I’m sure Jeff will get around to indicting Peter and “Horse Lady” Lisa after he stops Legal Marijuana.
Peter Strzok, the FBI agent who led the Trump and Clinton investigations said he needed to wrap up the Clinton probe after it became clear it was a Trump-Clinton race; joked he’d throw his son out on the street for supporting Ted Cruz; and said the government should stop pro-life demonstrators by taking away their permit under false circumstances.
His mistress, FBI lawyer Lisa Page, mocked an ethics presentation and implied that the FBI was also racist and put “idiots” in charge if they were “white males.”
The comments come from 500 pages of texts released Wednesday by Senate investigators.
On May 2, 2016, Page wrote “Holy shit Cruz just dropped out of the race. It’s going to be a Clinton Trump race. Unbelievable.”
Strzok replied, “Now the pressure really starts to finish MYE.” MYE stands for Mid-Year Exam, a code name for the Clinton probe.
Obama had such an honest and transparent administration didn’t he?
On May 10, 2016, Strzok says he “talked to [redacted]. Banner evening. Concluded by saying I cannot overstate to you the sense of urgency about wanting to logically and effectively conclude this investigation.”
Strzok indicated that half the country’s population — apparently Republicans — are filled with “bigoted hatred,” and appeared to express concerns that affirmative action would keep children close to him from getting into top schools, before finally implying it might be worth it to “demonstrate the absolute bigoted nonsense of Trump.”
The FBI agent handling the Clinton and Trump investigations for the FBI was discussing affirmative action with his mistress, Lisa Page. Page spends hundreds of texts strategizing about how to get ahead in her career, and says the is a “white male hierarchy that NEVER eats its own. That pushes even idiots forward for promotion. I think you’re going to be OK,” she said.
The two discuss affirmative action after seeing an article about illegal immigrants who were valedictorians. Strzok wrote “While I hate Trump, part of me thought [redacted] would not/may not get into [redacted] because they’re white and not from buttf*ck Texas.”
“I’m torn between their achievement and the reality of the limitations it places on others. All of that separate and distinct from the bigoted hatred of half (it seems) of our population.”
Page responded: “Dude. THESE GIRLS ARE THE VALEDICTORIANS IN THEIR CLASS… THEY OVERCAME SERIOUS ODDS. THEY HAVE EARNED IT. Do you think Yale would be best served being entirely populated by smart upper income white boys? Come on.”
Strzok says “I’m saying the difference between equal opportunity and equal outcome is hazier as you get closer… I’m saying their background gave them an advantage the upper class white boy didn’t get. Is that fair?”
Page says “Their background gave them an advantage?!”
After an angry rant by Page, Strzok appears to weigh concern for his own kids versus opposition to Trump, saying the illegal immigrants “fully deserve to go, and demonstrate the absolute bigoted nonsense of Trump.”
Page spends hundreds of texts trying to figure out how to advance in the FBI’s ranks. She speaks of a “white male heirarchy that NEVER eats its own. That pushes even idiots forward for promotion. I think you’re going to be OK.”
Discussing the Republican primary, Strzok says “I keep hoping the charade will end and people will just dump [Trump]. The problem, then, is [Marco] Rubio will likely lose to [Ted] Cruz.”
Then he appears to joke that he would make his own child homeless if he supported Ted Cruz. A redacted name, apparently referring to his child, is “arguing about how great Bernie Sanders is and the evils of a two-party system. Sigh. YOU can explain how Bernie isn’t electable in a general election and it’s more important to field a competitive candidate.”
Page responds, “Hell, at least be happy he’s arguing for Bernie Sanders and not Ted Cruz.”
Strzok says “true re Cruz. THAT would be enough to put him on the street entirely.”
The pair later complain about pro-life demonstrators in DC. “F*cking marchers making traffic problems,” Strzok says.
Page replies “I truly hate these people. No support for the woman who actually has to spend the rest of her life rearing this child, but we care about ‘life.’ Assholes.”
Strzok then says, “I have an idea!” The government, he says, should cancel the protesters’ permit under the guise of a “snow emergency.” Then they mock “Rep candidates” who say climate change isn’t real.
Canceling a permit to silence protesters might seem unethical, but Page described having to take her “annual ethics training” as “painful.”
“Apparently they have waaaaaaay too much time on their hands,” she said of the ethics presenters.
FLASHBACK: OBAMA INSISTS HE DOESN’T GET INVOLVED IN FBI INVESTIGATIONS
‘I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI’
Feb 7, 2018
Today Fox News reported President Obama asked the FBI for updates on the Hillary Clinton email investigation.
“[Lisa] Page wrote to Strzok on Sept. 2, 2016, about prepping Comey because ‘potus wants to know everything we’re doing,'” Fox News reports. “According to a newly released Senate report, this text raises questions about Obama’s personal involvement in the Clinton email investigation.”
But in an April 2016 interview on Fox News Sunday, then-President Obama said he “guaranteed” he was staying out of the FBI probe.
“I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations,” Obama told Chris Wallace. “I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line and always have maintained it –”
Asked to assure the American people the FBI probe into Hillary Clinton would be treated no differently than anyone else, Obama was emphatic: “I guarantee it. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Full stop. Period.”
Here’s a transcript of the exchange:
WALLACE: “Mr. President, when you say what you just said — what Josh Earnest said as he did, your spokesman, in January — ‘the information from the Justice Department is that she’s not a target,’ some people, I think, are worried whether or not the decision, whether or not how to handle the case, will be decided on political grounds, not legal grounds. Can you guarantee to the American people, can you direct the Justice Department to say, ‘Hillary Clinton will be treated as the evidence goes, she will not in any way be protected.'”
OBAMA: “I can guarantee that. I can guarantee that not because I give Attorney General Lynch a directive, that is institutionally how we have always operated. I do not talk to the Attorney General about pending investigations. I do not talk to FBI directors about pending investigations. We have a strict line and always have maintained it –”
WALLACE: “–So, just to button this up –”
OBAMA: “I guarantee it. I guarantee that there is no political influence in any investigation conducted by the Justice Department or the FBI, not just in this case but in any case. Full stop Period.”
WALLACE: “– And she will be treated no differently?–”
OBAMA: “Guaranteed, full stop, period. Nobody gets treated differently when it comes to the Justice Department because nobody is above the law.”
WALLACE: “Even if she ends up as the Democratic nominee?”
OBAMA: “How many times do I have to say it, Chris? Guaranteed.
John McCain is a damn fraud and everyone with a brain knows it.
TEL AVIV — Last week’s release of a four-page House Intelligence Committee memo alleging abuse of surveillance authority provides details that raise new questions about Sen. John McCain’s role in delivering the infamous, largely discredited 35-page dossier on President Donald Trump and Russia to the U.S. intelligence community under Barack Obama’s administration.
The memo, crafted by House Republicans, reveals, among other things, that former FBI Director James Comey personally signed FISA court applications utilizing the dossier to obtain FISA court warrants to conduct surveillance on Carter Page, who briefly served as a volunteer foreign policy adviser to Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign.
Comey allegedly utilized the dossier, produced by the controversial Fusion GPS opposition research firm, to seek and receive the first warrant against Page on October 21, 2016. Federal agencies sought the renewal of the order every 90 days in accordance with court requirements. According to the memo, Comey “signed three FISA applications in question on behalf of the FBI, and Deputy Director Andrew McCabe signed one.”
Comey allegedly utilized the dossier to seek the initial warrant even though he would label the same dossier “salacious and unverified” eight months later during sworn testimony.
Comey also utilized the dossier, according to the memo, even though senior FBI officials were aware at the time that the document, authored by ex-British spy Christopher Steele, was produced by the controversial Fusion GPS firm and was funded by Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee (DNC) via the Perkins Coie law firm.
The questions about McCain’s involvement follow an admission last month by the founders of Fusion GPS that they helped Steele share the document with the Arizona senator utilizing a surrogate after the November 2016 presidential election. McCain in turn reportedly provided the dossier to the FBI in December 2016.
The timeline revealed in the memo shows that by the time McCain delivered the dossier to the FBI leadership in December 2016, the agency had not only already launched an investigation into Trump’s campaign partially utilizing the dossier but Comey himself had two months earlier signed an application using the dossier to obtain a FISA warrant on Page.
It is therefore not clear why Fusion GPS would seek out McCain to deliver to the FBI a document already being utilized by the agency to launch a probe into Trump’s campaign and obtain a FISA warrant after Steele himself provided the dossier to the FBI in July 2016.
It is also not clear whether, at the time he delivered the dossier to the FBI, McCain was aware of the origins of the information, primarily that Fusion GPS compiled the charges and that they were paid to do so by Clinton’s campaign and the DNC.
McCain has not responded to multiple Breitbart News requests for comment.
Necessity of McCain delivering dossier
In August 22 testimony released last month, Fusion GPS Co-Founder Glenn R. Simpson stated that Steele’s outreach to the FBI was “something that Chris took on on his own.” Simpson stated that as far as he knew Fusion GPS did not fund Steele’s July 2016 trip to Rome to meet with the FBI. He said he believes that the trip expenses may have been reimbursed by the FBI.
In a New York Times oped last month, Simpson and fellow GPS Co-Founder Peter Fritch relate that they helped McCain share their anti-Trump dossier with the Obama-era intelligence community via an “emissary.”
“After the election, Mr. Steele decided to share his intelligence with Senator John McCain via an emissary,” the Fusion GPS founders related. “We helped him do that. The goal was to alert the United States national security community to an attack on our country by a hostile foreign power.”
It was not clear from their statement whether McCain knew Fusion GPS was behind the dossier.
While the Fusion GPS oped sheds some light on the manner in which McCain obtained the dossier, the Fusion founders did not name the “emissary” who delivered the document to McCain.
A January 11, 2017 statement from McCain attempted to explain why he provided the documents to the FBI but did not mention how he came to possess the dossier or whether he knew who funded it.
“Upon examination of the contents, and unable to make a judgment about their accuracy, I delivered the information to the director of the FBI,” McCain said at the time. “That has been the extent of my contact with the FBI or any other government agency regarding this issue.”
Sir Andrew Wood, a former British ambassador to Moscow, said McCain first consulted him about the claims inside the dossier at a security conference in Canada shortly after last November’s presidential election.
Wood stated that McCain had obtained the documents from the senator’s own sources. “I told him I was aware of what was in the report but I had not read it myself, that it might be true, it might be untrue. I had no means of judging really,” Wood further told BBC Radio 4 in January.
Last December, Wood related that he served as a “go-between” to inform McCain about the dossier contents. “My mission was essentially to be a go-between and a messenger, to tell the senator and assistants that such a dossier existed,” Wood told Fox News.
In March, Vanity Fair raised questions about the alleged involvement of longtime McCain associate David J. Kramer, a former State Department official, in helping to obtain the dossier directly from Steele. The issue was also raised in a lawsuit filed against Steele by one of the individuals named in the dossier.
Kramer was reportedly questioned by the House Intelligence Committee about his involvement in the dossier affair.
Newsweek reported on an alleged McCain-directed meeting between Kramer and Steele involving the dossier:
Kramer was reportedly directed to meet with Steele in London by McCain, who then received copies of the Trump-Russia dossier and delivered them to the Arizona senator upon returning home. McCain then gave the dossier to the FBI in December 2016.
Briefing to Trump leaked to media, contents of dossier publically disclosed
One issue that could be relevant in Fusion GPS’s admitted decision to turn to McCain is a revelation in the House memo that dossier author Steele was terminated as an FBI source “for what the FBI defines as the most serious of violations – an unauthorized disclosure to the media of his relationship with the FBI in an October 30, 2016 Mother Jones article by David Corn.”
Another issue here is the timing. McCain reportedly delivered the dossier to FBI leadership in December 2016. The memo relates that in early January 2017, prior to Trump’s inauguration, Comey briefed then President-Elect Trump and President Obama on the dossier.
As Breitbart News documented, Comey’s dossier briefing to Trump was subsequently leaked to the news media, setting in motion a flurry of news media attention on the dossier, including the release of the document to the public. The briefing also may have provided the veneer of respectability to a document circulated within the news media but widely considered too unverified to publicize.
On January 10, 2017, CNN was first to report the leaked information that the controversial contents of the dossier were presented during classified briefings on classified documents presented one week earlier to Obama and Trump.
The news network cited “multiple U.S. officials with direct knowledge of the briefings” – in other words, officials leaking information about classified briefings – revealing the dossier contents were included in a two-page synopsis that served as an addendum to a larger report on Russia’s alleged attempts to interfere in the 2016 presidential election.
Prior to CNN’s report leaking the Comey briefing to Trump, which was picked up by news agencies worldwide, the contents of the dossier had been circulating among news media outlets, but the sensational claims were largely considered too risky to publish.
All that changed when the dossier contents were presented to Obama and Trump during the classified briefings. In other words, Comey’s briefings themselves and the subsequent leak to CNN about those briefings by “multiple US officials with direct knowledge,” seem to have given the news media the opening to report on the dossier’s existence as well as allude to some of the document’s unproven claims.
Just after CNN’s January 10 report on Comey’s classified briefings about the dossier, BuzzFeed famously published the dossier’s full unverified contents. When it published the dossier text, BuzzFeed reported that the contents had circulated “for months” and were known to journalists.
The New York Times used CNN’s story on Comey’s briefing to report some contents of the dossier the same day as CNN’s January 10 report on the briefings.
After citing the CNN story, the Times reported:
The memos describe sex videos involving prostitutes with Mr. Trump in a 2013 visit to a Moscow hotel. The videos were supposedly prepared as “kompromat,” or compromising material, with the possible goal of blackmailing Mr. Trump in the future.
The memos also suggest that Russian officials proposed various lucrative deals, essentially as disguised bribes in order to win influence over Mr. Trump.
The memos describe several purported meetings during the 2016 presidential campaign between Trump representatives and Russian officials to discuss matters of mutual interest, including the Russian hacking of the Democratic National Committee and Mrs. Clinton’s campaign chairman, John D. Podesta.
It seems the news media utilized the leak about Comey’s dossier briefings to finally publicize the dossier’s existence and some of its contents even though many news media outlets reportedly possessed some of the dossier information for months.
Yet in his testimony, the FBI’s Comey claimed the opposite was the case. He stated that he and other U.S. officials briefed Obama and Trump about the dossier contents because they wanted to alert the president and president-elect that the news media were about to release the material. It is not the usual job of the U.S. intelligence community to brief top officials about pending news media coverage.
In his prepared remarks before the U.S. Senate Select Committee on Intelligence on June 8, 2017, Comey detailed why he claimed the Intelligence Community briefed Obama and Trump on the “salacious material” – a clear reference to the dossier.
Comey wrote:
The IC leadership thought it important, for a variety of reasons, to alert the incoming President to the existence of this material, even though it was salacious and unverified. Among those reasons were: (1) we knew the media was about to publicly report the material and we believed the IC should not keep knowledge of the material and its imminent release from the President-Elect; and (2) to the extent there was some effort to compromise an incoming President, we could blunt any such effort with a defensive briefing.
No one in their right mind should trust the Government.
The author who wrote Clinton Cash and sparked an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation is preparing to launch his highly anticipated investigative follow-up—a book that appears it will be every bit as explosive as his last.
On Monday, publishing giant Harper Collins released the book cover of Government Accountability Institute President and Breitbart News Senior Editor-at-Large Peter Schweizer’s forthcoming book, Secret Empires: How Our Politicians Hide Corruption and Enrich Their Families and Friends. While little is known about the book’s contents, five images on the book’s cover suggest that Schweizer’s next targets may include Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-KY), former Vice President Joe Biden, former President Barack Obama, former Secretary of State John Kerry, and President Donald Trump’s son-in-law Jared Kushner.
According to the publisher, Secret Empires will expose vast corruption by top Washington figures who leverage their political power to enrich their family members and friends, often by helping grease deals with foreign entities.
The author of four major New York Times bestsellers, Schweizer has garnered praise from conservatives and progressives alike for his reputation as a nonpartisan deep-dive investigative journalist. Newsweek dubbed him “the wonk who slays Washington.” Indeed, among Washington insiders, the launch of a Schweizer book is regarded as somewhat of an event—one that has resulted in ethics probes, the passage of major anti-corruption legislation, members of Congress stepping down, and, in the case of the Clintons, an FBI investigation.
In 2012, 60 Minutes based a feature report on Schweizer’s book Throw Them All Out that exposed congressional insider trading by members of Congress. The 60 Minutes report won the Joan Shorenstein Barone Award for excellence in Washington-based journalism. After Schweizer’s revelations, Congress overwhelmingly passed a bipartisan bill called the STOCK (Stop Trading on Congressional Knowledge) to ban lawmakers from using insider knowledge to make personal stock trades. As left-leaning Slate noted, Schweizer wrote “the book that started the STOCK Act stampede.” One of the main targets of the book, the powerful chairman of the House Financial Services Committee Spencer Bachus (R-AL), announced he would not seek reelection following the book’s revelations.
In 2013, Schweizer released Extortion:How Politicians Extract Your Money, Buy Votes, and Line Their Own Pockets and sparked the resignation of Rep. Rob Andrews (D-NJ). Schweizer revealed that Andrews used $16,575 from his leadership PAC to jet he and his family to a lavish resort in Edinburgh, Scotland. CBS’s 60 Minutes partnered with Schweizer again to report Extortion’s findings. Following Rep. Andrews’s resignation, Schweizer said: “The Government Accountability Institute (GAI) is a nonpartisan investigative research team committed to exposing cronyism and misuse of taxpayer money. For those discouraged by the cronyism corrupting Washington, the Andrews resignation demonstrates that we can hold them accountable. For those in power who are engaging in self-enrichment, we have two words: watch out.”
Then in 2015, Schweizer sent shockwaves through Washington, DC, with the release of Clinton Cash. The book revealed that Hillary Clinton’s State Department, along with eight other agencies, approved the transfer of 20 percent of U.S. uranium and that nine foreign investors in the deal funneled $145 million to the Clinton Foundation. The New York Times ran a 4,000-word front-page story based on the book and confirmed its findings, as did the Washington Post and several others. Hillary Clinton’s campaign kicked into overdrive trying to refute the book’s myriad revelations. Surprisingly, some of Schweizer’s strongest defenders came from the political left. Progressive columnist Eleanor Clift hailed Schweizer “an equal-opportunity investigator, snaring Republicans as well as Democrats.” And Columbia University Earth Institute Director Jeffrey D. Sachs said Clinton Cash was “compelling reading on how Bill and Hillary have mixed personal wealthy, power, and influence peddling.”
A feature-length documentary film based on the book debuted at the Cannes Film Festival and also received wide praise. MSNBC said the film was “devastating” and that it “powerfully connects the dots.”
Later, in November 2016, the New York Times reported that an FBI investigation into the Clinton Foundation “was based mostly on information that had surfaced in news stories and the book Clinton Cash, according to several law enforcement officials briefed on the case.”
Will Secret Empires result in a similar political firestorm? For now, Schweizer isn’t saying.
“My publisher has me under a strict embargo not to reveal any contents from the book,” Schweizer told Breitbart News.
According to HarperCollins, Secret Empiresis slated to hit bookshelves nationwide March 2oth.
Two new studies, one from The Sentencing Project and one from the libertarian Cato Institute, reported that the percentage of immigrants committing crimes is lower than that of United States citizens. However, the underlying methodology used in each was critically flawed.
It is possible that legal immigrants commit crimes at a rate lower than U.S. citizens and that they are incarcerated at a lower rate than U.S. citizens. After all, legal immigrants are well vetted, and if they have criminal records in their countries of origin they are generally ineligible for admission to American.
The same cannot be said for illegal aliens because virtually all adult, illegal aliens commit felonies in order to procure the documents they need to get jobs, to drive and to obtain other benefits that are restricted to U.S. citizens.
The vast majority of illegal aliens use fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers. They possess fake drivers’ licenses, phony “green cards,” fraudulent birth certificates and any other documents that U.S. citizens and legal residents have. In addition, they falsify I-9 forms under penalty of perjury. Thus, the average illegal alien routinely commits multiple felonies –forgery, Social Security fraud, identity theft, and perjury.
This criminal activity is routinely swept under the rug in order to protect the myth of the law abiding illegal alien. However, when pushed, even the strongest supporters of illegal aliens are forced to acknowledge that the vast majority of illegal aliens commit multiple felonies. In fact, the Social Security Administration and New York Times report that approximately 75 percent of illegal aliens have fraudulently obtained Social Security numbers which is a felony. The ACLU accepts this figure and uses it to show that illegal aliens pay payroll taxes.
Furthermore, the Los Angeles Times reports that up to 8 million of 11.1 million (72 percent) illegal aliens commit job-related felonies. La Raza says that illegal aliens contribute $15 billion annually in Social Security payments through payroll taxes [by using illegally obtained Social Security numbers – felony].
Mexican-born American journalist Jorge Ramos admits that many illegal aliens use “fake” documents (a felony).
Even the president of the California State Senate admitted this month that “half” of his family “would be eligible for deportation under [President Trump’s] executive order, because if they got a false Social Security card, if they got a false identification, if they got a false driver’s license prior to us passing AB60, if they got a false green card, and anyone who has family members, you know, who are undocumented knows that almost entirely everybody has secured some sort of false identification (felonies).”
Neither the study from Cato or The Sentencing Project acknowledged these realities. And as a result, they tremendously understated the incidence of illegal alien criminal activity. Even the strongest supporters of illegal aliens acknowledge that 75 percent of illegal aliens routinely commit felonies of the aforementioned variety.
The Cato Institute further limited its study to the incarceration rate for legal immigrants, illegal aliens and U.S. citizens. But it was forced to acknowledge that the numbers of incarcerated illegal aliens are not readily available because “local and state governments do not record whether the prisoner is an illegal immigrant.” Cato was therefore forced to “use common statistical methods to identify illegal immigrant prisoners by excluding incarcerated respondents who have characteristics that they are unlikely to have. In other words, we can identify likely illegal immigrants by looking at prisoners with individual characteristics that are highly correlated with being an illegal immigrant.”
The Cato study consequently excluded felonies routinely committed by the vast majority of adult, illegal aliens as long as they were not incarcerated, resulting in a significant understatement of the overall incidence of crimes committed by illegal aliens.
The study conducted by The Sentencing Project similarly focused on the incidence of crimes committed by foreign born individuals. According to the study, “Major national datasets lack information on respondents’ immigration legal status, and this information has not been systematically collected by law enforcement agencies or state departments of corrections.”
That study’s data was just as questionable as that used in the Cato study. And its conclusion, “A century of research has shown immigrants [including illegal aliens] do not threaten public safety and … are less likely to commit crime than native-born citizens,” was patently false.
Democrats often assert as fact that immigrants are less likely to commit crime than U.S. citizens. That argument is totally wrong, because the vast majority of adult illegal aliens are committing felonies by virtue of being active in America.
The myth of the law abiding illegal alien is just that: a myth.
Bob Mueller is a self-righteous POS that should be investigated.
Special counsel Robert Mueller may have helped cover up connections between a Saudi family and the 9/11 terror attacks, according to Tuesday report from conservative watchdog group Judicial Watch.
Court documents obtained by Judicial Watch show that as FBI director, Mueller was “likely involved” in releasing deceptive agency statements to cover up a connection between a Saudi Arabian family living in Florida and the 9/11 hijackers. The statements were tailored to discredit a 2011 story exposing an FBI investigation into the family, who lived in Sarasota, Fla. The investigation was also withheld from Congress, according to Judicial Watch.
The FBI investigation into the Saudis came when news stories found that they had abruptly left the country two weeks before 9/11, reportedly leaving behind their cars, furniture, clothes, and other personal items.
“Though the recently filed court documents reveal Mueller received a briefing about the Sarasota Saudi investigation, the FBI continued to publicly deny it existed and it appears that the lies were approved by Mueller,” Judicial Watch wrote. “Not surprisingly, he didn’t respond to questions about this new discovery emailed to his office by the news organization that uncovered it.”
Some republicans and supporters of President Donald Trump have been clamoring for him to fire Mueller in recent months as they perceive his credibility to be waning. They cite that more than half of Mueller’s team has worked for former Secretary of State Hillary Clinton or the Clinton Foundation or have a history of donating to Democrats.
Judicial Watch filed a lawsuit in early December demanding that Mueller release hundreds of anti-Trump text messages exchanged by FBI agent Peter Strzok – who was on Mueller’s Russia investigation team – and FBI lawyer Lisa Page throughout 2017. Now, with some of the messages released, it’s become clearthat Strzok may have thought the investigation was a dead end.