FBI
MEMBERS ONLY: Trump Needs His Shutdown To Last Forever
(Image source: The New York Times) We should probably brace ourselves for an extended Trump shutdown because there's ultimately no reason for the president to end his ongoing temper tantrum. He straight up needs this. Even though his poll numbers are crashing, the longer the ...read more
Michael Flynn's Sentencing Memo Should Terrify Trump
Yesterday, Special Counsel Robert Mueller's office released both a sentencing memo and a heavily redacted addendum regarding former National Security Adviser Gen. Michael Flynn. He recommended a "sentence that does not impose a term of incarceration," because Flynn cooperated ...read more
FBI Labels Proud Boys As 'Extremist' Group With 'Ties To White Nationalism'
The F.B.I is an inherently conservative organization dominated by white, middle aged men, many of whom have military backgrounds. Despite the smearing of the organization by the Trump administration as an arm of the globalist "Deep State", the F.B.I is about as Republican ...read more
Matthew Whitaker Worked For Company That Sold A "Masculine Toilet Bowl."
It is no surprise that Donald Trump, a man responsible for pitching many failed products, from apartment buildings laundered with Russian money, to Trump: The Board Game, and his now-infamous steak line, is surrounded by hucksters who've sold lousy products. His original choice ...read more
Inside The Cockamamie Plot To Take Down Robert Mueller
Last night it was revealed that two right-wing grifters, Jack Burkman and Jacob Wohl, were reported to the FBI for a hasty, rushed-together conspiracy that involved forcing women to make false claims of sexual assault against Robert Mueller. For those unfamiliar with either ...read more
Susan Collins Calls Sham FBI Investigation Into Kavanaugh "Very Thorough"
Maine Senator Susan Collins has been at the center of much of the debate surrounding the vote to confirm Judge Brett Kavanaugh to the Supreme Court. In the past, Collins has bolted party lines to vote with the Democrats, most memorably in the summer of 2017 when she sided with ...read more
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The Right Is Freaking Out Over The "Crossfire Hurricane" Story
We're in the middle of another right wing meltdown over the latest revelation that the FBI was investigating Trump's treasonous collusion with Russia by the summer of 2016, well before they had even heard of the Steele Dossier. After a drunken George Papadopoulos blabbed to the ...read more
Poll: Propaganda Has Republicans Convinced The FBI Is Framing Trump
As we move closer to the midterms, it's important to understand exactly what is at stake. This goes far beyond just sticking it to Trump or, more urgently, putting a check on his insanity; we are on the brink of collapse as a nation. I want very badly for this to be hysterical ...read more
Donald Trump is Obsessed with the Russian Pee-Pee Tape
Yesterday, the Associated Press published former FBI director James Comey’s memos from his meetings with President Trump. The memos reveal things we either know or have assumed about Trump: he’s petty, vindictive, obsessed with loyalty, and has an attention span that makes fleas ...read more
Crackpot Nina Turner Compares FBI Raid on Michael Cohen to Treatment of Martin Luther King
Nina Turner, the former Ohio State Senator and head of the SuperPAC Our Revolution, has managed to offend almost every reasonable center-left Democrat in the last two years. One of the only prominent African-American women to endorse Bernie Sanders in the primary, she refused to ...read more
Reality Check: Trump Personally Hired Almost Everyone Involved In The Michael Cohen Raid
Donald Trump spent a good part of Monday ranting about how there's a conspiracy by "the other side" to destroy him and once again talked about firing Special Consul Robert Mueller. But, as Bob Cesca keeps pointing out, everything Trump does makes things worse for Trump and this ...read more
Shock Report: The Kremlin Kept Mitt Romney from Becoming Secretary of State
This morning, New Yorker reporter Jane Mayer published a summation of Christopher Steele and his investigation into Donald Trump that culminated in BuzzFeed leaking his dossier to the press shortly before Trump's inaugural last year. It is the most thorough article that I have ...read more
The Just Released Democratic Memo Proves Devin Nunes Was Lying
Yesterday, the House Intelligence Committee released a memo that not only counters the one that Devin Nunes wrote but proves that the information contained in it was untrue. At the beginning of February, Nunes released a memo alleging that the FBI had overstepped its boundaries ...read more
Jill Stein's Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Interview
Jill Stein, Susan Sarandon's candidate, isn't having a good weekend. This Friday, Mueller revealed in his indictments that Russians interfered on behalf of her campaign, posting on the Instagram account Blacktivist, "Choose peace and vote for Jill Stein. Trust me, it's not a ...read more
The Nunes Memo Lands With A Thud And Twitter Explodes With Laughter
After weeks of hype, the much anticipated "secret memo" put together by Devin Nunes (with apparently a lot of help from the White House) was released (a day late) on Friday. Republicans and white Republican voters have been in a state of almost constant frenzy leading up the big ...read more
MEMBERS ONLY: Worse Than Nixon
Shortly after the inaugural last January, acting Attorney General Sally Yates warned Donald Trump that his National Security Adviser, Michael Flynn, had been less than forthcoming regarding his conversations with Russians. Trump's immediate response was to fire Mrs. Yates... To ...read more
Republicans Are Using The "Secret Memo" To Cynically Manipulate Frightened Trump Voters
We are watching a massive propaganda effort to legitimize the destruction of the rule of law in America and the shamelessness of Republicans in engineering it will not be forgotten. Last Spring, Republicans had a Trump problem. He had swooped in and stolen their carefully ...read more
Dianne Feinstein Puts America First, Releases Fusion GPS Transcript
Today, California Senator Dianne Feinstein dropped a bomb on her Republican colleagues by releasing the transcript of the Judiciary Committee's interview with Fusion GPS founder Glenn Simpson, whose company funded the dossier that blew the Trump-Russia investigation wide open ...read more
MEMBERS ONLY: The Never-Ending Election of 2016
The Banter Long Read: Evidence is coming out that Donald Trump colluded with the Russians to cheat his way to the presidency, and his attorney general finds himself caught in the lies. Paul Manafort and Rick Gates have been indicted; George Papadopoulos has pled guilty; and ...read more
Trump May Still Fire Mueller if Fox News Has Anything to Say About It
Today, special counsel Robert Mueller released his first indictments in the ongoing Russia scandal, beginning with Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort and his business partner, Rick Gates, as well as the confirmation that former Trump foreign policy adviser George ...read more
Donald Trump Falsely Claims Credit for JFK Records Release
This week, Donald Trump will oversee the release of the last batch of secret documents related to the Kennedy Assassination. But don't let him and his cronies fool you - this was not a decision Trump made himself. As part of the Kennedy Assassination Records Collection Act of ...read more
The Paul Manafort Tapes may be the Constitutional Crisis We've all Been Dreading
Paul Manafort is well and truly screwed and we might be, too. The FBI had such damning evidence against him that even during the 2016 election, a judge signed off on a warrant to wiretap Manafort's communications and that surveillance continued after Trump was sworn in as ...read more
The GOP's Latest Hillary Distraction Takes Political Retribution Into Dangerous Waters
Earlier this year, political activist Alexei Navalny was found guilty by a Russian court of embezzling 16 million rubles worth of timber. The charges were clearly fabricated and the verdict a sham. But, coincidentally, the guilty verdict makes Navalny ineligible to run against ...read more
A Fascinating Theory: Comey Forced Trump to Fire Him
How far would you go to take down a corrupt president like Trump? Would you make yourself such a nuisance that he would panic and tip his hand? That might just be what former FBI Director James Comey did. Now that it's been revealed that Comey kept detailed notes of his highly ...read more
Like A Moron, Trump Confirms White House Is Lying About Firing Comey
Because Donald Trump's style of governance is to blurt out a decree, which almost aways leaves his minions scrambling to justify said decree with little to no warning about what the hell just happened, it really hasn't been a surprise that the official White House story on ...read more
Trump's Downfall: Why He Really Fired Comey
Update: In the midst of writing this column, the Washington Post reported that more than 30 White House officials claim that Trump fired Comey over the president's "brewing personal animus" towards the FBI director, and not for reasons listed in the official narrative. The shit ...read more
Trump Asks James Comey To Stay On As FBI Director, Raising Concerns Of Quid Pro Quo Corruption
In a move that seems like it was designed to maximize the stench of corruption already permeating Trump's administration, FBI Director James Comey has been asked to continue in his role as the head of the allegedly nonpartisan agency: WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. ...read more
Rudy Giuliani Confirms The FBI Is Working With Trump To Steal The Election
On Friday, The Daily Banter brought you a disturbing story about a rogue faction of the FBI attempting to influence the outcome of the presidential election. According to these sources, the FBI is "Trumpland" and they have used articles from Breitbart News as a basis for some of ...read more
Bombshell Report: "The FBI Is Trumpland" And Actively Trying To Manipulate The Election
The Guardian's Spencer Ackerman has dropped a bombshell about why the Federal Bureau of Investigation has suddenly become a central figure in the 2016 election and it should freeze the blood in your veins. According to the reporting, the FBI has become a tool of the Trump ...read more
What In The Everliving F*ck is The FBI Doing?
Last Friday, FBI director James Comey shocked the world by writing a vague, innuendo-filled letter to Congress about his agency’s discovery of emails pertaining to Hillary Clinton’s server scandal. Around the country, people looked at one another and scratched their heads. Did ...read more
Drunk-Sounding Rush Limbaugh Tries Desperately to Link Benghazi with Ferguson
That took longer that I thought. After nearly two weeks of tensions in Ferguson, MO, far-right radio has finally shoehorned the crisis into its ongoing Benghazi and IRS narratives. I'm seriously shocked that it didn't happen sooner, a sign that perhaps the screechers are feeling ...read more
Why Greenwald's Latest Piece Is Good Journalism That Raises Serious Questions
On Wednesday, Glenn Greenwald published a very important piece of journalism on The Intercept that should -- in any society that cares how the government decides which citizens it spies on -- be part of a meaningful discussion about government transparency. The report is based ...read more
Greenwald's Latest NSA Bombshell is an Incomplete Mess, Lacking Any Evidence of Wrongdoing
Glenn Greenwald's "grand finale fireworks display" finally appeared online early Wednesday and, indeed, there were fireworks but not the "spectacular multicolored hues" he predicted. The fireworks instead came in the form of a bombshell that exploded in a mushroom cloud of ...read more
Another Wild Story About Government Spying Circulates the Internet, Only to Be Debunked Later
As news of Edward Snowden's one year asylum in Russia and his subsequent departure from his stay at the Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow (a story for another day) broke across the internet, yet another wild claim about government surveillance circumnavigated the globe. I'm not ...read more
10 Examples of Bush and the Republicans Using Government Power to Target Critics
They say two wrongs don't make a right, but ignoring one of those wrongs while vilifying the other is intellectually dishonest and violently hypocritical, among other things. And certainly that's the case surrounding news that the IRS targeted tea party groups as a means of ...read more
Cyber War: U.S. to Retaliate Against Chinese Hack Attacks
The Daily Banter Headline Grab (from the AP): As public evidence mounts that the Chinese military is responsible for stealing massive amounts of U.S. government data and corporate trade secrets, the Obama administration is eyeing fines and other trade actions it may take ...read more
FBI Snooping on CIA’s Petraeus
Paula Broadwell, the biographer and alleged mistress of ousted CIA Director David Petraeus. By Ivan Eland: Nothing titillates the nation’s capital like a sex scandal masquerading as a policy controversy. The American news media will use any excuse to get into public officials’ ...read more
FBI: Bomb At Martin Luther King Jr. Day March Was Domestic Terror
FYI: The abandoned backpack found Monday along the route of Spokane’s annual Martin Luther King Jr. march contained a bomb capable of inflicting “multiple casualties,” the FBI has confirmed. The Federal Bureau of Investigation’s terrorism task force is offering a $20,000 reward ...read more