It has been another one of those weeks- this dizzying pace of events sweeps all before it.

The House Intelligence Panel issued a memorandum claiming to line out exactly what was provided to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court to justify a secret warrant to monitor the communications of Mr. Carter Page, who had left his position as an unpaid advisor to the Trump Campaign a month before the Court issued the order.

(Mr. Page).

It is all curious, since in surveilling Mr. Page, the DOJ and FBI were also collecting on everyone with whom Page was in contact- mostly US citizens active in political and business events who would be scooped up in “incidental” collection. Since there is no representation for the defense at the court, it is more than a little bit like the Star Chamber of old.

And the FBI Love Birds were front and center again as another 1,500 of their text messages were discovered. Most have still not been released, but one that got some breathless play this morning on the news shows indicated that “potus wants to know everything we are doing.” Presumably, that is a direct reference to President Obama.

(SpaceX Falcon Heavy Lift Vehicle. The boosters are intended to be recycled).

All this is almost drowning out the news of the third AMTRAK collision in as many months. A lot of transportation news this week- the United States is back in the heavy lift launch vehicle business again for the first time since the end of the Apollo Lunar program. At least colorful entrepreneur Elon Musk is. He got the Falcon rocket off the pad at Cape Canaveral as the Space Coast was abuzz with tourists. atop the stack was a payload consisting of one of Musk’s Tesla electric cars. Presumably without the heavy battery packs and with a dummy behind the wheel.

I won’t go any further down that road.

And we may be shutting down the government again in what now seems like an endless series high-wire budget crises. We seem to be taking this a lot more calmly than the last one- but this is no way to run a railroad. More on that and the immigration conundrum anon.

Without further ado, this week’s Swamp offering:

Copyright 2018 Vic Socotra
www.vicsocotra.com