President Trump: Making America Great Again...

[SCcoug]

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[PaloAltoCougar]

Although I doubt it happened, I wouldn't be shocked to learn intelligence agencies had tapped certain lines as part of an investigation into improper communications with the Russians, but unless Trump can provide evidence, he should be held accountable (yeah, right) for accusing a U.S. President of a felony. Trump's wrongdoing is greater than just that one serious act, though. It's part of a longstanding pattern of seeking to undermine the public's confidence in society's institutions (all three branches of government, the press, corporations, etc.--I'd cite a couple of dozen examples here but I assume everyone's up to speed). We deserve so much better in a sitting president. It's tied to his messianic complex ("And I, alone, can save it"), and has me more than a little worried.

[Walter Sobchak]

Although I doubt it happened, I wouldn't be shocked to learn intelligence agencies had tapped certain lines as part of an investigation into improper communications with the Russians, but unless Trump can provide evidence, he should be held accountable (yeah, right) for accusing a U.S. President of a felony. Trump's wrongdoing is greater than just that one serious act, though. It's part of a longstanding pattern of seeking to undermine the public's confidence in society's institutions (all three branches of government, the press, corporations, etc.--I'd cite a couple of dozen examples here but I assume everyone's up to speed). We deserve so much better in a sitting president. It's tied to his messianic complex ("And I, alone, can save it"), and has me more than a little worried.

You might like to read this summary of today's circus over at The Intercept_:

<https://theintercept.com/2017/03/04/...hat-right-now/>

According to a report in the BBC, citing unnamed sources, a joint government task force was formed in spring of 2016 to look into an intelligence report from a foreign government that Russian money was somehow coming into the U.S. presidential race. In June the Department of Justice, part of the task force, asked the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court for a warrant to intercept electronic communications by two Russian banks (presumably involving communications with Americans, or else no warrant would be needed).

However, the BBC’s report says, the FISA court turned the application down, something it almost never does. The Justice Department then asked again in July with a more narrowly drawn request, which was again turned down. Justice then made a third request for a warrant on October 15, which was granted.

None of this involves wiretapping Trump Tower. However, it is possible that Trump picked that up from a Breitbart article that in turn relied on a Heat Street piece that claimed the warrant was issued because of evidence of links between a “private server in Donald Trump’s Trump Tower” and a Russian bank. In fact, the server in question, set up by a marketing company hired by Trump, was physically located in Philadelphia.

Barack Obama’s spokesman responded to Trump’s tweets by saying that “neither President Obama nor any White House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.” Notably, this statement does not deny that someone in the Obama administration ordered surveillance of Trump Tower, simply that the White House did not – which isn’t meaningful, since in a properly functioning executive branch the Justice Department would make that decision on its own without White House interference.

There is something in the background of all this that I don't like... using the State to "legally" spy on political opponents. Just seems un-American to me. The article goes on to use a historical example that I had not heard of before:

INTERESTINGLY, THERE HAS in fact been significant government surveillance involving a presidential campaign in the past, although it’s unlikely Trump will want to remind America of it.

During the 1968 contest between Hubert Humphrey and Richard Nixon, President Lyndon Johnson was attempting to negotiate a peace deal to end the Vietnam War.

Nixon was worried that if this happened just before the election it would help Humphrey, who was Johnson’s vice president. Recently discovered notes by one of Nixon’s top campaign aides show that Nixon asked him to “monkey wrench” the peace talks. Via Anna Chennault, a top Republican fundraiser, the Nixon campaign sent messages to the government of South Vietnam not to go along with Johnson’s plans.

Johnson knew that this was happening at the time, and believed that it constituted “treason.” He ordered the FBI to wiretap the embassy of South Vietnam in Washington, which picked up Ambassador Bui Diem communicating with Chennault. (Presidents could and did directly order wiretaps prior to the establishment of the FISA court in 1978 to prevent executive branch abuses of its surveillance power.) The FBI also began conducting general surveillance of Chennault.

Johnson and several top officials, including Secretary of Defense Clark Clifford and Secretary of State Dean Rusk, struggled with what to do in a fascinating phone call on November 4, 1968, the day before the election.

Johnson speaks of not wanting to be “a McCarthy” and worries about the certainty that “we’ll be charged with trying to interfere with the election.”

Rusk also equivocates, telling Johnson that “I do not believe that any president can make any use of interceptions or telephone taps in any way that would involve politics. The moment we cross over that divide we are in a different kind of society. … We get a lot of information through these special channels that we don’t make public. For example, some of the malfeasances of senators and congressmen and other people. … I think that we must continue to respect the classification of that kind of material.”

Clifford chimed in with another concern: that Americans just couldn’t endure learning how the world actually works. “I think,” Clifford fretted, “that some elements of the story are so shocking in their nature that I’m wondering whether it would be good for the country to disclose the story, and then possibly to have a certain individual elected. It could cast his whole administration under such doubts that I would think it would be inimical to our country’s interests.”

In the end, Johnson decided not to reveal what he knew about Nixon’s shocking subterfuge.

[Non Sequitur]

Yeah, time for some more rioting protesting, dudes...

That "Go Skate" chick is kind of hot. There's a saying that you haven't done it if you haven't done it with an activist.

[Uncle Ted]

Although I doubt it happened, I wouldn't be shocked to learn intelligence agencies had tapped certain lines as part of an investigation into improper communications with the Russians, but unless Trump can provide evidence, he should be held accountable (yeah, right) for accusing a U.S. President of a felony. Trump's wrongdoing is greater than just that one serious act, though. It's part of a longstanding pattern of seeking to undermine the public's confidence in society's institutions (all three branches of government, the press, corporations, etc.--I'd cite a couple of dozen examples here but I assume everyone's up to speed). We deserve so much better in a sitting president. It's tied to his messianic complex ("And I, alone, can save it"), and has me more than a little worried.

Yeah, Trump needs to back his claims with proof just like Obama needs to back his claims of Russian hacking influenced the election. If they can't back up their claims then they need to just shut the hell up. Both undermine the public's confidence in the government. Trump, apparently, wants his claims backed up now and is calling for a congressional inquiry.

Given the government's long history of wire tapping anything that moves I little doubt that it didn't happen... The question is what did the Obama administration do with the information. The public now has a right know what information was collected.

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What is ironic is Obama had a very anti-wire tapping stance before he became president. Before he wanted to get rid of the so called patriot act. Instead, as president, he not only extended the patriot act but also expanded it.

The only good thing that came out of all this wire tapping is that it's driving companies to beef up security on their products. For example, Apple makes it near impossible to extract data from its phones even with a court order. Not even Apple has a "master key" to do so. Also, FaceTime offers point-to-point encryption for secure conversations. "Tapping" such a conversation would offer very little information other than for high level traffic analysis. Not only criminals but companies are using such technology to secure their communications because they no longer trust the government and their competition. When it comes to the government and surveillance on citizens companies are starting to say "fuck you" to the government. And they should.

I suspect terrorists are most likely using this new security technology and burn phones so things like the patriot act yields very little actual information on terrorism but maybe lots of good information on what the other political party is up to. Politicians are very stupid when it comes to security and go to great measures like setting out their own private email server in some lame ass ISP's bathroom to circumvent the government's security policies. The "temporary" patriot act is pretty much useless and needs to go because the temptation for abuse is just too great.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Uncle "Tu Quoque" Ted comes through again.

[Uncle Ted]

Howard Dean seems to know that Trump's phone was tapped "to catch terrorists"...

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I guess the dems forgot to tell him to keep all this information on the low down.

[myboynoah]

Huckadope's daughter is just as bad as he is.

[YOhio]

Huckadope's daughter is just as bad as he is.

Lol. Huckadope. Good one, mbn.

[Topper]

A voice of reasonableness in the wilderness of discontent.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/washing...uts-1488755801

Before going to that extreme, the better immediate options are the House and Senate intelligence committees that have been investigating Russia’s election meddling for months. These may be the last two committees in Congress that operate in bipartisan fashion, at least most of the time.

The two Republican Chairmen, Rep. Devin Nunes and Sen. Richard Burr, have said from the outset that they take Russian meddling seriously. The ranking Senate Democrat, Mark Warner, said Sunday on CBS’s “Face the Nation” that “I have confidence that we are going to get to the bottom of this” and “Richard Burr and I are going to get this done.” Mr. Warner and his House colleague, Adam Schiff, will be under pressure from the left to portray the probes as a whitewash, but we don’t want to prejudge their motives or behavior.

Political collusion with a foreign power and the abuse of intelligence collection to smear an opponent threaten the integrity of democratic institutions. Let’s hope the intelligence committees rise above their putative party leaders and tell America what really happened.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Based on everything I've read thus far, I believe the following things are correct:

--the Russians did, in fact, attempt to influence the election through hacking
--Trump campaign officials had various contacts with Russians throughout the campaign, but did not overtly cooperate with, or expressly encourage, the Russians
--U.S. intelligence agencies have wiretapped Russian entities, both governmental and private (including Russian mafia), at all times in question
--Americans who get on the phone with such entities are, inevitably, recorded as part of the wiretapped conversations
--such wiretapping occasionally involves Russian residents of Trump Tower
--Neither Obama nor any U.S. intelligence agency issued any order to wiretap Trump or members of his campaign
--Trump's allegation that he and his campaign were wiretapped is the result of a kind of Telephone Game effect (where repeated re-tellings of an original fact always distorts the fact by game's end) that used the foregoing facts to get to Breitbart's false conclusion that Trump was wiretapped
--Within a few minutes after Breitbart published its false conclusion, Trump tweeted away, although his staff believes the tweet is groundless.

Let me know if any of the foregoing (excluding the theory in the penultimate line) is inaccurate.

[myboynoah]

Based on everything I've read thus far, I believe the following things are correct:

--Trump campaign officials had various contacts with Russians throughout the campaign, but did not overtly cooperate with, or expressly encourage, the Russians

Let me know if any of the foregoing (excluding the theory in the penultimate line) is inaccurate.

Not sure about that one. Given all the contact between Trump people and the Russians, I would not be surprised if there was at least some encouragement coming from the Trumpsters.

[Jeff Lebowski]

Based on everything I've read thus far, I believe the following things are correct:

--the Russians did, in fact, attempt to influence the election through hacking
--Trump campaign officials had various contacts with Russians throughout the campaign, but did not overtly cooperate with, or expressly encourage, the Russians
--U.S. intelligence agencies have wiretapped Russian entities, both governmental and private (including Russian mafia), at all times in question
--Americans who get on the phone with such entities are, inevitably, recorded as part of the wiretapped conversations
--such wiretapping occasionally involves Russian residents of Trump Tower
--Neither Obama nor any U.S. intelligence agency issued any order to wiretap Trump or members of his campaign
--Trump's allegation that he and his campaign were wiretapped is the result of a kind of Telephone Game effect (where repeated re-tellings of an original fact always distorts the fact by game's end) that used the foregoing facts to get to Breitbart's false conclusion that Trump was wiretapped
--Within a few minutes after Breitbart published its false conclusion, Trump tweeted away, although his staff believes the tweet is groundless.

Let me know if any of the foregoing (excluding the theory in the penultimate line) is inaccurate.

I am going to withhold judgment until Uncle Ted can find an Obama counterexample for each of these.

[PaloAltoCougar]

Not sure about that one. Given all the contact between Trump people and the Russians, I would not be surprised if there was at least some encouragement coming from the Trumpsters.

I'm being generous to the Trumpsters, hard as that is for me. Cynical though it is, I'd like to think that if they did, in fact, provide some encouragement, they were smart enough not to have left a paper or electronic trail.

[PaloAltoCougar]

On another subject, shouldn't the Trump organization reimburse the US for the huuuge cost of providing 24-hour Secret Service protection to Uday and Qusay Eric and Donald when they go on long foreign trips, such as their current junket where they're opening up hotels and golf courses in the Middle East? It's important that a President's family be protected at all times, but where the boys are engaged in a very expensive, and very profitable, business and such trips are optional, the cost ought to be borne by the business and not the American taxpayer, no? Drain the swamp!