All posts by nedhamson

Activist, writer, researcher, addicted to sharing information and facts.

Here’s How the FBI Investigation Into Russia and Trump Campaign Actually Started

No story is hotter across America this Memorial Day weekend than what the Federal Bureau of Investigation did—and did not do—in 2016 about Russian connections to Donald J. Trump. As the summer enjoys its unofficial kickoff, headlines and social media are overflowing with accusations, of varying degrees of veracity, regarding FBI counterintelligence operations around President Trump two years ago, as he was campaigning to take the White House.

Of late, the president has taken to Twitter even more manically than usual, hurling invective at the FBI for its alleged illegalities toward him and his entourage. Over the weekend, “executive time” has birthed batches of presidential rage-tweets about the alleged “Spygate,” complete with Trump’s trademark unusual capitalizations and quotations. “With Spies, or ‘Informants’ as the Democrats like to call them because it sounds less sinister (but it’s not), all over my campaign, even from a very early date, why didn’t the crooked highest levels of the FBI or ‘Justice’ contact me to tell me of the phony Russia problem?” the president asked on Saturday, adding that “This whole Russia Probe is Rigged.” Trump piled on three more angry tweets on Sunday, including the bizarre question, “Who’s going to give back the young and beautiful lives (and others) that have been devastated and destroyed by the phony Russia Collusion Witch Hunt?”

Although it’s now evident that in mid-2016 the FBI used one or more informants to sniff around the Trump campaign, inquiring discreetly about connections to the Kremlin—a major concern for the Bureau when people with documented and troubling ties to Russia and its spy agencies like Carter Page and Michael Flynn appeared in Trump’s orbit—there was nothing untoward or disturbing about this. This is the FBI’s standard operating procedure in counterintelligence cases. Although Trump and his defenders have frequently stated that employing informants was illegal and scandalously inappropriate, that’s just one more Trumpian falsehood.

Read the rest at The Observer …

New Zealand ‘marine heatwave’ brings tropical fish from 3,000km away

One time or the future?

1000.jpg?w=300&q=55&auto=format&usm=12&f

Out-of-place Queensland groper seen off New Zealand coast after water temperatures soared

Rare tropical fish from Australia have been spotted in New Zealand waters after a record-breaking hot summer and warm ocean temperatures lured the creatures across the Tasman sea.

The Queensland groper, also known as the giant grouper, is the aquatic emblem of the state and was spotted swimming around the wreck of the HMNZ Canterbury in the Bay of Islands on Sunday, more than 3,000 kilometres away from its usual cruising spots on the coral reefs and estuaries off the Queensland coast.

Continue reading…

Valencia village lays claim to original Coca-Cola recipe

The recipe for Kola-coca is languishing in a safe inside the office of 79-year-old Juan Juan Micó, who owns Destilerías Ayelo, in the village of of Aielo de Malferit, in Spain’s Valencia province. After ensuring no photos will be taken, the elderly gentleman unlocks the box and extracts the notebook in which the secret formula is inscribed.

Seguir leyendo.

The Cage on Tohono O’odham Nation — U.S. ‘Dog Kennels’ Imprison Migrants and Water Protectors

Ofelia%2Bmigrant%2Bcage.jpg

This photo is of The Cage, the sweltering inhumane outside detention center used by the US Border Patrol on the Tohono O’odham Nation in the Sonoran Desert.  When Mohawks came here in 2007, they were joined by Lenny Foster, Dineh, who said this was no more than a “dog cage.” This cage was not operating the last time we were there, but these cages are still used, to cage migrants, as they were

Mobs spurred by panic video lynch beggar in Hyd

wtf Lynch mobs spurred by social media rumours struck again, this time in the heart of Hyderabad when an elderly beggar dressed as a transgender was bludgeoned to death on suspicion of being a child-lifter. This takes the death toll from mob lynchings to four in 13 days despite the police brass in two Telugu states putting forces on high alert.