The 2017 Trump

Presidency - 5
The First 100 Days
March 1, 2017 – March 20, 2017

See How The Main Stream Media & CIA

Are Trying To Destroy
The United States of America
And The Trump Presidency
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F.R.E.D. Productions
February 2017
FIRST EDITION
0987654321

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 CONTENTS
New NSC Chief Pushed Trump To Moderate His Language On Terrorism
Trump’s Unconventional New Guru For Messaging
Trump’s Border Wall Plan Already Working: Illegal Immigration Down 27%
NBC Handpicks Children To Smear Trump In Latest Propaganda Video
Fearing The Trump Impeachment
Jeff Sessions Confirms He’s Going After States That Have Legalized Marijuana
Trump’s Top Energy Aide, Mike Catanzaro Peddled Climate Change Denial
CNN Host Stuns Former AG With Trump ‘Treason’ Conspiracy Theories
Obama, Hillary & GW Bush Pile On Trump
Trump's Scores With 'Common Ground' Speech And A Can-Do View Of Government
Trump, In Speech To Congress, Calls To ‘Restart The Engine’ Of US Economy
‘I Never Said Media Is Enemy, I Said Fake Media,’ Trump Tells Breitbart
Video: Leaked Audio Exposes Anti-Trump Activist Group’s Plan To Sabotage Town Hall
Bitter Nancy Pelosi REFUSES To Stand And Applaud American Job Creation (Video)
How The Ultimate D.C. Insider Penetrated Trump's White House
Trump State Department Budget Cuts 'Probably' Won't Senate: McConnell
How The Press Serves The Deep State
The US Warms Up To Trump: 3 In 4 Americans Approve Of Trump Address
Columbia Profs Blame Student Suicides On Trump
Even CNN Backs Trump's Speech To Congress!
Snap Poll Finds 78 Percent Reacted Positively
FBI Planned To Pay Spy Behind Trump-Russia Dossier To Continue His Research xxx
Dear President Trump: If You Want To Lower Healthcare Costs And Stem The Opiate Death Spiral,
Legalize Marijuana xxx
Eric Holder: Obama Soon To Make Public Comeback xxx
Ivanka Trump: Dad Is Destroying DC Pedo Network
Democrats Boo Trump Proposal To Give A Voice To Victims Of Immigrant Crime
LOL: Dem Governor Calls Himself “Proud Republican” During Trump Speech Rebuttal
Kremlin Urges To Ignore Reports Of Alleged Russian 'Mole' Rockets On US Coast
White House Explores Options, Including Use Of Military Force, To Counter North Korean Threat
Get Real, Democrats, There Is No Good Reason For Sessions To Resign
Behind The Liberal Embrace Of Trump
Sessions, Russian Ambassador Reportedly Spoke Twice During Presidential Campaign
Trump’s Barnburner
Key G.O.P. Lawmakers Say Jeff Sessions Should Recuse Himself From Russia Inquiry
Obama Prodded Abuse Of Intelligence To Sabotage Trump Policies
Washington Post Likens Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler
President Trump: We Will Take New Steps On ‘Improved Vetting Procedures’
President Trump’s State Of The Union Address Most Tweeted About In History
SPLC Caught Faking Numbers Of “Muslim Hate Groups” In U.S. To Fundraise Off Trump Hate xxx
Media Attacks Sessions For Talking To Russian Ambassador As John Mccain Repeatedly Meets With
Terrorists And Obama Sends Billions To Our Enemies xxx
Preparation For Putin's Meeting With Trump Underway - Russian Upper House Chair xxx
Chuck Schumer Called For Investigation Of Sessions Over ‘Russian Ties’ But Had Coffee And Doughnuts
With Putin: Hypocrisy xxx
Deep State Asks Spy Behind Fake News ‘Pissgate’ Dossier To Testify Against Trump
Senate Plans To Call Anti-Trump Disinformation Specialist To Give “Evidence” Against Trump
BREAKING: Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan Says, “We Meet With Ambassadors All The Time.”
The U.S. Government’s Privacy Watchdog Is Basically Dead, Emails Reveal
Tillerson Pushes Back On White House’s Proposed Cuts To State Department And USAIDBy Josh Rogin
It's Trump's Party, Now
Trump Asks If It's Legal For Obama To Wiretap Him... Here's The Answer
The Donald Plays His Trump Card: Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower
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Joe Biden Fears For The Democratic World Order! xxx
Obama Advisor Rhodes Is Wrong: The President Can Order A Wiretap, And Why Trump May Have The
Last Laugh xxx
‘It's Now Or Never: Trump Declares Open War On The Deep State xxx
Obama Slams "False" Trump Accusation, Says "Never Ordered" Wiretapping xxx
REPORT: FBI Said To Have ‘Granted FISA Warrant’ To Wiretap TRUMP Tower… MSM Claims Trump
“Provided No Evidence” xxx
Trump Tries To Reverse ‘Russia Ties’ Claims On ‘Hypocrite’ Schumer
The NSA Wiretaps Every Future President
Obama Admin Source Confirms Wiretapping Was Conducted (VIDEO) xxx
FUNDING THE CIVIL WAR: Obama’s DOJ Stole Billions From Taxpayers In Scheme, Funneled Money
To Left-Wing Activists xxx
The Empire Fights Back: Obama Operatives Claim Secret Trump Wire Tap Was “Due Diligence”
President Trump’s Cabinet Still Not In Place – Taking More Than 2.6 Times Longer Than Obama In 2009 xxx
Is Obama The First U.S. President Ever To Try To Topple His Successor?
Yes, There Could Be Serious Legal Problems If Obama Admin Involved In Illegal Surveillance
US To Deploy More Delta Force & Seals For Middle East Covert Ops – Report xxx
Flashback: First FISA Request On Trump Tower Came After Clinton And AG Lynch Met Privately On
Tarmac xxx
Lewandowski Claims Obama WH Listened In On Sessions, Russian Envoy Meetings xxx
Awful: #Nevertrumpers Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham And Amash Attack TRUMP After Obama
Allegedly Caught Wiretapping Trump Tower xxx
‘D.C. Insiders Seek To Defeat Donald Trump – Even In Aftermath Of His Victory’ – Ex CIA Agent
The Obama Camp’s DisingenuousDenials On FISA Surveillance Of Trump
Trump May Shelve Plan For Major Deal With Russia: Report xxx
Nytimes Flashback: Obama May Have Spied On Trump; Reports Sent To White House Of Wiretaps
On Trump Associates xxx
The Truth Beneath The White House xxx
Incompetent AND Criminal: Obama’s Wiretapping of President Trump Icing on the Cake of Worst
President Ever xxx
US War On Humanity
Obama Administration Looks To Be In Very Serious Legal Trouble
Timeline To Obama’s Unlawful Spying On Opposition Party’s Candidate At Trump Tower
Trump Reportedly Unhappy About Sessions' Recusal From Russia Investigations
Paul Ryan Confirms Obama Wiretapped Trump Illegally
Trump Increasing US Aggression
Ex-CIA Chief Denies Russia’s US Envoy Is Spy, Warns Of New Cold War
Trump’s Wiretapping Accusation Part Of A Coup Plot If True xxx
Levin Delivers DEVASTATING Case Against Obama Admin’s Wire Scandal With Proof The Press
Won’t Show xxx
Trump Asks Congress To Investigate Obama Over Wiretapping
Trump Calls For Congressional Probe Into Possible Wiretapping Of His Campaign
Trump Abandons Cooperation With Russia
Deepstategate: Democrats’ ‘Russian Hacking’ Conspiracy Theory Backfires
Spicer: Congress Must Investigate Whether Obama 'Abused' Executive Branch Power
Former DNI James Clapper: ‘I Can Deny’ Wiretap Of Trump Tower
Violence, Fighting Breaks Out Between Trump Supporters, Protesters In Berkeley
US House Intel Committee To Investigate Trump's Wiretap Claim Against Obama
Obamagate Scandal
The NYT Dismisses A Potential Obamagate Scandal
Loretta Lynch Calls For ‘Blood, Death On Streets’ To Protest Trump
Ex-British PM Tony Blair In Talks To Become Trump’s Middle East Adviser – Media
Former Obama S.S. Agent: “Will Be Sharing More On Obama This Week. It’s Time.”
Inside Trump’s Fury: The President Rages At Leaks, Setbacks And Accusations
Congress Democrats To Trump: Wiretaps Mean You're In Trouble xxx
Victim Of Obama Administration Surveillance Order, James Rosen, Discusses His Experiences, Says
Trump Wiretape 'Plausible' xxx
Trump Angry And Frustrated At Staff Over Sessions Fallout
Liberal Media Now Spying On Trump Oval Office – Something They NEVER Did To Obama (Video)
Schumer Demands "Immediate" Probe Of Political Interference Into Trump-Russia Investigation
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Ex-US Attorney General Says Trump Likely Right About Surveillance On Trump Tower
President Trump Nominated For Nobel Peace Prize; US Media Ignores
Sessions, Tillerson, Trump-Tower Spying: The Media Echo Chamber
Trump Co-Opted To Stay Hardline On Russia
Judicial Watch Sues CIA, DOJ For Intel Leak Records: "President Trump Is On To Something" xxx
Government Spooks Can Use The Mic And Camera On Trump’s Phone Even When He Thinks It Is
Turned Off xxx
Trump Issues New Travel Ban For 6 Muslim-Majority Countries, Excludes Iraq
Mika Tearfully Tells Viewers Of Trump: 'If People Out There Feel Nervous, We Do Too'
Here Are The Top 15 'Obamagate' Wiretap Victims xxx
Fmr Obama Secret Service Agent Bongino Shares Info On Obama Wiretaps – It’s About To ‘Blow
Wide Open’ xxx
Trump Does Not Accept Comey's Wiretap Denial: White House
Wikileaks Believes Trump's Wiretapping Claim May Be Justified
Blackmail? Did Comey Let Hillary Off The Hook Because She Knew About FBI Wiretapping?
Washington And America Self-Implode At The Hands Of A Treasonous, Obama Led Shadow Government
Trump To Undo Fuel Efficiency Standards
Trump Isn’t The First President To Go To War With The Press
CIA Providing Raw Intelligence As Trump-Russia Probes Heat Up
CIA Leak: "Russian Election Hackers" May Work In Langley
New Leaks Confirm: CIA Posed As ‘Russian Hackers’
Wikileaks: CIA Hackers Can Pose As Russians—Ring A Bell?
Secret Service Investigating Threats Made Against President Trump And V.P. Pence On Twitter
Franken Says He Thinks Sessions Committed Perjury
Wikileaks: Russian Hacking Was ‘False Flag’ By CIA
Top Intel Dem To Press Comey On Trump Wiretap Allegations
Trump Not Planning To Withdraw Obama Wiretapping Claim Before Investigation
GOP Representative: Trump Should ‘Purge’ White House xxx
EXCLUSIVE: Podesta Didn’t Register As A ‘Foreign Agent’ When He Represented A Bank With Ties
To Russian Spy Agencies xxx
Attorney General Lynch Signed Off On ALL FISA Applications To Wiretap Trump
Wiretapping At Trump Tower: ‘A Scandal Bigger Than Watergate’
NSA Whistleblower: Not Even US President Is Safe From The Surveillance State
Hacker Kim Dotcom On Wikileaks CIA Documents: Donald Trump Was Spied On 24-7 With His Phone
Wikileaks Says CIA Docs Reveal US Consulate In Frankfurt As Hacking Base
Former NSA Whistleblower: "Trump Is Absolutely Right, Everything Was Being Monitored"
Big Brother Spying By America xxx
Wiki PROVES The Unconstitutional, Unrestrained HORROR Of CIA Hacking Of America - Trump
Knows, Says Nothing xxx
Is THIS How We Make America Great Again?
BOMBSHELL: Now We Know WHO Signed Off On Wiretapping Trump. TREASON
Trump’s Pay Or Die Healthcare Plan xxx
CIA Has Stolen Spying Techniques From Russia Allowing It To Carry Out 'False Flag' Attacks Which
Fool Targets Into Thinking They've Been Hacked By The Kremlin, Wikileaks Documents Reveal xxx
Obama Monitoring Trump
Deep State Against Trump’s Visa Ban Because Their False Flag Agents Are From Those Nations
Wikileaks’ Reveal Of CIA Hacking Trove Has Feds On Mole Hunt
How Taxpayers Fund Anti-Trump Protests
Obama Could Become First Former President With A Felony
Report: Obama FURIOUS At Trump Over Wiretap Allegations xxx
Obama Turned CIA And FBI Into Instruments Of The State: “Their Missions Cannot Be Fulfilled
In A Manner Beneficial To The Defense Of The United States” xxx
Wikileaks Latest Data Dump Undermines Case Against Russia Election Hack
Monica Crowley: Dark 'Forces' Want To 'Personally Destroy' Trump
Why Trump Continues To Beat The Democrats
The FBI Investigated A Trump Server In Its Russia Probe, But No Charges Are Expected xxx
Why No One’s Going To Drain This Swamp xxx
Spygate: America’s Political Police Vs. Donald J. Trump
Trump’s Biggest Tech Supporter:Election Showed ‘The Tide Is Going Out’ On Globalization

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Van Jones: Trump Is ‘Driving Liberals Insane’
Graham To Trump: Be Ready To 'Walk Away From The Frigging Table'
The NY Times Explains Why There Is So Much "Confusion" About Its "Trump Wiretapping" Story xxx
Analysts: Trump’s Refusal To Pursue Charges Against Hillary Clinton Have Left Deep State Operatives
Loyal To Her Free To Attack His Presidency xxx
Comey: 'There Is No Such Thing As Absolute Privacy In America'
Ban Trump From Twitter?
Most Say ‘No’ To More Public Anti-Trump Role For Obama xxx
President Trump Makes Congress Look Bad – 34 Executive Actions To 4 Signed Pieces Of Legislation
From Congress To Date xxx
Republicans Want To Know Why Trump Hasn't Fired The IRS Head
Trump’s Attack On America The Beautiful
MSNBC Entertains Conspiratorial Rambling Of Dem Demanding Trump Impeachment xxx
Rival Restaurateurs SUE Trump For Unfair Competition 'Because High Profile Customers Book His DC
Hotel To Gain Influence With The President' xxx
AP Consults Spy Novelists To Hype Trump-Russia Fake News
Poo Bahs Protest Trump’s “Muslim Ban”…Foolishly
Malware Expert Says ‘Fingerprint’ Switch Shows Past Attacks Blamed On Russia, China Are Work Of CIA
Bank Stocks Tumble Into Red After Spicer Confirms Trump's "Commitment To Restoring Glass-Steagal" xxx
WTH? Paul Ryan Wants Lawmakers To Go Home And Get Pummeled By Leftwing Activists –
Rather Than Pass Trump Agenda (VIDEO) xxx
Protecting The Terrorists: US Forces Come To The Rescue Of ISIS Commanders In Iraq
McConnell On Mexico Paying For Trump's Wall: 'Uh, No'
Trump Team Promotes His First 50 Days In Office
America's Labor Market Is Getting Better By Almost Any Measure
GOP Rep Mike Kelly: "Obama Is In Washington For One Reason Only, To Run A Shadow Government"
Amazing: US Debt Decreased By More Than $60 Billion Since Trump Inauguration
U.S. Adds 28,000 Jobs In Manufacturing--And 8,000 In Government
Is Trump Crazy? Political Discourse And Mental Illness
F.B.I. Counterterrorism Unit Still Investigating Trump Organization Server For Russian Connections: CNN
Wikileaks’ Latest CIA Data Dump Undermines Case Against Russia Election Hack
AG Sessions Asks Remaining 46 US Attorneys To Resign
GOP Rep: Obama Stayed In Capital To Run 'Shadow Government'
Team Trump Already Dismantling Obama’s “Legacy” Of Job-Killing Rules And Regulations xxx
Government Spooks Can Use The Mic And Camera On Trump’s Phone Even When He Thinks It Is
Turned Off xxx
‘Disaster’ Poll Shows Democrats Less Popular Than Trump, GOP Or Media
The Deep State And The Dark Arts
Sessions Considering "Outside Special Counsel" To Review "Highly Politicized" Actions Of Obama DOJ xxx
Four High School Students Are Suspended After Staging a ‘Build the Wall’ Protest in Support of Trump’s
Immigration Policies xxx
It’s Showtime. Trump vs. Obama (VIDEO)By: Michael DePinto -The Voice of Reason
Welcome To Totalitarian America, President Trump!
Trump Administration Moves To Approve New Arms Sales To Saudi Arabian War Criminals
Trump Invites Palestinian Leader Abbas To White House
Report: Sean Spicer Briefly Banned From Air Force One After Trump Blow Up
New York Times 'Fixes' Headline
‘Hypocritical Democracy’: 2016 US Election Was Full Of ‘Lies & Farces,’ China Says
Is Mike Pence The Deep State's Insurance Policy? xxx
Dead End: Senate Intelligence Dems Admit There May Be ZERO Evidence Of Collusion Between Russians
And Trump Campaign xxx
#Vault7: US Will Use ‘Full Force Of Law’ If Wikileaks Dump Contains Factual Info, Pence Warns
A Closer Look At The Obamagate Scandal
Intruder Arrested After Entering White House Grounds With Trump Inside
Vault 7: Disgruntled Cia Workers Sent An Important Message To President Trump
Why The Left Wants A Non-White America
Majority In US Optimistic Trump Presidency Will Make Country Prosperous
Tit for Tat: Trump Hits Back
Longtime Trump Ally Roger Stone Admits He Held Private Conversations With Russia-Affiliated Hackers xxx
Suspected White House Fence Jumper Charged With Carrying 'Dangerous Weapon,' Seen Behind
6
Mansion Column xxx
Making America Great Again: Claims That Trump Is Not Having A Positive Effect On The Economy
Are Absurd xxx
Trump And The Deep State:The No-Good, Very Bad, Odious,Unspeakably Ugly Truth
BUSTED: Kremlin Reveals That Hillary Clinton’s Staff Met With Russian Ambassador During The Election
Trump To Direct Every US Agency To Carry Out Spending Review
Trump Administration Disagrees With CBO Report On Health Care
Trump Warns Of Delay Until US Health Reform Brings Relief From Obamacare xxx
How The Federal Reserve Is Setting Up Trump For A Recession, A Housing Crisis And A Stock
Market Crash xxx
Exposing The Clinton/Obama System To Discredit Donald Trump
CIA Stresses Loyalty To The AGENCY Over Loyalty To The Constitution
CNN Undergoes 'Technical Difficulties' During Obamacare Victims Broadcast
McCain To Trump: Retract Wiretap Claim Or Provide Evidence
NYT Hypocrisy
UK Helped Obama WIRETAP Trump? Insider Explains FBI, NSA Coup (VIDEO)
Trump’s War On Dangerous Memory And Critical Thought xxx
White House Jumper Bizarrely Told Journalist Just Days Earlier That He Was Responsible For Trump
‘Golden Shower’ Dossier xxx
ABC, NBC Downplay Trump Connection To Jobs Report
Famous Navy Seal Calls For Veterans To Defend Trump
Assange Claims Hillary, Intel Officials "Quietly Pushing A Pence Takeover"
MRC’s Gainor: Media Covers Trump’s Success Only When They ‘Absolutely Have To’
Fake News Proliferator NYT Mocks Real News Broadcaster RT
The Democrats Anti-Russia Campaign Falls Apart
Recent Trump “Firings” Lead To A History Of Blackmail, Treason And Murder
Breaking: Turkey’s Spy Agency Paid General Flynn To Fake Clinton Email Cover-Up Scandal xxx
Trump Tax Return “Bombshell” BACKFIRE… Trump Paid $38M In Taxes In 2005… MSNBC Becomes
Comedy Central xxx
Greater US Aggression Under Trump Coming? xxx
EXCLUSIVE: FBI’s Own Political Terror Plot; Deputy Director And FBI Brass Secretly Conspired To
Wage Coup Against Flynn & Trump xxx
Fox And Friends’ Bombshell – Barack Obama Used British Spy To Watch Donald Trump xxx
SPICER: "Very Confident" Of Evidence Trump Campaign Was Spied On By Obama Admin During
The Election xxx
Epic Fail: Rachel Maddow Mocked After Dragging Out Trump Tax ‘Scoop’ xxx
MSNBC's "Tax Records" Non-Story: Trump Made $150MM, Paid 25% Tax Rate, More Than Romney,
Bernie xxx
Hannity Nukes Maddow And NBC After Trump Tax Flop – Calls Them “Deep State Obama Propaganda”
On A “Corporate Jihad” xxx
Intelligence Sources Reveal: Obama Used British Agents For Trump Wire Tap Surveillance
Trump To Nominate Goldman Sachs' Donovan As Deputy Treasury Secretary xxx
Julian Assange: Hillary Pushing For A Pence Takeover Of White House Because He’s “Predictable”
And “Defeatable” xxx
Trump’s Infrastructure Boondoggle
Media Ignore Slanderous Accusation From Trump Taxes Reporter About First Lady
Liberals Attack Melania Trump Over “Nature” Cures Comments
Howard Kurtz: Trump Tax Reveal 'Big-Time Blunder' by Rachel Maddow
'Of Course, The Deep State Exists' In America, Gingrich Says
Pentagon Chief Calls Climate Change A National Security Threat
‘They Got Schlonged!’ Limbaugh Goes To Town Mocking ‘Overrated’ Maddow, ‘Lunatic’ Johnston xxx
Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special Constitutional Rights To Bring Anyone From
Terror Countries Into America xxx
McDonalds Tweets Trump: "You Are A Disgusting Excuse Of A President, Also You Have Tiny Hands"
Reporter Who Revealed Trump’s Taxes Slams ‘Unethical’ White House
Revealed: Trump Didn’t Avoid Paying Taxes For 18 Years, As NY Times Suggested
Trump Versus The Deep State xxx
Gorka On Media’s Russia Obsession, Trump’s ‘America First’ Budget, And Why The Immigration EO
Challenge Will Fail xxx
Trump's First Budget Faces Early Republican Resistance
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Trump’s Budget Blueprint Takes Aim At Bloated Bureaucracy While Beefing Up Defense – MSM Flips Out
Military-Industrial Complex Is Back: Trump Unveils His Budget Plan
Winners And Losers In Trump's Budget Blueprint
Trump Doubles Down On Obama Wiretap Accusations
Senators: 'No Indications' Trump Tower Subject Of Surveillance
Jeff Sessions Goes Full 'Reefer Madness' On Pot
Trump Budget Would End Federal Funding For Arts Endowment, PBS
Trump Calls Decision To Block New Travel Ban 'Unprecedented Judicial Overreach'
"On June 1st The Deep State Will Move To Overthrow Trump"
Still Lacking Evidence, Senate Holds Hearing On Russian Election Interference
Plaintiff Behind Trump Travel Ban Runs Muslim Brotherhood Mosque xxx
Laptop Holding Trump Tower Floor Plans, Hillary Clinton Email Investigation Info Stolen From Secret
Service Agent xxx
Trump Forced To Issue Apology To Britain Over Obama Wiretapping Claims
Sneering CNN: ‘Billy Madison’ White House ‘Not Dealing With Reality’ xxx
Thanks To Rachel Maddow, We Now Know That Our Billionaire President Pays Income Taxes Just Like
Regular Americans xxx
NBC To Breitbart Editor: Isn’t Trump’s Media Criticism ‘Damaging To Democracy’?
Who’s Lying About ‘Wiretapping’ Trump Tower – The Media, Congress Or The Intelligence Community?
Brazile Defends Giving Questions To Clinton: 'Want To Make Sure That Those Questions' Are 'Out There'
Trump Tax Rate Actually Three Times Higher Than Media Reported
President Trump No Longer Safe In White House: Former Secret Service Agent
Trump Administration Releases Requirements For Border Wall, Starts Requesting Bids To Build It
Inside Trump’s White House, New York Moderates Spark Infighting And Suspicion
Sessions: 43% Of Americans Are Not Good People
Censored Former CIA Insider Confirms Trump Was Surveilled By Deep State
Trump Thinks Your Car's Gas Mileage Is... Your Business
Bill Maher Calls For The United Nations To Invade America To Stop Donald Trump
Trump’s Approval Rating Has Hit A New Low: Gallup
House Intel Committee Chairman: 'There Never Was' Trump Tower Wiretap
Secret Service Shoots Down Man's Story About Slipping Security At Trump's Mar-A-Lago xxx
The Secret Service Has Detained A Man Who Drove Up To A White House Checkpoint Claiming To Have
A Bomb xxx
Report: Documents Prove Alternative News Personality Alex Jones Targeted By NSA Dragnet Surveillance
Trump Billboard With Nazi-Like Dollar Signs, Nuclear Mushroom Clouds Erected In US (VIDEO)
NYT’s ‘Tinfoil Hat’ Conspiracy Theory xxx
Trump Not Backing Off Claims That He Was Wiretapped, No Matter How Many In Washington Say
He Should xxx
Trump Administration Rolls Back Obama Protections On Student Loans
Law Enforcement Leaks Database To Journalist Containing Trump Wiretap Info
Hedge Fund CIO: "The Odds Of Trump Succeeding Are Zero In The Absence Of A New War"
Mike Krieger Asks "Is Trump About To Massively Expand America's Imperial Wars?"
Two Months Into Trump's Term, Media Still 'Doesn't Get' Message Voters Sent It
White House Meeting With Trump Was Catastrophic For Merkel
Trump’s Budget Versus the Debt Ceiling
Nunes Must Ask FBI's Comey About Montgomery Mass Surveillance Case xxx

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 New NSC Chief Pushed Trump
To Moderate His Language On Terrorism
What Words The President Uses From The Podium Tonight Will
Give A Hint About Mcmaster’s Clout.
By Eliana Johnson, Michael Crowley And Shane Goldmacher
02/28/17 12:26 AM EST
H.R. McMaster told his new staff he considered the term “radical
Islamic terrorism” unhelpful, according to a White House aide. | AP
Photo
President Donald Trump’s new national security adviser,
Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster, advised him in a closed-door
meeting last week to stop using a phrase that was a
frequent refrain during the campaign: “radical Islamic
terrorism.”
But the phrase will be in the president’s speech to a joint
session of Congress on Tuesday night, according to a
senior White House aide—even though McMaster
reviewed drafts and his staff pressed the president's chief
speechwriter and senior policy adviser, Stephen Miller, not
to use it.
What the president decides to say from the House floor
will be an early indication of McMaster's clout within the
administration. In his first remarks to the National Security
Council last week, McMaster told his new staff he
considered the term “radical Islamic terrorism” unhelpful,
according to a second White House aide.
“Even a small change like referring to
radical Islamist terrorism would be an
improvement, in his view,” said this aide.
At the same time, the president's political advisers fear any
sudden change in his rhetoric could open him to charges
that he's abandoning his promise to speak plainly and
openly to the American people. Both sides say a gradual
shift in the president's rhetoric over time is possible.
9
In recent years the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism”
become a rallying cry for conservatives. President Barack
Obama, following the example of President George W.
Bush before him, pointedly avoided saying it—citing
expert opinion that the wording risks alienating moderate
Muslims who hear it as an indictment of their religion.
Obama preferred the phrase “violent extremism,” which
makes no reference to a specific religion.
McMaster expressed "great disdain" for that approach,
according to a senior National Security Council official.
“He understands that pretending that it's
not something within Islam that's causing
this—you can't pretend that, but you can
enlist the people within Islam who agree
with you,” said the official.
Fighting in Iraq in 2005 and 2006, McMaster pioneered a
counterinsurgency strategy that required him and his
troops to live amongst Iraqis, gaining their trust and
cooperation.
“There’s no question that H.R. was very
successful as a counterinsurgent in Tal
Afar in 2005 and 2006,” said Max Boot, a
senior fellow at the Council on Foreign
Relations and the author of Invisible
Armies, a history of guerilla warfare.
“Unlike Steve Bannon, H.R. has actually
fought insurgents and knows what it takes
to fight and prevail. You have to actually
work with Muslims and get them to trust
you and fight alongside you.”
“We could stay in our F.O.B. [Forward
Operating Base] and eat mini pizzas and
ice cream and redeploy in a year, but that
won’t win the war,” McMaster told the
Washington Post at the time.
As the war on terror shifted under Obama, his opponents
latched onto his refusal to say “radical Islamic terrorism”
as evidence that he failed to understand the nature of the
terrorist threat and how best to combat it—and in some
cases used Obama’s resistance to the phrase to falsely
suggest the president was himself Muslim.
Trump made the phrase a core theme of his campaign,
culminating in an August 15 speech in Youngstown, Ohio,
entitled “Understanding the Threat: Radical Islam and
the Age of Terror.”
“Anyone who cannot name our enemy is
not fit to lead this country,” Trump said.
“Anyone who cannot condemn the hatred,
oppression and violence of radical Islam
lacks the moral clarity to serve as our
president.”
The speech made five references to
“Radical Islamic Terrorism”—capitalized in
the original text—and seven more to
“Radical Islam.”
Sebastian Gorka, a White House advisor with a
background in counter-terrorism, told a crowd at last
week's Conservative Political Action Conference that the
president's remarks in Youngstown were key to
understanding his foreign policy.
Trump also used the phrase "radical Islamic terrorism" in
his January inaugural address.
“We will ... unite the civilized world against
radical Islamic terrorism which we will
eradicate completely from the face of the
earth,” he said.
Gorka assured National Public Radio earlier this month
that Trump was ushering in a new era in which – free from
.
10
the political correctness that the president believes
shackled the previous administration – the U.S. would
identify its enemies forthrightly.
“What is the phrase [Trump] uses again
and again and again? It's not Islam. It's not
a discussion about Islam as a religion or
not a religion. It's about radical Islamic
terrorism,” Gorka said. “We are prepared to
be honest about the threat. We're not going
to white it out, delete it as the Obama
administration did.”
McMaster’s appointment as national security adviser and
reports that he endorses the past rhetoric of Obama and
Bush has already alarmed members of the self-proclaimed
“counter-jihad” community, which views Islam as an
inherently violent religion.
Uttering the phrase “radical Islamic terrorism” is “central
to the promises [Trump] made to the American people,”
said Frank Gaffney, founder and president of the Center
for Security Policy, who backs hardline policies against
Islamist influence at home and abroad.
Gaffney said he's skeptical of reports that McMaster has
declared his opposition to using the phrase.
“It just seems kind of incredible that a guy
would come into this job knowing the
importance that the president has assigned
to this, and start out his tenure by
fundamentally departing from that
direction,” Gaffney said. If true, he added, “I
think this would be getting off to a very bad
footing.”
 Trump’s Unconventional
New Guru For Messaging
By Amie Parnes
02/28/17 06:00 AM EST
The new face in the Trump White House charged with
improving long-term messaging is seen as an
unconventional choice for the job of communications
director.
Mike Dubke is a veteran political strategist familiar with
media buys and issue advocacy.
The co-founder of the public relations firm Black Rock
Group, Dubke has been involved in politics since 1988. He
once served as the executive director of the Ripon Society,
and he more recently helped Alaska’s Republican Sens.
Lisa Murkowski and Dan Sullivan win their respective
elections.
But Dubke has never typed out a press release on Capitol
Hill, toiled on a speech for a member of Congress or sat in
on strategy sessions for a presidential candidate’s message
— the typical bullet points on the resumes of his
predecessors.
He also isn’t your typical talking head, having never
appeared on a cable news show before.
And while the 46-year-old has been around Washington,
he’s not an entirely familiar face.
One longtime colleague said even some Republicans
asked, “Who?” when they were told that Dubke would
take over as White House communications director from
Sean Spicer, who had been filling the role while also
working as press secretary.
11
Kevin McLaughlin, who worked alongside
Dubke on several Senate races, dubbed
him the “smartest, most successful person
in Washington you’ve never heard of.”
“He is the rare operative who not only
shuns the spotlight, he runs from it,” he
said.
Dubke keeps a low profile.
He declined to participate in this story. And unlike his new
boss, he’s not a frequent voice on Twitter: He sent out two
tweets in 2016, and three in 2015 — once to retweet a gif
about his beloved Buffalo Bills, the team the season ticket-
holder still travels up to see play on Sundays.
“He hasn’t been a communications director
for a lawmaker or a president, but he’s run
a communications company, he’s an
exceptional manager and he understands
organization,” the longtime colleague said
of Dubke.
Hours before accepting the position, Dubke was already at
work attending Trump’s Feb. 16 press conference, where
the president renewed his war with the media. Trump’s
back-and-forth gave him a sense of the challenges he’ll
face in working with the president, whose public
comments sometimes appear to take his staff by surprise.
Dubke consulted with friends and colleagues before taking
the White House job, which Trump had been having
trouble filling. Several candidates approached by top aides
in the West Wing turned down the high-profile post earlier
this month.
One of those candidates, Brian Jones, thought his friend
would be a good fit. It helped that Spicer and White House
chief of staff Reince Priebus, like Jones, had known Dubke
for some time.
And while Dubke isn’t a Trump insider, some think his
personality and upstate New York roots will help him with
the president.
 Like Trump, “he’s a bit of a disrupter
himself,” the longtime associate said. “He
likes to mix things up.”
And he’s seen as being in touch with the white working-
class electorate who helped catapult Trump to the Oval
Office.
The day after the White House announced that Dubke had
taken the job, he found himself holed up in the West Wing
along with Spicer and other White House aides massaging
the Department of Homeland Security directives on
immigration.
One White House aide said the rookie communications
director helped quarterback the process from a messaging
perspective, spending the whole day on conference calls
with agency officials and making sure everyone was on the
same page.
“That was one of the biggest problems for
the White House before he got there,” one
Republican strategist said. “There was a
complete breakdown in communication
between the White House and the
agencies. There wasn’t a coordinated
message.”
Dubke, who has been known to walk the West Wing
corridors armed with a large water jug, has already hit a
few snags.
Last week, after Trump issued an executive order that
ended an Obama-era order allowing transgender students
.
12
to use school facilities corresponding to their gender
identities, the White House was forced to defend reports
that Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos was initially
reluctant to sign off.
The White House also found itself having to explain why
senior adviser Kellyanne Conway was seemingly sidelined
from television interviews, a move that came around the
same time that Dubke took hold of the communications
reigns. White House officials denied Conway was
sidelined in the first place.
Republican strategist Matt Mackowiak, who met Dubke
while working on Alaska politics, said the two Senate
races in that state highlight the new communications
director’s skills as a strategist.
Dubke helped both the conservative Sullivan and the more
centrist Murkowski win.
“The adaptability that I’ve seen in him in
navigating those two races is so telling,”
Mackowiak, who also writes for The Hill’s
Contributors section, said. “It proves that
he can adapt strategically to different
situations, which he is going to need at the
White House.
“They can’t just take the campaign
playbook and use it in every situation,
particularly if he needs to win over
independents and moderates,” Mackowiak
said of Trump.
 Trump’s Border Wall Plan
Already Working: Illegal Immigration Down 27%
Talk Of ‘Border Wall’ Already Detouring Potential Immigrants
By Shepard Ambellas -
02.28.2017 @11:47 AM EST

(INTELLUHUB) — According to number released by
Customs and Border Protection on Monday, illegal
immigration over the southern border diminished 27% in
the first month of 2017 from the previous month of
December.
Evan Siegfried, in a piece for the Wall Street Journal, said
that the construction of the wall is all going to come down
to eminent domain.
In the article, Siegfried wrote,

In January a total of 31,575 migrants were apprehended for
entering the U.S. illegally and an additional 10,899 were
inadmissible.
Although chatter of Trump’s proposed construction of a
wall has likely thwarted migrants, for now, the flow of
human traffic into the U.S. is expected to pick back up in
the spring months.
“Mr. Trump fails to take into account the
major hurdle the wall faces: eminent
domain […] the U.S. would need to own all
1,954 miles of the border” in able to
proceed with the wall’s construction.
However, thus far the Trump Admin doesn’t seem to be
too worried about eminent domain issues.

Be as it may, a Mexican politician has already threatened Other Sources:

to stop Mexico’s anti-terrorism efforts along the border
over Trump’s plan to build a wall which the Trump Illegal immigration dropped 27 percent in January: Reports
Administration is currently gathering bids on. But some — Washington Post
are skeptical of Trump’s plan and say he may be biting off
more than he can chew.
.

13
 NBC Handpicks Children
To Smear Trump In Latest Propaganda Video
By: JD Heyes
Date: February 28, 2017
The discredited establishment press flat-out refuses to
cover the Trump administration fairly, so don’t expect the
animosity from the White House towards these pretend
journalists to let up anytime soon.
The latest media outrage comes from NBC News, which
produced nothing less than propaganda aimed at
undermining President Donald J. Trump’s executive order
to shore up national security and cut the flow of human
and drug trafficking into the U.S. via the construction of a
border wall.
As reported by CNS News, the network – whose
viewership continues to decline – handpicked children to
oppose Trump in a pair of videos to make it seem as
though just about every kid in the country hates Trump and
sees him as an out-and-out racist who threatens our
country. (RELATED: Natural News endures wave of vile
assaults from POISONED MINDS damaged by
medication, vaccines and fluoride… as society becomes
more deranged by the day)
CNS News noted:
Not one child in either “Dear Mr. President:
kids Talk Trump” or “Dear Mr. President:
Letters from the American Children” says
he actually supports Trump’s efforts to
keep America safe from terrorism or stop
the influx of illegal aliens.
Among the comments by kids in the videos:
14
— “I don’t like your definition of American,
because I don’t seem to fit within it.”
— “You are here, attempting to white-wash
America.”
— “Most of my family is black. I’m afraid
that you’re gonna hurt some of us blacks.”
And of course, none of the kids like the idea of a border
wall or a travel ban – even though Obama issued several –
because, you know, that’s mean and unfair.
“Not letting immigrants into America is
really not nice, so please let them in,” said
one.
“Please don’t build a wall, and please don’t
let people have guns,” said another child.
“You’re going to separate me away from
the rest of my family, and I really don’t want
that because I love them too much,”
another said.
And, as CNS News pointed out, a number of the children’s
comments weren’t even about issues, they just seemed like
personal ad hoc attacks on the president himself.
“Who will build this country up again from
the rubble you will put it under?” said one.
This is nothing but grotesque mental abuse of innocent
children who are being taught to hate by adults with an
agenda. It’s pathetic and frankly it ought to be criminal.
What’s more, it is hypocritical beyond belief for the Left to
be outraged over adult parents who belong to the KKK and
who teach their children to hate black people and
minorities; how is that any different than what is being
done to these children, none of whom are capable of
understanding the complexities of the president’s duties
and responsibilities to keep Americans (including them)
safe? (RELATED: The transgender programming of
children is child abuse, warns the American College of
Pediatricians… chemical castration, genital mutilation and
mental illness run amok)
Just like our Muslim extremist enemies strap bombs to
children and use them as human sacrifices to advance the
“cause” of Islam, the American Left is committing
psychological jihad against many our of own children to
wage their war of ideology. It’s disgusting, it’s repulsive,
and it shows clearly, once again, how repulsive these
people can be.
What a far cry we are from the days when classrooms were
propagandizing children to love and adore President
Obama.
But as contemptible and vile as NBC News is with these
videos, don’t think for a moment that there isn’t support
for the president among America’s youngest citizens. And
of course, the hate doesn’t stop with the network.
15
An eight year old boy in Texas was kicked
out of his house by his wretched mother
because he voted for Trump in a school
election. And an 11-year-old boy was badly
beaten up at a Virginia school because he
cast a ballot for Trump in a mock election.
This is the legacy of the Marxist Left, which dominates the
so-called “mainstream” media: Teach hatred, tolerate and
instill violence, and use whatever means they feel are
necessary to push their own ideology.
Even if it means committing psychological jihad against
innocent children.
 Fearing The Trump Impeachment
By Mary Lynn Cramer
February 28, 2017
This past week I heard Dennis Kucinich*, Gareth Porter*,
and Glenn Greenwald* all say that what they feared most
was a CIA driven campaign to get rid of Trump through
impeachment. As much as one may dislike the policies of
Trump, they believe he can be restrained legally and
constitutionally managed. However, because the “Deep
State” (the “intelligence community” including allies in the
Pentagon and military), operate outside the law with no
oversight—their taking over would bring an end to our
democratic system . With regard to this scenario, Kucinich
said the thing he fears most is “the Left’s attacks on
Russia” which play into the intelligence community’s
determination to ignite a new cold war with Russia as well
as get rid of Trump. All three of these respected authorities
on political history and “deep state” strategies believe that
if, Trump, having been “legitimately” elected through our
“democratic” process were impeached, this would so
undermine public confidence in our political system that
the consequences would be catastrophic. I was not able to
get clarification when I asked Gareth Porter what the
nightmare scenario would look like. “Revolution” I
asked?
Possibly I am being distracted by a red herring, but it is my
experience that it is the “Liberal” and “Progressives” who
blame Russia and who are interested in impeaching
Trump; not the “Left.” Those who believe that the USA is
a democracy, based on laws and a social contract that
applies equally to all of its citizens, and that the members
of Congress and the President work to increase the safety
and welfare of the majority of the population, are NOT
part of the “Left.” A not too profound knowledge of the
history of this settler-colonial enterprise and its widespread
use of slavery, genocide and land theft for the profit of the
relatively few, should lead one to at least question the
propaganda that “we are a nation of immigrants” in a free
and democratic nation. Laws and documents drawn up by
a relatively small number of the wealthiest men and slave
owners in the “new world” were not meant to empower the
larger population of low-income, landless, indentured
servants, workers, slaves and women…not then, not now.
Those who challenged the authority of these elite
“founding fathers” were dealt with very harshly.
The long history of presidential abuses of power, and more
recent risks of nuclear war, would, one might think, cause
Liberals and Progressives to question what is “legitimate”
and “democratic” or worth preserving about our extremely
class-based, racist, and sexist political-economic system.
16
Even when one-half of the eligible voters in this country
don’t bother going to the polls, Liberals and Progressives
don’t get the message. And when Trump is elected, they
are dumbfounded and outraged. On election night, around
2:00 am the next morning, I heard NPR news analysts
exclaiming in disbelief that it appeared “white professional
men were voting in large numbers for Trump!” Some days
thereafter they concluded that Trump voters were those
middle class people who had experienced erosion of their
standard of living over recent decades. And finally, and
this I find to be the most popular conclusion among
Liberals and Progressives, it was those ignorant low-
income working people who didn’t know they were voting
against their own interests who voted for Trump.
Kucinich, notes that US “Intelligence” agencies have
eliminated people they found problematic; that Obama
every week selected a human target to be assassinated by
drone attack (along with any innocent children, women,
elderly and other human “collateral” nearby.) All three of
the above mentioned experts* can give stomach-turning
descriptions of the massively destructive interventions of
the US in other countries where it has overthrown
democratically elected officials. They are aware of the
numerous times a president has brought us to the brink of
nuclear war with no notice or conversation with the
citizens of this country about their desires. And yet they
expect those same citizens to work hard to elect more of
the same to the same system. Now, that in my experience
is the sign of good Liberal, progressive thinking.
Kucinich, Porter, and Greenwald are also adamant with
regard to the lack of any evidence that the Russians
meddled in US presidential elections. Having gone over
all the documentation, data, and intelligence reports
available to them from the government and other
sources—as well as all known information made available
to the American public and the press— they see not one bit
of evidence that would support the accusations that Putin
and the Russian state in any way interfered with or
influenced the outcome of the US presidential election.
And, yet, most of the Liberals and Progressives I hear on
the corporate media and in community gatherings are
certain that the Russians intervened to get Trump elected.
It seems this is becoming the stronger argument for his
impeachment, along with his supposed financial interests
and dealings with Russians.
Again, it seems to me that it is their fellow Liberals and
Progressives that Kucinich et.al should fear. Not the
“Left.” The Left could possibly be impressed with the data
collected by Gregg Palast, set out in his recent video/film
“The Greatest Democracy Money Can Buy,” which
documents the use of “cross-check” along with the
elimination of polling booths and closing of DMV offices
in Black and poor neighborhood, and the handing out of
“provisional ballots” to those forced to stand for many
hours in line waiting to vote (the provisional ballots are
seldom counted or accepted; the closed DMV offices made
it impossible for people to get the newly-required ID in
order to vote, and “cross-check” eliminated a million or
more voters in key states who had similar names such as
“Willa Mae Nelson” in California, and “Willie Nelson Jr.”
in Ohio; and whose social security numbers and birth dates
also did not match. Pallast estimates that between “cross-
check” and these other obstacles to voting, at least 7
million people were disenfranchised in this last
presidential election. It appears that even those Democrats
who are aware of these circumstances do not want to talk
about it for fear that also would bring into question the
legitimacy of our “democratic” system. The Left,
however, has seldom agreed that working to elect
Democrats or Republicans was their primary focus.
Clearly the Liberals and Progressives are fearfully divided
over which is the biggest threat: Trump, Impeachment,
Republicans, the Left, the CIA, or the Russians. As seems
to happen after every presidential election, personalities
and party affiliation stir up the swamp; and issues of
systemic change the Left has always been focused on get
drowned in the undertow of party politics and
personalities.
Kucinich believes we can learn to love and respect one
another. He passionately insists, “War is not necessary!” .
Kucinich also says that the US cutting out “safe zones” in
Syria would lead to an expansion of war. Yet, he is a
supporter of Keith Ellison (whom he hoped would become
Chairperson of the DNC). Keith Ellison favors a “No Fly
Zone” in Syria. So do Hillary and the CIA. That this
would lead to more US troops and equipment on the
ground and an expansion of war in the area, as well as risk
a nuclear confrontation with Russia, is acknowledged by
both those who want to see such increased military
involvement as well as by those who want an end to the
war in Syria. From a Leftist point of view, these Liberals
and Progressives are very frightening.
I have never doubted that people can love and respect each
other in spite of their differences. Focusing on this truism,
ignores the fact that our failing economic system is
dependent upon increased manufacture and sales of
military weapons, equipment and cyber intelligence
globally. And the individuals who profit from and who
claim ownership to the materials, infrastructure, labor and
resources employed in the production and distribution of
destructive war-making materiel are not interested in
17
loving and respecting those they exploit and those they kill
in the process.
I have as little belief in what Liberals and Progressives
think of as “democracy” as they have in my analysis of
Capitalism. With each major economic crisis, recovery
depends upon the increased ability to lower the income of
working people while taking by force the land, cheap
labor, and resources of other nations (denying them to any
competitors). Loss of jobs at home, decaying
infrastructure, lack of necessary social and medical
services, worsening ecological conditions (air pollution
and contaminated water) are inevitable as the military-
backed corporations, politicians and all those whose social
status and power depends upon the profitability of the
capitalist system compete for global dominance and
economic survival. Under these worsening conditions for
the majority, there is, of course, no place for citizen-based
democracy, and no freedom of speech for those opposed to
the systemic undermining of an entire civilization’s values,
material needs and minimum expectations. The growing
militarized surveillance-police state ensures the transition
from the myth of “free-market capitalism” to the reality of
state capitalism in all its Fascistic manifestations. “Obama
went about it more quietly,” a domestic worker from Latin
American told me; “Trump is continuing the same policies,
but he is so loud about it!”
The problem is not that we need to learn to love each other
in spite of our differences. But it does become more
difficult under the competitive pressures of a declining
Capitalist system. What is the alternative? “Make Love
Not War” is not a slogan that speaks to today’s uninhibited
millennial activists. Make Love Not Profits would have
been more insightful and fitting, then and now.
That makes me wonder if any of those thousands
protesting in the past few weeks (many of whom said it
was their first time being a “political activist”) would have
heard of Major General Smedley Butler. He learned from
experience about how US capitalism operates globally
while he was in the Marine Corp:
“I spent 33 years and four months in active
military service and during that period I
spent most of my time as a high class
muscle man for Big Business, for Wall
Street and the bankers. In short, I was a
racketeer, a gangster for capitalism. I
helped make Mexico and especially
Tampico safe for American oil interests in
1914. I helped make Haiti and Cuba a
decent place for the National City Bank
boys to collect revenues in. I helped in the
raping of half a dozen Central American
republics for the benefit of Wall Street. I
helped purify Nicaragua for the
International Banking House of Brown
Brothers in 1902-1912. I brought light to the
 Dominican Republic for the American sugar
interests in 1916. I helped make Honduras
right for the American fruit companies in
1903. In China in 1927 I helped see to it
that Standard Oil went on its way
unmolested.”
Smedley Butler concluded,
“War is a racket! A few profit – and the
many pay. But there is a way to stop it. You
can’t end it by disarmament conferences.
You can’t eliminate it by peace parleys at
Geneva. Well-meaning but impractical
groups can’t wipe it out by resolutions. It
can be smashed effectively only by taking
the profit out of war. “
I would not call Smedley Butler a Liberal or Progressive.
Given that today the US economy is dependent upon the
production and global sale of military weapons, military
equipment, military infrastructure and cyber intelligence
systems, he’d be talking about a revolution!

References
*Kucinich: U.S. Foreign Policy in the Trump Era. Presentation at Harvard Kennedy School of Government, February 24, 2017,
Cambridge, MA. (Recorded by WZBC FM Truth & Justice Radio:
*Porter: How to End the Permanent War State. Tufts University, February 21, 2017; Medford MA. (Recorded by WZBC FM Truth &
Justice Radio. Check with them for airing date: wzbc.org, Boston College, Chestnut Hill, MA)
.

18
 Jeff Sessions Confirms He’s
Going After States That Have Legalized Marijuana
‘Today’s THC Levels Are So High That It’s Causing Violence’
By Staff Writer -
02.28.2017 @10:51 AM EST

WASHINGTON D.C. (INTELLIHUB) — Attorney U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions (Gage
General Jeff Sessions told reporters who were at the Skidmore/Flickr)
Department of Justice Monday that “experts” have been
telling him that marijuana causes “violence” and is no White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said last week
good. that he expects to see “greater enforcement” of federal
laws when it comes to recreational marijuana.
‘I’m definitely not a fan of the drugs
expanded use,’ Sessions said. @jeffsessions wants "greater enforcement"
“I believe it’s an unhealthy practice and of fed. marijuana laws, according to
current levels of THC in marijuana are very @seanspicer. Will this be a move forward
high compared to what they were a few for the US or back?
years ago.” — Intellihub (@intellihubnews) February
“Most of you probably know I don’t think 28, 2017
America is going to be a better place when
more people of all ages and particularly Will there be a new war on pot?
young people start smoking pot,” Sessions
pointed out. Other Sources:
“I would just say it does remain a violation
of federal law to distribute marijuana Sessions pushes tougher line on marijuana
throughout any place in the United States, — Politico
whether a state legalizes it or not.”
Sessions: I’m ‘not a fan’ of marijuana
expansion — The Hill

19
 Trump’s Top Energy Aide,
Mike Catanzaro Peddled Climate Change Denial
By Steve Horn
February 28, 2017
Mike Catanzaro, President Donald Trump’s recently
minted top energy aide, has officially begun his first
week on the job at the White House. He was hired to move
policy measures through federal energy and environmental
agencies in a synergistic way.
A long-time oil and gas industry lobbyist who has spent
his career passing in and out of the government-industry
revolving door, Catanzaro actually got his start as a writer.
Working for the conservative newspapers Human
Events and Evans-Novak Political Report, Catanzaro’s
views on climate change — and climate denial — were on
full display in articles published during his formative years
as an up-and-coming conservative star.
DeSmog has reviewed articles found in the Human Events
archives, no longer found on the publication’s website, and
they shed new light on Catanzaro and his views as
Trump’s right-hand man on climate, energy,
and environmental policy.
Catanzaro’s articles, obtained through the University of
Wisconsin Libraries System, purport that mainstream
U.S.environmental groups are driven by Marxist
ideology and that global warming is a “liberal concept” (as
opposed to a scientific reality). They also reveal him
writing puff pieces on organizations such as the climate
change-denying Heartland Institute and individuals such as
prominent climate denier Fred Singer.
“Alarmism”
In March 2001, Catanzaro wrote an article titled “Energy
Secretary May Be Barrier to Sound Energy Policy” about
then-President George W. Bush’s U.S. Treasury
Secretary, Paul O’Neill, which covered O’Neill’s views on
what he referred to as “global warming” (in scare quotes).
Catanzaro found O’Neill’s posture on climate problematic,
as O’Neill wanted the Bush administration’s policy to be
“grounded in science.”
Citing O’Neill’s “alarmism,” Catanzaro wrote that there is
a “lack of consensus on whether global warming is
occurring or what its impact on climate and weather might
be.”
20
Yet that same year, the United Nations Intergovernmental
Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) released its more than
1,000 page assessment, assembled and reviewed by
hundreds of scientists, cataloging evidence for exactly
such a scientific consensus that humans are changing the
climate and some of the resulting impacts.
“Natural and human systems are expected
to be exposed to climatic variations such as
changes in the average, range, and
variability of temperature and precipitation,
as well as the frequency and severity of
weather events,” wrote the IPCC. “Systems
also would be exposed to indirect effects
from climate change such as sea level rise,
soil moisture changes, changes in land and
water condition, changes in the frequency
of fire and pest infestation, and changes in
the distribution of infectious disease
vectors and hosts.”
“Good Things Usually Happen”
In a 1997 profile of the Heartland Institute, one of the
pioneering nodes of the climate change denial and anti-
environmental machine, Catanzaro described the free-
market think tank as a place where “good things
usually happen.”
“The most important subject the institute is
dealing with right now is
environmentalism,” he wrote. “Of particular
interest … is global warming and Heartland
has been ahead of the curve in unraveling
some of the confusions and obfuscations
spewed by left-wing environmentalists on
that very issue.”
Though funded by wealthy donors and corporations
including ExxonMobil, Catanzaro wrote that
“Heartland remains a testament to the
power and influence of the grassroots.”
Catanzaro would, later in his career, become a lobbyist for
Koch Industries and other companies such as Noble
Energy, Devon Energy, Encana Oil and Gas, American
Fuel and Petrochemical Manufacturers (AFPM), and Hess
Corporation. The Koch network has led the way in
funding climate denial in recent years and has used
“astroturf” techniques, or seemingly grassroots movements
which are in reality fronts for corporate interests.
“Blame Yellowstone”
In January 1998, Catanzaro penned an article about
naturally occurring greenhouse gas emissions emanating
from Yellowstone National Park’s geysers. Pointing to a
study published in December 1997, his piece was titled, “If
the World is Warming, Blame Old Faithful.”
The study he cited said that Yellowstone’s geothermal
features emit 4.4 million tons of carbon dioxide per year,
the equivalent of about 10 medium-sized coal-fired power
plants. Even with coal-fired power plants in decline in the
U.S. today, there are still 363 plants open for business
and located in the U.S., according to U.S. Energy
Information Administration data. That would be the
greenhouse gas equivalent of 36 Yellowstones, according
to the study cited by Catanzaro.
But he extends his argument further, also stating that “only
about 2%-3% of greenhouse gases actually come from
anthropogenic, or man-made, sources, such as smokestacks
or power plants.” Yet a 2011 study says that at least 74
percent of global warming can be linked directly to human
activity.
“It is thus extremely likely (>95%
probability) that the greenhouse gas
induced warming since the mid-twentieth
century was larger than the observed rise
in global average temperatures, and
extremely likely that anthropogenic forcings
were by far the dominant cause of
warming,” explains that 2011 study
published in the journal Nature
Geoscience. “The natural forcing
contribution since 1950 is near zero.”
Catanzaro’s Human Events article also quotes Bonner
Cohen, a long-time climate change denier who ran the
publication EPAWatch, as an expert on the issue of
naturally occurring climate change.
Anti-Kyoto Climate Deal
As a candidate, Trump pledged to “cancel” the United
Nations Paris climate deal and “stop all payments of U.S.
tax dollars to U.N. global warming programs.” Based on
his top energy aide’s early writings at Human Events, it
21
appears President Trump has hired a comrade-in-arms for
the cause.
“The Clinton Administration has launched
an all-out propaganda campaign to
facilitate passage of a United Nations-
sponsored global-warming treaty that, if
ratified, could wreck havoc on middle-class
American families while allowing major
polluters such as Communist China and
India to escape the treaty’s restrictions on
so-called ‘greenhouse’ gas emissions,”
Catanzaro wrote in 1997 his
article, ”Clinton Launches Propaganda
Campaign for Global-Warming Treaty.”
“Worse, there is no scientific consensus that global
warming is indeed taking place — the reason Clinton has
mounted a massive propaganda campaign,” he opined.
In that same article, Catanzaro also referred to climate
change as a “religious belief,” while quoting prominent
climate deniers such as Fred Singer to make his case.
Catanzaro also wrote a profile piece on Singer in
November 1997, in which he juxtaposed Singer with other
scientists whom he said were guilty of “using pseudo-
scientific postulates to scare the public into accepting the
disastrous international global-climate treaty that will be
debated in Kyoto, Japan, next month.”
“Contrary to what [global-warming proponents] say, there
is no global warming,” Singer told Catanzaro for that
article. “And contrary to what [those proponents] say,
there is no scientific consensus either.”
“No Connection” vs. 97%
Though he’d eventually leave the writing world to work
for the Senate Environment and Public Works Committee,
which was then chaired by infamous climate denier Sen.
James Inhofe (R-OK), Catanzaro continued to write on the
side for Human Events until landing a policy job in the
Bush White House’s Council on Environmental Quality
(CEQ). During that time, he wrote articles such as
“Glaciers, ‘Global Warming,’ and NY Times Hysteria,”
“Be Afraid!!! Global Warming and Malaria,” “More
Leftist Enviro Scare Tactics,” and “No Global Warming
Consensus.”
Catanzaro has also written that “there is no connection
between global warming and extreme weather,” as well
as “when it comes to the science of global warming, the
alarmists, of course, think all the complexities and
uncertainties have been settled.”
Meanwhile, 97 percent of peer-reviewed scientific studies
on climate change have concluded that climate change
is caused by humans. [Editor note: This statement has been
proven to be Bullshit]
Catanzaro’s publishing history has surfaced at the same
time sea ice levels have hit record lows at both poles.
Scientists peg this trend to human-caused climate change,
which has contributed to weather patterns such as the
“Polar Vortex.”
“Greenhouse gases emitted through
human activities and the resulting increase
in global mean temperatures are the most
likely underlying cause of the sea ice
decline,” wrote the National Snow and Ice
Data Center,
which is based at the University of Colorado and funded
by NASA, the National Science Foundation (NSF), the
National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration
(NOAA).
.
22
When Alex Formuzis, Vice President of Communications
for the Environmental Working Group (EWG),
viewed some of Catanzaro’s past writings, he pointed
to Catanzaro as part of a broader trend among Trump’s
energy, environment, and climate team.
“Tapping Mr. Catanzaro as a White House
energy advisor fits with President Trump’s
agenda of promoting the interests of fossil
fuel industry over the environment and
public health,” Formuzis told DeSmog.
“Catanzaro has a long history as a lobbyist
for many of the same companies that had
significant influence over EPA administrator
Scott Pruitt when he was attorney general
of Oklahoma.”
Catanzaro did not return DeSmog’s request for comment.
 CNN Host Stuns Former AG
With Trump ‘Treason’ Conspiracy Theories
By Kyle Olson
February 28, 2017
CNN host Erin Burnett has a charge in search of a crime.
During a segment with former Attorney General Michael
Mukasey on Monday night, Burnett repeatedly pressed
him to say Trump’s rumored campaign talks with the
Russians were illegal, going so far as to speculate the
accusations amounted to “treason.”
Mukasey, who swatted down Burnett’s conspiracy theories
by citing the law, was left in a position where he could
only be stunned by her words.
The CNN host seemed to be desperately trying to pin
anything on Trump.
Burnett read into a statement by current Attorney General
Jeff Sessions after he said the DOJ has to remain
independent, but that “not every contact is improper,” and
that he has not examine the alleged contacts “in detail.”
“That’s what any person would say in his
position,” Mukasey responded with a
chuckle.
“Should he recuse himself and get a
special prosecutor?” she asked.
.
23
“No!” Mukasey said. “Special prosecutor of
what? Where’s the crime? We haven’t even
named the crime, let alone suggested that
charges are going to be brought.”
Mukasey swatted down Burnett’s apparent hope that any
proof of conversations would be “a criminal act.”
“No, it wouldn’t,” he said.
“Even if they had regular contact talking
about working together?” Burnett asked.
“The only statute I know that that
conceivably violates is the Logan Act and
that hasn’t been prosecuted since 1793,”
he said.
“But I’m talking about collusion or ‘it would
be great if you could find things on Hillary
Clinton,’ those sorts of conversations,”
Burnett said. “That would be treason,
right?”
“What?” Mukasey said, astonished.
“No?” she said.
“No!” Mukasey said.
Burnett then subtly shifted to ask him if he was “fine with
it” — moving from his interpretation of the law to his
opinion.
“It’s not a question of being fine with it
because I’m not fine with it. There’s a
difference between treason and what I’m
fine with or not. And saying you ought to
get stuff on Hillary Clinton, believe it or not,
is not a crime, even if you’re saying it to the
Russians.”
 Obama, Hillary &
GW Bush Pile On Trump
By Stephen Lendman
2-28-2017
His deplorable record so far aside, Obama and GW Bush
aren’t allies - for sure not Hillary, still seething from her
electoral loss, likely plotting revenge, maybe involved in
anti-Trump protests behind the scenes.
On Tuesday, Trump accused Obama of possibly being
behind protests against him and White House leaks -
“because his people are certainly behind it,” he said,
referring to holdovers in his administration until they can
be replaced.
Campaigning last year, he called Hillary a
“world class liar,” using the State
Department as her “own personal hedge
fund,” lacking “the temperament (and)
judgment to be president.”
She called him “temperamentally unfit to hold an office
that requires knowledge, stability and immense
responsibility.” Obama earlier called him “unfit” and
“woefully unprepared” to be president.
In 2014, Bush said
“I don’t think it’s good for the country to
have a former president undermine a
current president...I think it’s bad for the
presidency, for that matter.”
Monday on NBC’s Today Show, he went another way,
saying “we all need answers” about alleged connections
between Russian officials and Trump’s associates - despite
no evidence of anything out-of-line, no wrongdoing of any
kind.
So why raise the issue? Why join the chorus of Trump
bashers?
“I’m not sure the right avenue to take,”
Bush added. “I am sure, though, that that
question needs to be answered.”
The real issue is why were they asked, the answer obvious
given unrelenting scoundrel media gratuitous Trump
24
bashing. Justifiable criticism is warranted, not the other
kind.
Bush called a free press “indispensable to democracy.”
America has neither - except alternative sources of news
and information. America’s electoral system is farcical,
fantasy democracy, not the real thing.
Bush should know best of all. He lost to Al Gore in 2000,
again to John Kerry in 2004, yet served two terms as US
president - the first one courtesy of a Supreme Court
majority, annulling the popular will, halting the Florida
recount, months later showing Gore won the state.
In 2004, Kerry won by an even greater margin than Gore.
Yet Bush stayed on for four more dreadful years.
Ignoring his war on Islam at home and abroad, he said
“I am for an immigration policy that is
welcoming and that upholds the law.”
“One of our great strengths is for people to
be able to worship the way they want to or
not worship at all.”
It was the wrong time to be Muslim in America on his
watch - still the wrong time under Obama and Trump.
Police state laws were passed, constitutional rights
sacrificed, maybe more of the same ahead. Guantanamo
and other torture prisons were opened.
Innocent victims were spied on, persecuted, arrested,
prosecuted, convicted and imprisoned for offenses they
didn’t commit.
Obama continued what he began. Trump appears heading
in the same direction after a few short weeks in office.
The Clintons, Bush, Obama and now Trump are unindicted
war criminals - unaccountable for crimes of war and
against humanity, all belonging in prison doing hard time.
 Trump's Scores With 'Common Ground' Speech And A
Can-Do View Of Government
By Howard Kurtz
Published February 28, 2017
President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of Congress on
Capitol Hill in Washington, Tuesday, Feb. 28, 2017. (Jim Lo
Scalzo/Pool Image via AP)
Donald Trump, the most unconventional president of our
lifetimes, did a very conventional thing tonight, delivering
a message of unity in a soft voice to a joint session of
Congress.
This was a speech about what government can accomplish,
not a Reaganesque “government is the problem” appeal.
It was a more uplifting speech than his inaugural address,
with several appeals for bipartisanship and some lines that
could have been delivered by a Democrat. While Trump is
not a great orator, he spoke for an hour with confidence
and a polish for one who didn’t spend years delivering
political speeches.
And this is not the kind of language we are accustomed to
hearing from Donald Trump, who on Jan. 20 spoke of
American “carnage”:
“We are one people, with one destiny. We
all bleed the same blood. We all salute the
same flag. And we are all made by the
same God.”
It almost sounded like a reset, at least atmospherically.
The 45th president signaled that this was a different kind
of speech by beginning with Black History Month and a
denunciation of anti-Semitic incidents. He hit his major
themes—cutting regulations, reducing crime, building a
wall, lowering taxes, creating jobs—but without the harsh
partisan edge. And while Democrats, who mostly sat on
their hands, disagree with much of his agenda, Trump was
trying to reassure the audience that things are heading in
the right direction.
25
Even after ticking off what he said were the failures of the
Obama administration, Trump told the lawmakers they had
“to work past the differences of party” and “united for the
good of the country”—a rhetorical olive branch that may
or may not be seized by both sides.
Citing Ike’s national highway program, Trump called for a
trillion-dollar infrastructure program that could hold some
appeal for Democrats. But cutaway shots showed people
like Elizabeth Warren refusing to clap.
Trump even called, without elaboration, for
“positive immigration reform.”
The president got perhaps his loudest ovation from the
GOP side in promising to repeal and replace the
“imploding ObamaCare disaster”—and a few Democrats
made thumbs-down motions. As on other issues, Trump
sketched only broad pictures, but said they would ensure
that “no one is left out.”
It was a bit of a laundry list, like every State of the Union,
from rare diseases to school choice, and to child care and
paid family leave, a special Ivanka interest.
But there was a disconnect with budgetary reality. While
Trump touted the major boost he wants in defense
spending, he didn’t mention his plan for $54 billion in
offsetting domestic budget cuts that the White House
announced Monday. For instance, Trump said he would
promote “clean air and clean water,” but his budget
blueprint would slash EPA’s budget.
Once the pundits are done dissecting the speech, we will
return to the more pedestrian debate over the budget.
The budget argument has been raging in Washington for
three decades: Republicans want more defense spending,
Democrats want more social spending. And while both
parties agree that entitlements are a mess, the Republicans
want much more aggressive.
This was an issue in the Clinton administration, when
Democrats ripped Newt Gingrich over proposed cuts to
Medicare that he maintained were simply slowing the rate
of growth in the massive health care program.
This was an issue in the Bush administration, when the
president couldn’t get his party to hold hearings on his
plan to partially privatize Social Security.
This was an issue in the Obama administration, when the
president was willing to yield ground on entitlements as
part of a grand bargain with John Boehner that never
materialized.
But Trump is different. He campaigned on what is
essentially the Democratic position: No cuts to Medicare
and Social Security, not even in the longer term. But since
entitlements are 60 percent of the federal budget, that
means the $54-billion in cuts will have to come out of a
relatively small portion of the bureaucracy.
Unless, of course, the economy booms.
“I think the money is going to come from a
revved-up economy,” Trump told “Fox &
Friends.” This is the supply-side argument
that Ronald Reagan made and that
Washington has debated ever since.
Trump’s preliminary budget plan drew negative reviews in
much of the media, and not just from liberal
commentators.
National Review, which opposed Trump in the primaries,
said his blueprint suggests “that his fanciful campaign
promises — to solve the nation’s pecuniary woes by
targeting ‘waste, fraud, and abuse’ and cutting foreign aid
— have not been adapted to fiscal reality. It’s still in the
earliest stages, but his plan portends a significant increase
to an already massive federal debt…
“The graver menace is our entitlement
programs, which at present constitute 60
percent of federal government spending;
they are expected to reach two-thirds of
federal spending within a decade. The
.
26
president’s budget, though, is designed to
protect the largest of those programs —
and not just from cuts to benefit levels, but
from any cuts at all. This is silly.”
A New York Times editorial, rather than simply arguing
that the president can’t pay for a 10 percent hike in defense
spending, says the Trump plan “won’t strengthen
America’s security, and might, in fact, undermine it…
“The $600 billion yearly Pentagon budget is
certainly not too low, given the drawdown
of troops fighting wars in Iraq and
Afghanistan. Mr. Trump should be asking
himself not how to heave more billions at
the Pentagon but how to make sure it is
spending its existing budget wisely.”
This, says the Times, is
“a choice that would harm millions of
Americans while shoveling more profits to
military contractors.”
A Washington Post editorial focuses more on fuzzy math,
saying it’s “distressingly likely that the plans he has would
make the fiscal situation far worse.
“Reality check: The combined budget for
the EPA and the State Department was
only about $46 billion in the current fiscal
year. Even eliminating them entirely could
not pay for the defense boost Mr. Trump is
apparently contemplating.”
But here’s the thing: Trump is a veteran negotiator. This is
his opening bid. So the real question is whether he can
make a deal with 535 lawmakers.
 Trump, In Speech To Congress,
Calls To ‘Restart The Engine’ Of US Economy
By Judson Berger
Published February 28, 2017
President Trump declared Tuesday that a “new chapter of
American greatness is now beginning” as he made
economic revival the centerpiece of his first address to
Congress – issuing a clarion call to “restart the engine of
the American economy” through tax cuts, better trade
deals, immigration enforcement and a $1 trillion
infrastructure program.
He also called on Congress to replace what he called the
“imploding ObamaCare disaster” with legislation that
lowers costs and expands access, an ambitious goal for
GOP lawmakers still trying to come together on a plan.
The president outlined his agenda in an address to a joint
session of Congress that lasted roughly an hour and
focused largely on priorities at home, more than abroad.
He offered a decidedly upbeat vision for the future of the
country that stood in contrast to his at-times foreboding
inauguration address.
“Everything that is broken in our country
can be fixed. Every problem can be solved.
And every hurting family can find healing,
and hope,” Trump said, urging lawmakers
to "join forces" to deliver.
Trump for the most part traded the contentious and punchy
tone of the last few weeks for loftier – some might say
more presidential – rhetoric. Declaring
“the time for small thinking is over,” Trump
appealed to the country to “believe, once
more, in America.”
“A new chapter of American greatness is
now beginning. A new national pride is
27
sweeping across our nation,” he said. “And
a new surge of optimism is placing
impossible dreams firmly within our grasp.”
He described his address as a “message of unity and
strength.”
The generally well-received speech could mark an
opportunity for Trump to reset his young presidency after a
rocky start in which clashes with the media and staffing
controversies at times overshadowed action on the jobs
front.
In perhaps the most memorable moment of the night, the
audience broke out into extended applause as Trump
introduced the widow of William "Ryan" Owens, the Navy
SEAL killed in a raid in Yemen last month. Carryn Owens
sobbed as lawmakers gave her a standing ovation and
Trump said the raid he participated in yielded vital
intelligence.
His “legacy is etched into eternity,” Trump
said.
In between the more dramatic moments were a host of
policy prescriptions that could have a big impact on
discussions in Congress.
Trump called for a “national rebuilding,” urging Congress
to pass legislation that produces a $1 trillion public-private
investment in infrastructure.
Speaking to a key campaign promise that has yet to be
realized, he said his team is developing “historic tax
reform that will reduce the tax rate on our companies so
they can compete and thrive anywhere and with anyone.”
He vowed a “big, big cut” including “massive tax relief for
the middle class.”
And he urged Congress to replace
ObamaCare “with reforms that expand
choice, increase access, lower costs, and
at the same time, provide better health
care.”
He outlined “principles” to guide negotiations, including a
call for Americans with pre-existing coverage to keep
access to care, for states to have “flexibility” with
Medicaid, and for Americans to be able to buy insurance
across state lines.
Calling education the
“civil rights issue of our time,” Trump also
urged Congress to pass an education bill
funding “school choice.”
While laying out his agenda, Trump touted his early-
administration accomplishments while claiming he
inherited many problems.
And as he did during the presidential campaign, he pushed
a nationalist message, making big promises for what will
happen when America puts its citizens first:
“Dying industries will come roaring back to
life. … Crumbling infrastructure will be
replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels,
airports and railways gleaming across our
very, very beautiful land. … Above all else,
we will keep our promises to the American
people.”
He said his job is to represent the United States, not the
world.
In calling to “restart” the American jobs
engine, Trump said the U.S. must make it
“easier for companies to do business in the
United States, and much, much harder for
companies to leave our country.”
He also defended his stepped-up deportations and other
border security plans, casting his immigration agenda as
part of the broader economic plan. By enforcing
immigration laws, he said,
“we will raise wages, help the unemployed,
save billions and billions of dollars, and
make our communities safer for everyone.”
.
28
He joined GOP lawmakers seeking reforms to legal
immigration – and potentially reopened the broader debate
in Congress by saying immigration reform is possible.
Trump's first official status report to Congress came amid a
fast-paced opening volley of activity at the start of his
term: a slew of executive actions, a forthcoming budget
proposal and various side-deals with American companies
aimed at creating jobs. Trump was eager to highlight those
accomplishments, but also faces early challenges: an order
suspending refugee and other admissions on hold by the
courts, questions about his team’s contacts with Russia and
a Congress that has not yet moved legislation on key
priorities.
The biggest task ahead is Republicans’ drive to repeal and
replace ObamaCare. As Trump appealed for a
comprehensive package, some in the party have been
divided over the plans being privately discussed at the
Capitol.
House Speaker Paul Ryan played down divisions ahead of
Tuesday’s speech.
“This is a plan that we are all working on
together,” he told reporters. “There aren’t
rival plans here.”
After the speech, Ryan applauded Trump
for what he called a "home run."
But the official Democratic response offered a reminder of
the resistance Trump will face on his legislative agenda,
particularly on ObamaCare.
Former Kentucky Gov. Steve Beshear warned those efforts
would strip affordable health insurance from Americans.
“This isn’t a game. It’s life and death for
people,” he said.
 ‘I Never Said Media Is Enemy,
I Said Fake Media,’ Trump Tells Breitbart
Published Time: 28 Feb, 2017 11:13
United States President Donald Trump © Aude Guerrucci /
www.globallookpress.com
US President Donald Trump has clarified his hostile stance
towards the mass media, explaining that what he actually
opposes is media that spread “fake news.” He also outlined
some of the topics he’ll touch upon at his upcoming
address to Congress.
“I didn’t say the media is the enemy—I said
the ‘fake media’,” Trump told Breitbart in an
exclusive interview on Monday.
“There’s a difference. The fake media is the
opposition party. The fake media is the
enemy of the American people. There’s
tremendous fake media out there.
Tremendous fake stories. The problem is
the people that aren’t involved in the story
don’t know that.”
The president branded some of the mainstream media as
“fake” when still in the run-up for presidency, and later –
after reports that Russia interfered with the election and
helped Trump win.
Trump marked the New York Times as an example of
“failing” media that “writes lies,” stressing that the outlet’s
approval ratings are already in serious decline due to this
stance.
He stressed that competition is essential for the media to
work properly, but did not comment specifically on the
possible merger between AT&T and Time Warner, which
if successful would unite a handful of news networks
under one owner and which was criticized by Trump
during pre-election days.
“I don’t want to comment on any specific
deal, but I do believe there has to be
29
competition in the marketplace and maybe
even more so with the media because it
would be awfully bad after years if we
ended up having one voice out there. You
have to have competition in the
marketplace and you have to have
competition among the media,” the
president said.
Trump also commented on Sunday’s Oscars ceremony
coverage, during which he was the target of a number of
jokes by Oscar-winners, while Oscars host Jimmy Kimmel
openly trolled him during the live broadcast.
“I want to say thank you to President
Trump. Remember last year when it
seemed like the Oscars were racist? That's
gone, thanks to him!” Kimmel said.
Trump said the focus of the event on politics instead of
cinematography ruined it and was the reason for the
unfortunate mistake that was made when announcing Best
Picture.
“I think they were focused so hard on
politics that they didn’t get the act together
at the end. It was a little sad. It took away
from the glamour of the Oscars. […] There
was something very special missing, and
then to end that way was sad,” Trump
said.
Trump’s first address to Congress
Trump’s interview to Breitbart came ahead of his first
address to a joint session of Congress as president, which
is to take place later on Tuesday. Outlining the focal points
for that speech, Trump said there will be a number of
them, from healthcare to foreign affairs, as he “inherited a
mess” from the previous administration.
“We’re going to be talking about
healthcare. We’re going to be talking about
Obamacare, and what we’re going to do
about the disaster known as Obamacare
because it’s a complete and total disaster.
We’re going to be talking about taxes.
We’re going to be talking about the
 economy generally. We’re going to be
talking about the military and spending
money on the military, and the border […]
“I inherited a mess. […] The Middle East is
a mess. North Korea is treading on very
dangerous territory. North Korea is a mess.
Our border is a total disaster. Our trade
deals are beyond bad — beyond bad. The
result looks like they were negotiated by
children. We’ll fix them,” the president said.
He spoke of his intent to
“increase military spending significantly” to
soon “have the finest military that the
United States has ever had by far.”
Trump also once again stressed the need to put up the wall
on the border with Mexico, which he said is already ahead
of schedule.
“We’re going to have a wall and it will be a
great wall and it will stop the drugs from
.
30
pouring in and destroying our youth. And it
will stop people from coming in that aren’t
allowed to come in. We’re going to have a
wall and it’s ahead of schedule already
now, and [Secretary of Homeland Security]
General Kelly wants it badly now and
everybody wants it.”
Regarding trade deals, Trump said that instead of taking
part in partnerships like the free-trade TPP (Trans-Pacific
Partnership), from which he withdrew the US last month,
he will look to
“individual deals with individual countries.”
“We’re going to do it bilaterally, we’re not
going to have a big mosh pit. We’re going
to do it bilaterally, have deals with — we’ve
already started the process. We’re going to
do individual deals with individual countries
so we don’t get bogged down,” the
president said.
 Video: Leaked Audio Exposes Anti-Trump
Activist Group’s Plan To Sabotage Town Hall
Lily Dane
February 28, 2017

The audio, obtained by local radio station KPEL, reveals a

coordinated effort to create the public impression that
Cassidy’s support for Trump is unpopular with his
constituents. The activists, who describe themselves as
liberals in the audio, can be heard strategizing how to best
turn a local town hall into a political victory.

KPEL shared the audio on YouTube:

Leaked audio from an anti-Trump protest group reveals

activists plotted how to create a hostile environment at a
town hall with Republican Sen. Bill Cassidy in Breaux
Bridge, Louisiana last Friday.

From The Daily Caller:

Bitter Nancy Pelosi REFUSES To Stand And Applaud

American Job Creation (Video)
Ryan Saavedra
Feb 28th, 2017 9:32 Pm

Transcript:
Nancy Pelosi Shows True Colors At Speech
“Since my election, Ford, Fiat Chrysler,
During President Trump’s speech on Tuesday night he Generall Motors, Spring, Sofbank,
touted the positive economic growth that has taken place Lockheed, Intel, Walmart and many others
since coming into office which received standing ovation have announced that they will invest
from everyone in attendance. billions and billions of dollars in the United
States and create tens of thousands of new
Everyone except bitter congresswoman Nancy Pelsoi. American jobs,”

31
 How The Ultimate D.C.
Insider Penetrated Trump's White House
Sen. Rob Portman And The GOP Establishment Have Quietly Stocked
The New Administration With Close Allies.
By Burgess Everett And Josh Dawsey
03/01/17 05:08 AM EST
Donald Trump railed against Establishment Washington in
his presidential campaign. But now that he’s in the White
House, it’s actually a pretty good time to be a Washington
insider.
Just ask Sen. Rob Portman.
There’s no more archetypal Washington operator than the
Ohio Republican, a former House member, U.S. trade
representative, Office of Management and Budget head
and lower-level White House staffer. And now he’s got a
direct line to the Trump White House on national and
home-state priorities, as the administration has been
quietly stocked with aides and advisers with longstanding
ties to Republican Party leadership.
“It’s good. As you know, I’ve got a lot of
Portman team members down there,”
Portman said in an interview in his
Washington office after decisively winning
reelection last year. “We’ve got a lot of
friends.”
He’s not the only one. House Speaker Paul Ryan and
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, not to mention
uber-lobbyists like former Senate Majority Leader Trent
Lott, all count close relationships within the Trump
administration.
Indeed, even after a chaotic first month for the White
House, Portman and a number of longtime Washington
Republicans say they’re largely at ease with Trump’s West
Wing operation and confident they’ll be able to influence
policy.
White House officials deliberately hired a number of aides
with ties to influential Hill Republicans, hoping to leverage
their relationships and soothe rattled nerves after the
election, a White House official said. Some were picked
specifically because of their ties to Republican lawmakers.
Another person close to Trump said the White House
realized it can do only so much by executive order and
needs Congress to do big things, leading the White House
to ask prominent lobbyists and lawmakers whom they
should hire.
32
One of Portman’s best friends, fellow George W. Bush
administration alum Joe Hagin, is a White House deputy
chief of staff. Portman has several former staffers who
have already burrowed into the nascent administration.
He’s tight with Trump’s chief economic adviser, Gary
Cohn, who visits Portman’s office for private powwows.
And Portman talks on a weekly basis with Vice President
Mike Pence, a former colleague in the House who has
become the face of the White House on Capitol Hill.
As for Trump himself, Portman said:
“I know him, he knows me. I think he’s got
some closer friends than me, but Pence
and I are very close.”
For experienced Washington operators like Portman,
Trump’s turn toward experienced D.C. hands couldn’t be
more welcome. The president’s Capitol Hill operation
includes Hagin as well as legislative affairs leaders Rick
Dearborn and Marc Short, both former congressional
aides.
Rob Porter, a former counsel to Portman and Senate
Finance Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-Utah), is the staff
secretary. Portman also knows Cohn’s deputy, Shahira
Knight, who worked on the Ways and Means Committee
when Portman was a House member. Portman’s chief of
staff, Mark Isakowitz, has deep ties with Republican
operatives, having worked as both a lobbyist and a GOP
staffer on Capitol Hill.
“Right now I feel pretty positive on some of
the policy stuff. I don't feel positive on
some of the distractions,” Portman said of
the White House. “But I still think we’re
heading generally in the right direction.”
Dearborn and Short worked on Capitol Hill for Attorney
General Jeff Sessions and Pence, respectively — both on
the conservative end of the political spectrum but liked
well enough by other Republicans.
Having faces familiar to Capitol Hill is a far more effective
tactic than building a White House inherently hostile to
lawmakers, Republicans say.
“It’s a relationship business,” said Sen.
Shelley Moore Capito (R-W.Va.), a former
House member who is now close to
McConnell. “You’ve already got some trust
factor built up over there.”
The person close to Trump said that while the president
speaks on broad strokes, perhaps suggesting he cares little
about policy details, Dearborn’s team is focused on talking
specifics with people whose votes they need.
One senior GOP aide said the White House hires of
experienced congressional aides, such as Joyce Meyer
from Ryan’s office, are smart because they’re people who
can help move legislation.
Of course, the approach may not be coming from Trump
directly.
“These are all Reince hires,” the source
said, referring to White House chief of staff
Reince Priebus. “I don’t think Trump has
any idea who these people are. These are
literally all the people he ran against.”
Lott, now a senior lobbyist at the venerable law firm
Squire Patton Boggs, has three former staffers at the White
House, including Dearborn, with whom he frequently
speaks. Lott has been actively involved in the hiring
process in the West Wing.
Both Lott and Portman frequently correspond with Short,
one of Dearborn’s deputies and a longtime aide to Pence.
Short’s name often comes up in conversations about
people in the Trump administration who have juice on
Capitol Hill.
Congress’ plodding pace has frustrated Trump and his
inner circle, who were clearly underprepared for the
.
33
bruising confirmation fights over Trump’s Cabinet
nominees. But administration officials are also quietly
hashing out big-ticket legislation with people like Portman.
Portman withdrew his endorsement of Trump after the
“Access Hollywood” video surfaced. But in the days after
the election, Trump showed he was still very interested in
Portman’s views, as the Ohio senator visited Trump Tower
twice during the transition. He spoke about tax, trade and
health care policy with Pence, Dearborn and Priebus.
These days Portman is using his conversations with Cohn
to shape a sweeping tax code rewrite that Republicans
hope to enact later this year, a sharp contrast from more
narrowly focused legislation he pushed through under
President Barack Obama.
“We do have a good shot of getting tax
reform despite all of the differences of
opinion that you hear right now,” Portman
said. “I think there’s a general aligning of
the planets.”
But the Trump White House is aware that other members
have to be courted, so Short and Dearborn are in the
process of sitting down and meeting with senators one on
one. Trump himself has invited a bevy of lawmakers to the
White House to meet with him, from Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) to the House members
who were early Trump endorsers.
Other lawmakers without a direct line to Trump are
connecting with Pence, who has offices in both the House
and the Senate, and who attends weekly Senate Republican
lunches.
“I’ve not been to the White House,” said
freshman Sen. John Kennedy (R-La.),
who’s been in Washington less than two
months. But, he added, “I have a way to
contact the vice president directly. I do not
abuse it.”
 Trump State Department Budget
Cuts 'Probably' Won't Senate: McConnell
Wed Mar 1, 2017 12:38AM

"It would be a disaster. If you take soft

power off the table, then you're never going
to win the war. What's most disturbing
about the cut in the State Department's
budget, it shows a lack of understanding of
what it takes to win the war," he said.

US Senate Majority Leader Senator Mitch McConnell (R-KY) speaks

during a news conference at the Capitol in Washington, DC. on
February 17, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
US Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell says President Donald
Trump's proposed budget cuts in State
Department will not win congressional
approval.
The remarks are made as a White House budget official
The Republican senator said on Tuesday that he himself said a day earlier that the new US president plans to
would not support the plan for slashing State Department increase military spending by $54 billion and slash the
funding as the Trump administration is expected to same amount from non-military spending for the next
propose and would work on a “bipartisan” basis to dismiss fiscal year, beginning in October.
such a measure.
Earlier on Monday, over 120 retired US military officers,
Asked if he thought the Senate could pass a budget that including admirals and generals, urged Trump not to slash
included a cut of a third of State Department funding, State Department’s funding and spending. The ex-military
McConnell responded, officials called State Department funding

"probably not.” “critical to keeping America safe.”

"I, for one, just speaking for myself, think
the diplomatic portion of the federal budget"
is a positive tool for US foreign policy, the
75-year-old senator said, adding that
spending money on diplomacy is often
cheaper and more effective than what "we
do on the defense side."
US military spending stands at approximately $600 billion
annually. By contrast, the United States spends about $54
billion per year on its "International Affairs" budget, which
includes the State Department and foreign assistance
programs.

In an interview with MSNBC, Republican Senator Lindsey

Graham (pictured below) also said Trump's proposal for
cuts would be "dead on arrival" in Congress.
.

34
 How The Press Serves The Deep State
By Daniel Lazare
March 1, 2017
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Exclusive: Mainstream U.S. media is proud to be the Deep
State’s tip of the spear pinning President Trump to the wall
over unproven allegations about Russia and his calls for
detente, a rare point where he makes sense, notes Daniel
Lazare.
The New York Times has made it official. In a Sunday
front-page article entitled “Trump Ruled the Tabloid
Media. Washington Is a Different Story,” the paper gloats
that Donald Trump has proved powerless to stop a flood of
leaks threatening to capsize his administration.
As reporters Glenn Thrush and Michael M. Grynbaum put
it:
“This New York-iest of politicians, now an
idiosyncratic, write-your-own-rules
president, has stumbled into the most
conventional of Washington traps: believing
he can master an entrenched political
press corps with far deeper connections to
the permanent government of federal law
enforcement and executive department
officials than he has.”
Thrush and Grynbaum add a few paragraphs later that
Trump
“is being force-fed lessons all presidents
eventually learn – that the iron triangle of
the Washington press corps, West Wing
staff and federal bureaucracy is simply too
powerful to bully.”
35
Iron triangle? Permanent government? In its tale of how
Trump went from being a favorite of the New York Post
and Daily News to fodder for the big-time Washington
news media, the Times seems to be going out of its way to
confirm dark paranoid fears of a “deep state” lurking
behind the scenes and dictating what political leaders can
and cannot do. “Too powerful to bully” by a “write-your-
own-rules president” is another way of saying that the
permanent government wants to do things its way and will
not put up with a president telling it to take a different
approach.
Entrenched interests are nothing new, of course. But a
major news outlet bragging about collaborating with such
elements in order to cripple a legally established
government is. The Times was beside itself with outrage
when top White House adviser Steve Bannon described the
media as “the opposition party.” But one can’t help but
wonder what all the fuss is about since an alliance aimed at
hamstringing a presidency is nothing if not oppositional.
If so, a few things are worth keeping in mind. One is that
Trump was elected, even if only by an Eighteenth-Century
relic known as the Electoral College, whereas the deep
state, permanent government, or whatever else you want to
call it was not. Where Trump gave speeches, kissed babies,
and otherwise sought out the vote, the deep state did
nothing. To the degree this country is still a democracy,
that must count for something. So if the conflict between
president and the deep state ever comes down to a question
of legitimacy, there is no doubt who will come out ahead:
The Donald.
A second thing worth keeping in mind is that if ever there
was a case of the unspeakable versus the inedible (to quote
Oscar Wilde), the contest between a billionaire president
and billionaire-owned press is it.
Both sides are more or less correct in what they say about
the other. Trump really is a strongman at war with basic
democratic norms just as innumerable Times op-ed articles
say he is. And giant press organization like the Times and
the Washington Post are every bit as biased and one-sided
as Trump maintains – and no less willfully gullible, one
might add, than in 2002 or 2003 when they happily
swallowed every lie put out by the George W. Bush
administration regarding Iraqi WMDs or Saddam
Hussein’s support for Al Qaeda.
Riveting TV
Trump’s Feb. 16 press conference – surely the most
riveting TV since Jerry Springer was in his prime – is a
case in point. The President bobbed, weaved, and hurled
abuse like a Catskills insult comic. He threw out pseudo-
facts, describing his victory, for instance, as “the biggest
Electoral College win since Ronald Reagan” when in fact
George H. W. Bush, Bill Clinton and Barack Obama all
got more votes.
But commentators who panned the display
as a “freak show” or simply “batshit crazy”
didn’t get it. It wasn’t Trump who bombed
that afternoon, but the press.
Donald Trump speaking at CPAC 2011 in Washington, D.C. (Flickr
Gage Skidmore)
Why? Because reporters behaved with all the intelligence
of a pack of Jack Russell terriers barking at a cat up a
tree. Basically, they’ve been seized by the idée fixe that
Russia is a predator state that hacks elections, threatens
U.S. national security, and has now accomplished the neat
trick of planting a Kremlin puppet in the Oval Office. It
doesn’t matter that evidence is lacking or that the thesis
defies common sense. It’s what they believe, what their
editors believe, and what the deep state believes too (or at
least pretends to). So the purpose of the Feb. 16 press
conference was to pin Trump down as to whether he also
believes the Russia-did-it thesis and pillory him for
deviating from the party line.
More than half the questions that reporters threw out were
thus about Russia, about Mike Flynn, the ex-national
security adviser who got into trouble for talking to the
Russian ambassador before the new administration
formally took office, or about reputed contacts between the
Trump campaign staff and Moscow. One reporter
thus demanded to know if anyone from Trump’s campaign
staff had ever spoken with the Russian government or
Russian intelligence. Another asked if Trump had
requested FBI telephone intercepts before determining that
Flynn had not broken the law.
36
“I just want to get you to clarify this very
important point,” said a third. “Can you say
definitively that nobody on your campaign
had any contacts with the Russians during
the campaign?” A fourth wanted to get the
President’s reaction to such “provocations”
as a Russian communications vessel
floating 30 miles off the coast of
Connecticut (in international waters). “Is
Putin testing you, do you believe, sir?” the
reporter asked as if he had just uncovered
a Russian agent in the Lincoln
Bedroom. “…But do they damage the
relationship? Do they undermine this
country’s ability to work with Russia?”
When yet another journalist asked yet again “whether you
are aware that anyone who advised your campaign had
contacts with Russia during the course of the election,”
Trump cried out in frustration: “How many times do I have
to answer this question?” It was the most intelligent query
of the day.
The press played straight into Trump’s hands, all but
providing him with his best lines.
“Well, I guess one of the reasons I’m here
today is to tell you the whole Russian thing,
that’s a ruse,” he responded at one
point. “That’s a ruse. And by the way, it
would be great if we could get along with
Russia, just so you understand that. Now
tomorrow, you’ll say, ‘Donald Trump wants
to get along with Russia, this is terrible.’ It’s
not terrible. It’s good.”
The prose may not be very polished, but the sentiments are
unassailable. Ditto Trump’s statement a few minutes later
that
“false reporting by the media, by you
people, the false, horrible, fake reporting
makes it much harder to make a deal with
Russia. … And that’s a shame because if
we could get along with Russia – and by
the way, China and Japan and everyone –
if we could get along, it would be a positive
thing, not a negative thing.”
If the Washington Post and the Times do not agree that
bogus assertions about unauthorized contacts with Russia
are not poisoning the atmosphere, they should explain very
clearly why not. They should also explain what they hope
to accomplish with a showdown with Russia and why it
will not be a step toward World War III.
But they won’t, of course. The media (with encouragement
from parts of the U.S. government) are working
themselves into a fit of outrage against Vladimir Putin just
as, in past years, they did against Daniel Ortega, Manuel
Noriega, Saddam Hussein, Slobodan Milosevic, Saddam
Hussein (again), Muammar Gaddafi, Bashar al-Assad, and
Viktor Yanukovych. In each instance, the outcome has
been war, and so far the present episode shows all signs of
heading in the same direction as well.
Reporters may be clueless, but working-class Americans
aren’t. They don’t want a war because they’re the ones
who would have to fight it. So they’re not unsympathetic
to Trump and all the more inclined to give the yapping
media short shrift.
This is a classic pattern in which strongmen advance on
the basis of a liberal opposition that proves to be weak and
feckless. Today’s liberal media are obliging Trump by
behaving in a way that is even sillier than usual and well
ahead of schedule to boot.
A Fragile Meme
The anti-Russia meme, meanwhile, rests on the thinnest of
foundations. The argument that Russia hacked the
Democratic National Committee and thereby tipped the
election to Trump is based on a single report by
CrowdStrike, the California-based cyber-security firm
hired by the DNC to look into the mass email leak. The
document is festooned with head-spinning techno-jargon.
Couple walking along the Kremlin, Dec. 7, 2016. (Photo by Robert
Parry)
It says of Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear, the hackers who
allegedly penetrated the DNC in behalf of Russian
intelligence:
“Their tradecraft is superb, operational
security second to none, and the extensive
usage of ‘living-off-the-land’ techniques
enables them to easily bypass many
security solutions they encounter. In
particular, we identified advanced methods
37
consistent with nation-state level
capabilities including deliberate targeting
and ‘access management’ tradecraft – both
groups were constantly going back into the
environment to change out their implants,
modify persistent methods, move to new
Command & Control channels, and perform
other tasks to try to stay ahead of being
detected. Both adversaries engage in
extensive political and economic espionage
for the benefit of the government of the
Russian Federation and are believed to be
closely linked to the Russian government’s
powerful and highly capable intelligence
services.”
Impressive? Not to independent tech experts who have
already begun taking potshots. Sam Biddle, The Intercept’s
extremely smart tech writer, notes that CrowdStrike claims
to have proved that Cozy Bear and Fancy Bear are Russian
because they left behind Cyrillic comments in their
“metadata” along with the name “Felix Edmundovich,”
also in Cyrillic, an obvious reference to Felix
Edmundovich Dzerzhinsky, founder of the Cheka, as the
Soviet political police were originally known.
But, Biddle observes, there’s an obvious contradiction:
“Would a group whose ‘tradecraft is
superb’ with ‘operational security second to
none’ really leave behind the name of a
Soviet spy chief imprinted on a document it
sent to American journalists? Would these
groups really be dumb enough to leave
Cyrillic comments on these documents? …
It’s very hard to buy the argument that the
Democrats were hacked by one of the most
sophisticated, diabolical foreign intelligence
services in history, and that we know this
because they screwed up over and over
again.”
Indeed, John McAfee, founder of McAfee Associates and
developer of the first commercial anti-virus software, casts
doubt on the entire enterprise, wondering whether it is
possible to identify a hacker at all.
“If I were the Chinese,” he told TV
interviewer Larry King in late December,
“and I wanted to make it look like the
Russians did it, I would use Russian
language within the code, I would use
Russian techniques of breaking into
organizations. … If it looks like the
Russians did it, then I can guarantee you: it
was not the Russians.” (Quote starts at
4:30.)
This may be too sweeping. Nonetheless, if the press really now before the conflict with Russia spins out of control,
wanted to get to the bottom of what the Russians are with consequences that are potentially even more
doing, they would not begin with the question of what horrendous.
Trump knew and when he knew it. They would begin,
rather, with the question of what we know and how we can It’s not easy making Donald Trump seem like a peacenik,
be sure. It’s the question that the press should have asked but that’s what the billionaire’s press has done.
during the run-up to the 2003 invasion of Iraq, but failed
to. But it’s the question that reporters should be asking
.

38
 The US Warms Up To Trump:
3 In 4 Americans Approve Of Trump Address
By Tyler Durden
Mar 1, 2017 10:21 AM

In a new poll from CNN/ORC, more than
75% of Americans reacted positively to
Trump's Tuesday night "Presidential"
address to Congress. Among those who
watched the speech, 57% said they had a
"very positive" response, while another
21% described their reaction as
"somewhat positive."
in the right direction. Almost as many, 70%,
said the same about his terrorism
proposals. Slightly fewer, but still a
majority, felt his policies on taxes (64%),
immigration (62%) or health care (61%)
were heading in the right direction.

President Donald Trump's first address to Congress

received largely positive reviews from viewers, with 57%
who tuned in saying they had a very positive reaction to
the speech, according to a new CNN/ORC poll of speech-
watchers.

Nearly 7-in-10 who watched said the

President's proposed policies would
move the country in the right direction

and almost two-thirds said the president has the right And, of course, Sean Spicer quickly shared the poll from
priorities for the country. Overall, about 7-in-10 said the "fake news" CNN via Twitter.
speech made them feel more optimistic about the direction
of the country.

Ideologically, about two-thirds saw Trump's speech as

about right, while roughly on-quarter (26%) pegged it as
too conservative. Just 8% said it wasn't conservative
enough.

But while the ratings were 'yuge' and 'tremendous', CNN

also pointed out that they

fell well below the 68% "very positive"

reaction that President Obama received
to his first joint session and 66% for
former president George W. Bush.

While the 57% who said they had a very positive reaction
to Trump's speech outpaces the marks received by his
On the issues, CNN says that Trump scored the highest predecessor for any of his recent State of the Union
ratings on the economy and terrorism. addresses,

On specific issues, Trump scored the they fell below the reviews either Barack
highest marks for his proposed policies on Obama or George W. Bush received for
the economy, with 72% saying those went
39
 either of their initial addresses to
Congress.
In 2009, 68% had a very positive reaction to Obama, while
66% gave Bush very positive reviews in 2001. Likewise,
the 69% of speech-watchers who thought Trump's policies
would move the nation in the right direction lagged behind
the share who felt that way about Obama's or Bush's
policies in the first year, and ranks around their low-marks
on this score.
40
Obama's low-mark on that score was
68% last year and his high was 88% in
2009. Bush topped out at 91% in 2002 and
hit a low mark of 67% in the final year of his
presidency.
Meanwhile, in a shocking first for the king of Democrat
"oversamples", CNN said their poll included 509
Americans who watched Trump's speech, including an 8-
point sampling advantage for Republicans.
 Columbia Profs Blame
Student Suicides On Trump
Toni Airaksinen New York Campus Correspondent @Toni_Airaksinen
March 1, 2017
 Professors at Columbia University want space to
discuss their “distress” over Donald Trump’s
election, saying they don’t know anyone who isn’t
“chronically and deeply” upset by the result.
 The letter to university president Lee Bollinger
even blames election-related fears for a recent
wave of student suicides.
 UPDATE: One of the authors denied that the letter
was blaming student suicides on Trump's election.
Professors at Columbia University want space to discuss
their “distress” over Donald Trump’s election, saying they
don’t know anyone who isn’t “chronically and deeply”
upset by the result.
In a letter to Columbia President Lee Bollinger, professors
Robert Pollack and Letty Moss-Salentijn, the co-chairs of
the Columbia Faculty Affairs Committee, say Trump’s
election has cast a “malaise that sits like a fog over
Columbia” that not even George Orwell’s classic 1984 can
adequately address.
“We know no one at Columbia who is not
upset, chronically and deeply, since the
election,” declare Pollack and Moss-
Salentijn, who even go so far as to blame
the result for recent student suicides.
“We know this is true of the administration,
and your letter certainly embodies this
distress,” they continue, referring to
Bollinger’s statement responding to
Trump’s executive order on immigration.
“We know it is true of our students, and the
41
cluster of suicides this month can have no
other meaning.”
“But what of ourselves, and what of our
colleagues; that is, what of the faculty?” the
professors query piteously. “So, Mr.
President, we are asking you how we, the
faculty, may embody what the university
values, with a sense of full obligation and
with the assurance of full recognition.”
Specifically, they want Columbia to provide links on its
website to “all sites that serve the purpose of protecting
and sustaining our freedoms,” which apparently includes
information on getting the government to help pay student
loan debt in exchange for public service.
In addition, the letter demands that the school provide
physical spaces for faculty members to engage in “difficult
conversations” about their “fears,” suggesting “some of the
most visible public spaces on campus” so that the
conversations can take place “in the presence of the rest of
the university community.”
“Faculty do not have places, times, or
administrative permission to acknowledge
our own fears to each other,” the letter
laments, noting that “venues for such quiet,
difficult conversations are very hard to find
on our campus.”
Such spaces could include auditoriums, the student center,
“and of course the lounges in every dormitory,” they
suggest, noting that faculty members are currently barred
from entering those spaces without a special pass.
According to The Columbia Spectator, the letter was
unanimously endorsed by the Columbia Faculty Affairs
Committee, a group of 17 professors from the Columbia
system.
“Faculty are human beings, and as such,
may feel intimidated,” Pollack stated while
presenting the missive. “There’s no point or
place for the expression of that anxiety.”
UPDATE: Pollack, speaking for both himself and Moss-
Salentijn, sent a belated response to Campus Reform
denying that the letter was intended to insinuate that recent
student suicides have been a result of distress over Trump's coinicdence [sic], it nevertheless has added
election, even though the sentence in question came in the to what we call the 'fog' that has effected
context of describing the universal "distress" at Columbia [sic] so many of us at this complicated but
ever since the election. caring community of faculty, students, and
administrators."
"We agree with you that we cannot know
the cause of the recent spate in [sic]
suicides, but even if it has been wholly a
.

42
 Even CNN Backs Trump's Speech To Congress!
Snap Poll Finds 78 Percent Reacted Positively
 A New CNN Poll Shows 57 Percent Of Viewers Had A 'Very Positive Reaction' And 21
Percent Of Viewers Had A 'Somewhat Positive Reaction' To Trump's Address
 Regarding Policies, 69 Percent Of Speech Watchers Said His Policies Would Move The
Country In The Right Direction
 CNN Praised Trump, Saying He Adopted A Statesmanlike Cadence, Hitting Notes Of
Inspiration
 On February 24, CNN Was One Of The News Organizations Which Have Been Critical Of
Trump That Was Blocked From Attending A Press Briefing At The WH
By Kaileen Gaul For Dailymail.Com
Published: 02:03 EST, 1 March 2017 | Updated: 10:09 EST, 1 March 2017

Most speech-watchers had a positive reaction following

President Donald Trump's first speech addressing
Congress according to a snap poll.

Overall, 57 percent of viewers had a 'very positive

reaction' and 21 percent of viewers had a 'somewhat
positive reaction' in a CNN/ORC poll.

However, new presidents President Obama and President

Bush had 68 percent and a 66 percent 'very positive'
reactions respectively when they made their first addresses
to both houses of Congress in a Joint Session.
On February 24, CNN was one of several news
organizations which have been critical of Trump that was
blocked from attending a press briefing at the White
House.
Most people also approved of Trump's policies with 69
percent saying they would move the country in the right
direction. The speech changed some viewers minds about
Trump since just 58 percent had a favorable opinion about
the policy direction of the country before.
The CNN talking heads which included David Chalian
and Wolf Blitzer praised Trump's performance.

They noted the tone of his speech which was more

uplifting than his inauguration speech and Melbourne
campaign-style rally.

Trump has deemed CNN a foe, even citing that people call
the television station the 'Clinton News Network.'

In a CNN/ORC poll, 78 percent of speech watchers had a positive

reaction to Trump's speech

New presidents President Obama and President Bush had

68 percent and a 66 percent 'very positive' reactions
respectively.

43
The talking heads on CNN had positive reactions to
Trump's speech and positive tone. Trump has sparred with
the network calling them 'fake news' on many occasions
Democrats at the speech blasted Trump and predictably
disagreed with the polls.
Senator Bernie Sanders was caught comically side-eyeing
the President and Democrat women wore white to honor
suffragettes and take aim against Trump for his views on
women's rights.

The women were seen giving the President the thumbs

down as he spoke about repealing Obamacare.

After the speech, in a video on Facebook Bernie Sanders

said:

'Since the beginning of this year, we have

seen unprecedented grassroots energy ..
The Republicans are getting very worried.'

On February 24, the White House blocked several news 'They’re not so cocky anymore about
organizations who have been critical of Trump, including simply repealing Obamacare and they
CNN should be worried. The American people
are standing up And they’re saying, no
you’re not going to repeal the Affordable
Care Act .. you’re going to improve it.'

Thumbs down: Democrat women dressed in white in defense of

women's rights gesture at President Donald Trump when he spoke
about repealing Obamacare.
Another Bernie side-eye: Senator Bernie Sanders seems to glare at
the president during the address to Congress Tuesday.
Tonight in their summary of his statements, CNN wrote:

'Trump adopted a statesmanlike cadence,

hitting notes of inspiration.'

'For once, this most unorthodox of politicians struck a

conventional presidential posture as he sought to stabilize
his administration after a tumultuous five weeks in office.'

On February 6, the president tweeted:

'Any negative polls are fake news, just like

the CNN, ABC, NBC polls in the election.
Sorry, people want border security and
extreme vetting.'
.

44
 FBI Planned To Pay Spy Behind
Trump-Russia Dossier To Continue His Research
BY Jason Silverstein - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Wednesday, March 1, 2017, 7:49 AM
President Trump has denied all allegations of him having ties to Russia.
(Jim Lo Scalzo/AP)
The retired British spy who authored the infamous dossier
about President Trump’s alleged Russian relations was
tapped by the FBI to continue his research with
government funds, according to multiple reports.
The FBI arranged just weeks before the election to pay
former MI6 agent Christopher Steele for more digging on
his dossier, sources familiar with the deal told the
Washington Post. Sources told CNN the FBI even started
reimbursing some of Steele’s expenses shortly before
Election Day.
But the arrangement fell through before Trump took office,
with Steele ultimately pulling out, a source told NBC
News.
Steele apparently got fed up after feeling the U.S.
government was not taking his findings seriously —
especially after FBI Director James Comey went public
with an ultimately fruitless second probe into Hillary
Clinton’s emails. Meanwhile, Comey never disclosed the
investigation into Trump.
According to the reports, the deal died after Buzzfeed News
published the dossier in January — exposing an explosive
document that had been secretly circling the highest ranks
of government for months.
Steele’s dossier detailed unverified accusations that Trump
had been colluding with the Russian government for years,
as part of a larger plot to destabilize Western relations. It
alleged that the Kremlin kept embarrassing evidence of
Trump’s sexual activities in Moscow to blackmail him into
cooperation. It also said Russia regularly swapped
intelligence about Democratic opponents with the Trump
campaign during his run for the White House.
45
The reports included some factual errors and misspellings.
Possible ties to Russian President Vladimir Putin within the Trump
administration have caused increased scrutiny. (Mikhail
Klimentyev/AP)
Republican donors who opposed Trump's candidacy
initially commissioned Steele. After Trump took the GOP
nomination, a Democratic backer stepped in. Steele
eventually decided to keep working for months without
payment.
Since its release, intelligence officials have corroborated
that some conversations mentioned in the document
apparently happened. The most damning accusations,
though, have not been proven.
Trump dismissed the dossier as “fake news” and “phony,”
and blasted Buzzfeed at a press conference for publishing
it, calling the news site a “failing pile of garbage.” He has
repeatedly denied having any political or business deals in
Russia.
Steele, 53, went into hiding after The Wall Street Journal
identified him as the spy behind the report.
Reports from the FBI and CIA have alleged that the
Russian government ordered a hack into the Democratic
National Committee’s emails near the end of the campaign
to tip the race in Trump’s favor.
Two men tied to Trump’s campaign quit their jobs before
the election over ties to Russia, and his national security
advisor, Michael Flynn, resigned just weeks into Trump’s
presidency over a call to Russian officials. Congress
members on both sides of the aisle have called for a federal
investigation into Trump’s alleged Russian connections.
 Dear President Trump:
If You Want To Lower Healthcare Costs And
Stem The Opiate Death Spiral, Legalize Marijuana
Charles Hugh Smith
Wednesday, March 01, 2017

You say you want bold solutions that unite us: start by fully
legalizing marijuana.
If there is anything the left and right,
progressives and conservatives, and
everyone in between can agree on, it's
ending the counter-productive,
destructive "war on drugs"
that has generated crime and violence, a "we're number
one in Gulags" prison complex and pushed people into
harder, far more dangerous drugs (see chart of "legal"
opioid deaths below).
Legalizing marijuana would eliminate
the violence, lower the costs of
operating the Drug war Gulag and lower
healthcare costs by reducing the
dependence on addictive opiates for
pain management.
Yes, there are circumstances that require opiates--but does
it make sense to make opiates the next step above over-
the-counter pain relievers?

Dear President Trump: if you're truly

serious about lowering healthcare costs
and stemming the rising tide of opioid
addictions and death, then fully legalize
marijuana via executive order now.

The usual justifications for continuing

the criminalization of marijuana have
moved from threadbare to completely
disconnected from reality.
We're told that marijuana is surrounded by violence--well
duh
--the violence is the direct consequence
of Prohibition.
What happened when alcohol was prohibited? Crime and
violence exploded around the production and distribution
of the outlawed drug.
What was peaceful when legal becomes
violent when outlawed. This is so
obvious, yet we have "leaders" who are
blind to the dynamic.
By outlawing medical marijuana, we
have pushed everyone with chronic pain
into extremely addictive and
increasingly deadly "legal" opiates.
The social, human and financial costs of
the opiate pandemic are skyrocketing.
Adding marijuana products to the spectrum of choices
would reduce these costs and the death toll. Regardless of
whatever critics may claim about the negative effects of
marijuana, the truth is death by marijuana overdose is
essentially non-existent.
Compare that to the tens of thousands
of deaths caused by "legal" opiates and
the millions of lives destroyed by the
"war on drugs" and its American Gulag.
While those benefiting from operating the "war on drugs"
and the American Gulag propagandize a completely false
pathway from marijuana to opiates, the reality is
grandmothers are benefiting from medical marijuana and it
is the sick-care/Big Pharma cartels that are the pathway to
opiate addiction and death.

This is the height of insanity: outlaw natural substances Dear President Trump: you say you
with pain management potential while legalizing highly want bold solutions that unite us: start
addictive and often deadly synthetic opiates. by fully legalizing marijuana.
46

Listen to your young advisors and those in law
enforcement who see the counterproductive insanity of the
"war on marijuana" first-hand. Listen to the elderly who
are benefiting from medical marijuana.
.
47
Do the right thing and fully legalize
marijuana.
It's time to move beyond addled fictions and deal with the
ugly realities of a system that actively promotes "legal"
opiate addiction and death while outlawing marijuana.
 Eric Holder: Obama Soon
To Make Public Comeback
By : Shawn
Posted On 01 Mar 2017
They say that absence makes the heart grow fonder, but
when it comes to Barack Obama, we’re still going to need
some more time. Give us till at least summer, Barry.
We’re…we’re just not quite there yet.
Regardless, Obama’s former attorney general, the
infamous Eric Holder, says we should expect to see 44
back in the middle of things before too long. Tuesday,
Holder said that he’s been talking to his old buddy about
helping out with his organization, the National Democratic
Redistricting Committee.
“It’s coming. He’s coming,” Holder said.
“And he’s ready to roll.”
Holder said that Obama “will be a more visible part of the
effort” to redraw state election maps.
That effort is one that Democrats see as crucial when it
comes to improving their election results in Republican-
dominated states. They claim that these legislatures have
gerrymandered the maps to give Republicans an unfair and
illegal advantage. The NDRC group is raising money to
spend on winning state elections, waging lawsuits against
states with suspect districting, and pushing ballot
initiatives that call for “nonpartisan district-drawing
commissions.”
Holder didn’t say whether Obama’s involvement in the
group would correlate with the end of his silence regarding
President Trump, but we can assume that honeymoon is
coming to an end sooner than later. Perhaps Obama’s just
.
48
waiting for something he can plug in his first big TV
interview. Something like…a new book.
He’s apparently inked the deal, and some news reports say
that he and Michelle were given a $60 million advance in
an unusual package contract.
“With their words and their leadership, they
changed the world, and every day, with the
books we publish at Penguin Random
House, we strive to do the same,” said the
Random House CEO. “Now, we are very
much looking forward to working together
with President and Mrs. Obama to make
each of their books global publishing
events of unprecedented scope and
significance.”
Gag.
But if we were to make a wager, we’d bet good money that
Obama will not keep his silence for as long as it will take
him to write that book. No, that book’s probably more than
a year away and there’s no way he can stay out of the
spotlight for that long. In fact, it’s a miracle that we
haven’t already heard from him, discounting that vague
statement he released through a spokesman a few weeks
ago. He must be chomping at the bit.
“Ready to roll,” as Holder said.
Oh, we’re only too sure.
 Ivanka Trump: Dad Is
Destroying DC Pedo Network
by Baxter Dmitry
Posted on March 1, 2017

Ivanka Trump has vowed that her father,

President Trump, will do everything
within his power, using the “full force
and weight” of his administration, to
drive the elite pedophiles out of the
corridors of power in Washington D.C.
Brave Ivanka posted a photo to Twitter of herself in the
Oval Office with President Trump and NGOs tasked with
eradicating the stench of human trafficking and pedophilia
from not just Washington D.C. but the whole country.
By doing so, Ivanka Trump, an influential West Wing
force despite her decision not to take an official title at
first, will one day be viewed by history as the person who
was brave enough to tip over the first “domino”
that eventually led to the whole house being bought down
– and the garbage being cleared away.
Usually First Ladies and families of presidents focus on
“healthy eating” or “better education for women”, whoop-
de-doo things that only serve to keep them busy and
looking good in front of the camera.

Families of the president never usually focus on anything

gritty involving real human hardship.

But not the Trumps. They don’t pretend everything is rosy.

They tell it how it is and are unafraid to rock the boat,

regardless of what the establishment throws at them.

It has emerged that Ivanka Trump was responsible for

the sudden Trump administration attention to pedophilia
Ivanka Trump with her father, the President, promising to
epidemic, with the president’s daughter urging her father
rid Washington DC of pedophiles once and for all
to hold a listening session last week on domestic and
international human trafficking and pedophilia.
It’s not just the POTUS who is going for the jugular on the
issues that count, it’s his family too.

49
 Democrats Boo Trump Proposal
To Give A Voice To Victims Of Immigrant Crime
Chris Menahan - Informationliberation
Mar. 01, 2017

"We must support the victims of crime,"

Trump said. "I have ordered the
Department of Homeland Security to create
an office to serve American Victims."

"The office is called VOICE," he said.

"Victims Of Immigration Crime
Engagement. We are providing a voice to
those who have been ignored by our
media, and silenced by special interests."

During President Trump's address to congress on Tuesday, The Democrats were heard booing loudly in response.
the Democrats booed his proposal to give a voice to
victims of immigrant crime.
.

LOL: Dem Governor Calls Himself “Proud Republican”

During Trump Speech Rebuttal
By DCwhispers
Posted On March 1, 2017

Former Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear, (Kentucky

voters replaced him with a pro-Trump Republican in 2015)
was chosen to be the voice of the Democrats in a rebuttal
to President Trump’s address to Congress last night. The
72-year old Beshear appeared confused at the outset
amidst a setting that was a clear attempt to portray
Democrats as the party of the “regular folk” but instead
came off as a sad and tired affair. Then Beshear declared
himself a “proud Republican” a video segment that is now
going viral:

Apparently, even Democrats don’t want

to be Democrats anymore…
.

50
 Kremlin Urges To Ignore Reports Of Alleged Russian
'Mole' Rockets On US Coast
Host Photo Agency - World
11:53 01.03.2017

Russia and the United States share interests particularly

in the area of combating terrorism, Kremlin spokesman
said.

"Of course there are shared interests,

of course there are issues where our views
diverge in diametrically opposite ways. This
is quite a normal practice," Peskov told
reporters.

Commenting on US President Donald Trump's first speech

Dmitry Peskov said that Kremlin is not to a joint session of the US Congress on Tuesday where he
surprised that US President Donald expressed a willingness to forge new partnerships, Peskov
Trump's first speech to the joint session said "we are full of patience."
of US Congress made no mention of
Russia.
"We are waiting for certain actions to follow
statements, which will in fact signal what
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Kremlin urges not to take
we should and can be oriented toward in
seriously reports of Russia allegedly "mining" the US coast
terms of the prospects of bilateral Russian-
with so-called nuclear "mole" rockets that lay dormant
US relations," he said.
until they receive a command, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry
Peskov said Wednesday.
The Kremlin spokesman pointed out that Russian President
"It sounds strange at the least, so I would Vladimir Putin highlighted the prospects of cooperating
offer not to take these newspaper reports on anti-terrorism in phone talks with Trump on January 28.
seriously," Peskov told reporters, guiding
them to seek clarification with the
"In any case, without cooperation
Komsomolskaya Pravda daily's contributor
between the two largest countries such
who authored the report.
as the US and Russia the effective fight
against terrorism is impossible," Peskov
stressed.
.

51
 White House Explores Options, Including Use Of Military
Force, To Counter North Korean Threat
By Carol E. Lee And Alastair Gale
Published March 01, 2017

An internal White House review of strategy on North
Korea includes the possibility of military force or regime
change to blunt the country’s nuclear-weapons threat,
people familiar with the process said, a prospect that has
some U.S. allies in the region on edge.
While President Donald Trump has taken steps to reassure
allies that he won’t abandon agreements that have
underpinned decades of U.S. policy on Asia, his pledge
that Pyongyang would be stopped from ever testing an
intercontinental ballistic missile—coupled with the two-
week-old strategy review—has some leaders bracing for a
shift in American policy.
U.S. officials have underscored the possible military
dimensions of their emerging strategy in recent discussions
with allies, according to people familiar with the talks.
During Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe’s two-day
summit in February with Mr. Trump, U.S. officials on
several occasions stated that all options were under
consideration to deal with North Korea, according to a
person familiar with the discussions.

The U.S. review comes as recent events have strained

regional stability. Last month, North Korea launched a
ballistic missile into the Sea of Japan, and the estranged
half brother of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un was
assassinated in Malaysia.

Chinese and North Korean officials are holding talks in

Beijing, the first known high-level meeting in nearly a
year, and Beijing recently curtailed coal imports from
North Korea.
It was clear to the Japanese side that those options
encompassed a U.S. military strike on North Korea,
possibly if Pyongyang appeared ready to test an ICBM,
this person said. The Japanese side found that scenario
“worrisome,” he said.

52
 Get Real, Democrats, There Is
No Good Reason For Sessions To Resign
By Hans A. Von Spakovsky
Published March 02, 2017
Talk about “over the top”! The overblown rhetoric
accompanying calls for Attorney General Jeff Sessions’
resignation reveals that Thursday’s brouhaha is driven by
mere political grandstanding, not a real concern over
unlawful behavior.
There’s a reason for that: the total lack of evidence that
any illegal behavior occurred.
What sparked Thurday’s folderol was a Washington Post
report that General Sessions, while still a U.S. senator, met
with the Russian ambassador last year. Twice.
To characterize the first of these encounters as a
“meeting” strains the meaning of the word—to the
breaking point. But to claim that he “lied” when he did not
reveal these “meetings” during his Senate nomination
hearing is even more far-fetched.
Review the record of that hearing with an eye toward
context, and you’ll find that Sen. Al Franken (D-Minn.)
was clearly asking Sessions if he was aware of any
meetings between Trump campaign staff or surrogates and
Russian officials to discuss the election. Franken
specifically cites a CNN story about a supposed
“continuing exchange of information during
the campaign between Trump’s surrogates
and intermediaries of the Russian
government.”
Sen. Sessions answered that he was “not aware of any of
those activities.” Noting that he himself had “been called a
surrogate at a time or two in that campaign,” he said that
he had had no such communication with the Russians.
53
Obviously, Sessions was talking about discussions
concerning the election.
So what are the two meetings that Sessions had? The first
came at a conference on “Global Partners in Diplomacy,”
where Sessions was the keynote speaker. Sponsored by the
U.S. State Department, The Heritage Foundation, and
several other organizations, it was held in Cleveland
during the Republican National Convention.
The conference was an educational program for
ambassadors invited by the Obama State Department to
observe the convention. The Obama State Department
handled all of the coordination with ambassadors and their
staff, of which there were about 100 at the conference.
Apparently, after Sessions finished speaking, a small group
of ambassadors—including the Russian ambassador—
approached the senator as he left the stage and thanked
him for his remarks. That’s the first “meeting.” And it’s
hardly an occasion—much less a venue—in when a
conspiracy to “interfere” with the November election
could be hatched.
Sessions also apparently met with the Russian ambassador
in September. But on that occasion, Sessions was acting
as a member of the Senate Armed Services Committee, not
as a surrogate for the Trump campaign. That’s why the
meeting was held in his Senate office. His DOJ
spokesperson, Sarah Isgur Flores, says they discussed
relations between the two countries – not the election.
There was nothing unusual about this: Sessions met with
more than two dozen ambassadors during 2016, including
the Ukrainian ambassador the day before the meeting with
the Russian ambassador.
There is no reason for Attorney General Sessions to
resign. The FBI has forwarded no investigation file
regarding Russian campaign shenanigans to his office for
review.
It also must be pointed out that, liberal wishful-thinking to
the contrary, there seems to be no evidence that the
Russians actually “interfered” in the election.
Former Department of Homeland Security Secretary Jeh
Johnson told The Washington Post in December that the
department had found no evidence whatsoever that hackers
attacked our voting systems on Election Day.
The only “interference” that we know of was the hacking
of the Democratic National Committee’s computer system.
The emails purloined in that escapade embarrassed
Democratic Party insiders by revealing that its claims of
.
54
neutrality during the hotly contested Democratic primary
were a total sham.
While the DNC may have tipped the scales against Bernie
Sanders, there was no actual cyber-interference in the
voting process in 2016.
 Behind The Liberal
Embrace Of Trump
By Sam Husseini
March 2, 2017
I can’t say I’m surprised by the liberal turn on Trump. I
said a couple of weeks ago that Trump and the
establishment media were like George and Martha in
“Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?” What I meant was
that they are a deranged, destructive couple who argue like
mad, but ultimately collude to destroy others. So, anger
and hate give way to insidious bond and admiration in how
they each fulfill their roles in the larger manipulative
project.
So, Van Jones is admiring of Trump now really “becoming
the President” because of Trump’s emotional manipulation
in the person of Carryn Owens. Jones did this because he’s
a triangulator himself and because he is very much part of
the continuing imperial project.
Some of this rather reminds me of how the media used
Jessica Lynch to pretended she was in danger to continue
selling the invasion of Iraq at a critical moment in 2003.
.
55
The actual scandals are pushed aside: The criminal
invasion of Iraq then; the US-backed Saudi destruction of
Yemen now.
Disinformation and emotional manipulation for the
privileged “race” of USians is the order of the day.
Feminism and femininity are weaponized as all emotion is
focused on one person to the exclusion of the suffering of
others. I imagine it’s how The Passion Plays were used to
fuel hatred of Jews; it’s how Israel uses the Nazi Holocaust
to excuse all its criminality.
The other major such manipulation last night was
highlighting African American “victims” of public schools
and “illegal immigrants”. This allows Trump to
ridiculously pose as an anti-racist xenophobe. As Martin
Luther King warned in his final days:
“We’re integrating into a burning house.”
 Sessions, Russian Ambassador Reportedly Spoke Twice
During Presidential Campaign
Foxnews.Com
Published March 02, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions reportedly had two
conversations with Russia's ambassador to the U.S. during
last year's presidential campaign, while Sessions was still a
senator.
News of the conversations were first reported by The
Washington Post. The Wall Street Journal reported that
U.S. investigators had examined contacts between
Sessions and Russian officials and that the Justice
Department was "wringing its hands" about how to
proceed in the matter.
The Journal reported that Sessions did not know that his
communications were under investigation.
When contacted by Fox News late Wednesday, Sessions
said,
"I never met with any Russian officials to
discuss issues of the campaign. I have no
idea what this allegation is about. It is
false."
A White House statement said the story
was "the latest attack against the Trump
Administration by partisan Democrats."
The Justice Department said late Wednesday that one of
the discussions between Sessions and Sergey Kislyak was
an office visit that occurred in Sessions' capacity as a
member of the Senate Armed Services Committee. The
second conversation took place in a group setting with
other ambassadors following a Heritage Foundation
speech.
56
Reports about the meetings appeared to contradict a
statement Sessions made during his confirmation hearing
in January.
Sessions was asked by Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., how he
would respond
"if there is any evidence that anyone
affiliated with the Trump campaign
communicated with the Russian
government in the course of this
campaign."
“I’m not aware of any of those activities,”
answered Sessions, one of Trump’s
earliest and most prominent supporters
during the campaign. “I have been called a
surrogate a time or two in that campaign
and I did not have communications with the
Russians, and I’m unable to comment on
it.”
The Justice Depoartment said Wednesday that
"there was absolutely nothing misleading
about [Sessions'] answer [to Franken]. He
was asked during the hearing about
communications between Russia and the
Trump campaign--not about meetings he
took as a senator and a member of the
Armed Services Committee."
Sessions had meetings last year with more than 25 foreign
ambassadors, the Department said.
The disclosure caused renewed calls for Sessions to step
aside from an ongoing FBI investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 presidential election.
In a statement, Franken said he was troubled that Sessions'
response to his question was "at best, misleading." He said
he planned to press Sessions on his contact with Russia.
"It's clearer than ever now that the attorney
general cannot, in good faith, oversee an
investigation at the Department of Justice
and the FBI of the Trump-Russia
 connection, and he must recuse himself
immediately," Franken said.
Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif., the ranking member of the
House Select Committee on Intelligence said that if the
reports were true, "it is essential that [Sessions] recuse
himself from any role in the investigation of Trump
campaign ties to the Russians.
"This is not even a close call," Schiff
added, "it is a must."
House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., went a step
further and called on Sessions to resign for "lying under
oath."
"Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law
enforcement officer of our country and
must resign," Pelosi said in a statement.
"There must be an independent, bipartisan,
outside commission to investigate the
Trump political, personal and financial
connections to the Russians."
Sen. Lindsay Graham, R-S.C., referred to Sessions as
57
"my dear friend" in a CNN town hall
Wednesday with Sen. John McCain, R-
Ariz., but also noted, "If there’s something
there that the FBI believes is criminal in
nature, then for sure you need a special
prosecutor."
The White House has already acknowledged that Michael
Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, misled
top officials about the nature of his contacts with
Kislyak. Flynn initially told Vice President Mike Pence
and other Trump advisers that he did not discuss sanctions
with the envoy during the transition, though it was later
revealed that he did.
When Sessions was asked this week if he would recuse
himself from the investigation of ties between the Trump
campaign and Moscow, he said,
"I would recuse myself on anything that I
think I should recuse myself on. That's all I
can tell you."
Fox News' Matthew Dean and the Associated Press
contributed to this report.
 Trump’s Barnburner
By Mike Whitney
March 2, 2017
“I’ll happily vote for someone else. There’s
a lot I hate about Trump. But our lives are
basically destroyed, and he was the first
person to talk about fixing that.”
— Anonymous Trump supporter
Donald Trump’s speech before a joint session of Congress
on Tuesday was a triumph for the president and his
supporters. Not only did Trump effect the manner of a
strong and reasonable leader, he also fixed in the minds
of the American people, that he is the president of the
United States. These are the goals that he hoped to achieve
and he achieved them.
He looked and sounded presidential and eschewed the off-
the-cuff remarks and other outbursts for which he’s
become famous. He was formal, serious and dignified
throughout. Also, he laid out a vision for the country
which hews closely to his own uber-nationalistic world
view. I don’t support his vision, but I think he promoted it
in a way that made the ideas seem less controversial than
they really are.
A presidential address is more than the sum of its parts,
more than just ideas and policies. It’s about the man who
holds the highest office in the country. How does he
conduct himself, how does he express himself, what does
he believe? Trump’s presentation helped to answer all of
these questions. This was not “campaign Trump” or
“showboat Trump” or “celebrity Trump” or the thin-
skinned, impulsive silver-spoon billionaire real estate
mogul who lashes out at Alec Baldwin, Arnold
Schwarzenegger or Rosie O’ Donnell. This was President
Trump– reserved, focused and determined. It was an
astonishing transformation that no one expected and that
left his critics thoroughly gob-smacked.
What the media has failed to grasp about the speech is –not
the impact the speech is going to have on liberals on both
coasts that have already decided that Trump is a fascist.
(The speech will change nothing for these people.) But for
the people who occupy that vast 2,000 mile expanse in the
center of the country– Red State America– the speech is
bound to strengthen their opinion of Trump and convince
them that their vote was well spent. It will also further
convince them that the media has been unfair towards the
president and that his criticism of them as “fake news” is
justified.
58
This is from an article by CNN:
“President Donald Trump’s first address to Congress
received largely positive reviews from viewers, with 57%
who tuned in saying they had a very positive reaction to
the speech, according to a new CNN/ORC poll of speech-
watchers.
Nearly 7-in-10 who watched said the President’s proposed
policies would move the country in the right direction and
almost two-thirds said the president has the right priorities
for the country. Overall, about 7-in-10 said the speech
made them feel more optimistic about the direction of the
country….
On specific issues, Trump scored the highest marks for his
proposed policies on the economy, with 72% saying those
went in the right direction. Almost as many, 70%, said the
same about his terrorism proposals. Slightly fewer, but still
a majority, felt his policies on taxes (64%), immigration
(62%) or health care (61%) were heading in the right
direction.
Ideologically, about two-thirds saw Trump’s speech as
about right, while roughly on-quarter (26%) pegged it as
too conservative. Just 8% said it wasn’t conservative
enough.”
(“7-in-10 speech-watchers say Trump
boosted optimism“, CNN)
The numbers in the CNN report are similar to other
surveys taken following the speech. A clear majority of
Americans set aside the controversies surrounding
Trump’s early days in office, and applauded what they
heard on Tuesday. Here’s more from CBS:
“A CBS News/YouGov poll found 82% of
respondents said Trump came across as
very ‘presidential.’
Of those who watched the speech and responded to the
poll, 61% had a ‘very positive’ response.
The President gained support for his policy plans among
viewers: Interviewed before and after the address, they
came away from it more positive on his ideas for the
economy, immigration, terrorism, crime and
Obamacare….
Reacting to the president’s description of the economy as
he took office, Republicans and independents think he did
inherit a bad economy, while three in four Democrats think
the president took over an economy that was already
improving.” (“President Trump gets high approval ratings
for speech to Congress”, News 3)
The speech is a major setback for the “Not My President”
crowd who will have to adapt to the changing political
landscape. My own feeling from the beginning has been
that liberals must abandon the incendiary rhetoric and
attack Trump on the issues alone. The focus needs to be
on organization and policy rather than character
assassination.
The Democrats’ response to Trump’s speech was
predictably pathetic. Lacking any vision for the future, the
Dems used the time to defend their vastly unpopular
HMO-welfare program, Obamacare, while reiterating their
unverified claims that Trump is in bed with Moscow. The
calculatingly “folksy” address was delivered by former
Kentucky Governor Steve Beshear who gave a convincing
performance from a small-town diner surrounded by a
mixed race, mixed gender crowd underscoring the
Democrats belief that they don’t need to change their
platform, just the optics and the messaging.
Beshear’s boilerplate spiel is just more proof that the
Democratic party is no longer a viable political institution.
It’s a crumbling anachronism that’s become completely
irrelevant.
Trump’s support comes from people in mainly distressed
parts of the country where trade agreements have had a
negative impact on jobs and where standards of living have
steadily eroded during Obama’s term in office. These
people are not bigots or xenophobes. They voted
for Trump because the Democrats gave them no other
choice. Hillary represented another eight years of
excruciating economic stagnation, a process that Obama
blandly referred to as a “recovery”. The American people
.
59
rejected the status quo and voted for Trump. Journalist
Sam Altman interviewed some of these “ordinary blue
collar people” in an article titled “What I Heard from
Trump Supporters”. Here are just three of the comments:
Comment 1–
“I am tired of feeling silenced and
demonized. We have mostly the same
goals, and different opinions about how to
get there. Maybe I’m wrong, maybe you’re
wrong. But enough with calling all of us the
devil for wanting to try Trump. I hate Hillary
and think she wants to destroy the country
of us but I don’t demonize her
supporters.” …
Comment 2–
“I’d like to also add that the demonization of
Trump by calling him and his supporters:
Nazis, KKK, white supremacists, fascists,
etc. works very well in entrenching Trump
supporters on his side. These attacks are
counter-factual and in my opinion very
helpful to Trump.”
Comment 3–
“I’ll happily vote for someone else. There’s
a lot I hate about Trump. But our lives are
basically destroyed, and he was the first
person to talk about fixing that.”
Trump was not buoyed into the White House on a wave of
ignorance and racism. That’s a fallacy. He won the
election because he addressed the issues that working
people care about, mainly the economy and
jobs. Unscrupulous Hillary never did that. She promised
more of the same, and she lost.
Tuesday’s speech is going to widen Trump’s base of
support and boost his credibility. It’s going to make
resistance a helluva lot harder.
 Key G.O.P. Lawmakers Say Jeff Sessions Should Recuse
Himself From Russia Inquiry
By Charlie Savage
March 2, 2017

“I think it’d be easier from that standpoint,

yes.”

Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Utah Republican who

leads the House Oversight Committee, said on Twitter on
Thursday,

“AG Sessions should clarify his testimony

and recuse himself.”

In this footage from his confirmation hearing, Attorney General Jeff

Sessions says he “did not have communications with the Russians.” A
And Senator Rob Portman, Republican of Ohio, said in a
Justice Department official more recently said Mr. Sessions had two statement:
conversations with Ambassador Sergey I. Kislyak. By THE NEW
YORK TIMES on Publish Date March 2, 2017. Photo by Al
Drago/The New York Times.
“Jeff Sessions is a former colleague and a
friend, but I think it would be best for him
and for the country to recuse himself from
WASHINGTON — Congressional Republicans began
the D.O.J. Russia probe.”
breaking ranks on Thursday to join Democrats in
demanding that Attorney General Jeff Sessions recuse
himself from overseeing an investigation into contacts
between the Trump campaign and the Russian
government. Those calls came after the disclosure that Mr.
Sessions himself spoke with the Russian ambassador last
year, in seeming contradiction to his testimony at his
confirmation hearing.

The partisan furor that broke out with the Justice

Department’s acknowledgment of the contacts late
Wednesday began to take on a bipartisan sheen as the
controversy spilled into Thursday morning.

The House majority leader, Kevin McCarthy, Republican Chuck Schumer, the Senate Democratic leader, on Thursday called
on Attorney General Sessions to resign “for the good of the country.”
of California, said on MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” that Mr. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York Times
Sessions “needs to clarify” his testimony and that he also
thought Mr. Sessions should recuse himself from Russia-
Some Democrats were already going further, suggesting
linked investigations.
that Mr. Sessions had perjured himself in the confirmation
hearing for the attorney general post and demanding that
“I think — the trust of the American people he step down.
— you recuse yourself from these
situations,” Mr. McCarthy said, adding that,
“For the good of the country, Attorney
“for any investigation going forward, you
General Jeff Sessions should resign,” said
want to make sure everybody trusts the
the Senate Democratic leader, Chuck
investigation.”
Schumer of New York.

Asked to clarify whether that required Mr. Sessions to step

The House Democratic leader, Nancy Pelosi of California,
aside, he replied,
took the same position, saying,

60
 “Sessions is not fit to serve as the top law
enforcement officer of our country and
must resign.”
Ms. Pelosi said,
“There must be an independent, bipartisan,
outside commission to investigate the
Trump political, personal and financial
connections to the Russians.”
The Trump administration dismissed the accusations as
partisan attacks, and Mr. Sessions said in a statement
issued shortly before midnight that he had not addressed
election matters with the ambassador, Sergey I. Kislyak.
“I never met with any Russian officials to
discuss issues of the campaign,” Mr.
Sessions said. “I have no idea what this
allegation is about. It is false.”
In an appearance on NBC News on Thursday morning, Mr.
Sessions reiterated that he had not met with the Russian
ambassador to discuss the political campaign, but he left
the door open to stepping aside from the investigation. “I
have said whenever it’s appropriate, I will recuse myself,”
he said. “There’s no doubt about that.”
Jeff Sessions, the Republican Alabama senator nominated for
attorney general, found common ground with Donald J. Trump in
their views on trade and immigration. Matt Apuzzo examines Mr.
Sessions's life and career. By SHANE O’NEILL on Publish Date
January 8, 2017. Photo by Al Drago/The New York Times.
The clash was the latest escalation in the continuing fallout
over what intelligence officials have concluded was
Russian interference in the 2016 election to help President
Trump, including by hacking Democratic emails and
providing them to WikiLeaks for release.
F.B.I. officials have been scrutinizing contacts between
people affiliated with the Trump campaign over
communication with the Russian government. And last
month, the national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn,
resigned after it emerged that he had misled Vice President
Mike Pence about a conversation with Mr. Kislyak.
61
Now, Mr. Sessions, formerly an Alabama senator, appears
to be at risk of becoming caught in that same wave. He
was the first senator to endorse Mr. Trump and became an
architect of his populist campaign strategy who sharpened
the candidate’s message on immigration and trade. Mr.
Sessions became a trusted adviser and is seen as one of the
power centers in the administration.
At the confirmation hearing for attorney general in
January, Senator Al Franken, Democrat of Minnesota,
asked Mr. Sessions about a CNN report that intelligence
briefers had told Barack Obama, then the president, and
Mr. Trump, then the president-elect, that Russian
operatives claimed to have compromising information
about Mr. Trump.
Mr. Franken also noted that the report indicated that
surrogates for Mr. Trump and intermediaries for the
Russian government continued to exchange information
during the campaign. He asked Mr. Sessions what he
would do if that report proved true.
Mr. Sessions replied that he was “not aware of any of
those activities.” He added: “I have been called a surrogate
at a time or two in that campaign, and I didn’t have — did
not have communications with the Russians, and I’m
unable to comment on it.”
But the Justice Department acknowledged on Wednesday
that Mr. Sessions had twice communicated with the
Russian ambassador last year. The first time was in July, at
the Republican National Convention, after he gave a
speech at an event for ambassadors sponsored by the
Heritage Foundation. The second time was a visit to his
office by Mr. Kislyak in September. The Washington Post
earlier reported both encounters.
While confirming the conversations, the department played
down both. Of the Heritage Foundation encounter, a
Justice Department official said the Russian ambassador
was among a small group of diplomats who approached
Mr. Sessions as he was leaving the stage. The
ambassadors, the official said, thanked Mr. Sessions for his
remarks and invited him to join them at various events
they were sponsoring, but he made no commitments to do
so.
Of the office visit, the official said, the discussion focused
on relations between the United States and Russia and
issues the two countries were facing, although the
department left open the possibility that there had been
“superficial” comments about news related to the election.
A spokeswoman for the Justice Department, Sarah Isgur
Flores, said “there was absolutely nothing misleading”
about Mr. Sessions’s answers at his confirmation hearing.
She said that Mr. Sessions, as a senior member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee, had at least 25
conversations with foreign ambassadors, including those
from Australia, Britain, Canada, China, Germany, India,
Japan, Korea, Poland and Russia.
She added:
“He was asked during the hearing about
communications between Russia and the
Trump campaign — not about meetings he
took as a senator and a member of the
Armed Services Committee.”
But Democrats were unassuaged. In a statement, Mr.
Franken called Mr. Sessions’s testimony “at best
misleading,” noting,
“It’s clearer than ever now that the attorney
general cannot, in good faith, oversee an
investigation at the Department of Justice
and the F.B.I. of the Trump-Russia
connection, and he must recuse himself
immediately.”
.
62
Senator Claire McCaskill, Democrat of Missouri, cast
doubt on Mr. Sessions’s explanation that he had met with
the Russian ambassador because of his duties as a member
of the Senate Armed Services Committee, saying that was
beyond the panel’s jurisdiction.
“I’ve been on the Armed Services Com for
10 years,” she wrote on Twitter on
Thursday. “No call or meeting w/Russian
ambassador. Ever. Ambassadors call
members of Foreign Rel Com.”
And Representative Elijah E. Cummings of Maryland, the
ranking Democrat on the Oversight Committee, went
further, calling for Mr. Sessions to resign because he let a
“demonstrably false” statement stand for weeks without
correcting the public record.
“There is no longer any question that we
need a truly independent commission to
investigate this issue,” Mr. Cummings said.
 Obama Prodded Abuse
Of Intelligence To Sabotage Trump Policies
Source: Moon Of Alabama
Published: March 2, 2017
In its last months the Obama administration ordered the
intelligence agencies to collect and distribute information
of contacts between the Trump campaign and Russia. This
to prevent any change by the Trump administration of the
hostile policy towards Russia that the Obama
administration instituted. The intent was also gives the
intelligence services blackmail material to prevent any
changes in their undue, freewheeling independence.
The above is reported in a rather short New York Times
piece published yesterday. The reporting angle captured in
the headline is biased to set the Obama efforts into a
positive light. But the Obama Administration Rushed to
Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking.
But make no mistake. Not single shred of evidence has
been provided that "Russia hacked the election" or had
anything to do with various leaks of Clinton related emails.
A lot of fluff and chaff was thrown around but not even
one tiny bit of evidence.
The effort was clearly to sabotage the announced policy of
the incoming administration of seeking better relations
with Russia. Obama intended to undermine the will of the
voters by abusing instruments of the state.
Excerpts from the piece:
In the Obama administration’s last days,
some White House officials scrambled
to spread informationabout Russian
63
efforts to undermine the presidential
election — and about possible contacts
between associates of President-elect
Donald J. Trump and Russians —
across the government. Former American
officials say they had two aims: to ensure
that such meddling isn’t duplicated in future
American or European elections, and to
leave a clear trail of intelligence for
government investigators.
It is completely normal for any campaign, and especially
an incoming administration, to have contacts with foreign
government officials.
Such contacts are needed to prepare policies and to get the
facts right to plan and run a consistent foreign policy. I am
very sure that there were hundreds of talks between Trump
campaign and incoming administration officials with
Israeli, European and Arab officials. These are regular
contacts and they do not violate any law. There was and is
no reasons at all to pick out talks with Russian officials as
something sinister or even illegal. Again - no evidence has
been provided that Russia somehow interfered in U.S.
elections. None at all. There was no sound reason to give
special treatment to campaign contacts with Russia.
American allies, including the British and the Dutch, had
provided information describing meetings in European
cities between Russian officials — and others close to
Russia’s president, Vladimir V. Putin — and associates of
President-elect Trump, according to three former
American officials who requested anonymity in discussing
classified intelligence.
Separately, American intelligence
agencies had intercepted
communications of Russian officials,
some of them within the Kremlin,
discussing contacts with Trump associates.
Here the NYT is divulging "sources and methods" - usually
the holy grail for the intelligence community. U.S.
intelligence is intercepting communication "within the
Kremlin"? That is surely of interest to Russian counter-
intelligence. One also has to ask who ordered the European
intelligence services to watch over U.S. contacts with
Russia. Were similar orders given to the Dutch secret
services to report on contacts of the Clinton campaign with
Israeli officials? Undue influencing attempts of Israeli
politicians on U.S. policies are legend. Were they
watched? If not why not?
Mr. Trump has denied that his campaign had any contact
with Russian officials, and at one point he openly
suggested the American spy agencies had cooked up
intelligence suggesting that the Russian government had
tried to meddle in the presidential election.
Mr. Trump has accused the Obama
administration of hyping the Russia
story line as a way to discredit his new
administration.
Guess what - Trump is right. The "Russian hacking" story
is not backed by any evidence at all. It IS cooked up. And
to say Trump "accused" the Obama administration of
attempts to "discredit his new administration" is quite
weak. The article says exactly that. How else could one
interpret the following section?
As Inauguration Day approached, Obama White House
officials grew convinced that the intelligence was damning
and that they needed to ensure that as many people as
possible inside government could see it, even if people
without security clearances could not.
Some officials began asking specific
questions at intelligence briefings,
knowing the answers would be archived
and could be easily unearthed by
investigators
— including the Senate Intelligence Committee, which in
early January announced an inquiry into Russian efforts to
influence the election.
At intelligence agencies, there was a push
to process as much raw intelligence as
possible into analyses, and to keep the
reports at a relatively low classification
level to ensure as wide a readership as
possible across the government — and,
in some cases, among European allies.
This allowed the upload of as much intelligence as
possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki used by American
analysts to share information.
There was also an effort to pass reports
and other sensitive materials to
Congress.
In one instance, the State Department sent a cache of
documents marked “secret” to Senator Benjamin Cardin of
Maryland days before the Jan. 20 inauguration.
64
The "intelligence community", it is specifically the CIA
here which campaigned on the Clinton side, manipulated
the classification of secrets for the sole purpose of
instigating witch-hunt investigations against the incoming
Trump administration. Such secrets were then used to
decapitate the Trump administration with the first casualty
being his selected national security advisor Flynn. We
currently see an attack on the administration's attorney
general Session for a routine talk with the Russian
ambassador. This based on "Justice department officials",
i.e. FBI flunkies. Why would they know who Session
legitimately met in his function as U.S. Senator?
Slandered intelligence analysis was classified in low
categories with the aim of distributing it far and wide and
to practically guarantee that it would "leak" to the media.
The real facts though were hidden as much as possible to
provide no material for the Trump administration's
defense.
The opposite happened with the most sensitive
intelligence, including the names of sources and the
identities of foreigners who were regularly monitored.
Officials tightened the already small number of people
who could access that information. They knew the
information could not be kept from the new president or
his top advisers, but wanted to narrow the number of
people who might see the information, officials said.
Everyone was to receive the slander "analysis" the
intelligence services provided but no one was supposed to
know the sources and the real facts. This would make sure
that the anti-Russia and anti-Trump "analysis" would leak
but not the weak bits of facts it is based upon.
To repeat: The Obama administration and the intelligence
services spared no effort to sabotage the policies of the
incoming Trump administration and prepared the grounds
for baseless investigation against it. A lot of dirt is now
thrown based on that effort and the hope is that some may
stick.
The whole effort by the Obama administration started only
after Trump was elected:
In early December, Mr. Obama ordered the intelligence
community to conduct a full assessment of the Russian
campaign.
In the weeks before the assessment was released in
January, the intelligence community combed through
databases for an array of communications and other
information — some of which was months old by then
— and began producing reports that
showed there were contacts during the
campaign between Trump associates
and Russian officials.
Again - there is nothing illegal with such contacts. These
are routine and happen all the time. U.S. ambassadors all
over the world routinely talk with local politicians in
foreign countries. The Russian ambassadors do nothing
different. This is known as diplomacy. There was no
reason for the incoming administration to avoid such
contacts with German, South African, Japanese or Russian
officials or semi-officials. They intelligence community
knows that there is no evidence that Russia interfered in
the election. If it had any it would have long provided it.
The effort is specifically against the announced Russia
policy.
Trump was election in part because he promised better
relations with Russia. What the intelligence services do
here is to undermine the will of the people.
As Joanne Leon opined:
Need to recognize this for what it is. The
incumbent president used SkyNet to try to
rig election and as blackmail tool on his
successor
65
Building on the illegal moves of the Cheney administration
Obama installed and empowered the intelligence
instruments and the precedence for such manipulations.
Not since the worst days of J. Edgar Hoover has the U.S.
seen such an interior assault on politicians and policies.
Trump now hired some partisan Russia expert from the
Clinton aligned Brookings to run Russia policy in the
NSC. She will institute anti-Russian bias in his policies.
This would not have happened under a national security
advisor Flynn. For now the Obama assault on Trump's
announced policy has succeeded. Those who voted for
Trump for a change in Russia policies have been
disenfranchised.
I do not prefer Trump policies. Flynn was a maniac and
Session is a crazy fossil. But that does not justify this anti-
democratic abuse of the foreign policy instruments of the
state against the political opponents within the country.
Obama created these tools and now left them for the
Trump administration to use. They will come back to
haunt the Democrats. What will they say and do when the
Trump administration will use these against them?
 Washington Post Likens
Donald Trump to Adolf Hitler
By Joel B. Pollak
2 Mar 2017
The Washington Post published
an article Thursday by foreign affairs
reporter Amanda Erickson likening
President Donald Trump to Nazi leader
Adolf Hitler because Hitler “also
published a list of crimes committed by
groups he didn’t like.”
Erickson’s focus is Trump’s creation of a new office,
“Victims of Immigration Crime Engagement” (VOICE),
to assist and advocate for the victims of crimes committed
by illegal aliens. Trump elicited groans from the
Democrats in his address to Congress Tuesday evening
when he described VOICE, and Erickson not only shares
their disgust, but amplifies it, writing:
This strategy — one designed to single out
a particular group of people, suggesting
that there’s something particularly sinister
about how they behave — was employed
to great effect by Adolf Hitler and his allies.
In the 1930s, the Nazis used a similar tactic
to stir up anger and hatred toward Jews.
Professor Richard Weikart of California
State University explained that Nazi
leaders used different kinds of
communication tools to sell the message
that “Jews are criminal by disposition,” as a
1943 Nazi directive to the German press
put it. “The Jews are not a nation like other
nations but bearers of hereditary
criminality,” the order said. Germany, in
other words, was out of control, and only
Nazi anti-Semitic policies could “restore
order.”
66
It should be obvious — though not, perhaps, to Erickson
and her editors at the Post — just how offensive this
analogy is. It is also completely false. The Jews of
Germany were loyal, legal, and law-abiding citizens
when Hitler and the Nazis came to power and imposed a
rigid system of racist legislation that led to the Holocaust.
Nazi racial ideology presumed that Jews corrupted
Germany and other nations by their mere presence, not by
anything they had done, collectively or individually.
Moreover, in his speech, Trump did not single out any
particular group of illegal aliens, whether by race, religion,
or national origin. Trump merely stood up for victims of
crimes — victims who are often ignored by politicians and
journalists because their suffering is politically
inconvenient to Washington’s urgent imperative to pass
“comprehensive immigration reform.”
Erickson goes on to recount the grim history of grotesque
Nazi propaganda, from “The Eternal Jew” to Der Stürmer
and beyond. After several incendiary paragraphs, she
attempts to escape her own argument:
“The point is not that VOICE equals the
Reich Ministry of Public Enlightenment and
Propaganda,” she says. “But when leaders
use the levers of government to drum up
fear of one group of people, we should all
be worried.”
Again: all Trump did on Tuesday was speak out for
victims.
The Washington Post has led the way in standing up
for the media against President Donald Trump.
Under the slogan “Democracy dies in
darkness,” it has pushed back against
Trump’s claims that the “fake news” media
are the “opposition party” and the “enemy
of the people.”
But likening Trump to Hitler actually vindicates Trump’s
criticism. It encourages readers to hate him — and his
supporters — and gives moral sanction to those who
would go beyond democratic politics to stop him.
 President Trump: We Will Take
New Steps On ‘Improved Vetting Procedures’
By Michael Patrick Leahy From Breitbart.Com
Date: March 02, 2017
“It is not compassionate, but reckless,
to allow uncontrolled entry from places
where proper vetting cannot occur.
Those given the high honor of
admission to the United States should
support this country and love its people
and its values,” President Trump said in
his speech to a joint session of
Congress on Tuesday.
“That is why my administration has been
working on improved vetting procedures,
and we will shortly take new steps to keep
our nation safe — and to keep out those
who would do us harm,” the president
promised.
67
President Trump is expected to reveal those new steps
when he signs a new executive order on refugees and
immigration on Thursday.
The signing was originally scheduled for Wednesday, but
press reports indicate that the reaction to the president’s
speech has been so positive, the White House chose to
delay the signing so as to not step on its own positive
message.
The executive order President Trump signed on January
27, 2017, “Protecting the Nation from Foreign
Terrorist Entry into the United States,” dealt
specifically with those issues, but implementation of that
order was derailed when Federal Judge James Robart of
the Western District of Washington issued a temporary
restraining order on February 3, 2017 halting it
nationwide.
Rather than engage in a lengthy court fight over the details
of that executive order, President Trump has decided the
fastest way to safeguard the country from foreign terrorist
attacks is to sign a new executive order that has a higher
likelihood of surviving the certain judicial challenges
which will be brought against it by Democrats and their
allies on the left.
 President Trump’s State Of The Union
Address Most Tweeted About In History
Charlie Nash From Breitbart.Com
Date: March 02, 2017

same flag. And we are all made by the

same God.’”

One of President Trump’s posts on Twitter, which quoted a

section of the speech, was also the most retweeted post of
the evening.

President Trump’s address to congress

on Tuesday was the most tweeted of its
kind in history, with over 3 million posts
made about the speech.

The previous record was held by President Obama, whose

2015 address accumulated 2.6 million tweets.

According to USA Today,

“the top-tweeted moment was when Trump

called on Congress ‘to repeal and replace
Obamacare.’ Second was, ‘We are blessed
to be joined tonight by Carryn Owens’ —
the widow of fallen Navy SEAL William
‘Ryan’ Owens — and the third was ‘We all On election night last November, a record 75 million
bleed the same blood. We all salute the posts were made on Twitter.
.

68
 SPLC Caught Faking Numbers Of “Muslim Hate Groups”
In U.S. To Fundraise Off Trump Hate
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 02, 2017
The Southern Poverty Law Center is one of the most
dishonest non-profit “civil rights” groups in the country,
comprised of Marxist Alt-Left fanatics who are as bad as
the discredited establishment media when it comes to
honesty.
In the Age of Trump, all the rage among the hard-Left like
those staffing the SPLC is trashing the Donald and his
supporters for their alleged “Muslim hate.” Since the
president, as a candidate, built his campaign around issues
like attempting to keep Islamic extremism at bay, he’s
been targeted by Left-wing hacks for months who have
accused him of being “anti-Muslim” and “Islamophobic.”
So it only figures that with the rise of Trump, there should
be a corresponding rise in “Muslim hate groups”
throughout the United States – right? Well, that’s what the
SPLC is claiming – only, as Frontpage Magazine notes,
the manner in which the organization calculates an alleged
rise in such groups would make the creators of fake news
at CNN, the Washington Post, and The New York Times
proud. (RELATED: Why Is Google News Still Running
Fake News Sources Like CNN And WaPo While Banning
REAL News From The New Media?)
The site reported:
Look out! It’s another fake Islamophobia
crisis.
“Huge Growth in Anti-Muslim Hate Groups
During 2016: SPLC Report,” wails NBC
News. “Watchdog: Number of anti-Muslim
hate groups tripled since 2015,” FOX News
bleats. ABC News vomits up this word
salad, “Trump cited in report finding
69
increase in U.S. hate groups for 2nd year in
a row.”
The group is claiming that the “number of anti-Muslim
hate groups increased almost three-fold in
2016.” Frontpage noted, adding that the SPLC claims the
number of Muslim “hate groups” rose from 34 in 2015 to
an astounding 101 just a year later.
Wow. That Trump! He’s been so good for
the hate community!
But what in the world could have possibly accounted for
such a dramatic rise? Nothing but the kind of statistical
magic that Penn and Teller would appreciate.
Not unsurprisingly, Trump’s picture adorns the latest cover
of the SPLC’s inappropriately titled “Intelligence Report,”
since it’s nothing of the sort. One way the organization
could claim such a dramatic rise in alleged anti-Muslim
organizations was by counting 45 chapters of the
organization, Act For America, which lists itself as the
“NRA of National Security.
But of course, that’s the farthest thing there is from a “hate
group.” And counting 45 chapters of one group also helps
conflate the numbers.
In 2015, Frontpage Magazine notes, Act For America was
already in existence. But then it was counted as only one
group. SPLC listed the Los Angeles chapter of Act For
America as a separate organization, but it’s not – and it’s
been around for years.
What’s more, the group doesn’t even have 45 chapters – it
has 1,000 scattered around the country. So why add just 45
chapters? “Look at it from the SPLC’s perspective. Next
year, it can add 200 chapters and claim that anti-Muslim
hate groups once again tripled. And then it can do the same
thing again the year after that,” Frontpage Magazine
reported. (RELATED: Democrats Fast Becoming
America’s Largest Hate Group As They Plan To Troll
President Trump’s First Address To Congress)
And in that way, the SPLC can continue to manufacture
phony statistics about anti-Muslim hate groups in the Age
of Trump. Look how much growth from last year!
There are many more ridiculous instances of the SPLC their “fundamental transformation” of our country into
irresponsibly adding people and businesses and even store something like Venezuela on steroids.
display signs (not even kidding) to their “list” of “Muslim
hate groups.” You can and should read them all here. And obviously, they have to use dishonesty in order to
accomplish it.
But the lesson here is clear: The Marxist Left is alive and
well in the world’s only superpower republic, and their Fake news, anyone?
mission is to assist true believers like Barack Obama in
.

70
 Media Attacks Sessions For Talking To Russian
Ambassador As John McCain Repeatedly Meets With
Terrorists And Obama Sends Billions To Our Enemies
Obama Also Sabotaged Incoming Trump Administration
By Alex Thomas -
03.02.2017 @8:49 PM EST

(INTELLIHUB) — As the establishment media continues
to attack Attorney General Jeff Sessions for speaking to a
Russian Ambassador during the course of his duties as a
Senator, it is important to remember that key figures
involved with the anti-Trump forces have done much
worse during their career.
business, especially when you consider that McCain is a
leading figure in the anti-Trump movement.
For his part, Obama was involved in numerous scandals
and shady dealings with foreign nations, all ignored or
cheered on by the establishment press.

We are currently in the midst of yet another large-scale,

deep state fueled, disinformation campaign against the
Trump White House with reports that Sessions met with
the Russian Ambassador as a senator and didn’t reveal that
during his confirmation hearings.

While the establishment media pretends this is an actual

story they have ignored or lied about shady business
conducted by multiple establishment puppets such as John
McCain and Barack Obama himself.

In 2013, John McCain took a secret trip to Syria where he

met with Syrian “rebels”, many who later joined ISIS.
The Guardian reported at the time,
“The Republican war veteran met rebel
leaders inside Syria to discuss their calls
for heavy weapons and a no-fly zone to
help them topple President Bashar al-
Assad and bring the bitter civil war to a
conclusion.”
“McCain’s office confirmed to the Guardian
that he had slipped into the country in
recent days but declined to comment on
the outcome of his talks with the rebel
groups or whether it had hardened his
views on arming them.”
That’s right, John McCain meets with terrorists and no one
has any problem with it but Jeff Sessions meets with a
Russian Ambassador in the United States and its a
bombshell story. This is fake news on steroids.
In 2016, testimony provided to Congress by an expert on
the Iran nuclear agreement revealed that the Obama
Administration had paid Iran tens of billions of dollars as
part of the deal.
The Washington Free Beacon reported,
“Iran may have received an additional
$33.6 billion in secret cash and gold
payments facilitated by the Obama
administration between 2014 and 2016,
according to testimony provided before
Congress by an expert on last summer’s
nuclear agreement with Iran.”
“Between January 2014 and July 2015,
when the Obama administration was
hammering out the final details of the
nuclear accord, Iran was paid $700 million
every month from funds that had previously
been frozen by U.S. sanctions.”

Unbelievably, McCain actually made a more recent secret Questions about the payments emerged after confirmation
trip to Syria, conducting who knows what sort of shady from the Obama administration that they had paid Iran at
least $1.7 billion in cash prior to the release of U.S.
71
hostages. That’s right, the Obama administration openly
paid terrorists and its no big deal but a senator speaking to
an ambassador is front page news!
More recently, the Obama administration purposefully
sabotaged the incoming Trump administration, not once
caring about the fact that the American people had just
elected Donald Trump and that stopping him from doing
his job could easily hurt national security.
This bombshell, confirmed in a New York Times report, is
a million times more corrupt then any supposed connection
Trump has to Russia yet no widespread outrage in the
establishment press.
“At intelligence agencies, there was a push
to process as much raw intelligence as
possible into analyses, and to keep the
reports at a relatively low classification
level to ensure as wide a readership as
possible across the government — and, in
some cases, among European allies. This
allowed the upload of as much intelligence
as possible to Intellipedia, a secret wiki
used by American analysts to share
information.”
Remember, the so-called connection to Russia is a deep
state disinformation campaign pure and simple.

“As Inauguration Day approached, Obama The attacks on Sessions, who himself hasn’t even been the
White House officials grew convinced that greatest for liberty lovers, is yet more disinformation being
the intelligence was damning and that they pushed on the American people by establishment outlets
needed to ensure that as many people as who literally work for the global power structure.
possible inside government could see it,
even if people without security clearances
could not. Some officials began asking
specific questions at intelligence briefings,
knowing the answers would be archived
and could be easily unearthed by
investigators — including the Senate
Intelligence Committee, which in early
January announced an inquiry into Russian
efforts to influence the election,” the Times
reported.

72
 Preparation For Putin's Meeting With Trump
Underway - Russian Upper House Chair
© AFP 2016/ Savo PRELEVIC - World
14:05 01.03.2017(Updated 14:20 01.03.2017)
Russian Foreign Ministry is now
engaged in preparing for a previously
agreed meeting between President
Vladimir Putin and US President Donald
Trump, according to Chairperson of the
Council of the Federation Valentina
Matvienko.
.
73
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — The Russian Foreign Ministry is
preparing for a previously agreed meeting
between President Vladimir Putin and US President
Donald Trump, Chairperson of the Council of the
Federation Valentina Matvienko said Wednesday.
"It is no secret that the agreement on this
was reached during their telephone
conversation. The Foreign Ministry is now
engaged in preparing this momentous
event," Matvienko told reporters.
Putin and Trump could discuss a range of bilateral issues
as well as areas where Moscow and Washington could find
common ground, the senior Russian senator noted.
"The need to unfreeze relations
between the US and Russia may become
the subject of the conversation. I think
there is a mindset toward a positive
agenda," Matvienko added.
 Chuck Schumer Called For Investigation Of Sessions Over
‘Russian Ties’ But Had Coffee And Doughnuts
With Putin: Hypocrisy
Trump Blasts Schumer On Twitter
By Staff Writer -
03.03.2017 @2:37 PM EST

Sen. Chuck Shumer (NY-D) (Morning Joe/Flickr)

(INTELLIHB) — Senate Democratic leader Chuck

Schumer (NY) told the press Thursday that Attorney
General Jeff Sessions should resign and even be
investigated by the Justice Department to determine if he
compromised an ongoing investigation into the alleged
Russian meddling of the U.S. electoral system.

However, President Donald Trump addressed the Dem The tweet boasted a picture of the NY politician with the
leader on Twitter Friday, when he fired out a provocative Russian president Vladimir Putin holding coffee and
tweet reading: doughnuts at Krispy Kreme.

“We should start an immediate

investigation into @SenSchumer and his
ties to Russia and Putin. A total hypocrite!”
.

74
 Deep State Asks Spy Behind
Fake News ‘Pissgate’ Dossier To Testify Against Trump
Yet Another Dirty Tricks Ploy To Sabotage The President
Paul Joseph Watson | Infowars.Com
March 2, 2017
The British spy behind the infamous
‘pissgate’ dossier – in which it was
alleged without absolutely no evidence
that Donald Trump hired Russian
hookers to urinate on a bed slept in by
the Obamas – has been invited to testify
against Trump in front of the Senate.
Before the election, ex-British Intelligence officer
Christopher Steele was tasked with building a file on
Trump in an effort to prove the president had ties with the
Russian government.
Steele’s dossier, leaked last month, was initially reported
on by CNN before BuzzFeed published the entire 35-page
report, prompting widespread ridicule given that the
bizarre claims were backed up by absolutely zero
evidence.
In the dossier, Steele asserts that Trump hired Russian
prostitutes “perform a Golden Showers urination show” on
a bed in the Moscow Ritz Carlton Hotel where Barack and
Michelle Obama had once slept during an official trip to
Russia.
.
75
Steele has now been approached to testify before the US
Senate Intelligence Committee’s investigation into
Trump’s alleged links with Russia.
“Mr. Steele’s friends say it is currently
unlikely he would be willing to travel to the
US. But it is understood Democrats – as
well as some Republicans – in Congress
are prepared to facilitate discreet initial
meetings in the UK or on other neutral
territory,” reports the Independent.
The Independent does not reveal the identity of those who
have asked Steele to testify, although it should be noted
that it was John McCain who sent an intermediary to
London in November last year to collect the dossier so it
could be handed to FBI director James Comey.
This represents yet another move by the deep state to
sabotage Trump’s administration by fanning hyperbolic
hysteria about connections to Russia with zero proof to
back up the claims.
That agenda, combined with the constant drumbeat of
contrived outrage from the left, has already forced General
Michael Flynn to step down and Attorney General Jeff
Sessions to recuse himself from the Russia investigation
earlier today.
As we reported earlier, Barack Obama has set up a nerve
center two miles from the White House in which he and a
team of advisors are plotting to topple Trump by forcing
him to resign or be impeached.
 Senate Plans To Call Anti-Trump Disinformation
Specialist To Give “Evidence” Against Trump
So-Called Investigation Is Actually A
Deep State Run Sham
By Alex Thomas -
03.02.2017 @7:03 PM EST
(INTELLIHUB) — The former MI6 spy who prepared the
disinformation dossier promoted by the establishment
media has been approached by anti-Trump forces within
the Senate to testify in the investigation of the alleged links
between the new President and Russia, according to a
report by The Independent.
Christopher Steele was originally tasked with building an
opposition file on Trump before the election
that eventually ended up in the hands of reporters at
BuzzFeed as well as Republican turncoat John McCain.
Now, despite the fact that the entire dossier is known deep
state disinformation, Steele is being quietly prepared to
testify against Trump in what can only be described as yet
another direct deep state attack on the elected president.
“Mr. Steele’s friends say it is currently
unlikely he would be willing to travel to the
US. But it is understood Democrats – as
well as some Republicans – in Congress
are prepared to facilitate discreet initial
meetings in the UK or on other neutral
territory,” The Independent report reads.
One can imagine that the Republicans involved with this
pathetic attack include noted warmongers John McCain
and Lindsey Graham. Remember, McCain was actually the
man that gave the dossier to the head of the FBI back in
November.
“The Guardian can confirm that the
documents reached the top of the FBI by
December. Senator John McCain, who was
informed about the existence of the
documents separately by an intermediary
from a western allied state, dispatched an
emissary overseas to meet the source and
then decided to present the material to
Comey in a one-on-one meeting on 9
December, according to a source aware of
.
76
the meeting,” read a report in November of
last year.
Amazingly, the report also claims that the FBI actually
tried to pay Steele to continue his dishonest opposition
attack but the deal eventually fell through.
Why would the FBI want to pay Steele for known
disinformation unless at least some within the agency are
working with other deep state elements to destroy the
president in what would amount to the end of American
democracy?
When it comes to the actual contents of the dossier it has
been clear since the moment BuzzFeed published it that it
was 100% disinformation and laughable at that.
As I reported at the time,
“In what may be the biggest attack yet in
the ongoing battle by the establishment to
delegitimize Donald Trump, Buzzfeed, with
help from CNN, has published a dossier
containing explosive and completely
unverified claims about the president-elect
and his alleged ties to Russia.”
“The dossier, filled with numerous spelling
and documented factual errors, was
apparently compiled by a former British
intelligence agent and paid Democratic
opposition researcher who has so far
remained anonymous.”
This is clearly yet another attempt by forces within
Congress, with the help of the deep state, to destroy
Donald Trump with even more documented lies. We are at
a point when the anti-Trump forces seem to be willing to
do literally anything to stop a president who has directly
taken on the shadowy globalist forces that have run the
world for decades.
 BREAKING: Speaker Of The House Paul Ryan Says,
“We Meet With Ambassadors All The Time.”
– Democrats Caught In Lie About Meeting With Russian Ambassador!
By Pamela Williams
Published March 3, 2017 · Updated March 4, 2017
Speaker of the House Paul Ryan tried to tell them that
Attorney General Jeff Sessions did nothing wrong in
meeting with the Russian Ambassador. He said,
“We meet with Ambassadors all the time.”
It turns out the Democrats certainly did, and it does nor
bother them to lie about it.
Democrats portrayed meetings between Ambassador
Kislyak and Jeff Sessions as a rarity for a member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee as Sessions was at the
time. Take the case of Dem Senator Claire McCaskill of
Mo., who tweeted she had
“been on the Armed Services Com. for 10
years. No call or meeting with Russian
Ambassador…ever. Ambassadors call
members of Foreign Relations Com.”
Oh, really…Senator McCaskill? Sorry, to tell you…your
memory is failing, because you did meet more than once
with Ambassador Kislyak!
Tweets were discovered by McCaskill about meetings with
Kislyak in 2013 and in 2015. NATIONAL REVIEW’S
excellent reporter, Charles W. Cooke found these
tweets…good work! Below are the tweets:
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/03/sessions-not-
alone-russian-ambassador-also-met-with-numerous-
democrats.html?cmpid=prn_msn
Off to meeting w/Russian Ambassador.
Upset about the arbitrary/cruel decision to
end all U.S. adoptions, even those in
process,” McCaskill tweeted on Jan. 30,
2013.
On Aug. 6, 2015, McCaskill wrote:
77
“Today calls with British, Russian, and
German ambassadors re: Iran deal.
#doingmyhomework.”
McCaskill later blamed Twitter’s character limit for the
seeming disparity in her claims, suggesting the limit
prevented her from being more specific in Thursday’s
tweet. She told The Weekly Standard there was “no
contradiction,” and clarified she never had a “one-on-one
meeting” with the ambassador.
FactCheck.org still labeled McCaskill’s
claim as “false.”
McCaskill’s 2013 meeting was the one involving a total of
seven Democratic senators. She joined several Republicans
and six other Democratic senators that day in an appeal to
Kislyak for Moscow to reverse its blockade of U.S.
adoptions of Russian children.
Other Democratic senators in that meeting were: Sens.
Mary Landrieu of Louisiana, Maria Cantwell of
Washington, Amy Klobuchar of Minnesota, Jack Reed of
Rhode Island, Robert Casey of Pennsylvania and Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island.
Klobuchar said in a statement afterward that she was able
to tell Kislyak the stories of families she met in
Minnesota. Landrieu is no longer a senator after losing her
seat in 2014.
Now, in another incident, one cannot help but delight in
the fact Chuck Schumer is caught in a photo having coffee
with Putin. President Trump made the comment in
response to the photo/tweet:
We should start an immediate investigation
into @SenSchumer and his ties to Russia
and Putin. A total hypocrite!” Trump
tweeted.
Schumer tweeted back:
 “Happily talk re: my contact w Mr. Putin &
his associates, took place in ’03 in full view
of press & public under oath. Would you
&your team?”
So as you can see certain lawmakers are just plain
hypocrites. It is always so nice when they are exposed for
all the world to see! Ambassador Kislyak has been a
familiar face in the White House for quite awhile now. He
has served as Ambassador since 2008 and in various posts
representing the former Soviet Union in the 1980s.
Here is one Democrat who found it in his soul to speak up
for Senator Sessions.
“I have met with the Russian ambassador
with a group, in my capacity, with a group
of other senators,” Sen. Joe Manchin, D-
W.Va., told CNN. “That’s in my official
capacity. That’s nothing. That’s my job.”
Republican Missouri Sen. Roy Blunt, defending Sessions,
said he’s spoken with the Russian ambassador as well.
78
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/03/sessions-not-
alone-russian-ambassador-also-met-with-numerous-
democrats.html?cmpid=prn_msn
Sessions, at his press conference, downplayed any intrigue
behind his meetings with the ambassador last year,
including one in September at his office. He said they
discussed terrorism and Ukraine, among other topics.
Sessions, in trying to tamp down the controversy,
announced he would recuse himself from any
investigations pertaining to the campaign, amid bipartisan
pressure to separate himself from probes regarding Russian
meddling in the race.
But some Democrats are still calling for his resignation,
and a special prosecutor.
“It is insufficient for Attorney General
Sessions to recuse himself from any
matters concerning the presidential
campaign. He must resign,” House
Democratic Whip Steny Hoyer said in a
statement late Thursday.
In conclusion, I appreciate this
information from Fox News. If we lose
AG Jeff Sessions, it will be an
unbelievable loss. I don’t see how the
Trump Administration can withstand
such a loss at this time. If Obama and
his newly formed team can get rid of
Sessions, I don’t see anything stopping
them at that point. Pray, America.
 The U.S. Government’s Privacy Watchdog Is Basically
Dead, Emails Reveal
Jenna McLaughlin
March 3 2017, 1:24 P.M.
An email obtained through Freedom of Information Act by The
Intercept sent by PCLOB public affairs and legislative officer Jen
Burita.
There’s a little-known federal agency whose job is to
ensure U.S. spy agencies protect privacy and other civil
liberties even as they work to defeat terrorists and
criminals, and to blow the whistle when that doesn’t
happen. But the agency, known as the Privacy and Civil
Liberties Oversight Board, is down to just a single voting
member — which means it has been stripped of nearly all
its powers, according to emails obtained by The Intercept.
The board was created by Congress in 2004, at the
recommendation of the 9/11 Commission, to help the
executive branch balance national security priorities with
individual rights. After Bush administration officials
heavily edited PCLOB’s first report, one member resigned,
and Congress in 2007 turned it into an independent agency
and expanded its writ to include oversight of congressional
action. Still, the board remained obscure; some members
of Congress seemed unaware of its existence even as
documents from NSA whistleblower Edward Snowden
produced more privacy scandals.
PCLOB is supposed to have five members, no more than
three of whom come from the same political party; to
employ a full-time chairperson; to have regular access to
the 17 intelligence agencies; and to publish unclassified
versions of its evaluations of U.S. espionage powers.
But with just one part-time board member left, after
another member’s term ended last week, the agency has
very few formal powers to police the so-called “deep state”
until President Trump nominates a new board, the emails
reveal. Without the statutory quorum of three members,
PCLOB “may not initiate new advice or oversight
79
projects” or offer advice to the intelligence community,
according to a list drawn up by Jen Burita, PCLOB’s
public affairs and legislative officer, and shared by email
with several congressional staffers who had raised
questions about the impact of the attrition among board
members.
In addition, the agency cannot submit to Congress either
its semi-annual reports, which detail the conclusions of its
investigations, or its plans for declassifying information it
has uncovered. The board can’t hold public meetings,
which have offered the chance for public input in the past,
or give formal recommendations to the intelligence
community.
The board can proceed with ongoing investigations, and
individual members — or member, as the case may be —
may make public appearances, issue statements, testify
before Congress and give advice to intelligence agencies
without purporting to speak for PCLOB as an agency or
board.
Nominations to bring PCLOB to quorum seem unlikely to
happen any time soon, if they happen at all. One hurdle is
that Trump has to work with Democrats to name at least
two of the board’s members, and lack of bipartisan
cooperation stymied PCLOB appointments under
Presidents Bush and Obama. The bigger issue is that
Trump may not be interested in naming any members at
all. On Fox News on Tuesday, the president claimed he
hasn’t filled upwards of 600 administration slots because
“they’re unnecessary to have.”
The board’s eight or so staff workers are ready for a
doomsday situation.
“The board has anticipated a sub quorum
scenario and has been preparing for that
already,” Burita wrote in an email to a staff
member of the House intelligence
committee in early December. (The email
and other documents cited in this story
were obtained by The Intercept through a
Freedom of Information Act request.)
One key item on PCLOB’s agenda for the near future was
helping ensure that privacy rights were protected in the
course of implementing a pact called Privacy Shield,
which would allow corporate information transfers to the
U.S. from within the European Union. The U.S.
government reassured Europeans, fearful of American
surveillance programs, that PCLOB would be involved in
overseeing such transfers. But with only one member,
that’s unlikely, says Jake Laperruque, senior counsel at the
legal think tank The Constitution Project.
“PCLOB falling away may be another nail
in the coffin for the US-EU Privacy Shield
unless Congress gets serious” about
reforming other areas of surveillance
policy, he wrote in an email to The
Intercept.
One congressional staffer asked Burita in an email if there
was “any word from Trump-elect team on names for
consideration.” There was no response indicating that was
the case.
But this didn’t start with Trump. The board’s been
withering away for almost a year.
Its former chair, David Medine, resigned last March to
work on global poverty issues and was never replaced.
James Dempsey, the executive director of the Berkeley
Center for Law & Technology, left when his term ended
on January 29. Judge Patricia Wald, a former chief judge
on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the District of Columbia,
quietly retired on January 7 — requesting no statement be
made publicly, according to the emails. And as of February
21, Rachel Brand, who served in the Bush administration
Department of Justice, is gone too, after her term ended.
The board’s one remaining board member, Elisabeth
Collins, worked in the Justice Department under George
W. Bush and, according to the Associated Press,
“drafted revised guidelines in 2008 that …
gave FBI agents involved in national
security probes new authority to conduct
physical surveillance without a court order.”
Collins also dissented from a 2014 PCLOB finding that
the NSA’s bulk phone-record collection program was
illegal and should be shut down.
.
80
The board served a vital oversight role in recent years.
After examining how the NSA was vacuuming up massive
amounts of information about Americans’ phone calls in
2014, it eviscerated the program in an extensive public
report. That input helped Congress decide to nix the
program and replace it with one where companies held
onto the data instead of the government in 2015.
The panel’s nearly 200-page 2014 study on Section 702 of
the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act will undoubtedly
play a role in lawmakers’ decisions about how to reform
foreign surveillance programs this year. The board had
also intended to publish a report by the end of 2016 on its
investigation into Executive Order 12333, a major
expansion of the intelligence community’s surveillance
powers by President Ronald Reagan, but that never
happened.
Medine, in an email to the The Intercept, called on Trump
to take action.
“With only one member remaining, the
board can no longer conduct business until
new appointments are made by the
president and confirmed by the Senate,” he
wrote.
While PCLOB might be hobbled for the time being, it
appears the board members did scramble to complete
several classified reports before losing quorum.
According to the emails obtained by The Intercept,
PCLOB managed to complete and submit a “deep dive”
report on the CIA as well as an assessment of an Obama
presidential policy directive on privacy prior to Dempsey
and Wald’s departure.
The emails don’t describe the CIA report in detail, but do
give a general sense of the directive behind the
investigation into the presidential policy directive, known
as PPD-28, which required intelligence agencies to draw
up plans to protect personal information collected in the
course of their work. Burita wrote that Obama
“encouraged the Privacy and Civil Liberties
Oversight Board to prepare a report that
assesses the implementation of any
matters contained within this directive that
fall under the agency’s mandate … as it
relates to counterterrorism efforts and the
protection of privacy and civil liberties.”
 Tillerson Pushes Back On White House’s
Proposed Cuts To State Department And USAID
By Josh Rogin
March 3, 2017
Rex Tillerson on Feb. 1 pledged to “represent the interest of all of the
American people” shortly after being sworn in as secretary of state.
(The Washington Post)
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson is pushing back against
the White House’s proposal to drastically slash funding for
diplomacy and development, a sign he intends to fight for
his department’s mission inside the Trump administration.
Tillerson’s formal appeal of the Office of Management and
Budget’s initial budget proposal seeks to restore some of
the huge cuts proposed by the White House for State
Department and foreign assistance funding, according to
an internal State Department memo I obtained. The memo
says that Tillerson is mindful of the president’s promise to
make government leaner and more accountable and that he
understands OMB’s mission to find savings.
“However, he is deeply concerned about
the timing and the size of the reductions
and he will appeal to rationalize and reduce
our size and structure in a matter that
makes us leaner and more efficient,” it
reads. “We intend to make the strongest
argument possible in our appeal that the
Department needs this additional funding to
ensure the United States remains active,
engaged and influential throughout the
world and that any changes to our mission
or way or doing business occur in the
context of the National Security Strategy.”
The memo is part of an internal discussion among State
Department offices about Tillerson’s response to the
budget cuts. It does not come from him directly. But it
confirms reports that the White House gave the State
Department a initial budget proposal known as a
“passback” that allots $34.6 billion for both the State
81
Department and U.S. Agency for International
Development in fiscal 2018. If enacted, that would be a 37
percent reduction from the fiscal 2017 level. The White
House proposed $23.2 billion for foreign assistance, which
is 38 percent below this year.
The State Department declined to comment on the
authenticity or the substance of the memo. John
Czwartacki, OMB’s communications director, said:
“We are working collaboratively with all our
agency heads, including Secretary
Tillerson, to formulate details within the
President’s FY2018 Budget Blueprint. That
said, it is premature at this time to
comment on any specifics of this on-going,
internal discussion.”
Multiple State Department officials told me that Tillerson
and his senior staff have been talking with heads of various
bureaus and offices at the State Department to get a better
idea of their top priorities, as part of his effort to shape his
position on the budget cuts.
“Our appeal is focused on increasing the
overall topline and will seek to restore cuts
made to our core economic and
development accounts, security assistance,
and humanitarian aid,” the memo states.
“We are also asking OMB for more time
and flexibility to enable us to determine
most bureau and country level allocations
at a later date.”
Economic and development assistance would be cut by 61
percent under the White House’s initial proposal from
fiscal 2017 levels, according to the memo. Humanitarian
assistance accounts would be cut by 36 percent. The White
House’s proposal would shift almost all foreign military
financing grants to loans, except for the security assistance
committed to Israel, the memo states.
The White House is also proposing to eliminate all funding
for the Green Climate Fund and bilateral climate change
funding, the memo states. Climate change programs were
not mentioned in the memo as one of the things Tillerson
wants to fight to save.
Overall, the memo notes that the State Department’s
budget for next year will not be determined until after
several more twists and turns both inside the
administration and in Congress, which is in charge of the
appropriations bills. The White House plans to release
more details of its budget proposal, including top line
allocations for each agency, on March 16, according to the
memo.
Several GOP senators have said that the White House’s
proposed State Department cuts will not make it through
the legislative process.
“It’s dead on arrival, it’s not going to
happen, it would be a disaster,” Sen.
.
82
Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.), chairman of the
Senate appropriations subcommittee for
the State Department and foreign
operations, said this week. “This budget
destroys soft power, it puts our diplomats at
risk and it’s going nowhere.”
The bottom line is that funding for diplomacy and
development will be the subject of a series of negotiations
and will likely fall somewhere between what the White
House and Congress each want. Tillerson’s challenge is to
navigate between those two power centers and do as much
as he can to defend the programs he believes in.
 It's Trump's Party, Now
Pat Buchanan
March 3, 2017

Before the largest audience of his political career, save

perhaps his inaugural, Donald Trump delivered the speech
of his life.
And though Tuesday’s address may be called moderate,
even inclusive, Trump’s total mastery of his party was on
full display.
Congressional Republicans who once professed “free-
trade” as dogmatic truth rose again and again to cheer
economic nationalism.
“We’ve lost more than one-fourth of our
manufacturing jobs since NAFTA was
approved,” thundered Trump, “and we’ve
lost 60,000 factories since China joined the
World Trade Organization in 2001.”
Yet a Republican party that embraced NAFTA and voted
MFN for China every time it came up gave Trump
standing ovations.
GOP champions of the TPP, if there are any left, sat mute.
Trump cited the first Republican president, Lincoln, as
having got it right when he warned,
“abandonment of the protective policy by
the American Government (will) produce
want and ruin among our people.”
Celebrating protectionism, hailing “America First!” in a
virtual State of the Union address — it doesn’t get any
better than this.
To open-borders Republicans who backed amnesty for 11
million illegal immigrants, Trump had this message,
“We will soon begin the construction of a
great wall along our southern border.”
And the cheering did not stop.

“(W)e have inherited a series of tragic The president invoked Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway
foreign policy disasters,” said Trump, System, the greatest public works project of the 20th
“America has spent approximately six century, as a model.
trillion dollars in the Middle East — all the
while our infrastructure at home is Yet Ike was opposed by the Taft wing of his party and
crumbling.”
Ike’s republicanism gave birth to the modern conservative
movement.
And from Congressional Republicans who backed every
Bush-Obama war — Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Syria,
Yet, in leading Republicans away from globalism to
Yemen — not a peep of protest, as their foreign policy
economic nationalism, Trump is not writing a new gospel.
legacy was being consigned to the dumpster.
He is leading a lost party away from a modernist heresy —
back to the Old-Time Religion.
Watching Republicans rise again and again to hail Trump
called to mind the Frankish King Clovis who, believing his
In restating his commitment to the issues that separated
wife’s Christian God had interceded to give him victory
him from the other Republicans and won him Wisconsin,
over the Alemanni, saw his army converted by the
Michigan, Ohio and Pennsylvania, however, Trump
battalions and baptized by the platoons.
reaffirmed aspects of conservatism dear to his audience.

One had thought the free-trade beliefs of Republicans were

He committed himself to regulatory reform, freeing up the
more deeply rooted than this.
private sector, rolling back the administrative state. The
Keystone and Dakota Access pipelines are on the way to
“We have withdrawn the United States from completion. And Trump is all behind school choice.
the job-killing Trans-Pacific Partnership,”
Trump exulted, having just tossed into the
While the speech was unifying and aspirational, the
trash that mammoth trade deal beloved of
president set goals and laid down markers by which his
Bush Republicans.
presidency will be judged.

83
And none will be easy of attainment.
“Dying industries will come roaring back to
life. … Crumbling infrastructure will be
replaced with new roads, bridges, tunnels,
airports and railways … Our terrible drug
epidemic will slow down and, ultimately,
stop. … Our neglected inner cities will see
a rebirth of hope, safety and opportunity.”
As some of these domestic crises are rooted in the
character, or lack of it, of people, they have proven, since
Great Society days, to be beyond the capacity of
government to solve.
Ronald Reagan was not wrong when he said,
“Government is not the solution to our
problems; government is the problem.”
And while the president’s speech astonished critics as
much as it reassured friends, it leaves large questions
unanswered.
How does one leave Social Security and Medicare
untouched, grow defense by more than $50 billion, slash
taxes, launch a $1 trillion infrastructure program — and
not explode the deficit and national debt?
Now that we are ensnared in wars all over the Middle East,
how do we extricate ourselves and come home without our
enemies filling the vacuum?
84
How does the GOP repeal and replace Obamacare without
cutting the benefits upon which millions of Americans
have come to rely?
How do you eliminate an $800 billion merchandise trade
deficit without tariffs that raise the price of cheap imports
from abroad — on which Trump’s working-class voters
have come to depend?
The Republican establishment today bends the knee to
Caesar.
But how long before K Street lobbyists for
transnational cartels persuade the GOP
elite, with campaign contributions, to slow-
walk the president’s America First agenda?
Tuesday’s speech established Trump as the man in charge.
But how loyal to him and his program will be the “deep
state,” which dominates this city that gave Trump only 4
percent of its votes and, paranoically, believes him to be an
agent of Vladimir Putin?
The Trump-Beltway wars have only just begun.
Patrick J. Buchanan is the author of the new book “The
Greatest Comeback: How Richard Nixon Rose From
Defeat to Create the New Majority.”
 Trump Asks If It's Legal
For Obama To Wiretap Him... Here's The Answer
Via Rachel Stockman Of Lawnewz.Com
Mar 4, 2017 8:15 Pm
If you woke up Saturday morning scratching your head as
to what the heck President Donald Trump was talking
about when he tweeted that Obama had his “wires tapped”
in Trump Tower just before his victory, you are not alone.
So what happened?
The best that we can tell, Trump is referring to a Breitbart
article which was published Friday night that makes
reference to attempts by U.S. intelligence agencies to
obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving
Donald Trump and several advisers. The interesting thing
is that this isn’t a new development. In fact, several outlets
including Mother Jones, The Guardian, The National
Review, and Heat Street have been reporting on this
alleged activity over the last couple of months.
Here is the best summary we could find of the Obama
administration’s efforts to wiretap Trump associates. From
a January 11, 2017 Guardian article:
The Guardian has learned that the FBI applied for a
warrant from the foreign intelligence surveillance (Fisa)
85
court over the summer in order to monitor four members
of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with
Russian officials. The Fisa court turned down the
application asking FBI counter-intelligence investigators to
narrow its focus. According to one report, the FBI was
finally granted a warrant in October, but that has not been
confirmed, and it is not clear whether any warrant led to a
full investigation
Trump then questions in a Tweet on Saturday morning if
this is legal and even makes analogies to Nixon/Watergate.
So is it legal?
While the analogies to Watergate are totally misplaced (as
that involved an illegal break-in), the underlying questions
about the legality of these wiretaps are indeed important
ones.
So far, there is no indication that the
Obama administration acted “illegally” if
they did indeed intercept commun-
ications from Trump Tower.
“The problem with the President’s question
is that the standards for FISA are so low
and easily satisfied (with little judicial
review) that it is difficult to establish any
illegality under the law,” wrote George
 Washington Law Professor Jonathan
Turley.
The FISA procedures were put in place in the aftermath of
the Nixon-era scandals. To obtain a FISA warrant, the
government needs to demonstrate probable cause that the
“target of the surveillance is a foreign power or agent of a
foreign power.” On top of that, the agents must prove that
the main purpose of the surveillance is to obtain “foreign
intelligence information.”
“It is true that, if the target is a ‘U.S. person’
there must be probable cause to believe
that the U.S. person’s activities may involve
espionage or other similar conduct in
violation of the criminal statutes of the
United States. However, citizens can be
collateral to the primary target under FISA,”
Turley explained.
So bottom line: if the Obama
administration intelligence
agents followed the proper protocols,
had evidence, got approved by Main
Justice, and presented their
application to a FISA judge, and were
approved, it is likely that any
wiretapping was legal under U.S. law.
“Well, putting aside there is no indication
Trump himself was the target of the FISA
warrant (it appears to have been aimed at
four of his associates), yes, it CAN be
legally done,” Bradley Moss, an attorney
and national security expert explained
to LawNewz.com.
Would President Obama have to sign off
on this FISA warrant as Trump implies?
No, not necessarily. Under the law, the warrant application
needs to be signed off by the Attorney General. So based
.
86
on the timing of these applications if the reports are true, it
is likely that Loretta Lynch knew about them and approved
them.
“The President can technically request
the warrant but it still has to go through
the process. Obama couldn’t authorize
it on his own. The AG still has to sign
off and the FISA judge still has to
authorize the warrant,” Moss explained.
Trump is right that if the warrant involved four of his
aides, some of his communications may have been
intercepted too, and perhaps what happened warrants
further investigation.
“If somehow several people in DOJ all
got together and were asked to
fabricate evidence to present to the
FISA judge that would be illegal,” Moss
explained. “But so far that is not what we
are hearing happened.”
Turley further adds,
“There is provisions stating that a U.S.
person cannot be surveilled ‘solely
upon the basis of activities protected by
the First Amendment to the Constitution
of the United States.’ Thus, if Trump
aides were targeted for political
reasons, the surveillance would be
unlawful even under the dubious
protections of FISA.”
This matter is probably deserving of further investigation,
but so far, there is no indication of anything illegal.
87
 The Donald Plays His Trump Card:
Obama Wiretapped Trump Tower
It Can Only Escalate From Here
Rudy Panko
Sat, Mar 4, 2017

Trump is now the most dangerous whistleblower alive.

We don't think Trump is exaggerating.
As usual, the president's tweets speak for themselves:
William Binney, a former top NSA official turned
whistleblower, agrees:

Asked whether he believes the NSA is

tapping Trump, Binney replied:
“Absolutely. How did they get the phone
call between the president and the
president of Australia? Or the one that
he made with Mexico? Those are not
targeted foreigners.”

The President of the United States of America just accused

his predecessor of tapping his phones before the election.

Pinch yourself. This is really happening.

Let the "draining" begin.

88
 Joe Biden Fears For The Democratic World Order!
Author: Phil Butler
04.03.2017
“The progressive democratic world order is
at risk of collapse”, former Vice President
Joe Biden spoke these words in his last
speech to a waiting public.
This is the same man whose son took up an executive role
in Ukraine before the embers of revolution had stopped
smoldering. In this same speech Biden also named Russia
as the prime antagonist of this new global order. Here’s a
look at one of the world’s top public enemies.
Joe Biden loves Bill and Hillary Clinton, he loves them so
much he wants to be just like them. Why he’s already
started his own money machine, The Biden Foundation,
which looks like the spitting image of the Clinton
Foundation. Like the Clinton Foundation, Biden’s new
NGO is into all those things that people are most
concerned about. It’s also into all those things people
donate money for, like lobbying. The sparkling new Biden
endeavor professes care for women’s issues, health,
protecting little kids and equality too, just like Bill’s and
Hillary’s altruism. The ex-Vice President’s new site drips
with lovingkindness. It’s amazing, hopeful, and chock full
of smiling faces to take your heart, breath, and money
away. It’s even got “Pillars” like one of those ancient
Greek temples of wisdom! And knowing what Joe Biden is
really about, it makes my stomach churn.
Domestic Hypocrisy
The first thing Joe and Dr. Jill Biden did on launching their
new foundation was to make a statement. It went
something like this, with Joe quoting his father:
89
“My dad used to have an expression: “It’s a
lucky person who gets up in the morning,
puts both feet on the floor, knows what
they’re about to do and thinks it still
matters.” Jill and I have been very lucky
these past decades.”
Indeed. But for the lowest income people in America the
Obama-Biden White House brought nothing but more
misery. Despite the juggled numbers this Administration
and the “new order” cooked up, poverty in America is far
worse. In the richest country on Earth there are 36% more
people on food stamps than when these “saviors” took
office. The Federal debt in America has more than doubled
too, as pork barrel and military spending that helped only
the banks prevailed. Corporate profits under Obama and
Biden rose to 144% over previous wins, while home
ownership and other key metrics for most Americans fell
dramatically. The America Donald Trump inherited is a
socio-economic piñata with deadly candies tucked away
inside now, and he has said as much.
A look at the division in attitudes shows one divide, but
the deeper scars of this nation may soon be weighed in
catastrophe. Biden, the poster boy of hypocrites in the
swamp of Washington, represents a more clear and present
danger to Americans now, than he did as VP. Biden and
his wife are lucky, when many Americans feel blessed to
have a bed to get up out of, or even a roof over their heads.
As is the case with any set of statistics, how one slices the
numbers determines the reality. For Biden and the elites,
this new Democratic order has been a boom. But for those
who are not elites, the distribution of wealth shows a
different truth. Put in a nutshell, Biden and his ilk
feathered the beds of the upper-middle class and the
ultimate elites, with the proceeds of a lower class fleeced
once again. Don’t take my word, do you own
research starting here. The “have nots” paid for Joe and
Jill’s beautiful American Dream, and for Joe’s Dad’s deep,
deep vision too. And as to copy-cat NGOs, Biden
Foundation is already on the pharma scene for an
upcoming medical conference. I am reminded of Bill and
Hillary and how they started the speaking bonanza we
heard so much about. This from MedCity:
“Now that Biden has decided to set up
shop — at least part-time — at the
University of Pennsylvania as head of the
new Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and
 Global Engagement, the Philadelphia
health tech community sees him as a
unique asset. Several health IT and digital
health interests in Southeast Pennsylvania
are trying to get the former VP down to
HIMSS17 in Orlando, Florida.”
Foreign Policy Fun
It is interesting for me that the first category listed on the
Biden Foundation website under “Our Pillars” is Foreign
Policy. Cancer nor kids are not first in these people’s
minds, the Freudian slip has hit them between their beady
little eyes too. The ideas and endeavors of the Bidens is
not thought out alphabetically even. If this were the case,
then “Community Colleges and Military Families” would
be first, even though I cannot figure out why those two are
lumped together. So, it is foreign policy issues this
spanking new NGO intends to address first! The dogma for
Biden Foundation foreign policy is tough talking too! It
goes something like this:
“The Biden Foundation will find new ways
to build upon Joe Biden’s longstanding
commitment to preserve the liberal
international order.”
How does Joe Biden intend to accomplish his stated
mission? One way will be through the longstanding
strategy of integrating a man and a mission inside
institutions worldwide. The first such institution the
prestigious University of Pennsylvania, where Biden will
lead the Penn Biden Center for Diplomacy and Global
Engagement. This new center in Washington D.C. will
focus on “diplomacy, foreign policy, and national
security.” Like the malignancy that former National
Security Adviser Zbigniew Kazimierz Brzezinski has been,
Biden follows the entrenchment path to foreign policy
fame. Unfortunately for Biden, he has nowhere near the
evil genius of Carter’s policy adviser.
However feeble his strategic mind might be, Biden has
tentacles in other academic halls like the University of
Delaware, and connections with a vast network of hyper-
liberals from California to Florida. The Bidens have even
secured a famous talent agency to get their show on the
road. The scary thing about Biden and his feet in foreign
90
policy is the fact he handled the Ukraine portfolio for the
same White House that made a war zone where none
existed. Who can forget when Biden’s son joined the
biggest natural gas company in Ukraine only weeks after
the Euromaidan set the country alight? The fact Ukraine’s
ruler slash oligarch Petro Poroshenko and Joe Biden are
personal friends only adds further dismay alongside any
idea the Biden Foundation will do more than make matters
worse. Only if the price (or donation) were right, could any
kind of sane détente come from such an NGO.
No Shame In the NWO
Finally, news Joe and Jill Biden have officially given their
blessing to a controversial relationship (affair) in between
the widow of their deceased son Beau, and their son
Hunter, it punctuates the hypocrisy and circus lunacy of
the Biden circle. Even the announcement of this “blessing”
oozes Biden drama, as it frames Joe Biden as the
“president who never was”, owing continually to his love
and devotion to family. Watching these people and
Washington the last 8 years has been a continual soap
opera. Joe Biden appears to those with open eyes, as the
laughing hyena among jackals with no shame.
This is Trump’s “Washington Swamp” at
the utter bottom.
An article entitled, “Behind the Putin Fantasies” makes the
rest of my argument for keeping away from anything Joe
Biden is involved in. As we know, several Trump
campaign advisers had business ties to Russia, and there’s
been no end to the upheaval over this in Washington.
However, the visits of Joe Biden and his boss Barack
Obama to Russia have gotten zero press these last few
weeks. But Biden continuing to side with Poroshenko and
Kiev muddles the mind. “The Donald
Trump administration should be a strong supporter and
partner of Ukraine”, Biden told Trump last month after a
visit to see his pal Poroshenko. Strangely, the New York
Times and CNN failed to accuse the former administration
of regime change and under the table business deals on the
suggested innuendo? This is the fantasy land that the
Obama administration created! Or was it created by Bill
and Hillary Clinton? I cannot say truthfully, for this New
Democratic Order is an enigmatic and powerful beast –
one we should all hope is in dire danger of collapsing!
 Obama Advisor Rhodes Is Wrong: The President Can
Order A Wiretap, And Why Trump May
Have The Last Laugh
By Tyler Durden
Mar 4, 2017 11:35 PM
Following Trump's stunning allegation that Obama
wiretapped the Trump Tower in October of 2016, prior to
the presidential election, which may or may not have been
sourced from a Breitbart story, numerous Democrats and
media pundits have come out with scathing accusations
that Trump is either mentally disturbed, or simply has no
idea what he is talking about.
The best example of this came from Ben Rhodes, a former
senior adviser to President Obama in his role as deputy
National Security Advisor, who slammed Trump's
accusation, insisting that
"No President can order a wiretap.
Those restrictions were put in place to
protect citizens from people like you."
He also said "only a liar" could make the case, as Trump
suggested, that Obama wire tapped Trump Tower ahead of
the election.
It would appear, however, that Rhodes is wrong, especially
as pertains to matters of Foreign Intelligence Surveillance,
and its associated FISA court, under which the alleged
wiretap of Donald Trump would have been granted, as it
pertained specifically to Trump's alleged illicit interactions
with Russian entities.
In Chapter 36 of Title 50 of the US Code *War and
National Defense", Subchapter 1, Section 1802, we read
the following:
(1) Notwithstanding any other law, the
President, through the Attorney
General, may authorize electronic
surveillance without a court order under
91
this subchapter to acquire foreign
intelligence information for periods of
up to one year if the Attorney General
certifies in writing under oath that—
(A) the electronic surveillance is solely
directed at—
(i) the acquisition of the contents of
communications transmitted by means
of communications used exclusively
between or among foreign powers, as
defined in section 1801(a)(1), (2), or
(3) of this title; or
(ii) the acquisition of technical
intelligence, other than the spoken
communications of individuals, from
property or premises under the open
and exclusive control of a foreign
power, as defined in section
1801(a)(1), (2), or (3) of this title;
(B) there is no substantial likelihood
that the surveillance will acquire the
contents of any communication to
which a United States person is a
party; and
(C) the proposed minimization
procedures with respect to such
surveillance meet the definition of
minimization procedures under section
1801(h) of this title; and
if the Attorney General reports such minimization
procedures and any changes thereto to the House
Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence and the
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence at least thirty
days prior to their effective date, unless the Attorney
General determines immediate action is required and
notifies the committees immediately of such minimization
procedures and the reason for their becoming effective
immediately.
While (B) seems to contradict the underlying permissive
nature of Section 1802 as it involves a United States
person, what the Snowden affair has demonstrated all too
clearly, is how frequently the NSA and FISA court would
make US citizens collateral damage. To be sure, many
pointed out the fact that Fox News correspondent James
Rosen was notoriously wiretapped in 2013 when the DOJ
was investigating government leaks. The Associated Press
was also infamously wiretapped in relation to the same
investigation.
As pertains to Trump, the Guardian reported as much in
early January, when news of the alleged anti-Trump
dossier by former UK spy Chris Steele broke in January:
The Guardian has learned that the FBI
applied for a warrant from the foreign
intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over
the summer in order to monitor four
members of the Trump team suspected of
irregular contacts with Russian officials.
The Fisa court turned down the application
asking FBI counter-intelligence
investigators to narrow its focus. According
to one report, the FBI was finally granted a
warrant in October, but that has not been
confirmed, and it is not clear whether any
warrant led to a full investigation.
Furthermore, while most Democrats - not to mention
former president Obama himself - have been harshly
critical of Trump's comments, some such as former Obama
speechwriter Jon Favreau was quite clear in his warning to
reporters that Obama did not say there was no
wiretapping, effectively confirming it:
Favreau also urged his twitter followers to read a thread
that explicitly suggested the prior existence of FISA-
endorsed wiretaps:
Additionally, Philip Rucker, the WaPo's White House
bureau chief echoed Favreau's caveat, namely that the
Obama spokesman’s statement does not deny the existence
of wiretaps on Trump Tower, only that Obama himself and
92
the Obama White House did not approve them if they did
exist.
Further implying the existence of such a wiretap was
David Axelrod, who tweeted today that that such a wiretap
could exist but would have "been OK'ed only for a a
reason."
Yet ironically, it was none other than the Trump
administration which just earlier this week announced it
supports the renewal of spy law which incorporates the
FISA court, without reforms:
"the Trump administration does not want to
reform an internet surveillance law to
address privacy concerns, a White House
official told Reuters on Wednesday, saying
it is needed to protect national security.
The announcement could put President
Donald Trump on a collision course with
Congress, where some Republicans and
Democrats have advocated curtailing the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, or
FISA, parts of which are due to expire at
the end of the year."
"We support the clean reauthorization and
the administration believes it's necessary to
protect the security of the nation," the
official said on condition of anonymity.
The FISA law has been criticized by privacy and civil
liberties advocates as allowing broad, intrusive spying. It
gained renewed attention following the 2013 disclosures
by former National Security Agency contractor Edward
Snowden that the agency carried out widespread
monitoring of emails and other electronic communications.
In any event, the bottom line here appears to be that with
his tweet, Trump has opened a can of worms with two
possible outcomes: either the wiretaps exist as Trump has
suggested, and the president will use them to attack both
the Obama administration and the media for political
overreach; or, there were no wiretaps, which as Matthew
Boyle writes, would suggest the previous administration
had no reason to suspect Trump colluded with a foreign
government.
Senator Ben Sasse said as much in his statement issued
earlier today:
The President today made some very
serious allegations, and the informed
citizens that a republic requires deserve
more information. If there were wiretaps of
then-candidate Trump's organization or
campaign, then it was either with FISA
Court authorization or without such
authorization. If without, the President
should explain what sort of wiretap it was
.
93
and how he knows this. It is possible that
he was illegally tapped. On the other hand,
if it was with a legal FISA Court order, then
an application for surveillance exists that
the Court found credible.
But what is perhaps most important, is that
we may know soon enough. As the NYT
reported on Saturday afternoon, a senior
White House official said that Donald F.
McGahn II, the president’s chief
counsel, was working on Saturday to
secure access to what the official
described as a document issued by the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court
authorizing surveillance of Mr. Trump
and his associates.
If and when such a document is made public - assuming it
exists of course - it would be Trump, once again, that gets
the last laugh.
 It's Now Or Never: Trump
Declares Open War On The Deep State
Don't Let The Medium Distract From The Message: Trump Just Declared
War On America's Intelligence Agencies
Richard Brandt
Sat, Mar 4, 2017

Those with a conspiratorial turn of mind

have long spoken of The Deep State,
which ensures continuity of policy
whatever the results of our elections.
Let us be specific: the problem, such as
it is, resides in the intelligence services,
namely the CIA and FBI, in the Pentagon
and in the State Department. The first
two functional bureaucracies are very
He has to move fast now aptly called the “power ministries” in
Russia.
Trump is going all-in. State is said to have been purged at its
policy-making “seventh floor” during
He realizes that he can't last four years against a system the week of Secretary Tillerson’s
that is determined to maintain the current trajectory of U.S. European travels. However, the text
foreign and domestic policy — endless war coupled with that was placed before the totally
slow national suicide. inexperienced Ambassador Haley for
delivery in the Security Council shows
We imagine he attempted to "work" with the system — or that not all the “bad hombres” have
at least make the system work for him. In other words: been sent packing. The purge of the
Fewer wars, better relations with Russia, "America first" CIA and Pentagon has not even begun.
— and everyone gets to keep their jobs. The ability and willingness of the CIA
and Pentagon to sabotage presidential
That's not how it panned out. policy was clearly proven last
September when a promising
Trump is now going public: The Deep State is after him. collaboration between Secretary of
Obama tapped his phones before the election. And by State Kerry and Russian Foreign
"Obama", we of course mean the NSA. Minister Lavrov over a cease-fire in
Syria was torn to shreds by an
“accidental” attack by US and Allied
It's clear that Trump always knew what had to be done —
fighter jets on a government outpost at
he just didn't follow through fast enough.
Deir ez-Zor that killed nearly 100 Syrian
soldiers, very likely including embedded
Earlier this month he purged the infamous 7th floor Russian military advisors.
"shadow government" at the State Department.
If these recalcitrant Cold Warriors in
America’s “power ministries” remain
It wasn't enough.
untouched, they will be in a position to
create provocations at any time of their
It's open warfare from here on out. If Trump doesn't act choosing to override Trump’s planned
quickly, he's looking at a very, very short term. détente policies. And that would be
child’s play, given the close proximity of
As the always even-handed Dr. Doctorow wrote just the US and Russian forces in Ukraine, in
other day: Syria, in the Baltic States, on the Baltic
94
 Sea and on the Black Sea. Given the
poor state of relations and the minimal
trust between Russia and the US-led
West, any accident in these areas could
quickly escalate.
Remember: Trump's first move after being inaugurated
was a visit to Langley, where he offered to remove the
"columns" from the CIA.

It's no longer an offer: He'll have to do it by force.

There's probably no going back at this point.

Unsettling. Even frightening. But finally, a glimmer of real

hope.

95
 Obama Slams "False" Trump Accusation,
Says "Never Ordered" Wiretapping
By Tyler Durden
Mar 4, 2017 8:11 PM
Moments ago, Barack Obama through his spokesman
Kevin Lewis denied Trump's accusation that he had
ordered the Trump Tower wiretapped, saying neither he
nor any member of the Obama White House,
"ever ordered surveillance on any U.S.
citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is
simply false."
Follows the statement from Kevin Lewis, spokesman to
former president Barack Obama
"A cardinal rule of the Obama
Administration was that no White House
official ever interfered with any independent
investigation led by the Department of
Justice. As part of that practice, neither
President Obama nor any White House
official ever ordered surveillance on any
U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is
simply false."
96
Yet while the carefully-worded statement, an exercise in
semantics, claims Obama did not himself, or through
members of his White House team, order a potential
wiretapping, it does not deny an actual wiretapping of
Trump (or Trump Tower), which as some have speculated
in the past, did in fact take place after a FISA Court
granted surveillance of Trump over accusations of Russian
interference. It also does not preclude the FBI - which is
the entity that would most likely have implemented such a
wiretap - from having given the order.
As a reminder, here is what the Guardian reported in early
January:
The Guardian has learned that the FBI
applied for a warrant from the foreign
intelligence surveillance (Fisa) court over
the summer in order to monitor four
members of the Trump team suspected of
irregular contacts with Russian officials.
The Fisa court turned down the application
asking FBI counter-intelligence
investigators to narrow its focus. According
to one report, the FBI was finally granted a
warrant in October, but that has not been
confirmed, and it is not clear whether any
warrant led to a full investigation.
For the definitive answer, we suggest Trump ask Comey
whether or not his building was being tapped in the days
prior to the election.
97
 REPORT: FBI Said To Have ‘Granted FISA Warrant’ To
Wiretap TRUMP Tower… MSM Claims Trump
“Provided No Evidence”
Lucian Wintrich
Mar 4th, 2017 1:55 Pm

The notion that this second FISA warrant was granted is

highly significant as they exist to investigate cases when
Foreign Intelligence is suspected of operations in the US.

The implication is that Trump or one of

Earlier this morning, Trump took to Twitter to express his
outrage over wiretapping at Trump Tower during Obama’s
Presidency. Back in November, the media did confirm
that wiretapping did allegedly take place, via Heat
Street:
his employees was secretly functioning
as a Russian-sanctioned spy (which is
obviously absurd). However illegitimate
the request was, the granting of
said FISA request allows the
government major access:
Pursuant to FISA, the Court entertains applications
submitted by the United States Government for approval
of electronic surveillance, physical search, and other
investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes.
Most of the Court’s work is conducted ex parte as required
by statute, and due to the need to protect classified national
security information.

Contrary to earlier reporting in the New

York Times, which cited FBI sources as
saying that the agency did not believe that
the private server in Donald Trump’s Trump
Tower which was connected to a Russian
bank had any nefarious purpose, the FBI’s
counter-intelligence arm, sources say, re-
drew an earlier FISA court request […].

The original FISA request which specifically named and

broadly targeted Donald Trump was denied, a second
request was redrafted months later which narrowed down
on equipment in Trump Tower.

The second request is said to have been
granted, despite the fact that FBI
sources did not believe these servers to
be of actual national security or
possess any illegal ties to Russia.
Contrary to a lack of any evidence by the Obama
Administration or FBI, the possibility of the second FISA
request being granted would indeed monitor activity within
Trump Tower. Again, this FISA request was issued with
no definitive proof/evidence that Trump had any nefarious
ties to Russia – instead, it bears the hallmarks of a political
witch hunt.

98
If proven, there is a good chance the issuing judge and
corresponding FBI personnel will soon face serious jail
time. Liberal media is ignoring this, and instead seems to
have coordinated a large online campaign with headlines
that almost consistently read “Provides No Evidence”. So
let’s get this straight: The GOP is accused of colluding
with Russians MSM publishes as a front-page story fact,
Trump accuses Obama of wiretapping and…
“PROVIDES NO EVIDENCE!”

99
 Trump Tries To Reverse
‘Russia Ties’ Claims On ‘Hypocrite’ Schumer
Published Time: 4 Mar, 2017 08:53Edited Time: 4 Mar, 2017 09:24

Russian President Vladimir Putin (C) stands between Lukoil

President Vagit Alekperov (L) and New York Senator Charles
Schumer in New York on September 26, 2003. © Reuters

In an attempt to reverse US media claims of his

administration’s ties with Russia, US President Donald
Trump tweeted a picture of Senate Minority Leader Chuck
Schumer with Vladimir Putin, calling the Democrat
senator a “hypocrite.”
Schumer fired back, saying that the
meeting was in “full view of press and
public.”

Trump posted a photo of Schumer and Russian President

Trump also asked for House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi
Vladimir Putin eating doughnuts during Putin’s visit to
to be questioned over her ‘close ties to Russia.’ Pelosi
New York back in 2003.
earlier claimed that she has never met Kislyak. However, a
file photo, found by Politico, allegedly from 2010, shows
“A total hypocrite!” Trump wrote. her sitting at a table with the Russian ambassador.

Schumer immediately fired back, saying the meeting was Alleged Russian ties with US officials in the Trump
in “full view of press and public,” and that he is ready to administration has been a hot topic in the US media, with
talk about the event. Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak in the
headlines.

Kislyak was reported to have communications first with

former National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, and then
with Attorney-General Jeff Sessions.

A CNN article from Thursday added fuel to the scandal,

claiming that “current and former US intelligence officials
have described Kislyak as a top spy and recruiter of spies.”

Sessions, however, denied any wrongdoing in meeting

with Kislyak, saying the two brief encounters had nothing
to do with the presidential campaign. He recused himself
from any investigations into the campaign.

100
 Trump described the scandal around Sessions as

“a total witch hunt.”

The attorney-general is not the first official in the Trump

administration facing allegations of having contacts with
Russian officials. Earlier, Flynn stepped down as national
security adviser after being accused by the media of
discussing sanctions on Russia with Kislyak. Both he and
the Russian Embassy denied the discussion ever took
place.

On Friday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said

the whole situation resembled the days of McCarthyism,
Schumer, meanwhile, called for Sessions’ immediate
resignation. “which we long thought have passed in the
US, a civilized country.”

101
102
 The NSA Wiretaps Every Future President
Obama Served The Deep State. Trump Exposed It.
Paul Kaiser
Sat, Mar 4, 2017

"In the summer of 2004, one of the

Coward on the right
Trump's on the warpath. He just called out Obama for
wiretapping Trump Tower in the months leading up to the
election.
We are seeing commentaries popping up around the
internet claiming that this is a modern-day Watergate
scandal.
We respectfully disagree. It's far, far more serious.
If Trump Tower was wiretapped, it was almost certainly
done by the NSA.
papers that I held in my hand was to
wiretap a bunch of numbers associated
with a forty-some-year-old senator from
Illinois. You wouldn't happen to know
where that guy lives now would you?
It's a big White House in Washington
D.C. That's who the NSA went after.
That's the President of the United States
now."
Tice added that he also saw orders to
spy on Hillary Clinton, Senators John
McCain and Diane Feinstein, then-
Secretary of State Colin Powell, Gen.
David Petraeus, and a current Supreme
Court Justice.
The difference between Trump and Obama? Obama bent
the knee, while Trump blew the whistle.
Actually, Obama's servitude to the intelligence community
is common knowledge:

Which means that this wasn't a case of "Democrats

collecting dirt on Republicans". It's an example of how a
permanent shadow government uses intelligence and
blackmail to control both parties.

According to a prominent NSA whistleblower, what

happened to Trump is standard operating procedure: the
NSA spies on all up-and-coming politicians in order to
ensure a "smooth transition of power" — in other words, to
make sure there is no real change.

As Business Insider reported back in 2013:

Russ Tice worked as an offensive

National Security Agency (NSA) analyst
from 2002 to 2005, before becoming a
source for this Pulitzer Prize-winning New
York Times article exposing NSA domestic
The cat's out of the bag. Your move, Deep State.
spying.

Tice claimed that he held NSA wiretap orders targeting

numerous members of the U.S. government, including one
for a young senator from Illinois named Barack Obama.

103
 Obama Admin Source Confirms Wiretapping Was
Conducted (VIDEO)
Cristina Laila
Mar 4th, 2017 9:18 Pm

Obama officials caught lying AGAIN. administration inside the White

House…there were concerns that Trump
A source inside the Obama and his surrogates may have been
administration acknowledged that colluding with the Russians and a possible
wiretapping was conducted to spy on bargaining chip to influence the election,
Trump during the 2016 Presidential therefore a wiretap was conducted.”
election.
That’s a load of crap.

The Obama administration knew there were no Trump ties

to Russia that is just the excuse they are using now to try to
cover for their illegal activity.

Lock him up!

EXPLOSIVE

Obama LIED again. White House sources

acknowledge wiretapping is TRUE.
Disgusting. Fight back @POTUS
Democrat Kathy Arue: “My sources from pic.twitter.com/xXJGJ8mMDV
the White House told me, she thinks it’s — TruthMatters (@JeffMontes5) March 5,
all true. 2017

She said, Here is the full video from Watters’ World tonight.

“um there were concerns that Trump-and

this is from the White House and the

104
 FUNDING THE CIVIL WAR: Obama’s DOJ Stole Billions
From Taxpayers In Scheme, Funneled Money
To Left-Wing Activists
Robert Willis
March 4, 2017
(BloodyRubbish) According to countless sources, Obama
is scheduled to appear back into politics to wage a massive
war on the Trump administration.
What many would like to know is if he has actually been
gone — or just silently working behind the scenes? It has
been reported that he has been leading a shadow
government; as far-fetched as this sounds, it appears to be
true upon investigation. It’s so transparent that even
mainstream Republicans are calling attention the deep
state, including Rush Limbaugh (who has never been
known to deal in conspiracy theories).
Obama is going to lead thousands of protesters through the
non-profit Organizing for Action; he has his ground game
ready. Even former Attorney General Eric Holder has said
that “it’s coming”, and Obama is “ready to roll” when
talking about Obama’s public re-entry into politics.
It now being reported that Obama’s most trusted adviser,
Valerie Jarrett, is in the process of moving into his
Washington, DC home — the same place where the
shadow government is supposedly being run out of. If
there were any lingering doubts about whether Barack
Hussein Obama was going to still be involved with
politics, this is a strong indication that yes, he is. You
don’t surround yourself with these caliber people to not
plot extreme political action.
Jarrett moving into his house isn’t just enough to justify
the talk about his continued involvement with planning
behind the scenes, but also the reports of his shadow
government.
105
Funds for Obama’s shadow government
If Obama is indeed running a shadow government, they are
going to need funds for their attempt at maintaining control
over the United States. Billionaire George Soros has
historically come to the financial aid to left-wing protest
groups, but it appears that his funds may not be needed —
Obama’s DOJ stole billions for left-wing protest groups.
As reported by Fox News,
“The Obama administration funneled
billions of dollars to activist organizations
through a Department of Justice slush fund
scheme, according to congressional
investigators.
“It’s clear partisan politics played a role in
the illicit actions that were made,” Rep.
John Ratcliffe, R-Texas, told Fox News.
“The DOJ is the last place this should have
occurred.”
Findings spearheaded by the House
Judiciary Committee point to a process
shrouded in secrecy whereby monies were
distributed to a labyrinth of nonprofit
organizations involved with grass-roots
activism.”
Was Obama planning to continue his left-wing revolution
while still in office?
It looks like the activists he has been
involved with most of his life colluded to
make sure their groups were able to get
billions funneled to them during the
Obama administration’s reign.
Between the protesters, organizers and seemingly
unlimited funds it appears that Obama is not just planning
to take down the Trump administration, but also cause a
civil war. It is a fact that Obama has influence over
countless leftists and liberals — and now — the resources
to get whatever he wants done.
 The Empire Fights Back: Obama Operatives Claim Secret
Trump Wire Tap Was “Due Diligence”
By DCwhispers
Posted On March 4, 2017

Initially those involved with the former

Obama White House denied any
involvement in the wire tapping of
Donald Trump’s home and offices
during the 2016 Election. That denial is
now shifting into an explanation of “due
diligence” which would suggest an
admission by these same Obama
operatives that the White House did in
fact know of, and thus condoned, the
wire taps.

This appears for now to be Team

Obama’s defense – that the wire taps
were conducted not as a means of
political spying against an opponent,
but rather, as a matter of national
security. It is already being suggested
the Mainstream Media is preparing that
very spin for tomorrow’s morning
shows.

106
President Trump’s Cabinet Still Not In Place – Taking More
Than 2.6 Times Longer Than Obama In 2009
Jim Hoft
Mar 4th, 2017 6:12 Pm

The Democrat Party in the Senate is

continuing to do all it can to delay the
appointments to President Donald
Trump’s new administration in
Washington. Their obstruction is one
for the record books.

President Trump tweeted his frustration with the

obstructionist Democrats in the Senate way back on
February 8th –

It is a disgrace that my full Cabinet is still

not in place, the longest such delay in the
history of our country. Obstruction by
Democrats!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
February 8, 2017

On February 20th the Washington Free Beacon reported

the delays the Trump Administration was having in
obtaining cabinet appointments. The delays are a direct
result of Democrat obstruction as confirmed by New York
Senator Schumer:

We’re using everything we can to stop

these awful nominees,” Senate Minority
Leader Chuck Schumer (D., N.Y.) said at a
press conference earlier this month.

Per the Beacon, as of the 20th of February, the Trump

Administration when compared to the Obama
Administration in 2009 looked like the following:

107
108
 Two of President Trump’s cabinet positions have yet to be
confirmed, former Georgia Governor Sonny Perdue as
Secretary of Agriculture, and Alexander Acosta as the new
Secretary of Labor. Assuming these two picks were
approved on Monday March 6th at the earliest, which is
not going to happen, these two would have taken 45 days
to step into their respective cabinet positions. This would
mean that it has taken on average 26 days per appointee for
President Trump’s cabinet to be confirmed to Obama’s
average in 2009 of 10 days per pick.

It has now taken more than 2.6 times the

number of days to get President
Trump’s cabinet filled compared to
Obama in 2009.

A total of more than 386 days, or more

Since the 20th a couple more of President Trump’s picks
than a year combined, have occurred
have been confirmed through the Senate. Billionaire
before President Trump’s picks were
investor Wilbur Ross was finally confirmed as President
confirmed to less than a half a year of
Trump’s Secretary of Commerce on Monday, February
combined time (157 days) for President
27th. Secretary of Interior Ryan Zinke was finally
Obama in 2009.
confirmed on Tuesday, February 28th and Secretary of
Energy, former Texas Governor Rick Perry, was finally
confirmed on Wednesday, March 1st. The President’s new Hopefully voters in the 2018 elections will remember this
HUD Secretary, Dr. Ben Carson was finally confirmed on and vote out the Democrats in Congress who have chosen
Thursday, March 2nd. to play politics with the President’s appointments rather
than perform their duty to all Americans to approve these
exceptional appointees.
.

109
 Is Obama The First U.S. President
Ever To Try To Topple His Successor?
By George Washington
Mar 4, 2017 6:39 PM
This post won't debate whether Trump or Obama are good
or bad guys. It will simply ask a historical question ...
The Daily Mail claims:
Barack Obama is turning his new home in
the posh Kalorama section of the nation’s
capital – just two miles away from the
White House – into the nerve center of the
mounting insurgency against his
successor, President Donald J. Trump.
Obama’s goal, according to a close family
friend, is to oust Trump from the presidency
either by forcing his resignation or through
his impeachment.
And Obama is being aided in his political
crusade by his longtime consigliere, Valerie
Jarrett, who has moved into the 8,200-
square-foot, $5.3-million Kaloroma
mansion with the former president and
Michelle Obama, long time best friends.
***
110
According to the family source, Obama was
at first reluctant to assume the role of
leader of the opposition.
‘No longer the most powerful man in the
world, he was just observing Trump and
not liking what he saw,’ said the source.
‘He was weary and burned out after eight
years in office. But Valerie convinced him
that he didn’t have any choice if he wanted
to save his legacy. And, as usual, he
bowed to Valerie’s political wisdom and
advice.’
***
‘He had hoped to write his memoirs, golf to
his heart’s content. and bask in the glory of
his eight years in power and the
progressive achievements he brought
about. Instead, he is going to be leading
the fight and strategy to topple Trump.’
says the insider.
If true, would this be the first time in U.S. history that a
former president has tried to topple his successor?
 Yes, There Could Be Serious Legal Problems If Obama
Admin Involved In Illegal Surveillance
By Robert Barnes
3:45 Pm, March 4th, 2017
President Trump recently tweeted claiming that former
President Obama wiretapped him during his campaign.
One can only imagine how nuts the media would have
gone if the roles had been reversed: President Trump
wiretapping either Obama or the Clintons, though his DOJ
could have authority to do just that given the expansive
leaks of intelligence information by Obama and Clinton
supporters the last few months. Heck, he could wiretap the
media at this point, legally and legitimately, as the sources
of these unlawful leaks, for which Obama himself set
precedent. Do liberals understand what Pandora’s Box
Obama opened up by Obama using the powers of the NSA,
CIA and FBI to spy on his political opponents? Even
Nixon never did that.
If the stories are correct, Obama or his officials might
even face prosecution. But, we are still early in all of this
and there are a lot of rumors flying around so the key is
if the reports are accurate. We just don’t know at this time.
The stories currently are three-fold: first, that Obama’s
team tried to get a warrant from a regular, Article III
federal court on Trump, and was told no by someone along
the way (maybe the FBI), as the evidence was that weak or
non-existent; second, Obama’s team then tried to
circumvent the federal judiciary’s independent role by
trying to mislabel the issue one of “foreign agents,” and
tried to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act “courts”, and were again turned down,
when the court saw Trump named (an extremely rare act of
FISA court refusal of the government, suggesting the
evidence was truly non-existent against Trump); and so,
third, Obama circumvented both the regular command of
the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by
placing the entire case as a FISA case (and apparently
under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a “foreign” case, and then
111
omitted Trump’s name from a surveillance warrant
submitted to the FISA court, which the FISA court
unwittingly granted, which Obama then misused to spy on
Trump and many connected to Trump. Are these
allegations true? We don’t know yet, but if any part of
them are then Obama and/or his officials could face
serious trouble.
Can a President be charged with a crime? Only once out of
office. While in office, impeachment remains the exclusive
remedy in order to avoid a single judicial branch trying to
overturn an election, such as a grand jury in any part of the
country could. Once out of office, a President remains
immune from civil liability for his duties while President,
under a 1982 decision of the United States Supreme Court.
However, as the Nixon pardon attests, nothing forecloses a
criminal prosecution of the President after his presidency
is complete for crimes against the country. Obama, the
Constitutional lawyer, should know that.
What crimes could have been committed? Ironically, for
Democrats falsely accusing Attorney General Sessions,
perjury and conspiracy to commit perjury, as well as
intentional violations of FISA. Rather shockingly, no law
currently forbids misusing the power of the presidency to
spy on one’s adversaries. What the law does forbid is lying
to any judicial officer to obtain any means of surveillance.
What the law does forbid, under criminal penalty, is the
misuse of FISA. Both derive from the protections of the
Fourth Amendment itself. Under section 1809, FISA
makes it a crime for anyone to either “engage in”
electronic surveillance under “color of law” under FISA
without following the law’s restrictions, or “disclose” or
“use” information gathered from it in contravention of the
statute’s sharp constrictions.
FISA, 50 USC 1801, et seq., is a very limited method of
obtaining surveillance authority. The reason for its strict
limits is that FISA evades the regular federal court process,
by not allowing regularly, Constitutionally appointed
federal judges and their magistrates to authorize
surveillance the Fourth Amendment would otherwise
forbid. Instead, the Chief Justice handpicks the FISA court
members, who have shown an exceptional deference to the
executive branch. This is because FISA court members
trust the government is only bringing them surveillance
about pending terror attacks or “grave hostile” war-like
attacks, as the FISA statute limits itself to. Thus, a FISA
application can only be used in very limited circumstances.
One important reminder about electronic surveillance.
Occasionally, a law enforcement officer will hear or see or
record information not allowed by the warrant, but
incidental or accidental to otherwise lawful surveillance.
Their job is to immediately stop listening, stop recording,
and to delete such information. This is what you
occasionally see in films where the agent in the van hears
the conversation turn away from something criminal to a
personal discussion, and the agent then turns off the
listening device and stops the recording. Such films simply
recognize long-standing legal practice.
FISA can only be used for “foreign intelligence
information.” Now that sounds broad, but is in fact very
limited under the law. The only “foreign intelligence
information” allowed as a basis for surveillance is
information necessary to protect the United States against
actual or potential “grave” “hostile” attack, war-like
sabotage or international terror. Second, it can only be
used to eavesdrop on conversations where the parties to the
conversation are a foreign power or an agent of a foreign
power. An agent of a foreign power cannot be a United
States person unless they are knowingly involved in
criminal espionage. No warrant is allowed on that person
unless a FISA court finds probable cause the United States
person is knowingly engaged in criminal espionage. Even
then, if it involves a United States person, special steps
must be taken to “minimize the acquisition and retention,
and prohibit the dissemination, of non publicly available
information concerning un-consenting United States
persons.”
This includes procedures that require they never identify
the person, or the conversation, being surveilled, to the
public where that information is not evidence of a
particular crime. Third, the kind of information sought
concerns solely information about a pending or actual
attack on the country. That is why the law limits itself to
sabotage incidents involving war, not any form or kind of
“sabotage,” explicitly limiting itself to those acts identified
in section 105 of Title 18 of the United States Code.
This bring us to Watergate-on-Steroids, or #ObamaGate.
Here are the problematic aspects of the Obama
surveillance on Trump’s team, and on Trump himself.
First, it is not apparent FISA could ever be invoked.
Second, it is possible Obama’s team may have perjured
themselves before the FISA court by withholding material
information essential to the FISA court’s willingness to
permit the government surveillance. Third, it could be
that Obama’s team illegally disseminated and disclosed
FISA information in direct violation of the statute
precisely prohibiting such dissemination and disclosure.
FISA prohibits, under criminal penalty, Obama’s team
from doing any of the three.
At the outset, the NSA should have never been involved in
a domestic US election. Investigating the election, or any
hacking of the DNC or the phishing of Podesta’s emails,
112
would not be a FISA matter. It does not fit the definition of
war sabotage or a “grave” “hostile” war-like attack on the
United States, as constrictively covered by FISA. It is your
run-of-the-mill hacking case covered by existing United
States laws that require use of the regular departments of
the FBI, Department of Justice, and Constitutionally
Senate-appointed federal district court judges, and their
appointed magistrates, not secretive, deferential FISA
courts.
Out of 35,000+ requests for surveillance, the FISA court
has only ever rejected a whopping 12. Apparently,
according to published reports, you can add one more to
that — even the FISA court first rejected Obama’s request
to spy on Trump’s team under the guise of an investigation
into foreign agents of a pending war attack, intelligence
agents apparently returned to the court, where, it is my
assumption, that they did not disclose or divulge all
material facts to the court when seeking the surveillance
the second time around, some of which they would later
wrongfully disseminate and distribute to the public. By
itself, misuse of FISA procedures to obtain surveillance is
itself, a crime.
This raises the second problem: Obama’s team submission
of an affidavit to to the FISA court. An application for a
warrant of any kind requires an affidavit, and that affidavit
may not omit material factors. A fact is “material” if it
could have the possible impact of impacting the judicial
officer deciding whether to authorize the warrant. Such
affidavits are the most carefully drawn up, reviewed, and
approved affidavits of law enforcement in our system
precisely because they must be fully-disclosing,
forthcoming, and include any information a judge must
know to decide whether to allow our government to spy on
its own. My assumption would be that intelligence
officials were trying to investigate hacking of DNC which
is not even a FISA covered crime, so therefore serious
questions arise about what Obama administration attorneys
said to the FISA court to even consider the application. If
the claim was “financial ties” to Russia, then Obama knew
he had no basis to use FISA at all.
Since Trump was the obvious target, the alleged failure to
disclose his name in the second application could be a
serious and severe violation of the obligation to disclose all
material facts. Lastly, given the later behavior, it is evident
any promise in the affidavit to protect the surveilled
information from ever being sourced or disseminated was
a false promise, intended to induce the illicit surveillance.
This is criminalized both by federal perjury statutes,
conspiracy statutes, and the FISA criminal laws
themselves.
That raises the third problem: it seems the FISA-compelled
protocols for precluding the dissemination of the
information were violated, and that Obama’s team issued
orders to achieve precisely what the law forbids, if
published reports are true about the administration sharing
the surveilled information far-and-wide to promote
unlawful leaks to the press. This, too, would be its own
crime, as it brings back the ghost of Hillary’s emails — by
definition, FISA information is strictly confidential or it’s
information that never should have been gathered. FISA
strictly segregates its surveilled information into two
categories: highly confidential information of the most
serious of crimes involving foreign acts of war; or, if not
that, then information that should never have been
gathered, should be immediately deleted, and never
sourced nor disseminated. It cannot be both.
Recognizing this information did not fit FISA meant
having to delete it and destroy it. According to published
reports, Obama’s team did the opposite: order it preserved,
ordered the NSA to search it, keep it, and share it; and then
Obama’s Attorney General issued an order to allow
broader sharing of information and, according to the New
York Times, Obama aides acted to label the Trump
information at a lower level of classification for massive-
level sharing of the information. The problem for Obama
is simple — if it could fit a lower level of classification,
then it had to be deleted and destroyed, not disseminated
and distributed, under crystal clear FISA law. Obama’s
team’s admission it could be classified lower, yet taking
actions to insure its broadest distribution, could even
put Obama smack-middle of the biggest unlawful
surveillance and political-opponent-smear campaign since
113
Nixon. Except even Nixon didn’t use the FBI and NSA for
his dirty tricks.
Watergate would have never happened if Nixon felt like he
could just ask the FBI or NSA to tape the calls. This is
Hoover-esque abuses of the kind Bob Woodward pal,
former FBI Assistant Director Mark Felt (otherwise known
as Deep Throat), routinely engaged in at the FBI until
convicted and removed from office. (You didn’t know that
Deep Throat was really a corrupt part of Deep State, did
you? Guess who ran the famous COINTELPRO? That’s
right — Deep Throat. How would the public have reacted
if they knew the media had been in bed with the deep state
all the way back then? Maybe that was the reason
Woodward, Bernstein and Bradley kept Deep Throat’s
identity secret all those years?)
Democrats may regret Sessions’ recusal, as his
replacement is a mini-Sessions: a long-respected, a-
political, highly ethical prosecutor, Dana Boente, whose
reputation is well-warranted from his service at the Tax
Division, and who won’t be limited by any perceived ties
to Trump, given his prior appointment by Obama. Obama
himself appeared scared of Boente, as he removed Boente
from the successor-to-Sessions position during the lame-
duck part of Obama’s presidency, but Trump restored
Boente to that role earlier this month. Democrats may get
the investigation they wanted, but it may be their own that
end up named in the indictment.
 US To Deploy More Delta Force &
Seals For Middle East Covert Ops – Report
Published Time: 4 Mar, 2017 15:14Edited Time: 5 Mar, 2017 20:09
FILE PHOTO Members of the U.S. Army Special Forces provide
training for Iraqi fighters from Hashid Shaabi at Makhmur camp in
Iraq © Mohammed Salem / Reuters
US Special Forces teams, including Delta Force and Navy
SEALs, are likely to see more missions in the Middle East,
as the Pentagon is reportedly preparing new deployments
to the region, according to ABC, citing security officials.
Though not announced publicly, new deployments of
Delta Force and Navy SEALs operators to Iraq, Syria, and
the Horn of Africa are underway, US defense officials told
ABC News on Friday. Some sources in the military said the
troops welcome the Trump administration’s tough stance
on combating terrorism.
“We don't know for sure what will happen,
but the boys really think we're going to see
a lot of action on this deployment –
because of the new administration,” said
one unnamed member of a Special Forces
unit that recently deployed overseas.
Another source, also unnamed but described as a veteran
with 20 years of experience in covert operations, told ABC
the authority to expand counter-terrorism operations
overseas had occurred over the past months.
“Authorities have changed in special
operations' favor with the new
administration. We're doing work on the
bad guys,” he said.
The report comes shortly after a remarkable statement by
General Joseph Votel, former head of the US Special
Operations Command, who said in late February that new
deployments to war-torn Iraq and Syria are a possibility.
.
114
He said local forces trained and backed by the US
“don't have as good mobility, they don't
have as much firepower, so we have to be
prepared to fill in some of those gaps for
them,” noting that possible American
deployments may involve providing
additional fire support capability and “a
variety of other things” to help “offset some
of the gaps.”
“It could be that we take on a larger burden
ourselves,” Votel said. “That’s an option.”
He added, however, that it's very unlikely that US troops
would be directly engaged in hostilities, stressing that the
military strategy of guiding and coordinating local forces
from behind – developed during the Obama administration
– remains unchanged.
According to some reports, US Special Forces teams are
present in both Syria and Iraq, with the declared goal of
achieving the military defeat of Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL) and other Islamist groups. Around 500
commandos operate in Syria, up from just 50 in 2015, the
Washington Post reported last October.
It has also been widely reported that US Special Forces are
taking part in the Iraqi Army’s ongoing offensive to
recapture western Mosul.
In other parts of the Middle East, the elite US troops have
suffered casualties recently, as the first known counter-
terrorism operation under the Trump administration
resulted in the death of Navy SEAL Team Six member
Chief Petty Officer Ryan Owens in late January, during an
operation against Al-Qaeda in Yemen.
Three other US personnel were wounded in action, and an
aircraft was destroyed after it made hard landing while
trying to bring in reinforcements. The SEAL team had
engaged in a firefight with Al-Qaeda militants and local
militia, which lasted for about an hour.
 Flashback: First FISA Request On Trump Tower Came
After Clinton And AG Lynch Met Privately On Tarmac
Jim Hoft
Mar 5th, 2017 10:34 am

Was it coincidence or an indication of things to come?

Snakes on a Plane.

On June 27th of 2016, Bill Clinton met secretly with

Obama Attorney General Loretta Lynch at the Phoenix
Sky Harbor International Airport.

A week later FBI Director James Comey laid out in a press

conference the many scandalous activities taken by Hillary
Clinton while she was President Obama’s Secretary of
State and then he said the famous words:
Our judgment is that no reasonable
prosecutor would bring such a case.”
We now know that the meeting between Bill Clinton and
Attorney General Lynch occurred at about the same time
that the Obama administration filed a request with the
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor
communications involving Donald Trump and several
advisers.
The request, uncharacteristically, was denied.
Fast forward to October 2016. Wikileaks began releasing
emails of Clinton campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out
batches every day until the election, creating new mini-
scandals. These emails were virtually ignored by the
mainstream media who were in the bag for Democrat
Hillary Clinton but were spread widely by websites that
chose to share the truth like this one.
At the same time, The Obama administration submitted a
new, narrow request to the FISA court, now focused on a
computer server in Trump Tower suspected of links to
Russian banks.
No evidence is found —
but the wiretaps continued, ostensibly
for national security reasons, Andrew
McCarthy at National Review later notes.
The Obama administration
was monitoring an opposing
presidential campaign using the high-
tech surveillance powers of the federal
intelligence services.
At about this same time the leaks started coming. Liberal
website Slate posted a report on October 31st titled:
Was a Trump Server Communicating With
Russia?

115
The subtitle to the post read:
“This spring, a group of computer scientists
set out to determine whether hackers were
interfering with the Trump campaign. They
found something they weren’t expecting.”
The article shared a story of innocent ‘anonymous’ hackers
who went searched the net and found the following:
In late July, one of these scientists—who
asked to be referred to as Tea Leaves, a
pseudonym that would protect his
relationship with the networks and banks
that employ him to sift their data—found
what looked like malware emanating from
Russia. The destination domain had Trump
in its name, which of course attracted Tea
Leaves’ attention. But his discovery of the
data was pure happenstance—a surprising
needle in a large haystack of DNS lookups
on his screen. “I have an outlier here that
connects to Russia in a strange way,” he
wrote in his notes. He couldn’t quite figure
The question that arrises from the post is why was an
it out at first. But what he saw was a bank
individual who supposedly won an award at the FBI
in Moscow that kept irregularly pinging a
looking into a server at the Trump Tower?
server registered to the Trump
Organization on Fifth Avenue.
The creative article went on to try and paint a connection
with now President Trump:
The researchers had initially stumbled in
their diagnosis because of the odd
.
116
configuration of Trump’s server. “I’ve never
seen a server set up like that,” says
Christopher Davis, who runs the
cybersecurity firm HYAS InfoSec Inc. and
won a FBI Director Award for Excellence
for his work tracking down the authors of
one of the world’s nastiest botnet attacks.
“It looked weird, and it didn’t pass the sniff
test.” The server was first registered to
Trump’s business in 2009 and was set up
to run consumer marketing campaigns. It
had a history of sending mass emails on
behalf of Trump-branded properties and
products. Researchers were ultimately
convinced that the server indeed belonged
to Trump. (Click here to see the server’s
registration record.) But now this capacious
server handled a strangely small load of
traffic, such a small load that it would be
hard for a company to justify the expense
and trouble it would take to maintain it. “I
get more mail in a day than the server
handled,” Davis says.
Was this the beginning of the
Obamagate leaks?
And what did Attorney General Loretta
Lynch discuss with Bill Clinton on the
Arizona tarmac?
 Lewandowski Claims Obama WH
Listened In On Sessions, Russian Envoy Meetings
Foxnews.Com
Published March 05, 2017
Former Trump campaign manager Corey Lewandowski
said in an interview on “Justice with Judge Jeanine”
Saturday that the Obama administration listened in on
conversations between then-Sen. Jeff Sessions and Russian
ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“What we have seen from the previous
administration is they did spend time
listening to conversations between then
Senator Jeff Sessions and the ambassador
to Russia while he was in his U.S. Senate
office,” Lewandowski told Fox News’
Jeanine Pirro. “If that were to take place –
which supposedly did take place – what
other conversations are they listening in
on.”
Lewandowski, trying to connect the dots, said the previous
administration said they were aware of two conversations
Sessions had with Kislyak – one time during the
Republican National Convention and another in the U.S.
Senate office.
.
117
“And they were monitoring who (Sessions)
was having a conversation with from what I
understand,” Lewandowski said.
“If that is the case, that is very concerning.
Is it possible that the previous
administration was listening to the
conversations that took place in Trump
Tower from their political opponents? If that
is the case, and what Donald Trump
alludes to is accurate, then that’s very
disturbing.”
The Justice Department said Wednesday that Sessions did
meet with Kislyak twice in 2016. The first was an office
visit that occurred in Sessions’ capacity as a member of the
Senate Armed Services Committee and the second took
place in a group setting with other ambassadors following
a Heritage Foundation speech, which was sponsored by the
Obama State Department.
President Trump claimed earlier Saturday that Obama had
Trump Tower phones tapped in the weeks before the
November 2016 election. He made the claim in a series of
tweets that included the suggestion that the alleged
wiretapping was tantamount to “McCarthyism” and
“Nixon/Watergate.”
Trump does not specify how he uncovered the Obama
administration's alleged wiretapping.
Former President Obama denied Trump’s accusation.
“Neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise
is simply false," said Kevin Lewis, a
spokesman for the former president.
 Awful: #Nevertrumpers Ben Sasse, Lindsey Graham And
Amash Attack TRUMP After Obama Allegedly Caught
Wiretapping Trump Tower
Jim Hoft
Mar 5th, 2017 2:02 Am
President Trump, FOX News sources
and former Obama White House officials
acknowledged this weekend that the
Obama administration wiretapped the
opposition candidate at Trump Tower in
New York City during and after the 2016
election.
This is the biggest scandal to hit
Washington DC since Watergate.
In response #NeverTrump Republicans
attacked President Trump.
Senators Ben Sasse (R-NE), Senator Lindsey Graham (R-SC) and Rep.
Justin Amash (R-MI) attacked President Trump for the illegal activity
of the Obama administration.
The Wall Street Journal reported:
The meeting came as some prominent
Republicans joined Democrats in calling on
the president to explain his claims. Sen.
Ben Sasse (R., Neb.), a member of the
Senate Judiciary Committee, said in a
written statement Saturday that Mr. Trump
should “explain what sort of wiretap it was
and how he knows this.”
Mr. Sasse said the president’s statement suggests he may
have been illegally tapped, or the courts may have
.
118
approved a legal wiretap out of national security concerns,
which would raise its own set of questions.
“We are in the midst of a civilization-
warping crisis of public trust, and the
president’s allegations today demand the
thorough and dispassionate attention of
serious patriots,” Mr. Sasse said.
Earlier in the day, Sen. Lindsey Graham (R., S.C.), told an
audience at Clemson University that Mr. Trump’s claim of
having been illegally wiretapped,
if true, would be “the biggest scandal since
Watergate.” He added that he was also
“very worried if in fact the Obama
administration was able to obtain a warrant
lawfully about Trump campaign activity with
foreign governments.”
Rep. Justin Amash (R., Mich.), also called on Mr. Trump
to share any evidence for his claim, saying on Twitter that
the president
“should provide more info to Congress
immediately to assess constitutionality and
legality.”
Messrs. Sasse, Graham and Amash have been among the
Republicans most willing to publicly criticize Mr. Trump
in the past. Still, few if any Republicans defended his
comments Saturday.
Boy, Nebraska! You gotta dump this clown!
 ‘D.C. Insiders Seek To Defeat Donald Trump –
Even In Aftermath Of His Victory’ – Ex CIA Agent
Published Time: 5 Mar, 2017 12:38Edited Time: 5 Mar, 2017 12:39
There are still senior people in jobs at the Director of
National Intelligence office, the office of the Central
Intelligence Agency, the National Security Agency… that
ought to be fired, Larry Johnson, retired CIA and State
Department official, told RT.
President Donald Trump claims his White House
predecessor, Barack Obama, wire-tapped his offices in
New York prior to the election last November.
Trump posted a series of tweets, decrying the alleged
surveillance as "McCarthyism."
Barack Obama's spokesman responded to Trump's
accusations, saying that
“neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any US citizen."
RT: What do you make of the accusations made by Donald
Trump? How big of a deal is this?
Larry Johnson: I think it’s a huge deal. The problem is
Trump probably should not have done this via Twitter
because to call it a “wiretap” is technically inaccurate.
And the denials by the Obama people - like Bill Clinton
119
asking what the meaning of “is” is with respect to “was
oral sex a sexual act.”
In this case I understand from very good friends that what
happened was both Jim Clapper and John Brennan at CIA
were intimately involved in trying to derail the candidacy
of Donald Trump. That there was some collusion overseas
with Britain’s own GHCQ [Government Communications
Headquarters]. That information that was gathered from
GHCQ was actually passed to John Brennan and it was
disseminated within the US government. This
dissemination was illegal.
Donald Trump is in essence correct that the intelligence
agencies, and some in the law enforcement community on
the side of the FBI, were in fact illegally trying to access,
monitor his communications with his aides and with other
people. All of this with an end to try and destroy and
discredit his presidency. I don’t think there can be any
doubt of that. I think it’s worth noting that the head of the
National Security Agency, an Admiral [Michael] Rogers,
made a journey to the Trump Tower shortly after Trump
had won. And in the immediate aftermath of his visit, Jim
Clapper and others in the intelligence community called
for him to be fired. Why did Rodgers go to Trump Tower?
My understanding is that it was to cover himself, because
he was aware that the NSA authorities had been misused
and abused with respect to Donald Trump.
So I think Trump’s decision to go out this morning and
tweet this was fully intended to send a notice, to send
word. I don’t think he’s doing this without evidence, he
does have evidence. I think it was just inartfully expressed
in the tweet.
RT: We’ve have not seen a lot of evidence in whole that
Trump-Russia debacle. Will we see some evidence in this
case?
LJ: There’s no evidence on the side of Russia meddling in
the US election. I saw that [RT] had Brent Budowsky on
earlier, and I simply wished you folks would ask him a
very basic question. Ask him –
“What specifically did Russia do that
influenced the US election?” The
answer is – nothing.
Russia did not set up front companies; Russia did not
provide money to the Trump campaign so that they could
buy advertising; Russia was not providing advisers direct
or indirect as cutouts to advise Trump on how to defeat
Hillary Clinton - the classic things that we would see. Does
Russia run intelligence operations against the United
States? Yes. And does the United States do this against
Russia? – Yes. But this is entirely, completely different
matter. What we’re seeing here – some think this is an
exaggeration, but I do not – there’s a genuine effort to try
to take out and defeat Donald Trump even in the aftermath
of his election. And there are still senior people in jobs at
the Director of National Intelligence office, the office of
the Central Intelligence Agency, the National Security
Agency… that ought to be fired; they ought to be marched
right out the door.
RT: Will Trump be able to produce the evidence? Will he
be able to take the upper hand here?
LJ: This is a coordinated, organized effort. The Obama
remnants were really shocked that Trump won. They had
no clue coming down the road that he was going to win.
Once he won they genuinely thought that they could do
things and plant information in the press that would put so
much pressure on him that he wouldn’t be able to take the
oath of office.
120
And those efforts backfired. This was one of the reasons
the so-called ‘dossier’ on Trump’s alleged misbehaviors in
Russia was leaked. All of this was part of a coordinated,
planned campaign by people that are linked to Barack
Obama. Did Barack Obama pick up the telephone and tell
Jim Clapper or John Brennan to do XY and Z? No, I don’t
think that’s the case. My understanding, though, is Obama
did give the green light when he was briefed on
information that had come from British GHCQ to US
intelligence officials, that he gave a green light to go and
to start distributing and using that in an improper way.
This has to be done very methodically, because I think
there well could be criminal charges brought against
former members of the Obama administration for what
they have done. What they’re doing would fall under the
definition of sedition, which I realize sounds very
alarmist. But the reality of what is going on is – these are
not isolated events generated by actions that have been
taken by Donald Trump and his surrogates. These are
actions that are being generated by opponents of Donald
Trump trying to force actions out of the Trump team.
'An outstanding development'
It is kind of extraordinary for Trump to level this charge to
his 20 million followers on Twitter, says Charles Ortel,
investor and writer. It probably means the US leader has
good reasons for doing so, he added.
RT: Trump also insinuated he was considering legal
action over the case. How likely is that in your opinion,
and where could it lead?
Charles Ortel: Look at Donald Trump’s long career
employing lawyers. I think this is probably even out of his
hands. This is an astounding development. I don’t think it
has ever happened in American history for a sitting
President to level this kind of accusation against his
predecessor, 45 days into his first term. This is amazing
stuff.
RT: A spokesperson for Barack Obama rejects Trump's
assertion. Does that put an end to the matter, in your
view?
CO: I take issue with it. Actually it is weasel words. The
way this would work is that the FBI and the Department of
Justice would make the request. Would they do this on the
.
121
direct order of Obama, on the suggestion of Obama, or on
the suggestion of somebody in his administration? They
certainly wouldn’t do it on their own. So it is absolutely
not a clean rejection of what may have happened. It is also
kind of extraordinary for Trump to level this charge to his
20 million followers on Twitter. He would not do this
without some excellent reasons knowing the consequences
of being shown wrong. I don’t think that is a strong
rejection. I note also that the first (rejection) came from
Ben Rhodes, who couldn’t even get a security clearance
after the November 2008 election for some unexplained
reason… I assume there is strong evidence backing up
these charges.
 The Obama Camp’s Disingenuous
Denials On FISA Surveillance Of Trump
By Andrew C. McCarthy
March 5, 2017 8:12 AM
President Trump’s early Saturday morning tweeting has
exploded to the forefront an uncovered scandal I’ve been
talking about since early January (including in this
weekend’s column): The fact that the Obama Justice
Department and the FBI investigated associates of Donald
Trump, and likely Trump himself, in the heat of the
presidential campaign.
To summarize, reporting indicates that, prior to June 2016,
the Obama Justice Department and FBI considered a
criminal investigation of Trump associates, and perhaps
Trump himself, based on concerns about connections to
Russian financial institutions. Preliminary poking around
indicated that there was nothing criminal involved. Rather
than shut the case down, though, the Obama Justice
Department converted it into a national-security
investigation under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA). FISA allows the government, if it gets court
permission, to conduct electronic surveillance (which
could include wiretapping, monitoring of e-mail, and the
like) against those it alleges are “agents of a foreign
power.” FISA applications and the evidence garnered from
them are classified – i.e., we would not know about any of
this unless someone had leaked classified information to
the media, a felony.
In June, the Obama Justice Department submitted an
application that apparently “named” Trump in addition to
some of his associates. As I have stressed, it is unclear
whether “named” in this context indicates that Trump
himself was cited as a person the Justice Department was
alleging was a Russian agent whom it wanted to surveil. It
could instead mean that Trump’s name was merely
mentioned in an application that sought to conduct
surveillance on other alleged Russian agents. President
Trump’s tweets on Saturday claimed that “President
Obama . . . tapp[ed] my phones[,]” which makes it more
likely that Trump was targeted for surveillance, rather than
merely mentioned in the application.
In any event, the FISA court reportedly turned down the
Obama Justice Department’s request, which is notable:
The FISA court is notoriously solicitous of government
requests to conduct national-security surveillance
(although, as I’ve noted over the years, the claim by many
that it is a rubber-stamp is overblown).
Not taking no for an answer, the Obama Justice
Department evidently returned to the FISA court in
122
October 2016, the critical final weeks of the presidential
campaign. This time, the Justice Department submitted a
narrowly tailored application that did not mention Trump.
The court apparently granted it, authorizing surveillance of
some Trump associates. It is unknown whether that
surveillance is still underway, but the New York Times has
identified – again, based on illegal leaks of classified
information – at least three of its targets: Paul Manafort
(the former Trump campaign chairman who was ousted in
August), and two others whose connection to the Trump
campaign was loose at best, Manafort’s former political-
consulting business partner Roger Stone, and investor
Carter Page. The Times report (from mid-January)
includes a lot of heavy breathing about potential ties
between the Trump campaign and Russia; but it ultimately
concedes that the government’s FISA investigation may
have nothing to do with Trump, the campaign, or alleged
Russian efforts to interfere in the U.S. election by hacking
e-mail accounts.
Trump’s tweets on Saturday prompted some interesting
“denials” from the Obama camp. These can be
summarized in the statement put out by Obama spokesman
Kevin Lewis:
A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was that no
White House official ever interfered with any independent
investigation led by the Department of Justice. As part of
that practice, neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on any U.S.
citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is simply false.
This seems disingenuous on several levels.
First, as Obama officials well know, under the FISA
process, it is technically the FISA court that “orders”
surveillance. And by statute, it is the Justice Department,
not the White House, that represents the government in
proceedings before the FISA court. So, the issue is not
whether Obama or some member of his White House staff
“ordered” surveillance of Trump and his associates. The
issues are (a) whether the Obama Justice Department
sought such surveillance authorization from the FISA
court, and (b) whether, if the Justice Department did that,
the White House was aware of or complicit in the decision
to do so. Personally, given the explosive and controversial
nature of the surveillance request we are talking about – an
application to wiretap the presidential candidate of the
opposition party, and some of his associates, during the
heat of the presidential campaign, based on the allegation
that the candidate and his associates were acting as
Russian agents – it seems to me that there is less than zero
chance that could have happened without consultation
between the Justice Department and the White House.
Second, the business about never ordering surveillance
against American citizens is nonsense. Obama had
American citizens killed in drone operations. Obviously,
that was not done in the U.S. or through the FISA process;
it was done overseas, under the president’s commander-in-
chief and statutory authority during wartime. But the
notion that Obama would never have an American subject
to surveillance is absurd.
Third, that brings us to a related point: FISA national-
security investigations are not like criminal investigations.
They are more like covert intelligence operations – which
presidents personally sign off on. The intention is not to
build a criminal case; it is to gather information about what
foreign powers are up, particularly on U.S. soil. One of the
points in FISA proceedings’ being classified is that they
remain secret – the idea is not to prejudice an American
citizen with publication of the fact that he has been
subjected to surveillance even though he is not alleged to
have engaged in criminal wrongdoing.
Consequently, there is nothing wrong, in principle, with a
president’s ordering national-security surveillance of a
potential foreign agent who may be helping a foreign
power threaten American security and interests. That is
one of the president’s main jobs – there would be
something wrong if a president, who truly believed the
nation was threatened by a foreign power, failed to take
action. Prior to FISA’s enactment in 1978, courts had no
formal role in the surveillance of foreign agents for
national-security purposes – it was a unilateral executive-
branch function. Beginning with the Carter administration
during FISA’s enactment, it has been the position of
presidential administrations of both parties that, despite the
enactment of the FISA process, the president maintains
inherent authority under Article II of the Constitution to
order surveillance even in the absence of court
authorization.
Of course, doing so is controversial, as President Bush
learned after he directed the NSA to conduct warrantless
123
wiretapping of suspected terrorists following the 9/11
attacks. Nevertheless, we should not allow the statements
of Obama spokesmen to confuse us here. The Justice
Department and FBI have two missions: (a) criminal law-
enforcement and (b) national security. It would be
scandalous (though probably not constitutional
unconstitutional) for a president to interfere in the law-
enforcement mission by ordering the Justice Department to
prosecute someone outside its normal procedures. But it
would not be inappropriate e–ven though civil libertarians
would raise holy hell — for the president to direct
warrantless surveillance against a target, even an American
citizen, if the president truly believed that target was
functioning as an agent of a foreign power threatening U.S.
interests.
To be clear, there does not seem to be any evidence, at
least that I know of, to suggest that any surveillance or
requests to conduct surveillance against then-candidate
Donald Trump was done outside the FISA process.
Nevertheless, whether done inside or outside the FISA
process, it would be a scandal of Watergate dimension if a
presidential administration sought to conduct, or did
conduct, national-security surveillance against the
presidential candidate of the opposition party. Unless there
was some powerful evidence that the candidate was
actually acting as an agent of a foreign power, such
activity would amount to a pretextual use of national-
security power for political purposes. That is the kind of
abuse that led to Richard Nixon’s resignation in lieu of
impeachment.
Moreover, it cannot be glossed over that, at the very time it
appears the Obama Justice Department was seeking to
surveil Trump and/or his associates on the pretext that they
were Russian agents, the Obama Justice Department was
also actively undermining and ultimately closing without
charges the criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton
despite significant evidence of felony misconduct that
threatened national security.
This appears to be extraordinary, politically motivated
abuse of presidential power.
[I have updated the post, as indicated, to reflect that I
meant "not unconstitutional" in a passage in which I
erroneously said "not constitutional.]
 Trump May Shelve Plan For
Major Deal With Russia: Report
Sun Mar 5, 2017 10:23AM
US President Donald Trump has
reportedly told advisers he might
temporarily put aside a plan to reach an
agreement with Russia on how to deal
with Daesh terrorists and other national
security issues.
Trump and his aides have made the decision following the
recent provocations by Russia, including the deployment
of a cruise missile which, according to the White House,
violated a Cold War-era arms control treaty, administration
officials and Western diplomats told the Associated Press
on Saturday.
Some cabinet members, including Defense Secretary
James Mattis and new national security adviser H.R.
McMaster, and European allies have put Trump under
pressure not to compromise with Russia.
According to an administration official, McMaster has
described Russia as a country that seeks to reverse the
current world order.
Trump has reportedly sent a letter to Eastern European
leaders, who are concerned about possible border disputes
with Russia, stressing Washington’s commitment to their
security.
Trump is said to have considered a comprehensive
agreement with Russia that could include cooperation in
countering Daesh, nuclear arms control and Moscow’s role
in Ukraine.
However, the Trump administration has changed its tone
over the past few days, indicating that it may not be an
appropriate time for such a deal, as the FBI is probing
Trump’s campaign associates for their possible links to
124
Russia and congressional committees are conducting
inquiries into the alleged Russian meddling in the US 2016
election.
Trump has been under pressure for his possible ties with
Russia, as he has taken an unusually friendly position
towards Moscow and repeatedly called for stronger
relations particularly in fighting terrorism.
The US president has rejected having any connections or
financial ties with Russia and stressed that he has not been
aware of any contacts between his campaign advisers and
Russia during the 2016 campaign, a period in which the
US intelligence apparatus assumes Russia was interfering
in the election in favor of Trump.
Russian Ambassador to the US Sergey Kislyak (File photo)
On Saturday, former acting director of the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) John McLaughlin rejected
recent mainstream media claims that the Russian envoy to
Washington, Sergey Kislyak, is a spy and warned against a
new Cold War with Moscow.
McLaughlin warned against recent revelations that
Attorney General Jeff Sessions held talks with the Russian
diplomat when he was a senator and adviser to Trump’s
presidential campaign before his election into office in
November 2016.
Kislyak has emerged as the centerpiece of a controversy
which has so far led to forced resignation of the Trump
administration’s first national security adviser, Michael
Flynn, less than a month after the new president was sworn
into office.
Sessions is the second senior administration official caught
in the controversy of meeting with Kislyak as lawmakers
from the rival Democratic Party, which suffered heavy
electoral defeats in the November elections, demand the
attorney general’s resignation for failing to reveal his
contacts with Kislyak prior to Trump’s inauguration.
.
125
Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry strongly denied
allegations that its envoy to Washington is engaged in
spying activities with spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,
slamming the press rumors about Kislyak as “media
vandalism.”
 Nytimes Flashback: Obama May Have Spied On Trump;
Reports Sent To White House Of Wiretaps
On Trump Associates
Kristinn Taylor
Mar 5th, 2017 11:56 Am
Less than two months ago, the day before the inauguration
of Donald Trump as president, the New York Times
reported the possibility that the Obama administration was
spying on Trump. The Times report also said that three
Trump associates were being spied on by the Obama
administration and that reports on the wiretaps were
delivered to the Obama White House.
The two keys lines in the article are one stating could not
be ruled out that Trump himself was being spied on by
Obama. The other being the wiretap reports being sent to
the White House.
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are
examining intercepted communications and financial
transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible
links between Russian officials and associates of
President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former
campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former
senior American officials said.
The continuing counterintelligence investigation means
that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with
his associates under investigation and after the intelligence
.
126
agencies concluded that the Russian government had
worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will
oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or
stop at least some of these efforts.
It is not clear whether the intercepted
communications had anything to do
with Mr. Trump’s campaign, or Mr.
Trump himself.
It is also unclear whether the inquiry has anything to do
with an investigation into the hacking of the Democratic
National Committee’s computers and other attempts to
disrupt the elections in November. The American
government has concluded that the Russian government
was responsible for a broad computer hacking campaign,
including the operation against the D.N.C.
The counterintelligence investigation centers at least in
part on the business dealings that some of the president-
elect’s past and present advisers have had with Russia. Mr.
Manafort has done business in Ukraine and Russia. Some
of his contacts there were under surveillance by the
National Security Agency for suspected links to Russia’s
Federal Security Service, one of the officials said.
Mr. Manafort is among at least three Trump campaign
advisers whose possible links to Russia are under scrutiny.
Two others are Carter Page, a businessman and former
foreign policy adviser to the campaign, and Roger Stone, a
longtime Republican operative.
The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the
National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury
Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have
accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no
conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said.
One official said intelligence reports
based on some of the wiretapped
communications had been provided to
the White House…”
 The Truth Beneath The White House
By Jim Kirwan
3-5-2017
Under Obama, lights were used to depict his “Truth”
Now that Trump has invited Merkel to
Amerika, we need to repaint the White
House in the New-Truth for Communist
Amerika.
Trump to host Germany's Merkel at the White House
http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2017/03/03/trump-to-
host-germanys-merkel-at-white-house.html
Trump ran as 'the president that would clean up the
Swamp' but now we can see just how cowardly he has
become. First he refused to arrest Hillary, calling her “a
good woman”, ignoring her thirty plus years as a war
criminal, a traitor, and a thief having sold twenty percent
of all the uranium in the United States to the Russians not
to mention the millions of people she personally arranged
to murder in Iraq, Libya & Syria.
.
.
127
The Deep State War on Trump
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NBTMKLmdpho
6min 41sec VIDEO
President Trump will be entertaining
Europe's foremost traitor to Germany
Angela Merkel to the Black House
unless he withdraws his invitation.
Angela Merkel
http://www.rense.com/general96/angmerkel.htm
Trump is fast becoming the most
notable “president” for policy reversals
in American History and he's only been
“in-office” for 44 days. That's got to be
the worst record in American politics,
and he's “only just begun”. Those still
waiting for him to get through the first
one-hundred days before making up
their minds—should print out the
images above and send them to
everyone they know—because there is
no point in continuing “to wait the
remaining 56 days before demanding
serious reversals.
If Trump continues with the treachery of
inviting Merkel to the Black House, then
his criminal actions will be clear to the
world.
Trump recently said :
“My job is not to represent the world. My
job is to represent the United States of
America.”
If that's how Trump feels then he is NOT
representing the American people, or
the voters that elected him in November,
2016.
kirwanstudios@outlook.com
 Incompetent AND Criminal: Obama’s
Wiretapping of President Trump Icing on the Cake of
Worst President Ever
Jim Hoft
Mar 5th, 2017 8:13 am
With President Obama’s actions
disclosed over the weekend by
President Donald Trump, there is no
longer any argument that Obama was
the Worst President Ever.
President Donald Trump shared in a series of tweets
yesterday that President Barack Obama had him wire
tapped during the election.
President Trump tweeted:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my
“wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before
the victory. Nothing found. This is
McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
He next tweeted:
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire
tapping” a race for president prior to an
election? Turned down by court earlier. A
NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
Next the President tweeted:
I’d bet a good lawyer could make a great
case out of the fact that President Obama
128
was tapping my phones in October, just
prior to Election!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
The final for four tweets concerning the wire tapping:
How low has President Obama gone to
tapp my phones during the very sacred
election process. This is Nixon/Watergate.
Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
Not surprising after the shock of what was presented by
the current President to the public, the left wing media,
their Democrat allies and the few #NeverTrump
Republicans who align in their opposition to President
Trump went all in for former President Obama. Their
responses no longer surprise America. Americans would
be shocked if they criticized former President Obama. As
a result of the recent Presidential campaign, Americans are
used to seeing the corrupt media and Democrats (including
#NeverTrumpers) react as they do. Their extreme bias
is why President Trump is trusted more than the media.
The truth will come out and former President Obama will
go down in history as the Worst President Ever. This is
the nail in the Obama coffin. What a mess and what a
mistake he was.
Former President Obama lied to the American people more
times than anyone could possibly count. He lied about
Obamacare resulting in lower premiums. He lied and said
the US did not pay a $400 million ransom in cash to Iran
for hostages. He lied and said illegal aliens wouldn’t
receive Obamacare subsidies. He lied about Benghazi. He
lied repeatedly about global warming. He lied about
Obamacare allowing you to keep your doctor. He lied
about the IRS targeting conservatives. He lied and blamed
Bush for his historical debt and deficits. He lied and told
Jewish donors that his Administration had done more to
support Israel security than any administration in 25 years.
He even lied at the National Prayer Breakfast about his
father’s Muslim faith.
Now America is supposed to believe that the narcissist
President Obama was looking out for America when he
tapped President Trump at Trump Tower during the
election? This former President who chose not to
investigate his former Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton,
for known abuses with foreign entities in her Clinton
Foundation, felt the need to wire tap her competitor during
the election for no known reason?
Based on his deceiving track record, it is clear that
President Obama wanted to gain information against future
President Trump that he could use against him. This is
Obamagate. Hopefully, the final chapter in
Obama’s failed Presidency.
Unlike the media that is still
cheerleading for serial liar Obama, most
Americans stand by the side of their
current President Trump, and rightly
so.
See the Following for More Reasons Why Obama is the
‘Worst. President. Ever’:
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama First President Ever Not to
Reach 3% GDP Growth
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama’s the Most Racist President in
50 Years – Since Democrat LBJ
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama’s Failed Stimulus
 Worst. President. Ever: Barack Hussein Obama’s Disdain for
Christians and Jews
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama’s Involvement in Hillary’s
Criminal Email Activities
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama’s Open Borders and Anti-US
Immigration Actions
 Worst. President. Ever: Obama’s Contempt of US Military Might
 Worst. President. Ever. Will Obama Ever Be Charged in Court
for His Many Lies to American People?
.
129
 WORST. PRESIDENT. EVER: Obama’s Many Lies about the
Benghazi Terror Attack
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s Historically Low Home
Ownership Rates
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama Created ISIS – And Now
the Killer Group Is Active in 17 Countries
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s Libyan Catastrophe
Unleashed Hell on Middle East and Europe
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s $20 Trillion Debt an
Unprecedented Disaster
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s Actions and Inaction
Created the Current Nightmare in Syria
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s Signature Bill –
Obamacare – Is a Complete Disaster
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama Gave Billions to the
World’s Leading Terrorist State Iran
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s Food Stamp Nation
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama Ignited Riots in Ferguson
Over ‘Hands Up, Don’t Shoot’ Lie
 WORST PRESIDENT EVER: Obama Released Taliban 5 for
Deserter Bergdahl- Current Whereabouts Unknown
 WORST JOBS PRESIDENT EVER: Obama’s 94 Million Jobless
Americans
 Worst President Ever…GDP Growth Shrinks by 0.7% in First
Quarter
 Alan Dershowitz GOES OFF on Obama: Worst Foreign Policy
President Ever
 Worst President Ever… Obama’s Legacy – Destruction of US
Middle Class
 TRUMP HITS OBAMA: His Ignorance Is Why He’s “Worst
President in US History”
 Voters Rate Obama Worst President in 70 Years
 Donald Trump Slams “Make-Believe” Obama “Most Certainly the
Worst President in US History” at FL Tea Party Rally
 Dick Cheney Slams Obama: Carter no Longer Worst President
of Our Lifetime (Video)
 MUST SEE VIDEO>>> Chicago Inner City Blacks GO OFF on
Obama Over Illegal Immigration “Worst President Ever”
 It’s Official – Obama Is Worst President in History on Job
Creation; Worse Than Hoover on Job Losses
 Rep. Michele Bachmann: Obama Is Worst President Ever… “No
Question” (Video)
 US War On Humanity
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
Endless US wars rage in multiple theaters, Trump
continuing Bush/Cheney/Obama aggression against
sovereign independent countries posing no threat to
America or any other country.
Civilians are harmed most in all wars. America and Israel
consider them legitimate targets, massacring them
mercilessly, accountability not forthcoming.
The Pentagon admitted to killing 220 civilians in Iraq and
Syria since bombings began in 2014 - a flagrant insult to
many thousands indiscriminately massacred by US
warplanes in both countries.
A CENTCOM statement lied, saying
“(a)lthough the Coalition takes
extraordinary efforts to strike military
targets in a manner that minimizes the risk
of civilian casualties, in some incidents
casualties are unavoidable.”
Advancing America’s imperium alone matters, mass
slaughter and destruction considered a small price to pay.
Pentagon investigations of US war crimes when conducted
are routinely whitewashed. Imperial powers never say
they’re sorry.
Last year, Amnesty International spuriously claimed only
around 300 civilians were killed by US airstrikes in Syria.
Thousands were massacred, countless numbers injured,
many maimed for life, Iraqi civilians harmed the same
way.
The Airwars monitoring group way undercounted
casualties from US-led coalition terror-bombing, claiming
at least 2,463.
.
130
Colin Powell once notoriously said
“(w)e don’t do body counts.”
He lied.
The Pentagon estimates numbers killed, conceals accurate
accounts, reveals what it wants the public to know - truth
and full disclosure a nonstarter.
Last month, a Military Times investigation revealed the
Pentagon
“failed to publicly disclose potentially
thousands of lethal airstrikes conducted
over several years in Iraq, Syria and
Afghanistan.”
Concealing what’s going on “calls into question the
accuracy of other Defense Department disclosures
documenting everything from costs to casualty counts,” it
said.
Since the 1990s Balkan wars, culminating with the 1999
rape of Yugoslavia, to US aggression in Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Syria, Yemen, Somalia, complicit with Kiev against
Donbass, partnered with Israeli wars on Palestine, millions
of civilians perished from wars, related violence,
preventable and treatable diseases, starvation and overall
deprivation.
Cover-up and denial conceal the horrors of US imperial
aggression - continuing seamlessly under Trump,
America’s latest warrior president.
 Obama Administration Looks
To Be In Very Serious Legal Trouble
Published By Ajstrata
March 5, 2017
There is a lot of breaking news this weekend as the nation
learns that a sitting President (Obama) looks to have used
the nation’s national security apparatus – which is
empowered to protect this nation from foreign enemies
and threats – for crass political gain (read “personal
gain”). If this is even partially true, this would be
Watergate on steroids and irreparably tarnish the Obama
administration for all history.
These high stakes may also explain the irrational fear and
hate by the democrat leadership we have seen in their
scorched-Earth actions since the election. Events may be
unraveling on them big time, events that started last
summer in a very different world.
Let’s begin by setting down a hard and fast rule to blunt
the coming weasel words from team Obama. The President
runs his administration. The President’s cabinet has some
individual authority, but they confirm with the
Commander-in-Chief anything that could erupt back on
them either legally or politically. No cabinet member –
especially the Attorney General – would run near or across
legal or ethical lines without concurrence (i.e., cover from)
the top person.
To say Obama did not “order” the “wire tap” against the
Trump campaign is as ridiculous as it sounds. Note: Trump
used figurative parentheses when he tweeted “wire tap”, so
read that as meaning “surveillance” legally.
It is not like the Captain of a ship actually “weigh’s the
anchor” themselves! Captains order it be done. Or more
accurately, it is one step of a process that has been
131
established by the command chain so that when the
Captain orders the ship to prepare to “get under way” this
action is taken. However executed, the Captain is legally
responsible for the people under him, and any mistakes
they make. This would include any issues or damage done
“weighing” the anchors.
So when someone tries to split hairs about who ordered the
surveillance on Team Trump, remember this:
First, as Obama officials well know, under
the FISA process, it is technically the
FISA court that “orders” surveillance.
And by statute, it is the Justice Department,
not the White House, that represents the
government in proceedings before the
FISA court.
The fact is no one would be dumb enough to run afoul of
the laws protecting the American People from our
intelligence apparatus without top cover – because these
represent very, very serious crimes. So let’s stop
pretending AG Lynch did this on her own. If this
happened, it was all coordinated.
We also need to start with specifying which laws were
broken, and then get to the all critical timeline – because
that is where we will discover how thin the ice is under
Team Obama.
The best overview of the laws broken is here, and the
following excerpts summarize the issues our nation faces.
To understand the issues one must understand the very
narrow and special role the FISA Court and our
Intelligence Apparatus plays in our nation. Because of its
special powers, it is very restricted on what it can do.
Rather shockingly, no law currently forbids
misusing the power of the presidency to
spy on one’s adversaries. What the law
does forbid is lying to any judicial
officer to obtain any means of
surveillance. What the law does forbid,
under criminal penalty, is the misuse of
FISA. Both derive from the protections of
the Fourth Amendment itself. Under section
 1809, FISA makes it a crime for anyone to
either “engage in” electronic surveillance
under “color of law” under FISA without
following the law’s restrictions, or “disclose”
or “use” information gathered from it in
contravention of the statute’s sharp
constrictions.
Emphasis mine. As we deal with this explosive situation,
remember the core issue. It is not run-of-the-mill political
skulduggery (is there any other kind?). It is the criminal
misuse of a critical national defensive capability. Liken it
to using a military weapon against your political opponent,
because that is the nearest and best analogy. If Obama
ordered the military to intervene with Team Trump during
the election, that would not be much different from using
the intelligence powers to intervene. This is not on the
same level as using the IRS to target political opponents –
not by a long shot.
Why is this the case? Because the FISA court operates
outside the US Constitution, and therefore any misuse is
much more serious:
FISA, 50 USC 1801, et seq., is a very
limited method of obtaining surveillance
authority. The reason for its strict limits is
that FISA evades the regular federal court
process, by not allowing regularly,
Constitutionally appointed federal judges
and their magistrates to authorize
surveillance the Fourth Amendment would
otherwise forbid. Instead, the Chief Justice
handpicks the FISA court members, who
have shown an exceptional deference to
the executive branch. This is because
FISA court members trust the
government is only bringing them
surveillance about pending terror
attacks or “grave hostile” war-like
attacks, as the FISA statute limits itself
to. Thus, a FISA application can only be
used in very limited circumstances.
Again, emphasis mine. The capability to use our
intelligence resources against any entity is restricted to
critical national security. These resources are NOT to be
applied for other legal matters, such as questionable
business interests, hacking computers, etc. This is
important because the evidence seems to show Team
Obama tried to abuse these resources – and were rebuffed!
FISA can only be used for “foreign
intelligence information.” … The only
“foreign intelligence information”
allowed as a basis for surveillance is
information necessary to protect the
United States against actual or potential
“grave” “hostile” attack, war-like
132
sabotage or international terror. Second,
it can only be used to eavesdrop on
conversations where the parties to the
conversation are a foreign power or an
agent of a foreign power. An agent of a
foreign power cannot be a United States
person unless they are knowingly involved
in criminal espionage. No warrant is
allowed on that person unless a FISA
court finds probable cause the United
States person is knowingly engaged in
criminal espionage. Even then, if it
involves a United States person, special
steps must be taken to “minimize the
acquisition and retention, and prohibit
the dissemination, of non publicly
available information concerning un-
consenting United States persons.”
This is the crux of Obama’s legal trouble. In order to
legally capture information about members of the Trump
Campaign (one of which was a sitting Senator), then retain
it and distribute it, the reason would have to border on
high crimes and treason – not “discussions” or “hacking”
or “business transactions”. Even coordinating national
policies and treaties with foreign leaders would not rise to
the level of urgency required to invoke these intelligence
resources.
To summarize, it is Team Obama’s collection, retention
and distribution of information protected by the US
Constitution that constitute the high crimes here,
specifically when it pertains to members of Trump’s
campaign, emphasized here:
This includes procedures that require they
never identify the person, or the
conversation, being surveilled, to the
public where that information is not
evidence of a particular crime.
Since the Fake News media has been reporting these very
same details to the public, and citing current and former
Obama administration sources, it is not debatable on
whether laws were broken. They were.
Bottom line: this should never have happened:
At the outset, the NSA should have never
been involved in a domestic US
election. Investigating the election, or any
hacking of the DNC or the phishing of
Podesta’s emails, would not be a FISA
matter. It does not fit the definition of war
sabotage or a “grave” “hostile” war-like
attack on the United States, as
constrictively covered by FISA. It is your
run-of-the-mill hacking case covered by
 existing United States laws that require use
of the regular departments of the FBI,
Department of Justice, and Constitutionally
Senate-appointed federal district court
judges, and their appointed magistrates,
not secretive, deferential FISA courts.
So how did this happen? How did our extensive
intelligence apparatus come to be misused against
members of the Trump campaign?
Well, the simplest answer seems to be Team Obama
misled the courts:
This raises the second problem: Obama’s
team submission of an affidavit to the FISA
court. An application for a warrant of any
kind requires an affidavit, and that
affidavit may not omit material factors. A
fact is “material” if it could have the
possible impact of impacting the judicial
officer deciding whether to authorize the
warrant. Such affidavits are the most
carefully drawn up, reviewed, and
approved affidavits of law enforcement in
our system precisely because they must
be fully-disclosing, forthcoming, and
include any information a judge must know
to decide whether to allow our government
to spy on its own. My assumption would be
that intelligence officials were trying to
investigate hacking of DNC which is not
even a FISA covered crime, so therefore
serious questions arise about
what Obama administration attorneys
said to the FISA court to even consider
the application. If the claim was “financial
ties” to Russia, then Obama knew he had
no basis to use FISA at all.
Since Trump was the obvious target, the
alleged failure to disclose his name in
the second application could be a
serious and severe violation of the
obligation to disclose all material facts.
President Trump now owns the records of the United
States of America. One thing he and his Attorney General
(former Senator Sessions) can get their hands on are these
affidavits to the FISA Court. If they are as damning as
some believe they must be, then Team Obama is going to
be in serious trouble.
Remember, back when this all started no one believed
Trump would win and be given the keys to all the evidence
lockers. Which is why one has to ask why did Team
Obama double down in January and push the laws even
further?
133
Team Obama has a responsibility to the FISA Court to not
disclose any information on US Citizens accidentally
caught up in a surveillance activity, but this is what they
began doing in January 2017. This may be the second
smoking gun – diligently reported by the Fake News
media.
That raises the third problem: it seems the
FISA-compelled protocols for
precluding the dissemination of the
information were violated, and that
Obama’s team issued orders to achieve
precisely what the law forbids, if published
reports are true about the administration
sharing the surveilled information far-and-
wide to promote unlawful leaks to the
press.This, too, would be its own crime,
as it brings back the ghost of Hillary’s
emails — by definition, FISA information is
strictly confidential or it’s information that
never should have been gathered. FISA
strictly segregates its surveilled information
into two categories: highly confidential
information of the most serious of crimes
involving foreign acts of war; or, if not that,
then information that should never have
been gathered, should be immediately
deleted, and never sourced nor
disseminated. It cannot be both.
Recognizing this information did not fit
FISA meant having to delete it and
destroy it. According to published
reports, Obama’s team did the opposite:
order it preserved, ordered the NSA to
search it, keep it, and share it; and then
Obama’s Attorney General issued an
order to allow broader sharing of
information and, according to the New
York Times, Obama aides acted to label
the Trump information at a lower level of
classification for massive-level sharing
of the information. The problem for
Obama is simple — if it could fit a lower
level of classification, then it had to be
deleted and destroyed, not disseminated
and distributed, under crystal clear FISA
law.
There is much more in the article, so please take the time
to read the whole thing.
This is about as open-and-shut as you can get in my
humble opinion. All this has been faithfully reported (i.e.,
corroborated) by the Fake News media – citing sources.
Along with the internal trail of documents the government
is required to keep, it would seem Team Obama has a real
problem on their hands.
So let’s visit the timeline of events (best one can be found
here), and recall that when all this started Hillary was a
shoe-in as the next POTUS. Therefore she would be able
to keep a lid on all the critical internal government
documents Team Trump now has unfettered access to.
1. June 2016: FISA request. The
Obama administration files a request
with the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court (FISA) to monitor
communications involving Donald
Trump and several advisers. The
request, uncharacteristically, is
denied.
Note that the article above identifies a prior attempt to gain
surveillance through the normal criminal courts process,
before this event. This is one month prior to the RNC and
DNC conventions. At this time Trump as POTUS seems to
be pure fantasy.
This prior attempt is confirmed (supposedly
independently) by Andrew McCarthy:
To summarize, reporting indicates that,
prior to June 2016, the Obama Justice
Department and FBI considered a
criminal investigation of Trump
associates, and perhaps Trump himself,
based on concerns about connections to
Russian financial institutions. Preliminary
poking around indicated that there was
nothing criminal involved. Rather than shut
the case down, though, the Obama Justice
Department converted it into a national-
security investigation under the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA).
….
In June, the Obama Justice Department
submitted an application that apparently
“named” Trump in addition to some of his
associates. … In any event, the FISA
court reportedly turned down the
Obama Justice Department’s request.
Both the normal courts and the FISA court reject the
administrations requests. These requests should be made
public ASAP.
Very few people expected Hillary to lose the election at
this stage. Bernie was clearly on his way to being
vanquished from the Democrat ticket. The effort in June
2016 is clumsy and quickly abandoned. Hillary has her
email problems, but she also looks invincible.
134
I would note one other event on this timeline, when former
President Bill Clinton tried to secretly meet with Obama’s
AG, Loretta Lynch:
Attorney General Loretta Lynch said she
regrets her controversial meeting over the
summer with former President Bill Clinton,
saying she should have recognized ahead
of time how it would be perceived by the
public.
Mrs. Lynch had met with Mr. Clinton
privately after the two wound up on the
same airport tarmac in Phoenix on June
27, just days before FBI Director James
Comey would announce that he would not
press charges against Hillary Clinton over
her private email server.
AG Lynch is the only person authorized to make FISA
court requests. Coincidence?
Anyway, nothing happens for months, until …
3. October: Podesta emails. In October,
Wikileaks releases the emails of Clinton
campaign chair John Podesta, rolling out
batches every day until the election,
creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton
campaign blames Trump and the Russians.
4. October: FISA request. The Obama
administration submits a new, narrow
request to the FISA court, now focused on
a computer server in Trump Tower
suspected of links to Russian banks. No
evidence is found — but the wiretaps
continue, ostensibly for national security
reasons, Andrew McCarthy at National
Review later notes. The Obama
administration is now monitoring an
opposing presidential campaign using the
high-tech surveillance powers of the federal
intelligence services.
By October 2016 things are looking really serious for
Hillary, but not desperate yet. The Democrats are trying to
find a way to neutralize the Podesta emails, which expose
serious collusion with the Fake New media. They also
remind everyone of Hillary’s own email issues.
But more importantly, the Clinton Foundation was being
exposed as a pay-for-power enrichment scheme (rivaling
anything thrown at Team Trump in the last few weeks).
Did all these events panic the White House and the
Democrat power structure? Did they attempt a Hail Mary
and try and resurrect their plan to use our nation’s
Intelligence Apparatus against Trump?
Not an unreasonable assumption to be honest. And
somehow Team Obama actually get the authority for
surveillance (maybe by withholding key information about
Trump?). Anyway, no one is challenging the fact
surveillance began.
There is no legal cover behind an illegal rule. This is not
going to protect these people from legal jeopardy (may
reduce their sentences somewhat). And the more players
involved (Lynch, her successor Yates, etc) the more this
runs into the RICO statutes.

But after losing the election to the GOP, team Obama does Team Trump looks to have a great case here. Plus they
something stupendously stupid: they issue a memo that have access to the government “smoking gun” documents
attempts to overturn very clear laws about dissemination spread throughout. I do not understand why Obama’s
so they can try and “leak” damning innuendo about Trump administration would dig their legal hole deeper in
through their surrogates in the Fake New media: disseminating the classified information the law required
them to delete and not leak. But they did.
6. January: Obama expands NSA
sharing. As Michael Walsh later notes, and So what does that indicate about team Obama? Either
as the New York Times reports, the colossal stupidity, uncontrolled panic, or a combination of
outgoing Obama administration “expanded both. Maybe by they time they realized Trump would find
the power of the National Security Agency the FISA court records their only avenues was to try and
to share globally intercepted personal turn public opinion using their robots in the Fake News
communications with the government’s 16 media.
other intelligence agencies before applying
privacy protections.” The new powers, and All Trump has to do is let out the smoking gun documents
reduced protections, could make it easier one at a time. Let the left deny and parse words, then drop
for intelligence on private citizens to be his counterveiling bombshells.
circulated improperly or leaked.
The new rules, which were issued in an Rinse and repeat.
unclassified document, entitled Procedures
for the Availability or Dissemination of Raw If this is as bad as some say, Trump will milk this all the
Signals Intelligence Information by the way – as he should.
National Security Agency (NSA),
significantly relaxed longstanding limits on
what the NSA may do with the information
gathered by its most powerful surveillance
operations.
…
 Jan 3rd 2017 – Loretta Lynch signs
off on rule changes for phone taps.
 Jan 12th 2017 – WaPo reports On
Phone Calls Anonymous Intel
Sources

Obama’s administration had become so addicted to

circumventing laws by executive orders, procedures, rules,
etc they apparently went to that well one time too many.

135
 The Last Refuge
Timeline To Obama’s Unlawful Spying On Opposition
Party’s Candidate At Trump Tower
Jim Hoft
Mar 5th, 2017 1:43 Am
Conservative Treehouse released a
timeline of the unlawful spying by the
Obama administration on the opposition
party’s candidate in Trump Tower.
The list includes the revelation that the
Obama administration continued to spy
on Trump Tower and opposition party
after October even after no evidence
was found of wrongdoing.
1. June 2016: FISA request. The Obama administration
files a request with the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court (FISA) to monitor communications involving
Donald Trump and several advisers. The request,
uncharacteristically, is denied.
2. July: Russia joke. Wikileaks releases emails from the
Democratic National Committee that show an effort to
prevent Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-VT) from winning the
presidential nomination. In a press conference, Donald
Trump refers to Hillary Clinton’s own missing emails,
joking: “Russia, if you’re listening, I hope you’re able to
136
find the 30,000 e-mails that are missing.” That remark
becomes the basis for accusations by Clinton and the
media that Trump invited further hacking.
3. October: Podesta emails. In October, Wikileaks
releases the emails of Clinton campaign chair John
Podesta, rolling out batches every day until the election,
creating new mini-scandals. The Clinton campaign blames
Trump and the Russians.
4. October: FISA request. The Obama administration
submits a new, narrow request to the FISA court, now
focused on a computer server in Trump Tower suspected
of links to Russian banks. No evidence is found —
but the wiretaps continue, ostensibly for
national security reasons, Andrew
McCarthy at National Review later notes.
The Obama administration is now
monitoring an opposing presidential
campaign using the high-tech
surveillance powers of the federal
intelligence services.
5. January 2017: Buzzfeed/CNN dossier. Buzzfeed
releases, and CNN reports, a supposed intelligence
“dossier” compiled by a foreign former spy. It purports to
show continuous contact between Russia and the Trump
campaign, and says that the Russians have compromising
information about Trump. None of the allegations can be
verified and some are proven false. Several media outlets
claim that they had been aware of the dossier for months
and that it had been circulating in Washington.
The dossier included inaccurate accusations of
businessman Trump on Russian hookers. The dossier was
complete rubbage.
 Admiral Michael Rogers had a visit with President
Trump on Friday, November 11th.
 According to the Executive Order rule changes DNI
James Clapper signed off on December 15th.
 General Michael Flynn spoke to the Russian
Ambassador on December 29th
 Dec 29th 2016 – Obama announces sanctions on
Russia
6. January: Obama expands NSA sharing. As Michael
Walsh later notes, and as the New York Times reports, the
outgoing Obama administration
“expanded the power of the National
Security Agency to share globally
intercepted personal communications with
the government’s 16 other intelligence
agencies before applying privacy
protections.”
The new powers, and reduced protections, could make it
easier for intelligence on private citizens to be circulated
improperly or leaked.
The new rules, which were issued in an unclassified
document, entitled Procedures for the Availability or
Dissemination of Raw Signals Intelligence Information by
the National Security Agency (NSA), significantly relaxed
longstanding limits on what the NSA may do with the
information gathered by its most powerful surveillance
operations.
These operations are largely unregulated by American
wiretapping laws. Surveillances include collecting satellite
transmissions, phone calls, and emails that cross network
switches abroad, and messages between people abroad that
cross domestic network switches.
The changes initiated by the Obama Administration in its
waning days empowered far more agents and officials to
search through raw intelligence data.
 Jan 3rd 2017 – Loretta Lynch signs off on rule
changes for phone taps.
 Jan 12th 2017 – WaPo reports On Phone
Calls Anonymous Intel Sources
 Jan 15th 2017 – VP Pence appears on Face the
nation.
 Jan 20th 2017 – Inauguration
 Jan 23rd 2017 – FBI reports nothing unlawful in
content of Flynn call
 Jan 26th 2017 – Sally Yates (acting DOJ) informs
President Trump there might be a conflict between VP
137
Pence’s stated TV version (was told by Flynn), and
what Intel community communicate to Yates that Flynn
actually expressed to Russia.
 Jan 27th 2017 – White House counsel begins
investigation to discrepancy.
7. January: Times report. The New York Times reports,
on the eve of Inauguration Day, that several agencies —
the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the National Security Agency
(NSA) and the Treasury Department are monitoring
several associates of the Trump campaign suspected of
Russian ties.
Other news outlets also report the existence of a multi-
agency working group to coordinate investigations across
the government,” though it is unclear how they found out,
since the investigations would have been secret
and involved classified information.
8. February: Mike Flynn scandal. Reports emerge that
the FBI intercepted a conversation in 2016 between future
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn — then a private
citizen — and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak. The
intercept supposedly was part of routine spying on the
ambassador, not monitoring of the Trump campaign. The
FBI transcripts reportedly show the two discussing
Obama’s newly-imposed sanctions on Russia, though
Flynn earlier denied discussing them.
Sally Yates, whom Trump would later fire as acting
Attorney General for insubordination, is involved in the
investigation. In the end, Flynn resigns over having misled
Vice President Mike Pence (perhaps inadvertently) about
the content of the conversation.
9. February: Times claims extensive Russian
contacts. The New York Times cites “four current and
former American officials” in reporting that the Trump
campaign had “repeated contacts with senior Russian
intelligence officials. The Trump campaign denies the
claims — and the Times admits that there is “no evidence”
of coordination between the campaign and the Russians.
The White House and some congressional Republicans
begin to raise questions about illegal intelligence leaks.
10. March: the Washington Post targets Jeff Sessions.
The Washington Post reports that Attorney General Jeff
Sessions had contact twice with the Russian ambassador
during the campaign — once at a Heritage Foundation
event and once at a meeting in Sessions’s Senate office.
The Post suggests that the two meetings contradict
Sessions testimony at his confirmation hearings that he had
no contacts with the Russians, though in context (not
presented by the Post) it was clear he meant in his capacity
as a campaign surrogate, and that he was responding to
claims in the “dossier” of ongoing contacts.
The New York Times, in covering the story, adds that the
Obama White House “rushed to preserve” intelligence
related to alleged Russian links with the Trump
campaign. By “preserve” it really means “disseminate”:
officials spread evidence throughout other government
agencies “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for
government investigators” and perhaps the media as well.
138
In summary: the Obama administration sought, and
eventually obtained, authorization to eavesdrop on the
Trump campaign; continued monitoring the Trump team
even when no evidence of wrongdoing was found; then
relaxed the NSA rules to allow evidence to be shared
widely within the government, virtually ensuring that the
information, including the conversations of private
citizens, would be leaked to the media.
 Trump Reportedly Unhappy
About Sessions' Recusal From Russia Investigations
Foxnews.Com
Published March 05, 2017

addressed White House counsel Don McGahn, who was

also in the room, and expressed his displeasure about the
decision.

“There were fireworks,” one person briefed

on the meeting told Politico.

Priebus, Bannon and Kushner all expressed their own

thoughts during the meeting.

The chief of staff was expected to be with Trump during

President Trump reportedly got into a heated discussion
Friday with his top aides about Attorney General Jeff
Sessions’ decision to recuse himself from any investigation
into the Trump presidential campaign.
The meeting took place before Trump left for Florida for
the weekend and it included chief of staff Reince Priebus,
senior adviser Jared Kushner, Trump’s daughter Ivanka,
chief strategist Steve Bannon, communications director
Mike Dubke and press secretary Sean Spicer, Politico
reported Saturday.
his excursion to Florida. But one White House official told
Politico that Priebus stayed in Washington to work on an
ObamaCare replacement and the new executive order.
Bannon was reportedly on the way to Mar-a-Lago
Saturday “for an EO launch meeting,” along with Justice
Department officials. That group is expected to meet with
Homeland Security officials and Trump.
Sessions announced his decision to recuse himself from
“any existing or future investigations” regarding the 2016
presidential campaign” Thursday.

The basis of the meeting was reportedly to discuss next

Sessions has repeatedly denied meeting with Russian
week’s schedule, which is expected to include Trump’s
officials or operatives while a surrogate for then-candidate
new executive order on immigration. However, the
Donald Trump's campaign. He testified during his
discussion went from planning to Sessions and that is
confirmation hearing in January that he had no
when the conversation got heated.
“communications” with Russia during the campaign, an
answer he later said was "honest and correct."
Trump wanted to know the logic behind Sessions’ decision
to recuse himself. Trump “made it clear” that he thought
He told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that his recusal was
the decision was handled poorly and that Sessions should
"not an admission of any wrongdoing" and said that he had
not have recused himself, sources familiar with the
acted "exactly correctly" in the matter.
meeting told Politico. The person also said Trump
.

139
 Paul Ryan Confirms Obama Wiretapped Trump Illegally
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Posted On March 5, 2017
Speaker Paul Ryan has confirmed that
the Obama administration illegally and
unconstitutionally wiretapped Donald
Trump’s private phone.
In an interview on Special Report with Brett Baier, Ryan
confirmed that Obama ordered for the wiretapping of
Trump Tower:
BAIER: Are you concerned, on the flip side,
that the Obama administration may have
been surveilling members of the Trump
campaign in a pretty detailed investigation
during the election?
RYAN: Well, I don’t think that’s the case. If
you recall, President Obama asked the
intelligence community, after the election,
to canvass all the intelligence and give a
report to Congress on what Russia did do
and all their interactions. And in that report,
nobody alleged that there a person in
America, like a Trump campaign official,
involved with the Russians on this. So if
they would have found that you would think
they would have put that in the report that
they gave us in early January.
140
BAIER: Right, but there’s a report, June
2016, there’s a FISA request by the Obama
administration Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance court to monitor
communications involving Donald Trump
and several other campaign officials. They
get turned down. And then in October they
renew it and they do start a wiretap with
some computer and Russian banks and it
doesn’t show up anything, by reporting.
Have you heard that?
RYAN: Well, again, and like I said, none of
us in Congress, or anybody I know in
Congress, has been presented with
evidence to the contrary of what you just
said.
BAIER: So you believe it to be true?
RYAN: Yes. We have seen no evidence
that anybody in this campaign, or any other
Americans, was in on it with the Russians
to meddle in our elections. We know they
meddled. Russia’s and adversary. And
that’s something we have to work to
counteract.
BAIER: I got it. But my point is the Obama
administration was pretty aggressive and a
couple of FISA requests…
RYAN: I hear your point, and what I’m
saying is I’ve seen nothing of that. I’ve
seen nothing come of that, that is my point.
BAIER: Okay.
 Trump Increasing US Aggression
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
World conditions remain perilously unsafe under Trump.
Hope for something better vanished in the early days of his
administration.
Major media reports are always suspect. It remains to be
seen if two discussed below prove true.
On Friday, ABC News said
“(t)he Pentagon has quietly ordered new
commando deployments to the Middle East
and North Africa amid an unprecedented
series of American airstrikes in Yemen,”
according to unnamed counterintelligence
officials.
Claims about combating ISIS and al-Qaeda are fabricated.
Both terrorist groups and others are US creations, used as
imperial foot soldiers in Syria, Iraq, Libya and elsewhere.
An unnamed special forces member was quoted, saying
“(w)e don’t know for sure what will happen,
but the boys really think we’re going to see
a lot of action on this deployment because
of the new administration.”
CENTCOM commander General Joseph Votel said more
US forces may be needed in Syria and Iraq. Visiting
Baghdad in late February, Defense Secretary Mattis
signaled increased US regional military operations.
Saying deployed forces serve as advisors belies their direct
involvement in combat - reported casualties occurring in
Iraq and Yemen, perhaps others in Syria kept under wraps.
141
The NYT reported increased US forces near Manbij, Syria,
saying
“(p)hotographs of American troops in
Stryker vehicles and armored Humvees
flying American flags circulated on
Saturday on social media.”
Pentagon forces in Syria and other US war theaters are part
of America’s imperial project, supporting, not combating
terrorism, advancing aggression, not deterring it, The
Times failed to explain.
Battlefield successes in Syria by government forces,
greatly aided by Russian aerial operations, concern
Washington.
Commander of US forces in Syria and Iraq General
Stephen Townsend warned about government troops
advancing to within “rifle range” of (moderate terrorist)
Arab fighters supported by Washington.
Russian General Sergei Rudskoi said
“Syrian armed…units have been deployed
to the territory held by Kurdish self-defense
forces on March 3” - close to where Turkish
troops are operating illegally.
Government forces and Russian air power continue
defeating the US-backed scourge of terrorism in Syria.
Increased Pentagon regional militarism may slow progress.
 Ex-CIA Chief Denies Russia’s
US Envoy Is Spy, Warns Of New Cold War
Sun Mar 5, 2017 12:47AM

from the rival Democratic Party, which suffered heavy

electoral defeats in the November elections, demand the
attorney general’s resignation for failing to reveal his
contacts with Kislyak prior to Trump’s inauguration.

File photo of Russia's Ambassador to US, Sergey Kislyak

Former acting director of the US spy

agency, the Central Intelligence Agency
(CIA), has rejected recent mainstream
media claims that the Russian envoy to File photo of former acting CIA Director John McLaughlin
Washington is a spy and warned of
ushering into a new Cold War with The development came as local press reports claimed on
Moscow. Thursday that the US intelligence community regards the
Russian diplomat as a “spy” or “spy-recruiter,” without
Describing Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak as an pointing to any evidence of such conduct.
intelligent and experienced veteran diplomat, the former
deputy chief and briefly acting chief of the CIA, John McLaughlin, however, made clear that Kislyak is
McLaughlin, reacted to the ongoing US media experienced at collecting information, adding that this is
speculations about Kislyak over recent revelations that the what foreign diplomats ordinarily do.
country’s Attorney General Jeff Sessions held talks with
the Russian diplomat when he was a senator and adviser to
The former US spy chief – who now serves as a senior
Donald Trump’s presidential campaign before his election
fellow at Johns Hopkins University’s School of Advanced
into office in November 2016.
International Studies (SAIS) -- also cautioned against
inflaming a second Cold War with Russia.
"I don't think [Kislyak] is a spy, literally. He
is a veteran diplomat, I knew him when he
"When I was in Russia in October I met
was head of the American Desk in the
with people in both the Kremlin and the
Foreign Ministry," McLaughlin said during a
Foreign Ministry as part of an academic
televised interview with MSNBC news
group. And I came away realizing that we
network in response to questions about the
really are close to Cold War Two," said
media frenzy over Kislyak’s alleged
McLaughlin.
meetings with other members of Trump’s
campaign team.
He further emphasized,
Kislyak has emerged as the centerpiece of a controversy
which has so far led to forced resignation of Trump "In truth the President [Trump] has a point
administration’s first national security advisor, Michael when he says we need to think
Flynn, less than a month after the new president was sworn about whether it's possible to have a better
into office. relationship with Russia, because when I
was there it felt like we are just one mistake
away from a shooting war, given the level
Sessions is the second senior administration official caught
in the controversy of meeting with Kislyak as lawmakers
142
 of tension that you could feel and see in the
media."
Meanwhile, Russia's Foreign Ministry strongly denied
allegations that its envoy to Washington is engaged in
spying activities with spokeswoman Maria Zakharova,
slamming the press rumors about Kislyak as “media
vandalism.”
Zakharova then mockingly said, "Honestly, I have only
one question. Is it the rock bottom, which the Western
media hit, or is there still somewhere to go?… I will
reveal a military secret: diplomats are working, and their
work consists of making contacts in the host nation."

143
 Trump’s Wiretapping Accusation
Part Of A Coup Plot If True
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
Pre-and-post election, pro-Hillary dark forces, supported
by media scoundrels, invented reasons to vilify Trump,
wanting him delegitimized.
Failing to prevent his electoral triumph, relentless attacks
continue. Targeting key administration officials Michael
Flynn, Jeff Sessions, Kellyanne Conway and likely others
to come is part of a sinister plot to weaken him - ahead of
likely aiming to oust him from office for the wrong
reasons.
There’s plenty about his agenda to criticize. Instead the
Big Lie about nonexistent Russian US election hacking
persists.
So do phony allegations of Trump’s links to Russian
officials and banks, able to influence his decision-making.
The fake news dossier about his sexual escapades in
Moscow sounds like a grade B Hollywood film plot.
Endless accusations persist.
Obama denying he ordered Trump Tower wiretapped
through his spokesman rang hollow - a statement saying
“(n)either President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any US citizen.”
Edward Snowden revealed extensive NSA electronic
surveillance. So did former Office of Naval
Intelligence/Defense Intelligence Agency/NSA analyst
Russell Tice.
In December 2005, he accused the NSA and DIA of
unconstitutionally wiretapping US citizens. He got national
attention, saying:
"Everyone at NSA knew what they were
doing was illegal, because it’s drilled into
.
144
our heads over and over that it’s against
NSA policy, that you do not do that. The
choice is to speak out and get fired."
Bush administration officials sanctioned it. So did
Obama’s. Lawless spying is pervasive with or without
court authorized warrants - including on foreign leaders,
political enemies, ordinary Americans, journalists, and
Donald Trump if he’s got evidence proving it.
Obama’s deputy national security adviser Ben Rhodes lied,
tweeting
“no president can order a wiretap.”
They do it legally through FISA court warrants obtained
for reasons of national security and illegally, likely more
of the latter than the former unaccountably.
Senator Ben Sasse (R. NE) issued a statement, saying
“(t)he president today made some very
serious allegations, and the informed
citizens that a republic requires deserve
more information.”
“If there were wiretaps of then-candidate
Trump’s organization or campaign, then it
was either with FISA Court authorization or
without such authorization.”
“If without, the president should explain
what sort of wiretap it was and how he
knows this. It is possible that he was
illegally tapped.”
If his allegation is true, evidence in FISA court records
will show it. Congress should demand an investigation to
prove or disprove his claim.
 Levin Delivers DEVASTATING Case Against Obama
Admin’s Wire Scandal With Proof The Press Won’t Show
Carmine Sabia
March 5, 2017

Conservative radio host Mark Levin made the case that

former President Obama and his operatives have actively
worked to spy on, and undermine, President Donald
Trump and his administration.

Levin spoke to “Fox & Friends” on Sunday and used

liberal news sources to essentially prove that the Obama
administration was behind spying on President Trump and
others in his campaign during the election season.

Six agencies, including the FBI, CIA, NSA, DOJ, Treasury

Department Financial Crimes Enforcement Network and
representatives of the director of national intelligence,
were involved in investigating the Trump campaign.

“Are you telling me Barack Obama didn’t

know what was going on in six agencies?”
Levin asked.

And with the case Levin made, all with publicly available
information, it’s tough to believe.

Many on social media believed Levin is proving to be

former President Obama’s “worst nightmare.”

145
 .

146
 Trump Asks Congress To Investigate
Obama Over Wiretapping
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
On Sunday, his press secretary Sean Spicer issued a
statement, saying reports “concerning potentially
politically motivated investigations immediately ahead of
the 2016 election are very troubling.”
“President Donald J. Trump is requesting
that as part of their investigation into
Russian activity, the congressional
intelligence committees exercise their
oversight authority to determine whether
executive branch investigative powers were
abused in 2016.”
He added neither the White House or Trump will comment
further “until such oversight is conducted.
A previous article discussed two reported FISA court
requests by the Obama administration last year to monitor
Trump’s electronic communications - the first in June
denied, the second more narrowly drawn, approved in
October.
Obama’s spokesman lied, saying
“(n)either President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any US citizen.”
Pervasive spying occurred on his watch - targeting foreign
leaders, political enemies, whistleblowers exposing
.
.
147
government wrongdoing, ordinary Americans, and Trump
if hard evidence proves it.
FISA and other courts require probable cause to issue
wiretapping authorization. None revealed so far justifies
monitoring Trump’s communications - no apparent
probable cause related to criminal wrongdoing, Russia or
for any other reason.
Using executive authority against political opponents is
abuse of power. If an inquiry reveals Trump’s claim about
Obama wiretapping Trump Tower is accurate, potentially
he could face charges in a court of law.
On Sunday, deputy White House press secretary Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said Trump is determined to get to the
bottom of what happened, adding:
“…I think he’s going off of information that
he’s seen that has led him to believe that
this is a very real potential.”
“And if it is, this is the greatest overreach
and the greatest abuse of power that I think
we have ever seen and a huge attack on
democracy itself. And the American people
have a right to know if this took place.”
If Trump already has hard evidence, he should reveal it.
His serious accusation requires proof to show it’s valid.
 Trump Calls For Congressional Probe Into Possible
Wiretapping Of His Campaign
By Joseph Weber
Published March 05, 2017
The White House on Sunday called for congressional
investigations into its claims the Obama administration
meddled in the 2016 election cycle in an attempt to gather
information on then-Republican presidential nominee
Donald Trump.
“Reports concerning potentially politically
motivated investigations immediately
ahead of the 2016 election are very
troubling,” White House Press Secretary
Sean Spicer said in the statement.
“President Donald J. Trump is requesting that as part of
their investigation into Russian activity, the congressional
intelligence committees exercise their oversight authority
to determine whether executive branch investigative
powers were abused in 2016.”
The statement follows an explosive allegation Saturday by
Trump that former President Obama ordered phones
wiretapped at Trump Tower and also states that nobody in
the administration “will comment further until such
oversight is conducted.”
Trump’s wiretap allegations, in a series of tweets Saturday,
and the ensuing White House statement are the latest
developments in the ongoing story about Russia’s
148
involvement in the 2016 presidential race -- particularly
Russian President Vladimir Putin trying to influence the
election for Trump over Democratic rival Hillary Clinton.
National Security Adviser Michael Flynn submitted his
resignation over the matter, and Attorney General Jeff
Sessions has recused himself from any Justice Department
probe, following revelations he spoke during the campaign
to Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
“Terrible! Just found out that Obama had
my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just
before the victory. Nothing found. This is
McCarthyism,” Trump wrote in one tweet
Saturday.
“Is it legal for a sitting president to be ‘wire
tapping’ a race for president prior to an
election? Turned down by court earlier. A
NEW LOW!” he said in another tweet.
Trump also tweeted that a “good lawyer could make a
great case of the fact that President Obama was tapping my
phones in October, just prior to election!”
“How low has President Obama gone to
tap (sic) my phones during the very sacred
election process. This is Nixon/Watergate.
Bad (or sick) guy!” the president continued.
Obama on Saturday denied Trump’s accusation that
Obama had Trump Tower phones tapped in the weeks
before the November 2016 election.
“Neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise
is simply false," said Kevin Lewis, a
spokesman for the former president.
Trump seems to be making the allegations based on
a Breitbart News article Friday and recent claims by
conservative radio host Mark Levin that the Obama
administration made Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Court (FISA) requests in 2016 to monitor Trump
communications and a computer server in Trump Tower,
related to possible links with Russian banks.
On Sunday, Trump resumed his attack that Obama
colluded with Russia.
“Who was it that secretly said to Russian
president, ‘Tell Vladimir that after the
election I'll have more flexibility?"' tweeted
Trump, referring to what Obama was
overheard telling then-Russian
President Dmitry Medvedev in March 2012.
.
Trump also tweeted earlier:
“Is it true the DNC would not allow the FBI
access to check server or other equipment
after learning it was hacked? Can that be
possible?'
Fox News’ Serafin Gomez contributed to this report.

149
 Trump Abandons Cooperation With Russia
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
Trump’s campaign rhetoric about cooperating with Russia
in combating terrorism was bluster without follow-
through, according to AP News, saying:
He’s “telling advisers and allies that he may
shelve, at least temporarily, his plan to
pursue a deal with Moscow on the Islamic
State group and other national security
matters, according to administration
officials and Western diplomats.”
It doesn’t surprise given longstanding US hostility toward
Russia, especially during the Cold War and Putin’s tenure.
Trump stacked his administration with defense, national
and homeland security hardliners. Reportedly he intends
appointing Russophobe Fiona Hill as White House
Director for Europe and Russia. She called Putin a “Mafia
Don,” said
“(b)lackmail and intimidation are part of his
stock and trade.”
In response to candidate Trump urging better relations
with Russia, dark forces launched a campaign to
delegitimize him. According to AP, Defense Secretary
Mattis and National Security Advisor McMaster want
tough anti-Moscow policies continued.
“During his first meeting with National
Security Council staff, McMaster described
Russia - as well as China - as a country
that wants to upend the current world
order, according to an administration
official who attended the meeting,” said AP.
Key European allies urge no softening in US/Russia
relations. Trump administration hardliners falsely claimed
Moscow violated the 1987 Intermediate-Range Nuclear
Forces Treaty. The Big Lie about nonexistent “Russian
aggression” in Ukraine persists.
150
“The president and his advisers have yet to
settle on a formal approach to Russia, and
discussions about how to proceed are still
in early phases,” said AP.
After firing Michael Flynn, Trump said
“(i)t would be unpopular for a politician to
make a deal. It would be much easier for
me to be so tough - the tougher I am on
Russia,” the better.
After only a few weeks in office, he was co-opted to stay
hardline on Russia, China, Iran and other sovereign
independent countries - indicating no change in imperial
recklessness on his watch.
It’s evident from harsh rhetoric by administration officials,
continued US aggression in multiple theaters, including
Pentagon terror-bombing of Yemen on the phony pretext
of combating al-Qaeda Washington supports.
It’s clear from provocatively maintaining thousands of US-
led NATO forces on Russia’s borders, challenging China
in its own waters, harsh rhetoric on Iran, and Secretary of
State Tillerson saying he’ll seek “transition to democratic
rule in Venezuela” - code language for plotting regime
change.
Hoped for responsible change under Trump was always
wishful thinking. Stepping back from the brink didn’t
happen.
Endless wars continue, maybe new ones planned. The
threat of direct confrontation with Russia and China
remain. Trump’s campaign pledge to combat terrorism was
meaningless bluster.
On Saturday, Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia
will continue combating terrorism on its own - the scourge
Washington created and supports.
 Deepstategate: Democrats’
‘Russian Hacking’ Conspiracy Theory Backfires
By Joel B. Pollak
5 Mar 2017
Democrats’ efforts to raise suspicions
about alleged — and, thus far, imaginary
— links between President Donald
Trump’s campaign and the Russian
government may have backfired
spectacularly.
The spotlight is now on President Barack Obama and his
administration’s alleged surveillance of the Trump
campaign, as well as his aides’ reported efforts to spread
damaging information about Trump throughout
government agencies to facilitate later investigations and,
possibly, leaks to the media.
On Sunday morning, the White House released a statement
indicating that the president would ask the congressional
committees investigating Russian hacking theories to add
the question of
“whether executive branch investigative
powers were abused in 2016.”
Media outlets continued to repeat that the story was based
on “no evidence,” though the evidence was plain.
President Donald Trump originally tweeted about the
alleged surveillance — which radio host Mark Levin
called a “silent coup” by Obama staffers keen
to undermine the new administration — on Saturday.
Levin’s claims, reported at Breitbart News early Friday,
were in turn based on information largely from mainstream
outlets, including the New York Times and the Washington
151
Post. Heat Street was one non-mainstream source, but the
BBC also reported similar information in January. So, too,
did the UK Guardian, which is a mainstream source (albeit
with a decidedly left-wing slant, hardly favorable to
Trump).
All day Saturday, former Obama staffers tried to put out
the fires. A spokesperson for President Obama responded
— and Obama aide Valerie Jarrett tweeted:
A cardinal rule of the Obama
Administration was that no White House
official ever interfered with any independent
investigation led by the Department of
Justice. As part of that practice, neither
President Obama nor any White House
official ever ordered surveillance on any
U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise is
simply false.
As Breitbart News’ Matthew Boyle noted, however, it was
a “non-denial denial.” It is worth examining the statement
in detail.
 “A cardinal rule of the Obama Administration was
that no White House official ever interfered with
any independent investigation led by the
Department of Justice.”
Note that this sentence does not dispute any of the key
factual allegations at issue: that the DOJ approached the
FISA court for permission to spy on Trump aides; that
surveillance, once granted, continued after no evidence
was found of wrongdoing; that the Obama administration
relaxed National Security Agency rules to facilitate the
dissemination of evidence through the government; and
that Obama staffers allegedly did so, the better to leak
damaging (and partial) information to the media.
In addition, there is reason to doubt the claim that the
White House never “interfered”:
the New York Times reported in January
that “intelligence reports based on some of
the wiretapped communications had been
provided to the White House.”
Moreover, the first part of the sentence raises doubts about
Lewis’s entire statement. Lewis could simply have said:
“No White House official ever interfered
with any independent investigation led by
the DOJ.” That would have been a clear
denial. Instead, he referred to a “cardinal
rule” that supposedly existed.
All that does is create deniability for the rest of the White
House in the event that evidence turns up that
someone was, in fact, involved with a Department of
Justice probe. (No doubt Obama will be outraged to find
out if someone broke the “cardinal rule,” and will claim to
have found out through the media, rather than directly.)
The Obama communications operation is
notoriously careful with the way denials are worded.
“As part of that practice, neither
President Obama nor any White House
official ever ordered surveillance on any
U.S. citizen.”
This is a meaningless denial, since the FISA court deals
with communications with foreigners, with U.S. citizens
potentially swept up in the investigation. It would have
been possible for the DOJ to approach the FISA court with
a request to monitor foreign entities allegedly
communicating with the Trump campaign, using those
intercepts as a way to monitor the Trump campaign itself.
According to news reports cited by Andrew McCarthy,
that could have been precisely what happened.
And, again, this sentence does not deny that someone in
the Obama administration may have ordered such
surveillance.
“Any suggestion otherwise is simply
false.”
What we have here is a blanket denial crafted to protect
President Barack Obama himself, but allowing him to
152
admit later — once the facts emerge — that his
administration was, in fact, up to something. In
addition, the Democrats have been adept at constructing
elaborate chains of communication to create plausible
deniability for higher-ups. That is how the “bird-dogging”
scheme — through which left-wing activists instigated
violence at Donald Trump’s rallies — was arranged for the
Clinton campaign. (The organizer behind that scheme
visited Obama’s White House 340 times, meeting Obama
himself 45 times.)
As the New York Times — supposedly the paper of record
— recently reported, there is “no evidence” that the
“Trump campaign was colluding with the Russians on the
hacking or other efforts to influence the election.” But
there is ample evidence that the outgoing Obama
administration could have used intelligence agencies to
carry out a political agenda against Trump. The media, as
Mark Levin pointed out again on Sunday’s Fox and
Friends, simply refuse to report their own earlier reports.
Even without Trump’s more sensational accusations of
wiretapping, it is, so far, undisputed that there have been
many leaks of classified information to damage Trump,
and that the Obama administration took steps that
could have made such leaks more likely. (Charles
Krauthammer — who is skeptical of “deep state” theories
— called this the “Revenge of the Losers” on
Friday.) Those are serious allegations that the former
administration is likely going to have to explain to
Congress.
But if the Obama administration did order surveillance of
the Trump campaign during the election; and if Obama or
any other White House officials knew about it (or created a
“plausible deniability” scheme to allow such surveillance
while preventing themselves from knowing about it
directly); then there is an even bigger problem.
It would then seem that the “Russia hacking” story was
concocted not just to explain away an embarrassing
election defeat, but to cover up the real scandal.
 Spicer: Congress Must Investigate Whether Obama
'Abused' Executive Branch Power
By Anna Giaritelli, Caitlin Yilek
3/5/17 9:10 AM
White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Sunday asked
the congressional committees currently investigating
Russian interference in the presidential election to also
look into whether the Obama administration overstepped
the law.
"Reports concerning potentially politically
motivated investigations immediately
ahead of the 2016 election are very
troubling," Spicer said in a statement.
"President Trump is requesting that as part
of their investigation into Russian activity,
the congressional intelligence committees
exercise their oversight authority to
determine whether executive branch
investigative powers were abused in 2016."
.
153
Spicer added that neither the White House nor the
president would be making additional comments "until
such oversight is conducted."
Spicer's statement comes a day after Trump accused
former President Barack Obama of wiretapping his
campaign headquarters at Trump Tower in Manhattan last
October.
Trump went on a tweet storm, comparing the alleged
wiretapping to the Watergate scandal that led to the
resignation of President Richard Nixon.
The president did not provide any evidence of his claims,
but he was possibly responding to a Breitbart report
published Friday.
A spokesman for Obama said the claim is "simply false."
"A cardinal rule of the Obama
Administration was that no White House
official ever interfered with any independent
investigation led by the Department of
Justice," said Obama spokesman Kevin
Lewis in a statement Saturday afternoon.
"As part of that practice, neither President
Obama nor any White House official ever
ordered surveillance on any U.S. citizen.
Any suggestion otherwise is simply false."
 Former DNI James Clapper:
‘I Can Deny’ Wiretap Of Trump Tower
By Kailani Koenig
Mar 5 2017, 10:14 Am ET
WASHINGTON — Former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied any
suggestion that Trump Tower communications were
wiretapped before the election.
For the part of the national security apparatus that he
oversaw, "there was no such wiretap activity mounted
against the president, the president-elect at the time, or as a
candidate, or against his campaign," Clapper told Chuck
Todd in an exclusive interview on Sunday's "Meet The
Press."
WASHINGTON — Former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper on Sunday denied any
suggestion that Trump Tower communications were
wiretapped before the election.
For the part of the national security apparatus that he
oversaw,
"there was no such wiretap activity
mounted against the president, the
president-elect at the time, or as a
candidate, or against his campaign,"
Clapper told Chuck Todd in an exclusive
interview on Sunday's "Meet The Press."
Clapper: 'I Can Deny' Wiretap of Trump Tower 1:10
When Todd asked him whether he could confirm or deny
if a FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Act)
order for this existed, Clapper declared,
"I can deny it."
Asked again whether there was a FISA Court order to
monitor Trump Tower, Clapper said,
154
"Not to my knowledge."
Clapper said that if any wiretap like that occurred, he
would "certainly hope" that he would be aware of it.
"I can't speak for other authorized entities
in the government or a state or local entity,"
he added.
Clapper was responding to questions surrounding
President Trump's accusation — without evidence — that
former President Barack Obama personally ordered
wiretap surveillance of Trump Tower before the November
election. After tweeting the allegations in the early
morning Saturday, Trump and his administration continued
to offer no evidence to support the accusation. On Sunday,
the Trump administration sought to spin Trump's
unsubstantiated claim as a call for Congress to investigate
if Obama "abused" his presidential powers.
Former President Obama's spokesman Kevin Lewis
released a statement saying,
"Neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance on
any U.S. citizen. Any suggestion otherwise
is simply false."
Clapper was also asked on "Meet the Press" if he had any
evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the
Russian government while the Kremlin was working to
influence the election.
"Not to my knowledge," Clapper said,
based on the information he had before his
time in the position ended.
"We did not include anything in our report
… that had any reflect of collusion between
members of the Trump campaign and the
Russians. There was no evidence of that
included in our report," he said. "We had no
evidence of such collusion."
When asked whether he still believes that Russians
interfered in the U.S. election to help Donald Trump,
Clapper said, "Yes, I do."
 On Sunday, he added that "it would be very healthy to
completely clear the air on this subject" and noted that the
current inquiry by the Senate's Select Committee on
Intelligence into the matter will be able to look at the
issues from a broader context than they would.

"I do have confidence" in the Senate effort,

he said, calling it "truly bipartisan."
Clapper said it was important to get to the
bottom of these issues "because it's such a
Full Clapper: 'No Evidence' of Collusion Between Trump and Russia distraction."
7:31
"Certainly the Russians have to be
chortling about the success of their efforts
Clapper is a career intelligence officer and served as to sow dissension in this country," Clapper
Director of National Intelligence under President Obama added.
for more than 6 years. He spearheaded the January report
put out by the NSA, the FBI, the CIA and his office that
concluded that the Kremlin hacked Democratic National
Committee emails and attempted to disrupt the election.

155
 Violence, Fighting Breaks Out
Between Trump Supporters, Protesters In Berkeley
By Tyler Durden
Mar 5, 2017 8:28 AM

In a day when Trump supporters organized peaceful rallies White said. Three people were injured in the clash,
across the nation in support of the president, violence including one who had teeth knocked out, and police made
broke out Saturday in the liberal, if not quite tolerant, west five arrests. One Trump supporter who took part in the
coast capital of Berkeley, when Trump fans were violence came equipped with a baton, a gas mask and a
reportedly provoked by counter-protesters. At a Berkely shield emblazoned with the American flag.
park across the bay from San Francisco, protesters from
both sides struck one another over the head with wooden
sticks and Trump supporters fired pepper spray while
police in riot gear stood at a distance, Reuters reports.

White said police did break up fights between the two

sides.
Some in the pro-Trump crowd, holding American flags,
faced off against black-clad opponents, supposedly
"We've made a number of arrests, it's one
members of the infamous Black Bloc, who according to
some reports are compensated provocateurs and of those things where we monitor the
mercenaries paid to incite violence at all pro-Trump situation and take action as necessary," he
said.
events. An elderly Trump supporter was struck in the head
and kicked on the ground.
The violence comes a month after mask-wearing protesters
at the University of California, Berkeley, shut down a
planned speech by provocative commentator Milo
Yannopoulos by lighting fires and smashing windows.

The good news: the groups were small on both sides - in

Berkeley, the total crowd of both supporters and detractors
numbered 200 to 300 people, police spokesman Byron

156
Organizers of the pro-Trump Spirit of America rallies in at
least 28 the country's 50 states had said they expected
smaller turn-outs than the huge crowds of anti-Trump
protesters that clogged the streets of Washington and other
cities the day after the Republican's inauguration on Jan.
20.
"There are a lot of angry groups protesting
and we thought it was important to show
our support," said Peter Boykin, president
of Gays for Trump, who helped organize
Saturday's rally in Washington. In many
towns and cities, the rallies did not draw
more than a few hundred people.
Berkeley wasn't the only venue where violence between
pro and anti-Trump groups broke out: smaller skirmishes
broke out in other parts of the country. In Minnesota, 400
Trump supporters packed the state capitol rotunda in St.
Paul and were met by a smaller group of counter-
demonstrators, according to the Star Tribune. Scuffles
erupted and six counter-protesters were arrested, the
newspaper reported. In Nashville, Tennessee, Trump
supporters and counter-protesters cursed at each other and
occasionally made physical contact, but state troopers
broke up the fighting, according to the city's public radio
station.
157
Most rallies appeared to take place without any disruption
or violence, like one outside the Michigan State Capitol in
Lansing.
"How can anyone be disappointed with
bringing back jobs? And he promised he
would secure our borders, and that's
exactly what he's doing," said Meshawn
Maddock, one of the organizers of the rally
which drew about 200 people.
Brandon Blanchard, 24, among a small group of anti-
Trump protesters, said he had come in support of
immigrants, Muslims and transgender people, groups that
have been negatively targeted by Trump's rhetoric and
policies.
"I feel that every American that voted for
Trump has been deceived," Blanchard
said.
Meanwhile, more than 200 supporters of the president
rallied in downtown San Diego.
"After this, I think people will take the hint,"
said former U.S. Marine David Moore, 42, a
participant in the rally. "It’s okay to voice
support for the president and the country."
In Palm Beach, Florida, where Trump is staying this
weekend at his Mar-a-Lago resort, the president's
motorcade stopped and Trump stepped outside his car to
wave at a crowd of dozens of supporters. A smaller group
of protesters stood across the street.
In New York, about 200 people demonstrated their support
for the president in front of Trump Tower in midtown
Manhattan. In Washington, about 150 people marched
from the Washington Monument to Lafayette Square in
front of the White House to show their support for the
president
158
 US House Intel Committee To
Investigate Trump's Wiretap Claim Against Obama
© REUTERS/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool - US
23:13 05.03.2017(Updated 23:14 05.03.2017)
The US House of Representatives
Intelligence Committee will carry out an
investigation into President Donald
Trump's "wiretapping" accusations
against his predecessor Barack Obama,
committee Chair Devin Nunes said
Sunday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Saturday, Trump took
to Twitter to accuse Obama of having his Trump Tower
headquarters' "wires tapped" prior to the 2016 presidential
election, describing this as the former administration's
"new low."
159
The president went on to compare the alleged surveillance
to McCarthyism and the Watergate scandal. The claims
have been rejected by Obama's representative.
One of the focus points of the House Intelligence
Committee's investigation is the U.S. government's
response to actions taken by Russian intelligence agents
during the presidential campaign. As such, the Committee
will make inquiries into whether the government was
conducting surveillance activities on any political party’s
campaign officials or surrogates, and we will continue
to investigate this issue if the evidence warrants it," Nunes
said, as quoted in a committee statement.
The statement comes after Trump asked congressional
intelligence committees to look into "politically motivated"
investigations conducted by the previous administration
in the run up to last year's election. The White House
statement said this should be carried out as part of the
investigation into alleged Russian meddling in the election.
The Trump administration has been dogged by accusations
of having links to the Russian government, which was
accused last year of organizing damning leaks
of Democratic Party emails that marred Hillary Clinton’s
presidential campaign.
 Obamagate Scandal
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
If Obama ordered Trump Tower wiretapped as Donald
Trump claims, evidence may or may not be easily
obtained.
If FISA court authorization occurred, a congressional
inquiry could prove it. If conducted warrantless by the
NSA, CIA or FBI, verifying Trump’s claim will be much
harder.
Cooperation by agency heads would be needed. NSA
director Admiral Michael Rogers is an Obama
administration holdover. So is FBI head James Comey.
CIA director Mike Pompeo is a Trump appointee.
If Obama got FISA court authorization to wiretap Trump
Tower, or a server the building uses for electronic
communications located anywhere, court records would
verify it.
Still, it’s unproved so far if spying on Trump occurred, and
if so, whether it stemmed from FISA court authorization or
by other means.
The NSA, CIA and FBI notoriously conduct warrantless
surveillance. Post-9/11, the NSA was authorized by a GW
Bush executive order to warrantlessly spy on phone and
other electronic communications in the name of national
security.
Monitoring internally and abroad followed, a clear Fourth
Amendment violation, prohibiting searches and seizures
without judicial authorization - based on probable cause.
In 2012, Congress extended warrantless spying,
constitutional law ignored. The FISA Amendments
Reauthorization Act passed both houses overwhelmingly.
Obama signed it into law. Warrantless spying was
extended for another five years. GW Bush and Obama
authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans lawlessly.
.
160
The CIA and FBI operate the same way extrajudicially.
Constitutional protections no longer apply. Rogue
governance does what it pleases - the way all police states
operate.
It’s bad enough to spy on ordinary Americans, quite
another on a major party presidential candidate if hard
evidence proves it.
According to a NYT report,
FBI director Comey “asked the Justice
Department this weekend to publicly reject
President Trump’s assertion that President
Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr.
Trump’s phones” - citing the usual
unnamed “senior American officials.”
Comey, an Obama holdover, said Trump’s charge is false,
according to The Times. The FBI and Justice Department
declined to comment.
If a FISA warrant was issued, it would have likely come
through the DOJ or FBI it administers. A statement by AG
Jeff Sessions, another senior department official, or Comey
would confirm or deny if one or the other agencies was
involved. So far, no public comment by either.
Over the weekend, Trump reportedly said
“(t)his will be investigated. It will all come
out. I will be proven right.”
For starters, he should publicly reveal what he knows, any
evidence he’s aware of, putting meat on the bones of his
serious accusation.
One thing’s clear. This story has a long way to go. How
it’ll end remains uncertain.
 The NYT Dismisses A
Potential Obamagate Scandal
By Stephen Lendman
3-5-2017
Throughout Obama’s tenure, The Times supported his
criminality and other abuses of power - his imperial
aggression in multiple theaters, subservience to Wall Street
and other corporate favorites, crushing neoliberal
harshness harming America’s most vulnerable, and police
state ruthlessness.
He let Big Brother spy on everyone legally and illegally at
home and abroad - recording our phone and electronic
communications with or without judicially authorized
warrants.
Is it out of the question to think he did nothing to interfere
with Trump’s campaign, including monitoring his
communications? One-sidedly supporting Hillary, he
wanted him defeated by fair or foul means.
The Times supported her throughout the campaign,
operating as her virtual press agent, turning journalism into
advocacy, inventing reasons to bash Trump viciously, not
letting facts interfere with its all-out effort to defeat him.
Vilifying him continues, a March 5 editorial, saying
“(j)ust contemplate the recklessness - the
sheer indifference to truth and the moral
authority of the American presidency -
revealed here: one president baselessly
charging criminality by another, all in a
childish Twitter rampage.”
Fact:
Trump’s accusation is serious, a major
abuse of power if proved true. He surely
.
161
believes it or wouldn’t have gone on a
Twitter tirade claiming it.
Fact:
Irresponsible Times bluster continues its
campaign to delegitimize him, shockingly
wanting a sitting president ousted from
office, likely seeking revenge for Hillary’s
defeat.
Investigations ongoing for months relating to potential
unlawful Trump ties to Russia and its banks found nothing
so far - a disgraceful witch-hunt to smear him for the
wrong reasons, not the right ones.
Conflating Trump’s accusation to nonexistent Russian US
election hacking, Times editors claimed
“Congress has no credible option but to
convene a bipartisan select committee to
investigate all questions related to Russian
interference in the elections”
- even though US intelligence community claims are
baseless, no evidence proving them. None exists.
Times editors outrageously urged senior Trump
administration officials to reject their boss and resign,
saying:
They should stop “lending their names and
exposing their reputations to a president
with so little regard for democratic
institutions, and for the truth” - a despicable
statement by a broadsheet contemptuous
of truth-telling, a propaganda mouthpiece
for wealth, power and privilege.
 Loretta Lynch Calls For
‘Blood, Death On Streets’ To Protest Trump
By Baxter Dmitry
Posted on March 5, 2017
Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch
has called for civil war in the United
States, demanding “marching“, “blood”
and “death” in the streets
until President Trump is dragged from
office, in a chilling video posted to her
Facebook page.
In the short and punchy video, Loretta Lynch begins by
claiming that people are experiencing “great fear and
uncertainty,” with the unstated implication that it is the
President of the United States, Donald Trump, she is
referring to.
Appearing nervous and exhausted, Lynch goes on to say
that “our rights” are “being assailed, being trampled on
and even being rolled back.” However despite the high
emotion and fear mongering, the former Attorney General
is unable to offer a single example of her claims.
The most shocking part of Lynch’s short speech comes
when she urges Americans to take to the streets, declaring
the answer to Trump lies in civil disobedience, violence
and death.
“We have done this before,” she said, “and
we can do it again.”
.
162
The most shocking words in Lynch’s short speech come
when she urges Americans to take to the streets, declaring
the answer to Trump lies in civil disobedience, violence
and death.
“I know that this is a time of great fear and
uncertainty for so many people,” Lynch
says. “I know it’s a time of concern for
people, who see our rights being assailed,
being trampled on and even being rolled
back. I know that this is difficult, but I
remind you that this has never been easy.
We have always had to work to move this
country forward to achieve the great ideals
of our Founding Fathers.”
“It has been people, individuals who have
banded together, ordinary people who
simply saw what needed to be done and
came together and supported those ideals
who have made the difference. They’ve
marched, they’ve bled and yes, some of
them died. This is hard. Every good thing
is. We have done this before. We can do
this again.”
The video was later posted to the Senate Democrats
Facebook page as “words of inspiration”, suggesting that
Democratic Party HQ is not viewing Lynch’s video as the
embarrassing late-night work of a tired and emotional
former civil servant, but rather as a rallying call for
progressives across the country to march and sacrifice their
blood and lives for the cause.
The timing of the call-to-arms has also raised eyebrows.
Released late at night after a day of revelations concerning
her former boss, Barack Obama, and his alleged “worse
than Watergate” wiretapping of Trump Tower during the
2016 election, it seems that nervous, exhausted Loretta
Lynch knows the gloves are coming off and the crimes of
the Obama administration are going to be exposed one by
one.
 Ex-British PM Tony Blair In Talks To Become Trump’s
Middle East Adviser – Media
Published Time: 5 Mar, 2017 18:23Edited Time: 6 Mar, 2017 12:32
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair © Toby Melville / Reuters.
Former British Prime Minister Tony Blair has discussed becoming
Donald Trump’s adviser on Middle East policies, during talks in the
White House earlier this week, The Mail on Sunday reported.
Blair, who was in charge of the UK government in 1997-
2007, met Trump’s son-in-law and senior adviser Jared
Kushner in Washington on Wednesday, the papers claims,
citing it’s source.
The meeting in the West Wing of the US presidential
residence lasted for three hours, according to The Mail on
Sunday report.
It was the third time since September 2016 that Blair and
Kushner have met in secrecy, The Daily Mail’s sister-
paper added.
The paper’s informed source said that the former British
prime mister may take on the role of Kushner’s senior
adviser.
163
“Blair has been pitching hard for this job
and Trump’s people are taking him very
seriously,” the source added.
Blair is viewed as an expert on the Middle East after being
an envoy for the so-called ‘Quartet’ of the EU, US, Russia,
and the UN, aimed at finding a peaceful solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In recent years, the 63-year-old was involved in business
activity, also launching several foundations, including the
Tony Blair Foundation in 2008.
In February, he launched a campaign aimed at persuading
the British to change their mind about Brexit.
Blair’s office denied the claims on Sunday, calling it an
“invention” by the newspaper, the BBC reported.
“Mr. Blair has made no such 'pitch' to be
the president's (Trump) Middle East envoy.
Neither has he had any discussions about
taking such a role or any role working for
the new president,” it said.
The former PM “has been working on the
peace process for 10 years. He continues
to do so. He does so in a private capacity.
He will continue to do it in that way.
Period,” Blair’s office added.
 Former Obama S.S. Agent:
“Will Be Sharing More On Obama This Week. It’s Time.”
By DCWhispers
Posted on March 5, 2017

Former Obama Secret Service agent Dan Bongino also

indicated the Obama wire tap scandal was going to “blow
wide open” this week even as the Mainstream Media
attempts to spin in favor of Barack Obama.

164
 Inside Trump’s Fury: The President
Rages At Leaks, Setbacks And Accusations
By Philip Rucker, Robert Costa And Ashley Parker
March 5, 2017
President Trump spent the weekend at “the winter White
House,” Mar-a-Lago, the secluded Florida castle where he
is king. The sun sparkles off the glistening lawn and
warms the russet clay Spanish tiles, and the steaks are
cooked just how he likes them (well done). His daughter
Ivanka and son-in-law Jared Kushner — celebrated as
calming influences on the tempestuous president — joined
him. But they were helpless to contain his fury.
Trump was mad — steaming, raging mad.
Trump’s young presidency has existed in a perpetual state
of chaos. The issue of Russia has distracted from what was
meant to be his most triumphant moment: his address last
Tuesday to a joint session of Congress. And now his latest
unfounded accusation — that Barack Obama tapped
Trump’s phones during last fall’s campaign — had been
denied by the former president and doubted by both allies
and fellow Republicans.
When Trump ran into Christopher Ruddy on the golf
course and later at dinner Saturday, he vented to his friend.
“This will be investigated,” Ruddy recalled
Trump telling him. “It will all come out. I will
be proven right.”
“He was pissed,” said Ruddy, the chief
executive of Newsmax, a conservative
media company. “I haven’t seen him this
angry.”
165
Former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. on
March 5 denied that President Trump’s 2016 campaign was
wiretapped while senators of both parties weighed in on the
allegations. (Bastien Inzaurralde/The Washington Post)
Trump enters week seven of his presidency the same as the
six before it: enmeshed in controversy while struggling to
make good on his campaign promises. At a time when
White House staffers had sought to ride the momentum
from Trump’s speech to Congress and begin advancing its
agenda on Capitol Hill, the administration finds itself beset
yet again by disorder and suspicion.
At the center of the turmoil is an impatient president
increasingly frustrated by his administration’s inability to
erase the impression that his campaign was engaged with
Russia, to stem leaks about both national security matters
and internal discord and to implement any signature
achievements.
This account of the administration’s tumultuous recent
days is based on interviews with 17 top White House
officials, members of Congress and friends of the
president, many of whom requested anonymity to speak
candidly.
Gnawing at Trump, according to one of his advisers, is the
comparison between his early track record and that of
Obama in 2009, when amid the Great Recession he
enacted an economic stimulus bill and other big-ticket
items.
Trump’s team is trying again to reboot this week, with the
president expected to sign a new executive order Monday
implementing an entry ban for some countries after the
initial one was blocked in federal court. The administration
also intends to introduce a legislative plan later in the week
to repeal and replace Obama’s health-care law, officials
said.
The rest of Trump’s legislative plan, from tax reform to
infrastructure spending, is effectively on hold until
Congress first tackles the Affordable Care Act.
White House legislative staffers concluded late last week
that the administration was spinning in circles on the
health-care plan, amid mounting criticism from
conservatives that the administration was fumbling.
With Health and Human Services Secretary Tom Price on
the road with Vice President Pence, a decision was made:
Mick Mulvaney, director of the Office of Management and
Budget, would become the point person, though officials
insisted Price had not been sidelined.
On Friday, Mulvaney convened a meeting at
Eisenhower Executive Office Building with
administration officials and senior staff of House
Senate leaders to hammer out the final details of
proposal to replace the Affordable Care Act.
“Mulvaney has been essential in helping us
get health care over the finish line,” said
Marc Short, the White House legislative
affairs director.
On Capitol Hill, Price is seen by some Republicans as
more knowledgeable about health-care policy than
Mulvaney, given his experience as a physician and his
time as chairman of the House Budget Committee. But
Mulvaney benefits from the close relationships he has
forged with Trump’s top advisers and with the House’s
conservative wing.
“Remember what Dwight Eisenhower told
us: There is a military-industrial complex.
That complex still exists and has a lot of
power,” he said. “It’s everywhere, and it
doesn’t like how Trump is handling Russia.
Over and over again, in article after article,
it rears its head.”
The president has been seething as he watches round-the-
clock cable news coverage. Trump recently vented to an
associate that Carter Page, a onetime Trump campaign
adviser, keeps appearing on television even though he and
Trump have no significant relationship.
Stories from Breitbart News, the incendiary conservative
website, have been circulated at the White House’s highest
levels in recent days, including one story where talk-radio
host Mark Levin accused the Obama administration of
mounting a “silent coup,” according to several officials.
the
top
and Stephen K. Bannon, the White House chief strategist who
the once ran Breitbart, has spoken with Trump at length about
his view that the “deep state” is a direct threat to his
presidency.
Advisers pointed to Bannon’s frequent closed-door
guidance on the topic and Trump’s agreement as a
fundamental way of understanding the president’s
behavior and his willingness to confront the intelligence
community — and said that when Bannon spoke recently
about the “deconstruction of the administrative state,” he
was also alluding to his aim of rupturing the intelligence
community and its influence on the U.S. national security
and foreign policy consensus.
Bannon’s view is shared by some top Republicans.

Trump, meanwhile, has been feeling besieged, believing
that his presidency is being tormented in ways known and
unknown by a group of Obama-aligned critics, federal
bureaucrats and intelligence figures — not to mention the
media, which he has called “the enemy of the American
people.”
That angst over what many in the White House call the
“deep state” is fomenting daily, fueled by rumors and
tidbits picked up by Trump allies within the intelligence
community and by unconfirmed allegations that have been
made by right-wing commentators. The “deep state” is a
phrase popular on the right for describing entrenched
networks hostile to Trump.
Rep. Dana Rohrabacher (R-Calif.), an advocate of
improved relations between the United States and Russia,
said he has told friends in the administration that Trump is
being punished for clashing with the hawkish approach
toward Russia that is shared by most Democrats and
Republicans.
166
“It’s not paranoia at all when it’s actually
happening. It’s leak after leak after leak
from the bureaucrats in the [intelligence
community] and former Obama
administration officials — and it’s very real,”
said Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), the
chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee. “The White House is absolutely
concerned and is trying to figure out a
systemic way to address what’s
happening.”
The mood at the White House on Tuesday night was
different altogether — jubilant. Trump returned from the
Capitol shortly before midnight to find his staff assembled
in the residence cheering him. Finally, they all thought,
they had seized control. The president had even laid off
Twitter outbursts — a small victory for a staff often unable
to drive a disciplined message.
 “He nailed it, and he knew it,” said
Kellyanne Conway, counselor to the
president.
The merriment came to a sudden end on Wednesday night,
when The Washington Post first reported that Attorney
General Jeff Sessions met with the Russian ambassador
despite having said under oath at his Senate confirmation
hearing that he had no contact with the Russians.
Inside the West Wing, Trump’s top aides were furious
with the defenses of Sessions offered by the Justice
Department’s public affairs division and felt blindsided
that Sessions’s aides had not consulted the White House
earlier in the process, according to one senior White House
official.
The next morning, Trump exploded, according to White
House officials. He headed to Newport News, Va., on
Thursday for a splashy commander-in-chief moment. The
president would trumpet his plan to grow military
spending aboard the Navy’s sophisticated new aircraft
carrier. But as Trump, sporting a bomber jacket and Navy
cap, rallied sailors and shipbuilders, his message was
overshadowed by Sessions.
Then, a few hours after Trump had publicly defended his
attorney general and said he should not recuse himself
from the Russia probe, Sessions called a news conference
to announce just that — amounting to a public rebuke of
the president.
Back at the White House on Friday morning, Trump
summoned his senior aides into the Oval Office, where he
simmered with rage, according to several White House
officials. He upbraided them over Sessions’s decision to
recuse himself, believing that Sessions had succumbed to
pressure from the media and other critics instead of
fighting with the full defenses of the White House.
In a huff, Trump departed for Mar-a-Lago, taking with him
from his inner circle only his daughter and Kushner, who
is a White House senior adviser. His top two aides, Chief
of Staff Reince Priebus and Bannon, stayed behind in
Washington.
As reporters began to hear about the Oval Office meeting,
Priebus interrupted his Friday afternoon schedule to
.
167
dedicate more than an hour to calling reporters off the
record to deny that the outburst had actually happened,
according to a senior White House official.
“Every time there’s a palace intrigue story
or negative story about Reince, the whole
West Wing shuts down,” the official said.
Ultimately, Priebus was unable to kill the story. He simply
delayed the bad news, as reports of Trump dressing down
his staff were published by numerous outlets Saturday.
Trouble for Trump continued to spiral over the weekend.
Early Saturday, he surprised his staff by firing off four
tweets accusing Obama of a “Nixon/Watergate” plot to tap
his Trump Tower phones in the run-up to last fall’s
election. Trump cited no evidence, and Obama’s
spokesman denied any such wiretap was ordered.
That night at Mar-a-Lago, Trump had dinner with
Sessions, Bannon, Homeland Security Secretary John F.
Kelly and White House senior policy adviser Stephen
Miller, among others. They tried to put Trump in a better
mood by going over their implementation plans for the
travel ban, according to a White House official.
Trump was brighter Sunday morning as he read several
newspapers, pleased that his allegations against Obama
were the dominant story, the official said.
But he found reason to be mad again: Few Republicans
were defending him on the Sunday political talk shows.
Some Trump advisers and allies were especially
disappointed in Sen. Marco Rubio (Fla.), who two days
earlier had hitched a ride down to Florida with Trump on
Air Force One.
Pressed by NBC’s Chuck Todd to explain Trump’s
wiretapping claim, Rubio demurred.
“Look, I didn’t make the allegation,” he
said. “I’m not the person that went out there
and said it.”
Damian Paletta contributed to this report.
 Congress Democrats To Trump:
Wiretaps Mean You're In Trouble
US Democrats Say The President's Comments On Possible
Surveillance At Trump Tower Reveal He Is "In Trouble,"
Whether They Are True Or Not.
© REUTERS/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool - Politics
22:33 05.03.2017

California Congressman Ted Lieu expressed similar ideas

Saturday morning on the president's own favorite platform,
Twitter.

"Mr. President: If there was a wiretap

at Trump Tower, that means a fed judge
found probable cause of crime which
means you are in deep shit," he wrote. He
also said the president was "in trouble."

Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer said Sunday

morning,

"[E]ither way… the president's in trouble."

Speaking the NBC's Meet the Press, Schumer said if

Trump knowingly spread false information about the
alleged wiretapping, it would be "beneath the dignity
of the presidency. It is something that really hurts people's
view of government." He echoed Republican Senator Ben
Sasse, who yesterday called the political atmosphere a
"civilization-warping crisis of public trust."
"It shows this president doesn't know how
to conduct himself," Schumer said.
Of course, if the allegations are true, Schumer said, it's
even worse for Trump.
Schumer did not say on Sunday whether he'd been briefed
on Trump's wiretapping allegations, saying he could not
comment on what would have been a classified briefing.
He did, however, call again for a special prosecutor
to address allegations Trump worked with Russia
somehow to influence the presidential election, and said
his wiretapping allegations are an attempt to draw attention
away from those questions.

"Because that means that a federal judge,

independently elected, has found probable
cause that the president, or people on his
staff, have probable cause to have broken
the law or to have interacted with a foreign
agent. Now that's serious stuff."

Trump has not actually said what prompted him to make Trump and Schumer have long been at odds. Tempers
the allegations over Twitter. flared most recently when the Democratic Senate leader
said Attorney General Jeff Sessions should resign
over lying to Congress about meeting the Russian

168
ambassador. Russian ambassador fever has gripped DC, Democratic congressmen have pointed out that their
with the president and members of Congress engaging meetings with Russians Trump is pointing out occurred
in strange social media wars over who met which Russian in public and were documented by the press.
when and why.

169
 Victim Of Obama Administration Surveillance Order,
James Rosen, Discusses His Experiences, Says
Trump Wiretape 'Plausible'
By The_Real_Fly
Mar 5, 2017 6:04 PM

Back in 2013, Fox News journalist, James Rosen, was

named a 'criminal co-conspirator' and 'flight risk' by then Here is Rosen recounting his affair and opining on the
AG Holder -- which led to a series of events that made plausibility of Trump being a target of the Obama
Holden later regret doing it. With Holden's explicit administration too -- which he affirmed in the positive,
direction, the DOJ secretly accessed all of Rosen's gmails,
contacts, and surveilled of more than 20 phone lines 'in the age of Snowden.'
connected to him, including his mother's phone in Staten
Island, NY.

The Washington Post's Dana Milbank wrote a piece on the

ordeal, saying

"The Rosen affair is as flagrant an assault

on civil liberties as anything done by
George W. Bush’s administration, and it
uses technology to silence critics in a way
Richard Nixon could only have dreamed of.
To treat a reporter as a criminal for doing
Suggesting that Obama never ordered surveillance on an
his job — seeking out information the
American citizen is somewhat ridiculous, when in fact we
government doesn’t want made public —
know of very public instances, like Rosen, when it has
deprives Americans of the First
been done. Considering Obama's non-stop panning of Fox
Amendment freedom on which all other
News during his terms, some find it hard to believe that he
constitutional rights are based."
wasn't directly informed about the Rosen spying.
.

170
 Trump Angry And Frustrated
At Staff Over Sessions Fallout
By Jake Tapper, Jim Acosta, Jeff Zeleny, Sara Murray, John King And Gloria Borger, CNN
Updated 6:08 AM ET, Mon March 6, 2017
Washington (CNN)President Donald Trump is extremely
frustrated with his senior staff and communications team
for allowing the firestorm surrounding Attorney General
Jeff Sessions to steal his thunder in the wake of his address
to Congress, sources tell CNN.
"Nobody has seen him that upset," one
source said, adding the feeling was the
communications team allowed the
Sessions news, which the administration
deemed a nonstory, to overtake the
narrative.
On Thursday, Sessions recused himself from any current
or future investigations into ties between Russia and the
Trump campaign after it was reported he had met with the
Russian ambassador to the US, something he had
previously failed to disclose.
In particular, the renewed focus on Russia is seen as a
major letdown after Tuesday when top officials were
riding high, congratulating one another on Trump's speech
to Congress.
"The staff fumbled," Trump told the team
for not being prepared when the Sessions
story came out, according to another
source.
The President was "hot" and exasperated Thursday night
after Sessions' recusal, a source familiar with the situation
said, considering it hasty and overkill.
When the President returned to the White House Thursday
evening from a day trip to Virginia, there were "a lot of
expletives." The source said for more than a week Trump
171
had been lamenting that his senior staff "just keep getting
in their own way."
"The President had a fantastic week
advancing his agenda to lift up all
Americans and keep the nation safe. His
joint session speech will go down in history
as one of the best," White House
spokesman Sean Spicer said in response
to CNN's reporting.
Smerconish: 'New Trump' lasts one day 02:03
The President is showing increasing flashes of anger over
the performance of his senior staff and daily developments
about Russia overshadowing his message, multiple people
inside the White House and outside the administration told
CNN.
Trump voiced his frustration to his inner circle in the Oval
Office Friday, sources said. He feels attacked by the
media, former Obama administration officials and others,
and frustrated that things are not going more smoothly.
The President expressed his anger at non-stop leaks
undermining his administration, the sources said.
One source familiar with the Friday meeting said Trump
was angry at senior staff, including chief of staff Reince
Priebus, about the state of affairs at the White House this
week.
Word had spread through the White House that Priebus
had been chewed out but those in the room dispute that.
Priebus declined to comment on the record about the
meeting.
One official, who was in the Oval Office, said there was an
"animated discussion" about a number of subjects during
the meeting -- the forthcoming immigration executive
order, health care and Russia developments.
Photos: President Trump's first address to Congress
US President Donald Trump addresses a joint session of
Congress for the first time on Tuesday, February 28.
Behind him, from left, are Vice President Mike Pence and
House Speaker Paul Ryan.
Trump is upset because he doesn't believe he is getting the
credit he thinks he deserves for his time in office so far
because of self-inflicted wounds and missteps, the source
said. An informed presidential ally outside government but
close to the President said Trump was really angry about
.
172
having a "mini disaster" a week. The President's mood is
adding to tremendous pressure inside the West Wing and
aides have been seen in tears in recent days at multiple
meetings.
With so much on the administration's plate -- leaks, Russia
story, pending executive order and Obamacare repeal and
replacement -- Priebus said he would not go to Florida
with the President this weekend as had been previously
planned, a source told CNN. He was on the manifest, and a
big donor reception by the Republican National Committee
which Priebus used to chair was on Preibus' schedule.
But the President said he thought it wouldn't be a good
idea since he is not happy with the state of matters right
now, the same source said.
A White House official disputed that Priebus was
supposed to travel to Florida, adding that he stayed home
this weekend for a family celebration.
White House chief strategist Steve Bannon, who initially
decided to also stay in Washington Friday, ended up
traveling to Florida Saturday and is joining Trump,
Sessions, Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly and
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross at dinner at Mar-a-
Lago.
CNN's Jeremy Diamond contributed to this report.
 Liberal Media Now Spying On Trump Oval Office –
Something They NEVER Did To Obama (Video)
Jim Hoft
Mar 6th, 2017 12:35 Pm
CNN released video Sunday of President Trump
speaking with top aides in the Oval Office last week
after the liberal media assault on Attorney General Jeff
Sessions.
The video clearly shows the media is spying on the
Trump Oval Office — something that NEVER
happened during the Obama years.
A White House “leaker” (or wiretap) told the liberal media
about the Oval Office exchange.
The Daily Mail reported:
Footage has emerged of a heated row in the Oval Office on
Friday that saw Donald Trump erupt into a ‘ballistic’ tirade
against Steve Bannon and other senior advisors.
The president reportedly unleashed his anger on Bannon
and chief of staff Reince Priebus for failing to fight off the
.
173
firestorm surrounding attorney general Jeff Sessions’
recusal amid links to Russia.
A furious Trump told Bannon and Priebus they weren’t
flying on Air Force One with him to Florida before
reportedly storming out and heading down to Mar-a-Lago.
Now, video has emerged of what appears to be the
exchange during the fiery meeting inside the Oval Office,
CNN reports.
While it is not clear what the discussion was about,
Bannon was filmed in an animated conversation and at one
point was spotted waving his arms around.
Ivanka Trump, Jared Kushner and Sean Spicer were
spotted in the background of the footage.
Trump had accused his staff of fumbling the situations
with Sessions after the attorney general recused himself
from all FBI investigations regarding Russia on Thursday.
The president is said to have then taken it out on his senior
staff the following day.
Sources said to CNN the Oval Office lecture had a ‘lot of
expletives’ and that ‘nobody has seen him that upset’.
Just days after the furious row, Bannon was pictured on
Sunday boarding Air Force One via a separate entrance to
the president as they returned to Washington D.C.
 Schumer Demands "Immediate" Probe
Of Political Interference Into Trump-Russia Investigation
By Tyler Durden
Mar 6, 2017 1:20 PM

In what seems like yet another desperate act by the attempts of Russia to interfere with the
Democrats, Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer is 2016 United States election," Schumer
now calling for an "immediate" investigation by the wrote to Horowitz.
Justice Department's independent watchdog into Schumer cited "many troubling facts
federal probes of communication between Donald
and questions" about Russian
Trump’s team and Russian officials during the 2016 interference in the 2016 elections,
campaign.
and noted that Attorney General Jeff Sessions and ousted
national security adviser Mike Flynn met with or talked to
Russian officials before joining the Trump administration.

Schumer sent a long list of questions to Horowitz, and

asked him to investigate whether the White House is
attempting to interfere with an investigation by pressuring
the department.

Schumer asked Horowitz to investigate

Following the latest update from federal
investigators that there was no evidence
of contact between the Trump campaign
and Russia, the Senate’s top Democrat
raised questions of potential political
interference from the White House into
the federal investigation, according to a
letter being released today.
The Wall Street Journal attempts to explain the process...
Politico reports that among the issues Schumer wants
Michael Horowitz, DOJ’s inspector general,
White House Chief of Staff Reince
Priebus' request that the FBI publicly
deny that they have evidence the Trump
campaign was in contact with the
Russians. Priebus said the FBI contacted
him first to deny the reports about a Russia
connection.
"Were these contacts proper?" Schumer
asked Horowitz.

to look into are whether any White

House official has attempted to interfere
with the federal probe and whether
Sessions and Trump discussed the issue
when the two men met privately in the Oval
Office last month.

As The Washington Examiner details,

"I write today to urge you to begin an

immediate investigation into whether there
Perhaps Mr. Schumer should take a glance at the following
has been any political interference with an
chart...
ongoing Department of Justice
investigation related to President Trump's
campaign, transition, and administration's
contacts with the Russian Federation and
174
 Whatever it is that he is doing... it's not working.

175
 Ex-US Attorney General Says Trump Likely Right About
Surveillance On Trump Tower
© AP Photo/ Evan Vucci - US
10:20 06.03.2017(Updated 12:22 06.03.2017)
US President Donald Trump is right to
believe that surveillance on Trump
Tower took place but not correct in
saying that his predecessor Barack
Obama ordered a wiretapping, former
US Attorney General Michael Mukasey
said.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On Saturday, Trump accused
Obama of having his Trump Tower headquarters' "wires
tapped" prior to the 2016 presidential election, describing
this as the former administration's "new low." The
176
president compared the alleged surveillance
to McCarthyism and the Watergate scandal. The claims
have been rejected by Obama's representative.
“I think he's right in that there was
surveillance and that it was conducted
at the behest of the attorney — of the
Justice Department through the FISA
[Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act]
court,” Mukasey told ABC’s “This Week”
on Sunday.
At the same time, he said that Trump was “not correct”
in saying that the former US President ordered the
surveillance.
According to Mukasey, the wiretap could mean suspicion
that someone in Trump Tower may have been acting as
The US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee
will carry out an investigation into Trump's "wiretapping"
accusations, committee Chair Devin Nunes said Sunday.
 President Trump Nominated
For Nobel Peace Prize; US Media Ignores
Kristinn Taylor
Mar 6th, 2017 3:26 Pm
President Donald Trump has been nominated for the 2017
Nobel Peace Prize for his ‘peace through strength
ideology’, according to a report by AFP. Trump’s
nomination, which was reported last Thursday by foreign
media, has been ignored by the American media.
Nobel Peace Prize, image via Wikipedia.
Excerpt from the Agence France-Presse article published
last week.
OSLO. – A near record 318 people and organisations are
in the running for this year’s Nobel Peace
Prize, the Nobel Institute said on Thursday, the motley
crew believed to include Syria’s White Helmets, Donald
Trump and Pope Francis. The names of the nominees are
kept secret for 50 years, but those entitled to nominate
candidates – including lawmakers and government
ministers, former laureates and some university professors
– are free to reveal the name of the person or group they
have nominated…
The same goes for US President Donald Trump, nominated
by an unidentified American who wants
the US leader recognised for
“his peace through strength ideology”…
A Google News search shows no reports in the American
media about Trump’s peace prize nomination.
In 2009, President Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel
Peace Prize. In 2015 the BBC published a report
headlined:
177
Nobel Secretary Regrets Obama Peace
Prize
Awarding the Nobel Peace Prize to US
President Barack Obama in 2009 failed to
achieve what the committee hoped it
would, its ex-secretary has said.
Geir Lundestad told the AP news agency
that the committee hoped the award would
strengthen Mr Obama.
Instead, the decision was met with criticism in the US.
Many argued he had not had any impact worthy of the
award.
Mr. Lundestad, writing in his memoir, Secretary of Peace,
said even Mr. Obama himself had been surprised.
“No Nobel Peace Prize ever elicited more
attention than the 2009 prize to Barack
Obama,” Mr. Lundestad writes.
“Even many of Obama’s supporters
believed that the prize was a mistake,” he
says. “In that sense the committee didn’t
achieve what it had hoped for”.”
The U.S. media did report on Trump’s 2016 nomination
for the peace prize, which based on the same line of
reasoning according to a report by Politico.
Donald Trump has been nominated for a Nobel Peace
Prize.
The billionaire presidential candidate, whose controversial
comments and hard-edged policy proposals have upset
many, was nominated for:
“his vigorous peace through strength
ideology, used as a threat weapon of
deterrence against radical Islam, ISIS,
nuclear Iran and Communist China,”
according to a copy of the nomination letter
obtained by the Peace Research Institute
in Oslo, Norway. According to PRIO,
Trump was nominated by an American…”
 Sessions, Tillerson,
Trump-Tower Spying: The Media Echo Chamber
What’s Next? A Pulitzer Prize For Throwing A Stink Bomb?
By Jon Rappoport
March 6, 2017

Follow the bouncing echo show.

One and on it goes.
Jeff Sessions did talk with Russians or a Russian. About
what? Who cares? He talked with a Russian. That’s all we More outrage building on previous outrage of reporters
need to know. covering other reporters covering other reporters’ outrage.

Rex Tillerson broke with Trump’s demand to slash the
State Dept.’s budget by 37%. Then Tillerson said okay,
he’d go along with the cuts in principle.
Trump said Obama was behind the surveillance of the
Trump Tower.
“We, the mass media invent; we decide
what you, the public, should believe.”
This isn’t a tempest in a teacup. It’s a category 5 hurricane
sitting on the head of a pin, or sitting on a pinhead
reporter.

The usual suspects, CNN and NBC and CBS and the NY Reporters’ disgust about the “scandals” is really disgust
Times and the Washington-CIA Post, etc., bounce these building on other reporters’ disgust.
stories among each other and interview people who
comment on the bounce, and so on and so forth, and whole Most or all of it would be turned off in a second if people
thing builds to heavy accusations against the Trump just stopped going to mainstream news for their news.
administration, as if these matters are on the level of
Watergate plus Benghazi plus Fast&Furious plus the The essential message of mainstream news is:
Hillary email scandal plus Monsanto taking over the food
supply plus the sale of 20% of US uranium to Putin…
“We know Trump is evil personified, so it
doesn’t matter what we say about him.
Echo, echo, echo, echo. We’re doing a public service. But anyway,
stay with us as we deliver the facts. The
“So Bob, as one who has been observing new definition of ‘fact,’ is: whatever we can
the goings-on inside Washington for more bring down on Trump’s head. If one of his
than two decades, have you ever seen policies (e.g., don’t send weapons to
such Horror?” Ukraine) is in line with Obama’s policy,
we’ll ignore that and say Trump is bowing
“Well, Mike, as the Washington Post
to Putin’s desires. If Trump says he wants
reported the other day, about the story in
to bring jobs back to America and defeat
the NY Times which commented on what
the forces of Globalism, we’ll ignore that.
you covered last week which was a
We don’t care about all the Americans who
summary of a CNN report, this scandal is
were thrown out of jobs. They’re ‘bitter
reaching a crescendo of tsunami
clingers’…”
proportions, and the result could be
impeachment or something very much like
it…” Sub text:
“As we said, after the BBC piece that
“Okay, so we supported the war in Iraq on
reflected on the CNN assessment of the
the basis of no evidence, and maybe a
AP story, the Russians appear to have
million innocent people were killed there,
infiltrated or taken over every significant
but who cares? We’re your reliable source
policy operation of the White House…do
of news. Stay with us. We never criticized
you agree that Putin could become the de
Hillary Clinton for her role in turning a
facto president of the US?”

178
 whole nation, Libya, into a hell hole of
chaos. Who cares? Stay with us.”
If you need to, substitute the generic phrase “any
American president” for “Trump.” And then think about
the relentless echo-chamber campaign to destroy that
presidency. By any means.
CNN is now reporting (this is real, I’m not making it up)
that Trump, in an Oval Office meeting, read the riot act to
Steve Bannon, Sean Spicer, and others about their failure
in handing the “Jeff Sessions affair.” So what? Sources fed
that tidibit to CNN. Which sources? Who cares? An
ambiguous video of a minute or two from that Oval Office
meeting (no sound) has emerged. It was shot from outside
the White House. By whom? No answer. Somebody
sneaked on to the White House grounds? A White House
staffer shot the video? What’s next? Video of the president
.
179
shaving in his bathroom? An MSNBC reporter throwing a
stink bomb in the press room?
“I threw the stink bomb because I had to. It
was the only way I as a journalist could
register my reaction to a lesser level of
access to the president. I defend the act as
good and proper journalism. I’ll be
presenting a seminar at Columbia in a few
weeks, where I’ll outline non-verbal
reporting strategies in the new atmosphere
we all inhabit…”
Anything could happen. The children of the press are
throwing one tantrum after another, because they couldn’t
get their girl into the Oval Office. They’ve thrown away
their masks. They want their candy before bedtime.
And they’ll burn down the house if they can’t have it.
 Trump Co-Opted
To Stay Hardline On Russia
By Stephen Lendman
3-6-2017
After a few weeks in office, Trump abandoned notions of
improved ties with Russia.
Putting Russophobes in charge of defense, national and
homeland security dashed hopes for better relations.
The reported upcoming appointment of Russophobe Fiona
Hill as White House Director for Europe and Russia
provides more evidence.
American geopolitical policy seems like Obama never left.
Endless imperial wars rage. The risk of US confrontation
with Russia and China remains - by design or accident,
nuclear war not off the table as hoped for with Hillary’s
defeat.
A ray of good news came from Trump’s mid-February
press conference, debunking media reports on Russia as
“fabricated fake news. It is all fake news,” he said, adding:
“The greatest thing I could do is shoot that
(Russian) ship that’s 30 miles offshore right
out of the water. Everyone will say, “(o)h,
it’s so great. It’s so great. That’s not great.”
Then more, saying a
“(n)uclear holocaust would be like no other.
They are a very powerful nuclear country
and so are we. But if we have a good
relationship with Russia, believe me, that is
a good thing, not a bad thing.”
Days later, he reportedly told advisers and allies he’d
likely shelve plans to cooperate with Moscow in
combating terrorism and other national security issues at
least temporarily.
It shows in continuing Obama’s wars, escalating conflict in
Syria, perhaps intending troop buildups in Afghanistan,
Syria and Iraq, along with sending special forces to
Yemen, Libya, Somalia, and perhaps elsewhere in the
Middle East and North Africa - on the phony pretext of
combating terrorism America supports.
On March 3, ABC News said the Pentagon “quietly ordered
new commando deployments to the Middle East and North
Africa…with the encouragement of President Trump.”
180
Aboard the Gerald R. Ford aircraft carrier last week, he
said
“(w)e’re are going to have very soon the
finest equipment in the world.”
“We will give our military the tools you need
to prevent war, and if required to fight war
and only do one thing and do you know
what that is, win, win, we’re going to start
winning again.”
His bluster sounded like a call to arms for increased
aggression in multiple theaters, perhaps in new ones.
Last month at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Defense
Secretary Mattis said Washington isn’t ready to collaborate
with Moscow militarily.
Secretary of State Tillerson said Russia must first stop
violence in Ukraine - it has nothing to do with, Tillerson
ignoring Moscow’s all-out efforts for diplomatic resolution
to nearly three years of Kiev aggression against its own
people.
Wrongfully blaming Russia for nonexistent US election
hacking persists. On Monday, Senate Minority leader
Chuck Schumer called for an immediate Justice
Department investigation into (nonexistent) political
interference with ongoing inquiries into (nonexistent)
Russian US election hacking, blustering:
“The American people deserve to know if
the investigation into Russia’s interference
with our election and the administration’s
contact with Russian officials has been
compromised by political interference.”
He asked DOJ inspector Michael Horowitz to determine if
any “misconduct” occurred, along with investigating
whether any department staff members “violat(ed)
criminal and civil laws.”
Schumer wants witch-hunt inquiries continued - to
undermine Trump, bashing Russia relentlessly at the same
time, preventing any chance for better relations.
According to Putin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, “hysteria”
rages in Washington.
 “This is something unbelievable, and I don’t
actually think it corresponds with our After a century of US hostility toward Russia, chances for
national interests. I mean both interests of more normalized bilateral relations seem as distant as ever.
the US and Russia. (It’s) doing a lot of
harm to the future of bilateral relations.” The risk of war between the world’s dominant nuclear
powers remains ominously real.
Weeks earlier, he was hopeful for eventual improved ties,
saying time is being lost resolving problems of concern to
both nations.
.

181
 Judicial Watch Sues CIA, DOJ For Intel Leak Records:
"President Trump Is On To Something"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 6, 2017 4:37 PM

Given that the Obama White House was (self-described as)
"the most transparent administration ever," we hope that
Judicial Watch's demands of the Trump administration will
be met positively.
Judicial Watch announced today that it
filed a Freedom of Information Act
(FOIA) lawsuit against the Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), the United
States Department of Justice and the
Department of the Treasury regarding
records related to the investigation of
retired United States Army Lieutenant
General Michel Flynn’s communications
with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak
(Judicial Watch v. Central Intelligence
Agency et al. (No.1:17-cv-00397)). (The
National Security Agency refused to
confirm or deny the existence of
intelligence records about communications
between Gen. Flynn and Amb Kislyak.)
Judicial Watch filed the lawsuit after the agencies failed
to respond to a January 25, 2017, FOIA request
seeking:
Any and all records regarding, concerning, or related to the
investigation of retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s
communications with Russian Ambassador to the United
States Sergey Kislyak between October 1, 2016 and the
present.
This request includes, but is not limited to, any and all
related warrants, affidavits, declarations, or similar records
regarding the aforementioned investigation.
For purposes of clarification, please find enclosed a CNN
report regarding the investigation, which cites information
that was provided to CNN by members of the Intelligence
Community.
In its complaint Judicial Watch asks the
court to order the agencies to search for
all records responsive to its FOIA
requests and demonstrate that they
employed reasonable search methods;
order the agencies to produce by a specific date all non-
exempt records and a Vaughn index of all withheld
records; and instruct the agencies to cease withholding all
non-exempt records.
On January 23, 2017, the establishment shot itself in the
foot as CNN reported that the government was
investigating Flynn, former national security adviser to
President Trump:
The calls were captured by routine US
eavesdropping targeting the Russian
diplomats, according to the intelligence
and law enforcement officials.
But the officials said some of the content of the
conversation raised enough potential concerns that
investigators are still looking into the discussions, amid a
broader concern about Russian intelligence-gathering
activities in the United States.
The officials all stressed that so far there has been no
determination of any wrongdoing.
FBI and intelligence officials briefed members of the
Obama White House team before President Barack Obama
left office about the Flynn calls to the Russian ambassador,
sources said.
“President Trump is on to something.
The Obama-connected wiretapping and
illegal leaks of classified material
concerning President Trump and
General Flynn are a scandal,” said
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton.
“Judicial Watch aims to get to the truth
about these crimes and we hope the Trump
administration stands with us in the fight for
transparency.”

182
183
 Government Spooks Can Use The Mic And
Camera On Trump’s Phone Even When
He Thinks It Is Turned Off
Michael Snyder
March 6, 2017
After reading this article you might not ever view your
electronic devices the same way again. Last year,
Hollywood released a biographical political thriller based
on the life of Edward Snowden that had one particularly
creepy scene. In that scene, a government spook used a
program to remotely activate the microphone and camera
on a laptop, and by doing so he was able to watch a
woman as she got undressed. Sadly, as you will see
below, this kind of thing is happening constantly. Any
digital device can potentially be accessed and used to spy
on you even if it appears to be turned off. And this is why
Donald Trump needs to be so careful right now, because
the intelligence community wants to take him down and
they can literally use any digital device in his possession to
try to gather dirt on him. We have a “deep state” that is
absolutely obsessed with watching, tracking and
monitoring the American people, and something
desperately needs to be done about this unconstitutional
surveillance. Now that Trump has become greatly upset
about how the government was tapping into his phone
calls, maybe something will finally get accomplished.
In an article that I just published on The Most Important
News, I talked about the NSA’s brand new two billion
dollar data storage facility in Utah that can store up to five
zettabytes of data. Secret “electronic monitoring rooms”
embedded within the facilities of major communications
companies across the United States send an endless flow of
digital information to this facility, and most Americans
have no idea that this is even happening. The following
comes from Wired…
Before yottabytes of data from the deep web and elsewhere
can begin piling up inside the servers of the NSA’s new
center, they must be collected.
184
To better accomplish that, the agency
has undergone the largest building
boom in its history, including installing
secret electronic monitoring rooms in
major US telecom facilities. Controlled
by the NSA, these highly secured
spaces are where the agency taps into
the US communications networks, a
practice that came to light during the
Bush years but was never
acknowledged by the agency.
The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-
wiretapping program have long been exposed—how the
NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to
oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic
eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale
monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email.
In the wake of the program’s exposure,
Congress passed the FISA Amendments
Act of 2008, which largely made the
practices legal.
Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal
activity were granted immunity from prosecution and
lawsuits.
Whistleblowers have come forward again and again to
warn us about what was happening, but they have largely
been ignored. One of the most prominent whistleblowers
was former NSA employee William Binney…
Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency
launched its warrantless-wiretapping program.
“They violated the Constitution setting it
up,” he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care.
They were going to do it anyway, and they
were going to crucify anyone who stood in
the way. When they started violating the
Constitution, I couldn’t stay.”
Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been
publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on
domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email.
At the outset the program recorded 320 million calls a
day, he says, which represented about 73 to 80 percent of
the total volume of the agency’s worldwide intercepts. The
haul only grew from there.
Can you imagine recording 320 million phone calls a day?
And that was at the beginning of the program – I can’t
even imagine what the number must be these days.
But even if you aren’t using your phone government
spooks can still potentially be listening to you. The
following comes from a CNN article entitled “How The
NSA Can ‘Turn On’ Your Phone Remotely”…
Government spies can set up their own miniature cell
network tower. Your phone automatically connects to it.
Now, that tower’s radio waves send a command to your
phone’s antennae: the baseband chip. That tells your phone
to fake any shutdown and stay on.
A smart hack won’t keep your phone running at 100%,
though. Spies could keep your phone on standby and just
use the microphone — or send pings announcing your
location.
John Pirc, who did cybersecurity research at the CIA, said
these methods — and others, like physically bugging
devices — let the U.S. hijack and reawaken terrorists’
phones.
Unfortunately, these tactics are not just used against
“terrorists”.
The truth is that these tactics are employed against anyone
that the NSA is interested in, and in fact they could be
listening to you right now.
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we have learned quite a bit
about how the NSA takes over digital devices…
The latest story from the Edward Snowden leaks yesterday
drives home that the NSA and its spy partners possess
specialized tools for doing exactly that.
According to The Intercept, the NSA uses
a plug-in called GUMFISH to take over
cameras on infected machines and snap
photos.
Another NSA plug-in called
CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE hijacks the
microphone on targeted computers to
record conversations.
Intelligence agencies have been turning computers into
listening devices for at least a decade, as evidenced by the
185
Flame spy tool uncovered by Kaspersky Lab in 2012,
which had the ability to surreptitiously turn on webcams
and microphones and perform a host of other espionage
operations.
So what can you do to prevent this from happening?
If you have external webcams and microphones, you can
unplug them when they are not in use.
If you have a built-in camera, some have suggested
covering the camera with a sticker.
And of course pulling out the battery entirely will prevent
someone from taking over your phone when you are not
using it.
But at the end of the day, it is going to be really hard to
keep government spooks out of your electronic devices
completely. They have become extremely sophisticated at
using these devices to get what they want, and they will
literally go after just about anyone.
For example, just consider what they did to former CBS
reporter Sharyl Attkisson. In her recent book, she details a
campaign of digital harassment that sounds like something
out of a spy novel. The following comes from the
Washington Post…
The breaches on Attkisson’s computer,
says this source, are coming from a
“sophisticated entity that used
commercial, nonattributable spyware
that’s proprietary to a government
agency: either the CIA, FBI, the Defense
Intelligence Agency, or the National
Security Agency (NSA).” Attkisson learns
from “Number One” that one intrusion was
launched from the WiFi at a Ritz Carlton
Hotel and the “intruders discovered my
Skype account handle, stole the
password, activated the audio, and
made heavy use of it, presumably as a
listening tool.”
To round out the revelations of “Number
One,” he informs Attkisson that he’d found
three classified documents deep inside
her operating system, such that she’d
never know they were even there. “Why?
To frame me?” Attkisson asks in the book.
If they can do all of that to Sharyl Attkisson, they can do it
to Donald Trump too.
Trump needs to understand that the deep state is trying to
destroy him, and that everything that he says and does is
being monitored.
So until Trump can completely clean house at all of our And let us hope that Trump is ultimately victorious in his
intelligence agencies, he is going to have to be extremely struggle against the deep state, because the future of this
careful 24 hours a day. nation is literally hanging in the balance.

186
 Trump Issues New Travel Ban
For 6 Muslim-Majority Countries, Excludes Iraq
Published Time: 6 Mar, 2017 16:29Edited Time: 7 Mar, 2017 09:24
FILE PHOTO. © Noah Berger / Reuters
President Donald Trump has issued a new executive order,
temporarily blocking travel to the US for residents of six
Muslim-majority countries pending revision of visa
procedures. The previous travel ban, issued in January,
was blocked in federal courts.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Homeland Security
Secretary John Kelly, and Attorney General Jeff Sessions
announced the new executive order to reporters on
Monday.
The order halts the issuance of new US visas to citizens of
Iran, Libya, Syria, Somalia, Sudan and Yemen for the next
90 days.
Iraq, which was included in the January ban, was left off
the list this time after the government in Baghdad agreed
to increase cooperation with the US on background checks
for its citizens applying for visas, AP reported.
Iraqi Foreign Ministry spokesman Ahmed Jamal called the
decision
“an important step in the right direction”
that “consolidates the strategic alliance
between Baghdad and Washington in
many fields, and at their forefront the war
on terrorism.”
Tillerson thanked the government in Baghdad for working
with the State Department on improving vetting, and called
the order
“a vital measure for protecting our national
security.”
The new order also imposes a 120-day halt on refugee
admissions from the six countries. Legal permanent
187
residents (‘Green Card’ holders) from the countries will
not be affected, however, Reuters reported citing a fact
sheet supplied by the administration.
“Nothing in this executive order affects
existing lawful permanent residents,” Kelly
said, adding that Homeland Security will
enforce it “humanely, respectfully and with
professionalism.”
Trump’s senior aide Kellyanne Conway provided
confirmation in an interview with Fox News on Monday.
“If you have travel docs, if you actually
have a visa, if you are a legal permanent
resident, you are not covered under this
particular executive action,” Conway said,
adding that the new order will go into effect
on March 16.
The new order also includes exemptions such as business
or medical travel and gives room for waivers on a case-by-
case basis.
In the 90-day review period, Homeland Security is
supposed to define a new set of requirements for travel to
the US, and recommend restrictions for countries that do
not comply.
“Like every nation, the US has a right to
control who enters our country and to keep
out those who would do us harm,” said
Sessions, adding that the Department of
Justice regards the new executive order as
“a lawful and proper exercise of
presidential authority” and will both enforce
and defend it.
Groups that opposed the original travel ban have vowed to
protest the new one as well, calling it religious
discrimination.
“Trump’s revised executive order is the
same Muslim ban with a fresh haircut,” Jon
Rainwater, executive director of Peace
Action, said in a statement. “There’s no
evidence that banning travelers based on
nationality actually protects anyone.”
 Mika Tearfully Tells Viewers Of Trump:
'If People Out There Feel Nervous, We Do Too'
‘This Is Not Funny, This Is Really Bad’
Mar 6, 2017

about this country after this is over. You

need to think of the end game here,
because there isn't one at the rate we are
going."

President Trump's wiretap tweets struck an emotional

chord with MSNBC's Mika Brzezinksi. The morning
anchor fought back tears as she told viewers that "we are
all really nervous" about what the Trump Administration is
going to do.
Moments later, Brzezinkski returned with another warning.
"This is not funny," Brzezinski told her
audience. "This is really bad. Just for the "They are pushing a very dangerous
record, we are all really nervous. So if agenda," she said of the Trump
people out there feel nervous, we do too. Administration. "An extremely dangerous
We don’t think this is funny." one."

The host also issued a direct appeal to Trump's staff,

asking them how they can look at themselves in the
mirror.

"We are at a low point in American history

and I don't know how anybody can defend
this president, even if it's their job. Like
you've got to have a job after this. You've
got to look in the mirror after this. Sarah
Huckabee or whoever is speaking out next.
You have to look in the mirror and think
.

188
 Here Are The Top 15 'Obamagate' Wiretap Victims
Via Jim Hoft Of The Gateway Pundit Blog,
Mar 6, 2017 5:46 PM
The Main Stream Media and other enemies of the current
President are challenging the proposition that President
Obama wire tapped President Donald Trump during the
2016 Presidential race. President Trump started this
discussion with his tweets over the weekend,
but it should be clear that it is not
unfounded that former President Obama
would wire tap President Trump during
the election process.
This is because he has done this before. Here is a list of
individuals who were wire tapped by the Obama
Administration.
WikiLeaks released the following list on February 23rd
(see link here) of Obama Administration wire taps:
The US National Security Agency bugged a private climate
change strategy meeting; between 1. UN Secretary
General Ban Ki-Moon and 2. German Chancellor
Angela Merkel in Berlin;
Obama bugged 3. Chief of Staff of UN High
Commissioner for Refugees (UNHCR) for long term
interception targetting his Swiss phone;
Obama singled out the 4. Director of the Rules Division
of the World Trade Organisation (WTO), Johann
Human, and targetted his Swiss phone for long term
interception;
Obama stole sensitive 5. Italian diplomatic cables
detailing how Israel’s Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu
implored Italy’s Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi to help
patch up his relationship with US President Barack Obama,
who was refusing to talk to Netanyahu;
189
Obama intercepted 6. top EU and 7. Japanese trade
ministers discussing their secret strategy and red lines to
stop the US “extort[ing]” them at the WTO Doha arounds
(the talks subsequently collapsed);
Obama explicitly targeted 8. five other top EU economic
officials for long term interception, including their French,
Austrian and Belgium phone numbers;
Obama explicitly targetted the phones of 9. Italy’s
ambassador to NATO and 10. other top Italian officials
for long term interception; and
Obama intercepted details of a critical private meeting
between then 11. French president Nicolas Sarkozy,
Merkel and Berlusconi, where the latter was told the
Italian banking system was ready to “pop like a cork”.
In addition to the above list we also know now that Obama
wire tapped various individuals in the US media that were
reporting information not flattering to the Obama
Administration. It is widely known that Obama’s Justice
Department targeted journalists with wiretaps in 2013:
In 2013 the liberal Washington Post expressed outrage
after the revelation that 12. the Justice Department had
investigated the newsgathering activities of a Fox
News reporter as a potential crime in a probe of
classified leaks. The reporter, Fox News’ James Rosen
and his family, were part of an investigation into
government officials anonymously leaking information to
journalists. Rosen was not charged but his movements and
actions were tracked.
Also in 2013, 13. members of the Associated Press
were also a target of the surveillance. The ultra liberal
New Yorker even noted that “In moderate and liberal
circles, at least, the phone-records scandal, partly because
it involves the dear old A.P. and partly because it raises
anew the specter of Big Brother, may well present the most
serious threat to Obama’s reputation.”
14. Reporter Sharyl Attkisson said in 2014 that her
personal computer and CBS laptop were hacked after
she began filing stories about Benghazi that were
unflattering to the Obama administration. A source who
checked her laptop said the hacker used spyware
“proprietary to a government agency,” according to an
article in the New York Post.
 Update – 15. WikiLeaks tweeted overnight that the Finally, we ask The New York Times, was this fake news?
Obama Administration spied on their journalists as
well:

Obama is no stranger to wire tapping. His administration

tapped phones and computers of friends and foe alike.
.

190
 Fmr Obama Secret Service Agent Bongino Shares Info On
Obama Wiretaps – It’s About To ‘Blow Wide Open’
Carmine Sabia
March 6, 2017
Former Secret Service agent Dan Bongino believes the
Trump Tower wiretapping scandal, known as Obamagate
by many on social media, is going to “blow wide open this
week.”
The best-selling author, added that he plans on sharing
information on the Obama administration this week with
the public.
Bongino worked for the administrations of former
Presidents George W. Bush and Barack Obama in the
Presidential Protection Division.
191
He was a frequent presence on cable news shows
throughout the 2016 presidential election season and had
an explosive confrontation with CNN’s Don Lemon in
defense of Trump.
It was so fiery that President Trump congratulated him
for it.
In a Facebook Live video after the tweets, Bongino said
the media wants to push the story that Trump might have
pressured the FBI to tell him about the wiretap or that the
president is lying.
But he explained that Trump’s Secret Service protection
probably did electronic countermeasure sweeps to check
for listening devices and found the bugs.
The media is too busy looking to find a way to make the
story about President Trump doing something incorrect to
realize that this is the most likely scenario, according to
Bongino.
And he believes America is going to find out this week.
 Trump Does Not Accept
Comey's Wiretap Denial: White House
By Tyler Durden
Mar 6, 2017 12:42 PM
Having thrown the Justice Department under the bus
yesterday, it appears the FBI Director has not managed to
pass the hot potato of blame/responsibility for Trump's
wiretap accusations. As The Hill reports, a White House
spokeswoman on Monday said she "doesn't think" Trump
accepts Comey's denial of the president's claims.
As a reminder, a New York Times report Sunday said
Comey asked the Justice Department to publicly reject the
president's claims. Senior U.S. officials told the Times that
Comey has said the president's wiretapping allegations are
false and asked the Justice Department on Saturday to
publicly correct the record. The FBI and DOJ declined to
comment to the newspaper.
But, as The Hill reports, it appears President Trump is not
buying Comey's denial that former President Obama
wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign.
"No, I don't think he does," Sarah
Huckabee Sanders said Monday on ABC's
"Good Morning America."
192
She said the president "wants the truth to
come out to the American people and he is
asking that it be done through the House
Intelligence Committee and that that be the
process that we go through."
Additionally, The Hill reports that Trump aide Kellyanne
Conway also called for Comey to share any information he
might have on Trump's allegations.
“If Mr. Comey has something he’d like to
say I’m sure we’re all willing to hear it,”
Conway said on Fox News. “All I saw was
a published news report. I didn’t see a
statement from him. I don’t know what Mr.
Comey knows.
“If he knows, of course he can issue a
statement,” Conway said. “We know he’s
not shy.”
In the meantime the pushback against Trump's accusation
continues to grow with increasingly more republicans now
rejecting the president's claims, and moments ago House
Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz told CBS
that he has seen nothing that backs Trump's wiretap
claims.
"Thus far, I have not seen anything directly
that would support what the president has
said," Jason Chaffetz said.
Chaffetz said it would take a while for a House
Intelligence panel investigating the alleged Russia links to
get to the bottom of the wiretapping allegation and that his
committee would play a supporting role in that. The leader
of the Democrats in the Senate, Chuck Schumer, on
Monday called on the Department of Justice's inspector
general to probe any possible political interference in its
investigation of contacts between Trump's associates and
Russia.
 Wikileaks Believes Trump's
Wiretapping Claim May Be Justified
© AFP 2016/ Robyn BECK - World
15:37 06.03.2017(Updated 15:41 06.03.2017)

Trump went on to compare the alleged surveillance

to McCarthyism and the Watergate scandal.

The WikiLeaks whistleblowing website

believes that the possible wiretapping
on US President Donald Trump during
last year’s presidential campaign by his
predecessor Barack Obama may be true
as the WikiLeaks's staff has allegedly
been spied on by the preceding
administration.

MOSCOW (Sputnik) — On January 26, 2015, WikiLeaks

published a report revealing that the US tech giant Google
handed emails of the WikiLeaks' journalists to the US
government on the basis of alleged 'conspiracy' and
'espionage' warrants.

"Did Obama spy on @realDonaldTrump's

campaign? Here is proof the Obama
administration spied on our journalists,"
WikiLeaks wrote on Twitter, attaching its
report on WikiLeaks' staff privacy breaches
by Google in favor of the US government.

On Saturday, Trump accused Obama of ordering to have

Trump's headquarters' "wires tapped" prior to the 2016
presidential election, describing the move as "new low."
.

193
 Blackmail? Did Comey Let Hillary
Off The Hook Because She Knew About FBI Wiretapping?
Cristina Laila
Mar 6th, 2017 2:10 Pm

As Obamagate reaches a fever pitch, the

daisy chain of scandals will continue to
surface.
Blackmail is one of the most effective
tools to control people in power,
especially politicians. Is this why Comey
didn’t recommend charges for Hillary
Clinton on the email investigation? If
Hillary was aware of the FBI
wiretapping, she could use that as
blackmail against Comey.

Yesterday, TGP reported that FBI Director Comey asked

the Justice Department to publicly reject Trump’s
wiretapping claim. Did he order the wiretap? Yesterday,
Mark Levin named the FBI as one of the agencies involved
in a blistering interview with Fox News. If Hillary Clinton had knowledge of
Comey’s involvement in the
It appears that Hillary Clinton was aware of the wiretap wiretapping, perhaps he let her off the
because she tweeted about it one week before the election. hook to save himself from Clinton
blackmail tactics.
We know that AG Loretta Lynch also met with Bill
Clinton on the tarmac of Phoenix Sky Harbor
International Airport in June of 2016 right around the same
time as the first FISA request. Bill Clinton then passed the
information about the wiretapping plan to Hillary Clinton
in order to help his wife win the election.
.

194
 Washington And America Self-Implode At The
Hands Of A Treasonous, Obama Led Shadow Government
By Joachim Hagopian
March 6, 2017
The United States federal government in Washington is
under attack today. Our nation’s capital is presently under
siege, not from military bombs or rockets fired by any
foreign enemy but from powerful enemies within. With
Obama-Hillary-Soros forces ostensibly maneuvering
outside official government channels, against America’s
legitimately elected President Trump, and their loyalist
foot soldiers – the neocons and intelligence community
loyalists within the CIA/NSA/FBI still operating inside
deep state, criminally conspiring with Mainstream Media,
this sinister alliance is also organizing legions of clueless
young leftist protesters to be at the ready for deployment in
the streets to wreak havoc violently rioting as paid agitator
insurgents. What we have here on our hands is an
American Spring uprising, an insurgent regime change
operation taking place right here in our own country
currently bent on overthrowing America’s existing
“democratically elected” government.
At no time in our prior history has anything so openly
subversive and treacherously treasonous ever been
perpetrated on the United States of America before… the
closest being the covert conspiracy singlehandedly
thwarted by America’s military hero General Smedley
Butler in 1934 when a band of elitist bankster traitors
attempted a coup d’état against the FDR administration.
The all-too-familiar divide and conquer strategy is once
again the globalist go-to Modus Operandi, being
implemented through multi-prong assaults waging an open
insurrection war against the Trump administration in order
to successfully execute a coup committed by traitors out to
take down America as their latest banana republic.
Physical Gold & Silver in your IRA. Get the Facts.
Despite having written a number of articles critical of
Trump policy as president and latest White House puppet,
his presidency has been undermined, sabotaged and
categorically rejected by his opponents at every turn.
Trump rightfully called mainstream media fake news “an
enemy of the American people.” Tactics deployed by
MSM and Trump’s multiplicity of enemies are so blatantly
illegal and highly unethical that as a fair-minded journalist
seeking the truth, I feel compelled to address this
demonization of Donald Trump perpetrated by the same
crowd that’s been demonizing Vladimir Putin and Bashar
al-Assad for years. Understanding the why and the
195
wherefore of this unprecedented full-scale attack on a
standing US president is key to recognizing the truly
diabolical bigger picture unfolding at the behest of the
planetary controllers.
The ruling elite’s longtime agenda has been to destroy the
United States and the West from within. In reaction to last
year’s growing anti-globalist movement, represented by
the Brexit vote and “anti-establishment” Trump election,
the elite is becoming desperately aggressive now, fighting
for absolute domination and population control, insidiously
whipping up unstable domestic conditions throughout the
Western world, engineered to explode with racial, class,
religious and politically charged civil war violence in both
America and Europe. In the US this takes the form of mass
deployment of a robotically dumbed down, highly
manipulated yet well-organized political left, constituting
the elite’s WMD against Trump’s reactionary militarized
authoritarian federal forces, soon spilling blood and chaos
as America’s very own Spring uprising. The coming riots
are aimed at causing the violent breakdown of civil society
in both America and Europe, of course, co-timed with the
ongoing, incessant MSM propaganda machine, 24/7
delivering the false narrative of overly hostile, aggressive
Russia, China and Iran intended to ignite World War III,
simultaneous to the implosion of the house of cards global
economy – the New World Disorder’s perfect storm of
cataclysmic events, mapped out long in advance to bring
about its one world government tyranny.
Meanwhile, amidst this seemingly suicidal freefall decline
of the unipolar American Empire is international law
enforcement’s unprecedented crackdown under Trump of
the controlling elite’s pedophile child sex trafficking
operations, shaking loose the sickos embedded at the top
of the predator food chain from their previously
impenetrable, high and mighty perch of insulated
privileged protection. With so many deeply disturbed
criminal psychopaths literally, satanically feeding off the
blood of our innocent children, while fronting so many of
the West’s national governments, Fortune 500
corporations, central banking and entertainment industries,
rather than be held accountable for their ungodly sins,
they’ve escalated the launching of their genocidal
counteroffensive to eliminate 90% of the global population
within the next few years in virtual total earth destruction.
The same evil forces so actively bent on destroying
Trump, America and most of us on the planet, are the same
pedophile bloodlines that have ruled this world for
centuries. For a very long time they’ve been preparing for
this epochal moment in human history, smugly counting
on their bug-out contingency exit plan that includes
continuing their life of luxury from safe, expansive
subterranean dwellings and secret stellar space colonies,
combined with their advancing transhumanism exploits, all
designed to remain impervious to our human laws of
justice, spiritual laws of karma, as well as the earth’s sixth
mass life extinction they’ve been methodically engineering
on our planet’s surface.
In the meantime, deep state traitors are currently pushing
humanity off their doomsday cliff into a totally insane and
unjustified war against Russia, latching onto every
illegally monitored communique between Trump
administration officials and designated Russian enemies in
order to oust the president’s closest staff advisors (first it
was Michael Flynn and now under their gun is Attorney
General JeffSessions), which of course only adds fuel to
their anti-Putin and anti-Trump warmongering echo
chamber incinerator. Democrats are now charging Sessions
with lying during his Senate confirmation hearings when
he stated he knew of no conversations between Trump
staff and the Russians. Then apparently once again through
NSA deep state sources, like with Flynn before him, the
opposition rag theWashington Post (that just hired alleged
pedo Podesta) to reveal that Sessions did meet with
Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak.
And so it’s déjà vu all over again as Democrats like Nancy
Pelosi are quick to call for Sessions’ resignation for
“apparent perjury.” That an FBI insider outed Pelosi as
another politician on the pedophile round up list resulting
from arrest warrants that Attorney General Sessions signed
explains why Pelosi might be so anxious to get rid of
Sessions. For a leading member of the Senate Armed
Services Committee, as Senator Sessions still was last
year, to meet twice with Kislyak was simply a routine part
of his job. Yet in response to the hornets’ nest of a trap set
for him by Trump enemies, Attorney General Sessions has
already recused himself from any further investigation into
the so-called Russian influence and involvement with
either the election or Trump and his administrative staff
prior to the January 20thinauguration. In essence, this is
opposition Democrats’ thinly veiled excuse of a weapon to
clean house in a flagrant witch hunt attempt to delegitimize
and ultimately take down the Trump presidency. The
traitors are increasingly desperate to destroy Trump before
he destroys them.
It has just been revealed that the source of all these illegal
wiretap leaks at the Trump White House is former
President Obama. The latest is Trump is claiming that
Obama even wiretapped his Trump Towers. As early as
June last year Obama requested a FISA warrant to spy on
Trump for any contact with Russians. After FISA initially
turned him down, in October it was granted. Assigned the
globalist mission to destroy America from within, for
196
months Barack Hussein Obama has been busily mobilizing
his anti-Trump opposition forces, both inside and outside
of government. The topper is, Obama secretly signed an
executive order just 17 days before he left office
authorizing not only the NSA but 16 other intelligence
agencies to illicitly collect surveillance on the Trump
administration. This readily explains how just 24 days on
the job, National Security Advisor Flynn was the first to be
targeted for removal by having his illegally taped
classified conversations with the Russian ambassador
criminally handed over to the Washington Post and now
it’s Sessions turn to navigate this same conspiratorial ring
of fire.
A couple of other illustrative examples of how Obama
strategically planted operative moles working “behind
enemy lines” within the Trump administration are two
provocateur underlings belonging to Obama’s national
security advisor for strategic communications, the
notorious Ben Rhodes. CIA analyst until last month and
Rhodes deputy, Ned Price, penned an anti-Trump negative
publicity article for theWashington Post explaining why
his long-term CIA career had to be abandoned in good
conscience when he found himself so morally conflicted
working [for all of three weeks] under President Trump.
As a White House National Security Council (NSC)
employee under Obama and less than a month under
Trump, Price’s feigned fakery and publicly expressed self-
righteousness is nauseating, claiming his decision to quit
was never politically motivated. As an “afterthought,”
WaPo was forced to add that last August Price donated
$5,000 to Hillary for president. But Ned wants us to know
that neither his resigning nor his publicly stated reasons for
doing so has anything to do with politics.
The other mole, a hajib wearing Ben Rhodes assistant
named Ahmed Rumana, wrote her hit piece in The Atlantic
three days after Price’s, entitled, “I Was a Muslim in the
Trump White House.” Again, not including her four
days’ vacation time, Ahmed was employed in the Trump
administration’s NSC for all of four days before her
strategically timed exit and anti-Trump parting shot in the
mainstream press. Islamophobia, anti-Islamic hate crimes
and Trump’s 7-nation Muslim ban (that excludes
Wahhabism-centered Saudi Arabia) notwithstanding, while
attending George Mason University, Ahmed Rumana was
an officer in the Muslims Students Association, an Islamic
offshoot organization established in America in 1963 with
direct links to the Muslim Brotherhood whose founder
Hassan al-Banna stated, ”It is the nature of Islam to
dominate, not to be dominated, to impose its law on all
nations and to extend its power to the entire planet.”
Obama’s Organizing for Action (OFA) campaign has his
anti-Trump army now showing up to disrupt Republicans’
Town Hall Meetings across America. Obama is using
moves straight out of his and Hillary’s communist guru
Saul Alinsky’s playbook, having actually compiled a
training manual specifying marching orders to his minions
to publicly bully GOP Congress members holding
meetings in their local districts during congressional
recesses. The issued manual explicitly instructs Alinsky
techniques to his rabid followers, unveiling Obama’s
transparent agenda to overthrow President Trump in the
long run and in the short term save Obamacare as his
signature domestic legacy.
The traitors’ war against Trump has Obama’s born in Iran,
longtime closest advisor Valerie Jarrett even moving into
Obama’s DC mansion again just two miles from the White
House as the command center for their insurgency
operations out to destroy the Trump presidency on their
way to instigating a bloody civil war on US soil between
their political left fighting against Trump’s political right.
The globalists have always leaned ideologically towards
socialism and communism, and they’re using their
communist disciples like Obama and Jarrett to lead their
treasonous government overthrow. As Obama and Jarrett’s
longtime mentors, communist Saul Alinsky and Obama’s
likely biological father and fellow communist Frank
Marshall Davis along with fellow comrade-terrorist Bill
Ayers couldn’t be prouder. But once again the evildoers
are on the wrong side of history and, at the end of the day,
they will all be brought to justice as subversive American
traitors.
Yet another anti-Trump hub referred to as the Democratic
war room is the liberal think tank called the Center for
American Progress(CAP). With upwards of 900 second
and third tier openings that Trump has yet to fill, each of
his appointees must be Senate approved. CAP intends to
micro-scrutinize each and every one of his designees,
challenging their qualifications, searching for potential
conflicts of interest in order to tie up Senate floor time
indefinitely and thereby effectively obstruct Trump and his
Republican-controlled Congress agenda at every
contentious turn, in effect gridlocking Washington. This
strategy of grinding attrition intends to render Trump’s
presidential authority completely impotent, weakening his
presidency to the extent that it’s made vulnerable to
impeachment and/or insurgent overthrow.
Republicans realize two can play this game. Shortly after
Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill jumped on her war
party bandwagon, condemning her former colleague
Sessions, she has already been proven a liar herself. It
turns out that she also met twice with the Russian
ambassador, once in 2013 and again in 2015, and then was
foolish enough to have forgotten that she even went on
record tweeting about it. A photo of the McCaskill meeting
and her tweets were readily presented to discredit her
emphatic, holier-than-thou, false claim.
The tide has already begun turning. All the PedoGate
Democrats using the Russian meme to frame Trump
administration officials are being exposed. Trump just
tweeted:
197
I hearby [sic] demand the second investigation, after
[Senate Minority Leader Chuck] Schumer, of Pelosi for
her close ties to Russia, and lying about it.
Trump called Schumer a hypocrite after a photo surfaced
with the New York senator sharing donuts and coffee with
Putin. A photo also confirms that Pelosi also met with the
Russian ambassador. Actually, 30 Democrats have met
with Russian diplomats, rendering the Democrats’ witch
hunt crusade a total hypocritical farce. The tables are
turning and soon a formal investigation of Obama’s
illegal wiretaps and leaks unlawfully shared with the press
will be conducted.
All this illicit subterfuge, petty finger pointing and partisan
name calling is making America the political mockery of
the entire world. With the sole world superpower’s soiled
laundry being paraded on full daily display before the
planet, the rest of the world can only conclude that
America has completely lost its way, and appears to be
regressing into infantile irrational behavior as part of its
own corrosive self-destruction.
Of course, it’s not a left vs. right issue at all, nor a
Democrats vs. Republicans dichotomy. That’s just more
divide and conquer brainwashing dribble. There’s plenty
of pedophile guilt to spread around as the honorable
former Congresswoman Cynthia McKinneypointed out on
Twitter immediately following Trump’s recent anti-human
trafficking press conference:
Forewarning: this brings down Dems and Repubs! He
needs to go straight all the way because this goes to the
top!
Under the clear light of day, one by one the treasonous
cockroaches from both political parties are scrambling and
running for cover, having their demonic “dirty laundry”
exposed. A Republican example is Senator John McCain,
recently busted via another WikiLeaksrelease of his signed
letter asking for money during his 2008 presidential bid
from – of all nations – the one he loves to bash and wants
to bomb the most – Russia. Though a Reuter’s article
treated it at the time as a silly mailing list mix-up, clearly
McCain violated campaign law that expressly forbids
financial solicitation of all foreign governments. On top of
that, a year ago McCain was also caught accepting a one
million dollar bribe from the House of Sin, I mean Saud,
the world’s biggest financier of the world’s biggest
terrorist group that the chicken hawk’s been in bed with
for years.
John McCain’s treasonous career may finally be over,
especially since he also happens to be amongst the 30
prominent politicians in Congress targeted on an FBI
pedophile short list, soon to be arrested per recent
disclosures by government insiders. McCain’s latest
subterfuge was revealed when he and his fellow bobsy
twin also named on that FBI round up list, Lindsey
Graham, traveled to Ukraine to celebrate the New Year
handing corrupt Kiev dictator Poroshenko the green light
for launching yet another invasion into the Donetsk
People’s Republic once Trump became president and then
falsely blame the Russians again. Even McCain and
Graham’s closet bedfellows, ISIS, Netanyahu, AIPAC and
the Greater Israel Project can’t save them now, nor will
their blackmailing power any longer have any hold over
the little squirrely faced, now neutered warmongers.
In recent years with Obama’s former CIA director John
Brennan an outed Muslim having converted while
stationed in Saudi Arabia in the 1990’s, and Manchurian
President Barack Hussein himself a long suspected
Muslim, legitimate concerns of serious national security
breaches through radical Islamic infiltration have only
grown throughout the eight years of the Obama regime.
Then there’s suspected Saudi intelligence operative Huma
Abedin who’s been Hillary’s twenty-year aide helping the
treasonous secretary of state sell out America to Saudi
royal interests. Abedin is also the estranged wife of pervert
ex-Congressman Anthony Weiner, who is spilling the
pedophile beans to law enforcement on the elite’s
worldwide child sex slavery trafficking ring. This
underlying reality provides further impetus and motivation
for so many blackmail prone puppet-traitors operating at
the highest echelons of Washington power to ensure that
Trump gets dumped ASAP prior to his arresting hundreds
of high profile child molesters still walking free amongst
preyed upon children today. President Trump’s recent
press conference that reaffirmed his commitment to ending
global human sex trafficking delivered the message that
their days are numbered.
For several years now the pedophile-ridden US crime
cabal government has engaged in the nonstop
demonization of Russia, ever since the Obama neocons
illegally overthrew the democratically elected government
in Ukraine three years ago, installing their own neo-
Nazi puppet regime. In response, Putin and Crimean
residents were forced to merge as a defensive buffer
against the very real and justified threat posed by US
.
198
Empire-NATO’s aggressively hostile encroachment along
the entire Russian border. The Ukraine coup also caused
the ethnic Russian majority living in Eastern Ukraine to
rightfully move toward determining its own fate by
declaring independence from the US puppet Ukraine and
resist the US-led Kiev government’s military invasions and
bloody ethnic cleansing campaigns against the Donbass
freedom fighters. As the world’s bully playing God as
judge, jury and executioner, the US Empire’s downfall is
the direct result of lining up on the wrong side of history.
America has been taken over by monstrous psychopaths
determined to commit human genocide.
Utilizing Goebbels’ infamous mantra that if you repeat
telling a lie long enough, eventually it will convince and
effectively brainwash a docile, gullible [US] population
into misbelieving the designated enemy is a threat to its
very existence, thus the Russians, Chinese andIranians
have been conveniently relabeled cold war enemies whose
fabricated “aggressions” in self-defense must be stopped
through all-out war. The fake stream news has relentlessly
been working overtime on the American population,
prepping US citizens into acquiescence and acceptance of
the inevitability of World War III.
Though the war is far from over, the elite’s diabolical,
violently destructive agenda has been thoroughly exposed
like never before. The unstoppable truth is now stripping
away the layers of filthy lies that have survived under the
cover of darkness with which the Washington traitors and
their partner-in-crime – fake stream press – have
flourished for so long. But those days are now over. A
growing counterinsurgency army comprised of a citizen
investigator uprising is leaving no stone unturned, letting
the truth be their guide while they uncover the previously
protected and hidden criminal cabal cockroaches, with
perhaps a president on their side who may finally go after
the pervs. Honest, truth seeking citizens of the world are
becoming more empowered as they take back their
cherished planet from the true villains before they destroy
everything in life that we cherish. Our time has come for
the truth to shine in setting us all free while locking up the
traitors.
 Trump To Undo
Fuel Efficiency Standards
By Nick Cunningham
Mar 06, 2017, 3:15 PM CST
The Trump administration is set to undo one of former
President Obama’s signature achievements. On Tuesday,
the EPA and the Transportation Department are expected
to jointly announce the rollback of fuel efficiency
requirements for the nation’s auto fleet, a move that will
not require the approval of Congress.
In the wake of the financial crisis and the crumbling of top
U.S. automakers, the federal government bailed out
General Motors and Chrysler, while other companies were
severely damaged and barely survived the downturn. With
their backs against the wall, the Obama administration was
able to push through historic fuel efficiency requirements,
known as corporate average fuel economy (CAFE)
standards, the most stringent in decades. For cars made
between 2012 and 2016, car companies had to achieve an
average fuel economy of 35.5 miles per gallon, up from 25
mpg previously. For model years 2017-2025, fuel
efficiency had to jump to 54.5 mpg.
The requirements have successfully boosted the efficiency
of the nation’s auto fleet, with cars and trucks steadily
achieving ever higher ratings on fuel efficiency. Car
companies have ratcheted up efficiency on multiple fronts,
introducing new electric vehicles and electric-hybrid
models, while also boosting the fuel efficiency of
traditional cars and trucks.
But at the behest of the auto industry, President Trump is
set scrap those requirements. A coalition of 17 automakers
sent letters to the EPA asking the agency to remove the
CAFE standards, calling it “the single most important
decision the EPA has made in recent history.” The car
companies said the standards are unreachable, and that
they would force the industry to spend $200 billion over
the next decade in order to comply with them.
199
There is one other important element to watch. After the
election of Donald Trump, many analysts speculated that
such a move to scrap the fuel efficiency standards could be
forthcoming, but the significance was downplayed due to
one fact: the state of California has long been allowed to
set its own standards. Because California typically
implemented stricter standards than the federal
government, the entire auto industry tended to adhere to
the requirements because they couldn’t make different cars
for different states. In effect, California could drag the rest
of the country along with tighter fuel efficiency. This
arrangement would prevent the Trump administration from
backtracking on efficiency – the scrapping of the federal
standards would be largely symbolic if California required
carmakers to continue to tighten fuel efficiency.
However, there are reports that the Trump administration
could target California’s ability to set its own standards,
which would have far-reaching consequences if the federal
government succeeds. California officials have already
said that they would sue if Washington tries to take away
their ability to implement their own fuel efficiency
standards and they have retained the services of former
U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder.
"If the Trump administration were to rely on
facts and sound science, they would come
to the same conclusion that the EPA staff
and outside experts reached: The 2025
standards are achievable and in a way that
will save consumers trillions in fuel costs,"
Margo Oge, former head of the EPA’s
office of transportation and air quality, told
the LA Times.
The implications of this fight are potentially enormous.
The Obama administration argued that while the CAFE
standards would cost the auto industry $200 billion over 13
years, they would save consumers some $1.7 trillion in
avoided fuel costs over the life of the vehicles. According
to the Union of Concerned Scientists, the CAFE standards
put in place by the Obama administration could cut U.S.
oil demand by 3 million barrels per day by 2030.
Even if those figures are overly optimistic, the trend is
clear. The CAFE standards are arguably one of the single
most important policy achievements at cutting oil
consumption. But they will be undone if the Trump
administration is successful.
Meanwhile, oil analysts at Wood Mackenzie expect U.S.
gasoline demand to hit a peak in 2018, and global gasoline
200
demand could peak by 2021 even though vehicle sales will
continue to grow. But the flattening of gasoline demand is
largely the result of more efficient vehicles, a development
that can be attributed to fuel efficiency standards around
the world.
 Trump Isn’t The First President
To Go To War With The Press
By Jack Phillips, Epoch Times
March 6, 2017 At 9:51 Am

comments, outlets have basically followed his lead with a

“the-end-is-nigh” headline.

Trump Isn’t ‘Unprecedented’

But Trump isn’t the first president in this country’s history

to go to war with the media.

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump speaks during a

campaign rally in Clive, Iowa, on Sept. 13, 2016. (AP Photo/Evan
Vucci)

It’s no secret that President Donald Trump’s adversarial

relationship with the news media has them up in arms,
especially after the omission of several outlets from an
informal press gaggle last week. Both right- and left-
leaning pundits have condemned Trump, with some going
as far as saying that he’s headed on a path to a dictatorship.
Trump, for his part, has said that the “fake news media …
is the enemy of the American people.” The press corps, for
their part, have collectively hyperventilated. White House
Press Secretary Sean Spicer has followed the president’s
lead, and actively admonishes reporters during daily
briefings.
The Washington Post’s new masthead, in a likely nod to
Trump, claims that “Democracy dies in darkness,” while
New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet, wrote an
opinion piece after Spicer barred CNN, the Los Angeles
Times, Politico, BuzzFeed, and the Times from an informal
press conference (although the White House denied it).
Portrait of George Washington (1732–99) (public domain)
George Washington, the first president, noted that he
thought he was treated unfairly in newspaper articles of the
time, describing early reporters as “infamous scribblers”
and commented once that he was “tired to the marrow” of
being “buffeted in the public prints by a set” of reporters
who criticized him.
Reporters of the age even claimed Washington, who was
heading a brand-new experiment in governance after the
turmoil of the American Revolutionary War, had
dictatorial aspirations.
And newspapers, like the American polity itself, have
always favored one politician over another. While Trump’s
methods—including tweeting out 140-character blurbs to
tens of millions of people—are new, the grievances aren’t.

“Nothing like this has ever happened at the

White House in our long history of covering
multiple administrations of different
parties,”Baquet wrote.

Throughout history, U.S. presidents and politicians have

often had contentious relationships with the press—so it
shouldn’t be a surprise to them if Trump, in his typical
bombastic fashion, does the same. The media should take a
A painting of President John Adams (1735-1826), 2nd president of
more realistic approach. When Trump nudges the so-called the United States, by Asher B. Durand (1767-1845). (public domain)
window of appropriate discourse—the range of ideas the
public can accept—with tweets and press conference

201
John Adams was quite concerned about a partisan press—
but the second president went too far with the 1798
Sedition Act. It made publishing criticism of the
government against the law. Those who “write, print, utter,
or publish … any false, scandalous and malicious writing”
against the U.S. government could be jailed or fined. With
Adams in mind, Trump’s verbal assaults on the press are
hardly “unprecedented,” as is frequently foisted onto the
public by members of the media today. Trump hasn’t
violated individual protections under the first amendment
of the constitution by making criticism of his
administration an illegal act.
Like Adams, Washington abhorred the press.
By his second term, Washington frequently criticized the
press of “the grossest, most insidious mis-representations.”
According to a letter he wrote to Jefferson, the press made
“such exaggerated and indecent terms as could scarcely be
applied to a Nero; a notorious defaulter; or even to a
common pickpocket.”
Two centuries later, Trump told top CIA brass that
journalists are “among the most dishonest human beings
on earth” while tweeting on a weekly basis that the New
York Times, CNN, and others push out “fake news” about
him and his administration.
While Washington might be far more eloquent than
Trump, the contempt is the same.
Official Presidential portrait of Thomas Jefferson. (public domain)
.
202
Jefferson was no saint himself and viewed newspapers as a
tool to be used in meeting his political goals. Along with
James Madison, the third president started one of nation’s
first partisan newspapers, the National Gazette in 1791,
which was used to attack Alexander Hamilton and the
Washington administration.
“For god’s sake, my dear sir, take up your pen, select the
most striking heresies, and cut him to pieces in the face of
the public,” Jefferson said to Madison, telling him to attack
Hamilton under a false pen name in the newspaper (“fake
news,” anyone?).
The paper ran a story with the headline, “The Funeral of
George Washington,” speaking of the potential of
Washington being executed for exercising too much
authority. When Washington gazed on the front page, he
was incensed, and Washington, according to Jefferson,
“got into one of those passions when he cannot command
himself.” But Washington never expressed his anger in
public, according to historical accounts.
“He is also extremely affected by the
attacks made and kept up on him in the
public papers. I think he feels those things
more than any person I ever yet met with,”
Jefferson wrote Madison of Washington.
More than any other person until perhaps President Trump
two centuries later, who tweeted:
“The failing @nytimes has been wrong
about me from the very beginning … [they]
“got me wrong right from the beginning and
still have not changed course, and never
will. DISHONEST.”
The failing @nytimes has been wrong
about me from the very beginning. Said I
would lose the primaries, then the general
election. FAKE NEWS!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
January 28, 2017
 CIA Providing Raw Intelligence
As Trump-Russia Probes Heat Up
Congress Has Entered A New Phase In Its Investigation.
By Austin Wright And Martin Matishak
03/07/17 01:50 PM EST Updated 03/07/17 07:17 PM EST
Sen. John Cornyn said Tuesday, he viewed “four large binders full of
classified information that’s been made available to the committee to
conduct” its wide-ranging investigation. | Getty
Lawmakers are trekking to CIA headquarters in Langley,
Virginia, to review classified evidence on Russia’s
involvement in the presidential election. The House has
scheduled its first public hearing on the issue. And the
Senate is preparing to interview witnesses.
The congressional investigations into ties between
President Donald Trump's campaign and Russian officials
are in full swing.
For months, the leaders of the House and Senate
intelligence committees said their investigations into
Russia’s meddling in the 2016 presidential election were in
their “initial” stages. On Tuesday, it became clear that the
probes had moved into a new phase.
The CIA is now providing raw intelligence documents to
committee members, according to multiple senators.
Senate Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and
Majority Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) visited CIA
headquarters on Monday to view the documents
underlying the intelligence community’s unclassified
assessment that Russia sought to sway the election in favor
of Trump.
At Langley, Cornyn said Tuesday, he viewed “four large
binders full of classified information that’s been made
available to the committee to conduct” its wide-ranging
investigation.
203
House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) said
members of his panel had also made visits to CIA
headquarters and that there will be “more trips out there.”
He said he was close to reaching an agreement with the
intelligence community on whether evidence would be
turned over to Congress or continue to be housed within
the agencies.
Nunes also said Tuesday that his panel’s first public
hearing on the issue would be held March 20 and that
former members of the Obama administration had been
asked to testify — including former CIA Director John
Brennan, former Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper and former acting Attorney General Sally Yates,
who was fired by Trump in January after refusing to
defend his travel ban executive order in court.
The Senate Intelligence Committee, meanwhile, is
expected to begin questioning witnesses behind closed
doors “in the coming days and weeks,” according to a
congressional source who spoke on the condition of
anonymity. These formal interviews are expected to take
place on Capitol Hill, the source said, and will likely be
with officials from the agencies that contributed to the
assessment that concluded Moscow was trying to aid
Trump in November — the CIA, the FBI and the National
Security Agency.
The panel’s top Democrat, Sen. Mark Warner, said he
planned to travel to Langley on Wednesday to view the
raw intelligence documents. Warner emphasized that the
documents were “not the extent of the information we'll
need” to conduct the Intelligence Committee’s Russia
investigation, which will include looking into contacts
between the Trump campaign and Russian officials.
The Virginia senator said he and Burr were in discussions
about which people should be interviewed as part of the
probe. He declined to say whether the committee would
seek testimony from Attorney General Jeff Sessions, a top
Trump backer, who did not disclose two meetings he had
with Russia’s ambassador last year during his January
confirmation hearing.
The Associated Press reported Monday that the
Intelligence Committee had reached out to former Trump
foreign policy adviser Carter Page and that Page had
responded to the panel that he would "provide any
information" that might be needed.
Warner also indicated Tuesday he was happy with the
cooperation the Intelligence Committee has gotten so far
from the FBI. The top Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, Rep. Adam Schiff of California, has accused
the FBI of withholding information from his panel.
“I have regular conversations with [FBI]
Director [James] Comey,” Warner said
Tuesday. “I am confident that we're going
to get all the information we need to get to
the bottom of this in a way that we can let
the American people know what happened
or didn't happen.”
Nunes also suggested Tuesday the intelligence community
might not have shared information about potential
204
counterintelligence investigations with top lawmakers —
called the Gang of Eight — who are supposed to be
briefed on such matters.
The congressman noted that multiple news reports have
indicated that people associated with the Trump campaign
were being investigated for potential ties to Russia, but
that Congress was not made aware of any such
investigations.
“If Trump or any other political campaign,
anybody associated with Trump, was under
some kind of investigation, that clearly
should have risen to the Gang of Eight
level,” Nunes said. “Clearly we have some
questions about whether or not last year
we were read into everything that we
should have been read into.”
Josh Gerstein contributed to this report.
 CIA Leak: "Russian Election Hackers"
May Work In Langley
Source: Moon Of Alabama
Published: March 7, 2017
Attribution of cyber-intrusions and attacks is nearly
impossible. A well executed attack can not be traced back
to its culprit. If there are some trails that seem attributable
one should be very cautions following them. They are
likely faked.
Hundreds if not thousands of reports show that this lesson
has not been learned. Any attack is attributed to one of a
handful of declared "enemies" without any evidence that
would prove their actual involvement.
Examples:
In June 2016 we warned The Next
"Russian Government Cyber Attack"
May Be A Gulf of Tonkin Fake:
All one might see in a [cyber-]breach, if anything, is some
pattern of action that may seem typical for one adversary.
But anyone else can imitate such a pattern as soon as it is
known. That is why there is NEVER a clear attribution
in such cases. Anyone claiming otherwise is lying or has
no idea what s/he is speaking of.
There is now public proof that this lecture in basic IT
forensic is correct.
Wikileaks acquired and published a large stash of
documents from the CIA's internal hacking organization.
Part of the CIA hacking organization is a subgroup named
UMBRAGE:
The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques
'stolen' from malware produced in other
states including the Russian Federation.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total number
of attack types but also misdirect
attribution by leaving behind the
.
205
"fingerprints" of the groups that the
attack techniques were stolen from.
UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers, password
collection, webcam capture, data destruction, persistence,
privilege escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance
and survey techniques.
Hacking methods are seldom newly developed. They are
taken from public examples and malware, from attacks
some other organization once committed, they get bought
and sold by commercial entities. Many attacks use a
recombined mix of tools from older hacks. Once the NSA's
STUXNET attack on Iran became public the tools used in
it were copied and modified by other such services as well
as by commercial hackers. Any new breach that may look
like STUXNET could be done by anyone with the
appropriate knowledge. To assert that the NSA must have
done the new attack just because the NSA did STUXNET
would be stupid.
The CIA, as well as other services, have whole databases
of such 'stolen' tools. They may combine them in a way
that looks attributable to China, compile the source code at
local office time in Beijing or "forget to remove" the name
of some famous Chinese emperor in the code. The CIA
could use this to fake a "Chinese hacking attack" on South
Korea to raise fear of China and to, in the end, sell more
U.S. weapons.
Russia did not hack and leak the DNC emails, Iran did not
hack American casinos and North Korea did not hack
Sony.
As we wrote: "there is NEVER a clear
attribution". Don't fall for it when someone
tries to sell one.
(PS: There is a lot more in the new Wikileaks CIA stash. It
seems indeed bigger than the few items published from the
Snowden NSA leak.)
 New Leaks Confirm:
CIA Posed As ‘Russian Hackers’
If It Wasn't Already Obvious
RI Staff
Tue, Mar 7, 2017

We'll keep this short and sweet.

All allegations of "digital fingerprints" left behind by Russian hackers must now be dismissed as either fake or meaningless:

Except that "digital fingerprints" are meaningless and the number of attack types but also
CIA made a habit of stealing Russian malware. We're sure misdirect attribution by leaving behind
they never used it! the "fingerprints" of the groups that the
attack techniques were stolen from.
From the Wikileaks "Year Zero" dump: UMBRAGE components cover
keyloggers, password collection,
The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's webcam capture, data destruction,
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains persistence, privilege escalation,
a substantial library of attack stealth, anti-virus (PSP) avoidance and
techniques 'stolen' from malware survey techniques.
produced in other states including the
Russian Federation. Everyone knew it. Now we have proof.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total

206
 Wikileaks: CIA Hackers
Can Pose As Russians—Ring A Bell?
By Jon Rappoport
March 7, 2017
Let’s see. The CIA claims that Russian government
hackers interfered in the US election, on the side of
Trump.
But suppose CIA hackers fabricated an operation to make
it look like a Russian hack? Too far-fetched?
Not anymore.
In conjunction with their new data-dump of CIA material,
WikiLeaks issues this statement:
“The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques
‘stolen’ from malware produced in other
states including the Russian Federation.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total number
of attack types but also misdirect attribution
by leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the
groups that the attack techniques were
stolen from.”
Spy games.
A group within the CIA wanted to shift blame for Hillary
Clinton’s defeat? How about pointing at the Russians?
“Easy. We can use Russian hacking tools
and fabricate a scenario. We can say we
discovered ‘fingerprints’ that point to the
Russian government.”
Here is what the CNN Wire Service reported on January 2,
2017:
“…even as President-elect Donald Trump
and his aides cast doubt on the links
between Russia and recent hacks against
Democrats, US intelligence officials say
that newly identified ‘digital fingerprints’
indicate Moscow was behind the
intrusions.”
“One official told CNN the administration
has traced the hack to the specific
207
keyboards — which featured Cyrillic
characters — that were used to construct
the malware code, adding that the
equipment leaves ‘digital fingerprints’ and,
in the case of the recent hacks, those prints
point to the Russian government.”
Really? We live in a world where spies and their cronies
are constantly fixing reality to suit themselves.
So now all this bravado about discovering how the
Russians hacked and stole the election blows up like a
cream puff with a firecracker inside.
Who originally hacked/accessed the Democratic National
Committee (DNC) email files and handed them to
WikiLeaks for publication? That appeared to be an insider
at the DNC. But the cover story—“the Russians did it”—
floated by the CIA other US intelligence agencies now
takes on a new hue.
The CIA has worked, over the years, to refine its ability to
fake a hack-trace to all sorts of people, including the
Russian government.
This gives people yet another opportunity to realize that
employees of intelligence agencies are trained to lie. It’s
their bread and butter. A day without lying is a misspent
day.
They purposely lie in their investigations, in their reports,
in their testimony, in their leaks to the press, in their
budget requests, in their clandestine operations, in their
statements about the circumscribed limits of their
activities.
In their minds, they lie in order to tell the truth.
They will, when it suits them, also tell the truth in a way
that supports a larger lie.
Some CIA agents eventually forget which way is up and
what they’re doing. This is a qualification for promotion.
Trust CIA hackers who hack France’s election campaign?
If a chronic thief and a liar and a con artist told you what
other thieves were doing, would believe him?
Perhaps if you were crazy.
The CIA states that Russia hacked the US election
campaign in order to sway the vote to Trump.
In my previous article, I mentioned how, according to the
latest WikiLeaks CIA data dump, the CIA can fabricate,
yes, fabricate the “fingerprints” of Russian government
hackers and create the false impression that Russians
hacked the US presidential campaign of 2016.
But there’s more.
Commenting on its CIA data dump, WikiLeaks also
describes a wide-ranging CIA espionage plan to infiltrate
the candidates running in the 2012 French presidential
election. These are, of course, the same CIA thieves who
assure us that Russia interfered in the 2016 US election
campaign. CIA credibility? Zero.
Who has time to try to sort out when the
liars might not be lying?
WikiLeaks, Press Release, 16 February, 2017: “All major
French political parties were targeted for infiltration by the
CIA’s human (‘HUMINT’) and electronic (‘SIGINT’)
spies in the seven months leading up to France’s 2012
presidential election. The revelations are contained within
three CIA tasking orders published today by WikiLeaks as
context for its forth coming CIA Vault 7 series. Named
specifically as targets are the French Socialist Party (PS),
the National Front (FN) and Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP) together with current President Francois
Hollande, then President Nicolas Sarkozy, current round
one presidential front runner Marine Le Pen, and former
presidential candidates Martine Aubry and Dominique
Strauss-Khan.”
“The CIA assessed that President
Sarkozy’s party was not assured re-
election. Specific tasking concerning his
party included obtaining the ‘Strategic
Election Plans’ of the Union for a Popular
Movement (UMP); schisms or alliances
developing in the UMP elite; private UMP
reactions to Sarkozy’s campaign stratagies;
discussions within the UMP on any
‘perceived vulnerabilities to maintaining
.
208
power’ after the election; efforts to change
the party’s ideological mission; and
discussions about Sarkozy’s support for the
UMP and ‘the value he places on the
continuation of the party’s dominance’.
Specific instructions tasked CIA officers to
discover Sarkozy’s private deliberations ‘on
the other candidates’ as well as how he
interacted with his advisors. Sarkozy’s
earlier self-identification as ‘Sarkozy the
American’ did not protect him from US
espionage in the 2012 election or during
his presidency.”
There is much more, but you get the idea.
The mass media choose to regard statements from the CIA
as holy and sacred when those statements support a
favored agenda. But this is on a par with accepting the
word of a confidential informant whose entire history
involves twisting and bending and painting over and
stepping on the truth.
It’s fake news spelled out in flaming letters in the sky.
Most mainstream reporters who rise high enough on the
food chain eventually operate, when a story demands it, as
CIA assets, whether they know it or not.
The most successful of those reporters are chronic liars
themselves. They know they represent, when necessary,
the CIA; and at the same time, they don’t know it. They
choose to turn on and off their knowledge of what they’re
doing.
Over the past 34 years of working as an independent
freelance journalist, I’ve occasionally spoken off the
record with these newspaper and broadcast denizens. The
first inclination is to write them off as schizoid
personalities. But that’s not accurate. They’re slithering
creatures. They’re consciously working the angles. Like
any hustler, they take a certain amount of enjoyment from
running their psychological shell games.
In this, they fit quite well with CIA operatives. Brothers
under the skin.
A wink and a nod, a nudge and a wink.
Their version of the good life.
 Secret Service Investigating Threats Made Against
President Trump And V.P. Pence On Twitter
By Staff Writer -
03.07.2017 @1:02 PM EST

— John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) March 2,

2017

Then…

#AssassinateTrump. Just got me a new JP

LRP-07 Long Range Precision sniper rifle
off the Darknet. She's beautiful.
pic.twitter.com/X13L1Zml09
— John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) March 2,
2017

and…
Threats made against Trump on Twitter
under investigation Best part……One for #killtrump and one for
#killpence. Our country is about to get a
CHANDLER, Ariz. (INTELLIHUB) — Someone that whole lot more beautiful.
goes by the name “John Silva” is being investigated by the pic.twitter.com/zVdpAW97ng
Secret Service after posting threats to the President of the — John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) March 2,
United States on Twitter. 2017

On Monday local police were made aware of threats …

against President Trump that originated from the
“@JohnnyKing663” Twitter feed beginning as early as With the color of @realDonaldTrump and
Feb. 27. @VP blood staining the concrete. Y'ALL
READY!?!?! It's coming soon.
The first tweet out of a series reads:
— John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) March 2,
2017
“#killtrump Doing it tonight!!!!”
#killtrump Doing it tonight!!!! And finally…
— John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) February
28, 2017 got my JP LRP-07. Got it hidden but the
time is almost right.
The tweet was later followed up with another: https://t.co/AO9j7A7xFT
— John Silva (@JohnnyKing663) March 6,
“Just kidding. Doing it soon though!!!” 2017
Just kidding. Doing it soon though!!!
https://t.co/T2qs9tOdDL
.

209
 Franken Says He
Thinks Sessions Committed Perjury
Foxnews.Com
Published March 07, 2017

because Franken had raised allegations of continuing

communication between Trump associates and
intermediaries for the Russian government.

"I did not mention communications I had

had with the Russian ambassador over the
years because the question did not ask
about them," Sessions wrote.

Sessions clarified his confirmation hearing testimony to

acknowledge having spoken twice last year with the
Russian ambassador, but he said he stood by his earlier
remarks as an honest and correct answer to a question.
Sen. Al Franken, D-Minn., on Tuesday called on Attorney
General Jeff Sessions to appear before the Senate Judiciary
Committee to clarify an answer he gave during his The filing amends testimony Sessions gave under oath in
confirmation hearing in January about possible meetings January when he said he did not have communication with
with Russians. Russians. Sessions reversed course last week and
acknowledged that he actually had spoken with the
ambassador once at the Republican National Convention
"It’s hard to come to any other conclusion
last July and again at a meeting in his Senate office in
that he just perjured himself,” Franken told
September in the presence of his Senate staff.
CNN, recalling the hearing. “He answered
a question that he asked himself, which is,
'Did I meet with any Russians?' And he Sessions committed last week to amending his earlier
answered it falsely. He said no, I hadn’t.” testimony as he agreed to recuse himself from any
investigations involving the Trump campaign and Russian
interference in the presidential election.
Sessions maintains that his answer to a question from
Franken was correct.
"I do not recall any discussions with the
Franken had asked Sessions in January what he would do Russian ambassador, or any other
representative of the Russian government,
if he learned of evidence that anyone affiliated with the
regarding the political campaign on these
Trump campaign had been in touch with the Russian
occasions or any other occasion," Sessions
government in the course of the campaign.
wrote in a three-page filing with the Senate
Judiciary Committee.
Sessions responded that he himself had not had
"communications with the Russians." Sessions said
The Associated Press contributed to this report
Monday that he answered the question the way he did
.

210
211
 Wikileaks: Russian Hacking
Was ‘False Flag’ By CIA
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Posted On March 7, 2017

WikiLeaks claim that the DNC and

Podesta hacks were a “false flag
operation” by the CIA, designed to
undermine President Trump.

The Central Intelligence Agency’s UMBRAGE group used

hacking tools to leave behind fake breadcrumbs that
falsely traced any potential hacking back to Russia.

This Wikileaks release confirms what many independent

news outlets have been saying all along: the Deep State
wanted Clinton to win the Presidency due to the threat
Trump poses to the globalists’ agenda.
From Vault 7 Press release:
The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques
‘stolen’ from malware produced in other
states including the Russian Federation.
With UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total number
of attack types but also misdirect attribution
by leaving behind the “fingerprints” of the
groups that the attack techniques were
stolen from.
.
According to internet sleuths reading through the Vault 7
release on Tuesday, there are three theories about who was
behind the Russian hacking scandal and why:
Theory 1: White Hats inside the intelligence
agencies did it to help Trump.
Theory 2: An internal war within the Deep
State especially regarding Clinton’s crimes
and cover-ups of Benghazi, email security
breaches, etc.
Theory 3: The DEEP STATE actors wanted
to both take down Hillary and frame Trump
vis a vis the ‘Russians hacked the election’
meme. I’m sure many in the embedded
Establishment wanted a new puppet front
man other than Trump or Clinton. This
maneuver would undermine both parties
and the Deep State wins again.

212
 Top Intel Dem To Press
Comey On Trump Wiretap Allegations
By Katie Bo Williams
03/07/17 06:52 PM EST
The ranking member of the House Intelligence Committee
signaled Tuesday that he intends to use the panel's first
open hearing in its investigation into Russian interference
in the election to probe President Trump’s claims that his
predecessor wiretapped Trump Tower.
“The president has asked our committee to
investigate this and I would say, Mr.
President, we accept. We will investigate
this,” Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) told
reporters Tuesday evening.
Schiff said that he planned to ask FBI Director James
Comey directly whether the bureau surveilled either then-
candidate Trump or his associates.
“We should be able to determine in fairly
short order whether this allegation is true or
false,” Schiff said.
If the allegations are false, Schiff said, that is an equally
egregious scandal —
“the scandal of a sitting U.S. president
alleging that his predecessor engaged in
the most unscrupulous and unlawful
conduct.”
213
Trump in a series of weekend tweets accused former
President Obama of wiretapping Trump Tower, something
for which committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.)
said Tuesday he had seen “no evidence.”
In contrast to Schiff, Nunes downplayed the explosive
tweet thread, blaming it on Trump’s relative political
inexperience and a media too eager to take him literally.
“As you all know, the president is a
neophyte in politics. And I think a lot of the
things he says, you guys sometimes take
literally,” Nunes said, referring to the press.
”Sometimes he doesn’t have 27 lawyers
and staff looking at what he does.”
The committee on Tuesday announced its first public
hearing in its contentious investigation into Russian
interference in the 2016 election, to be held on March 20.
A preliminary witness list, which Nunes cautioned may be
modified or expanded as necessary, includes a who’s who
of current and former senior intelligence officials linked to
the probe — meaning that Comey’s attendance is not
guaranteed.
The FBI director has previously rebuffed calls from the
committee to brief members on the agency's reported —
but unconfirmed — investigation into Trump campaign
ties to Russia.
Invited to testify are: Comey, National Security Agency
Director Michael Rogers, former CIA Director John
Brennan, former director of national intelligence James
Clapper, former acting Attorney General Sally Yates and
two senior officials from the cybersecurity firm that first
put the finger on Russia for the breach of the Democratic
National Committee.
 Trump Not Planning To Withdraw Obama Wiretapping
Claim Before Investigation
© REUTERS/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool - US
22:43 07.03.2017(Updated 23:21 07.03.2017)

Trump himself during the 2016 election until Congress

completes an investigation, White House spokesman Sean
Spicer said in a press briefing on Tuesday.
"Why would he withdraw it until it’s
adjudicated," Spicer stated. "What he
wants [the House and Senate Committees]
to do is to look into wiretapping, other
surveillance, and again as I mentioned
before, the other leaks that are threatening
our national security."

On Saturday, Trump accused Obama of ordering

Trump has no plans to take back his surveillance of Trump Tower before the November 8
accusation that former President Barack election.
Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and
Trump himself during the 2016 election
FBI Director James Comey has disputed the president’s
until Congress completes an
allegations and, according to media reports, asked the
investigation.
Justice Department to publicly denounce Trump's claims.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — US President Donald Trump
has no plans to take back his accusation that former
President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower and
.

214
 GOP Representative: Trump Should ‘Purge’ White House
Gabby Kaufman - Staff Writer
Yahoo NewsMarch 7, 2017

Rep. Steve King (Photo: Charlie Neibergall/AP)

Representative Steve King, R-Iowa, told the New York
Times on Tuesday that he believes in the existence of a
“deep state” attempting to undermine President Trump’s
administration.

“We are talking about the emergence of a

deep state led by Barack Obama, and that
King said the Obama family’s decision to continue to live
is something that we should prevent,” King
told the Times. “The person who in Washington, D.C., is an indication that the former
president is leading efforts to disrupt the current
understands this best is Steve Bannon, and
I would think that he’s advocating to make administration. In reality, the Obamas have said that they
some moves to fix it.” will stay in Washington until their younger daughter,
Sasha, graduates from high school. The Obama
Presidential Center and the Obama Foundation will both
The term “deep state,” which is relatively new to
be based in Chicago.
American politics, has been used to describe a permanent
military, intelligence and law-enforcement bureaucracy
manipulating government policies in secret.

King added that Trump

“needs to purge the leftists within the

administration that are holdovers from the
Obama administration, because it appears
that they are undermining his
administration and his chances of
success.”
Talk of a deep state began when Trump tweeted, without
King’s remarks echoed a previous statement made on his citing evidence, that Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump
Twitter account, where he wrote the president Tower, where the Trump campaign was based, shortly
before the presidential election. Last week, it was reported
“needs to purge Leftists from executive that some members of Obama’s White House took steps to
branch before disloyal, illegal & treasonist preserve intelligence regarding Russia’s interference with
[sic] acts sink us.” the presidential election before Trump was sworn in.

A spokesperson for King did not respond to a request for

comment.

215
 EXCLUSIVE: Podesta Didn’t Register As A ‘Foreign
Agent’ When He Represented A Bank With Ties
To Russian Spy Agencies
Richard Pollock
9:48 PM 03/07/2017

received $170,000 to lobby on behalf of the

Russian bank for six months in 2016.

That justification was flatly rejected by Ronald A.

Oleynik, a partner at the Holland & Knight law firm, who
represents foreign clients that face economic sanctions
imposed by the U.S. government like Sberbank and VTB
Capital.
Democratic super lobbyist Tony Podesta failed to register
under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA) when he “FARA is quite clear you can’t hide behind
agreed to represent Sberbank, Russia’s largest bank. the fact that the U.S. subsidiary hired us
rather than the foreign parent,” Oleynik told
TheDCNF.
Sberbank allegedly has close ties to Russia’s intelligence
services, The Daily Caller News Foundation Investigative “Someone thought they were doing that
Group has learned. because they thought they were clever,” he
said. “Shame on them, but it doesn’t
change the requirement. It’s not a loophole
Marc Raimondi, the national security spokesman at the
Department of Justice, confirmed to TheDCNF that in any way to say, ‘Oh I’m doing it for a
Sberbank never registered with the department under New York corporation, not for the foreign
parent.'”
FARA. It did not directly register nor was it registered
through any other agency such as the Podesta Group.
Sberbank was once known informally as the “KGB bank,”
and now has a reputation for close ties to Russian
“The FARA Registration Unit personnel
President Vladimir Putin and to Russian intelligence
conducted a search related to your
services.
questions and can confirm that the search
terms — Sberbank CIB USA, Inc., or
Sberbank — are not currently (nor
previously have been) registered under
FARA,” he informed TheDCNF in an email.

The lobbying group of Manatos & Manatos — Podesta’s

competition — did register with the Justice Department
under FARA when it agreed to represent VTB Capital,
Russia’s second largest bank.

David Marin of the Podesta Group told TheDCNF it acted

“appropriately” by instead filing with the U.S. Senate
under the Lobbying Disclosure Act — or LDA. He
justified the move, in part, because its contract was with
Russian President Vladimir Putin shakes hands with Sberbank’s
Sberbank’s New York branch. Chief Executive Officer Herman Gref during a meeting at the
Kremlin in Moscow, Russia, August 4, 2016.
“We filed appropriately under LDA because Sputnik/Kremlin/Mikhail Klimentyev/via REUTERS
we were working for the U.S. subsidiary,”
he told TheDCNF via email. Podesta’s firm

216
John Schindler, a former National Security Agency analyst
and a former professor of the National War College, has
charged Sberbank has operational ties to Russian
intelligence.
Writing in an opinion article in the New York Observer last
April, Schindler asserted that,
“funds moving through Sberbank are
regularly used to support clandestine
Russian intelligence operations, while the
bank uses its offices abroad as cover for
the Russian Foreign Intelligence Service or
SVR.”
“A NATO counterintelligence official
explained that Sberbank, which has
outposts in almost two dozen foreign
countries, ‘functions as a sort of arm of the
SVR outside Russia, especially because
many of its senior employees are ‘former’
Russian intelligence officers,” he said.
“Inside the country, Sberbank has an
equally cozy relationship with the Federal
Security Service or FSB, Russia’s powerful
domestic intelligence agency.”
Sergey Aleksashenko, formerly the deputy chairman of the
Central Bank of Russia and later the head of Merrill Lynch
in Russia, agreed with Schindler’s assessment.
“It is a long-time tradition that in any state-
run bank there are people from intelligence
and security services,” he told TheDCNF.
“It’s not a big surprise.” Aleksashenko
currently is a guest fellow at the liberal
Brookings Institution.
Roman Borisovich, who once headed Russia’s largest
insurance company and has been a banker in London and
on Wall Street, told TheDCNF,
“The bank is basically an extension of
Kremlin power into the world of finance.”
Former U.S. Attorney Joseph DiGenova told TheDCNF
Podesta should have registered with the Justice
Department.
217
He said Sberbank’s ties to Russian intelligence agencies
clinched it.
“It’s all the more reason why they should
have registered. They were representing a
direct organ of the Russian government
engaged in espionage.”
“The truth is you always err in favor of
registration, but Podesta didn’t want to
register because it wouldn’t look good,
even for a Democrat. So, what they did
was they didn’t register.”
DiGenova was rueful over the double standard being
applied about ties to Russia.
“It’s axiomatic that what is forbidden for
Republicans is permitted for Democrats.”
It’s also unclear whether the Sberbank lobbyists were
truthful when they asserted the bank was facing a cash
crunch because of economic sanctions.
A congressional source who sat in on the Sberbank
presentations said that the paid lobbyist and Elena
Teplitskaya, Sberbank’s board chairman, both claimed
they were facing serious cash flow problems because of
the sanctions. He talked to TheDCNF only on the grounds
of anonymity.
Teplitskaya claimed the bank might be unable to purchase
$550 million worth of aircraft from Boeing, and that it also
was facing difficulty competing in Europe because of its
debt.
However, in a Feb. 22 meeting this year with Putin in the
Kremlin, German Gef, Sberbank’s CEO and
Chairman, boasted they had the “most successful year
ever.”
“As far as our financial results go, it was
the bank’s most successful year ever. We
earned a net profit of 517 billion rubles,
according to Russian accounting
standards,” Gef told Putin.
Sberbank’s New York office did not return calls by
TheDCNF.
 Attorney General Lynch Signed Off
On ALL FISA Applications To Wiretap Trump
Jim Hoft
Mar 7th, 2017 8:32 Am
The FISA (Foreign Intelligence Surveillance) Court is in
the news this weekend after President Trump tweeted that
former President Obama had petitioned a court twice in
order to wire tap current President Trump when he was
running for office.
In his first tweet President Trump tweeted:
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my
“wires tapped” in Trump Tower just before
the victory. Nothing found. This is
McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
He next tweeted:
Is it legal for a sitting President to be “wire
tapping” a race for president prior to an
election? Turned down by court earlier. A
NEW LOW!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
.
218
The FISA Court was put in place in 1978 when
Congress enacted the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance
Act (FISA):
The Court sits in Washington D.C., and is
composed of eleven federal district court
judges who are designated by the Chief
Justice of the United States. Each judge
serves for a maximum of seven years
and their terms are staggered to ensure
continuity on the Court. By statute, the
judges must be drawn from at least seven
of the United States judicial circuits, and
three of the judges must reside within 20
miles of the District of Columbia. Judges
typically sit for one week at a time, on a
rotating basis.
Pursuant to FISA, the Court entertains applications
submitted by the United States Government for approval
of electronic surveillance, physical search, and other
investigative actions for foreign intelligence purposes.
Most of the Court’s work is conducted ex parte as required
by statute, and due to the need to protect classified national
security information.
Every single judge on the FISA Court as
of today was appointed during Obama’s
Presidency!
Five of the current eleven judges on the court are
scheduled to be on the court for President Trump’s entire
first term with six of the judges’ terms expiring before
January 2021. Seven of the judges are scheduled into the
year 2020.
Current Chief Justice John Roberts has been in his role
since 2005 and therefore he has appointed all the judges to
the FISA court. Judge Roberts is famous for supporting
Obamacare in two radical positions, one of which Justice
Antonin Scalia, in his withering dissent, refered to as
“applesauce”.
Knowing this, it is concerning that Judge
Roberts also is responsible for the
makeup of the current FISA court.
Only two in over 10,000 applications were turned down by
the FISA Court.
According to ABC News:
More than a thousand applications for
electronic surveillance, all signed by the
attorney general, are submitted each
year, and the vast majority are approved.
From 2009 to 2015, for example, more
than 10,700 applications for electronic
surveillance were submitted, and only
one was denied in its entirety, according
to annual reports sent to Congress.
Another one was denied in part, and 17
were withdrawn by the government.
According to ABC,
all applications to the FISA Court were
signed off on by the Attorney General and
.
219
therefore if any applications were
processed in the past year, they were
signed off on by Loretta Lynch.
This means that Lynch signed off on any
requests for wire tapping President
Donald Trump during the Presidential
race. This is disheartening knowing that
she released a video over the weekend
calling for the need for more marching,
blood and death on the streets. This also
means that she chose not to investigate
the Clinton Foundation for illegal
activities but rather signed an
application to wire tap President Trump.
Finally, another very disturbing fact about
the wire tapping request of President
Trump is that the FISA Court turned down
President Obama’s Administration’s
first request to wire tap President Trump
that was evidently signed off on by
Attorney General Lynch. With only two
applications denied out of 10,700 from
2009 through 2015, the fact that the
Obama Administration’s application was
denied by the FISA Court is very
disturbing. The odds of this happening
were 0.02%.
The Obama Presidency is now arguably the most corrupt
in US history.
 Wiretapping At Trump Tower:
‘A Scandal Bigger Than Watergate’
By Roger Stone
Published Time: 7 Mar, 2017 18:01Edited Time: 8 Mar, 2017 11:39
It may happen that Barack Obama and members of his
administration are dragged before a grand jury and
questioned under oath about what they knew about these
break-ins, Roger Stone, former Trump adviser, told RT's
Worlds Apart host, Oksana Boyko.
This week, President Trump demanded a probe into
unsubstantiated allegations he made that former President
Barack Obama ordered a wiretap on Trump Tower during
the 2016 presidential campaign.
Roger Stone sat down with Oksana Boyko to talk about
this latest bit of US political drama, as well as many other
compelling issues.
(Watch the full interview with the former Trump adviser
on Worlds Apart this Thursday).
On charges of Russia interfering in US elections
“I think it’s important to note that the
intelligence services here have yet to
produce any evidence or proof whatsoever
of Russian meddling in the American
election. What we have are “allegations;”
what we have are “projections” and
“assessments.”
Let me review for you the assessments of the Central
Intelligence Agency. They said there was no torture in
American prisons during the Iraq War. That was a lie.
They denied that there were renditions by foreign nationals
by the US government during the Iraq War. That was a lie.
They claimed that the attack on our mission in Benghazi
was caused by a video that was shown one time in Turkey.
That was a lie.
220
Let’s be candid what (claims of Russian meddling in US
elections) is about. Hillary Clinton had promised the
Pentagon and the people in the Central Intelligence
Agency the expansion of the proxy war in Syria. They
were wringing their hands in glee about war. War would
be very good for a number of Hillary’s large contributors
and for the military industrial complex. Along comes
Donald Trump. He prefers negotiation over war. He
prefers détente over war.
Donald Trump believes that if Brezhnev and Nixon can
reach agreement over strategic arms limitation, then
perhaps President Putin and President Trump can reach
agreement and have peace in the Middle East. That is the
real issue here, that is what they resent so deeply.
I think what makes (claims of Russian interference in the
2016 election) durable is that the mainstream media in this
country keeps repeating it ad nauseam despite a stunning
lack of evidence. It is a national drumbeat without
foundation.
On General Mike Flynn's resignation
"As you probably know, I am a hardliner.
Several things are true. First of all, General
Flynn did not violate the law, his contacts
with the Russian ambassador were
perfectly proper, legal and appropriate and
within the scope of his job. He was
attempting to arrange a telephone
conversation between President Putin and
President Trump. That’s the beginning of a
dialogue. We need to give peace a chance.
And he did not discuss sanctions, which
would have been improper… President
Trump should not have fired General Flynn.
I think he rushed to judgment and it was
unfortunate. Secondarily, for Senator
Sessions, a member of the Senate Foreign
Relations Committee, to have a
conversation with the Russian ambassador
is proper, legal and there’s nothing wrong
with it. There’s no evidence that anything
inappropriate was discussed… I think it’s
time for the Trump administration to push
back and they began doing so this
weekend."
On charges that the Obama administration tapped
Trump Towers
"He believes, and I believe, that he was
under surveillance by the federal
government and the intelligence agencies
while he was the Republican nominee for
president. This is a scandal bigger than
Watergate. This is the most outrageous
breach of law and of morality in American
public history. Richard Nixon did not know
about the Watergate break-in in advance,
but he bore ultimate responsibility. If you
look at the statement by (former) President
Obama this weekend, he said he didn’t
approve eavesdropping on candidate
Trump. Notice he didn’t say it didn’t
happen, only that he didn’t approve it. Of
course, if the Justice Department did ask
the FISA Court for permission to conduct
surveillance on candidate Trump in June
and again in October, it is unlikely they did
so without the permission and knowledge
of the President. So the question becomes:
What did Obama know and when did he
know it? As I said, this is a scandal far
greater than Watergate, and it may take
some time in which the former President
and his Secretary of Defense and his CIA
Director and his FBI Director are dragged
before a grand jury and questioned under
oath about what they knew. If I were
President Trump, I would fire the FBI
Director and within hours have him in front
of a grand jury to find out what he knows.
This is potentially the greatest scandal in
American history."
On the 'New McCarthyism' in America
"In this country, if you are not in favor of
war over Syria, then you must be a traitor;
you must be in the service of Russian
intelligence. It’s insulting, it’s outrageous,
it’s false and suddenly the shoe is on the
other foot. I come from a long anti-
communist tradition. I have been active in
the Republican Party as an acolyte of Barry
Goldwater, Ronald Reagan and Richard
.
221
Nixon, and to say because you are not in
favor of war with Russia tomorrow you
must be a traitor, this is the worst form of
McCarthyism in the 40 years that I have
been in American politics."
On the direction of US politics and mainstream media
"Well, it has changed in one very positive
way. The mainstream media in this country
– due to the technological advances of the
internet – have lost their monopoly on the
dissemination of political information. When
I began in politics in the 60s and 70s there
were only three television networks, there
was no cable, and if they said something
happened it happened, and if they said
something didn’t happen, it didn’t happen.
Now, with a majority of Americans getting
their news from their handheld computer
device and no longer from a television set,
there’s a greater diversity of information
available to the average voter. And
therefore, if you don’t buy the crap being
put out by CNN, you can go to Breitbart
News, or Infowars.com, or the Daily Caller
or any number of other alternative sources
to get better investigative journalism and a
different point of view. So in a way I think
politics in this nation has changed for the
better. There is greater polarization, but
that’s fine. From my point of view, whether
it is Bush or Clinton, or Bush or Obama,
both parties in this country - until the
advent and rise of Donald Trump - were
identical. What they got us was endless
war, erosion of our civil liberties, massive
debt and spending, an immigration policy
that left our country unsafe, our
neighborhoods dangerous, and trade
policies that have sucked the jobs out of
America. In the meantime, we had a
foreign policy that was incoherent. It
appears to me, at least in the Middle East,
that the goal of our foreign policy was to
strengthen and embolden our enemies
while undercutting our allies. It is, thanks to
Donald Trump, a new day in America."
 NSA Whistleblower: Not Even
US President Is Safe From The Surveillance State
© REUTERS/ Joshua Roberts - Politics
22:00 07.03.2017(Updated 03:11 08.03.2017)

politics, noting that Richard Nixon also used the NSA,

FBI, and the CIA during the Watergate scandal.

He also brought up how clandestine surveillance programs,

like the FBI’s Counterintelligence Program
(COINTELPRO), was used to spy on the anti-war
movement of the 1960’s and surveilled activists like Rev.
Martin Luther King, Jr. and the Black Panther Party.

Loud & Clear Host Brian Becker suggested that, if true,

Obama may have ordered the wiretaps as a reaction
After US President Donald Trump’s
to Trump’s willingness to improve relations with Russia,
unprecedented accusation that former
positing that Washington has been antagonistic
President Barack Obama tapped the
toward Moscow, even decades after the Cold War.
former’s phones, questions surround
the motivations behind surveillance and
the reach of US intelligence agencies. "They’re trying to start a new Cold War."
Binney said, "Why? Because for the
military, industrial, intelligence and
Radio Sputnik’s Loud & Clear speaks with NSA
governmental complex that’s involved here
whistleblower William Binney about how Trump’s
that means trillions of dollars in spending
allegations not only point to the nearly-unlimited powers
from taxpayers. It means a lot more going
of the US surveillance state, but also indicate a desperate
into their budgets, a lot more programming
ploy to help Democrats maintain power after losing the
and empire building in government. So I
presidency.
think we have a bunch of people
in Congress and various places who
This past week Trump tweeted: cannot change."

"Terrible! Just found out that Obama had Binney observed,

my 'wires tapped' in Trump Tower just
before the victory. Nothing found. This is
"The Democrats are so afraid that [Trump
McCarthyism!" and, "Is it legal for a sitting
is] going to succeed in everything he’s
President to be 'wire tapping' a race
doing, far better than anyone has to date,
for president prior to an election? Turned
and that would make them look really bad
down by court earlier. A NEW LOW!"
with all the policies they’ve had in place
for the last eight years. They’re also afraid
Following Trump’s tweet, FBI Director James Comey of losing more seats around the country
asked the US Justice Department to publicly refute the in state houses and the Senate, and having
President’s claims. Trump succeed would make that a very
likely reality, so that’s what they want
Binney pointed out that while Trump accusations seem to avoid."
startling, such actions are not altogether new in American
.

222
 Hacker Kim Dotcom On Wikileaks CIA Documents:
Donald Trump Was Spied On 24-7 With His Phone
Jim Hoft
Mar 7th, 2017 3:25 Pm

The first trove of documents also imply

Donald Trump was spied on with these CIA
tools.
#Wikileaks #Vault7 3/7/17 Summary
pic.twitter.com/rs29Vnw4h4
— TrumpTracker (@DaveNYviii) March 7,
2017

After the release today noted hacker Kim Dotcom said

President Trump would “totally go ballistic” if he knew
what the Obama CIA did watching and listening to him 24
hours a day, 7 days a week.
Wikileaks released thousands of
documents Tuesday exposing the .@realDonaldTrump would go totally
Central Intelligence Agency. ballistic if he knew what the Obama CIA
did. They used his phone cam & mic.
The documents and files exposed tools the CIA used to Watching and listening 24/7.
hack cellphones, TVs and computers. — Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) March 7,
2017

223
 Wikileaks Says CIA Docs Reveal
US Consulate In Frankfurt As Hacking Base
Published Time: 7 Mar, 2017 18:37Edited Time: 8 Mar, 2017 13:18
The American consulate in Frankfurt functions as a covert base for
CIA hacking operations across Europe, the Middle East and Africa,
the whistleblowing site WikiLeaks said, revealing the latest batch of
their documents.
According to the leaked documents, the US consulate,
located on Giessener Strasse opposite the Frankfurt
cemetery, is the home of the Center for Cyber Intelligence
Europe, or CCIE, which carries out hacking operations
across the continent as well as the Middle East and Africa.
The documents reveal instructions for incoming hackers,
containing not only mundane travel tips (“Flying
Lufthansa: Booze is free so enjoy (within reason)!”) and
details of local amenities (“Gas stations are not
recommended for fine dining”) but also the official cover
story should the agents be stopped by German customs,
which is
224
“supporting technical consultations at the
Consulate.”
In addition to the cover story, the documents seem to show
that CIA hackers work under the cover of the State
Department and are issued with diplomatic “black”
passports.
On top of this, the leaked documents reveal some of the
CIA’s hacking techniques, which are able to penetrate such
high-security systems as police databases that are not
directly connected to the Internet.
This includes malware physically installed on computer
systems by the agents using a USB. The “Fine Dining”
tool provides 24 decoy programs, make it look like agent is
running virus scan, watching videos, playing games and so
on.
These latest revelations stem from WikiLeaks’ largest-ever
disclosure from the agency, a total of 8,761 documents
released on Wednesday as part of “Year Zero,” the first
part in a series of leaks on the agency that the
whistleblower organization has dubbed “Vault 7.”
The documents are said to originate from the internal
network at Cyber Intelligence Center, located in CIA
headquarters in Langley, Virginia.
This is not the first time that WikiLeaks has revealed the
extent of American intelligence agencies’ activities in
Germany. In 2015, it published three intercepts of
conversations held by German Chancellor Angela Merkel
recorded by the NSA, which had been bugging her phones
for years.
READ MORE: Apple, Samsung, Microsoft: WikiLeaks
blows lid on scale of CIA’s hacking arsenal
But by the end of 2016, WikiLeaks notes in its press
release that the CIA’s hacking division had built up its
capabilities to such an extent that it had
“created, in effect, its ‘own NSA’ with even
less accountability and without publicly
answering the question as to whether such
a massive budgetary spend on duplicating
the capacities of a rival agency could be
justified.”
 Former NSA Whistleblower:
"Trump Is Absolutely Right,
Everything Was Being Monitored"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 8, 2017 5:13 AM

Legendary NSA whistleblower William -- nicknamed ThinThread -- were being

Binney (and creator of NSA's global
surveillance system) confirmed to Fox
News, that President Trump is
"absolutely right" to claim he was
wiretapped and monitored... he was.
used to spy on Americans," PBS reported.
On Monday he came to the defense of the president,
whose allegations on social media over the weekend that
outgoing President Barack Obama tapped his phones
during the 2016 campaign have rankled Washington.

"I think the president is absolutely right.

His phone calls, everything he did
electronically, was being monitored,"

Bill Binney, a 36-year veteran of the National Security

Agency who resigned in protest from the organization in
2001, told Fox Business on Monday.

As we noted previously, Binney is the NSA executive who

created the agency’s mass surveillance program for digital
information, who served as the senior technical director
within the agency, who managed six thousand NSA
employees,

the 36-year NSA veteran widely

regarded as a “legend” within the
agency and the NSA’s best-ever analyst
and code-breaker,
who mapped out the Soviet command-and-control
structure before anyone else knew how, and so predicted
Soviet invasions before they happened (“in the 1970s, he
decrypted the Soviet Union’s command system, which
provided the US and its allies with real-time surveillance
of all Soviet troop movements and Russian atomic
weapons”). Binney is the real McCoy.
Binney resigned from NSA shortly after
the U.S. approach to intelligence
changed following the attacks of Sept.
11, 2001.
He "became a whistleblower after
discovering that elements of a data-
monitoring program he had helped develop
225
Everyone's conversations are being monitored and
stored, Binney said.
Binney also told Sean Hannity's radio show earlier
Monday,
"I think the FISA court's basically totally
irrelevant." The judges on the FISA court
are "not even concerned, nor are they
involved in any way with the Executive
Order 12333 collection," Binney said during
the radio interview. "That's all done outside
of the courts. And outside of the Congress."
Binney also told Fox the laws that fall under the FISA
court's jurisdiction are "simply out there for show" and
 "trying to show that the government is evidence the intelligence community is playing hardball
following the law, and being looked at and with the White House.
overseen by the Senate and House
intelligence committees and the courts." "I think that's what happened here," Binney
"That's not the main collection program for told Fox. "The evidence of the
NSA," Binney said. conversation of the president of the
U.S., President Trump, and the [prime
*** minister] of Australia and the president
of Mexico. Releasing those
conversations. Those are conversations
What Binney did not delve into, however, was if Obama that are picked up by the FAIRVIEW
directed surveillance on Trump for political purposes program, primarily, by NSA."
during the campaign, a core accusation of Trump's. But
Binney did say events such as publication of details of
Since Binney designed the NSA's electronic surveillance
private calls between President Trump and the Australian
system, he would know.
prime minister, as well as with the Mexican president, are
.

226
 Big Brother Spying By America
By Stephen Lendman
3-8-2017
US spy agencies trample on Bill of Rights protections.
Their spying domestically and abroad is pervasive.
Anything goes is official policy, rule of law principles
circumvented. Edward Snowden earlier said he hoped his
revelations would make people worldwide aware of how
their freedoms and protections are compromised.
Mass surveillance goes on in ways few people realize.
Numerous techniques are used - metadata collected
unrelated to national security without court authorized
warrants.
Microsoft, Yahoo, Google, Facebook, Skype, YouTube,
Apple, and major telecommunications companies are
complicit in spying on their customers.
Phone conversations are recorded, emails collected and
stored. New WikiLeaks documents revealed that the CIA
(and presumably the NSA, FBI and other US spy agencies)
can circumvent encryption, turn television sets into
listening devices, and monitor people in ways Orwell
never imagined.
If its information is accurate, Langley has over 1,000
malware systems and other software, able to infiltrate and
control personal electronics.
Documents WikiLeaks obtained perhaps came from the
agency’s Center for Cyber Intelligence - operating in
Langley, VA and Washington’s Frankfurt, Germany
consulate.
Via Twitter, Snowden said the document trove “looks
authentic.” Sophisticated spying capability leaves
everyone vulnerable, including foreign leaders and the
president of the United States.
227
William Binney is a cryptanalyst, mathematician, creator
of the NSA’s global surveillance system turned
whistleblower. Agency activities are unconstitutional, he
stressed.
Earlier he said we’re perilously close to
a “totalitarian state.” The NSA and other
US intelligence agencies can spy on
virtually everything we do.
Information obtained is laundered,
making it look legitimate. Binney calls it
“a total corruption of the justice
system…a totalitarian process,
(meaning) we are now in a police state.”
Monday on Fox News, he said Trump is “absolutely right”
to claim he was wiretapped and monitored. “His phone
calls, everything he did electronically, was being
monitored.”
Everyone’s electronic communications
are monitored and stored. Big Brother is
real. Binney called the FISA court
“irrelevant.” What’s going on is “outside
of the courts…outside of the Congress.”
He designed the system enabling this type sophisticated
spying on anyone. America’s intelligence community was
likely behind sensitive leaks about Trump, gaining
firsthand knowledge of his communications by monitoring
him electronically.
It’s unclear whether Congress will subpoena spy agency
officials to testify under oath about Trump’s accusations -
and if so, how far will it go in exposing what likely went
on.
.
 Wiki PROVES The Unconstitutional,
Unrestrained HORROR Of CIA Hacking
Of America - Trump Knows, Says Nothing
Is THIS How We Make America Great Again?
Simon Black
Founder, SovereignMan.com
3-8-17
March 8, 2017
Santiago, Chile
It happened again-- another spying scandal in the Land of
the Free.
Yesterday Wikileaks released 8,761 CIA documents
detailing the agency’s hacking of smart phones, routers,
computers, and even televisions.
These files reveal that the CIA can and has hacked devices
that were supposedly secure-- iPhones, iPads, and
Android devices.
The documents further reveal that the CIA is deliberately
infecting personal computers with spyware, including
Windows, Mac OS/X, Solaris, Linux, and other operating
systems.
They’re also hacking WiFi routers to deploy software that
monitors Internet activity, and have even figured out how
to bypass anti-virus software so that their spyware cannot
be detected.
They’ve also managed to make the rest of the world
believe that Russian hackers, not the CIA, are behind all
this malware and spyware.
It’s like a restatement of that old Mission: Impossible line-
- "Should any of your IM force be caught or killed… we’ll
blame Russia.”
The CIA is pretty shameless about its activities,
nicknaming its various hacking programs “Assassin”,
“Medusa”, and “Brutal Kangaroo”.
One of the deepest revelations is that the agency is able to
hack Internet-connected televisions, including Samsung
smart TVs, through a program called “Weeping Angel”.
228
Basically the CIA can turn your TV into a listening device,
recording conversations in the room and transmitting the
audio to a CIA server.
Even if you think the TV is off, it’s not.
CIA hackers have been able to spoof the on/off display and
set the television to a “false off” mode.
Bottom line, no device that’s connected to the outside
world is truly safe.
And future Wikileaks publications may show that the
intelligence community is hacking home automation
devices, Internet-connected automobiles (including
driverless vehicles), and artificial intelligence like
Amazon’s Alexa.
It’s hard to be shocked at this point that the government is
spying on its own allies and citizens.
This is just the latest in a pattern of brazen surveillance and
flagrant Constitutional violations on the part of the US
intelligence community.
But that’s precisely what I find MOST concerning-- the
LACK of concern over these new CIA documents.
People have such a low expectation of their government
now, and have become so accustomed to the government
routinely violating their civil liberties, that there’s hardly
any public outrage anymore about these spying scandals.
More importantly, the lack of concern is indicative of what
freedom means in the Land of the Free today.
Here’s a great example--
Young people are traditionally the most politically charged
activists in the country.
But where are the protests across university campuses
demanding freedom and privacy?
It’s not happening.
That’s because university students are too busy protesting
against ideas they don’t want to hear about.
At Middlebury College last week, a small liberal arts
school in Vermont, a small mob of student protestors
physically assaulted a conservative speaker because his
ideas offended them.
They couldn’t simply skip the lecture and allow interested
students to attend.
No, they had to engage in violent censorship, oppressing
any idea that doesn’t conform to their narrow agenda.
The only thing these cry bullies are interested in hearing is
apologetic white men groveling over their privilege.
This is the new reality in the Land of the Free: freedom has
deteriorated into some gender studies professor’s socialist
fantasy.
Constitutionally guaranteed liberties have become
irrelevant.
Forget about “free speech”.
Any intellectual dissent from the intolerant Social Justice
view is now considered “hate speech”.
And the Fourth Amendment, which establishes “the right
of the people to be secure in their persons, houses, papers,
and effects against unreasonable searches and seizures,”
has become a distant memory.
As a child who grew up in the 80s during the height of the
Cold War, I imagine there would have been widespread
disgust if a similar scandal had been exposed.
Spying on citizens and allies? That’s what the Soviet
Union did.
229
But today, everything else is more important.
Transgender bathrooms. Silencing hate speech. Forcing
elementary school children to feel guilty about their white
privilege. Political correctness in extremis. #everyone-else-
but-white-people’s-lives-matter.
This is what dominates the social conversation now in the
Land of the Free.
Privacy is no longer a Western value.
After all, people narcissistically upload their entire lives to
social media (as if anyone cares what they’re having for
dinner) so that Mark Zuckerberg can auction off our details
to the highest bidder.
And it is precisely this decline that I find most disturbing.
Some people hold the idiotic belief that, “If I have nothing
to hide, I have nothing to fear.”
This is dangerous logic, for so many reasons.
Even the use of the word ‘hide’ is ridiculous… as if the
fact that I don’t upload photos of my nether regions to
Instagram means that I’m “hiding” something.
We all keep things private. It’s why we wear clothing,
don’t discuss our personal finances in polite company, and
worry when our social security number is stolen.
But more importantly, if it doesn’t matter that the CIA is
monitoring people’s most intimate moments, then does
anything matter?
They keep moving the line, probing deeper and deeper into
our lives and enveloping the nation inside an Orwellian
surveillance state.
And it doesn’t stop... because we’re in the midst of a
complete breakdown of western values.
Until tomorrow,
Simon Black
 BOMBSHELL: Now We Know WHO Signed Off On
Wiretapping Trump. TREASON
March 8, 2017
Amid this huge Obama Administration wiretapping
scandal, we can take solace in one thing: there is a very
secure paper trail we can refer to.
That trail reveals that then Attorney
General Loretta Lynch must have
signed off on the warrant allowing the
Obama Administration to wiretap
Donald Trump, via ABC News.
Two separate applications for the warrant were made, and
Lynch had to put her name on both of them. The first was
denied.
In and of itself, the denial of the first application means
that Lynch must have some exceptionally bad judgment.
Only two warrant requests were denied by the FISA court
since 2009. Over 10,700 requests were made in that time.
Clearly, the court really didn’t think spying on Donald
Trump was a good idea, or met the standards for an ethical
use of power.
A former NSA official turned ABC News contributor, Matt
Olsen, said,
“The fact that the government is successful
in almost always getting approval is just an
indication the government knows what the
standard is.”
.
230
If Olsen is correct, this means the Obama Administration
was very aware that their request was going to be denied.
So, then why try it? Perhaps they thought that the judges
could be convinced. They were, eventually, after all.
There are eleven judges on the FISA court, and each one
was appointed while Obama was still president. Perhaps
that’s how they were swayed to give in on the matter? Do
they feel like they owe Obama something?
Five of the judges were appointed for terms that won’t end
until after Trump’s first term. It may take some time to
drain this particular swamp. In the meantime, at least we
know our new president is ethical and will not abuse his
power.
Sadly, I’m not surprised Loretta Lynch
was involved in this. She’s long been
politicizing the Department of Justice,
acting suspiciously in favor of the
Clintons. Her latest disgusting decision
involved telling the liberals that what
our streets really need is
MORE violence!
She was the ONLY person that signed
off on FISA warrants over the last year
or so of Obama’s terms, so now we
know who the rat is. And you know what
happens to rats…
 Trump’s Pay Or
Die Healthcare Plan
By Stephen Lendman
3-8-2017
Proposed Trumpcare is a boon to America’s privileged and
sickness industry, a bane for most others - leaving millions
more uninsured than under Obamacare.
The plan released Monday will likely be revised before
Congress votes on it later this year. If enacted, change will
come next year and in 2020.
Trump’s promise of improved healthcare for everyone at
less cost than Obamacare was baloney. The final bill when
voted on will be worse - how much depends on what
revisions are made.
Things don’t look promising. Most people will pay more
for less or settle for inadequate coverage, leaving them
mostly on their own in case of serious health issues.
Under his American Health Care Act (AHCA -
Trumpcare), most taxes on industry will be eliminated.
Medicaid will be starved by less funding to states, perhaps
en route to eliminating it altogether - replaced by who
knows what or nothing, leaving America’s poor dependent
on charity.
Medicaid expansion will survive in limited form,
enrollment frozen in 2020 - after which states will receive
federal block grants based on population size, effectively
cutting a vitally needed program for millions of America’s
poor.
The nation’s most vulnerable and elderly will pay more in
premiums and out-of-pocket costs. Young, healthy and
wealthy Americans will benefit.
An estimated $600 billion in tax revenue over the next
decade is eliminated, adding to annual deficits and national
debt if not compensated for by other means, according to
the Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget (CRFB).
Estimates don’t include “the cost of
repealing the individual and employer
mandates or the cost of the replacement
tax credits in the House legislation - though
they do include the cost of the legislation’s
proposed Health Savings Account (HSA)
expansions. These estimates are only for
the individual tax measures repealed by the
House bill,” CRFB said.
.
231
The legislation “will worsen the financial
state of the Medicare Hospital Insurance
trust fund” - perhaps intended as part of a
plan to eventually eliminate the program
vital to millions of seniors and others
eligible.
Proposed tax credits based on age, not income, will replace
Obamacare subsidies, phased out by 2020. They’ll range
from $2,000 for individuals under 30 to $4,000 for aged 60
or older people.
Individuals with annual incomes over $75,000 and couples
earning more than $150,000 will gradually lose these
credits, America’s poor and middle-income households
hard-pressed to pay for increasing healthcare costs.
Insurers will be allowed to charge seniors five times more
than younger people, compared to three-fold under
Obamacare.
Millions unable to afford adequate coverage will be forced
to be underinsured or settle for eroding Medicaid.
Many Obamacare provisions remain, including letting
adults under age 26 stay on their parents’ plan, and
preventing insurers from discriminating against individuals
with pre-existing conditions. It bars them from imposing
annual and lifetime limits on coverage.
Instead of the individual mandate, taxing people without
coverage, insurers may impose a one-year 30% premium
surcharge on anyone letting it lapse.
The plan doesn’t account for cost differentials in different
parts of the country, penalizing many Americans for living
in the wrong places.
Proposed health savings accounts (HSAs) are a tax shelter
for the rich, most Americans unable to benefit from them.
Obamacare is a healthcare rationing scheme, benefitting
insurers, drug companies and large hospital chains.
Trumpcare makes a bad system worse.
Americans pay double or more for healthcare than
consumers in other developed countries. Government-
guaranteed universal, single-payer coverage alone works
equitably for everyone.
CIA Has Stolen Spying Techniques From Russia Allowing It
To Carry Out 'False Flag' Attacks Which Fool Targets Into
Thinking They've Been Hacked By The Kremlin,
Wikileaks Documents Reveal
 CIA Hackers Have Learned To Leave 'Fingerprints' Which Could Implicate Others,
Wikileaks Reports
 It Claims Sub-Group UMBRAGE Has Collected Data On Russian Techniques
 Russia Was Accused Of Interfering In Last Year's US Presidential Election
 Wikileaks Likened 'Fingerprinting' To Finding Similar Wounds On Multiple Murder
Victims
By Dave Burke For Mailonline
Published: 07:23 EST, 8 March 2017 | Updated: 10:04 EST, 8 March 2017

on hacking techniques used by other powers - which could

include Russia and China.

In a statement on the WikiLeaks website, the Russian

Federation is specifically named as one of the bodies
which might have been infiltrated by American spies.

These techniques can be used, the group claims, to give

the impression other parties are guilty of carrying out
hacks which are in fact the work of the CIA.

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange has previously said he

is '1,000 per cent' certain that Russia did not carry out
hacking operations during the elections.

CIA hackers have learned how to leave 'fingerprints' to cover their

tracks, WikiLeaks has claimed

CIA hackers have learned how to adopt the 'fingerprints' of

other intelligence services allowing them to carry out 'false
flag' attacks, WikiLeaks has sensationally claimed.

The organization - which yesterday released thousands of

documents revealing how intelligence services could break
into phones, computers and TVs - said the CIA was able to
frame foreign spies and hackers for its own operations.

The false flag allegation could be seized upon by Russia's

government, which has denied reports by the FBI and CIA Investigators are now carrying out a massive operation to find who
that it interfered with last year's presidential election to get released the documents, with the source likely to face a long jail term
Donald Trump elected. if caught

WikiLeaks claims UMBRAGE, a sub-group of the CIA's

Remote Development Branch, has collected in-depth data

232
 Investigators are now carrying out a massive operation to
find who released the documents, with the source likely to
face a long jail term if caught.

A statement from WikiLeaks likened finding hacking

culprits to catching a murderer, and said 'fingerprinting'
could lead investigators in the wrong direction.

It said:
The 'false flag' allegation could be seized upon by Russia,
'The CIA's hand crafted hacking techniques which has repeatedly denied interfering with last year's US
pose a problem for the agency. Each Presidential election, despite the FBI and CIA both saying
technique it has created forms a the process had been targeted
"fingerprint" that can be used by forensic
investigators to attribute multiple different
attacks to the same entity.
'This is analogous to finding the same
distinctive knife wound on multiple separate
murder victims. The unique wounding style
creates suspicion that a single murderer is
responsible.
'As soon one murder in the set is solved
then the other murders also find likely
attribution.'

The statement continued to state that the CIA has collected

information on techniques used by other nations, including
Russia.
It said:
'The CIA's Remote Devices Branch's
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques
"stolen" from malware produced in other
states including the Russian Federation.
'With UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total number
of attack types but also misdirect attribution
by leaving behind the "fingerprints" of the
groups that the attack techniques were
stolen from.
'UMBRAGE components cover keyloggers,
password collection, webcam capture, data
destruction, persistence, privilege
escalation, stealth, anti-virus (PSP)
avoidance and survey techniques.'
233
WikiLeaks claimed the latest haul, which it dubbed 'Vault
7, Year Zero', exposed the agency’s entire hacking tool kit.
It said this constituted an even bigger and more significant
breach of US intelligence than the National Security
Agency files leaked by analyst Edward Snowden.
Snowden, who fled to Russia in 2013 after the Justice
Department announced two charges of breaching the
Espionage Act of 1917, tweeted yesterday that the latest
trove of files is a 'genuinely a big deal'.
Former CIA Director Mike Hayden told MSNBC he had
undertaken only a cursory review of the documents, but
that if they were what they were purported to be, it would
amount to a 'very extensive file of the tactics, techniques,
procedures, targets and other political rules' under which
the CIA hacks targets.
'If it is that, it would be very, very
damaging,' he said.
The CIA has refused to be drawn on whether the
documents are genuine, with spokesman Jonathan Liu
stating:
'We do not comment on the authenticity or
content of purported intelligence
documents.'
White House spokesman Sean Spicer also declined to
comment.
President Donald Trump said in January that he believes Russia
ordered hacks on Democrats that coincided with the presidential
election
President Donald Trump said in January that he believes
Russia ordered hacks on Democrats that coincided with the
presidential election.
'I think it was Russia, but I think we also get
hacked by other people,' he said. 'It's not
just Russia,' he argued at another point in a
press conference before taking office.
China hacked 22 million accounts, he said, talking about
the 2015 data breach at the Office of Personnel and
Management.
Trump condemned the illegal acts but said emails
involving Hillary Clinton's campaign that were published
by Wikileaks revealed pertinent information.
234
WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said he is '1,000 per cent' certain
Russia did not hack the US election last year
He showed little remorse for the theft of data from the
Democratic National Committee, which he said was
'totally open to being hacked' because 'they
did a very poor job.'
The same month Assange has said Barack Obama was
'trying to delegitimize the Trump
administration' by claiming the Russian
government hacked Democrats' emails
during the bitter presidential election.
Speaking with Sean Hannity on Fox News, Assange also
reiterated his claims that Russia was not the source of the
hacks.
He told Hannity 'with a thousand per cent' confidence that
the Russian government was not responsible for emails
stolen from the Democratic National Committee and John
Podesta, Hillary Clinton's campaign chairman.
A month after the Presidential election, CIA Director John
Brennan circulated a memo seen by US officials and said
there was 'strong consensus among us on the scope, nature,
and intent of Russian interference in our presidential
election,' the Washington Post reported.
 Obama Monitoring Trump
By Stephen Lendman
3-8-2017
Former presidents usually respect the right of their
successors to govern without interference.
Obama changed the rules, maybe supported by big money
backers like George Soros and likeminded international
con men.
Perhaps he’s involved in staging anti-Trump protests,
challenging him in underhanded ways instead sticking to
justifiable criticism.
Reportedly his close aide Valerie Jarrett moved into his
luxury new Washington home, two miles from the White
House - intended as a nerve center to undermine Trump,
ultimately aiming to oust him from office.
In late January, Obama expressed support for anti-Trump
protests, saying
“citizens exercising their constitutional right
to assemble, organize and have their
voices heard by their elected officials is
exactly what we expect to see when
American values are at stake.”
Given his deplorable record, presumably he means the
right to rape and destroy nations, target all independent
ones for regime change, carve up whole continents for
profit, force-feed neoliberal harshness on humanity, and
crack down hard on nonbelievers.
In late February, Trump blamed Obama for street and town
hall protests against him, saying
235
“I think President Obama’s behind it,
because his people are certainly behind it,
and some of the leaks possibly come from
that group.”
On January 31, Politico said Obama
“is keeping tabs on his successor in the
White House and selectively weighing in.”
He “and his aides expected to take on
President Donald Trump at some point, but
they didn’t think it would happen this
quickly.”
They’re monitoring his activities, possibly intending on
openly challenging him.
On March 6, the Huffington Post said he dispatched a team
of over a dozen individuals, “working out of an office in
the West end neighborhood of Washington” to monitor
unreported stories about Trump and his administration.
“There is a regular conference call for ‘the
Obama network,’ a meeting the ex-
president attended with former aides a few
weeks back, and ad hoc calls to Senate
and House Democrats, state-based groups
and grassroots organizations.”
It sounds like a conspiracy to undermine him, likely many
others involved not mentioned by HuffPo.
.
 Deep State Against Trump’s Visa Ban
Because Their False Flag Agents Are From Those Nations
President Donald Trump Seeks To Deny The Deep State Oligarchs
The "Pool" From Which They Draw Their False Flag
Terrorists For Their Own Nefarious Purposes...
By Rahul Manchanda, Esq.
March 8, 2017

It is quite obvious why various elements of the Deep State (1) the string of 10 stabbings in 2016;
are vehemently against President Donald Trump’s (2) the Normandy church attack in July 2016;
temporary immigration ban and increased vetting (3) the Nice truck attack in July 2016;
procedures from certain countries in the world, and no, it’s (4) the Brussels bombings in March 2016; and
not because they are “compassionate” or even give a damn (5) the Paris attacks in November 2015.
about these people.
This does not even begin to touch on the random attacks in
the inevitable “clash of civilizations” being abruptly
foisted upon Europe and America by these Deep State
lunatics, who at the behest of the international bankers and
corporations do not care how much violence takes place as
long as they can work towards removing all borders, using
the inevitable violence and terrorism that results to clamp
down on everyone’s civil liberties, human rights, and
constitutional guarantees, in order to solidify and
consolidate their power.

GLOBAL OLIGARCHS
This is obvious because these same
Deep State elements in Europe and
America actually caused this migrant
crisis, by their proxy bombing through
NATO, ISIS, and Saudi Arabia of all of
these ravaged nations, producing said
migrants.

The reality is that this immediate but temporary shutdown

of people streaming in as “refugees” or other types of
immigrant and non-immigrant visa holders from the
temporarily banned nations, are literally the “pool” or
“greatest cover” from which various elements of the Deep
State are able to easily recruit to commit these false flag
terrorist attacks.
We have already seen this mechanism play out in Europe,
with the various incidents as reported by Time Magazine,
namely:
236
OLIGARCHY PRIVATE CLUB AND YOU AIN’T IN IT
President Donald Trump is not against immigrants or
people traveling from those 6 nations temporarily banned
and vetted further, he just wants to make sure that the
Deep State doesn’t get to keep recruiting from these pools
to commit their terrorist attacks, because he knows that
these people are just being used by his fellow
Oligarchs/Plutocrats to destroy the sovereignty and
constitutional protections in the United States of America.
Remember that Trump is a “former insider,” and knows
exactly what these Deep State Oligarch/Plutocrat lunatics
are up to, and he probably knows who they are, but has
chosen to save the American republic from globalist
destruction, rather than remain in their ranks and watch the
country he loves be destroyed.

If global integration is to take place, then it must be an

organic, natural process, not one that is “microwaved” by
these Deep State globalist sociopaths, who are all living
comfortably in their gated communities, underground
bunkers, or other safe enclaves, while watching from afar CAPITALISM IS CRISIS
the cacophony and chaos resulting from their
Oligarch/Plutocrat decisions, totally disconnected from
reality, and oblivious to the effects of their machinations.
.

237
 Wikileaks’ Reveal Of CIA
Hacking Trove Has Feds On Mole Hunt
By Cody Derespina
Published March 08, 2017

have been changed [over time], so that

enables them to narrow down the period to
when they were taken,” said Alex
Yampolskiy, the CEO of
SecurityScorecard. “Once you say ‘this
seems like it was a snapshot from this
particular time,’ then they can look at audit
logs of who had access to the document
during that time frame.”

Yampolskiy said analysts would likely target the most

Manning. Snowden. Whose name is next to be added to
the notorious list of government leakers?
The CIA is trying to answer that question right now.
A day after WikiLeaks released what it alleged to be the
“entire hacking capacity of the CIA,” the focus Wednesday
began shifting to just who gave the stunning surveillance
information to the anti-secrecy website.
“There is heavy s--- coming down,” said a
veteran cyber contractor for the intelligence
community who previously worked in the
breached unit, the CIA’s Center for Cyber
Intelligence.
The contractor told Fox News that CCI has long
maintained an internal database of information --
accessible to anyone with proper credentials or security
clearance -- that seemed to be dumped in total to
WikiLeaks. In its news release on the disclosure,
WikiLeaks said CCI had more than 5,000 registered users,
a number alternatively referred to as “absurd” and “a bit
high” by security experts who spoke to Fox News. The
CIA declined comment to Fox News.
sensitive documents that were revealed during their
forensic work, as only those with a higher security
clearance would have had access to them – again,
shrinking the group of suspects.
Once a core group is established, investigators would
institute behavioral profiling.
“They’ll run certain types of analytics –
what websites did they access? What are
the emails? How many people are still
working there?” Yampolskiy said.
Regardless of the results of the inquiry, Brian Vecci, a
technological evangelist for cybersecurity company
Varonis, said the secret trove revealed by WikiLeaks
illustrates the pervasive issue of another
“major data breach of a major government
organization tasked with security.”

The FBI opened a federal criminal investigation into the

WikiLeaks disclosure on Wednesday, Fox News
confirmed. As the probe gets underway, experts said
there’s a typical incident response playbook they would
use to narrow down the massive pool of suspects.

“They’re going to try to do some forensic “What’s clear to me -- and this is true of
work because those documents probably pretty much every big data breach -- the
238
 preventive controls were broken, or the
detective controls were broken,” Vecci said.
“Meaning, either too many people had
access to the information, or the people
that had access weren’t being recorded
and analyzed. Or both.”

Last year SecurityScorecard ranked 18 industries by their

cybersecurity performance. Information services,
construction and food ranked 1, 2 and 3, respectively.
Government was dead last.

But there was a twist, Yampolskiy said. Fox News’ Catherine Herridge and James Rosen
contributed to this report.
“The CIA was specifically one of the top
performers in the government,” he said.
“An ‘A’ letter grade.”
.

239
 How Taxpayers Fund
Anti-Trump Protests
By Cliff Kincaid —— Bio And Archives
March 8, 2017
On “Fox & Friends,” President Donald Trump declared,
in regard to the protests against him,
“I think that President Obama’s behind it
because his people are certainly behind it.”
Once again, Trump has struck gold. It’s “gold” in the form
of taxpayer money. In addition to funding from billionaire
hedge fund operator George Soros, we find a federal
financial connection to some of the anti-Trump protests.
The good news for Trump in this case is that his
administration, supported by Republicans in Congress, can
cut off the federal money.
One anti-Trump organizer, Dan Nejfelt of the George
Soros-funded faux Catholic group, Faith in Public Life
(FPL), serves as a case study of how a modern-day
“community organizer” is made and paid. As the training
director of FPL, he previously served as the “policy and
messaging adviser” to the chair of President Obama’s
Advisory Council on Faith-based and Neighborhood
Partnerships.
Faith in Public Life was exposed in documents obtained
and released by DCLeaks as a conduit for Soros money
designed to move the Catholic Church in a left-wing
direction. The “We Stand with Pope Francis” on climate
change ad was an example of what this group did in 2016.
The pope has been critical of capitalism, embraced the
“climate change” agenda of deindustrialization, and
opposed strong measures to assure border security for the
United States.
240
FPL has informed its members in recent emails that
President Trump’s new executive order “banning refugees
from Muslim-majority countries” will have to be countered
in the media. The response was designated as “Standing
with Refugees in Word and Deed,” rather than focusing on
their possible terrorist connections.
We are told that Nejfelt has been part of the FPL’s “most
exciting achievements,” including involvement in “passing
the Affordable Care Act,” otherwise known as Obamacare,
and “defeating discriminatory religious exemptions bills in
Georgia.” Despite the reference to “discriminatory,” the
bills in question were designed to protect the religious
liberty of conservative Christians who object to being
forced by the government to condone or approve of
homosexual behavior and conduct.
Earlier this year I reported on how Faith in Public Life
held a “special briefing” on “Faithful Resistance to Rising
White Nationalism,” with a left-wing operative from the
Southern Poverty Law Center.
“Before FPL,” his bio says, “Dan taught
remedial literacy in rural Arkansas as a
Teach For America corps member, then
studied investigative reporting, magazine
editing and strategic communications at the
Missouri School of Journalism. A long time
ago, he got a B.A. in history at the College
of William & Mary.”
Teach For America is one of several charter programs
of the federal government’s AmeriCorps,
The connection to Teach For America is significant. We
are finding it in a growing number of cases of “community
organizers” working in the “progressive” movement.
Teach For America is one of several charter programs of
the federal government’s AmeriCorps, a project of the
Corporation for National and Community Service (CNCS).
Obama’s fiscal year 2017 budget requested $1.1 billion for
CNCS.
But the Trump administration does not seem to agree.
“Popular Domestic Programs Face Ax Under First
Trump Budget” was the scare headline in The New York
Times regarding proposed cuts affecting the CNCS, the
Corporation for Public Broadcasting, and others.
During the main event of Teach For America’s 25th
Anniversary Summit, President Barack Obama sent a
special message to the 50,000 plus TFA corps members,
alumni, and partners who were “working for educational
equity in our country.” This includes, according to their
own website, support for “a pathway to citizenship” for
illegal aliens.
An alumnus of the group featured on the website is
Michael Johnston, a former Democratic state senator in
Colorado now running for governor.
“During the two terms I served in the
Senate,” he says, “I helped pass major
progressive legislation, like the Dream Act,
so undocumented students who had spent
most of their lives in Colorado could get a
fair shot at college…”
He previously served as a senior education advisor to
President Obama.
Teach For America’s so-called “federal
partners” were listed as AmeriCorps,
the National Science Foundation and
the Department of Education
Teach For America’s official policy positions include
support for:
 Protection of Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
and passage of the DREAM Act and pathways to
citizenship for individuals brought to our country as
children.
 SAFE classrooms for LGBTQ youth and teachers
 Safe classrooms for Muslim students and teachers
.
241
According to its 2015 annual report, 12 percent of the
funding for Teach For America comes from the federal
government. Government grants and contracts were listed
in the amount of $69,756,254. So-called “federal partners”
were listed as AmeriCorps, the National Science
Foundation and the Department of Education.
Nejfelt, the Teach For America alumnus now at Faith in
Public Life, was trained at the Missouri School of
Journalism but also served as a research assistant and copy
editor at Investigative Reporters and Editors (IRE), where
he
“edited and fact-checked articles for the
IRE Journal, a bimonthly publication
providing resources and professional
development for more than 6,000
investigative journalists worldwide.”
His bio also lists work at an organization called the New
Organizing Institute, a “progressive grassroots
organization” located in Washington, D.C. which “has
suspended operations” and has “passed the torch” to
Wellstone Action, a group named after the former
Minnesota Senator Paul Wellstone (D).
It is dedicated to “building progressive
power coast to coast.”
Over the past 14 years, Wellstone Action says,
“we’ve propelled over 850 alumni into
elected office and guided over 3,500
winning campaigns.”
Through federal programs like the Corporation for
National and Community Service, taxpayers are helping to
make it possible.
 Obama Could Become
First Former President With A Felony
By Sean Adl-Tabatabai
Posted On March 8, 2017
Barack Obama could become the first
former President in American history to
be charged in a felony offence,
according to retired Army Lt. Col. Tony
Shaffer.
Following the revelation that the Obama administration
wiretapped Donald Trump during last years presidential
election, the White House has called for an immediate
investigation into Obama and the DOJ over possible
criminal wrongdoing.
Former senior intelligence officer and retired Army Lt.
Col. Tony Shaffer, believes that the magnitude of the
scandal will likely result in the indictment of Barack
Obama.
Conservativetribune.com reports:
If indeed it does turn out to be the case that
the Obama administration illegally
surveilled Trump’s team ahead of Election
Day as some have speculated, the end
result could be the unprecedented
indictment of a former president on felony
charges.
So a highly respected former senior intelligence officer,
retired Army Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer, told Conservative
Tribune sister company USA Radio Network’s Rusty
Humphries on “Trending Today USA” Monday morning.
Calling the alleged incident an “order of magnitude”
bigger than the Watergate scandal, Shaffer stated that the
incident would have included
242
“using nation-state resources for purposes
of political gain.”
Humphries asked if, should everything turn out to be true,
Obama would be arrested and held accountable for
violating the laws.
“This could be the first time a former
president could be indicted for a felony,”
Shaffer answered. “Because I think it is
very possible that he acted outside of the
scope of his duties, responsibilities and
authorities to turn the resources of a
nation-state on a candidate.”
“This is, as I’ve said before, soviet-dictator
level wrongdoing,” he added.
Shaffer also noted that, given Obama’s use of
government resources to conduct other spying operations,
it was easy to imagine him doing the same against Trump,
particularly while working under the assumption that
Democrat presidential nominee Hillary Clinton would
easily win the general election and keep the subterfuge
against Trump under wraps.
You can hear part of that conversation here:
To be sure, this is mostly speculation, but given Shaffer’s
lengthy military career, his rise to the top of the American
intelligence community, and his current role as a senior
fellow at the prestigious London Center for Policy
Research, his speculation carried more weight than that of
ill-informed media pundits and narrative-pushing
Democrats.
 Report: Obama FURIOUS
At Trump Over Wiretap Allegations
Jim Hoft
Mar 8th, 2017 10:54 Am
Barack Obama is reportedly FURIOUS at
President Trump over his weekend
wiretap allegations.
President Trump accused “sick” Obama of wiretapping his
phones at Trump Tower.
How low has President Obama gone to
tapp my phones during the very sacred
election process. This is Nixon/Watergate.
Bad (or sick) guy!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
March 4, 2017
This comes after several private calls by
Trump associates were leaked to the
press over the past several months
since his victory in November.
Obama is now reportedly upset with
President Trump over the allegations.
Zerohedge reported:
In a report demonstrating the collapse in
diplomatic relations between the current
and previous president, the WSJ wrote
overnight that rapport between Barack
Obama and Donald Trump has “unraveled”
with Trump “convinced that Mr. Obama is
undermining his nascent administration”
while Obama is “furious” over Trump
tweets accusing him of illegal wiretapping.
The WSJ notes that after shaking hands on
Jan. 20, the day of Trump’s inauguration,
the two presidents haven’t spoken since,
“although Trump tried to call Obama to
thank him for the traditional letter that one
president leaves for his successor in the
243
Oval Office.” The reason: Obama was
traveling at the time and the two never
connected.
As an amusing aside, the WSJ adds that the rift is
distancing Mr. Trump from a former two-term president
“who had offered to give private advice and
counsel as the onetime businessman
settles into his first job in public office.”
Of course, if Trump is correct and Obama did in fact order
a wiretap of the Trump Tower, Obama was actively
seeking to impair the Trump campaign and chances for
presidency, so that statement may seem a little suspect in
retrospect.
Accuracy of the report notwithstanding, it is obvious that
the bad blood between the two people has grown to
unprecedented levels: Douglas Brinkley, a presidential
historian, said the open friction has upended tradition, an
“almost unwritten rule that you treat your
predecessor with a degree of grace and
decorum.”
“There are these kinds of things that have
happened in the past, but nothing to the
degree where a sitting president would
charge his predecessor with a felony,” Mr.
Brinkley said. “It creates a feeling of
instability in the United States.”
Whether real or imagine, Trump and other White House
officials believe that Obama loyalists sprinkled throughout
the federal bureaucracy are behind leaks that are damaging
his personnel, White House officials said. A spokesman
for Mr. Obama wouldn’t comment to the WSJ on the
claim. In fact, as NewsMax CEO Christopher Ruddy, a
friend of Mr. Trump who sees him on weekends at the
president’s Mar-a-Lago, said in an interview:
“From what I’m hearing, Trump’s people
think Obama is at war with them.”
“This president has been under siege since
Day One from both the press and Obama
 loyalists and he’s reacting to it,” Mr. Ruddy and outside are giving Donald Trump a lot
said. “I don’t think there’s any doubt that of grief and a lot of problems.”
Obama loyalists inside the administration
.

244
 Obama Turned CIA And FBI Into Instruments Of The
State: “Their Missions Cannot Be Fulfilled In A Manner
Beneficial To The Defense Of The United States”
Jeremiah Johnson
March 8th, 2017
The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) was created in
1947 at the direction of President Truman. It had
“evolved” from the OSS (Office of Strategic Services)
used to perform clandestine military and espionage
operations during World War II. The legal framework
used to justify the CIA’s operations took several forms.
The National Security Act of 1947 allowed the CIA special
exemptions from the normal Congressional oversight.
The 1947 Act contained a provision that allowed the CIA
“to perform such other functions and duties
related to intelligence…as the National
Security Council may from time to time
direct.”
This was followed (and expanded upon) by the Central
Intelligence Agency Act of 1949, and subsequent charters
and Presidential Directives that eventually enabled it to
operate (almost unrestricted) at the direction of the
President while effectively bypassing accountability to
Congress.
The FBI saw a similar evolution and a “revision” in its
mission following the end of World War II. The FBI agent
was always viewed as a type of “top cop” in the U.S.,
however, domestic law enforcement is a secondary role to
its primary function: the conduct of counterintelligence
operations on American soil. Specifically, this meant to
track down and nullify/capture foreign operatives such as
KGB (Komitet Gosudostvenoy Bezopaznosti) agents, the
(then) Soviet Union’s intelligence operatives.
245
The CIA’s role is similar, but for foreign/non-domestic
operations: the conduct of intelligence and
counterintelligence operations outside of the U.S. For
missions either partially or entirely carried out in the
United States (that must be demonstrably in the interests of
national security), the CIA is not permitted to conduct
operations without a domestic law enforcement agency
attached to it at the time of execution.
In the 1950’s, the United States realized that the “Iron
Curtain” of nations held by the Soviet Union was not
going to be pushed back or neutralized. There was another
change in the operations of the CIA that led to covert
military operations, either by their operatives or forces
(recruited foreign mercenaries or soldiers handpicked from
U.S. military personnel) led by operatives. This has not
ceased up until the present day.
There was a hiatus in this practice with the Church
Committee, formed January 27, 1975 and headed by
Senator Frank Church, (D-ID). The final report by this
committee was released April 26, 1976 and it put a huge
damper on the conduct of CIA operations worldwide.
Concurrently, the FBI was being “nipped” away
domestically when the details of its COINTELPRO
(Counter Intelligence Program) procedures during the
1960’s to 1970’s came to light. The ones who protested it
most vehemently were the ones who were (justifiably)
within its crosshairs.
Under COINTELPRO, techniques developed during the
Cold War for use in counterintelligence against foreign
agents by the FBI were employed against Black Militant
and White Supremacy groups, as well as groups deemed
subversive and destructive, such as the Weather
Underground. Note: this last organization “spawned”
Bernardine Dohrn and Bill Ayers, criminal communist
revolutionaries who mentored and sponsored Barack
Hussein Obama II. COINTELPRO was actually employed
between 1956 and 1971 before liberals and other
communists labeled it as an infringement on First
Amendment rights and attacked the FBI for employing it.
During those years, we experienced a plethora of domestic
agents in foreign employ. The Rosenbergs had just been
executed in 1953 for selling the secrets of the hydrogen
bomb to the Soviets, and the rise of student radicalism
during the 60’s followed on the heels of Eisenhower’s
failed policies that allowed communists access to public
schools and universities to mold the minds of youth.
Contemporary politicians of today, such as Hillary Clinton
and Barack Obama are all the direct resultant creations of
communist indoctrinators at the secondary school and
university level.
The FBI subsequently “morphed” into an organization that
took care of “domestic terrorists” and worked to ensure the
existing social and political order was not overthrown.
The 1980’s saw a great change in the CIA’s activities, as
the agency began to recover from the Church Committee
and the tying of its hands by the Carter administration.
That change was fostered by Reagan, but it came to a
standstill with the Iran-Contra scandals, in which funds
from one theater of operations were diverted toward
another without Congressional approval or oversight.
With the 9-11 attacks, the CIA was then utilized to gather
intelligence more, while the DoD (Department of Defense)
was tasked with covert paramilitary operations as well as
intelligence gathering. Over the past 15 years there has
been a delineation and a “blending” of Special Forces
assets and the CIA’s operators…where each have relied
more heavily upon the other. Emphasis has been more on
covert strike missions and assassinations rather than
intelligence-gathering.
The Obama administration embraced the use of the CIA
and the improved drone-strike capabilities to kill its targets
in countries such as Afghanistan, Pakistan, and Yemen.
Obama’s main focus, however, was in utilizing case
officers and field operatives in destabilization operations in
order to successfully overthrow governments and institute
coup d’etats, with cover provided by the embassies and
state department offices in the target nations. This is
where we currently are.
The problem facing the new administration is there are a
tremendous amount of operations that have been initiated
under Obama that will have to be curtailed and/or reversed
under President Trump. Some are simple, such as with
Ukraine, where operatives will need to continue gathering
.
246
intelligence about the changing situation without
continuing their destabilization efforts initiated under the
prior administration. Other “inherited” operations are
more complex, such as those taking place in the Baltic
states such as Latvia, Lithuania, and Estonia, or where we
have recently deployed capabilities for nuclear weapons
launching, such as Romania.
Regarding these last: the intelligence provided by these
stations is still critical, but the operational tempo has
changed due to the President desiring a newfound
“détente” and reset with Russia. This is a 180-degree
change from what Obama wanted: a war with Russia. The
important consideration is this: all operations are approved
either directly or indirectly from the level of the
Commander-in-Chief.
The FBI (under Obama) has turned into an instrument of
the State, capable of ignoring heinous crimes, such as the
release of classified documents by the former Secretary of
State and presidential candidate Hillary Clinton, or the sale
of guns in Operation Fast and Furious resulting in the
death of a U.S. Border Patrol agent. The FBI is more
interested in combatting domestic terrorism (making it a
de-facto instrument of suppression by the government)
than it is with protecting U.S. citizens from the ever-
present threat of foreign agents and foreign terrorists
entering the country and carrying out operations.
This is where we stand today. These two agencies have a
specific function; however, those missions cannot be
fulfilled in a manner beneficial to the defense of the United
States when an administration twists them to serve its own
ends. We have a new President…an American
President…who can set the standards and ensure that they
are met while not tying the hands of either agency behind
their backs.
The important thing is to return them to
basics and the service of the
Constitution and the American people.
Wars cannot be fought by “Marquis of Queensbury” rules;
however, the President can make policies that govern
agency actions and return them to their original
mission…an honored one our country depends upon.
 Wikileaks Latest Data Dump
Undermines Case Against Russia Election Hack
Uh-Oh, There Goes The Democrats' Whole 'Russia Did It' Campaign
Dave Lindorff
March 8, 2017 - 5:22pm
The so-called Deep State and Democratic Party campaign
to demonize Russia for allegedly "hacking the US
election," and delivering the country into the hands of
Donald Trump suffered a huge and probably mortal blow
this week with the release by WikiLeaks of over 7000
secret CIA documents disclosing secret CIA hacking
technologies.
The case being made against Russia as being the source of
leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee and
of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta -- documents that
proved that the DNC had been corrupting the primary
process in favor of corporatist candidate Hillary Clinton
and undermining the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders, and that also revealed the embarrassing contents
of Clinton's highly paid secret speeches to a number of
giant Wall Street banks -- had always been tenuous, with
no hard evidence ever presented. All the intelligence
agencies would say was that they had a "high degree of
certainty," or "strong reason to believe" that the Russians
were the source of the deeply damaging documents late in
the campaign season.
Adding to doubts that Russia had actually hacked the DNC
was WikiLeaks itself, which insisted that it had obtained
the DNC and Podesta emails not from a hack of
computers, but from an internal DNC staffer who actually
pulled them off computers with a thumb drive and
provided them to the organization -- a person later
identified as Seth Rich, who was mysteriously murdered
on his way home from DNC headquarters in Washington,
shot in the back at night in an unsolved case that the local
police quickly labeled a "botched burglary," although
nothing was taken from his body by his assailant -- not his
wallet or watch even. (Wikileaks has offered a $20,000
247
reward for information that helps solve that uninvestigated
case.)
But one thing the blame-Russia conspiracy theorists did
have going for them was their assertion that the leaked
DNC documents contained routing information and ISPs
that pointed to Russia as the source of the hacks.
Now, however, the new CIA documents released by
WikiLeaks -- the first of a much larger trove of such
documents that are reportedly going to be released as
WikiLeaks goes through them to remove information that
might jeopardize agents or national security -- show that
among the technologies and hacking tools that the CIA has
been using to attack targeted computers, internet servers
and even so-called "smart" appliances in people's homes,
like Samsung TV sets, are a number of Russian-developed
hacking programs.
As the New York Times wrote in its article on the latest
Wikileaks document release, which it is calling "Vault 7":
Another program described in the
documents, named Umbrage, is a
voluminous library of cyber-attack
techniques that the CIA has collected from
malware produced by other countries,
including Russia. According to the
WikiLeaks release, the large number of
techniques allows the CIA to mask the
origin of some of its attack and confuse
forensic investigators.
The WikiLeaks material includes lists of
software tools that the CIA uses to create
exploits and malware to carry out hacking.
Many of the tools are those used by
developers around the world: coding
languages, such as Python, and tools like
Sublime Text, a program used to write
code, and Git, a tool that helps developers
collaborate."
What this means is that current efforts by Democratic
Party leaders and Deep State leakers in the government
intelligence sector to pin the blame on Russia for hacking
the election or for trying to help elect Trump as president,
now must confront the counter-argument that the Deep
State itself, in the form of the CIA, may have been behind
the hacks, but is making it look like the Russians did it.
As fellow investigative reporter Robert Parry puts it on his
site, Consortium News:
The WikiLeaks’ disclosures add a new
layer of mystery to whether the Russians
were behind the “hacks” of the Democratic
Party or whether Moscow was framed.
For instance, the widely cited Russian
fingerprints on the “hacking” attacks – such
as malware associated with the suspected
Russian cyber-attackers APT 28 (also
known as “Fancy Bear”); some Cyrillic
letters: and the phrase “Felix
Edmundovich,” a reference to Dzerzhinsky,
the founder of a Bolsheviks’ secret police –
look less like proof of Russian guilt than
they did earlier.
Or put differently — based on the newly
available CIA material — the possibility that
these telltale signs were planted to
incriminate Moscow doesn’t sound as
farfetched as it might have earlier.
Even the Wall Street Journal yesterday cited an
"unnamed intelligence official"
acknowledging that the CIA’s “UMBRAGE”
library of foreign hacking tools could “be
used to mask a U.S. operation and make it
appear that it was carried out by another
country…. That could be accomplished by
inserting malware components from, say, a
known Chinese, Russian or Iranian hacking
operation into a U.S. one.”
Why would the CIA do that? Well, if the concern was that
Trump, as he stated throughout the campaign, wanted to
end US hostility towards Russia, and to develop friendly
relations with that country and its leader, President
Vladimir Putin -- a development that deeply opposed by
Neoliberals, Neocons, and the defense/intelligence
establishment -- what better way to toss a spanner into
such plans than to make it look like Russia had tried to
corrupt the US election?
.
248
That charge has been largely adopted unquestioningly by
the corporate media in recent months, but it now founders
on the new evidence that the CIA has the ability to pose as
a Russian hacker!
It looks like the campaign to portray President Trump as a
Putin puppet, and to portray Russia as an evil underminer
of US democracy will have to come up with another way
to attack the Trump administration, and to gin up a new
Cold War with Russia. The current effort will no longer
pass the laugh test. Democrats seeking to undermine
Trump with the US public will have to do better -- like
maybe actually analyzing the reasons for their epic
election defeat, and coming up with a genuinely populist,
as opposed to corporatist, program to show ordinary
Americans that the party has their interests at heart, and
not just the interests of rich campaign contributors.
WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, the latter holed
up these past four years under threat of arrest in the
Equadoran Embassy in London, have done it again.
Although the Deep State hasn't given up. The NY Times,,
in its report today on the WikiLeaks documents, also
includes the rather lame argument by James Lewis,
described as "an expert on cybersecurity at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies" (a Washington think-
tank closely linked to the US defense and intelligence
establishment), that the latest WikiLeaks documents "most
likely" were provided not by a "conscience-stricken CIA
whistleblower," but rather via another source. Lewis then
suggests that:
...a foreign state, most likely Russia, stole
the documents by hacking or other means
and delivered them to WikiLeaks, which
may not know how they were obtained."
Lewis gives no real explanation as to why a Russian hack
would be "more likely" than a whistle-blowing CIA
employee or contractor to be the source of the leaked
documents provided to WikiLeaks, but the Times and its
intelligence establishment sources are putting that
alternative out there anyhow, clearly in an effort to keep
the crumbling anti-Russia campaign afloat.
It will be interesting to see how far the McCarthyite
campaign to demonize Russia and to damage the Trump
presidency by linking it to Russian perfidy will go, given
this new information that the CIA was well-equipped to do
its hacking work posing as a Russian entity.
 Monica Crowley: Dark 'Forces'
Want To 'Personally Destroy' Trump
'I Hope The President Understands I Am Not Overstating This'
Bob Unruh
March 8, 2017
Monica Crowley
A coalition of forces – ranging from failed Democrats to
paid protesters to pro-Democrat media to “deep state” anti-
Trump government lifers – is aiming to do much more
than “de-legitimize” President Trump and halt his agenda,
according to Fox News guest Monica Crowley.
“What I hope that the president and his
senior aides understand is that these
forces are not just looking to de-legitimize
him … They want to personally destroy
him, destroy his presidency, and they
would like to see the man in prison.”
She was interviewed Tuesday night on Sean Hannity’s Fox
News program.
“I hope the president understands I am
not overstating this. They are out for
blood,” she said.
She described President Trump, an outsider who took on
the GOP establishment and beat 16 challengers for the
presidential nomination, then handed the well-developed
Hillary Clinton political machine its second failure in the
presidential sweepstakes, as an “alien organism.”
“Trump is an alien organism injected into
the body politic by the American people to
reform it,” she said, adding that his
opponents insist “he must not be allowed to
succeed.”
249
“They have swarmed him, they have
swarmed everyone around him to reject
him just like any alien organism,” she said.
“This is war. … They will not end until
they get the president of the United
States.”
Trump has been the target of frequent protests that many
believe have been instigated by former President Obama.
Hannity said he sees five factions going after Trump:
 The “snowflake faction” of paid protesters,
 The “obstructionist” democratic party,
 The establishment media that “colluded” with
Clinton in the last election,
 Weak republicans who are part of the
establishment and
 Career “intel community” members who are
participating in a “shadow government” that hates
trump.
Crowley said she was attacked just as she was asked to
take a position with the Trump administration as senior
director of strategic communications at the National
Security Council.
Several mainstream media outlets that long have opposed
Trump wrote about allegations of plagiarism in her work.
“What happened to me was a despicable,
straight-up, political hit job,” she said. “It’s
been debunked. My editor has completely
supported me and backed me up.”
She said the charges against her were part of
“a very toxic – and it’s getting increasingly
toxic and poisonous – atmosphere of
personal destruction.”
“I will tell you that nothing and nobody ever
is going to stop me from speaking out on
the issues I care about, on the future of this
nation,” Crowley said.
See the interview: “falsely claimed the plagiarism allegations
had ‘been debunked,'” while Salon claimed
an “investigative team” found 50 examples
of “plagiarism from numerous sources,”
“including the copying with minor changes
of news articles, other columnists, think
tanks, and Wikipedia.”

However, as conservative writer Andrew McCarthy

The left-leaning Daily Beast contended that Crowley
explained in National Review, Crowley’s actual errors
were extremely minor and the plagiarism allegations
wildly overblown as a means of discrediting her and her
work. In fact, as McCarthy showed, CNN omitted
Crowley’s end notes in its reporting so as to make it appear
she was failing to credit her sources.

250
 Why Trump Continues
To Beat The Democrats
By Ted Rall
March 8, 2017
Photo by Mark Taylor
At a water cooler or Starbucks near you, speculating about
Donald Trump’s psychological state is America’s newest
cultural obsession. Is the president crazy? Or crazy like a
fox?
I don’t know. What I do know is that Trump’s Democratic
opponents are doomed if they think they can beat him by
acting reasonable. Haven’t they learned anything from
Hillary’s disastrous “when they go low, we go high”
shtick?
Point of order: what follows are musings about political
strategy, not an impassioned “Trump is evil and here’s
how to get rid of him” advisory column. If this makes you
want to read no further, here’s the big reveal:
Democrats are congenital wimps.
Still here? Awesome.
This Week In Trump (TWIT): the president accused ex-
president/drone killer/kitesurfer/eight-figure author Barack
Obama of having his phones tapped during last year’s
election. Is he right?
I don’t know. What I do know is that corporate media is
ridiculing Trump for “offering no evidence.” That phrase
was in the New York Times’ headline. Nice qualifier; a
similar expression of uncertainty would have saved
hundreds of thousands of Iraqi lives during the Bush-Judy
251
Miller days. “Citing no evidence,” said the Los Angeles
Times about Trump’s claim. Since when does that corrupt
paper care about evidence? If you can see past its crazy
tone and placement on Twitter, the substance of Trump’s
charge is hardly outlandish.
True or false, Trump’s accusation is a blockbuster.
Whether by design or coincidence, the resulting tsunami of
coverage wiped the question of whether attorney general
Jeff Sessions lied under oath about meeting with the
Russian ambassador and whether he made any untoward
promises during those rendezvous.
Political observers have noticed a pattern in Trump’s
behavior. Whenever he’s under fire, Trump does
something bigger and more outrageous.
Magically, Trump’s troubles go: poof!
Grab them by the pussy,” Trump was caught saying on
video just before his key second debate against Hillary
Clinton. “You can do anything.” Seasoned politicos,
including your humble narrator, thought his campaign was
all over. So Trump invited three women who’d accused
Bill Clinton of sexual misconduct to attend the debate. It
was a gangster move. A WWE move. And no one could
stop talking about it.
Goodbye PussyGate, hello White House!
Again, I’m not weighing in on Trump or his policies here.
This is about politics and human psychology and how
Trump understands them better than the Democrats.
It has been suggested to me by frustrated Democrats and
progressives that Americans should be reminded that the
Real Issue is Jeff Sessions’ lying about Russia. They say
that the media ought to ignore Trump’s accusation against
Obama.
Sorry, guys. That won’t work.
Asking the media to throw shade on PhoneTapGate is
insane. Interest in our wild and crazy president is Making
the Media Great Again! Newspaper circulation is up for
the first time in decades! So are broadcast ratings —
because TV cable news covers stuff like this.
There’s only one way to beat crazy: with more crazy.
As one of the few lefties to publicly humiliate the
hectoring bully Sean Hannity, and one of the few lefties
Ann Coulter is scared to debate, I’m beginning to think
I’m the only person in American politics who understands
what it would take to take on a loudmouth like President
Trump.
Louder.
Meaner.
More over the top.
If I were running the DNC, I’d replace the party’s
milquetoast rhetoric of watered-down feints with full-bore
attacks.
Bad:
“I am going to be sending [Jeff Sessions] a
letter to have him explain himself.” (Al
Franken)
Lame:
“This is a very real & serious threat to the
national security of the United States.”
(Elizabeth Warren)
Better But Not Good Enough:
252
“He has proved that he is unqualified and
unfit to serve in that position of trust.”
(Nancy Pelosi)
To beat Trump, you have to out-Trump Trump with
talking points the media can’t ignore and people can’t stop
talking about. Here are some lines that might make
Sessions the story again by washing away Trump’s TWIT
distractions (the alleged Obama tap and Trump’s Muslim
Ban 2.0).
Good:
“Jeff Sessions is a traitor. He should be
locked up in prison, now.”
Better:
“Let’s say Sessions is telling the truth. Let’s
assume Jeff Sessions can’t remember
meeting with the Russians. Then he’s a
goddamn idiot and too stupid to be attorney
general. Why is Trump appointing morons
to the cabinet?”
Best:
“Of course Obama tapped Trump.
Snowden told us. Obama tapped everyone!
Which is how we know Sessions is a
traitor!”
These sample talking points would be scurrilous. They
would be unfair. They’d play fast and loose with the facts.
But they’re the only approach that would work.
 The FBI Investigated A Trump Server
In Its Russia Probe, But No Charges Are Expected
By John Solomon And Sara Carter
March 8, 2017
Intelligence sources say that the FBI investigated a
computer tied to Donald Trump's business but there's no
evidence to date that would warrant criminal charges
against any of the president’s associates.
The months-long FBI counterintelligence investigation
into Russian efforts to influence the 2016 presidential
campaign briefly investigated a computer server tied to
Donald Trump's businesses near the end of the election but
has not gathered evidence of election tampering to date
that would warrant criminal charges against any of the
president’s associates, Circa has learned.
Widespread frustration
U.S. officials, who spoke only on condition of anonymity
because of the sensitive nature of the information, said
there is widespread frustration among intelligence
professionals who have watched in horror as a normally
secretive process has been distorted by media leaks and
politicians uneducated about how counterintelligence
operations actually work.
"I've never seen a case so misrepresented
and leaks so damaging to a process that
was meant to be conducted in secret."
—U.S. official
“We have people spouting off who don’t
know the difference between FISA
surveillance and a wiretap or a
counterintelligence probe versus a special
prosecutor, and it has hurts our ability to
get to the truth and has wrongly created the
impression that intelligence officials have a
political agenda,” said one source directly
familiar with the drama.
It's about Russia more than Trump
253
Many of the leaks have surfaced since former President
Barack Obama in his waning days in office had his
intelligence leadership brief a wider than normal audience
about the sensitive Russia surveillance. Those leaks have
created a false narrative that the FBI has been
predominantly focused on Trump ties to Russia, officials
said.
In fact, any FBI activity involving the president’s
associates or advisers was mostly ancillary to a wider
counterintelligence probe into Russian efforts to influence
the election or curry favor with U.S. figures, the sources
said.
“The (Trump-Russia) narrative in the media
hasn’t been our primary focus and mostly
involves pieces of information that came in
incidentally. We check them out and we
move on,” one official said, adding most of
the work has involved old-fashioned
investigative tactics and not surveillance.
Added another official:
“I’ve never seen a case so misrepresented
and leaks so damaging to a process that
was meant to be conducted in secret so
that foreign powers don’t know what we
know and people’s reputations aren’t
tarnished unfairly.”
Several sources with direct knowledge say the FBI’s
interest in investigating possible Moscow efforts to
influence the 2016 election was born out of its long
expertise on Russian players gathered back from the 2001
Robert Hansen espionage affair and the 2010 Anna
Chapman spy ring scandal.
Russian activity raised suspicions
Other intelligence agencies also were gathering similar
evidence highlighting Russian activity like computer
hacking and propaganda.
The bureau, along with other intelligence agencies, had
early signs of political-motivated hacking by Russia and
uncorroborated information from among others a former
British intelligence officer about possible contacts between
Russian intelligence and people close to Trump.
“There were indicators of Russian activity
and uncorroborated allegations of Trump
associates having contact with key figures
and we needed to know if they were
connected or not,” one source described.
“We’d be remiss if we did not answer that
question for the national security
community.”
Probe starts into Russian connections with US citizens
Officials decided the best course of action was to pursue a
classic counterintelligence investigation focused on what
the Russians were actually doing and whether anyone in
the United States, including on the Trump team, might be
encouraging or facilitating those actions or financially
benefitting from them.
One of the documents that agents tried to corroborate
became known as the “Trump dossier,” the work of a
trusted ex-British intelligence agent hired by political
operatives to find damaging evidence on Trump in Russia.
Some of the information in the dossier was explicit and
salacious and uncorroborated -- like an alleged interlude
between Trump and a prostitute in Moscow a few years
back and an alleged Russian bribe that could have spelled
billions of dollars for Trump’s companies.
Information could not be corroborated
Agents were able to corroborate some details in the
dossier, mostly public source intelligence about meetings
and decisions involving Russian figures. But much of the
information about Trump and associates could not be
corroborated. Some was disproven and other facts took on
new connotations when additional investigation was
concluded.
FISA used in probe
For instance, the FBI and Justice Department received a
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant in October
to help further the Russia investigation. Officials stressed
there were no intercepts of Trump’s phone or emails.
Separately, they used traditional investigative techniques
to review a computer server tied to the the soon-to-be-
president's businesses in Trump Towers in New York but
located elsewhere.
Agents were examining allegations of computer activity
tied to Russia.. Very quickly, they concluded the
computer activity in question involved no nefarious
contacts, bank transactions or encrypted communications
254
with the Russians, and likely involved routine computer
signals.
The towers are home to Trump’s business, personal
residence and then-campaign headquarters.
The Flynn connection
The officials also strongly disputed that the
FBI’s intercepts of conversations in December between
soon-to-to-be U.S. National Security Adviser Michael
Flynn and Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak were part
of a continuing Trump-focused national security
investigation. In fact, they were part of a long-established
special intelligence program in which the FBI is routinely
permitted to review intercepts of Russian embassy
officials.
Americans are often incidentally intercepted, and the FBI
has authority to review those conversations without a
specific warrant when they involve national security
matters. Flynn fell into that category in part because he had
a security clearance, the sources said.
The sources said Flynn exchanged a handful of calls or
text messages to the Russian ambassador in December,
including holiday wishes and condolences for recent
Russian tragedies.
Some involved more substantive policy issues, something
the FBI flagged for the larger intelligence community
because Obama was still in power and Trump was not yet
in power.
"We'd be remiss if we did not answer that
question for the national security
community."
—U.S. official
What Flynn and Kislyak talked about
For instance, after the Russian ambassador sent a text
message seeking a phone call, Flynn and Kislyak talked
about sanctions imposed by Obama on Russia on Dec. 29,
but the message the American official gave was mostly
that a new sheriff was about to take over the White House
and Russians shouldn’t react to the new sanctions in a way
that would foreclose better dialog in the future under a
Trump administration, sources said.
Currently, no evidence against Flynn
There was also a discussion of a possible conference about
Kazakhstan the next month, they added. To date, the FBI
has not found anything that rises to criminal activity in the
Flynn conversations, though the ultimate decision will
reside with prosecutors in the Justice Department, the
sources said.
Russia was hacking to try and influence the election
The information gathered during 2016 by the FBI,
however, did further a robust portrait already being built
by numerous intelligence agencies, like the National
Security Agency, the Central Intelligence Agency and
Directorate of National Intelligence, that Russia and its
related actors had taken actions like hacking to influence
the U.S. election with the apparent aim of hurting Hillary
Clinton’s election chances or helping Trump.
There also was evidence of Russian-friendly figures trying
to curry favor with those close to Trump, something that
happens at all levels when a new president is poised to take
office.
But there was no concrete evidence of bribes, illicit money
or other criminal activity related to the Russian effort to
influence elections. So the FBI proceeded to process
security clearances for key Trump players about to take
jobs in the new administration, the sources said.
Obama and Trump briefed
At Obama’s request, a highly classified briefing was
prepared for the outgoing and incoming presidents, which
was given to both men over the December holiday break.
Obama, who had received updates through 2016 on the
issue, used his detailed briefing as the final justification for
the new sanctions on Moscow announced on Dec. 29,
which included expelling three dozen Russians from
America.
Trump used his briefing to dispel what he saw was a
myriad of “fake news” reports suggesting his team was
complicit with Russians in trying to hijack the election.
The FBI contributions to the briefing included mention of
the uncorroborated Russian dossier created by the British
intelligence agent.
The FBI chose to include the information to educate the
new president in particular to the tactics of Russian
intelligence agencies, including the planting of false stories
in documents like the dossier and the use of money and sex
to compromise Western leaders or to leave them open to
bribery, sources said.
Until that point, the FBI surveillance process was mostly
free of political interference and followed the normal
rigors of a counter-intelligence investigation closely
monitored by a supervisory court of federal judges and
other intelligence apparatus.
255
The leaks begin
But the start of the New Year brought with it an
unexpected politicizing of the intelligence gathered in
secret. Congress was briefed in early January, as were
many other government officials.
Separately, the Obama administration amended a long-
standing executive order allowing information intercepted
through FISA warrants or by the National Security Agency
to be shared to a wider audience in 16 government
agencies as Obama was leaving office.
Intelligence normally reserved for just a handful of
intelligence leaders was spread through briefings to scores
of workers, and soon leaks began appearing in news
media, often in stories lacking the context of how national
security investigations are actually conducted. The leak of
the Flynn conversations with the Russian ambassador
alarmed career FBI officials, who knew it had been
gathered using the most sensitive of surveillance powers.
Mortified over leaks
Some U.S intelligence officials were also mortified that the
leak tipped off the Russian ambassador to which of his
phones might be monitored by U.S. intelligence, harming
future surveillance efforts.
There was also concerns that Flynn’s contentious
relationship with other elements of the intelligence
community back when he served as Defense Intelligence
Agency chief played a role in the leaking of classified
intercepts.
Reaction to Trump's wiretap allegations
Trump’s own claim this week that the FBI wiretapped his
phone further irritated senior officials. Director James
Comey even took the step of asking Justice to knock down
the claim. While the computer server was investigted,
Trump’s phones and emails were never wiretapped,
officials said.
Comey’s request was designed to combat any insinuation
that the FBI was used by the Obama administration as a
political-enemy intelligence gathering agency in the midst
of the election.
But inside the intelligence community it also conveyed
another powerful message:
Comey has always insisted the bureau won’t comment on
ongoing probes. So his willingness to push out a comment
was a sign the FBI doesn’t see a criminal case emerging so
far.
 Why No One’s Going To Drain This Swamp
By Wolf Richter
Mar 8, 2017
The Financial Sector threw $2 Billion at
Congress during the Election. Biggest
Spenders? Not the Banks.
The Financial Sector – whose products, risk-taking, and
shenanigans blew up the sector and everything around it
during the Financial Crisis – has finally gotten the memo
in a serious way: During the past election cycle (2015-
2016), it doused the members of the US Congress with a
record amount of money to “influence decision making”
and get what they want:
deregulation, handouts, and subsidies.
So how much? Over $2 billion.
That’s over $3.7 million per sitting member of Congress,
according to a report released today by Americans for
Financial Reform. The $2 billion tab fell into two
categories:
 Campaign contributions by companies, trade
associations, and individuals associated with the
financial sector: $1.104 billion. This was “almost twice
that of any other specific business sector.”
 Lobbying expenses by 460 financial sector entities:
$898 million
“The financial sector is by far the largest
source of campaign contributions to federal
candidates and parties, and the third
largest spender on lobbying,” the report
explains,
based on data by the Center for Responsive Politics (CRP),
which tracks campaign contributions reported to the
Federal Elections Commission (FEC) and lobbying
expenditures reported to the Senate Office of Public
Records.
This “Financial Sector” includes commercial banks, S&Ls,
credit unions, finance and credit companies, securities and
investment firms, accountants, and “miscellaneous
finance.”
256
But actual amounts are much higher:
 Entities often report this data “many months late”;
contributions and lobbying expenses reported after
February 8 are not included in the report.
 “Financial Sector,” as defined by the CRP, excludes
some trade associations and companies with a “very
substantial financial interests,” such as the US
Chamber of Commerce, which lobbies extensively on
financial issues, and the National Auto Dealers
Association (NADA) which lobbies on policy regarding
auto loans.
 Also excluded is “dark money” contributed to nonprofits
“that engage in political advocacy in their own right but
do not have to report their donors. The total amount of
unreported dark-money spending is widely believed to
be at least as great as reported spending.”
So the $2 billion is a minimum. The actual total could be
$4 billion, or whatever. That is starting to be real money.
The top 20 performers:
Who is Number 1? Goldman Sachs? Wells Fargo? Nope.
The National Association of Realtors (NAR). It’s trying to
get the government to inflate the housing market in myriad
ways, for instance by dominating the mortgage industry,
including guarantees and mortgage-backed securities,
thereby subsidizing mortgage rates. It’s all about Realtors
making more money because commissions are fatter if
extracted from higher home prices. And the NAR is very
concerned that the government might be cracking down on
pandemic money laundering in the housing sector.
The NAR gave more than twice as much as the next guy in
line, namely a quant hedge fund, Renaissance
Technologies, followed by another hedge fund, Paloma
Partners, followed by another hedge fund, Elliot
Management, followed by the banking trade association,
American Bankers Association.
Commercial banks are further down on this list (campaign
contributions and lobbying expenses combined):
1. National Association of Realtors – $118,622,462
2. Renaissance Technologies – $53,479,983
3. Paloma Partners – $41,334,000
4. Elliott Management – $28,020,354
5. American Bankers Association (ABA) – $25,750,687
 6. Bloomberg LP – $25,528,952 The report lists many more entities by name. These are just
7. Soros Fund Management – $24,642,840 the top 20.
8. Pritzker Group – $23,668,814
9. Prudential Financial – $19,021,920 Clearly, Goldman Sachs, near the bottom of the above list,
10. Securities Industry & Financial Market Association doesn’t need to spend that much money on campaign
(SIFMA) – $16,006,600 contributions and lobbying. It gets what it wants by other
11. Starr Companies – $15,316,251 means, for example having its ex-executives play major
12. Stephens Group – $15,193,306 roles in the administration and at the Fed.
13. Citadel LLC – $14,846,004
14. Wells Fargo – $14,755,343
This chart of the past 9 election cycles shows how overall
15. Citigroup Inc – $13,676,918
performances have improved over the years. So this is
16. Hendricks Holding Co – $13,499,525
certainly an exciting growth sector in the US economy,
17. MetLife Inc – $13,196,824
however crummy the rest of the economy or corporate
18. New York Life Insurance – $12,792,478
earnings might be. It also shows how the $2 billion were
19. Goldman Sachs – $12,414,029
divided up between “campaign contributions” and
20. Investment Company Institute (ICI) – $12,382,079
“lobbying”:

Here are the top five recipients in the Senate:
1. Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL) – $8,687,969
2. Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) – $5,482,011
3. Senator Charles E Schumer (D-NY) – $5,345,563
4. Senator Rob Portman (R-OH) – $4,158,259
5. Senator Pat Toomey (R-PA) – $3,918,262
And here are the top five recipients in the House:
1. Representative Paul Ryan (R-WI) – $5,727,069
2. Representative Kevin McCarthy (R-CA) – $3,397,980
3. Representative Patrick Murphy (D-FL) – $2,218,697
4. Representative Joe Heck (R-NV) – $2,167,660
5. Representative Chris Van Hollen (D-MD) – $2,149,471
The chart below shows campaign contributions to
Democrats and Republicans, based on contributions that
were identified by party (only a portion are), with the
federal election cycle in solid columns and the in-between
years in striped columns.

257
The Financial Crisis is already forgotten, except the key
element for the financial sector, including the housing
sector: they got bailed out by the government and to a
much larger extent by the Fed – and they continue to get
propped up with the still ultra-low interest rates and the
Fed’s gigantic pile of securities, including mortgage-
backed securities, that it has acquired during the phases of
QE.
So it’s no big deal, apparently, for these players if there is
another financial crisis. But deregulation must happen.
258
Financial reforms must be rolled back. The housing market
must be subsidized more than ever. Bonuses, stock-based
compensation, share repurchases, and commissions
beckon. What is in reality a relatively small amount of
money – just a few billion bucks, a pittance really – must
be spent by the industry to reap the huge payoffs. As the
old saw goes, you have to spend money to make money.
But in the real economy, where has all the optimism
suddenly gone? Read… Atlanta Fed GDPNow Forecast
Spirals Down in Amazing Manner
 Spygate: America’s Political Police Vs. Donald J. Trump
Deep State’s Dirty Tricks Revealed
By Justin Raimondo
March 08, 2017
Everyone is suddenly talking about the Deep State – the
configuration of spy agencies, career bureaucrats, and
overseas spooks whose murky omnipresence has been
brought to light by President Trump’s contention that he
was “wiretapped” by his predecessor.
With his usual imprecision, Trump managed to confuse the
issue by ascribing the surveillance to Barack Obama, and
so naturally spokesmen for the former President had no
trouble batting this charge away. But as a former Obama
speechwriter put it:
“I’d be careful about reporting that Obama
said there was no wiretapping. Statement
just said that neither he nor the [White
House] ordered it.”
And then there’s the word “wiretapping”: this brings to
mind the old-fashioned physical “bug” that our spooks
used to plant on their target’s phone lines, installed in the
dead of night. But that isn’t how it’s done anymore. As
Edward Snowden revealed, the National Security Agency
(NSA) scoops up everyone’s communications, and stores
them in a database for later retrieval. Loosely-observed
“rules” are supposed to make it hard (but not impossible)
for the spooks to spy on American citizens, but the reality
is that there are plenty of times when such information is
scooped up “incidentally,” and in those cases the identities
of those spied on must be redacted.
Except not anymore.
As the New York Times reported on January 12:
“In its final days, the Obama administration
has expanded the power of the National
Security Agency to share globally
intercepted personal communications with
the government’s 16 other intelligence
agencies before applying privacy
protections.
“The new rules significantly relax
longstanding limits on what the N.S.A. may
do with the information gathered by its
most powerful surveillance operations,
259
which are largely unregulated by American
wiretapping laws. These include collecting
satellite transmissions, phone calls and
emails that cross network switches abroad,
and messages between people abroad that
cross domestic network switches.
“The change means that far more officials
will be searching through raw data…”
And it looks like Obama administration officials made
good use of this loosening of the rules after Trump’s
victory. As the Times reported on March 1, after Trump
won they were combing through the unredacted raw data
looking for evidence of Russian collusion with the Trump
campaign:
“In the Obama administration’s last days,
some White House officials scrambled to
spread information about Russian efforts to
undermine the presidential election – and
about possible contacts between
associates of President-elect Donald J.
Trump and Russians – across the
government.”
Their goal: “to leave a clear trail of intelligence for
government investigators.” And they apparently didn’t
wait for the investigators, as a stream of reportage about
“intercepts” involving Trump associates, such as former
National Security Council advisor Michael Flynn
communicating with Russian officials, found its way onto
the front pages of the nation’s newspapers. The source of
this intelligence is the key to understanding what
happened. The Times tells us:
“American allies, including the British and
the Dutch, had provided information
describing meetings in European cities
between Russian officials – and others
close to Russia’s president, Vladimir V.
Putin – and associates of President-elect
Trump, according to three former American
officials who requested anonymity in
discussing classified intelligence.
 “Separately, American intelligence
agencies had intercepted communications
of Russian officials, some of them within
the Kremlin, discussing contacts with
Trump associates.”
Forget about looking for a FISA court application to spy
on Trump & Co.: it wasn’t necessary. Such archaic
remnants of a free society as a warrant were blithely
bypassed: “Seventeen different government agencies
shouldn’t be rooting through Americans’ emails with
family members, friends and colleagues, all without ever
obtaining a warrant,” warned American Civil Liberties
Union lawyer Patrick Toomey at the time the NSA rules
were thrown out.
But nobody was listening – including Trump and his
supporters, who generally approve of government spying
in the name of “national security.”And so the way was
cleared for the anti-Trump coup plotters to do their dirty
work. As the January 12 Times story reported:
“Under the new system, agencies will ask
the N.S.A. for access to specific
surveillance feeds, making the case that
they contain information relevant and
useful to their missions. The N.S.A. will
grant requests it deems reasonable after
considering factors like whether large
amounts of Americans’ private information
might be included and, if so, how damaging
or embarrassing it would be if that
information were ‘improperly used or
disclosed.’”
All the leakers had to do was comb through the material
gathered by the NSA and cherry-pick what looked
incriminating – although, to be sure, if they had a smoking
gun we would surely have known about it by now. But the
lack of such was no obstacle to their goal, which was to
give the #NeverTrump cause a banner around which to
rally post-election –
“The Russians did it!”
– and create a dark cloud of suspicion over Trump’s
presidency as being somehow illegitimate.
The new rules on disseminating raw NSA intercepts went
into effect on January 3, after then Attorney General
Loretta Lynch signed on: the Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper had previously signed on
December 12. And if we look at the reportage coming out
of the media, that’s when the stories detailing the content
of intercepts and other intelligence started hitting the front
pages.
260
It’s difficult to see how anyone could deny that the
Surveillance State did a number on Trump. Two days after
the loosened NSA rules went into effect, the Washington
Post ran a story headlined “US Intercepts Capture Senior
Russian Officials Celebrating Trump Win”:
“Senior officials in the Russian government
celebrated Donald Trump’s victory over
Hillary Clinton as a geopolitical win for
Moscow, according to U.S. officials who
said that American intelligence agencies
intercepted communications in the
aftermath of the election in which Russian
officials congratulated themselves on the
outcome.”
Citing "intercepted messages and conversations among
senior Russian officials in Putin’s inner circle" a January 6
Reuters report informed us that:
“The CIA has identified Russian officials
who fed material hacked from the
Democratic National Committee and party
leaders to WikiLeaks at the direction of
Russian President Vladimir Putin through
third parties, according to a new US
intelligence report, senior US officials said
on Thursday.”
On January 20, the day Trump took power, the New York
Times ran a front page story headlined: “Wiretapped Data
Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides”:
“American law enforcement and
intelligence agencies are examining
intercepted communications and financial
transactions as part of a broad
investigation into possible links between
Russian officials and associates of
President-elect Donald J. Trump, including
his former campaign chairman Paul
Manafort, current and former senior
American officials said.”
On February 9, the New York Times reported on the
conversations between Flynn and the Russian ambassador
to the United States, Sergey Kisylak:
“Weeks before President Trump’s
inauguration, his national security adviser,
Michael T. Flynn, discussed American
sanctions against Russia, as well as areas
of possible cooperation, with that country’s
ambassador to the United States,
according to current and former American
officials.”
The story cites the transcript of the conversation. How did
the Times reporters get hold of this information? They cite
“Federal officials who have read the transcript of the call.”
How did those officials get hold of the transcript of a
private conversation of an American citizen who was not
yet a government employee? The new rules governing raw
unredacted NSA intercepts made possible an interagency
effort to disseminate and examine intercepts and other
material, and there was a concerted effort to uncover
anything that could be used against Trump.
On January 19, the McClatchy news service reported on
the “get Trump” campaign launched by US law
enforcement agencies:
“The FBI and five other law enforcement
and intelligence agencies have
collaborated for months in an investigation
into Russian attempts to influence the
November election, including whether
money from the Kremlin covertly aided
President-elect Donald Trump, two people
familiar with the matter said.
“The agencies involved in the inquiry are
the FBI, the CIA, the National Security
Agency, the Justice Department, the
Treasury Department’s Financial Crimes
Enforcement Network and representatives
of the director of national intelligence, the
sources said.”
To be clear: during the election, six law enforcement
agencies were engaged in a systematic attempt to
undermine the Trump campaign, at a certain point utilizing
unredacted raw intelligence collected by the NSA and
other agencies, all the while leaking like a sieve to their
media camarilla.
And this campaign was international in scope, as pro-
Clinton nutbag Kurt Eichenwald reported on February 15
in a story headlined: “US Allies Conduct Intelligence
Operation Against Trump Staff, Intercepted
Communications”:
“The Western European intelligence
operations began in August, after the
British government obtained information
that people acting on behalf of Russia were
in contact with members of the Trump
campaign. Those details from the British
were widely shared among the NATO allies
in Europe. The Baltic nation has been
gathering intelligence for at least that long,
and has conducted surveillance of
executives from the Trump Organization
who were traveling in Europe.”
261
In a panic that their free ride would be over if Trump’s
“America First” agenda was implemented, our European
NATO “allies” worked in close coordination with the
Washington cabal to subvert the US election process far
more effectively than any Russian effort. And they didn’t
need a FISA court to approve their spying on the Trump
campaign.
Which brings up an important issue: there has been much
ado about reports of a FISA court application, supposedly
denied, and one that was narrowed and allegedly approved:
the BBC, the Guardian, and the lunatic “reporter” Louise
Mensch have all maintained that this was the case. Yet, as
I have shown above, no such approval by the FISA court
was ever required, although it would have a) made it much
easier for the coup plotters to do their dirty work, and b)
would have shielded them from any legal consequences.
However, the fly in the ointment is that this would leave a
paper trail that, once elected, Trump could simply
declassify.
So the FISA issue is, I believe, a false trail, a distraction
away from what really happened. They didn’t need the
FISA court. They didn’t need a warrant. They simply
opened a “back door” that, contrary to reports, had not
been closed by the “USA Freedom Act,” and – unleashed
by the relaxation of the rules previously governing
dissemination of NSA intercepts – simply went through it.
Finally, we have another interesting “coincidence”: the
brouhaha over NSA chief Admiral Michael Rogers, who
top Obama administration officials wanted to fire, which
started because Rogers traveled to Trump Tower to meet
with the President-elect. The ostensible reasons given –
various breaches of security – were odd: after all, why fire
him just as Obama was leaving office? In short, the
intensity of the campaign to fire him was out of all
proportion to his alleged misdeeds. Aside from the security
issue, the very fact that he was visiting Trump was
supposedly a major issue: we were told “There’s only one
President at a time.” But why shouldn’t someone who
might be asked to continue to serve meet with the
President-elect?
In retrospect, the visit – and the disproportionate anger it
provoked from the Obama crowd – makes perfect sense.
If the NSA was being used as a source for
the campaign to delegitimize Trump, and
build a case that the President-elect is a
“Russian puppet,” as Hillary Clinton put it,
then Rogers’ may have been trying to
distance himself from the effort:
“It wasn’t me, Boss!”
The campaign to frame up and discredit Trump and his
associates is characteristic of how a police state routinely
operates. A national security apparatus that vacuums up all
our communications and stores them for later retrieval has
been utilized by political operatives to go after their
enemies – and not even the President of the United States
is immune. This is something that one might expect to
occur in, say, Turkey, or China: that it is happening here,
to the cheers of much of the media and the Democratic
party, is beyond frightening.
The irony is that the existence of this dangerous apparatus
– which civil libertarians have warned could and probably
would be used for political purposes – has been hailed by
Trump and his team as a necessary and proper function of
government. Indeed, Trump has called for the execution of
the person who revealed the existence of this sinister
engine of oppression – Edward Snowden. Absent
Snowden’s revelations, we would still be in the dark as to
the existence and vast scope of the NSA’s surveillance.
And now the monster Trump embraced in the name of
“national security” has come back to bite him.
.
262
We hear all the time that what’s needed is an open and
impartial “investigation” of Trump’s alleged “ties” to
Russia. This is dangerous nonsense: does every wild-eyed
accusation from embittered losers deserve a congressional
committee armed with subpoena power bent on conducting
an inquisition?
Certainly not.
What must be investigated is the incubation of a
clandestine political police force inside the national
security apparatus, one that has been unleashed against
Trump – and could be deployed against anyone.
This isn’t about Donald Trump. It’s about
preserving what’s left of our old republic. I
don’t want to live in a country where
anonymous spooks with access to my most
personal information can collect it and
release it to their friends in our despicable
media – do you?
 Trump’s Biggest Tech Supporter:
Election Showed ‘The Tide Is Going Out’
On Globalization
Harriet Taylor | @Harri8t
Wednesday, 8 Mar 2017 | 12:30 AM ET
Investor Peter Thiel— who stumped for President Donald
Trump at the Republican National Convention and has
remained close to the president — believes the era of
globalization is over.
Trump's victory showed just how unhappy people are with
globalization, he said.
"I'm naturally inclined to think of it in those
terms," said Thiel. "There's something
around globalization that's not been
working that well."
Thiel's comments came Tuesday night at the CERAWeek
by IHS Markit conference in Houston.
The movement of people and goods is becoming more
difficult through immigration and trade restrictions, said
Thiel. Western Europe and other places are tightening
regulations, creating headwinds for global banks and tech
companies, he added.
"The internet was designed to survive a
nuclear war, but even so, I think there are a
lot of regulatory challenges that Silicon
Valley will be facing from Western Europe
and elsewhere in the years ahead," he
said.
People in Silicon Valley are complacent about the march
toward global expansion, he said.
"There's a technological determinism story
you can tell where this is the future and
China will eventually buckle under and
.
263
cave and eventually adopt all of these
things," he said. "But then you might
wonder, maybe this doesn't happen at all,
and maybe it's possible for the internet to
actually fragment and not to have this
historical necessity to it."
No one in their right mind would start an organization with
the word "global" in its title today, he said.
"That's so 2005, it feels so dated," he said.
To illustrate the point, Thiel took aim at the annual Davos
World Economic Forum.
"A decade ago, this was a group of people
who were running the world," he said. "And
now, it's just a group of people who
messed up the world."
Thiel gave a shoutout to CNBC's Jim Cramer, quoting him
as saying,
"There's always a bull market somewhere,
you just need to find it." Thiel is beginning
to agree with a colleague on this thesis:
"We're now in a bull market in politics," he
said.
"I'm not sure this is a good thing," said
Thiel. "But it is a fact that maybe politics is
becoming more important, it's becoming
more intense, the range of outcomes is
becoming greater, and that we're in a world
in which there's a bull market in politics
that's getting started."
 Van Jones: Trump Is
‘Driving Liberals Insane’
By Pam Key
8 Mar 2017

Wednesday on CNN’s “The Messy Truth,” host Van
Jones said President Donald Trump was “driving liberals
insane,” to the point he does not want “y’all to be in charge
either.”
Jones said,
“One thing I want to share, progressives
tend to focus, when we critique him, on
politeness and proper protocols okay?
There’s a proper way to deal with reporters
or intelligence agencies or judges. And
when Trump breaks the rules, we start
fanning ourselves and fainting and freaking
out and handing out all of these protocol
violations. And for his supporters, his
appeal has nothing to do with protocol. It
has everything to do, though, with pride
and prosperity.”
“He’s saying, I want you to be proud of the
country and have a job,” he continued. “So
liberals seem to only see, like the crazy
.
tweets. And we act like that’s all he’s doing.
But his supporters actually ignore those
tweets. You want to know the tweets they
cherish? The one where he’s taking credit
for the stock market that’s rising and their
401(k)s doing better and the jobs he so-
called saved. If progressives want to
understand Trump supporters, those are
the tweets we need to be paying attention
to.”
He added,
“I think he’s driving liberals insane. I mean
that. I think he is. I think he is. And I’m
seeing more — I’m seeing liberals and
progressives now so mad and distracted
and depressed, I’m like, I don’t really want
y’all to be in charge either. So it’s — Am I
wrong?”

264
 Graham To Trump:
Be Ready To 'Walk Away From The Frigging Table'
By Burgess Everett
03/08/17 01:14 PM EST
Sen. Lindsey Graham said President Donald Trump should not feel
rushed by Capitol Hill. | Getty
President Donald Trump should be prepared to "walk away
from the frigging table" if he feels jammed by Congress on
health care, said Sen. Lindsey Graham in an interview on
Wednesday.
One day after dining with the president, the South Carolina
Republican said that Trump should not feel hemmed in by
GOP leaders' plans of ramming through a proposal that
guts Obamacare, eliminates the law's Medicaid expansion
and replaces its subsidies with new tax credits.
While Vice President Mike Pence and even Trump himself
have said the White House fully backs a bill written by
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, House Speaker
Paul Ryan and committee leaders, Graham said Trump
.
265
should be prepared to abandon the effort if he doesn't
believe it's the right solution.
“Here’s what I’d do if I were President
Trump. Say:
'I’ve got a view of health care, tell me your
views, I’m going to try to work to get to yes
with as many people as I can realizing
almost no Democrats are going to help,'"
Graham said. "But just say this: 'I’m not
making a deal for a deal’s sake.'"
Graham and other GOP senators like Tom Cotton of
Arkansas have said the House is moving too quickly in an
effort to pass the bill. McConnell is prepared to jam it
through the Senate over the next month if it clears the
House, to not allow opposition to build among the left and
right over an April recess.
But Graham said Trump should not feel rushed by Capitol
Hill. He said the president should be clear and say:
"I’m not going to give into demands by
members of Congress or the Senate if I
don’t believe it’s in the interest of the
American people and just walk away from
the frigging table."
 The NY Times Explains Why There Is So Much
"Confusion" About Its "Trump Wiretapping" Story
By Tyler Durden
Mar 8, 2017 10:03 PM
In the aftermath of the Trump accusation that Obama
wiretapped his phone during the election, an allegation
which the flagbearers of the "truthful" (according to their
various advertising campaigns) anti-Trump media wave,
namely the Washington Post and the New York Times have
vehemently denied, an unexpected victim has emerged
over the past few days: the New York Times itself.
The reason is that while the NYT has repeatedly criticized
and denied Trump's allegation, it itself had written an
article on January 19 titled, in the print version,
"Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides',
and online "Intercepted Russian Communications Part
of Inquiry Into Trump Associates", by reporters Michael
Schmidt and Michael Shear, which paradoxically
corroborated much, if not all of what Trump himself said,
and quotes the usual anonymous source who said that
“wiretapped communications had been
provided to the White House” as part of
an investigation into “the business dealings
that some of the president-elect’s past and
present advisers have had with Russia.”
So with various conservative blogs taking the NYT to task
over this seeming contradiction, and even the WaPo's own
fact-checker seemingly confused...
... today the NYT's public editor, Liz Spayd felt compelled
to address its January 19 article which, implicitly,
substantiated much of Trump's allegation, and to explain
why that's not the case.
She starts by saying that
"Trump’s assertions, however overinflated,
nonetheless echo certain aspects of The
New York Times’s reporting from recent
weeks. That, in turn, has allowed his
266
administration to assert that the basis for
his claims rests, in part, on reporting by
The Times."
On the surface, there are similarities.
Both The Times and Trump have
referred to wiretaps. Both have
referenced White House knowledge of
the investigations. And both have
described efforts by officials from the
Obama administration to involve itself in
the continuing investigations of Trump
and Russia.
Maybe Trump is not a completely raving lunatic after all.
So where are the differences:
For one, as The Times (and others) has made clear, these
investigations have been conducted by the F.B.I.,
intelligence agencies and Congress,
not by Obama himself.
The Times has also said Obama administration officials
sought to spread intelligence about a possible link between
Trump and Russia to ensure a trail of evidence for
investigators,
but it said Obama himself was not
involved.
And no Times reporter has claimed that any warrants have
been issued to spy on Trump or his associates.
And there it is again: several months after we thought we
would never again hear the old
"Obama had no idea what was going on
excuse", it strikes yet again,
only this time we find it very difficult to believe that
Obama, who expanded the distributions of confidential
NSA data to multiple offices just weeks before his final
day in office, had no clue that Trump was being
wiretapped.
There's more, and this is where things get delightfully
Orwellian, because as Spayd "explains", the confusion is
really just a function of readers being confused because,
well, it's complicated:
Distinguishing between Trump’s assertions and The
Times’s reporting is essential.
Yet readers at this juncture may be
understandably confused on what is
true and not in one of the most
important ongoing news stories in the
country.
More details about this pervasive "confusion" fanned by
none other than the NYT itself:
Several readers have written in this week
saying they’re having a hard time squaring
The Times’s own past reports of
wiretapping with the paper’s assertions that
there is no firm evidence that any warrants
for wiretaps have been issued.
Readers also expressed confusion with
The Times’s assertion that it would be
illegal for a White House to receive
information about such investigations,
when its own wiretapping story in
January said the Trump White House
was given some information from
intercepted communications.
“For months now the NY Times and many
other mainstream news sources has been
running stories based on anonymous leaks
saying that a massive investigation was
going on into Trump and company’s
Russian dealings based on wiretaps and
intel intercepts,” wrote John Penley of
Asheville, N.C. “Now Obama officials are
saying this all never happened so my
question is this: Why have the NY Times
and others been saying it has for
months now basing their stories on
anonymous leaks?”
.
267
So to eliminate the confusion, here is the NYT's
explanation of how the wiretapping of Trump and/or his
associates, which eventually made its way to the White
House - as per the NYT - didn't really happen.
I reached out to editors in the Washington bureau to seek
their help in clarifying the difference between Clapper’s —
and The Times’s — assertions that no warrants had been
issued, and the reference to wiretapping in the January
story.
Elisabeth Bumiller, the bureau chief, said the January story
was referring to information picked up from wiretaps and
other intelligence collected overseas, a process that
requires no warrants.
Still confused? Don't worry: the NYT even has a Q&A to
help you out of your cognitive dissonance predicament":
There’s a lot to parse. And doing so, in a
way that is clear to readers, is not easy
when the subject matter is complicated
and the information that reporters
receive comes under strict terms of how
it can be used. One reporter, Charlie
Savage, produced a helpful Q. and A.
explaining the law around wiretaps and key
terms. But it didn’t try to show how Trump’s
claims line up against The Times’s past
reporting.
Sarcasm aside, what the NYT's long-winded explanation
boils down to is that Trump's inner circle was wiretapped,
but the difference is whether Obama knew about it or not.
And if anyone harbors any gullible thoughts that the
president who lied to the public about his knowledge of
Hillary's email server - arguably the biggest fiasco of her
presidential campaign - but is telling the truth when he
says that he has no idea whatsoever that someone,
somewhere was in fact wiretapping Trump as the NYT
reports, then we wish you all the best as you click away on
all the other NYT "Q&A"s to help you in your misery.
 Analysts: Trump’s Refusal To Pursue Charges Against
Hillary Clinton Have Left Deep State Operatives Loyal To
Her Free To Attack His Presidency
Written By: JD Heyes
March 8, 2017
Some observers from afar say President Donald J. Trump
made a serious error in judgment when he agreed not to
pursue criminal charges against Hillary Clinton for her
highly controversial actions regarding Clinton Foundation
funding during her tenure as secretary of state.
An editorial analysis in the Sunday Guardian in Singapore
this week said plainly that, had the president agreed to
launch an investigation early into Clinton Foundation
activities, “that would have filled the news cycle for
months” and served as a bulwark against the assault he’s
currently facing on a daily basis.
The paper noted:
Analysts assisting policymakers in the
United States are dismayed at the “speed
with which the Donald Trump
administration is being pushed back into
the same policy box as the past
administration” by an “expertly
implemented campaign designed to throw
the President off-balance and reduce him
to lame duck (i.e. ineffectual) status at the
very start of his tenure.”
The piece also speculates as to why Trump has become
such an enemy of the Deep State – his tendency, as part of
his “drain the swamp” pledge, to depart from Cold War-
postures that have guided U.S. foreign policy for decades
and empowered the U.S. intelligence and foreign policy
communities to the point where they are now entities unto
themselves. That power was laid bare earlier this week via
Wikileaks revelations that the CIA has near-universal
268
power to spy on everyone, everywhere, at any time.
(RELATED: WikiLeaks unveils largest cache of CIA
documents ever; agency spies through smart TVs,
smart phones and other wireless devices.)
“Contingency plans had been prepared by
the Atlanticist establishment to insulate
existing policy from Trumpian changes,”
which were ramped up after it became
apparent that Trump was going to win the
Nov. 8 election, the editorial noted, quoting
an insider source.
Analysts told the paper that the Deep State won a major
victory early on after incoming chief of staff Reince
Preibus was convinced that it would be a “statesmanlike
gesture” if the new president would publicly pledge to
forego any investigation into Clinton wrongdoings, though
Trump said frequently on the campaign trail such an
investigation may be forthcoming, usually to chants of
“Lock her up!”
The Sunday Guardian said promises were made – but then
not kept:
It was informally promised “more than
once”, according to an analyst, that such a
gesture would lead to “cooperation
between the Democratic Party and the
Trump administration on several initiatives
that are at the top of the agenda” of the
45th President. Such expectations were
subsequently proven to be false once
Hillary Clinton escaped the investigative
dragnet that was being prepared for her by
select members of the Trump team (who
thereupon came into the Clinton
crosshairs).
And, with her escape assured, the “reprieved Clinton
machine” – which has been blaming her loss on Obama at
times – has been freed to loose a volley of unsubstantiated
accusations against Trump and his closest advisors,
namely that Team Trump colluded with the Russians to
steal the election from her (an allegation for which there
still is no proof, despite months of innuendo and
unsubstantiated supposition). (RELATED: Wikileaks CIA
Dump Reveals How The Deep State Can Hack
Databases And Make It SEEM Like The Russians Did
It.)
It’s clear that the operation to subvert Trump has already
been successful. Former National Security Advisor
Michael Flynn has already been snared, and Attorney
General Jeff Sessions has publicly pledged to recuse
himself from any Justice Department probe into alleged
Russian election tampering – even though there was no
reason for him to do so, according to legal watchdogs.
The key component driving so much opposition to Trump
appears to be his reluctance to continue globalist policies
that have empowered and enriched a select group of
transatlantic leaders and corporate interests, to the
detriment of average Americans and Europeans.
Being a successful businessman prior to his ascendency
into the Oval Office, Trump has likely spotted a trend that
other geopolitical analysts are only now beginning to
understand: That Asia, not Europe, is the new economic
power structure in the world and as such, U.S. policy
should be shifted to reflect that. Analysts believe that
Trump is likely more interested in creating a new Indo-
Pacific alliance, while downplaying the significance of the
current Atlantic Alliance embodied by NATO.
269
It’s this desire to disrupt the old order that is driving so
much furious opposition to Trump, and the Clinton
machine will continue to ramp up its subversive operations
over the next few years, with the overarching goal of
impeaching Trump:
 Look for calls for a “bipartisan congressional commission”
that will include known Republican nemeses of Trump (like
Sens. John McCain and Lindsey Graham)
 Calls for a special prosecutor to look into alleged Russia
ties will increase (even though all U.S. intelligence
agencies have said there is no evidence of said collusion,
even after months of probing)
 Continued disruptions of the Trump agenda that will be
amplified by the Washington establishment media that
adores Clinton
“Clearly, President Trump needs to break
free of the web of insinuations and charges
thrown daily at him, if he is to escape the
fate of Richard Milhous Nixon in his very
first term. The analysts spoken to, who
belong to what they claim is the silent
majority within sensitive agencies of the
U.S. Government, back President Trump
and his drive for fresh policies,” the Sunday
Guardian noted.
 Comey: 'There Is No Such
Thing As Absolute Privacy In America'
By Mary Kay Mallonee And Eugene Scott, CNN
Updated 2:26 AM ET, Thu March 9, 2017

and counterintelligence investigations and the FBI was

unable to open 43% of those devices, Comey said.

Americans' desire for privacy and security should never be

viewed as incompatible, he said.

"We all value privacy. We all value security.

We should never have to sacrifice one for
the other," Comey said. "Our founders
struck a bargain that is at the center of this
Comey: No absolute privacy in America 01:05
amazing country of ours and has been for
over two centuries."
(CNN)FBI Director James Comey warned Wednesday that
Americans should not have expectations of "absolute
privacy," adding that he planned to finish his term leading
the FBI.

"There is no such thing as absolute

privacy in America; there is no place
outside of judicial reach," Comey said at
a Boston College conference on
cybersecurity.

He made the remark as he discussed the rise of encryption

since 2013 disclosures by former National Security
Agency contractor Edward Snowden revealed sensitive US
spy practices.
"Even our communications with our
spouses, with our clergy members, with our
attorneys are not absolutely private in
America," Comey added. "In appropriate
circumstances, a judge can compel any
one of us to testify in court about those
very private communications."
FBI director at center of many controversies 02:55
Comey's leadership of the FBI has been marked by
controversy in the wake of the bureau's handling of the
investigation into Hillary Clinton's email controversy and
President Donald Trump's baseless accusations that
President Barack Obama ordered the wiretapping of
phones at Trump Tower.
He did not address the wiretapping claim nor WikiLeaks'
recent claim that it obtained internal CIA documents.

But, he also said Americans "have a reasonable Comey did, however, say he plans to finish out his 10-year
expectation of privacy in our homes, in our cars, in our term.
devices.
"You're stuck with me for about another 6
"It is a vital part of being an American. The 1/2 years, and so I'd love to be invited back
government cannot invade our privacy again," he said.
without good reason, reviewable in court,"
Comey continued.
CNN's Casey Riddle contributed to this report.
In the last four months of 2016, the FBI lawfully gained
access to 2,800 devices recovered in criminal, terrorism
.
270
 Ban Trump From Twitter?
By Binoy Kampmark
March 9, 2017
Photo by Ninian Reid
It is said that Twitter has been responsible for stirring
nascent revolutions in the Middle East, going beyond its
initial description as the Seinfeld platform of social media.
It has also been targeted by authorities for stirring the pot,
lighting fires and generally being a nuisance.
From useless babble and inane navel gazing, users became
connected activists, Molotov cocktail throwers and inane
spouters of few-line messages. A whole spectrum of
connectivity, riddled with messages of varying quality,
grew up.
What then, of the terms of use? Given the nature of the
platform, community guidelines, of a sort, are supposedly
meant to be followed. This hardly means that they are
enforced with any zeal. It means that an individual such as
minor celebrity Tila Tequila, whose social media rants
were often richly anti-Semitic, will only be banned after
taking a bridge too far. That bridge was crossed in posting
a picture of herself in the company of two men luxuriating
with the Nazi salute.[1]
The suspensions share a thread of inconsistency, though
they veer from aspects of bullying (such as New Zealander
Hanna, known on Twitter as “Poison Ivy” or then 19-year-
old Jane Oranika on racial suggestiveness in an online
make-up video on how to make a White Face. “Barack
Obama? Is that some kind of sauce?”[2] Trump
supporters didn’t see the humour in that.
Various, even more venal figures have made it to the ban
list. George Zimmerman, who gunned down an unarmed
Trayvon Martin in 2012, was suspended in 2015. But it
was the now oft used term “revenge porn” that ultimately
271
sank his social media bliss, despite previously posting a
picture of his murderous handiwork: Martin, lingering
lifelessly in the grass.
The knotted realm of bitchiness and abuse is one thing; but
removing political activists from the platform for violating
various forms of claimed conduct is an onerous, and in
some cases dangerous task. One of the discordant voices
of the alt-right movement, and Breitbart’s former tech
editor, Milo Yiannopoulos, provides such a case. When
does free speech, notably of the insensitive sort, transmute
into pure hate speech?
Where Yiannopoulos ran foul was leading a social media
strike on actress Leslie Jones of Ghostbusters fame, a form
of character assassination in text. This got him booted off
the platform in 2016. Since then, he has been doing a
merry dance on the controversial plank, suggesting the
possibility that 13-year-olds might have learning sexual
relationships with older pedagogues.[3] Such inspirations
of antiquity have not gone down well in a social media
world less attuned to manuscripts than bleeps.
Which brings us, at last, to the President himself. Donald
Trump has conjured, confected and suggested as few
others on Twitter. He has made the social media platform a
direct link to the voter in unprecedented ways.
He has also, according to the creator of House of Cards,
Beau Willimon, done enough to be blackballed by the
Twitter party. His suggestions go further than most. He
argues that the Trump tweet fest poses a “national security
threat” which emboldens “our enemies to take advantage
of his flagrant shortcomings.”
Willimon’s views are traditionally contractarian, though he
notes that Trump is different from any user. “Only one
person on @Twitter is President of the United States. That
comes with a supreme and unique responsibility.”[4]
Twitter may well connect the globe, but, “That comes with
its own responsibility: to do your part in protecting the
world.” In accusing former President Barack Obama of
having “wire tapped” Trump Tower, with no evidence, the
Trump show had generated the grounds for deletion.[5]
Much of the argument on banning Trump from Twitter is
precisely because of his effect. He may be the first instance
in history of a verifiable, causally effective figure on the Other arguments suggest that Twitter, being a private
platform. Not all of his less than 140 character notes have platform, generates its own rules. Free speech can never
been atrocious, let alone distasteful. Amidst the slime lurk morph into hate speech; and so on. Going into a bar may
bits of Schadenfreude everybody can enjoy. Where will well see you served a drink. The publican, however,
the wrecking ball strike next? reserves the right to ignore your custom at any one point
for drunkenness or any other number of reasons, not all of
Lockheed Martin, to take one example, felt the shareholder them reasonable.
pinch at various Trump tweets, most notably on the
“tremendous cost and cost overruns” of the F-35 fighter As shown previously, the puppeteers of the platform are
program.[6] Shares in December fell by 2 per cent, surely not always predictable. Nor, perhaps, can they be.
a joy for anybody against the Military Industrial Complex. Besides, shutting off the Trump reality show from a crucial
Since then, the President has withdrawn that wrecking ball, feature of his communications apparatus would be to
changing his tune on the F-35 to embrace it for its sudden deprive Planet Earth, not merely of a hysterical show, but a
efficiency on costing. first hand, unvarnished view of what the current President
of the United States thinks. That would be even more
dangerous.
Notes.
[1] https://www.dailydot.com/upstream/tila-tequila-suspended-from-twitter/
[2] http://rollingout.com/2016/11/23/alabama-teen-suspended-from-twitter-for-whiteface/
[3] http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/milo-yiannopoulos-latest-news-paedophilia-breitbart-video-
child-abuse-right-wing-sexual-relationship-a7589656.html
[4] http://www.huffingtonpost.com.au/entry/house-of-cards-beau-willimon-trump-
twitter_us_58bc2c08e4b0b99894182ed0
[5] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/837989835818287106
[6] https://twitter.com/realDonaldTrump/status/812061677160202240?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw
.

272
 Most Say ‘No’ To More Public
Anti-Trump Role For Obama
Thursday, March 09, 2017
Former President Obama is reportedly planning a more
visible stand against President Trump and the GOP to
protect his legacy, but most voters think that’s a bad idea.
A new Rasmussen Reports national telephone and online
survey finds that just 30% of Likely U.S. Voters believe
Obama should take a more public role in the Democratic
opposition to Trump and his party. Nearly twice as many
(58%) disagree and say the former president should not
more actively oppose his successor and the GOP. Twelve
percent (12%) are undecided. (To see survey question
wording, click here.)
Even Democrats are lukewarm to the idea of Obama’s
reemergence: 45% say he should take a more active role in
opposition to Trump and the Republicans, but 39%
disagree, with 15% not sure.
Seventy-eight percent (78%) of Republicans and voters not
affiliated with either major party by a 58% to 28% margin
say Obama should not take a more public opposing role.
The national survey of 1,000 Likely U.S. Voters was
conducted on March 2 and 5, 2017 by Rasmussen Reports.
The margin of sampling error is +/- 3 percentage points
with a 95% level of confidence. Fieldwork for all
Rasmussen Reports surveys is conducted by Pulse Opinion
Research, LLC . See methodology.
Most voters agree that it’s bad for America - and bad for
the Democratic Party - if Democrats continue to flat out
oppose everything Trump does. Even Democrats are
conflicted about their party’s scorched earth policy.
The majority of voters in most demographic categories
oppose a more public opposing role for the former
president.
Those under 40 are more enthusiastic than their elders
about Obama getting out front in the opposition to Trump
.
273
and the GOP. Other minority voters like the idea more than
whites and blacks do.
Yet even among voters who Strongly Disapprove of the
job Trump is doing, just 48% believe Obama should take a
more public role opposing him and his party. Among those
who Strongly Approve of the new president’s job
performance, 81% say Obama should not become a more
public opposing voice.
Obama earned a monthly job approval of 56% in
December, his final full month in office. That tied his
highest overall approval in four years.
But a number of Rasmussen Reports’ regular social and
economic indicators have shown increased optimism since
Trump’s election in November. For the last six weeks, the
number of voters who believe the country is headed in the
right direction has been in the mid-40s after running in the
mid- to upper 20s for much of last year. This is higher than
any week during the entire Obama presidency.
Eighty-three percent (83%) of voters think Trump is likely
to reverse or abolish most of Obama’s accomplishments,
with 47% who say that’s Very Likely.
Voters agree with the new president’s emphasis on job
creation in his speech last week to Congress, and most
expect him to achieve at least some of the ambitious
agenda he laid out. Fifty percent (50%) think Trump will
do better than Obama when it comes to protecting U.S.
jobs and creating new ones. Thirty-four percent (34%) say
the new president will do a worse job in this area than his
predecessor.
If there’s one thing voters across the partisan spectrum
agree on, it’s that the media isn’t trying to help Trump.
That’s a big change from the Obama years.
President Trump Makes Congress Look Bad – 34 Executive
Actions To 4 Signed Pieces Of Legislation
From Congress To Date
Jim Hoft
Mar 9th, 2017 7:46 am
President Donald Trump is making
Congress look really bad, signing 34
Executive Actions to 4 Pieces of
Legislation from Congress.
When the President released his plan for the first 100 days,
he wasn’t kidding and Congress is nowhere near able to
keep pace with the President. President Trump has signed
34 executive actions that include banning immigration to
the US from certain terrorist nations; protecting law
enforcement; enforcing regulatory reform; helping the coal
industry; beating ISIS; nominating a new US Supreme
Court Justice; building a border wall; completing the
.
274
Keystone pipeline from Canada; and, killing the Trans-
Pacific Partnership.
As Americans struggle with financial challenges due to
Obamacare and a burdensome Federal tax regime,
Congress continues to work with no sense of urgency.
After eight years of Obama you would think the
Republican Congress would want to do more to overturn
Obama’s policies and help the new Republican President
with his agenda that won over Americans in spite of the
constant attacks from the main stream media.
Yesterday the Speaker was on Tucker Carlson on Fox
News and he said that the House had passed about 15 bills
that were sent to the Senate. However, the White House
shows that only four pieces of legislation have been signed
by the President to date.
Hard working Americans have had
enough of ‘do nothing’ politicians. It’s
time for members of Congress to stand
up and replace President Obama’s
horrible policies – fast.
 Republicans Want To Know
Why Trump Hasn't Fired The IRS Head
By Brooke Singman
Published March 09, 2017
Nearly two months into the Trump administration, the IRS
commissioner House Republicans once threatened with
impeachment remains on the job.
John Koskinen's continued tenure may be surprising,
considering how aggressively Republicans went after him
under the Obama administration. But despite a sustained
push by congressional Republicans to oust the IRS chief
before his five-year term expires this November, President
Trump so far has made no move to do so.
Just last week, Koskinen was seen in the Capitol and told
Fox News he was there to meet with “old friends.” Asked
if he intended to stay on as commissioner during the
Trump administration, Koskinen simply said,
“They haven’t talked to me.”
A White House official, asked about the commissioner's
future, also told Fox News on Wednesday they had no
personnel announcements “at this time.”
House Republicans aren't giving up their quest to show
Koskinen the door.
“President Trump should fire Commissioner
Koskinen and replace him with someone
that will bring integrity and competence to
the IRS,” House Judiciary Committee
Chariman Bob Goodlatte, R-Va., told Fox
News on Tuesday.
Just days after Trump took office, Republican Study
Committee Chairman Mark Walker, R- N.C., along with
53 other House Republicans, also wrote a letter asking the
new president to remove Koskinen.
“The consideration of the impeachment of
IRS Commissioner John Koskinen in the
House in late 2016 was a clear indication
that Congress and the American people
have no confidence in Commissioner
Koskinen or his ability to discharge his
duties,” Walker wrote, nudging the
president by citing statutory language
giving him authority to strip Koskinen of his
275
title. Doing so, he claimed, would “restore
the credibility” of the federal tax authority.
“We have not received a response to our
letter,” an aide at the Republican Study
Committee told Fox News. “We
understand, however, the administration
remains busy putting its team in place, and
we look forward to its response.”
A White House spokesperson told Fox News they received
the January letter and "are currently reviewing it."
Rep. Ron DeSantis, R-Fla., reportedly also asked Vice
President Mike Pence at the GOP retreat in Philadelphia if
he would seek Koskinen’s resignation. According to the
report, the vice president told the congressman he would
look into the matter and follow up with him the next
week.
Neither DeSantis’ nor the VP's office responded to Fox
News’ request for comment on whether there was any
follow-up.
But DeSantis issued a statement to Fox News saying:
“The IRS will not be reformed under
Koskinen’s leadership and I urge [Treasury]
Secretary Mnuchin and President Trump to
take action to replace Koskinen with
someone willing to reform this troubled
agency.”
An IRS spokesperson told Fox News,
"The Commissioner remains focused on
the important tax administration work being
done at the IRS, including a successful
start to the nation's tax season."
GOP angst toward Koskinen stems from claims he
obstructed their investigation of the targeting of Tea Party
and other conservative groups before he was
commissioner. The matter culminated at the end of 2016,
when the full House turned back an attempt to impeach
him.
The controversy itself hasn't died off. Judicial Watch said
Wednesday that the IRS reported to a U.S. District Court
that it located an “additional 6,924 documents of
potentially responsive records” relating to the FOIA
lawsuit on the targeting scandal.
Goodlatte said it's “outrageous” that “years have gone by”
and no one at the IRS has been held accountable for the
targeting.
At the IRS, the commissioner serves a five-year term—
this, after a statute was added in 1998 in a bid to maintain
continuity for the American people throughout the tax
season in the first year of a new presidency.
Koskinen's term is set to end Nov. 13, unless the president
were to remove him.
Charles Rossotti, an IRS commissioner under then-
President Bill Clinton and the first to serve the five-year
term, defended the importance of the statute -- telling Fox
News while the head of the IRS is a political appointee, he
or she is only in charge of administering the tax code.
“If you’re going to run an agency as huge
as the IRS, you need time and continuity to
make improvements, so the distinction was
made as an administrative leadership
management position as opposed to a
policy position,” Rossotti said, citing the
“demanding” situation that surrounds the
April tax deadline. “You really wouldn’t
want to have no commissioner when the
administration changes just two months
before Americans file their returns.”
276
While Koskinen is a favorite target of congressional
Republicans, he and Trump do have a history.
In 1975, when the future president reached an agreement
to purchase New York's Commodore Hotel from the
bankrupt Penn Central Transportation Company, Koskinen
handled the sale of the properties in his capacity as vice
president of consulting firm the Palmieri Company,
according to a New York Times article.
The purchase was one of Trump's first major real estate
deals.
Fox News asked the White House for comment on the
president’s relationship with Koskinen.
“We don’t comment on the President’s
personal relationships,” a White House
spokesperson responded in an email.
Republicans and conservative groups alike say it would be
“frustrating” to keep Koskinen through the end of his term.
But Rossotti defended both Trump and Koskinen.
“When I did the transition to Bush, if
someone had come to me and said, 'look,
we don’t want you here,' I wouldn’t have
stayed,” Rossotti said. “But anybody
sensible would look at this situation and
decide there are a lot of people who need
to file their tax returns next month.”
Fox News’ Chad Pergram contributed to this report.
 Trump’s Attack On America The Beautiful
By Robert Hunziker
March 9, 2017
Trump is the first president to take on America the
Beautiful. He’s at war with America. This is not new news.
Yet, it is worthy of further discussion.
Trump’s anti-establishmentarian credentials flaunted
during the campaign to woo voters fed up with America’s
decline, except for filthy rich, has lost its shine. He’s an
establishment creature, not anti-establishment, in the
neoliberal sense of supply-side economics, force-feeding
the upper class so they’ll drop crumbs down below to the
vast Middle/Poor Class, a new socio-economic class in
America, the newest, largest class, supplanting the vast
middle class of the 1950s-60s-70s.
Now that Trump has hoodwinked America’s Middle/Poor
Class voters, he has turned his attention to a much larger
issue, the destruction of America the Beautiful. With the
exception of perfectly groomed golf courses, Trump hates
environmental protectionism. He’s out to get it.
According to the Ocean Conservancy, as of March 5 th:
“Over the weekend, we learned that the Trump
administration plans to gut NOAA’s budget by nearly $1
billion. These budget cuts aren’t just ‘trimming the fat’
they’re cutting straight to the bone.” Thus cutting back
crucial communication between the health of the planet
and the public, as satellite data, climate research, and
coastal management are thrown into jeopardy.
Twenty-four hours earlier, massive cuts to the EPA were
announced. Before the era of the EPA, magazines like
Time ran stories about Cleveland’s Cuyahoga River on
fire. It was 1969 and the Cuyahoga River was declared a
fire hazard because of its oil-slickened feculent, grimy
surface. It caught fire 13 times and thus served as a real
277
life-real time sub-natural lobby for creation of the EPA in
1970 and then passage of the Clean Water Act in 1972.
Today, the Cuyahoga is clean.
Metaphorically, the EPA is “Mr. Clean” America.
The Potomac, Lake Erie, cesspools, Chesapeake Bay, and
Hudson River to name a few carried disease, filth, and
reprehensible odors, a legacy of industry without
restrictions within recent lifetimes.
Today, the EPA estimates that one-half of the country’s
rivers and streams are “impaired waters,” which means no
swimming, no fishing. The EPA’s 40-years remains a
work-in-progress.
In the 1970s, downtown LA was a haze as smog smeared
the entire city. Once again the EPA, aka Mr. Clean, saved
the day, putting teeth into the Clean Air Act in the late
1970s, adding regulatory weight to mandate reduction of
polluting cars, factories, mills, and utilities. Nobody else
stood up to the chemical plants or steel mills or auto
manufactures declaring: “We can’t breathe.” Back then
America flirted with dystopia, hanging in the balance, until
EPA stood up to polluters. Imagine the dystopian mess if
the EPA never existed, no mandates, no regulations, no
singular force with regulatory authority to monitor and
enforce clean air. After all, back then it grew worse and
worse until forced to clean up.
EPA made America great as the country was headed for
darkness. Further to the point, the EPA’s record, in the
face of horrendous industrial damage, is downright
remarkable: “The EPA has facts to back it up. Since 1970,
the agency has reduced the six most common air pollutants
by more than 50 percent, reduced air toxins from large
industrial sources by almost 70 percent, and eliminated the
use of ozone-depleting chemicals And this progress was
accomplished even as the country’s GDP tripled, energy
consumption increased by 50 percent, and vehicle use
nearly doubled” (Source: Andrew Small, Before the EPA,
Our Cities Looked Like This, Climate Desk, Grist, March
4, 2017). No agency, nobody else has such a strong record
of achievement.
Mr. Trump is horribly ill informed. He should increase the
EPA’s budget, maybe double. The EPA saved America
and made America Great! He will not remake America
Great again without a strong, viable EPA. Rather, he’ll fall
on his own sword if he implements deep cuts.
Additionally, the EPA was singularly instrumental in
saving Americans $362 billion on utility bills since 1992 in
partnership with the Dept. of Energy’s Energy Star
Program, promoting creation of efficient product
development. That’s amazing and worthy of tripling the
EPA budget, not cutting back. It’s precisely programs like
Energy Star that make America great!
It is still early, maybe too early to fully understand what
Trump’s administration will do, but early indicators are not
positive, as anticipated by Richard L. Revesz, Lawrence
King Professor of Law and dean emeritus, New York
University School of Law: “President Donald Trump and
newly confirmed EPA administrator Scott Pruitt appear
poised to make sweeping environmental policy changes.
But strong environmental regulations remain widely
.
278
popular. Perhaps as a result, the Trump administration may
take a subtle approach in attacking environmental rules.
Pruitt and other administration officials appear interested
in rewriting guidelines for regulatory analysis and they
could cook the books so that environmental protections
appear to have few or no benefits and exaggerated costs.
The results would be sinister…” (Source: Richard L.
Revesz, A Subtle Attack on the Environment, US News
March 2, 2017).
A sinister attack on America the Beautiful is the likeliest
course of action, easily accomplished, behind the scenes, a
deathtrap for so much that is held so dear, presupposed,
like breathable air and noncombustible waterways.
Making America Beautiful is what the EPA is all about,
and it has earned its spurs. Demonizing its wonderful
legacy will cast a very long very dark shadow.
 MSNBC Entertains Conspiratorial Rambling Of Dem
Demanding Trump Impeachment
By Kyle Drennen
March 9, 2017
On Thursday, MSNBC anchor Ali Velshi teed up a softball
interview with left-wing California Congresswoman
Maxine Waters by wondering:
“You think that Donald Trump should be
impeached over Russia and anything
else – any other discussion distracts us
from that investigation. You still hold
true to that?”
Predictably, Waters ranted over unproven conspiracy
theories about the Trump campaign supposedly colluding
with Russia to swing the election:
“Yes. I've always said that I believe if we
get the investigations that need to be
done, if we drill down, we're going to see
the connections....And when we see that,
he certainly will be eligible for
impeachment. I do believe that.”
Rather than push back on her extreme position calling for
the impeachment of a president who’s been in office for a
matter of weeks, Velshi simply asked:
“Are you satisfied that the necessary
investigations are going to get
underway, these hearings that we’re
going to have on March 20, both the
Senate and the House?”
Waters declared:
“Not yet. I'm not satisfied yet. I'm worried
about the Republicans who are still
279
standing up for Trump, even in the face of
growing information.”
Without specifying any of that “growing information,” she
added:
“I want the Democrats to be poised with
all kind of research and information to
do the drilling down that I think is
necessary to understand what Trump
has done in connection with the
Russians to undermine our democracy.”
Velshi noted that her fellow Democratic Congressman
Adam Schiff was
“seeking testimony of a former British spy,
who wrote an unsubstantiated dossier of
alleged collusion between Donald Trump
and Russia.”
He pressed:
“Do you believe anything about that
dossier?”
Waters not only found the discredited dossier to be
reliable, but she even asserted that salacious unproven
accusations in it were “absolutely true”:
“Oh, I think it should be taken a look at.
I think they should really read it,
understand it, analyze it....We already
know that the part about the coverage
that they have on him with sex actions
is supposed to be true. They have said
that that’s absolutely true.”
Instead of demanding proof of such claims, Velshi only
gently followed up:
“You say you know – you think them to be
true. How are we all going to find out what
is true and what isn't true? I mean, does it
help that you think so? Because unless you
 have information that we don't have, that's
an allegation.”
Waters insisted:
“Yeah, but you understand that I am saying
the investigations must be done....I think
that if we do the investigations, that we will
find the connections and I do think that
impeachment will be necessary.”
Wrapping up the exchange, Velshi promised:
“We’ll keep tabs on your progress on
this front.”
Here is a full transcript of the March 9 interview:
11:40 AM ET
ALI VELSHI: The first public hearing on Russia's interference in
the U.S. elections gets under way in the House Intelligence
Committee in 11 days. This happens as top Democrats and
Republicans from both the House and the Senate Intelligence
Committees travel to CIA headquarters to review raw intelligence
on Russia's interference in the U.S. election. Virginia Senator
Mark Warner spoke out when he returned.
SEN. MARK WARNER [D-VA]: A lot of what we saw today was
the evidence underlying how Russia manipulated the news, how
it hacked into the DNC and John Podesta and leaked out in favor
of one candidate against another candidate.
ALI VELSHI: Joining me now is California Congresswoman
Maxine Waters. She's been an outspoken critic of the Trump
administration, particularly on its ties to Russia. Congresswoman,
good to see you. You seem to be playing one note on this. You
think that Donald Trump should be impeached over Russia and
anything else – any other discussion distracts us from that
investigation. You still hold true to that?
REP. MAXINE WATERS [D-CA]: Yes. I've always said that I
believe if we get the investigations that need to be done, if we
drill down, we're going to see the connections. We're going to
understand the role that this administration has played during the
280
campaign with Russia. And when we see that, he certainly will be
eligible for impeachment. I do believe that.
VELSHI: Are you satisfied that the necessary investigations are
going to get underway, these hearings that we’re going to have
on March 20, both the Senate and the House?
WATERS: Not yet. I'm not satisfied yet. I'm worried about the
Republicans who are still standing up for Trump, even in the face
of growing information. And so, I still think the call for an
independent commission is credible and that we should do that.
Let's see what happens. They're going to do the investigations
and I want the Democrats to be poised with all kind of research
and information to do the drilling down that I think is necessary to
understand what Trump has done in connection with the
Russians to undermine our democracy.
VELSHI: Your colleague, Representative Adam Schiff, a
Democrat on the House panel investigating Donald Trump’s ties
to Russia, says he's seeking testimony of a former British spy,
who wrote an unsubstantiated dossier of alleged collusion
between Donald Trump and Russia. Do you believe anything
about that dossier?
WATERS: Oh, I think it should be taken a look at. I think they
should really read it, understand it, analyze it, and determine
what's fact, what may not be fact. We already know that the part
about the coverage that they have on him with sex actions is
supposed to be true. They have said that that’s absolutely true.
Some other things they kind of allude to. Yes, I think he should
go into that dossier and see what's there.
VELSHI: You say you know – you think them to be true. How are
we all going to find out what is true and what isn't true? I mean,
does it help that you think so? Because unless you have
information that we don't have, that's an allegation.
WATERS: Yeah, but you understand that I am saying the
investigations must be done, the drilling down must be done. We
must get to the facts of what it has been about. I don't think you
can do the impeachment just because I think or others think. But
I think that if we do the investigations, that we will find the
connections and I do think that impeachment will be necessary.
VELSHI: Who will initiate that? Where do you think that’ll come
from if there is an impeachment proceeding against the
President?
WATERS: Oh, well, if the information comes out, anyone of us
will have the resolutions of inquiry. Already you've had one that
has been filed, poised, and ready to go.
VELSHI: But it's still a political process, right? You're still going to
have to have a number of Republicans who support the concept
that they would impeach a Republican president after eight years
of trying to get one.
WATERS: Well, let me just say what I really think about that. I
think that even the most conservative of the members of
Congress, the Republicans who are supporting Trump now, will
not continue to stand with him if the facts come out that he was
involved in some kind of collusion with Russia. I think that many
of them are strong patriots and they are patriotic and that if facts
come out to show that he undermined our democracy and he
worked with the Kremlin, if he worked with Putin, and if they're
involved in not only trying to make sure that Trump got elected
and undermine Hillary –
And, as I add to that, that they're all about lifting the sanctions
because all of this involvement with oil and gas and those around
him who have all these connections with oil and gas. And even
the latest proposal that came out from Mr. Cohen, his lawyer, and
Mr. Seder, the ex-con that's been involved in developing a
.
281
proposal that they took to Mr. Flynn, that proposal shows the
connection and the involvement. It must be investigated.
And I think there's enough there to make everybody want to drill
down and these conservative members won't stand by Mr. Trump
when they get the facts to show that he's undermined our
democracy, in the interests of having Trump president, who will
lift those sanctions and turned a blind eye to his [Putin’s]
aggression in the Ukraine. That's what it's all about.
VELSHI: Congresswoman Maxine Waters, thanks for joining us
again. We’ll keep tabs on your progress on this front.
Congresswoman Maxine Waters from California.
WATERS: Thank you.
 Rival Restaurateurs SUE Trump For Unfair Competition
'Because High Profile Customers Book His DC Hotel To
Gain Influence With The President'
 The Plaintiffs Are Khalid Pitts And Diane Gross, Co-Owners Of Cork Wine Bar
 They Allege President Donald Trump's Continued Ownership Of The Hotel
Constitutes Unfair Competition That Damages Their Business
 They're Seeking An Order Barring Trump's Hotel From Operating Under Him
By Jordan Gass-Poore For Dailymail.Com And Associated Press
Published: 10:14 EST, 9 March 2017 | Updated: 12:48 EST, 9 March 2017

Washington, DC, restaurant owners have sued President named in lawsuits for personal actions or those involving
Donald Trump and the company that runs his hotel there, his businesses.
alleging that his continued affiliation with the property
puts competing businesses at a disadvantage.

Khalid Pitts and Diane Gross, co-owners of Cork Wine

Bar in DC's Logan Circle, allege unfair competition under
local law and have filed a lawsuit against Trump
personally and the Trump Old Post Office LLC, which
operates the hotel.

'We have events we do here for elected

officials, nonprofits, foreign dignitaries, the
Former customers of Cork Wine Bar (left) in DC's Logan Circle are
World Bank, law firms,' Gross told The now being courted to Trump International Hotel (right) in hopes of
Washington Post. 'currying favor' with his administration, Gross said

Under constitutional immunity protections, Trump can't be sued

Khalid Pitts (left) and Diane Gross (right), co-owners of Cork Wine
over official acts in the Oval Office. But he can be named in lawsuits
Bar, have sued President Donald Trump and the company that runs
for personal actions or those involving his businesses.
his DC hotel for 'unfairly' taking away business

'Those folks are now being courted to come Trump turned over management of his companies to his
and want to go there because they see it two adult sons and a senior company executive.
as advantageous to them to curry favor
with the president.' He retains ownership of his global business empire, which
includes Trump International Hotel.
Under constitutional immunity protections, Trump can't be
sued over official acts in the Oval Office. But he can be

282
 'It’s an absolutely stunning hotel. I
encourage you to go there if you haven’t
been by.'

Although Cork's co-owners don't name specific clients

they've lost, they said business has fallen short since
Trump's inauguration.

'We do lose bookings sometimes and

nobody ever gives you a reason. They
don’t say, "We’re going to the Trump hotel
Pitts and Gross aren't seeking damages but rather an order barring instead of coming here",' said Gross. 'We
Trump's hotel from operating under him. do know that business has been a little
slower with the inauguration of this
The complaint cites Trump's appearances at the hotel with president.'
politicians and other high-profile customers, as well as
White House press secretary Sean Spicer’s comments
before the inauguration:

283
 AP Consults Spy Novelists
To Hype Trump-Russia Fake News
By P.J. Gladnick
March 9, 2017 | 2:57 PM EST
Now that the Trump-Russia fake news story is crumbling
as Rolling Stone writer Matt Taibbi warned liberals, how
can the mainstream media continue to report on this fact-
free topic? Simple. By invoking masters of fiction in the
form of spy novelists. Therefore it is appropriate that
Associated Press writer Hillel Italie consulted several of
those fiction writers to comment on fake news fiction.
You will look in vain for any actual facts but at least you
will be somewhat entertained by his desperation to report
something in his March 8 AP article, Spy novelists keeping
an eye on Trump-Russia allegations:
NEW YORK (AP) -- Jason Matthews is a
retired CIA officer who now writes spy
novels, focused on Russia. He was working
on a book last year that ordinarily would
seem a little far-fetched, but which proved
too close to current events.
"The plot line was an American
presidential candidate who has a secret
that's so bad it would ensure his or her
impeachment, and the only person who
would know the secret is Vladimir
Putin," says Matthews, a prize-winning
author best known for his "Red Sparrow"
thrillers.
Newsflash! If you had been following the real, not fake,
news recently, the premise has definitely returned to the
far-fetched category. Not one intelligence agency has
provided proof of collusion between Trump and Russia. In
fact the former Director of National Intelligence, James
Clapper, flat out denied it on Sunday. But back now to the
AP fiction story:
With law enforcement and Congress
looking into possible ties between Trump
advisers and Russians during the 2016
campaign, spy novelists have been
challenged, amused, angered and inspired.
The Cold War ended decades ago, but
writers now see a new wave of possible
plot twists and plots to avoid, whether the
reported Russian contacts of such former
Trump campaign officials as Paul Manafort
and Carter Page, the Trump dossier
284
compiled by British intelligence or the firing
of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn
over phone conservations with the Russian
ambassador.
...Charles Cumming, known for such novels as "A Divided
Spy" and "A Colder War," is working on a thriller that
touches upon Brexit and Trump's election, including
"the idea that collusion could take place
between the Russian and American
intelligence services is no longer the stuff
of fiction."
Michael R. Davidson, another former CIA agent who
writes novels, also found the story of Trump and Russia
overlapping with fiction. He and writing partner Kseniya
Kirillova had been working since early 2016 on
"Successor," a thriller about the Russians attempting to get
a mole in the White House who will push the Americans to
lift sanctions.
More likely will be comedy reality, not fiction, of a Russia
collusion story that blows up in the faces of the MSM
which is desperately searching for an impeachment pot of
gold.
David Downing, whose novels include "Lenin's Roller
Coaster" and "One Man's Flag," said he finds the Trump-
Russia reports more a political story than a spy story. But
he did find some details in common with his novel "Stettin
Station," about an American businessman caught up with
Nazi Germany during World War II.
"This is what you get for electing a self-
defining businessman/deal-maker as
president - someone who can't be relied
on to put the national interest first,
while, of course, loudly insisting that
that's exactly what he's doing," he said
of Trump.
Too bad the AP couldn't have consulted Ian Fleming,
author of the highly popular James Bond novels. Seeing
the comedy that is now unfolding of the MSM facing the
sad but hilarious fact that the Trump-Russia collusion story
is as fictitious as any of his novels, perhaps Fleming could
have written a book based on the ultimate outcome called, P.S. And perhaps novelist George Orwell would like to
"From Russia With Laughs." write about Winston Smith sending the January 20 New
York Times wiretapping headline down the memory hole.
Fact, not fiction.
.

285
 www.professorconfess.blogspot.com
Poo Bahs Protest Trump’s
“Muslim Ban”…Foolishly
By Professor Doom
March 9, 2017
In Game of Thrones, the academics (the Maesters),
mostly stay out of politics. They have their university (The
Citadel) and they send scholarly representatives to every
significant castle in Westeros, to give politically neutral
advice and knowledge. I know, it’s a fictional world, but
it’s not too far from the real world, where the universities,
at least in the recent past, stayed out of politics.
It was a good policy, considering the university’s
mission of education and research. Politicians/rulers come
and go, but knowledge is eternal, and should be preserved.
Picking a side in a political battle could lead to an
institution’s destruction, although in the modern world that
just means de-funding (at least, so I hope).
Now, considering how much money flowed onto
campus during Obama’s reign, it’s understandable our
campuses would side with the Democratic party when the
Dems were in power but…the election’s over. Continuing
to campaign against Trump is idiotic for our universities,
because so much of our money comes, directly or
indirectly, from the Federally backed student loan scam
under his control.
But why let idiocy get in the way of partisanship?
Before going further, I should mention this isn’t just at
the Poo Bah level. My own campus had a special
“Christmas Edition” magazine insert into the school paper.
Despite all the cheery decorations of holly and such on the
cover, the editorials inside the Christmas edition still had
no trouble calling Trump a racist, homophobic misogynist,
among other names, and calling those who voted for him
much the same, and I’m not paraphrasing much here. And
that’s when the paper is filled with the Christmas
spirit…I’d hate to see what names they’d use the rest of
the year (I don’t read the campus paper regularly).
As per the last election, around half the country support
Trump. How stupid do the editors at the school paper need
to be to not see a problem with insulting half their
readership? I would have written a letter to the editors,
protesting insulting their readers so, but I saw little need to
risk being fired for speaking out…
Anyway, back to today’s topic where four dozen Poo
Bahs, obviously not living in fear like typical academic
workers, felt the need to send a “searing” letter to Trump
for, well, appealing to half the people in the county and
keeping his campaign promises to them (admittedly, this is
286
over-the-top wacky behavior compared to previous
presidents).
What was their issue?
"This action unfairly targets seven
predominantly Muslim countries in a
manner inconsistent with America's best
principles and greatest traditions. We
welcome outstanding Muslim students and
scholars from the United States and
abroad, including the many who come from
the seven affected countries...This
executive order is dimming the lamp of
liberty and staining the country's reputation.
We respectfully urge you to rectify the
damage done by this order."
It’s so weird how the mainstream media has presented
Trump’s “ban.” It’s not actually a ban, it’s a moratorium
(i.e., a short term event). It’s also not targeting Muslims, as
the countries involved only represent a small percent of the
world’s Muslim population (even the Trump-hating Post
admits only about 90,000 people are affected, out of 1.6
billion Muslims…roughly .005%). During WW2, the US
was pretty wary of accepting refugees from Nazi Germany.
Would it have been called a Christian ban if we didn’t
accept refugees from a country we were bombing back
then?
His “ban” targets 7 countries, the same 7 countries
Obama targeted in 2016 (and did so similarly in 2015, and
again similarly in 2011). Why didn’t the Poo Bahs give
this searing letter to Obama, when he targeted these
countries multiple times? Is there something magical about
this year that makes such things “unfair” as they say?
Trump’s moratorium targets refugees, not established
green card holders, or holders of other official
documentation. Do the Poo Bahs not know these things?
Now, I grant the implementation of this ban
inconvenienced quite a few people, and I sure don’t
support doing it this way. Truth be told, I think the US
should stop bombing these countries, as it’s certain US
bombs are creating quite a number of these refugees…I’m
not suspecting anyone in Trump’s cabinet can see this
point of view, however. So, if we’re going to bomb these
counties, then, yes, it’s prudent not to openly allow people
with good reason to hate us to just come to the US—the
moratorium is sane, and consistent with our current
policies that are not at war with us, as evil as they are. It
beats the insanity of previous administrations, I concede.
The Poo Bah’s letter, however, seems to be pretty
ignorant. “America’s best principles and greatest
traditions”? Wait, what? Outside of Western Europe, the
United States has had a pretty strong tradition of restricting
access to the country to immigrants from elsewhere (in the
19th century, Chinese immigrants in particular were quite
restricted).
Yes, Muslim scholars, some 1/200th of 1% of them, are
now having difficulty coming into this country, and yes,
that’s unfortunate. It’s funny, the Poo Bahs are forever
trying to cram internet classes on our students, so, they do
know about the internet. Can these scholars just get by
with the internet for the 90 days the moratorium is in effect
(assuming the courts don’t shut it down completely)?
Skype and e-mail aren’t that expensive, after all. This letter
just seems a needless, pointless risk.
You can read the letter in full, and it’s not quite as
“searing” as the media tried to present it (the story of this
letter kind of died, since the mainstream media right now
is going nuts being outraged over every single thing our
extremely active president is doing). I’m just so puzzled
why the Poo Bahs felt the need for this protest. One
commenter points out the risk they are taking:
Under US Law, these colleges have
received federal funding which falls under
“grants.” The Colleges, as well as the
.
287
Sanctuary Cities, are under obligation to
uphold all US Federal Laws to receive this
federal funding. Failure to completely
comply with the Federal Laws requires the
US Government to rescind all Federal
Funding under these “grant” laws. The
President stands empowered under US
Law to pull the federal funding from anyone
receiving such, is not fully compliant with
US Federal Law. These colleges may well
desire to re-consider their stand in
opposition to the President as the
Government is required to pull all of that
funding under US law.
Now, the universities aren’t disobeying Trump’s rule,
just protesting. I guess I could commend the Poo Bahs for
their courage, but the above comment is why our
universities really shouldn’t be taking sides. It’s clear this
“searing letter” is just more Democratic partisanship
echoing the media echo chamber on this Trump “outrage.”
Bottom line, this moratorium will hurt scholarship
regarding 1/200th of 1% of Muslims, for less than one
semester. This is a bad thing, and worthy of a protest…I
don’t like it at all that the President can inconvenience
people who have committed no crime. That said, the
question keeps coming back to me:
Why are none of our Poo Bahs clever enough to
understand that dropping over 25,000 bombs during the
last year of Obama’s reign did far more to hurt humanity
than this travel moratorium?
 Malware Expert Says ‘Fingerprint’ Switch Shows Past
Attacks Blamed On Russia, China Are Work Of CIA
Published Time: 9 Mar, 2017 19:33
Following revelations that the CIA can reportedly attribute
its hacking activity to others, an anti-virus expert has said
that attacks previously blamed on others are now
attributable to the CIA, according to WikiLeaks founder
Julian Assange.
News that the CIA could make its malware look as if it
derived from Russia, China or other actors emerged as part
of WikiLeaks’ ‘Year Zero’ data release on Tuesday.
According to the leaked information, the CIA’s malware
allows the intelligence agency to not only steal hacking
techniques, but also to leave false “fingerprints” to make
it appear as if others were responsible for the attack.
Speaking in a livestream on Thursday, Assange announced
that WikiLeaks will give tech companies access to the
methods used by the CIA in its hacking operations.
Assange then said that after the revelation, an anti-virus
expert approached WikiLeaks to say that attacks
previously blamed on Russia, China and Iran have now
been pinned on the CIA.
“The technology is designed to be
unaccountable, it’s designed to be untraceable,
it’s designed to hide itself. It’s designed to throw
off people looking to see where there are
fingerprints that might demonstrate who authored
that technology," Assange explained.
.
288
“We have quite a lot more material that talks
about these attempts to throw off attribution to
discover who is actually behind a particular
cyberattack,” the Australian said, hinting at
further revelations to come in future ‘Vault 7’
WikiLeaks releases.
“Already an anti-virus expert has come forward
to say that sophisticated malware that he had
attributed to a state, either Iran, China or Russia,
now he believes is from the CIA because the
type of attack system it uses corresponds directly
to a description we published of that attack
system.”
“And it’s rare enough that it seems unlikely that it
would be independently discovered, unless of
course China has already gotten hold of these
parts of the CIA arsenal and that China is using
them to pretend to be the CIA.”
Tech giants #Apple, #Samsung & #Microsoft
express concern about #CIA hacking after
#WikiLeaks dump
https://t.co/nailD7mqGs#Vault7#YearZeropic.twitt
er.com/aMauSmWXs1
— RT (@RT_com) March 8, 2017
The WikiLeaks founder also warned that
because the technology hides its origin its
completely open to being abused without
consequences.
“There’s absolutely nothing to stop a random CIA
officer, or contractor, or liaison agent working for
the British, using that technology against
whoever they like for whatever reasons they
like,” he warned.
 Bank Stocks Tumble Into Red After Spicer Confirms
Trump's "Commitment To Restoring Glass-Steagal"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 9, 2017 1:36 PM

That's not what the bankers want to hear...

TRUMP STILL COMMITTED TO RESTORING GLASS-

STEAGALL: SPICER

Interestingly this comment comes after President Trump

met with a group of community bankers...

So, deregulation... after the big banks have been broken up

by Glass-Steagal-lite?

That regulatory-premium in bank stocks has a long way to

fall back to the curve...

And that is weghing on The Dow...

289
WTH? Paul Ryan Wants Lawmakers To Go Home And Get
Pummeled By Leftwing Activists – Rather Than Pass
Trump Agenda (VIDEO)
Jim Hoft
Mar 9th, 2017 12:06 Pm

Is Paul Ryan Stupid, Unaware or Just
Working for the Other Side?
Speaker Paul Ryan went on with Tucker
Carlson on Wednesday to discuss the
current healthcare law that was
proposed on Tuesday.
Tucker Carlson: But in the House, are they the reason you
are only there for 8 days in April?
Speaker Ryan: We want to go talk to our constituents. We
want to go listen to our constituents.
Tucker Carlson: But you have a new administration that
can’t get anything through Congress. Should you just put all
that on hold and just say we’re going to get this done? Eight
days is not a lot, right?

Speaker Ryan: I don’t know on the top of my head if that is

a correct stat.

Tucker Carlson: I think it’s correct.

Speaker Ryan: OK. I’ll take your word for it. The point is
we’re piling up so many things in the senate.

Paul Ryan wants House Republicans to

Tucker confronted Speaker Ryan on the fact that nothing
go back to their districts to get
meaningful has made its way through Congress.
pummeled by angry astroturfed liberal
protesters rather than pass legislation
Tucker Carlson: There’s a lot of stuff that hasn’t been done to help working Americans.
that he promised that hasn’t made it through Congress. But
8 days (in April) is not a long time to be working This guy is a disaster.

Who is he working for?

Speaker Ryan responded: The real why is because how
long it takes to pass things through the senate…
.

290
 Protecting The Terrorists: US Forces Come
To The Rescue Of ISIS Commanders In Iraq
FARS News
9 March 2017
Commander of Asa’eb al-Haq Movement
affiliated to the Iraqi popular forces of
Hashd al-Shaabi said that the US forces
have carried out a rapid heliborne
operation and evacuated two commanders
of ISIL terrorists from Western Mosul in
Northern Iraq.
Javad al-Talaybawi said that the US forces carried out the
heliborne operation in one of the Western neighborhoods
of Western Mosul, evacuating two senior ISIL
commanders to an unknown location after the commanders
came under siege by Iraqi government forces in intensified
clashes in Western Mosul.
“Americans’ support and assistance to the
ISIL is done openly to save their regional
plan in a desperately attempt,” al-
Talaybawi underlined.
291
Al-Talaybawi had warned late in February that the US
forces tried hard to evacuate ISIL commanders from the
besieged city of Tal Afar West of Mosul.
After photos surfaced in the media displaying US forces
assisting ISIL terrorists, al-Talaybawi said that the
Americans were planning to take ISIL commanders away
from Tal Afar that is under the Iraqi forces’ siege.
In the meantime, member of Iraqi Parliament’s Security
and Defense Commission Iskandar Watut called for a
probe into photos and footages displaying US planes
airdropping aid packages over ISIL-held regions.
Watut further added that we witnessed several times that
US planes dropped packages of food stuff, arms and other
necessary items over ISIL-held regions, and called on
Iraq’s air defense to watch out the US-led coalition planes.
Eyewitnesses disclosed at the time that the US military
planes helped the ISIL terrorists in Tal Afar region West of
Mosul.
“We saw several packages dropped out of
a US army aircraft in the surrounding areas
of the city of Tal Afar in Western Nineveh
province and six people also came out of a
US plane in the ISIL-controlled areas,” the
Arabic-language media quoted a number of
eyewitnesses as saying.
Tal Afar city has been under the siege of the Iraqi
volunteer forces (Hashd al-Shaabi) for about two months
now and the efforts by the ISIL terrorists to help their
comrades besieged in Tal Afar have failed so far.
The news comes as the Iraqi army had reported that the US
air force has been helping the ISIL terrorists in areas
controlled by the terrorist group.
The Iraqi army says that the US army is trying to transfer
the ISIL commanders trapped in areas besieged by the
Iraqi army to safe regions.
 McConnell On Mexico
Paying For Trump's Wall: 'Uh, No'
By Jordain Carney
03/09/17 09:25 AM EST

McConnell also floated on Thursday that a border wall

wasn't the best option in some places.

"I'm in favor of border security. There are

probably some places along the border
where that is probably not the best way to
secure the border," he said when asked
about a physical wall.

Border-state lawmakers have echoed McConnell's

Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.) is dismissing
President Trump's claim that Mexico will pay for a southern border
wall.
"Uh, no," McConnell said during a Playbook Live
interview when asked about Trump's belief that he could
get the country to cover the cost.
Trump repeatedly said during his presidential campaign
that Mexico will pay for the wall. He tweeted in early
January that the wall would be built and the money
"paid back by Mexico later."
But top GOP lawmakers have dismissed the idea for
months as unrealistic.
.
concerns, arguing that a mixture of fencing, technology
and personnel is needed along the border.
McConnell added that he thought Homeland Security
Secretary John Kelly was a good choice and it's
"my suspicion that [Trump will] take his
advice."
Trump pledged during his speech before a joint session of
Congress that the administration would soon start work on
a "great, great wall."
The Department of Homeland
Security announced late last month that
it would start soliciting ideas to "design and
build of several prototype wall structures in
the vicinity of the United States border with
Mexico" in early March.

292
 Trump Team Promotes His First 50 Days In Office
David Jackson, USA TODAY
Published 8:35 A.M. ET March 10, 2017
The first two months of the Trump administration have
also generated protests, lawsuits and intense political
opposition; the Democratic National Committee is
planning a "turnaround tour" to respond to what it calls the
administration's "corporate handouts and broken promises
to America’s working families."
The White House list of 50-day accomplishments
includes a series of Trump executive actions designed to
reduce government regulations, tighten the nation's
borders, roll back President Barack Obama's health care
law, and increase military spending.
On the jobs front, the Trump administration touts decisions
to withdraw from the proposed Trans-Pacific Partnership
with Asian nations and authorize construction of the
Keystone XL and Dakota Access oil pipelines. As part of
its trade policy, the administration has discussed the
possibility of tariffs and border taxes.
Trump's anti-regulation agenda includes a rule requiring
that "for every new Federal regulation, two existing
regulations be eliminated" and establishing a task force to
identify "costly and unnecessary regulations," the White
293
House said. The president has also instituted a federal
hiring freeze.
"President Trump has quickly taken steps
to get the Government out of the way of job
creation," said the White House statement.
The administration has endorsed a House Republican plan
to replace and repeal Obamacare, though some
conservatives are opposing it, saying it doesn't go far
enough.
President Trump meets with congressional GOP leaders, including
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell and House Speaker Paul
Ryan, at the White House on March 1, 2017. (Photo: Mandel Ngan,
AFP/Getty Images)
With a budget proposal scheduled for release next week,
Trump has called for a $54 billion increase in defense
spending, to be offset by the same amount of cuts in
domestic programs.
Immigration is a big part of the Trump administration's 50-
day push. In addition to the border wall, the
administration has called for a crackdown on "sanctuary
cities" and emphasized deportation of migrants with
criminal records. The White House said Trump has
authorized the hiring of 10,000 Immigration and Customs
Enforcement officers and agents and 5,000 border patrol
agents.
Trump has also nominated appeals court judge Neil
Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court.
It has been among the busiest periods in presidential
history, and it has not lacked controversy.
The administration's initial plan to suspend entry into the
United States from specifically listed Muslim countries
drew protests and lawsuits, forcing changes.
Trump and aides have also faced questions about Russian
activity during last year's presidential election.
The president, who said neither he nor his aides had
anything to do with the Russians, has accused predecessor
Barack Obama of having him wiretapped in the runup to
the November election. There is no evidence to back
Trump's claim, which he made on his frequently used
Twitter account.
.
294
While Trump's approval ratings have been below average
for new presidents, he retains strong support from the
Republican Party.
In planning the Democrats' "turnaround tour," DNC
Deputy Chairman Keith Ellison, a Minnesota
congressman, said party members will develop alternatives
to the new administration.
"Progressives are hungry to fight back
against the disaster that has been Donald
Trump’s first two months in the White
House," Ellison said.
 America's Labor Market
Is Getting Better By Almost Any Measure
By Patricia Laya
March 10, 2017, 10:27 AM CST March 10, 2017, 11:22 AM CST
America’s labor market might not be as great yet as
President Donald Trump wants, but by almost any
measure, it’s getting better.
Employers added an above-forecast 235,000 positions in
February, while measures of joblessness and
underemployment improved, the Labor Department’s
monthly report showed on Friday. Wage growth picked up
and the share of prime-age Americans in the labor force
rose to the highest since 2011, suggesting the economy’s
strength is drawing people off the sidelines.
While some of last month’s labor-market gains can be
chalked up to unseasonably warm weather, particularly in
construction, the figures are still solid and effectively seal
a Federal Reserve interest-rate increase next week.
Analysts expect wage gains to gradually accelerate further,
which will underpin consumer spending, the principal
driver of economic growth, amid a first quarter that’s
looking tepid.
“If you dig a bit deeper, there are three
strong reasons for optimism: in the
295
weather-adjusted data, in the wage growth
and in the unemployment and participation
rate,” said Gregory Daco, head of U.S.
macroeconomics at Oxford Economics in
New York.
Daco estimated that “weather-sensitive sectors” added
about 75,000 jobs in February. Construction jobs rose by
58,000, the strongest gain in almost a decade, and followed
a 40,000 increase in January.
The report reinforces prospects for two more Fed rate
hikes this year following an anticipated move next week,
while giving Trump a political boost with numbers that
represent his first full month in office.
“GREAT AGAIN: +235,000,”
Trump posted on his Twitter account in a retweet of a
Drudge Report headline and link to a Bloomberg News
article on the employment data.
Industrial Goods
Goods-producing industries, which include mining,
construction and manufacturing, added 95,000 jobs in
February, the most since 2000. The latest figures are
“consistent with the cyclical upturn in industrial activity
around year-end” in the U.S. and other developed
economies, said Michael Gapen, chief U.S. economist at
Barclays Plc in New York.
Consumer and business optimism for the economy have
surged since Trump’s election, and that could result in a
“modest boost in hiring,” but it will take actual policy
changes to drive investment by companies, Gapen said.
Such spending has been relatively lackluster over the past
year.
“Yes, the sentiment has improved and
equity valuations have risen, financial
conditions have eased,” said Gapen, who
previously worked at the Fed. “The longer
that stays around, yes, you’d expect it to
matriculate into some hard data, including
labor market data. But at some point, you
 have to have the policies -- otherwise that
sentiment will reverse.”
Mohamed El-Erian, chief economic adviser at Allianz SE and
Bloomberg View columnist, discusses the jobs report Daybreak:
Americas. (El-Erian is a Bloomberg View columnist. The opinions
expressed are his own.) (Source: Bloomberg
Trump, who called the main unemployment rate “phony”
during the campaign, can take comfort from improvement
in several other gauges of the labor market.
The prime-age participation rate, which covers people ages
25 to 54, is a measure that Trump had previously
highlighted as deteriorating under President Barack
Obama. That level rose to 81.7 percent in February, up
from 80.6 percent in September 2015, which matched the
lowest since 1984.
.
296
Labor Slack
Another measure of labor market slack, the U-5 rate, fell to
5.7 percent from 5.8 percent, matching the lowest level
since 2007. Cited as an alternative indicator by Treasury
Secretary Steven Mnuchin, the rate includes discouraged
workers as well other so-called marginally attached
workers, who aren’t working or actively looking for work
but want a job.
The U-6, or underemployment rate, fell to 9.2 percent,
which matched the lowest figure since 2008. That rate also
includes part-time employees who want full-time work.
While not all the February data were strong -- retail jobs
fell 26,000, reversing part of a gain of almost 40,000 in
January -- economists saw many encouraging signs in the
data, from hiring to the pickup in wages and rising
participation.
“We read the report as strong in all
categories and expect it will give the Fed
more confidence in pursuing three rate
hikes this year,” Citigroup Inc.’s Andrew
Hollenhorst and Andrew Labelle said in a
note.
 GOP Rep Mike Kelly:
"Obama Is In Washington For One Reason Only,
To Run A Shadow Government"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 10, 2017 8:10 PM

Speaking to a group of fellow Republicans at an event administration holdovers" are trying to

Saturday in Pittsburgh, U.S. Representative Mike Kelly of upset President Donald Trump's agenda.
Pennsylvania was caught on film saying that President
"Rep. Kelly delivered his remarks at a
Obama's extended stay in Washington D.C. has absolutely
private meeting to an audience of fellow
nothing to do with where his daughter attends school, but
Republicans. He was sharing the
rather, is motivated by his desire to run a 'shadow
frustration of everyone in the room over
government' to disrupt the agenda of the new Trump how they believe certain Obama
administration. administration holdovers within the federal
"President Obama himself said he was bureaucracy are attempting to upset
going to stay in Washington until his President Trump's agenda."
daughters graduated. I think we ought to
pitch in to let him go someplace else
because he's only there for one
purpose, and one purpose only, and
that is to run a shadow government that
is going to totally upset the new
agenda. It just doesn't make sense."
"And people sit back and they say, 'my
gosh why can't you guys get this done.'
And I'm saying, we've got a new CEO and
we've got some new heads in the
different departments but the same Of course, if you ignore that fake Trump 'dossier' that was
people are there and they don't believe leaked by DC insiders, and that time acting Attorney
that the new owners, or the new General Sally Yates completely defied the new
managers, should be running the ship." administration based on her own personal political agenda,
and all of the damaging intelligence leaks to the media,
including transcripts of Trump's calls from the Oval
Kelly's spokesman said Friday the Office, not to mention those wiretapping claims regarding
congressman was just "sharing the Trump Tower, then we're not really sure what Kelly is
frustration of everyone in the room over talking about....just some crazy alt-right conspiracy theory
how they believe certain Obama stuff probably...

297
Amazing: US Debt Decreased By More Than $60 Billion
Since Trump Inauguration
Jim Hoft
Mar 10th, 2017 8:27 Am

The US debt reduced by more than $60 Billion since

the Trump Inauguration!

On January 20th, the day of the Trump Inauguration, the

US Debt stood at $19,947 billion. On March 8th, more
than a month later, the US Debt load stood at $19,879
billion. Trump has cut the US Debt burden by $68 billion
and 0.3% in since his inauguration!

298
By comparison, under President Obama, the US Debt
burden increased by more than $320 billion after his
inauguration through March 8th 2009. Obama
increased the US Debt by 3.1% during this time period and
signed the trillion dollar ‘Stimulus’ bill which is widely
considered a colossal failure and waste of US tax dollars as
One month after the Trump Inauguration US Debt was
down $12 billion now it is down $68 billion.
299
well. The failed ‘Stimulus’ did not kick in till later in
Obama’s first year leading to Obama’s first year deficit of
$1.4 trillion. Overall Obama doubled the US Debt during
his Presidency and set records for highest deficits and the
largest debt increase by any President ever.
With Trump the stock market is up, jobs are
increasing, salaries are increasing and debt is down…
Winning, Winning, Winning, Winning.
 U.S. Adds 28,000 Jobs
In Manufacturing--And 8,000 In Government
By Terence P. Jeffrey
March 10, 2017 | 8:58 AM EST
President Donald Trump meets with manufacturing executive in the White House, Feb. 23, 2017. (AP Photo/Evan Vucci)
(CNSNews.com) - The United States added 28,000 jobs in
manufacturing in February and 8,000 in government,
according to numbers released today by the Bureau of
Labor Statistics.
So far in 2017 (January and February), the U.S. has gained
39,000 manufacturing jobs and 25,000 government jobs.
Nonetheless, in February, government jobs in the United
States outnumbered manufacturing jobs by 9,942,000.
That is down from is down from the 9,956,000 margin that
government jobs had over manufacturing jobs in
December 2016, according to the BLS numbers.
Over the past year--from February 2016 to February 2017-
-the United States added 7,000 manufacturing jobs, with
300
employment in manufacturing during that time span rising
from 12,375,000 to 12,382,000.
From February 2016 to February 2017, the United States
gained 194,000 government jobs, with employment in
government during that time span rising from 22,130,000
to 22,324,000.
The number of manufacturing jobs in the United States
peaked at 19,533,000 in June 1979. Since then, it has
declined by 7,151,000 to the 12,382,000 as of this
February, according to the BLS numbers.
During the same time frame—from June 1979 to February
2017—the number of government jobs grew from
16,045,000 to the current 22,324,000, an increase of
6,279,000
 Is Trump Crazy?
Political Discourse And Mental Illness
By Ryan Lamothe
March 10, 2017
During the past few weeks there have been increasing
references in the media with regard to Donald Trump’s
mental health. Along these lines some have questioned
whether psychologists and psychiatrists should continue to
adhere to the Goldwater rule, which forbids professionals
from diagnosing political figures. What is interesting to me
is not whether those in the psychological professions
should or should not diagnose Trump. Instead I am
interested in the concept of mental illness itself and its
limitations in the political sphere. I also want to explain
why this discourse should be resisted, while we seek to use
other descriptive ways to understand and critique Trump
and his leadership style.
The idea of mental illness is both tricky and complex. In
some ways, it stands as a metaphor for understanding
abnormal behavior and/or mental suffering. I say
metaphor, because it refers to a concept “mind” and not the
brain. To be sure, there are clear examples of brain
malfunctions, which are seen in mental suffering such as
schizophrenia and bipolar disorders. And there are, in
some cases, genetic factors at play in these and other
illnesses. But the waters get murky when we note that in
the Diagnostic Statistical Manual for Mental Disorders
(DSM) there are mental illnesses such as narcissistic or
borderline personality disorders. Can we locate brain
malfunctions using the MRI or genetic testing in these
mental illnesses? The simple answer is no. These disorders
reflect patterns of behaving and thinking that are deemed
abnormal, unhealthy, or socially disruptive. To add to the
complexity, there are questions not only about what
abnormal or healthy means, but also who has the power
and authority to diagnose? Who defines what is mentally
healthy and what is not? Any cursory reading of the
history of Western psychology will reveal all kinds of
abuses in psychological diagnoses and treatments.
Moreover, the psychological professions have often
wittingly and unwittingly serve as disciplinary regimes for
cultural and conservative political-economic forces
(Cushman, 1995). Abuses and collusion with political-
economic forces and structures can also raise questions
about the motives and aims of professionals treating
people who were either marked as abnormal or who were
designated as mentally ill. Is treatment really for the
benefit of the sufferer or for the “security” of the larger
public order, or the profits of insurance companies?
301
Even if we concede that some people have the social
authority to diagnose behavior as abnormal, there are
related questions of what normal psychology/behavior is
and what is abnormal. Decades ago, Psychoanalyst R.D.
Laing (1969) responded by calling into question what is
deemed to be normal and abnormal, sane and insane:
A man who prefers to be dead rather than Red is normal. A
man who says he has lost his soul is mad. A man who says
that men are machines may be a great scientist. A man
who says he is a machine is “depersonalized” in
psychiatric jargon. A man who says that Negroes are an
inferior race may be widely respected. A man who says his
whiteness is a form of cancer is certifiable. A little girl of
seventeen in a mental hospital told me she was terrified
because the Atom Bomb was inside her. That is delusion.
The statesmen of the world who boast and threaten that
they have Doomsday weapons are far more dangerous, and
far more estranged from “reality” than many of the people
on whom the label “psychotic” is affixed. (pp.11-12)
Laing points out that sometimes what is deemed to be
normal or common is often insane, as in unhealthy. There
may, in other words, be logic to the doctrine of mutually
assured destruction (MAD), but it is a kind of madness—
madness deemed to be both normal and common. To turn
to the present occupant of the White House, if we consider
his bombastic, bloviating texts, they are not necessarily
abnormal in light of the larger culture of narcissism
(Lasch, 1979). His behavior and attitude, however
churlish, are quite normal—normal as in common.
Let’s remain for a moment in the area of normal and
abnormal with regard to mental illness. Decades ago
journalist and philosopher Hannah Arendt was assigned to
cover the Eichmann trial in Israel. Eichmann was a
lieutenant colonel in the SS tasked with insuring that the
Nazi machinery of death functioned well. Eichmann, like
other Nazi leaders interviewed after World War II (Lifton,
1986), was not mentally ill. If Eichmann was not mentally
ill, how then were people to understand his appalling and
seemingly abnormal thinking and behavior? Arendt
described Eichmann as incurious and thoughtless or we
could say unreflective—a man preoccupied about himself
and the advancement of his career. He was a functionary
in the German machine and focused on executing the
orders he received from his leaders. Given what she heard
and observed, Arendt eschewed psychological categories,
using a phrase the “banality of evil” to refer to Eichmann.
She was wrongly condemned for minimizing evil, but in
fact her use of the term “banal” did not refer to common,
but rather to the thoughtlessness and insensitivity of the
man who had been a key figure in the murder of millions
of Jews. Was Eichmann’s behavior abnormal? Was his
thinking abnormal? People like Eichmann were in fact
quite normal both in the sense of not being mentally ill and
in the sense of being quite common in that society.
While people may blanch at the connection between
Eichmann and Trump, I see a number of links, as well as
differences. Trump’s lack of curiosity is well known. He
has in the past bragged about not reading books, except
perhaps for those written about him. There is little
evidence of his being reflective or thoughtful. Instead, he
uses simple sentences and seems incapable of dealing with
substantive topics and arguments. His patterns of public
speaking are aimed not at thoughtfulness, but simplistic
certainty. Thoughtfulness connotes some level of
sensitivity, which is absent in the public figure who seems
untouched by the consequences of what he says and does.
He displays no sensitivity to the plight of immigrant
Hispanic and Muslim families. He humiliated a disabled
person, then denied it, seemingly more concerned about
himself than the feelings of the person he publically
humiliated. To be sure, he is capable of being sensitive, but
sensitivity is reserved for those who like or agree with him.
Also like Eichmann, Trump is preoccupied with his career
(or rather his image and brand) and is resentful and
vindictive toward those who get in the way or who
criticize him. Trump also fits well with large segments of
the population. In a culture of narcissism (Lasch, 1979),
Trump is not abnormal, but common. Indeed, he is the
cultural apotheosis of neoliberal capitalism’s homo
economicus that is preoccupied with profit, prestige, and
power. If Trump is mentally ill, then we must also agree
that large segments of the U.S. population are mentally ill
as well. Two differences from Eichmann: first, Trump is
much more adept at advancing his career/image. Second,
he currently has not been implicated in a machinery of
murder.
The complexity of the category of mental illness and its
attending problems in identifying abnormal and normal
behavior suggest that mental illness is not a useful notion
in political discourse and in understanding political
leadership. Yet, there are other reasons why I wish to resist
the use of mental illness in political discourse. Over nearly
30 years of treating people who suffer mentally, I have no
desire to append that label on a man who is clearly not
suffering. At least from what I have read and seen, he does
not seem to be suffering and if he is, it is well hidden. To
label Trump as mentally ill would, in my view, demean the
courage, resilience, and hard work of those who have
sought help for their mental suffering. Moreover, it further
taints the category of mental illness by associating it with a
302
man who seems fine with humiliating people with
disabilities.
I also wish to avoid this kind of discourse because mental
illness suggests a diminished capacity for responsibility. A
person with schizophrenia is responsible, but we also know
that making poor decisions and engaging in destructive
behaviors are part of the disease. Culpability is lessened by
virtue of his/her mental illness. I have no desire to let
Trump off the hook for his poor decisions and the pain and
suffering he is perpetrating on vulnerable people. I think it
would be more accurate to move to the categories of sin
and vice instead of psychopathology, because they connote
a distortion of the will or responsibility, rather than a
diminished capacity. I will address this further later.
The category of and discourse about mental illness vis-à-
vis Trump is not fitting for other reasons. I have certainly
thought about diagnosing Trump, but my intentions have
nothing to do with my usual intentions in diagnosing
patients. People in the psychological fields who care for
patients suffering from mental illness ideally diagnose for
the sake of the patient’s well-being. Yet, any competent
professional will admit that diagnosing patients can be
overdetermined in the sense that the psychologist’s or
counselor’s motivation has more to do with him/her than it
does with the patient. In the political sphere, I am not sure
that the motivations of those who seek to diagnose Trump
are pure or have his best interests in mind, though they
may have in mind the health of the country or democracy.
And I also wonder how useful it is to diagnose Trump
when he shows no interest in learning about himself, let
alone being open to treatment. Actually, I think the
impulse to diagnose Trump as mentally ill reflects a
politicization of the concept of mental illness, which in my
view neither advances a cultural understanding and
appreciation of mental illness nor contributes to political
discourse. Indeed, the use of mental illness in this way
actually is just one more type of ad hominem attack that
masquerades as substantive political discourse.
If we decide to refrain from engaging in psychological
diagnosis of the president, then what categories can we use
to assess his leadership? What if we were to return to
more traditional concepts, like virtue or character when
assessing leadership? Surely this would interest
Republicans who raised this in terms of Clinton and his
behavior. Conservative politician William Bennet (1993)
wrote a book about virtues and character formation, though
lacking in at least one or two of the virtues himself. My
interest is not to expound upon these terms. Rather, I
wonder how political discourse is altered if we assessed
political leaders in terms of virtues and character—
politically understood.
Let’s go back to a founding figure of Western philosophy.
Aristotle argued that the “polis existed ‘by nature’ because
nature means us to live a good life in common” (Ryan,
2012, p.78). To live a good life in common requires
virtues, not only of the citizens, but those charged with
leading them toward the good. A contemporary
philosopher, Alasdair MacIntyre (1984), informs us that
virtue is “an acquired human quality the possession and
exercise of which tends to enable us to achieve goods
which are internal to practices and the lack of which
prevents us from achieving any such goods” (p.191).
What virtues are needed for a political leader who is to
lead the residents toward a good? While there are many
possible answers I would put forth four virtues, namely,
prudence, temperance, courage, and charity. These virtues
are not evident in the current occupant of the Oval Office.
The virtue of prudence points to the qualities of foresight,
judiciousness, and carefulness. The travel ban lacked both
foresight and judiciousness. Trump’s speeches also reflect
a lack of carefulness and instead recklessly promote
further division and animosity. The virtue of temperance
suggests self-restraint, which is not evident in daily tweets,
his attacks on the press who disagree with him, and his
demeaning comments about the judiciary. One might say
that Trump displays courage, but actually it is more
bravado and at times bullying. It takes political courage to
face and listen to critics, to admit when one is wrong, and
change policies that do not contribute to the common
good. Bullies are by their nature not courageous. Charity is
the virtue of willing and acting toward another’s good.
Trump’s own charity organization, which was under
investigation for spending money for political gains, is
perhaps most illustrative of his lack of charity in business
and in politics. He also clearly evinces a lack of charity in
policies aimed at deporting residents, demeaning
opponents, publically humiliating persons with disabilities,
and violating women. A man without virtues cannot lead
people, except through coercion, force, and intimidation.
Can a man who apparently lacks civic virtues possess
character? MacIntyre (1984) argues that “A character is an
object of regard by the member of the culture generally,”
Notes.
Laing, R. D. (1969). The divided self. New York: Penguin Books.
Lasch, C. (1979). The culture of narcissism. New York: W.W. Norton & Company.
MacIntyre, A. (1984). After virtue: A study in moral theory. Notre Dame, IN: Notre Dame University Press.
Ryan, A. (2012). On politics: A history of political thought. New York: Liveright Publishing.
.
303
because s/he “morally legitimates a mode of social
existence” (p.29). If we use this perspective, Trump does
have character. He is regarded by many people in this
society, but what mode of social existence does he
represent and legitimate? Trump’s character is a caricature
of neoliberal capitalism’s production of entrepreneurial
subjects; subjects preoccupied with protecting and
advancing their own self-interests and seeing individuals
as a collection of usable powers or as obstacles to one’s
ends. Trump, as an entrepreneurial man, is obsessed with
power, prestige, and privilege, which have nothing to do
with the common good. Like all caricatures, there is an
emptiness or hollowness to his character. There is a dearth
of integrity or probity in a caricature, which is evident in
the lack of core principles that guide him. To be sure, as a
caricature of a market society, Trump does have a
principle, which is maintain and furthering his image—an
image lacking substance. A character that is a caricature of
a market society is not someone who can lead by
persuasion and example, except those who are uncritically
and thoughtlessly like-minded. A representative
democracy must have leaders who exhibit character of
substance, of moral principles that can embolden others,
not simply the like-minded but opponents as well. A
symptom of an illness in the body of the republic is the
election of a man who has no virtues and whose character
is a caricature of a system that has not moral ethos.
The lack of virtue or character are not grounds for
impeachment, which I suspect those who clamor to
diagnose Trump as mentally ill are hoping for. In my
lifetime I have seen political leaders who lack virtue and
who are not mentally ill. The lack of virtue and character
are signposts to a trajectory of tragedy, which will take
place on a much larger scale. It is unfortunate and sad that
the tragedy that awaits Trump will impact the lives of
many, most assuredly the less fortunate.
 F.B.I. Counterterrorism Unit Still Investigating Trump
Organization Server For Russian Connections: CNN
By Shepard Ambellas -
03.10.2017 @11:05 AM EST
F.B.I. investigation of Trump and associates continues,
CNN’s sources say
NEW YORK (INTELLIHUB) — According to sources of
CNN, if that means anything anymore, the Trump
Organization is still under F.B.I. investigation over a
server located in Trump Tower which researchers
previously claimed had “communications” with a Russian
bank.
Sources also told CNN that no Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act warrant was issued for the server despite
reports to the contrary which suggest otherwise.
On Mar. 9 CNN reported:
“Internet data shows that last summer, a computer server
owned by Russia-based Alfa Bank repeatedly looked up
the contact information for a computer server being used
by the Trump Organization — far more than other
companies did, representing 80% of all lookups to the
Trump server.”
This is the useless information that researchers used to
base their claims on and is also likely the information that
a FISA court judge used to issue a baseless wiretap
304
warrant in Oct. of 2016 to surveil Trump and associates.
But claims made by researchers have no merit and were
already shot down by Infowars on Nov. 1, 2016, in a report
titled ‘Trump Server Communicating With Russia’ Story
Gets Debunked which proves that the server in question is
controlled by a hotel marketing company named Cendyn
and is used for bulk email delivery.
Computer researcher Richard Clayton of Cambridge
University said that although the alleged connections
between the two servers are “weird,” they may not mean
anything.
“It’s not so much a smoking gun as a faint
whiff of smoke a long way away. Maybe
there’s something else going on. It’s hard
to tell,” Clayton said.
All of this sparked back up in the press this week after
President Donald Trump fired out a few tweets last
Saturday which claimed that Barack Obama had Trump
Tower wiretapped leading up to the election.
It will be interesting to see how all of this will play out,
especially if the Trump Admin declassifies and releases
FISA requests filed by the Obama Admin which requested
the F.B.I. to spy on Trump and associates in the first place.
 Wikileaks’ Latest CIA Data Dump
Undermines Case Against Russia Election Hack
By Dave Lindorff
March 10, 2017
The so-called Deep State and Democratic Party campaign
to demonize Russia for allegedly “hacking the US
election,” and delivering the country into the hands of
Donald Trump suffered a huge and probably mortal blow
this week with the release by WikiLeaks of over 7000
secret CIA documents disclosing secret CIA hacking
technologies.
The case being made against Russia as being the source of
leaked emails of the Democratic National Committee and
of Clinton Campaign Chair John Podesta — documents
that proved that the DNC had been corrupting the primary
process in favor of corporatist candidate Hillary Clinton
and undermining the campaign of Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders, and that also revealed the embarrassing contents
of Clinton’s highly paid secret speeches to a number of
giant Wall Street banks — had always been tenuous, with
no hard evidence ever presented.
All the intelligence agencies would say was
that they had a “high degree of certainty,”
or “strong reason to believe” that the
Russians were the source of the deeply
damaging documents late in the campaign
season.
Adding to doubts that Russia had actually hacked the DNC
was WikiLeaks itself, which insisted that it had obtained
the DNC and Podesta emails not from a hack of
computers, but from an internal DNC staffer who actually
pulled them off computers with a thumb drive and
provided them to the organization — a person later
identified as Seth Rich, who was mysteriously murdered
on his way home from DNC headquarters in Washington,
shot in the back at night in an unsolved case that the local
police quickly labeled a “botched burglary,” although
nothing was taken from his body by his assailant — not his
wallet or watch even. (Wikileaks has offered a $20,000
reward for information that helps solve that uninvestigated
case.)
But one thing the blame-Russia conspiracy theorists did
have going for them was their assertion that the leaked
DNC documents contained routing information and ISPs
that pointed to Russia as the source of the hacks.
305
Now, however, the new CIA documents released by
WikiLeaks — the first of a much larger trove of such
documents that are reportedly going to be released as
WikiLeaks goes through them to remove information that
might jeopardize agents or national security — show that
among the technologies and hacking tools that the CIA has
been using to attack targeted computers, internet servers
and even so-called “smart” appliances in people’s homes,
like Samsung TV sets, are a number of Russian-developed
hacking programs.
As the New York Times wrote in its article on the latest
Wikileaks document release, which it is calling “Vault 7”:
Another program described in the
documents, named Umbrage, is a
voluminous library of cyber-attack
techniques that the CIA has collected from
malware produced by other countries,
including Russia. According to the
WikiLeaks release, the large number of
techniques allows the CIA to mask the
origin of some of its attack and confuse
forensic investigators.
The WikiLeaks material includes lists of software tools
that the CIA uses to create exploits and malware to carry
out hacking. Many of the tools are those used by
developers around the world: coding languages, such as
Python, and tools like Sublime Text, a program used to
write code, and Git, a tool that helps developers
collaborate.”
What this means is that current efforts by Democratic
Party leaders and Deep State leakers in the government
intelligence sector to pin the blame on Russia for hacking
the election or for trying to help elect Trump as president,
now must confront the counter-argument that the Deep
State itself, in the form of the CIA, may have been behind
the hacks, but is making it look like the Russians did it.
Why would the CIA do that? Well, if the concern was that
Trump, as he stated throughout the campaign, wanted to
end US hostility towards Russia, and to develop friendly
relations with that country and its leader, President
Vladimir Putin, what better way to toss a spanner into such
plans than to make it look like Russia had tried to corrupt
the US election?
That charge has been largely adopted unquestioningly by
the corporate media in recent months, but it now founders
on the new evidence that the CIA has the ability to pose as
a Russian hacker!
It looks like the campaign to portray President Trump as a
Putin puppet, and to portray Russia as an evil underminer
of US democracy will have to come up with another way
to attack the Trump administration, and to gin up a new
Cold War with Russia. The current effort will no longer
pass the laugh test. Democrats seeking to undermine
Trump with the US public will have to do better — like
maybe actually analyzing the reasons for their epic
election defeat, and coming up with a genuinely populist,
as opposed to corporatist, program to show ordinary
Americans that the party has their interests at heart, and
not just the interests of rich campaign contributors.
WikiLeaks and its founder Julian Assange, the latter holed
up these past four years under threat of arrest in the
Equadoran Embassy in London, have done it again.
Although the Deep State hasn’t given up. The NY Times,,
in its report today on the WikiLeaks documents, also
306
includes the rather lame argument by James Lewis,
described as “an expert on cybersecurity at the Center for
Strategic and International Studies” (a Washington think-
tank closely linked to the US defense and intelligence
establishment), that the latest WikiLeaks documents “most
likely” were provided not by a “conscience-stricken CIA
whistleblower,” but rather via another source. Lewis then
suggests that:
…a foreign state, most likely Russia, stole
the documents by hacking or other means
and delivered them to WikiLeaks, which
may not know how they were obtained.”
Lewis gives no real explanation as to why a Russian hack
would be “more likely” than a whistle-blowing CIA
employee or contractor to be the source of the leaked
documents provided to WikiLeaks, but the Times and its
intelligence establishment sources are putting that
alternative out there anyhow, clearly in an effort to keep
the crumbling anti-Russia campaign afloat.
It will be interesting to see how far the McCarthyite
campaign to demonize Russia and to damage the Trump
presidency by linking it to Russian perfidy will go, given
this new information that the CIA was well-equipped to do
its hacking work posing as a Russian entity.
 AG Sessions Asks
Remaining 46 US Attorneys To Resign
Foxnews.Com
Published March 10, 2017
Attorney General Jeff Sessions has asked the remaining 46
U.S. attorneys to resign, the Justice Department announced
Friday, describing the move as part of an effort to ensure a
"uniform transition."
The department said some U.S. attorneys, as in prior
transitions, already had left the department. Now, "the
Attorney General has now asked the remaining 46
presidentially appointed U.S. Attorneys to tender their
resignations," a spokeswoman said.
“Until the new U.S. Attorneys are
confirmed, the dedicated career
prosecutors in our U.S. Attorney’s Offices
will continue the great work of the
Department in investigating, prosecuting,
and deterring the most violent offenders,”
the statement added.
It is customary, though not automatic, for the country's 93
U.S. attorneys to leave their positions once a new president
is in office. Incoming administrations over the past several
decades typically have replaced most U.S. attorneys during
the first year or two.
The Obama administration allowed political appointees of
President George W. Bush to serve until their replacement
had been nominated and confirmed. One U.S. attorney
appointed by Bush, Rod Rosenstein of Maryland, remained
on the job for the entire Obama administration and is the
current nominee for deputy attorney general.
The move also raises questions about the status Preet
Bharara, who was appointed by Obama and assumed the
.
307
role of Manhattan U.S. Attorney in 2009. Baharara met
with Trump in November and said after the meeting that
he had agreed to stay on.
Sessions' actions are being closely scrutinized by
Democrats after a rocky start to the AG's time at the DOJ.
Weeks after his tight confirmation vote on Feb. 8, it
emerged that Sessions had met twice with the Russian
ambassador last year -- despite testifying during his
confirmation hearing he had no communications with the
Russians.
Sessions later clarified his testimony, while recusing
himself from any investigation into Russian influence in
the 2016 campaign.
The move Friday also comes amid Republican concerns
that officials who served under the Obama administration
may be working against the Trump administration. Those
suspicions, though, largely have focused on intelligence
agencies and elsewhere.
U.S. attorneys are responsible for prosecuting federal
crimes in the territories they oversee. They report to
Justice Department leadership in Washington, and their
priorities are expected to be in line with those of the
attorney general. The federal prosecutors are nominated by
the president, generally upon the recommendation of a
home-state senator.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 GOP Rep: Obama Stayed
In Capital To Run 'Shadow Government'
Mar 10, 1:47 PM EST
A Pennsylvania congressman has accused former President
Barack Obama of staying in Washington solely to run a
"shadow government" to undermine the GOP agenda.
U.S. Rep. Mike Kelly made the claim to fellow
Republicans at an event Saturday north of Pittsburgh.
A video clip posted to YouTube shows Kelly saying that
Obama remained in Washington for
308
"one purpose only ... to run the shadow
government that is going to totally upset
the new agenda."
The Obamas have said they would remain in the nation's
capital until their youngest daughter, Sasha, completes
high school.
Kelly's spokesman said Friday the congressman was just
"sharing the frustration of everyone in the room over how
they believe certain Obama administration holdovers" are
trying to upset President Donald Trump's agenda.
 Team Trump Already Dismantling Obama’s
“Legacy” Of Job-Killing Rules And Regulations
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 10, 2017
Quietly, behind the scenes, away from the noise and din of
the daily media narrative of a “chaotic White House”
marred and beset by “problems,” the men and women
President Donald J. Trump selected to serve in his Cabinet
are doing the work of the American people.
Though more Cabinet picks still await Senate
confirmation, those who’ve already taken up their posts –
at the State Department, the EPA, the Interior Department,
Education and others – are beginning to roll back Obama-
era rules and regulations that have, for years, cost the
economy, choked economic growth and stifled job creation
and opportunity.
As reported by Fox News, department heads are moving
ahead on their own, even while working with the president
and Republicans in Congress to dissect and dismantle
much of the administrative state:
Interior Secretary Ryan Zinke was the
latest to peel back red tape.
On his first day of work, for which he
arrived Teddy Roosevelt-style on
horseback, Zinke ended a ban on lead
bullets and fishing tackle on federal lands
and water. The ban was imposed to protect
animals from lead poisoning, but had been
criticized by the National Rifle Association
as an attack on gun owners.
The regulation, Zinke, noted, had not been mandated by
any existing federal rule or law, and therefore was not
necessary. He also noted there would be much more to
come, directing agencies underneath him to find ways to
309
expand fishing and hunting privileges on the millions of
acres controlled by Interior that taxpayers actually own.
Over at the Environmental Protection Agency, meanwhile,
Administrator Scott Pruitt is set to put the kibosh on
several rules implemented by his predecessor that were
ostensibly aimed at curbing “global warming” and
“climate change,” but in fact are nothing more than
additional unnecessary regulatory burdens on the oil and
gas industry. (RELATED: EPA chief Pruitt truth bomb:
No, ‘carbon dioxide’ does not contribute to
‘global warming’.)
One such action Pruitt is expected to take is to roll back
strict gas mileage requirements that President Obama
attempted to get locked in long-term for cars and light
trucks through the year 2025.
In all, Fox News reported, the actions collectively are part
of a three-pronged effort to deter implementation of a slew
of last-minute regulations the outgoing administration
attempted to ram through on its way out the door. White
House Chief Strategist Steve Bannon called it the
“deconstruction of the administrative state” during a talk at
the recently-concluded CPAC meeting in Washington,
D.C.
The effort includes presidential executive orders, direct
intervention by agency heads, and actions by Congress.
In February, for instance, the president signed an order
telling the Department of Labor to delay the
implementation of a regulation that requires some financial
professionals to put the interests of their clients first; the
department could simply just get rid of the rule altogether.
In addition, Trump has signed an order requiring all
appropriate federal agencies to reduce the “regulatory
burdens” of Obamacare. He has also directed agencies to
get rid of two regulations for every new one issued.
Congress, meanwhile, has been using its authority under
the little-before-used Congressional Review Act of 1996 to
intercept a number of new Obama-issued regulations. The
law says Congress has 60 legislative days to reconsider
any new regulations. If a resolution of disapprove is passed
and signed by the president, then the agency issuing the
original rule cannot resubmit it in pretty much the same
form. (RELATED: Trump Wants To Eliminate Over 75
Percent Of All Regulations And ‘Maybe More’.)
But more than reducing regulatory burdens, conservatives
in and out of government want the Trump administration
to make it much more difficult for federal agencies to issue
their own rules – which have the force of law – in the years
ahead.
“There is no reason why EPA’s role should
ebb or flow based on a particular
administration, or a particular
.
310
administrator,” Pruitt said last month, as
reported by Fox News. “Agencies exist to
administer the law. Congress passes
statutes, and those statutes are very clear
on the job the EPA has to do.”
The same is true for other federal agencies.
More is also being done to prevent future administrations
from piling up new regulations. In January the House
passed legislation that, if signed by the president, would let
Congress reject several regulations at once, rather than
reviewing them separately.
 Government Spooks Can Use The Mic And Camera On
Trump’s Phone Even When He Thinks It Is Turned Off
Posted by Michael Snyder
Date: March 10, 2017
After reading this article you might not ever view your
electronic devices the same way again. Last year,
Hollywood released a biographical political thriller based
on the life of Edward Snowden that had one particularly
creepy scene. In that scene, a government spook used a
program to remotely activate the microphone and camera
on a laptop, and by doing so he was able to watch a
woman as she got undressed. Sadly, as you will see
below, this kind of thing is happening constantly. Any
digital device can potentially be accessed and used to spy
on you even if it appears to be turned off. And this is why
Donald Trump needs to be so careful right now, because
the intelligence community wants to take him down and
they can literally use any digital device in his possession to
try to gather dirt on him. We have a “deep state” that is
absolutely obsessed with watching, tracking and
monitoring the American people, and something
desperately needs to be done about this unconstitutional
surveillance. Now that Trump has become greatly upset
about how the government was tapping into his phone
calls, maybe something will finally get accomplished.
In an article that I just published on The Most Important
News, I talked about the NSA’s brand new two billion
dollar data storage facility in Utah that can store up to five
zettabytes of data. Secret “electronic monitoring rooms”
embedded within the facilities of major communications
companies across the United States send an endless flow of
digital information to this facility, and most Americans
have no idea that this is even happening. The following
comes from Wired…
311
Before yottabytes of data from the deep web and elsewhere
can begin piling up inside the servers of the NSA’s new
center, they must be collected.
To better accomplish that, the agency has
undergone the largest building boom in its
history, including installing secret electronic
monitoring rooms in major US telecom
facilities. Controlled by the NSA, these highly
secured spaces are where the agency taps
into the US communications networks, a
practice that came to light during the Bush
years but was never acknowledged by the
agency.
The broad outlines of the so-called warrantless-
wiretapping program have long been exposed—how the
NSA secretly and illegally bypassed the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Court, which was supposed to
oversee and authorize highly targeted domestic
eavesdropping; how the program allowed wholesale
monitoring of millions of American phone calls and email.
In the wake of the program’s exposure, Congress passed
the FISA Amendments Act of 2008,
which largely made the practices legal.
Telecoms that had agreed to participate in the illegal
activity were granted immunity from prosecution and
lawsuits.
Whistleblowers have come forward again and again to
warn us about what was happening, but they have largely
been ignored. One of the most prominent whistleblowers
was former NSA employee William Binney…
Binney left the NSA in late 2001, shortly after the agency
launched its warrantless-wiretapping program.
“They violated the Constitution setting it up,”
he says bluntly. “But they didn’t care. They were
going to do it anyway, and they were going to
crucify anyone who stood in the way. When they
started violating the Constitution, I couldn’t stay.”
Binney says Stellar Wind was far larger than has been
publicly disclosed and included not just eavesdropping on
domestic phone calls but the inspection of domestic email.
At the outset the program recorded 320 million
calls a day, he says, which represented about
73 to 80 percent of the total volume of the
agency’s worldwide intercepts.
The haul only grew from there.
Can you imagine recording 320 million phone calls a day?
And that was at the beginning of the program – I can’t
even imagine what the number must be these days.
But even if you aren’t using your phone government
spooks can still potentially be listening to you. The
following comes from a CNN article entitled “How The
NSA Can ‘Turn On’ Your Phone Remotely“…
Government spies can set up their own miniature cell
network tower. Your phone automatically connects to it.
Now, that tower’s radio waves send a command to your
phone’s antennae: the baseband chip. That tells your phone
to fake any shutdown and stay on.
A smart hack won’t keep your phone running at 100%,
though. Spies could keep your phone on standby and just
use the microphone — or send pings announcing your
location.
John Pirc, who did cybersecurity research at the CIA, said
these methods — and others, like physically bugging
devices — let the U.S. hijack and reawaken terrorists’
phones.
Unfortunately, these tactics are not just used against
“terrorists”.
The truth is that these tactics are employed against anyone
that the NSA is interested in, and in fact they could be
listening to you right now.
Thanks to Edward Snowden, we have learned quite a bit
about how the NSA takes over digital devices…
The latest story from the Edward Snowden leaks yesterday
drives home that the NSA and its spy partners possess
specialized tools for doing exactly that. According to The
Intercept,
the NSA uses a plug-in called GUMFISH to
take over cameras on infected machines and
snap photos.
Another NSA plug-in called
CAPTIVATEDAUDIENCE hijacks the
312
microphone on targeted computers to record
conversations.
Intelligence agencies have been turning computers into
listening devices for at least a decade, as evidenced by the
Flame spy tool uncovered by Kaspersky Lab in 2012,
which had the ability to surreptitiously turn on webcams
and microphones and perform a host of other espionage
operations.
So what can you do to prevent this from happening?
If you have external webcams and microphones, you can
unplug them when they are not in use.
If you have a built-in camera, some have suggested
covering the camera with a sticker.
And of course pulling out the battery entirely will prevent
someone from taking over your phone when you are not
using it.
But at the end of the day, it is going to be really hard to
keep government spooks out of your electronic devices
completely. They have become extremely sophisticated at
using these devices to get what they want, and they will
literally go after just about anyone.
For example, just consider what they did to former CBS
reporter Sharyl Attkisson. In her recent book, she details a
campaign of digital harassment that sounds like something
out of a spy novel. The following comes from the
Washington Post…
The breaches on Attkisson’s computer, says this source,
are coming from a
“sophisticated entity that used commercial,
nonattributable spyware that’s proprietary to
a government agency: either the CIA, FBI, the
Defense Intelligence Agency, or the National
Security Agency (NSA).”
Attkisson learns from “Number One” that one intrusion
was launched from the WiFi at a Ritz Carlton Hotel and
the
“intruders discovered my Skype account
handle, stole the password, activated the
audio, and made heavy use of it, presumably
as a listening tool.”
To round out the revelations of “Number One,”
he informs Attkisson that he’d found three
classified documents deep inside her
operating system, such that she’d never know
they were even there. “Why? To frame me?”
Attkisson asks in the book.
If they can do all of that to Sharyl Attkisson, they can do it
to Donald Trump too.
Trump needs to understand that the deep state is trying to
destroy him, and that everything that he says and does is
being monitored.
.
So until Trump can completely clean house at all of our
intelligence agencies, he is going to have to be extremely
careful 24 hours a day.
And let us hope that Trump is ultimately victorious in his
struggle against the deep state, because the future of this
nation is literally hanging in the balance.

313
 ‘Disaster’ Poll Shows Democrats
Less Popular Than Trump, GOP Or Media
Published Time: 10 Mar, 2017 18:26Edited Time: 11 Mar, 2017 13:17
Former Democratic US presidential candidate Hillary Clinton
© Brian Snyder / Reuters
President Donald Trump may tweet too much, but his
approval ratings are higher than those of the media and the
opposition Democrats, a new poll has shown. The results
are ringing alarm bells among some liberals.
A USA Today/Suffolk University poll, conducted in the
first week of March, shows Trump’s approval rating at 47
percent, and his personal favorability at 45 percent. Sixty
percent of respondents disapprove of his temper, and 59
percent think he tweets too much.
While USA Today called Trump’s approval “a poor rating
by historic standards,” the numbers looked even worse for
his opponent in the November 2016 presidential election
and the opposition Democratic Party: Hillary Clinton
recorded only a 35 percent approval rating, while the
Democrats were at 36 percent.
“This is a disaster. At a time when Donald
Trump is the least liked president ever
measured at this point in his first term, the
Democratic Party has found a way to be
314
even less liked than him. This is how
Donald Trump wins a second term,”
progressive activist Shaun King wrote in
the New York Daily News on Thursday.
The Democratic party “struggles to hear the truth about
itself,” King added, and pointed out that most Democrats
he spoke with could not tell him what the party stands for.
Last month, the Democrats elected former Labor
Secretary Tom Perez as their new National Committee
chair. Perez was backed by Clinton and former President
Barack Obama, while his principal rival, Rep. Keith
Ellison (R-Minnesota) enjoyed the support of the left wing
of the party, led by independent Vermont Senator Bernie
Sanders.
The party’s poor showing in the Suffolk poll is even more
significant when considering that the sample of 1,000
registered voters included 352 Democrats, 330
Republicans and 318 independents.
Broken down by party affiliation, Trump’s approval rating
is much higher among Republicans (88 percent) and is
higher than disapproval among independents by 2
percentage points. More Democrats (11 percent) approve
of Trump than Republicans disapprove (8 percent).
Slightly fewer Democrats (7 percent) and Republicans (86
percent) have a favorable opinion of Trump personally,
with independents holding steady at 44 percent.
A whopping 93 percent of Republicans, 61 percent of
independents, and even 15 percent of Democrats have an
unfavorable view of Hillary Clinton, while slightly more
independents (57 percent) disapprove of Democrats than of
Republicans (51 percent).
While the respondents mostly disagreed (59 percent) with
Trump’s description of journalists as “enemies of the
people,” the majority of Republicans (78 percent) and
independents (56 percent) had an unfavorable view of the
media, along with 19 percent of Democrats.
Most of the respondents disapproved of Trump’s
temperament (60 percent) and thought he was tweeting too
much (59 percent), but 55 percent agreed that he has
“shown leadership” and 46 percent believe the country is
headed in the right direction – a 12-point swing up from
the same poll in December 2016.
 The Deep State And The Dark Arts
By Jason Hirthler
March 10, 2017
Rejecting populism for hegemony
There’s a superb scene in the movie Syriana where CIA
bureaucrats distance themselves from one of their agents,
Bob, played by George Clooney, who has become a
troublesome asset for the agency. Terry, the pack leader,
begins to extemporize a narrative to his subordinates. With
cool detachment, he tells them:
“Put some space between us and Bob. Bob
has a long history of entrepreneurial
operations. We haven’t really had a handle
on Bob for years. After 9/11, some people
got a lot of leeway, let their emotions get
the best of them. These are complex times.
There’s already an active investigation into
Bob’s activities in…help me out here.”
At this point, the group flesh out the details of how they’re
going to burn the agency’s connection to Bob, painting
him as an agent gone rogue, slipping the net of agency
supervision, defying protocol, and ultimately selling
himself to unsavory elements that want a U.S. asset killed.
In this way, the leviathan spits out a loyal servant,
rendering him obsolete with a fable and a slander,
sanctified by the imprimatur of the officialdom.
We should note the importance of the media in all this
storyline, albeit fictional. The dark arts of propaganda
aren’t overtly mentioned, but they are the pivotal tools that
will animate the destruction of Bob’s career. All sound
strangely familiar? It should. It’s pretty much the script the
intelligence community uses as its modus operandi when it
needs to deal with an inconvenient public servant.
315
Theater of the Absurd
With rumors of detente crackling through the ether, the
imperialist machinery of anti-Russian foreign policy has
cranked into high gear, leveraging leaks and the press to
mute Trump’s overtures of peace. Leaks to the The
Washington Post were leveraged in last month’s
excommunication of National Security Advisor Michael
Flynn. Flynn was rather easily vanquished by a leak from
within the American intelligence community outing him as
a confabulator and, in pundit spin, a man vulnerable to
blackmail by the Kremlin.
After Flynn’s unceremonious ouster, Attorney General Jeff
Sessions was the next target, pilloried by Democrats for
his contacts with the Russian ambassador Sergey Kislyak,
something he declined to mention in his confirmation
hearings. A third interaction has now been surmised, with
tantalizing rumors Sessions was in the same room as
Kislyak during a cocktail party. Did they conspire over
canapes? Smuggle thumb drives wrapped in prosciutto?
Exchange piquillo peppers stuffed with nuclear codes? The
possibilities blossom like a mushroom cloud. Can you feel
the frisson of treason?
Of course, the FBI has been investigating more mundane
contacts between the Trump team and Moscow, a project
that will either result in Trump’s impeachment for some
manner of treason or his complete and utter subjection to
the foreign policy whims of the foreign policy
establishment. A Times article reported that the Obama
administration furiously laid the foundation for this
investigation by disseminating innuendo that Trump was
under Russian influence during the peace laureate’s last
days in office. Typically, the unofficial commentariat in
the comments thread praised Obama’s patriotism, as
though this wanton Wall Street servant was doing anything
other than performing last-minute janitorial services for his
venal party.
A few weeks ago, a Congressman (Rep. Darrell Issa)
obscurely called for the appointment of a special
prosecutor. But now Lindsey Graham has embraced the
call, suggesting one be named if contact between Trump
aides and Moscow were found, regardless of the content of
that contact. It reminds one of the proverb that Caesar’s
wife must be above even unfounded suspicion, let alone
actual wrongdoing. In any event, Graham and his
monomaniacal bedmate, John McCain, continue their lurid
press junket, now looking to subpoena intelligence
agencies for wiretaps of Trump phone calls, though former
Director of National Intelligence (DNI) James Clapper
refuted the wiretap rumor, as did FBI Director James
Comey, albeit by the oblique means of asking the Justice
Department to do so. In any event, the banishment of
Flynn, the tarring of Sessions, and the net of suspicion cast
over the Trump administration are fierce warnings from a
rattled foreign policy community, a modern equivalent of
the severed heads of Roman soldiers set on pikes as a
message from Visigoth hordes.
The enveloping of the president in a cacophony of
innuendo is likely a collaborative effort between the
Justice Department, the National Intelligence Agency, the
CIA, and crucially, the mainstream press. Beyond the
corridors of the Capitol Hill, civil-society organizations
like the George Soros-funded MoveOn.org and Barack
Obama’s robust Organizing for Action (OFA) are turning
up the heat on the streets, creating the visible signs of
unrest, sometimes violent, that have capsized governments
from Venezuela to Ukraine at the behest of Western
oligarchs.
In recent weeks, President Donald Trump’s appointment of
delusional hawk H.R. McMaster as National Security
Advisor, a call for an unnecessary $54 billion dollar
expansion of the military budget, his sudden demand for
the return of Crimea to Ukraine, his fulminant echoes of
Bush administration hysteria over Iran, among other
hawkish developments, can be read as an unsettled
president’s efforts to appease a foreign policy
establishment that is ruthlessly using the media to
undermine, and reign in, a wayward steward of empire.
Full-Spectrum Dominance vs. Clear-Headed Detente
But why is Russia such a perennial target of
Washington’s? Why are peaceful overtures toward
Moscow so scorned? As the Trump administration found
out, de-escalation is a no-no in Washington. Russia, along
with China, are the leading targets of American long-term
foreign policy. They represent the only two nations that
might seriously rival the U.S. in Eurasia, which is
considered the fulcrum of the 21st century global
economy. Preventing the rise of new rivals is long-
standing U.S. policy, most explicitly articulated by Paul
Wolfowitz on behalf of the Clinton administration in early
1990s.
None of this should come as a surprise. Consider what was
at stake. At the macro level, the entire program for global
hegemony is under threat. Outlined over decades by
foreign policy luminaries such as George Kennan, Allen
Dulles, Wolfowitz, and Zbigniew Brzezinksi, the general
plan is for full-spectrum dominance, meaning control of
land, sea, air, and space, on a planetary basis, with a
316
special emphasis on “Eurasian landmass,” as the ghoulish
McMaster called it in a recent anti-Russian speech.
If history is any guide, it is unacceptable for a U.S.
president to thaw relations with Russia unless that thaw
consists of Russia capitulating to American demands.
Mikhail Gorbachev’s trusting dismantling of the Soviet
Union and the Warsaw Pact led to a decade of Western
looting of Gorbachev’s country. Vladimir Putin has since
restored a measure of Russia’s economic and military
strength. Where Gorbachev was exploited, Putin is proving
resistant to such entreaties, except on the economic front,
where he appears to have bought into some of Western
neoliberal policy.
Instead, Putin is posing a threat to the forward progress of
Washington’s neoconservative foreign policy. He has
actively promoted a variety of pipeline projects that would
speed Russian oil and gas to Western Europe, undercutting
profits of Western multinationals and addicting NATO
nations to the energy teat of the Russian Federation. And
he has conducted a few military maneuvers that have
enraged the Washington elite, which are used to being
conciliated by effete comprador elite in developing
nations. This is different. A nuclear nation that can’t be
overrun or bombed into submission. And it shows.
After successfully dismembering Yugoslavia, Congo,
Afghanistan, Iraq, Libya, Yemen, the West-led spread of
chaos across the Middle East stalled in Syria. After happily
expanding NATO throughout Eastern Europe with little
opposition, expansion hit a wall in Ukraine. In both
instances, it is Moscow behind the holding action
preventing the American project of global dominion from
advancing. That’s why Putin has replaced Hugo Chavez as
the West’s most demonized public figure.
Worryingly for covetous D.C. schemers, there’s a lot of
new economic activity afoot in Eurasia, little of it
involving the U.S. This activity includes plans for a
Eurasian Union headed by Russia, a metastasizing
Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), and the rapidly
advancing One Belt, One Road vision of the Chinese. The
latter would effectively be a New Silk Road stretching
from Vladivostok to Lisbon, animating Chinese and
Russian economic influence across the Asian and
European continents, and lifting countries like Kyrgyzstan,
Kazakhstan, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan, and Uzbekistan.
This is Washington’s nightmare scenario, since no serious
geo-strategist believes global hegemony is feasible short of
dominion in Central Asia. This understanding fuels the
underlying animus toward Moscow and Beijing. It has
nothing to do with ceaseless repeated lies about Russian
aggression in Eastern Europe and Chinese aggression in
the South China Sea. And it has nothing to do with lies
about Moscow rigging the election for Donald Trump or
Michael Flynn lifting sanctions in a nefarious quid pro
quo.
The Deep State vs. the Nation State
Long-time Congressional staffer Mike Lofgren refers to
the murky agencies at work to ensure this planetary plan
stays on track as the “deep state,” in his book of the same
name. He writes that it includes key elements of the
national security state, which ensure continuity of policy
despite the superficial about-faces from one administration
to the next. The deep state is effectively a warlike
oligarchy, hell-bent on full spectrum dominance, driven by
a lust for wealth and power, and anxious to inscribe its
name in history. Specifically, Lofgren says, the deep state
includes the Department of Defense, the State Department,
the National Intelligence Agencies, Wall Street, the
defense industry, and the energy consortium, among other
major private players. They share common agendas,
operate a revolving door of employees, and have a
collective distaste for democracy, transparency, and
regulation. The deep state is the link between military
interventions and trans-pacific trade deals, between
sanctions and IMF loans. All of these tools, be they arms
or loans or legal structures, serve a single purpose: the
overarching control of world resources by a global
community of corporate elites. One can also see how these
three instruments of policy and power all do tremendous
damage to a particular entity, the nation-state. It is the
nation-state that is considered by elites to be the sole
remaining barricade between populations in nominal
democracies and their unfettered exploitation by
multinationals, although one might reasonably argue that
the state more often abets exploitation rather than deters it.
The Dystopia to Come
So where is this all headed? Aside from the theatrics of the
Trump presidency and its sequestration or removal. What
would full-spectrum dominance look like? Probably
something like a one-world market, populated by
enfeebled states, ruled by a worldwide raft of interlocking
investor rights agreements that allowed private capital to
plunder natural resources free of state restraints, such as
labor safeguards, environmental protections, reasonable
tax regimes, capital controls or border tariffs. Faceless
multinationals would pillage the planet, their anonymous
appointees manning the joysticks of power behind the
reflective glass of their cloud-draped spindles, unreachable
and unelected by the armies of the destitute that prowled
the wastelands below. The amalgamated forces of
corporate elitism would coolly play labor arbitrage across
continents, threaten and destroy defiant economies through
currency flight and commodity manipulation, and continue
to consume an outsized percentage of the world’s
resources. This would fulfill the hegemonic dreams of
.
317
former State Department Director of Policy Planning
Kennan, who once argued that we must dispense with
humanitarian concerns and “deal in straight power
concepts,” the better to control and consume an outsized
portion of the world’s resources, presumably a privilege
reserved for elite whites, and a selection of mandarins
from other ethnicities with special clearances.
A criminal corporate commonwealth, supported by a fiat
dollar as global reserve currency enforced by threat of war
and economic collapse, will be deaf to protest from below,
its weaponized satellites aimed at populations like sunlit
magnifiers at a column of ants. Currency itself would be
wholly digitized. This move would be sold as a positive
advance as it would provide better tax accountability and
therefore fund future programs of social uplift. Rather it
will be employed as a means of totalitarian financial
control over populations. Their wealth will be
institutionalized. The concept of withdrawal will fade
along with the fiction of ownership.
Terrorism will become the chosen tool of this elite power
(insofar as it isn’t already). Surgical strikes, be they
military, economic, or news-driven, will “keep the rabble
in line” as all societies become subservient to the portents
of war, the fear of inaccessible funds, and the black smears
of an amoral media. The ‘deep state’ will become an
obsolete term, as the nation-state will recede in memory as
a relic of a strife-ridden dark age.
After all, the laissez faire cult of the beltway actually
believes the planet would prosper sans nation-states. As
another scene from Syriana reminds us, elite capital has a
very different worldview from the majority of labor, who
continue to believe the state has a role to play defending
their interests. At one point in the film, Texas oil man
Danny Dalton lectures lawyer Bennett Holiday on the true
definition of corruption, “Corruption!? Corruption is
government interference in market efficiencies in the form
of government regulation. That’s Milton Friedman! He got
a goddamn Nobel Prize!” The U.S. already practices free-
market militarism, refusing to recognize borders, legal
constraints, or geostrategic jurisdiction. Why not free-
market finance and trade?
The good news is that, if you can clamber into the top one
percent of the U.S. population, for instance, serving as a
parasite on the grizzled hide of the corporate beast, you
might yet partake of unimaginable luxuries, high in the
clouds, sipping Mimosas as you transit between the ring-
fenced metropoles of the world, where stateless elites
intermingle.
 Sessions Considering "Outside Special Counsel"
To Review "Highly Politicized" Actions Of Obama DOJ
By Tyler Durden
Mar 10, 2017 11:15 PM

Even though Obama spent the waning days of his

administration boasting about how he had managed to
spend 8 years in the White House without a single
'scandal',
current Attorney General Jeff Sessions
seems to have a slightly different view
of how to define 'scandal'.
Hewitt: Now let me switch to the Department itself, Mr.
Attorney General. It has a bad eight years. I'm a proud
veteran of the Department of Justice as you are, but the
IRS case, the Fast and Furious case, Secretary Clinton's
server. The Department of Justice came under great
criticism. How about an outside counsel, not connected to
politics,

But perhaps Obama just "did not recall" some of the highly to review the DOJ's actions in those
controversial efforts of his administration including the matters with authority to bring charges
if underlying crimes are uncovered in
intentional IRS targeting of conservative political
the course of the investigation,
groups, Eric Holder's "Fast and Furious" gun running
program which ultimately resulted in him being held in
contempt of Congress and, of course, that infamous and just generally to look at how the DOJ operated in the
meeting between Bill Clinton and Loretta Lynch on the highly politicized Holder-Lynch years.
tarmac in Phoenix just as the DOJ and FBI were
contemplating whether or not to press charges against Sessions:
Hillary Clinton over her email scandal.
Well, I'm going to do everything I
Appearing on the air with radio host Hugh Hewitt, possibly can to restore independence
Sessions was asked if he would consider designating an and professionalism of the DOJ, so we're
outside counsel "not connected to politics" to take a second going to have to consider whether or
look at Justice Department actions that provoked not some outside special counsel is
Republican ire over the last eight years. Hewitt contended needed.
during his radio interview that the department had become
Generally, a good review of that internally is the first step
"highly politicized" during the Obama before any such decision is made.
administration and floated the idea of a
special review by an attorney with the
authority to bring criminal charges and
"just generally to look at how the
Department of Justice operated."

While Sessions was somewhat noncommittal, he did leave

the door open, saying he would do everything he could to

"restore the independence and

professionalism of the Department of
Justice." According to the AP, Sessions
said that "generally, a good review of
that internally is the first step before any
such decision is made" but continued on
to say that he "would have to consider
whether or not some outside special
counsel is needed."
Sessions went on to say the outcome of the IRS case, in
particular, remained "of real concern." The Justice
Department in 2015 found mismanagement at the tax
agency but no evidence that it had targeted a political
group based on its viewpoints or obstructed justice.

318
But we're sure this is just all 'much ado about nothing' as
they say...after all Loretta Lynch already said Bill just
stopped by her plane to chat about his grandkids for 30
minutes...surely she wouldn't attempt the mislead the
American people just to protect her administration, right?

319
 Four High School Students Are Suspended After Staging a
‘Build the Wall’ Protest in Support of Trump’s
Immigration Policies
Kaileen Gaul, Daily Mail
March 10, 2017
Four private school teens were suspended from their high
school for two days after staging a pro-
Trump demonstration and making disrespectful comments
towards other students.
The unidentified teenage boys from Grand Rapids
Christian High School in Grand Rapids, Michigan were
asked to stop their demonstration in favor of President
Trump’s immigration policies.
The school says they were not suspended for making a political
statement but because they made rude comments towards students
after the demonstration
On March 3, they held signs that read ‘Build the Wall’ and
‘Trump’ in front of a banner that read ‘Immigrants are a
Blessing Not a Burden’. A teacher stopped them after less
than a minute in footage obtained by WZZM.
But the school is saying the students weren’t suspended for
supporting Trump but for making disrespectful comments
at their fellow students.
Superintendent Thomas DeJonge told WZZM in a
statement:
.
320
‘To be clear, the students were not
disciplined because of having expressed
their political viewpoint.’
‘Rather, they were disciplined because of
the disruption they caused and disrespect
they demonstrated toward fellow students
and staff.’
The four teenagers also said they weren’t trying to make a
political statement but wanted to show both sides of a hot
topic according to Fox 17. They also clarified they are not
against legal immigration.
The teens appear to be posing for a picture before a teacher
runs up to stop them. They then have a calm conversation
as other students walk by, oblivious to what just happened.
The social justice group ‘Love Thy Neighbor’ put the
banner in the common area. After the teacher left tensions
were allegedly high which is why the students were
suspended.
The school released a statement saying the four have
apologized for their behavior.
Parents of the suspended students wondered why the
school would put a banner supporting a controversial
political issue up in the first place.
One parent asked:
‘Why are they bringing this political
nonsense into the school?’
President Trump won the popular vote in Kent County on
November 8. In the Republican primary, Ted Cruz won
and John Kasich came in second according to Kent
County data.
 It’s Showtime. Trump vs. Obama (VIDEO)
By: Michael DePinto -The Voice of Reason
Date: March 10, 2017

The cards are down, and it’s only a matter of time before
we see who has the better hand. After days of mentioning
the wiretapping of his phones by the Obama administration
on Twitter, President Trump has ordered a probe into
whether Obama abused his executive powers in 2016. We
hope that after that he’ll look at 2009 to 2015 as well,
because that’s sure to uncover even more dirty laundry. To
no one’s surprise, the dishonest media has been trying to
marginalize President Trump over the wiretapping
allegations by using the mantra of “fake news,” even
though they themselves reported everything President
Trump is saying.
In the following video, Right Wing News looks at how
Obama and various insiders from within the “deep state”
have been openly and seditiously sabotaging the Trump
administration with the intent of forcing his resignation or
impeachment, and how this time they may have pushed
President Trump too far. Now President Trump has struck
back and ordered an official probe, starting off a chain of
events that may very well be the largest political scandal in
US history. President Trump has laid his cards on the
table, and in the open; the only question is – can Obama
handle being forced into the light?
Breitbart reports:
The White House statement on
“DeepStateGate” — President Donald
Trump’s allegations that former President
Barack Obama ordered surveillance on him
during his 2016 presidential campaign — has
the feel of cards and chips thumping down on
the table:
The White House is placing a substantial bet on what
Congress will uncover. Don’t expect those cards to be
dealt swiftly because such investigations take time. The
Obama administration was highly adept at stalling
investigations until the Democratic media could pronounce
them “old news” and ignore the outcome.
The Trump administration can distinguish itself by
cooperating energetically with this one and helping it
move forward quickly. Rest assured that no matter how
long it takes, the media will never consider it “old news”
as long as there remains any chance for anyone connected
with the Trump 2016 campaign to get in trouble over
contacts with the Russians.
It’s possible one reason Trump issued his
explosive tweets on surveillance was to make
everyone put up or shut up.
That might already be working, as some of the more
aggressive dealers in unsubstantiated innuendo are
suddenly admitting they don’t have any actual evidence.
There can’t be any hard evidence if Trump is super-duper
wrong about Obama administration surveillance:

321

Until now, Democrats and their media have
been pleased to create the impression that
all kinds of wiretapping operations were
conducted against the Trump campaign,
uncovering many scandalous, possibly illegal
connections.
Only by reading those articles carefully does one discover
the sources are highly speculative and the evidence is thin
at best.
THIN AT BEST?
Here, via C-SPAN, is the transcript:
Franken: CNN just published a story alleging
that the intelligence community provided
documents to the president-elect last week, that
included information that “Russian operatives
claim to have compromising personal and
financial information about Mr. Trump.” These
documents also allegedly say “there was a
continuing exchange of information during
the campaign between Trump surrogates and
intermediaries for the Russian government.”
Again, I’m telling you this as it’s coming out, so
you know. But if it’s true, it’s obviously extremely
serious, and if there is any evidence that anyone
affiliated with the Trump campaign
communicated with the Russian government in
the course of this campaign, what will you do?
Sessions: Senator Franken, I’m not aware of
any of those activities. I have been called a
surrogate at a time or two in that campaign
and I did not have communications with the
Russians, and I’m unable to comment on it.
Franken: Very well.
The much-discussed New York Times piece from January
19 is a perfect example of this.
322
It begins by matter-of-factly confirming the
existence of the wiretaps everyone in
Obamaworld is now swearing are a figment of
Donald Trump’s imagination.
Mountains of innuendo about connections between the
Trump campaign and Russian intelligence have been spun
out of what these abruptly non-existent intercepts
contained, according to the anonymous leakers who
currently drive almost 100 percent of mainstream media
coverage.
But if you read that New York Times article carefully,
it admits the communications intercepts may
not exist, and if they do, no one can confirm
what they actually say (emphasis added):
American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are
examining intercepted communications and financial
transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible
links between Russian officials and associates of
President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former
campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former
senior American officials said.
The continuing counterintelligence investigation means
that Mr. Trump will take the oath of office on Friday with
his associates under investigation and after the intelligence
agencies concluded that the Russian government had
worked to help elect him. As president, Mr. Trump will
oversee those agencies and have the authority to redirect or
stop at least some of these efforts.
It is not clear whether the intercepted
communications had anything to do with Mr.
Trump’s campaign, or Mr. Trump himself. It is
also unclear whether the inquiry has anything
to do with an investigation into the hacking of
the Democratic National Committee’s
computers and other attempts to disrupt the
elections in November.
The American government has concluded that the Russian
government was responsible for a broad computer hacking
campaign, including the operation against the D.N.C.
Whatever President Trump’s intentions were
in using Twitter to touch off this firestorm,
one of the immediate effects has been letting
the gas out of all those speculative Trump
stories. The Democratic media is now
furiously working to prove all of its own
previous coverage of the Trump-Russia
allegations was little more than idle
speculation,
every bit as lacking in hard evidence as Trump’s
accusation that Obama was tapping his phones.
 After months of unfounded allegations and
badly sourced speculation intended to cripple
his administration, maybe Trump wanted to
prove that only one side of the partisan divide
is permitted to make “wild allegations.”
Obama’s plants in the Deep State can leak
whatever they please, law and truth be
damned.
They can get an avalanche of hostile coverage moving
with a few phone calls or emails. The media feels no
contrition when the story turns out to be exaggerated or
completely false, eagerly turning to the same Obama
holdovers as sources for the next big phony scoop.
No one on Trump’s team, including the president himself,
is allowed to reciprocate in kind. We are meant to feel
bottomless outrage that Trump would level unsubstantiated
allegations against Obama, but apparently, Obama’s
minions can launch a constant barrage of unsubstantiated
allegations against Trump.
Intentionally or accidentally, Trump just
forced the press to admit how weak the bulk
of those allegations were. The wiretapping
timeline that has drawn so much attention
since Saturday night was largely based on
mainstream media reporting.
The media is effectively saying, “Hey, wait, we were just
blowing smoke. We didn’t think anyone would take those
reports seriously and build a case that Obama was
wiretapping Trump. We just wanted to make Trump look
bad by pumping up vague rumors that he and his campaign
might have been under observation!”
Amazingly, the same media that just went
through 48 hours of convulsions over a
bogus “perjury” charge against Attorney
General Jeff Sessions is happy to cite an
actual, admitted perjurer, former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper, as an
unimpeachable source on the exact issue he
lied about to Congress.
They also expect the American people to trust former
Obama adviser Ben Rhodes, who openly bragged of his
ability to mislead credulous reporters and construct phony
narratives to sell the Iran nuclear deal.
The Obama administration’s enthusiasm for
surveillance and using government power
against its political enemies is a matter of
shameful record.
The no-holds-barred “Resistance” mindset among
Democrats is painfully obvious. If they are running a
.
323
“silent coup” against Trump, it’s the loudest silent coup in
history. You can scarcely sleep at night over the racket this
silent coup makes.
Sorry, DNC Media, no sale. In the absence of hard
evidence one way or the other, Team Obama is not going
to win a credibility shootout with Team Trump.
One of the best and most even-handed observers of the
wiretapping drama is Andy McCarthy, who writes for the
decidedly non-Trumpian National Review.
McCarthy’s Sunday post on the matter is well
worth reading in full. His key point is that
some highly unusual FISA requests for
surveillance on the Trump campaign were
made and were denied by the court, as very
few such requests are.
The Obama administration was persistent and eventually
obtained the authorization it wanted, but there is reason to
suspect it was not entirely candid with the FISA court on
its final, successful request.
McCarthy points out that if Obama believed half of what
the Democrats tout as sacred truth about the Russians
working with Trump’s campaign, he would have been
negligent not to authorize the kind of surveillance Trump
is angry about, and there is “a less than zero chance”
surveillance could have been imposed “without
consultation between the Justice Department and the White
House.”
Robert Barnes at LawNewz also explores the idea of the
FISA court approving a warrant that was submitted
without Trump’s name but “which Obama then misused to
spy on Trump and many connected to Trump.” He
suggests the most serious legal jeopardy that might be
facing the people involved in such an effort would be
perjury for lying to the FISA court and the dissemination
of collected intelligence that should have been kept tightly
classified. Instead, he cites reports that Obama acted to
reduce the restrictions on sharing this information and to
preserve material that should have been destroyed.
What McCarthy and Barnes are describing is
plausible and consistent with the behavior of
the Obama administration over many years.
That doesn’t mean it’s automatically true, but it should be
investigated, every bit as thoroughly as Russian activity in
the 2016 election cycle. Trump’s weekend tweets may
have finally put an end to speculative reporting, strategic
leaking, and innuendo. Perhaps the only way to end that
game was for Trump to deal himself in.
 Welcome To Totalitarian America,
President Trump!
Via Antoniusaquinas.Com,
Mar 10, 2017 10:00 PM
If there had been any doubt that the land
of the free and home of the brave is now
a totalitarian society, the revelations that
its Chief Executive Officer has been
spied upon while campaigning for that
office and during his brief tenure as
president should now be allayed.
President Trump joins the very crowded list of opponents
of the American State which includes the Tea Party, tax
resistors, non-interventionists, immigration opponents,
traditional family advocates, and a host of others who have
been spied upon, persecuted and badgered by federal
“intelligence” authorities. While Congress conducted
some feeble hearings and investigations of the shenanigans
of the US spy agencies during the interminable Obummer
Administration, no real action or reform was taken to reign
in the eavesdropping and spying by the national security
state on American citizens.
Hopefully, the surveillance of President
Trump will change his outlook on the
US “intelligence community” especially
in regard to those courageous souls
who have spoken out and risked life and
limb to alert the public about their
rulers’ nefarious activities.
Edward Snowden should be among the first to receive a
pardon while the person who provided him sanctuary from
his American persecutors, the reviled Vladimir Putin,
should be commended for his noble act, a rarity among
world leaders in this democratic age.
President Trump has demonstrated
throughout his life loyalty to those who
have supported him.
324
He should, therefore, do all in his power to extricate Julian
Assange from the Ecuadoran Embassy in Great Britain and
provide him with safe conduct to the US or any destination
in which the heroic whistleblower prefers. Without the
deluge of Wikileaks during last fall’s presidential contest
exposing the massive corruption of the Clintonistas, it is
unlikely that Trump would have ever prevailed never mind
winning by an electoral landslide.
Not only has candidate and President
Trump been monitored, but just about
every American citizen is under
surveillance, the data of which can be
used against them at the appropriate
time if and when they should challenge
the American Leviathan.
NSA whistleblower William Binney confirmed what has
been long known in government circles and by those
Americans awake to Washington’s tyranny.
Binney confirmed Trump’s suspicion
about surveillance to Fox News, “I think
the president is absolutely right. His phone
calls, everything he did electronically was
being monitored.” He added that,
“Everyone’s conversations are being
monitored and stored.”
Ironically, it has been the immense wealth generated by a
relatively free market in America that has provided the
means for the government to create, expand, and maintain
such a sophisticated and dangerous spying apparatus that is
now being used on the very people funding it.
That such a situation could emerge
under the supposed “checks and
balances” of the US Constitution
demonstrates again how truly worthless
the document is in the protection of
individual rights.
While reform of the current system has proven to be futile
and without any constitutional restraint, it, unfortunately,
will mean that spying and the murderous US empire of
which it is a part will continue as long as the economy
does not collapse and the dollar retains its world reserve
status. A silver lining, therefore, from a dollar crisis,
would mean a decline in the US military and security state.
Of course, the demise of the US spy and
military establishment will not be a
simple process, but will be fraught with
tremendous social and political upheaval
and more than likely bloodshed as the
Deep State will do everything in its
power to protect its turf.
While a collapse may be a ways off, it is hoped that the
spying on President Trump will move him to rethink his
position on the Deep State which wants to sabotage his
every move that goes against its interests most notably a
potential detente with Russia.
.
325
Talk of deescalation of American
military presence in world affairs is
anathema to the powers that be.
In his Inaugural Address, President
Trump repeatedly promised to put
America first. The nation’s intelligence
agencies do not share that vision, but
instead owe their allegiance to the New
World Order.
If the President has not figured this out after having been
secretly monitored, there is little hope for the near future.
 Trump Administration Moves To Approve
New Arms Sales To Saudi Arabian War Criminals
Michael Krieger
Posted Friday Mar 10, 2017 At 12:21 Pm
This week’s episode of “Empire Gone Wild” features our
freshly inaugurated dear leader, Donald Trump, who
appears determined to enthusiastically continue the Obama
administration’s policy of recklessly arming Saudi war
criminals.
First, here’s a little background from The Washington
Post:
The State Department has approved a resumption of
weapons sales that critics have linked to Saudi Arabia’s
bombing of civilians in Yemen, a potential sign of
reinvigorated U.S. support for the kingdom’s
involvement in its neighbor’s ongoing civil war.
The proposal from the State Department would reverse a
decision made late in the Obama administration to suspend
the sale of precision guided munitions to Riyadh, which
leads a mostly Arab coalition conducting airstrikes against
Houthi rebels in Yemen.
While the U.S. military has provided support to the Saudi-led
air campaign since 2015, including aerial refueling for Saudi
jets and a U.S. advisory mission in the Saudi operations
headquarters, the Obama administration sought to scale
back that support last year amid alleged Saudi strikes on
civilian targets.
Of course, this “scaling back” of support only emerged
following massacre upon massacre. For a little more
background history, see:
 U.S. Government May Be Guilty of War Crimes Due
to Support for Saudi War in Yemen
326
 Are the Saudis Using U.S. Supplied White
Phosphorous in Yemen?
 U.S. Government Reaffirms Total Support for Saudi
War Crimes in Yemen‘Saudi Arabia Bombs Second
Yemeni Wedding in a Week – At Least 23 Dead
 Saudi Arabia Bombs Second Yemeni Wedding in a
Week – At Least 23 Dead
Despite Saudi hopes that the conflict would quickly restore
Hadi to power, it is now approaching its third year. As of
January, the conflict had led to the deaths of at least
10,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.
Pressure increased on the Obama administration in
October, when Saudi jets attackeda Yemeni funeral
hall, killing more than 100 people. At the end of a review
prompted by that strike, the Obama White House made the
decision to halt the planned sale of roughly $390 million
worth of precision munitions guidance systems to the
kingdom.
Trump has already supported the expansion of a separate
military campaign in Yemen, one that U.S. forces are now
waging against al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP),
a potent militant group that has grown stronger amid
Yemen’s instability.
If the White House gives its blessing to the new State
Department position, the administration would then notify
Congress about its intent to move forward with the sale. It
could encounter resistance on Capitol Hill.
“If you are interested in radicalizing the Yemeni population
against the United States and pushing them into al-Qaeda’s
arms, then continue to sell weapons to Saudi Arabia,” said
Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.). “The Saudis are
deliberately going after civilian targets.”
Last fall, Murphy was the co-sponsor of a measure that
would have blocked a separate sale of Abrams main battle
tanks to Saudi Arabia. While the measure did not pass, it
was a rare public sign of frustration with an allied nation
that has been an important customer for U.S. defense
companies.
That last sentence tells you all you need to know about
what really drives U.S. policy in the region.
Moving along, although the situation looks bleak, there’s a Paul told Al-Monitor he expected to team up with fellow
chance for bi-partisan resistance in Congress which could committee member Chris Murphy, D-Conn., on trying to
prove more effective than the last go around. block the sale, just as they did last fall with a $1 billion tank
sale to Riyadh. That resolution trying to block the sale was
As Al-Monitor reports: defeated 71-27 after resolution opponents insisted that the
tanks were in fact defensive weapons meant to keep
southern Saudi Arabia safe from incursions by Iran-backed
Congress is bracing for another showdown over arms sales
Houthi rebels.
to Saudi Arabia less than six months after lawmakers’ last
fight on the issue.
“There were some members who voted against our
resolution last time because [they said] it wasn’t the right
The Donald Trump administration is expected to formally
arms sale [to oppose],” Murphy told Al-Monitor. “Well, this
notify lawmakers soon of its intention to resume the sale of
is clearly the right arms sales. We heard testimony in the
precision-guided munitions that were put on hold by
Foreign Relations Committee that nothing has gotten better
President Barack Obama. The notification
with respect to Saudi targeting. I don’t know why we would
would automatically trigger a 30-day review period during
give them precision-guided munitions that allow them to
which Congress can try to block the sale.
target civilians more efficiently.”
“We’ll have the same debate we had in the fall on it,” said
Murphy was referring to a Senate Foreign Relations panel
Senate Foreign Relations Committee member Rand Paul,
hearing on US policy in Yemen on March 9 during which
R-Ky. “We will oppose it.”
the arms sale repeatedly came up. Earlier in the day,
Amnesty International released a report accusing Saudi
The Washington Post reported March 8 that the State Arabia of using banned cluster munitions in raids on
Department has approved the sale, kicking it over to the residential areas.
White House for a final determination. Obama blocked the
sale of 16,000 precision-guided munitions from Raytheon
Let’s hope Congress does the right thing for once, but I’m
worth more than $350 million in December following a
not holding my breath. Defense companies pay too well.
Saudi strike on a Yemeni funeral that killed more than 100
people.
.

327
 Trump Invites Palestinian
Leader Abbas To White House
Fri Mar 10, 2017 7:33PM

And, Netanyahu went on to describe Trump as the greatest

supporter of the Tel Aviv regime.

During a joint press conference with US President Donald

Trump at the White House, Netanyahu said there was

"no greater supporter of" Israel and Israelis

"than President Donald Trump."

US President Donald Trump (left) and Palestinian President

Mahmoud Abbas
US President Donald Trump has invited
Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas
to visit the White House, reports say.

The invitation was extended to Abbas by Trump during

their first phone conversation on Friday since the US
president’s inauguration on January 20, the official
Palestinian news agency Wafa reported.
Trump invited the Palestinian leader
"to visit the White House soon to discuss
ways to resume the (Palestinian-Israeli)
political process," Abbas's spokesman was
quoted as saying.
Spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said that
emphaiszed his
"commitment to a peace process that
would lead to a real peace between
Palestinians and Israelis.”
US President Donald Trump (R) and Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu hold a meeting in the Oval Office of the White
House in Washington, D.C., February 15, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
"Let us seize this moment" to further the
Israeli agenda in the Middle East,
Netanyahu told Trump.
In his remarks, the US president supported the relocation
of the US embassy from Tel Aviv to the occupied
Jerusalem al-Quds. Trump, however, said Washington was
Trump
"looking at it with great care."
Trump also responded to a question about his position on
Israeli settlements. He urged Netanyahu to

On his turn, Abbas told Trump that peace

was a "strategic choice" for Palestinians
that should lead to the "establishment of a
Palestinian state alongside Israel,”
according to Wafa.
In mid-February, Trump met with Israeli Prime Minister
Benjamin Netanyahu at the White House.
"hold back on settlements for a little bit."
According to American author Ralph Schoenman, the two-
state solution that the US Democrats and Republicans have
pursued over the years is “totally fraudulent.”
Schoenman told Press TV that the statement by Trump that

At that meeting, Trump said he would not pursue decades “he is not insisting upon a two-state
of American policy in favor of the so-called two-state solution and is prepared to accommodate
solution in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. himself to Netanyahu’s determination to
328
 abandon and reject the possibility of a two-
state solution, is essentially an embrace of
an agenda on the part of both Israel and
the United States of an escalated conflict in
the region.”
This file photo shows a general view of the illegal Israeli Ramat
Shlomo settlement in East Jerusalem al-Quds. (Photo by AFP)
.
329
Over half a million Israelis live in more than 230 illegal
settlements built since the 1967 Israeli occupation of the
Palestinian territories of the West Bank, including East
Jerusalem al-Quds.
The continued expansion of Israeli settlements in occupied
Palestine has created a major obstacle to the efforts to
establish peace in the Middle East.
The Palestinian Authority wants the West Bank as part of a
future independent Palestinians state, with East Jerusalem
al-Quds as its capital.
 Report: Sean Spicer Briefly Banned
From Air Force One After Trump Blow Up
By Jon Levine
1:34 Pm, March 10th, 2017

televised briefings, buried deep below the lede was the

following nugget:

On Friday, Mr. Spicer was among the group of Mr.

Trump’s senior aides temporarily banished from Air Force
One after Mr. Trump erupted at his staff in frustration
during an Oval Office meeting.

The meeting referred to was almost certainly a contentious

expletive-laden affair that Trump led among his senior
staff shortly before launching into his now infamous
Was White House press secretary Sean Spicer briefly tweetstorm accusing his predecessor, Barack Obama, of
banned from Air Force One? wiretapping his home in Trump Tower.

Journalist Michael M. Grynbaum made the claim in a Since his first day on the job berating the press about
March 6 story for the New York Times, titled Sean Spicer Trump’s inaugural crowd size, rumors have circulated
Meets the Press. No Cameras Allowed, Again. While the widely that Spicer’s relationship with the President has
article was nominally about Spcier’s growing aversion to been strained.

330
 New York Times 'Fixes' Headline
Removes 'Wiretapped' From Reference To Feds'
Investigation Of Trump Aides
Bob Unruh
Updated: 03/10/2017 At 10:24 PM
Editor’s Note: Rush Limbaugh posted a correction regarding the
New York Times’ headline after this story was published. It says:
“After today’s show we learned that the New York Times did not
alter its headline. They say there were two headlines all along,
one in the online version, and one in the print edition. The print
edition used the word ‘wiretapped’ and the online edition never
did. However, this does not change the premise that the story
(Trump and Russians hacked the election) is waning in the
MSM.”
This WND story has been corrected to reflect that the change
was made between the print version and the online version.
The New York Times used the word “wiretapped” in the
print headline of a pre-inauguration story on data being
used by the federal government to investigate aides to
President Donald Trump.
But not in the online version.
The variance came to light after Trump charged his
campaign headquarters was wiretapped by the federal
government, drawing criticism from longtime federal
employees and Democrats.
331
The Times’ headline was “Wiretapped
Data Used In Inquiry Of Trump Aides” in
print and “Intercepted Russian
communications part of inquiry into Trump
associates” online. The text of the
story included the term “wiretapped.”
WND reported Monday that establishment media,
including the Times itself, had reported the Trump
campaign was under federal surveillance.
On Jan. 19, just as Trump was preparing for his
inauguration the next day, the Times revealed, “American
law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining
intercepted communications and financial transactions as a
part of a broad investigation into possible links between
Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald
J. Trump.”
The report speculated whether the
“intercepted communications had anything
to do with Mr. Trump’s campaign, or Mr.
Trump himself.”
The Times referred to intelligence reports that are
 “based on some of the wiretapped
communications”
and said they were provided to the White House, at the
time still under Barack Obama.
On Thursday, talk-radio icon Rush Limbaugh was at full
speed on the issue.
“Say, have you noticed, my friends, that the
whole Russians-stole-the-election theme is
gone? Have you noticed it’s not out there
today? You can’t find a story on it? I’m
gonna tell you why, ’cause we had a major
role in this I am convinced right here on the
EIB Network yesterday ’cause we nailed
’em.”
He posted an image of the print Times headline and said:
“Have you seen any stories about the
Russians hacking the elections? It’s gone,
and so is the New York Times headline
from the January 20th story with ‘wiretaps.’
They have gone back, and they have
changed it. ‘Wiretaps’ is not in that headline
anymore.”
He continued:
“What has happened to the Democrats’
and media’s story on the Russians working
with Trump to steal the election from
Hillary? It’s gone. It’s not out there today.
There aren’t any updates. We’ve got a
revised New York Times headline –
sneaky, sneaky, sneaky – as they
postdate-change the headline, wiping out
the word ‘wiretaps’ and ‘wiretapped’ from
their headline on a story January 20th.”
The Master of None blog wondered whether someone
figured out at the New York Times
“that the word ‘wiretapped’ would prove
troublesome.”
WND reported the Times piece, which carried four bylines
and a contributor, said its discoveries would mean that
Trump
“will take the oath of office on Friday with
his associates under investigation.”
The Times said Paul Manafort is among at least three
Trump campaign advisers whose possible links to Russia
are under scrutiny. Two others are Carter Page, a
332
businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the
campaign, and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican
operative.
The Times had to admit, however, that, while
“investigators have accelerated their efforts
in recent weeks [they] have found no
conclusive evidence of wrongdoing.”
McClatchy, only a day earlier, had quoted two people
“familiar” with the issue saying that the FBI and five other
agencies were collaborating on an investigation into
“Russian attempts to influence the
November election.”
That probe was helped along by
“a former British spy hired to develop
politically damaging and unverified
research about Trump,” the report said.
The report repeatedly refers to “email hacks” referencing
the break-ins into the digital domain of the Democratic
National Committee and others.
The claim at the time was that the hacks were done to hurt
the campaign of Hillary Clinton.
Democratic Sen. Dianne Feinstein of California said she
even believed Russia’s tactics altered the election result.
And Breitbart pointed out over the weekend, shortly after
Trump’s comments, the New York Times
“has inadvertently attacked the credibility of
its own reporting on the Obama
administration’s investigation of Russia and
now-President Donald Trump.”
“Times reporters Michael Schmidt and
Michael Shear write that Trump believes
the ‘deep state’ intelligence community,
staffed with holdovers from the Obama
administration, wiretapped several of his
campaign associates because of a
spurious article from Breitbart News.”
The report said Trump’s demand for a congressional
inquiry into the issue
“appears to be based, at least in part, on
unproved claims by Breitbart News and
conservative talk radio hosts that secret
warrants were issued authorizing the
 tapping of the phones of Mr. Trump and his
aides at Trump Tower in New York.”
But the Breitbart article
“cites the Times’ own reporting on the
intelligence community. Their January 19th
article … quotes an anonymous source
who says that ‘wiretapped communications
had been provided to the White House.'”
Obama, who has been documented to have used the
surveillance apparatus of the U.S. government against his
foes, has been defended by spokesmen who have been
careful to leave
“open the possibility of sensational
executive overreach if not outright illegal
activities.”
.
333
Tom Fitton, president of Judicial Watch,
said the “deep state” is in full rebellion
against Trump and will go to any lengths to
cover their tracks.
“I’ve been saying for some time that the
scandal involves surveillance and illegal
leaks of information concerning the Trump
team,” he said.
“The left had been trying to distract the
public with the unicorn theory of election
and the Russians quote ‘stealing’ the
election when in fact you had the
president’s people in the Obama
administration surveilling and trying to
influence the election prior to it and then
afterward leaking information in a way to
destroy the Trump administration.”
 ‘Hypocritical Democracy’:
2016 US Election Was Full Of ‘Lies & Farces,’ China Says
Published Time: 10 Mar, 2017 13:32Edited Time: 10 Mar, 2017 13:53
The 2016 US presidential election was full of “lies and
farces” and was driven by “power-for-money deals,”
which in itself was sign of “hypocritical nature of US
democracy,” a Chinese government agency stated in a
report on America’s human rights record.
“In 2016, money politics and power-for-
money deals controlled the presidential
election, which was full of lies and farces,”
read an annual report released by the
China’s State Council Information Office,
as cited by Xinhua news agency.
There have been “no guarantees of political rights,” and
the election itself, accompanied by large-scale protests,
provided “full exposure of the hypocritical nature of US
democracy,” the government paper stated.
Beijing’s paper then went on to criticize the
US for “continued deterioration in some key
aspects of its existent human rights issues
last year,” mentioning “the gunshots
lingering in people’s ears behind the Statue
of Liberty, worsening racial discrimination
and the election farce dominated by money
politics.”
These instances once again saw Washington undermining
“its human rights ‘myth’ with its own
deeds,” the report added.
In conclusion, China chastised its geopolitical rival for
continuing
“to trample on human rights in other
countries, causing tremendous civilian
casualties” in countries such as Iraq, Syria,
Pakistan, Yemen, and Somalia.
The government paper was released just days after the US
State Department published its annual report on human
.
334
rights practices, which lashed out at aspects of China’s
domestic policies, criticizing Beijing for neglecting civil
and political rights. It also stated that the government
curtails freedoms in Hong Kong and Macau.
“Repression and coercion” of civil society
remained severe, the State Department
maintained, adding, “As in previous years,
citizens did not have the right to choose
their government and elections were
restricted to the lowest local levels of
governance.”
The report also claimed the existence of
“arbitrary or unlawful deprivation of life,
executions without due process, illegal
detentions at unofficial holding facilities
known as “black jails,” torture and coerced
confessions of prisoners… and others
whose actions the authorities deemed
unacceptable.”
The report was not launched by new Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson, who broke a long-standing tradition by
declining to make a public appearance to announce the
release. The practice existed for more than 40 years, as
previous secretaries of state took part in the public launch
or made public comments to mark the report’s publication.
Meanwhile, there are some indications that Washington
might be considering withdrawal from the 47-member UN
Human Rights Council, a major international agency
which oversees the state of human rights and liberties
worldwide.
In late February, Politico reported, citing a former State
Department official, that the Trump administration was
apparently considering the measure due to the council’s
critical attitude towards Israel and its alleged inefficiency.
“There’s been a series of requests coming
from the secretary of state’s office that
suggests that he is questioning the value of
the US belonging to the Human Rights
Council,” the source said. The UN director
at Human Rights Watch (HRW), Lou
Charbonneau, said such a move would be
“misguided and shortsighted.”
 Is Mike Pence The Deep State's Insurance Policy?
Authored By Darius Shahtahmasebi Via Theantimedia.Org
Mar 10, 2017 6:20 PM
Last month, Anti-Media reported on leaked intelligence
that forcibly ousted national security adviser Michael
Flynn from the Trump administration.
Flynn’s successor, General H.R.
McMaster, is far more hawkish, and in
comparison to Flynn, takes a much
more anti-Russian stance.
It isn’t too much of a stretch to assume McMaster’s job
will be secure if he continues to perpetuate the anti-
Russian narrative we have become so familiar with in
recent decades.
Despite this, the media still perpetuates anti-Russian
hysteria and repeated claims regarding the Trump
administration’s ties to Russia — despite the fact that
Flynn, Trump’s supposed go-between with Russia, has
already relinquished his power.
Why would this be?
As most people are aware,
Trump was able to secure his seat in the
White House by offering a markedly
different vision for America than Hillary
Clinton, who largely mirrored Obama’s
presidency.
Both Clinton and Obama had very hawkish approaches to
Russia and Russia’s strategic allies in the Middle East. In
contrast, Trump was clear that he respected Russia’s
president and wanted to forge closer relations.
The first thing to note is that Trump has
been keeping most of his campaign
promises to date — even the most
outlandish ones.
The second is that Flynn was actually in the process of
offering a deal on economic sanctions against Russia and a
ceasefire in Ukraine, suggesting there was substance
behind Trump’s pro-Russia rhetoric. The issue with this, of
course, is that ultimately, there are people within the
intelligence community who view a warming of relations
with Russia to be a deal breaker with the Trump
administration.
335
Evidently, there are those behind the scenes within the
deep state and the intelligence community who still fear
that Trump could take away their long-held anti-Russian
narrative, which has arguably been fueling the need for
such a large and oversized military budget since World
War II.
So where is this headed?
If Trump doesn’t adopt the Cold War 2.0
approach of Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton and is forced out of his own
administration in the same manner as
Flynn, it will become clear why once we
learn who would replace him: Mike Pence.
As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin observed:
“Pence is seen by many in Washington
as a figure who might stand up for the
traditionally hawkish views he espoused
while in Congress, a proxy of sorts for
the GOP national security
establishment.”
According to White House officials, lawmakers and
experts,
Pence, a “traditional hawk influenced
heavily by his Christian faith” is
reportedly advancing a Rasputin-esque
agenda in which he can appease Trump in
the meantime by working within Trump’s
proposed foreign policy framework, as well
as respect the prerogatives of other senior
White House aides who want to play large
foreign policy roles.
According to Rogin, behind the scenes,
Pence will ultimately help shape
Trump’s foreign policy into the
traditional style witnessed under
Obama:
“Inside the White House, Pence is in the
room during most of the president’s
interactions with world leaders. He receives
the presidential daily brief. As head of the
transition, he was instrumental in bringing
several traditionally hawkish Republicans
 into the top levels of the administration’s
national security team, including Director of
National Intelligence-designate Dan Coats,
CIA Director Mike Pompeo and U.N.
Ambassador Nikki Haley.”
It was because of Pence that the U.S. decided to confront
Russia and Syria at the U.N. over Syria’s alleged use of
chemical weapons, despite everything Trump has
previously said regarding resetting U.S. policy with regard
to Syria and Russia.
However, the true extent of Pence’s hold
over Trump — and the true nature of the
agenda he serves — can be seen in his
role in ousting Flynn in the first place.
Rogin continues:
“The chief example was when Pence
personally spoke to Trump about
removing national security adviser
Michael Flynn, who had lied to him about
conversations with Russian officials during
the transition.” [emphasis added]
Since this occurrence, Pence has reportedly taken up more
of the role previously occupied by Flynn.
.
336
No matter what one makes of Trump — or his
administration and the policies that have been initiated
thus far — the fact remains that Trump won the U.S.
election.
The people working behind the scenes
to oust him are not subject to
democratic controls, nor are they
working in the best interests of the
American public. We are left to ask
ourselves exactly how renewing
relations with Russia – a nuclear power
– could possibly endanger American
lives.
Either way, we are more or less left with
two paths ahead of us. The first path
involves Trump giving in and adopting an
anti-Russian agenda, as is already
apparent in his decision to send more
ground troops to Syria alongside Saudi
troops, who will intentionally oppose the
Syrian regime (a close ally of Russia). The
second involves the possibility of another
direct coup within the Trump
administration, this time one that may
ultimately force Trump out of the White
House so he can be replaced by Mike
Pence, a war hawk who will be more than
happy to do the job Hillary Clinton wanted
to do.
 Dead End: Senate Intelligence Dems Admit There May Be
ZERO Evidence Of Collusion Between Russians
And Trump Campaign
Matt Vespa
Posted: Mar 10, 2017 1:45 PM
As Guy wrote last week, Sen. Chris Coons (D-DE) has
retreated from his claim that there’s solid evidence of
collusion between the Trump campaign and Russian
intelligence agencies. Now, his colleagues on the Senate
Intelligence Committee also concede that there may be
zero evidence of such activity after a month into their
investigation (via John Sexton/Buzzfeed) [emphasis mine:]
A month into its sweeping investigation into the Kremlin’s
efforts to undermine the US election, the Senate
Intelligence Committee is expected to answer all those
questions — publicly, coherently, and fast. As the days
tick by, they’re less and less sure they’ll be able to.
Even some Democrats on the
Intelligence Committee now quietly
admit, after several briefings and
preliminary inquiries, they don’t expect
to find evidence of active, informed
collusion between the Trump campaign
and known Russian intelligence
operatives, though investigators have only
just begun reviewing raw intelligence.
Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank
and file, there’s a tangible frustration over
what one official called “wildly inflated”
expectations surrounding the panel’s
fledgling investigation.
Since the probe was first announced in December — days
after the FBI and CIA told Congress they believed the
Kremlin had worked to elect Trump — political infighting
has fundamentally shifted its mandate. Instead of a
surgically precise examination of the raw intelligence that
337
led US agencies to conclude the Kremlin attempted to tilt
the election, the Intelligence Committee investigation has
quickly become the catch-all for any politician’s lingering
questions related to Moscow. Now, several committee
sources grudgingly say, it feels as though the investigation
will be seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a silver
bullet connecting Trump and Russian intelligence
operatives.
“I don’t think the conclusions are going to
meet people’s expectations,” a second
official said.
[…]
Lost in the political shuffling is the fact — concluded by
17 US intelligence agencies — that the upper echelons of
Russia’s government directed an operation aimed at
manipulating and disrupting the US election, and to a
notable degree, succeeded. Short of an impeachable
offense, officials are concerned the public is missing the
forest for the trees.
So, the first part is something we’ve known for a bit:
there’s zero evidence of so-called collusion, though that
has not quelled the Democrats’ obsession with Russia. Any
Trump aide who has met with a Russian foreign official is
considered a breadcrumb on a trail could point to
collusion, where in reality it’s probably a case of both
sides doing their jobs; the Russian meeting with staffers of
a person who could potentially become the next president
of the United States and the Trump aide meeting with the
Russian aide and the officials of other nations to establish
a possible working relationship. This is not unusual. It’s
also not unusual for members of Congress to meet with
foreign officials as well, especially if you’re on the Senate
Armed Services Committee, like former senator and
current Attorney General Jeff Sessions.
As we’ve noted before, it quite interesting how in four
years, Democrats can go from laughing at Republicans for
suggesting that Russia is our biggest geopolitical foe to
public enemy number one in less than five years. Some on
the Left have also noted this descent into Russophobia
concerning meetings between Trump aides and Russia is
nothing more than “neo-McCarthyite furor” that could
damage relations on future projects.
Also, the propaganda and fake news that was peddled by
the Kremlin through social media trolls and their state-
funded media outlets had zero impact on the election.
Facebook’s Mark Zuckerberg and Sheryl Sandberg said
their platform, which was used disseminate some of these
stories did not sway the election, The Economist reported
on a study that also concluded that fake news did not play
.
338
a pivotal role in the 2016 election. Russia didn’t succeed in
undermining Clinton’s presidential ambition.
Hillary Clinton did that to herself.
Period.
In the absence of evidence, Democrats have blamed
everyone from the FBI to even members of the press for
undermining Clinton’s campaign. It’s becoming a rather
sad spectacle.
 #Vault7: US Will Use ‘Full Force Of Law’ If Wikileaks
Dump Contains Factual Info, Pence Warns
Published Time: 10 Mar, 2017 13:42Edited Time: 11 Mar, 2017 13:15
U.S. Vice President Mike Pence. © Ethan Miller / Getty Images / AFP
The US will use the “full force of the law” to go after those
behind the latest WikiLeaks release if its contents are
found to be valid CIA documents, Vice-President Mike
Pence has warned.
“Trafficking in national security information,
as is alleged WikiLeaks has done here, is a
very serious offense,” Pence told Fox News
on Thursday.
“It represents a compromise of the security
of the American people,” he added.
Pence went on to state that President Donald Trump will
take the offense
“very seriously” and “use the full force of
the law and resources of the United States
to hold all of those to account that were
involved.”
He said that “no resource will be spared” in holding the
guilty parties to account, if the so-called ‘Vault 7’ is
proven to contain legitimate information into the inner-
workings of the CIA.
Released by WikiLeaks on Tuesday, Vault 7 includes
8,761 documents which allegedly reveal the CIA's
extensive hacking capabilities.
.
339
The release includes descriptions of hacking tools,
engineering notes, internal communications, and the
redacted names of agents.
It reportedly exposes details of the CIA's
“global covert hacking program,” including
“weaponized exploits” used against
company products including “Apple's
iPhone, Google's Android and Microsoft's
Windows and even Samsung TVs, which
are turned into covert microphones.”
WikiLeaks says the first installment includes just one
percent of the documents due to be published, promising
that more is on the way.
The FBI and CIA said they will collaborate on a joint
probe of Vault 7's release, investigating how WikiLeaks
obtained the materials and whether they came from an
employee or contractor.
Meanwhile, the CIA refused to comment on the
authenticity of WikiLeaks’ documents in its Wednesday
statement.
The agency said that it was their mission to
“aggressively collect foreign intelligence
overseas to protect America,” but it was not
“conducting electronic surveillance
targeting individuals here at home.”
“The American public should be deeply
troubled by any WikiLeaks disclosure
designed to damage the Intelligence
Community’s ability to protect America
against terrorists and other adversaries,” it
continued.
 A Closer Look At The Obamagate Scandal
Posted by Stephen Lendman
Date: March 11, 2017
If Obama ordered Trump Tower wiretapped as Donald
Trump claims, evidence may or may not be easily
obtained.
If FISA court authorization occurred, a congressional
inquiry could prove it. If conducted warrantless by the
NSA, CIA or FBI, verifying Trump’s claim will be much
harder.
Cooperation by agency heads would be needed. NSA
director Admiral Michael Rogers is an Obama
administration holdover. So is FBI head James Comey.
CIA director Mike Pompeo is a Trump appointee.
If Obama got FISA court authorization to wiretap Trump
Tower, or a server the building uses for electronic
communications located anywhere, court records would
verify it.
Still, it’s unproved so far if spying on Trump occurred, and
if so, whether it stemmed from FISA court authorization or
by other means.
The NSA, CIA and FBI notoriously conduct warrantless
surveillance. Post-9/11, the NSA was authorized by a GW
Bush executive order to warrantlessly spy on phone and
other electronic communications in the name of national
security.
Monitoring internally and abroad followed, a clear Fourth
Amendment violation, prohibiting searches and seizures
without judicial authorization – based on probable cause.
340
In 2012, Congress extended warrantless spying,
constitutional law ignored. The FISA Amendments
Reauthorization Act passed both houses overwhelmingly.
Obama signed it into law. Warrantless spying was
extended for another five years. GW Bush and Obama
authorized the NSA to eavesdrop on Americans lawlessly.
The CIA and FBI operate the same way extrajudicially.
Constitutional protections no longer apply. Rogue
governance does what it pleases – the way all police states
operate.
It’s bad enough to spy on ordinary Americans, quite
another on a major party presidential candidate if hard
evidence proves it.
According to a NYT report, FBI director Comey
“asked the Justice Department this weekend to
publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that
President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of
Mr. Trump’s phones” – citing the usual unnamed
“senior American officials.”
Comey, an Obama holdover, said Trump’s charge is false,
according to The Times. The FBI and Justice Department
declined to comment.
If a FISA warrant was issued, it would have likely come
through the DOJ or FBI it administers. A statement by AG
Jeff Sessions, another senior department official, or Comey
would confirm or deny if one or the other agencies was
involved. So far, no public comment by either.
Over the weekend, Trump reportedly said
“(t)his will be investigated. It will all come out. I
will be proven right.”
For starters, he should publicly reveal what he knows, any
evidence he’s aware of, putting meat on the bones of his
serious accusation.
One thing’s clear. This story has a long way to go. How
it’ll end remains uncertain.
 Intruder Arrested After
Entering White House Grounds With Trump Inside
By Tyler Durden
Mar 11, 2017 11:36 AM

Shortly before midnight last night, with President Trump White House was placed under security
in residence, condition "orange," one of the highest
levels of security for the Secret Service.
Secret Service arrested a backpack-
carrying man who breached security by This appears to be the first incident of
scaling a fence near the south entrance President Trump's term,
to The White House.
but as CNN notes, there have been numerous instances of
people trespassing on the White House grounds over the
last several years.

In one notable instance in 2014, 42-year-old Omar

Gonzales, of Copperas Cove, Texas, made it through the
north portico doors with a three-and-a-half-inch folding
knife in his pants pocket, according to the Secret Service.
Gonzalez was apprehended just after making it inside the
doors, the Secret Service said. The first family was not at
the White House at the time.

In another, the Secret Service apprehended Joseph Caputo,

of Stamford, Connecticut, on the North Lawn after he
The Washington Post reports, the person
scaled the fence wearing an American flag-like cape while
scaled a White House fence Friday night
the first family was inside the residence celebrating
and was arrested on the grounds of the
Thanksgiving.
presidential residence, according to the
U.S. Secret Service.

The incident occurred about 11:38 p.m. on the south

grounds of the executive mansion. Uniformed officers with
the Secret Service arrested the person without incident,
according to a statement.

Authorities said the person was

carrying a backpack that was searched.
It did not contain any hazardous
materials, the Secret Service statement
said.
The White House issued the following statement on the
intruder incident:
Officials did not identify the person who was arrested.
Officers searched the north and south grounds of the White
Secret Service statement on White House
House complex and found nothing.
grounds intruder incident
pic.twitter.com/ZfJgG9XWza
CNN confirms President Trump, who was
in residence at The White House, was
— Bradd Jaffy (@BraddJaffy) March 11, 2017
made aware of the situation, and The

341
 Vault 7: Disgruntled Cia Workers Sent An Important
Message To President Trump
© Reuters/ Carlos Barria - Us
21:48 10.03.2017(Updated 12:22 11.03.2017)

by someone inside the CIA itself, and for an important

reason.

"In the intelligence community in the United

States, there are certain disgruntled
individuals [concerned] about the way
operations are being run, and it's obvious
that material has come out that was felt
by some of these individuals needed to be
discussed," Kampmark explained.

"The point made by WikiLeaks in one of its

WikiLeaks has released a vast archive
dispatches [explaining] the files being
of data detailing the hacking and
disclosed was that the CIA has essentially
eavesdropping tools used by the
lost control with certain members of its
Central Intelligence Agency. Speaking
community over the agency's hacking
to Radio Sputnik, Dr. Binoy Kampmark,
capabilities." The leak, the professor noted,
a senior lecturer at RMIT University
"seems to be the result of that."
Melbourne, said that all signs point to
the leak being the work of insiders
trying to send an important message to The leak's revelations, he added, indicate very clearly that
President Trump. "that bloated intelligence communities seem to be plaguing
us." In other words, "rather than focusing and
discriminating on targets, they seem to be losing the plot
On Wednesday, WikiLeaks published over 8,700 classified
in terms of identifying targets of value," going for the mass
CIA files – the first part of its so-called Vault 7 release,
accumulation of data using technology instead of targeting
which has already become the largest-ever release
people who may actually pose a threat to US security.
of confidential documents on the US foreign intelligence
agency.
On Thursday, Vice President Mike Pence described the
Vault 7 leak as "a very serious offense," and declared that
According to the whistleblowing website, the leak's
authorities would use the "full force of the law" in going
revelations, which include information that the agency
after those behind it. White House press secretary Sean
creates homebrew viruses, runs a hacker base in the US
Spicer indicated that the leaks were outrageous, and
consulate in Frankfurt, can spy on people through smart
undermined US security and well-being. Trump himself
tvs, and is working on hacking into modern cars to carry
however has remained silent on the issue so far.
out untraceable assassinations, were just 1% of the
information WikiLeaks has in its possession.
Asked what kind of message the Trump
administration can be expected to take
Officials at both the CIA and the FBI have each indicated
from the leak, Professor Kampmark
that they are conducting inquiries into the source of the
suggested that it help give the White
leaks.
House the necessary push to refocus
the CIA. "I think it comes down to a
Speaking to Radio Sputnik, Professor Binoy Kampmark, fundamental issue –something also said
an expert on US politics and international affairs, said that by former intelligence officers who are
he felt it pretty obvious that the information was leaked familiar with this: the point is to trim
operations to focus specifically on value
342
 targets – to start identifying ways where
this can be done."
In other words, the academic noted that "in a broader
sense, disclosures like this [can be treated] as a kind
of trimming exercise – or an incentive to be more
discriminating, more aware, more discerning
about targets." That, he stressed, would serve to reduce the
impression that US intelligence agencies, whether it be the
CIA or the NSA, are aiming their resources at those who
seek to harm national security, not at ordinary people.
The CIA, according to Kampmark, will certainly be
hoping that the public, and the White House, simply accept
the leaks as business as usual – as something that was
formally kept a secret, but that everyone already got the
sense was happening.
Unfortunately for the agency, the
professor noted that "we have a very
interesting situation with the president
of the United States, who is suspicious
of the CIA – who sees conspiracies, not
all of which are necessarily off the mark,
.
343
and who has a very mixed relationship
with the intelligence community. One
of the things that is of course
fundamental in understanding is that
the president of the United States is
meant to control the intelligence
community, not the other way around."
Accordingly, Kampmark noted,
"what will be interesting will be to see is the
impetus [the leak] gives –whether Trump
officials or Mr. Trump himself act on this, or
whether [the CIA] will hope that this
somehow goes away, because it doesn't
look good in that regard. We have the
White House and the intelligence
community seemingly at odds already, so
how this plays out will be a very interesting
point as matters develop, not just over the
next few months, but for the next few
years."
 Why The Left Wants A Non-White America
Hubert Collins, American Renaissance
March 11, 2017

Less white means more left.

In 2015, Dr. Teixeira helped put together a useful and
graphics-filled guide to the increasing power of non-white
A recent exchange between Tucker Carlson of Fox News
voters, broken down by state, over the course of the next
and Univision anchorman Jorge Ramos—
few decades.
“This is not a white country”
Why is the left’s most important think tank tracking this?
—marks a significant turning point: Suddenly people on
national television are talking about the end of white
America, the rising tide of color, and what demographic
change really means. White advocates may owe Señor
Ramos a “thank you” for his forthright Hispanic
chauvinism, which forces whites to think seriously about
dispossession. Too many whites would rather look the
other way, and since Fox News won’t (yet) invite Jared
Taylor to talk about it, Señor Ramos will have to do.

Entirely aside from his dreams of reconquista, Jorge

Ramos and others on the left want America to become
non-white so that it moves further to the left, so that
Democrats can win more elections. To put it simply: Less
white means more left. Leftists, particularly Hispanic ones,
talk about this openly.
The Hispanic intellectual Ruy Teixeira is a good example.
His biography at the leftwing think tank, Center for
American Progress Action Fund, says this:
He is also co-director of the States of
Change:
Demographics and Democracy project….
The goals of the project are to document
and analyze the challenges to democracy
posed by the rapid demographic evolution
of the United States from the 1970s to the
year 2060 and to promote a wide-ranging
and bipartisan discussion of America’s
demographic future and what it portends
for political parties and the policy
challenges they—and the country—face. . .
. Teixeira’s recent writings include
“America’s Electoral Future: How Changing
Demographics Could Impact Presidential
Elections from 2016 to 2032” and “States of
Change: The Demographic Evolution of the
American Electorate, 1974–2060.”
Ruy Teixiera
Dr. Teixeira himself furnishes the answer. In 2002 he
coauthored a book called The Emerging Democratic
Majority, which argued that the Democratic Party would
soon be winning election after election largely because of
the increasing non-white vote. When President Obama
won reelection in 2012 despite Mitt Romney winning as
much of the white vote as Ronald Reagan had in 1980, Dr.
Teixeira explained to the Washington Post that he had seen
it coming:
“It’s always nice when your assessments
seem to be pretty close to the mark. This
has been going on for a while, and has
been confirmed in the 2010 Census.”
In 2016, after Donald Trump won, Dr. Teixeira wrote a
short essay for Vox called, “Trump’s coalition won the
demographic battle. It’ll still lose the war.” The title says it
all.
More recently, Dr. Teixeira wrote a book called The
Optimistic Leftist: Why the 21st Century Will Be Better
Than You Think, which is meant to combat the ennui that
has come over much of the left since President Trump’s
victory. I attended a promotional event for this book that

344
featured two other dedicated leftists: Stanley Greenberg,
who runs a leftist consulting group, and John Halpin, an
employee of the Center for American Progress.
The thesis of Dr. Teixeira’s new book is that the future of
the left is looking up because whites are in decline. Early
on, as Mr. Halpin explained:
[W]hat we’re seeing in America and in
Europe, Western democracies, is this
decline of the old industrial working class.
And a rise of more multicultural,
economically open, tolerant population. . . .
[O]ver time this should produce the
potential for progressive majorities, but
what do we do in the meantime? . . .
Because we haven’t fully gotten to a place
where obviously rising populations and
their ideologies dominate our politics.
There’s a lot of residual power for the old
industrial white working class base . . . the
older declining populations . . . .
In other words, there are still a lot of whites fighting
progress, but fewer every year. Mr. Greenberg responded:
What’s going on in the country is so
powerful and so beyond our control. We
talked about, you know, diversity, you know
immigrant diversity, growth of Hispanic
population, [decline of] marriage, all these
things. But, what happened in the last
decade, and accelerated in the last five
years, and it’s accelerating as we go, is the
millennials have grown, become more
diverse, and moved to the cities. . . .
There’s been a huge growth globally of
foreign born populations, and one in five
are in America . . . our vote has become
more urban, central, and their vote has
become more rural, and, you know, older.
[italics added]
Mr. Greenberg is talking about race—just not explicitly.
Mr. Halpin asked Dr. Teixeira how the left should confront
President Trump and Steve Bannon. Dr. Teixeira
explained:
First off vigorously and confidently oppose
the most reactionary elements of this
.
345
Trumpian or rightwing populism that we’ve
seen. . . . I mean they’re basically building
a lot of their appeal on declining
demographics. . . . Just push back and
don’t be afraid. Time and history is on your
side.
Like Mr. Greenberg, Dr. Teixeira is talking indirectly
about race.
“Time and history is on your side,”
means that non-whites and liberals are sure to dominate,
and there’s nothing whites can do about it.
The left has always backed demographic transformation
because it makes it easier to reach their policy goals. That
is why white advocacy is so overwhelmingly
“conservative” today, even though it is not inherently
either conservative of liberal. Defending the race should
come first and politics second. But in an era in which not
even “conservatives” dare defend their race, liberals seem
genuinely eager to sacrifice their race in the interests of
political goals. They crush whatever racial instincts they
have left, as they imagine the leftist paradise they hope to
build with the help of their non-white allies.
But for how much longer? As the Democrats battled over
whether their party would be run by a black Muslim
named Keith Ellison or a Dominican “civil rights lawyer”
named Tom Perez, how many white Democrats had to
stifle impure thoughts about their own displacement?
When former spokeswoman for the Bernie Sanders
campaign Symone Sanders explained that “we don’t need
white people leading the Democratic Party right now,”
how many of those unwanted white people wondered if the
party would ever need them?
Dispossession comes for the left before it comes for
America. Not all white liberal will step aside obediently
when a “person of color” tells them to. Some will realize
that all this talk of “time and history” means that whites
get left with the scraps. As Chris Roberts has noted, there
is an incipient anti-anti-white left, and this is the first step
towards a pro-white left.
Jorge Ramos and Ruy Tixiera are helping draw the battle
lines, and more and more white liberals may soon learn on
which side their real interest lie.
 Majority In US Optimistic
Trump Presidency Will Make Country Prosperous
© REUTERS/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool - US
04:37 11.03.2017
A poll by Gallup reveals that 54 percent
of US adults say they are optimistic that
President Donald Trump will bring
prosperity to the United States.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Some 54 percent of US
adults say they are optimistic that President Donald Trump
will bring prosperity to the United States, a Gallup poll
revealed.
"Trump has consistently found his
strongest public support on economic
issues," a press release with the survey
stated on Friday. "Gallup polling the week
after he won the election in November
found Americans most optimistic that
346
Trump would be able to ‘reduce
unemployment and create new jobs’ (62
percent) and ‘improve the economy’ (60
percent)."
Trump fared worse when it comes to generating optimism
over environmental and energy policies.
In the same poll, only 35 percent said Trump would be
able to "improve the quality of the environment," while 46
percent expressed optimism over the president’s plans
for US energy producers.
Trump has proposed major rollbacks of Obama policies
in all three policy areas – economy, environment and
energy.
On the economy, Trump has begun implementing plans
to eliminate thousands of regulations that saddled small-
and mid-sized companies with added costs and also to cut
the industrial world’s highest corporate tax rate (35
percent), which many blame for an exodus of US
companies to other nations.
On the environment and energy, Trump has pledged to end
many Obama-era regulations, which he claims have also
hobbled the US economy.
 Tit for Tat: Trump Hits Back
Posted by Stephen Lendman
Date: March 11, 2017
Envoys represent their countries abroad, at the UN, or as
ambassadors-at-large, serving in various capacities. In
foreign capitals, they’re liaisons between their home and
host nation.
Their duties involve understanding policies of the nations
they’re assigned to, including as they unfold daily,
providing important information to their governments back
home.
Interfacing with host country officials is part of their job –
including diplomats, legislators, and administration
officials to the highest levels.
Diplomacy works this way. Bilateral relations depend on
it. Treaties and other important business can’t be
negotiated any other way.
Democrats demanding AG Jeff Sessions’ head for meeting
Russia’s ambassador to Washington, Sergey Kislyak, is all
about delegitimizing and undermining Trump, a political
act, wanting him ousted or too weak to govern effectively.
He struck back, tweeting
“I hereby demand a second investigation, after
(Senator Chuck) Schumer, of (Rep. Nancy)
Pelosi for her close ties to Russia, and lying
about it.”
Separately, he tweeted
“(w)e should start an immediate investigation into
@SenSchumer and his ties to Russia and Putin.
A total hypocrite!”
347
In September 2003, Schumer welcomed Vladimir Putin to
New York on the occasion of Lukoil opening a gas station
in Manhattan.
They had coffee and donuts together. A photo showed
them smiling. Schumer said
“(w)hen I showed the president of Russia a
Krispy Kreme doughnut and he ate it and said it
was good, that was one of the more surreal
moments I’ve had in politics.”
Pelosi lied when asked if she ever met Kislyak, saying
“(n)ot with this Russian ambassador, no.”
A photo showed her and Rep. Steny Hoyer meeting with
then Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and Ambassador Kislyak in 2010.
Numerous congressional members, US diplomats and
bureaucrats met with Russian officials over the years, no
fuss made of it. Nations deal with each other this way.
Kislyak has been Russia’s ambassador to Washington
since 2008. He’s no doubt met many US officials,
Democrats and Republicans alike.
On March 2, Senator Dianne Feinstein said
“I believe (Kislyak has) been in my office from
time to time.”
No doubt many others on Capitol Hill.
It’s his job, what his US counterparts do in their host
countries – including Washington’s ambassador to Russia
John Tefft.
Sergey Lavrov commented, saying
“Kislyak is accused of talking to American
politicians who were in opposition to the
administration of then-President Barack Obama.”
“That is the essence of these accusations, to be
honest. We don’t want to and we won’t ape
(what’s going on in Washington and America’s
deplorable media).”
 “If such a principle has been applied to scrutinize The firestorm is part of continuing efforts to vilify Trump
activity of (ambassador) John Tefft and his for the wrong reasons, not the right ones.
contacts, we could see quite an ‘amusing’
picture.” It reflects America’s deplorable state no tinkering around
the edges can fix – revolutionary change urgently needed.
“Relationships are maintained in the form of At stake is humanity’s survival.
meetings, talks, contacts with both executive
officials and with politicians, public figures, non-
governmental organizations. This practice has
never been disputed.”
.

348
 Longtime Trump Ally Roger Stone Admits He Held Private
Conversations With Russia-Affiliated Hackers
BY Chris Sommerfeldt - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Updated: Saturday, March 11, 2017, 5:42 AM
Roger Stone, President Trump’s longtime confidant and
former campaign advisor, has admitted that he was in
private communication with one of the Kremlin-connected
hacker personas behind the Democratic National
Committee email breach last year.
Stone — one of several Trump associates under FBI
investigation for potential Russia ties — acknowledged in
a lengthy statement Friday evening that he communicated
with Guccifer 2.0 in direct Twitter messages last summer.
The statement came in response to a recent Smoking Gun
report that suggests Stone might have collaborated with
Russian hackers.
U.S. intelligence officials and various cybersecurity firms
have concluded that Russian spy agencies created Guccifer
2.0 as an Internet persona for the purpose of helping
Trump win the White House.
But Stone blasted claims that he was in contact with
Russian officials as “sensational” and “bogus.”
Roger Stone (seen at Trump Tower in December) admitted that he
was in private communication with a Kremlin-connected hacker
persona. (Spencer Platt/Getty Images)
349
“This is another absurd media claim that is
part of the long-standing absurd claim that
Donald Trump had anything to do with the
Russians,” Stone said.
To bolster his denial, Stone posted screengrabs of his
private conversations with Guccifer 2.0.
“Delighted you are reinstated. F--k the
State and their MSM lackeys,” Stone wrote
in an Aug. 14 message to the hacker
persona after its account was reinstated
following a temporary suspension amid
fallout from the WikiLeaks email dumps
that caused repeated embarrassments for
Democratic nominee Hillary Clinton.
The hacker responded gleefully, thanking Stone for one of
his Breitbart News columns ridiculing Democrats for
alleging that Russians were behind the election hacks.
Donald Trump and Stone are seen in Newark in October 1999. The pair
have been close for decades.(DANIEL HULSHIZER/AP)
Over the next couple of days, Guccifer 2.0 praised Stone
as a “great man” on multiple occasions and offered him a
helping hand.
“Please tell me if I can help you anyhow,”
the hacker told Stone. “It would be a great
pleasure to me.”
Guccifer 2.0 did not elaborate on what form that “help”
would have come in and Stone could not immediately be
reached for comment.
In his Friday statement, Stone called the conversations
"innocuous," adding that they were so "perfunctory, brief
and banal I had forgotten it."
Republican lobbyists Paul Manafort (l.) and Roger Stone in
Washington, D.C., in March 1985. Both men are now under
investigation over their potential ties to Russia. (Harry Naltchayan/The
Washington Post via Getty Images)
The communication came after Stone wrote an article for
Breitbart News in early August, weeks after the DNC had
already been hacked, Stone wrote.
.
350
Stone believes the timeline debunks the claims in The
Smoking Gun's report.
"Any such 'collaboration' would’ve also
involved a time machine – something that I
think Putin has not perfected yet," Stone
wrote.
Stone served as Trump’s chief political advisor during the
early days of the campaign. He eventually split from the
campaign, but remained a confidante and occasional
advisor to Trump. The two men have been close friends
and business partners since the 1970s.
Stone is among at least three Trump campaign advisers
currently under investigation by the FBI, the NSA, the CIA
and the Treasury Department over perceived ties to the
Kremlin. The other two are ex-campaign manager Paul
Manafort and former adviser Carter Page.
Several people within Trump’s administration have also
been scrutinized over apparent ties to Russia, including
ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn and
attorney general Jeff Sessions.
 Suspected White House Fence Jumper Charged With
Carrying 'Dangerous Weapon,' Seen
Behind Mansion Column
By Joseph Weber
Published March 11, 2017
Federal attorneys on Saturday identified the person who
allegedly jumped a White House fence Friday night and
got so deep into the compound that he was seen hiding
behind one the mansion’s column before being
apprehended.
The suspect has been identified as Jonathan Tuan Tran, 26,
of Milpitas, Calif., according the U.S. Attorney's Office
and court documents.
Tran purportedly entered the White House grounds at
about 11:38 p.m. Friday with a backpack and was
approaching the building’s south portico residence
entrance when apprehended.
President Trump was inside the White House at the time
and on Saturday said he appreciated the Secret Service
efforts and that the accused is disturbed.
The Secret Service issue a statement on the incident at
about noon Saturday that said the backpack contained no
hazardous materials and that the unidentified suspect had
no “previous history” with the agency.
However, court documents obtained by Fox News state
Tran had two cans of mace in his possession, including one
inside his jacket pocket.
Tran was charged late Saturday in a District of Columbia
federal court with
“entering or remaining in restricted
grounds while using or carrying a
dangerous weapon.”
351
The federal offense carries a maximum sentence of 10
years in prison.
The Secret Service says the suspect scaled an outer-
perimeter fence on the White House complex’s southeast
side, near the Treasury Building, and was arrested without
further incident by an officer in the agency’s Uniformed
Division.
Court document state surveillance video shows Tran
hiding behind a White House column.
And the arresting officer writes in the criminal complaint
that he first observed Tran
“walking close to the exterior wall of the
White House mansion”
and that Tran began heading toward the complex’s south
lawn upon being noticed.
The officer also states Tran, dressed in a hooded sweatshirt
of jacket, told him,
“I am a friend of the president. I have an
appointment.”
The documents state Trans was also carrying an Apple
laptop computer, a book written by Trump and a letter to
the president.
In the letter, Tran mentions “Russian hackers” and that he
has relevant information. Tran also writes that he’s been
called “schizophrenic” and that his phone and email
communications have been “read by a third party,”
according to the documents.
Tran is being held without bond, and the U.S. Attorney's
Office for now has declined further comment. Tran’s next
court appearance is Monday.
Friday's security breach follows a series of similar lapses
that took place during the eight years that Barack Obama
was president.
An especially embarrassing breach came in September ultimately led to the resignation of the agency's director,
2014 when an Army veteran with mental health issues Julia Pierson, the following month.
scaled a fence on the Pennsylvania Avenue side of the
White House and made it deep inside the building, to the Fox News' Kristin Fisher, Matthew Dean and Serafin
East Room, before the Secret Service could detain him. Gomez and the Associated Press contributed to this
report.
The Obamas were not at home at the time. The incident
was one of several breakdowns by the Secret Service that
.

352
 Making America Great Again: Claims That Trump Is Not
Having A Positive Effect On The Economy Are Absurd
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 11, 2017
Many economists and political hacks who are supporters
of the #NeverTrump movement continue to downplay the
positive fiscal impact President Donald J. Trump’s election
victory has had on the country, but with each passing day
it becomes ever more apparent their denial is not rooted in
realism.
The signs are everywhere of a Trump boom: In higher
employment, a higher workforce participation rate, rising
construction gains, and most important of all, dramatically
higher confidence among the American people that finally
– finally – the country appears to be on the right track,
economically.
As Team Trump touted the president’s first 50 days in
office over the weekend, there was a slew of positive
economic news to convey as well. Among those items:
— Employment: Naysayers are claiming
that employment growth under former
President Obama was already taking place,
but the reality is, that’s complete bunk. For
his eight years in office, job growth under
Obama was tepid at best, routinely clocking
in at less than 190,000 jobs per month; in a
country of 310 million, that’s pathetic. In
fact, the Obama economy never grew as
much as 3 percent in a single quarter his
entire two terms in office – a record (for
bad performance). (RELATED: Great
Again! February Jobs Gains Rocket To
235,000 As Unemployment Ticked Down)
353
In fact, notes NPR, the Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis
found that average monthly job growth under Obama was
an anemic 109,000. Granted, he inherited the Great
Recession, but even after you factor in 75 months of job
growth, the average is still only 199,000/month.
In Trump’s first month in office, jobs grew by 235,000 –
or about 100,000 more than economists had projected,
according to Bloomberg News.
Gary Cohn, the former Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
president who’s now director of the National Economic
Council, says based on what the president himself has been
able to accomplish in convincing U.S. companies to keep
or expand operations domestically, job figures should only
increase.
“Remember, those jobs are not in these
numbers,” he told Bloomberg. “Those jobs
will come in the future — they’ll come
three, six, 12 months from now. So we
think there’s enormous demand for
American workers built into the system.”
— Debt reduction: During his campaign,
Trump said he wanted to also wipe out the
$20 trillion national debt accumulated
during the Obama presidency (which
doubled the $10 trillion accumulated under
George W. Bush).
Before he took office, the debt was rising on autopilot –
but then, something strange happened. As noted by The
Gateway Pundit, it actually fell by $68 billion between
Inauguration Day, Jan. 20, to March 8. That’s just a drop
in the bucket, mind you, but anytime the debt trends
downward, that’s good for our country’s future.
— Labor markets: “Better by almost any
measure,” is how Bloomberg News
describes it. While some of last month’s job
gains are rightfully being accredited to
unseasonably warm weather – as in the
construction sector – the fact is these
projects were going to be undertaken
anyway; they just got underway sooner,
thanks to the better weather. (RELATED:
 #MAGA: Job participation rate rising as
construction starts gain most in a decade)
In addition, the labor force participation rate is also
increasing, as compared to the Obama years, when labor
force participation rates declined to their lowest numbers,
as a portion of the overall population. CNSNews.com
notes:
A record 152,528,000 Americans were
employed in February, 447,000 more than
in January, and the labor force participation
rate went up, the Labor Department’s
Bureau of Labor Statistics reported on
Friday.
354
During the Obama years, labor force participation fell
precipitously, setting record after record. Obama began his
presidency with a record number of Americans not in the
labor force and it ended the same way.
— Manufacturing versus government
jobs: Over the same measurement period,
the growth in U.S. manufacturing jobs far
outpaced job growth in the public sector –
government jobs, in other words, by 28,000
to about 8,000.
Government jobs are net negatives on the overall economy
because the government doesn’t produce anything that
creates value and, thus, profit, like private-sector
employment.
 Trump And The Deep State:
The No-Good, Very Bad, Odious,
Unspeakably Ugly Truth
By Kevin Barrett
March 12, 2017
Peter Dale Scott popularizes ‘deep state’ term
Press TV
US President Donald Trump himself is very much a
product of the ugliest forces in the deep state – a loosely
organized cabal who has taken power away from the
official government, according to American scholar and
Veterans Today Editor Dr. Kevin Barrett.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer on Friday
accused the so-called deep state of attempting to
undermine the government of President Trump.
The term deep state, or derin devlet in Turkish, originated
in 1950s Turkey, refers to a secretive network of
influential members of government agencies or the
military that operates outside the democratic system.
Dr. Barrett, a founding member of the Scientific Panel for
the Investigation of 9/11 and founding member of Truth
Jihad, told Press TV that
“Spicer has officially announced that the deep
state exists. So this is a kind of a milestone in
American history.”
“The term deep state has been almost been as
unknown as terms like false flag, which is
another term that is now going viral, and is being
used by the mainstream media as everybody
knows what it means,” he stated.
“The term deep state refers to very politically
powerful people who essentially operate off the
radar and behind the scenes, generally ignoring,
355
flouting and breaking the law as they do so,” the
analyst explained.
Peter Dale Scott
“Peter Dale Scott, professor from the University
of California, is probably the researcher who has
done the most to popularize this term, the deep
state. And he came to this whole concept out of
his analysis of the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy,” Dr. Barrett said.
“Now today mainstream journalists and historians
like David Talbot and others accept that
President John F. Kennedy was not murdered by
a lone nut, namely Lee Harvey Oswald, but was
instead overthrown in a coup d’etat by elements
of the American deep state, including former CIA
director Allan Dulles, the focus of Talbot’s book
[The Devil’s Chessboard: Allen Dulles, the CIA,
and the Rise of America’s Secret Government],
and James Jesus Angleton, the counter-
intelligence chief who was a liaison between the
Israeli Mossad and the CIA, as well as elements
of organized crime that regularly work with these
elements of the CIA,” he stated.
“So it was kind of a multinational intelligence
operation with a major level of Israeli
participation as Michael Collins Piper explains in
his book, Final Judgment[:The Missing Link in
 the JFK Assassination Conspiracy],” he
stated.
Donald Trump (left) Mayor Ed Koch (center) and Roy Cohn in 1983
at the Trump Tower opening in New York. (Photo by Getty Images)
Final Judgment: The Missing Link in the JFK Assassination
Conspiracy
“Peter Dale Scott doesn’t go all the way with the
Israeli angle, but he coined the term, deep state,
based on his research into the JFK
assassination, and then later the September 11
coup d’etat in which essentially the same types
of elements of the US-Israeli deep state blew up
the World Trade Center with explosives, and
staged a non-existent hijacking, rather than the
(alleged) suicide hijackings — in fact there were
no Arab hijackers on the planes – another gross
deception like the Kennedy assassination…or we
should say assassinations to include the killing
of Bobby Kennedy as well in 1968 — again,
killed by the CIA and Israeli linked people tied to
organized crime,” the analyst noted.
“So these are the kinds of issues that come up in
the study of deep state. And it is very interesting
that today we have a president, Donald Trump,
who has one of his lead advisers – the political
dirty tricks operator Roger Stone, who has
written a book [The Man Who Killed Kennedy:
The Case Against LBJ] about how Lyndon B.
Johnson was part of the killing of his predecessor
John F. Kennedy,” he said.
‘Donald Trump was created by Roy Cohn’
.
356
“And now we have Sean Spicer basically
admitting to the world that deep state exists.
Spicer hasn’t gone all the way with this and
admitted that the deep state blew up the Twin
Towers to drag us into these wars for Israel that
followed. But instead he is sort of trying to point
fingers at Obama and his people as tied to the
deep state. Now that’s a very superficial
analysis,” Dr. Barrett pointed out.
“In fact Donald Trump himself is very much a
product of the very worst and ugliest forces in the
deep state,” the commentator said.
“Donald Trump was created by Roy Cohn, the
mafia boss who owned the corrupt judges and
cops of New York, and who was the direct liaison
between J. Edgar Hoover and American media,
and who organized a pedophile blackmail
operation for the CIA. Roy Cohn is the key player
in that. And Roy Cohn is the man who made
Donald Trump,” he argued.
“So perhaps Sean Spicer should reveal a lot
more about the deep state, including the ties of
the worst elements of deep state to his boss,
President Trump, than he is so far willing to talk
about,” the scholar said in his concluding
remarks.
 BUSTED: Kremlin Reveals That Hillary Clinton’s Staff
Met With Russian Ambassador During The Election
Peak hypocrisy: Hillary Clinton's team met with
ambassador, says Kremlin spokesman.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, revealed that not only
did Donald Trump’s team meet with Russian
Ambassador Sergey Kislyak, but so too did Hillary Clinton
staff hold meetings with the Russian diplomat.
There is nothing wrong with presidential candidates and
their staff members meeting with Ambassadors, this is
common practice, and part of the preparation for the
job…but the hypocrisy emanating from the liberal left and
mainstream media in their ongoing witch hunt to
delegitimize President Trump over staff meetings with
Russian officials, while their “chosen candidate” was also
doing the same is very telling.
Peskov noted that Moscow was perplexed about the
unfounded cloud of suspicion around the Trump
administration and his imaginary ties to the Kremlin…
“The fact that Russia is being demonised in
that sense comes very strange to us.”
“And we are really sorry about that.
Because the whole issue takes us away
from getting the situation to a better
position.”
“Quite unexpectedly, we were in the
position where Russia became, shall we
say, a nightmare for the United States.”
“You are self-humiliating yourself to say
that a country can intervene.”
“America, a huge country – the most
powerful country in the world, with very,
very stable political traditions – and you say
that a country can easily intervene and
Alex Christoforou
March 13, 2017
easily influence your electoral process?
This is simply impossible.”
Further debunking the Trump-Russia “fake news” being
spread by mainstream media is the revelation that the HRC
campaign was also meeting with Russian officials as The
Telegraph UK reports…
Hillary Clinton’s team members met with
Russian the Russian ambassador during the
election as well as Donald Trump’s, the
Kremlin spokesman has alleged, as he
set out to dismiss the “hysteria”
surrounding Mr Trump’s links to Russia.
The house intelligence committee will hold its first session
on Russia on March 20, with the heads of the FBI, national
security agency and CIA expected to appear, plus previous
intelligence chiefs.
But Dmitry Peskov, the press secretary for Vladimir Putin,
said on Sunday that America was “self-humiliating” in
insisting that Russia hacked its election.
And he defended the actions of their ambassador, Sergey
Kislyak, whose meeting with Michael Flynn, Mr. Trump’s
choice of national security adviser, caused Mr. Flynn to
lose his job. He was fired after just 24 days when it
became clear that he had lied about meeting the Russian,
and misled the vice president.
“This is his job,” said Mr Peskov,
speaking on CNN’s Sunday morning
politics show. “He was talking about
bilateral relations, about what is going on in
the United States, so we have a better
understanding in Moscow.
“This is what happens all around the
world.”
He said that members of Mrs Clinton’s
team had also met with Mr
Kislyak, although he did not give
specifics.
“Well, if you look at some people
connected with Hillary Clinton during
her campaign, you would probably see
that he had lots of meetings of that
357
 kind,” he said. “There are lots of
specialists in politology, people working
in think tanks advising Hillary or
advising people working for Hillary.”
Mrs. Clinton’s team is yet to comment on the allegations.
But earlier this month Foreign Policy reported that no one
from the former secretary of state’s campaign met with
Mr. Kislyak or any other Russian official. The magazine
also reported that all the other candidates kept the embassy
“at arm’s length”.
And supporters of Mrs. Clinton would point out that the
problem did not come from meeting the ambassador, but
rather failing to disclose it.
*****
Asked about whether he expected Mr. Trump to lift
sanctions, Mr. Peskov said that President Vladimir Putin
would not raise the issue first. There is no date yet for a
meeting, but the pair will both be at the G20 Summit in
Hamburg in July.
Mr. Putin, he said, was pleased that Mr. Trump defeated
Mrs. Clinton, but he insisted that Russia did not intervene.
.
358
“The candidate Hillary Clinton was quite
negative – declaring Russia the main evil,
the main threat,” he said.
“Whom would you like better – the one that
says Russia is evil? Or the one that says
yes, we disagree, but let’s find points of
agreement?”
He said his initial contact with Mr. Trump was “quite
promising”, but Russia was increasingly disappointed with
the response from the Trump administration.
“We don’t have a proper understanding of
the future,” he said. “We certainly would
expect our contacts to be more frequent,
more in depth, because we had quite a
significant pause.
“We were losing potential by blaming
everything on Earth on each other.
“We do worry. Public opinion – if you load
with a huge burden of fake news, fake
blaming on Russia, repeat every day
numerous times that Russia is interfering,
guilty of trying to hack, that everything that
goes wrong in the country is the fault of
Russia.
“We want to see this hysteria coming to its
logic end. Better sooner than later.”
 Trump To Direct Every
US Agency To Carry Out Spending Review
© AFP 2017/ JIM LO SCALZO / EPA POOL - US
16:57 13.03.2017(Updated 17:11 13.03.2017)
US President Donald Trump will sign an
executive order on Monday directing
every agency to conduct a spending
review and identify ways to improve
services, White House Press Secretary
Sean Spicer said.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Trump has recently
proposed a budget that includes $54 billion in cuts to non-
.
359
defense spending across all departments. Media reports
have indicated that a large share of those cuts will come
from the State Department budget.
"[President of the United States] to sign
executive order today that requires
thorough exam of every executive
department & agency to see where money
can be saved & services improved," Spicer
stated in a Twitter message on Monday.
Earlier it was reported that Trump plans to cut funding
for a number of governmental agencies, including the
departments of State, Commerce, Transportation and
Energy. In addition, the Trump team reportedly intends
to privatize the Corporation for Public Broadcasting and
eliminate the National Endowment for the Arts and
National Endowment for the Humanity.
The budget cuts will reportedly decrease US federal
spending by some $10.5 trillion within ten years.
 Trump Administration
Disagrees With CBO Report On Health Care
Foxnews.Com
Published March 13, 2017
The Trump administration on Monday lashed out at the
Congressional Budget Office’s report that estimated that
about 24 million more Americans in a few years would be
uninsured under the new legislation.
The bill, called the American Health Care Act, would be
“less generous” with new tax credits for those receiving
subsidies under the current law and the plan would likely
increase average premiums in the nongroup market until
2020.
Tom Price, the Health and Human Services secretary,
downplayed the report and said,
“we disagree strenuously with the report
that was put out. It’s just not believable is
what we would suggest.”
The CBO report, compiled along with staff of the Joint
Committee on Taxation, also determined that the
Republicans’ American Health Care Act would save
money for taxpayers.
According to the study, it would reduce
federal deficits by $337 billion from 2017 to
2026.
The report’s estimate on the number of uninsured
nevertheless could overshadow projections about
premiums and taxpayer savings, fueling critics. Criticism
.
360
so far has come from Democrats, Republicans from states
that benefit from Obama's law and many corners of the
health-care industry.
According to the CBO, the projected loss in insurance
coverage is related mostly to a provision repealing
penalties associated with the ACA’s requirement to buy
insurance.
The CBO report, compiled along with staff
of the Joint Committee on Taxation, also
determined that the Republicans’ American
Health Care Act would save money for
taxpayers. According to the study, it would
reduce federal deficits by $337 billion from
2017 to 2026.
The report’s estimate on the number of uninsured
nevertheless could overshadow projections about
premiums and taxpayer savings, fueling critics. Criticism
so far has come from Democrats, Republicans from states
that benefit from Obama's law and many corners of the
health-care industry.
According to the CBO, the projected loss in insurance
coverage is related mostly to a provision repealing
penalties associated with the ACA’s requirement to buy
insurance.
“Obamacare all of a sudden the last couple
of weeks is getting a false rep that maybe
it’s OK. It’s not OK,” President Trump said
Monday, according to Politico. “It’s a
disaster, and people understand that. It’s
failed, and it’s imploding. And if we let it go
for another year, it’ll totally implode. In fact,
I’ve told the Republicans, ‘Why don’t you
just let it go for another year?’ That way
everybody will really understand how bad it
is.”
 Trump Warns Of Delay Until US Health Reform Brings
Relief From Obamacare
© AFP 2017/ RHONA WISE - US
20:45 13.03.2017(Updated 20:47 13.03.2017)
Individuals who closed their
businesses, lost health insurance or
were forced to take on second and third
jobs due to rising premiums under
Obamacare will eventually face lower
healthcare costs as reforms enable
greater competition, but with a year-or-
two delay before they kick in, President
Donald Trump said on Monday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Trump predicted a delay of
"a year or two years" before the benefits of competition
will bring relief from double and triple digit yearly
increases in premiums.
"More competition and less regulation will
finally bring down the cost of health care
and I think it will bring it down very
significantly," Trump told an audience
of doctors and small business owners
at the White House. "Unfortunately it takes
a while to get there because you have to let
that marketplace kick in."
.
361
The audience consisted of about a dozen guests, including
doctors and business owners, who had seen health care
costs skyrocket to unaffordable levels under Obamacare.
One woman described monthly premiums increasing from
$500 to $1,300 before the insurance company abruptly
canceled her policy. A physician explained how many
of his patients had decided to forgo insurance as too
expensive and instead pay a penalty.
A small business owner described having to take on a
second job driving a school bus to afford insurance. A
common complaint was high yearly deductibles ranging
from $6,000 to $13,000 — the amount an individual pays
out of pocket before insurance takes effect.
Trump admitted that his Republican Party had put itself
in a difficult position by taking on health reform so soon
in his administration, but that there was no other option.
Had Republicans waited a year or two, Trump said, every
insurance company would have abandoned government-
run private exchanges under Obamacare and no one would
be able to buy a policy.
Democrats are warning that millions of Americans will
lose insurance under healthcare legislation now working its
way through the Republican-led Congress.
Republicans have maintained that Obamacare is not
sustainable as it has exerted too great a financial burden
on businesses and individuals while concurrently reducing
insurance competition and patient choice.
 How The Federal Reserve Is Setting Up Trump
For A Recession, A Housing Crisis And
A Stock Market Crash
By Michael Snyder
March 13th, 2017
Most Americans do not understand this, but the truth is
that the Federal Reserve has far more power over the U.S.
economy than anyone else does, and that includes Donald
Trump. Politicians tend to get the credit or the blame for
how the economy is performing, but in reality it is an
unelected, unaccountable panel of central bankers that is
running the show, and until something is done about the
Fed our long-term economic problems will never be fixed.
For an extended analysis of this point, please see this
article. In this piece, I am going to explain why the
Federal Reserve is currently setting the stage for a
recession, a new housing crisis and a stock market crash,
and if those things happen unfortunately it will be Donald
Trump that will primarily get the blame.
On Wednesday, the Federal Reserve is expected to hike
interest rates, and there is even the possibility that they will
call for an acceleration of future rate hikes…
Economists generally believe the central bank’s median
estimate will continue to call for three quarter-point rate
increases both this year and in 2018. But there’s some risk
that gets pushed to four as inflation nears the Fed’s annual
2% target and business confidence keeps juicing markets
in anticipation of President Trump’s plan to cut taxes and
regulations.
During the Obama years, the Federal Reserve pushed
interest rates all the way to the floor, and this artificially
boosted the economy. In a recent article, Gail Tverberg
explained how this works…
362
With falling interest rates, monthly
payments can be lower, even if prices of
homes and cars rise. Thus, more people
can afford homes and cars, and factories
are less expensive to build. The whole
economy is boosted by increased
“demand” (really increased affordability) for
high-priced goods, thanks to the lower
monthly payments.
Asset prices, such as home prices and farm prices, can rise
because the reduced interest rate for debt makes them more
affordable to more buyers. Assets that people already own
tend to inflate, making them feel richer. In fact, owners of
assets such as homes can borrow part of the increased
equity, giving them more spendable income for other
things. This is part of what happened leading up to the
financial crash of 2008.
But the opposite is also true.
When interest rates rise, borrowing money becomes more
expensive and economic activity slows down.
For the Federal Reserve to raise interest rates right now is
absolutely insane. According to the Federal Reserve Bank
of Atlanta’s most recent projection, GDP growth for the
first quarter of 2017 is supposed to be an anemic 1.2
percent. Personally, it wouldn’t surprise me at all if we
actually ended up with a negative number for the first
quarter.
As Donald Trump has explained in detail, the U.S.
economy is a complete mess right now, and we are
teetering on the brink of a new recession.
So why in the world would the Fed raise rates unless they
wanted to hurt Donald Trump?
Raising rates also threatens to bring on a new housing
crisis. Interest rates were raised prior to the subprime
mortgage meltdown in 2007 and 2008, and now we could
see history repeat itself. When rates go higher, it becomes
significantly more difficult for families to afford mortgage
payments…
The rate on a 30-year fixed mortgage reached its all-time
low in November 2012, at just 3.31%. As of this week, it
was 4.21%, and by the end of 2018, it could go as high as
5.5%, forecasts Matthew Pointon, a property economist for
Capital Economics.
He points out that for a homeowner with a $250,000
mortgage fixed at 3.8%, annual payments are $14,000. If
that homeowner moved to a similarly-priced home but had
a 5.5% rate, their annual payments would rise by $3,000 a
year, to $17,000.
Of course stock investors do not like rising rates at all
either. Stocks tend to rise in low rate environments such
as we have had for the past several years, and they tend to
fall in high rate environments.
And according to CNBC, a “coming stock market
correction” could be just around the corner…
Investors are in for a rude awakening about
a coming stock market correction — most
just don’t know it yet. No one knows when
the crash will come or what will cause it —
and no one can. But what’s worse for most
investors is they have no clue how much
they stand to lose when it inevitably
happens.
“If you look at the market historically, we
have had, on average, a crash about every
eight to 10 years, and essentially the
average loss is about 42 percent,” said
Kendrick Wakeman, CEO of financial
technology and investment analytics firm
FinMason.
If stocks start to fall, how low could they ultimately go?
One technical analyst that has a stunning record of
predicting short-term stock market declines in recent years
is saying that the Dow could potentially drop
363
“by more than 6,000 points to 14,800″…
But if the technical stars collide, as one chartist predicts,
the blue-chip gauge could soon plunge by more than 6,000
points to 14,800. That’s nearly 30% lower, based on
Friday’s close.
Sandy Jadeja, chief market strategist at Master Trading
Strategies, claims several predicted stock market crashes to
his name — all of them called days, or even weeks, in
advance. (He told CNBC viewers, for example, that the
August 2015 “Flash Crash” was coming 18 days before it
hit.) He’s also made prescient calls on gold and crude oil.
And he’s extremely concerned about what this year could
bring for investors.
“The timeline is rapidly approaching” for the
next potential Dow meltdown, said Jadeja,
who shares his techniques via workshops
and seminars.
Most big stock market crashes tend to happen in the fall,
and that is what I portray in my novel, but the truth is that
they can literally happen at any time. If you have not seen
my recent rant about how ridiculously overvalued stocks
are at this moment in history, you can find it right here.
Whether you want to call it a “crash”, a “correction”, or
something else, the truth is that a major downturn is
coming for stocks and the only question is when it will
strike.
And when things start to get bad, most of the blame will be
dumped on Trump, but it won’t primarily be his fault.
It was the Federal Reserve that created this massive
financial bubble, and they will also be responsible for
popping it. Hopefully we can get the American people to
understand how these things really work so that
accountability for what is coming can be placed where it
belongs.
 Exposing The Clinton/Obama
System To Discredit Donald Trump
By Tyler Durden
Mar 13, 2017 11:05 PM

This article is a warning - in November 2016, a
vast system of agitation and propaganda was set
up in order to destroy the reputation and the
authority of President Donald Trump as soon as
he arrived in the White House. It is the first time
that such a campaign has been scientifically
organised against a President of the United
States, and with such resources. Yes, we are
indeed entering a post-Truth age, but the
distribution of rôles is not what you may think it
is.
Having changed his colours, he is today in the service of
Hillary Clinton, for whom he has already organised not
only the demolition of Mitt Romney’s candidacy but also
her riposte in the affair of the assassination of the US
ambassador in Benghazi. During the first round of
primaries, it was Brock who directed the attacks against
Bernie Sanders. The National Review qualified Brock as «a
right-wing assassin who has become a left-wing assassin».

The campaign waged against the new President of the

United States by the sponsors of Barack Obama, Hillary
Clinton and the destruction of the Greater Middle East is
on-going. After the Womens’ March on 22 January, a
March for Science is scheduled to be held not only in the
USA, but also throughout the Western world on 22 April.

It’s goal is to show that Donald Trump is not

only a misogynist, but also an obscurantist.

The fact that he is the ex-organiser of the Miss Universe

pageant, and that his third wedding was to a model, is
It is important to remember that the two
apparently enough to prove that he holds women in
procedures of destitution of a serving
contempt. The fact that the President contests the rôle
President initiated since the Second World
played by Barack Obama in the creation of the Chicago
War were set in motion for the benefit of the
Climate Exchange (a long time before his Presidency) and
deep state, and not at all for the benefit of
rejects the idea that climatic disturbances are caused by the
democracy.
expulsion of carbon into the atmosphere attest to the fact
that he understands nothing about science.
So Watergate was entirely managed by a certgain «Deep
Throat» who, 33 years later, was revealed to be Mark Felt,
In order to convince US public opinion of the President’s
the assistant of J. Edgar Hoover, Director of the FBI. As
insanity – a man who says that he hopes for peace with his
for the Lewinsky affair, it was simply a way of forcing Bill
enemies, and wants to collaborate with them in universal
Clinton to accept the war against Yugoslavia.
economic prosperity –
The current campaign is organised in secret by four
one of the greatest specialists of agit-prop
associations:
(agitation & propaganda), David Brock, set up
an impressive system even before Trump’s
Media Matters is tasked with picking up on Donald
investiture.
Trump’s mistakes. You read his bulletin every day in your
newspapers – the President can’t be trusted, he got this or
At the time when he was working for the
that point wrong.
Republicans, Brock launched a campaign
against President Bill Clinton which would
American Bridge 21st Century has collected more than
eventually become Troopergate, the
2,000 hours of videos showing Donald Trump over the
Whitewater affair, and the Lewinsky affair.
years, and more than 18,000 hours of other videos of the
members of his cabinet. It has at its disposition
364
sophisticated technological equipment designed for the
Department of Defense – allegedly not in working order –
which enables it to look for contradictions between their
older declarations and their current positions. It should be
extending its work to 1,200 of the new President’s
collaborators.
Citizens for Responsibility and Ethics in Washington —
CREW is a firm of high level lawyers tasked with tracking
anything that could create a scandal in the Trump
administration. Most of the lawyers in this association
work pro bono, for the cause. These are the people who
prepared the case for Bob Ferguson, the Chief Prosecutor
of the state of Washington, against the immigration decree
(Executive Order 13769).
Shareblue is an electronic army which has already
connected with 162 million internauts in the USA. It’s job
is to spread pre-ordained themes, for example:
 Trump is authoritarian and a thief.
 Trump is under the influence of Vladimir Putin.
 Trump is a weak and quick-tempered personality, he’s
a manic-depressive.
 Trump was not elected by the majority of US citizens,
and is therefore illegitimate.
 His Vice-President, Mike Pence, is a fascist.
 Trump is a billionaire who will constantly be faced with
conflicts of interest between his personal affairs and
those of state.
 Trump is a puppet of the Koch brothers, who are
famous for sponsoring the extreme right.
 Trump is a white supremacist and a threat to minorities.
 Anti-Trump opposition just keeps growing outside
Washington.
365
 To save democracy, let’s support the democrataic
parliamentarians who are attacking Trump, and let’s
demolish those who are co-operating with him.
 Overthrowing Trump will take time, so don’t let’s
weaken in our resolve.
This association will produce the newsletters
and 30-second videos.
It will base itself on two other groups – a company which
makes documentary videos, The American Independent,
and a statistical unit, Benchmark Politics.
The whole of this system – which was set up
during the transitional period, that is to say
before Donald Trump’s arrival at the White
House – already employed more than 300
specialists to which should be added
numerous voluteer workers.
Its annual budget, initially calculated at 35 million dollars,
was increased to the level of about 100 million dollars.
Destroying the image – and thus the authority – of the
President of the United States, before he has had the time
to do anything at all, can have serious consequences. By
eliminating Saddam Hussein and Mouamar Kadhafi, the
CIA plunged their two countries into a long period of
chaos, and the «land of Liberty» itself may suffer severe
damage from such an operation.
This type of mass manipulation technique
has never before been levelled at a head of
state in the Western world.
For the moment, the plan is working –
no political leader in the world has dared to celebrate the
election of Donald Trump, with the exception of Vladimir
Putin and Mahmoud Ahmadinejad.
 CIA Stresses Loyalty To
The AGENCY Over Loyalty To The Constitution
By George Washington
Mar 13, 2017 2:32 PM

Government employees swear an oath to uphold and convince themselves that they are doing it in the national
defend the Constitution. interest, for national security. From my very first day in
the CIA, it was drilled into me, as it is into every other
Intelligence workers are no different … employee, that

And yet former CIA counterterrorism officer and former “the primary mission is to protect the Agency.”
senior investigator with the Senate Foreign Relations
Committee John Kiriakou writes: That was the mantra.

One of the things that most observers don’t understand is Indeed, the CIA is a rogue agency.
that the CIA will do anything – anything – to survive. All
CIA officers are taught to lie. They lie all the time, about So is the NSA.
everything, to everybody. And they justify it by trying to
.

366
 CNN Undergoes 'Technical Difficulties'
During Obamacare Victims Broadcast
By The_Real_Fly
Mar 13, 2017 8:21 PM

Yes, CNN did it again. Whenever CNN pretends to be a

news organization, rest assured, they will always tip their
hand -- revealing themselves to be nothing more than s-h-i-
l-l-s.

For the sake of posterity, let's revisit some of CNN's recent

forays into the unfortunate world of technical difficulties.

CNN cuts off Congressman who dared to discuss

Wikileaks

Bernie Sanders cut off after calling CNN Fake News

CNN host cut off after criticizing Hillary
What's also interesting, according to CNN, it's 'illegal to
Congressman cut off after citing refugee crime stats
possess stolen documents' -- aka the wikileaks emails. So,
in the event you're interested in reviewing its findings,
And now today.
please refrain from doing so and let them, the professional
journalists, convey the details of its contents to you -- the
unwashed manlet.

367
 McCain To Trump:
Retract Wiretap Claim Or Provide Evidence
By Jim W. Dean, Managing Editor
March 13, 2017

[ Editor’s Note: McCain throws down the gauntlet to Trump and

his brilliant White House team to put up or shut up on their
charge that the Obama administration legally or illegally
wiretapped him and his campaign. The backfire began soon after
Trump’s twitter bushwhack of Obama was followed up with zero
evidence, and Congressional Republicans quickly distanced
themselves.
By Monday, Trump had already retreated, saying that he would
have nothing more to say on the matter until Congress had
finished its investigation. Yesterday McCain had already said he
wanted Trump’s “evidence” by Monday, and here he is below,
firing away.
Who came up with this crazy stunt to bluff a charge of illegal wiretapping?
I will say as I did in my last NEO article, Trump and his team are
going to be their own worst enemies, capable of taking
themselves down with one gaffe after another. I do not wish this,
as it will hurt the country, with their leaving a trail of destruction in
their wake, much as the Obama wars and regime overthrows did.
His Nobel Peace Prize is now the biggest bad joke in the history
of that award… Jim W. Dean ]
Jim’s Editor’s Notes are solely crowdfunded
via PayPal – JimWDean@aol.com

So far, the current Intel people and Obama’s people are all in This includes research, needed field trips,
agreement that no such thing happened, so Trump’s twitter ship Heritage TV Legacy archiving, and more –
is sinking on his deal, as the public will notice that, rather than Thanks for helping out
remaining quiet or taking the 5th amendment, all those in a
position to know, so far, are saying it absolutely did not happen. _________

IF it turns out that Trump made it all up, thinking that as president
and having immunity, why not use it to lie when you feel it is to
your advantage, this could be a major boomerang in the works
this week. I had posed in my first article that the best reason I
could think of for his doing this dump is having Obama
investigated; added to his own investigation, it was a Hail Mary
pass, hoping that they might come up with something.

This is more proof that we have a gang of

people who can’t shoot straight in the White
House, and who still are in the mode that
when you have power, you can use it any way
you want to. But what they might be getting
ready to learn before the first 100 days is over
is that when they throw away the prestige of
the Presidency, by acting like a bunch of
weasels, that is going to hurt them badly.
The FBI’s James Comey has bipartisan support backing behind him.
Trump does not.
– First published … March 13, 2017 –
Influential US Republican Senator John McCain has
denounced President Donald Trump’s claim that former
Democratic President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump

368
Tower, saying either he has to retract it or provide
evidence of the allegation.
“President Trump has to provide the
American people, not just the intelligence
community, but the American people, with
evidence that his predecessor, former
president of the Unites States was guilty of
breaking the law,” McCain told CNN on
Sunday.
One this for sure, we will be getting to the bottom of this
Earlier this month, Trump accused his predecessor of
intercepting his communications at his offices in Trump
Tower in New York City just before the November
presidential election.
He also said that Obama abused his power and spied on his
campaign fearing that his team was connected to Moscow.
.
369
Trump, however, offered no evidence to support his
accusations. A spokesman of Obama denied that the
former president or any White House official had ordered
surveillance.
McCain said on Sunday that he had “no reason to believe”
Trump’s allegations, but if Obama “violated the law” by
ordering surveillance, then “we’ve got a serious issue.”
“I have no reason to believe that the charge is
true, but I also believe that the president of
the Unites States could clear this up in a
minute,” McCain said.
The senator added that Trump could call the CIA chief and
the director of national intelligence for proof. “All he has
to do is pick up the phone, call the director of the CIA,
director of national intelligence and say, ‘OK, what
happened?'”
Experts say electronic surveillance of a US citizen by
American intelligence agencies would require a warrant
approved by a FISA court judge. Presidents do not have
the authority to order such wiretaps and would not even be
aware of them as a routine matter.
If the president were involved in the process, it would be
“scandalous and unheard of,” said Ron Hosko, a former
assistant FBI director. Hosko called the allegations
“unprecedented” and “unlikely to have occurred in the
very broad way” that Trump described.
 NYT Hypocrisy
By Stephen Lendman
3-13-2017
In a Tuesday editorial, Times editors criticized Trump for
calling Egyptian despot Abdel Fattah el-Sisi (a US War
College graduate) a “fantastic guy,” ignoring his coup
d’etat regime, reigning terror against Muslim Brotherhood
members and other opponents.
The Times selectively picks nations and leaders to
criticize, ignoring ones most important to target - America
and Israel most of all, the world’s two leading human
rights abusers.
The self-styled newspaper of record ignores their high
crimes. Try finding a single Times report denouncing US
aggression in multiple theaters.
Nothing about replacing democracy with fascist thugs in
Ukraine. Silence about Israeli apartheid worse than South
Africa’s.
Nothing explained about creating and supporting ISIS and
other terrorist groups, using them as imperial foot soldiers,
waging phony war against them in Syria and Iraq.
High crimes committed by the Clintons, Bush/Cheney and
Obama are ignored - at home and abroad.
No Times reports explain US plans for replacing all
sovereign independent governments with US vassal states,
.
370
or wanting control over the world’s resources and
establishing ruler/serf societies everywhere.
Instead of denouncing US wars of aggression, The Times
supports them, pretending their goal is liberation, ignoring
their imperial aim.
It praises NATO’s killing machine, its war on humanity,
militarized America, its inner city communities turned into
battlegrounds.
It favors the world made safe for monied interests at the
expense of popular ones. Its editors, correspondents and
contributors are press agents for wealth, power and
privilege.
They’re silent about an array of despots Washington
supports, Egypt’s Sisi one of many. Others include Israel’s
ruthless regime, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf states,
numerous other rogue states on every continent.
Times editors: “…Washington should not make any more
concessions without real reforms in Egypt’s approach to
human rights and governance.”
Times editors should focus on homegrown abuses most of
all - far worse than anything going on elsewhere.
 UK Helped Obama WIRETAP Trump?
Insider Explains FBI, NSA Coup (VIDEO)
By: Barry Soetoro
Date: March 13, 2017

“Both Jim Clapper and John Brennan (at CIA)

were intimately involved in trying to derail the
candidacy of Donald Trump. There was some
collusion overseas with Britain’s own GCHQ.
That information gathered from GCHQ was
actually passed to John Brennan, and it was
disseminated within the US Government. This
dissemination was illegal………”
“There are still senior people in jobs at the
Director of National Intelligence office, the office
of the Central Intelligence Agency, the National
Security Agency that ought to be fired, Larry
(image: SOTN) Johnson, retired CIA and State Department
official, told RT.”
Did the UK help Obama wiretap Trump Tower?

Larry Johnson (former CIA) explains HOW Obama used

FBI and NSA to illegally bug Trump — WHY that is
Sedition — and WHICH criminals helped Obama commit
this Treasonous crime.

Larry Johnson (former CIA):

“All of this was part of a coordinated planned

campaign by people that are linked to Barack
Obama.”

371
 Trump’s War On Dangerous
Memory And Critical Thought
By Henry Giroux
March 13, 2017
The ideal subject of totalitarian rule is not
the convinced Nazi or the dedicated
communist, but people for whom the
distinction between fact and fiction, true
and false, no longer exists.
― Hannah Arendt
People living in the United States have entered into one of
the most dangerous periods of the 21st century. President
Donald Trump is not only a twisted caricature of every
variation of economic, political, educational, and social
fundamentalism, he is the apogee of an increasingly
intolerant and authoritarian culture committed to
destroying free speech, civil rights, women’s reproductive
freedoms, and all vestiges of economic justice and
democracy.
Trump is the fascist shadow that has been lurking in the
dark since Nixon’s Southern Strategy. Authoritarianism
has now become viral in America, pursuing new avenues
to spread its toxic ideology of bigotry, cruelty, and greed
into every facet of society. Its legions of “alt-right”
racists, misogynists, and xenophobic hate-mongers now
expose themselves publicly, without apology, knowing full
well that they no longer have to use code for their hatred of
all those who do not fit into their white-supremacist and
ultra-nationalist script.
Trump’s victory makes clear that the economic crisis and
the misery it has spurred has not been matched by an
ideological crisis– a crisis of ideas, education, and values.
Critical analysis and historical memory have given way to
a culture of spectacles, sensationalism, and immediacy.
Dangerous memories are now buried in a mass
bombardment of advertisements, state sanctioned lies, and
372
a political theater of endless spectacles. The mainstream
media is now largely an adjunct of the entertainment
industries and big corporations. Within the last 40 years
training has taken the place of critical education, and the
call for job skills replaces critical thinking. Without an
informed public, there is no resistance in the name of
democracy and justice; nor is there a model of individual
and collective agency rising to such an occasion. Of
course, power is never entirely on the side of domination,
and in this coming era of acute repression, we will have to
redefine politics, reclaim the struggle to produce
meaningful educational visions and practices, find new
ways to change individual and collective consciousness,
take seriously the need to engage in meaningful dialogue
with people left out of the political landscape, and
overcome the factionalism of single-issue movements in
order to build broad based social movements.
Manufactured ignorance erases histories of repression,
exploitation, and revolts. What is left is a space of
fabricated absences that makes it easy, if not convenient, to
forget that Trump is not some eccentric clown offered up
to the American polity through the deadening influence of
celebrity and consumer culture. State and corporate
sponsored ignorance produced primarily through the
disimagination machines of the mainstream media and
public relations industries in diverse forms now function
largely to erase selected elements of history, disdain
critical thought, reduce dissent to a species of fake news,
and undermine the social imagination. How else to explain
the recent Arkansas legislator who is pushing legislation to
ban the works of the late historian Howard Zinn? How
else to explain a culture awash in self-help therapies and
game shows? How else to explain the aggressive attack by
extremists in both political parties on public and higher
education? White washing history is an urgent matter,
especially for the Trump administration, which has
brought a number of white supremacists to the center of
power in the United States.
Historical legacies of racist oppression and dangerous
memories can be troublesome for the neo-fascist now
governing American society. This was made clear in the
backlash to Ben Carson’s claim that slaves were
immigrants, Trump’s insistence that all black communities
are crime-ridden, impoverished hellholes, and Education
Secretary Betsy DeVos’s assertion that historically black
colleges and universities were “pioneers of school choice.”
Memories become dangerous when exposing this type of
ideological ignorance aimed at rewriting history so as to
eliminate its fascist and poisonous legacies. This is
particularly true of the genocidal brutality waged against
Native Americans and Black slaves in the United States
and its connection to the memory of Nazi genocide in
Europe and the disappearance of critics of fascism in
Argentina and Chile in the 1970s.
Dangerous memories are eliminated in order to erase the
ugliness of the past and to legitimate America’s shop
worn legacy of exceptionalism with its deadening
ideology of habitual optimism, one that substitutes a
cheery empty Disney-like dreamscape for any viable
notion of utopian possibility.[i] The Disney dreamscape
evacuates hope of any meaning while attempting to
undercut a radical utopian element in hope that speaks to
the possibility of a democratic future very different from
the authoritarian present. Jelani Cobb is right in insisting
that “The habitual tendency to excise the most tragic
elements of history creates a void in our collective
understanding of what has happened in the past and,
therefore, our understanding of the potential for tragedian
in the present.”[ii] The revival of historical memory as a
central political strategy is crucial today given that
Trump’s white supremacist policies not only echo
elements of a fascist past, they point to the need to
recognize as Paul Gilroy has observed “how elements of
fascism appear in new forms,” especially as “the living
memory of the fascist period fades.”[iii] What historical
memory makes clear is that subjectivity and agency are the
material of politics and offer the possibility of creating
spaces in which “the domestic machinery of inscriptions
and invisibility” can be challenged.[iv] Catherine Clement
is right in arguing that “Somewhere every culture has an
imaginary zone for what it excludes and it is that zone we
must try to remember today.”[v] Historical and dangerous
memories inhabit that zone in today’s neo-fascist social
order.
While it would be irresponsible to underestimate Trump’s
embrace of neo-fascist ideology and policies, he is not
solely answerable for the long legacy of authoritarianism
that took on a frontal assault with the election of Ronald
Reagan in 1980. This neoliberal attack was later embraced
by the Third Way politics of the Democratic Party and the
mass incarceration state, and solidified under the anti-
democratic policies of the Bush-Cheney and Obama
administrations. During this period, democracy was sold to
the bankers and big corporations. This surge of repression
was made possible mostly through the emergence of a
savage neoliberalism, a ruthless concentration of power by
the financial elites, and an aggressive ideological and
cultural war aimed at undoing the social contract and the
democratic, political and personal freedoms gained in the
New Deal and culminating in the civil rights and
educational struggles of the 1960s.
373
Trump’s unapologetic authoritarianism has prompted
Democratic Party members and the liberal elite to position
themselves as the only alternative of organized resistance
in such dark times. It is difficult not to see such moral
outrage and resistance as both comedic and hypocritical in
light of the role they have played in the last forty years of
subverting democracy and throwing minorities of class and
color under the bus. As Jeffrey St. Clair observes,
“Trump’s nominal opponents,” the Democrats Party are
“encased in the fatal amber of their neoliberalism”[vi] and
are part of the problem and not the solution. Rather than
face up to their sordid history of ignoring the needs of
workers, young people, and minorities of class and color,
the Democratic Party acts as if their embrace of a variety
of neoliberal political and economic policies along with
their support of a perpetual war machine had nothing to do
with paving the way for the election of Donald Trump.
Trump represents the transformation of politics into a
Reality TV show and the belief that the worth of a
candidate can only by judged in terms of a blend of value
as an entertainer and an advertisement for casino
capitalism.[vii] Chris Hedges gets it right in revealing such
hypocrisy for what it is worth—a carnival act. He writes:
Where was this moral outrage when our privacy was taken
from us by the security and surveillance state, the
criminals on Wall Street were bailed out, we were stripped
of our civil liberties and 2.3 million men and women were
packed into our prisons, most of them poor people of
color? Why did they not thunder with indignation as
money replaced the vote and elected officials and
corporate lobbyists instituted our system of legalized
bribery? Where were the impassioned critiques of the
absurd idea of allowing a nation to be governed by the
dictates of corporations, banks and hedge fund managers?
Why did they cater to the foibles and utterings of fellow
elites, all the while blacklisting critics of the corporate
state and ignoring the misery of the poor and the working
class? Where was their moral righteousness when the
United States committed war crimes in the Middle East
and our militarized police carried out murderous
rampages? What the liberal elites do now is not moral. It is
self-exaltation disguised as piety. It is part of the carnival
act.[viii]
The production of dangerous memories and critical
knowledge and the formative culture they enable must
become central to resisting the armed ignorance of the
Trump disimagination machine. While such knowledge is
the precondition for militant resistance, it is not enough. A
critical consciousness is the precondition of struggle but is
only the starting point for resistance. What is also needed
is a bold strategy and social movement capable of shutting
down this neo-fascist political machine at all levels of
government through general strikes, constant occupation of
the political spaces and public spheres under the control of
the new authoritarians, and the creation of an endless wave
of educational strategies and demonstrations that make
clear and hold accountable the different ideological,
material, and economic registers of fascism at work in
American society. This is a time to study, engage in
critical dialogues, develop new educational sites, support
and expand the alternative media, and fight back
collectively. It will not be easy to turn the tide, but it can
happen, and there are historical precedents.
The main strategies of change and political agency have to
focus on both the young and those most vulnerable to the
dictates of neo-fascism. Young people, workers, and those
now considered disposable, especially, are the driving
force of the future and we have to both learn from them,
support them, contribute where possible, and join in their
struggles. At the same time, as Robin D.G. Kelley argues
in his Boston Review article, After Trump, “we cannot
build a sustainable movement without a paradigm shift.
Stopgap, utilitarian alliances to stop Trump aren’t enough.
… So where do we go from here? If we really care about
the world, our country, and our future, we have no choice
but to resist.”[ix]
It is worth repeating that at the core of any strategy to
resist the further descent of the United States into
authoritarianism, progressives must recognize that
stopping Trump without destroying the economic,
political, educational and social conditions which produced
him will fail. In part a successful resistance struggle must
be both comprehensive and at the same time embrace a
vision that is as unified as it is democratic. Instead of
reacting to the horrors and misery produced by capitalism,
it is crucial to call for its end while supporting a notion of
democratic socialism that speaks to the needs of those
who have been left out of the discourse of democracy
under the financial elite.
Such a task is both political and pedagogical. Not only do
existing relations of power have to be called into question,
but notions of neoliberal commonsense learning have to be
disconnected from any democratic sense of political
agency and notion of civic literacy. Rather than engaging
in a politics of shaming, progressives have to produce a
discourse in which people can recognize their problems
and the actual conditions that produce them. This is not
just a political but a pedagogical challenge in which
education becomes central to any viable notion of
resistance. Making education central to politics means the
left will have to remove itself from the discourse of
meritocracy that often is used to dismiss and write off
those who hold conservative, if not reactionary, views. Not
doing so only results in a discourse of shaming and a self-
indulgent congratulatory stance on the part of those who
occupy progressive political positions.[x] The hard
political and pedagogical work of changing consciousness,
producing new modes of identity, desires, and values
conducive to a democracy doesn’t stop with appeals to
liberals and other progressives. The right-wing knows how
to address matters of self-blame and anger whereas the left
and progressives dispense with the pedagogical challenges
374
posed by those vulnerable groups caught in the magical
thinking of reactionary ideologies.[xi]
Resistance will not be easy and has to take place on
multiple fronts while at the same time enabling a view of
politics that understands how a new class of financial
scavengers operates in the free flow of a global space that
has no national allegiances, no respect for the social
contract, and exhibit a degree of power that is unparalleled
in its ability to exploit, produce massive inequality, destroy
the planet, and accelerate human suffering across and
within national boundaries. Resistance is no longer an
option, it is now a matter of life or death. The lights are
going out on democracy across the globe and the time to
wake up from this nightmare is now. There are no
guarantees in politics, but there is no politics that matters
without hope, that is, educated hope. This is not merely a
call for a third political party, progressives need to create a
new politics and new social and political formations. For
instance, instead of mounting resistance through a range of
single issue movements, it is important to bring such
movements together as part of a broad-based political
formation.
Any vision for this movement must reject the false notion
that capitalism and democracy are synonymous. The crisis
of democracy has reached its tipping point, and once again
the possibilities for reclaiming the ideals and practices of
democratic socialism seem capable of moving a generation
of young people and others to act. Under the reign of
Trump, the words of Frederick Douglass ring especially
true:
If there is no struggle, there is no progress. …This struggle
may be a moral one; or it may be a physical one; or
it may be both moral and physical; but it must be a
struggle. Power concedes nothing without a demand. It
never did and it never will.”[xii]
Trump’s election is surely a tragedy for democracy and a
triumph for neo-fascism and it must be challenged and
stopped on a variety of levels. Yet, making clear Trump’s
anti-democratic ideology and practices will not put an end
to the current stage of neo-fascism in the United States,
especially when memory no longer makes a claim on our
understanding of the past. Trump’s election has unleashed
a brand of savage capitalism that not only has and will
continue to have horrible consequences, but is deeply
rooted in a mode of historical and social amnesia that
eliminates its relationship to an authoritarian past. Memory
loses its role as a vehicle of liberation when policies that
produce savage modes of austerity, inequality, racism, and
contempt for public goods become frozen in historical time
and consciousness and as such become normalized. Under
such circumstances, organized structures of misrecognition
define and legitimate memory as a threat.
Memory, reason and thoughtfulness have to awake from a pathology points to a social order that has lost its
the narcotizing effects of a culture of spectacle, memory of self-worth, dignity, justice, and compassion.
consumerism, militarism, and the celebration of unchecked Evil in politics is no longer a figment of the past but a
self-interests. A society that enshrines the war of all present day reality enshrined in the ethos of neoliberalism.
against all, elevates self-interest as its highest ideal, The body of democracy is on life support and the wounds
reduces responsibility to a solely individual undertaking, now being inflicted upon it are too alarming to either
makes distrust a virtue, and turns love and compassion into ignore or normalize.
Notes.
[i] Jelani Cobb, “Ben Carson, Donald Trump, and the Misuse of American History,” The New Yorker (March 8, 2017). Online:
http://www.newyorker.com/news/daily-comment/ben-carson-donald-trump-and-the-misuse-of-american-history
[ii] Ibid., Jelani Cobb.
[iii] Paul Gilroy, Against Race: Imagining Political Culture beyond the Color Line, (Cambridge: The Belknap Press of Harvard
University Press, 2000), pp. 145-146
[iv] Joao Biehl, Vita: Life in a Zone of Social Abandonment (Los Angeles: University of California Press, 2005), p. 10.
[v] Cited in Cited in Helene Cixous and Catherine Clement, The Newly Born Woman, trans, Betsy Wing Theory and History of
Literature Series, vol 24 (Minnesota: University of Minnesota Press, 1986), p. ix.
[vi] Jeffrey St. Clair, “Fools on the hill: Trump and Congress,” Counterpunch, [March 3, 2017] Online:
http://www.counterpunch.org/2017/03/03/fools-on-the-hill-trump-and-congress/
[vii] The classic commentary on politics as show business can be found in Neil Postman, Amusing Ourselves to Death: Public
Discourse in the Age of Show Business, (New York, NY: Penguin Books, 1985, 2005).
[viii] Chris Hedges, “Donald Trump’s Greatest Allies Are the Liberal Elites,” Truthdig, (march 7, 2017) Online:
www.truthdig.com/report/item/donald_trumps_greatest_allies_are_the_liberal_elites_20170305
[ix] Robin D. G. Kelley, “After Trump,” Boston Review (November 15, 2016). Online: http://bostonreview.net/forum/after-trump/robin-
d-g-kelley-trump-says-go-back-we-say-fight-back
[x] This issue is taken up in great detail in Michael Lerner, “Overcoming Trump-ism: A New Strategy for Progressives,” Tikkun
(January 31, 2017). Online: http://www.tikkun.org/nextgen/overcoming-trump-ism-a-new-strategy-for-progressives.
[xi] Ibid., Lerner, “Overcoming Trump-ism”
[xii] Cited in Frederick Douglass, “West India Emancipation” speech at Canandaigua, New York on August 3, 1857. Online:
http://www.blackpast.org/1857-frederick-douglass-if-there-no-struggle-there-no-progress#sthash.8Eoaxpmo.dpuf

375
 White House Jumper Bizarrely Told Journalist Just Days
Earlier That He Was Responsible For Trump
‘Golden Shower’ Dossier
By Caleb Stephen -
03.14.2017 @12:08 PM EDT
Visibly agitated, the man blurted, “The
Russian dossier, it’s my fault. I wrote it.”
(INTELLIHUB) — In a bizarre twist to an already bizarre
story, the man suspected of breaching the White House’s
perimeter Friday night, who was carrying a backpack with
a can of mace and a letter for President Trump inside, told
a female journalist days earlier that he was responsible for
the release of the infamous and libelous “golden showers”
dossier by BuzzFeed.
Jonathan Tran, 26, who has since been charged with
entering restricted grounds while carrying a dangerous
weapon, was also at the same event. Fairbanks didn’t
realize this at the time until she saw headlines talking
about the White House fence jumper.
Cassandra Fairbanks, a widely-published Washington D.C.
journalist and the current editor-in-chief of independent
media outlet WeAreChange.org told Intellihub News that
she attended Trump advisor Roger Stone’s launch of his
new book “The Making Of The President 2016” at the
Hay Adams Hotel in Washington D.C on February 27th.
“Following the event, I went to Off the
Record, the bar downstairs, with several
friends. We sat at a table close to the
entrance and laughed about the brilliant
coasters adorned with artwork of Paul
Ryan, President Donald Trump, and the
first lady. Tran joined us, ordering a
hamburger and fries. He seemed very
much like everyone else in DC — a slightly
awkward political junkie,” Fairbanks said.
376
Tran soon found himself on the way to the Trump
International Hotel along with Fairbanks and a friend.
“We discussed the event, the city, and of
course, Donald Trump. He told me how
much he loves alternative media, and we
agreed that the mainstream media had
waged war on the president by no longer
even pretending to hide their bias against
him,” Fairbanks said recalling the evening’s
events.
“About halfway to the hotel, I realized that
walking in expensive heels isn’t generally
fun, and hailed a cab. After we got in, I
asked Tran if he had been in town for
CPAC, which had just concluded over the
weekend. He explained that he had
traveled across the country just for Stone’s
event — and said that he did not even have
a place to stay. He told me that he was
planning to book a room at Trump
International, though he was a bit
concerned about the cost.”
Tran, who seemed terribly disappointed about the
President’s no-show at Stone’s book launch, told
Fairbanks that he then tried to find a journalist that he
could hand a “massive story” to but failed in his ambitious
goal.
It was then at this point that Fairbanks told Tran that she
writes for multiple outlets and may be interested in his
story depending on what he had and what it was about.
“When I told him that I write for We Are
Change he was excited, explaining that he
was a fan, and claimed that he had ‘top
secret insider information’ — which was
‘not to be taken lightly,” she said.
“I’m a source,” Tran told her point blank.
“What?” Fairbanks said in surprise.
Tran then proceeded to retrieve a small piece of paper and
a pen from his backpack and began to write something
down. He passed Fairbanks a note explaining that it was
about the infamous ‘Golden Showers’ dossier released by
BuzzFeed in January.
“As I have been covering the dossier for
Sputnik News, I told him I was listening.”
He leaned in close and whispered, “The
dossier is my fault…”
At this point, Fairbanks was confused so she asked him to
repeat himself.
“The Russian dossier, it’s my fault. I wrote
it” he blurted.
Tran explained that he believed Christopher Steele’s
dossier, an unsubstantiated and irresponsible BuzzFeed hit
piece, was adapted and partially plagiarized from a
complaint about a former roommate he had filed several
years ago.
“I blinked, and realized that this person
probably didn’t actually know any of my
friends,” she said.
“He was extremely smart, bright, well
spoken. I didn’t see the turn in conversation
coming at all,” she said.
“It caught me really off guard.”
Tran continued on telling Fairbanks that the CIA and FBI
had been hunting him down and painting him as a
schizophrenic so that nobody would believe his claims. He
then slipped her another note with his Twitter handle,
which Fairbanks has since misplaced.
.
377
Tran began scanning the room wide-eyed and impatiently,
looking for someone “in the Trump administration” to get
his information to, claiming that the president was in
danger and that he felt responsible for it.
“He asked me if I knew anyone who knew
the president, and if I could help get a letter
to him. I told him that I did not,” she said.
“He was very worried about Trump’s safety,
stressing that the president would
understand if he could just speak to him.”
Fairbanks, feeling uncomfortable, decided to alert security
and leave the hotel… just in case.
“I told him that I would be in touch, but that
I needed to get home as it was getting
late,” she said.
She told a hotel bouncer, who also happened to be her
friend, that she was concerned about Tran as he was telling
her “a pretty wild tale.”
“I suggested that they may want to keep an
eye on him, especially if anyone from the
administration came in, but also stressed
that he is a very nice guy who is probably
just having a bad time,” Fairbanks said.
Moments later, a fellow journalist called Fairbanks and
told her that he was heading to the hotel with his friends
and invited her to stay and hang out. While waiting for
their arrival and still a little frightened, Fairbanks decided
to wait outside.
When they arrived, she went back into the hotel with them
but Tran had vanished.
 ABC, NBC Downplay Trump Connection To Jobs Report
By Julia A. Seymour
March 14, 2017
While financial news networks, companies and economists
linked optimism over President Donald Trump’s proposed
economic policies to the strong jobs report, only one of
three broadcast networks — CBS — made that connection.
On March 10, The Bureau of Labor
Statistics announced 235,000 new jobs
were added in February — the first
month entirely under the new
president’s watch. The report shot past
expectations by 38,000 jobs.
That night, ABC, CBS and NBC evening news programs all
covered the report. But only CBS Evening News suggested
the results had anything to do with Trump.
NBC Nightly News admitted it was a
“stronger than expected jobs report”
but rapidly turned the positive economic story into a
negative one — by focusing on companies unable to find
people with the right training for their manufacturing
needs.
After saying the White House was “celebrating” the new
jobs report, ABC World News with David Muir also
worked to credit former President Barack Obama, instead
of Trump.
There was no mention of business optimism due to the
Trump’s plans for tax reform or less regulation, even
though that rhetoric helped drive Wall Street to more than
a dozen new record highs. Instead, ABC turned to a
statement from Democratic National Committee chair Tom
Perez who said Trump just inherited a job growth streak
from Obama.
378
ABC’s chief business correspondent Rebecca Jarvis noted
that stocks were up 14 percent, also avoiding any mention
of a Trump effect.
The March 10, Evening News report by Jim Axelrod stood
in stark contrast to both of those reports. Anchor Scott
Pelley introduced the report by saying,
“It is now the Trump economy ... ”
and telling viewers the numbers showed a continuation of
a jobs recovery which began under Obama.
However, following Pelley’s remarks, Axelrod delivered a
very positive report about a company that is “hiring again”
and connected it to “optimism” about Trump policies.
“There’s a lot of optimism and believe that
we will be seeing it not only 2017, but the
next few years continuing to increase and
bringing jobs and manufacturing back here
to the U.S. that might have been done
outside the U.S. in the past,” COO Rick
Urban of Quality Controlled Manufacturing
said.
Axelrod also interviewed Bank of America’s Ethan Harris
who told him,
“We’re, you know, finally heading in the
right direction.”
All three shows cited Trump’s previous statements about
the jobs report being “phony,” but that he says they
are “real” now.
 Famous Navy Seal
Calls For Veterans To Defend Trump
Navy SEAL Veteran Craig Sawyer Gives
A Live Public Defense Of Trump
By Infowars.Com -
03.14.2017 @9:30 PM EDT

379
 Assange Claims Hillary,
Intel Officials "Quietly Pushing A Pence Takeover"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 14, 2017 3:32 Pm
Over the weekend we noted chatter that some saw Mike
Pence as "the Deep State's insurance policy," and now,
judging by tweets from Wikileaks' Julian Assange, that
may well be the Clinton/Intelligence Officials plan...
Clinton stated privately this month that she is
quietly pushing for a Pence takeover. She stated
that Pence is predictable hence defeatable.
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 14,
2017
Adding that...
Two IC officials close to Pence stated privately
this month that they are planning on a Pence
takeover. Did not state if Pence agrees.
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 14,
2017
As The Daily Caller notes, Assange’s claims appear to
come in response to reports that President Trump
authorized the CIA to perform drone strikes on terrorists
Monday evening...
By handing unilateral power to the CIA over its
drone strikes at this time White House signals
that bullying, disloyalty & incompetence pays
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) March 14,
2017
As we concluded previously,
if Trump doesn’t adopt the Cold War 2.0
approach of Barack Obama and Hillary
Clinton and is forced out of his own
380
administration in the same manner as Flynn, it
will become clear why once we learn who would
replace him: Mike Pence.
No matter what one makes of Trump - or his
administration and the policies that have been initiated
thus far - the fact remains that Trump won the U.S.
election.
The people working behind the scenes to
oust him are not subject to democratic
controls, nor are they working in the best
interests of the American public. We are left
to ask ourselves exactly how renewing
relations with Russia – a nuclear power –
could possibly endanger American lives.
Either way, we are more or less left with two paths ahead
of us.The first path involves Trump giving in and adopting
an anti-Russian agenda, as is already apparent in his
decision to send more ground troops to Syria alongside
Saudi troops, who will intentionally oppose the Syrian
regime (a close ally of Russia). The second involves the
possibility of another direct coup within the Trump
administration, this time one that may ultimately force
Trump out of the White House so he can be replaced by
Mike Pence, a war hawk who will be more than happy to
do the job Hillary Clinton wanted to do.
 MRC’s Gainor: Media Covers Trump’s
Success Only When They ‘Absolutely Have To’
By James Powers
March 14, 2017
MRC Vice President of Business and Culture Dan Gainor
scolded the liberal media’s coverage of good economic
news under the Trump administration.
“They are giving no coverage to the good
news except when they absolutely have
to,” Gainor declared during a March 10,
appearance on Intelligence Report with
Trish Regan.
Gainor explained that just two days ago ADP reported
100,000 more jobs than predicted but “ABC, CBS, and
NBC didn't cover it at all.”
381
During a recent span of 12 consecutive sessions of record
highs for the Dow Jones Industrial Average, “we looked
and there were only seven NBC, CBS, or NBC evening
news stories” Gainor told Regan and Fox Business
Network viewers.
“The American people want to talk about
jobs. They want to talk about their
retirement accounts. They want to talk
about the stock market because they care
about pocketbook issues,” Gainor said. But
the media want “to talk about everything
else.”
Regan agreed and concluded that economic issues may be
“a little too sophisticated” for the liberal news media.
 Fake News Proliferator NYT
Mocks Real News Broadcaster RT
By Stephen Lendman
3-14-2017
The Times is America’s leading proliferator of state-
sponsored propaganda - providing press agent services for
powerful interests, journalism the way it’s supposed to be
off-the-table on its pages, why relying on it assures being
misinformed.
The Times asked if RT is “more BBC or KGB.” Of course,
it’s neither. It produces real news and information, not fake
news and misinformation like The Times, BBC and other
media scoundrels - paid to lie, not inform.
The Times: “(M)any Western countries regard RT as the
slickly produced heart of a broad, often covert
disinformation campaign designed to sow doubt about
democratic institutions and destabilize the West.”
Fact: It’s an effective antidote to Western propaganda. It
reaches around 50 million unique users monthly
worldwide - via television, online and mobile devices.
“It’s a world leader among non-Anglo-Saxon international
TV news channels,” it explains - for a good reason,
because millions of people want real news and
information, not rubbish media scoundrels like The Times
feature.
The Times: “Western attention focused on RT when the
Obama administration and United States intelligence
agencies judged with ‘high confidence’ in January that Mr.
Putin had ordered a campaign to ‘undermine public faith in
the US democratic process,’ discredit Hillary Clinton
through the hacking of Democratic Party internal emails
and provide support for Donald J. Trump, who as a
candidate said he wanted to improve relations with
Russia.”
Fact: Intelligent news consumers know with 100%
confidence that no Russian US election hacking occurred,
no interference in America’s process. Its intelligence
community lied - yet to release a shred of evidence
backing its baseless claim because none exists.
The Times: RT’s “unifying character…is a deep
skepticism of Western and American narratives of the
.
382
world and a fundamental defensiveness about Russia and
Mr. Putin.”
Fact: Millions worldwide rely on RT for truth-telling,
what Western media consistently spurn.
The Times: RT has “minuscule rating numbers.”
Fact: It growing viewership exceeds most other
international broadcasters. RT is gaining exposure at their
expense.
The Times: “RT and Sputnik (News) create the fodder for
thousands of fake news propagandors (sic) and provide
another outlet for hacked material that can serve Russian
interests” - citing hawkish neocon Atlantic Council
member Ben Nimmo.
Fact: Proliferators of fake news like The Times denigrate
real news producers like RT and other alternative sources
because they’re gaining audience numbers.
The reason is simple. Growing numbers of people want
truth-telling, not media scoundrel rubbish.
The Editors: “Whatever its impact, RT is unquestionably
a case study in the complexity of modern propaganda.”
Fact: For Times editors, truth-telling on major issues =
propaganda. It’s masthead should say: All the fake news
unfit to print or read.
Times editors: “…RT and Sputnik are simply tools of a
sophisticated Russian propaganda machine, created by the
Kremlin to push its foreign policy, defend its aggression in
Ukraine and undermine confidence in democracy, NATO
and the world as we have known it.”
Fact: If all media were like RT and Sputnik News,
Western News consumers would understand hard truths
about their rogue governments they’re denied accurate
information on from media scoundrels like The Times -
defenders of ruthless power, not responsible critics.
 The Democrats
Anti-Russia Campaign Falls Apart
March 14, 2017
A while ago Matt Tabbi in Rolling Stone warned: Why the
Russia Story Is a Minefield for Democrats and the
Media:
If we engage in Times-style gilding of every lily the
leakers throw our way, and in doing so build up a fever of
expectations for a bombshell reveal, but there turns out to
be no conspiracy – Trump will be pre-inoculated against
all criticism for the foreseeable future.
Sanity is finally winning over. After raising all kinds of
shambolic rumors about "Russian interference" the
"western" intelligence agencies are walking back their
previous outrageous claims:
 Former DNI James Clapper admits (vid) that he has
zero evidence for any Trump-Russia collusion;
 The British Foreign Secretary now says there is "no
evidence" of any Russian interference with British
democracy;
 The German secret services have no proof (in German)
for any Russian disinformation campaign.
There is no evidence for any Russian interference in the
U.S., or any other, election. No evidence has been show,
despite many claims, that Russia or its proxies hacked
John Podesta's emails or the DNC or collaborated with
Wikileaks.
Even the Democrats now concede that the whole mountain
of bullshit their anti-Trump and anti-Russian campaign
created stinks to high heaven:
[S]ome Democrats on the Intelligence Committee
now quietly admit, after several briefings and
preliminary inquiries, they don’t expect to find
evidence of active, informed collusion between
the Trump campaign and known Russian
intelligence operatives, though investigators have
only just begun reviewing raw intelligence.
Among the Intelligence Committee’s rank and
file, there’s a tangible frustration over what one
official called “wildly inflated” expectations
surrounding the panel’s fledgling investigation.
.
383
Ardent Russia critics like Masha Geesen and former
ambassador Michael McFaul now warn of irreparable
damage the irrational anti-Russian campaign may cause. A
New York Times opinion piece points out that the reignited
anti-Russian attitude goes back to the 19th century and was
as wrong then as it is now. Claims that meetings between
the incoming Trump administration and the Russian
ambassador were nefarious are hard to hold up when
members of the Clinton campaign also met him. Trump's
National Security Advisor Flynn was accused of colluding
with Russia when in fact he was paid by Turkey to lobby
for Erdogan.
The disinformation campaign against Russia is falling
apart for lack of any evidence. The media who ardently
supported it have lost trust. As they obviously lied about
Russia how much truth are they telling on other issue?
Tabbi's warning was late. The damage is done. "Western"
relations with Russia have been hurt. But also hurt are the
reputations of the media and of the Democratic party.
Trump though has been justified with his rejection of that
campaign. He now is, as Tabbi predicted, "pre-inoculated"
against other accusations - at least with his followers and
those sitting on the fence. Trump has now the space to
develop his original grand strategic idea of seeking
amiable relations with Russia before getting embroiled in
any other international dispute. Those relations are now
developing on the ground in Syria where cooperation
between Russian and U.S. troops intensifies:
Moscow, Pentagon spokesman Jeff Davis
added, has "kept us abreast of their
operations" in Manbij, ..
Signs are that there is way more of that then the Pentagon
admits. There have been several meetings at the highest
levels of Russian and U.S. military and whoever
commands U.S. forces in Syria will surely have a direct
line to the Russian ground commander to coordinate their
moves.
The Democrats failed in their anti-Trump, anti-Russia
campaign.
 Recent Trump “Firings” Lead
To A History Of Blackmail,
Treason And Murder
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
March 14, 2017

No title of nobility shall be granted by the United States:
and no person holding any office of profit or trust under
them, shall, without the consent of the Congress, accept of
any present, emolument, office, or title, of any kind
whatever, from any king, prince, or foreign state.
members of parliament. Not only were they wiretapped,
but they were “leveraged” as well, and we mean
“blackmailed.”
Behind it all is human trafficking, child sex rings; the
things the Republicans and their alt-right fake news
surrogates are throwing out against others. The GOP, since
the Franklin Scandal under Reagan/Bush and beyond, has
been clearly the center of child sex-trafficking. And also
note, we have a sitting president who, according to court
documents, stands accused of child sex and child murder:

This story will play out as the staffers of

the US Attorney’s office for the
Southern District of New York begin
leaking the cases that were ready to be
filed.

There were two directions by our

estimation – one against Trump for
gross violations of the Constitution –
and the other against Fox News, taking
down Roger Ailes and Sean Hannity
and, we believe, tying them to
wiretapping and maybe worse.

The Fox case will show, if it is not quashed by a political

hack replacement, a pattern identical to that used by the
Murdoch regime in Britain — wiretapping of intelligence
agencies, police and the royal family, and dozens of
prominent member of government, cabinet ministers and

384
Statement of year old “Jane Doe” in lawsuit against
Donald Trump
The emoluments case against Trump, were it to not have
been blocked by Trump’s Deep State friends, would have
involved gifts or awards to Trump from up to 24 nations,
including patent rights from China and even a franchise for
brothels.
____________
China gives green light for Trump branded massage
parlours, bars and concierge services
Our Foreign Staff, associated press
8 MARCH 2017 • 12:49PM
China has granted preliminary approval for 38 new Trump
trademarks, paving the way for President Donald Trump and
his family to develop a host of branded businesses, from
hotels to insurance to bodyguard and concierge services,
public documents show.
For those who think a sitting American president receiving a
brothel-running franchise is funny, this is a license to set up
brothels across China, making the President of the United
States the biggest pimp in world history. Funny? In order to
control his domain, Trump was also issued a license for
385
armed security personnel or “bodyguards” for his string of
girls, to keep them in line, all of this from the Chinese
government that the US is supposed to be so worried about.
A few days after this award, the Chinese president agrees to
meet Trump and the first lady at one of her rare very private
appearances, at Mar a Lago, scene of many of the Trump,
Wexner, Epstein romps.
The travel ban alone is evidence something is amiss even to
the most dullard of Trump devotees, and we are speaking of
Secretary of State Tillerson when we use the term “dullard.”
From Forbes:
Travelers from the majority-Muslim nations of Syria, Iraq,
Iran, Yemen, Sudan, Somalia and Libya were barred from
entering the United States on Jan. 27 after President Trump
signed an executive order enforcing new travel restrictions
for 90 days.
The order, meant to reduce the threat of terror, excludes
several countries, such as Saudi Arabia and Turkey, that
have been accused of supporting extremist groups.
Seven majority-Muslim nations not impacted by the travel
ban have business ties to President Trump, leading critics to
wonder whether his policy is influenced by his business
interests. Some have argued that Trump could dispel any
perceived conflict of interest by divesting his assets and
placing them in a blind trust.
In Istanbul, Turkey, Trump entered into a licensing deal
allowing his name to be used on two luxury buildings,
earning him $5 million in 2015, according to Time.
In Indonesia, the country with the world’s largest Muslim
population, two resorts sporting the Trump brand are in the
midst of being constructed.
Trump also has a number of business ties in the United Arab
Emirates, including luxury villas and a golf course.
According to the Washington Post, plans to build a hotel in
Saudi Arabia have been canceled. However, Trump has had
business dealings with Saudi Prince Alwaleed bin Talal
Alsaud in the past.
Graphics by Holly Warfield, Forbes Staff.
_________
The Alpha (Alfa) Bank
386
The FBI is currently investigating connections between
the Trump campaign and the Russian Alfa Bank. The
history of the Alfa Bank is a complex one, and one not
known to the public. The working group that set up the
Alfa Bank in 1990 were members of the Republican
National Committee (to which I have belonged since
1986).
It also included emigre groups from the Baltic States,
Ukraine and Belarus living in the US, including powerful
business leaders, and members of the Russian security
services tied directly to “Russian settler” groups in Israel, a
tie between Likudists and the Russian mafia.
Aiding them were groups in New York and in Cyprus,
Greek businessmen, people whom I would classify as
“mob groupies.” Trump falls into this group. To the GOP,
gaining permanent control of the United States Senate was
critical, even to the point of partnering with the KGB in
the middle of the Cold War. They would also turn to
murder.

Read what this 2002 NY Times article doesn’t say, if you
get my hint:
“Senator Paul Wellstone, a two-term
Democrat locked in one of the tightest
campaigns in the nation, was killed this
morning when his campaign plane crashed in
freezing rain near Eveleth, Minn., a small
town in the northeastern part of the state.
Mr. Wellstone’s high school sweetheart and
wife of 39 years, Sheila, 58; their 33-year-old
daughter, Marcia Markuson; three campaign
aides; and two pilots also died in the fiery
crash, which obliterated their 11-seat
turboprop among the pine trees.
Senator Wellstone, 58, a former political
science professor, was an unabashed liberal
who often landed on the short end of 99-1
votes. He remained a vigorous spokesman
for the traditional brand of Democratic New
Deal liberalism at a time when his party’s
mainstream was moving to the right, putting
.
387
him at the center of a complicated political
year.
Mr. Wellstone was one of just 23 senators —
the only one in a close re-election fight — to
vote this month against a resolution
authorizing President Bush to take unilateral
action against Iraq.”
When you add the plane crash deaths of Mel Carnahan,
John Tower, H.J. Heinz and others, and how the internet
has been scoured, cleansing conspiracy studies of Senate-
related plane deaths, the pattern emerges.
Behind this was control of the Senate, prior to the “wiping
clean of all laws” under Citizens United in 2005 by a 5/4
Supreme Court decision. Before that, banks were needed
with license to launder funds or else the GOP would be
forced to stick to the old Nixon and Maurice Stans method,
turning to Mexican cartels for suitcases of cash to payoff
hitmen and blackmailers, as came out in Watergate.
The RNC (Republican National Committee) wanted
control of the Senate Banking Committee, particularly
after 9/11 when an influx of laundered cash from stolen
Iraqi oil and Afghani opium was expected to bolster GOP
candidates. Blocking the banking needed, and I remind
you this is prior to Citizens United, was Senator Paul
Sarbanes, a Democrat who stood against a proposed
network of money-laundering banks the GOP had waiting
in the wings.
It was the murder of Wellstone and then Mel Carnahan
that assured the GOP could control issuing bank charters to
surrogates of Trump and the Russian mafia, something
now coming up in the investigations that have just been
derailed in New York.
 Breaking: Turkey’s Spy Agency Paid
General Flynn To Fake Clinton Email Cover-Up Scandal
By Gordon Duff, Senior Editor
March 14, 2017

Damned by his own words, Flynn
"Unbelievable Criminal Behavior"
guilty of Please note that this is just another potential criminal
charge against the stack we are told are out there, waiting
to be filed against Sean Hannity and others at Fox News. It
was Hannity that called for President Trump to fire the US
attorney preparing the indictments of Fox staffers and
NewsCorp executives, which is impeachable as obstruction
and conspiracy.

And because we love Fox and Breitbart so much, here is

our version of another of their Fetzerized fakes:

It seems the source of the “unbelievable” and totally fake

news Breitbart story, accusing Secretary of State Clinton
of interfering with the now bogus email investigation was
a con job paid for by Turkey’s spy agency who hired, now
wait for it…General Michael Flynn.

Fake patriot, America’s most undecorated general may

face prison.

Flynn then hired a retired FBI agent who worked directly

with Fox News to concoct the fake news story attacking
Clinton.

The great orange fatass is looking to grab more than a pizza

388
 Trump Tax Return “Bombshell” BACKFIRE… Trump
Paid $38M In Taxes In 2005… MSNBC
Becomes Comedy Central
By: Mike Adams
Date: March 14, 2017
We interrupt our regularly scheduled health coverage to
bring you this newsflash from the ongoing war on
President Trump. In what’s being described as nothing less
than an “epic fail” by Rachel Maddow at MSNBC, an
aggressively hyped “scoop” that Maddow promised would
astonish viewers turned out to be an embarrassing backfire.
It is a felony crime, by the way, to release another person’s
federal tax returns without permission. The lawlessness of
the act did not seem to dissuade anti-Trump activists
(formerly known as “journalists”) from releasing it,
however.
Far from embarrassing the President, Donald Trump’s
2005 tax return — now widely circulated across the ‘net
— shows he paid $38 million in taxes on $150 million in
earnings, instantly shattering the fake news narrative of
the entire mainstream media which has consistently
claimed “Trump paid no taxes.” (See linked sources
below.)
Following the astonishing backfire of the supposed
bombshell news, MSNBC was widely mocked as the new
“Comedy Central,” and many internet observers wondered
if the left-wing media would soon revert to its wholly-
discredited Russian conspiracy theory narrative as a
backup plan. As one reader commented,
“Trump is always one step ahead of these
@sshats. He made them look like idiots
again.”
389
(Prediction: Left-wing “journalists” will now
Photoshop the tax return to mock it up with
fake numbers and release a whole new
“fake news” tax return that they will claim is
real…)
Rachel Maddow accidentally
demonstrates how MSNBC is fake news
To the delight of all those who tire of the establishment
media’s fake news assaults on the American psyche, the
release of Trump’s 2005 tax return satisfyingly disproves
the liberal media’s narrative that falsely claimed Trump
paid no taxes whatsoever. Now, we know that narrative
holds no more water than the “Russians hacked the
election” fiction also being peddled by the same delusional
news cartels such as the Washington Post and NYT.
“MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was widely
mocked on social media Tuesday night
after drawing out the revelations in what
she announced as an “exclusive story”
regarding Donald Trump’s tax returns,”
reported Breitbart.com:
Instead of getting right to her big scoop
about a 2005 Trump tax return she
obtained, Maddow opened her show with a
rambling 20-minute rant outlining her often
tangential theories regarding Trump’s
connections to Russia.
Maddow did not unveil the relevant tax
documents until 23 minutes into the show,
revealing that Donald Trump had made
more than $150 million in income in 2005
and paid $38 million in income taxes that
year.
During the 2016 presidential campaign, Hillary Clinton
asserted that Donald Trump deliberately avoided releasing
his tax returns in order to conceal “that he’s paid nothing
in federal taxes.” This defamatory innuendo was, of
course, widely repeated across the entire left-wing media,
which quickly transformed Clinton’s assertion into a whole
new “fact” that was blindly repeated as if it were gospel.
Now we know that assertion — and the so-called “facts”
based on the assertion — were pure hogwash. Not only did
Donald Trump pay $38 million in taxes in 2005, he
actually paid significantly higher taxes than former
president Barack Obama paid (18.7% in 2015). He also
paid a higher tax rate than Comcast, which owns MSNBC
and paid an average tax rate of 24% from 2008 – 2013.
At the same time, nine significant MSNBC on-camera
personalities have had tax liens filed against them for
failure to pay their own taxes, making a complete mockery
of any attempt at tax dodging “authority” reporting at the
discredited network.
Maddow was in such a rush to release
the “bombshell,” she apparently failed
to first find out what was in it
Perhaps more shocking than the sudden release of
President Trump’s 2005 tax return is the foolishness of
Rachel Maddow, a vocal Trump critic, who apparently had
no idea what was in the tax return until it was released. If
this sounds familiar, it should: Nancy Pelosi similarly
claimed we needed to pass Obamacare in order to “find out
what’s in it.”
This “black box” philosophy of legislative genius has now
been sloppily embraced as a kind of “journalistic genius”
at MSNBC. The new mantra of the fake news (left-wing)
media is as follows: First, report the story. Then do the
research and hope your story checks out.
390
The more informed, thinking individuals reading this
analysis will note that genuine journalism takes place in
precisely the reverse order: First, you do the research.
Then you report the story.
But in the rush to discredit Trump, no actual journalistic
investigations are needed by the mindless, fact-less media.
The mere whiff of a document that might show something
about Trump is more than enough to justify its ridiculous
hyping to the whole world… even if its release only proves
you’re a complete idiot.
Rachel Maddow is an entire fake news
parade unto herself
Not only does the release of President Trump’s tax return
prove that Trump has paid, at minimum, tens of millions of
dollars in personal income taxes to the federal government;
it also makes for yet another powerful demonstration of the
fake news fakery of the left-wing media. If they ever had
a desire to report real news, they would report that Donald
Trump paid more taxes to the federal government than
perhaps 99% of all Americans, while MSNBC’s own on-air
talent has been caught avoiding paying taxes.
Once again, the entire fake news media just got caught in a
really big lie. And once again, their attempts to smear and
defame President Trump have backfired miserably and
made them look like complete fools. It’s only fitting, of
course, since they are complete fools.
Follow more news about President Trump at Trump.news.
 Greater US Aggression Under Trump Coming?
Posted By Stephen Lendman
Date: March 14, 2017

perhaps intending larger US combat troop deployments to

both countries than already there.

In Thursday testimony before Senate Armed Services

Committee members, General Votel said Russia’s
involvement in Syria (legally at the behest of its
government) “negatively impacted the regional balance of
power,” adding:

“Iran has expanded cooperation with Russia in

Syria in ways that threaten US interests in the
region…aspir(ing) to be a regional hegemon and
its forces and proxies oppose US interests in
Iraq, Yemen, Lebanon, Gaza and Syria, and
seek to hinder achievement of US objectives in
Nearly straightaway in office, Trump proved he’s the latest
Afghanistan and some Central Asian States.”
in a long line of US warrior presidents.
Will the Islamic Republic be Washington’s next imperial
He’s continuing naked aggression in multiple theaters,
target? Longstanding plans call for regime change. An
upping the stakes in Syria and Yemen, increasing numbers
earlier color revolution failed.
of US combat troops in both countries, perhaps more
headed for Iraq.
War plans were prepared years ago, updated to stay current
to the times. Anti-Russia comments are worrisome.
At the urging of CENTCOM chief General Joseph Votel,
Pentagon, Capitol Hill and administration hawks may
he may increase America’s military presence in
yearn for confrontation.
Afghanistan.
America’s military footprint abroad has nothing to do with
Earlier this week, a joint statement by US, UK and French
combating terrorism as claimed – everything to do with
ambassadors to Libya expressed concern about escalated
advancing its imperium, along with waging endless wars to
violence in and around the country’s oil installations –
feed the ravenous appetite of its military/industrial/media
urging a “unified military force” to protect them.
complex on the phony pretext of humanitarian intervention
and democracy building.
Will US-led NATO combat troop deployments follow?
Candidate Trump criticized wasting trillions of dollars on
Post-WW II, nations America attacked threatened no one.
warmaking, creating a mess in all theaters, depriving the
They were targeted for their sovereign independence.
country of vitally needed revenue for homeland needs.
Others not subservient to US interests are on its hit list.
President Trump is like the Clintons, Bush/Cheney and
Hostility toward Russia, China and Iran should scare
Obama, continuing imperial wars, escalating them, perhaps
everyone. Hillary’s defeat didn’t end the risk of nuclear
planning new aggression, shunning peace and stability –
war.
along with breaking his promise to cooperate with Russia
in combating terrorism.
Neocons infesting Washington make the unthinkable
possible by design or accident. Will America’s rage for
He’s aiding, not combating it, terror-bombing
unchallenged global dominance doom us all?
infrastructure in Syria and Iraq, massacring civilians,
.

391
 EXCLUSIVE: FBI’s Own Political Terror Plot;
Deputy Director And FBI Brass Secretly Conspired To
Wage Coup Against Flynn & Trump
By Investigative Bureau
Posted On March 14, 2017
Mere days before Gen. Michael Flynn was sacked as
national security advisor, FBI Deputy Director Andrew
McCabe gathered more than a dozen of his top FBI
disciples to plot how to ruin Flynn’s aspiring political
career and manufacture evidence to derail President
Donald Trump, according to FBI sources.
McCabe, the second highest ranking FBI official,
emphatically declared at the invite-only gathering with
raised voice:
“Fuck Flynn and then we Fuck Trump,”
according to direct sources. Many of his top lieutenants
applauded and cheered such rhetoric. A scattered few did
not.
This was one of several such meetings held in seclusion
among key FBI leaders since Trump was elected president,
FBI sources confirm. At the congregation where McCabe
went off the political rails and vowed to destroy Flynn and
Trump, there were as many as 16 top FBI officials, inside
intelligence sources said. No lower-level agents or support
personnel were present.
If you are among the millions of Americans who have
pondered in recent months whether the Obama-era “Deep
State” intelligence apparatus and FBI are working for or
against Trump, this is the first definitive proof that the
country’s once-premiere law enforcement agency has gone
rogue.
392
The non-elected hierarchy that steer the FBI have declared
war on President Trump and his White House inner circle.
Make no mistake.
Days after the McCabe tirade, Flynn was forced to resign.
That was no coincidence. This is how secret coups waged
by the top law enforcement personnel in the top law
enforcement agency in any country operate. Efficiently. If
the FBI wants you silenced or out of a job, you’ll be
unemployed. Ask Michael Flynn and countless others.
Part of the plan hatched at that gathering was to make sure
Flynn’s wiretapped conversations were leaked to the
media, FBI and intelligence sources said. They were. Did
the FBI leak this classified intelligence to the news media?
Isn’t that a question President Trump and Congress should
be posing? If nothing else, McCabe and his FBI secret
council are certainly now suspects of who possibly leaked
the intelligence. Seems that a number of polygraphs should
be in order.
Embattled FBI Director James Comey did not attend these
private meetings of his interoffice revolutionaries, sources
said, though he was aware of the gatherings yet did not
discourage them or McCabe’s inflammatory and
dangerous rhetoric. Some FBI agents have questioned if
the Anti-Trump attitude shared in the secret sit downs with
the bureau’s top brass is now the official platform of the
FBI. The FBI, many agents quietly agree, has proven no
friend to the newly minted US president. And they are
beginning to understand why.
As far as waging political coups go: So far, so good. The
FBI’s secret plan to ruin Flynn worked. And fast. Flynn is
long gone. Now they can focus on ruining President
Trump. After all, Isn’t that the role of the FBI? Tampering
with the president of the United States and his inner circle,
neither of whom have broken any laws?
It turns out, however, the FBI isn’t very good at the spy
game. McCabe’s dictatorial tone ruffled a number of
agents at FBI headquarters who still believe the mission of
the bureau is not to wage clandestine warfare against the
sitting president and his administration.
McCabe and Comey did not respond to requests for
comment. Flynn could not be reached for comment.
This isn’t McCabe’s first rodeo in the cross-hairs of
controversy at the FBI where he is outranked only by
Comey. In fact, McCabe garnered problematic headlines
during the 2016 presidential election.
Democratic factions controlled by a Hillary Clinton insider
paid the deputy director of the FBI’s wife almost $700,000
in campaign funds before McCabe, who was supervising
Clinton’s investigation, lobbied against charging her
criminally, according to records and interviews obtained
by True Pundit.
Dr. Jill McCabe was a Virginia state senate candidate in
2015. Longtime Clinton family consigliere and Virginia
Gov. Terry McAuliffe, sent her approximately $675,000 to
fund the Democrat hopeful’s campaign coffers. Dr.
McCabe, a physician, is married to the FBI deputy
director. Mrs. McCabe is a registered Democrat. FBI
agents who work with McCabe say he and his wife were
both staunch Hillary Clinton supporters.
According to one FBI insider, the McAuliffe-generated
campaign funds may have ultimately bought Clinton some
strategic breathing room.
“McCabe was one of the few people who
backed Comey’s decision not to refer
Hillary Clinton to the Justice Department for
indictment,” a FBI source said of the July
2016 decision not to refer Clinton for
criminal charges for violating email and
document safeguards for classified and
Top Secret national security intelligence.
“McCabe and Comey are both lawyers.
They aren’t street agents. They’re more
political. We wanted her (Clinton) indicted.
They did not.”
Gov. McAuliffe has been an important Clinton family
insider for decades. During Bill Clinton’s presidential
candidacy and subsequent reelection, McAuliffe often
spearheaded investigations into Clinton critics and helped
393
silence women who alleged Bill Clinton harassed or
sexually assaulted them, sources said.
Ironically, McAuliffe is currently under investigation by
the FBI for alleged campaign-related finance infractions.
McAuliffe’s contributions to Dr. McCabe’s campaign
match the exact time frame of the FBI’s parallel Clinton
investigation. No contributions were made prior to the
FBI’s probe of Clinton. McCabe was overseeing personnel
decisions, including assigning agents to the Clinton
investigation team, at the FBI’s Washington D.C.’s field
office when his wife began her 2015 campaign. His wife
lost the election after spending an estimated $1.8 million
on the senate run. Three months later, Comey promoted
McCabe to FBI Deputy Director in February 2016. The
promotion helped fill a very large void created by the
retirement of John Giacalone, who was the supervisor of
the bureau’s National Security Branch and also the FBI
brains and genesis behind the Clinton email and private
server investigation. Since the inception of the case,
Giacalone had spearheaded the Clinton investigation, and
helped hand select top agents who were highly skilled but
also discreet. Many of those agents were concerned when
Giacalone abruptly resigned in the middle of the
investigation.
FBI insiders said Giacalone used the term “sideways” to
describe the direction the Clinton probe had taken in the
bureau. Giacalone lamented privately he no longer had
confidence in the direction the investigation was headed.
He felt it was simpler to quietly step aside, walk away
instead of fight to keep the investigation on its proper
track. Giacalone was a true heavyweight agent at FBI. In
fact, he likely should have been running the entire show.
His pedigree included running and creating FBI divisions
in New York, Philadelphia, Washington D.C. and even
serving as deputy commander in the Iraqi theater of
operations. But in the midst of the Clinton investigation,
Giacalone handed the bureau his retirement papers in
February 2016.
The day after Giacalone’s departure, Comey tapped
McCabe to help oversee the ongoing Clinton case and
personally serve “as the eyes and ears” for Comey, sources
confirmed. Since early July 2016, Comey has come under
intense fire from critics and the majority of Americans
who believe he granted Clinton a get-out-of-jail-free card
by refusing to refer the case to the Justice Department for a
probable slam-dunk indictment on at least one of potential
dozens of criminal charges.
Now Comey, McCabe and their rogue FBI Sanhedrin face
a new dilemma: Colleagues who have blown the whistle
on the partisan agency, specifically how personal and
political philosophies have crept into the FBI and
commandeered the bureau’s powerful reach and resources
to tamper with law-abiding White House personnel,
including the president. That’s called public corruption, a
crime the FBI is tasked with investigating.
Just like it “investigated” $700,000 in donations from the
Clinton family to the wife of the FBI’s deputy director
who, during the exact time frame was tasked with
overseeing the investigation of Hillary Clinton. She
ultimately was never charged with any crime and McCabe
.
394
received a FBI promotion. Does anyone have the phone
number for the FBI’s public corruption unit? Or does that
line ring directly to McCabe and Comey?
We would normally demand a federal investigation into
such allegations of collusion. But who would conduct it,
the FBI?
 Fox And Friends’ Bombshell –
Barack Obama Used British Spy To Watch Donald Trump
By Thomas N Featured Commentator
March 14, 2017 3:43PM
On Fox News’ Fox & Friends, we have a bombshell claim
into President Donald J. Trump’s reports that former
president Barack Obama wiretapped and monitored the
Republican’s presidential campaign.
The House Intelligence Committee has been tasked to look
into the matter, but now we’re learning that Obama may
have found a shocking way to cover his tracks: use a
British spy!
As Judge Andrew Napolitano (below) explains, even if
Obama really did spy on Trump, there may be no actual
way to prove it. He explained that there are laws which
give the president sweeping authority to conduct
surveillance in the United States even without warrant or
suspicion.
.
395
This is a big deal:
“Three intelligence sources have informed
Fox News that President Obama went
outside the chain of command,” Napolitano
said. “He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use
the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI, and he
didn’t use the Department of Justice.”
Instead, Napolitano said, Obama used GCHQ, a British
intelligence and security organization that has 24-7 access
to the NSA database.
“There’s no American fingerprints on this,”
Napolitano said. “What happened to the
guy who ordered this? Resigned three days
after Donald Trump was inaugurated.”
A shocking allegation, but Judge Napolitano swore an oath
to uphold the Constitution and is an expert on privacy
laws.
We have seen transcripts from Trump’s phone calls with
world leaders, and there were wiretaps which forced
National Security Director Michael Flynn to resign.
If there was or is no surveillance of Trump going on, just
where did these leaks come from?
SPICER: "Very Confident" Of Evidence Trump Campaign
Was Spied On By Obama Admin During The Election
By Zeropointnow
Mar 14, 2017 7:23 PM
During today's White House press conference, press
secretary Sean Spicer was asked about demands made by
congress for proof of President Trump's claims that Obama
"wiretapped" him during the election, in light of a one
week extension granted yesterday to the Justice
Department to produce evidence of surveillance. The
Trump administration has taken heat since the President's
March 4th tweet, which was likely in reference to evidence
gathered against three members of the Trump campaign -
as reported by the NY Times in January - surveillance
which found no evidence of collusion with the Kremlin.
Terrible! Just found out that Obama had my
"wires tapped" in Trump Tower just before the
victory. Nothing found. This is McCarthyism!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) March
4, 2017
Yesterday, Spicer broadened the scope of Trump's claim -
suggesting that the phrase "wiretapping" (in quotes) was
not meant to be taken literally.
"He doesn't really think that President Obama
went up and tapped his phone personally....
..."wiretapping" [makes air quotes] spans a whole
host of surveillance types of options"
Earlier today when asked about the extension granted by
the House Intelligence Committee, as well as whether or
not Trump's Department of Justice has any evidence,
396
Spicer repeatedly deferred - stating that he didn't want to
get ahead of the DOJ, however he did reveal the following:
Spicer: He's extremely confident. I'll let the DOJ
report this, but as I've commented in the past,
there's been significant reporting about
surveillance techniques that existed during the
2016 election.
Reporter: [is it] possible may be nothing?
Spicer: No, at least from where we stand, we
know that there is significant reporting on the
subject.
Reporter: Something will be presented?
Reporter: Yeah, I feel very confident of that.
Another reporter asked Spicer if the President
believes "microwaves" are spying on him -
alluding to a statement made by Trump
Advisor Kellyanne Conway over the weekend
referring to an article which referred to smart
electronic devices, such as phones, television
sets, and microwaves - which could be used as
surveillance tools. She was clearly discussing the
revelations from Wikileaks' "Vault 7" release last
week, which detailed the CIA's available
methods of surveillance - including Samsung
smart TV's.
Spicer: I think there's pretty sound evidence
that the Microwave is not a sound way of
surveilling someone, and I think that was cleaned
up. It was made in jest - so, I think we can put
that to rest.
Sean Spicer "Very Confident" of evidence Trump
was surveilled during the election.
https://t.co/zhMEYpVfyFpic.twitter.com/K7ihtvVFt
R
— ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) March 14,
2017
Here is the clip in which Conway refers to microwaves
spying on people, which drew ridicule from John Podesta
pal Stephen Colbert:
@kellyannepolls talking about surveillance
techniques. pic.twitter.com/nlSLRReA83
 — ZeroPointNow (@ZeroPointNow) March 14, Whatever the case, it's now clear that the DOJ is
2017 assembling actual evidence of the wiretapping claims, to
be presented to the House Intelligence Committee on
Perhaps Kellyanne was thinking of this 2012 article in Monday, March 20th.
Wired in which former CIA Director David Petraeus said
that "smart devices" such as dishwashers and other
appliances could be used to spy on people.

397
 Epic Fail: Rachel Maddow Mocked
After Dragging Out Trump Tax ‘Scoop’
Article By Ben Kew From Breitbart.Com
Date: March 15, 2017

MSNBC host Rachel Maddow was

widely mocked on social media Tuesday
night after drawing out the revelations
in what she announced was an
“exclusive story” regarding Donald
Trump’s tax returns.

Instead of getting right to her big scoop about a 2005

Trump tax return she obtained, Maddow opened her show
with a rambling 20-minute rant outlining her often
tangential theories regarding Trump’s connections to
Russia.

Maddow did not unveil the relevant tax documents until 23

minutes into the show, revealing that Donald Trump had
made more than $150 million in income in 2005 and paid
$38 million in income taxes that year.

In fact, Maddow took so long to get to the point, that the

Trump White House scooped her.

Social media lit up with mockery for Maddow’s rambling

anti-climactic monologue. The harshest criticism came
from Maddow’s own colleagues in the media:

398
 MSNBC's "Tax Records" Non-Story: Trump Made
$150MM, Paid 25% Tax Rate, More Than Romney, Bernie
By Tyler Durden
Mar 15, 2017 5:31 AM
While Rachel Maddow drones on with the coherence of
Janet Yellen, losing thousands of viewers by the minute,
the MSNBC anchor was promptly scooped not only by the
White House which revealed her "secret" one hour in
advance, but also by the Daily Beast which reported that
its contributor David Cay Johnston had obtained the first
two pages of Trump’s 2005 federal income tax return,
allegedly receiving them in the mail, and posted his
"analysts" on his website, DCReport.org.
According to the documents, Trump and his wife Melania
paid $38 million in total income tax, consisting of $5.3
million in regular federal income tax, and an additional
$31 million of “alternative minimum tax,” or AMT.
Clean copies of Trump's tax returns
pic.twitter.com/exJJZ5QqnG
— The_Real_Fly (@The_Real_Fly) March 15,
2017
The White House statement confirmed the finding:
“Before being elected President, Mr. Trump was
one of the most successful businessmen in the
world with a responsibility to his company, his
family and his employees to pay no more tax
than legally required,” the White House said in a
statement. “That being said, Mr. Trump paid $38
million dollars even after taking into account
large scale depreciation for construction, on an
income of more than $150 million dollars, as well
as paying tens of millions of dollars in other taxes
such as sales and excise taxes and employment
taxes and this illegally published return proves
just that.”
As the Beast notes, 2005 was the year that Trump, then a
newly minted reality star, made his last big score as a real-
399
life real estate developer, when he sold two properties, one
on Manhattan’s west side and one in San Francisco, to
Hong Kong investors, accounting for the lion’s share of his
income that year.
“It is totally illegal to steal and publish tax
returns,” the White House statement concluded.
“The dishonest media can continue to make this
part of their agenda, while the President will
focus on his, which includes tax reform that will
benefit all Americans.”
But the real story here is that there is no story: what
MSNBC confirmed is that Trump made more money than
some of his critics said he made in the period in question,
and more importantly, that he paid a generous effective
income tax rate, well above the 14.1% rate paid by Mitt
Romney, and even higher than the 13.5% federal tax
rate paid by Bernie Sanders in 2014.
Trump 2005 tax rate: 25%
Romney 2011 tax rate: 14.1%
Sanders 2014 tax rate: 13.5%
— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 15, 2017
Sadly for Maddow, with this attempt at a "blockbuster"
story which has quickly backfired, she may well have
killed the great distraction that was the trope of Trump's
tax returns, and which the rest of the "resistance" press
hammered on every now and then.
It took over 30 years for someone to top
@GeraldoRivera for biggest over-hyped live TV
epic fail in history. You did it Rachel Maddow !
— Mark Dice (@MarkDice) March 15, 2017
 Hannity Nukes Maddow And NBC After Trump
Tax Flop – Calls Them “Deep State Obama Propaganda”
On A “Corporate Jihad”
By Zeropointnow
Mar 15, 2017 5:32 AM

Rachel Maddow and NBC just gave an incredibly

generous gift to Donald Trump; revealing Hillary Clinton
and other democrats to have been grasping at straws in
their repeated assertions that he pays no taxes, when in
fact he paid $38 Million on $150 million of income in
2005 - a 25% tax rate (compared to Bernie Sanders' 13.5%
on over $200k of income in 2014).

Apparently during the same several days leading up to the

segment, David Johnson and everyone at NBC also
overlooked the giant CLIENT COPY stamp on the first
page - suggesting that Donald Trump, if true, didn't even
have to bust out his chess set for these clowns.
Trump 2005 tax rate: 25%
Romney 2011 tax rate: 14.1%
Sanders 2014 tax rate: 13.5%

— zerohedge (@zerohedge) March 15, 2017

(Plus Obama at 18.7%, and Warren Buffet at 17.4%)

Not to mention, that kind of income from 12 years ago

suggests he's most likely a billionaire - another failed jab at
Trump from camp Clinton.
And let me get this straight - this "tax expert" and
investigative journalist - David Cay Johnson (a former
New York Times employee) found these two pages of
Trump's 2005 return in his mailbox, passed them to
MSNBC and Maddow - who sat on them for several days
before last night's debacle... and nobody thought to run
them past another tax expert? Perhaps a smart person who
might have thought of a few angles like Tyler at
ZeroHedge - who casually dropped the above tweet
minutes after Maddow destroyed her career?
Johnson kicked off his cigarette stained diatribe with the
suggestion that it may have been Donald Trump who
leaked the returns which he states "Came in the mail, over
the transom."
Granted, anyone who handled the "client copy" of Trump's
tax returns could have snagged a copy - from an IRS
employee, to an intern at the offices of Trump's CPA - but
the thought that Trump trolled the MSM once again is
simply too fun not to consider.
Reactions have been entertaining:
So, Rachel Maddow’s professional career
committed suicide live on national TV tonight.
#TrumpTaxReturns
— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) March 15, 2017
Dear Rachel Maddow,
Thank you.

400
 Love Twitter#TrumpTaxes @maddow
#TrumpTaxReturns
— Newt Gingrich (@NewtGingritch) March 15,
2017
The entire Left across USA tonight... trolled again
by Trump#TrumpTaxes #MAGA #Maddow
#MSNBC #auspol #abc730 #theprojecttv
#thedrum #pmlive pic.twitter.com/aG3KtjGiJI
— Caty (@IamCatyI) March 15, 2017
(Apparently some people don't understand that income ?
net worth)
GETTING TO HANNITY:
Sean Hannity devoted his opening monologue last night to
MSNBC and Rachel Maddow's debacle, segueing into
what he called "NBC's Corporate Jihad" against Donald
Trump:
401
They're the leaders of this alt-left propaganda, "destroy
Trump at all costs" media. And now releasing this 2005
tax return,
it proves that they will do anything - spin any
conspiracy, to destroy the Commander in
Chief - including working with people clearly
that have broken the law.
Hannity then played a montage of egregiously biased
MSM hit-pieces against then candidate Trump in an effort
to smear him before the election.
What Rachel Maddow did tonight... ...was a pathetic,
conspiratorial attempt to smear the President.
It was sort of like an SNL skit, but actually better. And
with her trying to piece all these conspiracy pieces
together, claiming in 2005 a Russian Oligarch knew that
Trump was going to be the President in 2016, so he bought
a property in Florida and Trump made a big profit...
Let me get this straight... Russia knew in 2005 that Trump
would be President in 2016... This is the Twilight Zone.
NBC is not news. It is deep-state Obama
propaganda television.
 Intelligence Sources Reveal:
Obama Used British Agents For
Trump Wire Tap Surveillance
Authored By Mac Slavo Via Shtfplan.Com,
Mar 15, 2017 5:56 PM
While President Obama has vehemently denied issuing
direct orders to the Justice Department or other domestic
agencies to monitor President Trump during the 2016
election campaign, it is common knowledge that the
National Security Agency has the ability to access video
and audio from any number of devices in real time. In fact,
according to Edward Snowden and documented in the
recently released Snowden motion picture, U.S. spy
agencies can simply flip a switch to watch or listen in on
anything going on in a particular room by turning on a
particular device’s cameras and microphones.
Here’s how it works:
The technology is real, but according to legal scholars,
would have been illegal to use on Donald Trump or his
surrogates without a warrant or probable cause indicating
links to terrorist organizations.
But while domestic spy agencies like the NSA and CIA
can’t actively monitor a citizen on U.S. soil, there is a very
convenient work-around that has been used for over a
decade to accomplish this task without technically
breaking the law.
According to three intelligence sources who spoke with
Judge Napolitano, this is exactly what President Obama
did to then-candidate Donald Trump.
Steve Watson explains:
Three separate intelligence sources believe
that former President Obama veered ‘outside
402
the chain of command’ and employed British
surveillance agents to conduct surveillance
on Donald Trump’s team prior to the election,
according to a legal analyst.
Judge Andrew Napolitano revealed on ‘Fox & Friends’
this morning that the sources spilled the details to him as
the controversial case continues to dominate headlines.
“Three intelligence sources have informed
Fox News that President Obama went outside
the chain of command,” Napolitano said. “He
didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use the CIA, he
didn’t use the FBI, and he didn’t use the
Department of Justice.”
“He used GCHQ.” Napolitano explained.
“What the heck is GCHQ? That’s the initials for
the British spying agency. They have 24/7
access to the NSA database.” The Judge
explained.
Napolitano noted that this was done to secure plausible
deniability. In other words, even if the Obama
administration did spy on Trump, there may never be a
way to prove it.
“So by simply having two people go to them
saying, ‘President Obama needs transcripts
of conversations involving candidate Trump,
conversations involving president-elect
Trump,’ he’s able to get it, and there’s no
American fingerprints on this. ”Napolitano
added.
Video:
.@Judgenap: Three intel sources have disclosed
that Pres. Obama turned to British spies to get
surveillance on Trump
pic.twitter.com/IghCFm7qhO
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March 14,
2017
 Trump To Nominate Goldman Sachs'
Donovan As Deputy Treasury Secretary
Business News
Wed Mar 15, 2017 | 2:43am GMT
U.S. President Donald Trump will nominate Goldman
Sachs (GS.N) banker James Donovan as deputy Treasury
secretary, the White House said on Tuesday, adding
another alumnus of the Wall Street investment bank to his
administration.
Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and National
Economic Council director Gary Cohn are also former
Goldman executives who occupy senior economic posts
within the administration.
Donovan's work at the bank as a managing director has
included work on corporate strategy, investment banking
and investment management, the White House said in a
statement.
He is expected to work on the Trump administration's
domestic policy agenda at Treasury.
The White House also named David Malpass, a former
official in the Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush
403
administrations, as its nominee for Treasury undersecretary
for international affairs, a key economic diplomacy post.
Malpass also served as a former economist at Wall Street
bank Bear Stearns prior to its 2008 collapse and most
recently served as an economic adviser to Trump's
campaign.
The White House also named former national security and
federal law enforcement official Sigal Mandelker to the
Treasury's top sanctions post as undersecretary for
terrorism and financial intelligence.
A former law clerk for Supreme Court Justice Clarence
Thomas, Mandelker later held a series of criminal
prosecution positions at the Department of Justice and
advised the Secretary of Homeland Security during the
George W. Bush administration.
(Reporting by Eric Beech; Editing by Sandra Maler and
Michael Perry)
 Julian Assange: Hillary Pushing For A
Pence Takeover Of White House Because
He’s “Predictable” And “Defeatable”
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 15, 2017

reference to several intelligence leaks

regarding the Trump administration that
Assange is assigning to the nation’s top
spy agency.

The fact is, if true, this represents a greater threat to the

republic than any allegedly posed by Trump himself.

Regardless of what one thinks about his

The conspiracy theories continue to swirl around
Washington, D.C., that the Deep State has it in for
President Donald J. Trump, and it won’t rest until he is
ousted from office.
policies, executive actions and political
priorities, he did win the election fair and
square. There has been no proof that
“Russia hacked the election” to “help” him,
in any way that actually changed the
balloting and vote-counting.
The only thing that has been offered along these lines is
smoke and mirrors, allegations, innuendo and supposition.

On Tuesday, Julian Assange, publisher of Wikileaks,
tweeted out that Hillary Clinton said privately this month,
in a venue he did not identify, that behind the scenes she is
pushing for Vice President Mike Pence to be named
president because, in Assange’s words,
Pence is “predictable hence defeatable” in
the 2020 election.
No hard evidence has been provided or
offered by anyone.
(RELATED: Wikileaks CIA Dump Reveals How The
Deep State Can Hack Databases And Make It SEEM
Like The Russians Did It.)

He then tweeted that two U.S. intelligence community

members close to Pence said they, too, were pushing for a
Pence takeover, but did not say whether or not the vice
president was on board with the putsch.

As reported by The Daily Caller, Assange’s tweets appear

to be in response to reports that Trump has given the CIA
authority to launch drone strikes against terrorist targets –
a hallmark of the Obama administration. That a group of faceless, unelected
intelligence and foreign policy careerists in
It was obvious that Assange disapproved of Trump’s the Deep State could effectively run an
decision, tweeting, operation to oust a duly elected sitting U.S.
president is a much clearer and present
“By handing unilateral power over to the danger.
CIA over its drone strikes at this time White
House signals that bullying, disloyalty &
incompetence pays,” an apparent
404
How, exactly, would repairing relations with Russia,
which is sitting on a massive stockpile of nuclear
weapons, be a bad thing for Americans?
What seems to be the modus operandi of the Deep State
working against Trump is that he should not be allowed a
chance to succeed – politically, policy-wise, or practically.
Understand that if Trump succeeds, his policies of ending
status quo Washington will necessarily devolve power
away from the Deep State opposing him, and put it back in
the hands of our elected officials.
And apparently, that’s too much for the Deep State to
tolerate. They thrive when America, Russia, China and
much of the rest of the world are on a nuclear hair-trigger.
They thrive when America gets bogged down in every
brushfire war in the Middle East. They thrive when the
military-industrial complex is running at full speed (this
one is confusing because Trump wants to bolster military
spending).
So what’s ahead? Which course will evolve?
.
405
One, Trump adopts the Deep State’s foreign policy so he
can focus more on his domestic agenda, which he appears
to be doing already, having agreed to send U.S. troops into
the meat grinder that is Syria and authorizing CIA drone
strikes. While those decisions in and of themselves are not
wholly inappropriate, they do appear to defer to the Deep
State’s playbook. And the Syrian decision is very anti-
Russia, given that Moscow has troops and planes in the
war-torn country as well, backing it’s current president,
Bashar al-Assad, whom we oppose. (RELATED: Peter
Schweizer: Yes, Deep State Is Real And Is A ‘Threat’
To The ‘Republic’.)
Two, the Deep State goes ahead with plans to unseat
Trump and replace him with Pence, whom some believe is
more malleable when it comes to Deep State status quo
objectives. Now, how Trump is unseated is the question –
25th Amendment, impeachment, or violence. None of those
options would be good for the country. Keep up with the
latest developments at Conservative.news.
 Trump’s Infrastructure Boondoggle
By Mike Whitney
March 15, 2017
“We are going to fix our inner cities and
rebuild our highways, bridges, tunnels,
airports, schools, hospitals…. And we will
put millions of our people to work as we
rebuild it.”
— President Donald Trump
Donald Trump’s $1 trillion infrastructure plan is not an
infrastructure plan and it won’t put $1 trillion of fiscal
stimulus into the economy. It’s basically a scheme for
handing over public assets to private corporations that will
extract maximum profits via user fees and tolls. Because
the plan is essentially a boondoggle, it will not lift the
economy out of the doldrums, increase activity or boost
growth. Quite the contrary. When the details of how the
program is going to be implemented are announced,
public confidence in the Trump administration is going to
wither and stock prices are going to plunge. This scenario
cannot be avoided because the penny-pinching
conservatives in the House and Senate have already said
that they won’t support any plan that is not “revenue
neutral” which means that any real $1 trillion spending
package is a dead letter. Thus, it’s only a matter of time
before the Trump’s plan is exposed as a fraud and the sh**
hits the fan.
Here are more of the details from an article at Slate:
“Under Trump’s plan…the federal
government would offer tax credits to
private investors interested in funding large
infrastructure projects, who would put down
some of their own money up front, then
borrow the rest on the private bond
406
markets. They would eventually earn their
profits on the back end from usage fees,
such as highway and bridge tolls (if they
built a highway or bridge) or higher water
rates (if they fixed up some water mains).
So instead of paying for their new roads at
tax time, Americans would pay for them
during their daily commute. And of course,
all these private developers would earn a
nice return at the end of the day.” (“Donald
Trump’s Plan to Privatize America’s Roads
and Bridges”, Slate)
Normally, fiscal stimulus is financed by increasing the
budget deficits, but Maestro Trump has something else up
his sleeve. He wants the big construction companies and
private equity firms to stump up the seed money and start
the work with the understanding that they’ll be able to
impose user fees and tolls on roads and bridges when the
work is completed. For every dollar that
corporations spend on rebuilding US infrastructure, they’ll
get a dollar back via tax credits, which means that they’ll
end up controlling valuable, revenue-generating assets for
nothing. The whole thing is a flagrant ripoff that stinks to
high heaven. The corporations rake in hefty profits on
sweetheart deals, while the American people
get bupkis. Welcome to Trumpworld.
Here’s more background from Trump’s campaign website:
“American Energy and Infrastructure Act
Leverages public-private partnerships, and
private investments through tax incentives,
to spur $1 trillion in infrastructure
investment over ten years. It is revenue
neutral.” (Donald Trump’s Contract with the
American Voter”)
In practical terms, ‘revenue neutral’ means that every
dollar of new spending has to be matched by cuts to
other government programs. So, if there are hidden costs
to Trump’s plan, then they’ll have to be paid for by
slashing funds for Medicare, Medicaid, Social Security,
food stamps etc. But, keep in mind, these other programs
are much more effective sources of stimulus since the
money goes directly to the people who spend it
immediately and help grow the economy. Trump’s
infrastructure plan doesn’t work like that. A lot of the
money will go towards management fees and operational
costs leaving fewer dollars to trickle down to low-paid
construction workers whose personal consumption drives
the economy. Less money for workers means
less spending, less activity and weaker growth. Here’s
more on the topic from the Washington Post:
“Trump’s plan is not really an infrastructure
plan. It’s a tax-cut plan for utility-industry
and construction-sector investors, and a
massive corporate welfare plan for
contractors. The Trump plan doesn’t
directly fund new roads, bridges, water
systems or airports…. Instead, Trump’s
plan provides tax breaks to private-sector
investors who back profitable construction
projects. … There’s no requirement that the
tax breaks be used for … expanded
construction efforts; they could all go just to
fatten the pockets of investors in previously
planned projects…
Second, as a result of the above, Trump’s
plan isn’t really a jobs plan, either. Because
the plan subsidizes investors, not projects;
because it funds tax breaks, not bridges;
because there’s no requirement that the
projects be otherwise unfunded, there is
simply no guarantee that the plan will
produce any net new hiring. …
Buried inside the plan will be provisions to
weaken prevailing wage protections on
construction projects, undermining unions
and ultimately eroding workers’ earnings.
Environmental rules are almost certain to
be gutted in the name of accelerating
projects.”
(Trump’s big infrastructure plan? It’s a trap. Washington
Post)
Let’s summarize:
“Trump’s plan” is “massive corporate
welfare plan for contractors” and the “tax
breaks”…”could all go just to fatten the
pockets of investors in previously planned
projects.”
Check.
“Trump’s plan isn’t really a jobs plan,
either”…. (and) “there is simply no
guarantee that the plan will produce any
net new hiring.”
.
407
Check.
Trump’s plan will probably “weaken
prevailing wage protections… undermining
unions and ultimately eroding workers’
earnings.”
Check.
What part of this plan looks like it will have
a positive impact on the economy?
None. If Trump was serious about raising GDP to 4
percent, (another one of his promises) he’d increase Social
Security payments, beef up the food stamps program, or
hire more government workers. Any one of these would
trigger an immediate uptick in activity spurring more
growth and a stronger economy. And while America’s
ramshackle bridges and roads may be in dire need of a
facelift, infrastructure is actually a poor way to
inject fiscal stimulus which can be more easily
distributed by simply hiring government agents to stand
on streetcorners and hand out 100 dollar bills to passersby.
That might not fill the pothole-strewn streets in downtown
Duluth, but it would sure as hell would light a fire under
GDP.
So what’s the gameplan here? What’s Trump really up to?
If his infrastructure plan isn’t going to work, then what’s
the real objective?
The objective is to allow wealthy corporations to buy
public assets at firesale prices so they can turn them into
profit-generating enterprises. That’s it in a nutshell. That’s
why the emphasis is on “unconventional financing
programs”, “public-private partnerships”, and “Build
America Bonds” instead of plain-old fiscal stimulus, jobs
programs and deficit spending. Trump is signaling to his
pirate friends in Corporate America that he’ll use his
power as executive to find new outlets for profitable
investment so they have some place to stick their mountain
of money.
Of course, none of this has anything to do with rebuilding
America’s dilapidated infrastructure or even revving up
GDP. That’s just public relations bunkum. What’s really
going on is a massive looting operation organized and
executed under the watchful eye of Donald Trump, Robber
Baron-in-Chief.
And Infrastructure is just the tip of the iceberg. Once these
kleptomaniacs hit their stride, they’re going to cut through
Washington like locusts through a corn field. Bet on it.
 Media Ignore Slanderous Accusation
From Trump Taxes Reporter About First Lady
By Kristine Marsh
March 15, 2017

Johnston jumped in to speculate that the money belonged

to Melania.

DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: Could be hers.

His wife was a model.
O’Donnell disagreed, finding that unlikely
since Melania wasn’t “at that league” in the
modeling business, before Johnston made
his outrageous accusation:
O’DONNELL: She's on here. But she was
never at that league of that business.
The reporter who was lauded by the media for sharing
Trump’s boring 2005 tax return is not getting much JOHNSTON: No.
attention for his politics but perhaps he should be. While O’DONNELL: But that could be --
the networks Wednesday morning described David Cay
Johnston as a “Pulitzer Prize winning reporter,” they JOHNSTON: She did do very sleazy
apparently didn’t notice that he was a hardcore liberal as porn, [indiscernable]
well.

Johnston is currently authoring an anti-Trump book and

has tweeted thousands of tweets attacking Trump and the
right. Not to mention he is a contributor to the left-leaning
Daily Beast and New York Times. So maybe it should
come as no surprise that the media is ignoring something
salacious and slanderous Johnston said about the first lady
last night on MSNBC.

During an exhaustive discussion on Trump’s taxes on

MSNBC’s The Last Word With Lawrence O’Donnell
Tuesday, the host, Maddow and Johnston pored through Johnston makes the comment as O’Donnell, unfazed,
the brief document, speculating if each number had a keeps reading. Rachel Maddow however shushes him for
hidden meaning. O’Donnell wondered aloud what the one the accusation.
million dollars wage and salary listed on the return referred
to.
MADDOW: Hey, hey, hey
LAWRENCE O’DONNELL: One of the
O’Donnell keeps making his point and the comment goes
straightforward lines here that's interesting
by the wayside. Apparently by the rest of the media too,
is number 7 where he talks about he gets --
for Johnston was on several news programs today and was
he has wages and salary income which is
never asked about that comment.
unusual for someone in his case. It is about
a million dollars.
.

408
 Liberals Attack Melania
Trump Over “Nature” Cures Comments
By: Thomas Dishaw
Wednesday, March 15, 2017
The liberal media cannot stop trying to vilify the Trump
family. From staging boycotts on Trump brands, online
bullying, and Vanity Fair hit pieces, it seems that
everything the family does is subject to being scrutinized
and taken out of context. Sometimes the family members
don’t have to do anything at all and hatred will still follow;
just ask Barron Trump. While many bemoan that criticism
is part of the role of a public figure, the bias held towards
this family is getting a bit stale.
Leftists really worked themselves into a tizzy over
comments that First Lady Melanie Trump made while
touring the Children’s National Medical Center in
Washington D.C. During the visit, she spoke to young
patients and their families, and upon admiring the Bunny
Mellon Healing Garden, which is dedicated to America’s
first ladies, she took the opportunity to speak on what she
felt were the benefits of nature in regards to health.
“I am a passionate believer in integrating
and interpreting nature’s elements into our
daily lives to create a warm, nurturing, and
positive environment,” she said in a
statement.
409
“I believe that these same natural benefits
can be instrumental to enhancing the
health and well-being of all children. It is
important to me that children can
recognize, identify, and express their
feelings in order to promote their mental
wellness and healing process,” the first
lady added.
Almost instantly, liberal sites began falsely claiming that
her comments were in defense of President Trump’s
intentions to repeal the Affordable Health Care Act and
that she was suggesting Americans who lose their
healthcare shouldn’t be worried because they can rely on
the healing properties of nature. The first lady never made
any statements regarding healthcare, she merely pointed
out the benefits nature and natural options can provide,
especially during the recovery process. (RELATED: Get
more news like this at Trump.news.)
Most people, even liberals, can agree that Americans are
overly medicated and that more natural surroundings and
healthier choices can help in all of us leading longer lives.
If these same statements had been made by Hillary Clinton
or Michelle Obama, they would have been praised for this
line of thinking, all while the media falls over themselves
to start a dialogue about natural remedies.
This is the same hypocrisy we see when Leonardo
DiCaprio lambastes society about climate change and
carbon footprints, but then turns around and uses private
jets to jet set across the globe.
Melania Trump’s views do not come as much of a surprise
as the Trump family has vocally regarded the attempts they
make at healthier lifestyles. Ivanka Trump has said that the
whole family consumes mostly fresh, organic meals and
even calls the diet The Trump Wellness Plan.
It is nice to have a President that doesn’t put Big Pharma’s
interests first when it comes to making decisions for
American Health Care.
 Howard Kurtz: Trump Tax Reveal
'Big-Time Blunder' by Rachel Maddow
By Randy Hall
March 15, 2017 | 6:43 PM EDT
During the Wednesday morning edition of the Fox News
Channel's America's Newsroom, co-anchor Bill Hemmer
discussed the release of part of Donald Trump's 2005
income tax return with Howard Kurtz, who called the
incident “a big-time blunder” by Rachel Maddow, who
devoted her entire eponymous MSNBC program on
Tuesday night to the two pages of information provided by
liberal reporter and author David Cay Johnston.
When Hemmer asked for his view of the incident that
“caught fire last night,” Kurtz slammed
Maddow's devotion to the “exclusive report”
that indicated the current president earned
$150 million a dozen years ago and paid
$38 million in taxes “not because it's not a
legitimate news story,” but because of “the
way in which she dragged this thing out.”
Hemmer began the interview by stating that
“this thing caught fire last night. It was
on the Drudge Report. You can follow it on
Twitter in real time, and the reaction was …
it was something else.”
“Now, you watched it. You saw it. You're
gauging the fallout now, and how do you
see it?” he asked.
Kurtz, who has a special focus on the media as host of Fox
News Channel's MediaBuzz on Sundays, replied:
“Bill, this was a big-time blunder by Rachel
Maddow, not because it's not a legitimate
news story. It is.”
410
He continued:
The way in which she dragged this thing
out, two things happened. One is she had a
news story, but she … turned it into kind of
a partisan spectacle with a long, rambling,
20-minute monologue before she finally
produced the news, and she just seemed
so gleeful about it. Obviously, she's a
liberal critic of this president.
But by touting it on Twitter and hyping it, she gave the
White House time to put out a statement of its own, not
just criticizing the media but confirming the basic facts
that President Trump did in fact pay $38 million in taxes
that year, so she fumbled away the scoop.
The document begins:
“You know you are desperate for ratings
when you are willing to violate the law to
push a story about two pages from over a
decade ago.”
“Despite this substantial income figure and
tax paid, it is totally illegal to steal and
publish tax returns,” the statement
continued.
“The dishonest media can continue to
make this part of their agenda, while the
president will focus on his, which includes
tax reform that will benefit all Americans,”
the document concluded.
At that point in the Wednesday morning interview,
Hemmer noted that Fox News anchor Sean Hannity
“was reacting when she came off the air”
on Tuesday evening, “and what Hannity's
doing is lump her in with the corporate
organization as well.”
Hemmer then played a clip from Hannity's program on the
previous night, when he discussed what he called
 “the corporate jihad being waged by
NBC News against President Trump.”
“Now, as I said earlier, they're the leaders
of this alt-left-propaganda-destroy-Trump-
at-all-costs media,” Hannity stated.
Releasing the president's 2005 tax return
“proves that they will do anything, spin any
conspiracy to destroy the commander-in-
chief, including working with people clearly
that have broken the law.”
Hemmer then noted:
“Now on Hannity's point, a lot of people will
agree with him on that, and they've looked
at the media coverage of this
administration ever since it took office as
you have as well. What does this story do if
nothing changes based on what we have
heard so far? What does this do to those
arguments on the right and left?”
Kurtz responded:
Well, I'm troubled by the illegal leak and
the invasion of privacy here, but this
particular story, I think, doesn't indict NBC
because I think most news organizations,
were this tax return dropped in their lap,
probably would have published it.
411
But what also bothered me about the way that Maddow
presented it and hyped this up is that they started
speculating about where it came from:
“Oh, maybe Trump leaked it, or one of his
people leaked it.”
“According to the reporter who brought this
to MSNBC -- David Cay Johnston, a former
New York Times reporter who just wrote an
anti-Trump book (entitled The Making of
Donald Trump) last year and has compared
him to P. T. Barnum,” one of the founders
of the Barnum & Bailey Circus -- “this just
showed up in his mailbox.”
After noting that no one has claimed responsibility for
leaking the tax return, Kurtz concluded:
“If somebody on Donald Trump's behalf
would have wanted to leak it to somebody,
I doubt it would be this reporter who has
been very much a critic of President
Trump.”
Who knows what other “exclusives” Maddow will
reveal on her weeknight program? Keep reading
NewsBusters to find out.
 'Of Course, The Deep State Exists'
In America, Gingrich Says
Wed Mar 15, 2017 1:45AM

done the most to popularize this term, the deep

state. And he came to this whole concept out of
his analysis of the assassination of President
John F. Kennedy.”

Trump’s chief Trump strategist, Steve Bannon, has warned

about the opposition Trump is facing from the deep state.
He recently told a conservative group that the Trump
administration’s goal is the “deconstruction of the
administrative state.”

Gingrich likens deep state to the plotline of ‘Homeland’

American casino magnate Sheldon Idelson (C) and Miriam Ochsorn (R)
chat with Republican leader Newt Gingrich (2ndR) and his spouse
Callista (L) as they arrive on the platform of the US Capitol at the
Capitol in Washington, DC, on January 20, 2017, before the swearing-in
ceremony of Donald Trump. (Photo by AFP)

Newt Gingrich, the former speaker of the US

House of Representatives has accused the
“deep state” – a shadowy network of
powerful entrenched federal and military
interests – of attempting to destabilize the
administration of President Donald Trump.

“Of course, the deep state exists. There’s a

permanent state of massive bureaucracies that Former US Speaker of the House Newt Gingrich (Photo by AFP)
do whatever they want and set up deliberate
leaks to attack the president,” said Gingrich, a
Trump confidant, according to the Associated
Press.

“This is what the deep state does: They create a

lie, spread a lie, fail to check the lie and then
deny that they were behind the lie,” he added.

The term deep state, or derin devlet in Turkish, originated

in 1950s Turkey, refers to a secretive network of
influential members of government agencies or the
military that operates outside the democratic system. The
group is believed to be involved in the secret manipulation Gingrich likens the threat the deep state poses to Trump
or control of government policy. the plotline of the new season of “Homeland,” in which
career intelligence officers try to subvert an American
According to American scholar Dr. Kevin Barrett, president-elect.

“Peter Dale Scott, professor from the University “They are fighting to keep hold of their power,”
of California, is probably the researcher who has said the former House speaker.
412
On Friday, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said
the “deep state” is attempting to weaken the Trump
government.
Spicer was asked by Yahoo News reporter Hunter Walker
if the White House believes “there’s such a thing as the
deep state actively working to undermine the President.”
“I don't think it should come as any surprise that
there are people that burrowed into government
during the eight years of the last administration
and, you know, may have believed that agenda
and want to continue to seek it,” Spicer added.
.
413
“I don't think that should come as a surprise to
anyone,” he continued.
In an interview with Press TV on Saturday, Dr. Barrett
called Spicer’s statement on the deep state “a very
superficial analysis.”
But he said at least Spicer is “admitting to the
world that deep state exists,” and added that
“Trump himself is very much a product of the
very worst and ugliest forces in the deep state.”
 Pentagon Chief Calls
Climate Change A National Security Threat
Wed Mar 15, 2017 9:38AM
US President Donald Trump (L) and Defense Secretary James Mattis
(file photo by AFP)
Defense Secretary James Mattis has
expressed opposing views to US President
Donald Trump about global warming, calling
climate change a clear and present threat to
national security.
“Climate change is impacting stability in areas of
the world where our troops are operating today,”
Mattis said in a written testimony provided to the
Senate Armed Services Committee as stated by
media on Tuesday.
According to his congressional testimony quoted
in ProPublica, Mattis said he believed that global warming
and climate change were posing a clear and present threat
to US national security.
“It is appropriate for the [US military] Combatant
Commands to incorporate drivers of instability
that impact the security environment in their
areas [affected by global warming such as the
new water routes opening in the thawing Arctic]
into their planning,” he warned.
414
The Pentagon chief’s concerns go in stark contrast with the
beliefs of President Trump who does not think climate
change is a big problem worth any attention.
This image taken on March 26, 2016 shows a perspective of the
northeast coastline of Greenland taken by a team from Oceans
Melting Greenland (OMG). (Photo by AFP)
“I don’t think [climate change] in any major
fashion exists … So I am not a believer, and I
will, unless somebody can prove something to
me, I believe there’s weather. I believe there’s
change, and I believe it goes up and it goes
down, and it goes up again... but I am not a
believer [in global warming], and we have much
bigger problems," he said in one interview.
On other occasions, Trump has not only denied climate
change, but also referred to it as a plot targeting the US
economy.
The president has argued that global warming was “created
by and for the Chinese” to attack American industries.
 ‘They Got Schlonged!’ Limbaugh Goes To Town
Mocking ‘Overrated’ Maddow, ‘Lunatic’ Johnston
By Curtis Houck
March 15, 2017 | 3:32 PM EDT
Yes, you read that headline correctly. Leading off his
eponymous talk radio show on Wednesday, conservative
stalwart Rush Limbaugh lambasted MSNBC host Rachel
Maddow and “lunatic” far-left journalist David Cay
Johnston over the pathetic release of President Trump’s
2005 tax returns, declaring “they got schlonged” and
blinded by their hatred for Trump.
Limbaugh emphasized at the onset that not only was
Maddow not smart enough to diagnose what Johnston had,
but that her
“intelligence is vastly overrated and I
think way too invested in by people on
the left, but people on the left in general,
folks, are teetering on the edge of
insanity.”
Arguing that folks like Maddow have a
“hateful energy that is your guiding
foundation,” Limbaugh argued that such
anti-Trump fervor has kept them from
“hav[ing] any touch with reality, or not
much” to the point that they believe
“every allegation” made against the
President.
“But, folks, in addition to that, they’re
just not as smart as everybody thinks
they are. These people live in cocoons
and they have tunnel vision. You know
as well as I do they don’t let information
415
in that conflicts with their safely
constructed worldview. They’re not
curious about anything they don’t
already, quote, unquote, know,” Rush
added.
Turning to Johnston, Limbaugh gave more insight into
Johnston and rehashed what this writer noted how
Maddow shouldn’t have claimed the tax returns were her
exclusive:
Do not assume these people knew what
they had. By the way, there’s something
else about this. Rachel Maddow is taking
credit for something that really isn’t hers.
The Trump tax returns were not leaked to
her, and she didn’t find them. They were
leaked to some lunatic named David Cay
Johnston.
David Cay Johnston works at The Daily Beast, which is
that left-wing website started by Tina Brown. She may still
be involved. I don’t know who runs it or owns it now. But
it’s a bunch of wackos over there. This guy used to work at
the New York Times. He has written The Making of
Donald Trump in 2016. He’s been stalking Trump since
1988. First met Trump in 1988, in which he says, “I almost
immediately recognized Donald as the P. T. Barnum of our
age.”
And he said he promised in a New York Times interview,
“I’m gonna follow Trump for the rest of his
life.”
And this clown won a Pulitzer Prize for his tax reporting.
David Cay Johnston worked as a tax reporter for the New
York Times. In 2001 he got the Pulitzer for exposing
loopholes in the U.S. tax code!
(....)
Anyway, this is the guy who got the tax returns. Rachel
Maddow did not. So this David Cay Johnston says that
yesterday morning in his mailbox came the two pages from “I think Trump… I think Trump leaked them
Trump’s 1040 tax form from 2005. Well, what mailbox? to me! You know, it’s illegal to leak these!”
Did somebody use the snail mail to send this to him or (laughing) I can’t believe this! “It’s illegal to
does he mean his email in box? Nobody calls the inbox on leak these; I think Trump leaked them to
your computer, your iPhone, “mailbox.” A mailbox me.” It doesn’t mean you have to use ’em!
contains all the different inboxes and the inboxes are If they got schlonged, they got schlonged.
named, so I’m confused just in the terminology.
How do the smartest people in the world get schlonged
like this? How do the smartest people in the world get
tricked like this? How do the smartest people in the world
get fooled like this? Well, maybe they didn’t get tricked.
Maybe it was their own irrationality. By the way, if you’re
Rachel Maddow, let’s look at it from her perspective as a
broadcaster. Okay, so she’s tweeted. She’s talked to David
Cay Johnston; she’s seen these things. He told her what’s
in there, and she sends out in tweet, and it literally melts
the anti-Trump Twitterverse, literally melts it.

Later, Limbaugh explained to viewers that

“liberalism is religion” to folks like
Maddow and MSNBC since so few of them
The conservative icon noted that, upon invoking Trump’s are actual people of faith but instead “build
tax returns, these little safe cocoons to live in where
they don’t let outside beliefs in.”
“[a]ll reason reason vanishes, they got
the tax returns” even though it turned out “I maintain that while it may sound hard
that Trump “earned $150 million, and he to believe, that you consider the
paid $38 million in taxes, that he paid an possibility that these people’s minds are
effective tax rate of 25%.” so poisoned that the truth and reality —
particularly if it’s exculpatory or
contradictory — just doesn’t penetrate
It was here that Limbaugh invoked the controversial word their minds. There’s also the possibility,
Trump used to describe Hillary Clinton’s loss to Barack you know, Maddow wants big ratings
Obama in 2008: even if it just is for 10 minutes. But
anybody responsible as a broadcaster
Now, you would think these people looking would have to know that this is a big net
at this would say, “We got a dud. We have negative no matter what kind of early
got… We’ve been schlonged here.” You large audience that you attract from it,”
would think that they would look at this and continued Limbaugh.
think, “Okay, this David Cay Johnston
guy…” It shows up in his mailbox. Is there Before transitioning to a commercial break,
not the least bit…? It says “client copy” on Rush concluded: “Anything that seems
the two pages he got — “client copy” — impossible to believe or understand is
which means it probably comes from a tax entirely possible with this bunch of
preparer firm or law firm or it may come people, and Rachel Maddow is at the top
from Trump. Now they’re saying that Trump of the list of people who benefit from
schlonged these guys, that Trump set ’em this ballyhooed, buzz-created image of
up. brilliance that is not necessarily
warranted.”
That Maddow announces her tweet,
Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from March
15's The Rush Limbaugh Show:
“We’ve got Trump’s tax returns,”
The Rush Limbaugh Show
and then Trump released the tax returns himself to March 15, 2017
everybody else to preempt the Rachel Maddow Show, but 12:00 p.m. Eastern hour
this David Cay Johnston guy had ’em before all that. So
now he’s running around saying,
RUSH LIMBAUGH: Everybody’s asking why did Rachel
Maddow and PMSNBC, why’d they make such a big deal
out of having Trump’s tax returns when it added up to
416
nothing? My question is, why do we assume that they
knew it added up to nothing? Who are these people? These
people, including Rachel Maddow, whose intelligence is
vastly overrated and I think way too invested in by people
on the left, but people on the left in general, folks, are
teetering on the edge of sanity.
They are so consumed with hate, they are consumed with
hate personally for Trump, politically for Trump. They’re
consumed with hate for their political enemies, not just
disagreement, not just civil disagreement. These people are
on the borderline of being crazy. And this craziness has
been compounding itself even before the election.
(....)
But my point is that when you have this kind of hateful
energy that is your guiding foundation, that it is the reason
you get up each and every day, you don’t have any touch
with reality, or not much. You’re not really well grounded
and it just adds and adds and adds and every allegation
they believe about Trump blows up in their faces.
One by one, everything they have convinced themselves is
true about Trump blows up. The Russian-hacked-the-
election story has blown up. They just won’t admit it,
which is why they won’t let go of it. And I think this kind
of out-of-control runaway emotionalism that is
masquerading as intelligence is literally eating these
people away. And it’s not just the rank-and-file lunatic
Democrat voter base. It goes up the chain to “Democrat
media people.”
But, folks, in addition to that, they’re just not as smart as
everybody thinks they are. These people live in cocoons
and they have tunnel vision. You know as well as I do they
don’t let information in that conflicts with their safely
constructed worldview. They’re not curious about anything
they don’t already, quote, unquote, know.
(....)
So why would they hype it? “But, Rush, they had to look
at it and know it didn’t say that.” Didn’t matter. Do not
assume these people knew what they had. By the way,
there’s something else about this. Rachel Maddow is
taking credit for something that really isn’t hers. The
Trump tax returns were not leaked to her, and she didn’t
find them. They were leaked to some lunatic named David
Cay Johnston.
David Cay Johnston works at The Daily Beast, which is
that left-wing website started by Tina Brown. She may still
be involved. I don’t know who runs it or owns it now. But
it’s a bunch of wackos over there. This guy used to work at
the New York Times. He has written The Making of
Donald Trump in 2016. He’s been stalking Trump since
1988. First met Trump in 1988, in which he says,
417
“I almost immediately recognized Donald
as the P. T. Barnum of our age.”
And he said he promised in a New York Times interview,
“I’m gonna follow Trump for the rest of his
life.”
And this clown one a Pulitzer Prize for his tax reporting.
David Cay Johnston worked as a tax reporter for the New
York Times. In 2001 he got the Pulitzer for exposing
loopholes in the U.S. tax code!
How do you win a Pulitzer for reporting on what’s in
laws? But this guy did because liberals believe that
loopholes are illegalities or loopholes are things rich
people sneak in there for themselves and others rich
people, so he did a massive expose on loopholes. There’s
no such things as tax loopholes. That’s another way the
language is bastardized.
Anyway, this is the guy who got the tax returns. Rachel
Maddow did not. So this David Cay Johnston says that
yesterday morning in his mailbox came the two pages from
Trump’s 1040 tax form from 2005. Well, what mailbox?
Did somebody use the snail mail to send this to him or
does he mean his email in box? Nobody calls the inbox on
your computer, your iPhone, “mailbox.” A mailbox
contains all the different inboxes and the inboxes are
named, so I’m confused just in the terminology.
Then the guy gets it. Then somehow Maddow finds out
about it ’cause these people are all linked together and she
sends out a tweet:
and Twitter blows up because these people
have been sitting out there going closer
and closer to insanity waiting for these
mythical beliefs to somehow be established
and proven.
So they got the tax returns. All reason vanishes, they got
the tax returns. They’ve been waiting for the tax returns.
You would think, wouldn’t you, if we’re gonna assign
intelligence to these people, they had these tax returns long
before Rachel Maddow’s television show aired last night.
It’s 9 p.m. Eastern time. You got two pages and it clearly
states that Trump earned $150 million, and he paid $38
million in taxes, that he paid an effective tax rate of 25%.
That’s more than Warren Buffett’s rate, that’s higher than
Warren Buffett’s secretary’s rate, which is the gold mine
for tax rates, right? Warren Buffett out there saying,
“It’s unconscionable, you know, I make
30,000 million times what my secretary
 does because I’m a cheapskate and don’t
pay ’em anything, and she has a higher tax
rate than I do. That’s just not fair.”
And Obama is harping on this.
Well, Trump’s paying a higher tax rate than Buffett, than
Gates, and even Buffett’s secretary. He’s paying a higher
tax rate than Romney, and he paid a higher tax rate than
the Obamas.
Now, you would think these people looking at this would
say,
“We got a dud. We have got… We’ve been
schlonged here.”
You would think that they would look at this and think,
“Okay, this David Cay Johnston guy…” It
shows up in his mailbox. Is there not the
least bit…? It says “client copy” on the two
pages he got — “client copy”
— which means it probably comes from a tax preparer
firm or law firm or it may come from Trump. Now they’re
saying that Trump schlonged these guys, that Trump set
’em up.
That Maddow announces her tweet,
“We’ve got Trump’s tax returns,” and then
Trump released the tax returns himself to
everybody else to preempt the Rachel
Maddow Show, but this David Cay
Johnston guy had ’em before all that. So
now he’s running around saying, “I think
Trump… I think Trump leaked them to me!
You know, it’s illegal to leak these!”
(laughing) I can’t believe this! “It’s illegal to
leak these; I think Trump leaked them to
me.”
It doesn’t mean you have to use ’em! If they got
schlonged, they got schlonged.
How do the smartest people in the world get schlonged
like this? How do the smartest people in the world get
tricked like this? How do the smartest people in the world
get fooled like this? Well, maybe they didn’t get tricked.
Maybe it was their own irrationality. By the way, if you’re
Rachel Maddow, let’s look at it from her perspective as a
broadcaster. Okay, so she’s tweeted. She’s talked to David
Cay Johnston; she’s seen these things. He told her what’s
in there, and she sends out in tweet, and it literally melts
the anti-Trump Twitterverse, literally melts it.
418
(....)
Remember, this is religion to these people. Liberalism is
religion. It’s rooted in faith. It’s unassailable. It’s
inarguable. It’s why they build these little safe cocoons to
live in where they don’t let outside beliefs in. They don’t
want the trouble of being challenged. They don’t want the
upset of being challenged. So they have — for months and
months and months — convinced themselves. Their reality
is,
“Trump is scum! Trump worked with the
Russians! The Russians worked with
Trump to steal the election from Hillary,”
and that Trump’s not nearly as rich as he said he is.
(....)
I maintain that while it may sound hard to believe, that you
consider the possibility that these people’s minds are so
poisoned that the truth and reality — particularly if it’s
exculpatory or contradictory — just doesn’t penetrate their
minds. There’s also the possibility, you know, Maddow
wants big ratings even if it just is for 10 minutes. But
anybody responsible as a broadcaster would have to know
that this is a big net negative no matter what kind of early
large audience that you attract from it. It’s gonna end up…
You’re gonna become a laughingstock, unless they can
spin it,
“Well, you know, it’s only two pages, and
we know — we know — that Trump was
doing business with the ChiComs. We
know it! We know it! It’s not here. We
haven’t found it yet.”
That’s the approach they’ve taken. Trump’s still lying to
’em, Trump is still a scum, Trump is still cheating, Trump
still shouldn’t have won the election, Trump’s still in bed
with the ChiComs. Even though the tax returns give no
evidence whatsoever of it — and, in fact, the tax returns
disapprove everything they have chosen to believe about
Trump.
(....)
Don’t discount this. Anything that seems impossible to
believe or understand is entirely possible with this bunch
of people, and Rachel Maddow is at the top of the list of
people who benefit from this ballyhooed, buzz-created
image of brilliance that is not necessarily warranted.
 Hawaii Obama Judge Rules Muslim Imam Has Special
Constitutional Rights To Bring Anyone From Terror
Countries Into America
By Robert Barnes
15 Mar 2017
In a ruling issued on Wednesday
afternoon, a federal judge, and Obama
appointee, prevented the President of
the United States from enforcing his
own executive order to protect the
nation from migrants from terror-riddled
countries.
The judge then prevented every other judge and every
other state from following the President’s order, the judge
making himself a one-man Supreme Court and substitute
President.
The judge then held that American universities and
immigrants living here can prohibit America from ever
limiting immigration from Muslim-heavy countries,
claiming the First Amendment gives Muslim-dominant
nations a right of immigration to America.
Such arrogance and abuse of authority sound familiar?
Such First Amendment favoritism toward Islam sound
familiar? Well, Obama did appoint this judge, and a rule of
thumb with federal judges is they tend to mirror the
psychologies of the man who appointed them.
The judge’s ruling is completely lawless, mirroring
Obama’s deep state allies in his shadow government’s
attempt to sabotage the Trump presidency. There is no
precedent for the court’s order. In fact, every precedent is
419
against the court’s order; just read the detailed logic and
scholastic citation of proper governing legal authorities
from the decision of a moderately liberal Boston judge
who upheld every part of Trump’s prior order.
To give you an idea of how lawless the decision is, just try
to find the analogous case the Hawaii judge cites for his
ruling; there is none, not one single prior example of
another judge ever doing what this Judge did to the extent
he did it.
To give you another example of how baseless the court’s
ruling is, even liberal law professors and scribes criticized
the more limited Ninth Circuit decision that this Hawaii
judge goes far beyond. Liberal law professor Turley noted
Trump should win a challenge against that ruling. Liberal
democrat professor Alan Dershowitz noted the same.
Liberal law scribe Jeffrey Toobin conceded the same.
Here are a few reasons why:
First, nationwide injunctions for non-party
plaintiffs are not supposed to happen. A
district judge presides over his district, not
the nation. He should not overrule other
judges, nor dictate his opinions on the
whole nation. The law does not make him a
single judge Supreme Court. The Supreme
Court itself warned against issuing any
relief not individually and specifically
necessary to the plaintiffs before the court.
Noting that “neither declaratory nor
injunctive relief can directly interfere with
enforcement of contested statutes or
ordinances except with respect to the
particular federal plaintiffs,” the Supreme
Court warned against extending its reach
beyond “the particular federal plaintiffs” in
the case.
The Ninth Circuit itself even admits this. The “principles
of comity” compel that a court should not grant national
relief when doing so would “create tensions” with courts in
other circuits and “would encourage forum shopping.” The
Ninth Circuit further reinforced that:
“A federal court…may not attempt to
determine the rights of parties not before
the court.”
What kind of case was that the Ninth Circuit saying not to
extend your ruling beyond the plaintiffs in front of you?
An immigration case (Nat’l Cir. for Immigration Rights v.
INS, 743 F.2d 1365 (9th Cir. 1984). The Ninth Circuit
repeated this principle again and again. That is why the
Supreme Court reversed a California judge’s order just like
this Hawaii judge’s order — imposing a national ban
beyond his limited district jurisdiction of the parties before
him.
Second, there is no constitutional right to a
visa or a right of immigration or
emigration. A quick recap of key Supreme
Court decisions explains why. Aliens
“outside the country receive no
constitutional protection.” The Supreme
Court repeatedly held an alien seeking
initial admission to the United States
“requests a privilege, and has no
constitutional rights regarding his
application, for the power to admit or
exclude aliens is a sovereign
prerogative.” Thus, the President “may shut
out aliens” whenever the President
determine such “entry would be prejudicial
to the interests of the United States.”
Congress expressly authorized this Presidential action in
the one statute the Ninth Circuit tried to hid in its prior
decision, cited above at 8 U.S.C. 1182.
The actions of the President in respect of
enforcing this law “are largely immune from
judicial inquiry or interference.” This is
because the Constitution entrusts “the
power regulate immigration” exclusively “to
the political branches of the Federal
Government.” As the Supreme Court
recently reiterated during Clinton’s
presidency: judicial “deference to the
Executive Branch is especially appropriate
in the immigration context” given
the “sensitive political functions that
implicate questions of foreign relations.”
Admission into America is a privilege, not a right.
Congress gave the President broad statutory authority to
exclude any aliens he saw fit to. A full recitation of that
law is useful, because it is the one law the Hawaii judge,
like the Ninth Circuit, hid from:
420
(f)Suspension of entry or imposition of
restrictions by President
Whenever the President finds that the entry
of any aliens or of any class of aliens into
the United States would be detrimental to
the interests of the United States, he may
by proclamation, and for such period as he
shall deem necessary, suspend the entry of
all aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants or nonimmigrants, or impose on
the entry of aliens any restrictions he may
deem to be appropriate. Whenever the
Attorney General finds that a commercial
airline has failed to comply with regulations
of the Attorney General relating to
requirements of airlines for the detection of
fraudulent documents used by passengers
traveling to the United States (including the
training of personnel in such detection), the
Attorney General may suspend the entry of
some or all aliens transported to the United
States by such airline.
The law is clear in the power it gives the President, in the
statute cited above — 8 U.S.C. 1182(f). Like the Ninth
Circuit decision before, the Hawaii judge goes out of his
way to pretend this statute does not exist. Indeed, it is
never addressed in any real way in the court’s entire
opinion (much of which appeared pre-written prior to the
oral argument).
Just as we have a right to decide which strangers enter our
home and who sleeps next to our daughters’ bedroom or
eats our family’s food, we as a country enjoy the
democratic right to decide who enters our country, who
lives next to us as a neighbor, and who enjoys the fruits of
our ancestral inheritance. The Hawaii Obama judge went
much further in the opposite direction: he claimed an
immigrant here has a right to bring in whatever other
immigrants he wants, even citizens from terror-riddled,
Sharia-law-supporting, failed, corrupted states that cannot
vet or screen would-be aliens entering America. Ask San
Bernardino how that worked out.
Third, the First Amendment does not apply
to foreign aliens. That is how we kept
terror-minded anarchists out of the nation
and sabotage-minded communists out of
the nation. That is how every President for
more than a century limited migrants based
on ideology or statehood. That is why we
were much more successful than Europe in
limiting the anarchist-inspired violence (that
led Europe into World War I) and in limiting
communist internal sabotage (that led
much of eastern Europe into communist
totalitarianism).
Every federal court followed that process in limiting
immigration from Muslim-terror nations after 9/11. This
Hawaii court’s decision directly conflicts with those
Circuits; but, per usual, it never even mentions any of
those authorities. As the Second Circuit noted: “one major
threat of terrorist attacks comes from radical Islamic
groups. The September 11 attacks were facilitated by
violations of immigration laws by aliens from
predominantly Muslim nations. The Program was clearly
tailored to those facts.” This court’s ruling would overturn
all of that, and basically claims every president since
Teddy Roosevelt violated the First Amendment in our
immigration policies.
Put simply, the Hawaii federal judge ruled that because the
imam was Muslim and his would-be migrant visas wish-
list came from Muslim-dominant nations, the First
Amendment gave him a special right to bring whomever
he wanted into the country, even from terror-riddled
countries in security compromised states the President
recognized as a direct threat to the peace of the people.
.
421
The First Amendment has never applied to a right of
immigration of foreign aliens, nor does it compel religious
favoritism toward Muslims. This is the new left’s
interpretation of the Constitution, and it is as perilous to
our politics as the deep state within and radical Islam
abroad.
The Hawaii Obama judge didn’t interpret the Constitution;
he rewrote it, usurping to himself the sole power to control
borders, then delegated the exercise of that power to a
Muslim imam and his free visa wish list. The judge
dishonored the rule of law in his order and disrespected
our legal traditions and governing legal authorities in his
reasoning for it. He effectively declared himself king and
executioner.
Meet the new left’s America: foreigners first, Muslims
preferred, law last, elections irrelevant.
 McDonalds Tweets Trump: "You Are A Disgusting Excuse
Of A President, Also You Have Tiny Hands"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 16, 2017 11:25 AM

And so, as MCD has washed its hands of the rogue tweet
and blamed "compromising" actors, the company has
generated substantial media buzz... the only question is
whether the buzz will lead to more or less sales.

* * *

One day after Twitter stock tumbled after a pervasive hack

showed just how vulnerable the underperforming social
network (where 15% of total users appear to be bots)
remains, moments ago McDonalds tweeted to president
Trump, in what appears to be the latest hack of a
prominent account, that "You are actually a disgusting
excuse of a President and we would love to have
@BarackObama back, also you have tiny hands."
Update: It appears McDonalds needed Twitter to tell
Robert Gibbs and the company's Corporate relations team
that their account had been "compromised."

The confrontational tweet was even pinned for a moment:

422
We assume, of course, that this is a hack. If not, the media
is about to have a field day with the latest member of the
"resistance."
Of course, it could have been just a rogue employee who is
about to join the "unemployed resistance."
It is worth noting that Trump was once in a commercial for
the fast food giant, and has posted images eating
McDonald's food on his social media accounts during his
campaign.
Of course, it may not have been a "rogue employee" at all:
former Obama press secretary Robert
Gibbs is now the executive vice president
and global chief communications officer at
McDonald's.
To wit:
June 09, 2015 McDonald’s Corporation today announced
the appointments of Robert Gibbs as Executive Vice
President, Global Chief Communications Officer and
Silvia Lagnado as Executive Vice President, Global Chief
Marketing Officer. Both will report to McDonald’s
President and CEO Steve Easterbrook.
423
In his new role, Gibbs will lead McDonald’s corporate
relations group, which manages internal and external
communications and government and public affairs. He
will lead McDonald’s in communicating clear, coordinated
messages to internal and external constituencies,
enhancing the brand and supporting corporate strategies.
Gibbs joins McDonald’s from The Incite Agency, a
strategic communications advisory firm he co-founded in
2013. Prior to that he held several senior advisory roles in
the White House, serving as President Barack Obama’s
press secretary during his first term, then as senior
campaign advisor during his re-election campaign.
Which means he also has access to the company's twitter
account...
***
Update: the tweet has since been deleted
although it does not appear that
McDonalds was actually hacked as the
account continues its back and forth with
other customers in a far more calm and
collected manner.
 Reporter Who Revealed Trump’s
Taxes Slams ‘Unethical’ White House
By Jackson Richman
March 15, 2017 | 1:12 PM EDT
On CNN's New Day Wednesday, the investigative reporter
who revealed President Donald Trump's 2005 tax returns,
cried foul over the White House leaking them to news
organizations, accusing them of behaving "unethically,"
and that the public doesn't know how much the President is
"getting from the Russian oligarches." He also said the
former point a few hours later on MSNBC Live with
Stephanie Ruhle. Moreover, Johnston ranted in his CNN
interview about other aspects of Trump's returns.
"Donald has a long history of leaking
things. Doing it directly and indirectly. It’s a
possibility. The anger suggested to me not
likely. It's when something gets leaked he's
happy about they don't complain," David
Cay Johnston, who broke the story, said on
New Day.
Cuomo replied,
"They did have their game together. When
they found out this was coming out, they
put out a response that nailed exactly how
to play this and they don't always do that."
"Actually they behaved pretty unethically,"
Johnston responded. "I sent them the
document and they gave it out to
competing news organizations.
Professional PR people don't do things
stuff like that. I've never had a White House
do something like that."
Although there are reported instances Trump may have
engaged with Russian businesses, Johnston, with
424
unsubstantiated claims, panicked about what may be
missing from his returns.
"We don't know how much money Donald
Trump is getting from the Russian
oligarches. He has a more than 30-year
connections and notice Trump always says
Russia” and never says ‘Russians.’ And the
oligarches are a state-sponsored network
of international criminals that Donald has
repeatedly done business with," he said.
"Secondly, we want to know who he is
indebted to and who is he paying fees to?
One of Donald’s biggest lenders’s is a huge
money laundering bank, Deutsche Bank.
He is also borrowed hundreds of millions of
dollars from a Communist Chinese bank.
That's just astonishing."
Johnston added,
"That's just astonishing. We need to see
Donald Trump's complete tax returns going
back to 1977 which until now is the last
year we knew he paid income taxes so we
know who he is doing business with, who
his partners are. Who he is getting money
from. Who he is obligated to. And the
Russian aspect we’ve been reporting, DC
Report, I think has been very important to
this. Particularly the land sale he did in
Florida everybody said that's a pay off."
Other examples of Johnston expressing during the
interview his displeasure with the returns includes how
much Trump paid.
"We have two tax systems for wealthy
people: Regular and AMT. Under the
regular system, he would have paid $5
million on 153 million. That’s less than
3.5%. That's less than the tax rate paid by
the poorest half of Americans," he said.
He added,
"He wants to live like a king and pay taxes
like he's a pauper and we can't run our
 military and the FBI and the other things
needed to make America a free and
independent country without tax revenue."
Here is the transcript from the March 15th exchange:
New Day
03/15/2017
6:02:44 AM - 6:15:10 AM [7 min., 26 sec.]
CHRIS CUOMO: We got the man this morning. Pulitzer
Prize-winning journalist David Cay Johnston. Now, he got
the President's tax return in the mail anonymously sent to
him. Publihsed it on DCreports.com. Promptly crashed the
servers there. And he's also the author of The Making of
Donald Trump. So we have the reporting. We have the tax,
and then we have the mysteries. So let's start with the
reporting, how did you get this?
DAVID CAY JOHNSTON: It just came to my home. I was in
Palm Beach, Florida, looking at Mara Lago when I got a
phone call from one of my grown children that this came to
my house in Rochester, New York, and I went up to New
York City.
CUOMO: You don't know who sent it to you, you didn’t solicit
it, and you didn't ask anybody for it.
JOHNSTON: Correct.
POPPY HARLOW: But it had two very important words on it:
“Client copy.” What does that tell you?
JOHNSTON: First of all, it didn't come from the Internal
Revenue Service, which probably got it electronically. It
probably came from someone given that copy either
because they worked in the accounting firm or it was
produced in litigation or it was produced for a regulatory
proceeding and somebody had access to it. I think the
reason they probably sent it to me is because I have written
so much about negative incomes and how they're used by
wealthy people to avoid paying taxes and the minimum
alternative tax.
HARLOW: Do you think it was possible it was sent to you by
the President?
JOHNSTON: Yes, Donald has a long history of leaking
things. Doing it directly and indirectly. It’s a possibility. The
anger suggested to me not likely. It's when something gets
leaked he's happy about they don't complain.
CUOMO: They did have their game together. When they
found out this was coming out they put out a response that
nailed exactly how to play this and they don't always do
that.
425
JOHNSTON: Actually they behaved pretty unethically. I sent
them the document and they gave it out to competing news
organizations. Professional PR people don't do things stuff
like that. I've never had a White House, and my experience
goes back 50 years, do something like that.
CUOMO: Join the club. So client copy takes the IRS out of it
and that's important right now because what we have seen
is institutions keep getting attacked as part of a political
tactic to deal with criticism of the president.
JOHNSTON: Right.
CUOMO: So client copy puts this into the realm again of
unethical litigant. Somebody that got this through discovery
and wasn't supposed to release it or someone connected to
Trump that would have had this. That's how you got it. Now
what's in it. As you said you do a lot of writing about the
alternative minimum tax and what's going on.
JOHNSTON: The Trumps that year had $153 million in
income. About $3 million a week. They also took $103
million of negative income and I believe that's from a tax
shelter that the President bought.
CUOMO: What is negative income?
JOHNSTON: It's reverse numbers. You're in the hole.
CUOMO: So you lost money.
JOHNSTON: That's right. In Trump's case he didn't have
negative income. The banks took that loss, but the president
bought a tax shelter that allowed him to take it as well.
Double taking the loss.
CUOMO: Illegal.
JOHNSTON: Congress, the Republicans in Congress shut
that off the minute they learned about it, but you know what
they do? They let the people that already bought the tax
shelter keep it.
CUOMO: Legal, but they changed the tax subsequently.
JOHNSTON: So this -- the President, we only have the
regular tax system. We have two tax systems for wealthy
people: Regular and AMT. Under the regular system, he
would have paid $5 million on 153 million. That’s less than
3.5%. That's less than the tax rate paid by the poorest half of
Americans.
HARLOW: let's talk about why that matters. That matters
because he wants to overhaul the tax code. A lot of folks
want to overhaul it. 36 and a million dollars he would have
paid about 3.
JOHNSTON: That’s right. He would have paid 5. That's
right. He wants to live like a king and pay taxes like he's a
pauper and we can't run our military and the FBI and the
other things needed to make America a free and
independent country without tax revenue.
CUOMO: There's a big debate about that. Poppy and I were
talking about it before the show. You can't blame Trump for
the existing system. He was just working the system as
everybody else does who doesn't want to pay a penny more
than they have to.
HARLOW: Liberals and conservatives.
CUOMO: Was there anything that went to charitable giving
or schedules that shows foreign asset structure?
JOHNSTON: No, we do know this was the one year out of
the last 15 or so the President made a gift to his own charity.
$660,000 but beyond that we don't know. That's from the tax
return of his charity which I also examined.
CUOMO: So this was the right year to get in terms of
Trump's own interest, right? That's part of the backlash here
is that for a leak this seemed to be pretty good for the
President.
JOHNSTON: Yes it makes him look quite good and the
numbers if I'm right about the tax shelter imply his average
income was $81.5 million a year. Half, roughly.
CUOMO: So it was the best number to show how much
money he makes. It doesn't show anything nepharious and
he winds up looking like see what's the big deal.
JOHNSTON: If we don't see, though, which is probably a
thousand pages, his entire return for many years.
CUOMO Who would have client copy of a few pages?
JOHNSTON: It could be a function of who had time to go to
a photo copier. I don't know. Donald Trump is unique in that
he is not showing his tax returns. We had Hillary Clinton's
tax returns in the 1970s.
HARLOW: This is the lead this morning because it is news
but this is an intentional distraction. Stay with us, David. We
want to bring in our panel to talk about exactly that and
more. Associate Editor and Columnist at Real Clear Politics,
AB Stoddard, is with us. CNN analyst and author of How is
Your Faith, David Gregory, is here. And political
commentator and Senior Columnist at The Daily Beast, Matt
Lewis, is here. Chris made important points there when you
look at his income over a number of years and big losses,
this is a rosy outlook for the President. Do you see this as an
intentional distraction regardless of who it came from?
DAVID GREGORY: It may have the effect of being a
distraction and self-serving. It's an incomplete picture and
the picture that is presented is revealing of things that are
consistent with what president trump has said about his
426
financial standing his wealth and his taxes he paid. About
what David said, we don't know the extent of his financial
entanglement and involvement around the globe.
CUOMO: The timing is curious. It is yet in the midst of all of
the other things that the president wants to get away from.
The wiretapping claims. The Comey coming and finally
giving word about the nature of the investigation of Trump by
that agency if there is one. The timing is pretty curious, no?
AB STODDARD: I think if he intentionally did this the timing
is shrewd. Not because of the huge divisions within the
Republican Party and the battle over how to replace and
repair ObamaCare but really on this Russia stuff. That if the
person who sort of went to bed early on a snow night maybe
on the East Coast last night and can only pay attention to
this in passing on the way to work, not at the granular level
we do, didn't see David's interview last night, that person
might see this and say it looks like he paid his taxes. Maybe
they don't know that we don't know who he is getting his
money from. At this point they look at this and they say
maybe there's nothing to all of this stuff about him being
beholden to Russia and I think that is what serves this
purpose if it was intentional leak from anyone in Trump
world.
HARLOW: What this does show us is this white house can
and is willing to put out the President's tax information. It
does show us that. This is a president that said he would
show his tax returns when the audit is over. Never has. He
can do it anyways. An audit doesn't prevent you from doing
that. The White House proves by putting out this statement.
CUOMO: He hasn't even given us proof.
HARLOW: Exactly. That they can put out tax returns when
they want to.
MATT LEWIS: I just question the news value of this, right?
Possibly the speculation this morning is maybe even it came
from Donald Trump. This story was hyped so much by the
media on social media specifically last night like it’s Al
Capone’s vault. It comes out and it's two pages. It makes
Donald Trump look really good and I just wonder does it
feed the appetite for more or does it pass identify people?
People say, “We have seen the taxes.”
CUOMO: That comes to the nature of how you report it.
LEWIS: But it speaks to the media. Let's just assume for a
second that he is playing us. Well it wouldn't be the first
time. He has played us like a violin and it could be --
CUOMO: Let's go slow with saying that the president did it.
Hold on a second, David. Let me deal with this from the
perspective of the taxes. There are more questions for you
to answer. What do you want to say to people that say they
have the big tax guy, this is the whole story and now we
know he doesn't pay more taxes than he has to. Can't blame
 him for that. What do you want people to know about what
remains to be known?
JOHNSTON: Here's what we don't know. We don't know
how much money Donald Trump is getting from the Russian
oligarchs. He is a more than 30-year connections and notice
Trump always says “Russia” and never says “Russians.”
And the oligarchs are a state-sponsored network of
international criminals that Donald has repeatedly done
business with. Secondly, we want to know who he is
indebted to and who is he paying fees to? One of Donald’s
biggest lenderers is a huge money laundering bank,
Deutsche Bank. He is also borrowed hundreds of millions of
dollars from a Communist Chinese bank. That's just
astonishing. We need to see Donald Trump's complete tax
.
427
returns going back to 1977 which until now is the last year
we knew he paid income taxes so we know who he is doing
business with, who his partners are. Who he is getting
money from. Who he is obligated to. And the Russian aspect
we’ve been reporting, DC Report, I think has been very
important to this. Particularly the land sale he did in Florida
everybody said that's a pay off.
CUOMO: So, this is the beginning.
JOHNSTON: Absolutely. It's the beginning and it's a window
that I told you a lot about from the window but it's just that --
HARLOW: It's an airplane window. Thank you for the
reporting. We appreciate it.
 Revealed: Trump Didn’t Avoid
Paying Taxes For 18 Years, As NY Times Suggested
Flashback: Trump's Taxes Were Subject Of Debate With Hillary Clinton
By Jack Phillips, Epoch Times
March 15, 2017 AT 2:29 PM
Onlookers watch as President-elect Donald Trump shakes hands with
a security guard as he leaves the New York Times building following a
meeting, Tuesday, Nov. 22, 2016, in New York. (AP Photo/Mark
Lennihan)
The White House released President Donald Trump’s tax
return for 2005 on Tuesday, after MSNBC’s Rachael
Maddow publicized reporter David Cay Johnston’s scoop
on them.
The papers showed that Trump earned around $150
million in income in 2005 and paid $38 million in taxes,
disproving an Oct. 1, 2016, New York Times story
headlined, “Donald Trump Tax Records Show He
Could Have Avoided Taxes for Nearly Two Decades,
The Times Found.”
The story, posted a month before Election Day, wrote that
Trump
“declared a $916 million loss on his 1995
income tax returns,” which would have
allowed him to “legally avoid paying any
federal income taxes for up to 18 years.”
The Times, meanwhile, suggested that the 1995 tax
documents show Trump got “extraordinary tax benefits”
that were
“derived from the financial wreckage he left
behind in the early 1990s through
428
mismanagement of three Atlantic City
casinos.”
It added:
“Tax experts hired by The Times to analyze
Mr. Trump’s 1995 records said that tax
rules especially advantageous to wealthy
filers would have allowed Mr. Trump to use
his $916 million loss to cancel out an
equivalent amount of taxable income over
an 18-year period.”
Trump was asked about the Times report during a
presidential debate, and his Democratic opponent, Hillary
Clinton, at the time suggested he doesn’t pay federal
income taxes.
Clinton claimed Trump didn’t
“want the American people, all of you
watching tonight, to know that he’s paid
nothing in federal taxes, because the only
years that anybody’s ever seen were a
couple of years when he had to turn them
over to state authorities when he was trying
to get a casino license, and they showed
he didn’t pay any federal income tax.”
“That makes me smart,” Trump responded
in the exchange.
In a statement to several news outlets, the White House
confirmed Johnston’s scoop.
“You know you are desperate for ratings
when you are willing to violate the law to
push a story about two pages of tax returns
from over a decade ago,” the statement
read. The administration noted it’s “totally
illegal to steal and publish tax returns,”
while slamming the “dishonest media.”
In a Tuesday tweet, Trump wrote:
“Does anybody really believe that a to his mailbox’ and found my tax returns?
reporter, who nobody ever heard of, ‘went @NBCNews FAKE NEWS!”

429
 Trump Versus The Deep State
By David A. Schultz
March 16, 2017
The Trump presidency is fraught with contradictions.
Among the most notable is the degree to which the Steve
Bannon war on the “deep administrative state” is at odds
with a presidency aimed at making America great again.
To achieve that goal–whatever it means–it requires the
Trump administration to take control of the political
machinery of the state to secure policy goals, not seek to
destroy it as Bannon and many Republicans aspire.
There is an old adage that the skills need to become
president are different from those to be president.
Presidential campaigns depend on media skills, crafting
narratives and messages, and on fund raising among other
things. While some of these skills might also apply to
being president, campaigning is different from governing.
Governance is more than words and rhetoric; it is
formulating public policies and setting agendas. It requires
the coordination of multiple agencies and officials,
working with Congress, proper use of discretion,
implementation, and the oversight of programs.
Campaigning is easy, but governing is hard. Fortunately
there are careerists and a civil service in Washington that
transcends presidents to maintain institutional knowledge
about how to run things. There are the 3,000 or so
members of the Senior Executive Service–the most senior
careerists who run the major government agencies and
programs. There is the foreign policy establishment that
generally directs the US national security and diplomatic
functions of the country. All of this is what makes the
federal government work and gets things done. It assures
stability, consistency, competence. This is the real deep
state–not the deep state of those conspiracists who think
the CIA is secretly running everything or who believe in a
second shooter in Dallas in 1963. Trump needs the real
deep state–the administrative state– but he is at war with it.
430
Trump’s presidential campaign as an outsider was not
atypical of many recent candidates. He ran as the outsider,
as someone who would “drain the swamp” of
Washington. Yet the Trump candidacy and now the
Trump presidency went further. It saw a virtue in no
government knowledge or experience. It naively believed
that a bunch of real outsiders with no government
experience could simply come in and get things done, such
as building a Mexican wall, crushing Isis, imposing tariffs,
forcing renegotiation of trade agreements, and demanding
changes to health care. To accomplish any of these tasks
a president and his staff have to have a plane, and people
who can execute it. So far it does not appear Trump has
either. He is literally a man without a plan–except for
one–to also destroy the current administrative state, if
Steve Bannon is to be so understood.
The entire foundation of anything the Trump wants to do
rests upon the deep or the administrative state. Executive
orders in part get their power from administrative law and
regulations. The ability to move on any of the issues that
Trump says he cares about requires there to be a strong and
viable administrative state. His ability to repeal and
replace the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) is about
using the machinery of the state to make policy change.
Yet this is the very state Bannon wants to see wither
away. Take away the administrative state and Trump will
be weak, ineffective president. That appears where the
Trump presidency is now.
The efforts to destabilize the government only weaken it.
The failure to get hi appointments named and confirmed
weaken the state. The failure to listen to those who know
better or how to get things done weakens the state. Trump
may simply not realize that his tactics are at odds with
policy views. Or perhaps what Trump wants and what
Bannon wants are two different things. Trump may want
to build, Bannon wants to destroy.
Back in the 1960s when people were still waiting for the
revolution to occur political scientist Robert Dahl wrote a
book called After the Revolution? He pointed out that
after the revolution someone would still have to pick up
the garbage, make sure the streets are paved, that sewage
goes down sewers, and that all the other functions that we
cherish as part of civilization would go on. Revolutions to
improve the quality of life still require authority, structure,
and organization, unless of course you are a complete
anarchist and either don’t want that or think that a modern
society can spontaneously govern and structure itself.
Maybe that is what Bannon thinks. However the track
record of complex systems simply self-ordering
themselves in ways that are beneficial to all is not very
good. Free markets and capitalism are the most notable
failures in that aspect.
.
431
The point here is that contrary to the simplistic view that
the state is going to wither away and allow Trump to be a
strong and effective president, the two cannot stand
together. The Trump presidency is actually pursuing
policies that will largely make it less effective and
competent than many hoped or feared. The contradictions
of the Trump style of anti-governance doom his
presidency, and perhaps setting it up to be crushed by the
deep state that it resents but needs.
Gorka On Media’s Russia Obsession, Trump’s ‘America
First’ Budget, And Why The Immigration
EO Challenge Will Fail
By John Hayward
16 Mar 2017
On Thursday’s Breitbart News Daily, Dr.
Sebastian Gorka, deputy assistant to
President Trump and former National
Security editor for Breitbart News,
addressed the judicial injunction
against President Trump’s revised
executive order on immigration. The
judge blocked Trump’s order on the
grounds that it constituted unfair
discrimination against Muslims.
“It’s very simple,” Gorka told SiriusXM host
Alex Marlow. “There is absolutely no way
on God’s earth that they can make that
case, that this is something to do with
xenophobia or a religious group.”
“There is not one instance on the campaign
trail or after the president took office in
which the travel suspension was mentioned
without reference to national security,” he
pointed out. “It was never mentioned that
we’re doing this because of a certain
religious group. In every single instance,
every campaign speech, every statement
out of the White House after January 20,
this measure was linked to the security of
the United States. National security is the
prerogative of the commander-in-chief, and
immigration – including immigration
432
standards and the issuance of visas – is
not a local, is not a federal, is not a judicial
function. It is a function of the White House
and the executive arm.”
“This attempt to block a national security
executive order will fail,” he declared.
Gorka said this interference with the
president’s order illustrates “the depth of
the problem” with judicial activism.
“If we truly believe in a republic, if we
believe in checks and balances, and if we
believe in separations of power, then the
executive cannot bring constitutional
decisions. That’s the job of the Supreme
Court. Judges cannot behave as if they are
the executive and determine what is good
for the national security of the United
States,” he said. “When they proceed to do
so, they have stepped out of their mandate.
They have stepped out of the way we
constructed this country originally.”
“This is a perfect case study of just how
much politics has intruded into the judicial
sphere,” Gorka said. “As such, we have to
welcome it because this is when the scales
fall from the eyes of many, many
Americans, and we understand that this
isn’t about the law. This isn’t about the
judicial process. This is about politics.”
Marlow turned the conversation to the release of President
Trump’s budget and its basic theme of “raise military
spending, cut spending from the various agencies.”
“If there’s one thing in the meetings I’ve
been a party to with the president over the
last eight weeks, one of the most trying
issues for him, again and again and again,
is waste – the gargantuan amounts of
waste we have inside the federal
government,” Gorka said.
“That’s why we have our rule that you can’t
bring a new regulation unless two are
 rescinded in its place. That’s why we’re
concentrating on what really matters to
national security after eight years of cuts,
after eight years of undermining our armed
forces, and saving money where we can,”
he explained.
“When you are as successful as Donald J.
Trump was in the private sector, the bottom
line really matters,” Gorka said. “This is a
man who cares about national security but
also cares about your pocketbook. Whether
you voted for him or not, he is driven by
saving money for the U.S. taxpayer, and
that’s what you’re going to see in the
budget.”
Gorka said the biggest military budget issue at the moment
is combat readiness.
“The Marine Corps, for example, is having
to cannibalize not old aircraft, but
cannibalize current aircraft, that are in
current use, to keep other aircraft flying.
That is just untenable. This is the United
States of America. We don’t do that. One of
the key priorities is going to be making sure
that our warfighters have what they need to
prosecute their missions,” he vowed.
Marlow described President Trump’s $1.2 billion
infrastructure plan that could be difficult to sell to budget-
conscious voters and challenging to execute in a manner
that provides good return on the taxpayers’ investment.
“As somebody who travels a fair bit, you
just have to understand that if you go
around other parts of the world – whether
it’s Europe, whether it’s Asia, or elsewhere
– we have lagged behind,” Gorka
contended. “We have seen our
infrastructure not looked after in recent
decades. It simply is not at the standard
that would match our role in the world.”
“So number one, there is a problem.
Number two, when the president first
announced this initiative, he chose his
words very, very carefully. He didn’t say it’s
one trillion dollars’ worth of taxpayer
money. He said there will be this initiative,
but it’s not all going to come out of your
pocket. That’s very important to
understand. We are looking at more than
just the federal budget to fund these kinds
of measures,” he noted.
“Lastly, it’s not pork barrel. It’s not simply
projects, bridges to nowhere. It’s about
getting America back on track, and
433
infrastructure is essential to that. You can
concentrate on jobs for Americans, you can
concentrate on the automotive industry,
you can concentrate on manufacturing –
but if you can’t move those people, if you
can’t move those materials, then it’s only
one small part of the national economy,” he
argued.
“Infrastructure is the veins, it’s the system,
it is the lifeblood of the economy,” he
stated, agreeing with Marlow’s proposition
that effective execution of the president’s
infrastructure plan would leave a “great
legacy” for Trump.
Marlow asked if there was any progress to report on
President Trump’s allegation that the Obama
administration “wiretapped” his campaign.
“I’m not going to speak for the president,
but as somebody who works in the national
security sphere, I’m really concerned with
this issue in general,” Gorka replied. “We
have now had for months and months and
months and months this absurd obsession,
this talk, this insinuation of the Russian
connection. Where’s the smoking gun?
What is the former administration and their
lackeys in the media actually positing?”
“There’s no ‘there’ there,” he said. “A
phone call was made to an ambassador.
Okay, but what else is there? There’s
nothing. So that’s why the president said,
‘Okay, you want to open this can of
worms? Let’s look at the whole issue.’ Let’s
go right back to Russian involvement on
Left and Right, as far back as the beginning
of the Obama administration. Let’s shine
light on this issue.”
Gorka said there was a deeper issue:
“When we know that sensitive, highest-
level sensitive intelligence, transcripts of
conversations with U.S. individuals are
being given lock, stock, and barrel to the
mainstream media, that is what we call the
political exploitation of intelligence. That’s
not what happens in banana republics,
that’s what happens in authoritarian
nations. That is something that we must
look into. When you start to use the
intelligence community’s assets or their
product for partisan political purposes, you
undermine the whole democratic system.
That’s why we want to shed light on all of
these issues, to finally stop this kind of
perverted exploitation.”
Marlow said Democrats seem determined to provoke
hostility between Trump and Russia by pushing the
narrative of Trump as either a sympathizer of Russian
President Vladimir Putin or his pawn. He noted that
Breitbart News was strongly critical of Russia during
Gorka’s tenure as National Security editor and remains so
under editor Frances Martel.
Gorka suggested asking Obama and Clinton hands like
Ben Rhodes and John Podesta why the Democrats are
pursuing this strategy. He chuckled as Marlow promptly
issued instructions to invite them as guests for the next
edition of Breitbart News Daily.
“I think there’s a couple of potential
explanations,” Gorka speculated, to tide the
audience over until such time as Rhodes
and Podesta swing by the studio to explain
themselves. “With regards to Syria, I think
some personal animus was built up
.
434
between Moscow and the last
administration. Beyond that, I think it’s
laziness. I think it’s scapegoating.”
“I take umbrage at your saying Frances
takes a stronger line than I did, but we can
talk about that later,” he added humorously.
“My family history is very clear, what my
parents went through under communism
and et cetera.”
“The bottom line is they need an
explanation for why they lost,” Gorka said
of the Democrats. “If you cannot admit that
your candidate was an appalling candidate
who lost because she had no message
except ‘I’m a woman and I deserve to be
president,’ you’re going to have to find an
answer as to why she was trounced. The
easiest one is Russia, WikiLeaks, the KGB,
the SVR, everything else. I think it’s handy,
it’s easy, it’s lazy, it’s scapegoating.”
 Trump's First Budget
Faces Early Republican Resistance
By Edmund Demarche
Published March 16, 2017
President Trump’s “America First” budget released
Thursday that calls for steep cuts to the State Department
and Environmental Protection Agency in order to increase
defense spending was called by some Republicans as a pie-
in-the-sky wish list that will never pass Congress in tact.
It is not uncommon for a president’s initial “skinny
budget” to face an uphill fight with congressmen who
control the government’s purse strings. But the early
resistance is notable since Republicans control both the
House and Senate. Even House Speaker Paul Ryan
appeared to hedge his optimism on the plan that he called a
“blueprint.”
For better or worse, Trump’s budget appears to make good
on some of his key campaign promises. He calls for an
increase in defense spending by $54 billion, which The
Associated Press points out is the largest increase since
President Reagan’s military buildup of the 1980s. The
defense increase will be paid for by cuts to the EPA, State
Department and federal funding for the arts.
Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who often finds himself at
odds with Trump, said plainly,
435
“It is clear that this budget proposed today
cannot pass the Senate.”
Trump said in a statement that
“to keep Americans safe, we have made
the tough choices that have been put off for
too long.”
Republicans leaders spread out across the country have
found items in the budget that would likely not still well
with their voters.
Sen. Rob Portman, R-Ohio, spoke out against the Great
Lakes Restoration Initiative and Rep. Hal Rogers, R-Ky.,
called out the budget cut on the Appalachian Regional
commission, which assists communities in his region. He
called Trump’s budget cuts
“draconian, careless and
counterproductive.”
“I just want to make sure that rural
America, who was very supportive to
Trump, doesn’t have to take a
disproportionately high cut,” Rep. Robert
Aderholt, R-Ala., told the AP.
Republicans praised the president for beefing up the
Pentagon, but they were far less enthusiastic about
accepting Trump's recipe for doing so without adding to
the nation's $20 trillion debt.
"While we support more funding for our
military and defense, we must maintain
support for our farmers and ranchers," said
North Dakota Republican John Hoeven,
blasting a 21 percent cut to the Agriculture
Department's budget.
Democrats have spoken out against the budget they say
would devastate the work done by agencies like the EPA.
Sen. Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., tweeted,
“Democrats in Congress will emphatically
oppose these cuts & urge our Republican
colleagues to reject them as well.”
“message we’re sending to the Hill is, we
want more money for the things the
president talked about, defense being the
top one, national security. And we don’t
want to add to the budget deficit. If
Congress has another way to do that, we’re
happy to talk to them about it.”

White House Budget Director Mick Mulvaney said this is

not a take-it-or-leave-it budget. He told The Washington
Post that the
.

436
 Trump’s Budget Blueprint Takes Aim At Bloated
Bureaucracy While Beefing Up Defense – MSM Flips Out
Zeropointnow
Thu Mar 16, 2017 5:38am EST

President Trump, through the Office of Management and
Budget (OMB) has issued his administration’s America
First Budget Blueprint (available here in PDF form, or a
pastebin text version thx to Voat user Crankypants15).
This is known as the “skinny budget,” as it only represents
topline cuts, whereas Trump’s full economic and tax
projections will come in May.
unlearn’t without Sesame Street. To add insult to injury,
boring liberals who don’t satisfy their wives will have to
do without monotone NPR hosts at the end of
their groundhog day drive home from work. It’s all so
terrible!

For reference, the Federal government will spend

approximately $4 trillion next year. A little over 2/3 of that
goes toward Social Security, Medicare, Medicaid, poverty
assistance, and payments on government debt – and will
not be touched. The remaining 1/3 is known as
discretionary spending, which include various Federal
agencies – and is what the “blueprint” covers. Trump’s
OMB director Mick Mulvaney is in charge of the process
of fulfilling Trump’s campaign promises:

“We wrote it using the president’s own

words,” he said. “We turned those
policies into numbers.”

Here’s what Trump wants you to take away from this

proposal:
Maybe…

OR, perhaps the system has become bloated,

inefficient, and over encumbered with bureaucratic
redundancy and waste by an army of Federal employees
who are overcompensated for B-string output, and perhaps
the United States gives too much money to foreign
governments. Maybe the US budget is full of rampant
cronyism which should end. And perhaps the best offense
What it doesn’t mention are all the cuts – which can be is a good defense – or something like that. This is draining
seen below. the swamp, at home and abroad.

Keep in mind, what Trump is proposing and the final
budget will undoubtedly be two vastly different documents
– as congress and it’s lobbyist “friends” will consider each
cut with the most special of interests, but consider this
Trump’s idea of draining the swamp:
Yeah, I know – the poor spotted dicked harvest mice will
die out, global warming will consume the planet, the State
Department will have to give their spies recycled piano
wire garrotes and it’s despot bribe budget is getting
slashed, you’re being asked to stop worrying and love the
bomb, and America’s children will grow up stupider and
Party’s over Federal slackers, no more hanging out at the
unlimited coffee machine. No more ergonomic
assessments and Herman Miller chairs. Say goodbye to
those fancy full-spectrum antidepressant fluorescent lights
– it’s back to the sterile eye zappers with the constant buzz
in the back of your skull. This country is about to be run
like an almost bankrupt business…
Trump campaigned on all of the above, so none of this
should come as a surprise. And before we talk war –
consider that Trump’s entire argument is for scaring the
shit out of our enemies through a strong military defense,

437
while he often criticized unnecessary conflicts. Walk softly
and carry a big war machine of death. Also – as you read
the headlines today, keep in mind this is what Trump
proposing in terms of military spending:

The MSM is already spinning this as Trump

forsaking humanity while preparing the US for WWIII:

438

So, how can you possibly make
money on some of that beefed up
military spending?
Let’s take a look at a recycled post I made during the
election with a list of military contractors (assuming a
Hillary win and WWIII over Syria) – most of which are up
considerably since my Nov. 7th post. Turns out the
military industrial complex always wins in the end, much
like Fly. They have orbital space cannons in common, after
all.
If you saw my post on this in November, you can stop
reading here. Also, if you’re not a subscriber to Exodus –
get off your piker ass and sign up so you can run these
companies through all the fun tools to help make your
decision. Not my fault if you lose money, do your own
homework, and never trust a man with two first names – of
which I am not (Paul Ryan, for example).
BAE Systems ($BAESY)
M109A7 155mm Paladin Self-Propelled Howitzer
Artillery System
439
This little puppy is an upgrade to the M109A7 Paladin used in
Kuwait. BAE was awarded a $245.3 Million contract in 2015 for the
first order of 66 units, with an expected rollout of 580 vehicle sets
(M109A7 + M99283 ammunition carrier combo).
The Paladin M109A7 next-generation artillery system
being manufactured by BAE Systems is a significant
upgrade to the combat-proven M109A6 Paladin cannon
artillery system. The enhanced artillery system offers key
fire-support for a variety of potential combat missions
conducted by the US Army’s Armored Brigade Combat
Teams (ABCTs) in conventional, hybrid, irregular and
counterinsurgency combat environments.
The US Army awarded a $688m contract to BAE Systems
in October 2013 for the production of Paladin M109A7
artillery systems, with an option to procure a total of 66
vehicle sets including a self-propelled howitzer and an
ammunition resupply vehicle. The artillery system was
inducted into low rate initial production (LRIP) in May
2014, while full rate production is expected to commence
in 2017.
Frickin’ Laser Guided Rockets (APKWSTM) –
Advanced Precision Kill Weapon System
Last month BAE was awarded a $600 Million contract by the US
Navy to build laser guided rockets, and are expected to produce up to
20,000 APKWSTM units / year.
Type 26 Gun System

BAE was awarded a $245 Million contract in July to develop the
Maritime Indirect Fires System (MIFS) for the UK’s Type 26 Global
Combat Ship.
Northrop Grumman ($NOC)
MQ-88B Fire Scout
The MQ-88B Fire Scout is a cute little helicopter of death, able to
perform reconnaissance as well as deliver munitions.
Northrop Grumman’s battle-proven, unmanned vertical
take-off and landing (VTOL) aircraft system MQ-8B Fire
Scout is designed to deliver intelligence, surveillance,
target acquisition and reconnaissance (ISTAR), aerial fire
support, laser designation and battle management services
to tactical military operators. The Fire Scout can be
deployed from any air-capable vessel or land base in
support of ground, air and sea forces.
BACN: Battlefield Airborne Communications Node
Northrop Grumman’s Battlefield Airborne Communications Node is
deployed on the EQ-4B Global Hawk and Bombardier E-11A Global
Express
440
After landing a $782 Million contract in 2006 and a
successful deployment in Afghanistan, Northrop is in the
catbird’s seat for their airborne communications system in
future conflicts.
BACN is a high-altitude, airborne communications
gateway that translates and distributes imagery, video,
voice and data, often from disparate elements, enhancing
situational awareness, communications and coordination
for warfighters in the air and on the ground. The system
can act as a high-altitude relay and has been used for
missions such as airdrop and airstrike operations.
Long Range Strike Bomber: Upcoming And Super
Secret!
In the largest contract since James Comey’s Lockheed
Martin won the Joint Strike Fighter deal, Grumman will be
developing the new Long Range Strike Bomber for the US
Air Force. The program is expected to exceed $55 Billion.
Northrop’s win is a game-changer for the aerospace
company, which is currently the sixth-largest defense
contractor, behind Lockheed and Boeing. With the contract
in hand, Northrop will no longer struggle to retain its grip
on the combat aircraft market. Not only does the bomber
contract boost Northrop’s aviation capital, it also likely
keeps the company’s Palmdale, California, facility afloat.
–Defense News
Raytheon ($RTN)
Raytheon is a scary, scary company. They are currently
working on their $174 Million award to develop a
hypersonic missile, a $178 Million contract with the Navy
for their SeaSparrow defense system, and a $255 Million
contract to develop an automated landing system for
drones and manned aircraft. They also make the ASPIS II
system which allows for an interconnected flight squadron
that can coordinate data. Aside from these, Raytheon will
have this cute and highly adaptable system on the ground
in any future conflicts:
BGM-71 TOW – Tube Launched, optically-tracked,
bunker buster (equippable) long range heavy
munitions system.

This little bottle rocket is used around the world to fuck
shit up, massively. From Raytheon’s description:
The tube-launched, optically-tracked,
wireless-guided (TOW®) Weapon
System, with the multi-mission TOW
2A, TOW 2B Aero and TOW Bunker
Buster missiles, is the premier long-
range, heavy assault-precision anti-
armor, anti-fortification and anti-
amphibious landing weapon system
used throughout the world today.
The TOW 2A, TOW 2B Aero and TOW Bunker Buster
missiles can be fired from all TOW launchers – including
the Improved Target Acquisition Systems (ITAS), Stryker
anti-tank guided missile vehicle (modified ITAS) and
Bradley Fighting Vehicles (Improved Bradley Acquisition
Subsystem).
With its extended range performance, the TOW Weapon
System is the long-range precision, heavy anti-tank and
assault weapon system of choice for the U.S. Army
Stryker, Bradley Fighting Vehicle, ITAS High-Mobility
Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle and Light Armored
Vehicle-Anti-tank platforms. The TOW weapon system
will be in service with the U.S. military beyond 2050.
Science Applications International Corp ($SAI)
SAIC has been intimately involved with the US
Government since Robert “Bob” Beyster founded the
441
company in 1969. After an internal coup in 2013 led to the
ouster of Beyster and the splitting up of the company,
SAIC stock has skyrocketed. They have their hands in so
many pots through their “line organization”
subsidiaries that it’s probably appropriate to call them a
military defense conglomerate. You can thumb through
their current press releases to see what the fuck they’ve
been up to recently, but suffice to say – if the USA is
going “all in” over Syria, SAIC will be along for the ride.
They make software and other nerdy shit, so no cool
pictures of unclassified stuff.
General Dynamics ($GD)
During Hillary Clinton’s tenure as Secretary of State,
General Dynamics was awarded a $2.2 Billion contract to
handle supply chain management for the State Department.
Additionally, just last month they were awarded a $900
Million USSOCOM (US Special Ops Command):
Under the terms of the contract, GD said it will provide
USSOCOM forces and staff with technical and
management support around the globe. GD also stated all
work under the contract will be completed by ARMA
Global, a subsidiary of GD’s information technology
business segment.
Furthermore, GD noted it will deliver “engineering and
technical services for major weapon systems, program
technical assistance, support systems requirements and
assist with production decision-making and program
controls” as part of the agreement.
General Dynamics also makes the following hardware:
Stryker Dragoon 8-wheel drive troop transport:
The Stryker is the US Military’s premiere troop transport
system, and it has been heavily upgraded recently for
anticipated conflict. As Breakingdefense.com highlights:
The armored eight-wheel-drive troop
transport, built by General Dynamics
 and normally armed with no more than for point attacks. The Hydra is widely used by US and
a 0.50 calibre (12.7 millimeter) allied forces, competing with the Canadian CRV-7 which
machinegun in an unprotected mount, is physically interchangeable. -Wikipedia
has been rebuilt with an armored turret
containing a 30 mm quickfiring
cannon.

That’s enough firepower, the Army computes, to dispose

of other lightly armored vehicles like the Russian BMP
troop carrier. If the Russians invade the Baltics, the
Stryker Dragoon can’t stop their heavy tanks, but it can
thin out their scout vehicles and transports, allowing
American M1 tanks to focus their 120 mm firepower on
the heaviest targets.

Hydra-70 air-to-ground Rocket System

Used heavily in Afghanistan, the Hydra 70 rocket is a You’ll note that Lockheed Martin still isn’t on the list,
2.75-inch fin-stabilized unguided rocket used primarily in mostly because I doubt their ability to turn the $1.45
the air-to-ground role. It can be equipped with a variety of trillion F-35 JSF program around per their deal with
warheads, and in more recent versions, guidance systems Trump.

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 Military-Industrial Complex Is Back:
Trump Unveils His Budget Plan
© Photo: Pixabay - US
12:07 16.03.2017(Updated 12:08 16.03.2017)
US President Donald Trump aims to cut
spending on most federal agencies and
programs and discharge many federal
employees, while boosting
infrastructure, defense and security
spending, in a textbook pivot to military-
industrial complex-driven economic
expansion.
Kristian Rouz – US President Donald Trump has proposed
his vision of the new US budget for 2018. It's aimed
at stimulating and deregulating the economy via massive
funding cuts for bloated government bureaucracy; military
and infrastructure-related spending, however, will
increase. The new fiscal year starts in October, and there is
still some time for the plan to be reviewed in Congress,
where some Republicans may want to amend certain
provisions of the new budget, while most Democrats will
likely be opposed to any Trump proposals whatsoever.
Trump will deliver his budget proposal to Congress
on Thursday, and almost every federal agency is facing
changes in their financing, according to the new plan.
Defense and security spending will increase, while many
social programs and spending on international causes will
be rolled back.
The State Department is facing a 28-percent cut
in financing compared to 2016 level, while the Agriculture
and Labor Departments will face 21-percent cuts. The
Treasury Department's financing will be cut 5pc, and the
Commerce, Education and Transportation Departments
will also receive 10-15pc less money than in 2016.
443
The new White House administration is apparently trying
to boost the work efficiency of these governmental
agencies, and make their spending more cost-efficient
as well. Meanwhile, Homeland Security, Defense, Nuclear
Administration and Housing and Urban Development will
get 6-13% more money.
All of this means that Trump, as some suggested earlier, is
a President who represents the US military-industrial
complex. His urge to restore and renovate the US
manufacturing and infrastructure sectors pretty much
correlates with the budget proposals, as greater military
spending is a time-tested way to improve the situation
in domestic manufacturing.
"You see reductions in many agencies
as he tries to shrink the role of government,
drive efficiencies, go after waste,
duplicative programs," Mick Mulvaney
of the Office of Management and Budget
said. "If he said it in the campaign, it's
in the budget."
Some left-leaning Trump opponents have criticized the
President's eco-unfriendly stance on many issues.
However, dramatic decreases in environmental regulations
are merely a reflection of his broader agenda
of deregulating the economy, as in case with oil and
pipelines, for example. There is currently little doubt that
both the Keystone XL and Dakota Access pipelines will be
commissioned during Trump's current term.
"To keep Americans safe, we have made
the tough choices that have been put off for
too long," Trump said. "But we have also
made the necessary investments that are
long overdue."
However, Trump's cuts would also mandate less social
spending, which parlays into decreased development
funding for the Mississippi Delta and the Appalachian
Mountains region, two GOP strongholds. Trump's
approach puts "America First" on the federal level,
but social spending cuts could be especially hard on certain
GOP-held congressional districts, prompting their
respective legislators to balk at his budget proposal.
Transportation is among the biggest winners: Trump has
proposed a 13.3pc spending increase in a bid to improve
America's infrastructure. Increased spending on defense
(by 10pc) and security (by 7.3pc) has deemed more
moderate than one would have expected, given the party's
bellicose history. Therefore, Trump's support of the
military is purely economy-motivated: a true "war hawk"
would have likely put the military before infrastructure.
The new budget will also include major federal employee
layoffs as job-creation must be in the competitive private
sector, rather than government agencies, according
to Trump.
"You can't drain the swamp and leave all
the people in it," Mulvaney remarked.
The Department of Education, however, will get some $1.4
bln in funding for the new school choice programs,
something that might placate Democrats, who recently
scolded Trump for his Education Secretary choice. The
teacher's unions, which spent tens of millions lobbying
for the Democrats, are vocally against these voucher
.
444
programs that would shift funding from public to private
schools.
US involvement in foreign affairs will be dramatically
reduced, as US funding for international development
institutions like the World Bank and the International
Monetary Fund is facing cuts as well.
All that being said, Trump's massive fiscal stimulus, that
will also include tax cuts and specifics regarding
infrastructure spending, is yet to be announced, but the
budget proposals outline the new administration's general
view of the new era of American isolationism. The final
version of the new budget might be less radical in terms
of spending cuts, as congressional Republicans will have
their word and edits.
The broader direction, however, is still in line
with Trump's campaign promises, shifting the source
of growth from frantic redistribution to wealth generation,
powered by ambitious defense and infrastructure projects.
 Winners And Losers In
Trump's Budget Blueprint
By Cody Derespina
Published March 16, 2017
Of the 15 Cabinet agencies listed in President Trump’s
“America First” budget blueprint, only a sliver are seeing
any increases over their 2017 levels – but the increases are
generous.
Three agencies – Defense, Veterans Affairs and Homeland
Security – account for the entirety of the budget hikes,
amounting to a whopping $59.5 billion.
The other 12 agencies, meanwhile, face cuts worth about
$57.3 billion, combined. Here’s a breakdown of all the
“winners” and “losers” in Trump’s inaugural budget
outline:
WINNERS
Defense
INCREASE: $52.3 billion, 10 percent
The $639 billion defense proposal should go over well
with hawks such as Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz., who
notably advocated for a $640 billion budget. The huge
increase restores $52 billion to the Department of Defense
and $2 billion more to other defense programs “in a repeal
of defense sequestration.” Cyber security is significantly
highlighted as a key area to improve as the U.S. builds a
“more lethal joint force.” The budget also funds efforts “to
strike ISIS targets, support our partners…disrupt ISIS’
external operations, and cut off its financing.” (Yes, the
“ISIL” acronym is now officially replaced by “ISIS.”) The
defense windfall also addresses warfighting readiness and
shortfalls in munitions, personnel and maintenance.
Veterans Affairs
445
INCREASE: $4.4 billion, 5.9 percent
Representing a key area where then-presidential candidate
Trump promised investment, the budget increases
discretionary funding for VA health care by $4.6 billion
while also investing in IT advancements to improve
efficiency. It also provides monetary support for VA
programs that serve homeless and at-risk veterans.
Homeland Security
INCREASE: $2.8 billion, 6.8 percent
This portion of the budget is almost all about Trump’s
“big, beautiful wall” on the Mexican border and other
border enforcement priorities. It gives $2.6 billion for
“high-priority infrastructure and border security
technology” including funding to construct a “physical”
border wall. The budget supplies $314 million to recruit,
hire and train 500 new Border Patrol Agents and 1,000
new Immigration and Customs Enforcement personnel and
support staff. About $1.5 billion is provided for expanded
detention and removal of illegal immigrants, while $15
million is set to go to mandatory nationwide
implementation of the E-Verify system. Cuts include $667
million in Federal Emergency Management Agency
programs that weren’t authorized by Congress and
underperforming Transportation Security Administration
programs.
LOSERS
Health and Human Services
DECREASE: $15.1 billion, 17.9 percent
Most of the cuts come from two areas – the National
Institute of Health and the Office of Community Services.
Eliminating discretionary spending for OCS saves $4.2
billion while NIH spending reduction checks in at $5.8
billion. A major reorganization of NIH, including an
elimination of various programs and activities, is also on
tap. A Federal Emergency Response Fund is created to
quickly respond to health outbreaks, with the Zika virus
specifically cited.
State
DECREASE: $10.9 billion, 28.7 percent
The budget eliminates the Global Climate Change
Initiative and ceases payments to United Nations climate
change programs. Funding for the U.N. and affiliated
agencies is also reduced overall, as is foreign aid. The
State Department’s Educational and Cultural Exchange
Programs get cuts, as do multilateral development banks,
“including the World Bank.” But the budget isn’t all cuts.
Citing the Benghazi Accountability Review Board, money
is provided to maintain “robust funding levels for embassy
security,” and $3.1 billion is provided for security
assistance to Israel. Economic development assistance
programs are reoriented “to countries of greatest strategic
importance to the U.S.” and resources are provided to
fulfill a $1 billion vaccine pledge.
Education
DECREASE: $9.2 billion, 13.5 percent
The budget eliminates numerous grants and programs,
while safeguarding the Pell Grant program. Federal Work-
Study is reduced and also reorganized to better be
allocated to those undergraduate students most in need.
More than 20 categorical programs “that do not address
national needs” are reduced or eliminated.
Housing and Urban Development
DECREASE: $6.2 billion, 13.2 percent
HUD’s rental assistance program is reformed and funding
is eliminated for lower priority programs and Section 4
Capacity Building for Community Development and
Affordable Housing. Cutting the Home Investment
Partnerships Program saves $1.1 billion and wiping out the
Community Development Block Grant program saves $3
billion.
Agriculture
DECREASE: $4.7 billion, 20.7 percent
Numerous loan and grant programs are eliminated, staffing
at USDA Service Center Agencies is reduced and funding
for USDA statistical capabilities is cut. Rural Business and
Cooperative Service discretionary activities are eliminated
and major new Federal land acquisitions for the National
Forest System get the axe.
Labor
DECREASE: $2.5 billion, 20.7 percent
The budget reduces funding for ineffective or duplicative
job training grants and focuses Bureau of International
Labor Affairs on ensuring that “U.S. trade agreements are
fair for American workers.”
Transportation
446
DECREASE: $2.4 billion, 12.7 percent
A proposal to shift air traffic control from the FAA to a
non-governmental organization is initiated while federal
funding is capped on the Federal Transit Administration’s
Capital Investment Program. Several grants are eliminated.
Energy
DECREASE: $1.7 billion, 5.6 percent
A trio of energy research programs are cut in favor of
private sector research. The Weatherization and Assistance
Program and the State Energy Program are eliminated in
attempts to reduce Federal intervention in State-level
issues.
Commerce
DECREASE: $1.5 billion, 15.7 percent
The budget consolidates aspects of the Economics and
Statistics Administration within other statistics agencies. It
eliminates two agencies: the Economic Development
Administration and the Minority Business Development
Agency. There are also $250 million in cuts to National
Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration grants.
Interior
DECREASE: $1.5 billion, 11.7 percent
Programs such as discretionary Abandoned Mine Land
grants are discontinued because they overlap with existing
programs. Funding for major acquisitions of Federal land
is reduced. Better budgeting is put in place for wild land
fire suppression. About $1 billion is invested in “safe,
reliable and efficient management of water resources.”
Justice
DECREASE: $1.1 billion, 3.8 percent
Despite the bottom-line getting cut overall, there are plenty
of increases at Justice, including in counterterrorism and
counterintelligence activities. Funds are also provided to
target the “worst of the worst criminal organizations and
drug traffickers.” To combat illegal immigration, the
budget provides for the hiring of 75 additional immigration
judges, 60 additional border enforcement prosecutors, 40
deputy U.S. Marshals and 40 attorneys. Bankruptcy filing
fees are increased in an effort to produce an additional
$150 million.
Treasury
DECREASE: $519 million, 4.1 percent
The budget eliminates grants, shrinks the Federal
workforce and “empowers the Treasury Secretary … to
end taxpayer bailouts.”
OTHER AGENCIES
DECREASE: $2.6 billion, 31 percent
While not technically a full-blown Cabinet department, the
EPA also is slated for major cuts, including the elimination
of over 3,000 positions.

Environmental Protection Agency

.

447
 Trump Doubles Down
On Obama Wiretap Accusations
© REUTERS/ Carlos Barria - Politics
03:24 16.03.2017(Updated 10:50 16.03.2017)
US President Donald Trump is
unapologetic about the so far
unsubstantiated claim he made that a
property he owns in New York City was
wiretapped by the Obama
administration during the 2016 election
campaign.
In a Wednesday interview granted by Trump to right-wing
Fox News pundit Tucker Carlson, the president defended
the hotly disputed allegation, stating:
"I think you’re going to find some very
interesting items coming to the forefront
over the next two weeks."
Trump had made the allegations over Twitter earlier this
month, claiming that President Barack Obama had
.
448
authorized surveillance on Trump Tower during the lead-
up to the November 2016 presidential election.
Trump’s unverified accusation drew mixed levels of anger
and shock, as well as a stern refutation from the Obama
camp.
"Neither President Obama nor any White
House official ever ordered surveillance
on any US citizen. Any suggestion
otherwise is simply false," said Kevin
Lewis, a spokesman for Obama.
One day after Trump issued his wiretap tweet, White
House Press Secretary Sean Spicer explained that the
president had not meant to imply that Obama had
personally tapped Trump’s phone.
During the Wednesday interview Trump
remarked that, "'wiretap' covers a lot
of different things."
Members of Congress, both Republican and Democrat,
as well as many voices in the media have asked for the
evidence to back the president’s claims. The White House
has ignored the requests.
 Senators: 'No Indications'
Trump Tower Subject Of Surveillance
Foxnews.Com
Published March 16, 2017
Two top senators said Thursday they see "no indications"
that Trump Tower was surveilled “by any element of the
United States government,” in one of the most definitive
bipartisan rejections to date of President Trump's
wiretapping allegation.
Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman
Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner,
D-Va., issued the statement only hours after Trump told
Fox News’ Tucker Carlson that he would be providing
evidence of his claims “very soon.”
“Based on the information available to us,
we see no indications that Trump Tower
was the subject of surveillance by any
element of the United States government
either before or after Election Day 2016,”
the statement from Burr and Warner said.
The language used by the senators was a degree more
definitive than that used by House Intelligence Committee
Chairman Devin Nunes, R-Calif., who Wednesday said his
committee didn’t “have any evidence” wiretapping took
place.
Nunes also said there was no “actual tap of Trump Tower,”
saying he believed Trump was discussing surveillance in a
broad sense when he sent his initial tweet. He added that
communications by Trump aides may have been gathered
as part of "incidental" collection.
White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer reacted angrily
Thursday to reporters' questions about the Burr and
Warner statement.
449
"It's interesting to me that just as a point of
interest, when one entity says one thing
that claims one thing, you guys cover it ad
nauseum," he said at his daily press
briefing. "When Devin Nunes said it's very
possible, there was crickets. When he said
there was no connection to Russia --
crickets."
"Where was your passion and where was
your concern when they said there was no
connection to Russia?" he asked ABC's
Jonathan Karl.
Some Republicans lawmakers, such as Sen. Lindsey
Graham, R-S.C., called on the FBI to make a statement on
the matter.
“While I appreciate the House and Senate
Intelligence Committees’ chairmen and
ranking members putting out bipartisan
statements indicating they have seen no
evidence of surveillance of Trump Tower
by the Obama Administration, I strongly
believe that these statements by political
leaders should not be a substitute for a
public response from the Federal Bureau of
Investigation and Department of Justice on
this matter," he said.
Amid the attempts of lawmakers in both parties to put the
issue to rest, Trump told Carlson on Wednesday that
“perhaps” in “this next week” supporting evidence would
emerge that the Obama administration engaged in
surveillance against Trump and his top lieutenants.
“You’re going to find some very interesting
items coming to the forefront over the next
two weeks,” Trump said.
Trump’s assertions were first made public in a series of
March 4 tweets that appeared to be based off a timeline of
news articles reporting Trump associates that had been
caught up in surveillance. Each of the articles cited
anonymous sources and provided no concrete proof of a
surveillance operation.
 “Terrible! Just found out that Obama had “Is it legal for a sitting President to be ‘wire
my ‘wires tapped’ in Trump Tower just tapping’ a race for president prior to an
before the victory. Nothing found. This is election? Turned down by court earlier. A
McCarthyism!” Trump tweeted. NEW LOW!”

He added:

450
 Jeff Sessions Goes Full 'Reefer Madness' On Pot
Attorney General Says Marijuana Is "Only Slightly
Less Awful" Than Heroin
By Tim Dickinson, Rolling Stone
16 March 17
Attorney General Jeff Sessions. (photo: Getty)
ttorney General Jeff Sessions continued a personal
campaign to demonize marijuana, calling cannabis a "life-
wrecking dependency" that is "only slightly less awful"
than heroin in a speech on violent crime in Richmond,
Virginia, Wednesday.
Insisting that the federal government should return to a
Nancy Reagan-style, 1980s anti-drug campaign –
"educating people and telling them the
terrible truth" about controlled substances –
Sessions conflated the nation's opioid
addiction and overdose crisis, which now
claims 140 lives a day, with marijuana, a
drug he said will "destroy your life."
Sessions has no facts on his side. The use of medical pot as
a painkiller can provide an alternative to opioids, and
many in recovery cite cannabis as lessening the agony of
opiate withdrawal. Research published on the federal
government's own DrugAbuse.gov website finds that states
with medical marijuana programs have reported
"reductions of 16 to 31 percent in mortality
due to prescription opioid overdoses, and
28 to 35 percent in admissions for
treatment of opioid addiction."
.
451
No matter, Sessions cast his ignorance as bold,
"unfashionable" truth-telling. The attorney general's
remarks on marijuana follow:
"I realize this may be an unfashionable
belief in a time of growing tolerance of drug
use. But too many lives are at stake to
worry about being fashionable. I reject the
idea that America will be a better place if
marijuana is sold in every corner store. And
I am astonished to hear people suggest
that we can solve our heroin crisis by
legalizing marijuana – so people can trade
one life-wrecking dependency for another
that's only slightly less awful. Our nation
needs to say clearly once again that using
drugs will destroy your life."
Answering reporters' follow-up questions, Sessions added
that,
"I think medical marijuana has been hyped,
maybe too much" and declared himself
"dubious" about benefits of smoked
marijuana.
Despite the Drug War saber-rattling, Sessions proceeded to
offer a vague note of reassurance on the future of state-
legal recreational marijuana.
The attorney general said that "much" of
the Cole memo – the Obama DOJ
guidance deprioritizing federal pot
enforcement in states that have legalized –
is "valid," and he recognized that federal
law enforcement is "not able to go into a
state and pick up the work that police and
sheriffs have been doing for decades."
 Trump Budget Would End
Federal Funding For Arts Endowment, PBS
Foxnews.Com
Published March 16, 2017
President Trump's first budget blueprint is calling for the
elimination of federal funding to a host of arts and
humanities programs, as the new administration seeks to
redirect taxpayer dollars to defense.
The blueprint released by the White House “proposes to
eliminate funding” for: the National Endowment for the
Arts (NEA), National Endowment for the Humanities
(NEH), and the Corporation for Public
Broadcasting, which sends some money to PBS and
National Public Radio.
Federal funding of arts programs, including money for
public radio and television, has been the target of
Republican administrations and congressional budget
hawks for decades.
Mitt Romney said during his 2012 presidential campaign
that the test of a program’s value was whether it was “so
critical that it's worth borrowing money from China to pay
for it."
Supporters of public funding of the arts have fought out
challenges for years, but this year could be different with
Republicans controlling the budgetary levers at both ends
of Pennsylvania Avenue.
“The president finally got to the point where
he said, 'do I really want to make the coal
miner in West Virginia, or the auto worker
in Ohio, or the single mom in Detroit to pay
for the National Endowment of the Arts or
the Corporation for Public Broadcasting?'
And the answer is no,” White House budget
452
Director Mike Mulvaney said Thursday
during an appearance on "Fox & Friends."
Public broadcasters and their supporters were quick to
respond to Trump’s plans to fulfill a campaign promise to
end federal financing of public media.
Patricia Harrison, president and CEO of the Corporation
for Public Broadcasting (CPB) cast the cuts in apocalyptic
terms, saying they would “initially devastate” and
“ultimately destroy public media’s role in early childhood
education, public safety, connecting citizens to our history,
and promoting civil discussions – all for Americans in both
rural and urban communities.”
Created by Congress in the Public Broadcasting Act of
1967, the CPB is the largest single source of funding for
public radio, television, and related online services. In
2016, the CPB received a $445 million slice of the federal
government’s $4 trillion budgetary pie.
National Endowment of the Arts Chairman Jane Chu, an
Obama administration holdover, told staff she was
“disappointed” by the Trump administration budget
blueprint, but added she looked forward to working with
the Office of Management and Budget (OMB) to “prepare
information they have requested” and would “operate as
usual” until cuts were actually made.
She then noted that the NEA as a federal government
agency is prohibited from engaging “in advocacy, either
directly or indirectly” but would “continue our practice of
educating about the NEA’s vital role in serving our
nation’s communities.”
Established in 1965, the NEA’s primary mission is to
provide grants to museums, symphony orchestras, as a
means to “encourage individual and institutional
development of the arts.”
The NEA also distributes funds to individual artists and to
state arts agencies. In fiscal 2014 and 2015, NEA had a
budget of $146,021,000, according to the NEA’s latest
financial statement.
The NEA has long been a target of fiscal and social
conservatives, whose opposition reached peak levels in the
1980s after several controversial artists and projects
received federal funds.
The more controversial grants included one to artist
Andrew Serrano who featured a photo of a crucifix
submerged in a glass of his own urine. Another was given
to Robert Mapplethorpe, whose NEA-supported exhibit in
Cincinnati was cancelled because of protests of aspects of
his art that showed explicit photos of sexual acts and S&M
culture.
.
453
PBS President and CEO Paula Kerger argued the annual
cost to Americans was insignificant but the payoff for
children was huge.
"The cost of public broadcasting is small --
only $1.35 per citizen per year -- and the
benefits are tangible: increasing school
readiness for kids 2-8, support for teachers
and homeschoolers, lifelong learning,
public safety communications and civil
discourse,” said Kerger in a statement.
 Trump Calls Decision To Block
New Travel Ban 'Unprecedented Judicial Overreach'
© AP Photo/ Chris O'Meara - US
04:18 16.03.2017
The US government will bring the fight
to exert its executive power to suspend
immigration all the way to the Supreme
Court, President Donald Trump told a
rally in Nashville in the US state of
Tennessee after a Hawaii federal judge
blocked his travel ban.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Trump called the ruling by a
federal judge in Hawaii on the 9th District Court “an
.
454
unprecedented judicial overreach” and read to the rally the
section of the US Constitution giving the president
executive authority to suspend the entry of aliens at the
rally on Wednesday.
Earlier, Hawaiian federal judge Derrick K. Watson granted
a motion to implement a temporary restraining order
against US President Donald Trump's executive order
temporarily banning migrants from six Muslim-majority
nations.
The ban was set to take effect Thursday, but federal judge
Derrick K. Watson has issued a response that suspends
Trump's ban nationwide. On Wednesday, federal judges
in Maryland and Washington state were slated to hear
similar cases as well.
The order had placed a ban on granting asylum to refugees
while denying entry to the US to citizens of Libya, Syria,
Iran, Sudan, Yemen and Somalia. Unlike the first
controversial executive action, Iraq was not included
on the list.
 "On June 1st The Deep State
Will Move To Overthrow Trump"
Authored By Mac Slavo Via Shtfplan.Com
Mar 16, 2017 2:00 AM

On Wednesday, March 15, 2017 the U.S. The following report from Wealth Research Group
government once again hit its debt explains how and why it will all go down:
ceiling.

In short, this means that until Congress raises the ceiling,

the government will be unable to borrow more money. If
you remember the last time this happened, there were
weeks of posturing by Republicans and Democrats while
some government services started shutting down. After
much deliberation and negotiation the debt ceiling was
eventually raised and collapse was avoided.

But this time around we may see a very different set of

events play out. If it isn’t clear to you just yet, President
Trump is under attack from all sides. Democrats, the media
and even members of his own Party want to see him fail.
But perhaps more importantly, it is the shadow
operators known as “The Deep State” who may take this
opportunity to lay the blame for decades of machinations
at Trump’s feet.
These shadow forces have been at work
manipulating everything from the global
economy to the political affairs of
sovereign nations.
While March 15th is the day we hit our debt ceiling, June
1st, 2017 is the real date to watch. That’s the day the Deep
State may finally pull the trigger:
Both parties have continually paid for government services
and programs through debt…
By June 1st, 2017 the Treasury
Department will have exhausted ways to
get creative with paying its bills and
without new debt it will be forced to
default…
Most Americans aren’t aware at all that their entire way of
life solely rests on the willingness of foreign governments
to lend money to their government, otherwise the entire
Washington cash burning machine will come tumbling
down by the following morning…

And what better way to do that then to
collapse the economy?
Establishment Republicans and
Democrats hate trump… many want to
see him fail… even if it means a real
systematic crisis for the nation.. in fact,
many will even see this as a crisis to get
rid of the President…
to blame him for the last 30 years of mismanaging the
country’s finances and be able to rebuke the voters who
elected the President with a national mess… Trump and
his supporters will be blamed and take the fall… this is the
secret plan
It all looks so safe with their respectable
government buildings and their fancy
suits, but in truth the entire economic
machine is fragile like glass.…
From March 15th to June 1st is the
ultimate political grandstand event…
and this time Republicans and
Democrats both have secret agendas to
allow a real crisis to happen… using it
to overthrow a populist uprising and the
President who doesn’t bow to the status
quo.

455
 Still Lacking Evidence, Senate Holds
Hearing On Russian Election Interference
© AP Photo/ Jacquelyn Martin - Politics
01:26 16.03.2017(Updated 10:24 16.03.2017)
Senator Lindsey Graham’s Judiciary
Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism
held a hearing on Wednesday regarding
alleged Russian interference in the US
presidential election – and once again
provided no evidence to substantiate
their claims.
Instead of backing up their allegations, the panel and
senators repeated their insistence that Russia deals in “fake
news.”
Graham, a Republican, is a consistent critic of the
president and has been one of the leading voices trying
to undermine the legitimacy of Donald Trump’s
presidency by peddling claims of Russia meddling on his
behalf.
"Propaganda. Espionage. Blackmail.
Subversion.
The 21st century versions of these are
'fake news,' hacking, kompromat, and
'political capture,’” Rhode Island Senator
Sheldon Whitehouse, a Democrat who
.
456
leads the committee with Graham, said
in his opening remarks.
"The Russians have been at this for a long
time. They've adapted old methods to new
technologies – making use of social media,
malware, and complex financial
transactions – but the tactics themselves
are timeless,” Whitehouse continued.
For his part, Connecticut Senator Richard Blumenthal
claimed that meddling constituted an “act of war.”
“We are under attack and engaged in a
war,” Blumenthal claimed. “It is a war
directed against our democracy and our
economy on a scale that is unimaginable
to most Americans.”
Amid multiple allegations that “Russian propaganda” was
a significant aspect of the so-called interference, and
perhaps even an “act of war,” Sputnik asked Senator
Graham whether he believes that the dozens of American
citizens who work for Russian media, including this outlet,
are complicit in some sort of crime.
Graham did not hesitate in his response, immediately
saying,
“no, no, I think you don’t have to watch RT
if you don’t want to."
“Russian Television, some countries want
to take it off the air – I’m not saying that –
I’m just saying that there are techniques
the Russian government uses and one is
using media outlets to spread what I think
is fake news and propaganda.”
 Plaintiff Behind Trump
Travel Ban Runs Muslim Brotherhood Mosque
Imam Born And Raised In Egypt, Migrated To U.S.
Leo Hohmann
Published: 15 Hours Ago. Updated: 03/17/2017 At 10:01 AM

“Plaintiffs allege that the Executive Order

subjects portions of the State’s population,
including Dr. Elshikh and his family, to
discrimination in violation of both the
Constitution and the INA, denying them
their right, among other things, to associate
with family members overseas on the basis
of their religion and national origin. The
State purports that the Executive Order has
injured its institutions, economy, and
sovereign interest in maintaining the
separation between church and state.”
Imam Ismail Elshikh, a native of Egypt, leads a Muslim
Brotherhood-tied mosque in Honolulu, Hawaii, and claims he is
suffering ‘irreparable harm’ by President Trump’s temporary travel
ban.

The main plaintiff in the Hawaii case blocking President

Trump’s revised temporary travel ban is an imam with ties
to the Muslim Brotherhood.

The irony is hard to miss: Trump has talked about

declaring the Muslim Brotherhood a terrorist organization,
and now it is a Brotherhood-backed imam who is playing a
key role in blocking his executive order on immigration.
Imam Ismail Elshikh, 39, leads the largest mosque in
Hawaii and claims he is suffering “irreparable harm” from
the president’s executive order, which places a 90-day ban
on travel to the U.S. from six countries.
One of those six countries is Syria. Elshikh’s mother in
law is Syrian and would not be able to visit her family in
Hawaii for 90 days if Trump’s ban were allowed to go into
effect.
Muslim Association of Hawaii mosque in Honolulu
The vast majority of Hawaii’s roughly 5,000 Muslims
attend Elshikh’s mosque, the Muslim Association of
Hawaii, which is located in a residential area of Manoa,
Honolulu. The mosque, despite its ties to what many
believe is an extremist and subversive organization, the
Muslim Brotherhood, may now hold the key to whether
the Trump travel ban passes muster in the federal court
system.

Hawaii’s Obama-appointed federal judge, Derrick Watson,
made sure the ban did not go into effect, striking it down
Wednesday while buying Hawaii’s claim that it amounts to
a “Muslim ban.” The state’s attorney general, along with
co-plaintiff Elshikh, claims the ban would irreparably
harm the state’s tourism industry and its Muslim families.
Elshikh was born and raised in Cairo, Egypt, the home
base of the Muslim Brotherhood, whose stated goal is to
spread Shariah law throughout the world.
Elshikh is living in the U.S. on a green card, which gives
him permanent legal status.

According to the lawsuit: The proof that his mosque is affiliated with the
Brotherhood is found in the court records for Honolulu

457
County, which lists the deed holder as the North American
Islamic Trust.
John Guandolo, a former FBI counter-terrorism specialist
and now private consultant to law enforcement at
Understanding the Threat, said all mosques under the
Screenshot of the parcel ownership recorded at Honolulu County Courthouse
The Trump administration has said it is considering
banning the Muslim Brotherhood in the U.S. by including
it on the State Department’s list of foreign terrorist
organizations.
Meet Ismail Elshikh, plaintiff in Hawaii’s lawsuit against
Trump travel ban
NAIT is one of more than 200 unindicted co-conspirators
named in the Holy Land Foundation terrorism-financing
trial of 2007-08 in Dallas, Texas. The organization has
direct ties to the Muslim Brotherhood, as documented by
the FBI in evidence presented at the trial. (See Sec. VII,
Page 8 of court document.)
NAIT is a financial subsidiary of the Islamic Society of
North America and holds the deed to more than 325
mosques in 42 U.S. states that are controlled by the
Muslim Brotherhood, according to Discover the Networks.
“Because NAIT controls the purse strings
of these many properties, it can exercise
ultimate authority over what they teach and
what activities they conduct. Specifically,
the Trust seeks to ensure that the
institutions under its financial influence
promote the principles of Sharia law and
458
“Muslim Association of” moniker are typically affiliated
with the Brotherhood.
But the clincher in this case is that the mosque property is
traced to NAIT, “confirming it is a Muslim Brotherhood
organization,” Guandolo told WND in an email.
Wahhabism,” according to Discover the
Networks.
The Muslim Brotherhood was founded in 1928 in Cairo,
Egypt, by Hassan al-Banna. It has been banned by Egypt’s
current regime, as well as in Saudi Arabia, Russia and the
United Arab Emirates.
A bill in Congress, the Muslim Brotherhood Terrorist
Designation Act of 2015-16, has been languishing in
committee since November 2015. House Speaker Paul
Ryan has not advanced the bill or done anything to
promote it.
Several members of the Trump administration have said
they favor declaring the Brotherhood a terrorism
organization, but so far that has not happened. One high-
level Trump adviser, Mike Flynn, said he was in favor of
banning the Brotherhood before he was forced to resign for
misleading Vice President Mike Pence and other top White
House officials about his conversations with the Russian
ambassador to the United States.
Trump’s secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, described the
Brotherhood as “an agent of radical Islam” during his
Senate confirmation hearing.
Former U.N. Ambassador John Bolton told Breitbart News
last month that the U.S. should declare the Brotherhood a
terrorist organization.
“The fact is, the Brotherhood is a front for
terrorism,” he said. “A number of Arab
majority-Muslim countries, like Egypt and
Saudi Arabia and the United Arab
Emirates, have already designated it as a
terrorist organization. I’ve had Muslim
leaders from the Middle East say to me,
‘Are you people blind to what’s going on
 right in front of you and the role that the
Brotherhood performs, really on an
international basis?’”
But instead of banning the Brotherhood, the U.S. is letting
a Brotherhood-backed imam dictate U.S. refugee and visa
policy, Guandolo said.
Judge Watson, who was a Harvard law classmate of
Barack Obama’s, issued an injunction halting Trump’s
executive order from going into effect, agreeing with
Hawaii’s claim that the temporary ban, 90 days on visa
travelers and 120 days for refugees, would irreparably
harm the state’s tourism industry and its Muslim families.
As for refugees, Hawaii takes very few. Of the 49 states
participating in the federal refugee resettlement program,
only Mississippi has taken in fewer refugees than Hawaii
since 2002. Only 127 refugees have been sent to Hawaii
since 2002, and nearly zero have been Muslims from the
six nations on Trump’s list. The vast majority sent to
Hawaii have been from Burma and Vietnam.
.
459
The six nations on Trump’s list for a 90-day moratorium
on visas and a 120-day pause on refugee resettlement are
Iran, Libya, Syria, Yemen, Sudan and Somalia.
Of the 127 refugees Hawaii has taken since the State
Department started keeping online records in 2002, only
one refugee has been from a country on Trump’s list, Iran,
according to the State Department’s Refugee Processing
Center database.
“There was one refugee from Iran who
went to Hawaii and that probably was a
Christian. That is the majority of what we
are taking from Iran are Christians,” said
Ann Corcoran, editor of Refugee
Resettlement Watch, which has been
tracking resettlements in the U.S. for the
past 10 years. “The biggest group were
from Burma and Vietnam, and there were
none from Africa, so what we have in
Hawaii are a bunch of hypocrites whining
about ‘irreparable harm’ from pausing
refugee resettlement when, in fact, they
take hardly any refugees and almost no
Muslim refugees.”
 Laptop Holding Trump Tower Floor Plans, Hillary Clinton
Email Investigation Info Stolen From Secret Service Agent
BY Rocco Parascandola - NEW YORK DAILY NEWS
Friday, March 17, 2017, 11:50 AM

He was then seen on video walking away from the scene

with a backpack.

The agent reported the laptop contained floor plans for

Trump Tower, evacuation protocols and information
regarding the investigation of Hillary Clinton's private
email server.

The agent also told investigators that while nothing about

Trump Tower on 5th Avenue in New York City.
(James Keivom/New York Daily News)
A laptop computer containing floor plans for Trump
Tower, information about the Hillary Clinton email
investigation and other national security information was
stolen from a Secret Service agent's vehicle in Brooklyn,
police sources told the Daily News.
the White House or foreign leaders is stored on the laptop,
the information on there could compromise national
security.
The thief also took "sensitive" documents and the agent's
access keycard, though the level of the agent's access
wasn't immediately clear.

Authorities have been frantically searching for the laptop

since it was stolen Thursday morning.

Some items stolen along with the laptop — including coins

and a black bag with the Secret Service insignia on it —
were later recovered.

But the laptop, along with other documents described as

"sensitive," were still being sought.

The thief stepped out of a car, possibly an Uber, on a street The Secret Service agent's vehicle was parked in the driveway of her
in Bath Beach and stole the laptop from the agent's vehicle, Bath Beach, Brooklyn, home, when the laptop was stolen. (Kevin
Lamarque / Reuters/REUTERS)
which was parked in the driveway of her home.
NYPD cops were assisting in the investigation but had
scant information on what’s on the laptop, sources said.

"The Secret Service is very heavily

involved and, citing national security,
there's very little we have on our side," a
police source said. "It's a very big deal.”
"There's data on there that's highly
sensitive,” the police source added.
“They're scrambling like mad.”
The laptop contained info regarding the investigation into Hillary
Clinton's use of a private email server. (BRIAN SNYDER
/REUTERS)
.
460
 Trump Forced To Issue Apology
To Britain Over Obama Wiretapping Claims
NYT Reporter Blames Infowars For Spreading 'Wiretap' Theory
Steve Watson | Infowars.Com - March 17, 2017

transcripts of conversations involving

candidate Trump, conversations involving
president-elect Trump,’ he’s able to get it,
and there’s no American fingerprints on
this. ”Napolitano added.

Napolitano also noted that the sources informed him that

the individual who personally ordered the surveillance,
who remains unnamed

The White House has issued a formal “[r]esigned three days after Trump was
apology to the British government after inaugurated.”
Press secretary Sean Spicer repeated
claims that the Obama administration The claims made headlines, but were not followed up on
used British spies to wiretap Donald until Trump’s press officer Sean Spicer repeated them at
Trump. an official briefing during a heated back and forth with
John Karl, an ABC reporter.
The claims were made earlier this week by legal analyst
Judge Andrew Napolitano, who said that three separate
intelligence sources had indicated to him that the Obama
administration had asked Britain’s GCHQ to carry out the
surveillance.

.@Judgenap: Three intel sources have

disclosed that Pres. Obama turned to
British spies to get surveillance on Trump
pic.twitter.com/IghCFm7qhO
— FOX & friends (@foxandfriends) March
14, 2017
“Three intelligence sources have informed According to reports from the London Telegraph, and Sky
Fox News that President Obama went News, the British government took umbrage with the
outside the chain of command,” Napolitano claims, leading to the White House having to issue an
said. “He didn’t use the NSA, he didn’t use apology, assuring the Prime Minister that the claims will
the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI, and he not be repeated.
didn’t use the Department of Justice. He
used GCHQ.” Napolitano said on Fox &
The GCHQ itself, which barely ever comments on
Friends.
anything in public, took the unusual step of responding,
issuing a statement that read
Napolitano indicated that this was done to secure plausible
deniability. In other words, even if the Obama
“Recent allegations made by media
administration did spy on Trump, there may never be a
commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano
way to prove it.
about GCHQ being asked to conduct
‘wiretapping’ against the then president-
“So by simply having two people go to elect are nonsense. They are utterly
them saying, ‘President Obama needs ridiculous and should be ignored.”
461
 “The apology came direct from [the White Infowars.com that ‘misread’ the story and spread rumours
House],” an intelligence source told the leading directly to Trump “citing Infowars” to back up
Telegraph. claims he was wiretapped.

The reports indicate that US National Security Adviser

General McMaster contacted Sir Mark Lyall Grant, the
British Prime Minister’s National Security adviser, to
apologise for the comments. Mr. Spicer was reported to
have conveyed his apology through Sir Kim Darroch,
Britain’s US ambassador.

Another source claimed that

“This allegation is so off the scale crazy, it’s

very hard to understand,” adding that
“Under the Five Eyes convention, we never
spy on our main allies, and that includes “So they’ve got one bizarre right wing fringe
the United States.” theory to support another bizarre right wing
fringe theory, both of which there is no
evidence to support.” Rosenberg stated.
In related developments, Matthew Rosenberg, the New
York Times reporter who originally penned the story about
wiretapped data being used to investigate Trump and his The Justice Department has been given until the end of the
aides, appeared on CNN, and claimed that it was actually month to present evidence to Congress that the
wiretapping was undertaken.
.

462
 Sneering CNN: ‘Billy Madison’
White House ‘Not Dealing With Reality’
By Scott Whitlock
March 17, 2017 | 12:30 PM EDT
Journalists on CNN, Thursday, made no effort to disguise
the disdain and rage they hold for the White House. Don
Lemon compared Sean Spicer to the Adam Sandler movie
Billy Madison. After playing an extended clip of March 16
press conference, Lemon mocked Spicer:
“Did anyone see Billy Madison? The game
show scene? ‘Everyone in this room is
dumber for having listened to that.’"
To the audience, he added,
"I hope that you're not dumber and I hope
we're providing information.”
Later, White House reporter Jim Acosta fretted about how
the administration is
“unlike any we've ever dealt with before.”
He insisted, “I mean, obviously you have a
President who at times is not dealing with
reality.”
Clearly annoyed, he wondered:
Can President Trump do this for another month, two
months, three months? Can we all do this? Are we all
going to be chasing down — maybe by tomorrow or
Monday pull this [the claims about wiretapping] back or
come up with explanation but we all know going to be
another far-fetched claim, tall tale tweet that is going to
be the news of the day or the news of the week. And my
question is how long can this continue?
463
Perhaps Acosta is still smarting from when Spicer in
January told him, “Report it straight up.” In February,
Lemon cut off a Republican guest after he called CNN
“fake news.”
A partial transcript is below:
CNN Tonight
3/16/17
1:04
DON LEMON: Before we go down this rabbit hole of
people pretending the President said or intended something
other than what he said. Let me be clear: the President put
out false information, and over the last two weeks fewer
and fewer people have been willing to defend him. For
those remaining who are inclined to make excuses for the
president or buy into his attempts at misdirection, let’s put
his own words up on screen for everybody to see. You to
see. President Trump first tweeted,
“Terrible. Just found out that Obama had
my wires tapped in Trump Tower just
before the victory. Nothing found. This is
McCarthyism.”
McCarthyism refers to former Senator Joseph McCarthy
who back in the 1950s accused people of subversion or
treason, of being communists without any evidce,
destroying countless lives. Mr. Trump then wrote,
“Is it legal for a sitting president to be
wiretapping a race for President prior to
election? Turned down by court earlier, a
new low.”
There he is, accusing the former president of a federal
crime. Then he writes,
“I bet a good lawyer could make a great
case out of the fact that President Obama
was tapping my phones in October, just
prior to election.”
A good lawyer implies that he has a legal case, proof, that
he has some fact, some proof. The word fact implies that
he has the goods to prove it, to back it up. Note, he also
wrote “tapping my phones,” not surveilling my people. He
wrote tapping my phones. Then he writes,
“How low has President Obama gone to
tap my phones during the very sacred
election process? This is Nixon/Watergate,
bad oor sick guy.”
President Trump compares President Obama to a President
who was impeached and driven in office in one of the
biggest political scandals ever. And did it all with no proof
and now has the gall to pretend with a straight face that he
said something other than what he said. Maybe you still
want to believe the President because this America and in
America his office comes with a sacred trust. We respect
the office and its holder but sometimes we have to ask do
they respect that office? Do they respect us enough to give
us the truth? Here’s Sean Spicer, the President's press
secretary today.
[Long clip from Spicer press conference.]
LEMON: Did anyone see Billy Madison? The game show
scene? 'Everyone in this room is dumber for having
listened to that.' I hope that you're not dumber and I hope
we're providing information. Just to be clear, no one
mischaracterized what the Senate Intel said. Here’s a
statement. “Based on the information available to us, we
see no indication that the Trump Tower was subject of
surveillance by any element of the United States
464
government, either before or after election day 2016.
Senator Richard Burr and Senator Mark Warner on March
16.” And by the way, I have to give a bit of a correction.
Nixon was not impeached. He resigned before he was
impeached. They were drawing up impeachment papers. I
wrote that. That was my mistake, apologize for it. Can you
do the same Mr. President for your mistake?
10:23
JIM ACOSTA: We're dealing with an administration
unlike any we've ever dealt with before. I mean, obviously
you have a President who, at times, is not dealing with
reality. He is tweeting out things like former President
Obama wiretapped him over at Trump Tower. This is on
top of his false claim about being millions of people voting
illegally in this country. That's on top of the claim that
inaugural crowd size was larger than President Obama's.
And we have this conversation it seems, Don, every other
week. You know, we don’t do it every week but maybe it’s
every other week. What is going on with President Trump?
And the question I have, and it really goes to the heart of
where we are as nation right now, can President Trump do
this for another month, two months, three months? Can we
all do this? Are we all going to be chasing down — maybe
by tomorrow or Monday pull this [the claims about
wiretapping] back or come up with explanation but we all
know going to be another far-fetched claim, tall tale tweet
that is going to be the news of the day or the news of the
week. And my question is how long can this continue?
 Thanks To Rachel Maddow, We Now Know That Our
Billionaire President Pays Income Taxes Just
Like Regular Americans
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 17, 2017
You really have to hand it to the Left. Their hatred for
Trump is so profound, so pervasive, so thoroughly
ingrained in their minds that there is no room for anything
else.
Especially rational thought.
That was superbly demonstrated Tuesday evening when
MSNBC’s Rachel Maddow, just about the only host on that
network with any ratings at all, over-hyped what turned
out to be a massive nothing burger: Turns out that
billionaire real estate magnate Donald J. Trump does pay
income taxes, after all, just like most all other Americans.
A lot of income taxes. Or at least he did in 2005, the year
that Maddow revealed on her program. (RELATED: The
Trump tax revelation – that wasn’t)
According to Trump’s return, he paid in $38 million on
approximately $150 million in income that year, for a tax
rate of about 25 percent. Granted, the bulk of that payment
– $31 million – was due to the Alternate Minimum Tax
(AMT) which he wants to eliminate as part of his tax
reform effort, but still, $38 million is no small amount of
money.
By comparison, President and Michelle Obama, in 2015,
had an income tax rate of 19 percent. And Mr. Socialism
himself, Sen. Bernie Sanders, had an income tax rate of
just 13 percent, according to his 2014 returns.
465
Trump even paid more than Comcast, the company that
owns MSNBC, which paid 24 percent in 2014.
So while Trump spent the better part of his presidential
campaign refusing to release his tax returns, allegedly
because they were being audited – something the IRS said
he could do regardless of any audit – it turns out that he is
a productive, income tax-paying citizen of the republic
after all.
And we’ve got the perpetually angry Left to thank for
proving it to us, even if it was done in an awkward and
anticlimactic manner.
Not that any of this mattered a hill of beans to most
Americans anyway. The “standard” that all presidential
contenders must show us their tax returns is a creation of
the Left – a “gotcha” for rich Republican nominees, so
Democratic contenders like Sanders and the Obama’s and
even multi-millionaire Hillary Clinton can portray
themselves as much simpler, humbler, less rich men and
women “of the people.”
Tax returns contain a wealth of private information, and
politicians know this, which is why they tailor their returns
so they appear bland and non-disclosing. But Trump has
never been a politician until now, so he’s never felt
compelled to tailor his returns to look a certain way that is
supposed to be acceptable for public consumption.
(RELATED: Trump Tax Return “Bombshell”
BACKFIRE… Trump Paid $38M In Taxes In 2005…
MSNBC Becomes Comedy Central)
We learned this during the campaign, when he it was
revealed that he took a huge $916 million loss in 1996,
then used that loss to avoid paying income taxes – legally
– for several years. Democratic presidential nominee
Hillary Clinton brought it up during one of their debates.
[Of course, Clinton and her philandering ex-president
husband made their money the old-fashioned way – by
selling political access to foreign governments on the
notion that someday, as president, she would return on
their investment. When that plan didn’t work out, the
Clinton Foundation shut down its principle money-making
– er, uh, donation-generating – division, the Clinton
Global Initiative.]
What is truly amazing in all of this is that the Alt-Left still
believes that something in Trump’s past will tie him to
Mother Russia, the Iranian “elites” (whoever they are), or
little green men from some faraway planet who helped him
lie, cheat and steal his way into the White House. To make
something of this episode – a man taking legal deductions
while still paying tens of millions of dollars in income
taxes – borders on insanity.
.
466
In fact, I think it actually qualifies as such.
As for Maddow, she’s now taking heat from all sides –
including the Left-leaning media, many of whom are
blaming her for over-hyping a nothing burger of a story
while at the same time handing Trump a big, fat political
victory, just when they were beginning to bash
Republicans over their “controversial” Obamacare
replacement legislation.
Trump continues to outsmart the Left at every turn, that is,
when they’re not outsmarting themselves.
 NBC To Breitbart Editor: Isn’t Trump’s
Media Criticism ‘Damaging To Democracy’?
By Kyle Drennen
March 17, 2017 | 11:39 AM EDT
In an interview with Breitbart News editor-in-chief Alex
Marlow for Friday’s NBC Today, correspondent Stephanie
Gosk worried that the conservative media figure did not
think it was “dangerous” for the President to criticize the
press:
“President Trump calling the, quote,
‘fake news media,’ ‘the enemy of the
American people.’ That kind of extreme
language, is that not damaging to our
democracy?”
Marlow responded:
“I don't think it is, because I think, in a
lot of ways, as Steve Bannon put it, the
press is the opposition party. That's
100% the world view that I have.”
Gosk introduced the hostile report by declaring:
You know Breitbart is one of President
Trump's favorite news sources, one run by
his top adviser Steve Bannon. They see
themselves as provocateurs, poking a
finger in the eye of the mainstream media.
But critics call them racist, anti-Semites,
and white supremacists.
She grilled Marlow over Breitbart making the case
“that steps taken to investigate the Trump
campaign’s links with Russia are purely
political.”
467
He hammered media coverage of the story:
“We've learned very little about any sort
of nefarious connection between Trump
and Russia, but what we have learned is
there is these incredible amounts of
leaks flooding out of Washington
specifically to undermine the President
of the United States and the media is
gleefully reporting all of them.”
Gosk pressed:
“Who should the American public believe,
mainstream media, the federal
government, Breitbart?” When Marlow
predictably replied that people should trust
his news site, she demanded: “But why?
But why should we believe Breitbart over
what the federal government tells us about
possible connections with Russia trying to
tamper with the election?”
The reporter fretted that Breitbart was
“often blurring lines between news and
opinion.”
The hypocrisy of someone who works for NBC and
MSNBC complaining about opinion being injected into
news coverage was apparently lost on Gosk.
Here is a full transcript of the March 17 segment:
7:40 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: As we mentioned earlier,
congressional leaders say they've seen no evidence
that then-President Obama ordered the wiretapping of
phones at Trump Tower during the presidential
election campaign. So where did President Trump get
that information? He was asked about that in a recent
interview on Fox News.
DONALD TRUMP: I've been reading about things. I
read in, I think it was January 20th, a New York Times
article, where they were talking about wiretapping.
There was an article, I think they used that exact term.
I read other things.
MATT LAUER: Some of those other things, reportedly
an article published by Breitbart News the day before
the President tweeted those wiretapping claims.
NBC’s Stephanie Gosk recently sat down exclusively
with that website’s editor-in-chief. Stephanie, welcome
back, good to see you.
STEPHANIE GOSK: Good to see you guys. You know
Breitbart is one of President Trump's favorite news
sources, one run by his top adviser Steve Bannon.
They see themselves as provocateurs, poking a finger
in the eye of the mainstream media. But critics call
them racist, anti-Semites, and white supremacists. We
sat down with Alex Marlow, the 31-year-old editor-in-
chief, who pushes back hard against the critics and
the labels, defending the news site he’s worked at
since it started in 2007.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Inside Breitbart News;
Editor-in-Chief Talks Trump & Rising Influence]
ALEX MARLOW: We're not a hate site.
GOSK: Do you think you have been unfairly
demonized?
MARLOW: Oh, absolutely. Without a doubt.
GOSK: Breitbart has seen a meteoric rise from a
fringe start-up once by chief White House strategist
Steve Bannon, the right-wing news site exploded
during the course of the presidential campaign, with
240 million views a month. There was a former
employee of yours who called Breitbart “Trump-bart.”
MARLOW: Yes.
GOSK: Was that a fair criticism during the election?
MARLOW: It's absolutely unfair criticism.
GOSK: He insists they will criticize the President if he
breaks his promises.
468
MARLOW: If he makes good on those promises, he’s
going to get a lot of favorable coverage. When we feel
like the President is not honoring the pledges he made
to the public, he's going to get critical coverage.
GOSK: Do you talk to the President?
MARLOW: I've spoken to the president, on air, I
believe four times, twice when he was a candidate,
twice before he was a candidate, and I have not
spoken to him other than – since he's been elected.
GOSK: How about Steve Bannon, does he reach out?
MARLOW: Every so often. Not as often as I would
have expected. I think Steve is a very busy man these
days.
GOSK: Still, the White House and Breitbart seem to
be in lock step on most issues. President Trump's
unsubstantiated tweets that President Obama
wiretapped him during the campaign echo an idea laid
out in a Breitbart article published the day before. Was
the wiretap tweet because of a Breitbart article?
MARLOW: That I don’t know. I have heard things,
probably similar things to you, I heard that a Breitbart
article played a big factor in it.
GOSK: The article never goes as far as Trump does,
directly accusing his predecessor, but it argues that
steps taken to investigate the Trump campaign’s links
with Russia are purely political.
MARLOW: We've learned very little about any sort of
nefarious connection between Trump and Russia, but
what we have learned is there is these incredible
amounts of leaks flooding out of Washington
specifically to undermine the President of the United
States and the media is gleefully reporting all of them.
GOSK: Who should the American public believe,
mainstream media, the federal government, Breitbart?
MARLOW: Oh, I would say believe Breitbart. I think
Breitbart is producing –
GOSK: But why? But why should we believe Breitbart
over what the federal government tells us about
possible connections with Russia trying to tamper with
the election?
MARLOW: Well, possible connections and actual
connections are different.
GOSK: Yes, but when you have the federal
government come out and say, “We are investigating
Russia potentially tampering with our election,” why,
as an American citizen, should you not step back and
go, “I should be worried about that”?
MARLOW: Oh, I'm not saying that you shouldn't be
worried about it, but there has been ample reporting,
ample investigation, the entire world has been focused
on this story. And I'm just asking for one piece of hard
evidence.
GOSK: Marlow describes his staff as a mix of both
reporters and activists, the site often blurring lines
between news and opinion. What is your mission?
MARLOW: First of all, is just to be a great news site,
covering hard-hitting fast-paced accurate – always
accurate – information. Now where we differ is that
we're admittedly right of center. We're a populist,
nationalist grassroots conservative website.
GOSK: What is Breitbart's position on immigration?
MARLOW: We don't have a party line position on it.
But I'll tell you a few things that are pretty consistent.
We believe that boarder security and national security
is a serious issue and we think that there is a
American value system that's worth being preserved.
GOSK: Do you think that American value system is in
jeopardy because of immigration?
MARLOW: It depends. It's in jeopardy because of
immigration if people who are coming into the country
do not understand the American values and don't
want to assimilate into American society.
GOSK: Its brand of conservativism has come under
intense fire, frequently called, among other things,
racist, because of headlines like this one from two
years ago: “Hoist It High and Proud: The Confederate
Flag Proclaims a Glorious Heritage.” Would Breitbart
print that headline today?
.
469
MARLOW: I don't know the answer to that, it’s a good
question, and I don’t know if – but probably yes. And
to be honest with you, I disagree with the article. I
don't disagree with us running it because it makes
arguments that the – that flag doesn't just symbolize
racism to certain people, it symbolizes southern pride,
southern heritage, and states rights. Now, my
personal view is I think we've moved on as a society
from that symbol, but that doesn't mean we can't have
a debate and a discussion about it.
GOSK: Regardless of who it may offend. Do you
compromise civility in the defense of free speech?
MARLOW: In some cases, I think that's acceptable
because of the fact that it's proving a point about
freedom of speech. And that we used to raise a
society that was supposed to be resilient emotionally
and now everyone is looking for their safe space, and
I think that's a dangerous thing.
GOSK: One thing he doesn't think is dangerous?
President Trump calling the, quote, “fake news
media,” “the enemy of the American people.” That
kind of extreme language, is that not damaging to our
democracy?
MARLOW: I don't think it is, because I think, in a lot of
ways, as Steve Bannon put it, the press is the
opposition party. That's 100% the world view that I
have.
GOSK: Breitbart made its first significant break with
the White House recently over the new health care
bill. One of its concerns, that tax cut for the wealthy.
But it's worth pointing out they lay the blame squarely
at the feet of House Speaker Paul Ryan, not President
Trump.
GUTHRIE: Alright, Stephanie, interesting interview.
Thank you so much. Appreciate it.
 Who’s Lying About ‘Wiretapping’ Trump Tower –
The Media, Congress Or The Intelligence Community?
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 17, 2017
The story regarding President Donald J. Trump’s
allegations that he was “wiretapped” at Trump Tower by
the Obama administration, has now taken more twists and
turns than a Grand Prix race, and frankly, it’s become
patently obvious that someone is lying about important
details surrounding the president’s charge.
On Thursday, leaders of the Senate Intelligence Committee
– Chairman Richard Burr and Ranking Member Mark
Warner – along with House Speaker Paul Ryan, said that
so far, there has been “no evidence” to back up Trump’s
claim.
That is odd, given all the reporting prior to Thursday that
suggests otherwise.
“The intelligence committees, in their
continuing, widening, ongoing
investigations of all things Russia, got to
the bottom — at least so far with respect to
our intelligence community — that no such
wiretap existed,” Ryan said in response to
a question from CNN at a news
conference.
Burr and Warner, in a statement, said that “based on the
information available to us, we see no indications that
Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any
element of the United States government either before or
after Election Day 2016.” (RELATED: Did Obama use
the “Five Eyes” intelligence agreement to get Britain to
spy on Trump?)
470
Frankly that’s amazing, given what’s been reported thus
far by CNN, the Washington Post, The New York Times
and others.
In this report,
CNN said that U.S. investigators had
corroborated some of what was contained
in that “Trump dossier,” which by now has
largely been debunked. In addition, the
network reported that what had been
“corroborated” related to “conversations
between foreign nationals,” but the alleged
intelligence sources used for the story
could not “confirm which specific
conversations were intercepted” or their
content, because it could compromise “the
classified nature of US intelligence
collection programs.”
Or how about the Washington Post? The paper reported
the day before Trump was inaugurated on Jan. 20, that
“U.S. counterintelligence officials” had been
“examining possible ties between Russia
and Trump associations,” to include
“intercepted communications.” The paper
even claimed that “it has been clear for
months that a broad investigation is
underway … .”
Then there’s this New York Times piece, also published
Jan. 19, that claimed,
“American law enforcement and
intelligence agencies” were “examining
intercepted communications and financial
transactions as part of a broad
investigation into possible links between
Russian officials” and Trump “associates.”
The print version of this same story even
contained the phrase “wiretapped data” in
its headline, as seen here.
Before going further, it is important to note that this kind
of information can only come from U.S. intelligence
agency electronic surveillance of the kind Trump is
accusing Obama of conducting.
There’s more. The lawmakers on Thursday said there was
“no evidence” Trump Tower was targeted. That
“evidence” would include a warrant issued by the secretive
Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act court, because
legally, that’s one of the only ways U.S. intelligence
agencies would be able to conduct electronic surveillance,
and even then, only against foreign subjects within the
U.S. Americans can be placed under surveillance, but this
is a high hurdle; intelligence agencies have to convince the
court there is good reason to believe said American is an
agent of a foreign government.
Did U.S. intelligence think Trump was a foreign agent?
Maybe.
Does a FISA warrant paper trail exist? According to two
published reports, yes it does.
Louise Mensch of Heat Street reported exclusively that the
FBI was “granted” a “FISA warrant” to examine the
“Trump camp’s ties to Russia.” That warrant, she reported,
was granted in October, after an earlier request to examine
a server located in Trump Tower that FBI
counterintelligence officials thought might be linked to
Russian banks in June of last year was denied.
(RELATED: Flat out: Someone in government or the
media is lying about ‘wiretapping’ Trump Tower story)
.
471
Investigative reporters Sara Carter and John
Solomon, writing at Circa News, also reported that the FBI
sought and got a FISA warrant, and for the same reason: to
investigate the server for potential Russian bank ties.
The FBI found none – no links, no smoking gun – but
apparently they looked for one.
There is also this: Under a Reagan-era executive order,
12333 (“twelve triple three” in intelligence parlance), the
attorney general of the United States can order electronic
surveillance on American citizens if he or she also suspects
them of being an agent of a foreign government.
If the Heat Street and Circa News stories are incorrect,
then it’s possible there would be “no evidence” because
Loretta Lynch simply ordered the FBI’s
counterintelligence division to take a look at Trump’s
servers. And she worked for Obama, who made some
changes to the order in his waning days as president, The
Hill noted in its own intriguing slant on this story.
In an interview with Fox News’ Tucker Carlson
Wednesday night, Trump said more about this will come
out “in two weeks” or so. Based on the prior reporting by
sources that mainstream Washington holds as credible,
Trump’s version of the story appears to be the most
accurate.
 Brazile Defends Giving Questions To Clinton:
'Want To Make Sure That Those
Questions' Are 'Out There'
By Kristine Marsh
March 17, 2017 | 10:57 AM EDT
Editor’s Note: Edited to add segments from the extended
interview posted online.
Thursday on Comedy Central’s The Daily Show, former
DNC chair and ex-CNN analyst Donna Brazile appeared to
talk about her time as chair and the scandal that ousted her
from her 14-year-run at CNN. While host Trevor Noah
asked her why she gave questions to the Clinton campaign
before a town hall, he didn’t push back when Brazile
defended her actions and downplayed the controversy as
media spin.
From the moment Brazile appeared on the show, it was
clear that she had an already established friendship with
Noah. Brazile teased Noah, saying he must’ve “lost her
number” for not inviting her on the show sooner.
BRAZILE: You should have put my number on the bottom
of your shoe.
NOAH: I never lost your number, Donna Brazile.
BRAZILE: Baby, you still have my number?
[Noah laughs]
After that friendly exchange, Noah asked Brazile to
explain what it was like serving as interim DNC Chair.
Brazile blasted the “thankless job” that she had during the
“break from Hell.”
472
BRAZILE: Thankless job. First time I was chair was over
Easter break and it was really nice. This time it was over
the break from Hell because the Russians invaded us.
Brazile then blamed the Russians and Wikileaks for
Clinton losing the election, saying how “tough” it was to
“navigate” Clinton’s campaign after Wikileaks.
She lamented how “fearful” she was to
go “up against” a “hostile military
force,” who was going through her
emails, ripping her files and “harassing”
her donors and staff “every day.”
In the extended version of the interview posted on Comedy
Central’s website, Brazile adds nuance to her argument,
stating that Democrats lost certain states because they
didn’t campaign very well and took those voters for
granted. However this part was cut from the broadcast
version.
Noah responded by asking her about the leaked email that
revealed she gave questions to the Clinton campaign
before a town hall. Brazile started off joking that it was the
season of Lent, so she could make a confession for her
“sin.” But then she quickly backtracked, saying she was
only doing her job, “advancing the cause of justice and
equality:”
BRAZILE: Well, first of all, I didn't have my hands in the
cookie jar. I'm an operative, I'm a strategist, and part of
what my role was, in addition to being a "political pundit"
was to help advance the cause of justice and equality.
Okay. So think about, we have six debates. I started to
fight for more debates. I started to fight to ensure that
Bernie and Hillary had an opportunity to talk about
these issues, talk about the Flint water crisis, talk about
criminal justice reform, and that was my role. Now, the
Wikileaks version is the Russian version. My own version
is that, had you saw my e-mails to Bernie, you would
have known that I was communicating with Bernie just
as much as I was communicating with Hillary, Martin
O'Malley. Because that's what you do.
As Noah starts to interrupt, the video then does a jump cut,
clearly editing out what happens next. That part can be
seen in the extended online version where Noah argues
against Brazile’s point, saying that Donald Trump was fair
in calling out CNN and Brazile for feeding Clinton
questions ahead of time. The two get in a back and forth
argument briefly, with Noah standing his ground that it
was a fair point to hold Brazile accountable for.
During the segment that aired on television however, that
part is cut out and it picks up with Brazile saying that the
media needed to “go to her” to get the truth of the
situation, instead of relying on leaked emails which only
told half the story. Noah then asks, “So, are you going to
write a book?”
to Clinton again, after seemingly defending doing so
multiple times before this.
“But the question you raised with me,” she begins,
“‘Sister did you give out something?’
No baby! I ain’t give out nothing. I didn’t
have nothing to give you. But what I did
stir, was something you could cook
with.
And baby, what you could cook with, was burning all over
the stove,” she says, continuing the cooking analogy to
Noah’s amusement.

Brazile responds emphatically, “Hell, yeah!” to audience

applause.

“Because we want the truth,” Noah adds. Brazile then

seems to defend giving the questions to the Clinton
campaign again as an effort to promote “inclusion” and
“diversity:”

BRAZILE: The truth is politics is a hard-fought game, and

when you're in the battle of fighting to

make sure that you have inclusion, to
make sure you have diversity, to make Afterwards, Brazile urged the comedian to run for
Congress, saying she would “come out of retirement” to
sure you have the kind of not just
communication but the kind of support him if he did.
conversation with voters, you want to
make sure that those questions, those Brazile has criticized her former network before, saying
topics, that is out there. she wish she had the chance to defend herself from “Wiki-
lies.” Well she certainly got her wish granted by Noah last
Brazile goes on to add more to her explanation in the night.
version posted online. She seems to deny feeding questions
.

473
 Trump Tax Rate Actually
Three Times Higher Than Media Reported
By James Powers
March 17, 2017 | 2:34 PM EDT

The liberal media just can’t seem to get anything right --

even math.

Journalists were eager to follow in the wake of Rachel

Maddow tax fiasco. ABC and CBS evening news shows
reported that Trump paid an effective tax rate of about 25
percent in 2005. But, as The Federalist’s Sean Davis noted,
this is flat out wrong. Trump’s effective tax rate for 2005
was 79 percent. That’s more than three times higher than
reported.

It seems journalists were both inconsistent in how they

treated Trump vs. Obama and lacked a basic understanding
of how paying taxes works.

When ABC computed Barack Obama’s effective tax rate,

based on his 2015 tax return, the network arrived at an
18.7 percent rate. It was a simple calculation of “taxes
paid” ($81,472) divided by “adjusted gross income”
($436,065).

With Donald Trump’s 2005 leaked tax return, they

followed Rachel Maddow’s cue arriving at 25 percent. Not only was ABC wrong, but the network took it a step
They took his “taxes paid” ($38.4 million) and divided it further and criticized Trump’s tax contribution saying
by “earnings before losses” ($151 million). “some top earners pay a 35 percent rate. Trump's? 25
percent.”
But Trump declared $103 million as losses. So, his
“Adjusted Gross Income” was actually $48.6 million. If
ABC analyzed Trump’s return the same way as Obama’s,
reporters would have taken Trump’s “taxes paid” and
divided it by “Adjusted Gross Income.”

This would have yielded an effective tax rate of 79

percent.

ABC added that Trump

“would have paid about $7 million more

Davis tweeted a picture of Trump’s and Obama’s tax
were it not for the alternative minimum tax,
returns side by side.
which is designed to make the rich pay
their fair share and which president trump
promised to abolish.”
474
The revelation of Trump’s 2005 return came March 14, in
a highly anticipated report from MSNBC’s Rachel
Maddow that even Stephen Colbert mocked.
475
ABC and CBS did not compare this new information of
Trump’s tax return to other presidents or candidates.
According to National Review’s Jim Geraghty, Socialist
Bernie Sanders only paid an effective tax rate of 13.5
percent in 2015.
 President Trump No Longer Safe In White House:
Former Secret Service Agent
By Malia Zimmerman
Published March 17, 2017
The president is no longer safe on the White House
grounds, according to former Secret Service agent Dan
Bongino, who once guarded presidents George W. Bush
and Barack Obama.
Bongino made the stunning assessment in an interview
Friday with Fox News. It followed an incident last Friday
night when a man jumped the White House fence and may
have roamed the property for as long as 15 minutes before
he was stopped by the Secret Service.
Jonathan Tran, who carried two cans of mace, set
off multiple alarms, Bongino said, and was even spotted by
Secret Service officers, but was still able to come within
“close proximity” of the White House and even
reportedly “jiggled the door” to the executive mansion.
“The intruder set off multiple alarms, alarms
that clearly showed someone breached the
property, and he was seen by officers who
didn't think anything of it. This is a big
story,” Bongino told Fox News.
“That just shows the president is not safe
there - in the White House. The Secret
Service does not have the assets, they
don't have personnel on the ground they
need to keep him safe.”
Should a group of terrorists decide to storm the White
House, the Secret Service would not be able to protect
Trump, Bongino predicted.
476
“The Secret Service cannot even keep one
person off the grounds - what will they do if
40 terrorists charge the White House?” he
asked. “And believe me the terrorists are
already thinking about that.”
According to the Secret Service, Tran was charged with
entering a restricted building and carrying a dangerous
weapon.
Trump, who was on the property, has praised the Secret
Service for doing a “fantastic job” and said the suspect was
“troubled.”
But Bongino said the current Secret Service management
“sucks.”
“The Secret Service is stuck in their ways
and don't want to redo and upgrade the
White House security plan. President
Trump won't be safe there until they do,”
Bongino said.
House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-
Utah, also blasted the latest incident and said “this keeps
happening.” Chaffetz’s panel oversees the Secret Service.
He added, “Our information is incomplete
at best.”
In a letter to acting Secret Service Director Bill Callahan,
Chaffetz said Tran
“may have attempted entry into the
building. If true, these allegations raise
questions about whether the agency’s
security protocols are adequate.”
Chaffetz suggested there may have been alarms that were
ignored by the Secret Service.
Chaffetz wants a briefing by the end of next week. He also
is asking for all video from the White House grounds that
night as well as logs from the Joint Operations Center and
information about “alarms” at the White House.
The episode recalled another in September 2014, when It cost Pierson her job.
Omar Gonzales penetrated the White House grounds and
actually made it inside. Then-Secret Service Director Julia They later found the White House alarms had been muted
Pierson afterward conceded “mistakes were made.” But in the Gonzales incident.
the Secret Service was found to have publicly lied about
how far Gonzales made it into the White House.
Fox News' Chad Pergram contributed to this report.

477
 Trump Administration Releases Requirements For Border
Wall, Starts Requesting Bids To Build It
By Katherine Rodriguez
18 Mar 2017
The Trump administration’s proposed
border wall is expected to be as tall as
30 feet and no shorter than 18 feet to
deter potential illegal immigrants,
Homeland Security officials said Friday.
U.S. Customs and Border Protection (CBP) has started the
process of requesting bids from various companies that
would include design proposals and prototypes of
President Trump’s proposed barrier along the U.S.-Mexico
border, the Washington Times reported.
The agency has released two proposals for contractors who
want to submit a bid: a solid, concrete wall and a wall with
“a see-through component/capability.”
“The wall design shall be physically
imposing in height,” CBP officials said in
contracting documents.
.
478
The agency said the goal is to have a 30-foot wall, but it
will accept proposals as low as 18 feet.
They also said the wall must be at least six feet
underground to prevent anyone from tunneling underneath
it and high enough that no one can climb the wall without
a ladder, NPR reports.
It should take at least an hour, and ideally more than four
hours, to make a hole in the wall so agents can stop anyone
attempting to break it down.
The government outlines that the wall must be able to
withstand a
“sledgehammer, car jack, pick axe, chisel,
battery operated impact tools, battery
operated cutting tools, Oxy/acetylene torch
or other similar hand-held tools.”
In the documents, CBP says that the side facing the U.S.
must also be “aesthetically pleasing” in “color, anti-climb
texture etc., to be consistent with general surrounding
environment.” There was no mention of how the Mexican
side should look.
About 700 companies have registered as potential vendors
for the project since CBP first began weighing interest this
month.
Contractors have until March 29 to submit their proposals
for the first phase of the project.
 Inside Trump’s White House, New York Moderates Spark
Infighting And Suspicion
By Philip Rucker And Robert Costa
March 18, 2017

The emerging turf war has led to fights over White House
protocol and access to the president, backstabbing and
leaks to reporters, and a heated Oval Office showdown
over trade refereed by the president himself.

National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn, left, and senior

adviser Jared Kushner, right, listen to President Trump address a
meeting at the White House on Jan. 23. (Chip Somodevilla/Getty
Images)
Gary Cohn, a Goldman Sachs veteran, is reported to be Trump’s
Inside the White House, they are dismissed by their rivals pick to head the National Economic Council. Here’s what you need to
know about him. (Deirdra O'Regan/The Washington Post)
as “the Democrats.”

This account of the internal workings of Trump’s team is

Outspoken, worldly and polished, this coterie of ascendant
based on interviews with 18 top White House officials,
Manhattan business figures-turned-presidential advisers is
confidants of the president and other senior Republicans
scrambling the still-evolving power centers swirling
with knowledge of the relationships, many of whom
around President Trump.
requested anonymity to speak candidly.
Led by Gary Cohn and Dina Powell — two former
For the most part so far, the ideologues are winning. One
Goldman Sachs executives often aligned with Trump’s
revealing episode came as Trump weighed where he would
elder daughter and his son-in-law — the group and its
travel this past Wednesday following an auto industry
broad network of allies are the targets of suspicion,
event in Michigan.
loathing and jealousy from their more ideological West
Wing colleagues.
Would he jet to New York at the invitation of Canada’s
progressive hero, Prime Minister Justin Trudeau, to attend
On the other side are the Republican populists driving
a Broadway performance of “Come From Away,” a
much of Trump’s nationalist agenda and confrontations,
musical that showcases the generosity of foreigners?
led by chief strategist Stephen K. Bannon, who has grown
closer to Chief of Staff Reince Priebus in part to counter
the New Yorkers. Or would he fly to Nashville to dip his head in reverence at
the gravesite of Andrew Jackson and yoke himself to the
nationalist legacy of America’s seventh president?
As Trump’s administration enters its third month, the
constant jockeying and backbiting among senior staff is
further inflaming tensions at a time when the White House Some of his New York-linked aides urged him to go to the
is struggling on numerous fronts — from the endangered play with Trudeau and Ivanka Trump, according to four
health-care bill to the controversial budget to the hundreds senior Trump advisers. But Trump opted instead to follow
of top jobs still vacant throughout the government. his gut and heed Bannon’s counsel.

479
 “Absolutely not,” the president said later of
going to the play, according to one of the
advisers.
Instead, Trump journeyed to Tennessee, where he laid a
wreath at Jackson’s tomb to celebrate what would have
been the former president’s 250th birthday and delivered a
fiery speech.
Trump aides pointed to his deliberation over what was a
banal scheduling matter as an example of the Bannon-
Priebus axis prevailing, as it has on many policy fronts —
from national security to the budget to climate.
“Trump’s intention is to be Trump,” said
former House speaker Newt Gingrich, an
informal adviser to the president. “Being
tough on trade. Recentering the country on
American nationalism. Taking on illegal
immigration. Strengthening our military.
Decentralizing the system. Radical
reduction in regulations.”
He added,
“It would be interesting to see to what
degree the New York liberals change
Trump and to what degree Trump changes
the New York liberals.”
[Bannon vows a daily fight for ‘deconstruction of the
administrative state’]
An unexpected political marriage has formed between
Bannon, with his network of anti-establishment
conservative populists, and Priebus, who represents a wing
of more traditional Republican operatives.
They are often at odds with the New Yorkers, led by Cohn
and Powell, who are close to Ivanka Trump and her
husband, Jared Kushner, arguably the most powerful
White House aide.
The lines can be blurred. Kushner and Cohn are
particularly close with the Cabinet’s industry barons —
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross, Treasury Secretary
480
Steven Mnuchin and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson — as
well as Chris Liddell and Reed Cordish, two businessmen
recruited by Kushner to work on long-term projects.
Bannon and Priebus have their own relationships with
those figures.
Still, many people inside and outside the White House
frequently note the growing visibility of Cohn and Powell
and wonder if they might eventually gain influence over
Trump’s message and moderate it from Bannon-style
populism, especially if the president’s popularity wanes
further.
“They’re more involved than ever,” Larry
Kudlow, a Trump ally and longtime CNBC
economic analyst, said of the group.
“Trump is instinctively drawn to them, but
that doesn’t mean he’s losing his populist
message. It means that in terms of day-to-
day business and grinding out policy
changes, he’s drawn to the business
people that are around him.”
Tensions between Bannon and Priebus ran hot in the early
days of the presidency, suggesting that their outsider-vs.-
establishment feud would be the central division. But
Priebus forged an alliance with Bannon, which they see as
mutually beneficial because either or both could be
sidelined if others, such as Cohn or Powell, ascend further,
according to three White House officials.
The tug at Trump forces near-daily decisions between
following his tendency to gravitate toward those he
considers highly successful in business and maintaining
the combative political persona cheered by many
conservatives.
[Inside Trump’s fury: The president rages
at leaks, setbacks and accusations]
Internal competition has been a mainstay of every Trump
enterprise. One top Trump adviser posited that, on a scale
of one to 10, fighting between former aides Corey
Lewandowski and Paul Manafort during the campaign
would score an eight, while that between the Cohn and
Bannon blocs at the White House would be a two.
The ongoing tension is real, this adviser said, but so far not
debilitating:
“We chose to hire a lot of alphas. People in
politics are insecure and will either adapt to
the fact that this is an entrepreneurial White
House and survive, or they won’t. The
cream will rise and the [expletive] will sink.”
Sometimes when staffers feud, Kushner summons them to
his office, a few doors down from the president’s, where
the 36-year-old adviser sits them on the couch and
mediates as though he were a couple’s therapist, officials
said.
Priebus said there were benefits to a staff with diverse
viewpoints and backgrounds.
“We have an incredible team that is
talented, unified and focused on advancing
the president’s bold agenda,” Priebus said
in a statement. “The greatness of this team
comes from the unique strengths each
member brings to this administration.”
By most appearances, the New Yorkers are accumulating
more power. Trump expanded Powell’s portfolio this past
week, naming her deputy national security adviser for
strategy in addition to her post as senior counselor for
economic initiatives.
Born in Egypt and fluent in Arabic, Powell is taking on a
more visible role in foreign affairs. At Friday’s bilateral
meeting with German Chancellor Angela Merkel, Powell
sat two seats from Trump, with only Vice President Pence
between them.
Powell has tapped the network she cultivated as a George
W. Bush administration official and as president of
Goldman’s philanthropic foundation to invite guests for
meetings with Trump. She dominated one such gathering
on human trafficking, conversing with the authority of an
expert, which impressed the president, aides said.
[From order to disorder: How Trump’s
immigration directive exposed GOP rifts]
Cohn, meanwhile, influences a wide range of policies
domestic and foreign as director of the National Economic
Council. Colleagues say he is opinionated and sharp-
elbowed, walking between offices with the swagger
befitting a banking titan. He is seen internally as a
contender for chief of staff should Priebus exit, though one
senior official noted,
“Nobody wants Reince’s job here. I can tell
you that with certainty.”
Cohn and Powell huddle regularly with business
executives, both on the White House campus and at glitzy
off-site events. Several other senior staffers have groused
that they are rarely invited to attend — and often don’t
know about the meetings. Their networking creates what
one associate called “a positive feedback loop”:
The executives often sing Cohn and Powell’s praises in
their meetings with Trump.
481
Last month when two dozen manufacturing chief
executives visited the White House, Trump singled out
Cohn by noting his vast wealth.
“You all know Gary from Goldman,” Trump
said. “Gary Cohn — and we’re really happy
— just paid $200 million in tax in order to
take this job, by the way.”
The executives from such behemoths as General Electric
and Johnson & Johnson laughed.
Cohn is a registered Democrat, though he is known by
many Republicans through his work at Goldman or
summer parties in the Hamptons.
Trump enjoys having the rich and powerful reporting to
him, irrespective of their political affiliations, his
associates said. This may be one of the reasons he reached
out to Jonathan D. Gray, who manages a $100 billion-plus
portfolio as global head of real estate at Blackstone Group,
to discuss the job of treasury secretary, even though Gray
was a major fundraiser for Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
John Catsimatidis, a billionaire New York grocery
magnate who has known Trump for decades, explained his
friend’s thinking by quoting a Frank Sinatra song.
“I don’t want to blow my own horn, but
remember the song, ‘If I can make it there,
I’ll make it anywhere … New York, New
York!’ ” Catsimatidis asked. “It takes a little
bit extra to make it in New York than
anyplace else. Trump gets that.”
[Trump gives his hard-line campaign
promises a more moderate tone in address
to Congress]
Impressing the president, however, has not necessarily
translated into policy gains. The conservative wing —
Bannon, Priebus, senior policy adviser Stephen Miller and
others — have notched victories in almost every sector,
despite meetings Cohn and Powell have convened to
promote a more centrist, business-friendly approach.
“The president receives many different
inputs, insights and ideas from a very
diverse team of advisers, but it is clear to
all that he is the ultimate decision-maker,”
said Kellyanne Conway, White House
counselor. “He’s the president.”
Rather than embracing the Paris climate agreement, Trump
has signaled his intent to roll back fuel economy standards
and proposed a budget last week that would effectively gut
the Environmental Protection Agency. The health-care bill
he backs strips federal funding for Planned Parenthood,
while the proposed budget curbs funding for the arts and
sciences. And he is pursuing aggressive policies on
immigration.
“Show me one New York win,” a senior
White House official said tauntingly.
Said another official: “Donald Trump is not
the mayor of New York. Some of their
ideas just don’t have a national
constituency.”
A competition over Trump’s trade and economic agenda is
brewing between Cohn and Peter Navarro, an eccentric
academic and former campaign adviser close to Bannon
who directs the National Trade Council. It came to a head
two weeks ago in the Oval Office, where Cohn shrugged
off Navarro’s ideas as almost irrelevant, according to two
officials. Trump stepped into the conversation and
defended Navarro and his point of view.
Priebus has been frustrated with Cohn and Powell for what
he sees as short-circuiting his process by communicating
.
482
directly with the president on a range of matters, officials
said.
Meanwhile, Cohn, Powell and other aides have chafed at
Priebus’s protocols because he and Deputy Chief of Staff
Katie Walsh tried to exert complete control over the
president’s daily schedule. “A bottleneck” is how one
White House adviser described it.
After being pressured to let up, this adviser said, Priebus
recently started giving other senior staffers and Cabinet
members more influence over which individuals and
groups get face time with Trump.
“The president wants W’s — he wants
wins,” Kudlow said. “That’s key to
understanding this bit of change in the
whole outlook. He’s trying to get W’s and
have Congress work with him, and he’s
looking to lots of people to get them.”
 Sessions: 43% Of Americans
Are Not Good People
By Virginia Purcell / Drug Policy Alliance /
March 18, 2017 At 10:51 Am

to resist peer pressure and live productive

drug and violence-free lives.” However, the
D.A.R.E. program has widely been seen as
a failure with studies conclusively finding
that “20-year-olds who’d had DARE
classes were no less likely to have smoked
marijuana or cigarettes, drunk alcohol,
used ‘illicit’ drugs like cocaine or heroin, or
caved in to peer pressure than kids who’d
never been exposed to DARE.”
(DPA) Earlier this week, Attorney General Jeff Sessions
It is important to also note that Jeff Sessions believes that
delivered a speech to law enforcement officials in which
using drugs is inherently immoral and that if you try or do
he ranted about the immorality of smoking marijuana and
drugs of any kind your life will then be destroyed faster
signaled a return to the failed drug-abstinence “Just Say
than you can say Mary-Jane.
No!” programs of the 1980’s.

According to a Gallup Poll in 2016 43 percent of

Sessions said,
Americans have tried smoking marijuana in their
lifetime. And according to Sessions,
“I think we have too much of a tolerance for
drug use – psychologically, politically,
“Good people don’t smoke marijuana.”
morally. We need to say as Nancy Reagan
said, ‘Just say no! Don’t do it!’” Additionally
he employed scare tactics by saying, “And If every American who has possessed illicit drugs was
our nation needs to say clearly once again caught, nearly 50 percent of Americans would have drug
that using drugs is bad, that it will destroy violations on their records. This is coming from a man who
your life.” said in the 1980’s that he thought that the Ku Klux Klan
was okay until he found out some members smoked
marijuana.
The widely recognized “Just Say No!” program was
D.A.R.E (Drug Abuse Resistance Education). As stated on
its website: The War on Drugs has been massively devastating to the
heart and soul of American society. States are fighting
back, by legalizing marijuana and utilizing harm reduction
“D.A.R.E. is a police officer-led series of
strategies over incarceration. We cannot allow Jeff
classroom lessons that teaches children
Sessions to reinvigorate the War on Drugs.
from kindergarten through 12th grade how
.

483
 Censored Former CIA Insider
Confirms Trump Was Surveilled By Deep State
CIA Insider Confirms Reports Of Deep State Sabotage
By Infowars.Com -
03.18.2017 @9:18 PM EDT

Trumps ‘Obama wiretapping tweets’ and

backs up the claims with evidence.

Watch the entire interview below:

Intellihub Note: The entire interview below

also reveals the Facebook censorship of a
key interview with Johnson done by RT
network on the day of Trump’s infamous
Tweet accusing the Obama Administration
of surveillance.

Former CIA agent Larry Johnson

confirms the accusations made in

484
 Trump Thinks Your
Car's Gas Mileage Is... Your Business
Via Eric Peters Autos
Mar 18, 2017 6:00 PM
The Clovers are aghast that Trump is
threatening to do the unimaginable –
and stop threatening the car companies
with federal fuel economy fatwas
(and add-on fatwas forbidding or restricting how much
plant food – carbon dioxide – cars may emit).
He appears to be entertaining the
horrible idea that the people who buy
cars ought to be free to decide for
themselves how much fuel economy
matters to them –
since they will be the ones paying for both the car and the
gas. And – oh my god! – that this is really none of the
business of the “concerned” scientists and other
professional busybodies who regard their opinions and
preferences as holy writ enforceable at gunpoint.
“We’re going to work on the CAFE
standards so you can make cars in
America again,” said Trump. He should
have added the qualifier – affordable cars
in America again.
Leaving aside the moral issue
– who are these people to tell anyone
whether their next car should get 10
MPG or 40 MPG? –
the issue never addressed by the media, including the
automotive media, is how much will all this cost us?
485
Obama’s mullahs uluated about the many billions
(allegedly) which would be “saved” by force-marching
every automaker to build cars that average 54.5 MPG. It is
the sort of “savings” one realizes by emptying your bank
account to buy something you don’t need that’s 5 percent
off.
Only worse, because you’re not given the option to keep
your money in the bank.
A week or so ago, executives from the major automakers
came to the White House to explain to Donald – who
probably already grokked it – that to get a single car to
average 54.5 MPG requires more than merely ululating
that it will be so. A new Prius hybrid almost manages it –
and the hybrid Prius costs several thousand dollars more
than an otherwise similar but not 54.5 MPG non-hybrid
car.
And to get every car made to average 54.5 MPG – which is
what Obama’s EPA ululated in the last weeks of his
regime – won’t magically just happen, either – even if the
entire regulatory Mecca ululates in unison for a week
straight.
In the first place, it requires technology
– and new designs. These generally
involve work and resources, which cost
money. New components don’t
generally rain from Allah’s merciful
bounty, upon ululation.
The executives pointed this out to Trump – who almost
certainly grokked it beforehand, since he appears to be a
man who probably knows where the dipstick is under the
hood of a car and also what it’s for.
It is doubtful Obama knew – or did.
Or cared.
The current CAFE fatwa is 35.5 MPG and to achieve this
without going hybrid across the board has required some
very elaborate – some very expensive – technology.
Two specific examples: Direct injection
and transmissions with eight, nine and
lately ten forward speeds.
These are coming online (the new Ford F-150 pick-up,
reviewed here, has a ten-speed automatic and probably
two-thirds of all new vehicles are already direct-injected)
because of the existing CAFE fatwa.
But they offer no particular advantage to
the buyer, in terms of how the car drives
or performs. Indeed, cars with these
too-many-speeds automatics often have
strange driving characteristics. I can
vouch for this; I test drive and review
new cars each week.
For instance, the sensation that the car is surging forward
(it is) when the transmission skips up three or four gears on
a downhill because the computer is desperate to get the
transmission into the top overdrive gear as quickly as
possible in order to cut engine revs to the minimum in
order to squeeze out a teensy uptick in MPGs, for the sake
of CAFE.
Direct injection, meanwhile, has supplanted port fuel
injection (PFI) with a two-stage system that operates at
extreme pressure (3,000 psi vs. 35 or so psi) and which has
created a carbon deposit problem inside the engine. In
engines fed fuel via PFI or TBI or even a carburetor, the
fuel washes over the backsides of the valves as it enters the
combustion chamber – and because gas is a solvent, that
action keeps the valves from crudding up. But in a DI
486
system, the fuel is sprayed through a hole inside the
combustion chamber and there is no solvent effect.
And so, crud forms.
To fix this problem the automakers are adding a separate,
additional port-fuel circuit to keep the valves clean. So
now you car will have two fuel injection systems – and
multiple fuel pumps rather than just one.
It is not free.
What would it take to get all cars to
average 54.5 MPG?
Keep in mind that not a single non-hybrid/non-electric new
car comes close to that. Obama’s fatwa was in a way an
ululation demanding that most if not all cars be hybrids or
electric cars – because that is probably the only way to get
to a “fleet average” (CAFE terminology) of 54.5 MPG
absent the discovery of miracle technologies such as
Roswell Crash-style ultra-light metal that is also ultra
strong (so that other fatwas regarding “safety” can also be
complied with).
This brings us back to the moral issue:
Why is how much or little fuel our cars
use anyone else’s business, since we
pay for the car and the fuel? If gas
“costs too much,” we can buy a
different car that uses less.
And there is another issue, very obvious, but – like the
cost of the fatwas – never asked or discussed:
If the market is so “concerned” about
fuel economy – as the various
scientists, “public citizens” and other
such self-appointed voxxers of the
populi claim, why not allow the market
to apply the pressure?
Can’t have that. Pressure must come from above. pay for if that is their priority. What the various
“concerned” and the mullahs within the EPA and federal
apparat are really concerned about is that people can
choose not to buy such. That they are free to buy
something else.

For the ululators, everyone must buy

the same thing – the thing the uluators
insist they buy. Or else.
Always, collectivism and coercion.
Never free choice, liberty – the market.

It’s worth recalling that the literal translation of laissez-

faire is… leave us alone.

Exactly.
It doesn’t matter that there are already cars available that
were designed to deliver much higher-than-average Good on Donald.
mileage – the Prius, for instance – which people are free to
.

487
 Bill Maher Calls For The
United Nations To Invade America To Stop Donald Trump
Maher Reveals Liberal Fantasy To End American Democracy
By Alex Thomas -
03.18.2017 @9:39 PM EDT

(INTELLIHUB) — During a segment of HBO’s “Real

Time,” liberal host Bill Maher claimed that President
Trump violates every rule and that the globalist United
Nations may need to be sent into the country to stop him.

In what would amount to the end of American democracy,

Maher revealed his fantasy during an interview with
establishment propagandist and CNN host Jake Tapper in
which Maher attacked fifty percent of the country for
voting for Trump while openly floating the idea of the UN
being sent in to stop him.

Amid discussing Trump’s so-called lies, Maher claimed

that Trump, “violates every rule. Don’t lie. Don’t accuse
Take notice how Maher seamlessly goes from openly
people of things they’re not guilty of. Don’t boast. Pay
calling for a UN invasion force to making a joke about the
your taxes. Serve your country. Don’t be a racist, don’t
fictional world government body in the Star Trek series.
insult the handicapped people, and other people who are
Apparently having the United Nations take over the
not as lucky to be as great-looking as you are, Donald.”
country is a laughing matter for rich liberals like Maher
and Tapper.
“I worry that if half the country wants this
guy to be president, we do need the UN to
Amazingly, the idea that the country may need to use an
step in, or the United Federation of
outside power to stop Donald Trump has been floated by
Planets, or something,” Maher continued.
many others throughout the establishment media in their
(emphasis mine)
never ending war against all things Trump.

Add in the deep state and we have all the makings of a

possible takeover of our elected government.

488
 Trump’s Approval Rating
Has Hit A New Low: Gallup
Sun Mar 19, 2017 11:27PM
Supporters of US President Donald Trump are seen near his Mar-a-
Lago estate on March 19, 2017 in Palm Beach, Florida. (Photos by
AFP)
US President Donald Trump’s approval
rating has hit a new low, a new poll
shows.
According to a Gallup poll released Sunday, the
businessman-turned-president’s approval rating dropped to
37 percent.
Gallup, which polled about 1,500 adults nationwide, also
noted that the economic confidence index was down 3
points to 7.
The previous version of the same poll showed the New
York billionaire with a 42 percent approval rating.
According to a Real Clear Politics average of recent polls,
the Republican president enjoys a 43.7 percent approval
rating and is disapproved by 50.3 percent.
The percentage of those opposing the new president soared
a few percent in the Gallup poll at 58 percent.
489
The results of the pool, which has a three percent margin
of error, are based on interviews with about 1,500 adults.
The results were published as Republicans were busy
whipping up enough support in order to repeal and replace
ObamaCare.
The poll was also released at a time that the president is
being challenged by a federal judge in Hawaii over his
revised travel ban, issued via an executive order, against a
few Muslim-majority countries on the pretext of war on
terror.
The real estate tycoon and reality TV star has vowed to
fight the judge's ruling.
"We're going to take our case as far as it
needs to go, including all the way up to the
Supreme Court,” Trump said at a rally in
Tennessee this week. “We're going to
win… The danger is clear. The law is clear.
The need for my executive order is clear."
 House Intel Committee Chairman:
'There Never Was' Trump Tower Wiretap
Foxnews.Com
Published March 19, 2017
The chairman of the House intelligence committee told
"Fox News Sunday" that phones at President Donald
Trump's campaign headquarters in midtown Manhattan
were never tapped during last year's election campaign,
contrary to Trump's earlier, unsubstantiated assertion.
"Was there a physical wiretap of Trump
Tower? No, there never was," Rep. Devin
Nunes, R-Calif., said. "The information we
received Friday continues to lead us in that
direction."
Nunes added:
"There was no FISA warrant I am aware of
to tap Trump Tower."
FISA stands for the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act,
which requires investigators to seek a warrant from a
secret court to wiretap a foreign suspect.
Nunes spoke as the committee prepares to begin hearings
Monday into Russia's role in cybersecurity breaches at the
Democratic National Committee, as well as President
Donald Trump's unsubstantiated claim that his predecessor
had authorized a wiretap of Trump Tower. FBI Director
James Comey and Mike Rogers, the director of the
National Security Agency, are slated to testify.
490
Trump told Fox News' "Tucker Carlson Tonight" earlier
this week that he would provide evidence of his
wiretapping claim to the committee "very soon."
Nunes said the committee will also examine whether the
Russians were trying to sow doubt in the U.S. electoral
system or whether they were trying to help Trump get
elected to the White House.
"We need to get to the bottom of that,"
Nunes said.
Meanwhile, ranking member Adam Schiff, D-Calif., told
NBC's "Meet The Press" that documents given to the
committee by the FBI and the Justice Department late last
week offered circumstantial evidence that American
citizens colluded with Russians in Moscow's efforts to
interfere in the presidential election.
"There was circumstantial evidence of
collusion; there is direct evidence, I think,
of deception," Rep. Adam Schiff, D-Calif.,
said. "There's certainly enough for us to
conduct an investigation."
Intelligence officials have said that Russia was behind the
theft of Democratic National Committee emails last
summer. The U.S. government later concluded that the
Russian government directed the DNC hack in an attempt
to influence the outcome of November's presidential
election.
"For the first time the American people, and
all the political parties now, are paying
attention to the threat that Russia poses,"
Nunes said. "We know that the Russians
were trying to get involved in our campaign,
like they have for many decades. They're
also trying to get involved in campaigns
around the globe and over in Europe."
 Secret Service Shoots Down Man's Story About Slipping
Security At Trump's Mar-A-Lago
New York Post
Published March 19, 2017
A guest at President Trump’s Mar-a-Lago mansion claims
he gave Secret Service agents the slip to snap a selfie in
Trump’s private study — but the president’s security detail
insists there was no breach.
“Snuck by secret service to catch this
selfie. They might have told us not to go in
.
491
there,” Joseph Young posted on Instagram
on Saturday night, along with a photo of
himself alone in the poshly appointed room
with a painting of a youthful Trump behind
him.
But officials say Young didn’t sneak past anyone.
“Those reports are all false,” Secret Service
spokeswoman Catherine Milhoan told The
Post on Sunday. “No one got past the
Secret Service.”
A Secret Service source added to the Web site TMZ that
guests were allowed in the study.
Another guest even posted a photo of himself and his mom
in front of the Trump portrait, too.
 The Secret Service Has Detained A Man Who Drove Up To
A White House Checkpoint Claiming To Have A Bomb
Andrew Roberts - Managing Editor, Trending
03.19.2017

House. The later incident saw a “suspicious car” drive up

to a checkpoint near The White House with the driver
claiming to have a bomb according to CNN. This
prompted the Secret Service to detain the individual before
blocking off the area and searching the vehicle:

The incident occurred at 11:05 p.m. at a security

checkpoint, the Secret Service said. Four hours later, the
checkpoint in question remained blocked, but streets re-
opened, and bomb technicians and other additional
security personnel left the area.

The Secret Service described it as an

The White House faced its third security breach this month “ongoing criminal investigation.”
on Saturday, just hours after another incident involving an
individual jumping over a bike rack in front of The White
492
The Washington Post points out that crossing the
checkpoint does not instantly offer access to The White
House. The White House is still a “quarter mile away”
while the South Lawn closest part of the South Lawn sits
“about 100 yards away.” The Secret Service was treating
the incident as an ongoing investigation and would not
provide further details.
.
Unlike last Saturday’s incident involving Jonathan Tran
and his evasion of security for up to 15 minutes, President
Trump was not at The White House at the time of the
incident. The president is currently at the “Southern White
House” Mar-a-Lago Estate in Florida for the weekend.

493
 Report: Documents Prove Alternative News Personality
Alex Jones Targeted By NSA Dragnet Surveillance
How Many Others Within The Alternative Media Have Been Targeted?
By Alex Thomas -
03.19.2017 @9:42 PM EDT
(INTELLIHUB) — Credible information obtained from
law enforcement sources regarding NSA spying on
individual Americans has revealed that popular alternative
news personality Alex Jones was under dragnet
surveillance for at least a year and most likely much
longer, according to a report by Infowars reporter Jerome
Corsi.
According to Corsi, the sections of the dragnet
database were provided to him by Michael Zullo who was
formerly the commander and chief investigator of Sheriff
Joe Arpaio’s Cold Case Posse.
The electronic surveillance database, first obtained in
2013, was a part of the NSA’s illegal Project Dragnet
surveillance of U.S. citizens that was revealed in 2005 and
confirmed in the wake of the Edward Snowden leaks.
Obviously the information in the database that is the most
news worthy is the fact that Donald Trump and his
associates were widely targeted under the dragnet program
but it is also important to highlight the fact that we now
know that at least one popular personality within the
alternative media was directly targeted by the intelligence
community.
As Corsi noted, Alex Jones is listed within the database as
under surveillance for phone and financial records in the
year 2006. Both the address and phone number listed have
been confirmed as belonging to Jones.
494
During his Sunday radio show, Jones claimed that they
even had the address of a location where he sometimes
does “secret broadcasts” from. “My private cell phone
number, our little shadow office, its all in there, Jones
shockingly revealed before going on to note that the article
was released early over security concerns his team had ran
into over the last week.
Although the documents were provided by a whistle-
blower whose past motivations have been called into
question, it seems highly unlikely that both Zullo and
Corsi would release this information if they were not
positive it was authentic. Keep in mind that information
released by shady individuals is not necessary wrong or
fake which seems to be the case here.
“While Montgomery’s credibility has been
called into question, Zullo maintains that
the amount of information provided by
Montgomery related to Operation Dragnet
was extraordinarily voluminous and that
Montgomery had shared information with
investigators in 2013 that is only now being
revealed by media outlets,” Corsi wrote.
It is also important to note, especially considering the fact
that the establishment media is sure to both attack the
whistleblower’s credibility as well as pretend that the
dragnet surveillance doesn’t exist, that multiple news
outlets have already conclusively confirmed the existence
of the NSA spying program as well as its use in “parallel
construction” by state and federal law enforcement
agencies.
“A secretive U.S. Drug Enforcement
Administration unit is funneling information
from intelligence intercepts, wiretaps,
informants and a massive database of
telephone records to authorities across the
nation to help them launch criminal
investigations of Americans,” Reuters
revealed in 2013.
“Although these cases rarely involve
national security issues, documents
reviewed by Reuters show that law
 enforcement agents have been directed to
conceal how such investigations truly begin
– not only from defense lawyers but also
sometimes from prosecutors and judges.”

Now, thanks to patriotic law enforcement sources, we

know that this NSA spying was also used to target
legitimate news media outlets as well as the future
president of the Untied States.

495
 Trump Billboard With Nazi-Like Dollar Signs, Nuclear
Mushroom Clouds Erected In US (VIDEO)
Published Time: 19 Mar, 2017 06:32Edited Time: 19 Mar, 2017 08:00
A provocative billboard depicting US President Donald
Trump surrounded by mushroom clouds from nuclear
explosions and dollar signs resembling Nazi swastikas has
been erected in Phoenix, Arizona. The US leader also
wears a Russian flag lapel pin.
The billboard, placed on Grand Avenue near Fillmore
Street, is owned by Beatrice Moore, who commissioned
the menacing image to artist Karen Fiorito.
“I think a lot of people are feeling this way
and I’m just trying to express what I think is
on a lot of people’s minds these days,” she
told KPNX television, a local NBC affiliate.
496
“Something that really concerned us was
this idea of a dictatorship where things
were going in a certain direction.”
The billboard went up Friday to coincide with the start of
the annual three-day Art Detour event nearby, although
organizers said they had nothing to do with the installation.
The owner said it would remain up as long as Trump is
president.
Some critics of Trump are concerned that he has dictatorial
intentions and may become a tyrant, if left unchecked. A
‘Resistance’ movement against his presidency is currently
underway.
 NYT’s ‘Tinfoil Hat’
Conspiracy Theory
By Robert Parry
March 19, 2017
Exclusive: There is a “tinfoil-hat” quality to The New York
Times’ pushing its “Donald Trump Is Russia’s
Manchurian Candidate” conspiracy theory as the
newspaper sinks deeper into a New McCarthyism, reports
Robert Parry.
The New York Times’ connect-the-dots graphic showing the Kremlin
sitting atop the White House.
There are real reasons to worry about President Donald
Trump’s foreign policy, including his casual belligerence
toward Iran and North Korea and his failure to rethink U.S.
alliances with Saudi Arabia and Israel, but The New York
Times obsesses on Trump’s willingness to work with
Russia.
On Saturday, the Times devoted most of its op-ed page to
the Times’ favorite conspiracy theory, that Trump is
Vladimir Putin’s “Manchurian candidate” though evidence
continues to be lacking.
The op-ed package combined a “What to Ask About
Russian Hacking” article by Louise Mensch, a former
Conservative member of the British Parliament who now
works for Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, and a
connect-the-dots graphic that when filled out shows the
Kremlin sitting atop the White House. But the featured
article actually revealed how flimsy and wacky the Times’
conspiracy theory is.
Usually, an investigation doesn’t begin until there is
specific evidence of a crime. For instance, the investigative
497
articles that I have written over the years have always had
information from insiders about how the misconduct had
occurred before a single word was published.
In the early 1990s, for the investigation that I conducted
for PBS “Frontline” into the so-called “October Surprise”
case – whether Ronald Reagan’s campaign colluded with
Iranians and others to sabotage President Jimmy Carter’s
negotiations to free 52 American hostages in 1980 – we
had some two dozen people providing information about
those contacts from multiple perspectives – including from
the U.S., Iran, Israel and Europe – before we aired the
allegations.
We didn’t base our documentary on the suspicious
circumstance that the Iranians held back the hostages until
after Ronald Reagan was inaugurated President on Jan. 20,
1981, or on the point that Iran and the Republicans had
motives to sandbag Carter. We didn’t casually throw out
the names of a bunch of people who might have committed
treason.
When we broadcast the documentary in April 1991, there
was a strong evidentiary case of the Reagan’s campaign
guilt – and even then we were highly circumspect in how
we presented the story.
Ultimately, the 1980 “October Surprise” case came down
to whether you believed the Republican denials or the two
dozen or so witnesses who described how this operation
was carried out with the help of the Israeli government,
French intelligence, and former and current CIA officers –
along with former CIA Director George H.W. Bush and
future CIA Director William Casey.
In the end, Official Washington was never willing to
accept that the beloved Ronald Reagan could have done
something as dastardly as conspire with Iranians to delay
the release of 52 American hostages. It didn’t matter what
the evidence was or that Reagan quickly approved arms
shipments to Iran via Israel in 1981, a prequel to the later
Iran-Contra arms-for-hostages scandal of 1985-86.
No Direct Evidence
By contrast, what the current “Russia Owns Trump”
allegations are completely lacking is an insider who
describes any nefarious collusion between the Trump
campaign and Russia to arrange the Kremlin’s help in
defeating Hillary Clinton and electing Donald Trump.
Then-Vice President George H.W. Bush with CIA Director William
Casey at the White House on Feb. 11, 1981. (Photo credit: Reagan
Library)
What we do have is President Barack Obama’s outgoing
intelligence chiefs putting out evidence-free “assessments”
that Russia was responsible for the “hacking” and the
publicizing of two batches of Democratic emails, one from
the Democratic National Committee and one from
Clinton’s campaign chairman John Podesta.
The DNC emails revealed that top Democratic Party
officials had violated their duty to remain neutral during
the primaries and instead tilted the playing field in favor of
Hillary Clinton and against Sen. Bernie Sanders. The
Podesta emails exposed the contents of Clinton’s paid
speeches to Wall Street, which she was trying to hide from
voters, as well as some pay-to-play features of the Clinton
Foundation.
When published by WikiLeaks last year, the emails
embarrassed the Clinton campaign but were not regarded
as a major factor in her defeat, which she blamed primarily
on FBI Director James Comey’s decision to briefly reopen
the investigation into whether she endangered national
security by using a private email server while Secretary of
State.
However, after the shock of Donald Trump’s election,
Clinton supporters looked for reasons to block Trump’s
inauguration or to set the stage for his impeachment. That
was when Obama’s intelligence chiefs began circulating
claims that Russia was behind the leaking of the
Democratic emails as part of a scheme to put their favored
candidate, Trump, in the White House.
The New York Times and other mainstream news outlets,
which were strongly hostile to Trump, seized on the
allegations, making them front-page news for the past
several months despite the paucity of actual evidence that
any collusion occurred or that the Russians were even the
ones who obtained and distributed the emails.
498
WikiLeaks denied getting the material from the Russians,
suggesting instead that two different American insiders
were the sources.
A Witch Hunt?
How thin the Russia-Trump case is becomes evident in
reading the Times’ op-ed by Louise Mensch. After
introducing herself as someone who has “followed the
Russian hacking story closely,” she lists 25 people by
name, including various Trump advisers as well as Internet
moguls Mark Zuckerberg and Peter Thiel, who should be
hauled before the House Intelligence Committee for
interrogation along with unnamed executives of several
corporations and banks.
Lawyer Roy Cohn (right) with Sen. Joseph McCarthy.
“There are many more who need to be
called but these would be a first step,”
Mensch wrote. In reviewing Mensch’s long
article, it’s unclear if she’s proposing only a
“fishing expedition” or would prefer a full-
fledged “witch hunt.”
At one point earlier in this process, I wrote an article
warning that the “investigation” could become something
of a “did-you-talk-to-a-Russian” inquisition. Some readers
probably felt I was going too far, but that now appears to
be exactly what is happening.
Many of Mensch’s suggestions pertain to people
associated with the Trump campaign who game speeches
in Moscow or otherwise communicated with Russians. It
appears any contact with a Russian, any discussion of
disagreements between the U.S. and Russia, or any
political comment that in any way echoes what some
Russian may have said becomes “evidence” of collusion
and treason.
The extremism of Mensch’s tendentious article is further
illustrated by her suggestion that Trump should be
impeached if there is any truth to his widely discredited
tweet that Obama had ordered wiretaps on Trump Tower.
She wrote:
 “If … the president tweeted real news, he
revealed the existence of intercepts that
cover members of his team in a continuing
investigation. That would be obstruction of
justice, potentially an impeachable
offense.”
Most of us who have reported on Trump’s bizarre “tapp”
tweet have criticized him for making a serious charge
without evidence (as well as his poor spelling), but
Mensch seems to believe that the more serious offense
would be if Trump somehow were telling the truth. She
wants any truth-telling on this issue to be grounds for
Trump’s impeachment, even though he may have been
referring, in part, to her November article reporting on the
FISA warrant that supposedly granted permission for
members of Trump’s team to be put under electronic
surveillance.
A Tinfoil Hat
To dramatize her arguments further, Mensch then
demonstrates a thorough lack of knowledge about recent
American history. She claims,
“Never in American history has a president
been suspected of collaborating with a
hostile foreign power to win an election.”
President Barack Obama meets with President-elect Donald Trump
in the Oval Office, Nov. 10, 2016. (Official White House Photo by
Pete Souza)
Whatever you want to think about the 1980 October
Surprise case – and there is substantial evidence that it was
real – it definitely constituted an example in American
history when a president was
499
“suspected of collaborating with a hostile
foreign power to win an election.”
Another case in 1968, which now even The New York
Times grudgingly accepts, involved Richard Nixon
colluding with the South Vietnamese government to
torpedo President Lyndon Johnson’s Paris peace talks to
assure Nixon’s election. Although South Vietnam was then
an ally, the allegations about Nixon also included outreach
to North Vietnam, although Hanoi ended up sending a
delegation to Paris while Saigon did not.
Yet, what is perhaps most shocking about Mensch’s op-ed
and its prominent placement by the Times is that the story
has all the elements of a “tinfoil-hat” conspiracy. It’s the
sort of wild-eyed smearing of American citizens that the
Times would normally deride as an offensive fantasy that
would be mentioned only to mock the conspiracists.
But the Times is now so deep into its campaign to
demonize Russia and to destroy Trump that all normal
journalistic standards have long ago been tossed out the
window.
While there are many valid reasons to protest Trump and
his policies, this descent into a New McCarthyism is both
grotesque (because it impugns the patriotism of Americans
without evidence, only breathless questions) and
dangerous (because it escalates the New Cold War with
Russia, a confrontation that could stumble into a nuclear
holocaust).
At such moments, supposedly serious newspapers like The
New York Times should show extraordinary caution and
care, not a reckless disregard for truth and fairness. But no
one in Official Washington seems willing to play the role
of attorney Joseph Welch when he finally stood up to Sen.
Joe McCarthy with the famous question,
“At long last, have you left no sense of
decency?”
By Robert Parry, the investigative reporter who many of
the Iran-Contra stories for The Associated Press and
Newsweek in the 1980s. Originally published at Parry’s
Consortium News
 Trump Not Backing Off Claims That He Was Wiretapped,
No Matter How Many In Washington Say He Should
By: JD Heyes
Date: March 19, 2017
To say that official Washington – that includes the
establishment media, elected leaders, pundits, talking
heads and think tanks – still don’t understand who Donald
J. Trump is or what makes him tick, is an understatement.
The current brouhaha over the president’s claims that
former President Obama “wire tapped” him make this
plain.
Rep. Tom Cole, R-Okla., The Hill reported, became the
first Republican to officially call for Trump to take back
his allegations, which the president made in a series of
tweets earlier this month, though other members of the
GOP have openly questioned whether it was appropriate
for Trump to make his allegations, which have yet to be
officially acknowledged as true.
“I see no indication that’s true. It’s not a
charge that I would ever have ever made,
and frankly unless he can produce some
pretty compelling proof, then I think
President Obama is owed an apology in
that regard,” Cole said in response to a
question from CNN, which – like the rest of
the Washington lapdog media, has
continued to pursue this ‘story’ like there’s
nothing else going on in the nation’s
capital.
“If he didn’t do it, we shouldn’t be reckless
in accusations that he did,” Cole added.
(RELATED: Did Team Trump Fall Victim
To “Backdoor” Surveillance By U.S.
Intelligence Agencies?)
500
Naturally, since this was a Republican lawmaker, CNN ran
with it and milked it for every drop. But here’s what we do
know about this fracas:
Trump this week doubled down on his
accusation,
telling Fox News’ Tucker Carlson on Wednesday that
though he can’t say anything just yet, more information
surrounding the charge is forthcoming within a couple
weeks.
As Fox News reported:
Trump told host Tucker Carlson that the
administration “will be submitting things” to
the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence “very soon.” The president
added that he “will be, perhaps speaking
about this next week” and predicted that
“you’re going to find some very interesting
items coming to the forefront over the next
2 weeks.”
That sounds an awful lot like a man who’s pretty confident
in what he tweeted out earlier. But you can tell by the tone
of the media reporting on this, as well as Cole’s comments
and other observations emanating out of “official”
Washington they don’t yet understand who they’re dealing
with.
Trump is no politician, though he says he’s become one
after being elected president (fair enough). But he’s
certainly no typical politician, which means he cannot be
put into the same box, into the same mold as practically
everyone else in the nation’s capital, including those
elected, appointed and employed by various entities.
So why do people in D.C. insist on trying to oppose him or
describe him or define him as though he is a “typical”
politician? It didn’t work for the bulk of the 16 other
Republican candidates who vied for the party’s
nomination. It didn’t work for Democratic presidential
nominee and two-time White House loser Hillary Clinton.
And it didn’t work for the lamestream media.
All of these people continue to believe their own
characterizations about Trump – that he’s a racist, bigoted,
loud-mouthed, lying buffoon who lacks the intellect and
intelligence to be president. Despite building hugely
successful brands as Trump the billionaire businessman
(despite bankruptcies and other setbacks), they still can’t
bring themselves to realize he’s just not who they say he
is. Far from it.
Take the health care reform legislation. For the past week
the media has highlighted, emphasized and magnified
every single GOP and Democratic objection to the
American Health Care Act. From the outside, it would
appear that there’s no way this piece of legislation gets
done.
Then there’s Trump on Friday, emerging from a White
House meeting with House Republicans, all of whom had
previously said they won’t back the legislation,
announcing to the press that after talking with these
.
501
members, all had changed their minds and would be
supporting the legislation after all. Trump even called out
the media again for failing to accurately report what was in
the legislation in the first place.
So he won again, essentially.
Anyone who still doubts that Trump’s allegations he was
“wire tapped” or otherwise under some sort of
intelligence-related electronic surveillance needs to realize
the man just doubled down on his initial allegations, not
backed off from them as some reports have suggested.
(RELATED: Flat out: Someone in government or the
media is lying about ‘wiretapping’ Trump Tower story.)
That sounds like the confidence of a man who, like when
he negotiates deals and health care reform, knows what the
outcome is already. Keep up with all our president is up to
at Conservative.news.
 Trump Administration Rolls
Back Obama Protections On Student Loans
By Tyler Durden
Mar 19, 2017 3:15 PM

Just days after reports emerged that student loan defaults Of course, it didn't take long for Elizabeth Warren to
are soaring, which is undoubtedly due to some draft a letter to the Education Department urging them
combination of, among other things, poor job prospects for to not take away 'freebies' from America's entitled
the millions of snowflakes who graduate each year with snowflakes.
their $200,000 educations in anthropology and the moral
hazard created by liberal politicians constantly calling for
student debts to be 'forgiven' (a.k.a. forcefully jammed
down the throats of taxpayers), the Trump administration
has revoked rules put in place by Obama that barred
student debt collectors from charging penalty fees on past-
due loans.

Originating from the Department of Justice, the "Dear

Colleague" letter (full letter included at end of post) says
that Obama's unilateral rules implemented in 2015
could have "benefited from public input"...but what
good is being King if you can't unilaterally force new laws
on the masses? Per the Washington Post:
The Education Department is ordering guarantee
agencies that collect on defaulted debt to disregard a
memo former President Barack Obama’s
administration issued on the old bank-based federal
lending program, known as the Federal Family Education
Loan (FFEL) Program. That memo forbid the agencies
from charging fees for up to 16 percent of the principal and
accrued interest owed on the loans, if the borrower entered
the government’s loan rehabilitation program within 60
days of default.
The Obama administration issued the memo after a circuit
court of appeals asked for guidance in a case against
United Student Aid Funds (USA Funds) challenging the
assessment of collection costs. Bryana Bible took the
company to court after being charged $4,547 in collection
costs on a loan she defaulted on in 2012. Though she had
signed a “rehabilitation agreement” with USA Funds to set
a reduced payment schedule to resolve her debt, the
company assessed the fees.
Education officials sided with Bible, prompting USA
Funds to sue the department in 2015. Earlier this year, the
company agreed to pay $23 million to settle a class-action
lawsuit born out of the Bible case, though it did not admit
any wrongdoing.
502
On Monday, Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) and Rep.
Suzanne Bonamici (D-Ore.) sent a letter urging the
Education Department to uphold the Obama
administration’s guidance on the collection fees, which
they said “results in an unnecessary financial burden on
vulnerable borrowers.”
“Congress gave borrowers in default on their federal
student loans the one-time opportunity to rehabilitate
their loans out of default and re-enter repayment,” the
letter said. “It is inconsistent with the goal of rehabilitation
to return borrowers to repayment with such large fees
added.”
Of course, these new rules came just days after new data
published by the U.S. Department of Education revealed
that $137 billion of federal student loans were in
default as of December 2016, a 14% year-over-year
increase. Key findings from the Consumer Federation of
America:
Average amount owed is $30,650 per federal student
loan borrower. Average amount owed per borrower
continues to tick up, rising 17% since the end of 2013,
when borrowers owed on average of $26,300.
$137 billion in default. For federal loans originated by
financial institutions (FFEL) and the US Department of
Education (Direct), a total of $137.4 billion in balances
were in default, a 14% increase from 2015. This
cumulative level of defaulted balances includes loans
which defaulted in previous years. Defaulting on a federal
student loan comes with severe consequences. Borrowers
can face seizure of their tax refund, garnishment of their
wages, and an inability to pass employment verification
checks.
.
503
1 million Direct Loan defaults in 2016. In 2016, 1.1
million Federal Direct Loan borrowers defaulted. Federal
law typically defines a federal student loan default as being
270 days past due. Borrowers defaulting for the first time
slightly decreased compared to 2015, though borrowers re-
defaulting slightly increased compared to 2015.
Seems the cost of financing those spring break trips to
Cancun just got a little costlier...sorry, snowflakes.
504
 Law Enforcement Leaks Database
To Journalist Containing Trump Wiretap Info
Proof The Obama Administration Surveilled Trump And Associates,
Along With A Popular Radio Talk Show Host
By Shepard Ambellas -
03.19.2017 @7:21 PM EDT

But maybe the bigger news is the fact that

the database was originally all part of the
illegally sanctioned “Project Dragnet.”

In the exclusive report titled “NSA Document Prove

Surveillance of Donald Trump and Alex Jones” Corsi
wrote:

Sheriff Arpaio and Chief Investigator Zullo

have identified dozens of entries at various
addresses, including both Trump Tower in
New York City and Mar-a-Lago in Palm
(INTELLIHUB) — According to investigative journalist
Beach, Florida, under which Donald Trump
Jerome Corsi reporting for Infowars, law enforcement
was apparently under NSA electronic
sources out of Arizona have provided a database
surveillance from 2004, during President
containing the “individual records of U.S. citizens under
George W. Bush’s term of office, through
National Security Agency (NSA) electronic surveillance in
2009, the first year of President Obama’s
the years 2004 through 2010,” thus proving once and for
presidency.
all that Donald J. Trump was, in fact, under surveillance
during Barack Obama’s tenure as President.
The “T-Rex” of radio also said that a list of individuals
who were surveilled may be released publically sometime
But if that’s not enough to burst your bubble, what you are
in the future so that people can see if they were or still are
about to read next will, because the absolute bombshell
a target of the Obama Administrations illegal
report doesn’t stop there. As it turns out Infowars founder
wrongdoings.
and popular radio talk show host Alex Jones was also
under surveillance in Texas.

Jones said on the Sunday show that they had even listed an
address in which he “secretly” does broadcasts from.

DonkeyHotey/Flickr

This is something they could “SWAT team” us for, Jones

said.
Radio talk show host and founder of Infowars Alex Jones on a
Sunday, March 19, 2017, edition of the Alex Jones Show with The article went on to point out that virtually everyone
investigative journalist Jerome Corsi. (Screen capture via YouTube) Trump had contact with, including his employees, were
under surveillance.

505
 Hedge Fund CIO: "The Odds Of Trump
Succeeding Are Zero In The Absence Of A New War"
By Tyler Durden
Mar 19, 2017 6:43 PM
We present the latest weekly anecdote, From Eric Peters,
CIO Of One River Asset Management
“You know what I dislike about my own
argument?” asked the CIO. “I sound
defensive, like I can’t accept I’m wrong.”
We all know that guy, and rarely want to be him.
“No one ever truly believed in my thesis,”
he said, describing it: A growing dominance
by the global economic elite shapes policy
to deliberately asphyxiate dynamism.
Because dynamism and its fraternal twin –
volatility - are the only real threats to an
entrenched elite.
Rising income inequality is an obvious manifestation of
this process. As the cost of raising children soars, declining
birth rates are too.
It’s why our students are drowning in debt and now rent
for life. If they fall ill, it’s why laws prohibit them from
declaring bankruptcy on college loans. It’s why big firms
are bailed out, and why incumbents are securely
gerrymandered, rarely unseated.
.
506
Peel back the patina and you’ll discover that today’s
monetary policy, tax policy, foreign policy, trade policy,
and regulations of every stripe are levers the elite pull to
entrench their interests. Secular stagnation is what we
came to call the symptom without identifying this cause.
Then came a synchronized global cyclical recovery, which
we may now confuse as a Trump inspired break from this
stranglehold.
“If I thought our new president could
increase budget deficits by another 2%
per year, my thesis would crumble. I’d
be wrong. But the odds of this are zero
in the absence of starting a new war.”
He paused, considering the rebound in interest rates, the
record equity highs.
“Am I just looking for reasons to support my
position?” he asked aloud, interested only
in his own answer. “I’ve been wrong on
trades, but never on a big structural theme.
That’s because I only bet really big when
I’m absolutely convinced. And I’m pretty
sure I’m still right.”
 Mike Krieger Asks "Is Trump About
To Massively Expand America's Imperial Wars?"
Authored By Mike Krieger Via Liberty Blitzkrieg Blog
Mar 19, 2017 11:35 PM
Equal and exact justice to all men, of
whatever state or persuasion, religious
or political; peace, commerce, and
honest friendship with all nations,
entangling alliances with none. –
Thomas Jefferson’s Inaugural Address,
March 4, 1801
Many people voted for Donald Trump based on his pledge
of “America First.” The idea behind this partly relates
to the very legitimate concern that the U.S. Empire and its
military-industrial-contractor benefactors have
been squandering an enormous amount of treasure and tax
money on foreign adventurism, funds which could be of
much greater use at home helping struggling Americans,
fixing our broken economy and infrastructure. I’m starting
to become increasingly concerned that rather than winding
down America’s foreign adventures, Trump and his team
are preparing to expand them.
The always excellent Robert Parry at Consortium News got
me thinking about this with his recent post. Here are a few
excerpts:
The Kagan family, America’s neoconservative aristocracy,
has reemerged having recovered from the letdown over
not gaining its expected influence from the election of
Hillary Clinton and from its loss of official power at the
start of the Trump presidency.
Back pontificating on prominent op-ed pages, the
Family Kagan now is pushing for an expanded U.S.
military invasion of Syria and baiting Republicans for
not joining more enthusiastically in the anti-Russian witch
507
hunt over Moscow’s alleged help in electing Donald
Trump.
In a Washington Post op-ed on March 7, Robert Kagan, a
co-founder of the Project for the New American Century
and a key architect of the Iraq War, jabbed at Republicans
for serving as “Russia’s accomplices after the fact” by not
investigating more aggressively.
Then, Frederick Kagan, director of the Critical Threats
Project at the neocon American Enterprise Institute, and
his wife, Kimberly Kagan, president of her own think
tank, Institute for the Study of War, touted the idea of
a bigger U.S. invasion of Syria in a Wall Street Journal
op-ed on March 15.
Yet, as much standing as the Kagans retain in Official
Washington’s world of think tanks and op-ed placements,
they remain mostly outside the new Trump-era power
centers looking in, although they seem to have detected a
door being forced open.
On Wednesday in The Wall Street Journal, Robert
Kagan’s brother Frederick and his wife Kimberly dropped
the other shoe, laying out the neocons’ long-held dream
of a full-scale U.S. invasion of Syria, a project that was
put on hold in 2004 because of U.S. military reversals in
Iraq.
But the neocons have long lusted for “regime change” in
Syria and were not satisfied with Obama’s arming of anti-
government rebels and the limited infiltration of U.S.
Special Forces into northern Syria to assist in the retaking
of the Islamic State’s “capital” of Raqqa.
In the Journal op-ed, Frederick and Kimberly Kagan call
for opening a new military front in southeastern Syria:
“American military forces will be necessary. But the U.S.
can recruit new Sunni Arab partners by fighting alongside
them in their land. The goal in the beginning must be
against ISIS because it controls the last areas in Syria
where the U.S. can reasonably hope to find Sunni allies
not yet under the influence of al Qaeda. But the aim after
evicting ISIS must be to raise a Sunni Arab army that can
 ultimately defeat al Qaeda and help negotiate a
settlement of the war.
“The U.S. will have to pressure the Assad regime, Iran
and Russia to end the conflict on terms that the Sunni
Arabs will accept. That will be easier to do with the
independence and leverage of a secure base inside Syria.
… President Trump should break through the flawed logic
and poor planning that he inherited from his predecessor.
He can transform this struggle, but only by transforming
America’s approach to it.”
By the last years of the Obama administration, the stage
was set for the neocons and the Family Kagan to lead the
next stage of the strategy of cornering Russia and
instituting a “regime change” in Syria.
All that was needed was for Hillary Clinton to be elected
president. But these best-laid plans surprisingly went
astray. Despite his overall unfitness for the presidency,
Trump defeated Clinton, a bitter disappointment for the
neocons and their liberal interventionist sidekicks.
Yet, the so-called “#Resistance” to Trump’s presidency
and President Obama’s unprecedented use of his
intelligence agencies to paint Trump as a Russian
“Manchurian candidate” gave new hope to the neocons
and their agenda.
It has taken them a few months to reorganize and regroup
but they now see hope in pressuring Trump so hard
regarding Russia that he will have little choice but to buy
into their belligerent schemes.
As often is the case, the Family Kagan has charted
the course of action – batter Republicans into joining
the all-out Russia-bashing and then persuade a
softened Trump to launch a full-scale invasion of
Syria. In this endeavor, the Kagans have Democrats and
liberals as the foot soldiers.
Robert perfectly sets the stage for exactly how the neocons
are attempting to push Trump into expanding these foolish
imperial wars, specifically the war in Syria, which is
actually just a proxy war against Russia. His warning takes
on increased importance when viewed in the context of
recent headlines about the Trump administration preparing
to ramp up troop numbers in Syria.
First, let’s take a look at an article published March 9th in
The New York Times titled, U.S. Is Sending 400 More
Troops to Syria:
WASHINGTON — The United States is
sending an additional 400 troops
to Syria to help prepare for the looming
fight for Raqqa, the capital of the Islamic
508
State’s self-proclaimed caliphate,
American officials said on Thursday.
The increase, which includes a team of
Army Rangers and a Marine artillery unit
that have already arrived in Syria,
represents a near-doubling of the
number of American troops there.
The United States military has declined to
say how many troops it has deployed in
Syria. The formal troop cap is 503, but
commanders have the authority to
temporarily exceed that limit.
"The exact numbers and locations of these
forces are sensitive in order to protect our
forces, but there will be approximately an
additional 400 enabling forces deployed for
a temporary period to enable our Syrian
partnered forces to defeat ISIS in Raqqa,”
Colonel Dorrian added.
Now, Marine artillery is being added, along
with logistical support and training and
protection in dealing with improvised
explosive devises.
Gen. Joseph L. Votel, the head of the
United States Central Command, told
reporters on Thursday that he was open
to asking for more conventional military
units if they are needed.
Turning to other regions, General Votel
said he agreed the Afghan conflict was
stalemated and supported the appeal
from the American commander in
Afghanistan for additional troops.
Now here’s where it gets a little weird. Less
than a week after that article was
published, the number of possible
additional troops suddenly has surged to
1,000.
The U.S. military has drawn up early
plans that would deploy up to 1,000
more troops into northern Syria in the
coming weeks, expanding the
American presence in the country ahead
of the offensive on the Islamic State’s de
facto capital of Raqqa, according to U.S.
defense officials familiar with the matter.
The deployment, if approved by Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis and President Trump,
would potentially double the number of
U.S. forces in Syria and increase the
potential for direct U.S. combat
involvement in a conflict that has been
characterized by confusion and competing
priorities among disparate forces.
Makes you wonder what the troop levels will be in a week,
a month or a year from now. What the heck is going on
here and where is the U.S. Congress in all of this? When
did we declare war on Syria?
The whole thing stinks of neocon foreign policy
infiltration into the Trump administration, and it makes me
.
wonder whether America’s imperial wars will be expanded
aggressively under Trump, contrary to what many had
voted for.
Let’s hope not, but as we learned under Obama, hope is
not a strategy.

509
 Two Months Into Trump's Term,
Media Still 'Doesn't Get' Message Voters Sent It
© AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais - US
20:27 19.03.2017(Updated 01:17 20.03.2017)
Nearly two months have passed since
Donald Trump's inauguration, but most
of the US mainstream media still refuses
to accept the election results. The core
of the problem, says US politics
commentator Dmitri Kosyrev, is that
mainstream journalists have refused to
accept alternative viewpoints. The
country's media landscape is changing
accordingly.
On Monday, President Trump will mark the end of his
second month in office, nearly four months after his
election victory, unexpected by the vast majority of US
media and pundits. Since his win, many of these same
outlets and pundits seem to have made it their goal
to discredit, defame and perhaps even depose him,
publishing and airing story after story filled
with unconfirmed, opinion-laden, combative material
meant to degrade the president's credibility.
In his op-ed analysis about this ongoing Trump vs. media
war, RIA Novosti contributor and US politics observer
Dmitri Kosyrev suggested that Trump's election was seen
by the mainstream media as
"the largest disaster in the world history."
What's the essence of this catastrophe?, the journalist
asked.
"A disaster is when all the mainstream TV
channels, newspapers and other media
turned themselves into instruments for the
510
bulk processing of the brains of US voters,
telling them that Donald Trump was an
ignominious fringe candidate who would
never get elected. And then they got what
they got."
Since then, the commentator noted, the mainstream media
has been licking its wounds, reflecting on the experience,
ordering up analytical reports,
"and squabbling among themselves
over the question of what kind of journalism
is the right kind, what the truth is, what a lie
is, etc." And this debate is very informative,
Kosyrev explained.
Last week, a small conservative publication by the name
The Daily Signal stirred up controversy after being invited
into the press corps covering the White House and Vice
President Mike Pence. The Washington Post, the powerful
but dilapidated flagship of the US press, was outraged
by the move, intimating that The Daily Signal was not
"a legitimate news outlet," due to its preset
ideological views, and arguing that
unlike such smaller outlets, the mainstream
media were "at least committed to factuality
and truth."
© AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais. President Donald Trump,
Vice President Mike Pence, right, and White House Chief of Staff
Reince Priebus, left, walk together on the South Lawn of the White
House in Washington to greet Harley Davidson Harley Davidson
executives and union representatives
The polemic continued, Kosyrev noted, with The Daily
Signal asking why it should not be considered "legitimate"
while openly liberal, ideological and agenda-driven outlets
like The Huffington Post are.
The Washington Post's response was revealing, Kosyrev
stressed, in that instead of arguing directly with the other
outlet, it
"factually apologized to its audience for its
'failure' on November 8, and explained
what caused it."
Washington Post columnist Marget Sullivan, the journalist
explained, placed the blame squarely on
"the numerous conservative outlets, which
have gained influence over recent years.
These outlets created an 'isolated media
system' distinguished from the mainstream
with its 'fundamentally false' view of the
world. As a result, she suggested,
conservative Americans completely lost
faith in the 'good' media. In addition, this
'isolated system' also influenced even the
'correct' media, which picked up on the
themes that were raised. And this resulted
in the 'disaster' [of Trump's election]."
And this tendency to 'apologize' for Trump is taking place
across the mainstream media, Kosyrev emphasized, often
to a perverse and absurd manner.
"For example, the recent CNN film
about Vladimir Putin ('The Most Powerful
Man in the World') is a clear case of this
kind of apology. 'Why did everything go
wrong for us during the election?' CNN
asked. 'It was this all powerful figure Putin,
who really hates Hillary Clinton and
decided to get even with her', the outlet
answered. 'We [the media] did everything
right – don't take offense with us.'"
Kosyrev recalled that he had accidentally stumbled
onto The Daily Signal about two years ago. Its articles, he
said, assisted him in understanding the election campaign,
and what was going on in the US in general.
"Had I not found it…on the morning
of November 9, I would feel just as foolish
and terrible as the Democrats, who
believed their 'correct' media, did."
"In other words, these once-respectable,
Democratic-leaning publications simply
betrayed me – tricked me as a reader. And
they continue to do so, building up their
dreary campaign against now President
Trump. At the same time, they are trying
511
to explain that they are the real and fair
media – that they are striving toward the
ideal, but being dragged backward."
The problem, Kosyrev stressed, is that the mainstream
media has lost the plot of what their role actually is.
"The ideal for journalism is this: not
to lie (i.e. not to invent non-existent
facts in the heat of ideological battles),
and to separate fact-based journalism
from opinion and commentary."
Unfortunately, the analyst noted, modern-day America has
demonstrated very well that in its purest form, this ideal
seems to have become unattainable. A couple facts
from the Washington Post-Daily Signal conflict
demonstrate this.
"Firstly: it is estimated that 96% of private
donations from US journalists to the 2016
campaign went to Hillary Clinton ($382,000
against $14,000)." Secondly, "journalists,
those who call themselves 'real' journalists
– they are taking their 'failure' with Trump
personally." And these facts lead to an
interesting question, Kosyrev wrote. "How
is it that the ranks of the US media came
to be filled with people with only one
ideology?"
The answer, he suggested, isn't actually so difficult
to figure out.
"First, it's because that's the way they are
taught at universities which the liberals
have clenched. Secondly, as Margaret
Sullivan lamented, those with conservative-
leaning views who had previously worked
in 'real' media gradually started to leave.
From here, they set up this alternative, this
'isolated media system' of people
with conservative views, factually
establishing it in its current form."
© AP Photo/ Pablo Martinez Monsivais - President Donald Trump
reads from a teleprompter during a speech aboard the nuclear
aircraft carrier Gerald R. Ford, at Newport News Shipbuilding in
Newport News, Va., Thursday, March 2, 2017.
Until November 8,
 "this system seemed to be on the fringe –
made up of some sites and blogs. After
that, everyone came to understand that its
power is equal to the so-called 'real'
media."
In the end, American society split into two, roughly
equally strong sections, each with an equally strong
media.
The key message from all this, according to Kosyrev, is
that it's naïve to think that some external or internal force
can even in principle turn all journalists into neutral
'human sponges of information' – who simply collect news
and publish it.
"Human beings are not neutral. They go
into journalism to explain something
to someone. They do this even when
simply reporting on a fact, and find ways
to deceive their overseers."
For that reason, Kosyrev suggested,
"there isn't and cannot be such a thing
as objective journalism; journalism is also
.
512
promoting something. There are a million
ways [to present opinion as fact]: the
simplest among them is to only report
those facts which fit into your
predetermined idea, and validate it. The
facts will be real, but the picture of the
world that emerges for your audience will
be false."
In practice, Kosyrev noted, journalists will always inhabit
their own corners in the political spectrum, wherever it is
that they feel more comfortable. Therefore, he emphasized
it's up to the viewer, the reader and the listener to be taught
the skills to effectively perceive information, and
to recognize opinion, when formulating his or her picture
of the world.
"People must, from childhood –i.e.
from school, learn to understand that there
are different sources of information, given
by different people, and that it is impossible
to believe anyone through and through."
Accordingly, the journalist hinted, people should get
into the habit of reading, listening to or watching news
from a variety of sources, both liberal and conservative, if
they want to get a more complete picture of what's really
going on.
 White House Meeting
With Trump Was Catastrophic For Merkel
By John Lee
Published Time: 19 Mar, 2017 13:07Edited Time: 19 Mar, 2017 13:46

Oval Office – that caught the world’s attention. The

footage will be replayed for many years as a reminder of
how badly Trump can behave.

The photographers called for the two to shake hands and

Merkel can be heard saying:

“Do you want to have a handshake?”

Trump ignored her, and enhanced footage later shows that

Germany's Chancellor Angela Merkel and U.S. President Donald he clearly heard her.
Trump, Washington, U.S., March 17, 2017. © Jonathan Ernst /
Reuters

There were discernible slights and insults for German

Chancellor Angela Merkel at her first meeting with US
President Donald Trump at the White House on Friday.
For Donald Trump, it was just another day, full of
outrageous behavior and controversy.

The grave consequences of rudeness at this rarefied

diplomatic level should not be underestimated. But it was
nuances of what was said and what wasn’t said at the
White House that will have the more far reaching results.

Angela Merkel was portrayed by the world media as a put
upon woman, a victim of the slights of a misogynist. But
she is a mature and substantial politician in her own right.
She will know that she came away from this summit with
nothing. She is the kind of consensus, liberal politician that
Trump holds in the greatest contempt. And she has the
most to fear.
Later on, during the official press conference, he made a
joke that left Merkel stunned and stony-faced.
Trump was asked by a German reporter about his shrill
accusations of wiretapping on his Trump Tower home by
the administration of his predecessor, Barack Obama. He
replied:

It was the more nuanced, less obvious slights that will
rankle Merkel. She will get over the brutish behavior of
Trump, for she is a woman who has put up with George
Bush, Silvio Berlusconi, and Nikolas Sarkozy in the past.
It is her failure to win any concessions that will wound her
more deeply.
“As far as wiretapping, I guess, by this
past administration, at least we have
something in common perhaps.”
He was referring to Der Speigel’s revelations in 2013 that
Obama had sanctioned a National Security Agency (NSA)
operation to bug Merkel’s phone.

But first, to the ghastly fun – Trump’s obnoxious behavior. She was not amused.

The German media, clutching at straws, said that the pair
had clasped hands twice. But it was the outrageous snub of
the German Chancellor’s offer to shake hands at the
particular time and location – the official photo call in the
513
Without realizing it, Trump revealed how little the
chancellor and he have in common. Even in a joke, if all
he can find “in common” is that Obama tapped them, it is a
stark sign.
Her humorless reaction illustrated the unbridgeable chasm
between the two. There was zero chemistry. Chemistry
between world leaders (or lack of it) is of pivotal
importance; personal conduct and personal relationship
should not be downplayed too much. In world affairs,
personal relationships play a vital role.
During World War II, General Charles de Gaulle’s
haughty and rude behavior towards almost every Allied
leader he came in contact with did France no favors in the
post-war world. Winston Churchill and particularly
Franklin Roosevelt could not abide him. France was not to
take the position it believed entitled to in post-war
transatlantic geopolitics.
Much later, US President Ronald Reagan and British
Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher got on famously. This
won the British important support from the US in the
Falklands War and on many defense issues. Thatcher could
be as obnoxious as Trump sometimes. Her rudeness to
European leaders has tainted Britain’s relationship with
Europe to this day.
Yes, personal conduct is important. But the visible slights
can be overblown in this media age. The substantive words
that are spoken during and after these meetings are most
important.
The German media slammed Trump for his behavior.
But they seemed to think the meeting went well otherwise.
I would profoundly disagree. I was in Washington DC that
day and the feeling around the White House and the
Capitol among US government sources was that there will
be big problems down the line.
Merkel had arrived in Washington three days later than
expected due to a huge snowstorm.
She had two main aims for her meeting
with Trump: to secure support for a more
powerful European Union, and to calm
Trump-inspired pressures on the NATO
alliance.
514
She failed catastrophically on both
fronts.
Put simply, there was absolutely no mention of the EU and
its expanding frontiers. There was no hint that he has
softened his stance as a Eurosceptic. There was nothing. It
was unclear whether it had been touched on behind closed
doors. But there was no allusion to it in their 30-minute
press conference.
This was noted in Washington.
As politicians go, Merkel is a relatively straight shooter,
but she can twist the facts when it suits her.
Look at this exchange in the joint White House press
conference:
“I reiterated to Chancellor Merkel our
strong support for NATO, as well as the
need for our NATO allies to pay their fair
share for the cost of defense,” Trump said
at the press conference.
Merkel said disingenuously that she was
“gratified to know” how “important” Trump
feels NATO is.
He didn’t quite say that.
The US is the Big Fish in NATO, and as long as it’s in
NATO, it’s obvious that it will support it. The pertinent
part of Trump’s statement is:
“the need for our NATO allies to pay their
fair share for the cost of defense.”
On this, Trump has been consistent. He believes the US is
being ripped off by its NATO colleagues. Any attempt to
imply they will increase their contributions to the required
two percent of GDP by 2024 falls on Donald’s deaf ears.
He wants the money now.
In January, just before becoming president, Trump gave a
simultaneous interview with The Times of London and
German newspaper Bild, where he said many NATO
member states were not paying their fair share for US
protection.
The rules say you must spend more than two percent of
GDP on defense to be a member of NATO.
The US spends a gargantuan $650 billion on defense
annually – that’s 3.61 percent.
Here’s the full list of contributions. France, Turkey,
Germany, Italy, and Canada – all economic powerhouses –
are paying less than the required two percent. But it is
Germany that rankles Donald. Not only is it one of the few
countries to challenge the US economically, it won’t pay
up.
We’re not quite sure whether Trump will follow through
on positive signals to Russia. But if he does follow through
to a full rapprochement, then NATO’s viability will be
further threatened. And this is very bad news for Germany.
Just so we were sure where he stood afterwards, he told us
through the medium that really matters for Donald –
Twitter.
He believes NATO is not doing its job on defending its
nations from terrorism, though the United State’s maverick
interventionism has hardly helped.
There was another stressing of the chasm between the two
on another critical area – immigration. Trump said during
the press conference:
“Immigration is a privilege, not a right, and
the safety of our citizens must always come
first.”
.
515
The two have been hugely critical of each other's stance in
the past, with Chancellor Merkel slamming Trump's travel
ban.
In January, he told The Times and Bild:
“I think she made one very catastrophic
mistake, and that was taking all of these
illegals.”
Merkel is no shrinking violet herself, and she can insult,
though subtly. She said at one point in the press conference
on Friday:
“It's much better to talk to one another and
not about one another.”
This was a dig at his Twitter rants and nasty things he has
said in interviews.
Merkel and Trump differ on so much, it is hard to see them
ever reconcile fully. But international diplomacy is all
about compromise. When Trump became president, she
blundered. Having criticized him for his attitudes to
women, she decided to mark his election by patronizing
him.
She wrote a letter that says Germany and America
“are bound by common values —
democracy, freedom, as well as respect for
the rule of law and the dignity of each and
every person, regardless of their origin,
skin color, creed, gender, sexual
orientation, or political views.”
Trump is no idiot, and he is surrounded by smart people.
These words were plainly a patronizing insult.
She went on:
“It is based on these values that I wish to
offer close cooperation, both with me
personally and between our countries’
governments.”
Trump let her know on Friday in no uncertain terms that he
will not allow her wish to be granted.
 Trump’s Budget Versus the Debt Ceiling
The Budget Is A Symbolic Fulfillment Of Campaign Promises, But The
Debt Ceiling Presents A Genuine Problem
By Valentin Schmid, Epoch Times
March 19, 2017 AT 7:43 PM
President Donald Trump looks over toward Budget Director Mick
Mulvaney (L) after signing an executive order in the Oval Office of
the White House in Washington on March 13, 2017. (AP Photo/Pablo
Martinez Monsivais)
When President Donald Trump announced his skinny
budget last week, Wall Street analysts and Washington
insiders pronounced it “dead on arrival.”
“The proposal should be seen as a starting
point for congressional negotiations,”
Goldman Sachs wrote in a note to clients.
Appropriations bills need a minimum of 60 votes, eight of
which will need to be Democratic, to pass the Senate.
Since Democratic Senators have adopted a strategy of
resisting Trump at every point, it would be even more
remarkable if they endorsed his massive cuts to the
Environmental Protection Agency (EPA), the Department
of Agriculture, and the Department of Labor.
Nevertheless, this budget is an important political
statement.
It is half the size of its predecessor—if not in dollar terms,
at least in page numbers—and its core message is to
deliver on campaign promises.
It boosts defense spending by $54 billion, reserves money
for the border wall, and injects resources into the fight
against terrorism, cybercrime, and enforcement of trade
sanctions and immigration laws.
516
On the other hand, it will take away $2.6 billion, or 31
percent, of the EPA’s budget and $10.9 billion, or 28
percent, from the State Department’s. These cuts mainly
defund commitments to foreign aid, multilateral agencies
such as the World Bank, and climate change programs
under the aegis of the United Nations.
Thus, when White House budget director Mick Mulvaney
says this is “the ‘America First’ budget,” he has a point.
Trump’s budget takes money away from globalist
programs and puts it into the United States.
In terms of total numbers, the $1.15 trillion budget is
roughly the same size as its predecessor, with only a $30
billion reduction in spending. If the budget were
implemented as is, the deficit would come in at $487
billion.
However, some notable elements from Trump’s campaign
are also missing: no tax cuts, no infrastructure spending,
and no Obamacare repeal calculations. The White House
has indicated that it will release those figures as part of an
updated plan around May, knowing full well that it has a
more pressing issue to deal with: debt.
Debt Ceiling Crunch
If tax cuts and infrastructure spending are executed wisely,
they will lead to more robust growth and fiscal revenue
down the line—but not in the short term.
In the short term, these measures will boost deficits, which
have to be financed by more debt. This will no longer be
possible, however, since the 2015 temporary public debt
extension expired on March 15.
If Trump wants to issue more debt, he will have to broker a
deal with Congress to raise the debt ceiling to well beyond
the $20 trillion we carry now.
Until then, the Treasury is usually able to survive for a few
months by scavenging from government social security
funds, but that’s no long-term strategy.
If Trump wants to push through infrastructure and tax cuts,
he will have to get fiscally conservative Republicans
behind him and make a deal.
“If they raise the debt ceiling and continue
adding more than a trillion dollars a year to
the national debt, they will lose all
credibility with conservative voters on fiscal
issues,” wrote independent economist
517
Michael Snyder in a blog post. “But if they
try to force the federal government to start
living within its means, that is going to
severely harm the economy in the short
term.”
The budget shows that Trump wants to deliver on his
campaign promises; at the same time, Congress and the
debt ceiling will make that vision difficult.
 Nunes Must Ask FBI's Comey
About Montgomery Mass Surveillance Case
By Larry Klayman
Sunday, 19 Mar 2017 01:04
The old expression about Washington, D.C., is that if you
want a friend, get a dog! In the case of President Donald
Trump, this is a lesson he has undoubtedly learned in his
thus far short tenure as the commander in chief. Nowhere
is this seen more than over the current controversy
concerning the president’s claims that he was wiretapped,
that is, illegally spied upon, by his predecessor’s
administration, former President Barack Obama.
As I have written in this Newsmax blog and elsewhere
particularly of late, my client, former NSA and CIA
contractor Dennis Montgomery, holds the keys to
disproving the false claims of those representatives and
senators on the House and Senate intelligence committees,
reportedly as well as FBI Director James Comey, that there
is no evidence that the president and his men were
wiretapped.
Montgomery left the NSA and CIA with 47 hard drives
and over 600 million pages of information, much of which
is classified, and sought to come forward legally as a
whistleblower to appropriate government entities,
including congressional intelligence committees, to expose
that the spy agencies were engaged for years in systematic
illegal surveillance on prominent Americans, including the
chief justice of the Supreme Court, other justices, 156
judges, prominent businessmen such as Donald Trump,
and even yours truly. Working side by side with Obama's
former Director of National Intelligence (DIA), James
Clapper, and Obama's former Director of the CIA, John
Brennan, Montgomery witnessed “up close and personal”
this “Orwellian Big Brother” intrusion on privacy, likely
for potential coercion, blackmail or other nefarious
purposes.
But when Montgomery came forward as a whistleblower
to congressional intelligence committees and various other
congressmen and senators, including Senator Charles
Grassley, Chairman of the Senate Judiciary Committee,
who, like Comey, once had a reputation for integrity, he
was “blown off;” no one wanted to even hear what he had
to say. The reason, I suspect, is that Montgomery’s
allegations were either too hot to handle, or the
congressional intelligence and judiciary committees
already knew that this unconstitutional surveillance was
being undertaken. Moreover, given the power of the NSA,
CIA, and DNI, for congressional committee heads to take
action to legitimately and seriously investigate and if
518
necessary recommend prosecution of officials like Clapper
and Brennan could, given the way Washington works,
result in the spy agencies disclosing and leaking (as
occurred recently with General Michael Flynn), the details
of their mass surveillance, ruining the careers if not
personal lives of any politician who would take them on.
After Montgomery was turned away as a whistleblower, he
came to me at Freedom Watch. With the aid of the
Honorable Royce C. Lamberth of the U.S. District Court
for the District of Columbia, who I had come to respect
and trust over the years of my public interest advocacy, we
brought Montgomery forward to FBI Director James
Comey, through his General Counsel James Baker. Under
grants of immunity, which I obtained through Assistant
U.S. Attorney Deborah Curtis, Montgomery produced the
hard drives and later was interviewed under oath in a
secure room at the FBI Field Office in the District of
Columbia. There he laid out how persons like then-
businessman Donald Trump were illegally spied upon by
Clapper, Brennan, and the spy agencies of the Obama
administration. He even claimed that these spy agencies
had manipulated voting in Florida during the 2008
presidential election, which illegal tampering resulted in
helping Obama to win the White House.
This interview, conducted and videoed by Special FBI
Agents Walter Giardina and William Barnett, occurred
almost two years ago, and nothing that I know of has
happened since. It would appear that the FBI’s
investigation was buried by Comey, perhaps because the
FBI itself collaborates with the spy agencies to conduct
illegal surveillance. In landmark court cases which I filed
after the revelations of Edward Snowden, the Honorable
Richard Leon, a colleague of Judge Lamberth, had ruled
that this type of surveillance constituted a gross violation
of the Fourth Amendment to the Constitution. (See
www.freedomwatchusa.org for more information.)
A few months ago, given FBI’s seeming inaction in
conducting a bona fide timely investigation of the treasure
trove of information Montgomery had produced and
testified to, I went to Chairman Bob Goodlatte of the
House Judiciary Committee, as I had done earlier with
Senator Grassley, since Montgomery had revealed that
judges had been spied upon, and asked his staff to inquire
of Director Comey the status of the investigation. I have
heard nothing back from Goodlatte or his staff and they
have not responded to recent calls and emails.
So last Thursday, I traveled to Capital Hill to personally
meet with Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Ca.) of the House
Intelligence Committee and, when his scheduler claimed
that he was “unavailable,” forcefully pushed for a meeting
with one of his committee lawyers, Allen R. Souza, and
fully briefed him about Montgomery and the FBI’s
apparent cover-up. I told this staff intel lawyer to inform
Chairman Nunes of the facts behind this apparent cover-up
before the committee holds its hearing on the alleged
Trump wiretaps and questions Comey this Monday, March
20, in open session. My expressed purpose: to have
Chairman Nunes of the House Intelligence Committee ask
Comey, under oath, why he and his FBI have seemingly
not moved forward with the Montgomery investigation.
519
During my meeting with House Intelligence Committee
counsel Allen R. Sousa I politely warned him that if
Chairman Nunes, who himself had that same day undercut
President Trump by also claiming that there is no evidence
of surveillance by the Obama administration, I would go
public with what would appear to be the House
Intelligence Committee’s complicity in keeping the truth
from the American people and allowing the FBI to
continue its apparent cover-up of the Montgomery
“investigation.”
And, that is where it stands today. The big question: will
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Nunes do his job
and hold FBI Director Comey’s feet to the fire about the
Montgomery investigation?
Please watch the House Intelligence Committee hearing
closely this Monday.