Buffalo_Gal

NYT : </snip> Data showing U.S. retail sales increasing by more than expected last month pushed yields a little higher from their lows. The retail numbers suggested fairly robust consumer spending that should help ease worries about a potential U.S. recession. U.S. retail sales rose 0.7% in July. Economists polled by Reuters had forecast retail sales would rise 0.3%. Excluding automobiles, gasoline, building materials and food services, retail sales jumped 1.0% last month after advancing by an unrevised 0.7% in June. </snip>

Shorter: Would someone, anyone, pllllleeeeasssse start a war with us! We aren't sure how much longer we can hold on to power. Iranian President Threatens Attack On Israel If Country Sends Warships To Persian Gulf Iranian President Hassan Rouhani is threatening to attack Israel if it sends warships to the Persian Gulf. In a statement Wednesday, he denounced a U.S. proposal to dispatch an international maritime squad to ensure safety in the Strait of Hormuz. Rouhani said Israel better think about its own safety. He also accused the U.S. and the west of trying to seize the “Muslim world’s” energy resources. The Iranian president went on to claim his country is in charge of security in the Persian Gulf. </snip>

This may be known to all of you, but I missed it: Fortune article: </snip> Vanity Fair also said that the handful of friends who have known Epstein since the early 1980s remember him telling them he was a "bounty hunter," recovering lost or stolen money for the government or wealthy people. He also had a license to carry a gun. He also sat on several commissions including the Council on Foreign Relations, the New York Academy of Sciences, and the Institute of International Education. </snip>

There's an opening in the clown car: John Hickenlooper to drop out of 2020 presidential race, aides say Former Colorado Gov. John Hickenlooper on Thursday will end his 2020 White House bid, two campaign aides tell USA TODAY. Hickenlooper was struggling to meet the donor and polling thresholds set by the Democratic National Committee to qualify for the September debate in Houston and was unlikely to make the stage. </snip>

That is definitely a possibility.

Drain the swamp.

Imagine going to prison for "helping" Michael Avenatti. IRS staffer pleads guilty to giving Avenatti confidential info about Cohen An IRS staffer who authorities say gave former Stormy Daniels lawyer Michael Avenatti financial information about former Trump lawyer Michael Cohen pleaded guilty Wednesday to gaining and distributing that information illegally. John C. Fry had worked as an investigative analyst with the IRS Criminal Investigation Division when he in 2018 downloaded five Suspicious Activity Reports connected to Cohen and his company, according to NBC News. </snip>

Adam Lovinger, the whistleblower at the DOD Office of Net Assessment who had his security clearance revoked for supposedly leaking classified information, was cleared of those charges but was never informed of that outcome. "Whistleblower reprisal" indeed. This is some article. Report cleared Adam Lovinger, withheld from defense team A confidential counterintelligence investigation cleared suspended Pentagon analyst Adam S. Lovinger on allegations of leaking data to the news media, but officials never told his defense team. The Naval Criminal Investigative Service (NCIS) examined Mr. Lovinger’s use of classified computer networks. In a 2018 report, the NCIS said its review “did not reveal any potential CI [counter intelligence] concerns,” according to a copy obtained by The Washington Times. </snip> “This single NCIS document undercuts about 80% of the government’s sham case against him,” Mr. Bigley told The Times. “No wonder DoD withheld it. No leak, and he didn’t have any ‘sensitive' documents on his computer so he couldn’t have been mishandling ‘sensitive’ information on his computer.” </snip> The Lovinger case became a cause celebre for conservatives who believe the Pentagon retaliated against the 12-year employee. He supported President Trump’s policies and went to work for the new White House in 2017. The Office of Net Assessment quickly pulled him back to the Pentagon, where he was suspended and stripped of his security clearance. His pay stopped in April 2018. Mr. Lovinger lost his appeal in a decision this spring following a five-day closed hearing in December before an administrative judge who ruled in favor of the Office of Net Assessment. One of the overriding narratives during Mr. Lovinger’s battle to keep his job was that he had violated rules by leaking derogatory stories about the office to the news media. </snip> Before his suspension, Mr. Lovinger complained internally that the Office of Net Assessment (ONA) was not doing its job by failing to produce reports on future threats known as “net assessments.” Instead, the office was awarding contracts for outside academic-style reports, he said. One paid contractor was Stefan Halper, the Washington national security figure who while at Cambridge University became an FBI informant to spy on Trump campaign associates in 2016. Here is how Mr. Bigley discovered the NCIS verdict: Judicial Watch, a conservative investigative nonprofit run by Tom Fitton, joined the Lovinger team. It filed a lawsuit in U.S. District Court to obtain the Pentagon’s file on Mr. Lovinger. Mr. Fitton hit pay dirt. The Pentagon turned over a number of email threads. Buried in them was a passing reference to the NCIS. Nothing more. Mr. Bigley then filed an open records request. Last month, the NCIS turned over its 2018 report. The attorney said he was stunned. He never knew the probe even existed, but less its findings. He also discovered the Pentagon knew his client was exonerated on the leak issue. </snip>

That letter basically lays everything out that happened with the illegal server, the Chinese hacking, the FBI "disinterest", the attempts to cover-up the classified email on the home-brewed sever, etc. Oh, and Peter Strzok is *****. Read page 100. It's a hoot.

Yeah, unfortunately. Although with the weather this past spring, I do wonder how many soybeans American farmers produced. Hubby has bags and bags that never made it into the ground, and that is just one hobby-schlump; the floods in the Midwest were no joke and really decreased planting, and harvest. @Foxx and I had discussed a thread simply for - what we expect to be - rising food costs due to the horrible spring and lack of productions (several pages back). Neither of us did anything about it though. ? When President Trump declared them a currency manipulator (and some think inflated, some think deflated) that opened up a lot of avenues to what he could do to them. I am assuming there is a long-play in place, but do not know that. And, to complete things, the world's economy is sucking hay. How long can the US stand above everyone else in a "global economy"?

I'm not certain why people need a 15th TV set. It isn't as if Nikes are cheaper being made with sweatshop labor rather than New England union labor. And some of this stuff should be tariffed out the wazoo even if it makes things more expensive simply so the USA has more plants producing (steel, a rare earth plant, etc) for national security reasons. I don't mind the tariffs with China. At all. I'd rather pay more to keep an American job in place than more in taxes for the government to pay people not to work because their jobs got shipped overseas . But hey, to each his own.

That you cannot distinguish "talk politics" from trolling is sad.

Run less? Yes. No one wants to see him get killed. Stop running? No. It is a big part of his game, and keeps defenses on their toes.

330 pages from Judicial Watch today: Ohr and Senior State Official Pushed Impeachment Issue (Washington, DC) Judicial Watch today released 330 pages of Justice Department documents showing Bruce Ohr, who was demoted from his position as U.S. Associate Deputy Attorney General in December 2017, discussing information obtained through his wife Nellie Ohr. This information included anti-Trump dossier materials, including a spreadsheet that tries to link President Trump to dozens of Russians. On December 5, 2016, Bruce Ohr emailed himself an Excel spreadsheet, seemingly from his wife Nellie Ohr, titled “WhosWho19Sept2016.” The spreadsheet purports to show relationship descriptions and “linkages” between Donald Trump, his family and criminal figures, many of whom were Russians. This list of individuals allegedly “linked to Trump” include: a Russian involved in a “gangland killing;” an Uzbek mafia don; a former KGB officer suspected in the murder of Paul Tatum; a Russian who reportedly “buys up banks and pumps them dry”; a Russian money launderer for Sergei Magnitsky; a Turk accused of shipping oil for ISIS; a couple who lent their name to the Trump Institute, promoting its “get-rich-quick schemes”; a man who poured him a drink; and others. </snip>

Well, if the end goal is to make people stop spending, I have more than up for a good 12 people the last two weeks.

Apparently, the law states someone needs to be dead 2 years before a street gets named after them. ?‍♀️

Good golly, the comments! This is bad because the Dems should be able to find a judge to give them the ruling they want. None of this impartiality business! These people are nuts.

Oh boy, another take-my-ball-and-go-home thread. I shoulda known. That is disappointing, to be sure.

You are not blind. Who started it? Maybe asking @Alaska Darin to get it back?

WTF are you talking about? I don't think he gives a ***** if they are pink with little purple dots, he wants to end people cutting across our borders illegally. Period.

How about... get in line instead of cutting in front of paying customers?

See discussion already going on here.

Horowitz's report on Comey is supposed to drop today (according to John Solomon).