Also on today’s menu:
Indicted For Striking Town Moderator
Man Attacks Staffers Of Rep. Connolly
Gunman Kills At Least Three In New Mexico
The FBI has acknowledged missteps in pursuing alleged ties between Russia and Donald Trump’s 2016 campaign, outlining changes it has taken to ensure the accuracy of secretive surveillance applications in the future. “Had those reforms been in place in 2016, the missteps identified in [Special Counsel John Durham’s] report could have been prevented. This report reinforces the importance of ensuring the FBI continues to do its work with the rigor, objectivity, and professionalism the American people deserve and rightly expect,” the FBI said in a statement.
Durham announced the end of his four-year investigation into possible FBI misconduct in the probe known as “Crossfire Hurricane” on May 15, criticizing the bureau but failing to find massive wrongdoing. Prosecutors secured a guilty plea from one FBI employee but lost the two criminal cases they took to trial.
The roughly 300-page Durham report said the FBI opened its investigation into Trump based on “raw, unanalyzed, and uncorroborated intelligence,” and investigators repeatedly relied on “confirmation bias,” ignoring or rationalizing away evidence that did not support a Trump-Russia conspiracy.
The probe was based on a smear campaign initiated by Perkins Coie, a law firm acting as counsel to the Hillary Clinton campaign. The firm retained the investigative firm Fusion GPS to conduct opposition research on Trump. Fusion met with a former British intelligence officer, Christopher Steele, who produced a report later passed along to the FBI. Durham called the Steele Dossier “unvetted and unverified.” In particular, he singled out a provision that described a “well-developed conspiracy of co-operation,” which Durham said became the basis for four surveillance applications.
“Based on the review of Crossfire Hurricane and related intelligence activities, we conclude that the Department and the FBI failed to uphold their important mission of strict fidelity to the law in connection with certain events and activities described in this report,” it said.
Robert Mueller’s investigation into collusion between Russia and the Trump campaign concluded that Russia had intervened on Trump’s behalf, and that the campaign welcomed the help, but there was no collusion to sway the election.
Indicted For Striking Town Moderator
A Rockingham County Superior Court Grand Jury has handed up a Class B felony indictment against Tina Thomas, 52, of Raymond, New Hampshire, for allegedly assaulting a town moderator on March 28.
Police allege Thomas struck Acting Raymond Town Moderator Jonathan Wood on the face at a polling location during the Raymond Town and School Elections. In announcing the indictment, Attorney-General John Formella did not describe the assault in detail.
Convictions on Class B felonies are punishable by 3½–7 years in prison, a $4,000 fine, or both.
Man Attacks Staffers Of Rep. Connolly
A man with a metal baseball bat struck two staffers of U.S. Representative Gerry Connolly at his northern Virginia office on May 15. The man allegedly walked in and asked for Connolly before attacking the two workers, one of whom was an intern on her first day at the job.
Fairfax City police officers arrived within minutes and took the man into custody without incident. The two staff members were being treated for non-life-threatening injuries.
The U.S. Capitol Police and Fairfax City Police identified the attacker as Xuan-Kha Tran Pham, 49, of Fairfax, who was being held without bond at the Fairfax County Adult Detention Center on charges of malicious wounding and aggravated malicious wounding. Fairfax police were familiar with the suspect, but did not say how.
Gunman Kills At Least Three In New Mexico
Police in Farmington, New Mexico, fatally shot an 18-year-old gunman who killed at least three people and wounded others, including two police officers, on a residential street in the northwestern city near the Navajo Nation. Farmington lies near the New Mexico borders with Colorado, Utah, and Arizona.
Agents from the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives headed to Farmington to assist in the investigation into the shooting.
Farmington was the scene of a police shooting last month that killed a man at his front door after they went to the wrong address while responding to a domestic violence call.
Café Chatter
On Unknown Blossoms: You know it seems to me that not a day goes by without you bashing Trump for something. You start out with identifying a flower and then to AI and bam TRUMP.
How about you do a real comparison of Trump’s first two years in office against Biden’s? How about you do a comparison of Trump’s faults to Biden’s faults? How about you do a comparison of Trump’s lies to Biden’s? How about you stop listening to CNN (Communist New Network) and try a few other like Newmax, Fox, ABC, NBC, or even listen to Howie Carr. How about you stop with pushing their narrative and your bias and do some real reporting? Do you really think 51 standing state representatives are duped by AI or Trump lying (like no other president has ever lied)? You and many others are so obsessed with Trump you are blinded by the lies all around you. Here is a Link https://granitegrok.com/blog/2023/05/biden-laptop-part-2-high-crimes-misdemeanors?utm_source=newsletter-378&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=Grok you can start with and I could give you several more from other outlets showing Biden and his family are not the Sunday go to church family we think they are. And don't get me started on Ukraine, what a joke and mess that is unless there are motives even you and I are not aware of and potentially lining the pockets of many people here and abroad. How can we give a country more than two times (over 100 BILLION) their GDP to fight a war that we know little about and the reason for these actions go back many years and maybe before I was born. Trump said it best the other day, it’s not a side to be on, but stop the carnage and killing altogether, that should be USA goal.
On another note.
I have voters asking me to vote to kill SB272 which is the Parents Bill of Rights coming up for a vote. Are these folks parent haters? Are they anti family? I hope not. They think teachers will be sued or prosecuted or that teachers and school staff know better than the parents! Many voters would rather the school make the choices for your children than you the parents because you maybe or could be or possibly be abusive or mean or don’t understand your child. The schools have the kids for about 8% of their 18 years and if you only factor in high school it is about 2.7% of the time, so that leaves the family raising the child 97.3% of the time. Who do you really thinks knows best for the children, a staff member who is paid and then goes home at the end of the day or a parent who lives with the child 24/7/365. SB272 protects the children but also protects the staff too. It’s the parents who have the God given right and responsibility to raise the children not the government or government school staff. Government is what we allow it to be and they are not parents nor should ever be, they always mess things up.
This is unfortunate a bill like this is needed at all, but when you have teachers, school boards, SAU Administrators, and other staff purposely not sharing information on the student/child with parents and even lying or deceiving them (plainly or by omission) when a parent asks about the child, is why SB272 is needed. Again, the bill states the parent must inquire, has a right to know, opt out, consent to, right to exempt, right to be advised, right to be notified, have access to, and the right to inspect. As you can clearly see the parent must take action to activate their rights. This is a law protecting teachers and staff. This bill prevents situations in which some NH school boards currently have policies that require administrators and staff to lie to parents regarding questions about their child’s gender identity in school. No school employee in our state should be put in that position to have to lie by school board policy, and SB272 provides that protection to school employees. Here is the link to the bill. https://www.gencourt.state.nh.us/bill_status/pdf.aspx?id=10040&q=billVersion
No one should be threatening school staff, ever. This bill is trying to keep lawsuits from happening by spelling out what should be supplied to the parent/s when asked by the parent. Teacher and staff are not professional counselors, but acting in place of a professional psychotherapist can get a school district into lawsuits.
Going back to Trump. If you really think 51 State Representatives including myself and 81,000,000 people that voted for Trump in 2016 are being deceived (possible just like COVID), then you are bias to your beliefs. Again, do some comparisons and you should easily see that Biden is destroying our country, one free speech at a time, one family at a time, one bank at a time, one fossil fuel at a time, including no gas stoves (shoot, just a few years ago gas was the cleanest fuel and now it is sinful if you use it, narrative is always changing) and eventually no wood stove, and let’s not forget our borders. Without borders we are not a nation.
Lastly, people need to do some basic research. There was a post or posts of AR15s being most used weapon in mass shooting, NOT TRUE. These weapons including rifles are used about 16% of the time which is still to many, but remember, it’s not the gun, it’s the person making a decision to pull the trigger. If not a gun, it will be knives, sticks, stones, cars, or something else. Our second amendment must be protected from those who want to get rid of it.
— John Sellers, Bristol
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