Looks Like A Desperate Attempt To Change The Subject...

[Burning Petard]

Autism is caused by vaccinations. President 44 was born in Kenya. Aliens from outer space were bused in to vote against me. I was tapped after the election.

Yet unexplored is how the CIA brought down the towers on 9-11 and who did the special effects for the so-called moon landing.

Seems to me that if there is actual objective evidence for some policy, the President's default position is to reject it. He prefers the paranoid conspiracy theory over any reality-based ideas.

snailgate

[rubato]

http://delong.typepad.com/

Looking Forward to Four Years During Which Most if Not All of America's Potential for Human Progress Is Likely to Be Wasted

With each passing day Donald Trump looks more and more like Silvio Berlusconi: bunga-bunga governance, with a number of unlikely and unforeseen disasters and a major drag on the country--except in states where his policies are neutralized.




yrs.
rubato

[BoSoxGal]

But, HE ALONE can fix the American CARNAGE!

Big RR, that's how wesw & his pals feel about their Savior Trump. They are seriously delusional people without critical thinking skills and very motivated to have a WAR if their guy is impeached - which would NEVER be his fault!

Honestly, spend just an hour reading threads at USMessageBoard - you'll realize that wesw is among the least insane of them, and will likely be as revulsed as I've been during my forays there (and the comments section of pro-Trump Facebook posts, of Daily Mail articles, of Breitbart, etc. I sure hope it's just proof that Trump's most rabid base is unemployed and thus online 24/7 in mom & dad's basement - or maybe many of them are just Russian hackers?).

[Scooter]

[Scooter]

[wesw]

RR, my faith lies in the lord,, the people, and the constitution.

trump styles himself as a messenger, I have always styled him as a vehicle for the people.

trump instills hope...., faith is a bigger thing that he may or may not earn.

on the bright side I fixed holly s jeep..., for now....., I think..., so far so good anyway....

time to start on the power steering gearbox in my truck....., lord help me to help myself..., trump sure ain t gonna be crawling under no '75 ford for me.....

#drain the swamp
#drain the power steering fluid....

[BoSoxGal]

When, exactly, will you be taking a leave of absence from this toxic place?

[Lord Jim]

RR, my faith lies in the lord,, the people, and the constitution.

Including these parts of the Constitution wes?

The President, Vice President and all civil Officers of the United States, shall be removed from Office on Impeachment for, and Conviction of, Treason, Bribery, or other high Crimes and Misdemeanors.

Section 4.

Whenever the Vice President and a majority of either the principal officers of the executive departments or of such other body as Congress may by law provide, transmit to the President pro tempore of the Senate and the Speaker of the House of Representatives their written declaration that the President is unable to discharge the powers and duties of his office, the Vice President shall immediately assume the powers and duties of the office as Acting President.

[Lord Jim]

Don't hold your breath...

House Intel Committee Gives Trump Monday Deadline for Wiretapping Proof

Leading members of the House Intelligence Committee have demanded that President Donald Trump provide evidence by Monday of his claim that Trump Tower was wiretapped—possibly by former President Barack Obama.

The Associated Press reported Saturday that committee chairman, Devin Nunes of California, and the panel's ranking Democrat, Adam Schiff of California, made the request in a letter sent to the White House last week.

Other lawmakers have made similar demands, including U.S. Senators Lindsey Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.), as Common Dreams reported Wednesday.

Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) also reiterated the call for evidence on CNN's "State of the Union" on Sunday. "I think the president has one of two choices: either retract or to provide the information that the American people deserve, because, if his predecessor violated the law, President Obama violated the law, we have got a serious issue here, to say the least," he said.

Also Sunday, Schiff repeated his doubts about Trump's claim while speaking to George Stephanopoulos on ABC's "This Week." However, he added that FBI director James Comey and others called to testify at the upcoming hearing "would be in a position to have to know."

"I think on March 20 if not before we'll be able to put this to rest," Schiff said. ''I don't think anyone has any question about this, George. The only question is why the president would make up such a thing."[well, it's not the only question, but it's certainly a good one.]

[ex-khobar Andy]

Re Liberty's remark about targeting the governor of Virginia.

True, he is innocent, and the SCOTUS says so. But he accepted $175,000 from a seller of snake oil and took action to raise the visibility of said seller. What SCOTUS decided, in effect, was that these actions (taking shed loads of money and implausibly stating that any promotion of these business interests was simply normal constituent service and unconnected to the dosh) was not against VA law. Apparently the good folk of VA felt the same, since it is now illegal for any public official to accept more than $100.

[rubato]

In his defense Trump has exactly the same evidence for Obama having him wiretapped that Bush had for WMD in Iraq*; at least Trump hasn't started a war over it.


yrs,
rubato

* Actually Bush had evidence that they didn't exist; Hans Blix had been in Iraq and given access to every site he asked to see and found nothing.

[Scooter]

[Lord Jim]

Senate Intelligence Committee finds 'no indications' of wiretapping, wider surveillance at Trump Tower

Senate Intelligence Committee leaders released a joint statement Thursday saying that they have no reason to believe that President Donald Trump's wiretapping claims against then-President Barack Obama are true.

"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," Senate Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Richard Burr, R-N.C., and Vice Chairman Mark Warner, D-Va., said in the statement.

They visited CIA headquarters last week and also met with FBI Director James Comey. Both senators have been privy to relevant classified documents.

This statement comes on the heels of what House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes and Rep. Adam Schiff, the top Democrat on the committee, concluded Wednesday.

In a press conference on Capitol Hill yesterday, Nunes, R-Calif., said, "We don't have any evidence that that took place. ... I don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower."

Schiff, D-Calif., said that there is "no basis" for Trump's accusations, adding that it "deeply concerns me that the president would make such an accusation without basis."

Trump first made his accusations against Obama in a series of tweets March 4.

"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 an interview with Fox News that aired Wednesday evening, Trump said he didn't necessarily mean wiretapping.

"When I say 'wiretapping,' those words were in quotes. That really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff, but that really covers surveillance and many other things," he said.

Two of Trump's four March 4 tweets related to wiretapping include the term in quotes.

In the interview, he said the sources of information behind his tweets were a Jan. 20 New York Times article and a Fox News report from anchor Bret Baier. However, neither the Times article nor the Fox News report said Obama ordered a wiretap of Trump Tower.

Trump, asked why he didn't reach out to intelligence agencies to gather evidence backing his allegations, said he didn't want to do "anything that's going to violate any strength of an agency."

Despite the growing number of people saying they have found no proof of his claims, Trump did not back down.

"I think you're going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,"[I have no doubt about that, but they probably won't be very favorable to The Trump-thing] he told Fox News.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/senate-i ... d=46177746

[Lord Jim]

Sean Spicer continues to defend President Trump's wiretapping claims



White House press secretary Sean Spicer gave a lengthy and exhaustive defense of President Donald Trump's wiretapping claims against then-President Obama to reporters today, even though leaders of the House and Senate Intelligence committees said they have seen no evidence to support the claims.

Spicer accused reporters of continuing "to perpetuate a false narrative" by not covering statements that could seem favorable to Trump and argued that the statements by the House and Senate Intelligence committees were not based on any investigative work.

Senate Intelligence Committee finds 'no indications' of wiretapping, wider surveillance at Trump Tower

"They're not findings. There's a statement out today they have not begun this," Spicer told ABC News at today's White House press briefing. "Two days ago the Department of Justice asked for an additional week. The statement clearly says at this time that they don't believe that."

At one point he began reading news articles from the lectern in the Brady Press Room. He quoted The New York Times, Fox News personality Sean Hannity, a former New Jersey superior court judge and Fox News commentator Andrew Napolitano, who suggested that Obama used a British intelligence agency to spy on Trump. That claim, like all of Trump's allegations about being under surveillance, are unsubstantiated.

A spokesperson for GCHQ, the British intelligence agency that Napolitano referred to, denied the report.

“Recent allegations made by media commentator Judge Andrew Napolitano about GCHQ being asked to conduct 'wire tapping' against the then president elect are nonsense," the spokesperson said in a press release. "They are utterly ridiculous and should be ignored.”

Spicer also asserted that House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes still stands in the administration's corner, despite his statement yesterday contradicting the president's wiretapping claim.

"I don't believe just in the last week of time, the people we've talked to — I don't think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower," Nunes said.

During the press conference, Spicer reiterated that Trump's use of the term "wiretapping" was all-encompassing.

"I think the president has been very clear when he talked about this ... he meant surveillance," Spicer said, referring to an interview Trump with Fox News' Tucker Carlson that aired Wednesday evening.

In that interview, Trump said he didn't necessarily mean "wiretapping."

"When I say 'wiretapping,' those words were in quotes. That really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff, but that really covers surveillance and many other things," he said.

Two of Trump's four March 4 tweets related to wiretapping include the term in quotes.

http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/sean-spi ... d=46182149

[Econoline]

In that interview, Trump said he didn't necessarily mean "wiretapping."

"When I say 'wiretapping,' those words were in quotes. That really covers, because wiretapping is pretty old-fashioned stuff, but that really covers surveillance and many other things," he said.

Two of Trump's four March 4 tweets related to wiretapping include the term in quotes.

Right: sometimes he used quotes, sometimes he didn't, but he always had his fingers crossed behind his back!

Besides, "President" Trump has already repeated demonstrated that he very clearly has no fucking clue what quotation marks are for.

[Econoline]

• We've lost sight of how appalling Trump's
  "Obama tapped my phones" accusation is

  ---

  Updated by Andrew Prokop | andrew@vox.com | Mar 17, 2017, 11:37am EDT
  
  In the day-to-day crush of news, it’s easy to lose perspective. And this year especially, it’s easy for the abnormal to become normal.
  
  So let’s be clear: If President Trump truly does have no evidence to back up his accusation that President Obama tapped his phones — as increasingly seems to be the case — he has viciously slandered his predecessor with a bogus accusation.
  
  On Thursday, several top Republicans in Congress came out to publicly contradict President Trump’s claim that the former president tapped Trump Tower’s phones:
  

  • “I don’t think there was an actual tap of Trump Tower,” said House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes (R-CA), usually a strong Trump defender.
  • “We see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government,” said Senate Intelligence Committee Chair Richard Burr in a joint statement with his Democratic counterpart.
  • “No such wiretap existed,” said Speaker Paul Ryan.

  But at the White House press briefing later that day, press secretary Sean Spicer reiterated that President Trump “stands by” his accusations, and spent several minutes reading excerpts from articles and TV segments that he claimed backed up the wild allegations.
  
  In digging in to defend Trump’s seemingly indefensible comments, Spicer managed to get the White House into even more trouble. He reportedly infuriated the British government by quoting asketchy-sounding Fox News segment that reported Obama used British spies to tap Trump’s phones.
  
  The Brits have strongly denied this, and CNN now reports that the White House has already privately apologized to the UK for citing the segment. (Update: US officials are now telling BuzzFeed News there was no apology, but there appears to have been a “smoothing over” conversation of some kind.)
  
  In many ways, it’s comforting that the political system has adjusted to Donald Trump’s unusual personality and temperament. Where many used to hang on the president’s every word, now most just avert their eyes when he says something particularly out there. Foreign leaders seem to have realized that the US president’s statements aren’t credible. Even Trump’s allies now advise not to take him “literally.”
  
  But let’s keep in mind what the president admitted in this week’s interview with Tucker Carlson: Trump was accusing Obama of a “Nixon/Watergate” scandal not because he got a government briefing of some kind, but because of a Fox News segment that was citing a Breitbart article that itself was relying on a report from the website “HeatStreet.”
  
  “If you watched the Bret Baier [segment on Fox] and what he was saying and what he was talking about and how he mentioned the word wiretap, you would feel very confident that you could mention the name,” Trump said.
  
  This is absurd. It’s also appalling. Not even two months into this presidency, we’ve attuned ourselves to the appalling. Statements that would have caused a major scandal now barely raise an eyebrow.

[Burning Petard]

So today in the joint press conference with the German Chancellor, our president aid his source for the Trump Tower tapping was a brilliant legal expert speaking at Fox network--the questions should be addressed to Fox. Watching the France tv news afterwards, the news commentator said there that American reporters do not seem to appreciate the seriousness with which this 'wiretapping' accusation is regarded in Europe. Both German questioners asked Trump about it.

So who is this brilliant legal mind at Fox and what did he actually say?

snailgate

[BoSoxGal]

We are the laughingstock of the world. *sigh*

[RayThom]

... So who is this brilliant legal mind at Fox and what did he actually say?
snailgate

sg, check this out... 40 seconds in.

[Econoline]

From Talking Points Memo:

• From day one Trump's claim was preposterous on its face, both for lack of evidence and for misstatement of anything the President has the power to do. When people make preposterous, evidence-less claims, we usually do and should call them nonsense and lies. As I noted a couple weeks ago, President Trump is - via his office - literally the owner of all possible evidence that something like this happened. If something like this is true, he can show us the evidence. He can show Congress the evidence.
  
  Now we've gone to the ridiculous lengths of having actual congressional investigations. And the representatives of the President's party in Congress have said there is no evidence that this happened. They are of course hanging on this 'no evidence' locution to avoid the discomfort of calling their party's leader a liar. The press shouldn't share that loyalty.
  
  In any other context, when we have a claim that is wildly improbable verging on impossible on its face, when no evidence is provided and when outside investigations say there is definitively no evidence whatsoever, we calls those claims lies. Or the rantings of an unhinged person if we want to grant some accommodation for mental incapacity. If someone says aliens landed in their backyard and has a similar lack of any evidence whatsoever, we call that person a liar or a crazy person. We say it's not true. Full stop.
  
  As we know, by definition, you cannot prove a negative. You can only show there is no evidence whatsoever to support the claim. But this isn't a seminar on philosophy and empiricism. We call these lies.
  
  This is classic enabling behavior. It is amazing, crazy that we've actually spent two weeks discussing this as a real issue. Now, because of this enabling, we have a bona-fide, if minor, international incident with the US's closest ally, the United Kingdom because the President's press secretary actually spread the accusation that the UK somehow conspired with President Obama to do this. That's nuts. Nuts on its own terms but even more nuts that this charade has spread to this level.
  
  The President had a moment of anger, desperation, agitation and made this farcical claim. Admittedly, we don't have a lot of experience flatly rejecting a public accusation from a sitting President. But it's a new world. Treat it as such.