I am not sure what the actual logic is behind this?
- You can only investigate Republicans?
- You can only run one investigation at a time?
- You are not allowed to investigate anyone in the intelligence community?
The reality is that the American public deserves "all" of the truth. If we can spend two years investigating the Trump administration, we should at least be provided with a reasonable explanation as to why and how the previous Administration came to the conclusion that their opponents in the next election needed to be monitored, have surveillance placed on them, and ultimately be placed under the scope of a clandestine FBI counterintelligence investigation. At least we should be provided with a reasonable time frame for when it began?
We should also find out if anything improper or illegal was done. If so, then action should be taken and those responsible should be held accountable.
I am not sure why this is so hard for some to accept?
112 comments:
"I am not sure why this is so hard for some to accept?"
Well, you were trolled for weeks over McCabe...
...then the IG report proved you to be right.
So, there's that.
I'm totally for letting ALL the truth come out.
As a sign of the end of Time
I agree with Jane.
The liberal time line keeps get Pushed back. Now this spying started late June 2016.
Alky, "25th Amendment"
What happen.
I find it amusing that Fox News and the conservative media has become the champions of civil liberties.
While CNN, MSNBC and the liberal media elite have become champions of the totalitarian police state.
And all because Trump.
OMG, Yes. That is insightful. CS Rocks😊
Actually, we are resisting a President who wants to be a dictator.
I've got a pen and a phone
But that's not dictatorial..
Idiot
Remember back when everybody went crazy because Bill Clinton met briefly with then Attorney General Loretta Lynch on the tarmac of the Phoenix airport? It happened while the FBI was conducting an ongoing investigation into Hillary Clinton's private email server, and people rightly questioned whether such a meeting was proper, even if, as was claimed, they only engaged in small talk and said nothing about the investigation.
Ah, but what do we have now?
A sitting President demands that his Justice Department investigate a rumor he has heard, then meets with the two people in charge and announces that, at his request, they will be doing exactly what he wanted.
If it's dictatorial to issue executive orders, Trump, Geo. Bush, and Obama as well as many other presidents must be considered dictators.
Ah, but that pales compared to 12:34 above.
MEANWHILE, REGARDING TRUMP'S SIGNATURE ACCOMPLISHMENTS WITH NORTH KOREA----
Trump Says Summit with North Korea May Be Delayed
President Trump said that his summit with North Korea’s Kim Jong-un may not go ahead as planned, adding that if the June 12 date does not hold, “maybe it will happen later,” according to Axios.
He added: “We’re moving along. We’ll see what happens.”
However, Vox reports the U.S. government has already issued an official commemorative coin for the event.
________________
Knee slapping funny.
Actually, I had sincerely hoped something would come of that summit.
But nuclear war is knee slapping funny to James.
it's important that president elect Obama is prepared to really take power and begin to rule day one."
ValJar
Rule is not dictatorial
IDIOT
A couple of items to point out to the willfully stupid.
Bill Clinton was a private citizen who was interfering in an investigation to prevent his wife from being indicted.
Donald Trump is the president of the United States who quite rightly is wondering why his subordinates are conducting an illegal spying operation against his campaign.
No, nuclear war is NOT funny. As I said, I sincerely hoped something good would come from that summit.
ANOTHER TRUMP FOREIGN POLICY FAIL
Rubio Says China Is Winning Trump’s Trade War
Sen. Marco Rubio (R-FL) on Twitter:
#China is winning the negotiations. Their concessions are things they planned to do anyways. In exchange they get no tariffs, can keep stealing intellectual property & can keep blocking our companies while they invest in the U.S. without limits. #Losing.
_______________
"Their concessions are things they planned to do anyways." THAT'S ABSOLUTELY CORRECT.
Trump buckled.
Trump caved.
"Donald Trump is the president of the United States who ...is wondering why his subordinates are conducting an illegal spying operation against his campaign."
Yeah, why would his subordinates do that?
ANOTHER EPIC TRUMP POLICY FAIL
Meanwhile support for Trump's tax law has dropped from net positives into net negatives.
Indeed, why would his subordinates conduct a covert operation against their lawful commander in chief.
Some would call that treason.
If an objective investigation reveals that a Commander in Chief has acted illegally, that is love of the country and patriotism in action.
Looks like the Democrats are either drowning in their tears from TRUMP WINNING or the reversal of their "blue wave".
Desperate spamming by the "pastor"
Of course what else is fucking new?
ANOTHER GREAT DAY TO BE A REPUBLICAN and an AMERICAN and another day closer to Obama recognized as the most corrupt president ever. His enablers will be shamed for life, a long time for a few, a short time for those more advanced in age.
ROFLMFAO !!!
Backchannel to Trump for Sale
Associated Press: “Trump fundraiser Elliot Broidy and his business partner, Lebanese-American George Nader, pitched themselves to the crown princes as a backchannel to the White House, passing the princes’ praise — and messaging — straight to the president’s ears. Now, in December 2017, Broidy was ready to be rewarded for all his hard work. It was time to cash in.
“In return for pushing anti-Qatar policies at the highest levels of America’s government, Elliot Broidy and George Nader expected huge consulting contracts from Saudi Arabia and the UAE, according to an Associated Press investigation based on interviews with more than two dozen people and hundreds of pages of leaked emails between the two men. The emails reviewed by the AP included work summaries and contracting documents and proposals.”
_______________
Can it get any more corrupt than this?
BREAKING: E-mails Show FBI Brass Discussed Dossier Briefing Details With CNN
Newly revealed e-mails show that former Federal Bureau Investigation (FBI) deputy director Andrew McCabe was keenly aware of CNN’s internal understanding of a secret briefing about the infamous Steele dossier, days before CNN published any stories on the matter. The e-mails, which were obtained by Sen. Ron Johnson (R-Wisc.), also reveal that top officials used coded language to refer to the salacious and unverified allegations made by Steele.
Former FBI director James Comey briefed then-President-Elect Donald Trump on January 6, 2017, on at least one unproven allegation contained in Steele’s dossier, which was jointly funded by the Hillary Clinton campaign and the Democratic National Committee. CNN broke the story about the dossier briefing on January 10, 2017, touching off a firestorm of hysteria that culminated in not just the firing of Comey by Trump, but the eventual appointment of Department of Justice (DOJ) special counsel Robert Mueller.
Comey claimed that he was compelled to brief Trump on the dossier because “CNN had [it]” and was “looking for a news hook.”
Hours before Comey briefed Trump, FBI chief of staff James Rybicki e-mailed staff that Comey “is coming into HQ briefly now for an update from the sensitive matter team.” Just as the same officials dubbed the Clinton e-mail investigation the “mid-year exam” and the anti-Trump counterintelligence investigation “Crossfire Hurricane,” they also used various phrases using “sensitive” to refer obliquely to the dossier.
Two days after the briefing, on January 8, 2017, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who earlier this year was fired and then referred for criminal prosecution by the DOJ inspector general for repeatedly lying about media leaks, wrote an e-mail to top FBI officials with the subject, “Flood is coming.”
“CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story,” McCabe wrote to Comey, Rybicki, and two others. “The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.” He did not detail how he came to know what CNN’s “trigger” was for publishing the dossier briefing story.
Although the January 10 story from CNN also claimed that Trump was presented with a two-page summary of the dossier, which was not part of the official intelligence community assessment given to Trump, Comey himself later claimed that he did not give the two-page document to Trump, raising questions about whether McCabe himself was a source for CNN’s assertion that Trump had been given the entire two-page document during the briefing.
Shortly after sending his e-mail to Comey and other FBI officials, McCabe e-mailed then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and her deputy, Matthew Axelrod. McCabe used the subject line “News” in his e-mail to the DOJ officials.
“Just as an FYI, and as expected,” McCabe wrote, “it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.” It is not clear how McCabe came to be so familiar with CNN’s understanding of the dossier, its briefing, or how close CNN was to reporting on the matter.
In a Monday letter to FBI director Christopher Wray, Sen. Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked the director to provide a list of all members of the “sensitive matters team” referenced by Rybicki in his January 6 e-mail. Johnson also requested that Wray provide all details about how FBI officials “first learned that media outlets, including CNN, may have possessed the Steele dossier.”
Levin: There’s ‘no way Obama didn’t know’ about his administration’s ‘police state tactics’
On Monday, CRTV host Mark Levin returned from a short break to explain why President Obama must have known about the FISA warrant application process and the “police state tactics” detailed in the Nunes memo.
“Barack Obama had to know, at least generally, what was taking place for multiple reasons. And he’s the one the Democrats are protecting the most,” Levin said. “He’s the one the media are protecting the most. Levin argues that Obama must have known because several senior members of his administration knew."
“So Lynch, Yates, Comey, McCabe, Strzok, Page — they all knew about the FISA application. Would they have kept it secret from the president of the United States?” Levin asked. “Moreover, if I found pieces of this in the media, you have to assume the president’s press team found pieces of this in the media.”
“There’s no way Obama didn’t know about the applications and the actual securing of the warrant,” Levin said. “And yet he’s never asked about it.”
If an objective investigation reveals that a Commander in Chief has acted illegally,
A couple points:
1. Trump has never done anything illegal, it was a liberal fantasy cooked up to explain to themselves why Hillary lost.
The investigation stated in early 2016 wasn't even a criminal investigation it was a counterintelligence investigation with a heavy political connotation.
For all practical purposes, the FBI was doing opposition research on Barack Obama's order.
2. If by some chance it was justified, it still does not excuse the illegal spying by the FBI. Any judge would throw out any evidence obtained by this spying and the agents themselves would, at the very least, be fired.
More winning bigly
Boom: Team Trump cuts nearly twice as many regulations as promised
The Trump administration is showing no signs of slowing its slashing of Obama-era regulations, beating their plans to cut two for every new rule and saving more than double what was hoped for, according to a new report.
“The Trump administration is making substantial deregulatory progress,” said a new report from American Action Forum.
“The administration is prioritizing deregulation, and it is set to double its goals of a two-for-one deregulatory-to-regulatory ratio and $686.6 million in net savings,” said the report from forum experts Dan Bosch, director of regulatory policy, and Dan Goldbeck, a senior analyst.
James -
The Informant/spy/operative or whatever that investigated/spied on/infiltrated the Trump campaign...
Is not a "rumor".
It's a bona fide fact. The only discrepancies are in regards to who authorized it, why it was authorized, and when it was authorized. Those are exactly the points that need to be looked into.
On the flip side?
Trump Putin Collusion Conspiracy?
That was a unsubstantiated rumor that we have spent millions investigating so far.
So James, give us the reason (other than Trump ordered it and you don't like Trump) that this situation should not be investigated?
caliphate4vrMay 22, 2018 at 12:30 PM
I've got a pen and a phone
But that's not dictatorial..
Idiot.
Worthy of a repost.
Make that 2 spies ordered by President Obama against Republican Canidate Trump.
Ch, I do not pretend to be as glib or knowledgeable of arcane points of law, so I'll let Eugene Robinson answer you for me:
_____________
The pretext Trump seized on is the revelation that a longtime FBI and CIA informant, described as a retired college professor, made contact with three Trump campaign associates before the election as part of the FBI’s initial investigation into Russian meddling.
With the full-throated backing of right-wing media, Trump has described this person as a “spy” who was “implanted, for political purposes, into my campaign for president.” This claim is completely unsupported by the facts as we know them. Trump wants you to believe a lie.
The informant was not embedded or implanted or otherwise inserted into the campaign. He was asked to contact several campaign figures whose names had already surfaced in the FBI’s counterintelligence probe. It would have been an appalling dereliction of duty not to take a look at Trump advisers with Russia ties, such as Carter Page and George Papadopoulos, when the outlines of a Russian campaign to influence the election were emerging.
Trump claims this is the nation’s “all time biggest political scandal” because, he alleges, Justice Department officials and the FBI used a “spy” to try to “frame” him and his campaign, in an effort to boost his opponent Hillary Clinton’s chance of winning the election. This conspiracy theory has so many holes in it that it’s hard to know where to begin. But let’s start with the glaringly obvious:
If the aim was to make Trump lose, why wasn’t all the known information about the Trump campaign’s Russia connections leaked before the election, when it might have had some impact?
The truth appears to be precisely the opposite of what Trump says, which is not uncommon. The record suggests that Justice and the FBI were so uncomfortable investigating a presidential campaign in the weeks and months before an election that they tiptoed around promising lines of inquiry rather than appear to be taking a side. The FBI director at the time was James B. Comey, and while we heard plenty about Clinton’s emails before the vote, we had no idea that such a mature investigation of the Trump campaign was underway.
Now that the Mueller probe has bored into Trump’s inner circle — and federal authorities have raided the homes and office of his personal attorney, Michael Cohen — the president appears to be in a panic. The question is whether he sees this “spy” nonsense as a way to discredit Mueller’s eventual findings, or as a pretext for trying to end the investigation with a bloody purge akin to Richard Nixon’s “Saturday Night Massacre.”
The Justice Department answered Trump’s tweeted demand by announcing that an existing investigation by its inspector general will now “include determining whether there was any impropriety or political motivation” by the FBI.
Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein may hope that is enough to avoid a showdown. I fear he is wrong.
None of this is normal or acceptable. One of the bedrock principles of our system of government is that no one is above the law, not even the president. But a gutless Congress has refused, so far, to protect this sacred inheritance.
Trump is determined to use the Justice Department and the FBI to punish those he sees as political enemies. This is a crisis, and it will get worse.
Ch, I do not pretend to be as glib or knowledgeable of arcane points of law
He can't answer so he spams the blog with an irrelevant article.
Robertson is making the same semantic argument ever desperate liberal has made since the story came out.
And it's just as unconvincing.
Sure sounds like more than desperate semantics to me.
Trump seems the desperate one.
Is there any "there" there?
No.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/were-in-venezuelatrumps-latest-fbi-attack-stuns-saddens-justice-officials
James Boswell of Normal, Illinois is a pedophile.
New Reuters Generic polling:
Republicans UP 6.2 over Democrats
WOW, no wonder Democrats are scurrying around and the "pastor" is desperate.
http://polling.reuters.com/#!response/TM1212Y17/type/week/filters/PD1:1/dates/20170601-20180523/collapsed/true
**************NOTE*****************
The turn in polling began to happen as Democrats launched thier "Whore Offensive", yet the Democrats are experiencing "Storm Damage".
James Boswell of Normal, Illinois is a pedophile.
James -
Eugene Robinson's argument (which I already read this morning) is that Trump shouldn't be allowed to order the investigation. He rants and raves about Trump abusing his power as President. He talks about Presidential norms.
without ever explaining why the investigation shouldn't go forward (other than we should take the opinions of him and others from his newspaper that there is nothing there to see).
Btw.. Eugene Robinson knows zero about the law, just like you do. Not sure why you decide to C&P a well known political hack?
But you know who "does" know the Law?
The Attorney General Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Ron Rosenstein. Those who authorized (correctly) that this is something that should be investigated. They correctly referred the matter to the Inspector General.
You might also want to read someone who actually is an expert on federal law:
https://www.nationalreview.com/2018/05/donald-trump-department-of-justice-investigation-demand/
President Trump is right to order that action be taken. And unlike in the last brouhaha over FISA surveillance, the president did not imply that a referral to the inspector general would be problematic. As we observed in the March 1 editorial, Horowitz “has earned a reputation for probity and fact-driven independence.” As we await his much-anticipated report on the FBI’s performance in the Clinton-emails investigation, it should be noted that, since our editorial, Horowitz has issued a comprehensive report on the misconduct of the FBI’s former deputy director, Andrew McCabe, which resulted in a criminal referral. (See my April 21 column, here.)
Predictably, knee-jerk Trump critics are exercised over the president’s giving an order to the Justice Department, claiming political interference in law-enforcement. Quite apart from the fact that the Justice Department is subordinate to the chief executive in our constitutional system, the criticism overlooks two distinctions we have repeatedly stressed, between (a) counterintelligence and criminal investigations, and (b) official misconduct and ordinary crime.
Though carried out by executive officials (i.e., investigators and prosecutors), criminal investigations are governed by congressional penal statutes and overseen by the courts. By contrast, counterintelligence is an investigative activity undertaken entirely in support of the president’s constitutional responsibility to protect the nation from foreign threats. It is not “interference in law-enforcement” when the president directs the Justice Department and FBI to take action in connection with their counterintelligence mission, and to ensure that this mission is being conducted properly. If counterintelligence authorities were exploited to spy on a political campaign in the absence of strong evidence that the political campaign was in a traitorous conspiracy with a hostile foreign power, that would be a major abuse of power. The buck stops with the president, and he has a duty to see that this question is investigated.
Economist/YouGov
42 37
Democrats +5
Reuters/Ipsos
38 37
Democrats +1
Rasmussen Reports
46 40
Democrats +6
CNN
47 44
Democrats +3
Rant and rave all you want, Ch.
It seems there's no "there" there.
https://www.thedailybeast.com/were-in-venezuelatrumps-latest-fbi-attack-stuns-saddens-justice-officials
Excellent poll results
CNN down to just Dems up 3
Latest Reuters REPUBLICANS UP 6.2 (from down 1 on previous, see my link)
WINNING !!!
KD said...
**************NOTE*****************
The turn in polling began to happen as Democrats launched thier "Whore Offensive", yet the Democrats are experiencing "Storm Damage".
ROFLMFAO !!!
James Boswell of Normal, Illinois is a pedophile.
THIS IS WHAT IT'S REALLY ALL ABOUT:
Trump Attacks Press So No One Believes Negative Stories
“60 Minutes” correspondent Lesley Stahl once asked Trump why he attacks the press.
Said Stahl:
“I said, ‘You know that is getting tired, why are you doing this? You are doing it over and over, it’s boring, it’s time to end that. You won the nomination, why do you keep hammering at this?'”
Responded Trump:
“You know why I do it? I do it to demean you all and discredit you all, so that when you write negative stories about me no one will believe you.”
___________
So there you have it.
Trump told her that he attacks the press so no one will believe the negative stories written about him, even if they're true.
________
Oh, but it's getting to the point where he has cried, "Wolf! Wolf!" too often.
Sean DavisVerified account @seanmdav ·
Wyden: "Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?"
Clapper then: "No."
Clapper now: Wyden's question was really difficult and confusing and super hard to answer and I just got all mixed up.
He is an appallingly bad liar.
Maybe Clapper looks up to the "pastor"
ROFLMFAO !!!
President Donald Trump accentuated his fury Tuesday at the notion an FBI source may have provided information about his campaign, declaring such a scenario would amount to an unprecedented scandal.
US officials have told CNN there was no such source planted inside Trump's campaign to provide information to investigators. But Trump has raged over the story nonetheless.
"If they had spies in my campaign, that would be a disgrace to this country. That would be one of the biggest insults that anyone has ever seen. It would be very illegal aside from everything else," Trump said Tuesday in the Oval Office alongside his South Korean counterpart.
"It would make probably every political event ever look like small potatoes," he said. "So, we want to make sure that there weren't. I hope there weren't, frankly."
___________________
See? He's already backtracking. LOL
Obama Democrats in a panic about the Kanye West defection
Like the border guards of the Berlin Wall, Democrats seem to be in a panic about the defection of rap superstar Kanye West from their side of the impregnable wall.
Now we have a report of President Obama making phone pleas to other rap stars, such as Jay-Z, the rapper husband of one of his favorites, Beyoncé, asking him to urge other hip-hop artists not to visit President Trump in the White House.
Apparently, they can't afford to lose anyone. Too much propaganda value at stake. And so, like the socialists of Berlin, with their shoot-to-kill policy for anyone dreaming to live in freedom and making a run for it, they're trying to stop them.
Maybe Clapper looks up to the "pastor"
clapper is a pederast too?
well, i suppose it's possible. he sure looks the part.
James
No ranting or raving.
The IG will find out what happened, when it happened, and why it happened... and offer a report (and criminal referrals if necessary - as he did with Andrew McCabe). Not sure why anyone would have an issue with this particular scenario.
Oh, wait... of course. The CIA/FBI/DOJ deep state people might have concern, if there was actual wrong doing. Perhaps they have been able to do whatever they wanted for far too long without oversight.
Now they have oversight.
Wonder what they are hiding James to be so freaked out by it?
Nick Short 🇺🇸
✔
@PoliticalShort
Senator Ron Johnson letter to the FBI regarding Steele dossier. Explosive new e-mails show FBI brass discussed dossier briefing details with CNN. FBI has a hell of a lot of explaining to do. http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/21/breaking-e-mails-show-fbi-brass-discussed-dossier-briefing-details-cnn/ …
11:39 PM - May 21, 2018
6,130
4,512 people are talking about this
https://twitter.com/PoliticalShort/status/998770216321433600?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A%2F%2Face.mu.nu%2F
Two days after the briefing, on January 8, 2017, former FBI deputy director Andrew McCabe, who earlier this year was fired and then referred for criminal prosecution by the DOJ inspector general for repeatedly lying about media leaks, wrote an e-mail to top FBI officials with the subject, “Flood is coming.”
“CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story,” McCabe wrote to Comey, Rybicki, and two others. “The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.” He did not detail how he came to know what CNN’s “trigger” was for publishing the dossier briefing story.
Although the January 10 story from CNN also claimed that Trump was presented with a two-page summary of the dossier, which was not part of the official intelligence community assessment given to Trump, Comey himself later claimed that he did not give the two-page document to Trump, raising questions about whether McCabe himself was a source for CNN’s assertion that Trump had been given the entire two-page document during the briefing.
Shortly after sending his e-mail to Comey and other FBI officials, McCabe e-mailed then-Deputy Attorney General Sally Yates and her deputy, Matthew Axelrod. McCabe used the subject line “News” in his e-mail to the DOJ officials.
“Just as an FYI, and as expected,” McCabe wrote, “it seems CNN is close to running a story about the sensitive reporting.” It is not clear how McCabe came to be so familiar with CNN’s understanding of the dossier, its briefing, or how close CNN was to reporting on the matter.
In a Monday letter to FBI director Christopher Wray, Sen. Johnson, who chairs the Senate Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs Committee, asked the director to provide a list of all members of the “sensitive matters team” referenced by Rybicki in his January 6 e-mail. Johnson also requested that Wray provide all details about how FBI officials “first learned that media outlets, including CNN, may have possessed the Steele dossier.”
To date, there is no public evidence that the FBI ever investigated the leaks to media about the briefing between Trump and Comey. When asked in a recent interview by Fox News Channel’s Bret Baier, Comey scoffed at the idea that the FBI would even need to investigate the leak of a secret briefing with the incoming president.
“Did you or your subordinates leak that?” Baier asked.
“No,” Comey responded. “I don’t know who leaked it.”
“Did you ever try to find out?” Baier asked.
“Who leaked an unclassified public document?” Comey said, even though Baier’s question was about leaking details of a briefing of the incoming president, not the dossier. “No,” Comey said.
Johnson requested a response from Wray by 5:00 p.m. on June 4.
http://thefederalist.com/2018/05/21/breaking-e-mails-show-fbi-brass-discussed-dossier-briefing-details-cnn/
Not too long ago the Generic Congressional ballot had the Democrats up by an average of 12 point.
Now James his bragging on 1, 5, 3, etc?
My, how the mighty have fallen!
WINNING FUCKING BIGLY...
The average American is more optimistic about their ability to find a job under the Trump administration than at any point previously recorded, according to a new poll.
Data released by Gallup on Monday showed 67 percent of Americans believe now is a "good time" to find a quality job. The results were buoyed across gender lines, with 71 percent of males and 59 percent of females decidedly optimistic about the job market.
http://freebeacon.com/issues/poll-trump-job-market-optimism-highest-point-ever-recorded/
Most Americans believe President Trump is at least somewhat responsible for the good state of the economy, a CBS News poll revealed Sunday.
According to the poll, 35 percent of Americans believe Trump’s policies are “a great deal” responsible for the economy’s performance. Another 33 percent said the president is "somewhat" responsible.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/388528-poll-two-thirds-give-trump-credit-for-economy
what was the pederast saying about some generic poll?
DID THE OBAMA ADMINISTRATION’S ABUSE OF FOREIGN-INTELLIGENCE COLLECTION START BEFORE TRUMP?
The reason the prior abuse of the foreign-intelligence surveillance apparatus is clear only now is because the Russia campaign has illuminated it. As The New York Times reported last month, the administration distributed the intelligence gathered on the Trump transition team widely throughout government agencies, after it had changed the rules on distributing intercepted communications. The point of distributing the information so widely was to “preserve it,” the administration and its friends in the press explained—“preserve” being a euphemism for “leak.” The Obama team seems not to have understood that in proliferating that material they have exposed themselves to risk, by creating a potential criminal trail that may expose systematic abuse of foreign-intelligence collection.
http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/229062/did-the-obama-administrations-abuse-of-foreign-intelligence-collection-start-before-trump
You support of the President is proof that you don't care about the country and the Constitution.
The Presidency will be eventually become a dictatorship.
If Republicans control the House and Senate next year, I would expect them to push some kind of health policy proposal that uses the so-called reconciliation process, which requires only a majority of votes in the Senate, rather than a filibuster-proof 60. That legislation could be a full-scale repeal of Obamacare. Or it could be a bill that doesn’t repeal all of Obamacare but both cuts spending on Medicaid and turns Medicaid into a block-grant program where states can choose to spend the dollars they get from the federal government as they see fit. Overhauling Medicaid was a key plank of the various Obamacare repeal bills Republicans pushed in 2017.
Republicans in the House are currently trying to add requirements that food stamp recipients be either employed or actively looking for a job in order to continue to receive those benefits. That legislation is currently stalled, but it’s a long-held GOP goal.
You might think that doesn’t sound like a particularly popular agenda heading into the 2020 elections. And shouldn’t last year have convinced Republicans to give up on health care? After all, they struggled to pass an Obamacare repeal bill in the House when they had more than 230 members, and it failed in the Senate. So why would Republicans come back to this? Well, some conservative lawmakers on Capitol Hill, major party activists and officials in the Trump administration want to.
“They will be searching for an agenda, and health care is a natural place for them. And there will be pressure for them to act,” said Yuval Levin, a conservative health policy expert who served in the Bush administration.
And the political environment in 2019 could shift in ways that both force Republican party leaders to move in a more conservative direction and make it easier to get conservative proposals through both houses of Congress.
Sure, the GOP’s overall margin in the House might narrow. But the House and Senate Republicans who are defeated in November will likely come from the bluer districts and states that the party currently holds — including some where Clinton won in 2016. So the remaining Republicans will, on average, represent more conservative constituencies than the current group does. They will not be scared to vote for an Obamacare repeal — after all, they voted for one in the run-up to 2018 and kept their seats. And they may face intense pressure back home from conservatives if they oppose it.
Moreover, the more conservative factions among House Republicans, particularly the Freedom Caucus, are likely to have more influence in 2019 if the party retains the majority. With Speaker Paul Ryan retiring, Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy is the favorite to become the top Republican in the House, but Freedom Caucus members are looking for ways to either get one of their own elected speaker or extract some concessions from McCarthy. The Freedom Caucus strongly pushed for an Obamacare repeal even after the effort’s failure in the Senate, and the caucus has also been pushing the party to be much more aggressive in cutting federal spending. So McCarthy may have to pledge to pursue an Obamacare repeal and other conservative fiscal policies if he wants to be the speaker.
“They will be dominated by the Freedom Caucus and will get serious about slashing safety-net expenditures,” said U.S. Rep. John Yarmuth, a Democrat from Kentucky. “The Senate will not go along, so it will be worse gridlock, I would think.”
Yarmuth is right to bring up the other chamber of Congress. Even with continued GOP control of the House, if the party’s advantage in the Senate stays narrow, more moderate members like Maine’s Susan Collins and Alaska’s Lisa Murkowski remain potential barriers to major spending cuts.
You believe that Obama wiretapped him. You believe that the crowd was the largest ever.
You believe that he isn't a compulsive liar.
You believe everything he says.
Sieg Trump
When he came into office he said that Obama had wire-tapped the office. This is just every-day garden variety paranoia. Why is anyone taking it seriously? Hysterical paranoia: nothing more. Nothing less.
WASHINGTON — The hallmark of President Trump’s Twitter feed is that it sounds like him — grammatical miscues and all.
But it’s not always Trump tapping out a Tweet, even when it sounds like his voice. West Wing employees who draft proposed tweets intentionally employ suspect grammar and staccato syntax in order to mimic the president’s style, according to two people familiar with the process.
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They overuse the exclamation point! They Capitalize random words for emphasis. Fragments. Loosely connected ideas. All part of a process that is not as spontaneous as Trump’s Twitter feed often appears.
Presidential speechwriters have always sought to channel their bosses’ style and cadence, but Trump’s team is blazing new ground with its approach to his favorite means of instant communication. Some staff members even relish the scoldings Trump gets from elites shocked by the Trumpian language they strive to imitate, believing that debates over presidential typos fortify the belief within his base that he has the common touch.
His staff has become so adept at replicating Trump’s tone that people who follow his feed closely say it is getting harder to discern which tweets were actually crafted by Trump sitting in his bathrobe and watching “Fox & Friends” and which were concocted by his communications team.
Those familiar with the process wouldn’t fess up to which tweets were staff-written. But an algorithm crafted by a writer at The Atlantic to determine real versus staff-written tweets suggested several were not written by the president, despite the unusual use of the language.
“Looking forward to greeting the Hostages (no longer) at 2:00 A.M.” someone tweeted from Trump’s account at 6:41 p.m. May 9. The Atlantic’s analysis pegged it 17 percent likely written by Trump, based on a complex comparison with past Trump tweets.
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Staff-written tweets do go through a West Wing process of sorts. When a White House employee wants the president to tweet about a topic, the official writes a memo to the president that includes three or four sample tweets, according to those familiar with the process.
Trump then picks the one he likes the best.
Look it's cray cray
Roger is a f*ckin moron
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, fired back Tuesday at President Trump's claim that he is a "lying machine."
Appearing on ABC's "The View," Clapper denied that he had misled Congress when he testified on the spying activities of the National Security Agency in 2013, saying he had simply "made a mistake" when responding to a question.
"The president's calling me a lying machine," Clapper said. "Well, okay. What that stems from is an exchange I had with Sen. [Ron] Wyden [D-Ore.] five years ago in March of 2013 about a surveillance program, and he was asking me about one, and I was thinking about another. So I made a mistake. I didn't lie."
Co-host Meghan McCain pushed back and argued that Clapper did lie when asked about the NSA program.
"What you're referencing though ... when you're talking about James Snowden blowing the whistle on the NSA illegally spying. And in 2013 when you were asked about it, you said no, so that is a lie."
"No, it isn't a lie. I'm sorry. It isn't a lie. I was thinking about something else, another program. I can get into the technical details. He was asking about the metadata program and the euphemistic way he asked about it, I didn't break the code," Clapper said.
Clapper said he had testified to Congress on various occasions for more than 20 years, and mocked the idea that he would lie about Snowden and the NSA to senators overseeing his work.
"But gee, just for a change of pace, I think I'll lie on this one question, and by the way, do it on live television in front of one of my oversight committee," he said to applause from the audience.
Trump's tweet at Clapper, who has been a vocal critic of the president, occurred on April 28.
"Clapper lied about (fraudulent) Dossier leaks to CNN" @foxandfriends FoxNews He is a lying machine who now works for Fake News CNN," Trump wrote.
Roger is a f*ckin moron" MB
Ibid
:IF Americans give the House of Representatives back to the Democratic Party this November, one of first things that will happen is the impeachment of President Trump, Rep. Al Green (D-Texas) said Tuesday."
Every dem running must be asked a yes or no question.
Q, Will you impeach Trump
File this under "FU Liberals"
Winning Bigly , President called them Animals, "Animal" agrees.
"An MS-13 gang member nicknamed “Animal” has been convicted and sentenced to prison for the murder of a 15-year-old boy in East Boston.
Joel Martinez, also known as “Animal,” is a 23-year-old national from El Salvador and a member of the violent MS-13 street gang, according to the Boston Herald."
The News is Really, Really Good. More "Stormy Damage"
The Los Angeles Times reports:
Judge Catherine Bauer of U.S. Bankruptcy Court in Santa Ana ordered the Eagan Avenatti law firm to pay the $10 million to Jason Frank, a lawyer who used to work at the Newport Beach firm.
At the hearing, the U.S. Justice Department revealed that Avenatti’s firm has also defaulted on back taxes that it promised to pay the Internal Revenue Service under another bankruptcy settlement."
Its not likely. But if the Democrats take the house he will not have the house intelligence committee as his best friend.
You better watch out, the women are coming together behind the Democrats almost nation wide. An African American woman is running for governor in Georgia. The result are going to be disturbing to the Republicans.. Mostly white suburbs had high turnout voting for her.Trump won the district by 20 points.
CNN is close to going forward with the sensitive story,” McCabe wrote in the email to senior FBI leadership. “The trigger for them is they know the material was discussed in the brief and presented in an attachment.” The subject line for that email was “Flood is Coming.”
OBAMA, controlled and directed this .
In early January 2017, less than two weeks before Trump’s inauguration, Clapper and his colleagues presented the president-elect with the sum total of what they had discovered about the Russian influence campaign. The report was far more detailed than the sanitized versions released to members of Congress and the public.
“I remember just how staggering the assessment felt the first time I read it through from start to finish, and just how specific our conclusions and evidence were,” Clapper writes. “We showed unambiguously that Putin had ordered the campaign to influence the election, that the campaign was multifaceted, and that Russia had used cyber espionage against US political organizations and publicly disclosed the data they collected through WikiLeaks, DCLeaks, and the Guccifer 2.0 persona. We documented Russian cyber intrusions into state and local voter rolls. We described Russia’s pervasive propaganda efforts through RT [satellite television], Sputnik, and the social media trolls, and how the entire operation had begun with attempts to undermine US democracy and demean Secretary Clinton, then shifted to promoting Mr. Trump when Russia assessed he was a viable candidate who would serve their strategic goals. . . . The Russian government had done all of this at minimal cost and without significant damage to their own interests, and they had no incentive to stop.”
This was not the now-famous “dossier” compiled by a former British spy about prostitutes and conniving oligarchs, which Clapper calls “pseudo-intelligence” — this was solid stuff. But Trump set out to discredit the whole report before he’d so much as seen it, claiming that it was all a plot by the Democrats to explain away their loss and casting doubts on the reliability — and abilities — of the intelligence community as a whole.
You better watch out, the women are coming together behind the Democrats" septic gene alky.
Hillary endorses Commie Commo over, wait for it. A LTGLZ Woman.
"A special place in HELL for woman that don't support woman" Mr Maddalen Albright
*****NOTE****
For Hillary to lose, it meant weak minded Democrats were duped by Russia and voted Trump.
On Monday’s broadcast of MSNBC’s “Andrea Mitchell Reports,” Representative Adam Schiff (D-CA) stated that the DOJ’s independence has been eroding and “it certainly looks like a Saturday Night Massacre in slow motion.”
ALKY, you had happening "Monday".
Evgeny Freidman, a business partner of President Donald Trump's lawyer Michael Cohen has agreed to cooperate with prosecutors, The New York Times reported Tuesday.
That cooperation by the "Taxi King" Freidman could spell very bad news for Cohen, who is the subject of an ongoing criminal investigation by federal prosecutors in New York City.
The Times suggested that Freidman's cooperation "could be used as leverage to pressure Cohen to work with the special counsel," Robert Mueller, "examining Russian interference in the 2016 presidential election."
Freidman, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday to evading taxes in court in Albany County. He agreed to pay restitution and judgments totaling $5 million to New York State, according to New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky
Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky Alky
LOL.
Poor OLD needy Rog.
"Look it's cray cray"
I don't think anyone is surprised that CH unfriended and blocked Roger on Facebook, lol.
Ole Rog has no self-control...
...much like the pedo.
James Clapped former director of the National Intelligence Service.
My hope is to capture and share the experience of more than fifty years in the intelligence profession, to impart the pride that intelligence officers take in their work, the care with which they consider the ethical implications of surveillance and espionage, and the patriotism and willingness to sacrifice that they bring to the job. And finally, I intend to show that what Russia did to the United States during the 2016 election was far worse than just another post–Cold War jab at an old adversary. What happened to us was a sustained assault on our traditional values and institutions of governance, from external as well as internal pressures. In the wake of that experience, my fear is that many Americans are questioning if facts are even knowable, as foreign adversaries and our national leaders continue to deny objective reality while advancing their own “alternative facts.” America possesses great strength and resilience, but how we rise to this challenge—with clear-eyed recognignition of the unbiased facts and by setting aside our doubts—is entirely up to us. I believe the destiny of the American ideal is at stake.
"James Clapped"
LOL.
I believe the destiny of the American ideal is at stake.
well fuckstick, if our nation can manage to stay true to the destiny of the american ideal you'll be writing your memoirs from a prison cell.
Blogger Roger Amick said...
James Clapper, the former director of national intelligence, fired back Tuesday at President Trump's claim that he is a "lying machine."
says the liar who knowingly lied the a senate sub committee.
geezus alky, you always manage to get into bed with the scummiest scumbags there are.
Freidman, 46, pleaded guilty Tuesday to evading taxes in court in Albany County. He agreed to pay restitution and judgments totaling $5 million to New York State, according to New York Attorney General Barbara Underwood.
ok alky, rather than just copy and paste from the ny times, why don't you explain to us just exactly what freidman's tax issues have to directly do with cohen.
there's a whole lot of innuendo, conjecture, and speculation in your ripped off piece, and no verifiable link to cohen.
and btw, what's the latest on your favorite cum dumpster skanky daniels? i see that her lawyer avenutty is having a particularly bad couple of days that are literally costing him million$.
Roger,
You shouldn't bring up the constitution when you obviously don't understand it. There is nothing in the constitution that supports the assertion that the President and/or an AG cannot (or should not) order members in the FBI to be investigated.
There is nothing in the constitution (like it or not) that supports the reasoning that the FBI or CIA or whoever are independent organizations that fall outside the scope of Executive or Congressional oversight.
In fact, as a practical matter, it would be the "obligation" of those in charge of the executive branch to make sure any potential malfeasance be internally investigated by an Inspector General (who by the way does not conduct criminal investigations), if the FBI/CIA leadership refuse to police their own.
It's been said that you don't mess with the intelligence community because they have 101 ways to "get you back". By constitutional purposes they should actually "zero" ways to get you back. They should be playing by the same rules as everyone else in society.
If casting a spotlight on all of this will lead to less illicit behavior on the part of our intelligence community, then that is a good thing. A very good thing. Our intelligence community should not have the power to simply "bring down" people they don't like, especially elected political leaders.
James Clapped"
LOL"Ette
Yep. 2018 Election. The Party of Spooks and Whores.
btw, what's the latest on your favorite cum dumpster skanky daniels? i see that her lawyer avenutty is having a particularly bad couple of days that are literally costing him million$.
"
Democrats are experiencing cat 5 Stormy Daniels Damage and for her Lawyer, she can help him payoff the $5 million dollar tax bill they owe.
Democrats 2018, impeach we Much!!
Scott since you actually believe this shit you're nuts.
BTW I know a lot more about the Constitution than you.
Our intelligence community should not have the power to simply "bring down" people they don't like, especially elected political leaders.
Bonkers on steroids.
BTW I know a lot more about the Constitution than you.
So then what is your argument? That you ignore what you "know" in order to go on your stark raving mad rants?
Lol you make a lot of insults.
I knew that the Constitution doesn't have a specific definition of the President's authority to investigate for partisan reasons or does it deny the ability to do so. But this is the first time in history that a President to do so.
Your belief that the FBI/DOJ practice partisan investigations against people they don't like. The FBI has not been partisan since J Edgar Hoover.
BTW I know a lot more about the Constitution than you. " Pillboy
That is why we like Alky, he is an Expert in every thing.
Alky answer us this can a uniformed police officer question a known criminal suspect without reading them their Marada?
And is what is the 2nd part of the Marada ( fill in the blank).
But this is the first time in history that a President to do so." Alky
Wrong, JFK had AG Robert Kennedy investigate Dr. King.
Roger...
Quite obviously both the A.G. and the D.A.G. believed that the whole "spy/informant" issue was worthy of investigation. Most people "familiar" with the situation stated that the I.G. would have been asked to investigate these charges whether the President ordered it or not.
Partisan is not part of the constitution because it boils down to opinion. It's apparently an "opinion" that the President, the A.G., and the D.A.G. are all acting in a "partisan" matter by investigating the behavior of the FBI. But that is not a constitutional question at all.
But of course, since the FBI is not a "partisan" organization, how on earth can it be considered "partisan" to have an I.G. investigate something?
The only way this becomes "partisan" is if the investigation leads from the FBI, to the DOJ, and to high levels of leadership. Certainly if Obama, Lynch, or someone like that played a hand in what the FBI was doing, then it would be a "partisan issue".
But if that turns out to be the case (that the "investigation" of the Trump campaign came from the White House or high levels of the DOJ) then we obviously have a bigger scandal brewing. Certainly you (and everyone else) should want something like that exposed?
https://www.npr.org/2018/01/26/580677742/the-massive-case-of-collective-amnesia-the-fbi-has-been-political-from-the-start
The Massive Case Of Collective Amnesia: The FBI Has Been Political From The Start,,, NPR
Alky wears the Clown Suit Well. He ran off wearing it.
The FBI has not been partisan since J Edgar Hoover.
In 2018 nearly everyone and every organization is partisan. To suggest that the members of the FBI hold no political alliances, or that those political alliances do not sneak into their jobs, is more than naive.
Unless someone is living under the cloud of an alcohol induced fog... the facts show that there is substantially more evidence of FBI bias against Trump than there is actual evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. (Strzok, Page, McCabe, Comey have all been exposed as having an anti-Trump bias).
Unless of course you believe that it's the FBI's job to come up with "insurance policies" in case their favored Presidential candidate doesn't win and they find themselves with the wrong boss?
You deny that the Russian intervention was based upon false information. You deny that the Trump campaign was receptive at least to their support.
But you insist that the FBI/DOJ and the national security system were in cahoots with in their plan to defeat Trump.
Yet he won the election.
2158 days.
Unless someone is living under the cloud of an alcohol induced fog..the rrb induced fog. the facts show that there is substantially more evidence of FBI bias against Trump than there is actual evidence that Trump colluded with the Russians. (Strzok, Page, McCabe, Comey have all been exposed as having an anti-Trump bias).
Personal beliefs on politics are Constitutional rights, are not always an indicator of political bias in the pursuit of their work. You make a lot politically based assumptions. You're far worse.
You deny that the Trump campaign was receptive at least to their support.
Which support would that be? The lobbyist who actually didn't work for the Russian government or have any information from the Russian Government?
I think what you mean to argue is that they "hypothetically" would have not been opposed to someone with foreign connections providing "dirt" on Hillary and her campaign.
Which seems consistent with the Clinton campaign, who in "reality" was not opposed to paying someone with foreign connections to provide "dirt" on Trump and his campaign.
So why would I deny something that is neither untrue or even unusual.
Fact of the matter is that negative campaigning is the way of politics. People digging up dirt is the norm. Whether than be women who claim to have been sexually assaulted, whether it is someone who knows what skeletons are hiding in the closet, or whether it is a British Operative (like Richard Steele) who you are paying to dig up dirt.
The fact that a campaign is interested in someone who claims to have dirt on their opponent is not illegal. It's not illegal just because that person is from another country. If it was illegal, then you do understand that everyone associated with the Steele dossier would have been indicted and arrested by now.
So no Rog... I don't deny that the Trump campaign would have been receptive to dirt on the Clinton campaign. I just am just not dumb enough or gullible enough to be swayed by the argument that it's perfectly legal when Clinton or the Democrats do it, but patently illegal when the Trump team is "open to the possibility".
Do you understand?
"BTW I know a lot more about the Constitution than you."
LOL!
Dangerous time when our country is led by those who will lie about anything, backed by those who will believe anything, based on information from media sources that will say anything. Americans must break out of that bubble and seek truth.
Scott you don't know that it's illegal to use dirt on the Clinton campaign provided by the Russians and used the dirt in the campaign.
The Clinton campaign didn't use dirt provided by the Russians. Trump appears to have done so.
This is incorrect.
have dirt on their opponent is not illegal. It's not illegal just because that person is from another country.
Scott you don't know that it's illegal to use dirt on the Clinton campaign provided by the Russians and used the dirt in the campaign.
I am not sure exactly what you are arguing here? Was it illegal for someone to hack the DNC and Clinton Campaign emails? Yes, it would be illegal regardless of "who" hacked them. It would also be illegal for anyone to publish those emails regardless of "who" hacked them.
Once those emails have been made public, there is no law that states you cannot read them, or comment on them, or anything to that degree. Simply because the release of those emails helped one candidate while harming another, does not make the candidate who was helped legally culpable. Not unless you can prove that that Candidate either facilitated the hacking, or facilitated the release.
Something that people tend to forget in all of this. There would be no reason or need for the Russians to either require or want Trump's help in hacking the emails. Whoever hacked them, was obviously capable without Trump's help.
Likewise, there was no reason or need for the Russians to either require or want Trump's help in getting those emails to Wikileaks. Whoever got them to Wikileaks was obviously capable of without Trump's help.
The Clinton campaign didn't use dirt provided by the Russians. Trump appears to have done so.
How did Trump "use dirt"?
Again, are you suggesting that Trump is legally liable for what someone else did... simply because he benefited from it?
Meanwhile, you fail to acknowledge that only one of the two campaigns is known to have reached out, hired someone, all in an attempt to dig up dirt on Trump. While your media will suggest that the dossier wasn't "published" till after the election, there were plenty of portions of it that were leaked to the media and published in bits and pieces. In fact, if you recall the Yahoo story by Michael Isikoff was "used" as verification of the Steele memo to help get a FICA warrant, even though Isikoff admitted that he got the information from Steele.
So tell me Rog... why was it legal for Hillary and the DNC to hire a British Operative to go to Russia, pay off Russian officials and operatives for information, and then leak it to the media in order to discredit Trump?
If, as you state, it is illegal to use dirt you got from Russians to harm your opponent?
It would also be illegal for anyone to publish those emails regardless of "who" hacked them.
Actually it's not illegal to publish any information obtained illegally if the publisher was not a party to the crime.
Otherwise, reporters for the New York Times and the Washington Post would have long since seen the inside of a jail cell.
You can tell Roger doesn't understand the law.
Otherwise, reporters for the New York Times and the Washington Post would have long since seen the inside of a jail cell.
An interesting point. Why is Wikileaks not just considered "media" like the Times or the Post? What's good for the goose, is not good for the gander here.
Because we all know that the Government would like to see Assange in jail and Wikileaks shut down. But they like to leak their own stuff (illegally) to their favored media outlets?
Legally it is considered "media" and so is your blog.
So tell me Rog... why was it legal for Hillary and the DNC to hire a British Operative to go to Russia, pay off Russian officials and operatives for information, and then leak it to the media in order to discredit Trump?
If, as you state, it is illegal to use dirt you got from Russians to harm your opponent?
as i review this thread it's obvious that the alky is hunkered down deep in side his invincible ignorance bunker.
Blogger Roger Amick said...
2158 days.
Unless someone is living under the cloud of an alcohol induced fog..the rrb induced fog.
you're the one who's pushing a walker and is alive by virtue of sporting a borrowed liver. not me, alky.
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