Wingate

LOL. Like the OP, you're obsessed with a place that was never ever going to be an option for those with your genes, and that reality gets stuck in your craw. I doubt DEI got me in, though perhaps. Class Valedictorian and near perfect SATs (lost a few points on the Verbal, but none on the math), plus a host of letters in sports.....just maybe influenced the Admissions Committee. Or maybe the DEI part was they needed a few science nerds, and I fit the bill.

John told me a funny story. I think in January 2017, all the intel chiefs had to travel to NYC to meet POTUS-elect at his tower. John, Comey, the ODNI and the Chief of NSA had to give a classified briefing. At the end, the guys discussed informing POTUS-elect of the "pee pee tape". They decided it had to be Comey who would go privately to inform the guy. The group decided POTUS must be made aware, if not aware already, what was out there, in the event it subsequently came up. They did not want him to be blindsided. John did not tell me if Comey reported on any reaction, and I assume Comey did not tell anyone anything.

LOL! Don't know this "Paul Sperry" fellow. He holds a TS/SCI clearance? Don't think so. In a bit of irony, I have a small part in history here, at least as a spectator. I raised the subject of the Dossier with John. It was in December of 2016, five months after the initial intel came in via liaison and clandestine sources about clear cooperation between the campaign and Russia.....totally unrelated to Steele. John had just recently become aware of the dossier, and pretty much dismissed it. His awareness was months after the Russia issue came to light, so trying to link the investigation (which John handed off to the bureau, as required) is like saying time is not linear. Maybe in MAGAstan time is not linear, but in reality, it is. By the way, even if John or Comey broke any law (they did not, according to Durham), the statute of limitations expired a few years ago. Hard as it might be for a MAGA to grasp, the entire point of this "investigation" right now is to divert from the Epstein List shoot show.

As Sgt Friday used to say as his tag line, “Anything you say can and will be used against you”. I understand your sentiments re “lefties”, and can guess why you feel that envy, which you refer to as “hate”. On balance those lefties tend to be well-educated, successful, fit, and enjoying the good things life can bring...with democracy and US ideals of freedom and liberty at the core of their being. Righties, as can be seen if visiting a POTUS rally or going to something like a Gun Show in the US, tend toward everything from morbid obesity to mediocrity. They are not the sharpest tools in the shed, usually envious of those who were welcomed everywhere from Harvard to Stanford to Oxbridge, and then went on to great economic and social success in careers. Societies do tend toward a kind of stratification, or natural selection, and I guess we do still need janitors and truck drivers, which is what the Right is so adept at delivering. It's probably much too late to try to emulate the lefty life of success, but you can take steps to try to close the gap, not the least of which would be hitting the gym to get that bloated belly down to a more reasonable girth. Can’t alter the poor education or lack of career success, nor do anything for the Universe’s economy and stinginess in how it handed out everything from intellect to a man’s junk. But take heart, the guy with the mushroom under his tighty whities went on to become POTUS, though he had the head start of being born with a silver spoon in his ever-flapping maw. Make the best of your “shortcomings” and some of that “hate”---which is so obviously envy---might dissipate. And get off the sofa and do some sit ups and push ups! The failure Righties experience in life is not the fault of lefties, though blaming "others" was the bread and butter of POTUS's campaign. The real cause of failure is in the bathroom mirror right now. Go look....and get inspired to lose that gut!

Of course you are incapable of pointing out a single thing in my post that is untrue. As Abe said, "better to remain silent and be thought the fool, than speak and remove all doubt". How read in are you on Russiagate...from classified files, not Fox News? Were you interviewed by the Durham group? Work in CIMC at the agency when the first liaison and clandestine source intel came in? On the Bigot List DCI Brennan established when the intel came in? How about did you even read the 1000 page SSCI Report released by the Rubio-chaired SSCI? Read the Durham Report? Didn't think so. I doubt much actual intel gets to you in Nakhon Nowhere.

Perhaps a more interesting question is to ask what traits a man needs who adamantly refuses to ever consider a bargirl. I’ll guess: 1) He’s not packing much heat down there and fears others have satisfied her more than he ever could 2) He’s so naïve he believes his woman really is a virgin, but just lost her hymen when she slipped on a banana peel 3) His woman “only had one former lover”, but sadly he passed in a motorcycle accident before they could marry 4) His mother caught him rubbing one out when he was 13, and sex has shamed him ever since. 5) He KNOWS that even if he was a female born into abject poverty, he would never resort to selling his (her) body to make ends meet. He's just inherently superior. /sarc 6) He came to Thailand full of Western morality, actually believing that some “creator” made 200,000,000+ galaxies, most with 500 billion to a trillion stars, just so in one galaxy on a planet circling one star made rules as to how often a female of one species was allowed to have a Tab A enter her Slot B, and under what circumstances. Of course, there are other folks believing their “creator” had quality control issues and demanded the men remove a female's love button, just so she won’t violate their deity’s rules. It all boils down to a man’s personal level of confidence or lack of insecurity. Since in the West about half of all marriages fail, there’s really no argument for why a man would not consider a bargirl as a mate….unless he’s got a bizarre morality or is just woefully insecure. Hard to imagine for such guys that even a bargirl could be a better human being and a more faithful partner than a “normie” or hi-so Thai woman. Now I’m not married to a bargirl, but her past would not be a consideration if I happened to fall in love. Today and tomorrow matter, but since I had more than my fair share of girlfriends back home, I shouldn’t be hypocritical. I see no moral high ground in one who has sex because of horniness and one who does it for money.

You speaking from actual experience, or just conjecture? I'm a grad. (I also turned down Harvard Business School's acceptance in favor of Stanford.) I was squarely Middle Class back then and not a legacy. Many of my classmates, of course, were legacies and/or came from an elite prep school. I went to public school, but just so happened to be Valedictorian and aced the SATs. I had to work while at university, serving dinner in the commons to my prep school friends and classmates. We still hung around together, did Spring Break to Florida together, etc., despite my less than elite economic background. (Maybe because they needed help on their Advanced Calculus or Organic Chemistry?) There were quite diverse views on everything. It wasn't a solely "woke" environment. (Remember both Kushner and Bannon are graduates, as is R Senator Cotton and many others.) While I wasn't in the top tier economically while a student, I ended up top tier economically in spite of my background, so the idea that only the initially elite can network and propagate wealth is totally wrong.

Couldn't get in, eh?

What is your definition of a Swamp Rat? Is it someone who doesn't worship your messiah? Is it people who actually do the job expected of them by their oath?

Let the ignorant cult members speak first here. None of you knows anything. This is simply POTUS' fascism not so cleverly trying to masquerade as legality. It's the petulant little child trying to have his way because others did their job and told the truth. (By the way, I suspect the next "investigation" might be of SecState Rubio, as will be noted later.) The clowns have spent 8.5 years trying to change reality re Russiagate. In his first term POTUS appointed Durham to "investigate", the goal being not to find the truth, but to find enemies to prosecute. A few years and $7.6 million was spent trying to find something to indict Brennan and Comey. Durham not only gave them a clean bill of health, and he stated everything had been done "by the book". Oh, and not a single investigator under Durham cared about the facts of actual campaign-Russia cooperation. When they were handed classified intel that noted such things---as came in via liaison or human clandestine sources, even SIGINT---they said they were not interested in that. The two Congressional intel committees released reports. The senate report, released by a Republican-controlled SSCI, and chaired by now SecState Rubio, not only concluded the investigation showed zero evidence of any attempts to politicize it, the SSCI report also noted actual evidence of cooperation between the 2016 campaign and Russia (Campaign Chair Manafort's trip to Spain to pass internal polling data to GRU asset Konstantin Kilimnik, who handed the data to the GRU's Internet Research Agency, who subsequently microtargeted voters in key swing States with made-up stories about Clinton and other Dems.). I bet Rubio is now trying to pretend he just took over the job near the SSCI Report completion, because the previous SSCI Chair---Senator Burr---had just stepped down and Rubio was raised to Chair. Rubio, as well as any Senator who served on SCCI, knows the actual truth, not the MAGA Fake Truth. At that time, a DoJ prosecutor, in response to the actual witch hunt to get Brennan and Comey, wrote: "I expect that eventually you will find someone who is enough of a fool, or enough of a coward, to file your motion". Now they have. DCI Ratcliff and the sycophants he dragged into the agency, have concocted a referral, sent to DoJ, which is the basis of this absurdity. There is a lot of intel re Russiagate that remains classified, but is damning to POTUS and his 2016 team. I expect true patriots in the agency will "leak" some of it. I suspect the bureau has lots more, as right from the initial receipt of intel re cooperation with Russia (from both foreign liaison intel services and human clandestine sources) the agency, via John Brennan, sent everything to the bureau and made a Bigot List within the agency to both limit and monitor any agency knowledge of the investigation. 100% of any investigation was done by the bureau, as the agency mandate demands any matter involving a US Citizen be turned over to the bureau. The agency was merely a receptacle for intel, as liaison and clandestine sources provided intel. I have known John for many years and occasionally socialize with him. I had suggested to him---well aware of the fascist plans of POTUS and his minions---that should re-election happen, John should leave the country he served and loves, because as Sinclair Lewis wrote, "It Can Happen Here". There is clearly a pattern in this Administration of retribution. Look at all the FBI agents fired because they investigated either Russiagate or the terrorists who attacked the US Capitol on 6 Jan 2021. Look at all the DoJ prosecutors fired because they investigated and prosecuted the 6 Jan terrorists. Some are even being investigated (as POTUS suggested they should when he gave a speech at DoJ discussing, inter alia, 6 January 2021 and the subsequent convictions). What might be a term for that....oh yea, weaponization of justice. POTUS and MAGA ALWAYS project. When they claim "weaponization", it just means that is what they do, as they have no evidence any weaponization of justice occurred in the past. Today "justice" is punishment in search of a crime. MAGAs might like all of this, but that is because justice and democracy, as well as the actual ideals on which the US is based, are anathema to them.

Even if Iran's high speed centrifuges were destroyed (maybe, maybe not), they still needed better and faster centrifuges to get beyond the 60% enrichment their machines could reach. To make a bomb they need 93% enrichment. Russia, North Korea and China could supply those centrifuges. They needed to upgrade regardless of the strike, so the strike probably didn't actually set them back at all. They did not have the capability to go from 60% to 93% anyway, which is why Gabbard made the statement about "3 years", which she subsequently pulled back. The intel signature a competent intel community should look for is an extremely efficient power plant, because at the speed the centrifuges spin, even a minor fluctuation in the current causes them to wobble and self-destruct. I would assume Mossad is competent enough to monitor power construction and upgrades, but I don't think the US still retains that level of competence.

It isn't just nations like North Korea. AQ Khan might be dead, but the world is full of other "mentors" like him, some available for a price, some because of philosophical leanings and ideologies. There are plenty of Russian nuke experts trying to survive on meager pensions, who may be available. The strike is likely to embolden the mullahs. They have a lot more data now about US capabilities, and also lots of data on the special cement Iranian material scientists have developed. The strike was a measure the US could not afford to lose, but it appears they did. The gamble did not pay off, and will likely come back to haunt us. Iran may play coy for a while, pretending they support the truce, keeping their proxies away from any sort of retaliation, but all the while they will be moving faster toward their goal. If the bunker was not actually penetrated, Iran is also going to be selling a lot of their special cement to China, Russia, Hamas tunnel makers, etc.

No radiation signature. THAT is the key to intel assessments, suggesting it either failed or Iran had already moved its U-235.

A major key that backs up that assessment is: Radiation US satellites can detect radiation, just as they do when the DPRK conducts an underground nuke test. If the bunker buster bombs had actually penetrated the chamber, there would be a radiation signature. There is none. The other possibility is that Iran suspected the strike would come and moved all their U-235 beforehand. It certainly seems all the 60% enriched U-235 Iran had last week, they still have. Mission NOT Accomplished.