text:
The video below was posted yesterday at National Review in an article by Andrew McCarthy. It illustrates the timeline (and the linkage) of the exoneration of Hillary Clinton for breaking the laws regarding the handling of classified information and the attack on Donald Trump as colluding with the Russians. The article illustrates that in the minds of the highly-politicized FBI, Hillary needed to be exonerated early in the campaign and Donald Trump needed to be painted as working for the Russians in order to insure a Clinton victory. Hopefully the dishonest actions of those at the top of the FBI and DOJ will be dealt with in the near future.
The Friday-night news dump is a tradition of politicians and Washington types who are forced to release information they don’t want to release and are hoping no one will actually notice it. The latest Friday-night news dump has to do with redactions made on the FBI Russia report that have more to do with protecting the mistakes of the FBI than protecting national security (as claimed by those doing the redacting).
The article cites a number of examples:
When the House first issued its report on the Russia investigation, a heavily redacted portion (pp. 53–54) related that Trump’s original national-security adviser, Michael Flynn, had pled guilty to a false-statements charge based on misleading statements to FBI agents about his December 2016 conversations with Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
…But there was one intriguing disclosure in the redacted report: Flynn pled guilty “even though the [FBI] agents did not detect any deception during Flynn’s interview.” There was no elaboration on this point — no discussion of why Flynn was interrogated by FBI agents in the first place; no insight on deliberations within the FBI and Justice Department about whether Flynn had deceptive intent; no explanation of how he came to be charged months later by Mueller’s prosecutors even though the trained investigators who observed Flynn’s demeanor during the interview did not believe he’d lied.
This is what the unredacted Russian report reveals:
- Elaborate on why the FBI did not believe Flynn had lied, including quotations from Comey’s testimony.
- Reveal that for some period of time during 2016, the FBI conducted a counterintelligence (CI) investigation of Flynn.
- Note that top Obama Justice Department and FBI officials provided the committee with “conflicting testimony” about why the FBI interviewed Flynn as if he were a criminal suspect.
- Illustrate that the FBI and Justice Department originally insisted on concealment of facts helpful to Flynn that are already public.
Meanwhile Flynn’s reputation has been ruined, his finances wrecked, and his life turned upside down. I recently posted an article about the Special Prosecutor‘s dealings with Michael Caputo, a campaign worker for President Trump. He has also had his life ruined and his financial stability destroyed by the Mueller investigation. The Mueller investigation has now reached the point where its goal is intimidating and ruining the lives of people who hold political views different from those on the investigating team. It is long past time for this charade of an investigation to stop.
Please follow the link above to the article at The National Review to see what else the FBI really didn’t want the American public to know.
The National Review posted an article today by Andrew McCarthy on the subject of the questions Robert Mueller would like to ask President Trump. The article is written on the assumption that the list of leaked questions is relatively accurate.
Andrew McCarthy points out that there is no evidence of a crime:
A president should not be subjected to prosecutorial scrutiny over poor judgment, venality, bad taste, or policy disputes. Absent concrete evidence that the president has committed a serious crime, the checks on the president should be Congress and the ballot box — and the civil courts, to the extent that individuals are harmed by abusive executive action. Otherwise, a special-counsel investigation — especially one staffed by the president’s political opponents — is apt to become a thinly veiled political scheme, enabling the losers to relitigate the election and obstruct the president from pursuing the agenda on which he ran.
That is what we are now witnessing.
Pretextual appointment of the special counsel
Robert Mueller was appointed special counsel for two reasons: (1) ostensibly to take over a counterintelligence probe; (2) in reality, as a cave-in to (mostly) Democratic caviling over Trump’s firing of FBI director James Comey — which was lawful but incompetently executed. Democrats contended that Comey’s dismissal, in conjunction with Comey’s leak of Trump’s alleged pressure to drop the FBI’s investigation of Michael Flynn, warranted a criminal-obstruction probe. That is, the pretext of obstruction was added to “Russia-gate,” the already-existing pretext for carping about the purported need for a special counsel.
Neither of these reasons was a valid basis for a special-counsel investigation.
Andrew McCarthy also explains that the whole premise of the investigation is flawed:
As we have repeatedly noted, a counterintelligence investigation is not a criminal investigation. To the extent it has a “subject,” it is a foreign power that threatens the United States, not an American believed to have violated the law. A counterintelligence investigation aims to gather information about America’s adversaries, not build a courtroom prosecution. For these (and other reasons), such investigations are classified and the Justice Department does not assign prosecutors to them, as it does to criminal cases. Counterintelligence is not lawyer work; it is the work of trained intelligence officers and analysts. It is not enough to say that Justice Department regulations do not authorize the appointment of a special counsel for a counterintelligence probe. The point is that counterintelligence is not prosecution and is therefore not a mission for a prosecutor.
Please follow the link above to read the entire article. It is extremely informative. What we have going on right now is a very expensive attempt to prove that the 2016 election victory was stolen from Hillary Clinton. It wasn’t. Get over it. She was a very flawed candidate that somehow committed numerous crimes that the Justice Department chose to ignore. The innate sense of fairness of the American voter and the American voters’ belief in equal justice under the law probably had something to do with Hillary Clinton’s defeat in 2016. The Special Prosecutor needs to stop spending money looking for a crime and deal with the crimes that were actually committed–mishandling of classified material, pay-for-play as illustrated by Uranium One, fixing the Democratic primary, etc.
Representative Adam Schiff released the Democratic memo about FISA surveillance on Saturday (when he assumed no one would be paying attention). The memo is an effort to deflect charges that the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) and the Department of Justice (DOJ) were weaponized for political purposes during and after the 2016 presidential campaign. The memo itself was a purely political move, and the release of the memo on a Saturday night was also a political move. The release of the memo is interesting bercause the memo does not help the Democrats’ case.
Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review explaining that the memo does more damage to the Democrats’ arguments than helps them. Because of his extensive legal background, Andrew McCarthy is the perfect person to dissect this memo.
The article is detailed, and I suggest that you follow the link to read the entire article, but I will try to summarize it.
The article reports:
The memo concedes that the FISA-warrant application relied on allegations by Steele’s anonymous Russian hearsay sources that:
Page met separately while in Russia with Igor Sechin, a close associate of Vladimir Putin and executive chairman of Roseneft, Russia’s state-owned oil company, and Igor Divyekin, a senior Kremlin official. Sechin allegedly discussed the prospect of future U.S.-Russia energy cooperation and “an associated move to lift Ukraine-related western sanctions against Russia.” Divyekin allegedly disclosed to Page that the Kremlin possessed compromising information on Clinton (“kompromat”) and noted the possibility of its being released to Candidate #1’s [i.e., Donald Trump’s] campaign. . . . This closely tracks what other Russian contacts were informing another Trump foreign policy adviser, George Papadopoulos.
1) This was obviously the most critical allegation against Page. The Democrats attempt to make much of Page’s trip to Moscow in July 2016, but the uncorroborated Sechin and Divyekin meetings, which Page credibly denies, are the aspect of the Moscow trip that suggested a nefarious Trump–Russia conspiracy. That’s what the investigation was about. Far from clandestine, the rest of Page’s trip was well publicized and apparently anodyne.
2) Democrats implausibly insist that what “launched” the FBI’s counterintelligence investigation was not Steele’s allegations but intelligence from Australia about George Papadopoulos’s contact with what Democrats elusively describe as “individuals linked to Russia.”
…Even if we assume for argument’s sake that these characters had solid regime connections — rather than that they were boasting to impress the credulous young Papadopoulos — they were patently not in the same league as Sechin, a Putin crony, and Divyekin, a highly placed regime official. And that, manifestly, is how the FBI and the DOJ saw the matter: They sought a FISA warrant on Page, not Papadopoulos. And, as the above-excerpted passage shows, they highlighted the Steele dossier’s sensational allegations about Page and then feebly tried to corroborate those allegations with some Papadopoulos information, not the other way around. (More on that when we get to Schiff’s notion of “corroboration.”)
The article also notes:
…because Page was an American citizen, FISA law required that the FBI and the DOJ show not only that he was acting as an agent of a foreign power (Russia), but also that his “clandestine” activities on behalf of Russia were a likely violation of federal criminal law. (See FISA, Section 1801(b)(2)(A) through (E), Title 50, U.S. Code.) It is the Steele dossier that alleges Page was engaged in arguably criminal activity. The Democrats point to nothing else that does.
Because of the way this whole story has been reported, I am not sure many Americans realize that the constitutional rights of one of their fellow citizens were violated by the FISA Court. All of us need to remember that this could happen to any one of us. We also need to note that if the use of the FBI and DOJ for political purposes is not dealt with and the guilty parties punished, we will see more of this behavior in the future.
The article continues:
How’s this for transparency? The FISA warrant application says that Steele, referred to as “Source #1,” was “approached by” Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, referred to as “an identified U.S. person,” who
indicated to Source #1 that a U.S.-based law firm had hired the identified U.S. Person to conduct research regarding Candidate #1’s [i.e., Trump’s] ties to Russia. (The identified U.S. Person and Source #1 have a longstanding business relationship.) The identified U.S. Person hired Source #1 to conduct this research. The identified U.S. Person never advised Source #1 as to the motivation behind the research into Candidate #1’s ties to Russia. The FBI speculates that the identified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1’s campaign. [Emphasis in Schiff memo, p. 5]
The first thing to notice here is the epistemological contortions by which the DOJ rationalized concealing that the Clinton campaign and the DNC paid for Steele’s reporting. They ooze consciousness of guilt. If you have to go through these kinds of mental gymnastics to avoid disclosing something, it’s because you know that being “transparent” demands disclosing it.
As I stated, it is a very long and detailed article. Please follow the link above to see the other problems with the Schiff memo.
Sometimes it is very easy to overlook the obvious when you in the middle of dealing with an intense situation. The Mueller investigation might be considered an intense situation, and there is something obvious being overlooked. Andrew McCarthy pointed it out in an article at National Review today.
Mr. McCarthy points out that after a year of investigation, there is no evidence of Russian cyberespionage. If there is no evidence of cyberespionage, how can there be collusion with cyberespionage? Remember, the FBI was never allowed to examine the Democratic National Committee (DNC) servers–the examination was done by a group hired by the DNC. If I were guilty of a crime and the FBI wanted to search my house, would they let me hire a friend to do the searching? Somehow I don’t think so.
The article states:
We have paid too much attention to the so-called collusion component of the probe — speculation about Trump-campaign coordination in Russia’s perfidy. There appears to be no proof of that sort of collusion. Because it has been our focus, though, Mueller has gotten a free pass on a defect that would be fatal to any related prosecution theory: He cannot prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia is guilty of hacking the Democratic National Committee and prominent Democrats.
This doesn’t mean it didn’t happen — like the U.S. intelligence agencies, I’m assuming it did, and that Russia should continue to be the subject of intense government counterintelligence efforts. The point is that Mueller can’t prove it in court, which is the only thing for which a prosecutor is needed. If he can’t establish to the required standard of proof that Russia conducted an espionage attack on the election, it is impossible to prove that anyone conspired with Russia to do so. There is no criminal case.
It is important to remember that when Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein appointed a special counsel, he did not specify a crime. That alone should have shut down the investigation immediately–what are you investigating? Are you simply on a fishing expedition hoping you can find someone who is guilty of something?
The article concludes:
That is another good reason to deduce that Mueller’s team is playing a long game — impeachment, not prosecution. As a practical matter, there is no prospect of articles of impeachment unless Democrats win the 2018 midterms. So, if you thought or hoped Mueller’s investigation would be winding down anytime soon, disabuse yourself.
Still, after 18 months of investigating, it would be worth putting two simple questions to Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein, who — at least nominally — supervises Special Counsel Mueller: 1) Does the Justice Department believe, contrary to the apparent concessions in the intelligence agencies’ Russia report, that the government can prove beyond a reasonable doubt that Russia is guilty cyberespionage against the 2016 election; and 2) if not, what is the point of Mueller’s investigation?
The Republican party almost destroyed itself when they tried to impeach President Clinton because the public liked him (and the media was on his side). The Democrats need to learn from that–the public trusts President Trump more than Congress or the media. If the Democrats attempt to impeach him, they will lose seats in 2020 and their presidential candidate will not have a chance.
The article reports:
It was not enough to get a search warrant to ransack the Virginia home of Paul Manafort, even as the former Trump campaign chairman was cooperating with congressional investigators. Mueller’s bad-asses persuaded a judge to give them permission to pick the door lock. That way, they could break into the premises in the wee hours, while Manafort and his wife were in bed sleeping. They proceeded to secure the premises — of a man they are reportedly investigating for tax and financial crimes, not gang murders and Mafia hits — by drawing their guns on the stunned couple, apparently to check their pajamas for weapons.
To say that this was unnecessary is an understatement.
The article continues:
Law enforcement is hard and sometimes dangerous work. Thus, there is leeway for officials to make errors in judgment. Without that leeway, they would be too paralyzed to do their jobs, and there would be no rule of law. But when prosecutors and investigators go way overboard just because they can, it is not law enforcement. It is abuse of law-enforcement power in order to intimidate.
There is no other way to interpret the brass-knuckles treatment of Manafort, a subject in a non-violent-crime investigation who is represented by counsel and was cooperating with Congress at the time Mueller’s Gang of 17 chose to break into his home. Did they really think they couldn’t have gotten the stuff they carted out of Manafort’s residence by calling up his well-regarded lawyers and asking for it? After he had already surrendered 300 pages of documents to investigative committees?
The article concludes:
If there is strong suspicion that Manafort has committed fraud crimes unrelated to the 2016 campaign, then fine, investigate him. But investigate him as you would any other white-collar fraudster who (a) has counsel willing to honor your lawful demands to produce evidence and (b) has, at least ostensibly, been cooperative. Paul Manafort is not Osama bin Laden, so there’s no reason for Bob Mueller to make like the commander of Seal Team Six.
Why is this worth pointing out? Because someday, maybe, we’ll get around to asking: What would have happened if Hillary Clinton’s very real email scandal — with its mountainous evidence of felony mishandling of classified information and destruction of government records — had been investigated with the no-holds-barred vigor Mueller and his band of Hillary donors are applying to the surmise of Trump collusion in Russian espionage?
This investigation has all the makings of a political hit-job. It is really sad that it is being allowed to continue. Where is Congress or the Attorney General? What has happened to our legal system? On one hand we have a presidential candidate with a mountain of evidence showing that she did break the law and no investigation. On the other hand we have a rumor with no evidence that has been investigated for a year without any verification. It seems to me that our resources are being focused in the wrong direction.
Some serious and relevant information has come out in the past few days regarding the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI) handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s private email server and the documents that were not turned over to the people investigating the server. On Friday, I posted an article dealing with the information that the decision to exonerate Hillary Clinton of any wrongdoing was made before the investigation was complete. That is true, but I missed to root of the problem.
The following video was posted at YouTube on Thursday. It further explains what has recently been revealed:
The article at National Review states:
The thing to understand, what has always been the most important thing to understand, is that Jim Comey was out in front, but he was not calling the shots.
On the right, the commentariat is in full-throttle outrage over the revelation that former FBI Director Comey began drafting his statement exonerating Hillary Clinton in April 2016 – more than two months before he delivered the statement at his now famous July 5 press conference.
The news appears in a letter written to new FBI Director Christopher Wray by two senior Senate Judiciary Committee Republicans, Chairman Chuck Grassley and Senator Lindsey Graham. Pundits and the Trump administration are shrieking because this indicates the decision to give the Democrats’ nominee a pass was clearly made long before the investigation was over, and even long before key witnesses, including Clinton herself, were interviewed.
Andrew McCarthy reminds us of one of his previous statements:
On April 10, 2016, President Obama publicly stated that Hillary Clinton had shown “carelessness” in using a private e-mail server to handle classified information, but he insisted that she had not intended to endanger national security (which is not an element of the [criminal statutes relevant to her e-mail scandal]). The president acknowledged that classified information had been transmitted via Secretary Clinton’s server, but he suggested that, in the greater scheme of things, its importance had been vastly overstated.
This is the statement we need to be looking at. This was President Obama telling the FBI to ‘stand down’ on the investigation. It was later revealed that President Obama had communicated with Mrs. Clinton on her private email server. It is quite possible that these communications included classified information. Therefore, if Hillary Clinton was guilty of mishandling classified information, so was President Obama. Therefore, the FBI had to find a way not to charge Mrs. Clinton with a crime (regardless of the fact that she had obviously committed one). The moral of the story is, “If you are going to do something illegal, make sure a very powerful person does it with you.”
Andrew McCarthy concludes:
Bottom line: In April, President Obama and his Justice Department adopted a Hillary Clinton defense strategy of concocting a crime no one was claiming Clinton had committed: to wit, transmitting classified information with an intent to harm the United States. With media-Democrat complex help, they peddled the narrative that she could not be convicted absent this “malicious intent,” in a desperate effort to make the publicly known evidence seem weak. Meanwhile, they quietly hamstrung FBI case investigators in order to frustrate the evidence-gathering process. When damning proof nevertheless mounted, the Obama administration dismissed the whole debacle by rewriting the statute (to impose an imaginary intent standard) and by offering absurd rationalizations for not applying the statute as written.
That plan was in place and already being implemented when Director Comey began drafting the “findings” he would announce months later. But it was not Comey’s plan. It was Obama’s plan.
And that is the reason we will probably never see Mrs. Clinton held accountable for her mishandling of classified information.
You can’t put toothpaste back in the tube, but you can ask questions about how it got out of the tube in the first place. Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today that asks a very obvious, but overlooked in the media, question about what happened to General Flynn.
Andrew McCarthy is a lawyer experienced in dealing the terrorism and other national security matters. In the article at National Review, he asks, “Why Was the FBI Investigating General Flynn?”
The contact between General Flynn and Russian ambassador Kislyak was appropriate–General Flynn was slated to be National Security Advisor under President Trump. He was making contacts in preparation for taking that job. It is also understandable that the conversation would have been recorded–the article states, “We are told that the FBI was monitoring the phone calls of Russian ambassador Kislyak under FISA. Makes sense — he’s an overt foreign agent from a hostile government.”
However, there is more to the story.
The article reports:
Even during a political campaign, most stories have a limited life-span. However, that doesn’t seem to be the case with Hillary Clinton’s emails and private server. Clinton supporters see this as just another unwarranted attack on this innocent person, but unfortunately the facts that are slowly leaking out tell a very different story.
Townhall posted a story tonight stating that the FBI made a side deal with some of the witnesses in the email investigation to destroy their laptop computers. That seems odd to say the least. Usually evidence in an investigation is not destroyed very quickly.
The article at Townhall points out some irregularities in the investigation:
This was just your average FBI investigation, you see, in which the same woman was: (1) a subject of the probe, (2) a key witness in the probe, (3) a dubious immunity recipient, and (4) a lawyer to the primary subject — who was allowed to sit in on her quasi-client’s interview with investigators. And if that wasn’t enough, the FBI reportedly agreed to permanently destroy two pieces of evidence after reviewing them. I’ll defer to law enforcement experts as to whether or not this sort of thing is remotely standard practice, but to a layperson, it seems like yet another peculiarity surrounding this case.
On Saturday, Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review with his comments on the investigation. Please follow the link above to read the entire article–it details some of the technicalities in the investigation that were obviously mishandled.
The article points out:
I will admit that sometimes I just don’t understand why things happen the way they do. When James Comey listed the laws Hillary Clinton broke and then said there was no reason to pursue the case, I was very confused. That made no sense to me. If she broke the law, why was the case dropped? Well, now I know.
Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today that explains why Hillary was not prosecuted and also explains Huma Abedin’s response when shown a copy of an email from President Obama to Hillary Clinton’s private server. I strongly suggest that you follow the link above to read the entire article. It explains a lot.
The article notes:
The FBI had just shown her (Huma Abedin) an old e-mail exchange, over Clinton’s private account, between the then-secretary of state and a second person, whose name Abedin did not recognize. The FBI then did what the FBI is never supposed to do: The agents informed their interviewee (Abedin) of the identity of the second person. It was the president of the United States, Barack Obama, using a pseudonym to conduct communications over a non-secure e-mail system — something anyone with a high-level security clearance, such as Huma Abedin, would instantly realize was a major breach.
Abedin was sufficiently stunned that, for just a moment, the bottomless capacity of Clinton insiders to keep cool in a scandal was overcome. “How is this not classified?”
She recovered quickly enough, though. The FBI records that the next thing Abedin did, after “express[ing] her amazement at the president’s use of a pseudonym,” was to “ask if she could have a copy of the email.”
Why would she want a copy of the email? Because if she were ever charged with anything, she would have proof that President Obama was also guilty. If President Obama knows she has a copy of that email, what are the chances of her being charged with anything? It’s called insurance.
Andrew McCarthy sums up the situation very well:
To summarize, we have a situation in which (a) Obama knowingly communicated with Clinton over a non-government, non-secure e-mail system; (b) Obama and Clinton almost certainly discussed matters that are automatically deemed classified under the president’s own guidelines; and (c) at least one high-ranking government official (Petraeus) has been prosecuted because he failed to maintain the security of highly sensitive intelligence that included policy-related conversations with Obama. From these facts and circumstances, we must deduce that it is possible, if not highly likely, that President Obama himself has been grossly negligent in handling classified information.
A thorough investigation into the email scandal would reveal the fact that President Obama was also negligent–therefore the Obama Administration cannot afford a thorough investigation into the email scandal. That explains the stonewalling of Congressional committees investigating the scandal and why the Justice Department and the State Department have been so uncooperative. This is a serious problem for our republic. When the corruption goes all the way to the top, who is going to hold our leaders accountable? When did we reach the point where the rule of law only applied to the ‘little people’?’
If Hillary Clinton is elected President, we will have the potential of the most corrupt administration in American history. We will, in fact, have become a banana republic–where the rules only apply to some of us. Mrs. Clinton is a danger to both our country and our Constitution.
It’s amazing to me how some politicians ignore the U.S. Constitution until they want to make some sort of attack on their opponents. Then they freely misquote it. We have seen a lot of recent examples of this, but there is one that really bothers me.
The article reports:
Andrew McCarthy posted an article at the National Review today that should cause us all to stop and think for a moment. In America, we hear a lot of things from the media, and as Americans we tend to accept what we have been told. However, some of what we have been told is patently ridiculous.
Mr. McCarthy poses the question, “Supposing that you are a moderate Muslim, is there any insulting thing I could say, no matter how provocative, or any demeaning video I could show you, no matter how lurid, that could convince you to join ISIS?”
After asking the question above, Mr. McCarthy points out that when the American media and American presidents refer to Islam as ‘a religion of peace,’ they are overlooking some very obvious points.
The article at National Review concludes with this comment on the trial of the World Trade Center bombers:
We have forgotten the lessons of history.
I am running out of patience with supposed leaders who lie. It seems that in both local and national politics Americans have lost respect for each other. Our leaders don’t respect us and we don’t respect our leaders. This is understandable, however, when you consider that our leaders have not always been truthful with us.
Yesterday Andrew McCarthy posted an article at PJ Media about recent claims by members of the Obama Administration that Ayatollah Khamenei of Iran had issued a fatwa against Iran having nuclear weapons.
The facts, as reported in the story, are somewhat different:
Indeed, as MEMRI (Middle East Media Research Institute) elaborates, Khamenei was directly asked about the purported fatwa in a 2012 Facebook exchange:
[I]s it also forbidden to obtain nuclear weapons, as per your ruling that their use is prohibited?
He refused to answer the question:
Your question has no jurisprudential aspect. When it has a jurisprudent [sic] position, then it will be possible to answer it.
The notion that Khamenei actually believes nuclear weapons violate Islamic law and would issue a credible fatwa to that effect should be seen as absurd on its face. Put aside that Pakistan, which incorporates sharia in its law, has long had nuclear weapons. For over two decades, al-Qaeda has been trying to acquire nuclear weapons and has enjoyed essential support from the regime in Tehran.
The article concludes:
But even if you were inclined to such self-delusion, the fact is: Khamenei has not forbidden nuclear weapons.
As Breitbart’s Joel Pollak has observed, Kenneth Pollack, a serious national security expert who is particularly influential among Democrats, discussed the purported Khamenei fatwa in his book Unthinkable: Iran, the Bomb, and American Strategy. Pollack notes not only that the fatwa has never been formally issued but also that Iran disregards fatwas when they prove inconvenient to perceived national interests. Thus did the founder of the Iranian jihadist state, Ayatollah Khomeini, ignore his own fatwa against weapons of mass destruction during the long war with Iraq in the 1980s.
It would be lunacy, in a matter crucial to American national security, to rely on a fatwa from the head of a jihadist-terror state even if such a fatwa actually existed. But it doesn’t.
Lied to again.
On Tuesday, Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review Online about the release of Ali Saleh Kahlah al-Marri from an American prison. Al-Marri was in a federal prison after being convicted of terrorism.
The article reports:
Al-Marri is an al-Qaeda operative who was planted as a “sleeper” in the United States by Khalid Sheikh Mohamed to await instructions on carrying out a second wave of attacks after the 9/11 atrocities – against water reservoirs, the New York Stock Exchange, U.S. military academies, and other targets. The Justice Department quietly sprung him on Friday so he could return to his native Qatar, a country the administration regards as a crucial counterterrorism ally . . . and a country that is notorious for providing material support to jihadists.
Al-Marri served six years for plotting terror attacks against Americans. I am sure America soldiers (or American civilians if he crosses our southern border illegally) will meet al-Marri again. Our Justice Department is not protecting us from a convicted terrorist.
The article explains how this all happened:
Prior Justice Department practice required prosecutors to charge the most severe, readily provable offense. And in 1996, to ensure that this practice would result in sentences of death or life imprisonment for terrorists, Congress — with significant encouragement from the Clinton Justice Department (in its pre-Holder days) — overhauled federal counterterrorism law.
…In stark departure from prior Justice Department practice, Holder permitted al-Marri to plead guilty to providing material support for terrorism. The material-support offense is generally reserved for non-terrorist sympathizers who facilitate the jihad but are unlikely to carry out atrocities themselves. It is a significantly less serious charge than the crimes — the acts of war — that Marri had actually committed, such as full-fledged membership in the al-Qaeda conspiracy to kill Americans, as well as conspiracies to use weapons of mass destruction.
Because of Holder’s abandonment of past DOJ practice, al-Marri was looking at a maximum sentence of 15 years. Had the Justice Department filed appropriate charges and taken the case to trial, the 43-year-old al-Marri would have been looking at a life sentence.
At the time of his conviction, al-Marri admitted that he was doing research into cyanide compounds as part of his terrorist training. He also admitted that an almanac recovered in his residence was bookmarked at pages showing dams, waterways, and tunnels in the United States, consistent with al-Qaeda planning for the use of cyanide gases. This man was not simply providing material support for terrorists–he was planning on being one.
The article concludes:
Reading the Obama Justice Department’s signals, Judge Michael M. Mihm sentenced al-Marri to a mere eight years’ imprisonment. I thus predicted that he would be released “in six years or so.” That’s what happened. He’s back in Qatar, with plenty of jihad left in him.
Please follow the link to the article to read the entire story. Now that he is free, this man could do some serious damage to American soldiers and American civilians.
Andrew McCarthy posted an article today at National Review Online about the recent events involving police that have gotten so much publicity. Mr. McCarthy’s theory is that Eric Holder has inserted himself into these events not because they are civil rights issues, but because he can use these events to exert federal power over local law enforcement.
The article reports:
If you don’t understand why, then you probably thought Obamacare was about covering the uninsured. Like its health-care “reform” campaign, the Obama Left’s civil-rights crusade is about control — central control of state law enforcement by Washington.
The deaths of Michael Brown in Missouri and Eric Garner in New York are each tragic in their own way. But in neither is there a federal civil-rights case to be had. To think otherwise, you have to be getting your advice from Al Sharpton — the huckster confidant of President Obama and Attorney General Holder.
So what has happened in Seattle that should have us all concerned?
The article reports:
Seattle is another of the big cities that has been targeted by the DOJ. It has been under a consent decree since the Justice Department targeted it in 2012 for a “pattern or practice” of violations, allegedly including “subjecting individuals to excessive force” — in particular, “using excessive force against persons of color,” and “escalating situations and using excessive force when arresting individuals for minor offenses.”
…Meanwhile, Seattle has been making announcements, too. It seems crime in the Emerald City has been skyrocketing since the Justice Department came in to, er, help. Homicides up 21 percent, car theft up 44 percent, aggravated assaults up 14 percent, and so on.
Welcome to Change: produced and directed by the Obama Justice Department and coming soon to a town near you.
Although I agree with Andrew McCarthy that what is happening in Ferguson and Staten Island is about control, I also think there is another purpose. One of the characteristics of the Obama Administration has been to create division between different groups of people. The ‘war on women’ was an attempt to create division among the sexes, the so-called ‘problem of income inequality’ was to create class warfare, and the focus on the two unfortunate deaths in law-enforcement situations undermines the authority of the police and can also be used to create racial division and tension. Unless Americans wake up and realize that they are being manipulated by a Chicago thug, we are in for a really ugly next two years.
Twisted logic in American foreign policy is nothing new. It has been going on for at least the last half century. However, every now and again it just seems to become even less logical than normal. Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review Online today about America’s alliance with the ‘moderate’ Muslims of Saudi Arabia. Admittedly, the Saudis have been important allies on numerous occasions–they have supported the use of the American dollar as the preferred currency in trading oil, they have been a strong enough member of OPEC to keep America from being totally raked over the coals in the oil price negotiations of that organization, and generally they have supported America when it suited their interests. However, there is another side of the story.
The article explains:
And let’s not kid ourselves: We know there will be more beheadings in the coming weeks, and on into the future. Apostates from Islam, homosexuals, and perceived blasphemers will face brutal persecution and death. Women will be treated as chattel and face institutionalized abuse. Islamic-supremacist ideology, with its incitements to jihad and conquest, with its virulent hostility toward the West, will spew from the mosques onto the streets. We will continue to be confronted by a country-sized breeding ground for anti-American terrorists.
But the confusion is understandable.
Islamic State terrorists have infamously decapitated three of their prisoners in recent weeks. That is five fewer than the Saudi government decapitated in August alone. Indeed, it is three fewer beheadings than were carried out in September by the Free Syrian Army — the “moderate Islamists” that congressional Republicans have now joined Obama Democrats in supporting with arms and training underwritten by American taxpayer dollars.
Are we really sure that we want to continue our support Saudi Arabia? They are the main supporters of Wahabi Islam. Saudi Arabia supports schools in America that use textbooks whose map of the Middle East does not include the country of Israel. One of the things that puts America in the position of almost having to support Saudi Arabia is the current government energy policies. Energy independence would allow America to make decisions in the international realm based on reality–not energy dependence.
The article reminds of the history of Saudi Arabia:
Saudi Arabia is the cradle of Islam: the birthplace of Mohammed, the site of the Hijra by which Islam marks time — the migration from Mecca to Medina under siege by Mohammed and his followers. The Saudi king is formally known as the “Keeper of the Two Holy Mosques” (in Mecca and Medina); he is the guardian host of the Haj pilgrimage that Islam makes mandatory for able-bodied believers. The despotic Saudi kingdom is governed by Islamic law — sharia. No other law is deemed necessary and no contrary law is permissible.
It is thus under the authority of sharia that the Saudis routinely behead prisoners.
I happen to own the edition of the Koran “with English Translation of ‘The Meanings and Commentary,’” published at the “King Fahd Holy Qur-an Printing Complex” — Fahd was Abdullah’s brother and predecessor. As the introductory pages explain, this version is produced under the auspices of the regime’s “Ministry of Hajj and Endowments.” In its sura (or chapter) 47, Allah commands Muslims, “Therefore, when ye meet the Unbelievers (in fight), smite at their necks.”
Andrew McCarthy concludes:
And now Republicans in Congress have joined Democrats to support President Obama’s hare-brained scheme to train 5,000 “moderate” Syrian rebels. As every sentient person knows, a force of that size will have no chance of defeating the Islamic State or al-Qaeda — even if we charitably assume that many in its ranks do not defect to those organizations, as they have been wont to do. The rebels will similarly have no chance against the Iran-backed Assad regime. In sum, our government, nearly $18 trillion in debt, will expend another $500 million to school 5,000 “moderate Islamists” in military tactics that cannot win the war in Syria but could eventually be used in the jihad against the United States. Welcome to Libya . . . the Sequel.
Oh, and did I mention that the training of these “moderate” rebels will take place in “moderate” Saudi Arabia?
American foreign policy has stopped supporting the interests of America.
In case you haven’t noticed, we are still fighting a war on terror. Young girls are being kidnapped, terrorists in the Middle East are killing Christians, and Islamist terrorists seem generally to be running amok. In the midst of this, we are getting ready to try one of the suspects in the attack on the American outpost in Benghazi.
Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review today about the indictment of Ahmed Abu Khatallah, the suspect arrested in connection with the attack in Benghazi. It seems that the indictment the Justice Department has created does not make sense when viewed in the context of who Ahmed Abu Khatallah is and what he did.
The article reports:
In big criminal cases — and there are none bigger than those involving terrorist attacks — indictments tend toward book length, written in a narrative style designed to cut through the legalese and explain what happened. See, if the prosecutor is ethically convinced that there is sufficient evidence to convict an accused terrorist, his duty is to plead the case as expansively as necessary to get that evidence admitted.
In terrorism cases, that has always meant fully describing the nature of the terrorist enterprise. Look at the Justice Department’s jihadist cases from the Nineties (see e.g., here). They explain the history of the international jihadist network; the different terrorist organizations and state sponsors it encompasses; the identity, status, and roles of the players; plus all of the different plots and attacks that knit the network together.
The idea is to frame the case in a way that completely and coherently relates it — making it easier for judges to admit controversial evidence and jurors to grasp the willfulness of the accused. That is why the most critical decision made by the prosecutor drafting a terrorism indictment is Count One — i.e., the first statutory offense alleged.
…It seems, however, that the Khatallah prosecution is following a different strategy.
Khatallah has been identified by the State Department as a “senior leader” of Ansar al-Sharia, one of the al-Qaeda-tied franchises in Libya. Yet there is no mention of Ansar al-Sharia in the indictment, much less of al-Qaeda or the Islamic-supremacist ideology that ties jihadist affiliates together. In fact, the indictment does not even accuse Khatallah of being a terrorist.
…In other words, the Justice Department is not alleging that Khatallah himself was a terrorist. It is saying that there were some elusive “terrorists” hanging around Benghazi, and Khatallah conspired to help the “terrorists” by contributing personnel — mainly, himself — to their machinations, knowing that these just might include preparation for a lethal attack on a U.S. facility.
Oh, and the duration of this conspiracy? It is alleged to have lasted about one day — i.e., from approximately sometime on September 11, 2012, to sometime after midnight September 12.
One day. In fact, maybe it was just a few hours.
…Instead, the indictment is written to portray a sudden, spontaneous eruption of violence, without much planning or warning, in which Khatallah — who knows . . . perhaps inspired by a video — abruptly joined a disgruntled group of protesters that turned out to include some shady terrorists motivated by . . . well, who can really say? All we know is the violence started without warning and, before you could scramble a fighter-jet or fuel up Air Force One for a Vegas campaign junket, it was all over.
There are a lot of downsides to giving enemy-combatant terrorists all the majesty of American due process. But at least it used to mean that, by the end, you’d have the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Now, it’s starting to look like what you get on the Sunday shows.
It’s time for Eric Holder to go back to Chicago.
Yesterday the Weekly Standard reported that President Obama made a trade with the Taliban to allow Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl to return to America. The deal was to return Sgt. Bergdahl in exchange for five members of the Taliban held at Guantanamo. There is a whole lot more to this story than meets the eye.
The Washington Post posted a story yesterday that included the following paragraph:
Top Republicans on the Senate and House armed services committees went so far as to accuse President Obama of having broken the law, which requires the administration to notify Congress before any transfers from Guantanamo are carried out.
In return, thanks to the president’s negotiations with the terrorists, we receive U.S. Army Sergeant Bowe Bergdahl—who, according to several of his fellow soldiers, walked off his post in 2009 before being captured by the Taliban. (For more on this, see Greg Pollowitz’ spost at The Feed.) This was shortly after Sgt. Bergdah lreportedly emailed his parents that “The US army is the biggest joke the world has to laugh at”; that he was “ashamed to even be an American”; and that “The horror that is America is disgusting.”
Sgt. Bergdahl’s father, Robert, was by Mr. Obama’s side during Saturday’s Rose Garden press conference, at which the president announced Sgt. Bergdahl’s return but carefully avoiding mention of the jihadi-windfall the Taliban received in exchange. Mr. Bergdahl is an antiwar activist campaigning for the release of all jihadists detained at Guantanamo Bay. His Twitter account, @bobbergdahl, has apparently now deleted a tweet from four days ago, in which he said, in echoes of Islamic supremacist rhetoric, “@ABalkhi I am still working to free all Guantanamo prisoners. God will repay for the death of every Afghan child, ameen!”
Andrew McCarthy at the National Review describes the Taliban prisoners released:
At the Weekly Standard, Tom Joscelyn profiles the five Taliban commanders Obama has released. They include Mullah Mohammed Fazi, perhaps the Taliban’s senior warrior (its “army chief of staff”) and longtime al Qaeda ally; Mullah Norullah Noori, a senior military commander who fought side-by-side with al Qaeda; Abdul Haq Wasiq, a senior Taliban intelligence official who helped train al Qaeda and fought with it against U.S. forces after 9/11; Khairullah Khairkhwa, a Taliban governor and al Qaeda trainer who brokered an alliance with Iran to collaborate against American-led forces; and Mohammed Nabi, who worked with the Haqqani network and al Qaeda to coordinate attacks against American and Coalition forces.
The title of Andrew McCarthy’s article at the National Review Online is “Obama Replenishes the Taliban … Or ‘How Wars End in the 21st Century’”
Another title would be “How An American President Shows Total Disregard For The Lives Of American Soldiers.” I really don’t want to see the country go through an impeachment trial, but this is an impeachable offense.
This post is based on two articles–one by the Editors at National Review and one by Andrew McCarthy at National Review. The article by the Editors explains why Benghazi matters, and the article by Andrew McCarthy has some good advice for the Benghazi Select Committee.
The article by the Editors sums up the reasons Benghazi matters:
But the question here is not whether the administration’s misleading statements in the wake of the attacks on U.S. installations in Egypt and Libya are a political scandal in the style of President Nixon’s infamous burglary; they aren’t. But that the administration’s misdeeds here seem to fall short of felony burglary hardly makes the matter a less serious one: The White House misled the American public about a critical matter of national interest, and it continues to practice deceit as the facts of the case are sorted out. That, to answer Hillary Clinton’s callous question, is what difference it makes.
Andrew McCarthy has some advice for the committee:
I was a tough prosecutor but a fair one. If I were the special counsel, I’d do my best to let the chips fall where they may even if it ended up showing that I’d been wrong about things. But truly being fair means you never get to that point: You don’t take an assignment that might disserve the assignment; you don’t take an assignment under circumstances where fair-minded people could be persuaded to wonder whether you’re pursuing the truth or pursuing your own agenda.
The facts of Benghazi are damning for the administration. The select committee should choose one of the dozens of excellent, ethical former prosecutors who have not publicly stated conclusive views on Benghazi. That would make the facts sing for themselves rather than create a target for the partisan demagoguery that could drown them out.
Benghazi is important. The goal is to get to the bottom of what happened, why no one came to the aid of the Ambassador, how the video got blamed, and why has it been so hard to obtain government documents relating to the attack. Those are the questions America wants to have answered.
Andrew McCarthy posted an article at National Review Online today about the conviction of Sulaiman Abu Ghaith, Osama bin Laden’s confidant, spokesman and son-in-law, of a terrorist conspiracy to kill Americans and providing material support to al Qaeda. It is good news that Abu Ghaith was convicted, but civilian trials for terrorists are not appropriate.
The article explains:
The principal problems are that (a) civilian due process requires revealing mounds of intelligence we have about the enemy, which is foolish to do while the war ensues and the enemy’s anti-American operations can still benefit; (b) it is perverse to reward enemy combatants with gold-plated due process once they succeed in mass-murdering Americans when other enemy combatants, who have plotted but not succeeded, are killed by military force with no due process; (c) military commissions are the proper vehicle for dealing with enemy combatants in wartime and they have been authorized by Congress—so enemy combatant terrorists, who defy international human rights norms by targeting civilians, should not be treated as if they were mere criminal defendants; and (d) the strong incentive prosecutors and courts have to withhold some discovery and procedural protections from enemy combatant terrorists—information and protections defendants would get in a normal criminal trial—can set precedents that apply to non-terrorists in ordinary cases, thus diminishing the quality of justice for Americans accused of crimes (i.e., the people for whom due process is actually intended).
Abu Ghaith used the same defense as the Blink Sheikh used when he was tried for the first bombing of the World Trade Center–that the jury should understand that his threats and incitements in al Qaeda’s cause were not as co-conspirator statements but as the preachments of a theologian performing the traditional role of an imam. The fact that threats of violence and violence are considered a routine part of an Islamic leader’s role should tell us that Islam is not a religion of peace. Keep in mind that Mohammad divided the earth into two spheres–Dar al-Islam–the land of peace and Dar al-harb–the land of war. Only those lands which are part of the world-wide caliphate under Sharia Law are considered part of Dar al-Islam. The goal is to use all means necessary to bring the entire world into that sphere. That is what we are up against.
This is an article about ObamaCare. It is based on two articles–one theoretical and one practical. The theoretical article was posted today at National Review. It was written by Andrew McCarthy. The practical article was posted at Power Line on Thursday. It was written by Paul Mirengoff and illustrates how Andrew McCarthy’s theory looks in the real world.
Andrew McCarthy describes ObamaCare as follows:
It is a Fabian plan to move an unwilling nation, rooted in free enterprise, into Washington-controlled, fully socialized medicine. As its tentacles spread over time, the scheme (a) pushes all Americans into government markets (a metastasizing blend of Medicare, Medicaid, and “exchanges” run by state and federal agencies); (b) dictates the content of the “private” insurance product; (c) sets the price; (d) micromanages the patient access, business practices, and fees of doctors; and (e) rations medical care. Concurrently, the scheme purposely sows a financing crisis into the system, designed to explode after Leviathan has so enveloped health care, and so decimated the private medical sector, that a British- or Canadian-style “free” system — formerly unthinkable for the United States — becomes the inexorable solution.
Andrew McCarthy reminds us of President Obama’s statement to a 2007 SEIU health-care forum. The President stated, “There’s going to be potentially some transition process. I can envision a decade out or 15 years or 20 years out.” The transition he is referring to is the transition out of employee-based health into a government one-payer system. It was assumed that the individual healthcare insurance market could be phased out much more quickly. We are seeing that already in the number of individual health insurance policies that are being cancelled every day due to ObamaCare. This brings me to the article showing how ObamaCare works in practical terms.
Paul Mirengoff reports:
Covered California, that state’s insurance exchange, has rejected President Obama’s request that people be allowed to remain in non-compliant health insurance plans for another year. This decision is highly significant because California has experienced by far the most insurance policy cancellations of any state, reportedly around 900,000 of them.
Eliana Johnson points out that a number of Blue States — New York, Minnesota, Washington, and Rhode Island — have previously said no to Obama’s fix. So far, less liberal states — e.g., Florida, Tennesse, Alabama, and South Carolina — seem more receptive to the president.
The irony is only superficial. Blue State leaders are saying no because, as liberals, they dislike private plans and, more importantly, want to offer no escape from Obamacare for the young and the healthy whose participation in exchanges is needed to subsidize the middle-aged and the sick.
President Obama’s healthcare fix is political theater. It provides cover for him and (in his mind) for other Democrats. ObamaCare has cost the Democrat party dearly in the polls, and there is an election next year. There is one school of thought that says that because President Obama is in his second term he is more interested in changing America than being popular, but there is a problem with that. President Obama needs a cooperative Congress to keep ObamaCare in place. If the American people decide to vote out of office those politicians who supported ObamaCare, it is very possible that the next Congress could throw the entire program out and start over (we can only hope). So there is a fine line to be walked between changing ObamaCare enough to make it palatable to the American public without sacrificing the goal of eventual reaching a single-payer system and winning the next election. Get out the popcorn–this is going to be fun to watch!
Unfortunately, the bloodshed in Egypt is just beginning. The Muslim Brotherhood will not go quietly–that is not their style. The thing to remember is that the Muslim Brotherhood had set up camps to protest the ouster of President Morsi. We need to consider what was happening in these protest camps. Terrorists were being trained, suicide missions were glorified, and preparations were being made for the propaganda war after the camps were broken up. That is the Muslim Brotherhood way.
The article states:
When not similarly ignored, Islamic supremacist aggression against Egypt’s Christians — which was a prominent feature of Muslim Brotherhood governance — is disingenuously reported. Take this AFP report of the fact that the Brotherhood and its allies are torching Coptic churches. The AFP endeavors to exculpate the Islamic supremacists by editorializing, in the report, that these were “reprisal” attacks. But the Brotherhood was not ousted by the minority Copts. To be sure, the Copts far prefer to take their chances with a largely secular, technocratic government backed by the armed forces than the rampant persecution they endured while the Brotherhood was running the show. But it is the army, not the Copts, who ejected Morsi. AFP tries to obscure this by recounting that “the Coptic church backed Morsi’s removal, with Patriarch [i.e., Pope] Tawadros II appearing alongside army chief General Fattah al-Sisi as he announced the military coup.” As I observed in writing about the coup in the August 5 edition of National Review, however, Pope Tawadros was hardly alone — General Sisi also gathered by his side significant Islamic supremacist leaders: Grand Mufti Ahmed al-Tayeb of al-Azhar University and leaders of the Salafist al-Nour party (in addition to prominent secularists).
Men, women, and children are dying in Egypt as I write this. Some are innocent Coptic Christians, but many are Muslims being used as human shields in the ongoing propaganda war. It is truly unfortunate that lives are being lost in this struggle, but we need to understand that this struggle will eventually come to us. The goal of the Muslim Brotherhood is a world-wide caliphate. The Brotherhood plans to include America in that caliphate. There are many Muslims high in our government working toward that end. If you doubt that, watch the final episode of “The Muslim Brotherhood in America.” This 10-part series details the strategy of the Muslim Brotherhood to bring Sharia Law to America. The series is documented and provides proof of the claims it makes.
The military in Egypt is attempting to bring a democratic government to Egypt. I don’t think they had a choice but to close down the pro-Morsi camps. The people of Egypt are partially to blame for what is happening–they elected Morsi and they elected a parliament that wrote a constitution that would eventually turn Egypt into an Islamic state similar to Iran. Unfortunately (or fortunately, depending on your point of view), the Egyptians began to realize that President Morsi was undoing what they had hoped would be a democracy. Egypt is a mess and will continue to be a mess until the Muslim Brotherhood is convinced that they have to go back underground. The lesson that needs to be learned here is that Sharia Law and democracy are incompatible. Sharia Law is also incompatible to our representative republic. We need to remember that.
I have always been bothered by the legal concept of ‘hate crime’ for two reasons. First of all, if you are dead, does it really matter if the person who killed you hated you? Second of all, I really don’t believe that a jury can correctly judge the motives of a criminal 100 percent of the time. Charge the criminal with the crime he committed, and let God judge the motive.
This brings me to the trial of Nidal Hasan, charged with the ‘workplace violence’ killing of thirteen people and wounding of more than thirty others. Major Hasan is acting as his own lawyer in the trial.
One of the things Andrew McCarthy (who led the prosecution against Sheik Omar Abdel Rahman, the Blind Sheik who planned the first attack on the World Trade Center) has said repeatedly is that during the prosecution of the Blind Sheik the prosecution team studied the Koran to see if the Blind Sheik was an extremist or if he was actually (as he claimed) simply following the Koran. To their dismay, they found ample justification for the killing of infidels in the Koran. Mr. McCarthy pointed out that the key to the prosecution was defining the purpose of the attack. The rest of the government prosecutors evidently have not learned that lesson.
Fox News posted an article yesterday describing the first day of the trial:
After a short opening statement in which ex-Army Maj. Nidal Hasan called himself a “mujahedeen,” admitted to the rampage and said “the dead bodies will show that war is an ugly thing,” Hasan cross-examined prosecution witnesses, including retired Lt. Col Ben Kirk Phillips, his former boss. When pressed by the defendant, Phillips acknowledged that his officer evaluation report had graded Hasan as “outstanding.”
But he declined to cross-examine one of his shooting victims, Sgt. Alonzo Lunsford, who provided the day’s most damning testimony.
Lunsford – who was shot seven times during the incident – described what happened that day, saying he first saw Hasan sitting in a chair, with his arms on his knees while looking at the floor.
He said Hasan then jumped up and ordered the one civilian in the room to leave before shouting, “Allahu akbar” and opening fire. Panic set in among the soldiers, who crowded toward a rear door, which was jammed.
The trial has taken a rather bizarre turn today as Major Hasan’s court-appointed lawyers have asked to be taken off the case.
10 News in Tampa reports:
In a motion filed late Tuesday, Poppe (lead defense attorney Lt. Col. Kris Poppe) and his team said they feel Hasan is trying to purposely get the death penalty and asked the judge, Col. Tara Osborn, to not force them to be part of that effort. Poppe, addressing Osborn on Wednesday, said it became clear that Hasan is seeking the death penalty for himself after hearing the accused opening statement and cross examination of witnesses.
“Assisting him in achieving the goal of moving closer to the death penalty is something a defense trial attorney should not be forced to do,” Poppe said.
But Hasan objected to the defense team’s assertions.
The government is calling the Fort Hoot shootings workplace violence. When lawyers for the wounded soldiers have challenged that ruling, the government has said that calling it terrorism would jeopardize the legal case against Major Hasan. There is another aspect to this, however. If the Fort Hood shooting is a terrorist attack, those wounded soldiers are entitled to Purple Hearts and the benefits that come with being wounded in an attack. Right now, the injured are being denied those benefits.
As witnesses to the attack testify that Major Hasan was yelling “Allahu akbar” during the attack, the idea that this was workplace violence becomes ludicrous. It’s time that the government prosecutors admitted what happened at Fort Hood so that our wounded soldiers could receive the benefits and medals they are entitled to.
The article reports:
Andrew McCarthy then goes on to explain that after Hosni Mubarak was ousted Haze El-Beblawy was deputy finance minister and, later, finance minister, under the government led by the Supreme Council of the Armed Forces.
The goal of the military currently in charge of Egypt is to establish a stable, functioning government that writes a constitution that will insure rights for all religious groups and then move to elections. Because the elections were rushed after Mubarak was removed, the only really organized political party was the Muslim Brotherhood. They wrote the constitution, ran a candidate for president (after promising that they would not do that), and took over the country. The idea this time is to move more slowly, allow other political parties to get organized (which should be interesting, since the Brotherhood removed a lot of the opposition leadership), and have an election after the rights of minorities have been guaranteed by the new constitution.
So what are the chances?
Andrew McCarthy comments:
There is a good chance that it won’t work. After all, this is Egypt and, given the opportunity, Egyptians have repeatedly shown that they will vote by lopsided margins for anti-democratic Islamic supremacists over pro-Western democrats and progressives. As Mark trenchantly observed yesterday, “Egypt is imprisoned less by its passing dictators than by its own psychoses.” Nevertheless, what’s done is done, and the present course is the best chance some semblance of democracy has to take root. We should be cautiously encouraging it.
…So now, as the mosques stoke opposition to the transition government against a background of shooting on the streets and an economy in ruins, there will also be a vivid sense that the leaders elected by the people have been shoved aside in favor of politicians decisively rejected by the people. This is going to be very uphill.
Democracy only happens with well-informed, rational voters. If the culture is not leaning in the direction of freedom (or if freedom is being denounced from the pulpits of the mosques), the chances of establishing a democracy are reduced drastically. Until the voters in Egypt can get past the idea that voting for their own freedom is a betrayal of their religious beliefs, there will be no freedom in Egypt.
Watching the unfolding of the “Arab Spring” gives me a whole new appreciation of the gift to America that the Founding Fathers were. The wisdom and selflessness of America’s Founding Fathers is the only reason America has lasted as long as it has.

domain: law


text:
I joined the academic team at Edge Hill University in January 2020 as programme Leader for the MSc Children and Adolescent Mental Health (CAMH) and Well-Being. I am currently involved in developing and delivering programmes of teaching and learning specific to children and Young People’s Mental Health and Systemic Practice across disciplines. A registered nurse of over 25 years, my practice background began in community mental health nursing prior to entering Higher Education in 2004.
I began a Professional Doctorate in Systemic Practice at the University of Bedfordshire in September 2016. My practice research focuses on ‘the family’s experience of psychosis’ within early intervention psychosis services.
My research interests include mental health, children and young peoples health and well-being, systemic psychotherapy practice and systems leadership.

domain: psychology


text:
Surreal. Otherworldly. Seductive. Haunting. These are a few words that come to mind when looking at the work of artist Marcus Schaefer. We at Darklight Art have long been obsessed with his work, so we were thrilled to catch up with him last month ahead of his exhibiting at Kunst Rai Amsterdam and Photo Basel 2021.
How would you personally describe your aesthetic?
The driving force in my artistic approach is a pressuring impulse to capture my most current state of mind. I think of photography as the perfect tool to create my very own interpretation of reality – for me personally, a reality that is about beauty, art and aesthetics and not necessarily technical perfection.
I am not interested at all in shooting the exact likeness of someone or something, I want to create my very own interpretation of what‘s in front of my camera. I long to arrest all beauty and the non-obvious or at least make the obvious not look obvious. Something between the lines, that you most likely catch when you are not trying to catch it. I love taking the audience on a journey through my mind & visual world; creating imagery that canalizes the energy of my dreams and ideas. Escaping from ordinary photography and the banality in images we are ever exposed to every day on social media and rather produce photographs that actually don‘t even look like photographs.
I am always aiming for something more unique, using long exposure and unconventional lighting as well as playing with proportions, dimensions and perspectives to capture an un-ordinary shot with a timeless momentum.
I like to think of myself as a modern surrealist continuing a tradition that started over 100 years ago
There is a strong emotional dialogue in your work; like you have captured your state of mind and distilled it into a photograph. It’s very visceral. When do you feel most inspired to create? Does inspiration derive more from positive or negative emotion?
I have always been inspired by André Breton’s “First Manifesto of Surrealism” which outlines the importance of psychic automatism or the free association of thought to explore the power of the unconscious mind. That thought process is very much in line with my artistic approach as described above, and does inevitably put me in the same boat with the surrealist artists of that time. Therefore I like to think of myself as a modern surrealist continuing a tradition that started over 100 years ago – one that hasn‘t really been translated into the world of contemporary photography to an extent that I personally believe it deserves to.
I feel constantly inspired to create just by being alive and having subconscious thoughts & ideas. It can be both negative and positive emotions – for me personally the more “melancholic” ones – it’s all about expressing yourself and which medium I choose doesn‘t matter anymore. Photography, drawing, creating sculptures, still life & objects – it all becomes one aesthetic world after-all. I consider this to be an individual process of creating a new picture language by including elements of the past and present and then re-assembling the mix into my very own contemporary version. Very similar to how spoken languages have been and are evolving all over the world in different countries, regions and cities. There is no stagnancy, it‘s an ongoing process and it‘s about constantly improving that picture language and trying to be more and more on point.
Do you find that photography helps your mental health? What impact did lockdown have on you and your photography?
Yes, photography does help my mental health – since I use various mediums to express myself I would even go further and say it‘s the process of creation in general. Being a freelance photographer can sometimes come with a lot of downtime in-between jobs and also an accumulation of creative energy and ideas urging to be released.
Lockdown slowed down the industry immensely, and there was even more downtime then. I embraced it though – it was a nice time to stop and enjoy just being for a minute – get out of the rat race, slow down and recalibrate my artistic path. I spent most of the lockdown in my atelier in the country side of south Germany.
Tell me about your drawings. What came first, drawing or photography? How does one influence the other?
Roughly three years ago I started using above described downtime and abundance of creative energy to work on charcoal drawings, which then quickly became an additional medium to deal with that creative traffic jam.
Especially during the first lockdown in 2020 I invested a lot of time into charcoal drawings and more and more they became my visual compass. I now consider them to be an essential umbilical cord that connects those two worlds for me. Drawings help me to understand and guide my photographic path and my photographs become a hybrid form of drawing.
I like the idea of an instant creative outpour, capturing my most current emotional state. It makes every single drawing unique & authentic in its purest form. Both my drawings and photographs depict an emotional communication with the audience – the individual perception is never really identical and is seemingly the reason that art glistens and speaks to different people.
[Pictured below: Frauen als Männer, 2021 | 100 x 140 cm | Charcoal on uncoated cartridge paper roll (200gsm) & Untitled portrait, 2020 |130 x 140 cm | Charcoal on uncoated cartridge paper roll (200gsm)]
In your interview with Ignant last year, you said “It [the work] can have a dark, absorbing element to it—something between life and afterlife.” Can you explain what you meant?
My photographic work often times comes into existence using long exposure techniques and therefore results in either slightly blurry imagery or/and multiple exposures of what sits before my camera. It‘s like layering multiple photographs and somehow visually feels like jumping in time, space and dimensions.
When I mentioned that – “my work can have a dark, absorbing element to it – something between life and afterlife” – I was referring to the practice of spirit photography, which was a kind of photography that started in the 1860s and is based on double exposure or other ways of doctoring and manipulating negatives. Therefore images seem phantasmatic or in other words as film scholar Tom Gunning described it – …these images waver between visibility and invisibility, presence and absence, materiality and immateriality… That described spectral nature of photography is what can appear to be the trapping of various dimensions in the past, preset or future. In my opinion truly an interpretation of the “real” without thinking too much in chronological order about time & space.
Tell us about your fascination with the human eye.
The humam eye is intriguing in diverse ways and has a mesmerising mystic & beauty. I personally consider the eye as a significant ambassador of emotional ongoings and a looking glass into your soul. Often that looking glass is blurred and it‘s hard to tell exactly what’s going on, but that’s the beauty of it. The way I capture the human eye is merely my interpretation of this hidden world of complex emotions & thoughts interwoven with deep subconscious processes – everyone’s got their own interpretation.
SOMETHING BETWEEN LIFE AND AFTERLIFE
There’s a theatricality to the work: an “interplay between fiction and reality.” It feels uncontrolled, maybe uncontrollable[!] and painterly at times. What or who has had the greatest impact on your style?
As mentioned previously, I celebrate the heritage of surrealism in my work, translated into modern times, and therefore the surrealist movement is definitely one big influence. However, what caught my attention even more significantly are the very early techniques of photography. Pictorialism as a movement started to really thrive from the end of the 19th century with photographers such as Anne Brigman and Robert Demachy and even earlier forms of it with photographers like Julia Margaret Cameron beginning-mid 19th century.
The pictorialists did everything to elevate the medium of photography into the realm of art. That‘s exactly what I am in it for. I really fell in love with the painterly techniques from back then – blurring outlines and modulating tones as if by smoke allowing one form to merge into another. Often back then, the out-of-focus pictures were a mistake – however truly unique masterpieces. I believe it’s the unplanned, accidental outcomes that make a picture really special and that’s what those images have for me.
I love unique imagery and I believe errors in photography are a guarantee of exactly that. It wasn‘t until I started drawing that I really understood this. There is no “cmd+z” when drawing – it‘s irreversible and that‘s the beauty of it! Experimenting, exploring and letting go of control will get you the most interesting, unexpected results – especially errors! That‘s what I have learned from drawing and am applying to my photographic practice.
What does the colour black mean to you?
For me, black is an aesthetically pleasing feeling – when it comes to my work the interplay between black and white plays a leading role and opens up entire new avenues of escapism and expression. It‘s like entering an upside-down realm that is much more sensitive, abstract and intimate than the world of colour. Especially the non-colour black helps composing and steering otherworldly vibes in a non-colour realm.
In my eyes, black is the embodiment of dichotomy: on one hand it‘s very dominant; strong and intimidating, on the other hand it’s sort of vulnerable, melancholic and sensitive. Black is multidimensional, seems endless and makes me think of the dark, infinite universe; black holes, gravity and the beginning of life. It‘s mesmerising and makes me reflect about myself like staring into a mirror. Black is absorbing and seems to come across as very depressing, frustrating and dead, but it’s actually extremely sexy, vibrant and uplifting. That‘s really what I love about it and therefore the element of black is fundamental in all my creative endeavours. It’s a central component to my visual language.
Final question, one we ask all artists we interview. Dark or light?
A mix of the two. Light dark – as in melancholic, vulnerable and fragile.

domain: artistic


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Types of Online Casino Games
There are numerous different kinds of Online Casino Games. Some of them excel in particular areas, like game variety, bonuses, or loyalty programs. You should decide what is most important to you and play at an online casino that offers these features. Here are some examples of online casino games. A classic casino game is the slot machine. Slot machines have simple rules and visuals, but are easy to learn and love. You can play slots for free or for real money.
A live dealer game has a more interactive look and feel, but online casinos have thousands of virtual casino games to choose from. The best way to pick an online casino is to look at their games. Most of them are virtual, so their costs are low. Nonetheless, there are a few exceptions to the rule. There are online casinos that only offer a handful of live dealer games, and there isn’t much difference. For instance, there are plenty of online casinos that don’t even make any of their own games.
Another type of online casino game is called a skill-based game. It involves a combination of luck and skill. It involves a certain strategy that allows you to beat the house and win money. Most skill games are modeled after popular computer software, smartphone applications, or arcade games. Players raise their reward from the wager as they progress through the game, achieving new levels and overcoming barriers. Playing skill-based online casino games is highly entertaining and requires the player to master important skills.
Slot games are also very popular in online casinos. These games are easy to play and offer attractive odds. Despite the fact that they are more difficult to understand than their physical counterparts, the rules are usually simple and easy to follow. Slot machines are also popular because they provide a way to interact with your opponent. In addition, many online casinos offer mobile apps, which are safe and secure. Therefore, you can enjoy playing these games while traveling.
There are also several variations of these games that can be played online. Some of them are European in origin while others are American. Roulette and blackjack were introduced in New Orleans and spread throughout the country. Today, these are some of the most popular Online Casino Games in the US. Another type of Online Casino Games is poker. Video poker takes elements of traditional casino poker and adds elements of classic poker. Most video poker games are based on the five-card draw.
The house edge varies depending on the game, with video poker games having a low house edge, while slots have a high house edge. Each game has a maximum wager, but in some cases, the pit boss or dealer can lift it. Ultimately, playing online is cheaper, has more variety, and a better chance of winning. However, the charm of a live casino can’t be duplicated by a computer.

domain: game


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Tuesday, January 18, 2011
For the past five Years American Friends Service Committee staffers and volunteers have worked with the Georgia Peace and Justice Coalition and other groups to build a strong social justice contingent to the annual King day Parade.
This year we decided to congregate at the same corner, but to try something new. We wanted to step out from our usual position in the social justice contingent, which has always been the caboose of the parade. Instead we wanted focus our message on defending the public education system in Georgia, which is in severe crisis. So we teamed up with several members of Georgia Students for Public Higher Education(GSPHE), and Student Career Alternatives Program(SCAP) to create a small but lively block in the Parade. Though small, I would say we got as much attention as any other block. Our crew consisted of elementary, high school, and college students, along with a few others.
We basically just wedged ourselves into the parade right behind Martin Luther King Jr. High School. The GSPHE folks had a pretty rad banner that said, "Tuition is To Damn High". They got got tons of, "hell yeah's", "Amen's", "Damn straight's", and general nods of approval. We also had two very enthusiastic elementary school students who passed out hundreds of AFSC's, "One Minute For Peace" fold outs, which highlight the federal economic crisis of priorities.
Our message was clear, that public education is under attack, and that we're all obligated to protect that which most believe is a basic human right. Children are perhaps our most precious natural resource, they represent our hopes and dreams, they are literally our future. Can we afford to defund their education. There have been legitimate solutions to Georgia budget issues that have not included radical education budget cuts, like a cigarette tax and a tax increase on folks that make over $400,000. It seems these have been cast aside in favor of defunding our future. The real crisis is in our law makers priorities and policy.
Photos by Al Viola and Edric Figueroa
American Friends Service Committee

domain: sociology


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Police dilemma over order to probe DIG Mbugua, others in fraud claims
By Peace Loise Mbae and Cyrus Ombati
| October 18th 2019
An investigation into an alleged plot to grab property worth Sh700 million from a businessman has placed the police in an awkward position. The probe has sucked in a top police officer.
Dillip Bakrania, 70, claims a close relative used top State officers in an attempt to have him deported so as to take over the family property, prompting Interior Cabinet Secretary Fred Matiang’i, Inspector General of Police Hilary Mutyambai and Director of Public Prosecutions Noordin Haji to order an investigation.
Among those mentioned adversely is Deputy Inspector General of Police Edward Mbugua, who is second in command after Mutyambai. And herein lies the dilemma.
Sources within the police say because of police protocol and his rank, for Mbugua to be questioned, a senior officer, probably Mutyambai, has to personally ask him to write his statement regarding the allegations. But this is yet to happen.
Issues of rank
“Because of his rank, you cannot send a junior officer to interrogate him. We now wonder if it is the IG who will do it because this will be seen in another way,” said an insider aware of the intrigues.
However, sources reveal that the IG can delegate the questioning to any officer from the rank of superintendent -- an assignment Mutyambai is yet to execute. Prior to his appointment to the current position of DIG, Mbugua, a seasoned officer who has risen through the ranks, was the Commandant of the Presidential Escort Unit for almost six years.
The investigation stems from claims Bakrania made in an investigation aired by Citizen Television on Sunday that some security agents conspired with members of his family to deport him and take over his property.
Bakrania claims a close relative used top officials within the police and immigration department to have his work permit revoked. Then there was an attempt to have him deported to the United Kingdom in order to seize family property he took over following the death of his brother. The property includes houses in Nairobi’s Westlands and Industrial Area estimated to be worth Sh700 million.
The businessman has passports from the United Kingdom and Northern Ireland. Bakrania, the report claims, sought the help of Makadara MP George Aladwa to stop the planned deportation.
Yesterday, Mutyambai said the matter was being investigated. “It is under probe. Let us wait,” Mutyambai told The Standard. He declined to respond to questions about tension over Mbugua’s questioning.
Yesterday Mbugua said he could not comment on the matter because it was under investigation. “You are aware there are investigations going on. Let investigations unearth the truth. I can’t comment on issues under investigation,” Mbugua responded.
Director of Immigration Services Alex Muteshi also welcomed the probe. “That is the best way to address the issue. This route will bring out the truth,” said Mr Muteshi.
Aladwa said he had done nothing wrong and dismissed the claims of extortion.
“I helped him. I have known him since 2009 and he was my constituent. The claims being made against me of extortion are lies,” he said.
The Ministry of Interior had on Tuesday issued a statement saying the IG had ordered investigations into the matter involving a businessman, security officials, immigration officials, and politicians.
“The Government’s attention has been drawn to allegations of irregularities and illegalities at the Immigration Department and other Government Security Agencies,” said Interior Ministry spokeswoman Wangui Muchiri.
She added that a consultative meeting involving Matiang’i, Mutyambai and Haji was held and ordered that full and proper investigation be undertaken with immediate effect to determine the validity or lack thereof of the allegations.
“The IG is, therefore, directed to commence investigations and submit a status report within 14 days.”
Those with information were asked to submit the same to the Director Internal Affairs Unit (IAU) in the National Police Service Charlton Murithi, who can be reached on 0798474619 or email: [email protected]
“The Government undertakes to ensure that justice is done for all without fear or favour,” added Ms Muchiri.
This means Murithi, an Assistant Inspector General of Police (AIG) will lead the probe and hence has to take the statements from those mentioned. Internal Affairs is a unit within the police established under section 87 of the NPS Act with the mandate of receiving and investigating complaints against police.
“Without making prejudice to sub-section (2), the Unit may, where necessary, investigate and recommend appropriate action in respect of anyone found engaging in any unlawful conduct,” says part of the unit’s objectives.
Hand over to others
The matter is more complicated because apart from Mbugua as a police officer, there are civilians mentioned in the saga.
Insiders said there is a push to have the probe taken over by other agencies like the Ethics and Anti-Corruption Commission (EACC). This is because IAU deals with complaints against police only yet there are other outsiders like politicians, civilians and officials from Immigration department named in the matter.
Private investigator Jane Mugo first brought the matter to public alleging her arrest on alleged trumped up charges was retaliation because she was investigating top officials within the police and Immigration. Ms Mugo had been hired by Bakrania after his efforts to fight his deportation appeared to run into headwinds.
On Wednesday, The Standard established that the Deputy Director of Criminal Investigations Gideon Ashmalla asked for the investigation file on the matter. The file was at the Nairobi Area DCI command where a team had been investigating the matter.
Mugo had cited the case as part of the reasons she was being harassed by security agencies. She is facing charges in a court of threatening to kill.
But police say they had received complaints from two people against her. Mugo was arraigned before Milimani chief magistrate and charged that on August 15, 2019, at New Muthaiga Inn in Nairobi, she drew a pistol and threatened to kill Patrick Mugusia Kefa.
Six-star Sharks: Confederations Cup. Kenya’s representatives in pole after thrashing Djibouti opponentsKariobangi Sharks dismantle Arta Solar in the debut in Africa and now head to Horn of Africa with their noses up.
Why Kenyan boxers are winning medals once againThe BFK led by President Anthony ‘Jamal’ Ombok was elected into the office in 2019 and has since...
We’re broke, Moi University now admits
- We are implementing CBC to keep our jobs, teachers tell Magoha
By James Omoro
- Waiguru dumps Uhuru party for DP Ruto’s UDA
- Contractor set to open closed sections under construction on Mombasa Road
- Mbowe in Tanzania's court
- Nakuru doctor suspected of killing his two children dies in hospital

domain: news


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You are viewing the results for Dyreparken Håndballfestival 2021. View the current results for Dyreparken Håndballfestival 2022 here.
Gold medal! Won the entire Sluttspill B! Congratulations!
3:rd highest goal count per match among the teams in G15/16 (f 2005/06) (9.8)
2:nd highest goal count among the teams in G15/16 (f 2005/06) (59)
In addition to Sola Håndballklubb, 8 other teams played in Gutter 15/16 (født 2005-06). They were divided into 2 different groups, whereof Sola Håndballklubb HK G15 could be found in Group B together with Strømmen/Glimt IL 1, Randesund IL, Bryne Håndballklubb 1 and Reistad IL.
Sola Håndballklubb HK G15 made it to Sluttspill B after reaching 4:th place in Group B. Once in the playoff they won every match inluding the Final against Randesund IL, which they won with 12-8. Thereby Sola Håndballklubb HK G15 won the entire Sluttspill B in Gutter 15/16 (født 2005-06) during Dyreparken Håndballfestival 2021.
6 games played


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Erín Moure’s recent work invites us to think about the ways that our reading practices affect how we move in the world. Do we stay put? Move across borders? Force others into (or out of) (our?) spaces? Facilitate free movements? Do we see the world as given and unchangeable or as something, in Clarice Lispector’s words, “torturously in the making”? As Moure says explicitly in several essays collected in My Beloved Wager (2009), and as she challenges us to think about in O Cidadán (2002) and Expeditions of a Chimaera (2009), how we act as readers affects how we act as citizens and both are intimately tied to what we make of borders. How are we citizens not only of cities or nations but also of books? By considering Moure’s recent work, we explore the ways that, in learning to be different kinds of readers, we can learn to be different kinds of citizens.
Please note that works on the Canadian Literature website may not be the final versions as they appear in the journal, as additional editing may take place between the web and print versions. If you are quoting reviews, articles, and/or poems from the Canadian Literature website, please indicate the date of access.

domain: library


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Warmer than average weather is on the cards for much of the country this coming week.
Long fine spells are bathing Auckland in sunshine today with another stretch of clear sky forecast tomorrow between morning and evening cloud.
While further north Kaitaia and Kerikeri are fine and warm with sea breezes, reaching 28C and 30C today.
But topping the country's temperature gauge for the North Island is Masterton at 32C.
That top spot for the North Island tomorrow is forecast to be Hastings at 31C.
While holidaymakers would be enjoying the sunshine in the Far North, it would be bad news for rural people in the area who are desperate for water, MetService meteorologist Kyle Lee said.
Northern Auckland, Waikato, as well as parts of Canterbury, Hawke's Bay and Wairarapa are looking pretty dry, he said.
"The part that stands out is definitely the northern half of the North Island."
Lee said most of the country would be seeing above-average temperatures for the coming week.
The ridge of high pressure sort of "digs its heels in" and is making a lot of places warm up well above their average for this time of year, he said.
Some places would drop back nearer their average as the week wore on.
"There is nothing really that's below average," he said.
A lot of places in the South Island particularly are looking a lot warmer tomorrow, he said.
Main centre forecasts today
Cloud clearing for a fine day. Light winds and afternoon sea breezes. High 29C, low 17C
Long fine spells. Southwesterlies. 26C, 18C
Fine and hot, but becoming cloudy tonight. Light winds, but afternoon westerlies. 31C, 14C
Fine and warm. Light winds and afternoon sea breezes. 28C, 19C
Long fine spells, but cloud returning tonight. Northerlies. 24C, 17C
Low cloud morning and evening, otherwise fine. Light winds and sea breezes. 25C, 15C
Mainly fine, but a few afternoon showers possible. Northeast winds. 22C, 15C


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The big day is finally here and organizers of the Reign concert are wrapping up with preparations for the big night. The event which is purposely for the official launch of Shatta wale’s ‘Reign’ album is expected to be thousands of loyal Shatta movement fans all dressed in white, music lovers, key industry players and some government representatives as confirmed to Jonilar.net by a close source.
Yesterday in an exclusive interview with Samuel Baah Flex on Zylofon 102.1 Fm, Shatta wale confirmed only Keche and one other artiste has so far pledged their support for tonight.
We are also projecting that Olamide, the only artiste featured on the latest album will also be rocking the dome. Burna boy who recently performed with Shatta wale in Nigeria can also pull a surprise because today is full of surprises.
Video of the day: I did not sell out Shatta Wale – Pope Skinny Speaks
The ‘reign’ is Shatta wale’s second studio album; a heavy collaboration Shatta movement and Zylofon media after the storm.