In which Al Ahram presents information President Trump and like-minded others can use to support banning the Moslem Brotherhood as the terror organization it is.
[AlAhram] Ahram Online looks in to Egypt’s latest bully boy groups and how they are different than the usual bully boy Jihadi group.
Last February, an Egyptian court of urgent matters designated the bully boy group Hasm a terrorist organization, banning its activity in the country.
In January, Egypt's High State Security Prosecution referred 304 people to military prosecution for membership in Hasm, which committed 14 attacks on security forces and public figures over the past six months.
[Ynet] German officials are worried, as it appears the 'special' relationship between Israel and Germany is slowly deteriorating due, in part, to Trump's influence; 'Netanyahu does not listen to us and the situation may only get worse with Trump.'
In 2008, the 60th anniversary of the State of Israel, Angela Merkel ...current chancellor of Germany and the impetus behind Germany's remarkably ill-starred immigration program. Merkel used to be referred to by Germans as Mom... delivered a speech in the Knesset in which she described relations between Germany and Israel as "excellent."
Continued on Page 49
[The Hill] Rep. Steve King (R-Iowa) urged President Trump in a tweet on Sunday to "purge Leftists from executive branch."
Trump "needs to purge Leftists from executive branch before disloyal, illegal & treasonist acts sink us," King wrote on Twitter.
King included a link to a Conservative Review article titled " 'You're Fired!': Trump could become lame duck unless he clears out Obama holdovers" by Daniel Horowitz.
In the article, Horowitz says the president "is at the cusp of losing control over his presidency if he doesn't immediately fire all of the Obama appointees."
Horowitz also writes that it is the job of Trump's chief of staff, Reince Priebus, to call for the "resignation of any political appointees and special counsels who do not share the views of the president."
Horowitz wrote critically of Priebus, echoing the sentiments of many far-right conservatives who believe the former Republican National Committee chairman is responsible for the Trump administration's stumbles.
Trump has blamed former President Obama and his staff for the press leaks that have contributed to damaging news stories about the administration.
"I think President Obama's behind it, because his people are certainly behind it," Trump told Fox News's "Fox and Friends" last week.
"And some of the leaks possibly come from that group. You know, some of the leaks, which are really very serious leaks, because they're very bad in terms of national security, but I also understand that's politics. And in terms of him being behind things, that's politics, and it will probably continue."
Press secretary Sean Spicer, asked in late January about State Department officials who opposed Trump's original travel ban, said: "I think that they should either get with the program or they can go."
[Breitbart] The following is an open letter from conservative radio and television host Mark Levin to CNN host Brian Stelter, in response to Stelter’s article Monday at CNN.com, "Birth of a conspiracy theory: How Trump’s wiretap claim got started."
Did you listen to my show on Thursday, before President Trump tweeted? Did you watch my appearance on Fox and Friends Sunday morning? I know you are ticked I did not appear on your show, despite your numerous requests. Your ad hominem attacks about "right wing" radio host and conspiracy theory stuff ... incredible.
I simply put together the stories that YOUR profession reported, on the public record. Do you deny there were two FISA applications? Do you deny the first was turned down? Do you deny the second was approved? It’s called the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court. It is about surveillance. The fact that we cannot discern all the details because of the secrecy, except for what the media have revealed and selective leaks by the government, should cause you to want to know more, not to trash those who point it out.
And yes, we can make several logical implications based on events and experience. A FISA application is a big deal. One, or two in this case, that involve campaign surrogates, or a server or computer related to a candidate or campaign, etc., is a big deal. President Obama’s statement is not a definitive statement of anything, other than he, personally, did not order a wiretap, which I never claimed. But that does not mean he was unaware of surveillance activity by several of his departments, even through routine reports to the president, such as the Daily Intel Briefing or information conveyed to him or his staff via the Justice Department re the FBI counter-intelligence activities. As for Clapper, despite his past dissembling before Congress, he may not have been aware of what was taking place since the FBI counter-intel operation reportedly sought the warrant. The Daily Intel Briefing might provide useful information in that regard as well.
Of course, the release of the FISA applications would also shed a lot of light on events, assuming YOU believe reports that they were filed.
Furthermore, Clapper has said, as recently as yesterday, that no connections between the Russians and the Trump campaign have been found. I am extremely critical of Russia, Putin, and the efforts to influence our election, although I do not believe they succeeded. That said, how would Clapper know of no connections if he, as former Director of National Intelligence, didn’t look? On what is that based?
Your lack of curiosity and dishonesty about such matters and in dealing with me demean you and your profession. You are free to circulate this communication to whomever you wish, as I am making it public.
#1
President Obama's statement is not a definative statement of anything other than he, personally, did not order a wiretap, which I never claimed.
Your right Mark you never made that claim. But you know who did make that claim? That would be POTUS Trump. And if he doesn't conclusively prove, at the very least, collusion from the Obama WH (Not some agency - The WH itself) his credibility as President will be forever damaged.
#2
There is ample evidence that it did happen. Nyt reported it last year and Hillary referenced last year as well. Trumps game is to throw it out there, let everyone deny it and call him a liar. And then own them as it proves to be true. He does this time and time again. The media, fox included, research an inch deep and go to press. They, oriley specifically, will get imbarased as this all comes to light.
Posted by: 49 pan ||
03/07/2017 10:43 Comments ||
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#3
But you know who did make that claim? That would be POTUS Trump.
Remember we are talking Twitter here and not a legal brief. While it would have been more correct for Trump to say "Obama's Justice Dept , headed by Loretta Lynch, obtained a FISA warrant, tapped comms in the Trump Tower and then illegally leaked the transcripts", that's a bit wordy for a tweet.
And you are right that without evidence, this is just he said/she said. Call me Shirley skeptical, but the over-lawyered denials make me suspicious. And remember that Trump has access to info that you and I don't. The next few weeks should be both interesting and entertaining.
#4
I hate when Trump pulls that crap because no matter how true it is, the Left waves the sentence around like Chamberlain waving around the treaty and loudly proclaims the whole thing is false and we needn't talk about it any more.
Posted by: Herb McCoy7309 ||
03/07/2017 11:52 Comments ||
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#5
Remember we are talking Twitter here not a legal breif.
WADR, the vehicle of communication is irrelevant. It's his statements that are important. Most everyone views President Trump's tweets as an accusation that his predecessor had a hands on role in surveillance of his personal communication. To quote former VP Biden "This is a big fucking deal". Any attempts to explain this one away as simply imprecise language will be met with justifiable indignation. Here's hoping there's meat on that bone.
#6
Depot guy are you really saying that the DoJ would undertake such a purely political attack without clearance from Obama?
If you want to devolve into semantics the only person that can "order" this "tapping" is a FISA judge. Now who asked for this ? The DoJ? Who asked, suggested or surmise that it happen?
Even on the off chance that Lynch did it on her own hook Obama is responsible. That's where the buck stops whether he liked it or not.
#7
Jerry Pournelle offers an interesting point.
We know they've listened to Flynn's conversation - from Trump's Tower, with Russian ambassador - from Russian embassy. So they had either Trump's Tower or Russian embassy wiretapped. Now, Pournelle doesn't believe they could wiretap Russian embassy.
#8
Depot guy are you really saying the DoJ would undertake such a purely political attack without clearance from Obama?
AlanC I've made no suggestion whatsoever. First I made an observation; Trump's tweet accuses Obama of being complicit in what many would consider to be an illegal wiretap. Next I made a prediction; If Trump can't provide clear evidence of his charges his credibility will suffer greatly. Finally I offerd an opinion; This is POTUS speaking not some high school slumber party. And dismissive excuses of out of context twitter rants ain't gonna cut it on allegations this serious.
#10
Well as I see it the Obamites said they didn't wiretap Trump.
Wiretaps are old technology and easily detected. Electronic surveillance by a variety of gizmos and gadgets are more effective and less easily detected.
So they are playing with semantics and word choices and always with "to the best of my knowledge"...
This whole mess goes further up the food chain than some second echelon US Attorney and a FISA magistrate. The danged request has to be signed by the AG.
I'm beginning to think the reason the FBI didn't go after Shillary was because their best evidence came from sources that could not be used as evidence.
I think the President is giving the whole bunch of them enough rope to hang themselves.
#12
Darth, it is good to remember that a Trump tweet is not a legal brief. When the time comes to quote chapter and verse as it was, then we will see.
However, what evidence did the NYT have when they put it on their front page, etc. etc.? If it quacks like a duck, looks like a duck, walks like a duck and tastes good with orange sauce it is probably time to believe the menu.
#13
And if he doesn't conclusively prove, at the very least, collusion from the Obama WH (Not some agency - The WH itself) his credibility as President will be forever damaged.
The Democrats have claimed that Trump is working for the Russians. So far, they've offered no conclusive proof. Is their credibility forever damaged?
Our word for today is a favourite with Senator Cruz of Texas. According to the (Internet) Urban Dictionary it refers to, "something lame, dead-end, a dud, insignificant; especially something with high expectations that turns out to be average, pathetic, or overhyped." A more exhaustive explanation might include the simile of a hamburger with no meat patty. (Lenten suggestion, with nothingfries and water.) This would be a nothingburger definition of a nothingburger.
The latest examples are any of the endless series of lame, dead-end, dud, insignificant revelations about various Trump appointees having met the Russian ambassador in Washington -- along with, apparently, everyone else in Washington, or at least, everyone on the right descending edge of Charles Murray’s Bell Curve.
Alternatively, a nothingburger might be like any of who-knows-how-many franchise combos which centre on a meat filling which, under laboratory examination, turns out to be at least half soya filler.
The question becomes an interesting one, for observant Catholics. At what point can we be sure that the actual meat content of a Something Burger is so low that it will count as a nothingburger for the purposes of Lenten abstinence?
Now, I have no opinion on the allegations raised, via leaks from Obama holdovers in Deep State, against Trump’s minions, beyond observing that they are all nuts. I have no memory of having met Ambassador Kislyak myself, but fear that when my staff consult the charred remains of my dayplanner, they may discover that we discussed the USA election, NATO’s logistical arrangements, and the political situation in eastern Ukraine, on seventeen occasions between July 21st and November 8th, 2016. Fortunately, I am not a Trump appointee, so the world may never know.
He is a very charming man, incidentally. Who knows I need more money.
And not a nothingburger at all, or more precisely, not a consumer of nothingburgers, as I judge from his formidable girth, and the tightness of his shirt collars. Whatever one might say against the old KGB, from whose ranks Kislyak ascended, they didn’t leave their operatives hungry.
Turning from Bell Curves to Pareto, and my old saw about the "rule of thumb" (based on the numerical ratio between thumb and fingers), about 20 percent of everything is opposed. Example: make a list for any purpose and you will find that 80 percent of entries arguably belong on the list, and the rest don’t. This will remain true no matter how many times you edit the list. It is one of the interesting things about nature, and it explains much otherwise inexplicable to science. Given about eighty years of the next century, I could write a book on this. One might even say that it is on the 20 percent that seems totally irrelevant that the life or use of the 80 percent depend.
Or vice versa, from a thumbic point of view. No matter how you focus your reading, four-fifths will prove to be a waste of time. Just nothingburgers, like today’s Idlepost.
If you were to come across someone who cried in the streets, who saw the world in terms of black and white and made death threats against strangers, who cowered in a special room and made public displays of naked self-harm and blood letting, you might conclude that they were suffering from a personality disorder.
All these symptoms can be found in the High Conflict Personality Disorder category known as Axis II in DSMV, including Anti-Social PD, Histrionic PD, Paranoid PD, Narcissistic PD, and Borderline PD.
Alternatively, you might reason that these are the everyday behaviors of the modern Social Justice Warrior (SJW).
Of course, not every SJW has a personality condition, but sufferers from High Conflict disorders are often drawn to extreme beliefs and behaviors under the illusion that they are acting politically.
A 2016 UK survey found that, since 1990, rates of depression and anxiety among the young have increased by 70%, while the American Counseling Association has reported a "rising tide of personality disorders among millennials."
That such disorders appear to be an acute problem with this generation may be an unintended outcome of the unprecedented experiment conducted in the 1990s and 2000s by progressive parents.
...The majority of millennial children (now aged 18-34) had two working parents; this was partly an ideological project of feminism and partly economic necessity. The downside was the damage done by daycare, services for which grew by 250% between the 1970s and ;90s (see Laura Perrins’ work on psychological trauma caused by daycare). According to Bowlby’s Maternal Deprivation Thesis, babies require two years of intimate attention to enable them to form the caregiver-child bond essential for secure ego formation. Any disturbance of this process will "predispose the children to respond in an anti-social way to later stresses."
...For the SJW, everyday speech contains a multitude of "microaggressions," or subconscious power dynamics which conceal colonial or patriarchal oppression.
...People with High Conflict Personality disorders experience similarly paranoid emotions about hidden messages, omnipotent threats, and imminent violence. In middle ages they used to beat crazy people - "to drive the demons out". Now, I wonder...
h/t Instapundit
[AceOfSpades] Just in case people don't get this: I'm not being rhetorical when I say that a large fraction of the country, on both the left and the nevertrumper/GOPe side of things, has gone insane.
The world feels like a Twilight Zone episode to them -- the world they went to sleep in on November 8, 2016 was not the same world they woke up to the next day of November 9, 2016.
Parts of it looked the same, but nothing looked quite the same.
The feeling they have is the horrific, creepy feeling of the uncanny -- a feeling that things look normal and familiar from most angles, but you can't shake the sense that there's something off or alien about them. A classic trope of the uncanny is the automaton or doll which appears human, or, even worse, the human who appears to be a doll. (Content warning on that -- very creepy.)
...They were wholly unprepared for the reality of Trump -- they never even prepared themselves psychologically for such an outcome, because it was inconceivable and absurd, and only Dumb People thought stuff like "Trump could win," and as they're fond of telling you, they are definitely not the Dumb People.
...They lost their feeling of control and power over America. And believe me, after 8 years of Obama, and with the social and cultural winds at their back, able to gin up social media hate-mobs against anyone who even said something they didn't like, and able to sic the IRS on conservative groups and get away with it scot-free -- they felt like they were in total control.
And they were right to feel that way: They were in total control.
And now that's gone.
November 9, 2016 -- the day they realized it was not a nightmare, but a reality akin to a nightmare -- was the progressives' 9/11. Just as real Americans felt the loss of security and control over their own fates that day, so did progressives feel that on 11/9.
What you're seeing from progressives now, and the media, is the same sort of urgent fury you saw from real Americans after 9/11 -- an anger that a great evil had been done, and honor demanded furious retribution.
Many people might have gone a little round the bend after 9/11. I think I did. In fact I know I did. I'm not proud of that, but neither am I too ashamed to admit it.
At least there was justifiable cause.
And now a great evil has finally shaken the progressives in the same way-- they lost all three branches of government.
And they've gone crazy.
In my experience, there is nothing quite so dangerous as an inflated but brittle ego. An inflated ego which is resilient is annoying and dangerous, but, being resilient, it does not really react bigly to threats. It shakes threats off, so it doesn't need to lash out or go on little Nervous Breakdown Picnics out in Ego Protection Park.
But large brittle egos do. Large egos lash out, and brittle ones -- ones that are easily punctured by pins -- must lash out aggressively, constantly, almost randomly.
11/9 stole from them the two things most sacred: their sense of superiority and infallibility, and their precious political power over the people they hate.
A multi-volume chronology and reference guide set detailing three years of the Mexican Drug War between 2010 and 2012.
Rantburg.com and borderlandbeat.com correspondent and author Chris Covert presents his first non-fiction work detailing
the drug and gang related violence in Mexico.
Chris gives us Mexican press dispatches of drug and gang war violence
over three years, presented in a multi volume set intended to chronicle the death, violence and mayhem which has
dominated Mexico for six years.
Rantburg was assembled from recycled algorithms in the United States of America. No
trees were destroyed in the production of this weblog. We did hurt some, though. Sorry.
[Ynet] German officials are worried, as it appears the 'special' relationship between Israel and Germany is slowly deteriorating due, in part, to Trump's influence; 'Netanyahu does not listen to us and the situation may only get worse with Trump.'
