Trump era: Fascist dawn, or road to liberation?

[angelburst29]

If Trump is serious about "draining the Swamp" - he needs to seriously consider replacing those in political office, that hold dual U.S./Israeli Citizenship?
Trump has a slim chance of implementing "his changes" to make "America Great Again", if Israel is pulling all the strings and it's lackeys are pushing buttons in doing Israel's bidding?

US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes shared, not leaked, classified information that found President Donald Trump’s transition team was monitored by the US Intelligence Community, White House spokesperson Sean Spicer said during a press briefing on Monday.

Nunes Findings on Surveillance of Trump Transition Team Not 'Leak' - White House
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703271052018019-trump-transition-surveillance-not-leak/

Earlier on Monday, Nunes’ spokesperson Jack Langer stated that Devin Nunes met with a source at the White House on March 21, the day before he publicly discussed new information about US government surveillance of President Donald Trump during the presidential transition.

"Chairman Nunes is cleared, he is the chairman of the Intelligence Committee," Spicer said. "Someone who is cleared to share classified information with someone else cleared is not a leak."

Last week, Nunes explained that the information gathered was conducted "legally" in the final month of the previous Obama administration and during the transition, but was an "incidental collection" that was widely circulated and ended up in intelligence reports.

Trump said he felt vindicated for statements on Twitter in which he accused former President Barack Obama of "wiretapping" the Trump Tower due to the information Nunes made known.

US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes should step down from the investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US election, Senator Chuck Schumer said in the Senate.

Senator Schumer Urges US House Intelligence Committee Chair Nunes to Step Down
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703271052019229-senator-schumer-urges-nunes-step-down/

Schumer’s comments came amid the revelation Nunes visited the White House prior to announcing he had seen intelligence that US agencies surveilled President Donald Trump's team during the presidential transition.

"Without further ado, Speaker [Paul] Ryan should replace Chairman Nunes," Schumer stated on Monday. "If Speaker Ryan wants the House to have a credible investigation he needs to replace Chairman Nunes."

US House of Representatives Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes should recuse himself from any investigation involving Russia or surveillance of President Donald Trump, committee ranking member Congressman Adam Schiff said in a press release.

Lawmaker: US House Intel Chair Nunes Must Recuse Himself From Russia-Trump Probe
https://sputniknews.com/world/201703281052023702-nunes-russia-trump-probe/

“I believe that the Chairman should recuse himself from any further involvement in the Russia investigation, as well as any involvement in oversight of matters pertaining to… the Trump transition, as he was also a key member of the transition team,” Schiff said on Monday.

US House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes must explain why he went to the White House the day before he told President Donald Trump about incidental surveillance on his team during the presidential transition period, Senator John McCain said in an interview on Tuesday.

McCain Urges Nunes to Explain Visit to WH Prior to Briefing Trump on Wiretapping
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703281052041646-nunes-mccain-demand/

Nunes’ spokesman has said the congressman visited the White House on March 21 to review information provided by a source.

The following day, Nunes confirmed in a press conference that the US Intelligence Community collected information on Trump’s transition team. Moreover, Nunes said the collection was unrelated to allegations of Russian collusion and widely disseminated within the US government.

"I think there needs to be a lot of explaining to do," McCain stated on CBS News. "I’ve been around for quite a while and I’ve never heard of such thing."

McCain further said Nunes should reveal the source of the information he discussed at the White House.

Trey Gowdy Video: “If chairman of intel committee can’t brief the President, we’re in a strange place.”

Trey Gowdy Dings Schumer For Requesting Intel Chairman Nunes Be Removed
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4T7K3-l5ni8 (5:59 min.)

The US House Intelligence Committee has canceled all meetings scheduled for this week, CNN reported citing committee sources.

US House Intelligence Committee Cancels All Meetings This Week - Reports
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703281052042298-us-house-intel-committee/

The full committee meetings were canceled due to tension over Chairman Devin Nunes’ decision to cancel a public hearing.

The full House Intelligence Committee usually meets twice a week, and was scheduled to meet Tuesday with FBI Director James Comey and National Security Agency (NSA) Director Michael Rogers in a private session.

Last week, Nunes cancelled a planned open hearing with Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, former CIA Director John Brennan and former deputy Attorney General Sally Yates.

US President Donald Trump is trying to stop the House Intelligence Committee’s investigation into Russia’s alleged meddling in the US election, committee member Rep. Jackie Speier said on Tuesday.

Trump Trying to Shut Down Russia Probe in House Intel Committee - US Lawmaker
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703281052044531-trump-russia-probe/

The Democratic lawmaker further said she did not trust the committee’s chairman, Devin Nunes.

"I actually think that there is an effort underway to shut this committee down, by the president," Speier said on CNN’s "New Day" program. "He does not want this committee’s investigation to move forward."

I think he is, frankly, over his head…[and] used poor judgment," she added.

The US government will not permit Palestinian diplomats to be appointed to prestigious positions at the United Nations until Washington is satisfied the Palestinian Authority (PA) is cooperating with Israel in peace talks, US Envoy to the UN Nikki Haley said at the annual Policy Conference of the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

Trump Team Plans to Block Palestinian Diplomats From Top UN Posts - Ambassador
https://sputniknews.com/world/201703281052024160-trump-un-palestinian-diplomats/

Haley said that she and the US government would block the appointment of any Palestinian diplomat to what she described as one of the highest positions that had ever been offered to a PA official at the UN.

“Until the PA comes to the table until the Palestinian Authority and responds the way it is supposed to, there are no freebies for the PA anymore,” Haley stated on Monday.

She also said that the United States would never permit any more resolutions condemning Israel to be approved by the UN Security Council while the Trump administration was in office.

Haley described herself as “a new sheriff in town” at the United Nations and said she was determined to restore US leadership there.

The United State should impose additional sanctions on Iran specifically targeting the Revolutionary Guards Corps, Speaker of the House Paul Ryan said in a speech to the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).

US 'Should Impose New Sanctions' on Iran’s Revolutionary Guards
https://sputniknews.com/world/201703281052024086-us-iran-sanctions-aipac/

Ryan said the US government should also target Iran’s main airlines to halt them from allegedly transporting troops and weapons to other countries in the Middle East.

We should expand sanctions on Iran's army of terror — the Iranian Revolutionary Guard Corps," Ryan said on Monday. "I think we should designate them as a terrorist organization."

"We should take steps to prevent Iranian airlines like Iran Air [the flagship air carrier of the Islamic Republic]… from delivering troops and weapons across the Middle East," Ryan added.

Ryan criticized the Obama administration’s agreement to lift all international economic sanctions on Iran in the context of the six plus one nuclear agreement in 2015 as an unmitigated disaster.

Refusing to act as some sort of ‘punching bag’ for the United States government, Iran has implemented a set of retaliatory sanctions against a number of prominent US companies.

Turnabout is Fair Play: Iran Strikes Back at US With Economic Sanctions
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201703271051999305-us-iran-sanctions-response/

This punitive measure is apparently meant to show Washington that Tehran will not bow in the face of a host of sanctions imposed against the Islamic Republic.

The sanctions imposed by Tehran target 15 American companies, including BENI Tal, United Technologies Produces, RAYTHEON, ITT Corporation, Re/Max Real Estate, Oshkosh Corporation, Magnum Research Inc, Kahr Arms, M7 Aerospace, Lewis Machine and Tool Company, Daniel Defense, Bushmaster Firearms International, O.F Mossberg & Sons and H-S Precision Inc.

According to a statement issued by the Iranian Foreign Ministry and cited by the Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA), the sanctions were imposed due to the companies’ direct or indirect involvement in "the brutal atrocities committed by the Zionist regime (Israel) in the occupied Palestinian territories," and for the support they provided for "the regime’s terrorist activities and Israel’s development of Zionist settlements on Palestinian soil against Resolution 2334, adopted by the United Nations Security Council."

The Iranian Foreign Ministry also condemned "the recent measure taken by the United States administration to impose one-sided extraterritorial sanctions against Iranian and non-Iranian individuals and institutions," arguing that the US sanctions were "based on fabricated and illegitimate pretexts and amount to a move against the international regulations as well as the word and spirit of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action."

"The Islamic Republic of Iran accepts no restrictions imposed against its efforts to protect its dignity, territorial integrity and the security of the people," the ministry declared.

The sanctioned companies were barred from any agreements with Iranian firms, and their assets in Iran can now be seized by the authorities. Also, the former and current directors of said companies are no longer eligible for Iranian visas.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's efforts to play up the 'Iranian threat' are gaining steam. Last week, officials claimed that Iran was looking to build a naval base in Syria. A week earlier, Netanyahu went to Moscow to say that Iran was a threat to the region. Mideast politics expert Hassan Hanizadeh says Netanyahu's theories are absurd.

Bibi Netanyahu Furious Over Non-existent Threat of 'Iranian Naval Base' in Syria
https://sputniknews.com/middleeast/201703171051704573-netanyahu-maneuvers-iran-russia/

Following his meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow earlier this month, Netanyahu told reporters that conveying to Putin the threat posed by Iran was one of main goals of his visit.

"I clarified to President Putin our vehement opposition to the establishment of Iran and its tentacles in Syria," Netanyahu said. "We see Iran is trying to build up a military force, with military infrastructure, in order to establish a base in Syria, including attempts by Iran to set up a sea port," he added.

Netanyahu noted that Iran's presence in Syria was contrary to Israel's interests, and suggested that it actually "doesn't match the long-term interests of anyone except Iran."

Iranian officials soon refuted the prime minister's claims, and similar claims made by US media over the weekend about Iran's supposed plans to establish a naval base in Syria's Latakia. Officials stressed that the Iranian presence in Syria was limited to military advisers, and added that these are in the country at the request of Syria's legitimate government. Iran has no plans to create any military bases in Syria, they said.

The US decision to impose new new sanctions against Russian entities was made during the final days of President Barack Obama’s administration, a Department of State official told Sputnik.

US Decision to Sanction Russian Companies Pre-Dates Trump Administration
https://sputniknews.com/politics/201703281052023117-obama-administration-russia-sanctions/

On Saturday, the United States announced new sanctions on eight Russian companies for alleged nonproliferation-related violations. The Russian Foreign Ministry said the move contradicts the White House’s alleged desire to improve relations with Moscow.

"These determinations to sanction this group of individuals and entities were made by the State Department on January 17, 2017… and subsequently reviewed by the incoming administration prior to transmission to Congress," the official stated on Monday.

The official noted that the sanctions decisions were then delivered to Congress on March 21 as part of a report related to violations of the US Iran, North Korea, and Syria Nonproliferation Act (INKSNA).

The companies affected by the INKSNA sanctions include the 150th Aircraft Repair Plant, Aviaexport, Bazalt, Kolomna Design Bureau of Machine-Building, Rosoboronexport, Ulyanovsk Higher Aviation Academy of Civil Aviation, Ural Training Center for Civil Aviation, Zhukovskiy and Gagarin Academy.

 

[Laura]

Found today at SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, “Willie Brown, you know what the motto should be for the Trump administration?”

“No.”

“Elect a clown, and you get a circus.”

Kinda chilling when one considers that Hitler was seen as a clown also.

I have a bit of a strange theory.

Everyone expected Trump to make nice in the world, to recall all the armies and stop bombing the middle east into the dark ages. So far that's not happened, and in fact it appears that the game has been cranked up a notch instead.

What if that's on purpose? Trump *does* want to get out of the middle east, but he can't do it by himself.

What if all the nice talk he's been making about the military (never mind increasing their budget) was to get them on his side. What if at some point he knows he's going to need a little "might" to take on (a) the CIA and (b) the Federal Reserve.

If it's made known that the CIA was responsible for the intelligence that led to all the civilian deaths lately, there's Trump's cue to go after the CIA. And if he does that, the so-called elite wouldn't dare challenge him if he goes after the Fed. Of course they won't go without a fight, and we're going to start seeing more terrorism in the US as a means of fighting Trump.

Crazy, I know. But possible it's just crazy like a fox.

This is possible. We have to wait and see.

 

[angelburst29]

The Democratic National Committee (DNC) requested its current staff members to submit resignation letters by April, US media reported.

Democratic National Committee Requests Resignation Letters From Current Staff
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703291052063099-dnc-resignation-letters/

NBC News, citing multiple unnamed sources, reported on Tuesday that the DNC requested its current staff members to submit letters of resignation.

After Tom Perez was elected as DNC chairman in late February, the adviser to former DNC interim chairman Donna Brazile asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation by April 15, the report stated.

The report added that major staffing and structure changes in the DNC will be announced in the coming weeks.

The DNC chair's role was left vacant after the resignation of Debbie Wasserman Schultz following last year's WikiLeaks revelations of attempts to tilt the primary election in favor of candidate Hillary Clinton and against candidate Bernie Sanders.

Clinton won the primary election, but subsequently lost to Republican candidate Donald Trump in the November 8 presidential election.

Democratic National Committee Chairman Tom Perez has launched a major overhaul of the party's organization, which has been stung by recent crises — and the DNC has requested resignation letters from all current staffers.

Embattled DNC Asks All Staffers For Resignation Letters (Video)
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/elections/embattled-dnc-asks-all-staffers-resignation-letters-n739676

Party staff routinely see major turnover with a new boss and they had been alerted to expect such a move. However, the mass resignation letters will give Perez a chance to completely remake the DNC's headquarters from scratch. Staffing had already reached unusual lows following a round of post-election layoffs in December.

Immediately after Perez's selection as party chairman in late February, an adviser to outgoing DNC Interim Chair Donna Brazile, Leah Daughtry, asked every employee to submit a letter of resignation dated April 15, according to multiple sources familiar with the party's internal workings.

A committee advising Perez on his transition is now interviewing staff and others as part of a top-to-bottom review process to decide not only who will stay and who will go, but how the party should be structured in the future.

Major staffing and organizational changes will be announced in coming weeks, one aide said.

"This is longstanding precedent at the DNC and has happened during multiple Chair transitions," said DNC spokeswoman Xochitl Hinojosa. "The process was started before the election of the new Chair. From the beginning, Tom has been adamant that we structure the DNC for future campaigns. Current and future DNC staff will be integral to that effort. Over the last few months, the DNC staff has done incredible work under immense pressure to hold Trump accountable."

Perez is the party's third leader in the past year, which was one of its most difficult on record.

It began with accusations that the DNC favored Hillary Clinton over Bernie Sanders in the Democratic primary, continued with the wrenching exposure of hacked emails and the abrupt resignation of former chair, Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, and concluded with the shocking defeat of its presidential nominee and a divisive race for the new party chairman.

The grueling experience, which followed years in which many Democrats felt the Obama White House ignored the party organization, has left the DNC with a crisis of confidence and competence.

Now Perez, who spent most of his career in government and not politics, needs to rebuild the beleaguered party, take on President Donald Trump, tap into a unique moment of progressive activism across the country, and replenish the party's coffers.

"I wouldn't wish that on anybody," California Gov. Jerry Brown told Chuck Todd on NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday. "I was the Democratic Party chairman in California — it's a miserable job. So, Tom, too bad."

Perez has spent his first weeks on the job in "active listening mode," hearing from Democrats in Washington and in small group meetings across the country before making any big moves.

"What we're trying to do is culture change," he told NBC News between stops of a listening tour in Michigan on Friday. "We're repairing a plane at 20,000 feet. You can't land the plane, shut it down, and close it until further notice."

It's a whirlwind job that took Perez from being feted at a donor conference at the Mandarin Oriental in Washington Thursday night to playing Solitaire on his iPhone in row 31 on a Delta flight to Detroit shortly after dawn the next morning.

The DNC will embark on a national search to fill key party positions, overseen by the 30-odd members of the transition advisory committee.

The committee is also reviewing the DNC's contracts with outside vendors and consultants, a source of complaints from many Democrats.

Progressives also criticized the transition committee's initial makeup, leading the DNC to add several more members from the left's ranks.

Earlier this month, Perez held a meeting to discuss the issue with Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer and Sanders, both of whom supported Rep. Keith Ellison in the DNC chair race.

Schumer, pointing to Ellison and Sanders, told Perez, "If he's happy, and if he's happy, then I'm happy," according to two sources.

Perez has included Ellison in many of the DNC's public events so far, but the party's charter makes no provision for a deputy chair, so Ellison does not have vote on the DNC. That could be fixed by naming the Minnesota congressman to one of the 75 slots the chairman gets to appoint to the national committee.

Ellison's political director has also been helping to oversee staffing decisions in some key departments in the DNC, according to several sources.

Following a day of drama involving the Chair of the House Intelligence Committee, Devin Nunes, who has been under constant onslaught by Democrats ever since his disclosure last week that Trump had indeed been the object of surveillance, and whose Democrat peer at the Intel panel, Adam Schiff, on Monday night called for Nunes to recuse himself, moments ago Trump waded into the news cycle when he asked on Twitter why the House Intelligence Committee is not investigating the Clintons for various ties of their own to Russia. He then slammed the ongoing anti-Russian witch hunt, saying "the Russia story is a hoax."

Trump Asks Why Intelligence Committee Isn't Probing The Clintons
http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2017-03-27/trump-asks-why-house-intel-committee-isnt-probing-clintons

“Why isn't the House Intelligence Committee looking into the Bill & Hillary deal that allowed big Uranium to go to Russia, Russian speech, money to Bill, the Hillary Russian ‘reset,’ praise of Russia by Hillary, or Podesta Russian Company. Trump Russia story is a hoax. #MAGA!” Trump wrote in two tweets Monday night.

Trump's rhetorical questions come amid a news cycle which as discussed on various occasions today has focused on the Republican chair of the Intel Committee, Nunes, who is under fire for briefing Trump about classified material he reviewed last week without sharing the information with committee Democrats. On Monday it was revealed that Nunes had secretly visited the White House grounds one day before announcing incidental surveillance of President Trump’s transition team. His visit raised questions about whether the White House could have been was the source of the intelligence Nunes reviewed.

Democratic lawmakers have now called on Nunes to recuse himself from the committee’s probe into Russia’s interference in the United States presidential election. Nunes on Monday evening said the chairman would not step aside from the investigation.

The republican lawmaker has claimed that his findings had no relevance to the Russia probe, even as the committee examines the unmasking and leaking of surveillance information as part of that investigation.

* * *
In a follow up tweet, Trump took another stab at the House Freedom Caucus, who he said snatched "defeat from the jaws of victory" - following Friday's failure to repeal and replace plan for ObamaCare. That followed a Sunday tweet in which he said the conservative House Freedom Caucus, along with the Club for Growth and Heritage Action for America, had “saved” Planned Parenthood and ObamaCare.

Finally, Trump brought it full circle, touching on Friday's failure to repeal Obamacare, saying "the Democrats will make a deal with me on healthcare as soon as ObamaCare folds - not long. Do not worry, we are in very good shape!

 

[JGeropoulas]

Evelyn Farkas, advisor to the Clinton campaign and Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, has become the latest Democrat to roll over and squeal on her former comrades, telling MSNBC that she helped spy on Trump for Obama before he left office, and that Trump, not Russians, was the target of the illegal surveillance. As the heat continues to rise, Obama administration members are starting to rat on each other, trying to gain favor with the current administration and save themselves from being the ones to serve jail time.

_http://yournewswire.com/obama-msnbc-spy-trump/

 

[lilies]

Evelyn Farkas, advisor to the Clinton campaign and Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, has become the latest Democrat to roll over and squeal on her former comrades, telling MSNBC that she helped spy on Trump for Obama before he left office, and that Trump, not Russians, was the target of the illegal surveillance. As the heat continues to rise, Obama administration members are starting to rat on each other, trying to gain favor with the current administration and save themselves from being the ones to serve jail time.

_http://yournewswire.com/obama-msnbc-spy-trump/

Another Hungarian. Her name - Farkas - means wolf. Has fitting bio for a many faced harpy. No wonder the Ukraine region was thrown into chaos, when:

She served from 2012 to 2015 as deputy assistant secretary of defense for Russia/Ukraine/Eurasia, responsible for policy toward Russia, the Black Sea, Balkans, and Caucasus regions and conventional arms control...

_http://www.atlanticcouncil.org/about/experts/list/evelyn-farkas#fullbio

 

[Pierre]

I noticed two measures recently taken by the Trump administration:
- the bill to audit the Fed
- Trump's request to stop Israeli settlements

Now, it could be just some bluff, but if Trump really tries to put Israel and the Fed in line, that will be very interesting because the Zionist community and the banking community are both extremely powerful and very detrimental to the nations. So, normalizing them would be challenging but very beneficial.

 

[angelburst29]

Does someone in Washington have a "reset-button" in which they create a scenario where "gunshots are heard on Capitol Hill" a year apart - like in the movie Ground Hog Day, where the same scenario keeps getting played back? Only, in this case, a year apart?

Police have arrested a suspect who apparently tried to drive into a US Capitol Police car near the US Congress on Wednesday, media reported.

Gunshots Reported Near the US Congress
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703291052085260-capitol-hill-shooting/

29.03.2017 - Officers said the driver also tried to hit Capitol Police officers with his car, ABC News reported.

Sounded like shots fired at the Capitol. Our view from Rayburn.

9:31 AM - 29 Mar 2017

Earlier, shots have been reported on Capitol Hill as security ordered everybody off the street. People have been locked inside the nearby buldings as police investigate, according to eyewitnesses.

DC police said that a driver struck a Capitol Police cruiser then tried running over other officers on foot.

No injuries reported in the incident.

The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is assisting the US Capitol Police with the investigation, according to the report.

Police have said the motivation of the driver who hit a US Capitol Police cruiser and tried to ran over officers earlier on Wednesday does not appear to be an act of terrorism, US media reported.

A spokesperson for the US Capitol Police said "there is no nexus for terrorism" with regard to the female suspect, FOX News reported.

Reports: Gunshots reported in US Capitol Visitors Center
https://www.aol.com/article/2016/03/28/reports-gunshots-reported-in-u-s-capitol-visitors-center/21334577/

Police officer shot at U.S. Capitol, shooter caught http://apne.ws/21PytOL

3:09 PM - 28 Mar 2016

The White House went on lockdown at 10:25 a.m. on Tuesday over a suspicious package, a Secret Service officer told journalists. Later in the day, the Secret Service spokeswoman said that a man who is suspected of bringing the package was detained.

White House on Lockdown Over Suspicious Package - Secret Service
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703281052046947-white-house-lockdown/

28.03.2017 - The officer told reporters that the White House was going on lockdown and to stay inside.

When asked about the reason for the lockdown, he replied a "suspicious package."

After an hour, the lockdown was lifted.

On March 19, a man approached the White House checkpoint and said he had a bomb inside his car.

Earlier in March, an intruder carrying a backpack breached the outer perimeter of the White House and was arrested by the US Secret Service near the south entrance to the residence.

It is not unheard of for intruders to scale the White House perimeter fence, and those that do are usually caught quickly and handed over to local police. The most serious recent security breach of the White House was in 2014, when an intruder with a knife jumped the fence, ran through the front door and made it all the way into the East Room, often used for receptions and addresses, before being tackled by security.

 

[Glenn]

Evelyn Farkas, advisor to the Clinton campaign and Obama's Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense, has become the latest Democrat to roll over and squeal on her former comrades, telling MSNBC that she helped spy on Trump for Obama before he left office, and that Trump, not Russians, was the target of the illegal surveillance. As the heat continues to rise, Obama administration members are starting to rat on each other, trying to gain favor with the current administration and save themselves from being the ones to serve jail time.

_http://yournewswire.com/obama-msnbc-spy-trump/

It was kind of looking that Trump was down for the count. But now, I don't know. With these people coming out, and exposing who knew what and when regarding the spying on Trump, it could turn very serious for the other side. These are very serious crimes, that stab at the very heart of democracy. And like it said in the article, they don't have a friendly administration to hide and cover their crimes, or give pardons if charges are laid.

 

[Divide by Zero]

I noticed two measures recently taken by the Trump administration:
- the bill to audit the Fed
- Trump's request to stop Israeli settlements

Now, it could be just some bluff, but if Trump really tries to put Israel and the Fed in line, that will be very interesting because the Zionist community and the banking community are both extremely powerful and very detrimental to the nations. So, normalizing them would be challenging but very beneficial.

I wonder if he would VETO the new law in the house of reps that would give internet service providers the ability to gather and use information of their customers' website use.


If he is serious about curtailing the media, he needs to veto it. If he is part of the problem, he will sign it, because it "helps corporations profits". Sigh.

 

[goyacobol]

I noticed two measures recently taken by the Trump administration:
- the bill to audit the Fed
- Trump's request to stop Israeli settlements

Now, it could be just some bluff, but if Trump really tries to put Israel and the Fed in line, that will be very interesting because the Zionist community and the banking community are both extremely powerful and very detrimental to the nations. So, normalizing them would be challenging but very beneficial.

I wonder if he would VETO the new law in the house of reps that would give internet service providers the ability to gather and use information of their customers' website use.


If he is serious about curtailing the media, he needs to veto it. If he is part of the problem, he will sign it, because it "helps corporations profits". Sigh.

Good point. Divide by Zero. I guess crossing fingers is "wishful thinking". :( "Wait and see" is better I suppose.

 

[Divide by Zero]

I wonder if he would VETO the new law in the house of reps that would give internet service providers the ability to gather and use information of their customers' website use.


If he is serious about curtailing the media, he needs to veto it. If he is part of the problem, he will sign it, because it "helps corporations profits". Sigh.

Good point. Divide by Zero. I guess crossing fingers is "wishful thinking". :( "Wait and see" is better I suppose.



I'm just not on the bandwagon because it gives me a familiar feeling of wishing forever. Always a new excuse, always a new story. I think these individual "marker posts" like the fed, privacy, etc with anybody, good or bad helps keep our feet on the ground and see them for who they are by what they do.


It's also creepy that he picked a Scalia fanboy as his supreme court pick. The "letter of the law" mentality went so far that he ruled in favor of a company that fired a worker who left his post because he was in hypothermia and needed to go get warmed up. This extreme version of the "pull yourself by the bootstraps" mentality is gaining momentum, fueled by the extreme opposite of the extreme left which we see are focused upon in the media. It's sickening.

 

[goyacobol]

I wonder if he would VETO the new law in the house of reps that would give internet service providers the ability to gather and use information of their customers' website use.


If he is serious about curtailing the media, he needs to veto it. If he is part of the problem, he will sign it, because it "helps corporations profits". Sigh.

Good point. Divide by Zero. I guess crossing fingers is "wishful thinking". :( "Wait and see" is better I suppose.



I'm just not on the bandwagon because it gives me a familiar feeling of wishing forever. Always a new excuse, always a new story. I think these individual "marker posts" like the fed, privacy, etc with anybody, good or bad helps keep our feet on the ground and see them for who they are by what they do.


It's also creepy that he picked a Scalia fanboy as his supreme court pick. The "letter of the law" mentality went so far that he ruled in favor of a company that fired a worker who left his post because he was in hypothermia and needed to go get warmed up. This extreme version of the "pull yourself by the bootstraps" mentality is gaining momentum, fueled by the extreme opposite of the extreme left which we see are focused upon in the media. It's sickening.

Yes, I know the feeling. The bandwagon is starting to look more like this:

 

[Ruth]

Found today at SFGate, the website of the San Francisco Chronicle, “Willie Brown, you know what the motto should be for the Trump administration?”

“No.”

“Elect a clown, and you get a circus.”

Kinda chilling when one considers that Hitler was seen as a clown also.

Lol, not in comparison to what Hillary is seen as. Elect a satanic worshiping, pedophile cult protecting crook? What does one get with that? Boggles the mind. I heard that the 1993 movie "The Firm" was based on the Clinton's Arkansas law practice.

 

[angelburst29]

US President Donald Trump's attempts to implement his campaign program, including his promises on relations with Russia, are being obstructed, Russian President Vladimir Putin said Thursday.

Trump Being Prevented From Carrying Out Election Campaign Agenda - Putin
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703301052125309-trump-putin-agenda/

The Russian president added that Moscow was simply waiting for the situation in the US to stabilize.

We see what is happening. President [Trump] is being prevented from carrying out many projects of his campaign program. Including healthcare, international affairs, relations with Russia," Putin said.

We are not interfering in any way. I think it is the best proof of the fact that we had not [interfered] in the past. But at some point in the future, I hope… we will arrange and hold the meeting," Putin said.

The president added that there were many issues to discuss at this potential meeting.

"There are many items to discuss, in terms of economy, regional security. We are ready for this discussion, but we need the other side to show goodwill and readiness for constructive talks," the Russian leader said.

More than 230,000 people have signed a Change.org petition to force the first lady to leave Manhattan, where her 11-year-old child is finishing his school year – or have the first family pay for their protection by the Secret Service and law enforcement.

Not Welcome Here: Petition Asks First Lady Melania Trump to Leave New York
https://sputniknews.com/us/201703301052102368-petition-melania-trump-move-dc/

The petition, started two weeks ago by a man named Doug Caruana, has gained massive traction in the past few days, gaining nearly 100,000 signatures in the 24 hours from Tuesday to Wednesday.

“The US taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the First Lady in Trump Tower, located in New York City,” the petition states. “As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded.”

The New York Police Department spent roughly $24 million to protect Trump Tower between the election in November and the inauguration in January, and are now spending between $127,000 and $145,000 a day to protect the first lady and Barron while the president is out of town. When Trump is in NYC, that number jumps to $300,000. The city is currently seeking federal reimbursement for the costs.

The first lady has stated that she will be moving to the White House once Barron finishes his school year in June.

"Mrs. Trump will be moving to DC and settling in to the White House at the end of the school year, splitting her time between New York and DC in the meantime," Stephanie Winston Wolkoff, senior adviser to the first lady, said in a statement. "Mrs. Trump is honored to serve this country and is taking the role and responsibilities of first lady very seriously. It has only been a short time since the inauguration and the first lady is going to go about her role in a pragmatic and thoughtful way that is unique and authentic to her."

The Secret Service is required to protect the first family regardless of their living arrangements.

“The Secret Service cannot dictate the lifestyle of the protectee. They have to work around it,” Jonathan Wackrow, who spent 14 years on the Secret Service and is now executive director of the risk-mitigation company RANE, recently told the Washington Post.

 

[angelburst29]

What is really behind the deep-state infighting over the U.S. elections and the “wire tapping” of the Trump campaign? Why was the CIA-Neocon axis vehemently lobbying against Trump? What foreign interests and what money is involved in this? Answers to these questions are now emerging.

Gas From Israel And The Flynn Wiretapping – Behind The Deep-State Infighting Over The Trump Election
http://www.globalresearch.ca/gas-from-israel-and-the-flynn-wiretapping-behind-the-deep-state-infighting-over-the-trump-election/5581984

The former director of the CIA under Clinton, James Woolsey, went to the Wall Street Journal and offered some information (likely some true and some false) on the retired General Flynn and the lobbying businesses he was involved in. Woolsey is an arch-neoconservative. He had worked on the transition team of Trump but got fired over “growing tensions over Trump’s vision for intelligence agencies.” Flynn is the former National Security Advisor of Trump who later also got fired. Woolsey was a board member of Flynn’s former lobbying company FIG.

Woolsey claims: In September 2016 he took part in a meeting between Flynn and high level Turkish officials, including the Turkish foreign minister and the energy minister who is the son of the Turkish president Erdogan. During the meeting, Woolsey claims, a brainstorming took place over how the Turkish cult leader Fethullah Gülen could -probably by illegal means- be removed from the U.S. and handed over to Turkey.

Gülen is accused by the Erdogan mafia of initiating a coup attempt against it. The U.S. claims officially that there is no evidence for such an accusation and that Gülen can therefore not be rendered to Turkey. Gülen is an old CIA asset that helped the U.S. deep state to control Turkey. Erdogan divorced from the Gülen organization after it became useless for his neo-Ottoman project.

Here is the WSJ report on the Woolsey claims and a video clip with parts of his WSJ interview. Woolsey also went on CNN where he repeated his WSJ story.

Flynn was accused by the anti-Trump campaign to have worked for Russia. He had taken several $10,000 for speeches he gave in Moscow. He also, at times, had argued for better U.S. relations with Russia. But Flynn’s pro-Russia stand was probably honest. (Or the bribes involved were just smaller than the ones paid by others.) The money he got on the speaker circus was rather small for a man in his position.

Flynn’s real corruption was on another issue. After having been fired from the Trump administration, Flynn retroactively filed under the Foreign Agent Registration Act (FARA). His lobbying firm had a contract over $530,000 to work for a company near to the Turkish president Erdogan:

In its filing, Mr. Flynn’s firm said its work from August to November “could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey.” The filing said his firm’s fee, $530,000, wasn’t paid by the government but by Inovo BV, a Dutch firm owned by a Turkish businessman, Ekim Alptekin.

This lobbying, not the alleged Flynn-Putin relation, is the real scandal and part of the Trump/CIA/Clinton deep-state in-fighting.

The meeting Woolsey described was under the “Turkish” Flynn contract. The Turkish business man, and owner of Inovo, Ekim Alptekin is a member of the Erdogan gang. But hidden at the very end of the WSJ story is the real key to understand the shady network: Inovo hired Mr. Flynn on behalf of an Israeli company seeking to export natural gas to Turkey, the filing said, and Mr. Alptekin wanted information on the U.S.-Turkey political climate to advise the gas company about its Turkish investments. It was the Israeli gas company, not the Alptekin outlet, that drove the issue.

The Leviathan (and Tamar) gas fields in the Mediterranean along the Israeli coast are a huge energy and profit resource IF the gas from them can be exported to Europe. Several companies are involved in the exploration and all are looking for ways to connect the fields to the European gas network. There are (likely true) rumors that huge bribes have been paid in Israel, Jordan and elsewhere to win exploration contracts and to sell the gas. Negotiations between Israel and Turkey over the pipeline have been on and off. They depend on a positive climate towards Israel in the Turkish government which again depends on the often changing political position of the Erdogan gang.

The picture evolving here (lots of sleuthing and sources) is this: An Israeli company (or whoever is behind it) wants a gas pipeline to Turkey. It hires Flynn and Alptekin to arrange a positive climate for the Leviathan pipeline within the Turkish government. It offers Flynn more than half a million for a little (4-month long) influence work. His job is to create a “friendly atmosphere” for the deal by using his influence in the U.S. to accommodate Erdogan. A major point that is expected from Flynn is to arrange the handover of Gülen, by whatever means, from the U.S. to Erdogan.

After accepting the (lobbying) bribe Flynn-the-whore suddenly changes his former anti-Turkish, pro-Russian, pro-Kurdish political position into a pro-Turkish, neutral-Russian and anti-Kurdish one. (His lobbying firm also makes some smaller payments related to the Clinton email-server scandal. This may be related to links between the Clinton family and the Gülen school empire.) He has a meeting with the Turkish government/Erdogan officials part of which is a discussion of a removal of Gülen to Turkey. He pens a pro Erdogan anti-Gülen op-ed which is published on the day of the election and he denigrates the Pentagon plan to work with the Kurds in Syria.

The NSA, CIA and the FBI are listening to Flynn’s conversations with Turkish and Israeli interests. (For the old and long history of such “wiretapping” of Turkish and Israeli connections and various dirty and criminal deals they revealed read and ask Sibel Edmonds.)

The projects which Flynn is involved in, especially removing Gülen, are against the long term interests of the (neoconservative-driven) CIA. Selected tapes of his talks are transcribed and distributed within the anti-Trump campaign. This is the origin of the “wiretapping” of the Trump Tower the U.S. president lamented about. The stuff the CIA dug up about Flynn’s dealing was and is used against Trump.

Woolsey is caught up in this as he also worked for Flynn’s lobbying firm. (His neocon-pro-Zionist history suggests that he is the senior Israeli watchdog over Flynn in all this.) He is now engaged in damage control and is “coming clean” and selectively leaking his anti-Flynn stuff to exculpate himself. (There is probably also some new, better deal involved that will pay off from him.)

The Israeli-Turkish pipeline and the related deep-state fight are not the only issue involved in the campaign against Trump. There are also British interests and British intelligence involvement especially with the accusations against Russia of “hacking” of the DNC. If and how these fit in with above has not yet been revealed.

President Trump’s foreign policy is sinking into incoherence from the Middle East to the Far East, with his promise of less interventionism and budget savings disappearing from view, as Ivan Eland reports.

Trump’s Incoherent Foreign Policy
https://consortiumnews.com/2017/03/28/trumps-incoherent-foreign-policy/

The recent North Korean missile tests raise questions about contradictions in President Donald Trump’s national security policies. During his campaign Trump implied that the United States should fight fewer wars overseas and demanded that U.S. dependents, Japan and South Korea, do more for their own defense, perhaps even getting nuclear weapons.

Yet a recent article written by David Sanger, a national security reporter for the New York Times, noted that Trump had tweeted that North Korean acquisition of a long-range missile “won’t happen” and that his administration was considering preemptive military strikes on North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs or reintroducing U.S. tactical (short-range) nuclear missiles into South Korea, which were removed 25 years ago.

So which is it — demanding U.S. allies do more or ramping up America’s efforts to make them even more reliant on American power? And this is not the only Trump policy contradiction.

If Trump is demanding that wealthy allies — both East Asian and European — put out more of an effort for their own security and if Trump wants to fight fewer wars overseas, then why does the defense budget need to be increased by a whopping 10 percent? That proposed increase is roughly equivalent to the entire Russian annual defense budget. In fact, couldn’t U.S. defense spending be cut to help ameliorate the already humongous $20-trillion-dollar national debt?

Moreover, the Department of Defense is the worst run agency in the federal government, as demonstrated by its being the only department to repeatedly fail to pass an audit ? thus not being able to pinpoint where many trillions of dollars over many years have been spent. In 2001, the department’s comptroller admitted to me that the department’s broken accounting system would not be able to pass such an audit for a long time to come. Sixteen years later it still can’t.

How does the American taxpayer know that the already almost $600 billion defense budget each year is spent wisely or even not stolen outright? Despite this niggling elephant in the room, the Congress regularly gives the department, and the military services within it, almost a free pass, because of “patriotism,” political pressure from defense industries, and the aura of secrecy surrounding this bureaucracy.

Because the nation’s founders were almost universally suspicious of large standing militaries — in the late 1770s, European monarchs used them for external conquest and plunder and internal repression of their own peoples — militarism covered by the veneer of “patriotism” is as inauthentic and vile as it is prevalent in Twenty-first Century America.

Also, much of the shroud of secrecy surrounding the military is overdone; many employees of the security bureaucracies admit that much information is over-classified. That includes threat information, which the department has a conflict of interest in hyping, because it justifies more spending on research, weapons, operations, maintenance, and all other things military.

The Terrorist Hype - Trump is also hyping terrorist threats to justify stanching foreign travel and immigration to the United States, as well as indirectly his higher defense budgets. Yet leaked documents from his own Department of Homeland Security say that discrimination by national background is a poor way of identifying potential terrorists and that most people who have committed recent terrorist acts in the United States were radicalized long after coming here.

Despite all the media hype, terrorism is still a rare phenomenon, and North America has always had fewer foreign terrorists than most other places, because it is a long way away from the world’s centers of conflict — for example, the Middle East. So much for the value of “extreme vetting” of arriving individuals from selected Muslim countries and increasing defense spending to combat terrorism.

Pressure by the military-industrial-complex (MIC) is another major driver of excessive defense spending. MIC lobbying has led to monumental wasting of taxpayer dollars over the years. For example, according to David Sanger, efforts to develop and field a limited national missile defense system to protect against the likes of relatively primitive North Korean missiles has cost taxpayers about $300 billion since the days of Eisenhower but has given them a system that, even under perfect conditions, can only hit an incoming missile 44 percent of the time. And most analysts say real world conditions will rarely be perfect. This effort should have been abandoned long ago, but the MIC uses “the legacy of Ronald Reagan” to win conservative support in seeming perpetuity, no matter the poor results of the program.

There are countless other weapons programs in the Department of Defense that are underperforming, vastly exceeding original cost estimates, and are way behind schedule. Thus, taxpayers and their members of Congress need to cast a jaundiced eye on Trump’s desired military spending increase.