=='It's treason': Trump blasts Obama, abuses in discredited collusion probe

Alluding to rapidly accumulating evidence of politicized investigative and prosecutorial abuses throughout the course of the Russia probe, President Trump said, 'We caught them cold.'

Treason.”

That was President Trump’s blunt, some would say jarring, response in an interview Monday when prompted to specify the crime encompassed by the myriad abuses committed in the now-debunked Russia collusion probe set in motion by the Obama administration — a 3-year ordeal that plagued the Trump 2016 campaign, presidential transition, and presidency.

"It's treason,” the president repeated. “Look, when I came out a long time ago, I said they've been spying on our campaign. They've been 'taping,' that was in quotes, meaning a modern-day version of 'taping,' they were spying on my campaign. I told you that a long time ago. It turned out I was right. Let's see what happens to them now.”

(“Just found out that Obama had my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just before the victory,” Trump wrote in a March 4, 2017 tweet that was much-derided at the time.)

The president let fly with his unfiltered broadside against his predecessor toward the end of a wide-ranging, 20-minute interview at the White House, on the West Wing Colonnade outside the Oval Office.

U.S. Attorney John Durham has been tasked by Attorney General William Barr with investigating the origins of the much-hyped, now-discredited narrative that the Trump campaign conspired with Russia to hijack the 2016 presidential election. Part of the focus is expected to center on what actions former Obama administration officials took surrounding the Russia probe during the election and in the presidential transition interval following Trump’s unexpected victory. Those findings are expected to be released sometime this summer.

“I never met Durham because I want to stay out of it because otherwise, it's going to look political, but as you know, Durham is a highly respected person, and Bill Barr is doing a great job as Attorney General,” said the president. “Let's see what they come up with, but they don't have to tell me. All I have to do is read the papers — the 'insurance policy': ‘In case she doesn't win, we have an insurance policy.’ Now we've caught them.”

Alluding to rapidly accumulating evidence of politicized investigative and prosecutorial abuses thoughout the course of the Russia probe, President Trump said, "We caught them cold. [Fired former anti-Trump FBI agent Peter] Strozk and [former anti-Trump FBI lawyer Lisa] Page, the two lovers, [former CIA Director John] Brennan and [former Director of National Intelligece James] Clapper the way they lied."

https://justthenews.com/politics-policy/all-things-trump/its-treason-trump-unloads-obama-probes-political-opposition

Senator Accuses Google Of Posing "Tremendous Threat To Free And Fair Press" As Antitrust Probe Gets Going

As part of an escalating probe into anti-competitive and antitrust practices by Google, Reuters reports that DOJ officials and some state attorneys general are set to meet on Friday to discuss next steps. The federal government and nearly all state attorneys general have opened investigations into allegations that the company which once upon a time said its motto was "don't be evil" has broken antitrust laws.

The federal probe focuses on search bias, advertising and management of Google’s Android operating system, according to the report.

Separately, in a letter sent Sunday to U.S. Attorney General Bill Barr, Tennessee Senator Marsha Blackburn on Tuesday said that Google and parent company, Alphabet, pose a "threat to a free and fair press in America."

Addressing the Attorney General, Blackburn urges him "to thoroughly scrutinize how the company’s anticompetitive practices could lead to the crippling of journalistic freedom. I also ask that your probe examine abuses in both the online advertising and online search markets, and to take enforcement action swiftly before further economic harm results."

The rest of the story is well known to everyone on this site:

Google leverages the power of its ad platform GoogleAds to harm consumers and competitors alike. Last week, Google took actions towards demonetizing two conservative news media organizations based on the sites’ third-party user comments. A NBC article incorrectly reported that The Federalist and ZeroHedge were being banned from the GoogleAds platform for publishing racist articles, and a Google representative claimed that the punishment was for the publication of “derogatory content that promotes hatred, intolerance, violence or discrimination based on race.”1 In reality, the takedown pretext was based on user comments and not on news content. While The Federalist was allowed to remain on GoogleAds after suspending the user comment function, ZeroHedge’s entire site was blocked. Google knows it holds clients’ livelihoods in the palm of its hands, as publishers have no meaningful choice to generate ad revenue. Google has no qualms falsely labeling news publishers as racist as a convenient way to turn off their sites and scare writers from debating controversial ideas

Blackburn praised the DOJ for issuing a proposal last week to “roll back liability shields” for Google and other online platforms under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act. These reforms alone, however, won’t stop “Google’s encroachment on competitors and grip on public discourse," Blackburn warned.

https://www.zerohedge.com/markets/senator-accuses-google-posing-tremendous-threat-free-and-fair-press-antitrust-probe-gets

https://www.blackburn.senate.gov/sites/default/files/2020-06/Blackburn%20to%20DOJ%20Google%20Letter%2006222020.pdf

Pelosi: Senate Republicans Are Trying to Get Away with the ‘Murder of George Floyd’

Tuesday on CBS Radio, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) accused Senate Republicans of trying to get away with not doing serious police reform in the wake of George Floyd’s death.

When host Steve Futterman asked if a compromise could be reached with Republicans in the Senate, Pelosi said, “Well, you be the judge. We’re saying ‘no chokeholds.’ They’re not saying, ‘no chokeholds.’ I mean, there’s a big difference.”

She continued, “What’s the compromise? ‘Some chokeholds’? I don’t see what the compromise is. You know, ‘No racial profiling?’ Maybe ‘some’? So the point, Steve, is the following: They understand that there’s a need to get something done. The press has given them so much play for this bare leaves, unsalvageable piece of legislation, and then say, ‘Well, can’t you compromise with that?’ No, because it is — ‘no.’ And we are, ‘yes.’ It isn’t, ‘maybe.’”

She added, “And so, in other words, for something to happen, they’re going to have to face the realities of police brutality, and the reality of the need for justice in policing, and the recognition that there are many, many good people in law enforcement, but not all, and that we have to address those concerns. So, when they admit that and have some suggestions that are worthy of consideration — but so far, they were trying to get away with murder, actually. The murder of George Floyd.”

https://www.breitbart.com/clips/2020/06/23/pelosi-senate-republicans-are-trying-to-get-away-with-the-murder-of-george-floyd/

Idiot Criminals Announce They Will Tear Down Lincoln Statue in DC on Thursday at 7 p.m.

Idiot criminal vandals have announced their intent to tear down a statue of Abraham Lincoln in Washington, DC, on Thursday at 7 p.m.

The statue was paid for and erected by freed slaves to honor the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation.

“Protesters” and potential vandals gathered by the statue in Capitol Hill’s Lincoln Park on Tuesday evening to discuss the “problematic” art. The statue depicts President Lincoln with a freed slave and is nearly 150 years old. It was unveiled 11 years after the president’s assassination.

On Tuesday, radical D.C. Delegate Eleanor Holmes Norton announced that she intends to introduce legislation to remove the statue.

“Although formerly enslaved Americans paid for this statue to be built in 1876, the design and sculpting process was done without their input, and it shows,” Norton said in a statement earlier in the day.

“This statue has been controversial from the start,” she said. “It is time it was placed in a museum.”

Hopefully police will be prepared and ready for the vandals arrival.

The Gateway Pundit will provide updates on the statue as the situation plays out.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/idiot-criminals-announce-will-tear-lincoln-statue-dc-thursday-7-p-m/

MASSIVE explosions after ‘Israeli jets’ strike army bases in central Syria

Several military bases in central and southern Syria have been targeted by air attacks that Damascus blamed on Israel, Syrian state media have reported. Videos on social media show massive explosions illuminating the night.

Israel targeted several locations in Salamiyah and Saburah just before 1 am on Wednesday, the Syrian army said, adding that its air defenses shot down “a large number” of hostile missiles but that some struck their targets and inflicted “limited material damage.”

Judging by the volume of explosions, one of the targets appears to be an ammunition depot.

Salamiyah is located in the Hama province of central Syria, on the highway leading from Homs towards Raqqa, the former “capital” of Islamic State (IS, formerly ISIS) terrorists now held by US-backed Kurdish militia.

Israel has repeatedly launched air and missile strikes against what it says are Iranian targets in Syria, but Tel Aviv is not in the habit of acknowledging the attacks. The government in Damascus has accused Israeli jets of using civilian aircraft as human shields in order to penetrate Syrian air defenses.

https://www.rt.com/news/492763-syria-strikes-explosions-israel/

Court Transcripts Demonstrate Bankrupt McClatchy Mischaracterized Devin Nunes Twitter Lawsuit Proceedings

Court transcripts show that McClatchy, the now-bankrupt newspaper chain, mischaracterized proceedings in a lawsuit that Rep. Devin Nunes (R-CA) has brought against social media giant Twitter.

The headline and framing of an article from the correspondent for the newspaper who covers Nunes and Congress implies that his lawsuit is running into significant hurdles, but transcripts of the proceedings demonstrate that in reality Nunes’ lawyer is simply seeking court action to compel the social media company to cooperate with discovery efforts.

A June 12 piece from McClatchy’s Kate Irby was headlined: “Devin Nunes’ attorney says he’s at ‘dead end’ in quest to reveal identity of Twitter cow.”

The opening paragraphs of the article make it appear as though Steven Biss—the lawyer for Nunes, who is suing Twitter over various fake accounts created to attack him—is in trouble in the lawsuit in court and not getting anywhere. Irby wrote:

The attorney for Rep. Devin Nunes said on Friday that he is at a ‘dead end’ in attempting to identify anonymous people who criticize the California Republican on Twitter as he asked a Virginia judge to hold the company responsible for social media criticism. Nunes, R-Tulare, filed a lawsuit against Twitter last year alleging he was defamed on Twitter by Republican political strategist Liz Mair and the writers behind anonymous social media accounts that call themselves ‘Devin Nunes’ Cow’ and ‘Devin Nunes’ Mom.’ Nunes’ attorney and lawyers for Twitter were in court on the social media company’s motion to dismiss the case. The San Francisco-based company argues it is protected from lawsuits like Nunes’ under a federal law that says social media companies like Twitter are not liable for what people post on their platforms if they don’t have a hand in creating the content.

Irby does not admit until the very end of her article the context of the “dead end” quote. The reason why he said he is at a “dead end” is because he cannot serve lawsuits upon the creators and operators of the anonymously-run fake accounts attacking Nunes unless Twitter stopped protecting their identities. The ending of her articles contains just some of the context of this:

Biss argued that Twitter must release information about the accounts’ authors in order for the case to go forward, because he doesn’t know the identities of the anonymous authors. Without knowing their identities, he could not serve them with lawsuits, he said.

“We’re trying to figure out who they are, and we read the comments on Twitter, as painful as it is, we do that every day,” Biss said. “But we’re at a dead end.”

But the full transcript of the proceeding, obtained by Breitbart News, shows that while Nunes’ attorney Steven Biss did use the phrase “dead end,” in the very next sentence he was asking the judge to compel Twitter to get around that problem.

https://www.breitbart.com/politics/2020/06/23/court-transcripts-demonstrate-bankrupt-mcclatchy-mischaracterized-devin-nunes-twitter-lawsuit-proceedings/

https://www.scribd.com/document/466722398/Order-Denying-Letter-Motion-6-17-20-1-1#from_embed

https://www.scribd.com/document/466722665/Transcript-Biss-6-12-20#from_embed

The Look on Obama’s Face Says it All – Biden Makes Absolutely No Sense During Virtual Fundraiser, “We’re Talking About a Peaceful Cold War”

This is why Obama told Joe Biden he didn’t have to run for president.

The look on Obama’s face said it all.

Biden made no sense on Tuesday (as usual) during a virtual fundraiser.

“Stop the cold war future that we’re talking about. We’re talking about a peaceful cold war. What are we talking about?” said Biden.

https://www.thegatewaypundit.com/2020/06/look-obamas-face-says-biden-makes-absolutely-no-sense-virtual-fundraiser-talking-peaceful-cold-war-video/

US Cop Involved in Shooting Death of Breonna Taylor Terminated From Police Force

Brett Hankison, one of the police officers involved in the shooting death of Breonna Taylor, has been fired from the Louisville Metro Police Department (LMPD).

According to the termination letter issued by the LMPD, Hankison "displayed an extreme indifference to the value of human life" and "used deadly force by blindly firing 10 rounds into Breonna Taylor's apartment without supporting facts that [his] deadly force was directed at a person against whom posed an immediate threat of danger or serious injury to yourself or others."

Taylor, an 26-year-old Black emergency room technician, was fatally shot on March 13 by three LMPD officers after they executed a no-knock search warrant and entered her apartment in Louisville, Kentucky.

The officers, Jonathan Mattingly, Brett Hankison and Myles Cosgrove, were investigating two men they believed were selling drugs out of a house near Taylor's home. A judge had also provided a warrant allowing the police to search Taylor's residence because police believed that one of the men involved in the drug selling may have used Taylor's apartment to receive packages, the New York Times reported.

No drugs were found in Taylor's apartment.

The officers broke down the door and entered the apartment. Gunfire was exchanged between the officers and Taylor's boyfriend, Kenneth Walker, who thought the plainclothes officers were illegal intruders. The LMPD officers fired more than 20 rounds, striking Taylor eight times. While the police claim they knocked on the apartment door and identified themselves as law enforcement, Walker says he and Taylor, who were in bed when the officers arrived, heard no indication that the people outside their residence were police, only a loud banging at the door before it was broken down, the Times reported.

Following nationwide protests against police brutality in recent weeks following the police killing of Black man George Floyd on May 25, protesters have also called for charges against the police officers involved in Taylor's death.

In a June 19 letter to Hankison, LMPD Interim Chief Robert Schroeder wrote: "I find your conduct a shock to the conscience. I am alarmed and stunned you used deadly force in this fashion."

Walker was charged with attempted murder of a police officer following the incident. However, that charge was dropped last month.

https://sputniknews.com/us/202006231079702021-us-cop-involved-in-shooting-death-of-breonna-taylor-terminated-from-police-force/