Comments On The Carter Page FISA Warrant Application

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Saturday evening in the very middle of the summer, and suddenly the Justice Department finally releases a number of long-sought documents relating to the Trump-Russia counterintelligence investigation.  One of the documents is the government's application to the FISA Court for a warrant to spy on Carter Page, a some-time foreign policy adviser to the Trump campaign, in the heat of the campaign for President.  The document is heavily redacted; indeed, well more than half of it is nothing but big black marks.  You know from the long delay in releasing the document, from the timing of the release, and from the heavy redactions, that this is an extremely embarrassing document to the Justice Department and the FBI.  But, however bad you thought it might have been, it's actually far worse.

Here's the takeaway:  The entire basis for the application to spy on the political campaign of the disfavored party was the completely unverified opposition research, paid for by the Clinton campaign, known as the Steele Dossier.  The only other things they cite are some articles in the media.  But those articles give every indication of having been completely derivative of leaks from the FBI itself, in turn based on nothing more than the Steele Dossier. 

Many others have beaten me to the punch in commenting on this matter, and I don't mean just to repeat what others have already said.  But this disgusting document is too important to let pass.  So here are a few comments:

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Update On The Stupidest Litigations In The Country

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For those who think that the federal courts are a hopeless miasma of insanity, it's time for an update on the Stupidest Litigations in the Country.  Things may not be quite as bad as you have thought up to now.

If you have a short memory, let me remind you that in December 2017 and January 2018 the Manhattan Contrarian made two nominations for the illustrious title of "Stupidest Litigation in the Country."  In both cases, the nominations went to litigations seeking to get some federal judge to issue a sweeping order of some kind to hinder or stop the use of fossil fuels and thereby save the climate and the planet.  The first nomination for the award, made in this post on December 12, 2017, went to the case of Kelly Cascadia Rose Juliana v. United States.  That's the case out of Oregon where some 21 minors, mostly teenagers, plus a rather large nameless contingent labeled "future generations," have sued the U.S. government seeking to compel the complete end to the use of all fossil fuels in this country.  Hey, they just want to prevent "the irreversible destruction of the natural heritage of our whole nation."   What could be more noble than that?  Isn't that what the federal courts are for?  Nomination number two came just over a month later on January 24, 2018.  It went to the cases filed first by a group of California cities, and then followed on January 9 by New York City, seeking massive damages against five major oil companies for the "public nuisance" of producing and selling oil and natural gas.

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A Modest Proposal For Wholesale Electricity Pricing

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A Modest Proposal For Wholesale Electricity Pricing

A phenomenon often noted on this site is that the jurisdictions that get the highest proportion of their electricity from so-called "renewables" seem to have the highest consumer electricity prices.  But wait -- aren't the wind and the sun "free"?  Capture your electricity from these "free" sources, and it just seems obvious that your cost of electricity will plummet.  

And yet when you look for evidence of actual prices charged to consumers you find that the more electricity you get from the wind and the sun, the higher your retail costs of electricity will soar.

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Another Joke From The Mueller Gang

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It's just slightly under five months ago (February 16) that the Mueller gang issued its previous indictment against "Russians!!!!".  That one indicted three companies and thirteen individuals for the previously almost-unheard-of crime of "conspiracy to defraud the United States" -- whatever that means.  At my post the next day titled "Is The Mueller Indictment A Joke?" I noted that the defendants were all Russians in Russia, that there was no ability to compel them to come to the U.S., and that the obvious expectation was that none of the defendants would ever show up to defend and the case would just quietly fade into oblivion:

So why bother sticking to anything remotely tethered to an actual crime, or for that matter, to reality?  You can throw in whatever you feel like!   

As to that indictment, the funny thing is that one of the defendants -- one of the corporate entities, of course -- actually has showed up to defend, and has been showering embarrassment on the Mueller team.  This one has great entertainment value.  An asset-free corporate entity is basically worthless as a criminal defendant, but can cause considerable trouble if it insists on putting the prosecutors through their paces.  Seems like Mueller's gang never thought of that, including being unready to meet its discovery obligations.  For more detail on this farce, see my post of June 21 here.  

And now yesterday we are treated to another indictment from the Mueller gang.

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Why "Climate Change" Seems To Have Faded From The News

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Why "Climate Change" Seems To Have Faded From The News

In a post a few days ago, I noted that "the whole climate issue seems to have mostly disappeared from the news lately."  Commenter niceguyeddie responded by giving me a link to the Washington Post (eddie called it "the 'other' Pravda"), and an article of July 5 by a guy named Jason Samenow headlined "Red-hot planet: All-time heat records have been set all over the world during the past week."   In the intervening week since this article, a few people on the internet have been busy making mincemeat of Samenow's rather pitiful effort.  For MC readers who don't go out searching the internet regularly for real information on climate to combat the propaganda from the various Pravdas out there, I thought I would do the public service of presenting some of this real information here.

First, some basic background is needed to develop appropriate bullshit radar on this subject.  If you follow climate or weather information even a little, you will already know that on any given day, somewhere in the world, some weather station, or more likely multiple stations, is recording an "all time high" temperature for the particular day in question, while some other weather station, or maybe multiple stations, is recording an "all time low."  It follows that the fact that multiple "all time high" records were set during the course of a week tells you nothing about climate change.  There could have been even more all time lows, and the overall average could have gone down, no matter how many "all time highs" were recorded.  Any reader of any intelligence whatsoever will immediately be asking, don't just tell me about "all time highs," but tell me what is the overall picture?  How many all time lows were there?  What is happening with the "average" temperature?  You will not be surprised to learn that Samenow does not provide the answers to those questions.  In other words, his article is not intended to provide useful information to the intelligent reader, but rather to propagandize those lacking in either basic background information or critical thinking ability or both.

There is an obvious source for the answer to the last question as to what is happening with the "average," and that is the easily-available UAH global lower troposphere record, derived from satellite sensors.  That record exists from 1979 to present.

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Brett Kavanaugh And The Administrative State

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Last night's announcement that D.C. Circuit Judge Brett Kavanaugh will be the Supreme Court nominee has brought forth much frenzy and gnashing of teeth among the progressive left.  The main focus of the frenzy has been the alleged threat to continued viability of Roe v. Wade.  (From House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi's statement:  "Judge Kavanaugh’s long history of opposition to the full, fundamental right of every woman to make her own decisions about her body, family and health care poses a grave threat to women’s rights."  I don't know what "long history of opposition" Pelosi is talking about there, but maybe we'll find out soon.) 

Anyway, I doubt that Kavanaugh poses much threat to Roe.  Meanwhile, I'd like to focus on a different subject on which he actually has some record that is important.  That subject is the Administrative State.

First, some background.

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