US Politics Thread 2016-2020

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

James Clapper?

The same James Clapper who lied under oath to Congress about whether the NSA was spying on U.S. citizens? There is a reliable source.

Interesting that they would send him on air.

Quite, Mr 'Memory Failure', but then again, everyone seems to be having a memory failure this week, especially when it comes to anything to do with Russia.


Oh, and speaking of bias...maybe this should get linked to the front page?

https://mediabiasfactcheck.com/

[ikalugin]

Originally Posted by Oberon

I was being kind and not bringing this one up, Jim.

But since we're here...if this is true, and not just a Breitbart article, then it suggests that a FISA court had grounds to grant a warrant for wire-tapping in regards to the investigation to Trumps Russian ties.

Does make you feel sorry for White House staff though, doesn't it? Apparently this one caught them all off guard, and now they have to try and work out how to respond to it without dropping the Donald in the sewage.

Implying that FISA court does not just rubber stamp any request that comes it's way.

[Oberon]

Originally Posted by ikalugin

Implying that FISA court does not just rubber stamp any request that comes it's way.

What, like they rubber stamped the first request in June? But yeah, generally speaking it doesn't say no, but it did the first time the FBI went to them.

[Bilge_Rat]

the plot thickens. Hard to figure out what is going on. The NY Times is now reporting there is no truth to allegations that the Obama admin was wiretapping the Trump campaign, but a jan. 19 article by the NY Times expressly said there was wiretapping:

Wiretapped Data Used in Inquiry of Trump Aides

WASHINGTON — American law enforcement and intelligence agencies are examining intercepted communications and financial transactions as part of a broad investigation into possible links between Russian officials and associates of President-elect Donald J. Trump, including his former campaign chairman Paul Manafort, current and former senior American officials said.

(..)

The counterintelligence investigation centers at least in part on the business dealings that some of the president-elect’s past and present advisers have had with Russia. Mr. Manafort has done business in Ukraine and Russia. Some of his contacts there were under surveillance by the National Security Agency for suspected links to Russia’s Federal Security Service, one of the officials said.

The FBI was leading the investigation and summaries of the wiretapping were provided to the Obama administration:

The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/19/u...tion.html?_r=1

However, the NY Times is now claiming that that there was no wiretapping of the Trump campaign:

Comey Asks Justice Dept. to Reject Trump’s Wiretapping Claim


WASHINGTON — The F.B.I. director, James B. Comey, asked the Justice Department this weekend to publicly reject President Trump’s assertion that President Barack Obama ordered the tapping of Mr. Trump’s phones, senior American officials said on Sunday. Mr. Comey has argued that the highly charged claim is false and must be corrected, they said, but the department has not released any such statement.

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/u...T.nav=top-news

so, let me see if I understand this correctly, when the aim was to show that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, there was wiretapping going on, but now that said wiretapping might embarrass the Democrats, it turns out there was no wiretapping.

The only real question is was the NY Times lying then, is it lying now or does it lie all the time?

[Oberon]

It lies no more or less than all the others.

[STEED]

The truth is out there buried under a ton of lies BS and twisted facts.

I advice Mr Trump if you have evidence and has been checked to the max then present that evidence. Too much here say from politicians and the media these days.

[Von Due]

Originally Posted by STEED

The truth is out there buried under a ton of lies BS and twisted facts.

Sums up neatly why I have been quiet in this thread and why I will not have any politician anywhere near my place without CCTV installed in every room.

[Dowly]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

so, let me see if I understand this correctly, when the aim was to show that there was collusion between the Trump campaign and Russia, there was wiretapping going on, but now that said wiretapping might embarrass the Democrats, it turns out there was no wiretapping.

Trump's associates/aides != Trump, so no, you don't understand it correctly.

[Bilge_Rat]

As an interesting aside, it turns out that in 1968, much the same happened. The Nixon campaign, worried that a peace deal would cost them the election contacted the South Vietnamese government and convinced them to kill the ongoing negotiations.

LBJ, who had a suspicion of what was going on, ordered the wiretapping of Nixon associates:

Like many of Nixon’s actions, this particular transgression was born of paranoia. As the 1968 election approached, Nixon and his aides feared that Johnson would try to help the Democratic nominee—Vice President Hubert Humphrey—by staging an October surprise. When LBJ announced to the nation, just days before the balloting, that he was calling a halt in the bombing of North Vietnam to help fuel progress in ongoing peace talks, the Republicans thought their fears were realized.

Anna Chennault, a Republican activist with ties to the South Vietnamese government, sent word to Saigon that it would get better terms if Humphrey lost and Nixon took office, the FBI would discover. The South Vietnamese dragged their feet, infuriating LBJ who, in a taped conversation released by the Johnson presidential library several years ago, can be heard denouncing Nixon for “treason.”

LBJ ordered the FBI to put Chennault under surveillance and, according to documents at the Johnson library, tracked the machinations of the “Dragon Lady”(as Nixon called her) via intercepted communications at the South Vietnamese embassy. After Nixon won, FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover told the new president that Johnson had ordered Nixon’s campaign planes bugged as well.

Once in office, Nixon ordered his staff to investigate the bombing halt and the allegation his campaign had been bugged. Huston, a dedicated and resourceful young conservative who had worked on the 1968 campaign before joining the White House as a presidential aide, was given the job. But his investigation, and the report he delivered to White House chief of staff H. R. Haldeman in 1970, found that both presidents had cause for embarrassment: LBJ for the surveillance of a presidential candidate from the other party, and Nixon for the role that his campaign played in derailing the peace talks.

Neither side wanted to push the issue. “I think there was an implicit understanding between two very politically sophisticated people, who had been in the arena for a very long time, to say ‘Hey, look, this thing is over, you know, neither one of us are going to gain anything by stirring up this pot,’” Huston says.

http://www.politico.com/magazine/sto...e-talks-107623

the difference of course is that once the election was over, both LBJ and Nixon realized there was no advantage in going public and smearing the other side and indirectly, American Democracy.

so much for the good old days.

[Oberon]

[Jimbuna]

Trump signs new travel-ban directive.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-39183153

[Oberon]

[DicheBach]

Originally Posted by Bilge_Rat

That has been raised many times over the years. Nothing new.

There is a way the WH could easily resolve this. Pull the EO. Issue a new more limited EO that leaves existing visas in place and make it much tougher to get new or renewed visas from those 7 countries. That would have the same effect in practice.

However I suspect the WH is happy with letting this thing drag out in court. It mobilises the Base against its favorite targets: liberal judges, washington insiders, do gooders, etc.

That will make it a lot easier for Trump to get his legislative agenda through Congress. GOP lawmakers will toe the party line as long as he has 90%+ approval rating among Republicans.

and if, god forbid, a terrorist event does occur on U.S. soil, the Democrats and Courts will get the blame.

All in all, it is a win/win situation for Trump.

It would not surprise me if, as usual, the Democrats and media are being played.

They still think they can win by conventional means . . .

[u crank]

Interesting article in Wall Street Journal by Shelby Steele, The Exhaustion of American Liberalism.

https://www.wsj.com/articles/the-exh...1826?mod=e2two

Today’s liberalism is an anachronism. It has no understanding, really, of what poverty is and how it has to be overcome. It has no grip whatever on what American exceptionalism is and what it means at home and especially abroad. Instead it remains defined by an America of 1965—an America newly opening itself to its sins, an America of genuine goodwill, yet lacking in self-knowledge.

This liberalism came into being not as an ideology but as an identity. It offered Americans moral esteem against the specter of American shame. This made for a liberalism devoted to the idea of American shamefulness. Without an ugly America to loathe, there is no automatic esteem to receive. Thus liberalism’s unrelenting current of anti-Americanism.

Four thousand shootings in Chicago last year, and the mayor announces that his will be a sanctuary city. This is moral esteem over reality; the self-congratulation of idealism. Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.

I think he hits it out of the park.

[Mr Quatro]

Originally Posted by u crank

Four thousand shootings in Chicago last year, and the mayor announces that his will be a sanctuary city. This is moral esteem over reality; the self-congratulation of idealism. Liberalism is exhausted because it has become a corruption.

Hey! Quit picking on Chicago: http://wgntv.com/2017/03/05/chicago-...hooting-death/

CHICAGO — Chicago nearly went a full week without a fatal shooting.
The Chicago Sun-Times and the Chicago Tribune reported the city had passed such a milestone on Sunday morning for the first time in more than five years.