63 thoughts on “Note

  1. Trump’s budget is a press release signaling his priorities.
    Congress approves every penny spent by the United States, the White House cannot appropriate a cent.

  2. It may not be possible to be truly unbiased, but you can be balanced.
    None of the mainstream media reporting on Trump should be believed. They have given up even attempting to be balanced. Their honest reporting on Trump (there may be some) is lost in the noise.

  3. Kevin Drum is a rare breed: a leftist who can still use his brain. On the endangered species list of course. As far as the Judge Napolitano imbroglio: “wiretapping” is an archaic term. Electronic surveillance more 21st century. Someone leaked info to the New York Times about conversations Trump associates had with Russians. That info was not obtained by sitting next to them at a Starbuck’s. Was Trump a target? Nobody knows. Are Obama’s fingerprints on any of this? Clearly not. He’s a mendacious and crafty crime boss. Not stupid enough to get caught with his hand in the cookie jar. Napolitano is no friend of Trump, as anybody paying attention should know. But now he’s been burned by somebody and we aren’t likely to find out who.

  4. For Trump or any of his supporters to continue claiming he was wiretapped by Obama, you must believe that
    1) the current FBI director was lying in a public, nationally televised congressional hearing.
    2) And that the former director of national intelligence was lying.
    3) And that Mike Rogers, director of the National Security Agency, is lying that Britain was not involved in a wiretapping program at the behest of the American government.

  5. I knew quite a few people in hysterics about the MOWs cut. I questioned whether MOWs was a federally funded program. I didn’t recall that it was. Glad to see this link.

  6. Emery, all you would have believe to continue claiming that Obama wiretapped Trump is that Obama wiretapped Trump.
    You are obsessing about this.

  7. Andrew Napolitano reportedly pulled from Fox News over debunked wiretapping claims

    Debunked by whom? People who would go to jail for admitting it? What a maroon… Logically challenged maroon…

  8. Trump essentially forced the government and congress to investigate a fake news report on wire tapping by Obama. And then, when the allegations are proven to be false beyond a reasonable doubt, the president does not apologize, but accuses the head of the FBI of lying about other parts of his testimony to distract from the main story. And the half of the country that supports this president will only read information that defends the false allegation and ignore all of the reporting showing the president to be wrong. I don’t know how long we can sustain this as a country. Trump promised to drain the swamp. Instead, he’s opened up a cesspool.

  9. How is that prediction of yours that UK will vote ReMain and that Article 50 will not be triggered coming along? Any updates?

  10. The Napolitano story all comes from an anonymously sourced LA Times story.
    Not confirmed by Fox or Napolitano.

  11. As the Monty Python boys put it so succinctly all those years ago: “We’d better hope and pray there’s intelligent life in space because there’s bugger all here on Earth.”

  12. Emery, I am to believe that (a) the FBI is investigating the Trump campaign and (b) there are no methods in place to monitor communications by Trump campaign staffers? Seriously?

    I am left with either the FBI is incompetent, or Comey is either lying or “parsing out” the truth. Given Comey’s disgraceful failure to indict Mrs. Clinton, I am leaning towards the latter. The nicest way I can color this one is that Comey can honestly say that there were no devices physically connected to Trump Tower phones, but the recent leaks of classified information make it very clear that people are listening in when they can.

  13. We deserve nothing less than the truth. And the truth should be acted on responsibly.

  14. We deserve nothing less than the truth. And the truth should be acted on responsibly.

    Isn’t that exactly what the Russians are accused of doing? Giving us the truth about the Democrats?

  15. There is a difference between changing votes by hacking into voting machines versus changing votes in people minds by perpetuating an information war.

  16. Well, yes, Emery, and the only credible allegations are of the latter. Not that this distinction makes much of a difference to Democrats, of course.

  17. Nerdie: Refusing to support Trump is not the same as embracing the Democratic party as it stands now. If the Democrats want to be the party of government again (and not simply the party of protest, victim-hood, and a rainbow coalition), they need to change.

  18. There is a difference between changing votes by hacking into voting machines versus changing votes in people minds by perpetuating an information war.

    Oh, I’d agree. In fact, but I’d argue that anything that’s been seen so far is laughably inadequate for assigning blame to Russia, especially since the last Wikileaks dump showed that we maintain programs that would show up as coming from various other governments. Given that we are quite able to make the private entities that attributed this hack to the Russians mistake the real source of the intrusion, how much trust should we give the work of the private companies that’s been presented as the “proof” of Russian culpability? Not that I’d deny the probability that Russia was in fact behind the hack, but I firmly doubt you’d be able to prove it to even the preponderance of evidence standard and that’s assuming that the NSA was willing to publicly share their reasons for suspecting Russians.

    Further, do you have ANY proof of a hacking attempt on voting machines other than that of our own DHS? All the reporting so far has indicated that nobody tried to hack voting machines, so I’d love to see why you have some basis for that claim other than Democrat Derangement Syndrome? Even the Demonrat leadership is trying to walk back this idea as things are showing that they’ve been delusional in making these claims.

  19. The NSA already is “tapping” all of our lines. All the time. What is does with the information is a matter of conjecture and debate.

  20. What everyone fails to realize or acknowledge, is the fact that the POTUS’ Secret Service detail, routinely scans any room in which he is in, for electronic bugs. I would bet that’s where Trump’s claims originated from. Based on the lack of coordination between the SS, the FBI, the CIA, DHS and The NSA, I also wouldn’t doubt that Comey is covering someone’s ass and it’s probably the last occupier of the White House.

    EI, your blatant hypocrisy is getting old. When you start calling for the truth about the Democrats, especially the Clintons, and their collusion with the Russians, your credibility is gone. Seems to me that the Dems seem to forget that they ridiculed Mitt Romney for saying that Russia was still a threat, yet now they see a Russia is their favorite bogeyman. Pathetic losers, all!

  21. Now this is interesting (usual caveat about sources applies):
    http://nypost.com/2017/03/21/fbi-bugged-trump-tower-while-probing-russian-gambling-ring/
    This is along the lines of rumors I’ve heard. The carefully parsed statements of intelligence bureau apparatchiks can fit this scenario. Russians are being investigated, occasionally Trump, his associates and operations are mentioned. The rules say they have to black line that stuff, they are not supposed to spy on Americans. Rules have been developed just to prevent the scenario we have seen — intelligence services gather information that is illegal to use, even for background, and selectively leak it to accomplish the intelligence agency’s own ends.
    Heads should role. We are a republic. We are citizens, not the subjects of our “betters.”

  22. BH: I voted for Clinton because I found her to be the least offensive of two poor choices. And I’ll grant you, there is plenty of grist for any mill the business of which is the Clinton’s inadequate understanding of ethics.

    The problem with Trump is, he lies. He lies about little things, big things, he lies about things that are of no consequence, and then he lies about lying. Is this what we have to look forward to for the next 4 years? Trump lying so as to not make a complete fool of himself.

    Sure, there are parts of his message that are perfectly reasonable (and others that are completely offensive and unacceptable). The bigger problem is the messenger, not the message. This man is totally unacceptable as a leader of anything except perhaps a drunken college fraternity.

  23. The problem with Trump is, he lies. He lies about little things, big things, he lies about things that are of no consequence, and then he lies about lying. Is this what we have to look forward to for the next 4 years? Trump lying so as to not make a complete fool of himself.

    Do you really want to go there as a defense for voting for your candidate? Sniper fire? Youtube movies? Gun running? Servers and wiping? Being broke and poor when leaving the White House? Being named for someone who climbed Everest two years after she was born? Being rejected from the Marines?

    Both candidates lied often and without shame, but only one of them was called on it. Frankly, in a situation like that I’d rather have the one who is challenged be in the position of authority because at least then there would be some sort of political restraint on the person, while if Hillary had gone in there we’d have nothing but cheerleading from peanut gallery.

  24. The Clintons have always taken the position that a lie is only a lie if it would get them convicted of perjury. It worked for them, the media backed them up. Different story for Trump, of course.
    For a guy who has been in court as much as Trump has, and who supposedly is a pathological liar, I see no convictions for perjury.
    I’m not going to convict for perjury based on a 160 character weekend tweet.

  25. golfdoc50: There’s a huge difference between a program that scans massive amounts of data for patterns and irregularities, and an order to eavesdrop on a presidential candidate’s private line. And the government has long argued that it collected phone metadata — toll records and phone numbers, rather than content – which again, is hardly “wire-tapping.”

    Whooly: The birth certificate, the massive voter fraud, the size of the inauguration, the biggest win since Reagan, associating lying’ Ted’s father with the JFK conspiracy… there’s not a shred of evidence to support the fake news Trump spreads.

  26. The birth certificate,

    You are a pathetic moron. Yes, somebody has to call you out, you turd slinging monkey. THAT lie originated with sHrillary. Do you deny it?

  27. The Napolitano story all comes from an anonymously sourced LA Times story. Not confirmed by Fox or Napolitano.

    It had surfaced again, this time with a named source. Fact that GCHQ (or whatever the acronym is) so vigorously denied it breaking with protocol makes one to take pause and question things. But we do not have anyone actually following up and questioning, do we? Denial from the accused is hardly debunking.

  28. The problem with winning an election is Team Trump’s espionage issues becomes a bigger deal than the loser’s espionage. Hillary and the Clinton Foundation ties are no longer relevant, since she lost the election. Trump is in the White House, not Hillary. So his people having conflicts of interest with the Russians are relevant. Had Hillary won, the Republicans would be making a big deal about her questionable contacts. So try not to be such hypocrites, because you know for a fact this would have been a big deal to you had Hillary won the election.

  29. Emery, drop the birth certificate complaint. Your analysis is wrong as a matter of law, which I explained in a response to an earlier column.

    No living person has seen Barak Obama’s official birth certificate, the last one having died in a 2013 plane crash that all the other passengers survived unharmed.

    When you assert that a person told six lies but one of them is not clearly a lie, it casts doubt on your claim about the other five.

  30. JD: That’s too rich for a second serving. Serving up such sophistry is laughable.

  31. Malik Obama, Barry’s brother, posted a birth certificate for Barry; from Kenya. Malik says Barry was born in Kenya.

    But hey, SSOLSEmery says “no”, so we have to go with that…I guess.

  32. The birth certificate,

    You are a pathetic moron. Yes, somebody has to call you out, you turd slinging monkey. THAT lie originated with sHrillary. Do you deny it?

    Well?

  33. Not that I expect an answer, mind you. eTASS is nothing but a hypocritical poo slinging monkey devoid of any scruples and reasoning.

    Oh, and by the way, sHrillary election team had tons of contact with Russians, including Podesta. Why is she not investigated? Just because she lost, does not mean she was not guilty of throwing in with the Russians, trying to sway the election. Speaking of throwing in with the Russiaons – who has more in common with the russkies, “strongman” sTrumpet or reprobate, devout soci@list demoncrats? Who had more to gain? The rank hypocrisy and the absolute absurdity of the charge that Russians were trying to help sTrumpet and not sHrillary is insane. Oh, wait. We are talking about insane eTASS and his ilk. Nevermind.

  34. Members of the intelligence community collected ‘incidental’ communications of the Trump transition team during legal surveillance operations, producing ‘dozens’ of reports which eventually unmasked several individuals’ identities and which were ‘widely disseminated,’ a top lawmaker said Wednesday afternoon.

    My… My… My… where a lib to turn to? Every meme they get handed down is getting busted… Nunes is hardly an anonymous source. Watch for spinning, obfuscation and moving of the goal posts to start in three… two.. one…

  35. On the light side, if Barack was indeed born in Kenya, surviving third world healthcare, that explains a LOT about the Health Insurance Deform Act, not to mention his 30 year smoking habit, some of which was even legal. He thinks he can survive anything, and to be fair, he’s probably got a point. Politically and otherwise, he’s survived a lot of things that would have killed other men’s careers and more. Classic NPD.

    And hey, I’m not going to get that worked up about the fact that the media is worked up against one NPD and not another. Par for the course, really.

  36. I remember when Trump said of the investigators he sent to Hawaii, “They cannot believe what they’re finding.”

    Typical of Trump: saying that he was dispatching investigators to Hawaii and then not doing it.

    I am sure there are people out there that think Trump’s team of investigators are still on the job.

  37. Yet another non-sequitur (not that we would expect anything less) reply to a simple question whether sHrillary was the original source of the birther rumors.

  38. And how is that crow tasting re Nunes revelations that Wooley’s hypothesis was right on the money? Choking yet, or still trying to digest the Brexit one?

  39. The BBC came out with a three part series collectively called The Worricker Trilogy. It was shown on PBS in the US and is available for streaming.
    It’s a great spy story, but it’s premise is appalling: a Tony Blair styled PM is breaking British tradition (but not its laws) by cozying up too much to the US in its war on terror. A spy determines to end it by leaking damaging information about renditions.
    This maybe — maybe — could make sense in England. England is not a republic. It is governed by its institutions, not its people.
    In the US, if the people’s elected reps decide to torture POW’s, that’s what we do. Who can judge the people wrong? Religious leaders? Intellectuals? Both religious leaders and intellectuals have taken mistaken positions in the past.
    There is only us citizens. I don’t want to be ruled by an aristocracy.

  40. Nunes has walked into a trap. He immediately leaked to the media and ran to the subject of a federal investigation with the first bit of info dangled his way. This is why an independent prosecutor needs to be appointed to look at everything.

    The concern is that Russia propagated false information and true but confidential and illegally obtained information to influence what Americans thought about the candidates. That claim is completely consistent with the facts as we have them and of concern to patriotic Americans. It will be of concern to Trump supporters if, in the diminishingly likely event that Donald Trump is a successful president, Wikileaks starts getting ahold of internal Republican documents and social media suddenly comes alive with stories about how Steve Bannon eats caucasian babies just prior to the next election.

  41. “This is why an independent prosecutor needs to be appointed to look at everything.”
    Good luck finding a prosecutor, D or R, with no expressed opinion on Trump!

  42. Don’t you need evidence of a crime before you appoint a prosecutor? Otherwise it is a fishing expedition.

  43. MP, it strikes me that Patrick Fitzgerald dispensed with that nicety in his prosecution/persecution of Scooter Libby, as he found there was no possible crime within weeks of starting, yet continued his investigation for months afterwards.

    That said, if it does turn out that Comey is allowing a fishing expedition, that would be a great reason to send him on his way and report him to the DC bar. Really, if there was no credible hint of a quid pro quo, and I’ve seen none, that’s exactly what the case is.

  44. One problem I see is setting the scope of the investigation. We only know of two crimes: the hacking of Podesta’s email account, and the leak about Flynn. Keep in mind that Podesta & the other victims never confirmed that the leaked emails were genuine. It’s hard to see a trail leading from either of those crimes to Trump, and either one has a good chance of embarrassing the Democrats.
    It seems likely that Snowden wasn’t lying when he said the feds were collecting a significant amount of domestic intelligence, and getting away with it because technically they weren’t looking at it, just collecting info from cell phones, etc. If Americans think that those intelligence records are at the disposal of bad actors (leakers) within the intelligence community, there could be a huge backlash.

  45. Isn’t it sad that our Presidential politics requires constant FBI investigation of Presidents and candidates?

  46. Isn’t it sad that our Presidential politics requires constant FBI investigation of Presidents and candidates?

    Well, if the FBI would occasionally recommend prosecution for obviously guilty parties, like the gal who had classified information on her private server or the IRS employees who harassed conservative organizations, maybe politicians wouldn’t feel empowered to break the law so often.

    Also along those lines, hackers in Russia are not bound by U.S. law, so unless they had information clearly connecting the Trump campaign to them, this is a legal nothingburger, a fishing expedition. I think Comey needs to answer some tough questions from his boss on this one, and if he can’t provide reason to proceed, he needs to go. Now.

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