Thursday Morning Breakfast For The Brain

Good morning and happy Thursday to all of you Deplorables!

McCain’s Key Role in Fueling Post-Election Trump-Russia Hysteria

Via American Greatness

In his 2018 book, The Restless Wave, the late Senator John McCain (R-Ariz.) wondered aloud why he was sought out and given the infamous Steele dossier shortly after the 2016 presidential election.

After suggesting that anyone who questioned his role in handling the political document was indulging in “conspiracy theories,” McCain offered his explanation: “The answer is too obvious for the paranoid to credit. I am known internationally to be a persistent critic of Vladimir Putin’s regime and I have been a long while.”

It is true that McCain was an outspoken critic of Putin. But the big problem with McCain’s defense is that by the time he wrote those words—presumably the end of 2017, since the book was published in late May 2018—it already was public knowledge that the dossier had been authored and distributed by political pimps funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. When McCain was writing his book, many of the culprits were in serious legal jeopardy.

Christopher Steele, the dossier’s author, was being sued for defamation and was under congressional scrutiny in 2017. (McCain had sent his close associate, David Kramer, to meet Steele in London shortly after the 2016 election to track down gossip about the president-elect.) Steele also remains the subject of a criminal referral at the Justice Department for lying to federal officials.

McCain’s Senate colleagues were investigating Fusion GPS and its owner, Glenn Simpson, who produced and peddled the fabricated document, in the summer of 2017. (It was Simpson, not Steele as McCain suggested in his book, who gave Kramer the dossier in late November 2016; McCain would later provide that copy of the dossier to former FBI Director James Comey, who already had used the sleazily obtained and Democrat-funded opposition research to get a secret court’s approval to spy on Trump campaign aide Carter Page.)

Kramer also testified before the House Intelligence Committee in December 2017 related to its probe of the dossier, and he later invoked his Fifth Amendment right to avoid further questioning.

And if his book was still in production in February 2018, McCain would have known that the FBI withheld crucial details about the dossier’s political provenance in a shameful scheme to violate the privacy rights of a U.S. citizen whose only offense was volunteering to help Trump in 2016. McCain knew it because he vehemently opposed the release of the bombshell memo authored by Representative Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), former chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, which detailed how the dossier was presented as evidence to the FISA court. The senator accused Trump and Nunes of attacking the FBI and for “looking at the investigation through the warped lens of politics and manufacturing partisan sideshows,” McCain wrote in a statement the day the memo was released. “If we continue to undermine our own rule of law, we are doing Putin’s job for him.”

Read the entire article HERE.

Killing The Electoral College Is A Dumb Idea Pushed By Ignorant People

Via The Federalist

If you want to get rid of the Electoral College, you don’t understand how it works. I mean the royal “you,” not the partisan “you.” Opposition to the Electoral College tends to break down along partisan lines—especially lately, for some reason—but even President-elect Donald Trump said he’d prefer “simple votes.”

You can hardly be blamed for your ignorance if you went to public school, attended an elite university, or get your news from Yahoo. Some very nice, apparently well-educated people—Barbara Boxer—are peddling absolute Pablum about the Electoral College. “The Electoral College is an outdated, undemocratic system that does not reflect our modern society, and it needs to change immediately. Every American should be guaranteed that their vote counts.”

You are one of them, with all due respect, if you’ve said or thought any of the following.

Read the entire article HERE.

New Zealand Bans Guns After Mass Shooting; All “Military-Style” And “Assault Rifles” Outlawed

Via Zero Hedge

New Zealand Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern announced the “first tranche” to reforms on gun laws – beginning with the immediate ban on the sale of semi-automatic and ‘assault’ rifles, six days after attacks on two mosques in Christchurch left 50 people dead. Notably, accused gunman Brenton Tarrant – specifically hoped his attack would lead to the restriction of gun rights.

On 15 March, our history changed forever. Now, our laws will too,” said Ardern. “We are announcing action today on behalf of all New Zealanders to strengthen our gun laws and make our country a safer place.”

“The effect of this will mean that no one will be able to buy these weapons without a permit to procure from the police. I can assure people that there is no point in applying for such a permit,” she said, adding “In short, every semi-automatic weapon used in the terrorist attack on Friday will be banned in this country.”

The ban will apply to all firearms currently defined as “Military Style” or “Semi-Automatic” (MSSA), defined as a semi-automatic firearm – including shotguns – capable of being used with a detachable magazine that holds more than five rounds.

Read the entire article HERE.

Senior Ukrainian official says he’s opened probe into US election interference

Via The Hill

Ukrainian Prosecutor General Yuriy Lutsenko told Hill.TV’s John Solomon in an interview aired on Wednesday that he has opened a probe into alleged attempts by Ukrainians to interfere in the United States’ 2016 presidential election.

“Today we will launch a criminal investigation about this and we will give legal assessment of this information,” Lutsenko said last week.

Lutsenko is probing a claim from a member of the Ukrainian parliament that the director of the National Anti-Corruption Bureau of Ukraine (NABU), Artem Sytnyk, attempted to the benefit of the 2016 U.S. presidential election on behalf of Hillary Clinton.

A State Department spokesman told Hill.TV that officials aware of news reports regarding Sytnyk.

“We have always emphasized the need for deep, comprehensive, and timely reforms that respond to the demands the Ukrainian people made during the Revolution of Dignity: an end to systemic corruption, faster economic growth, and a European future for all Ukrainians,” a department spokesperson told Hill.TV.

Read the entire article HERE.

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