May 10, 2018

At the Brain Space Café...

Scan 53

... you can off-load your useless knowledge.

Scan 54

And buy things through the Althouse Portal to Amazon, because Althouse needs new Lamy pens and Moleskine notebooks.

33 comments:

Drago said...

Comey actually colluded with and coordinated his congressional testimony with the "ethical" mueller mob.

It appears that the obama DOJ/FBI was not content to completely surveil and "wiretap" the Trump campaign based on bogus oppo research. They also apparently placed a spy IN the campaign of their domestic political opponents.

I cant wait to see how "Brian Stelter republican" Chuck defends that....

MikeR said...

Reminds me of Sherlock Holmes, A Study in Scarlet: https://boingboing.net/2013/01/14/sherlock.html

Heartless Aztec said...

In a Study in Scarlet (first published around Christmas 1887) Sherlock Holmes says,
“I consider that a man's brain originally is like a little empty attic, and you have to stock it with such furniture as you choose. A fool takes in all the lumber of every sort that he comes across, so that the knowledge which might be useful to him gets crowded out, or at best is jumbled up with a lot of other things, so that he has a difficulty in laying his hands upon it. Now the skillful workman is very careful indeed as to what he takes into his brain-attic. He will have nothing but the tools which may help him in doing his work, but of these he has a large assortment, and all in the most perfect order. It is a mistake to think that that little room has elastic walls and can distend to any extent. Depend upon it there comes a time when for every addition of knowledge you forget something that you knew before. It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones.”

Sebastian said...

"It is of the highest importance, therefore, not to have useless facts elbowing out the useful ones."

If only I had known.

Ann Althouse said...

I'm having some trouble doing comment moderation on the older posts. I know there's some stuff stuck in there, and I'm working to get it out. I have to make the older posts go through moderation because otherwise, some crap would go through that I couldn't monitor. Sorry for the slowness, but the moderation pages has been malfunctioning. We also do moderation through another method, but for boring reasons, I'm having a little trouble with that.

Sebastian said...

What if Carter Page was the FBI/CIA mole in the Trump campaign?

WSJ and Strassel will tell us before long, I suspect.

Birkel said...

Sebastian,
That would tie it all up nicely, right?

William said...

I'm reading a biography of Goya. The Naked Maja wasn't the Duchess of Alba, nor was she Goya's lover. She was instead the mistress of one of his patrons. Kind of disappointing. That story about Catherine the Great wasn't true either.

Drago said...

AA: "We also do moderation through another method...."

Like, with a cloth?

I realize my comment might be considered rather "bracing", but if I were you I wouldn't let it trip me up.

Drago said...

The FBI knew Flynn had not lied, but Mueller and his team of democrat henchmen did what they do.

We also know that Sally Yates as Acting Deputy Attorney General actually greenlit the Flynn investigation on a 200 year old dead letter law.

Astonishing corruption, though you will never convince "Dick Durbin republican" Chuck of that.

Birkel said...

If Carter Page was or is an agent of Leviathan, that really should be enough for Trump to push to end civil service protections and decertify unions.

He could outdo Reagan's performance with the ATCs.

narciso said...

More likely it was Stephan halper the late Ray clines son in law who dangled the emails to papadopoulos

Churchy LaFemme: said...

This is the first thing I thought of.

I miss Gary Larson!

traditionalguy said...

Brains must have a language, my dear Dr Watson. We cannot function in this world without one. Or was that from GBS in Pygmalion? Words allow us to encode a communication, create a memory,and do every learned activity we ever do.

Darrell said...

Carter Page never worked for Trump's campaign. He was invited to sit in on a single foreign policy meeting, to generate ideas for Trump's foreign policy agenda--along with several other people. He was probably paid an honorarium like the others. Page had already been used as an FBI informant--after the FBI had taped him as a couple of Russians made a pitch to him to do a little spying for them, because of his past energy-industry contacts. He later testified against them at their trial--but he was on the FBI books as a potential/suspected foreign agent. The best guess is that the FBI used the presence of Page at a Trump campaign event to help get some FISA warrants. Of course they didn't tell the judge the whole story--and that's the problem with the system. It's honor based. The judges don't have a staff to dig up details and fact-check the application. Later, after several people called the Trump campaign to ask about their self-identified staffer Carter Page, Trump lawyers sent him a cease-and-desist letter advising him NOT to represent himself as working for the Trump campaign.

Birkel said...

Darrell,

Used or created? Big difference.

I am leaning toward created his existence on the cited panel. If they can get a Russian lawyer with Fusion GPS ties into the country for a meeting, I know the capability and the will to exercise that capability both exist.

Darrell said...

When Trump's campaign was looking for people with foreign-policy experience for their brain-storming session, Carter Page's name came up from several sources. They hadn't heard of him. Did the FBI know what Trump's campaign was doing and did they plant his name with some of the people that the Trump campaign would be contacting for recommendations? Who knows. They would have to have been doing some advanced surveillance of Trump already to get that list and approach those people before Trump's call.

Darrell said...

Now the FBI knew full well that Carter Page could not be a Russian spy going forward. The Russians would rather see him get a third eye for getting their people jailed than ever trust him again. Only Valerie Plame gets to be outed twice (once by Aldrich Ames and once by a Swiss diplomat that passed her CV to Cuban officials "accidentally") and still be a covert agent.

Achilles said...

Obama's 150 Billion dollar gift to the Mullahs is being put to good use!

Yancey Ward said...

If there were a spy planted in the Trump Campaign, Carter Page makes the most sense to me as being it- here is why:

He was already an FBI informant in good standing, and would be willing to work with them again for a price. I think where it went wrong is that Page ended up not having any real access to the Trump inner circle- he really wasn't part of the campaign despite clearly wanting to be, and when his handlers realized he was a dry hole in and of himself, they decided to go to plan B- use Page as a front for the most invasive type of FISA warrant- a warrant that allows them to daisy-chain the contacts Page was able to establish to those people with real communications into the Trump Campaign's inner circle. This would be judged to be a better and safer route than simply going for a FISA warrant against a true member of the Trump Campaign's upper management since the revelation of such a warrant, even if accidental, would not entail big blowback as long as the subject of the warrant was in on the game from the start and in no position complain about it to the press or to a court.

This theory fits a lot nagging details- in particular that Page has never been charged with anything at all even though the warrant application itself declares him to more likely be be a foreign agent than not. Indeed, in every public forum I have seen him, he is particularly unconcerned or bothered by the story of the warrant or what the DoJ proclaimed him to be before the FISA court- it has always seemed to me that he has known all along that he was in literally no jeopardy from this investigation- something that not even a self-knowing innocent man could be sure of.

This would explain the DoJ going to the mat to refuse to reveal this- if Page were a plant, then this investigation is over with- Mueller, Rosenstein, and anyone else who knew of this and condoned it actively is going to be fired. It would prove the FISA warrant was a ruse to evade the constitutional rights of the members of the Trump Campaign.

somewhy said...

On that "Be Best" post the tag should be 'Melania' not 'Melanie'. Unimportant now, but I expect FLOTUS will be further attacked on this initiative at some stage.

Regularly, and inevitably.

Ray - SoCal said...

Stefan Halper checks off every single box:
√Currently overseas.
√Current/Former CIA operative.
√Current/Former source for FBI.
√Anti-Trump motive.
√Formerly put together this exact type of operation.
√Connections to UK spies/intel community/politicians.
√Connection to Australian spies/intel community.
√Connection to Alexander Downer.
√Political operative.
√Wanted Clinton to win 2016 election.
√Connects to Carter Page.
√Connects to George Papadopoulos.
√Connects to John Brennan. ETC.

https://theconservativetreehouse.com/2018/05/11/the-insurance-policy-the-ec-the-2016-fbi-counterintel-operation-and-the-mysterious-informant-who-originated-brennans-ec/


Ray - SoCal said...

Page was my first thought, but he lacks the motive at the time of the FISA warrant.

Halper supposedly did dirty deeds for the Bushes...

Ann Althouse said...

"On that "Be Best" post the tag should be 'Melania' not 'Melanie'. Unimportant now, but I expect FLOTUS will be further attacked on this initiative at some stage."

Thanks for telling me. I would never have noticed that.

Ann Althouse said...

I changed the formatting for comment writing (in the hope of causing something else to get better). I probably won't be able to keep it this way. I know it looks a lot better. But the last time I had it like this — years ago — something malfunctioned. I forget what.

Michael K said...

A cardiac surgeon friend of mine named Harold Tsugi used to say, "If you add too much information to your brain, something falls out the other end each time you add something unnecessary." We called this "The Tsugi Tube Theory."

Michael K said...

Good points. I think Kim Strassel will soon reveal the story.

Bad Lieutenant said...

Ann needs a little help here:


Now, I wish I could write you a melody so plain
That could hold you, dear lady, from going insane
That could ease you and cool you and cease the pain
Of your useless and pointless knowledge

Hagar said...

Michael Avennati seems to have access to an awful lot of otherwise confidential information about the financial affairs of some of America's largest firms.

Hagar said...

Not that I would defend the payments to Michael Cohen by these firms, and I think their stockholders may have a case for charging mismanagement, etc., but how did this lawyer from nowhere obtain this information?

wildswan said...

My brain seems to rearrange information periodically. Less recently used facts move out of RAM but they don't go away. They are retrieved and sent by sea mail arriving, mostly, too late to do any good.
But under Trump another category of facts have emerged as I strive to keep informed on his fast-moving actions as President. These are facts-slightly-blurred like pictures of speeding cars or moving water taken with a camera that's too slow. Robert Mueller-James Comey, category: FBI assault on political process, coverup by attempted coup - a crisp clear image. But McCabe, Sally Yates, Peter Strozk - chain of command? quit or lost job? IG investigating? Rod Rosenstein - baddie or wussy? Sessions- turtle or traitor? Korea: Peace is coming (Thank you, Donald Trump) but what next? ISIS, Israel, Iraq, Iran, intifada: there's motion at last (Thank you, Donald Trump) but what next? Europe now acknowledges they hate us and the Jews (Thank you, Donald Trump for that clarity) but still thinks we still owe them everything they can think of, especially we owe them protection by our worthless American military lives. Go to Hell, Europe - but then, after that?

The old order is breaking up (Thank you, Donald Trump) but people don't seem to writing about what comes after (Thank you for nothing, stupid university history departments.) Maybe the coasties, (like Pelosi, Hillary and Cornel West) stuck-in-a-loop as they are, think that "what comes after" will be "going back to what was before." Women and lefties are so stick-in-the-mud when real change comes. The never-Trumpers are useless; they have brains but they want the past back also which they were fully able to analyze, to criticize but were never able to change (unlike Donald Trump). Perhaps it's time for Tennyson:

'Then loudly cried the bold Sir Bedivere:
“Ah! my Lord Arthur, whither shall I go? 35
Where shall I hide my forehead and my eyes?
For now I see the true old times are dead,
...
... now the whole Round Table is dissolv’d
Which was an image of the mighty world,
And I, the last, go forth companionless,
And the days darken round me, and the years,
Among new men, strange faces, other minds.”

And slowly answer’d Arthur from the barge:
“The old order changeth, yielding place to new,
And God fulfils himself in many ways,
Lest one good custom should corrupt the world.'

Bleach Drinkers Curing Coronavirus Together said...

Nice doodle. I like how you got the words to make a picture that could symbolize them.

tim in vermont said...

I think my wife said that to me when, after she told me that the pressure washer was broken, I tried to explain to her what a choke was for. So I just started the motor and figured that she didn't care whether she could solve the the problem herself in the future. Try to teach a woman to fish and she will just ride away on her bicycle.