[PJ] House Intelligence Committee Ranking Member Adam Schiff is in high dudgeon over the bad form of House Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes in reporting his bombshell -- that the chairman had been shown actual surveillance (not involving Russia) of the Trump transition team and possibly of the then president-elect himself -- to President Trump before he presented the evidence to the committee.
Bad form, quite possibly. But so what?
The facts are what they are.
What appears at this writing is that Trump transition team members and possibly Trump himself had their identities revealed, were "unmasked" in the parlance, while foreign diplomats were being surveilled. The identities of American citizens were not sufficiently "minimized," as they are required to be by law. This is a crime one would assume would put the perpetrators in prison. So far it hasn't. More than that, such behavior is a grave threat to a free society, to all of us.
In effect, Trump was wiretapped -- if not in the corny, old sense of the word, something very close. Technologically, he was wiretapped, as were several (actually many) others.
#1
Originally all the heartburn over the NSA's relaxed rules for cross agency dissemination of raw signals was the fear that the incoming Trump administration couldn't be trusted. As for the timing, they went so far as to say it was the "responsibility" of the outgoing administration to make it more difficult for any succeeding teams to to write new rules. It might well be that all the anguish over "Parallel Construction" was a feature not a bug.
#2
Rumor is that people in the Trump campaign were caught in actual collusion with the Russians. If true, big problem. Possibly not true, but 'manufactured' evidence - much bigger problem. Warnings are out there that the Deep State (the uniparty) will do whatever it takes to protect itself, which I have to believe includes creating 'evidence' that would provide grounds for impeachment.
#1
Which political party comes to mind that resembles Soviet-style goals to alert reality? Hint hint, a person with a uterus and breast is a male or I was born in 1990 but identify as a senior citizen so give me social security benefits.
Posted by: Jack Salami ||
03/23/2017 9:51 Comments ||
Top||
BLUF: [WSJ] The rising mortality of working-class white adults appears to be rooted both in worse job opportunities and increasing social dysfunction, following generations of relatively stable lives that involved job advancement and an expectation of living better than one’s parents, the researchers said. Should we then assume the plan is working ?
Wages aren’t rising with age now as much as they once did for high-school-educated white men, Ms. Case said, suggesting that the composition of jobs available to them has changed and that there is less upward mobility.
"The company man job has gone away for working-class people," Mr. Deaton said.
[Politico] Conservative news outlets, including one with links to a top White House official, are singling out individual career government employees for criticism, suggesting in articles that certain staffers will not be sufficiently loyal to President Donald Trump by virtue of their work under former President Barack Obama.
The articles -- which have appeared in Breitbart News, the Conservative Review and other outlets -- have alarmed veteran officials in both parties as well as current executive branch staffers. They say the stories are adding to tensions between career staffers and political appointees as they begin to implement Trump’s agenda, and they worry that the stories could inspire Trump to try purging federal agencies of perceived enemies.
The claims posted on the conservative sites include allegations of anti-Israel and pro-Iran bias against staffers at institutions such as the State Department and the National Security Council. Breitbart News, whose former executive chairman Steve Bannon is now Trump’s chief strategist, has even published lists of workers that the president should fire.
Washington veterans say they can’t recall similar targeting of government employees, who are required to stay apolitical and generally shun the spotlight.
"It’s deeply unfair to single people out and question their loyalty," said William Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former longtime diplomat. "It’s demoralizing for institutions. It’s demoralizing for professionals, and it’s offensive."
#5
"It’s deeply unfair to single people out and question their loyalty," said William Burns, president of the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and a former longtime diplomat. "It’s demoralizing for institutions. It’s demoralizing for professionals, and it’s offensive."
More offensive than your undeserved bloated magic paycheck and retirement package? More offensive than the fact you grew government until it is now four times larger relative to the general population than it was two generations ago, with no more quality or quantity of government services to show for it? More offensive than the fact that you consider yourselves to be the private sector's rulers rather than its servants?
More offensive than the fact that your "loyalty" is to whichever political party will most advantage you materially -not the one whose policy is best for America - and the fact that you now value your government funded wherewithal more than the businesses, liberties, and lives of your neighbors?
Color me unsympathetic.
Posted by: no mo uro ||
03/23/2017 5:40 Comments ||
Top||
#6
Don't want to be accused of supporting Iran, then don't support Iran.
Posted by: Rob Crawford ||
03/23/2017 7:17 Comments ||
Top||
#7
Just wait until they get a rent-a-mob to sit outside your home. Calling you and your family alll sorts of nasty things. Threatening your family and following your kids to school.
[Hot Air] Back in 2003 Iyman Faris was convicted of a rather scatterbrained plot to take down the Brooklyn Bridge by cutting the structure’s support cables. He was planning to do this in collusion with Al Qaeda as part of a possible second wave of attacks against the United States. He was given a rather lengthy jail term but he’s due to be released in December 2020. So what happens then? He’s a naturalized citizen of Pakistani birth, but the Justice Department is now looking to change that situation by stripping him of said citizenship and ejecting him from the country. [AP]
The Department of Justice has taken the rare step of seeking to strip a convicted terrorist of his U.S. citizenship as he serves the last several years of a 20-year prison sentence for plotting to destroy New York’s Brooklyn Bridge.
Some national security experts suggested Tuesday the move might signal a new, tougher line under President Donald Trump.
The case involves Iyman Faris, 47 and born in Pakistan, who was sentenced in 2003 for aiding and abetting the al-Qaida terrorist group with his plan to cut through cables that support the iconic bridge. At the time, it was among the highest profile terrorism cases in the aftermath of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks that killed nearly 3,000 people.
Can we really do this? I certainly hope so, and all signs point to there being precedent for such an action. You can’t take away the citizenship of a natural born American citizen, but we have revoked that status for naturalized citizens in the past, including Nazis who were discovered living here after having fled Europe following World War II.
Amazingly, there are already people raising a fuss over this and saying that it would set a bad precedent. Really? Faris had worked briefly as a double agent for the FBI but confessed to being part of the infamous terrorist network and plotting one of the more devastating attacks we would have ever seen on American soil had he succeeded. Critics of this proposal seem to be implying that taking away his citizenship would constitute extra punishment not provided for under the law. Perhaps that’s true, but terror attacks seem to fall into a rather unique niche of the American justice system.
[ENGLISH.ALARABIYA.NET] The Islamic State ...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems.... of Iraq and Syria holy warrior group is equally dangerous as al-Qaeda. However, denial ain't just a river in Egypt... concerning its global reputation, there are four factors that have contributed to ISIS gaining popularity across the world through different media outlets.
Continued on Page 49
Posted by: Fred ||
03/23/2017 00:00 ||
Comments ||
Link ||
[11128 views]
Top|| File under:
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.