Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 2:52:30 GMT
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 30, 2018 3:20:56 GMT
With winning energy policies, Trump is exporting freedom around the globeBY FORMER REP. TIM HUELSKAMP (R-KAN.), OPINION CONTRIBUTOR — 01/29/18 04:30 PM EST 45 THE VIEWS EXPRESSED BY CONTRIBUTORS ARE THEIR OWN AND NOT THE VIEW OF THE HILL Affordable, abundant, reliable energy is the lifeblood of modern civilization. Without it, everything comes to a halt. Fossil fuels are the foundation of economic growth and prosperity. In America, we are blessed in this way, but most other countries do not have this luxury. They must look elsewhere for the energy to power their lives. Having won the fight for energy freedom at home, we are now free to promote it and export it around the globe. One of the keys to America’s greatness is its ability to export. After the American Revolution, we exported the idea of democracy and liberty to the world. During the Second World War, we exported the tools and resources necessary to defeat the Axis powers. Then, under the Marshall Plan, we exported our treasure, no strings attached, to help rebuild a ravaged globe. The exporting of our energy resources is no less beneficent, and no less momentous. By exporting these resources, we are exporting freedom. More at link: thehill.com/opinion/energy-environment/371243-with-winning-energy-policies-trump-is-exporting-freedom-around-theAnd who are we exporting fossil fuels too?
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Post by coffeetalk on Jan 30, 2018 3:57:42 GMT
Names of campaign donors to be flashed during live stream of Trump’s State of the Union speechThe Washington Post ''President Trump is seeking to parlay his first State of the Union address on Tuesday into cash for his reelection campaign by offering supporters a chance to see their name flashed on the screen during a broadcast of the speech. In a fundraising solicitation on Monday, Trump offered those willing to pay at least $35 the opportunity to see their name displayed during a live streaming of the address on his campaign website. “This is a movement,” the solicitation says. “It’s not about just one of us. It’s about ALL of us. Which is why your name deserves to be displayed during Tuesday night’s speech.” The web page to which the solicitation links offers donors the opportunity to contribute as much as $2,700 — the maximum amount allowed per election. [Trump’s first State of the Union: Can a divisive president flip the script?] In his speech, Trump is expected to take credit for a stronger economy and tie its continued growth to the Republicans’ tax plan, as well as argue his case on immigration, trade, infrastructure and national security. In a separate document distributed to surrogates Monday, Trump aides said that Tuesday’s speech will be “bipartisan and forward looking” and that he will be “speaking from the heart.” www.washingtonpost.com/?utm_term=.343d06720a26
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cycworker
Pearl Clutcher
Posts: 4,387
Jun 26, 2014 0:42:38 GMT
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Post by cycworker on Jan 30, 2018 4:01:36 GMT
This keeps getting better and better.. CNN.... “House GOP lawmakers vote to make public a controversial memo accusing the FBI of abusing the FISA surveillance law, and vote against release of an opposing memo from Democrats cnn.it/2nhTuHt”
Dems should, at this point, just say 'screw it' and release it anyway.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 30, 2018 4:13:25 GMT
Dems should, at this point, just say 'screw it' and release it anyway. They at least need to wait until the GOP memo is released, but not really.. Two wrongs do not make it right. Someone needs to follow the law, if at all possible.
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smginaz Suzy
Pearl Clutcher
Je suis desole.
Posts: 2,606
Jun 26, 2014 17:27:30 GMT
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Post by smginaz Suzy on Jan 30, 2018 4:17:46 GMT
Well this fool just lost a long term customer. Fox News... “.@homedepot co-founder Bernie Marcus: "Democrats, use your stupid brains. You don't have any brains." #Cavuto” He was talking up the $1,000 bonus HomeDepot is giving some of his employees. He is telling the Democrats to use their brains because $1,000 means something. Yes it does. But it is also a one shot deal. It would mean something more if he was increasing their wages instead or committed to giving the bonuses once a year. I happen to live between a Lowe’s and a HomeDepot but always would go to HomeDepot. That ended tonight. I hate it when people call you stupid because you aren’t buying the load of crap they’re selling. Home Depot has the worst reputation for HR managers. It's the worst of the worst of HR jobs. They go through their HR managers and they are always hiring them. Anyone with any experience in the field avoids them like the plague. My apologies to anyone working in that field now that is employed by them. If you're happy in that job there, you are the outlier but good for you.
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Post by dewryce on Jan 30, 2018 4:29:30 GMT
Everything I'm reading today is making me sick and, quite frankly, really depressed and feeling hopeless. I do not have it in me tonight to do the reading on these serious issues coming to pass tonight. So instead I offer a cheap, glib comment. Instead of flashing their names he should just start putting patches on his suit like they do for sponsors for NASCAR races. This bill brought to you by...
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 4:33:24 GMT
Dems should, at this point, just say 'screw it' and release it anyway. They at least need to wait until the GOP memo is released, but not really.. Two wrongs do not make it right. Someone needs to follow the law, if at all possible. Ah no. The Republican memo is a hatchet job on the DOJ/FBI by cherry picking the classification information the committee was given by the FBI/DOJ. The Democratic memo, from what I understand, points out the misinformation Nunes & Company is using in their hatchet job. The goal is to fire Rob Rosenstein for manufactured cause outlined in the Nunes document. Because if Rosenstein is fired Rachel Maddow points out what will happen next. MaddowBlog.. “If Trump fires Rosenstein, he will have his choice of who he'd like to oversee Robert Mueller's Russia investigation instead.” And what do you think trump wants to happen to the Mueller investigation. So yes the Democrats absolutely have to release their version of the information. trump is hiding something and since he is president not only do we have a right to know, we need to know because it could affect our security.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 30, 2018 4:49:28 GMT
True enough, but the GOP memo has not been released. There are numerous GOP Congressmen who also do not want the memo released. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) states the memo 'is not a smoking gun' There has also been discussion to have Congress protect Mueller.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 5:06:35 GMT
True enough, but the GOP memo has not been released. There are numerous GOP Congressmen who also do not want the memo released. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) states the memo 'is not a smoking gun' There has also been discussion to have Congress protect Mueller. The committee voted to release the memo. trump wants the memo released. What do you think will happen?
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Post by LavenderLayoutLady on Jan 30, 2018 5:11:44 GMT
Names of campaign donors to be flashed during live stream of Trump’s State of the Union speechThe Washington Post ''President Trump is seeking to parlay his first State of the Union address on Tuesday into cash for his reelection campaign by offering supporters a chance to see their name flashed on the screen during a broadcast of the speech. In a fundraising solicitation on Monday, Trump offered those willing to pay at least $35 the opportunity to see their name displayed during a live streaming of the address on his campaign website. “This is a movement,” the solicitation says. “It’s not about just one of us. It’s about ALL of us. Which is why your name deserves to be displayed during Tuesday night’s speech.” The web page to which the solicitation links offers donors the opportunity to contribute as much as $2,700 — the maximum amount allowed per election. [Trump’s first State of the Union: Can a divisive president flip the script?] In his speech, Trump is expected to take credit for a stronger economy and tie its continued growth to the Republicans’ tax plan, as well as argue his case on immigration, trade, infrastructure and national security. In a separate document distributed to surrogates Monday, Trump aides said that Tuesday’s speech will be “bipartisan and forward looking” and that he will be “speaking from the heart.” www.washingtonpost.com/?utm_term=.343d06720a26 That's sick.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 5:52:37 GMT
The Hill...
“CNN senior legal analyst Jeffrey Toobin says he regrets his role in pushing a "false equivalence" between Hillary Clinton's scandals and President Trump's controversies during the 2016 election.
In an interview on Larry Wilmore's "Black on the Air" podcast published earlier this month, Toobin told Wilmore that he feels he is "somewhat responsible" for a media climate that falsely compared Clinton and Trump.
"I think there was a lot of false equivalence in the 2016 campaign," Toobin told Wilmore, the Washington Post reported Monday. "Every time we said something, pointed out something about Donald Trump, whether it was his business interests, or 'grab 'em by the pussy,' we felt like, 'Oh, we gotta ... say something bad about Hillary.' "
"I think it led to a sense of false equivalence that was misleading, and I regret my role in doing that," he added.”
And people believed those “false comparisons” as it was demonstrated many times on this board.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 6:01:26 GMT
Adam Schiff...
“Committee Republicans JUST voted to declassify their spin "memo" and prohibit release of the Democratic response in what they claimed was “the interests of full transparency.” It was transparent alright – transparently cynical and destructive.”
Prompted this observation by Walter Schaub who was head of one of Ethics divisions in the government. He resigned when he realized trump has no ethics.
“Q. How does one top jeopardizing national security by releasing a biased summary of classified material over objections of those who guard the nation? A. By barring the release of the other side's summary. Q. Who would do that? A. Partisans who don't love their country enough.”
Q. Why would they do that? A. As a prelude to stoping or impeding an investigation of the sitting President's campaign in an election in which a hostile foreign power indisputably attempted to intervene. Q. Who would do that? A. Partisans who don't love their country enough.
Q. What could be more hypocritical & less consonant with American values? A. They've also called for renewed investigations of the president's vanquished rival for allegedly jeopardizing classified material. Q. Who would do that? A. Partisans who don't love their country enough.
Q. Does it seem inconsistent to jeopardize classified material by releasing a memo while barring release of a competing memo based on the same classified material & investigating a rival for jeopardizing classified material? A. Not to partisans who don't love their country enough“
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casii
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,517
Jun 29, 2014 14:40:44 GMT
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Post by casii on Jan 30, 2018 13:14:04 GMT
Everything I'm reading today is making me sick and, quite frankly, really depressed and feeling hopeless. I do not have it in me tonight to do the reading on these serious issues coming to pass tonight. So instead I offer a cheap, glib comment. Instead of flashing their names he should just start putting patches on his suit like they do for sponsors for NASCAR races. This bill brought to you by... Me too. I'm so discouraged and fatigued.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 30, 2018 15:29:54 GMT
True enough, but the GOP memo has not been released. There are numerous GOP Congressmen who also do not want the memo released. Rep. Mark Walker (R-N.C.) states the memo 'is not a smoking gun' There has also been discussion to have Congress protect Mueller. The committee voted to release the memo. trump wants the memo released. What do you think will happen? If dt says release it, I am sure it will be released. If he should say no, then the full house has to vote to release and it might be released depending on the whole House. I did not say that the opposing memo should not be released, it should not be done before the GOP memo. I do not think they should take the first step.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 15:47:30 GMT
The committee voted to release the memo. trump wants the memo released. What do you think will happen? If dt says release it, I am sure it will be released. If he should say no, then the full house has to vote to release and it might be released depending on the whole House. I did not say that the opposing memo should not be released, it should not be done before the GOP memo. I do not think they should take the first step. “They at least need to wait until the GOP memo is released, but not really.. Two wrongs do not make it right. Someone needs to follow the law, if at all possible.” Maybe I’m reading this the wrong way but it sounds like you are saying even if Nunes releases the memo the Democrats shouldn’t because “ someone needs to follow the law”. It is my understanding the Democrats weren’t planning on releasing the memo unless Nunes released his. Since it’s a counterpoint memo there would be no need for the Democrats to release their version if Nunes doesn’t release his.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 15:51:57 GMT
MSNBC...
“Speaker Ryan on releasing the secret GOP House memo: "There may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals."
Then why hasn’t a copy of the “findings” been given to the DOJ and the FBI first so they can respond instead releasing it to the public first?
Anyone?
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Post by crazy4scraps on Jan 30, 2018 16:01:54 GMT
Ryan is such a douche.
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Deleted
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Sept 20, 2024 10:30:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 16:05:21 GMT
Paul Waldman in The Week
“Trump's slow-motion massacre at the Justice Department”
It's not quite the Saturday Night Massacre, but there may well be something of a slow-motion purge underway at the Justice Department, in which those in key positions whose loyalty to President Trump is less than absolute are pushed out the door. Monday we learned that FBI Deputy Director Andrew McCabe, who had aroused the ire of the ever-petulant occupant of the Oval Office by being married to someone who once ran for state office as a Democrat, is stepping down. This is just the beginning.
Just last week it was reported that when McCabe became acting director of the Bureau after James Comey's firing, Trump asked him in a meeting who he voted for in 2016. It's one of those stunningly inappropriate things that would be a major scandal with any other president, but that we've gotten numb to with Trump. Apparently McCabe's answer — that he hadn't voted — wasn't good enough, just as Trump didn't get the answer he wanted from Comey when he demanded a pledge of loyalty. So McCabe too became a target, with the president posting tweets demanding that he be sacked. We also learned that Attorney General Jeff Sessions has been pressuring FBI Director Christopher Wray to fire McCabe — which it isn't hard to interpret as a way for Sessions to get back in Trump's good graces, given how often Trump has complained about Sessions recusing himself from the Russia investigation and therefore not being able to protect Trump in the way he believes is proper. Indeed, McCabe told friends that he's leaving because of pressure Wray was applying to him.
And here's something you might have missed: When Comey began taking detailed notes about his meetings with Trump and sharing information about Trump's behavior with colleagues so a contemporaneous record of Trump's appalling behavior could be established, one of the people he reached out to was, you guessed it, Andrew McCabe. You might have missed it, but I'll bet President Trump didn't.
But wait, there's more. You may have heard about the secret memo that Trump lickspittle and House Intelligence Committee chair Rep. Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) has been circulating among his Republican colleagues, supposedly showing anti-Trump bias at the FBI. The New York Times reports that it singles out Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein for approving the continuation of surveillance of former Trump adviser Carter Page, whom law enforcement and intelligence officials suspect may have been acting as an agent of the Russian government. "The reference to Mr. Rosenstein's actions in the memo," the Times notes, "indicates that Republicans may be moving to seize on his role as they seek to undermine the [Russia] inquiry."
You bet they are, and Rosenstein presents a complicated case.
He was appointed to his position by Trump, and then was apparently ordered to write a memo making a case for why Comey should be fired. Then that memo was used by the White House as the justification for the firing. Rosenstein testified to Congress that "[o]n May 8, I learned that President Trump intended to remove Director Comey and sought my advice and input." The next day, on May 9, he delivered the two-and-a-half page memo, which faulted Comey's handling of the Hillary Clinton email case, particularly Comey's decision to hold a press conference to criticize Clinton even though no charges would be brought against her. The White House then claimed that Trump was firing Comey because he had been recommended to do so by Rosenstein and Attorney General Sessions.
From the beginning, that was an absurd lie that nobody believed. The idea that Trump would fire the FBI director because Comey had treated Hillary Clinton unfairly was simply ludicrous, and they soon stopped mentioning it. But if Rosenstein thought he had demonstrated his membership on Team Trump, he was mistaken. Sessions had recused himself from the Russia investigation because of his own contacts with the Russian ambassador while he was working on the Trump campaign, so responsibility fell to Rosenstein, the second in command. He chose Robert Mueller, whose integrity would be beyond question, to serve as special counsel. And only Rosenstein has the power to fire Mueller.
Which is just what everyone knows Trump wants to happen. Trump denied a report last week that he ordered Mueller fired in June but backed off when Don McGahn, the White House counsel, threatened to quit rather than carry out the order. But even if you believe Trump's denial, no one disputes that he would be much happier if Mueller just disappeared.
Which raises the question: Is Trump going to order Sessions to fire Rosenstein, so that a different official can be put in place to oversee the Mueller investigation, and that person can then be told to fire Mueller? That might sound like just the kind of thing that leads to impeachment, which was probably why Don McGahn was so desperate to keep it from happening. But how many times have you said, "Trump would never go that far," only to find that he would? As The Washington Post reports, "The president has told close advisers that the [Nunes] memo is starting to make people realize how the FBI and the Mueller probe are biased against him, and that it could provide him with grounds for either firing or forcing Rosenstein to leave."
I realize all this may seem confusing if you aren't immersed in the details of the Russia scandal. But think of it as a clearing of the decks within the Justice Department. Anyone who hasn't demonstrated their loyalty to Trump — and can't be counted on to protect him as the danger from the Russia scandal gets more acute — has got to go. Trump might get rid of them himself, or he might send signals to his supporters in the media and on Capitol Hill, letting them know whom they should target.
Comey is gone, McCabe is going, and Rosenstein could be next. Under this president, any conception of the Justice Department as an independent agency devoted to the rule of law is quickly disappearing. “
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Jan 30, 2018 16:09:45 GMT
MSNBC... “Speaker Ryan on releasing the secret GOP House memo: "There may have been malfeasance at the FBI by certain individuals." Then why hasn’t a copy of the “findings” been given to the DOJ and the FBI first so they can respond instead releasing it to the public first? Anyone? The GOP players sure are doing a lot of (non) talking about this memo and what it supposedly contains. They are effectively getting their MESSAGE ACROSS in slamming the FBI & DOJ. If say, they were in Russia, they’d be arrested or dead for saying all that innuendo.
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 20, 2024 10:30:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 16:12:02 GMT
MSNBC.....
“Trump promised Carrier workers that he would stop their manufacturing jobs from being sent to Mexico. Renee Elliott tells Lawrence O’Donnell she believed him at the time, but since she was laid off this month, says she regrets voting for Trump.”
Oh well.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 16:17:28 GMT
Greg Sargent ...
“Schiff's rebuttal to the Nunes memo is "an extraordinarily detailed, point-by-point rebuttal of unbelievably shoddy allegations," Rep Himes, the number two D on House Intel, tells me.
But, ominously, Himes doubts it will be released.
My new post:”
This exactly why the Democrats wouldn’t release their version of the memo first.
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Deleted
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 16:34:18 GMT
Rick Wilson..
“Wow. The SOTU tonight apparently contains the line:
"I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Russiagate is enough."
Won’t that be interesting if he does utter that sentence. I’ll just have to read about it since I won’t be watching. But I will watch Joe Kennedy III’s speech.
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Post by femalebusiness on Jan 30, 2018 16:35:18 GMT
Walter Shaub... “There is a country whose leader is being investigated by an agency that's being investigated secretly by a legislator who was on the leader's transition team, which that agency is investigating for colluding with a nation that's subject to sanctions the leader refuses to enforce. “ That’s about right. This just says Nunes is an agent of the Russians.
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Deleted
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Sept 20, 2024 10:30:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 16:37:27 GMT
Everything I'm reading today is making me sick and, quite frankly, really depressed and feeling hopeless. I do not have it in me tonight to do the reading on these serious issues coming to pass tonight. So instead I offer a cheap, glib comment. Instead of flashing their names he should just start putting patches on his suit like they do for sponsors for NASCAR races. This bill brought to you by... Me too. I'm so discouraged and fatigued. That's exactly what they are trying to do. They are trying to wear us out. I refuse to allow that to happen. Remember, all of this side show nonsense that they are throwing around are intentional shiny objects. Personally, I am taking a small break. I recommend the same! ECM will be watching the state of the unioM address so I'll be listening to her opinion tomorrow. If you guys don't follow her you should. She is a very intelligent voice of reason and she calms me down.
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Post by revirdsuba99 on Jan 30, 2018 16:44:54 GMT
If dt says release it, I am sure it will be released. If he should say no, then the full house has to vote to release and it might be released depending on the whole House. I did not say that the opposing memo should not be released, it should not be done before the GOP memo. I do not think they should take the first step. “They at least need to wait until the GOP memo is released, but not really.. Two wrongs do not make it right. Someone needs to follow the law, if at all possible.” Maybe I’m reading this the wrong way but it sounds like you are saying even if Nunes releases the memo the Democrats shouldn’t because “ someone needs to follow the law”. It is my understanding the Democrats weren’t planning on releasing the memo unless Nunes released his. Since it’s a counterpoint memo there would be no need for the Democrats to release their version if Nunes doesn’t release his. Bold is mine! and that was in response to "Dems should, at this point, just say 'screw it' and release it anyway." The law should be followed, however things seem to have changed in Washington and it may not be possible anymore. I think the right, as in correct/law abiding, people need to take a safer route at this point to maintain long term credibility. Again it does not mean that the opposing memo should not be released!
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Deleted
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Sept 20, 2024 10:30:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 17:30:42 GMT
“They at least need to wait until the GOP memo is released, but not really.. Two wrongs do not make it right. Someone needs to follow the law, if at all possible.” Maybe I’m reading this the wrong way but it sounds like you are saying even if Nunes releases the memo the Democrats shouldn’t because “ someone needs to follow the law”. It is my understanding the Democrats weren’t planning on releasing the memo unless Nunes released his. Since it’s a counterpoint memo there would be no need for the Democrats to release their version if Nunes doesn’t release his. Bold is mine! and that was in response to "Dems should, at this point, just say 'screw it' and release it anyway." The law should be followed, however things seem to have changed in Washington and it may not be possible anymore. I think the right, as in correct/law abiding, people need to take a safer route at this point to maintain long term credibility. Again it does not mean that the opposing memo should not be released! bolded part is mine. “com·plic·it kəmˈplisit/Submit adjective involved with others in an illegal activity or wrongdoing. "all of these people are complicit in some criminal conspiracy" “Complicit “is a term that legitimately can be applied to the GOP in Congress as we are past them holding on to any credibility. But I’m not surprised if you look at the GOP actions during President Obama’s term. At some point the GOP decided the most important thing is power and they are willing to do anything to get it and to keep it no matter the cost to the people or to the foundation of this country. And they are getting away with because of the apathy of way too many people in this country.
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Post by papercrafteradvocate on Jan 30, 2018 17:59:57 GMT
Walter Shaub... “There is a country whose leader is being investigated by an agency that's being investigated secretly by a legislator who was on the leader's transition team, which that agency is investigating for colluding with a nation that's subject to sanctions the leader refuses to enforce. “ That’s about right. This just says Nunes is an agent of the Russians. I’m beginning to think so too! “The House Intelligence Committee has voted to release the Nunes Memo, which allegedly outlines widespread abuses by the DOJ and FBI in obtaining a surveillance order against former national security advisor to the Trump Campaign, Carter Page. As a former FBI agent who has been through the process of obtaining these kinds of warrants under the Foreign Surveillance Intelligence Act (FISA), I know that such an allegation, if true, would require a vast number of people – across two branches of government – to be on board and willing to put their careers on the line for a conspiracy. To that end, in advance of the memo being released, I want to highlight five questions that the Nunes Memo must clearly address in order for its allegations of abuse to be substantiated and credible. 1. When did the FBI open an investigation on Carter Page? It’s important to understand that just because the FBI receives information (like the Steele Dossier), the Bureau cannot immediately run to a FISA court and obtain a warrant. A FISA warrant itself does not make a “case;” rather, it’s an investigative tool used in support of an existing national security case, one that normally would have been opened months, if not years, prior. In fact, FISA warrants can be approved only for what are called Full Investigations. These are the most serious class of investigations within the FBI and require an “articulable factual basis” to open: For counterintelligence cases on U.S. persons (USPERs), these cases involve facts demonstrating that the subject is in contact with and working on behalf of a foreign intelligence service. That means that, at some point prior to obtaining the FISA warrant, the FBI opened an investigation on Carter Page, obtained enough factual evidence to justify making it a Full Investigation, and would have done enough investigative activity to be able to put together a FISA application. In fact, Page was already on the FBI’s radar as far back as 2013, when they obtained recordings of Russian foreign intelligence officials discussing targeting Page for recruitment. FBI officials at that time interviewed Page and warned him that he was being targeted – Page admitted that he had been in contact with these officers (not knowing they were Russian intelligence operatives) and has said that he shared “immaterial information and publicly available research documents” with the Russian spies. As former CIA officers and I have described, this would be consistent with the early stage of an intelligence recruitment process, and the FBI would have likely kept tabs on Russia’s efforts to see if they persisted and succeeded. There are even reports that Page was under FISA surveillance in 2014, which could have strengthened the basis for a new one in 2016 with renewed Russian interest in him. The Wall Street Journal reported that U.S. intelligence obtained intercepts as early as spring 2015 of Russians discussing “meetings held outside the U.S. involving Russian government officials and Trump business associates or advisers.” By the time Page joined the Trump campaign in 2016, the FBI would have had three years to monitor the recruitment process unfolding (Page continued his contacts with Russia through this time, and his unusual trip to Moscow in summer 2016 was no secret) – and this is the process the FBI would have outlined in its application to the FISA court in 2016 to demonstrate how and why Page was “engaging in clandestine intelligence activity on behalf of a foreign power” to obtain surveillance. THE TAKEAWAY: If the Nunes Memo does not indicate when the investigation underlying the Page FISA application was opened or how many months/years of investigative activity preceding the dossier is detailed in the Page FISA application, it is not telling a sufficiently complete or accurate story. 2. Who in the DOJ conducted the Woods Procedures on the FISA application? Here’s where the rubber meets the road in the FISA process. Even if the FBI were inclined to put together a slipshod FISA application, they can’t sneak it into court without going through a bunch of lawyers at DOJ. I’ve outlined the entire process previously, but it’s the careful vetting process conducted by the National Security Division known as Woods Procedures – named after the lawyer who developed this in-depth review, Michael Woods – where every fact contained in the application is verified. And by every fact, I mean every fact. To use a very straightforward example, say the FISA affidavit asserts that the target took a flight on a certain day. During the Woods Procedures, the agent would have to show the NSD lawyer the underlying case file, where the agent would have previously obtained, say, the passenger flight manifest for that flight from TSA and/or entry-exit information from USCIS to corroborate the assertion made in the affidavit (and a very good NSD lawyer would have the agent include that information in the affidavit itself). The same would have to be done with human source reporting, meaning that the FBI would use information gathered through different means to corroborate a source’s assertions. Can’t corroborate it? It doesn’t go in. The hardcore tinfoil hat set will likely insist that the FBI would have just created a dummy case including fabricated evidence to prop up the FISA application and trick the DOJ. Good luck. The FBI has a case system in which every document that goes into a file is “serialized” based on the date it was added – in other words, you can’t backdate fake documents and insert them. The system is also digitized, and tamper proof, so you can’t go in and delete or fiddle with existing case documents. Finally, a single Full Investigation would be made up of a spiderweb of sub-case files – things like sources, travel, surveillances, or any other theme the case wants to track – all of which are interconnected to the main case and to other cases agents across the Bureau may be working on and might reference. (Fun fact: Hoover’s first job was at the Library of Congress, where he learned the idea of making a numerical cross-reference system that allowed any one detail contained in hundreds of thousands of files to be located immediately). What if the FBI convinced the NSD to just skip the Woods Procedures? This would be a pretty huge risk for the NSD lawyers, since it is they, not they FBI, who have to present the FISA application to the FISA court. Without doing any kind of Woods Procedures, the NSD lawyers would be walking into a federal court without a solid basis to answer the questions a judge might ask about the underlying investigation or the target. Pro tip: This is not a good set up for getting a FISA order to be approved. THE TAKEAWAY: If the Nunes Memo doesn’t address who conducted the Woods Procedures for the Page FISA application, any material deficiencies in those procedures, or address this part of the DOJ review process at all, it is skipping over a critical part of the vetting process. 3. Who was the federal judge who approved the memo? Here’s where the Nunes conspiracy theory gets really dicey: For it to be true, it necessarily involves members of the federal judiciary. This is because when all is said and done, the FISA judge – one of 11 district court judges who sit on the FISA court in rotation (and who were appointed by Republicans and Democrats) – makes the ultimate call. The current talking points from GOP House members who have seen them memo and buy its contents suggest that Nunes has attempted to get around directly implicating a federal judge in a conspiracy by suggesting that s/he got “tricked” by the wily FBI/DOJ. In other words, the FBI and DOJ just happened to be assigned a judge who skipped breakfast and was running on such low blood sugar that they just didn’t pay attention to the details of a FISA application asking to surveil a USPER who just happened to be a former national security adviser to a current U.S. presidential campaign. Right. Let’s start with a quick fact: Judges aren’t dummies (recent judicial nominees notwithstanding). Anyone who has worked with or appeared in front of a federal judge knows this, and no lawyer that I know would count on being able to hoodwink one. But even one running on low blood sugar on the day the DOJ came in with the Page FISA application would have had reason to perk up for two reasons. First, the FISA statute expressly prohibits approving electronic surveillance for “solely First Amendment activity.” Legally speaking, political activity is afforded the highest protection under the First Amendment, and Carter’s former role in the political campaign would have triggered extra scrutiny and questioning by the court regarding the probable cause stated in the application. Second, any sane judge would recognize the potential volatility of this FISA application, and understand that given Congress’ oversight role with FISA, the application could (and likely would) come under close scrutiny at some point. No judge in his or her right mind would have signed their name to a FISA order of this level without carefully reviewing the underlying facts. THE TAKEAWAY: Alleging a concerted conspiracy by the FBI/DOJ in obtaining the Page FISA necessarily implicates the judge who approved it, and suggests they are incompetent (at best) or corrupt (at worst). If Nunes is alleging serious crimes on the part of the FBI and DOJ, he must put his money where his mouth is and identify the judge who approved the FISA application. If he doesn’t, it’s likely because even he knows that this would be taking his accusations too far. 4. Was the FISA warrant ever extended? This is a critical question, because even if the FBI managed to “dress up” the dossier without any other supporting evidence, bypassed the vetting procedure, and got past a federal judge, the most they would get for all of this work is three months of surveillance. This is because when a FISA order is obtained on an USPER, the FBI must go back to the FISA court (perhaps before a different judge than the first time) within 90 days and demonstrate that the surveillance has, in fact yielded foreign intelligence substantiating the original probable cause alleging that the target is engaging in clandestine intelligence activity on behalf of a foreign power. If the FBI cannot show this evidence, the surveillance is terminated. According to news reports, at least one other FISA warrant – the first one on former Trump campaign manager Paul Manafort – ceased. (Another one was subsequently obtained.) This shows that the FISA court takes this requirement seriously. More importantly, by the time Rod Rosenstein was appointed as Deputy Attorney General by President Trump, a FISA order on Carter Page, if it was still running, would have been in effect for close to six months. This means that the surveillance would have already been extended at least once by a FISA court based on new communications collected after the order, thereby validating the basis for the original order itself. THE TAKEAWAY: Neither the FBI nor the DOJ has the power to extend a FISA surveillance order, they must request it. If a request to extend FISA surveillance that began in September 2016 was made by DAG Rosenstein in or around March 2017, the FBI had shown a federal judge that it had collected additional foreign intelligence information justifying the original order at least once already, around December 2016. The Nunes Memo should address the fact that additional information validating the original FISA order was obtained, and reviewed and approved by a (potentially additional) federal judge, in addition to new administration staff at the DOJ. 5. Has Robert Mueller used anything derived from the FISA in his investigation? Anything that happened with regard to the original application for the Page FISA order would have occurred months before Mueller was even appointed as Special Counsel for the Russia investigation. Mueller, by all accounts (including my own experience having worked in the FBI under his leadership) does not tolerate nonsense. In taking over the investigation, he would have vetted all the underlying evidence that had been gathered so far, including anything gathered from FISA orders and the underlying basis for obtaining them. Let’s remember: This is someone who booted a highly seasoned counterintelligence investigator, Peter Strzok, based on text messages surfaced that could create even a perception of bias. We know that Mueller sent FBI agents to interview Carter Page: It’s hard to believe that he would have proceeded in any way on Page if he was aware that the underlying investigation to that point had been based on anything but legal, corroborated information. THE TAKEAWAY: Anything that discredits the Page FISA application by definition is intended to cast doubt on the Mueller investigation. (This may also be an attempted implication of the Nunes Memo if it tries to tar DAG Rosenstein, since each major step that has been taken by Mueller have been approved by DAG Rosenstein.) If this is the case, then Mueller should be named directly in the memo as someone who has personally engaged in misconduct in reliance on the Page warrant. If he is not, it is because Nunes knows that this is a line he cannot politically cross directly without real evidence – and is trying to do so indirectly. * * * In sum, the Nunes Memo reportedly alleges that at least a dozen FBI agents and DOJ prosecutors fabricated evidence, engaged in a criminal conspiracy to commit perjury, lucked out on being randomly assigned Judge Low Blood Sugar who looked the other way, and – coincidentally – ended up obtaining evidence that justified extending the initial FISA surveillance. This conspiracy was presumably signed off on by former FBI Director James “I Cannot Tell a Lie” Comey – who, while conspiring to bring down Trump, actually shifted the election in his favor by informing Congress he had reopened the Hillary Clinton email investigation one month after the Page FISA warrant. The sham FISA was validated by one or more federal judges who either didn’t know better or were in on the whole secret and later accepted and used by Special Counsel Mueller who was not a part of the FBI during this time at all. And despite this widespread and outrageous conduct, the current Assistant Attorney General, a Trump appointee, wrote Nunes about the memo to say, “we are currently unaware of any wrongdoing relating to the FISA process.” The answers to the questions above are necessary to substantiate allegations of misconduct in the FISA process. If Nunes has in fact singlehandedly uncovered this vast criminal enterprise, it’s hard to know what’s more astonishing: That a government bureaucracy managed to pull it off – or that Nunes has exposed it all in a scant four-page memo.”
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Deleted
Posts: 0
Sept 20, 2024 10:30:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Jan 30, 2018 18:04:52 GMT
Brian Krassenstein...
“BREAKING: The Guardian reports that the FBI has been given a 2nd dossier/memo by Cody Shearer, a journalist/activist, that independently set out many of the same allegations made in a Steele's dossier, including allegations that Trump was compromised during a 2013 Moscow Trip.”
Wow, Cody Shearer was brave to give the newest dossier to the FBI after the heat Christopher Steele has gotten for doing what he felt was the right thing to do.
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casii
Drama Llama
Posts: 5,517
Jun 29, 2014 14:40:44 GMT
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Post by casii on Jan 30, 2018 18:15:14 GMT
Rick Wilson.. “Wow. The SOTU tonight apparently contains the line: "I believe the time has come to bring that investigation and the other investigations of this matter to an end. One year of Russiagate is enough." Won’t that be interesting if he does utter that sentence. I’ll just have to read about it since I won’t be watching. But I will watch Joe Kennedy III’s speech. Well if he says that I have a guest room for sleepovers after we take the metro into DC for that protest.
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