So yesterday the memo from the House Intelligence Committee Democrats was finally released, and yes it essentially refutes every false claim made in the Republican memo.

The Democratic memo is out. It claims that the Nunes memo was a “transparent effort to undermine” DOJ and FBI and special counsel’s probe. https://t.co/ozrui1yKii pic.twitter.com/JzzuNHiqMq

— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) February 24, 2018

So here is the pdf of the memo if you want to read it for yourself.

But here is what we have essentially learned:

• Steele Dossier played NO role in opening the Carter Page investigation. They began their investigation prior to even receiving it. 
• The DOJ did in fact inform the court of the origin of the Steele Dossier. 
• They accuse Nunes of deliberately misrepresenting the underlying FISA Warrant intelligence. 
• Four different judge's approved FISA warrants including judge's appointed by Bush and Reagan. Multiple DOJ officials also approved the applications prior to the court even seeing them including Trump appointees Rosenstein and Boente. 
• They actually started listening to Page after he left Trump campaign so the idea they were watching him to spy on Trump is absurd. 
• Page has a long history with Russia going back to 2004 and was being actively investigated once before already in 2013. The FBI had even interviewed him in 2016 again prior to receiving the Steele Dossier. The Steele dossier was referenced in the application as corroboration of certain things, and not to independently demonstrate. 
• A bunch of blacked out additional evidence with a bit in the middle noting Page lied to the HIC in his testimony in 2017 about meeting with Russian officials. 
• It included the footnote that discusses the Steele dossier source which SPECIFICALLY STATES ..."The FBI speculates the the unidentified U.S. Person was likely looking for information that could be used to discredit Candidate #1's campaign." Candidate 1 is Trump I believe, edit I previously thought Person 1 was Steele, this is the person coordinating with Steele. Steele is Source #1. 
• DOJ timely informed the court when the FBI fired Steele and why. 
• The attacks on Bruce Ohr for knowing Steele/and his wife working for Fusion GPS are 100% baseless. He was not involved in the FISA process and disclosed his relationships in November 2016. 

Basically Nunes and Gowdy lied whole cloth that the FISA warrant was primarily based on a news article and the Steele Dossier. Those were in fact the least used and most minor pieces of evidence and they picked them out specifically for that reason to discredit the investigation and lied about their use.

That last part I think we all essentially recognized from the get go.

Nunes is either a Russian agent himself, or somehow compromised, and Gowdy is just a conspiracy theory chasing POS.

Here were the final few paragraphs from the New York Times write up on this memo: 

The wiretap of Mr. Page generated useful intelligence. 

When the Justice Department repeatedly sought the court’s permission to renew the surveillance of Mr. Page, the Democratic memo said, it cited new information it was gathering through the wiretap. 

“The court-approved surveillance of Page allowed F.B.I. to collect valuable intelligence,” the Democratic memo said. It asserted that the repeated renewals “demonstrate that the F.B.I. collected important investigative information and leads by conducting court-approved surveillance.” 

What that intelligence was, however, was redacted.

The memo released by the Republicans of course suggested that the FISA warrants issued on Carter Page were illegal and unnecessary, and this memo completely refutes that argument.

What's more is that when Mueller releases his report on all of this, we are likely going to know what was learned through these warrants.

That means the House Republicans were counting on their memo derailing an investigation that they had to know would ultimately prove that they were running interference for Donald Trump.

Speaking of Donald Trump he was all over Twitter yesterday trying to refute the findings in this memo.

Mostly he was posting snippets from his insane conversation with Jeanine Pirro. But there were other attempts to discredit the memo as well,

Here was one such attempt being refuted in real time:

Holy moly. The @FoxNews anchor said "Congressman Schiff, he ARGUES the REPUBLICAN memo omitted and distorted key facts." Trump just deleted 5 words from the quote to allege the opposite meaning. https://t.co/UlSQUcc0bD

— Brian Stelter (@brianstelter) February 25, 2018

I think that kind of sums up Trump's pathetic attempts to save his ass.

Fox News lunatic Jeanine Pirro goes to Chappaqua to shame Hillary Clinton. Does not quite work out as planned.

On "Street Justice," @JudgeJeanine visits @HillaryClinton's hometown to check in on the 2016 presidential candidate. pic.twitter.com/6n2GO3IfMs

— Fox News (@FoxNews) January 28, 2018

Courtesy of The Hill: 

Fox News host Jeanine Pirro visited Hillary Clinton’s hometown of Chappaqua, N.Y., for a segment that aired Saturday night. Fox News host searches for Hillary Clinton in the woods Fox News host Jeanine Pirro visited Hillary Clinton’s hometown of Chappaqua, N.Y., for a segment that aired Saturday night. 

Pirro, a supporter and confidante of President Trump, spoke to employees at a dry cleaner, pizza shop, bookstore and nail salon to see if they’ve seen Clinton. 

“OK, so I spoke to some people in Chappaqua, now I’m still looking for Hillary so I’m off to the woods,” Pirro said, referencing photos that appeared on social media after the election of Clinton taking a hike through the woods near her home. 

The segment then cuts to Pirro calling out Clinton’s name in the woods. “Do you think she’s home writing another book? Or maybe she’s still reading ‘What Happened’ because she can’t figure out what happened?” Pirro asked.

Pirro called for Clinton to be thrown in jail last October. Her comments came after it was reported Clinton’s presidential campaign and the Democratic National Committee helped fund the dossier containing unverified claims about Trump’s ties to Russia.

Okay WTF was that?

Is this what passes for news on Fox?

I have seen this idiot a few times before.

Typically the froth dripping from her rabid mouth makes it almost impossible to listen to her rantings for more than a few minutes at a time, but this is even over the top for her.

Pirro seriously HATES the Clintons, especially Hillary.

And much of the reason for that may be traced back to 2005.

Courtesy of CNN:

Jeanine Pirro, the longtime prosecutor who had been set to run against Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton next year, has decided to drop out of the U.S. Senate race in New York, she announced Wednesday.

Pirro made some excuse about her law career being too important to abandon at the time, but there was evidence that there were other reasons she bailed: 

When Pirro launched the Senate bid against the Democrat, her announcement speech was marred by an embarrassing 30-second silence after she lost a page of her prepared remarks. Then her fundraising got off to a slow start, raising less than $500,000 in her first month. 

A majority of 62 Republican county chairs meeting last week in Albany announced their belief that Pirro should quit the Senate race but did not agree on a substitute candidate.

The next year Pirro was investigated over charges of wiretapping her own husband to catch him in an affair. They later divorced.

Ever since then Pirro has been a dyed in the wool Hillary hater, and clearly that hate has negatively impacted her sanity.

Disturbing things we learned from a New York Times profile on Donald Trump.

The New York Times did a deep dive into Trump's first year as president, by interviewing as many as 60 advisers, friends, and members of Congress to get a picture of his day-to-day life.

The picture that emerges is...unsettling to say the least.

The start of Trump's day:

Around 5:30 each morning, President Trump wakes and tunes into the television in the White House’s master bedroom. He flips to CNN for news, moves to “Fox & Friends” for comfort and messaging ideas, and sometimes watches MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” because, friends suspect, it fires him up for the day. 

Energized, infuriated — often a gumbo of both — Mr. Trump grabs his iPhone. Sometimes he tweets while propped on his pillow, according to aides. Other times he tweets from the den next door, watching another television. Less frequently, he makes his way up the hall to the ornate Treaty Room, sometimes dressed for the day, sometimes still in night clothes, where he begins his official and unofficial calls.

How much cable news does he watch?

People close to him estimate that Mr. Trump spends at least four hours a day, and sometimes as much as twice that, in front of a television, sometimes with the volume muted, marinating in the no-holds-barred wars of cable news and eager to fire back.

That means Trump consumes as much as eight hours of cable news a day.

He has no plan:

For most of the year, people inside and outside Washington have been convinced that there is a strategy behind Mr. Trump’s actions. But there is seldom a plan apart from pre-emption, self-defense, obsession and impulse. 

Occasionally, the president solicits affirmation before hitting the “tweet” button. In June, according to a longtime adviser, he excitedly called friends to say he had the perfect tweet to neutralize the Russia investigation. He would call it a “witch hunt.” They were unimpressed. 

Trump needs to see himself talked about on TV every day:  

To an extent that would stun outsiders, Mr. Trump, the most talked-about human on the planet, is still delighted when he sees his name in the headlines. And he is on a perpetual quest to see it there. One former top adviser said Mr. Trump grew uncomfortable after two or three days of peace and could not handle watching the news without seeing himself on it. 

During the morning, aides monitor “Fox & Friends” live or through a transcription service in much the way commodities traders might keep tabs on market futures to predict the direction of their day. 

If someone on the show says something memorable and Mr. Trump does not immediately tweet about it, the president’s staff knows he may be saving Fox News for later viewing on his recorder and instead watching MSNBC or CNN live — meaning he is likely to be in a foul mood to start the day.

On the plus side even Trump cannot stomach Fox News host Jeanine Pirro for long:  

Jeanine Pirro, whose Fox News show is a presidential favorite, recently asked to meet about a deal approved while Mrs. Clinton was secretary of state that gave Russia control over some American uranium, which lately has become a favorite focus of conservatives. 

Mr. Trump, Mr. Kelly and Donald F. McGahn II, the White House counsel, met for more than an hour on Nov. 1 as Ms. Pirro whipped up the president against Mr. Mueller and accused James B. Comey, the former F.B.I. director, of employing tactics typically reserved for Mafia cases, according to a person briefed on the meeting. 

The president became visibly agitated as she spoke. “Roy Cohn was my lawyer!” he exclaimed, referring to the legendary McCarthy-era fixer who mentored Mr. Trump in the 1980s, suggesting that was the type of defender he needed now. 

At another point, Mr. Kelly interrupted. She was not “helping things,” he said, according to the person briefed. Even Mr. Trump eventually tired of Ms. Pirro’s screed and walked out of the room, according to the person.

That woman is so batshit crazy that she even makes Trump seem sane by comparison.

The article suggests that Trump IS learning, but the learning curve is so steep that, like Sisyphus with the rock, every inch of progress is often accompanied by a degree of backsliding.

In the meantime the needs of the country remain largely unmet as a reality television faux celebrity learns that not everything can be reedited to make him appear competent at his job.

Fox News host calls for Paul Ryan to step down hours after Donald Trump tweeted that everybody should watch her show.

Courtesy of WaPo: 

At the top of her show, Jeanine Pirro, host of “Justice With Judge Jeanine,” delivered a scathing commentary on Ryan’s performance in the days leading up to the decision to pull the House Republican bill to overhaul the Affordable Care Act.

“It failed within the first 70 days of President Donald Trump’s administration, a president who made the replacement of Obamacare the hallmark of his campaign and then used valuable political capital to accomplish it,” said Pirro, placing the blame squarely on Ryan. 

“Speaker Ryan, you come in with all your swagger and experience and you sell 'em a bill of goods which ends up a complete and total failure, and you allow our president in his first 100 days to come out of the box like that, based on what?” she said. “Your legislative expertise, your knowledge of the arcane ins and outs of the bill-writing process? Your relationships? What? Your drinks at the Hay-Adams with your pals?”

This woman is a nasty, nasty piece of work.

What was really interesting about this is that Trump sent this tweet earlier in the day.

Watch @JudgeJeanine on @FoxNews tonight at 9:00 P.M.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March 25, 2017

I actually watched this last night, since MSNBC was visiting prison again, and was amazed at how Pirro managed to spin all of this to protect Trump and lay all of the blame on Ryan.

At the end of this segment Pirro had two guests on who clearly had not received the memo and were exactly on board with her version of events.

And though I am certainly no Paul Ryan fan, her version of events is pure unadulterated bullshit.

Right Wing responds with outrage over Michelle Obama's assertion that America has lost hope.

First here is a link to Essence containing the First Lady's remarks: 

Following the election of Donald Trump, First Lady Michelle Obama says many Americans are now realizing what it's like not to have hope.

"We feel the difference now, See, now, we are feeling what not having hope feels like," she told Oprah. "Hope is necessary. It's a necessary concept and Barack didn't just talk about hope because he thought it was just a nice slogan to get votes." 

She also expressed concerns for children in the country as many parents continue to express similar feelings of hopelessness. 

"He and I and so many believe that -- what else do you have if you don't have hope?" the First Lady added. "What do you give your kids if you can't give them hope?"

Now if you are anything like me these words very closely mirrored your feelings since this election, and if anything seemed perhaps a little too carefully chosen to adequately represent how freaked out you have been since November.

However that is NOT how they were received by those who are thrilled that Donald Trump will soon be leading us to Armageddon.

Here was what Fox rabid attack dog Jeanine Pirro had to say about Mrs. Obama's words: 

“To try and convince America that once you and Barack exit the White House, hope is removed for America is an outrage,” Pirro ranted. “But I get it, for you hope is gone. You and your family and friends won’t be able to fly to another 46 countries, with security and hair and make-up in tow. Michelle, you may not realize it, but Americans’ rejected you and everything you stand for. Hope is when people — 30,000 at a time — stand in line in the cold with their children hoping to get a glimpse of a man they think can change the course of their lives from the downward spiral that you and ‘Mister Hope and Change’ have put them on.”

Hang on I have to wipe some venom out of my eyes.

Other Right Wing outlets were equally defensive and attacked Ms. Obama for suggesting that the election of Donald Trump means the end of hope.

In fact Trump himself suggested that FLOTUS just made a simple misstatement:

"She made that statement not meaning it the way it came out," Trump said.

"I assume she was talking about the past not the future cause I'm telling you, we have tremendous hope and we have tremendous promise and tremendous potential," Trump said Saturday. The crowd booed at the mention of Mrs. Obama.

Damn that is some thick ass bubble this guy lives in.

No the First Lady said EXACTLY what she was trying to say, and she is of course absolutely correct.

President Obama ran on "hope and change" and spent his entire presidency, sometimes naively, trying to bring the country together and work with both sides of the aisle to bring that about even when one side was working to sabotage every single thing he tried to accomplish.

On the other hand Donald Trump ran his campaign on building a wall to keep Mexicans out of the country, rounding up undocumented immigrants and shipping them home, while targeting others based on their religious affiliations. 

Try as I might I simply cannot glean even a glimmer of hope from any of that.

So yes Michelle Obama is correct. Hope is indeed dead.

And our job is to do our best to revive it, and once revived inform others how to keep it alive.

Here's a helpful hint, You cannot keep hope alive if you allow fascists to run the country.