesse Watters.
      I could never go back to boring Australian TV or movies again.
      President Trump’s masterly performances beat anything I have seen before. His Twitter and Facebook feeds show him to be the master of it all. MAGA.

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  • #

    I like how those democrat women,like a gaggle of crows,
    chose to wear black, darkness versus light, so metaphoric.
    ‘Foul is fair and fair is foul,/ Hover through the fog and
    filthy air.’ Macbeth Act 1, Scene 1.

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    • #
      JustAnOldGuy

      Been around long enough and seen enough to really love another quote from W. S. “A plague on both your houses!” Act 3, Scene I Romeo and Juliet. The reality of DJT has driven both sides mad because he’s revealed how distant each is from what real people want. And it’s not the standard ‘party line’ espoused by each side. We’re really, really tired of being told we govern ourselves while more and more power is handed over to people and organizations that are well out of reach of the ballots we cast so earnestly and futilely cast.

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      C. Paul Barreira

      Reads like a manual on interior—and exterior—design in South Australia.

      10

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      JustAnOldGuy

      Geese run about in ‘gaggles’. Crows hang out in ‘murders’. To think of them as geese, silly ones at least, is pleasing. To characterize many of their actions as ‘murderous’ for freedom is also pleasing. Congratulations on a very successful mixed metaphor.

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    NB

    Kennedy also said how the democrats would promote the interests of coal miners! And there was no hint that he meant anything other than coal is back.

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    Bert Walker

    Beththeserf, I believe that is more properly and accurately a “Murder” of crows.
    NB when a Democrat (American) uses the code speak: “promotes the interests of coal miners,” they mean “close those terrible coal producing mines, and offer them a dignity free life on government welfare.”

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    neil

    I’m afraid Trump, and Turnbull, just haven’t seen (or don’t want to) the storm that is coming. Reducing company tax is delusional, automation is coming and it will hit as hard and fast as social media has over the past decade, rational economists recognise that wages will not just stagnate but will reduce and unemployment will be 20% within a decade. And that is just the start, Turnbull keeps telling us that automation will bring a new wave of jobs we can’t currently imagine, realist believe for every new job 10 will be lost and it won’t take long for those jobs to be automated. Unemployment will be 80% within a few decades and company profits will skyrocket by 800% as wages cost drop from 70% of operating costs to 10%.

    So who is going to by all this cheap product if nobody is working? Company taxes will have to increase to 80% so the government has a tax base that allows it to pay a social wage to everyone who doesn’t have a job. If you find this hard to believe, watch this.

    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Pq-S557XQU

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    • #
      Richard Ilfeld

      Over 90% of farmers were put off the farm due to mechanized agriculture.
      Over 90% of those involved in horse based transportation were displaced by autos.
      Not many telephone operators anymore. Nor elevator operators.
      One could continue.
      We must be living in an era of mass unemployment.
      Or not.

      Two things happen.
      We have more and/or better stuff and services.
      We consume same, reorganizing society as necessary to meet new needs and wants that arise.

      And the doomsayers preach the same sad tune.

      240

      • #
        Greg Cavanagh

        Indeed.

        One of my work colleagues shows a youtube vid of an automated brick laying machine, and declared that automation will destroy work and jobs. I pointed out that the machine needs to be transported, maintained by repairers, and parts to be manufactured, and it has to be fed bricks and supervised. I see at least 5 jobs in there just because a machine was used instead of a bricklayer.

        Electronics gets cheaper each year, but the number of electronic gadgets proliferate exponentially too. I’ve lived long enough to know that technology creates more jobs than it destroys.

        50

        • #
          yarpos

          exactly, plus physically set up for each job, programmed for each job, cleaned and pulled down for each job.

          I was watching a show the other night that had robot arms making coffee. Of course it can be done, but no word on the cost of the set up of the set up. You can stage all the wizz band demos you like , I had 40 years in comms and IT and have seen plenty, but they never reflect the real world. A lot of thing never get past the colour and movement stage either because they just dont work in the real world or the next wave washes over them before they even get to market. They think they are changing the world but change overtakes them just as quickly.

          10

          • #
            neil

            Exactly, software, robots and algorithms replaced by better versions of themselves, probably designed by software and algorithms, and built by better robots.

            00

        • #
          neil

          Except the bricklaying machine will be on an autonomous vehicle that will drive it’s self to the site, it maybe deployed monitored by an online technician back at the office. The Autonomous truck that delivers the bricks will have an on board autonomous crane to load and unload and it will leave an autonomous forklift to load the bricks into the laying robot. There maybe a human manager in the maintenance shop but the work will be done by robots just as the replacement parts were made by robots.

          A second assembly robot on an autonomous truck will install the electricals and plumbing that were prefabricated by robots off site and delivered by an autonomous truck. The interiors will be a prefab inserts, plaster, floor carpets etc that are dropped in from the top before the prefabricated roof is assembled by the same robots using exchangeable work heads.

          A complete house built by robots in factories and assembled by robots on site over seen by a single technician sitting in an office.

          Until his job is automated.

          10

    • #
      Roger

      Trump is rebuilding US manufacturing and industry – creating jobs – the stronger and larger that base becomes, the more jobs there will be, and therefore a lesser impact from AI / automation.

      These predictions have been made many times before, business, economies and people adapt and forge forwards.

      100

    • #
      Dennis

      I recommend the book The Sovereign Individual which was written late 1990s as the industrial age faded and was replaced by the information technology age we are now experiencing.

      Written by two stockbrokers from the UK the book explains how we can survive and even prosper from the emerging future in which few of us will be employees, most of us self employed contractors being paid an hourly rate rather than a wage or salary and an employer making provisions for benefits such as holiday pay, long service leave and sick leave.

      Despite a massive negative campaign against it by the union movement here the Howard Government’s industrial relations legislation, Work Choices, was a blueprint for the information technology age. The Labor Government replaced it with their own union power version, Fair Work Australia. Effectively unfair to the future legislation that turned back the industrial relations clock to before earlier 1980s Labor Government industrial relations legislation limiting union powers.

      As pointed out above, the present period is similar in many ways to the transition from the age of agriculture into the industrial age.

      However, and thank your President Donald Trump and support team, our worst enemy is socialism and related objectives that are behind climate change agenda, those politicians and unelected UN officials.

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    • #
      robert rosicka

      Neil your delusion in placing those names together as if they are the same or similar shows your tinfoil hat is too tight .
      Reducing company tax helps create business as is shown in the USA right now , Trump insists on America first and Turdball is the exact opposite eg TPP agreement .

      51

      • #
        neil

        I was only comparing them in that they both delusionally believe that lowering company tax is a sensible response to wages, unemployment and jog creation.

        10

    • #
      Extreme Hiatus

      Neil that explains South Australia’s brilliant plan! There won’t be enough electricity there to power the robots.

      80

      • #
        neil

        But when you don’t need to heat, cool or light the factories the robots will probably use less electricity.

        10

  • #
    Greg in NZ

    Tax cuts? Meh, we had that talk for 8 years with a previous ex-banker PM… heard it before. His mates and backers, however, did well out of it. And women back in black? Get with the times, girls – it’s fresh virgin-white, snow-colours are THE 2018 TOOTOO thing… in New Zealand at least. High summer and the South Island ski fields turn white after a decent dusting (10 – 20 cm) of brutal Antarctic cold front versus fluffy ex-cyclone Fehi (less than 12 hours as a Cat 1 before decaying back to storm status). The cold front won. It snowed.

    http://www.radionz.co.nz/news/national/349537/climate-change-making-storms-more-intense-says-scientist

    Yet somehow this ‘(NIWA) principal scientist’ squeals it’s so much worserer because of… coz… ah… because… um… ah…

    This cyclone season may be even quieter than last year’s record-breaking most-quiet (as in non-existent) cyclone season. Don’t like to use that ‘UN’ word but could this be… unprecedented?

    94

  • #
    pat

    jo, so glad u received the letter.

    2 Feb: CNBC: Jeff Cox: Job growth up 200,000 in January, better than expectations, and wages up
    Nonfarm payrolls grew by 200,000 in January and the unemployment rate was 4.1 percent, the Bureau of Labor Statistics reported in a closely watched report from Friday…

    In addition to the solid payroll growth, average hourly earnings were up 0.3 percent for the month, matching estimates and reflecting an annualized gain of 2.9 percent.
    The numbers come amid an expected acceleration in growth for the U.S. economy.

    The Atlanta Federal Reserve is expecting a GDP gain of 5.4 percent in the first quarter, which would be the best increase since the recovery began in mid-2009…
    https://www.cnbc.com/2018/02/02/nonfarm-payrolls-jan-2018.html

    2 Feb: Bloomberg: Sho Chandra: U.S. Added 200,000 Jobs in January; Wages Rise Most Since 2009
    The report puts the nation closer to maximum employment — one of the goals of the Federal Reserve — and sets a solid tone for hiring this year following continued gains in payrolls in 2017. That could be starting to generate a long-awaited, sustained pickup in wages and boost demand in this expansion, which may also get a lift this year from tax-cut legislation signed by President Donald Trump in December…

    In addition, 18 states began the new year with higher minimum wages, and some companies have recently announced bonuses and salary increases following the passage of the tax-cut legislation. While determining the exact impact may be difficult, economists expect these developments will boost worker pay in 2018…

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    • #

      Pat:
      “The Atlanta Federal Reserve is expecting
      a GDP gain of 5.4 percent in the first quarter,
      which would be the best increase
      since the recovery began in mid-2009”.
      .
      .
      .
      Pat, don’t get too excited
      about the Atlanta Fed
      GDPnow predictions.
      .
      It has almost no value
      until the quarter is over,
      which would be
      the end of March 2018.
      .
      It almost always starts out too high
      — often much too high, and gradually falls
      to in the ballpark of the right number,
      about three weeks ahead of the advance estimate.
      .
      I have a lot of experience with GDPnow
      and would NEVER even mention it
      in my economics newsletter until
      two weeks before the quarter ends.
      .
      I recommend a focus on
      what has already happened,
      rather than predictions
      of the future.
      .
      Here is a summary:

      Concerning real GDP growth:
      (I regret that I am forced
      to use the advance (rough)
      data for 4Q 2017):
      .
      4Q 2016
      = $16,851,400,000
      annual rate
      .
      4Q 2017
      = $17,272,500,000
      annual rate
      .
      Real GDP growth
      “for Trump”
      from 4Q 2016
      to 4Q 2017
      = almost +2.5%
      .
      Real GDP growth
      for Obama
      = +2.2%
      (average for all his years
      after the 2007 recession
      ended in 2Q 2009,
      through the end of 2016,
      was +2.2%).
      .
      .
      .
      Obama’s 2.2% average
      real GDP growth
      after the recession ended,
      added up to the worst
      rebound from a recession
      since the Great Depression
      in the 1930s.
      .
      I mentioned that fact,
      many, many times
      in ECONOMIC LOGIC,
      maybe too many times!
      .
      Trump’s +2.5% growth
      so far, is not much
      better than Obama’s +2.2%.
      .
      http://www.el2017.blogspot.com

      11

      • #
        yarpos

        “Trump’s +2.5% growth
        so far, is not much
        better than Obama’s +2.2%.”

        mmmm…so in rough terms Trumps first year growth from a standing start with all Democrat handbrakes applied is about 14% better than the average of all of Obama’s years with his hands on the levers. Not much of an achievment is it?

        52

      • #
        Extreme Hiatus

        “Real GDP growth
        for Obama
        = +2.2%
        (average for all his years
        after the 2007 recession
        ended in 2Q 2009,
        through the end of 2016,
        was +2.2%).”

        This reminds me of starting the Arctic ice extent graphs at their highest (recent) point in the 1970s, but in reverse.

        31

  • #
    pat

    now to theirABC, which still has not explained .00001% of the background to the House Intel Committee memo, the release of which is, allegedly, imminent.

    first note:

    1 Feb: RealClearPolitics: (Joe) DiGenova: FBI Thinks They Can Defy Government Oversight, Are Independent Of The Executive
    Former U.S. Attorney Joe diGenova told Tucker Carlson on Thursday that both FBI Director Christopher Wray and Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein have done a “miserable job” in explaining why the memo shouldn’t be released. He called it arrogance to protect the bureaucracy because they think institutions are more important than the public knowing anything.

    He also said Wray planted the story that he was going to resign. DiGenova said Trump should have just accepted it.
    “One of the things that is terrible about this is that both Chris Wray and Rod Rosenstein, the Deputy Attorney General, have done a miserable job as leaders in explaining why they’re doing what they’re doing,” he said. “Why they can’t do what people want them to do. Do you know what Chris Wray was arguing for today and yesterday? To remove the names of all the FBI agents and the DOJ people who’ve broken the law and are going to be revealed in the memorandum.”…

    DiGenova told Carlson the Department of Justice and FBI think they are independent of the executive and oversight from Congress. He called it outrageous.

    “They wouldn’t,” DiGenova responded. “This is the arrogance of Wray and Rosenstein. They want to protect the bureaucracy. They want to protect the bureaucracy because they think the institutions are more important than you or I knowing anything. And they think the country cannot survive without them. This is this phony notion that DOJ and the FBI are independent of the executive branch and the president of the United States, it is an insidious concept. They work for the president. He can fire them. He can tell them what to do. That doesn’t mean is he going to interfere in an investigation. But the arrogance of Wray and Rosenstein to think that they can defy Congressional oversight and ask the Speaker to take out names of people that have broken the law. How outrageous.” …

    DiGenova also spoke about being called unpatriotic for questioning the motives of federal law enforcement. He made it clear that this is not about career prosecutors at the DOJ but political appointees and “dirty cops.” This has nothing to do with the “street agents,” he said…READ ON
    https://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2018/02/01/digenova_fbi_thinks_they_can_defy_government_oversight_are_independent_of_the_executive.html

    more to come.

    30

    • #
      Allen Ford

      This level of arrogance, on the part of the FBI and DOJ, has a familiar ring to it. Compare someone’s ABC’s handling of the recent filing cabinet/government documents fiasco!

      We have our own swamp to drain, and not just the brain dead crop of current pollies of both persuasions.

      40

    • #

      more to come.

      Hope so Pat. The Third, Fourth, and Fifth constitutional amendments are provided to prevent such governmental interference with the lives of (folk)! Folk lie! Children always lie, to see what they can get away with, under siblings, parents, even elders; that so enjoy children! this is called ‘LEARNING’! Do you want lying or slavery “Don beat me no mo massa, I be good”! Learning seems to be most active at either end of life’s cycle!
      All the best!-will-

      11

  • #
    pat

    this is the best – and seemingly only – coverage a billion-dollars-plus of taxpayer money a year can produce!

    ABC’s Planet America (Planet bash Trump) chooses Bob Shrum, who worked on failed campaigns of John Kerry & Al Gore to dish dirt on President Trump’s State of the Union Address & the House Intelligence Committee memo, without any explanation whatsoever as to what the memo is about.

    Frum manages to cram in every Dem propaganda point on both topics.

    even the headline & summary below is ridiculous:

    VIDEO: 7mins11secs: 2 Feb: ABC Planet America: “Washed away by the controversy over the Nunes memo“
    Posted about 7 hours ago
    Democratic speechwriter Bob Shrum on what he describes as an “extraordinary spectacle”
    http://www.abc.net.au/news/2018-02-02/%E2%80%9Cwashed-away-by-the-controversy-over-the-nunes/9391600

    meanwhile, the smug Linda Mottram picks Norman Eisen for the PM program, without informing her audience that:

    “From 2007 to 2009, Eisen was active in the presidential campaign of his law school classmate Barack Obama before joining the transition team of then-President-elect Obama as deputy counsel. On January 20, 2009, Obama named him Special Counsel for Ethics and Government Reform in the White House.” Wikipedia.

    the summary below and Eisen’s contributions to the program are surreal:

    AUDIO: 5min 11sec: 2 Jan: ABC PM: Trump v FBI: releasing the memo could be ‘devastating’: Eisen
    by Linda Mottram
    Americans are waiting for the release of a classified memo that conservatives believe could show that the FBI is biased against President Donald Trump.
    They say the so-called “Nunes memo” will expose the FBI for abusing its authority in attempting to surveil Trumps former aid Carter Page in the lead up to the 2016 election, conservatives say.

    Norman Eisen is a senior fellow at the Brookings institute, former Ambassador and White House Ethics Lawyer.
    He says most of the contents of the memo have already been leaked, and there’s also a significant amount of information missing from it.
    http://www.abc.net.au/radio/programs/pm/most-of-the-nunes-memo-contents-have-been-leaked:-norm-eisen/9391738

    40

    • #
      pat

      response to Bob Shrum at 4mins39secs who attacks Trump for using the term “chain migration” in his State of the Union address. we used to have “chain migration” says Shrum, it was called “slavery” etc:

      1 Feb: Washington Examiner: Democrats think ‘chain migration’ is a racist term — but they said it themselves in October
      by Angela Morabito
      (Angela Morabito writes about politics, media, ethics, and culture. She holds both a bachelor’s and master’s degree from Georgetown University)
      Now that Republican leaders are finally addressing chain migration, Democrats and the media have decided that the very name “chain migration” is taboo.
      House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi told CNN, “Look what they’re doing with family unification, making up a fake name, chain. Chain, they like the word ‘chain.’ That sends tremors through people.”…

      Both Sens. Chris Murphy, D-Conn., and Dick Durbin, D-Ill., have claimed the term is racist against Hispanics and African-Americans…

      In fact, Durbin himself confidently name-dropped chain migration when speaking at a Senate Judiciary Hearing last October. At that same hearing, Sen. Mazie Hirono, D-Hawaii, – herself a naturalized U.S. citizen who immigrated from Japan – said the words “chain migration” while discussing her own family’s immigration experience.

      Sen. Dianne Feinstein, D-Calif., called chain migration by its name in 2007, as did Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., in 1996. None of their fellow Democrats so much as raised an eyebrow. In fact, in 2013, every single Senate Democrat voted in favor of a bill to end the chain migration of siblings…

      The term “chain migration” first appeared in academic literature in 1964, and it reappeared fairly frequently through the late 1990s. “Chain migration” is not an American invention: scholars have studied chain migration in Australia, India, Kuwait, and Bosnia-Herzegovina, to name a few examples…

      The very people so horrified by the words “chain migration” are the ones who wholeheartedly embrace it as policy. Democrats are trying to kill “chain migration” the term, so they can save “chain migration” the practice.
      http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/democrats-think-chain-migration-is-a-racist-term-but-they-said-it-themselves-in-october/article/2647869

      the ABC guy, who allowed Bob Shrum to attack the President on this matter, without challenging him, is obviously uninformed and unfit to work at the taxpayer-funded Corporation.

      40

  • #
    pat

    finally, I said from the start of Trump’s presidency, Draining the Swamp would not be easy.

    a reminder:

    3 Jan 2017: WashingtonExaminer: (Chuck) Schumer warns Trump Intel Officials ‘have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you’
    by Daniel Chaitin
    The new leader of Democrats in the Senate says Donald Trump is being “really dumb” for picking a fight with intelligence officials, suggesting they have ways to strike back, after the president-elect speculated Tuesday that his “so-called” briefing about Russian cyberattacks had been delayed in order to build a case.

    “Let me tell you: You take on the intelligence community — they have six ways from Sunday at getting back at you,” said Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer Tuesday evening on MSNBC after host Rachel Maddow informed him that intelligence sources told NBC news that the briefing had not been delayed…

    Trump has repeatedly expressed skepticism about the U.S. intelligence community’s conclusion that Russia was in all likelihood involved in a hacking plot aimed at interfering in the election…
    http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/schumer-warns-trump-intel-officials-have-six-ways-from-sunday-at-getting-back-at-you/article/2610823

    and this today from the home of “Watergate”, the once-respected(?) WaPo?

    2 Feb: WaPo: Messing with the FBI? Trump doesn’t know history
    Presidents don’t win fights with the FBI. Donald Trump apparently wants to learn this lesson the hard way.

    Most presidents have had the sense not to bully the FBI by defaming its leaders and — ridiculously — painting its agents as leftist political hacks. Most members of Congress have also understood how unwise it would be to pull such stunts. But Trump and his hapless henchmen on Capitol Hill, led by Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), have chosen the wrong enemy. History strongly suggests they will be sorry…
    https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/messing-with-the-fbi-trump-doesnt-know-history/2018/02/01/53f94f62-0788-11e8-94e8-e8b8600ade23_story.html?utm_term=.6d625c1fde7f

    #ReleaseTheMemo

    30

  • #
  • #
    RAH

    I think that even the leftist press will end up looking back and seeing that this State of the Union Address was a turning point in Trumps administration. The optics for the democrats and their so called “resistance” were terrible! Sitting on their hands while the president recognized first responders, the military, and police for their service and sacrifices. Sitting on their hands when good economic news was highlighted. The black caucus sitting on it’s hands with sour looks even when the president announced that unemployment for blacks is at an all time low. Sitting on their hands the whole time with sour looks on the faces. Nancy Pelosi looked like her depends needed to be changed and her dentures were hurting her. Chuck Schumer staring down democrat senators who wanted to stand an applaud at certain times. Photographic evidence of a democrat representative playing a candy crush game on her phone during the address. There was not a single positive thing in this for the democrats and they turned what would have been a painful exercise into what will be an electoral disaster for them. All in all I’m beginning to think that the Republicans will hold their majorities in both houses of congress.

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    • #
      yarpos

      With the agressive nature of political advertising in the US you can imagine what gold those visuals of the sulking Dems will be. Trumps words , split screen with reactions, calling out lack respect/lack of love for country. The Dems just keep on giving.

      40

  • #

    It’s been a long time since I’ve had this much fun watching the political world. Cheers –

    90

    • #

      I’m not a Trump fan,
      but I love his ability
      to make liberals hysterical.

      And I want him to succeed.

      As a libertarian,
      with a pretty dumb
      Libertarian candidate
      in 2016, the wife and
      I favored Trump,
      although expected him
      to lose, after the Billy Bush
      sex tape.

      The wife and I despise
      lying Hillary, and the fake
      Clinton charity / slush fund.

      Bill Clinton came to our
      little village of 1,000 people
      twice to raise money
      money in 1992 and 1996,
      at a wealthy person’s home.

      The local homeowner
      was later appointed by Clinton
      as the Ambassador to Norway!

      I’d vote for a dog before
      I’d ever vote for a Clinton.

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  • #
    • #
      Hanrahan

      Mr. Pointman, do you think Assange is out of that accursed embassy yet?

      Why are the Poms wasting millions “jailing” him when the only charge is jumping bail? AFAIK no country is asking for his extradition.

      30

    • #
      Annie

      Your article is excellent Pointman. I recommend it to everyone reading this.

      21

    • #

      I agree with Anne;Your article is excellent Pointman. Especially “The political opposition parties, a part of whose usual job is to highlight any abuses of power which might occur, were mute. They were totally ineffective through a mixture of incompetence and having no stomach for a fight, especially the latter.”
      In the past such needed opposition to any form of government; was aided via a robust Fourth Estate which sold newspapers for news; READ ALL ABOUT IT; rather than (TV) only selling some inferior product (crap) that no-one wants! Please TAX out of existence “ADVERTISING” (any monies paid to promote crap\politics) to the public\citizens!! Not a tax for revenue; but extreme fee to preserve society from RABID fiat capitalistic GREED! An actual ‘Nickel’ used to be a treasure to a child! 🙁

      11

  • #
    What Class?

    Bob Hope nearly eighty years ago.
    got it right

    40

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    I could make so many comments that I don’t know where to start. Perhaps with this one…

    Democrats are running scared like I’ve ever seen anyone be scared before now. They are all out to get more Democrat registered voters. They are so desperate that yesterday I, a staunch conservative and lifelong registered Republican, got 3 emails wanting me to join in efforts to defeat Trump.

    I’ll bet you can guess what I did with them. I hope Dellingpole is correct. But bad ideas stick around longer than good ones.

    But this is news worth rejoicing over. Yea Trump. Keep it up Mr. President, keep it up. 🙂

    100

  • #
    Roy Hogue

    Bobby Kennedy’s rebuttal was a reiteration of a lot of what Trump said and the same litany of complaints Democrats have had for years and they never fixed a bit of it though they spent no end of money and time enacting legislation.

    And it’s a funny thing about laws — they don’t change behavior very much for the most part. All they do is allow imposing punishment if you get caught. So a program giving away money to support the slackers gives them no incentive to work and become a producer of something instead of a consumer of wealth who simply throws that wealth down the nearest drain.

    When do they learn?

    60

    • #
      Kinky Keith

      Morning Roy

      Was that meant to be Joe ?

      10

      • #
        Mark D.

        Yeh probably but didn’t he look like him? (except for the drool)

        30

      • #
        Roy Hogue

        KK,

        Bobby/Joe, cut from the same mold. But you’re right.

        I haven’t given a Kennedy a second thought for so long that I can’t tell one from the other anymore. My bad. 🙁

        It’s the red hair that threw me off I think. I kept thinking to myself, “I wonder if he could be more effective if he set his hair on fire while he delivered his rebuttal.” I kid you not.

        31

  • #
    Hanrahan

    THE Memo us available on Breitbart now,

    20

  • #

    I didn’t watch the speech because
    I never watch / listen to political
    speeches.
    .
    The wife watched — said it was
    much too long.
    .
    Trump is no great Teleprompter reader
    like O’Bummer was (his only skill, in my opinion) but I’m sure the content was much better than that old marxist O’Bummer.
    .
    At least Trump believes in capitalism and likes his country!
    .
    Let’s judge politicians by
    what they accomplish — not
    by speeches they read, that were
    written by someone else.
    .
    In my opinion,
    the 75% approval,
    assuming the poll
    was of random people
    who watched the speech,
    may be misleading.

    I can’t imagine many
    Democrats
    liberals
    progressives
    leftists
    marxists
    communists
    and other losers
    watched the speech.

    So did the survey
    catch a lot of
    Republicans, and
    not many Democrats?

    I can’t imagine
    any Democrats I know
    watching a Trump speech.
    .
    I heard one Democrat
    congresswoman
    from Michigan
    was there, and playing
    video games during
    the speech caught on
    camera from above!
    .
    Pelosi had a sour face
    the whole night,
    my wife claimed —
    looked like she
    was sucking
    on a lemon!

    30

  • #
    Another Ian

    Chiefio on happenings in US

    https://chiefio.wordpress.com/2018/02/02/the-memo/#comments

    In case the ABC et al view gets in your way

    20

    • #
    • #
      Roy Hogue

      My reaction to reading the memo would get me banned by Jo. Suffice it to say that I wish the burden of proof for conviction of treason was not so high. But it is. And justly so.

      We have had the FBI, an arm of the Department of Justice, working diligently to prevent a legitimate candidate for the highest office in the country from being elected and get another candidate elected instead. And in that process there were lies to the FISA Court by omission and probably commission, Democrats and the FBI colliding to submarine Donald Trump and probably other high crimes and misdemeanors.

      Damn them! Who in hell do they think they are? If the Department of Justice and its main investigative arm, The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot remain honest and comply with the law, then there is no law.

      You can be sure that if I had done what’s alleged in that memo, I would be hanging from some tree branch before long. The memo’s allegations need to be investigated but I have little doubt that it’s essentially correct. Loretta Lynch and Bill Clinton meeting secretly on the tarmac at some obscure airport in the middle of the night was no coincidence and it’s laughable to assert as they did, that they talked about their grandchildren. There was no intent by either of them that their meeting should ever be made public and that it was made public was a matter of good fortune for my country.

      If you want to know why democrats are so afraid of Donald Trump, just read that memo and think about it for a few minutes. He has them by a part of their anatomy that will hurt like nothing else hurts. I hope he squeezes as hard as he can. Attorney General Sessions, hang them all as high as the law allows.

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      • #
        Ross

        The great thing Roy, is the President gave them all the rope they needed to hang themselves. If he had sacked Mueller ( which under law he had every right to) early on, then it’s probable much of this would not have seen daylight.
        But he knew for sure ( without knowing the fine detail ) something terribly wrong from a legal point of view took place. When Admiral Rodger’s visited Trump Tower after the election and the day after all the Trump team left to setup again in other offices he had obviously been told about the surveillance ( we now know Rodgers had been doing an audit at the NSA for months). When the next day Clapper started calling for Rodger’s sacking, Trump would have had it all confirmed.

        60

        • #
          Roy Hogue

          Yes he did. I used to think there was no good reason for all the Trump tweets except the man’s bad temper. But it now looks like he was busily keeping his political enemies off guard while they hung themselves.

          I should have known better. A man who can build what he’s built while so expertly navigating the many different bureaucracies he’s had to deal with to get it done has something more between his ears than anger.

          I keep preaching to myself that anger makes bad decisions. I should believe myself more often.

          50

          • #
            Extreme Hiatus

            Roy, I wondered about the wisdom of using Twitter too but in retrospect it was and is brilliant (despite a few blunders, if they really were blunders).

            They go straight to the public, cutting through the MSM spin. They force the MSM to react to them so steer the ‘news.’ And they provide a stream of great distractions as you note.

            When you add them to his full tilt attack on the ‘Fake News’ machine they’re really a beautiful thing!

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            • #

              When you add them to his full tilt attack on the ‘Fake News’ machine they’re really a beautiful thing!

              I find the only P45 ‘possible’ error was the ‘firing’ of Lt Gen. M.Flynn for lying to VP Pence! Flynn’s job was to lie to everybody not on the list! Was Pence on the list? Normally if you need ask; you are not on the list! General Flynn got beat up so very badly by Mueller. Payback will be so sweet! 🙂
              All the best!-will-

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          Greg Cavanagh

          Trump is following Sun Tzu’s play book. And he’s doing it very well.

          https://quotes.thefamouspeople.com/sun-tzu-261.php

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      • #
        Roy Hogue

        After everything else I just found this. Democratic National Committee is essentially broke.

        I don’t think it means much in the long run. But it’s certainly something I didn’t expect to see in print.

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          Roy Hogue

          And then today I find this.

          Poll: Trump’s approval rating is at its highest in nearly a year

          As Jackie Gleason used to say,

          How sweet it is.

          And I might add,

          Finally, after a whole year people are starting to pay attention to results instead of words.

          49% approval ain’t bad for a controversial president whose approval was sinking like the Titanic only a few days ago. If George W. Bush had stood up and defended himself and fought for the things he tried to do, who knows how he might be regarded today? If you want to be a winner the lesson is clear, fight like a winner, not like a loser.

          Then there is Maxine Waters.

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    PeterS

    Now that the Nunes memo has been released there should be certain high level people who tried to bring down Trump using illegal means to face the courts and end up behind bars. This is what draining the swamp is all about. Too bad we don’t have a similar clean-out occurring here in Australia. If anything we are still going the other way – moving more and more to the left not just politically but socially and in business. If and when we do have a similar drain the swamp process, the LNP and ABC must be reformed for starters.

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    • #
      Dennis

      Rising threat of activist Left

      BRIAN LOUGHNANE
      A 50-year movement is maturing into the mainstream. Strategic, well-resourced and ruthless, it must be tackled.

      The Weekend Australian

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    • #
      Hanrahan

      Compared to the US, our swamp is a mere billabong. I’ve been watching their politics for a couple of years and it is the greatest show on earth, forget B&B.

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        PeterS

        This is all showing how the left have used and will continue to use any means to justify their actions, including illegal ones. It just goes to show they are so convinced they have the moral high ground that they are blind to the possibility that are in the wrong – it’s just not in their DNA to admit their wrongs. If anything they will drag down the US to the abyss rather than admit they are wrong. The leftists here are no different. That’s why we need to drain the swamp here just as urgently as Trump is trying over there. He might not succeed as the left are actually more committed, like a ferocious dog with a bone. There’s one thing working against Trump and others on the conservative and the right – his willingness to forgive and forget for the sake of unity. That was shown in his speech. The left never forgive and forget, again as seen in the audience during his speech and their reaction after the speech. Give the left anywhere an inch they will take your arm off and leave the rest of your body to be eaten by scavengers. We need our swamp drained too but it’s actually going to be impossible with our system. So, we just have to learn the hard way, just as the US might have to if Trump is toppled by the left.

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        Another Ian

        As the song reminds us you can also get drowned in a billabong

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      Extreme Hiatus

      Peter S – The Swamp that Trump is draining has channels that reach to Australia. Tick tock.

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      Another Ian

      PeterS

      Latest news

      “Sea level has risen three feet in the last week!

      From all the sweating of people who might be named in the memo or subsequent developments”

      (Adapted to suit from elsewhere)

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      Too bad we don’t have a similar clean-out occurring here in Australia.

      Not to offend, but why not? Too Lazy, or to Stupid? Have you other viable excuses? 🙂

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    el gordo

    Donald is a great communicator and leaving out climate change from his speech was simply brilliant.

    He has a plan to boost infrastructure spending on mass transport, very fast trains and the like, which undoubtedly will impact Australian thinking.

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      Tdef

      Reasonably fast trains would be good. 200km/hr. Something cars can do but in safety.

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        yarpos

        Sorry Tdef, no room for sensible good enough solutions that could be implemented in a timely manner. We must reach for stars becuase otherwise we will be “left behind”

        When we first cuaght the TGV it was interesting to note that much of the journey was just a bit of a trundle, some slightly fast and the last bit very fast as we hit the plains. In a country like hours just being able to sustain 200ish for long periods would soak up a lot of distance. At least as good as a lot of light aircraft 🙂

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        PeterS

        The next germination tube trains that are currently on the drawing board running over 1,000 kph are the way to go.

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          el gordo

          The tube is too fast.

          China is working on a 600 kph Maglev with state backing, it will fit in nicely with Australia’s political culture.

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            PeterS

            Seriously though I can’t ever see us having fast trains, not in the short to medium term. Given the costs of building things here, no one would be able to afford the tickets except the rich. Besides, we have far more urgent things to build, such as new coal fired power plants.

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              el gordo

              It won’t be cheap, a second class ticket from Shanghai to Beijing cost around $110.

              Coal fired power plants will be needed to run the network, renewables are unreliable.

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            Dennis

            With the latest pole reversal scare, if it happened would Maglev become aircraft?

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          Annie

          Germination tubes…good for trees en masse! I’m assuming predictive text got you there 😉

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        Reasonably fast trains would be good. 200km/hr. Something cars can do but in safety.

        You know, like they might do on rails made of Reardon Metal!!!!!

        Tony.

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      Extreme Hiatus

      “on mass transport, very fast trains and the like”

      Infrastructure yes but I don’t think these things are his priority at all. Maybe you were thinking of Governor Moonbeam in California?

      Or maybe I missed this? Do you have a source?

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        Extreme Hiatus

        “The original plan voters opted for in 2008 was titled the Safe, Reliable High-Speed Passenger Train Bond Act for the 21st Century. When voters approved the measure, the estimated cost of the project was $40 billion. The 2016 business plan reviewed by the Legislative Analysts Office estimated a cost of $64 billion.”

        https://www.mercurynews.com/2017/03/14/the-dream-of-high-speed-rail-in-california-is-taking-longer-and-costing-more/

        Can’t find a newer source but, surprise, surprise, the latest cost estimates are higher. In the meantime, except for its coastal real estate bubble and Silicon Valley, the California economy is tanking. Trump’s big new tax plan, which puts the focus on the super-high taxes in states like California – where Dems rule and Hillary won big – are making things worse for them. Probably just a coincidence…

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        el gordo

        Good catch EH, he didn’t mention very fast trains.

        In his State of the Union Address, Trump spoke of a desire to “build gleaming new roads, bridges, highways, railways, and waterways all across our land” ….

        Vox

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          Extreme Hiatus

          el gordo, the other factor is that, as I understand it, they will mostly be leaving the choices about what infrastructure to work on up to the states and in some cases cities. That fits the big picture of draining the DC swamp and putting the power back closer to the people.

          Another huge factor here is that these projects will NOT be bogged down by stupid environmentalist tricks. You know, like the habitat of some supposedly endangered insect blocking the way.

          So that means that if some state wants some fast train, and they want to pay for half of it, that could happen. Same for mass transit in cities at least. And there will be bigger projects that cross state lines too.

          But I think the Trump administration’s first priority will be repairing and upgrading all the infrastructure that has been crumbling for the last few decades.

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            el gordo

            Sounds reasonable.

            Still, a continental bullet train network is not out of the question.

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              Extreme Hiatus

              “a continental bullet train network is not out of the question”

              It makes as much sense as the one they’re pushing in California – none. Unless they ban airplanes. The US is too big and the population centers too far apart to ever make economic sense. Long way from New York to Los Angeles and, on a straight line bullet route, not a lot of stops in between. Sort of like a bullet train between Brisbane and Perth.

              So who would want to sit on a train for days when you can fly in hours?

              Passenger trains don’t even make economic sense on shorter lines that now exist (all heavily subsidized) because most people prefer cars. Its a freedom and convenience thing as well as the economics.

              But slow trains are very good for hauling coal!

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                Another Ian

                EH

                “But slow trains are very good for hauling coal!”

                And Flanders and Swan songs

                Remember the Trans Australia steelway? Rail across Australia, Qld coal to smelters in WA, back load with iron ore to smelters in Qld

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                el gordo

                There is the Texas model, Japanese Maglev, but just cast your mind back to March 2016 and note Donald’s enthusiasm.

                ‘In a freewheeling speech Thursday afternoon, Republican frontrunner Donald Trump stumbled into a riff about how great trains are. It’s sad, he said, that the American rail system is so dilapidated while China’s is now slicker than ever.

                “They have trains that go 300 miles per hour,” the populist billionaire exclaimed. “We have trains that go chug … chug … chug.”

                Time Mag

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                Extreme Hiatus

                el gordo,

                Smaller run bullet trains sure could be feasible and economic in areas where the population density and other factors make sense. And I think those Chinese and other ones are pretty fantastic technology, so why not? But I can’t see a continental system like that working in the US or Australia, Canada, or Russia.

                Plus they’re expensive. The real looming crisis is about debt not climate. The US government has a 20 Trillion national debt and most governments are deep in the red. So money needs to be spent more carefully and I hope that Trump the builder does his job. He prides himself on getting jobs done under budget. Professional politicians seem to do the opposite so they can demand bigger budgets to blow in the future.

                I like the trains that Another Ian described in the post above. Coal and iron ore don’t get bored on those long rides.

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                el gordo

                Australia is a little different, for us it has more to do with decentralisation.

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    pat

    2 Feb: TWEET: Kimberley Strassel. Wall St Journal:
    1) Having tried–and failed–to stop the memo on grounds of “national security,” “omissions,” and “versions,” Ds/media are out with new reasons today. Now we are told 1) memo is a nothingburger that will backfire on WH, and 2) Trump would be unwise to mess with the FBI.

    TWEET: Kimberley Strassel: The latter is particularly curious. IE, the FBI is not a rogue, unaccountable agency, but you better watch out or it might come after you.
    https://mobile.twitter.com/KimStrassel/status/959458826574471169?p=v

    of course, the memo is just the tiny tip of the iceberg:

    2 Feb: FrontPageMag: Daniel Greenfield: The Memo Reveals the Coup against America
    The memo has been released, now it’s time to release everything
    The Democrats and the media spent a week lying to the American people about the “memo.”
    The memo was full of “classified information” and releasing” it would expose “our spying methods.” By “our,” they didn’t mean American spying methods. They meant Obama’s spying methods.
    A former White House Ethics Lawyer claimed that the Nunes memo would undermine “national security.” On MSNBC, Senator Chris Van Hollen threatened that if the memo is released, the FBI and DOJ “will refuse to share information with the House and Senate Intelligence Committees.”
    Senator Cory Booker howled that releasing the memo was “treasonous” and might be “revealing sources and methods” and even “endangering fellow Americans in the intelligence community.”

    The memo isn’t treasonous. It reveals a treasonous effort by the Democrats to use our intelligence agencies to rig an election and overturn the will of the voters…READ ON
    https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/269211/memo-reveals-coup-against-america-daniel-greenfield

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    pat

    2 Feb: RedStateWatcher: BREAKING: The word “TREASON” has been invoked! FBI is going down!
    Rep. Paul Gosar (R-AZ) announced he will seek the criminal prosecution of FBI and Justice Department officials in response to the “treason,” laid out in the recently released FISA abuse memo…READ ON
    http://redstatewatcher.com/article.asp?id=115915

    2 Feb: Daily Caller: Former Judge: Ohr, Comey Could Be Held In Contempt Of Court For Misrepresentations
    by Luke Rosiak
    A FISA court judge has grounds to hold Department of Justice officials including Bruce Ohr in contempt of court for making misrepresentations about the sources of information used to obtain a surveillance warrant against a Trump associate, a former judge and Republican congressman said.
    “I think it’s important to know who the FISA judge was, and why with all the info he’s had for some time, he has not put anyone in jail for committing fraud on his court,” Louie Gohmert, a Texas Republican who serves on the Committee on the Judiciary, told The Daily Caller News Foundation Friday.
    “You shouldn’t be able to get quotes from Bruce Ohr or [former FBI Director Jim] Comey or [deputy director Andrew] McCabe because they ought to be sitting in jail for committing fraud upon the court,” he said.

    A memo declassified Friday showed that the Department of Justice sought and a FISA court granted a warrant to spy on former Trump campaign official Carter Page based on a dossier that was funded by the Clinton 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee and orchestrated by the opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
    Fusion paid the wife of then-deputy associate attorney general Bruce Ohr, and Ohr met with Fusion’s founder Glenn Simpson.

    The memo said “Ohr’s wife was employed by Fusion GPS to assist in the cultivation of opposition research on Trump. Ohr later provided the FBI with all of his wife’s opposition research, paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign via Fusion GPS. The Ohrs’ relationship with Steele and Fusion GPS was inexplicably concealed from the” court when it was used to obtain a surveillance warrant.

    Gohmert said the judge should not be happy with that omission. “This was an action by the DNC and known collusion with top officials at the DOJ and FBI to commit a fraud upon the FISA court.”
    He said the actions of the judge on the secret court need to be examined. “The judge has to have known for months now that he or she had a fraud committed against them and he or she has done nothing. Any judge worth any salt would have called them in for hearings, and he can even order anyone who committed fraud upon the court to go to jail. This judge is either worthless or is in cahoots with those who manipulated it.”…

    Gohmert said the underlying evidence upon which the memo is based should also be released. “The sources were high authorities in the FBI and the Justice Department as well as an uncorroborated hater of Donald Trump.”
    “I’m totally in support of keeping methods and sources secret, unless it’s a case like this where the sources and methods are fraud, in which case everyone needs to be able to assess that,” he said.

    He said beyond politics, the apparent approval of the warrant despite problems with evidence raises the question of whether others are unfairly subject to surveillance. “We need to find out if we need to stop the FISA process entirely.”
    http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/02/gohmert-jail-comey-ohr/

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    STJOHNOFGRAFTON

    Australia is possibly heading to a samizdat scenario in order to avoid the ABC/SBS and other state sponsored Marxist propaganda media intrusions into our freedoms of thought and opinion.

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    pat

    o/t this is the only report I can find on the following:

    2 Feb: BrisbaneTimes(Fairfax): Toby Crockford: Parts of south-east Queensland record lowest February temps on record
    Eleven locations in southern and eastern Queensland shivered through well-below average temperatures, which were expected to continue into the weekend, with top temperatures upwards of 14 degrees below the monthly average, the Bureau of Meteorology said.

    BoM meteorologist Michael Knepp said Oakey, Gatton, Warwick, Toowoomba, Kingaroy, Gayndah, Stanthorpe, Applethorpe, Gympie, Archerfield and Coolangatta experienced the chilly conditions

    Stanthorpe rerecorded a high of just 14.9 on Friday, while Applethorpe hit a top of 15 and Toowoomba climbed to 15.4 degrees. Stanthorpe’s maximum was 11.6 degrees below its average February top temperature…

    Comments are not open on this article.
    https://www.brisbanetimes.com.au/national/queensland/parts-of-south-east-queensland-record-lowest-february-temps-on-record-20180202-p4yzbs.html

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    pat

    FakeNewsMSM in total meltdown:

    2 Feb: Breitbart: Jeff Poor: CNN’s Wolf Blitzer Attacks GOP for Memo Release: ‘Putin Has Succeeded’
    “So, Putin has succeeded because that’s what’s happening right now,” he said. “The whole nature of the support for the intelligence community, the law enforcement community, the fighting that’s going on here in Washington, he’s sitting back and he’s smiling, saying, guys, good work. We succeeded.”
    http://www.breitbart.com/video/2018/02/02/cnns-wolf-blitzer-attacks-gop-memo-release-putin-succeeded/

    Democrat Donny Deutsch:

    VIDEO: 2 Feb: Daily Caller: Justin Caruso: MSNBC Commentator: ‘People Need To Start Taking To The Streets. This Is A Dictator.’
    Donny Deutsch said on MSNBC Friday that Donald Trump is a “dictator” and that “people need to start taking to the streets.”
    “Our democracy is under siege,” Deutsch said. “People need to start taking to the streets. This is a dictator.”

    “This is not something to analyze anymore. This is not ‘Oh, well, good day for Trump.’ This is frightening stuff. If you are an American, if you are somebody who is 80 years old and sitting at home and you’ve watched the greatness of this country, you should be terrified, and if you’re a 12-year-old and the future is in front of you, this is terrifying.”
    “This is not time to analyze and pundit. People, this is a — we need a revolution at this point. And I’m not doing TV here — and going what is he doing? This is what’s going on.”
    http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/02/msnbc-take-to-the-streets/

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    pat

    2 Feb: GatewayPundit: BREAKING: Senate Judiciary Committee to Release Memo on FBI, Christopher Steele and Russia Dossier
    by Cristina Laila
    The Deep State and Dems are in a panic as the world sees the FBI was weaponized to target Trump’s political campaign…

    It turns out the Senate Judiciary Committee also has a memo on Christopher Steele, the FBI and Russia dossier they are working to declassify. Their memo is set to be released including FBI redactions shortly.

    Here comes the tsunami.

    Paul Sperry of the New York Post reported, “BREAKING: The Senate Judiciary Committee also has a memo on Steele, the dossier and the FBI, and is working to get it declassified.”

    As previously reported, GOP Lawmakers are seeking to make the case that the Mueller investigation and the FBI probe into Trump’s campaign was based on potentially tainted and flawed evidence connected to Hillary Clinton, says John Solomon of The Hill.

    Solomon’s report revealed part of the investigation includes an eight page criminal referral filed with the DOJ by Grassley and Graham…

    It is being reported that several memos will be released and the worst is yet to come.
    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/breaking-senate-judiciary-committee-release-memo-fbi-christopher-steele-russia-dossier/

    VIDEO: 7mins05secs: 2 Feb: Fox News: (Judicial Watch’s Tom) Fitton: FISA Memo Is ‘Devastating Blow’ to Mueller’s Russia Investigation
    A controversial memo that shows alleged U.S. government surveillance abuses is a “devastating blow” to Special Counsel Robert Mueller’s Russia investigation, according to Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton…
    The memo, which was released on Friday by Republicans on the House Intelligence Committee, contains a number of allegations, including that the FBI and Justice Department relied on the infamous anti-Trump dossier to secure FISA surveillance warrants to spy on at least one member of the Trump team.

    On “Outnumbered Overtime,” Fitton said if that’s true, then that means there would be no Mueller investigation without the unverified dossier, which was funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee.
    “The whole thing, I think, really, is subject to being called off now by the Justice Department if they’re brave enough, based on these disclosures,” Fitton said.

    He added there are still many unanswered questions, including what Mueller and senior Justice Department and FBI officials knew about the dossier and when they were aware that it was used as the fundamental basis for the Trump-Russia collusion narrative.

    He said that’s why he’s calling for greater transparency and the release of the underlying documents related to the memo and potential FISA abuses…MUCH MORE IN THE VIDEO
    http://insider.foxnews.com/2018/02/02/tom-fitton-fisa-memo-release-impact-robert-mueller-russia-investigation

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    pat

    2 Feb: Washington Times: Rowan Scarborough: Seven takeaways from the House memo detailing FBI’s surveillance abuses
    ⦁ The FBI relied heavily on Democratic Party dossier to obtain three surveillance warrants before the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. The FBI did not tell the court the information came from a Democratic Party-financed opposition research. FBI knew source.

    ⦁ In one application to judges, FBI cited two sources, the dossier and a story by Yahoo News. But the Yahoo story was based on the dossier. Not really two sources.

    ⦁ Deputy FBI Director Andrew McCabe said warrants on Trump volunteer Carter Page could not have been obtained without dossier.

    ⦁ Dossier writer Christopher Steele lied to FBI when he said he did not speak with media. He has said in libel case that he spoke to reporters repeatedly.

    ⦁ FBI fired Mr. Steele. He then continued to funnel information to the agency through former associate deputy attorney general Bruce Ohr. Bruce Ohr’s wife worked for Fusion GPS, the opposition research that paid Mr. Steele. She passed Fusion research to the FBI, which never disclosed source to FISA court.

    ⦁ Mr. Steele said he wanted to destroy Trump’s presidency with a dossier that remains discredited.

    ⦁ Former FBI director James Comey signed three surveillance warrants on Trump campaign aid Carter Page at the same time he told President-elect Trump that the dossier was “salacious and unverified.”
    https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2018/feb/2/six-takeaways-from-the-house-memo-detailing-fbis-s/

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    tom0mason

    Jo I hope you got my email.

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    pat

    while eyes were focused elsewhere this week, the CAGW mob got massive FakeNewsMSM coverage exploiting the polar bears…once again.

    study published by Science, linked from article:

    1 Feb: CarbonBrief: Daisy Dunne: Polar bears could be struggling to catch enough prey, study shows
    PHOTO CAPTION: Polar bear with a GPS-equipped video camera collar, lying on the sea ice of the Beaufort sea. Credit: Anthony Pagano, USGS
    To track the bears’ day-to-day activities, the scientists fitted the females with GPS-equipped video-camera collars and accelerometers. They chose to study females because male polar bears’ necks are “larger than their heads” and so they are unable to retain collars, according to the research team.
    The video-camera collars allowed the researchers to collect a large amount of data…
    Most of the time, polar bears catch their prey using the “sit-and-wait” tactic, says lead author Anthony Pagano, a PhD candidate at the United States Geological Survey (USGS) and the University of California, Santa Cruz…
    In order to collect this data, the researchers had to capture the bears at the start and end of the study period. Catching the bears required the team to track the animals using a helicopter, Pagano says…
    1 COMMENT ONLY:
    4TimesAYear: You think that collar had anything to do with the results of the test?
    https://www.carbonbrief.org/polar-bears-could-be-struggling-to-catch-enough-prey-study-shows

    ***one of the funniest pieces, when it was first published:

    1 Feb: TheVerge: Polar bears need lots of seal snacks — and a melting Arctic makes it hard to eat enough
    In the spring, one polar bear needs to snarf at least one adult ringed seal, or 19 newborn pups, every 10 to 12 days
    By Alessandra Potenza
    ***Correction February 1st 5:55PM ET: This story incorrectly stated that polar bears need 6,000 times as many calories as humans. It’s six times as many. We regret the error.
    FROM 13 COMMENTS:
    neilowen: I’m pretty sure that 12000 Kilocalories isn’t 6000 times human consumption, it’s 6 times, which seems a lot more sensible.
    Posted on Feb 1, 2018 | 2:16 PM

    1 Feb: Susan Crockford: Polar bear specialists double-down on message of future starving bears
    The really significant content of a new paper being heavily-hyped by the media1 is what wasn’t said rather than what the authors discovered about metabolic rates and weight maintenance of a small sample of nine Southern Beaufort Sea bears in 2014 to 2016 (Pagano et al. 2018; Whiteman 2018)…
    Some of todays headlines, in no particular order (note the hyperbole)…READ ALL
    https://polarbearscience.com/2018/02/01/polar-bear-specialists-double-down-on-message-of-future-starving-bears/

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      Extreme Hiatus

      You said it pat:

      “while eyes were focused elsewhere this week, the CAGW mob got massive FakeNewsMSM coverage exploiting the polar bears…once again”

      But fortunately almost nobody was paying attention to that coverage so their timing was off. Plus polar bear stories just aren’t working like they used to.

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    pat

    2 Feb: Youtube: 10mins51secs: (Trump lawyer) Jay Sekulow Reacts to FISA Memo Release
    Jay Sekulow on The Sean Hannity (Radio) Show (2/2/2018)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyhyDwafeiE&feature=youtu.be

    pre-release:

    2 Feb: Breitbart: Nunes Memo: Our Nixonian Media Should Buy a Ticket to ‘The Post’
    by John Nolte
    With “The Post” still in theaters, our media is fighting against government transparency.

    The whole idea behind Steven Spielberg’s latest piece of Oscar-bait, The Post, is to use big stars, like Tom Hanks and Meryl Streep, to tell the public that our fearless and heroic media is on our side, will to stand up to the federal government, is only interested in the kind of transparency that exposes wrongdoing and corruption.
    And yet, on this very day, if you look around, what you will see is the exact opposite; what you will see is a Nixonian media vehemently opposed to transparency, a corrupt institution fighting tooth-and-nail against the release of a document that will almost certainly expose government wrongdoing and corruption…

    Imagine that. Some 45 years ago, this country had a media that actually believed in government transparency and accountability, a media that fought for the people’s right to know what our own government was up to…

    How times have changed…

    The issue in question today, a document that supposedly details wrongdoing and corruption at the highest levels of the Obama administration, the FBI, and Justice Department, has not even been obtained illegally. It has gone through all the legal channels required for public release.

    Nevertheless, our media is taking the Nixon position, is bitterly opposed to transparency, is actively lobbying against its release. People who want us to believe they are journalists, who sell themselves as reporters, are siding with the federal government to keep this information hidden from the public…

    So maybe we should start a fund — “The Send a Journalist to See The Post Fund” in the hopes of dropping the scales from their provincial eyes, to remind these hacks that their job is not to guard the government’s castle, but to tell us what is going on inside, even if it is inconvenient to their white-hot Russian conspiracy theories.
    http://www.breitbart.com/big-journalism/2018/02/02/nunes-memo-nixonian-media-buy-ticket-post/

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    pat

    Sara Carter deserves to be heard on this momentous day:

    2 Feb: Sara A Carter: Intelligence Committee Reveals Weakly Sourced Doc Used for FISA Application
    DOJ/FBI withheld issues of dossier author’s reliability
    Congressman Jim Jordan, R-Ohio, and Rep. Mark Meadows R-NC, Chairman of the Freedom Caucus in the House of Representatives, said they will push harder for a special counsel to investigate what they say is mounting evidence of violations by the bureau and DOJ to inappropriately utilize the secret court to spy on members of the Trump campaign during a presidential election.

    “I think that the message is that a further investigation needs to take place and Congressman Jordan and I are hoping for the appointment of a second Special Counsel to investigate the investigators,” Meadows said. “It’s important to have an independent counsel to make sure our Fourth Amendment rights are not violated by a special court that authorizes the spying on Americans and part of the follow up on this investigation will be to see exactly who signed the FISA applications and what judges granted them.”

    Rep. Jordan, who was with Meadows on Friday and had advocated the release of the memo, said it was necessary for the information in the memo to be made public, adding that a “salacious unverified dossier paid for by the DNC and Clinton campaign was used by the FBI to get a secret warrant to gather communications of an opponent.”

    “They didn’t do it once, not twice but they went four times to the court and didn’t tell the court the information in the dossier, or Steele and never revealed to the court what was actually going happening. This is why it is so important to get out because this is never supposed to happen in our great country.”…

    Meadows and Jordan said more information and new revelations about the DOJ and FBI’s role in the alleged Trump Russia investigation will be released in the upcoming days and weeks. The DOJ’s Inspector General Michael Horowitz, who is conducting a separate investigation into the FBI and its handling of Clinton’s use of a private server to send classified information, is expected to release his report in March.
    https://saraacarter.com/intelligence-committee-reveals-weakly-sourced-doc-used-fisa-application/

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    pat

    not for the first time, Tucker Carlson invites Glenn Greenwald from the “progressive left” on to his program. they discuss a bigger question, which is being totally ignored. watch:

    2 Feb: Youtube: 3mins26secs: GLENN GREENWALD FULL ONE-ON-ONE INTERVIEW WITH TUCKER CARLSON (2/2/2018)
    https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s8rVdEqyuuY

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    pat

    2 Feb: Daily Caller: Chuck Ross: Isikoff Stunned That His Carter Page Article Was Used To Justify Spy Warrant
    Investigative journalist Michael Isikoff said Friday that he was surprised to find out that an article he wrote about Carter Page prior to the election was used to obtain a spy warrant against the former Trump campaign adviser.
    The revelation, which was made in a memo released by the House Intelligence Committee on Friday, “stuns me,” Isikoff said in an episode (LINK) of his podcast, “Skullduggery.”

    Isikoff was shocked, he said, because his very article was based on information that came from Christopher Steele, the former British spy who wrote the dossier. He said it was “a bit beyond me” that the FBI would use his article in the FISA application.
    “Obviously the information that I got from Christopher Steele was information the FBI already had,” he said, noting that Steele began sharing information from his dossier in July 2016.

    Isikoff acknowledged the potential problem with the DOJ and FBI citing his article to support the FISA against Page.
    “It’s self-referential,” he said of the article and its reliance on the dossier.
    “My story is about the FBI’s own investigation,” he continued.
    “So it seems a little odd that they would be citing the Yahoo! News story about the matter that they are investigating themselves based on the same material that had been separately presented to the FBI before I was ever briefed by Christopher Steele.” …

    Isikoff said on his podcast that he met Steele at a Washington, D.C. hotel in Sept. 2016. They were joined by his “old friend” Glenn Simpson, the founder of opposition research firm Fusion GPS.
    Fusion hired Steele to investigate Donald Trump’s ties to Russia. The firm was working for the Clinton campaign and DNC, a fact which Isikoff was not aware of at the time of the meeting with Simpson and Steele.
    He said on “Skullduggery” that he was aware that Simpson and Steele were working for Democrats, though he did not know it was the campaign and DNC.

    Isikoff said that he wonders whether the Republican memo accurately characterized the FISA application or whether the FBI/DOJ were trying to “dress up” the document. The latter scenario would be “embarrassing” for U.S. officials, he said.
    Isikoff’s article was not considered a bombshell when it was published, though the Clinton campaign did tout it in a press release…

    Isikoff’s article also uses a quote from a senior U.S. law enforcement official. The unidentified official told Isikoff that Page’s contacts in Russia were on investigators’ “radar screen.”
    The identity of that source remains a mystery, and Isikoff did not disclose who it was. But he did rule out that the source was Bruce Ohr, a Justice Department official who met with Steele and Simpson before and after the election.

    The memo says that Ohr passed information from Steele to the Justice Department. He also provided the FBI with information from his wife, who worked as a contractor for Fusion GPS. Ohr also met with Simpson after the election.
    http://dailycaller.com/2018/02/02/isikoff-stunned-carter-page/

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    Another Ian

    O/T

    Beware of what you wish for

    “Hilarious: Exxon Concludes Climate Policies Will Have Minimal Impact”

    https://wattsupwiththat.com/2018/02/02/hilarious-exxon-concludes-climate-policies-will-have-minimal-impact/

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    Ceetee

    Just in the process of watching Dr David Evans’s Youtube interview on the 50 to 1 project. Not that hard to understand really. I am a skeptic make no mistake and I have no truck with alarmists but I reckon that there is a pattern of weather systems getting larger and therefore more pervasive in their effect. I don’t believe this is due to CO2 simply because there is simply no evidence whatsoever for this and any attempt to make it so is political and frankly crying wolf. As Dr Evans says there are too many very educated people who have invested years of education and reputation in the dangerous man made global warming narrative. I do however believe in climate change as does anyone who doesn’t live under a rock. This brings me to my question that I would prefer to bring to this forum rather than some cloistered academic echo chamber (for e.g. James Cook University, New South Wales – don’t go there). My question is evidenced based, my experience of the extraordinary summer we are currently experiencing here in New Zealand. We have well above average sea temperatures around New Zealand and coincidentally the most extraordinarily warm and strangely wet summer, Where does this warm sea come from? Is it the PDO? As mentioned before I reckon there is a pattern emerging of larger weather cells, less changeable weather. People have written songs about how NZ can have 4 seasons in a day!. Not any more. I believe there is an emergent weather pattern of larger weather cells that nobody within the mainstream has discussed. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

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      People have written songs about how NZ can have 4 seasons in a day!. Not any more. I believe there is an emergent weather pattern of larger weather cells that nobody within the mainstream has discussed. Does anyone have any thoughts on this?

      There remains absolutely no SCIENCE in your belief or conjecture. Science promotes conjecture (what if?) as a means to discovery and learning. However science never allows some ‘belief’ to replace highly accurate\dedicated\repeatable ‘measurement’ of this ‘is’ whatever this ‘is’ may become in your psudo reality of belief\fantasy! if not repeatable, ’tis but garbage\scam! Capisce,(do you understand)?

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        Ceetee

        Well thats all good then Will. I only invited thoughts on the matter, not twelve rifles at dawn. Never said it was science, it was in fact conjecture and casual observation. It certainly wasn’t politics. I am an AGW skeptic by the way, longstanding for many years. I like to think that in all that time I have defended science against politics. Posted here for many years. Capisce!

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        Kinky Keith

        Hi Will,

        Ceetee seems to have noticed a phenomenon and compared it with past experience.

        It’s legitimate science for him to say that and then ask if anybody could offer an explanation.

        Apart from the daily interaction of the Earth with the Sun to produce the “diurnal bulge” in the atmosphere and the peeling off effect at the equator, that produces contra rotating atmospheric cells, I know little about the atmosphere.

        I would like to call atmospheric and oceanic movement “chaotic” but it doesn’t quite get there.

        I guess that the interpretation of this fluid movement might be called Meteorology.

        If I tried to answer Ceetee I would just say that for the time being this weather pattern is around New Zealand and may disappear in a few months and reappear in say fifty years.

        But I agree with you if you are saying that there is no scientific way of predicting the reoccurrence of this pattern.

        🙂

        KK

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      farmerbraun

      I have had many thoughts about descriptions such as yours CT. I have read most of the MSM hysteria , and snorted at the exaggerations of the Met Service and NIWA.
      There is nothing unusual or unprecedented about any of the phenomena that you describe. To call it extraordinary seems to be a very big stretch.

      No more four seasons in one day? Pull the other one . We are starting today at 10 deg. C. We might get 24 deg. C sometime this afternoon. The wind will go from Southerly to Northerly and back to South-Easterly over the next day or two.

      Rainfall has been average ; cows are loving the lush , green grass here in the “drought-stricken” Manawatu, (we are officially in “drought” . . .laughable) and believe me , in my forty years on this farm I have seen some hot dry summers. Such dry summers have been less frequent since 1999 ; cooler and wetter has been the predominant summer regime in the current PDO phase.

      Yes we had a six week long dry period from 10 November (we mowed for silage in the rain that day) until 20 December when 30mm of rain fell , and it has been pluvial since then.
      So what? It happens.
      Now six months of dry is a different ballgame , and it happens too, (but the Ozzies wouldn’t rate that as a big dry).

      I scratch my head at comments like yours. Still. it was just a theory, right ?
      🙂

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        farmerbraun

        A final thought ; even though I have farmed in the same location through all of the positive phase of the PDO (~1975-1999), and through half of the negative phase, so far, no two years have been the same. Every year the mix has been different. So the fact that this season is different means absolutely nothing.
        From the point of view of someone milking cows 365 days a year for forty years, having every year a different pattern is very nice.
        I mean it could get a little bit boring 🙂

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        Ceetee

        Less than a theory, just a thought. To be a theory there would have to be evidence.

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          farmerbraun

          Yes , it falls far short of being a theory ; not even a hypothesis. Conjecture is perfectly legitimate.
          But you did say this :-” My question is evidenced based, my experience of the extraordinary summer we are currently experiencing here in New Zealand.”

          My experience of the same summer in the same country is that there is nothing extraordinary about it. As a dryland pastoral farmer with no irrigation , I would rate it as good as any this century.

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            Ceetee

            Been here most of my life my good Brown farming friend and the last time I saw this was in 1996/7 which was an extraordinary year of the little boy “La Nina”. Aside from that most summers have been cool and underwhelming. Here in Canterbury before the dairy boom summers were epitomised with the sight of mobs of sad looking sheep on a dry grassless tundra. No heat but not much rain. The Southern Alps precludes that which is why the West Coast is one of the wettest places on the “Planet’ ((greeny speak, sorry). This year is different. really, REALLY hot, like in Aussie but here I am in January with a living lawn, having to mow green grass, fantastic veggies and in all honesty I love it.
            Just don’t tell me it’s killing polar bears, stats suggest polar bears are thriving despite the BBC fake stories.

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              Ceetee

              BTW if you look at a graphic of sea temp anomalies you will notice what sticks out like dogs bits, av sea temps around NZ are WAY above average. We have a blob of warm sea around us that stands out. Everyone else is av. Interesting.

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    pat

    members of the Intel Committee need to come forward to confirm or deny the following:

    VIDEO: 2 Feb: GatewayPundit: Jim Hoft: BREAKING=> FOX Analyst: Rod Rosenstein Threatened Chairman Nunes and House Intel Members in a Meeting 3 Weeks Ago (Video)
    FOX News legal analyst Gregg Jarrett went on with Sean Hannity on Friday night after the release of the House Intelligence FISA memo.
    Jarrett said his sources told him Rod Rosenstein threatened the House Intelligence Committee members three weeks ago.

    Gregg Jarrett: “I can tell you a congressional source tells me that Rod Rosenstein in a meeting three weeks ago threatened Chairman Nunes and members of Congress he was going to subpoena their texts and messages because he was tired of dealing with the intel committee. That’s threats and intimidation.”
    http://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2018/02/breaking-fox-analyst-rod-rosenstein-threatened-chairman-nunez-house-intel-members-meeting-3-weeks-ago-video/

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    pat

    VIDEO: 2 Feb: The Federalist: WATCH: (Fox News) Bret Baier Interviews Rep. Devin Nunes On The House Intel Memo
    Nunes addressed reports saying the memo is based on documents the committee hasn’t read, noting Rep. Trey Gowdy reviewed the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance applications the memo is based on, then briefed the rest of the committee. He also called concerns the release of the memo would endanger national security “a total fallacy,” and said the contents were carefully reviewed to ensure sources and methods of the intelligence community would not be revealed…

    Democrats on the committee are calling false a memo assertion that then-deputy director of the FBI Andrew McCabe testified in a closed committee hearing that the dossier was crucial to obtaining the FISA warrant. “That is definitely what he said,” Nunes told Baier, adding he’s open to releasing the transcript of the hearing to prove it, but that would require a review process. He also flatly contradicted a claim from Democrats that the FISA court that granted the surveillance warrant was made aware of the political nature of the Steele dossier cited to gain the warrant.

    Nunes characterized Democrats on the committee as dishonest actors who are not interested in the truth. “They know they’re not being honest actors, and I get tired of playing wack-a-mole everyday with the Democrats on this committee who never wanted to start this investigation in the first place,” he said, later adding: “These guys tell so many lies you can’t keep track of them.”

    “The FBI opened a counterintelligence investigation into the Trump campaign in the summer of 2016,” he said. “That’s what happened. And then they got a warrant on someone in the Trump campaign using opposition research paid for by the Democratic Party and the Hillary Clinton campaign. That’s what this is about, and it’s wrong and it should never be done.”
    http://thefederalist.com/2018/02/02/watch-bret-baier-interviews-rep-devin-nunes-house-intel-memo/

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    RAH

    IMO the key aspect the memo brings into question is if there was “probable cause” for either the surveillance or the Muller investigation in the first place.

    The so called “Steele Dossier” is political opposition research bought and paid for by the DNC and Hillary campaign using a foreign agent working with Russian “sources” and used to get the initial FISA warrant and all three of the renewals by being presented to the FICA Judge by the FBI as vetted intelligence.
    Name one material thing in that “Dossier” that has been corroborated by a reliable source. I can’t despite the fact that “Dossier” has been out in the public for months.

    “* The Steele dossier formed an essential part of the initial and all three renewal FISA applications against Carter Page.

    * Andrew McCabe (Then Deputy Director of the FBI) confirmed that no FISA warrant would have been sought from the FISA Court without the Steele dossier information.

    * The political origins of the Steele dossier were known to senior DOJ and FBI officials, but excluded from the FISA applications.

    * DOJ official Bruce Ohr met with Steele beginning in the summer of 2016 and relayed to DOJ information about Steele’s bias. Steele told Ohr that he, Steele, was desperate that Donald Trump not get elected president and was passionate about him not becoming president.”

    So as thing stand now with what information that is in the public square it’s looking like the POTUS and his family and everyone else being surveilled had their 4th amendment rights violated.
    “Amendment IV
    The right of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation, and particularly describing the place to be searched, and the persons or things to be seized.”

    What was the probable cause? That is the key question that the FBI has to answer to justify the FISC warrant and renewals and what Mueller and those that appointed him has to answer to justify the current investigation. I’m not a lawyer but it would seem to me that anything revealed from the surveillance or the Muller investigation would be inadmissible in a court of law if there was no probable cause to justify either.

    It would also seem to me that whoever was representing the Government when the “Steele Dossier” was presented as probable cause for the warrant and renewals to the FISC court and gave the “oath of affirmation” should be prosecuted.

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    philthegeek

    Hmmmmm….Donalds mates memo?? About as much real meat as one of his beloved cheeseburgers.

    I’ll stick to the popcorn. 🙂

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    Watt

    ” … at least tried to hide which team they barracked for.”

    Such an incisive & reference Jo. Maybe chearleaders could be called Barries from now on and Barrying could become a thing.

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    Consider US law:

    If the recipient shows cause for noncompliance or if the Court concludes that the order should not be enforced as issued, the Court may enter any order it deems appropriate.” Now for the big question, will section (3) allow the signatories of the FISA application be held in contempt? If not, what are the possible consequences for intentionally deceiving the FISC?

    ’How can the US citizens, the constitutional US governance, deal with such arrogant bliovation? The only answer seems to be ‘Escort all to the top of volcano’. Then ask individual preference for voluntary jump into, or forcefully be thrown into said volcano?
    Bye bye!

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