Say What?!?

Per The Hill, Mueller's Russian novel is taking yet another plot twist: Deripaska is an oligarch who hired, fired and sued Manafort and may be a witness against him.

But now we learn that in 2009 the FBI worked with Deripaska and let him finance an attempt to rescue an FBI agent from Iran. OK, I like where there head was but they liked Deripaska for this becasue he had business in Iran and (probably like a lot of his peers) had underworld connections. Those connections led to State Department travel restrictions and eventual US sanctions, but now he is on Mueller's side against Manafort? I can't tell the colluders without a scorecard.

And a Bonus Baffler - was subcontracting to Deripaska even legal?

Melanie Sloan, a former Clinton Justice Department lawyer and longtime ethics watchdog, told me a “far more significant issue” is whether the earlier FBI operation was even legal: “It’s possible the bureau’s arrangement with Mr. Deripaska violated the Antideficiency Act, which prohibits the government from accepting voluntary services.”   

George Washington University constitutional law professor Jonathan Turley agreed: “If the operation with Deripaska contravened federal law, this figure could be viewed as a potential embarrassment for Mueller. The question is whether he could implicate Mueller in an impropriety.”

Now that sources have unmasked the Deripaska story, time will tell whether the courts, Justice, Congress or a defendant formally questions if Mueller is conflicted.

Mini-bafflers - was the Antideficiency Act invoked as part of the Iran-Contra debacle, with arms, hostages and cash moving off-book? [Yes, cameo appearances] And why is it always Iran? C'mon, send better baddies!

MORE: The Hill linked to a long Dec 13, 2013 NY Times piece about the FBI agent, Robert Levinson, who had specialized in Russian organized crime. In their telling he retired from the FBI in 1998 in order to make more money in the private investigations sector; he then re-aligned with the CIA as a consultant in 2006.

The Deripaska connection:

By mid-2008, the F.B.I. was fully engaged in the hunt. At that time, two F.B.I. agents met at a Paris hotel with a powerful new player who became secretly involved in the effort: Oleg Deripaska, one of Russia’s wealthiest businessmen.Mr. Deripaska’s entry into the case held great promise. He headed an international mining and metals empire with business ties to Iran.

His involvement also came with a price. The State Department had refused Mr. Deripaska a visa because of allegations linking him to organized crime — accusations he has denied. But Mr. Birshtein, the Toronto businessman, had approached the F.B.I. with a plan: He would persuade Mr. Deripaska to join the search and, if they succeeded, both would get their entry problems resolved.

Mr. Deripaska said he would put up millions to fund the venture, but he insisted that his role be kept secret. However, word that big money was in play made its way to Iran. Suddenly, a man with family connection

s to Iran’s supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, insisted that he could engineer Mr. Levinson’s release for a hefty price. F.B.I. officials were so confident about the plan that they told Mrs. Levinson to stay by the phone for a call from her husband. It never came.

Mr. Deripaska, who was scheduled to meet in 2009 with bankers in the United States, wanted to collect on his end of the deal. The State Department, after two heated meetings with Justice Department officials, refused to issue him a visa, according to government officials. The F.B.I., hoping to keep him in the game, made an end-run around State Department officials and issued him a visa under a special program, allowing him to enter the country twice.

In 2010, during a visit to New York, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, then the president of Iran, was asked about Mr. Levinson by reporters. He said his government knew nothing of the former agent’s fate but offered to help find him.

Comments

[Pinandpuller]

I would liken mr narciso to Aaron on The Walking Dead if anyone is familiar. He was, in a way, proselytizing for like minded individuals to come to another settlement that was looking for contributors.

Mr PD (may I call you Mr PD?) was talking about Spring stuff and it made me think about blogs in the way I think about USDA temperate zones and how certain species may survive in some areas but are more likely to thrive in others. And I really like and enjoy mr narciso's comments and persona so I sought him out. And I liked the others I read and met so I guess I'm sticking around and perhaps putting down roots.

And based on your persona and comments in a different temperate zone I had a totally erroneous opinion about you and I'm not afraid or ashamed to say I was totally wrong. I can't say I always agree with or understand why people in any given venue say things that are seemingly off the wall but I do usually find a bit of humor (humour?) in them and I don't usually support forced deportation.

Dunbar's number is a suggested cognitive limit to the number of people with whom one can maintain stable social relationships—relationships in which an individual knows who each person is and how each person relates to every other person. This number was first proposed in the 1990s by British anthropologist Robin Dunbar, who found a correlation between primate brain size and average social group size. By using the average human brain size and extrapolating from the results of primates, he proposed that humans can comfortably maintain only 150 stable relationships. Dunbar explained it informally as "the number of people you would not feel embarrassed about joining uninvited for a drink if you happened to bump into them in a bar".

Proponents assert that numbers larger than this generally require more restrictive rules, laws, and enforced norms to maintain a stable, cohesive group. It has been proposed to lie between 100 and 250, with a commonly used value of 150.Dunbar's number states the number of people one knows and keeps social contact with, and it does not include the number of people known personally with a ceased social relationship, nor people just generally known with a lack of persistent social relationship, a number which might be much higher and likely depends on long-term memory size.

Dunbar theorized that "this limit is a direct function of relative neocortex size, and that this in turn limits group size [...] the limit imposed by neocortical processing capacity is simply on the number of individuals with whom a stable inter-personal relationship can be maintained". On the periphery, the number also includes past colleagues, such as high school friends, with whom a person would want to reacquaint himself or herself if they met again.

[jim nj]

from Instapundit earlier today on the theme I've been working on tonight.

MORE FROM SALENA ZITO: ‘We knew exactly who he was when we voted for him.’

“I made a promise to myself, four years out, after Obama won his second term, that I would never vote for a Bush or a Clinton. That was absolute. Nothing would ever change that. I thought they were both corrupt,” he says of the former Democratic nominee and Jeb Bush, son and brother of a former U.S. president.

“When Trump first announced, I laughed. I just couldn’t believe that he even had a chance,” he says, but Harry was dead set on someone outside of the establishment so he started to look at the other choices.

“The only other nonpolitician was Dr. Ben Carson. Everybody else, outside of [Kentucky senator] Rand Paul, I didn’t really have any use for. Put them in a bag and shake them and they all come out the same.”

As the campaign went on he wasn’t committed to anybody. “The one I liked the best was Jim Webb,” Harry says of the Democratic ex-senator from Virginia and former secretary of the navy, “and I thought he was probably the best candidate out of everybody, but he didn’t last except for a couple of months.”

The more he listened as the campaign went on, he explains, the better he understood that the Democrats definitely hated Trump, and the Republican establishment hated Trump. All the lobbyists on K Street hated Trump. The Chinese came out against him. India came out against him. Mexico came out against him.

“I figured I must have a candidate, because everybody who’s coming out against him are all corrupt, and he’s an outsider. So, I said, ‘I think I found my candidate,’ ” says Harry. . . .

And no, he does not care about what Trump tweets. “We knew exactly who he was when we voted for him, tweet and all.”

“What I liked about Trump was that it was more than about Trump, it was about people, it was about being part of something bigger than just me, I felt as though I was part of something important and worthy of accomplishing something better than what have had,” Harry says.

As long as Trump stays away from becoming a Bush or a Clinton and stays tough, Harry is in for the long haul with this new alliance. “If he becomes one of them, then I think this movement continues, without him.”

[daddy on iPad]

We are on the ramp loading. Just heard the Big Island Volcano is spewing ash clouds to 12,000. Thankfully we have a ton if gas neat pix here: Hawaii goes on RED ALERT

Aloha!

[jim nj]

NO GUS, that's true, you didn't hate him, you dis-trusted him. With all the trolls showing up, any knew name is suspect, but Pin is a keeper who is welcome aboard.

[Pinandpuller]

I don't know if you guys know mr nk or not, but I had a similar introduction to him in the other place.

I am totally fine turning hostility or stranger danger into grudging respect or better. Or just go to your corners, gentleman.

Honestly, I used to love flame wars in my 20's and shooting every skunk that set foot on my daddy's farm.

I really don't take things that seriously now. I do like talking to you all seriously about serious issues but I'm not going to try to jump thru the wires and choke somebody over their opinions.

I do love to talk on the edge of bad taste and some, like the troll who greeted me right away, took it as I was serious. I am rarely really mad commenting. I think yesterday I may have been a bit negative and I hope I didn't rain on anybody's parade but this right now is a blast.

I mean, we go together like peas and carrots...in a Thermomix.

[jim nj]

https://www.realclearinvestigations.com/articles/2018/05/14/2_colleagues_contradict_brennan_on_use_of_dossier.html

This trashes Brennan and others.

[Pinandpuller]

No guys, I understand. Do you know what happened to The Galapagos Islands from all the trolls tracking seeds around?

[Pinandpuller]

How about we run for something?

Common Cause

Common Enemy

Common Sense

[jim nj]

Pin,

You fit in well here. I lurked for many, many years before commenting.

This is a great crew, even if we assault one another from time to time.

[Pinandpuller]

OK, if you don't want to argue about religion anymore how about we settle who really has the world's largest sex store?

If that's too crass we can do world's largest fireworks store.

TN alone has four claimants for each.

[Pinandpuller]

You fit in well here. I lurked for many, many years before commenting.

This is a great crew, even if we assault one another from time to time.

Posted by: jim nj | May 16, 2018 at 04:31 AM

I mean, why was I wasting my time getting banned from Huffpo?

[jim nj]

I always thought it was South of the Border. Fireworks that is.

[anonamom]

pin, your arrival has made me step back and reflect on what this place is "about," or what "rules" exist.

Bottom line, I think commenters here respect people until reason for disrespect is given, and even then there is NOT an attempt to belittle by the majority, just ignore.

Except a certain troll (who for a few years I thought was a regular poster poking fun at The Leftists, because his posts are so stereotypical and adolescent. I still wonder from time to time!) always gets plenty of attention from some posters.
Oh, and a second one who uses all kinds of different names gets noticed too.

Hmm, maybe I need to rethink that...

But they both do go away once they stop eliciting responses.

It really is a great source of links to all the information MSM tries to suppress.

[Pinandpuller]

I threw out an invitation of sorts to a guy named the Bas who grew up in Wyoming and I think voted for Trump so we shall see.

[Pinandpuller]

Posted by: anonamom | May 16, 2018 at 05:20 AM

I understand that people are under different time restraints than me so if they wish to filter it makes sense. I don't know that I'm going to seriously argue with people about matters of taste. I just try something new every now and then to see if I still hate it or not.

I used to only be able to eat cucumbers as pickles but there's a Greek place that does lamb or beef and a salad with cucumbers and I eat them now, mostly.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Good morning!

Again.

I don't know what to do about this waking up at 2AM. My son wasn't here last night but apparently I am now used to him getting home and waking up so I do it even when he isn't here.

I hate to think I will be sleeping in 3-4 hour stretches with time awake in between.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/14/the-washington-posts-flawed-fact-check-on-the-iran-deal/?utm_campaign=atdailycaller&utm_source=Twitter&utm_medium=Social

[PD]

Never put down your gun

Agreed. Words to live by.

[PD]

MM - as old timers would say in the program, "This too shall pass".

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

On @Morning_Joe at 6:00 ET #NorthKorea threat to cancel #Trump #KimJongUn Summit

— Gordon G. Chang (@GordonGChang) May 16, 2018

=================================

I have repeatedly tried to get Gordon Chang to realize we are seeing positioning and negotiations in real time, but he is determined to paint a negative picture of this situation, so he is, I guess, going on the Joe and Mika chow to hang crepe while Joe chortles at the imminent doom of the stupid Trump.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

http://www.breitbart.com/jerusalem/2018/05/16/exclusive-u-s-ambassador-david-friedman-policymakers-conversation-new-west-bank-policy/

Exclusive to Breitbart.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Politico has a huge article about how the Obama administration rolled back something called Project Cassandra which was designed to stop Hezbollah's criminal enterprise division (drug smuggling, stolen car sales, etc.) because of opposition by those who were working on the Iran deal.

I would link it, but there is something in the formatting or the graphics or something that has twice kicked me off-line and caused me to have to completely re-start my computer, so you guys can take your chances with it if you run across it.

[PD]

clarice - you are so very right. I have way too much "stored" with a photographic memory. I have mostly cleared the "arrogance hurdles" that I put in my own way, so my head doesn't get too big. Maybe that's a problem? ;)

I do have to say that I "hear" a certain actor's portrayal from Silence of the Lambs everytime I see your handle, Mrs. PDinD does too. No offense meant.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

http://ew.com/tv/2018/05/15/kimmel-abc-upfront-jokes/

The reason I am posting this is that within the so-called jokes I discovered that ABC and Comcast are competing to buy Fox.

This will change Fox News, whoever gets it.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Due to lack of med' supplies in Gaza, yesterday Israel donated two trucks full of medical aid. Despite dire state of health system, Hamas refused to receive the aid & instructed the local authorities to return it to Israel. Basically, Hamas is looking for more dead photo-op's. pic.twitter.com/eslQ9PTam9

— Ohad Nakash Kaynar (@KaynarOhad) May 16, 2018

Pictures at the link.

[Buckeye]

Buckeye,

Are you sure she came in 1703, 1709-10.

Jim, good catch, I went back and read it myself. Married in 1703, came in 1710.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

http://dailycaller.com/2018/05/15/michael-avenattis-daily-caller-threat-reporters/

Published response to Michael Avenatti's threat of a lawsuit.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

This weekend → Senator Tim Scott and I will be at The @weeklystandard 2018 Broadmoor Summit discussing our new book, Unified! Click below for more information. https://t.co/6DurKGD1Q3

— Trey Gowdy (@TGowdySC) May 16, 2018

================================

Just up those Never Trumper's alley, I am sure.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

By the way, isn't it typical of The Weekly Standard's pompous, know-it-all attitude that they call some event with invited speakers "The Broadmoor Summit?"

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

https://english.alarabiya.net/en/features/2018/05/06/Iran-s-bid-to-further-its-hegemonic-desires-through-a-takeover-of-Algeria-and-Morocco.html

[PD]

Pin - as there is Me, Myself, and I, I can handle a bit more than 150. I choose to keep my circle very small, however. While I am an "open book", I still only let people in so far unless I really trust them. Not afraid nor apologetic to be me.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Does anyone besides me remember when colored bathroom fixtures were all the rage? I think this went from the 1950's through the mid-70's.

I can remember seeing bathrooms with turquoise, pink, and even purple fixtures. Never saw avacado, though.

https://plaidstallions.blogspot.ca/2018/05/avacado-paradise.html

[PD]

Iggy - the girl likes kayaking? YEAH BUDDY!

Marry her TODAY.

[Davod]

Ambassador Friedman:

"Let’s come up with a solution for 2018 that works for people living in 2018, and I think the Israelis should be encouraged to do the same thing.”

[PD]

Posted by: Miss Marple the Deplorable | May 16, 2018 at 07:08 AM

The North End of Royal Oak has the bathroom tile in many varied colors - houses built in the early 1950's. Big block style on the walls, small block on the floor. Mine were blue with black trim. Classic look. I loved it.

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

PD,

But was your TOILET blue?

I had forgotten all about this, but back in the 60's my parents were considering selling their farm and moving to a subdivision and we went to go through a model home.

The main bathroom was PURPLE. I mean purple toilet, purple bathtub, purple sink. Some purple metallic wallpaper, too!

My mother was horrified! Of course, being 15 I thought it was really cool. LOL!

[henry]

My house has one pink and one blue set of bathroom fixtures. (I came that way, and as long as they work I could care less what color they are. I'm equal opportunity as far as thrones).

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

This new Twitter shadowbanning is really crap.

Many of the people I follow I have to search out individually.

I am missing a huge number of tweets that I usually see, and am getting the same posters recycled over and over.

[Davod]

"The Broadmoor Summit?"

Highly appropriate - Broadmoor Hospital - a high-security psychiatric hospital.

[rse]

https://thecisforcrank.com/2018/05/14/3877/ is a story on the compromise head tax in seattle and the general cluelessness on the effects of such taxes.

"If we raise rates, it has to come in so we can spend it."

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

https://twitter.com/ThomasWictor/status/996629849249755136

Wictor discusses the fake victims of Gaza. Comments after the thread are good too, as many are from nurses and paramedics.

If you don't want to read the comments on the thread, here is the unrolled version:

https://threadreaderapp.com/thread/996629849249755136.html

[rse]

On the behavioral economics link I put up, there is a close relationship between that work grounded in psych and the new K-12 learning standards being pushed globally but known as the common core in the us. Daniel Kahnemann may well be speaking at more ed conferences these days than econ.

It's not about understanding how the mind works, but manipulating how it works, what it perceives, and how it is likely to interpret its daily experiences. Both links I put up yesterday that dr j and sbw commented on respectively are designed to get at that receiver/transducer part of the mind.

Think about government policy directed specifically at that capacity even though masked in euphemisms usually.

[Buckeye]

This new Twitter shadowbanning is really crap.

Many of the people I follow I have to search out individually.

I am missing a huge number of tweets that I usually see, and am getting the same posters recycled over and over.

It isn't social media, it's social engineering.

[Buckeye]

"If we raise rates, it has to come in so we can spend it."

Spend it on "affordable housing" because if, if, if, these greedy white guys didn't have their rents jacked up, the homeless wouldn't be out on the street.

I have seen the homeless in Seattle. Maybe 1 in a 100 could function flipping burgers at McDonalds.

Can anybody really make a cohesive argument that sleeping under an overpass is better than being in a psychiatric institution?

[Miss Marple the Deplorable]

Buckeye,

This all goes back to the 70's when there was that big scandal about some New York psychiatric hospital (I think where Geraldo made his fame) and suddenly there was a huge bandwagon push to close the big hospitals and refer people to outside, independent living with counseling, etc.

I remember when they closed Central State here because many of the patients were distraught. They had been there for years and thought of it as home.

Meanwhile, whil the truly mentally disturbed were shoved out into the streets, the social justice types came up with new reasons to be mentally disturbed due to "triggering" and "cultural appropriation." They are now traumatized if someone looks at them cross-eyed.

And what are we to make of the anti-Trump hysteria that has swept over campuses, Hollywood, and such? No one has even done a study about that, probably because it's politically useful to the left.

[Ignatz Ratzkiwatzki]

ESPN looking to win back subscribers by promoting race baiting communist.
What do they think is going to happen?

[Jim Eagle]

Good Morning. Your Latin Phrase of the Day:

Hostibus appropinquantibus senatus Cincinnato nuntiavit eum factum esse dictatorem.

And no, it is not about the Cincinnati Bengals, Reds or Bearcats:)

daddy,

I had forgot about the Happy Mexican in Memphis. Darn it, I could have been a champ!

[clarice feldman]

Yesterday on AT I reported that a friend of Chelsea Clinton's had received $11 million dollar grant from the DoD's Office of Net Assessment though she lacked a security clearance , (The same office that paid Halper) This is about the girl's mother: https://www.washingtonpost.com/archive/lifestyle/2001/07/20/marina-eins-muddled-message/aa3e4aed-db76-4e4d-948b-3960de60cec6/?utm_term=.1db02904f899

[Buckeye]

JiB

Your call on picture #9 was impressive.

I was convinced it looked like somewhere I have been in South America, but it just wasn't quite right.

I've never been to South Korea.

[Buckeye]

Iggy,

When the Murdochs sell Fox to ABC, there will be no reason for millions to have cable, as ESPN is already gone down the tubes.

Sell cable providers short.

[Janet 🚬 - I wish my family had a poncho]

https://spectator.org/john-brennans-exceptionally-sensitive-issue/

"So until election day, the “working group at Langley” was trying to dig up dirt on the Trump campaign and wasn’t coming up with any. But Brennan didn’t want his efforts to go to waste, so he leaked to Senator Harry Reid the existence of the counterintelligence probe into the Trump campaign. He couldn’t leak any damning findings from that probe because there weren’t any. But he could inflict political damage by getting Reid to tell the press darkly of the probe’s existence."

[henry]

new thread

[Buckeye]

Has already

[Beasts of England]

Paul Thorn? Wow. He played at my club several times quite a few years ago. Heck of a nice guy. Good boxer, too. :)

[Momto2]

p4z

@_p4z

When you're a dead Palestinian martyr but your nose keeps itching

https://twitter.com/_p4z_/status/996648794149326848

[the Bas]

Hi PandP, thanks for the directions. I'll see if I can make some worthy contributions now and again.