When Will Obama Be Questioned On His Corrupt Administration?
A former top lawyer at the FBI provided “explosive” testimony to Congress on Wednesday regarding the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation, lawmakers said.
James Baker, who served as the FBI’s general counsel until May, told Congress that a previously unidentified source provided information to the FBI for its investigation, which began on July 31, 2016.
“During the time that the FBI was putting — that [the Department of Justice] and FBI were putting together the [Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act surveillance warrant] during the time prior to the election — there was another source giving information directly to the FBI, which we found the source to be pretty explosive,” Ohio GOP Rep. Jim Jordan said after a hearing, according to Fox News.
As the FBI’s top attorney, Baker was directly involved in handling applications for the FISA warrants granted against former Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
Baker was interviewed behind closed doors as part of a congressional task force’s investigation into the FBI’s possible abuse of the FISA process. Republican lawmakers have expressed concerns that the Page FISAs relied heavily on the unverified Steele dossier.
The document, which was funded by former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s campaign and the Democratic National Committee, was cited extensively in the FBI’s applications to spy on Page.
“Some of the things that were shared were explosive in nature,” North Carolina GOP Rep. Mark Meadows told Fox regarding Baker’s interview. “This witness confirmed that things were done in an abnormal fashion. That’s extremely troubling.”
Jordan and Meadows did not provide additional details about what information Baker shared or who the FBI’s source was. They said that congressional investigators were not aware of the source until Baker’s testimony.
Meadows said earlier on Wednesday that he has seen evidence that “confidential human sources” used by the FBI “actually taped members within the Trump campaign.” (RELATED: Undercover FBI Sources Taped Trump Campaign)
“There is strong suggestions in that some of the text messages, emails, and so forth who was involved, that extraordinary measures were used to surveil,” Meadows told Hill.TV.
A man who dated Brett Kavanaugh’s primary accuser, Christine Blasey Ford, for six years claims she had no fear of flying, no fear of small spaces or rooms with single exits, and once used her psychology training to prepare a friend for a polygraph examination, according to a Tuesday Fox News report.
In a sworn statement to the Senate Judiciary Committee dated Tuesday, the California man claims to have met the then-Christine Blasey “in 1989 or 1990,” then had been romantically involved with her for about six years from 1992 to 1998. In that time, he claims to have witnessed Ford, then studying psychology, coach a close friend as she prepared for government administered polygraph exams. Fox News’s Shannon Bream posted a redacted version of the letter on Twitter:
BREAKING:Fox’s @johnrobertsFox obtains letter from Ford ex-boyfriend alleging:dated for 6 yrs, never told of sex assault, Ford coached friend on taking polygraph, flew frequently w/o expressing any fear of flying/tight spaces/limited exits.Doesn’t want to b/c “involved”.
The man’s claims appear to contradict Ford’s testimony under oath before the Senate Judiciary Committee last week, where she told outside counsel Rachel Mitchell that she “never” gave “tips or advice to somebody looking to take a polygraph test.”
The alleged ex-boyfriend also claims that Ford frequently flew, including in small propeller aircraft, without complaint over the course of their relationship and had no fear of small spaces or rooms with only one exit. Ford’s claims that phobias of these things have plagued her since the early 1980s as a result of a 17-year-old Kavanaugh attacking her have been central elements of her story.
Further, the man claims Ford never mentioned being a victim of sexual assault in the eight years they knew each other and never once mentioned Kavanaugh’s name. Finally, he claims their relationship ended amid infidelity and credit card fraud on her part. He does, however, claim that he “finds Ford believable” and did not “want to become i
nvolved” with the investigatory process.
Exactly when the Senate Judiciary Committee staff came into possession of the letter is not clear. Mitchell’s specific questioning about polygraph prepration during Ford’s committee testimony, however, may indicate committee staff had some knowledge of the allegations laid out in the letter at least as early as last week.
Tuesday on CNN’s “New Day,” network legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin reacted to a clip of Donald Trump Jr. discussing Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh sexual assault allegations and his fear of such claims becoming weaponized.
Toobin mocked the idea of “white men” fearing they can be falsely accused.
Any More Questions?
“Every night, I cry myself to sleep over the fate of white men in America,” Toobin stated. “White men have no power, white men — I mean, it’s such garbage.”
One Of The Main Reasons America Is Being Destroyed.
He added, “You know what? If you sexually assault someone in high school, your life should be ruined, your life should be pursued. The idea that this is somehow unjust — remember, this all started with accusations of sexual assault. How about the lives of the women who were sexually assaulted in high school? How about 15-year-old Ms. Blasey, she wasn’t Ms. Blasey Ford in those days, how about her life? All this whining about the poor plight of white men is ridiculous.”
A recent Washington Post column tells of an almost-three-year-old Naya, whose parents have taken the wonderfully enlightened approach of letting the child decide her own sex.
The foolishness coming forth from the gender theory folks is like the endless parade of clowns coming out of that tiny car at the circus. How many more can there be? When will it stop?
A recent Washington Post column from Monica Hesse tells the tale of an almost-three-year-old Naya and her/his/their parents who’ve taken the wonderfully enlightened approach of letting her/him/they decide her/his/they’s own gender. Like the clowns, we lose count of how many times we’ve heard of such parents.
But those stories are usually presented as novelty. This one is presented as a completely sensible thing to do from a seemingly rational and thoughtful writer from a major national newspaper.
Hesse, an award-winning journalist, tells this story as if it’s not only reasonable, but commendable and forward-thinking. A serious editor at a major paper of record—not The Onion—deemed it worthy of their precious real estate. Both assumed their readers would find it enlightening for their own parenting. Three strikes.
Even a 4 year-old knows this damit.
Let me break the story down for you. Naya is almost three years old. She/he/them is being raised by two guys, Jeremy and Bryan. The adults know the sex on Naya’s birth certificate, but that’s their secret. Not even Naya will know. They believe her real gender exists in her mind, not on a major medical and government document. Jeremy and Bryan are presented as wise and brave parents, the kind any child would be fortunate to have.
Please Admire Our Descent Into Insanity
Hesse explains Naya’s two dads “didn’t publicly share Naya’s birth-certificate sex.” You see, sometimes parents and medical staff just look for a penis or vagina on the baby and mindlessly sign the kid up as male or female based on this cursory assessment. Gender theory tells us this method, which has served all cultures at all times in all places pretty well since the beginning of man, can be simplistic and deceptive.
So Jeremy and Bryan posted the following announcement on their Facebook page: “If you interact with our kid, please make an effort to use Naya’s name, rather than a gendered pronoun.” This is because “much of our culture and many of our traditions are based on telling people (directly and indirectly) what they can and can’t do, or should and shouldn’t do, based on their gender rather than their capabilities.”
Why does this matter? Well, Jeremy explains, with equal parts compassion and insight, “And we know this has tremendously negative consequences for both kids and adults.” It makes one wonder how many of Hesse’s readers will see Jeremy and Bryan with the admiration she does. How many will find this parenting approach admirable or asinine?
Thus, do such stories help or hurt the gender redefinition cause? It’s one thing for “progressives” to support the cause in theory. It’s wholly another when they see how it actually presents itself in the real lives of children. Gender theorists and their media enablers don’t seem to appreciate just how wacky their basic assumptions sound to everyday people regardless of where they fall on the political spectrum.
Remember that Thing About Being the Party of Science?
These gender gadflies live in a make-believe world that is not only at odds with reality, it often stands against it. One of the most brilliant and celebrated neuropsychiatrists in the world is Allan Schore, a member of the clinical faculty at UCLA’s David Geffen School of Medicine. He doesn’t suffer fools lightly.
In a major 2017 article in the Infant Mental Health Journal on how boys’ neurobiology and neuroendocrinology is very distinct from that of their sisters, Schore laments how gender studies in developmental psychology have “remained divorced from and frequently antithetical to biology.” In other words, the downy stay-puffed softness of gender theory is proudly unattached from the rock-hard sciences of biology, and often directly contrary to it.
He is absolutely right. Contemporary gender theory is pure ideology. It is not informed by any biological science. It’s never been close enough to science to catch a cold. Science is here. Gender theory is over there. These are two very different things that are not on speaking terms.
Gender Theory Is Hilariously Self-Contradicting
We see some of the glaring contradictions of gender theory in Hesse’s article. This happens when one tries to redefine what is real. Let me point out just a few.
If gender theory had a Nicene Creed, the first line its faithful must confess is that there are more than two genders. The wonderfully diverse spectrum of the rainbow and all that. Let’s see how this works itself out in Naya’s story.
Early in her life, her legal guardians came upon an idea. What if, Hesse tells us, Jeremy and Bryan “didn’t tell Naya whether Naya was a boy or girl? What if they just let their kid decide?” So the men “gave Naya clothing from both sides of the Target aisle, and boy dolls and girl dolls…”
Are you catching the glaring inconsistency here? Why confine Naya to only boy and girl clothes and toys? Why should Naya be kept from exploring and sampling the accoutrements of all the other supposed genders, especially by two forward-thinking men who have moved beyond the flat-earth binary?
Why didn’t the critical-thinking Hesse challenge Bryan and Jeremy on confining the child in such a repressive way? Who is there to speak up for poor Naya and her right to all the different options? When you spin reality, you’d better have a good memory. Hesse and these men don’t.
That’s Not the Only Glaring Contradiction
The next fundamental tenet of gender theory is that male and female don’t really exist. They are merely social and artificial constructs. We’re all just people, and it’s only society that dictates we become this or that as male or female.
Pay no attention to the fact that she just gendered the poor children in her question.
Hesse asks the question these brave parents are pressing all of us to consider: “What would it look like to become your true self, if the only constraints were your own happiness?” Elsewhere she asks “How do you raise boys and girls to be whatever they truly actually are” (emphasis in original)?
Pay no attention to the fact that she just gendered the poor children in her question about letting them discover what they actually are before they informed her. Note some key words Hesse employs here: “true self” and “actually are.” Do you see another stunning contradiction?
If you assume you are naturally male or female from the womb, you are deceived. You are sadly assuming an artificial construct is actual. But if you choose to be male or female, well that’s your “true self,” the thing you actually are! Everyone else mustnot only see it the way you do, but respect it. Woe to anyone who refuses.
It’s exactly what we saw with Bruce Jenner. He is only his true authentic self as Caitlyn. In gender theory, subjective self-perception always tells the truth while our objective, physical bodies can lie. Psychology and biology both strongly disagree, from their very foundation. Even more curiously, these are people who almost certainly believe there is no god, and material reality is all there is. If that’s the case, however, then how can a purely physical mind detach itself from its organically, biologically connected body and genetics?
Pressure towards Sex Stereotypes Is Highly Overrated
These two men wanted desperately to protect Naya from one threat: “Would Naya … feel pressured to conform to the stereotype of a birth certificate’s sex designation?” First, Hesse wants us to agree that Naya’s medically determined sex designation is as thin as a piece of paper. Not only can the information our birth certificates provide be mistaken, it can actually be harmful!
Second, she most certainly would not be pressured in that way, unless they are going to adopt her out to the Little House on the Prairie. Who thinks Jeremy and Bryan would allow anyone else to pressure her toward gender stereotypes? Let’s get ahold of ourselves for a moment. Is this even a fear in the first place? How many of us would judge a parent as good if he demanded his boy or girl squeeze into supposed gender stereotypes? They’re called “stereotypes” for a reason and it’s what makes them so distasteful: oversimplified caricatures that contradict the everyday.
I don’t know of anyone here, among my friends or at my church, who forces his kids into rigid gender roles.
I work at Focus on the Family, and have for 25 years. We are as traditional about male and female as anyone. But we have parents here with kids who do all kinds of things, and proudly. I don’t know of anyone here, among my friends or at my church, who forces his kids into rigid gender roles. They encourage their kids to be what God made them to be.
One of our leading partners is a man with a long and distinguished military career. His adult son is a hard-core ballet dancer and that raises concern for no one here. Why should it? That son works here and has for more than a decade. He’s a very good man, no less of one than his father.
An executive assistant for many years proudly featured on her desk a picture of her daughter standing in front of the C-17 military cargo plane she pilots. Not one of her co-workers here believe her daughter, or any woman, would do much better in the kitchen. We all think she’s awesome and would be similarly proud of our daughters, be they pilots, astronauts, surgeons, police officers, army generals, martial artists, senators, or full-time mothers.
Think about Sarah Palin, yesterday’s darling of the religious right. She loves shooting, can handle any-size gun with gusto, and can field dress a moose. Not even the most right-leaning person thought her place was in the laundry room. No one in our camp wishes Margaret Thatcher had been just a little more dainty and domestic. Same with Condoleezza Rice. For all the talk of the dangers of repressive gender stereotypes, they ironically exist primarily in the worried imaginations of the gender theory folks.
Parents Freak Out Over Basic Reality
Deciding her sex was not the big deal to Naya as it was to her two dads. The resolve of Hesse’s story is really quite anticlimactic. Naya was routinely settling down for naptime. She unceremoniously announced to Jeremy that her stuffed animal, “Doggy,” was a boy and should be referred to as he.
Well and good, Jeremy thought. Then he asked, “What do you want me to call you?” Let’s pause on this a moment. It’s one of the most important questions of her life, so big that these guys had to make a huge deal about it, publically instructing every friend, family member, and acquaintance to avoid the subject at every turn.
Never mind that Naya is not yet even three years old. Never mind that Bryan, still at work, would miss her monumental declaration of self-actualization. Did Jeremy consider that Naya might possibly have felt unduly pressured by the suddenness of the question? And just before naptime! Well, what did she say?
She answered simply, as if she were choosing a cookie or the shoes she wanted to wear. Naya said she wanted to be called “she and her and a girl.” Jeremy asked her if that was just for today or for always. Naya said, “Today, tomorrow and when I get to be grown-up, I want to be most a girl.”
It Would Be Funny If It Weren’t So Serious
Now get this grand finale. For all the drama, Jeremy said he would have been happy with any choice, because “there is no right answer.” Really? If I’ve been paying attention, it seems as if there is indeed a right answer. It’s the gender Naya supposedly is in her mind. Wasn’t that what this whole thing was about? None of the adults in this story seem to appreciate the irony-rich soil they are digging in here. It’s clear they haven’t thought this through.
So, it must be said and said crisply without apology. These two men raising Naya are seriously deceived. They are creating an alternate reality, not for make-believe fun, but for the very foundation of how this poor child will understand herself at her most basic level.
If I’ve been paying attention, it seems as if there is indeed a right answer. It’s the gender Naya supposedly is in her mind.
Yes, one’s sex doesn’t exist only in one’s genitalia. But it doesn’t exist solely in the mind either. It is present in every last piece of DNA in every cell of our very complex bodies. No dogma can wish this fact away. Our bodies don’t tell lies. Gender theory does, and we would say they are authentically silly ones if the consequences were not so serious.
Hesse and her editors, while all putting themselves out there as intelligent people, are completely taken by mere ideology. It does not exist under any microscope, in any laboratory or medical imaging machine. It is not only at odds with basic biological science, but as Schore explained, antithetical to it.
Live in that make-believe world if you choose, but the moment you bring children into it, your work as a parent and standing as a responsible adult must be called into serious question. A sane society must adopt that position. The moment you virtue-shame anyone who refuses to play along with your delusion, you’ve become one of the most extreme types of fundamentalist. It’s not what reasonable people do. This madness needs to stop.
The Senate Judiciary Committee questioned Supreme Court nominee Brett Kavanaugh last Wednesday regarding a letter delivered to Sen. Kamala Harris (D-CA) in which an anonymous woman claims she was repeatedly raped by the judge without providing any details to investigate.
According to committee transcripts released Sunday, the accuser, who signed the mysterious letter as “Jane Doe,” alleges Kavanaugh and a friend raped her “several times” after giving her a lift home from a party — making no attempt to claim a time or place for the lurid story.
The accuser claims Kavanaugh groped her, slapped her, and force her to perform sexual acts. “They forced me to go into the backseat and took 2 turns raping me several times each. They dropped me off 3 two blocks from my home,” the accuser wrote, claiming the pair told her, “No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl.”
The letter, marked with the word “urgent,” did not include a return address, nor did it offer clues regarding the accuser’s background. “A group of white men, powerful senators who won’t believe me, will come after me” if I reveal the incident, the accuser wrote, prompting observers to speculate the sender could be a minority.
The accusation was met with a vehement denial from Kavanaugh, who characterized the allegation as nothing short of “ridiculous.”
“Nothing ever – anything like that, nothing,” the Supreme Court nominee told senators concerning the accusation. “I mean, that’s – the whole thing is just a crock, farce, wrong, didn’t happen, not anything close.”
Read the full letter below (Spaces added for easier reading):
Dear, Senator Grassley, et al.
The current situation regarding the accusations made by Dr. Ford against Brett Kavanaugh have prompted me to write you today. I have moved on with my life since he forced himself on me as well. The times were so different, and I didn’t expect to be taken seriously, embarrass my family, be believed at all. I was at a party with a friend. I had been drinking. She left with another boy, leaving me to find my own way home. Kavanaugh and a friend offered me a ride home. I don’t know the other boy’s name. I was in his car to go home. His friend was behind me in the backseat. Kavanaugh kissed me forcefully.
I told him I only wanted a ride home. Kavanaugh continued to grope me over my clothes, forcing his kisses on me and putting his hand under my sweater. ‘No,’ I yelled at him. The boy in the backseat reached around, putting his hand over my mouth and holding my arm to keep me in the car. I screamed into his hand. Kavanaugh continued his forcing himself on me. He pulled up my sweater and bra exposing my breasts, and reached into my panties, inserting his fingers into my vagina. My screams were silenced by the boy in the backseat covering my mouth and groping me as well. Kavanaugh slapped me and told me to be quiet and forced me to perform oral sex on him. He climaxed in my mouth. They forced me to go into the backseat and took turns raping me several times each.
They dropped me off two blocks from my home. ‘No one will believe if you tell. Be a good girl,’ he told me. Watching what has happened to Anita Hill and Dr. Ford has me petrified to come forward in person or even provide my name. A group of white men, powerful senators who won’t believe me, will come after me. Like Dr. Ford, I’m a teacher, I have an education, a family, a child, a home. I have credibility. Just because something happens a long time ago, because a rape victim doesn’t want to personally come forward, does not mean something can’t be true.
Jane Doe, Oceanside, California.
On Monday, the White House issued revised guidance to the FBI that agents can interview anyone they deem relevant as part of their investigation of Kavanaugh. President Donald Trump ordered the FBI to reopen Kavanaugh’s background investigation Friday after several women accused Kavanaugh of sexual misconduct.
Speaking at a White House Rose Garden event, President Trump told reporters that he continues to support Kavanaugh, describing him as a “fine man.” “I think he’s a great scholar … he focused on being number one at Yale, on being number one in high school, at being number one at law,” the president added. “I can so understand that.”
Kavanaugh has strongly denied all allegations, issuing the following statement through the White House on Friday:
“Throughout this process, I’ve been interviewed by the FBI, I’ve done a number of ‘background’ calls directly with the Senate, and yesterday, I answered questions under oath about every topic the Senators and their counsel asked me. I’ve done everything they have requested and will continue to cooperate.”
According to multiple reports, the investigation could wind down as earlier as Monday or Tuesday.
Dana Bash
✔@DanaBashCNN
GOP senator tells me that @senatemajldr told WH Friday the 3 key GOP Senators wanted the FBI to interview 4 people: PJ Smyth, Leland Keyser, Mark Judge & Deborah Ramirez. Senator tells me with that limit – FBI could be done by today or Tuesday #Kavanaugh
In a Senate floor speech Monday afternoon, Majority Leader Sen. Mitch McConnell (R-KY) vowed lawmakers will vote this week on Kavanaugh’s nomination to the Supreme Court. “The goalpost keeps shifting, but the goal hasn’t moved an inch. Not an inch,” said the Kentucky senator. “Let me make it very clear. The time for endless delay and obstruction has come to a close. Judge Kavanaugh’s confirmation is out of committee. We’re considering it here on the floor… We’ll be voting on it this week.”
Monday on MSNBC’s “The Beat,” Sen. Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) criticized the one-week deadline in the expanded FBI probe of Supreme Court associate justice nominee Brett Kavanaugh.
Blumenthal said, “It’s the right direction, but whether they go far enough and quickly enough remains to be seen. Those 25 witnesses that I sent to the White House and to the FBI along with almost all my colleagues on the Judiciary Committee, Democratic side, are the minimum that ought to be interviewed. As you well know, witnesses can lead to other witnesses that have to be pursued. So I believe that Jeff Flake truly wants a real investigation, not a check the box sham. And that’s what the FBI ought to be doing. Difficult, though, because as you said very well, this deadline is tight and arbitrary. In fact, too accelerated and too artificial to really get the job done.”
