“The land of fruits and nuts”

There’s an old joke about California being “The land of fruits and nuts,” and the people in charge of the state government seem absolutely determined to prove it’s true.

https://www.westernjournal.com/electric-state-expected-ban-sale-new-gasoline-cars/

Today, the California Air Resources Board is expected to pass a rule requiring that all new cars sold in the state by 2035 be “zero emissions.” That means no new gas-powered cars. They expect everyone to buy only electric vehicles, which, by the way, are far from “zero emissions.” All sorts of pollution is created in mining the elements needed for the batteries (they’ll also have to double those Chinese children’s workload to meet the demand) plus other manufacturing; and I hate to break it to them, but the electricity that comes out of the outlet you plug them into has to come from somewhere, and it’s not going to come from sunbeams, windmills and unicorn burps.

There also isn’t a word in this “rule” about how they’re going to charge all those electric cars when the state is already telling people to brace for rolling brownouts and turn off their air conditioners in the middle of a heatwave because the uber-green socialists they elected refuse to build a new power plant.

Incidentally, California has tried this “You will drive an electric car or else!” stuff before. They ordered car dealers to carry a certain percentage of EVs as inventory. It resulted in the poor dealers wasting a ton of lot space on vehicles that gathered dust as nobody bought them. I predict that one of the following will happen because of this rule. Either…

1. A booming business will arise from selling used cars in California (by the way, a recent study showed that continuing to drive an older gas-powered car produces less CO2 than making and driving a new EV)…

2. Californians will go to other states to buy cars and drive them back, and if California’s government bans that, they’ll just stay in those other, sane states and be happier…

3. People will continue patching and driving their gas-powered cars until everyone is driving a 50-year-old car (yet another way that California is turning into Cuba)…

4. Californians will finally get fed up with this, throw out the idiots who are destroying their state, and elect some Republicans to fix things.

Persistence pays: Stefan Halper exposed as Russia Hoax liar

As you know, the FBI has a long and legendary history of spying. FBI confidential human source (CHS) Stefan Halper of “Russia Hoax” fame has managed to keep his activities on the down-low, avoiding a congressional subpoena and also lying to the FBI in spreading a false story from 2014 about Lt. Gen. Michael Flynn being romantically involved with a woman he suggested was a Russian honeypot, Svetlana Lokhova. But thanks to developments in a defamation lawsuit against him by Lokhova, Halper might actually be criminally charged –- after five years –- with lying to the FBI.

If you’ve read Lee Smith’s book THE PLOT AGAINST THE PRESIDENT, you know about Flynn being set up by the Obama administration when he was Director of National Intelligence. Obama didn’t like Flynn, and those who enjoyed the status quo in the intel community certainly didn’t like his ideas for restructuring and reforming it. Flynn was invited –- if memory serves, he was the guest of honor –- to a dinner near Cambridge University at the home of former MI6 director Sir Richard Dearlove, where Lokhova was also present. This appears to have been a set-up, to make it look as if Flynn were there to be with Lokhova. Pictures were taken that showed them at the same event. The idea was to have this useful “evidence” in reserve to use against Flynn later, when the time was right.

Later, after Crossfire Hurricane was opened in the summer of 2016, Halper met with FBI agents and, as Margot Cleveland writes, “falsely claimed to have witnessed the Russian-born British citizen Svetlana Lokhova leave a 2014 dinner at Cambridge University with Michael Flynn. According to the FBI’s summary of its interview with Halper, Halper also claimed to be ‘somewhat suspicious of Lokhova,’ stating he believed ‘Lokhova’s father may be a Russian Oligarch living in London.’”

By this time, Flynn was no longer the DNI and was involved in then-candidate Donald Trump’s presidential campaign. Time for the hit! It was shortly after Halper’s meeting with the FBI that an investigation of Flynn was included under the umbrella of Crossfire Hurricane. That’s when his legal nightmare began. Halper was also tasked with investigating (SPYING ON) Trump campaign associates Carter Page and George Papadopoulos.

But Halper was lying to the FBI with his story about the dinner at Cambridge. He had to have been, seeing as how he was not AT the dinner (though it seems he may have arranged it), and so did not see anything between Flynn and Lokhova, who was not a Russian honeypot. And no one would have seen them leave in a cab together, which he told them he personally had witnessed, because Lokhova’s husband came to pick her up.

But in time, the story he told the Crossfire Hurricane team about Flynn playing around with a “suspicious”-seeming Russian honeypot made the news, and Lokhova sued for defamation. By then, the statute of limitations had passed, but she was able to file a second lawsuit alleging that Halper defamed her later on, by lying about her to her publishers to get them to drop her deal to write a book about Halper and Spygate.

Halper tried to get that suit dismissed as well, but presiding Judge Leonie Brinkema rejected this, saying that documents uncovered since Lokhova’s first case show that Halper “may have made clear misstatements to the FBI” and “may be responsible for some falsehoods” about Flynn and Lokhova. These documents are almost certainly the FBI’s notes from their 2016 meeting. Uh-oh.

Now that the case is going forward, Halper’s attorney is trying to bury Lokhova’s attorney in extremely broad discovery requests. But since the judge is now aware Lokhova’s claim that Halper was intentionally lying about her is not some wild conspiracy theory, it will be harder for his attorney to hide the truth, Cleveland reasons.

Read her full article (link at end) to appreciate the back-and-forth of discovery still going on.

Halper has managed to lay low for a long time. In January 2020, Iowa Sen. Chuck Grassley wrote a letter to the Office of Net Assessments for the Department of Defense saying he’d contacted them in July 2019 “requesting all records related to Professor Halper’s contracts with DoD.” Again, Cleveland has the details. (I warn you; this one gets far into the weeds.)

https://thefederalist.com/2020/01/24/grassley-letter-asks-whether-taxpayers-paid-russian-agent-to-help-start-the-collusion-hoax/

For five years, Halper has managed to sidestep Sen. Grassley and avoid a congressional subpoena regarding (among other things) his mysterious contract work through the Office of Net Assessments. And he clearly lied to the FBI about Michael Flynn –- and about Svetlana Lokhova, whose persistence is finally bringing that story to light. This is just one more disgusting puzzle piece from the Russia Hoax that seems to be falling into place.