The 2017 Trump

Presidency - 8
The First 100 Days +
April 18, 2017 – May 30tthh, 2017

See How The Main Stream Media, The

Neocons, & the Deep State Are Trying To
Destroy The Trump Presidency
And United States of America
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April 2017
FIRST EDITION
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2
 CONTENTS
MSNBC’s Malcolm Nance Nominates Trump Tower Istanbul For ‘ISIS Suicide Bombing’ xxx
“Making America Great Again” By Reducing The World To Ashes? xxx
BOMBSHELL: James Comey Used Buzzfeed Fake Dossier To Build Russia Collusion Case Against Trump xxx
MIT Scientist FURTHER Debunks False Flag: "The Nerve Agent Attack That Did Not Occur" xxx
Trump’s Tax Returns: What’s There To Hide? xxx
Warren Can't Even Name One Good Thing Trump's Done in First 90 Days xxx
Trump’s Fatal Reality Gap And How The Media Can Close It xxx
Foreign Policy and “False Flags”: Trump’s “War and Chocolate” Reality Show xxx
Confirmed: John Brennan Colluded With Foreign Spies To Defeat Trump xxx
Is Trump Heading For War On Iran? xxx
“This Goes Far Beyond Incidental Surveillance. This Was Spying On Political Enemies.” xxx
Obama, Comey Relied On Discredited Dossier To Obtain FISA Warrant On Trump Campaign xxx
Tillerson Warns 'Unchecked Iran' Could Follow Path Of North Korea xxx
Camille Paglia: Trump Already Headed Towards Reelection, Democrats Have Overplayed Their Hand xxx
Democrats’ All-Too-Telling Love For Maxine Waters xxx
MSNBC's Craig Melvin Calls Out Maxine Waters For Impeachment Tweet – Then She Lies On National TV xxx
Treason: John Brennan Worked WITH Foreign Spies In Desperate Attempt To Take Down Donald Trump xxx
Trump’s ‘Armada’ Turns Toward North Korea As White House Defends Misleading Remarks xxx
Oliver Stone Blasts Trump: “He’s Taken Off Handcuffs On War Machine And Turned It Over To Glorified
Generals” xxx
Study: Trump Has Eliminated $86B In Regs xxx
False Accusation Against Russia On North Korea xxx
OPCW Rejects Russian, Iranian Proposal On Investigating Idlib Chemical Incident xxx
Trump Signs Order Granting Steel Import Sanctions On "National Security" Grounds xxx
Assad: West Blocks Probe As It Would Show Idlib 'Attack', US Strike 'False Flag' xxx
Tillerson: 'Iran's Provocative Actions Threaten The United States' xxx
Show Of Force Real Aim Of US Missile Strike In Syria - Russian Foreign Ministry xxx
Where’s Trump’s Duct Tape? xxx
Over 80% Of Russians Consider US Attack On Syrian Airfield As 'Provocation'
PROOF: Ex-CIA Director Brennan Worked Directly With Foreign Spies To Keep Trump OUT Of The Oval
Office xxx
Confirmed: Hillary And CIA Colluded With Foreign Spies To Defeat Trump xxx
Trump Fires Surgeon General xxx
Questions Raised About Another Claim In Trump Dossier xxx
Donald Trump: Ruling Class President xxx
Trump Administration Begins Quiet Preparations For Government Shutdown xxx
President Trump’s Disappearance xxx
Psychiatrists Target Donald Trump With Mental Illness Disinformation Campaign xxx
Trump Sends Princess Ivanka To Germany With Crying Towel xxx
Krieger: The American Empire Under Trump Has Become Increasingly Desperate, Dangerous, & Insecure xxx
Russia Used Trump's Advisers To Meddle In Election Campaign - FBI
What Do Trump And Clinton Share But Lack?
New Report: FBI Was Willing To Pay $50,000 To Former British Spy For Trump Dossier
Changing Narratives: Ex-Trump Adviser Page Fires Back At CNN’s ‘Russia Contacts’ Claim
Trump: The Man Vs. His Ideas
Trump’s Presidential Approval Rating Within First 100 Days In Office Lowest Since 1945
‘Everyone Tunes In’: Inside Trump’s Obsession With Cable TV
US Threat Of War Forces North Korea Into Siege State Mentality
You Got Trumped! Winning Horse In Presidential Race Was Trojan
The Bait Goes On: ‘Russia Remains Scapegoat For Hillary Clinton Losing To Trump’
Candidate Trump: ‘I Love Wikileaks.’ President Trump: ‘Arrest Assange!’
Sad ‘Morning Joe’ Is Floored That Only Two Percent Of Trump Voters Regret Backing Him
Trump Spits On America Again
Insane Shrinks Say Trump Mentally Ill: Official Science Howls At The Moon
Trump Has Dangerous Mental Illness
Entire U.S. Senate To Go To White House For North Korea Briefing

3
A Global Catastrophe Is Being Orchestrated By The Elites: “There Are Many Things The President Does Not Know”
Oh My: Democratic Congressman Tells Child That President Trump Is More Dangerous Than A Terrorist
Trump Tells UNSC Members Status Quo On N Korea 'Unacceptable'
US Advocacy Group Warns Of Corporate Takeover Of White House
Trump’s First 100 Days: Already Achieved Massive Cuts In Federal Regulations
Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Wall’ Collides With Congress
Dan Savage Raises 100K With ‘Impeach The Mother F**Ker Already’ Gear
The Madder Trump Gets, The More Seriously The World Takes Him
Matthews Strongly Defends, Re-Ups Comparing Trump Family To Romanovs, Saddam’s Children
President Trump’s First 100 Days In Office: Major Accomplishments
Trump Taps Ex-Cheney Middle East Advisor For Senior Pentagon Post
CNN's Camerota Jokes About Whether Guest Called Trump 'Maniac,' 'Insane'
73% of Americans Want Independent Probe of Russia's Alleged Election Meddling
New York Times Correspondent Praises Trump’s Handling Of The Media
Trump Is Advised By Liars, Like Bush Was
Donald Trump’s Failing Presidency
Trump Talks Tough On North Korea
The Satanists Who Destroyed The Middle East Are Back In Washington
Trump Goes Off The Rails In Fervent Support Of False Jewish Narrative
Senators Describe 'Long And Detailed' White House Briefing On North Korea
Senators: Little Learned During Rare All-Hands North Korea Briefing
The Quantified Presidency
Trump Picks Retired General To Lead Secret Service
Michael Flynn Under Pentagon Investigation. AP Says He Was Warned “Not To Accept Foreign Government
Payments”
Sorry MSM: Leftists Confirm That Protesters Are Paid
Trump Is Puppet Of US ‘Deep State,’ Has No ‘Own’ Foreign Policy – Assad
The First 100 Days…A Tale Of Two Trumps
Reports Uncover Jared Kushner's Business Ties With One Of Israel's Richest Families
The Conservative Media Meets Trump
Trump Fails To Force Health Care Vote In First 100 Days
Trump Continues To Disappoint
Trump: "I'm A Nationalist And A Globalist"
Trump’s Deplorable First 100 Days
Every Promise President Trump Has Broken That Candidate Trump Made
Exclusive: Trump Says He Thought Being President Would Be Easier Than His Old Life
CNN's Brian Stelter: Trump Remarks Mocking CNN And MSNBC Are 'Insidious' And 'Poisonous'
Trump’s Deadly Legacy. One Hundred Days And Counting. And There’s More To Come…
'Broken By US Power Machine': Trump’s 100 Days Prove His Maverick Image Was Fake
‘Buffoonery On Steroids’: Analyzing Trump’s First 100 Days As President
Jews Celebrate Successful Coup Against Trump Administration
CNN's Cabrera Baffled At Ben Stein Finding Anti-Trump Minhaj Jokes 'Sickening'
The Trump Rescue Flare Is Fading Out Fast
Trump Calls Out Media Dishonesty On CBS’s ‘Deface the Nation’
Trump’s Op-Ed Big Lies
99 Problems: NY Times Unwittingly Reveals Own Bias With Collection Of Trump Headlines
Assessing Trump’s First 100 Days: He DID Get A Lot Accomplished… Now If He Could Only Get Congress On Board
'Disturbing' Speech By 'Moral Midget'; CNN Suffers Epic Meltdown Post-Trump Rally
Trump Dismantling Shadow Cabinet As Infighting Escalates: Sources
Media Can’t Stop Whining About ‘Poisonous’ ‘Dangerous’ Trump
CNN Defends Rejecting 'False' Trump Campaign Ad
Concha Trashes Liberal Media Claim That Trump Is A Threat To First Amendment
Dawdling Congress Tests Trump's Patience
Trump's Adviser And Son-In-Law Fails To Report Dealings With Soros
CNN's Begala: 'My Dog Would Be A Better President Than Trump'
Donald Trump's Stunning U-Turn In Less Than Seven Days
Scarborough Smears: I’m Not Saying Trump Has Dementia, But…
Trump: US "Needs A Good Shutdown In September To Fix This Mess"
NBC Calls Out Colbert For ‘Crude’ Anti-Trump Tirade

4
DNC Just Admitted They Had The Legal Right To Rig The 2016 Primaries
Susan Rice Declines To Testify Before Senate Subcommittee
James Comey: Loretta Lynch's Tarmac Meeting With Bill Clinton Was The Turning Point In The Email Investigation
Trump Blasts Susan Rice
For Declining Request To Testify Before Senate Panel
Tom Fitton: Comey Has ‘Repeatedly And Improperly Protected Clinton And Her Top People From Consequences Of
Criminal Behavior’
Top Democrat ‘Has Seen No Evidence Of Trump-Russia Collusion’ (VIDEO)
James Comey Didn't Sink Hillary, Hillary Sank Hillary
Comey’s Quixotic Quest To Prove Russian Involvement In Elections
'No Evidence Russia Influencing Voter Tallies In...50 States' ‒ US Ex-Intel Chief
Yates / Clapper Hearing: Flynn In Deep Trouble But Still "No Evidence" Of Trump Collusion With Russia
Sources Claim That Comey Firing Could Release Of Documents, Potential New Clinton Probe
"This Is Nixonian" - Democrats Demand "Immediate Emergency Hearings" Over Comey Termination
Loretta Lynch Busted: Leaked Email Shows She ‘Would Do Everything She Could’ To Protect Hillary From
Criminal Charges (VIDEO)
F.B.I. Director James Comey Is Fired By Trump
President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey
Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey
10 Major FBI Scandals On Comey's Watch
Krauthammer: ‘Highly Implausible’ To Claim Comey Was Fired For How He Handled Clinton Investigation
Trump Changes His Twitter Banner To Include Tweet Citing Former Intelligence Director Clapper Saying
There Is 'No Evidence Of Collusion' With Russia
Trump Ax Falls On FBI's Comey In Midst Of Russia Probe
CNN Exclusive: Grand Jury Subpoenas Issued In FBI's Russia Investigation
Updates And Reactions To F.B.I. Director Comey’s Firing
President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey
Comey’s Firing Means Hillary Clinton Can be Prosecuted
Trump Fires Comey: Spin Doctors Go Wild In The Swamp
Phoenix Trump Nazi Billboard Funded With Taxpayer Dollars
Michael Snyder Is Calling For An Army Of Pro-Trump Activists To Run For Office All Over America
WikiLeaks Offers "US$100k For The Trump-Comey Tapes"
Trump Threatens Comey Not To Leak To The Press: "Better Hope There Are No Tapes"
BREAKING: FBI Source Drops Comey Bombshell, People Are Going To Prison
As Clinton Blames Comey & Russia, Authors Of “Shattered” Expose Aimless Campaign
The ‘Soft Coup’ Of Russia-Gate
CORRUPTION Confirmed As Email Reveals FBI Head James Comey Protected Clinton, Lynch From Prosecution
Classified Bombshell Hyperventilation
Are They Really Out To Get Trump?
Michael Moore Once Again Claims He’s Going To Take Trump Down With A Movie
Retired Green Beret Warns A Successful Derailment Of Trump's Efforts Is Well Under Way; War Is Inevitable
BREAKING: Putin Offers Congress Transcript Of Trump-Lavrov Meeting
Why FBI Can’t Tell All on Trump, Russia
RED ALERT: Attempted Political Coup Now Taking Place In D.C. With Effort To Impeach Trump For Fabricated
“Obstruction Of Justice”
White House Vows To Audit The Pentagon, Which Would Be A First
Congressman Calls For Trump Impeachment For "Obstruction Of Justice"
The Dow Plunges 372 Points As Trump Impeachment Talk Reaches A Fever Pitch On Capitol Hill
US Congress Should Not Rush To Impeach Trump - Schiff
Banker: "One Million Will March On Washington If They Impeach Trump. They Will Be Armed"
CNN Brazenly Suggests The 'Deep State' Is Responsible For Memogate Revenge Against The President
Top GOP Lawmakers Were Secretly Recorded Saying They Think Putin Pays Trump
House Majority Leader To Colleagues In 2016: ‘I Think Putin Pays’ Trump
OBSESSED! 92% Of CNN’s Trump Coverage Is Negative
Putin Says Can Prove Trump Did Not Pass Russia Secrets
Trump Campaign Said To Have 18 Previously Undisclosed Russia Contacts: Reuters
Articles Of Impeachment For Donald J. Trump
Banana Republic Antics in Washington
Comey-Probing Congressman Announces Early Resignation From Politics
Putin Accused Of Bribing Trump
5
Trump: Russia Probe Is Greatest Witch Hunt Of A Politician In US History
NYT Praise For Witch-Hunt Investigations
Tapping Ex-FBI Head To Lead Russia Probe Likely To Hurt Russia-US Ties
Trump Team Knew About FBI Probe Into Flynn Before Naming Him Top Security Aide
Mike Flynn Refuses To Honor Senate Subpoena
US Air Strikes Pound Pro-Assad Forces In Syria
Liberal Activists Organizing Nationwide Impeachment Marches
Re: Wash Post story -- Sorry to write this on a Saturday night
Impeachment Odds: Record Bets Online That Trump Won’t Last Until Year-End
How To Impeach The President (Or Not)
Trump: Where Was Special Counsel for Hillary and Obama?
The Ghost Of Mike Flynn
McCain Questions Rationality Of Calls To Impeach US President
The Washington Post: America's #1 Source Of Mass Hysteria
Comey Admits Under Oath That Obstructions To Investigations "Never Happened"
Deep State Cover-Ups, Conspiracies & Lies
Fmr. Rep. Kucinich Says The ‘Deep State’ Is Trying To Destroy Trump And Associates
Internet Freedom Fighter Kim Dotcom Questions Why Seth Rich’s Murder Is Not Solved, Presents Camera Locations
To Be Checked
Kim Dotcom Confirms May 16, Intellihub Report: Murdered DNC Staffer Seth Rich Was The “DNC Emails”
Wikileaker
Trump Shakes Hands With Saudi Leader, Doesn't Bow As Obama Appeared To Do
Latest Anti-Trump Media Assault
Kushner ‘Person Of Interest’ In Russia Probe: Report
Trump Comes To Israel Citing A Palestinian Deal As Crucial
Washington Post Exposed As A CIA Front Propaganda Rag Working To Overthrow The Trump Administration And
Install Political Puppets
Donald Of Arabia: A Disgusting Spectacle
D.C. Surgeon Who Operated On Seth Rich: ‘The DNC Staffer Was Alive And Well After Surgery, Before A Group Of
Leos Showed Up To The ICU’
‘Spirit Cooking Creep’ John Podesta Bashes Trump, One Obvious Reason Why
Coulter: If Trump Doesn't Keep His Promises, Dems Will Win Big In 2018 & Impeach Him
Kim Dotcom Tweets: I Was Involved With Seth Rich. Public Statement Tuesday #Wikileaks
Fox Drops Seth Rich Murder Story As Sean Hannity Attacks 'Liberal Fascism'
The Republic Has Fallen: The Deep State’s Plot To Take Over America Has Succeeded
Partisan WashPost Editor Convicts Trump: This ‘Feels Like’ Watergate
Why Trump Is On Track To Disappoint Israel’s Netanyahu
Chris Cuomo Defends Illegal Leaks, Dismisses Any Damage Done, Blames The President
Kim Dotcom Releases New Statement On Seth Rich And It May Shock You
Did Several Democratic IT Staffers Under Investigation Just Flee To Pakistan?
New Cracks In Russia-Gate ‘Assessment’
Want Donald Trump Impeached? Be Careful What You Wish For
Pastorum Group Spokesperson In Seth Rich Case Tied To Democrat Propaganda Chief
Caught On Tape: Wasserman Schultz Threatens Police Chief For Investigating Her IT Staff's Crimes
Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base Not To Expect Evidence Of Trump/Russia Collusion
Trump In Rome
Seth Rich Likely Murdered Over Hillary Clinton’s Uranium One Ties, The Offloading Of 20% Of America’s Uranium
Supply To The Russians
Comey’s Upcoming Senate Testimony Much Ado About Nothing
"Secret" Russian Document Influenced Comey's Probe Into Hillary Clinton: Report
Egyptian President Calls Out Trump And Saudi Arabia For Aiding And Abetting Terrorism
Anti-Trump Media Bias
The Latest Deceptive NYT Deep State Press Release
MRC’s Brent Bozell Condemns CNN As ‘National Disgrace’ For Trump Coverage
Judiciary Now Attempting To Nullify The Presidential Election With Ridiculous Ruling On Trump’s Travel Ban
Still No Proof Of Trump Russia Collusion, Economic Update, MSM Is Fake News
Trump's Right About Germany
FBI Refuses To Hand Over “Comey Memos” To Congress
Trump Will Be IMPEACHED: Clinton Returns To Her University To Launch All-Out Attack On President
Lone Congresswoman Calls Out Trump For Insane Arms Deal With Human Rights Violator Saudi Arabia
6
How Team Obama Tried To Hack The Election
CNN Reporter Admits: We Report From Progressive 'Arc Of History' As Defined By Obama, Hillary
Report: Sean Hannity To Be Fired By Fox News Over Seth Rich Murder Coverage
WSJ’s Strassel Destroys Stacked Anti-Trump Panel on ‘Meet the Press’ With Facts
What Did Trump Accomplish On His First Foreign Trip?
McCain: Russia Is A Bigger Threat Than ISIS; Comey Investigated Clinton Over 'Fake News'
Truth About Seth Rich Murder May Expose The Establishments ‘Russian Hacking’ Propaganda
Huge Piece Of The Seth Rich Murder Puzzle - Report: FBI Memo Connects Seth Rich To Wikileaks After His Murder
But Before Wikileaks Released Leaked DNC/Podesta Emails
White House Slams "False & Unverifiable" CNN Claims Of Intercepted Russian Trump Threats
DNC Lawsuit Exposes Corruption, Data Breaches, Raises Questions About Death Of Shawn Lucas
Trump's White House Communications Director Has Resigned
New Evidence Suggests Seth Rich Was DNC Leaker
Seth Rich Mystery: DNC Leaks Came From Inside, Not Russian Hackers
Evidence Backs Claim Pro-Bernie Seth Rich Was DNC Leaker
Chris Cuomo Thinks CNN Needs To Hear From More Anti-Trump Voices

7
 MSNBC’s Malcolm Nance Nominates Trump Tower
Istanbul For ‘ISIS Suicide Bombing’
By Nicholas Fondacaro
April 18, 2017 | 11:27 PM EDT

In an absolutely shocking tweet late Tuesday afternoon,

MSNBC’s Counter Terrorism Analyst Malcolm Nance
stepped up and suggested that ISIS bomb a Trump
property in Turkey. “This is my nominee for first ISIS
suicide bombing of a Trump property,” he tweeted in
response to another one asserting that President Trump
congratulated Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan’s
election win for corrupt reasons tied to his tower.

Nance has since deleted the tweet but has yet to issue an
apology or a clarification.

This isn’t the first time Nance has invoked ISIS in relation
to Donald Trump. During the 2016 election, he once
declared that Donald Trump was the “ISIS candidate,” and
claimed he was propping up the terrorist organization with
his rhetoric.

And when it comes to terrorist attacks, Nance has a history

of playing them down. In his commentary on the truck
attack in Nice, France, Nance argued that the driver could
possibly be just suffering from a mental ailment.

Nance had also downplayed the attack at the gay nightclub

in Orlando, Florida. There he suggested that the attack was
not linked to terrorism but Omar Mateen’s personal
“psycho-sexual problem.” He also added that “San
Bernardino may, in fact, have been a hybrid act of
terrorism/workplace violence.”
.

8
 “Making America Great Again”
By Reducing The World To Ashes?
By Felicity Arbuthnot
Global Research, April 18, 2017
“In the event of a nuclear war, there will be
no chances, there will be no survivors – all
will be obliterated… nuclear devastation is
not science fiction – it is a matter of fact.
The world now stands on the brink of the
final abyss. Let us all resolve to take all
possible practical steps to ensure that we
do not, through our own folly, go over the
edge.” Former First Sea Lord, Lord Louis
Mountbatten (1900-1979) Strasbourg, 11
May 1979.”
As US threats ratchet up towards North Korea, the latest
hinging on the accusation that the country attempted a
further ballistic missile test on the annual Day of the Sun,
the annual national holiday holiday commemorating the
birth of the country’s founder and Kim Jong Un’s
grandfather, Kim Il Sung.
Without the slightest proof produced by the US that such a
test was attempted, yet alone a nuclear one, Donald
Trump’s language and that of his fiefdom have been on
the level of a bar room brawl rather than statesmanlike.
The sabre rattling, intemperate recklessness in threatening
to do “whatever it takes” with serially verbally challenged
spokesman, Sean Spicer calling the invisible test “an
unsuccessful military attack”, is sending shivers down
governmental and national spines across the globe.
“All our options are on the table”, said
National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster.
The Presidency being a family affair, Trump’s son Eric
chipped in on Fox and Friends with:
9
“And you saw that quite frankly in Syria and
you saw that in Afghanistan. And he will
take action if he needs to take action.”
“You have to have massive backbone
when it comes to dealing with awful, awful
dictators who don’t like us, don’t like our
way of life.”
Straight out of the George W. Bush handbook:
“They hate our way of life.” Wait for: “You
are either with us, or you are with the
terrorists.”
But again, why no proof of North Korea’s
much vaunted threatening action? The US
has: “an existing armada of spy planes and
drones on and around the Korean
Peninsula.”
Moreover:
“The Pentagon’s Space-Based Infrared
System (SBIRS) employs multiple types of
satellites and sensors to address some of
these issues and provide greater coverage.
According to defense contractor Lockheed
Martin, the constellation can watch for the
heat signature of enemy missile launches
and track them in flight, gather details
about those weapons and their capabilities
…
“Closer to earth, spy planes and drones
are almost constantly zipping around North
Korea. The Air Force and the Army have
spy planes and unmanned reconnaissance
aircraft permanently deployed in the region
…
“Satellite data links, known as Senior Span
and Senior Spur, mean the spy planes can
send back some of this information back to
base while still in flight so analyst can begin
picking it apart. The Air Force has the
694th Intelligence, Surveillance and
Reconnaissance Group at Osan in part to
help ‘exploit’ this kind of data.”
There is also:
“ … the U.S. Navy’s Task Force 72, the unit
overseeing the U.S. Seventh Fleet’s aerial
patrol and reconnaissance forces. P-3C
Orion and P-8A Poseidon patrol aircraft
and EP-3E Aries II spy planes rotate
through deployments to the unit’s bases at
Naval Air Stations Atsugi and Misawa Air
Base in Japan. From there, they make
routine trips to South Korea proper for
training exercises. The EP-3E Aries IIs are
dedicated intelligence gathers, but all three
types could help monitor North Korean
developments.”
Further:
“The RC-135S Cobra Ball and RC-135U
Combat Sent have very different missions.
The Air Force’s three Cobra Balls have
specialized gear to track ballistic missile
launches … The two Combat Sents have
equipment to detect and analyze electronic
emissions from sites on the ground.” The
astonishing array of surveillance is
comprehensively presented at (1.)
It is also worth quoting former UN weapons Inspector in
Iraq, Scott Ritter back in 2002, seven months before the
illegal invasion and destruction of Iraq (ongoing)
describing sophistication of monitoring, with warning
words on how politics can cause irreversible disaster:
“And we had in place means to monitor –
both from vehicles and from the air – the
gamma rays that accompany attempts to
enrich uranium or plutonium. We never
found anything. We can say unequivocally
that the industrial infrastructure needed by
Iraq to produce nuclear weapons had been
eliminated.”
Further:
“We eliminated the nuclear programme,
and for Iraq to have reconstituted it
would require undertaking activities
eminently detectable by intelligence
services.”
Reference
William L. Shirer (1904-1993) The Rise and Fall of the Third Reich: A
History of Nazi Germany
Notes
1. http://www.thedrive.com/the-war-
zone/9315/this-is-how-america-keeps-watch-
over-north-korea-from-the-sky
10
Equally certain is that North Korea’s activities are equally
detectible.
“It is not just heat”, states Ritter,
“centrifuge facilities emit gamma radiation,
as well as many other frequencies. It is
detectable. Iraq could not get around this.”
“Our radar detects the tests, we know what
the characteristics are, and we know
there’s nothing to be worried about.” (2)
In 2015, Scott Ritter wrote a further detailed article with
facts which surely apply to North Korea (3.) Arriving in
Iraq their ground vehicles were accompanied above by:
“… sensor-laden helicopters and U-2 high-
altitude reconnaissance aircraft above and
high-resolution spy satellites providing
further imagery … satellite imagery
detected a still existing covert missile force
…”
He concludes:
“ … in Iraq … the end result was a war
based on flawed intelligence and baseless
accusations that left many thousands dead
and a region in turmoil.”
If the US makes a nuclear attack on North Korea, the
megalomaniacal, narcissistic and seemingly frighteningly
ill informed Donald Trump – who, in an early telephone
call to President Putin was reported as having to put his
hand over the mouthpiece and ask someone what the
START Treaty (Strategic Arms Reduction Treaty, 4) was –
could trigger the unimaginable.
“In our new age of terrifying, lethal gadgets,
which supplanted so swiftly the old one, the
first great aggressive war, if it should come,
will be launched by suicidal little madmen
pressing an electronic button.
“Such a war will not last long and none will
ever follow it. There will be no conquerors
and no conquests, but only the charred
bones of the dead on and uninhabited
planet.”
2.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2002/sep/19
/iraq.features11
3. https://www.lrb.co.uk/v37/n13/scott-
ritter/we-aint-found-shit
4. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/START_I
 BOMBSHELL: James Comey Used Buzzfeed Fake
Dossier To Build Russia Collusion Case Against Trump
Alex Christoforou
April 19, 2017
It now appears that we are entering a phase where the
entire Russiagate fake news is collapsing unto itself, with
little fanfare and media attention…given that North Korea
and Trump’s war presidency has placated the liberal left
and neocon right.
It was but a few weeks ago when Buzzfeed released the
now infamous fake news dossier, claiming Donald Trump
was the recipient of “Golden Showers” in a Moscow
hotel, and Putin had it all on video…making Trump the
ultimate, compromised US President.
The dossier was allegedly compiled by an anonymous
source (who we now know as former MI6
agent Christopher Steele),
who claimed the Russian government
had been nurturing Donald Trump as a
potential president for “at least 5 years,”
offering him lucrative business
opportunities, supplied with
intelligence, and arranged for
“perverted sexual acts” to be able to
blackmail Trump.
The entire dossier was such fiction that the majority of
mainstream news media outlets refused to run the story. It
took fake news listicle site Buzzfeed to publish the dossier,
and very fake news CNN to reference the Buzzfeed article.
CNN is now reporting that FBI Director James
Comey used the “Trump Dossier” to secure a FISA
warrant to secretly monitor Trump campaign aide, Carter
Page.
CNN reports…
The FBI last year used a dossier of
allegations of Russian ties to Donald
Trump’s campaign as part of the
justification to win approval to secretly
monitor a Trump associate, according to
US officials briefed on the investigation.
The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James
Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in
recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the
11
bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to
US officials briefed on the probe.
This includes approval from the secret
court that oversees the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to
monitor the communications of Carter
Page, two of the officials said. Last year,
Page was identified by the Trump
campaign as an adviser on national
security.
Zerohedge reports…
James Comey, the man who refused to
bring charges against Hillary Clinton
despite a mountain of concrete evidence
that she, and several members of her staff,
knowingly violated several federal laws,
apparently used the largely discredited
“Trump Dossier” to help secure a FISA
warrant to secretly monitor Trump’s
former campaign aide, Carter Page.
Among other things, the dossier alleged that Page met
senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trump
campaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to
sanctions, business opportunities and Russia’s interference
in the election. Page has denied meeting the officials
named in the dossier and says he never cut any political
deals with the Kremlin.
According to the Washington Post, the warrant to monitor
Page was obtained in the summer of 2016 which indicates
that the FBI was in possession of the now-infamous
dossier well before President Obama supposedly received
his first briefing on the material in December 2016.
Of course, as we reported back in January
(see “Here Is The Full 35-Page Report
Alleging Trump Was “Cultivated,
Supported And Assisted” By Russia“)
the dossier, compiled by ex-British
intelligence official Chris Steele, was
almost immediately discredited by the
public at large after numerous glaring
errors were quickly identified and
 salicious stories of ‘golden showers’
and other sexual acts were also
dismissed as pure rubbish.
Allegedly the dossier was even available to the Clinton
campaign should they have chosen to use it to discredit
Trump, but even they were quickly convinced that no one
would buy it.
discovery process will be of great value to
the United States, as our nation hears
testimony from them under oath and we
receive disclosure of the documents which
show what exactly was done in 2016.”

All of which, once again, brings into

question the level of stupidity and/or
pure corruption that must have been
involved in this process given the shear
number of people whose approval was
undoubtedly required to authorize the
issuance of a FISA warrant that paved
the way for Comey and the Obama
administration to secretly monitor the
Trump campaign.

The man at the center of the liberal left smear campaign,

Carter Page, replied to this latest revelation, saying that he
looks forward to the lawsuit he plans to file…

“I look forward to the Privacy Act of 1974

lawsuit that I plan to file in response to the
civil rights violations by Obama
administration appointees last year. The
.

12
 MIT Scientist FURTHER Debunks False Flag:
"The Nerve Agent Attack That Did Not Occur"
By Theodore A. Postol
Published: April 19, 2017
THE NERVE AGENT ATTACK THAT DID NOT
OCCUR:
ANALYSIS OF THE TIMES AND
LOCATIONS OF CRITICAL EVENTS IN
THE ALLEGED NERVE AGENT ATTACK
AT 7 AM ON APRIL 4, 2017 IN KHAN
SHEIKHOUN, SYRIA
Introduction
This analysis contains a detailed description of the times
and locations of critical events in the alleged nerve agent
attack of April 4, 2017 in Khan Shaykhun, Syria –
assuming that the White House Intelligence Report (WHR)
issued on April 11, 2017 correctly identified the alleged
sarin release site.
Analysis using weather data from the time of the attack
shows that a small hamlet about 300 m to the east
southeast of the crater could be the only location affected
by the alleged nerve agent release. The hamlet is separated
from the alleged release site (a crater) by an open field.
The winds at the time of the release would have initially
taken the sarin across the open field. Beyond the hamlet
there is a substantial amount of open space and the sarin
cloud would have had to travel long additional distance for
it to have dissipated before reaching any other population
center.
Video taken on April 4 shows that the location where the
victims were supposedly being treated from sarin exposure
is incompatible with the only open space in the hamlet that
could have been used for mass treatment of victims. This
indicates that the video scenes where mass casualties (dead
and dying) were laid on the ground randomly was not at
the hamlet. If the location where the bodies were on the
ground was instead a site where the injured and dead were
taken for processing, then it is hard to understand why
bodies were left randomly strewn on the ground and in
mud as shown in the videos.
The conclusion of this summary of data is obvious – the
nerve agent attack described in the WHR did not occur as
claimed. There may well have been mass casualties from
13
some kind of poisoning event, but that event was not the
one described by the WHR.
The findings of this analysis can serve two important
purposes:
1. It shows exactly what needs to be determined in an
international investigation of this alleged atrocity. In
particular, if an international investigation can
determine where casualties from the nerve agent
attack lived, it will further confirm that the findings
reported by the WHR are not compatible with the data
it cites as evidence for its conclusions.
2. It also establishes that the WHR did not utilize simple
and widely agreed upon intelligence analysis
procedures to determine its conclusions.
This raises troubling questions about how the US political
and military leadership determined that the Syrian
government was responsible for the alleged attack. It is
particularly of concern that the WHR presented itself as a
report with “high confidence” findings and that numerous
high-level officials in the US government have confirmed
their belief that the report was correct and to a standard of
high confidence.
Methodology Used in This Analysis
The construction of the time of day at which particular
video frames were generated is determined by simply
using the planetary geometry of the sun angle during the
day on April 4. The illustration below of the sun-angle
geometry shows the Day/Night Sun Terminator at the
location of Khan Sheikhoun on April 4. The angle of the
sun relative to local horizontal is summarized in the table
that follows the image of the planetary geometry along
with the temperature during the day between 6:30 AM and
6 PM.
The next set of two side-by-side images shows the
shadows at a location where a large number of poison
victims are being treated in what appears to be the
aftermath of a poisoning event. The shadows indicate that
this event occurred at about 7:30 AM. This is consistent
with the possibility of a nerve agent attack at 7 AM on the
morning of April 4 and it is also consistent with the
allegation in the WHR that an attack occurred at 6:55 AM
on that day.
The timing sequence of the attack is important for
determining the consistency of the timelines with the
allegations of a sarin release at the crater identified in the
WHR.
Assuming there was an enough sarin released from the
crater identified by the WHR to cause mass casualties at
significant downwind distances, the sarin would have
drifted downwind at a speed of 1 to 2 m/s and for several
minutes before encountering the only location where mass
casualties could have occurred from this particular release.
The location where these mass casualties would have had
to occur will be identified and described in the next
section. If there was a sarin release elsewhere, mass
casualties would have not occurred at this location but
would have occurred somewhere else in the city.
Assuming the victims of the attack were exposed to the
plume, the symptoms of sarin poisoning would have
express themselves almost immediately. As such, the scene
at 7:30 AM on April 4 is absolutely consistent with the
possibility of a mass poisoning downwind of the sarin-
release crater.
The next figure shows the earliest photograph we have
been able to find of an individual standing by the sarin-
release crater where the alleged release occurred. The
photo was posted on April 4 and the shadow indicates the
time of day was around 10:50 AM. Thus the individual
was standing by the crater roughly 4 hours after the
dispersal event.
If the dispersal event was from this crater, the area where
this unprotected individual is standing would be toxic and
14
this individual would be subjected to the severe and
possibly fatal effects of sarin poisoning. As a result, this
throws substantial suspicion on the possibility that the
crater identified by WHR would be the source of the sarin
release.
At the time of the sarin release, the temperature of the air
was about 60°F and the sun was at an angle of only 8°
relative to local horizontal. This means that liquid sarin left
on the ground from the dispersal event would remain
mostly unevaporated. By 11 AM, the temperature of the air
had risen to 75° and the angle of the sun relative to
horizontal was at 66°. Thus, one would expect that the
combination of the rise in air temperature and the sun on
the crater would lead to significant evaporation of liquid
sarin left behind from the initial dispersal event. The air
temperature and sun angle are such that the area around the
crater should have been quite dangerous for anybody
without protection to operate.
This is therefore an important indication that the crater was
probably not a dispersal site of the sarin.
The final set of three photographs shows arriving victims
seeking treatment at a hospital at some location in Khan
Sheikhoun. The arrivals at the hospital are at between 9
and 10:30 AM on the day of the attack. This is perhaps late
since victims were seriously exposed by 7:30 AM, but
victims could have been trailing in after the initial arrival
of severely affected victims. This time is considerably
earlier than the time at which WHR alleges that a hospital
was attacked while treating victims of the poisoning attack.
In the next section we discuss the location where mass
casualties should have occurred if the sarin release
occurred at the location alleged by the WHR.
 Khan Shaykhun Sun Angles
Relative to Local Horizontal on April 4, 2017

Sun Angle in
Local Time of Surface
Degrees
Day in Khan Temperature
Relative to
ShayKhun on in Degrees
Local
April 4, 2017 Fahrenheit
Horizontal

6:30 58.16 1.20

7.00 60.24 8.40

7:30 62.39 15.60

8.00 64.55 22.80

8:30 66.68 30.00

9.00 68.74 37.20

9:30 70.69 44.40

10.00 72.51 51.60

10:30 74.15 58.80

11.00 75.59 66.00

11:30 76.81 73.20

12.00 77.80 80.40

12:30 78.53 87.60

13.00 79.01 94.80

13:30 79.24 102.00

14.00 79.22 109.20

14:30 78.96 116.40

15.00 78.48 123.60

15:30 77.81 130.80

16.00 76.99 138.00

16:30 76.04 145.20

17.00 75.03 152.40

17:30 74.01 159.60

18.00 73.05 166.80

15
 Trump’s Tax Returns: What’s There To Hide?
By Sam Richards
April 19, 2017
Let’s begin by dispatching with the flimsy pretext that
Donald Trump should not publish his tax returns because
he is under audit, if it is even true that he is under audit.
With the IRS operating on a barebones budget, it’s true
that audits can be slow to resolve, but they are typically
limited in scope to specific issues and there is nothing
plausible, let alone “routine,” about an audit that allegedly
never ends. But that’s beside the point, as the Internal
Revenue Service already has copies of his tax returns in
their entirety, so there is no leverage lost in Donald Trump
publishing his tax filings for the general public to see. The
IRS has nothing to gain from Donald Trump publishing the
information that they have already had on file for years.
There are many actual reasons for which Donald Trump is
hiding his tax information in the face of mounting public
pressure. The most favorable justification to him may be
that detail provided in his personal tax returns could be
used by third parties, like creditors or former business
partners, to provide evidence of actionable claims against
him, such as that he broke contracts or misled his many
debtors. This is unlikely, however, because his personal
tax returns will only divulge the most basic financial data
from his businesses—for example, his share of their
income and losses—and to see the real inner workings of
his business dealings one would need access to the tax
returns of The Trump Organization and the various other
businesses he owns an interest in. There’s just not much
information contained in his personal tax returns that is
detailed enough that it could be used effectively in a
lawsuit against him.
The next most favorable excuse might be the cynical and
fundamentally unacceptable conclusion that the political
benefits of concealing the information outweigh the
political costs. Maybe Donald Trump’s tax returns would
reveal that Melania Trump likes to give money to Planned
Parenthood, or alternatively that they give almost nothing
to charity, and publishing his tax returns would likely
reveal that he has taken overly aggressive tax positions—
an especially likely theory if he is under a seemingly never
ending audit and brags about doing everything legally
permissible to avoid paying his fair share. Another likely
political disincentive to publishing the returns may be that
Donald Trump loses money more often than he makes it,
and publishing his tax returns would divulge the fact that
he continues to roll forward huge net operating losses—
that is, accumulated losses from decades of bankrupting
his poorly managed business ventures. However, as
.
16
Donald Trump recently declared on Twitter, the election is
over—and any hit to his poll numbers over the specifics of
his effective tax rates is likely to be unimportant while he
has us teetering on the precipice of war with North Korea.
The real reason that Donald Trump will never publish his
tax returns is likely summed up in two words: foreign
reporting. While foreign reporting requirements can often
be separate from a person’s tax filings, Form 8938:
Statement of Specified Foreign Financial Assets is required
to be filed with the tax returns of individuals who have
certain valuable overseas foreign assets, and Donald
Trump likely has dozens, if not hundreds, of such
reportable foreign financial assets. The “smoking gun” in
Donald Trump’s tax returns is most likely that he has so
much of his wealth in foreign assets that his personal
financial interests are irreconcilable with the interests of
the American people, and his tax returns, if published in
their entirety, would reveal conflicts of interests so
intractable and damning that they would be without
precedent in modern political history. America’s foreign
policy may be driven in large part by which specific
countries Donald Trump has chosen to invest his father’s
fortune in.
In the face of certain corruption in the White House,
Americans should call for transparency now more than
ever. The Trump Administration will only be as
transparent as the American public demands it to be, and
so when the White House makes announcements like the
declaration that they will no longer publish the White
House visitor logs, the American public should forcefully
reject these decisions as fundamentally unacceptable to the
values of our democracy. As Donald Trump continues to
break historic precedent in failing to publish his tax
returns, the American public can only assume it is because
Donald Trump’s conflicts of interest are vast and pervasive
that they impair his ability to serve another day as
president. The best thing for the American public to do is
to demand transparency and accountability, vocally and
persistently, and not acquiesce to the corruption by easing
up on the public pressure. Americans should take to the
streets and loudly denounce the sham that has become the
American presidency until the White House is compelled
to cave to mounting public pressure and introduce
desperately needed transparency and reforms, beginning
with the publication of the White House visitor logs and
Donald Trump’s tax returns.
 Warren Can't Even Name
One Good Thing Trump's Done in First 90 Days
By Kristine Marsh
April 19, 2017 | 2:05 PM EDT

that makes it easier for companies that kill

Senator Elizabeth Warren was on Wednesday’s The View
to talk about her new book, but it turned into the usual slob
fest of friendly questions and Trump-bashing answers.
or maim their employees to keep it hidden.
He signed off to make it easier for
investment advisers to cheat pensioners
and retirees, and to me, Trumpcare was,
like, the whole thing in one microcosm.
When he said, “Hey. I'm all in for a plan to
knock 24 million people off their health care
coverage, raise the cost for a lot of middle
class families so that we can produce a tax
cut for a handful of millionaires and
billionaires.” So look. I wish he were out
there working for middle class families and
the working families and the working poor,
but what he is doing is delivering one gut
punch after another.

However, the interview started off unexpectedly, with

libertarian host Jedediah Bila asking Warren to play
devil’s advocate and name one thing that Trump had done
“right” in his first 90 days in office. Warren, ever partisan,
couldn’t even manage that and turned the question around
to name everything Trump had done “wrong” in office so
far.

The interview began with Bila confessing the first question

would be a “curveball”:

BILA: Trump has been here for 90 days.
WARREN: Is that all? It's, like, dog years or
something.
BILA: He has done a lot of stuff in 90 days.
What has he done right so far? [
Laughter ]
WARREN: No. Actually, I take that
question very seriously. Because, look.
Obviously, I fought hard to try the get
Hillary elected. I did not want to see Donald
Trump as president. But he promised he
was going to be out there for working
people. And, you know, it's not -- it's not the
what he says. It's not the tweets. I just keep
watching what he is actually doing. And so
in 90 days, he signed off on a law that
makes it easier for employers to steal their
employees' wages. He signed off on a law
The fact that Warren couldn’t even muster a semblance of
neutral or positive statement towards just one of the
president’s efforts, shows just how partisan and extreme a
politician she is, yet this is the same show which
frequently bashes Republicans for being “extremists.”
Of course, Warren’s answer was like red meat for rabidly
anti-Trump host Joy Behar. She followed up by asking her
“why” Trump still had supporters. “They get nothing!”
Behar added.
Warren claimed it was because Trump was the master of
distraction and had fooled voters.
Sunny Hostin then asked, “Now that we
have a President Trump in the White
House, do you regret that decision [not
to run]?”

17
Co-host Sara Haines added to Hostin’s question by asking,
“could things have been different” if Warren had “jumped
in earlier” to endorse Hillary Clinton. Warren took
umbrage at that notion, acting as if Bernie Sanders had a
legitimate chance at becoming the Democratic candidate,
but said that she did everything she could to get Clinton
elected once she was the forerunner.
.
As per usual, the panel and the audience hung by baited
breath for each answer Warren gave. Instead of the
constant interruptions Republicans get from the hosts, she
was able to complete every answer, with dutiful rounds of
applause from the audience after every response.

18
 Trump’s Fatal Reality Gap
And How The Media Can Close It
By James Rose
April 19, 2017
Recently, I have had reason to revisit a journal article I
published in 1996. The essay, titled “The Fatal Gap”
argued that the Palestinian Liberation Organisation, then
having just won leadership of the first ever autonomous
Palestinian Council, was not a legitimate leader of the
vibrant civil sector it purported to represent. Donor money
and political support was, I suggested, misdirected to the
PLO as civil society in Gaza and in the West Bank had
been running both places for years, had a non-violent
agenda and understood better the needs of Palestinian
people. Better to back local NGOs rather than the PLO I
argued.
As I read this I was struck by an odd and unexpected
similarity with today’s America.
Like the PLO, President Trump was elected on the basis of
a revolutionary prospect. His frame has been to upturn the
current status-quo and to “drain the swamp” of its bottom
dwellers and to radically change the structure of power in
Washington. It’s all hot air of course and will not happen,
but, the revolutionary intent is well established.
The PLO found that translating a sense of often violent
revolution into the mundane day-to-day action of
government was difficult if not impossible. The dynamics
are too different to be managed by a small number of the
same people who have fought at the barricades.
One Gazan I spoke to, with a keen eye for European
history, called the then leader of the PLO, Yassir
Arafat,”the Napoleon of Palestine.”
Trump’s administration seems afflicted with the same
problematic transition.
The connections don’t bear a lot of comparisons. But, the
point I want to make here is that from the mid-1990s
onwards, the PLO sucked up all the attention. The media
equated the PLO with Palestine and vice-versa. The result
was, as I had predicted, aid and support went to the PLO,
the squeakiest wheel. Civil-based groups in Gaza and the
West Bank were starved, the people suffered and, the
region was even riper for more extreme elements. The
19
Palestinian people have never recovered, and desperation,
frustration and alienation remains a force in the region.
This is a common problem. The best or most worthy
causes are not always the ones we learn about in our news
and current affairs feeds. The fatal gap I noted in my essay
is actually still very noticeable globally. But, I was wrong
to focus on political leaders as the source of this
dysfunction. It really rests with our media industry.
TRUMP’S AMERICA
The same gap is there and the relationship between the
state and the citizenry will widen, as it has already, under a
Trump Presidency. As in Gaza and the West Bank, and as
in examples around the world too numerous to mention, a
fascination with centralised power and an obsession with
its travails will ensure American civil society will be
marginalised as the state and it’s peripatetic leader suck the
air out of the rest of society.
It is as if the currency of politics is traded only in the halls
of state power and in the crippled minds and bucket
mouths of those who walk there. And so, a fatal gap.
Since the Trump election, I have been enjoying attempts
by some media outlets to explain the Trump phenomenon
and to take on his foibles. Some have sought to
contextualise the man’s ascendency and to bravely attempt
to lay out the implications his vague ideas and random
decision-making processes will have.
But, one thing concerns me. These publications, despite
the intelligence and wisdom of their content, are keeping
the spotlight on Trump. Mainstream media has, almost
exclusively focussed on the post-victory manoeuvres, the
lead up to the inauguration, the inauguration speech and
concert and the early days of the presidency. This means,
the inevitable fumbles and falls, the predictable blusters
and the petty tweeting all receive headline coverage.
There is a lot of confusion in media circles about how to
cover Trump. Some are, as above trying gamely to take
him seriously. Others are falling back on a kind of wry,
occasionally shrill tirade on Trump’s myriad of
shortcomings. While this rightly holds Trump’s feet to
fires of truth, so far he seems to have asbestos soles.
Others again are getting caught up in reporting about
reporting on Trump, the personality, as the wheelbarrows
of BS the new president trundles out becomes
overwhelming and suffocates actual editorial process.
These approaches only deepen the gap.
The current direction of news media seems ignorant of one
of the real positives in Donald Trump’s election. It is
becoming ever clearer that Trump presents the moment
when freedom loving democrats (small d) are actually
forced to adopt credo that the price of freedom is eternal
vigilance.
This possibility needs to be understood as a good thing;
any challenge is an invitation to step up. And, lets face it,
our systems needs us to and has done for some time.
Indeed this moment should have happened long ago, at
least since the global financial crisis of 2008, but likely
long before then. The liberal, capitalist, state-based system
has failed the majority of the world’s population and its
environment. We need a new model. This essay is not the
place to suggest what that might be, but many will surely
acknowledge this as fact.
The value of this possibility, paradoxically perhaps, is that
real power may fall from the grip of those who have
tended to hold it tightly, for at least the last 50 years. Big
government, unwieldy bureaucracies, greedy corporations
and leagues of hungry advisors and consultants have been
running America, and most other nations down an ever
narrowing path, pushing us all into the pointy end of a
triangle.
This vision is actually what America voted for. The
Democratic Convention got it awfully wrong and
nominated Hillary Clinton, of course. And once she was
there, the disgruntled American voter had nowhere else to
go. But they got it right. We need change. Trump, the man
and his policies – those we can guess at – are woefully off
the mark. But the widespread reaction to him is the best
catalyst we’ve had in a generation.
The revealing truth about Trump’s victory is that it is
reflection of the fact that many Americans want to see the
end of the current system, or at least important parts of it.
They may not say so, they may not even know it, they may
be deluded in their actions, but that is what they have
voted for. The sub-text of Trump, the subliminal message
is that “If he can win the Presidency, then America is
surely broken.” The American voters have just proven it.
The only intelligent response to his victory is to take a
paraphrase of Groucho Marx: I wouldn’t want to join a
club that lets me be a member. Who wants to be in system
20
in which Donald John Trump can become a leader? What
does this say about the system?
But, its a narrative the news media seems unable, or
unwilling, to follow in a way that reflects the true course
of the public’s manifest interest.
You might expect, for instance, news coverage of
President Trump’s inauguration would dominate the news
cycle. A Google search I conducted a few days after the
event confirmed the item was a huge news story. On
January 25, a Google search for all reference to “Trump
Inauguration” returned 46.8 million links.
A search at the same time on “Women’s March on
Washington” returned just 9.87 million, a ratio of almost
five to one.
Something like half a million citizens taking to the streets
in mid-winter on the day a new President becomes official,
because of that very fact, surely suggests a strong counter
story to the Trump inauguration. Given the demo crowd in
Washington has been assessed as three-times larger than
the audience assembled for President Trump’s big moment
and that this march and others contributed to a total of
some millions protesting their President’s very presence, in
what one network described as “one of the largest days of
protest in US history”, suggests the mainstream news
media in the US and elsewhere, got the balance wrong.
This is despite the fact that a large number of news reports
on the inauguration were likely critical or negative on the
Trump inauguration. But that coverage – good or bad – is
in itself a force of empowerment for the President. In
bossing the news cycle and online chatter with the new
POTUS, news media ensures that the power he wields is
underlined. Media consumers are told “The presidency still
counts more than millions in protest.” The institution is
legitimised by the blanket coverage it receives in an sort of
Pavlovian dynamic with the media public – big story
means we are still supposed to offer our fealty to the rants
of the man in the White House and to submit to the big
picture beamed down upon us.
THE REALITIES OF NEWS MEDIA
So, why did the media give the women’s march and others,
relatively little coverage?
The reasons have to do with shifts in the media industry
over the last decade and the ramifications this has had on
newsrooms.
As editors are forced to choose between, say Trump’s
inauguration and a street march – even a big one –
resource constraints will push them towards doing what is
easier, takes less staff, is organised and will provide
guaranteed copy to a guaranteed deadline. An inauguration
fits this requirement. You get your camera spot, or a place
in the shutter-bay, and get your shots set up. The presenter
or writer knows where he is she will be, what will happen
when and will have already taken notes on what aspects
he/she is likely to report on – in fact the reporter will
almost always have a transcript of important speeches
prior to their delivery – and, if doing live feeds, what will
be discussed then.
It’s formulaic and predictable.
A protest march is something else. It’s messy and rarely
runs to a schedule you can trust. You don’t really know
where to go, what vantage point works best or is likely to
yield the most newsworthy image or moment. The people
– the talent – that may be interviewed may be incoherent,
may not speak English, may swear, may not speak well
enough to be interesting or know how to address the
camera, mic or journalist. Things happen fast and
generally without warning. Live feeds can be completely
disastrous. Its a scramble.
In short, a protest march, even one that’s well organised, is
a nightmare.
Another layer of the media industry’s decline has been its
attempts to find the lowest common denominator in their
choice of story and editorial line. Human beings are not
rational beings, coolly calculating each and every
proposition through a filter of reason and common sense.
We are a pulsing bundle of prejudices and assumptions,
mistaken facts and outright lies told to ourselves. we are
constantly looking, like water down a hill, for the easiest
path with the least obstructions and challenges.
In terms of news, this generally translates to something
like “Tell me what I know.”
Moreover, news media has to hold the attention of
individuals constantly diverted and prodded by
innumerable distractions. Drama therefore, becomes a
value as the more immediately compelling the story – the
more shocking, outrageous, titillating or saddening –
translates to upticks in the real-time quantitative
measurements that online data research can provide.
Immediacy is the key and in this landscape, things like
context and nuance, or the need to explain something
become as Krypton to news industry executives. Quantity
is key. Quality is Quantity. True quality is simply an
option to be included in a SWOT analysis.
As such, reporting on say, a protest march on the day of a
new President’s inauguration may require an explanation.
It may tax the minds of media consumers because its
unusual and seems uncomfortable. It’s not easily digested
and may require questioning, applied thinking, asking
questions, doing background, finding connections, the sort
21
of thing most people (including journalists) are too busy,
too stressed or simply too lazy to consider.
This is theatre for the masses and its called news.
This is set in a context of sharpened competition among
media outlets, a red-in-tooth-and-claw melee that recalls
the 1920’s and the era of Yellow Journalism. Not only is
news being subject to being editorially assessed on its
entertainment value – as news audiences are increasingly
barraged with content, much of it free – it is being jostled
and buffeted by others seeking to attract the sought after
clicks and meme-worthy stories.
Buzzfeed’s report on in January the claims made by an
alleged British secret service officer, that Donald Trump
has “deep ties” to Russia isa case in point . The claims had
been airing on the Hill prior to Buzzfeed’s editorial
decision to run the material in full – some 45 pages – and
Buzzfeed surely felt it was worth hoisting. But, Buzzfeed’s
editors pulled their punches. “The allegations are
unverified, and the report contains errors,” the editors
wrote. “BuzzFeed News is publishing the full document so
that Americans can make up their own minds about
allegations about the president-elect.”
While one can debate the editorial decision to expect
ordinary readers to make an assessment on a long,
complicated document that security professionals had
struggled to verify, the point is that Buzzfeed most likely
didn’t run the piece for its objective news value. It ran it
because it knew that the running of it would be a valuable
news item. They would get some cross promotion by
virtue of them being named as the publisher and they
would get traffic as everyone would flick onto their site to
see what the fuss was about. They were right. The story of
them running the piece became the story.
Its brand awareness and the number of clicks that drove
this story, and countless others, forward. The media is
mirroring the President in it’s circular motion disguised as
forward movement; trying to look real even as the walls of
the echo chamber close in ever smaller.
One serious casualty of rabid competition is the
camaraderie which has characterised news journalism,
especially beat or topic-based journalism, like say, the
White House press gallery. For a long time, media has,
while competing with each other, reached for the higher
goal of actual disseminating truth. Cross-checking of facts
with other reporters – “did you get that quote?” – and
various other small acts of kindness among journos has
been part of the landscape.
That is less so now and may become extinct in the Trump
era. When CNN’s Jim Acosta was point blank refused an
answer to a question on the allegations aired in Buzzfeed,
at President elect Trump’s first news conference since his
election, the press corps just swam right on by like the
whole matter was a turd in a swimming pool. The clapping
of Trump’s supporters sounds like the arms of the media
hitting the water, swimming madly to keep up with the
new President’s selective finger. In their clamour to get the
President to pick them, they passed up the opportunity to
make a stance against this fairly unprecedented act, and
put a line in the sand on behalf of the media and of the
watching public.
What afflicts modern news media is less due to any
ideological choice. It is likely a reaction to a problem of a
logistical nature, referring to resource limitations and the
mechanics of putting together a media story.
We’ve been here before of course.
OCCUPY NEWS SPACE (NOT)
The Occupy Movement started as Occupy Wall Street in
New York’s Zuccotti Park in the second half of 2011.
Fired up by the apparent escape from justice of those who
had seemed to embody the greed of the age and who had
seemingly perpetrated the biggest financial disaster in
history, the Occupy movement, as it was to become as it
spread around the country and around the world (I spoke
with a gaggle of “occupiers” parked outside the Reserve
Bank building in Sydney’s Martin Place around this time,
one of whom vowed “I’m never leaving here.”) wanted,
well, something better.
The thing with the Occupy Movement, now going by the
cooler and more abbreviated #ows, and its myriad
offshoots, is that it never really had an aim beyond the
occupation, outside of a pretty broad and inarticulate
vision of separating money and politics. It was avowedly
leaderless, professed adherence to no real ideology, carried
no manifesto as such and articulated no concrete demands
or policy alternatives.
What the movement did manage was to occupy a public
space of high value and high visibility and to create there a
working anarcho-syndicalist commune where ownership of
everything, including ideas, was shared. “Public works”
like keeping the space clean, was meticulously organised
on a volunteer roster. Meetings arrived at decisions and
positions as much by osmosis as by a formal, adversarial,
dynamic of debate and vote.
It evolved into less a political protest and more a lesson in
how an alternative society might look.
This was something neither the political/corporate
establishment, nor the mainstream media could work with.
An episode of the TV series Newsroom, with Aaron
Sorkin showing off his up-to-the-moment scripting,
factored in an Occupy-like gathering which the eponymous
newsroom program is obliged to cover.
22
The hapless producer sent out to background the demo
and to find an on-camera talent, played by Dev Patel, gets
frustrated with the disorganised and decentralised beast
that confronts him. Patel’s character, Neal, ends up finding
a photogenic female to act as spokesperson and she is
rather mauled by the fictional news show anchor, Will
McAvoy, played by Jeff Daniels who asks her the kind of
pointed policy questions mainstream media would, and
finds her wanting.
This conclusion is telling. The program’s thrust appears to
be that any political movement that can’t articulate itself in
policy bytes and neat, headline ready demands isn’t really
worthy of coverage or wider interest. This seems arrogant
and unworkable. How are ordinary people, expressing
widely acknowledged grievances, supposed to find time in
busy and stressful lives to devise intricate and workable
policy positions and political strategy, and then present
them coherently and succinctly for media consumption?
Isn’t that what paid politicians, think tanks, academics and
consultants do? The problem is not that concerned or
alienated people can’t articulate their concerns and ideas,
its that they often do it in a way in which those in whom
our society invests in to lead us aren’t capable of
comprehending.
That’s due, to some extent, to the fact that news media
isn’t making them.
#ows was actually less about a political agenda and more
about how to live. It was an attempt to display the place of
politics and business, not as driving a society, but as being
driven by it, as subservient to its needs and worth little
without a wider social integration.
But, mainstream news media, as Newsroom‘s Will
McAvoy did, simply tried to force it into the box of state-
based policy oriented conformity and thus, misrepresented
its meaning and undervalued its potential.
One of the founders of #ows, Micah White, has gone so far
as to argue that OWS was ineffectual because it did not fit
the media’s frame. In an interview in 2016, White outlined
his belief that OWS was “a constructive failure.”
“…the paradigm of protest, the theory of protest, that
underlies contemporary activism is broken. The main idea
underlying contemporary protest is that, if we get millions
of people into the street with a unified message and they’re
largely non-violent, then our elective representatives will
have to listen, and real change will happen. But we’ve seen
repeatedly that, when activists actually achieve this
remarkable feat – it’s happened during Occupy Wall
Street, the anti-war marches in 2003, the climate marches –
it doesn’t yield the social change that activists are
demanding. Too many in the activist community are
subscribing to illusions about what creates mass change.”
His solution is to find ways to get those with alternative
support and ideas elected. The thinking should be, he says,
about “How are social movements going to gain power?”
Another prominent thinker at the time of the moment of
#ows is the academic Gene Sharp. His “from Dictatorship
to Democracy” publication – a 93 page guidebook on
shaping and running a protest movement – became
something of a bible to those supporting the various
uprisings in the first years of this century’s second decade.
Both White and Sharp, as central actors in the most febrile
few years of this century so far, felt and feel that gaining
power is the key. Both also give space to the need to
communicate the message to gain popular support and to
begin to break the grip of a regime that needs removal.
One of Sharp’s core “campaign strategies” is
“Communication of the resistance news to the general
population.”
But, what both fail to understand is that mainstream mass
media does not have the will, nor perhaps even the
capacity, to receive and to disseminate truly revolutionary
ideas. Micah White’s volte face on his own progressive
ideals, and his march into the statist, elitist and ritually
rigged maw of the election cycle stands as a damning
testimony on the news media’s inability to bridge the fatal
gap he himself had done so much to identify and articulate.
His broken idealism looks a like like that of the wild horse
who submits to its owner’s harsh and unyielding treatment,
not because it wants to, but because it has no other
alternative.
Micah White is correct is noting that #ows was a
constructive failure. But the failure is not owned by #ows,
it is owned by the mainstream news media and the state
itself as both proved unwilling to accommodate its
movement.
DECLINING FORCES
In a way, both state and mainstream new media need each
other. Both are declining in power. Credibility is at an all
time low for both institutions and the so-called margins of
political and social activity – gender, workers, anti-war,
anti-capitalism – are widening by the day.
And this we are also seeing with the rise of Donald Trump.
Everything about his campaign and his shining new
administration suggests that he believes the news media’s
role is to act as his stenographer. Whether unwittingly or
brilliantly, he has honed in on the symbiotic relationship
between the two ailing dinosaurs – the liberal capitalist
state and the mainstream news media – and worked them
both to gain a power base from which to launch his world
view.
23
Even as news media belatedly rushes to get on the bash-
Trump bandwagon, it is maintaining his power and that of
his position, simply by allowing him to dominate the news
cycle. Good, bad or otherwise, news mentions of Donald
Trump serve the dual purpose of allowing news media to
tell a rollicking good story, full of conflict, risible
moments and thriller-like hanging chapters and give
Trump himself an endless array of spotlights in which to
bathe his TV-ready citrine features.
The satirical tsunami that will continue to roll during his
administration – led now to a large extent by SNL’s Alec
Baldwin and his Trump Trick – runs the risk of lauding the
man even as it seeks to bring him down. Malcolm
Gladwell, in his podcast series “Revisionist History”
talked about “the satire paradox” whereby American
humourists too often play for the laughs and drop the sharp
edges they should be wielding. Gladwell uses the example
of Tina Fey’s Sarah Palin, whom he argues, Fey captured
hilariously, but not necessarily pointedly. Palin appearing
next to her on SNL only underlined how beneficial Fey’s
faux Palin became to the real person.
Baldwin’s Trump runs the same line and his audience ends
up simply laughing at someone, even as their country slips
away from them. Trump, dutifully, huffs and puffs about
the lack of respect. But, it’s just playing his part and he
knows better than anyone that Baldwin is a Trump
positive.
Mainstream news media played its part in Trump’s
ascendency during the Presidential campaign. His colour
and noise, like baubles for a child, drew news editors in
and ended up dominating the agenda. Initially, the
coverage was largely mocking and media organisations
found a mine of copy in Trump’s misquotes, lies and
missteps. But, even a critical news spotlight, if one is thick
skinned enough, becomes a solarium. The subject can bask
in it, look good, glow with the attention.
America’s state apparatus and media industry may be
failing, but no-one will notice if they both keep serving up
the world’s biggest and best soap-opera-cum-comedy-
cum-thriller-cum-cautionary tale. With content like this,
everyone’s happy right?
Well, only for so long. Once even Trump supporters
realise he’s taken them all to the showers and that they’re
not there to have a wash, this cosy system will crumble.
Which is why media needs to act now.
WAR ON OTHER FRONTS
CNN is generally considered the progenitor of the wall-to-
wall war coverage that is now de riguer across most news
media at such times, especially TV. The world’s first 24/7
news broadcaster fashioned a sort of on-going drama, with
ceaseless output, excruciating details (down to the boots a
soldier might wear or his/her diet) and early forms of
embedding to get close to the action. Filling 24 hours
every day with one topic needed some imagination, even
for a war, and CNN managed with remorseless will to
complete its mission to do so, its producers striding about
like Cecil B DeMille across the war-stained sand.
It was during Desert Storm (was the name meant to sound
like a movie or is it just how we’ve come to see these
things now?) in which Peter Arnett and co., more or less
invented digital era, rolling coverage, blow by blow, war
coverage. Authenticity was not entirely the aim (one notes
anecdotes passed to the writer from an Australian
correspondent in Iraq at the time who would hijack CNN’s
expensively lit and lovingly stage managed backdrops, for
his own to-camera pieces before they packed up to leave).
Getting facts right was not necessarily the point either and
it was certainly never intended that such coverage would
ever suggest that a war had at least two sides and that its
context may be more complicated than an anchor’s grab in
front of said extravagantly set-up backdrops.
These days any self-respecting news media organisation
cannot consider itself credible if it can’t get amid the
bombed buildings, the shattered lives and the daily dramas
that accompany any war. For most news organisations,
there are two ways to get this kind of copy. One is through
embedding, one through freelancers.
The concept of embedding would have been laughed out of
the press tent in Vietnam, but these days, its hard for news
organisations to get copy any other way. The cost in
independence is of course offset by the excellent copy war
front-line war, even slightly stage managed, can provide.
The other way, through freelancers, relies upon what might
be called old school journalists getting into trouble, getting
actually fired at or trapped in enemy territory. While these
reporters give news media a whiff of the old days, the
freelancers themselves are offered little support from their
paymasters, regularly left to swing in the breezes of
modern conflict when the inevitable shit hits the fan. These
fearless and dedicated reporters generally have to pay their
own way and take massive, even reckless risks as their
editors goad them on but rarely actually promise a
commission or a paycheck.
The broad result of both strategies is a Hollywood style
version of war and its implications – more John Wayne
and the Green Berets than the realities and environment of
war and conflict. Its range is of the moment and therefore
bereft of context, its aim is drama not truth and it is always
one-sided, displaying the “right side’s” heroism and
sacrifice.
News media’s reasoning for the value of war is obvious.
But, its choice of topic seems odd. Even as news moguls
24
chase conflicts like those in Afghanistan or Iraq or Syria,
and package them to within an inch of reality, other,
possibly even bigger, wars exist everywhere. And they are
crying out for media interest. Think domestic violence,
think hate crimes, think child pornography, think
homelessness, think poverty, think refugees, think drug
abuse, think corporate greed, think human rights, think
social justice. All these and more are battlegrounds in
today’s America, where real people are fighting real
dangers and are being defended and aided by real heroes.
And in Trump’s America, there will be so many more.
Climate change, immigration, foreign policy,
environmental law, minorities, the list could go.
All these areas are at least as valid for media coverage,
indeed war coverage, as any war in any country or any
Presidential speech full of lies, bragging, ignorance and
more lies. Why not embed reporters in these battleground
areas? Why not report from these frontlines? Why not have
blanket coverage and constant live updates on events in
women’s shelters or prisons, soup kitchens or on the
streets with the homeless? Why not cover the stories daily
of the vast majority out there in the real world who are
struggling to hold their lives and their families lives
together, how they are going, how people are helping, how
some have got on the winning side of life, and what can we
do to contribute as individuals and as a nation?
Why not have a Homelessness correspondent or a Social
Justice correspondent just like we have a White House
correspondent?
Why not cover the protests and marches, the
demonstrations, the stunts, the sit-ins, live, just as a
Presidential presser might be covered: respectfully, with
high production value, and intelligently, contextually
framed.
The reality is that for all the marches, protests, demos and
well rehearsed indignation, this will take some time. The
anti-Trump honeymoon will sour and fall out of love with
itself. It will be worn down by the relentless babble
coming out of the White House. The story will cease to be
interesting and will fade.
Humans are narrative driven mammals. we need stories to
guide us and to light our path, at this time more than ever.
Mainstream news media needs to find better stories, the
kind that can sustain us all.
The paradoxical, ironical truth is that the Trump
administration may be the best thing that has happened to
mainstream news media in recent memory. It is both a
challenge and an opportunity, often common bedfellows.
But, it’s not in the way many seem to think. It’s not
because POTUS 45 provides such eye-catching content; its
because his politics have created the opportunity for news
media in particular to recapture its market, to establish a
more powerful and resonant brand identity with the
majority of voters at least who didn’t vote for him.
Trump is how mainstream news media gets its mojo back
because Trump is unknowingly, fatuously regenerating the
.
25
civil society beast that the American elite has fought off
and weakened for decades. And that’s where the real
stories are for those who want to look. That’s where news
media has to be, because that is where the future is.
The fatal gap is there for the media to close.
 Foreign Policy and “False Flags”:
Trump’s “War and Chocolate” Reality Show
Who is the Butcher, Mr. Trump?
By Prof Michel Chossudovsky
Global Research, April 19, 2017

“I was sitting at the table. We had finished

dinner. We’re now having dessert. And we
had the most beautiful piece of chocolate
cake that you’ve ever seen and President
Xi was enjoying it,” (TV interview Fox
News, see below)

Precedent in the conduct of US foreign policy? Trump ran

it as a “war and chocolate” reality show: A shift in the
mode of decision-making pertaining to US aggression?
What kind of president do we have?
The dinner event was also part of “publications relations”
Cynical and diabolical? The plush dinner
operation with the intent to boost a “pro-American
event with China’s president Xi Jinping at
sentiment” by president Xi Jinping and the PRC
Mar-a-Lago on the evening of April 6 was
delegation.
carefully planned to coincide with Trump’s
missile strikes against Syria.
Xi and Trump were accompanied by their
wives; guests, family members and high-
level officials from both countries were in
attendance at the Palm Beach Mar-a Lago
“replicate” of Rome’s Palazzo Chigi 16th
Century dining room.

The Daily Telegraph, 7 April 2017

Trump’s order to strike Syria had been carefully timed to

coincide with the final “dessert stage” of the official dinner
event with president Xi:

“And I was given the message from the

Later that evening on Thursday April 6, it was dessert
time: The Donald was at the dinner table eating a
delicious chocolate cake together with Xi Jinping, while
also ordering Tomahawk missile strikes against Syria, in
the presence of China’s president and his entourage:
26
generals that the ships are locked and
loaded. [ready to go]
What do you do? And we made a
determination to do it. So the missiles
were on the way.”
… “And I said: ‘Mr President, let me explain
something to you …this is during dessert…
we’ve just fired 59 missiles – all of which hit
by the way, unbelievable, from, you know
 hundreds of miles away, all of which hit, it’s
so incredible, it’s brilliant, it’s genius, our
technology is better than anybody’s by a
factor of five …”
“So what happens is, I said [to Xi] we’ve
just launched 59 missiles heading to Iraq,
[sic] …
The 59 missiles had been launched, “heading to Iraq”
according to Trump, …
Oops, he rectifies: “heading towards Syria”, got his
countries mixed up.
“I didn’t want him to finish his dessert and
go home … and then they say: ‘You know
the guy you just had dinner with just
attacked [Syria].’”
And then Trump invites the Chinese president to finish his
dessert.
“And he was eating his cake. And he was
silent.”
Video, source Fox News (English audio, French
subtitles)
And then Trump intimates (in his interview with Fox
News) that president Xi had endorsed his punitive
airstrikes via his interpreter. Xi said, according to Trump’s
recount:
“anybody that was so brutal and uses
gases to do that [to] young children and
babies, it’s OK”. (emphasis added)
“He agreed… He [Xi] was ok with me” said
Trump.
China is with us.
Who is Anybody?
27
Visibly Trump hasn’t the foggiest idea of the workings of
international diplomacy.
Nor does he understand that Chinese politicians never
reveal their game at an official dinner venue. What they
say is invariably intended to hide their real intentions.
Xi’s spontaneous response –while finishing his chocolate
desert– was not an “endorsement” of the People’s
Republic of China, which a few days earlier politely
abstained in the vote of the UN Security Council
Resolution directed against Bashar al Assad. China also
joined the Russian initiative calling for an independent
investigation into the chemical weapons issue.
But Mr. President. There no evidence.
The United Nations in a 2013 report confirms that Syrian
opposition “rebels” (supported by Washington) “may have
used chemical weapons against [Syrian] government
forces.”
The UN report refutes Trump’s
accusations that Bashar al Assad was
using chemical weapons against his
own people.
What the UN mission findings confirm is that the US
sponsored opposition “rebels” largely composed of Al
Qaeda affiliated groups, financed and supported by the
Western military alliance were responsible for these 2013
chemical weapons attacks.
Moreover, as confirmed in an earlier report, the Al Qaeda
rebels were being trained in the use of chemical weapons
by specialists on contract to the Pentagon. From the
horse’s mouth: CNN
 No credible evidence that the Syrian president is killing his
own people has been provided.

The false flag does not hold up to scrutiny, yet this “sloppy
Sources: U.S. helping underwrite Syrian rebel training on securing
chemical weapons intelligence” seems to have convinced the President and
Commander in Chief of the United States of America,
who’s eating a chocolate cake with the president of
Atrocities were committed and Trump ordered airstrikes
China…
which have resulted in further deaths of innocent civilians
including children.
And the Chinese president knows that the intelligence is
fake.
US intelligence is often based on the art
of deceit, i.e. the fabrication of evidence.
Washington (which supported the opposition rebels in the
use of chemical weapons) rather than Damascus is
But in this case there was “no art of deceit”. The White
responsible for extensive crimes against humanity.
House report which Trump used to justify his airstrikes
constitutes fake evidence and “sloppy intelligence”. Did it
have the endorsement of the intelligence community? Who is the Butcher, Mr. Trump?

There is ample evidence of a US coverup contained in this

scanty White House “intelligence report” which has been
refuted.
.

28
 Special Report
Confirmed: John Brennan Colluded
With Foreign Spies To Defeat Trump
George Neumayr
April 19, 2017, 12:04 Am
This is the open scandal that Congress
should investigate.
An article in the Guardian last week provides more
confirmation that John Brennan was the
American progenitor of political espionage aimed at
defeating Donald Trump.
One side did collude with foreign
powers to tip the election — Hillary’s.
Seeking to retain his position as CIA director under
Hillary, Brennan teamed up with British spies and
Estonian spies to cripple Trump’s candidacy. He used their
phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-agency
investigation into Trump, which led the FBI to probe a
computer server connected to Trump Tower and gave
cover to Susan Rice, among other Hillary supporters, to
spy on Trump and his people.
John Brennan’s CIA operated like a branch office of the
Hillary campaign, leaking out mentions of this bogus
investigation to the press in the hopes of inflicting
maximum political damage on Trump. An official in the
intelligence community tells TAS that Brennan’s retinue of
political radicals didn’t even bother to hide their activism,
decorating offices with “Hillary for president cups” and
other campaign paraphernalia.
A supporter of the American Communist Party at the
height of the Cold War, Brennan brought into the CIA a
raft of subversives and gave them plum positions from
which to gather and leak political espionage on Trump. He
bastardized standards so that these left-wing activists could
burrow in and take career positions. Under the patina of
that phony professionalism, they could then present their
politicized judgments as “non-partisan.”
29
The Guardian story is written in a style designed to flatter
its sources (they are cast as high-minded whistleblowers),
but the upshot of it is devastating for them, nonetheless,
and explains why all the criminal leaks against Trump first
originated in the British press. According to the story,
Brennan got his anti-Trump tips primarily from British
spies but also Estonian spies and others. The story
confirms that the seed of the espionage into Trump was
planted by Estonia. The BBC’s Paul Wood reported last
year that the intelligence agency of an unnamed Baltic
State had tipped Brennan off in April 2016 to a
conversation purporting to show that the Kremlin was
funneling cash into the Trump campaign.
Any other CIA director would have disregarded such a
flaky tip, recognizing that Estonia was eager to see Trump
lose (its officials had bought into Hillary’s propaganda that
Trump was going to pull out of NATO and leave Baltic
countries exposed to Putin). But Brennan opportunistically
seized on it, as he later that summer seized on the half-
baked intelligence of British spy agencies (also full of
officials who wanted to see Trump lose).
The Guardian says that British spy head Robert Hannigan
“passed material in summer 2016 to the
CIA chief, John Brennan.”
To ensure that these flaky tips leaked out, Brennan
disseminated them on Capitol Hill. In August and
September of 2016, he gave briefings to the “Gang of
Eight” about them, which then turned up on the front page
of the New York Times.
All of this took place at the very moment Brennan was
auditioning for Hillary. He desperately wanted to keep his
job and despised Trump for his alleged “Muslim ban,” a
matter near and dear to Brennan’s heart. Not only was he
an apologist for the Muslim Brotherhood, but Brennan’s
Islamophilia dated to his days in college, when he spent a
year in Cairo learning Arabic and taking courses in Middle
Eastern studies. He later got a graduate degree with an
emphasis in Middle Eastern studies. In 1996, his ties to the
Islamic world tightened after he became the CIA’s station
chief in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. He once recalled that
 “during a 25-year career in government, I
was privileged to serve in positions across
the Middle East — as a political officer with
the State Department and as a CIA station
chief in Saudi Arabia. In Saudi Arabia, I
saw how our Saudi partners fulfilled their
duty as custodians of the two holy
mosques of Mecca and Medina. I marveled
at the majesty of the Hajj and the devotion
of those who fulfilled their duty as Muslims
by making that privilege — that pilgrimage.”
Out of this Islamophilia came a special dislike of Michael
Flynn, who had planned to rip up the Obama-era “reset”
with Muslim countries. Furious with Flynn for his apostasy
from political correctness, Brennan and other Obama aides
couldn’t resist the temptation to take him out after rifling
through transcripts of his calls with the Russian
ambassador.
They caught him in a lie to Mike Pence and
made sure the press knew about it.
.
30
Were the media not so completely in the tank for Obama
and Hillary, all of this political mischief would make for a
compelling 2016 version of All the President’s Men.
Instead, the public gets a steady stream of Orwellian
propaganda about the sudden propriety of political
espionage. The headline writers at Pravda couldn’t
improve on this week’s official lie, tweeted out by the
Maggie Habermans:
“Susan Rice Did Nothing Wrong, Say Both
Dem and Republican House Aides.”
Liberals pompously quote the saying — “the bigger the lie,
the more it will be believed” — even as their media
enshrine it.
Historians will look back on 2016 and
marvel at the audacity of its big lie:
whispers of an imaginary Trump-Russia
collusion that wafted up from the fever
swamps of a real collusion between
John Brennan and foreign powers
seeking Trump’s defeat.
 Is Trump
Heading For War On Iran?
By Stephen Lendman
4-19-2017
Neocons infesting Washington and Israel, along with
AIPAC, want pro-Western puppet governance replacing
the Islamic Republic of Iran.
Will hawkish Trump administration generals given
warmaking authority attack the country?
On January 3, ahead of his inauguration, Rep. Alcee
Hastings (D. FL) introduced HJ Res. 10: Authorization of
Use of Force Against Iran Resolution.
It calls for
“us(ing) the Armed Forces of the United
States as the President determines
necessary and appropriate in order to
achieve the goal of preventing Iran from
obtaining nuclear weapons.”
“The United States must do all that is
necessary to ensure that all of Iran’s
pathways to obtaining a nuclear weapon
are blocked.”
So far, neither house passed the measure. Trump remains
hostile to Tehran.
Before his sacking, National Security
Advisor Michael Flynn put Iran “on
notice.”
In early February, the Trump administration imposed new
illegal sanctions on Tehran.
At the time, Defense Secretary Mattis lied,
calling it the world’s “biggest state sponsor
of terrorism.”
Days later, Trump repeated the outrageous accusation,
saying
“they’re the world’s top sponsor of
terrorism, and we’re not going to stop until
that problem is properly solved.”
During his mid-February White House meeting with
Netanyahu, he falsely accused Iran of seeking to develop
nuclear weapons, vowing he’ll never permit it. He
repeatedly denounced the landmark nuclear deal.
31
On April 17, AIPAC published a “timeline of (fabricated
Iranian) malign behavior” following the nuclear deal.
It maliciously calls Iran
“the greatest long-term threat to US and
Israeli interests in the Middle East” -
repeating the canard about it being “the
world’s leading state sponsor of terrorism.”
“Counter Iran’s regional aggression,” it
urges, wanting hardline administration and
administration actions.
On April 18, in a letter to House Speaker Paul Ryan,
Secretary of State Tillerson lied, saying
“Iran remains a leading state sponsor of
terror, through many platforms and
methods.”
“President Donald J. Trump has directed a
National Security Council-led interagency
review of the Joint Comprehensive Plan of
Action that will evaluate whether
suspension of sanctions related to Iran
pursuant to the JCPOA is vital to the
national security interests of the United
States.”
“When the interagency review is
completed, the administration looks forward
to working with Congress on this issue.”
Anti-imperial intellectual Jean Bricmont believes if
“Trump wants to assuage his opposition,
he will have to (wage) a full war with Syria
and maybe Iran.”
“Zionist-neocon” influence infests his
administration. Warmaking is prioritized,
“aggression…viewed positively,” anti-war
activism heavily criticized.
“The West has fallen in some sort of
madness,” he stressed. “We are in genuine
decline.”
Candidate Trump preached noninterventionism. President
Trump escalated Bush/Cheney/Obama wars. He’s waging naked aggression in multiple theaters. Will he
attack North Korea and/or Iran next?
His hostility toward Pyongyang risks nuclear war on the
Korean peninsula. His geopolitical agenda toward Russia Is confrontation with Russia and China coming? Is
and China is confrontational. eventual nuclear war inevitable? Is humanity doomed
because of Washington’s imperial madness?
Last Wednesday, he said US relations with Moscow are at
an “all-time low.” Washington bears full responsibility, he
failed to explain.
.

32
 “This Goes Far Beyond Incidental
Surveillance. This Was Spying On Political Enemies.”
By Pamela Williams
Published April 19, 2017 · Updated April 20, 2017
War has been declared on “Deep State’s” political agenda,
which goes way beyond incidental surveillance, as they
called it. It was not “incidentally surveilled!”
It was out and out spying on President
Trump and his Transition Team in
November, December 2016, and finally
in January 2017. They were spied on,
because they were political enemies of
Hillary Clinton and the Deep State,
which is aligned to Clinton.
Susan Rice ordered spread sheets of Trump and
Associates! The powerful public interest legal firm,
American Center for Law and Justice has declared war on
the “deep state,” which is considered to be comprised of
deeply entrenched politicians, who are using their power to
destroy President Trump.
These are their claims:
1. The Trump Transition Team was surveilled by the
Obama Administration, says, ACLJ’s chief counsel, Jay
Sekulow.
2. Someone in the Obama Administration unmasked the
names of those on the Trump Transition Team who
were surveilled.
3. Obama changed the rules in his final days in order to
widely disseminate the information.
4. The deep state bureaucracy leaked the information to
the media.
This is absolutely the most down and dirty thing in my
opinion that has ever been done in politics. It has begun
the unraveling of our democracy at a root level that will
not stop. Obama and his deep state has set an example that
will only be repeated in the future unless “they” are
charged and prosecuted. This is worse than any Watergate
ever could be!
Sekulow goes on to say,
“an orchestrated conspiracy where the
conspirators marching orders come from
the highest levels.”
33
In other words, we are speaking about the Globalists now,
the Deep State, and the Shadow Government. Tell me,
how do you fight against these entities…these destroyers
of mankind?
Instead of leaving Washington, as most former presidents
do, Obama has set up a command center in a mansion a
few miles from the White House. However, at the moment
he is on vacation with Bruce Springsteen, Tom Hanks,
Oprah, and David Geffen.
Since President Trump took office, the information used
against him was based on the leaks from the Intelligence
Community. Sekulow goes on to say,
“Now we know this goes far beyond
incidental surveillance. This was spying on
political enemies.”
Please, everyone, keep this alive and don’t forget those
two sentences.
This organization headed by Sekulow is our only hope. It
has gone to court when they could not get information by
using the Freedom of Information Act. A complaint filed
this week is against the National Security Agency saying
they did not respond within the allowed time limit. We
have to pray that our Judicial System still has some truth
and dignity left to respond to these proceedings.
ACLJ wants to know what process allowed
the government to change rules to allow for
“dissemination of raw signals intelligence
information.”
So we can see that Susan Rice was the
“gatherer of that information.”
Obama DNI James Clapper executed those procedures,
and ex-Attorney General Loretta Lynch also helped in the
process. The damage has been done, and these
government officials have destroyed our Judicial
System…it is worthless now in my opinion.
Further, Sekulow says,
 “While opponents of President Trump have
become emboldened in the wake of
General Flynn’s resignation as the National
Security Adviser, and while the media has
reveled in a frenzy of self-righteous outrage
that conceals glee, it is important to
observe that his resignation was sparked
by leaked information coming from
unelected bureaucrats within our nation’s
intelligence apparatus, seemingly provoked
by their deep distate for the new
administration. Even more ominously,
some of these beureaucrats are perhaps
motivated by their loyalities to the Obama
Administration.”
In my opinion our voting process is no longer relevant or
necessary as it is not valid or respected by the government.
What is the point? The Liberals would have had had no
problem or caused hellfire and damnation to reign down
upon America if Hillary Clinton had won. With Donald
Trump winning, they are committed to overthrowing him;
thus, what good was his winning? If they are in control of
the United States, our voting ritual is false and in its grave.
They have won, and what can we do about it?
Sekulow is trying, but will he be able to do anything at all
to repare the damage that has been done to the US? I
doubt it. He is honorable for trying; nevertheless, there is
at least some of the remnants left of us: WE THE
PEOPLE are a dying breed. President Trump will be the
last President chosen by WE THE PEOPLE. He has had
to do some adjustments to integrate with what he found
inside…what choice did he have?
Sekulow further states,
“Today, we are sending our FOIA request
to the NSA. If they do not respond, we’ll
once again go back to federal court. Rice’s
conduct is unprecedented. We will do
everything in our power to get to the bottom
of what she actually did, why she did what
she did, and who else was a part of the
conspiracy. While the purely political
nature of the motive seems obvious, the
ACLJ is after the evidence that will prove
it.”
In conclusion he stated,
“Deep state operatives consistently leak
selective information – intelligence
.
34
information, classified information,
information that jeopardizes US intelligence
methods, sources, and even the very
integrity and reputation of the US
intelligence community – all for purely
political purposes. I understand that, in
Washington, leaking is certainly not new.
But it has never happened at such an
alarming rate and with a root system
embedded deep and wide throughout the
bureaucracy – the shadow government.”
I want to remind you of the following things:
1. Hillary Clinton’s treason and being cleared by the FBI.
2. The total destruction of the FBI by James Comey.
3. The fact that pedophilia is rampant within Washington
elite, but they are not being charged or prosecuted.
4. And although, Sedulow and the ACLJ are noble and
honorable in trying to get to the bottom of this betrayal
and the destruction of WE THE PEOPLE, you and I
both know most likely they will have their hands tied in
the end.
5. WE THE PEOPLE have been raped and branded as
impotent and inadequate to be the voice of the Country
we love and fund. We are merely slaves of the
Shadow Government and the Globalist Elites. This is
finally a fact…a truth…not a conspiracy.
Jay Sekulow is Chief Counsel of the American Center for
Law and Justice (ACLJ), one of the most prestigious law
firms in the country. He is an accomplished Supreme
Court advocate, renowned expert on religious liberty, a
number 1 New York Times-bestselling author, and a
respected broadcaster.
Jay Sekulow is an attorney with a passion for protecting
religious liberty – freedom – democracy. For nearly a
quarter of a century, he’s been on the front lines – working
to protect religious and constitutional freedoms in the
courts, in Congress, and in the public arena.
 Obama, Comey Relied On Discredited Dossier
To Obtain FISA Warrant On Trump Campaign
By Tyler Durden
Apr 19, 2017 5:35 AM
James Comey, the man who refused to bring charges
against Hillary Clinton despite a mountain of concrete
evidence that she, and several members of her staff,
knowingly violated several federal laws,
apparently used the largely discredited
"Trump Dossier" to help secure a FISA
warrant to secretly monitor Trump's
former campaign aide, Carter Page,
according to CNN.
Among other things, the dossier alleged that Page met
senior Russian officials as an emissary of the Trump
campaign, and discussed quid-pro-quo deals relating to
sanctions, business opportunities and Russia's interference
in the election. Page has denied meeting the officials
named in the dossier and says he never cut any political
deals with the Kremlin. Per CNN:
The FBI last year used a dossier of
allegations of Russian ties to Donald
Trump's campaign as part of the
justification to win approval to secretly
monitor a Trump associate, according to
US officials briefed on the investigation.
The dossier has also been cited by FBI Director James
Comey in some of his briefings to members of Congress in
recent weeks, as one of the sources of information the
bureau has used to bolster its investigation, according to
US officials briefed on the probe.
This includes approval from the secret
court that oversees the Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) to
monitor the communications of Carter
Page, two of the officials said. Last year,
Page was identified by the Trump
campaign as an adviser on national
security.
According to the Washington Post, the warrant to monitor
Page was obtained in the summer of 2016 which indicates
that the FBI was in possession of the now-infamous
dossier well before President Obama supposedly received
his first briefing on the material in December 2016.
35
Of course, as we reported back in January
(see "Here Is The Full 35-Page Report
Alleging Trump Was "Cultivated, Supported
And Assisted" By Russia") the dossier,
compiled by ex-British intelligence
official Chris Steele, was almost
immediately discredited by the public at
large after numerous glaring errors were
quickly identified and salicious stories
of 'golden showers' and other sexual
acts were also dismissed as pure
rubbish.
Allegedly the dossier was even available to the Clinton
campaign should they have chosen to use it to discredit
Trump, but even they were quickly convinced that no one
would buy it.
All of which, once again, brings into
question the level of stupidity and/or
pure corruption that must have been
involved in this process given the shear
number of people whose approval was
undoubtedly required to authorize the
issuance of a FISA warrant that paved
the way for Comey and the Obama
administration to secretly monitor the
Trump campaign.
Meanwhile, Carter Page offered a simple reply to this
latest revelation saying that he looks forward to the
discovery process and testimony that will come from the
lawsuit he plans to file in short order.
"I look forward to the Privacy Act of
1974 lawsuit that I plan to file in
response to the civil rights violations by
Obama administration appointees last
year. The discovery process will be of
great value to the United States, as our
nation hears testimony from them under
oath and we receive disclosure of the
documents which show what exactly was
done in 2016."
36
 Tillerson Warns 'Unchecked Iran'
Could Follow Path Of North Korea
Published Time: 19 Apr, 2017 20:53Edited Time: 20 Apr, 2017 09:02
and other Palestinian terrorist organizations,” said the
secretary of state, citing reports that Iran displayed a
missile inscribed “death to Israel” during a military parade
on Tuesday.

“A comprehensive Iran policy requires that

we address all of the threats posed by Iran,
and it is clear there are many,” Tillerson
said.

U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson. © Mark Wilson / Getty Images

/ AFP

The Trump administration is reviewing US policy towards

Iran, Secretary of State Rex Tillerson announced, accusing
Tehran of sponsoring terrorism and violence and
destabilizing numerous countries in the Middle East.
“Whether it be assassination attempts,
support of weapons of mass destruction,
deploying destabilizing militias, Iran spends
its treasure and time disrupting peace,”
Tillerson said, adding, “An unchecked Iran
has the potential to travel the same path as
North Korea ‒and take the world along with
it.”
“Iran is the world’s leading state sponsor of
terrorism, and is responsible for intensifying
multiple conflicts and undermining US
interests in countries such as Syria,
Yemen, Iraq and Lebanon, and continuing
to support attacks against Israel,” Tillerson
told reporters at the State Department on
Wednesday.
“An unchecked Iran has the potential to
travel the same path as North Korea ‒and
take the world along with it,” Tillerson
added. The 2015 nuclear agreement between
Iran and the six world powers “fails to
achieve the objective of a non-nuclear Iran
He accused Iran of continuing to support the “brutal Assad
‒ it only delays their goal of becoming a
regime” in Syria with weapons and money, as well as
nuclear state,” according to Tillerson. “This
Revolutionary Guard troops. Tehran also supports the
deal represents the same failed approach
Houthis in Yemen, threatening the southern border of
of the past that brought us to the current
Saudi Arabia, while the Iranian-sponsored Quds force has
imminent threat that we face from North
been “undermining security in Iraq for years,” Tillerson
Korea.”
said.
“The Trump administration has no intention
Iran also “maintains a long-standing hostility towards of passing the buck to a future
Israel, providing weapons, training and funding to Hamas administration on Iran. The evidence is
clear: Iran’s provocative actions threaten
37
 the United States, the region and the
world,” the secretary of state added,
vowing to “meet the challenges Iran poses
with clarity and conviction” once the policy
review is done
Earlier on Wednesday, Defense Secretary James Mattis
also accused Iran of seeking to destabilize the Middle East.
"Everywhere you look if there is trouble in
the region, you find Iran,"
38
Mattis told reporters in Riyadh, after meeting senior Saudi
officials.
"We will have to overcome Iran's efforts to
destabilize yet another country and create
another militia in their image of Lebanese
Hezbollah,” he added, “but the bottom line
is, we are on the right path for it."
Mattis is visiting Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Israel, Qatar and
Djibouti as part of a week-long Middle East tour.
 Camille Paglia: Trump Already Headed Towards
Reelection, Democrats Have Overplayed Their Hand
Posted By Tim Hains
On Date April 19, 2017
New York Times columnist Frank Bruni moderates a
'Times Talks' discussion between legendary feminist
Camille Paglia and 'Watch What Happens Live' host Andy
Cohen about life in the Trump era.
Paglia says Bruni's newspaper and the Democratic Party
still have "soul searching" left to do about why they called
2016 wrong. "It is incumbent upon the defeated party to
pull itself together, or else we're going to get the reelection
of the present administration," she said.
"I didn't take him seriously at all," she said about the early
days of the Trump campaign. "And then, shortly after the
very first Republican debate, I saw Diamond & Silk, the
African-American sisters doing a pro-Trump attack on
Megyn Kelly on their podcast, and... I suddenly saw the
populism, and from that moment forward, I could feel the
momentum of it."
"The New York media was in an absolute bubble about
this," she added.
Andy Cohen said he had similar thoughts: "Just today I
was walking by a monitor, I don't know what channel was
on, but there was -- he has some slogan about jobs for
America or some new plan. And I saw that chyron: 'Jobs
For America Plan,' and I thought to myself... it doesn't
even matter if this works or not, he could get reelected just
because he has a 'Jobs For America' plan."
Related Video: President Trump Introduces New 'Hire
American, Buy American' Order In Kenosha, Wisconsin
39
FRANK BRUNI: I feel like one can't have any
conversation today, without it being at some point about
Donald Trump. So I thought we'd just begin with Donald
Trump.
Get him entirely out of the way.
In my world of friends and acquaintances it seems like
everybody is either in near hysteria and feels like we're in
the end of days. Or they look at those people and see a
bunch of drama queens. I want to know where you two
stand on this. What is your state of mind and state of
feeling about the Donald Trump era?
We'll start with you Camille because I know you're so shy
with your opinions.
CAMILLE PAGLIA: I am a Bernie Sanders supporter. I
voted for Jill Stein. So I want to make that clear.
My feeling is that an election occured.
It is incumbent upon the defeated party to pull itself
together, or else we're going to get the reelection of the
present administration. That's what I feel right now.
BRUNI: You feel like he is going to get reelected?
PAGLIA: Yes. The Democrats have overplayed their hand.
And the -- I just can't imagine--
BRUNI: You're already betting on his reelection less than
100 days in?
PAGLIA: Yes because what the Democrats needed to do--
and the major media, Frank, needed to do was to do some
soul-searching.
BRUNI: By that you mean the failing New York Times?
PAGLIA: Yes.
BRUNI: Yes, we're going to rebrand this 'Failing Times
Talks.'
PAGLIA: If you read only the New York Times-- I said,
'Oh my God!' The readers of the New York Times are
heading for a major, major breakdown shock if Trump is in
fact elected.
BRUNI: Did you think he was going to be elected?
PAGLIA: I was the very first to call him a carnival barker,
and I didn't take him seriously at all. And then, shortly
after the very first Republican debate, I saw Diamond &
Silk, the African-American sisters doing a pro-Trump
attack on Megyn Kelly on their podcast, and I thought, I
suddenly saw the populism, and from that moment
forward, I could feel the momentum of it. And the New
York media was in an absolute bubble about this. Let's not
get started on the strategic errors of the Hillary campaign...
BRUNI: We're going to get to that, but let me ask Andy:
When he came down the escalator, almost two years ago
now, did you think it was possible we'd be sitting here
tonight talking about him in the White House?
ANDY COHEN: No. Actually, I kept thinking in the back
of my head, 'He could win!' I thought it was possible. I was
the idiot who was going to FiveThirtyEight and looking at
Nate Silver's percentages eighteen times a day. And I was
like, 'It's okay, it's at 72% today, so it is going to be okay!'
40
I just felt like the biggest asshole on election night, like I
had been--
And then suddenly all the tweets were-- The New York
Times is predicting 85% chance Trump is going to win by
9:30 at night... So I do feel like an idiot. I got sucked into
this thing, but when I did -- nothing was sticking to him,
he was behaving like a Real Housewife at all of these
debates, and he was --and not in a good way...
And he was, but he was talking to people in a way that
they were connecting with, and the thing that is so
upsetting to me and a lot of people is that facts don't matter
anymore. And he can lie and lie and lie, and it is his own
truth, and it is funny you said you think he could be
reelected.
Just today I was walking by a monitor, I don't know what
channel was on, but there was -- he has some slogan about
jobs for America or some new plan. And I saw that
chyron: 'Jobs For America Plan,' and I thought to myself,
okay, it doesn't even matter if this works or not, he could
get reelected because he has a 'Jobs For America' plan. But
I had that thought today.
 Democrats’ All-Too-Telling
Love For Maxine Waters
By Post Editorial Board
April 19, 2017 | 7:17pm

On the record, at least 25 times.

Last week, she told the Los Angeles Press Club,

“I want this president impeached.”

She spent the weekend leading a crowd of activists in an

“Impeach 45!” chant.

But MSNBC’s Craig Melvin pressed her on the issue

Tuesday, and she quickly insisted,

“I have not called for impeachment.”

Rep. Maxine Waters Getty Images
Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Calif.) is the current darling of the
left — which tells you just how crazy Democrats have
gotten.
CNNPolitics reports, accurately, Waters is “having a
moment” with the biggest online buzz since Bernie
Sanders. Elle dubbed her “The Millennials’ Political Rock
Star.”
Yet she’s every bit the over-the-top lefty she’s been for
decades. Indeed, she’s winning all the praise by calling for
President Trump’s impeachment.
.
No, she claimed, she wants the Russian-collusion stuff
investigated first:
“We need the facts in order to do the
impeachment. And I’m going to work every
day to try and help get those facts and to
reveal them to our public until, of course,
impeachment has taken place.”
Waters, in short, can’t be bothered to make sense — and
that’s why they love her.

41
 MSNBC's Craig Melvin Calls Out
Maxine Waters For Impeachment Tweet –
Then She Lies On National TV
By Zeropointnow
Apr 19, 2017 6:09 AM

The left couldn't have produced a more retarded liar than

Maxine "Putin is advancing into Korea" Waters... who on
several occasions has called for Trump's
impeachment over Twitter, in interviews, and recently in a
chant she led at an anti-Trump rally. Yesterday on
MSNBC, host Craig Melvin called Waters out for her
rhetoric - reading her most recent tweet on the topic, then
letting her mechanically run her ventriloquist puppet
mouth about Russia. When Melvin suggests perhaps
waiting for an investigation before indicting Trump -
Waters tries to backtrack, and it doesn't go well...

Craig Melvin: Should we wait to call for

impeachment until we have the answers
to some of the questions?

Maxine Waters: I have not called for

impeachment...

Craig Melvin: You said you're going to

fight every day until he's impeached!

Maxine Waters: Yeah, but here's what

I've said... Here's what I've said... Talk to the hand Maxine... you're full of shit.

Some of the tweets in question:

42
 Treason: John Brennan Worked WITH Foreign
Spies In Desperate Attempt To Take Down Donald Trump
"Open Scandal" Being Ignored By Mainstream Media
By Staff Writer -
04.20.2017 @11:52 PM EDT

“Any other CIA director would have

disregarded such a flaky tip, recognizing
that Estonia was eager to see Trump lose
(its officials had bought into Hillary’s
propaganda that Trump was going to pull
out of NATO and leave Baltic countries
exposed to Putin). But Brennan
opportunistically seized on it, as he later
that summer seized on the half-baked
intelligence of British spy agencies (also full
of officials who wanted to see Trump lose),”
continued the Spectator.
“The Guardian says that British spy head
Robert Hannigan “passed material in
summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John
Brennan.” To ensure that these flaky tips
(INTELLIHUB) — In a largely ignored development in
leaked out, Brennan disseminated them on
the ongoing investigation into the deep state war against all
Capitol Hill. In August and September of
things Donald Trump, the Guardian reported late last week
2016, he gave briefings to the “Gang of
that it was none other than Obama hack John Brennan who
Eight” about them, which then turned up on
was responsible for the start of the still ongoing
the front page of the New York Times.”
disinformation campaign connecting Trump and the
Russians.
Keep in mind that the entire Russia-Trump narrative is
literal deep state invented propaganda and we are now
As the American Spectator recently noted in reaction to the
starting to actually find out where it originated. As many
stunning news,
suspected, it was mostly conducted by actual Hillary
Clinton supporters within the intelligence community.
“One side did collude with foreign powers
to tip the election — Hillary’s.”
“John Brennan’s CIA operated like a
branch office of the Hillary campaign,
The Guardian report attempts to make their sources and leaking out mentions of this bogus
allies look good, painting Brennan and other officials as investigation to the press in the hopes
high-minded public servants simply worried about Russian of inflicting maximum political damage
interference in the election when in reality these operatives on Trump. An official in the intelligence
were working with multiple foreign powers, who had community tells TAS that Brennan’s
obvious anti-Trump agendas, to “cripple” then candidate retinue of political radicals didn’t even
Trump’s shot at the White House. bother to hide their activism, decorating
offices with “Hillary for president cups”
According to the Guardian story, Brennan got his original and other campaign paraphernalia.”
information regarding a possible Trump Russia connection
not only from British spies but also those from Estonia, a
country that was openly anti-Trump due to their belief that
Trump could pull out of NATO.
.

43
 Trump’s ‘Armada’ Turns Toward North Korea
As White House Defends Misleading Remarks
Published Time: 20 Apr, 2017 03:17Edited Time: 20 Apr, 2017 09:03
USS Carl Vinson (CVN 70) . © U.S. Navy Photo / Flickr
The White House stood by President Donald Trump’s
recent talk of a Navy strike force on its way to the Korean
peninsula, after the USS Carl Vinson was spotted
thousands of miles away, headed in the opposite direction.
The fleet has since turned around.
On Wednesday, White House press secretary Sean Spicer
denied that Trump misled the public about the location of
the USS Carl Vinson strike force, which he said was
heading to North Korea during an interview with Fox
News earlier this month.
“We have submarines. Very powerful, far
more powerful than the aircraft carrier, that
I can tell you,” Trump told Maria Bartiromo
in a pre-taped interview that aired April 12.
Several tweets from Trump at the time also signaled that
rising tensions were leading to the US taking action against
North Korea over the country’s nuclear program.
On April 11, Spicer confirmed that the Vinson strike force
was
44
“steaming out toward the Sea of Japan” to
give the president “options in the region.”
“I think when you see a carrier group
steaming into an area like that, the forward
presence of that is clearly, through almost
every instance, a huge deterrence. So I
think it serves multiple capabilities,” Spicer
said, according to the White House.
That same day, Defense Secretary James Mattis added to
the confusion when he told reporters that the strike group
was on its way to the Sea of Japan, but added,
“There's not a specific demand signal or
specific reason why we're sending her up
there,” according to the Department of
Defense website.
On April 15, the Navy posted a photograph to Flickr with a
description that said the USS Carl Vinson was heading
through the Sunda Strait, putting it several hundred miles
south of Singapore, around 3,500 miles from the Korean
Peninsula.
On Wednesday, Spicer denied that the Trump
administration misled or failed to correct the reports that
the Vinson strike force was en route to North Korea.
“The president said that we have an
armada going toward the peninsula. That’s
a fact. It happened. It is happening, rather,”
Spicer said during a press briefing.
Pressed by reporters as to why the White House did not
clarify the conflicting information, Spicer said that his
statements were not false.
“I think we were asked very clearly about
the use of a carrier group in terms of
deterrence and foreign presence and what
that meant. That’s what we discussed,”
Spicer told reporters.
Speaking on a visit to Saudi Arabia, Mattis also denied that
he had said anything misleading about the Vinson.
“We’re doing exactly what we said we were
going to do,” Mattis told reporters in a video
 posted to the Department of Defense
website.
“She will be on her way, and I’ll determine
when she gets there and where she
actually operates, but the Vinson is going
to be part of our ensuring that we stand by
our allies in the northwest Pacific,” Mattis
added.
Reports from the Korea Herald say that the strike force is
now on its way to the Korean Peninsula, citing the US
Pacific Fleet Command’s Flickr account.
The Vinson is currently expected to arrive at the Korean
Peninsula on April 25, the same day as the 85th
anniversary of the foundation of the North Korean army,
according to the Korea Herald.

The Vinson Strike Group consists of the USS Carl Vinson,

a Nimitz-class nuclear-powered aircraft carrier, two
destroyers and one cruiser.

On April 9, the Navy announced that Admiral Harry

Harris, the commander of US Pacific Command, ordered
the strike group to forgo the previously planned port visits
to Australia and return to the Western Pacific Ocean.

45
 Oliver Stone Blasts Trump:
“He’s Taken Off Handcuffs On War Machine And
Turned It Over To Glorified Generals”
He Had Hoped That Trump Would Prevail.
Alex Christoforou
April 20, 2017
Oliver Stone had reserved some hope for Donald Trump,
as many did.
The hope was that Trump would, as he promised, drain the
swamp and finally stop America’s senseless war policy.
Stone is having buyers remorse, as he comes to the
realization that instead of taking down the neocon war
machine, the neocons (with the enlisted help of the liberal
left) pushed Trump into more endless conflict.
Stone sounded off in this Facebook post entitled, “So It
Goes” (full FB post below).
“So It Goes”
I confess I really had hopes for some conscience from
Trump about America’s wars, but I was wrong — fooled
again! — as I had been by the early Reagan, and less so by
Bush 43. Reagan found his mantra with the “evil empire”
rhetoric against Russia, which almost kicked off a nuclear
war in 1983 — and Bush found his ‘us against the world’
crusade at 9/11, in which of course we’re still mired.
It seems that Trump really has no ‘there’ there, far less a
conscience,
as he’s taken off the handcuffs on our
war machine and turned it over to his
glorified Generals — and he’s being
praised for it by our ‘liberal’ media who
continue to play at war so recklessly.
46
What a tortured bind we’re in. There are intelligent people
in Washington/New York, but they’ve lost their minds as
they’ve been stampeded into a Syrian-Russian groupthink,
a consensus without asking — ‘Who benefits from this
latest gas attack?’ Certainly neither Assad nor Putin.
The only benefits go to the terrorists
who initiated the action to stave off their
military defeat.
It was a desperate gamble, but it worked because the
Western media immediately got behind it with crude
propagandizing about murdered babies, etc. No real
investigation or time for a UN chemical unit to establish
what happened, much less find a motive. Why would
Assad do something so stupid when he’s clearly winning
the civil war?
No, I believe America has decided
somewhere, in the crises of the Trump
administration, that we will get into this
war at any cost, under any
circumstances
— to, once again, change the secular regime in Syria,
which has been, from the Bush era on, one of the top goals
— next to Iran — of the neoconservatives. At the very
least, we will cut out a chunk of northeastern Syria and call
it a State.
Abetted by the Clintonites, they’ve done a wonderful job
throwing America into chaos with probes into Russia’s
alleged hacking of our election and Trump being their
proxy candidate (now clearly disproved by his bombing
attack)
— and sadly, worst of all in some ways,
admitting no memory of the same false
flag incident in 2013,
for which again Assad was blamed (see Seymour Hersh’s
fascinating deconstruction of this US propaganda, ‘London
Review of Books’ December 19, 2013, “Whose sarin?”).
No memory, no history, no rules — or rather ‘American
rules.’

No, this isn’t an accident or a one-off affair.

This is the State deliberately

misinforming the public through its
corporate media and leads us to believe,

as Mike Whitney points out in his brilliant analyses, “Will

Washington Risk WW3” and “Syria: Where the Rubber
Meets the Road,” that something far more sinister waits in
the background. Mike Whitney, Robert Parry, and former
intelligence officer Phil Giraldi all comment below. It’s
well worth 30 minutes of your time to read.
Mike Whitney, “Will Washington Risk WW3 to Block and
Lastly, I enclose Bruce Cumings’s “Nation” analysis of Emerging EU-Russia Superstate,” Counterpunch,
North Korea, as he again reminds us of the purposes of http://bit.ly/2oJ9Tpn
studying history. Can we wake up before it’s too late? I
for one feel like the John Wayne veteran (of war) character Mike Whitney, “Where the Rubber Meets the Road,”
in “Fort Apache,” riding with the arrogant Custer-like Counterpunch, http://bit.ly/2p574zT
General (Henry Fonda) to his doom. My country, my
country, my heart aches for thee. Phil Giraldi, “A World in Turmoil, Thank You Mr.
Trump!” Information Clearing House,
http://bit.ly/2oSCGrW

Robert Parry, “Did Al Qaeda Fool the White House

Again?” Consortiumnews, http://bit.ly/2nN88c0

Robert Parry, “Neocons Have Trump on His Knees,”

Consortiumnews, http://bit.ly/2oZ5GyN

Robert Parry, “Trump’s Wag the Dog Moment,”

Consortiumnews, http://bit.ly/2okwZTE

Robert Parry, “Mainstream Media as Arbiters of Truth,”

Consortiumnews, http://bit.ly/2oSDo8A

Mike Whitney, “Blood in the Water: the Trump

Revolution Ends in a Whimper,” Counterpunch,
http://bit.ly/2oSDEo4

Bruce Cumings, “This is What’s Really Behind North

Korea’s Nuclear Provocations,” The Nation,
http://bit.ly/2nUEroH

47
 Study: Trump Has Eliminated $86B In Regs
By Tim Devaney
04/20/17 12:16 PM EDT
President Trump has saved taxpayers more than $86
billion in regulatory costs during his first three months in
the White House, according to a new study from a
conservative group.
The American Action Forum (AAF) points to several
Obama-era regulations that Trump has either rolled back
on his own or with the help of Republican lawmakers
using the Congressional Review Act (CRA).
This includes the Education Department’s school
accountability standards, the Environmental Protection
Agency’s waters of the United States rule and the so-called
“blacklisting” rule for government contractors.
48
These are just a few examples mentioned in the report.
Since taking office, Trump and Congress have repealed 13
rules with the CRA. The CRA allows lawmakers to
overturn recent rules they disapprove of with a simple
majority in Congress, and send the action to the president
for his signature.
“Just as there are fiscal costs for new significant rules,
there can be savings from repealing old rules through
comprehensive regulatory reform,” said Sam Batkins,
director of regulatory policy at the AAF.
Proponents of stronger regulation warn that critics often
assess only the costs of these rules, but overlook the
financial benefits they create.
 False Accusation
Against Russia On North Korea
By Stephen Lendman
4-20-2017
The Trump administration is spoiling for confrontation
with Pyongyang. Nuclear brinksmanship risks the
unthinkable.
At the same time, Trump abandoned efforts to improve
relations with Russia. Reportedly, Secretary of State
Tillerson’s meeting with Sergey Lavrov in Moscow didn’t
go well, both diplomats disagreeing sharply on Syria and
other key issues.
The latest Russia bashing episode came Wednesday. CBS
News quoted an unnamed US official, falsely accusing
Moscow of blocking an April 15 Security Council
statement, condemning Pyongyang’s ballistic missile
program, saying:
Washington “wanted to get the message
out…Russia is slowing this down, and it’s
not clear why.” The text includes a demand
for Pyongyang to halt further tests. It calls
its ballistic missile program “illegal(l)y
contributing to its development of nuclear
weapons.”
Moscow rejected the statement because it excluded dealing
with Korean peninsula tensions through responsible
dialogue.
A meaningless US-drafted statement only expressed the
Security Council’s commitment
.
49
“to a peaceful, diplomatic and political
solution to the situation.”
The words “through dialogue” used in previous statements
on North Korea were dropped.
On Wednesday, UN envoy Nikki Haley
warned Pyongyang against “pick(ing) a
fight” with SC members, adding “(t)he ball
is in their court. They shouldn’t try and play
it” - meaning end its nuclear and ballistic
missile programs or perhaps Washington
will end it belligerently.
According to Russia’s UN mission, Washington’s draft
statement excluded a call for dealing with Korean
peninsula tensions through responsible dialogue, adding:
“When we demanded to restore this (earlier
used) ‘agreed wording,’ which is of great
political importance, and expressed our
readiness to continue working with the
authors of the draft, the US delegation
scaled down the work on the document
without explanation of reasons and said
that Russia had blocked a statement…”
No blocking occurred. Washington withdrew the draft
statement - bashing Moscow irresponsibly, making Trump
look tough on Russia while letting heightened Korean
peninsula tensions fester.
 OPCW Rejects Russian, Iranian
Proposal On Investigating Idlib Chemical Incident
© East News/ Peter Dejong - World
18:34 20.04.2017
The Organisation for the Prohibition of
Chemical Weapons turned down a
proposal by Moscow and Tehran
regarding an investigation of the Idlib
chemical incident.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The Organisation for the
Prohibition of Chemical Weapons voted against the
Russian and Iranian proposal on investigation of a
suspected chemical weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib, the
UK delegation to the organization said Thursday.
On April 4, a chemical weapons incident in Syria's Idlib
province claimed the lives of some 80 people and inflicted
harm on an additional 200 civilians. The Syrian National
Coalition of Revolutionary and Opposition Forces, as well
as a number of Western states, accused the Syrian
government troops of carrying out the attack, while
Damascus refuted these allegations, with a Syrian army
50
source telling Sputnik that the army did not possess
chemical weapons.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on April 5 that the
airstrike near Khan Shaykhun by the Syrian air force hit a
terrorist warehouse that stored chemical weapons slated
for delivery to Iraq, and called on the UN Security Council
to launch a proper investigation into the incident.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said April 6 that
groundless accusations in the chemical weapons incident
in Syria's Idlib were unacceptable before the investigation
into the matter had been carried out.
However, the incident was used as pretext for a US missile
strike against the Ash Sha'irat airbase carried out late
on April 6. US President Donald Trump characterized the
strike as a response to the alleged use of chemical weapons
by the Syrian government troops while Russian Foreign
Minister Sergei Lavrov said it was a violation of the
international law. Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei described the US missile strike against the
Syrian airfield as a strategic mistake.
In an exclusive interview with Fox Business on April 12,
US President Donald Trump blamed the current situation
in Syria on Moscow's support for country's Assad, calling
the Syrian leader "an animal."
Earlier this year, Syrian President Bashar Assad said that
the country’s government had never used weapons of mass
destruction, including chemical weapons, against the
Syrian people. Besides, under a Russian-US deal after the
east Ghouta sarin gas incident in 2013, Damascus joined
the Convention on the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons
and agreed to destroy its stockpile under Organization
for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW)
oversight. In January 2016, the OPCW announced that all
chemical weapons in Syria had been destroyed.
 Trump Signs Order Granting Steel
Import Sanctions On "National Security" Grounds
BY Tyler Durden
Apr 20, 2017 11:52 Am
At noon, Donald Trump will sign an executive order
calling for a probe whether imports of foreign-made steel
are hurting U.S. national security. The order will revive a
decades-old, rarely used law to explore imposing new
barriers on steel imports, in this case aimed loosely at
China.
Trump will sign the memorandum related to section 232 of
the Trade Expansion Act of 1962 at an event in the White
House that will include leaders of several U.S. steel
companies; the law will allow the president to impose
restrictions on imports for reasons of national security.
Trump’s directive will ask Ross to conduct the probe
“with all deliberate speed and deliver the
results to the president with his
recommendations."
An official cited by Reuters sad that there are national
security implications from imports of steel alloys that are
used in products such as the armor plating of ships and
require a lot of expertise to create and produce.
The move is another step in Trump's "America First"
policies in which he has tried to boost U.S. manufacturers
and preserve American jobs. It comes as he tries to coax
China into taking a more active role in reining in North
Korea's nuclear and missile programs.
.
51
While an official said that the directive is not aimed at a
specific country but is "product oriented", in recent years
the US has seen a substantial increase in imports of Steel
and related products from China, which has been dumping
its exports around the globe, although in recent months has
been either warehousing the product domestically, or using
it as part of the latest housing bubble.
As the WSJ adds,
the U.S. government hasn’t used the law to
impose penalties since the creation of the
World Trade Organization in 1995, which
discourages such unilateral sanctions. The
law was most famously used by President
Richard Nixon in 1971 to impose an
across-the-board 10% import surcharge to
contain the U.S. trade deficit at the time.
The planned ceremony follows a Trump rally Tuesday at
Wisconsin tool factory where he ordered aides to craft new
policies increasing “Buy American” provisions for
government procurement spending. In the speech unveiling
the action, he blasted the WTO as “another one of our
disasters,” and vowed to accelerate acting on his campaign
promises to rewrite American trade policy.
 Assad: West Blocks Probe As It
Would Show Idlib 'Attack', US Strike 'False Flag'
© AFP 2017/ HO/SANA - Middle East
19:12 20.04.2017
Western countries are blocking
attempts to investigate the Idlib
chemical incident because in the event
of a probe it will be established that the
"attack" was a false flag and lie, Syrian
President Bashar Assad told Sputnik.
DAMASCUS (Sputnik) — The United States and other
Western countries block any attempts to launch an
impartial investigation into the alleged use of chemical
weapons in Syria, Syrian President Bashar Assad told
Sputnik.
"We formally sent a letter to the United
Nations, we asked them in that letter
to send a delegation in order to investigate
what happened in Khan Shaykhun," Assad
said in an interview.
"Of course till this moment they didn't send,
because the West and the United States
blocked any delegation from coming,
because if they come, they will find that all
their narratives about what happened
in Khan Shaykhun and then the attack
on Sha'irat airport was a false flag, was a
lie," Assad stressed.
Similarly, he said that in the wake of the first attack
in Aleppo carried out by terrorists against the government
army a few years ago, Damascus had asked the United
Nations to send an investigation delegation
52
"in order to prove what we said about the
terrorists having gases used against our
army."
"And later many incidents happened in that
way, and they didn't send any delegation.
It's the same now," Assad noted.
© Photo: Press-service of Syria's President. Syria's President Bashar
al-Assad
There was no chemical weapons attack in the Syrian
province of Idlib, the reports of it were a false flag play
which was supposed to justify a US missile strike on a
Syrian armed forces’ airbase, Bashar Assad told Sputnik.
"So, for us, there was no gas attack and no
gas depot, it was a false flag play just
to justify the attack on the Shairat base.
That's what happened," Assad said.
Assad added that the Syrian army did carry out an attack
in the province of Idlib on April 4, when the suspected
chemical weapons incident in Khan Shaykhun took place,
but at a different time than reported by western media.
"First of all, we don't know if the site that
we attacked that day half an hour
before noon, about 11:30, was a chemical
warehouse or depot or anything like this.
And their story said that the attack
happened at 6, 6:30 in the morning. We
didn't launch any attack at that time. So,
you have two possibilities: the first one is
 that there was an attack at lunch time or
at about 11:30. The other possibility that
we believe in is that it was a false flag,
there was no attack," the president
explained.
The videos and pictures from the site resemble those
created by the White Helmets in
"the last year or two years or more …
which is an elusive story," Assad said.
"That's what we believe in, because the
attack was already prepared, and they
didn't want to listen, they didn't want
to investigate; they only wanted to launch
the attack. We believe it was a false flag
for one reason and a simple reason: if
there was gas leakage or attack, and
you're talking about 60 dead in that city,
how could the city continue its life
normally? They didn't evacuate the city.
No-one left the city, life continued
as normal, and this is mass destruction.
The other day, they attacked Sha'irat where
they said there was the gas depots, and
they attacked all the depots, and there was
.
53
no gas coming out of that airport. No-one
of our army officers or military staff, was
affected by any gas," he said.
A video footage from the Syrian Khan-Shaykhun
presented by the "White Helmets" completely contradicts
the specifics of sarin gas use, Syrian President Bashar
Assad said in an interview with Sputnik.
Assad stressed that the video clearly shows people
without any means of chemical warfare protection helping
those who allegedly fell victims to sarin gas attack.
"…Even if you look at the pictures, you can
see that the rescuers — presumable
rescuers — were rescuing people
without masks, without gloves, and they
were moving freely. How? This is
against all the specifications of the sarin
gas that they talked about," Assad said.
"You can fake this image, it's very easy.
So, you cannot just base your judgment
on images and videos, especially made
by al-Qaeda [terrorist group outlawed
in Russia]," the Syrian leader stressed.
 Tillerson: 'Iran's Provocative
Actions Threaten The United States'
By The_Real_Fly
Apr 20, 2017 8:56 AM

It's all coming together now. All inside Trump's 1st 100 in the Persian gulf, and annoying our good friends in Saudi
days in office, we can clearly see where his administration Arabia by trying to sponsor more terrorists than them.
is heading toward -- all out war. It's fun and games now,
up until when the draft is reinstated and your ANTIFA
fighting skills are put to the test inside of Tehran.

Incredulously, our Sec. of State, Rex Tillerson, just did a

presser, announcing the Trump administration was doing a
'comprehensive review' on Iran, followed by a lot of saber
rattling.

"The Trump administration is currently conducting across

the entire government a review of our Iran policy ... an
unchecked Iran has the potential to follow the same path as
North Korea and take the world along with it. The United
States is keen to avoid a second piece of evidence that
strategic patience is a failed approach."

The entire speech was filled with ridiculous anecdotal

evidence, 'proving' how evil Iran was -- such as a
photograph of a bomb scrawled with 'Death to Israel' on it.
Clearly, that sort of graffiti and hate speech is
unacceptable. We ought to go with war with them now.

Tillerson droned on, tediously reminding the world how

fucked up Iran was and how it was the job of the United
States to police it -- instead of 'passing the buck' down to
future administrations.

Nothing says 'America first' like policing the shittiest parts

of the planet -- all for the sake of proving American is
tough again. Since we already destroyed most of the
middle east, I suppose another war or two won't kill too
many. We might as well do it -- providing it could stop the
Iranians from saying 'death to Israel', menacing our boats
.

54
 Show Of Force Real Aim Of US
Missile Strike In Syria - Russian Foreign Ministry
© AP Photo/ Ford Williams/U.S. Navy - Middle East
10:52 20.04.2017

would it ever use chemical weapons on either civilians or

terrorists operating in the country.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on April 5 that the

airstrike near Khan Shaykhun by the Syrian air force hit a
terrorist warehouse that stored chemical weapons slated
for delivery to Iraq, and called on the UN Security Council
to launch a proper investigation into the incident.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said on April 6 that

groundless accusations in the chemical weapons incident
in Syria's Idlib were unacceptable before the investigation
Russian Foreign Ministry said that the into the matter had been carried out while Foreign Minister
purpose of the United States' missile Sergei Lavrov on Saturday criticized the US missile attack
strike on a Syrian military airfield this as a violation of the international law.
month was to show force instead of to
destroy an unverified cache of chemical
Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei
weapons.
described the US missile strike against the Syrian airfield
as a strategic mistake.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – The purpose of the United States'
missile strike on a Syrian military airfield this month was
The US missile attack claimed the lives of 10 people, an
to show force instead of to destroy an unverified cache
officer of the Syrian Armed Forces told Sputnik. The
of chemical weapons, the Russian Foreign Ministry said
Russian Defense Ministry said that the attack left two
in remarks published Thursday.
Syrian servicemen missing, four killed, and six suffering
"Apparently, the purpose of this illegal severe injuries from the fire. Homs Governor Talal Barazi
action was the demonstration of force said on April 7 that at least two civilians from a nearby
and intimidation, and not the village and five Syrian servicemen were killed.
destruction of chemical weapons,
whose presence in Syria no one has yet After the missile attack, the Russian Defense Ministry
proven," Department suspended a point-to-point communications link with the
for Nonproliferation and Arms Control US military under the memorandum of understanding
(DNAC) head Mikhail Uliyanov said at a on de-confliction in Syria.
chemical weapons watchdog session.
The ministry said the Russian air group in Syria was
On April 7, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk protected by S-400 and Pantsir-S1 air defense systems on a
cruise missiles at the Syrian military airfield in Ash round-the-clock basis.
Sha’irat. US President Donald Trump said that the attack
was a response to the alleged chemical weapon use
In an exclusive interview with Fox Business on April 12,
in Syria's Idlib province on April 4, which resulted in the
US President Donald Trump blamed the current situation
death of over 80 people, an incident which Washington
in Syria on Moscow's support for country's Assad, calling
blames on the Syrian government.
the Syrian leader "an animal."
The Syrian foreign minister denied the government’s
involvement in the Idlib incident, saying it had never nor
.
55
 Where’s Trump’s Duct Tape?
By Clancy Sigal
April 20, 2017
I keep looking for Donald Trump’s missing piece of duct
tape but it isn’t there yet. Half a century ago Richard
Nixon over-reached himself in the “Watergate fiasco” that
brought him down. But so far Nixonian overplaying his
hand seems to be part of Trump’s winning style.
Roll flashback:
On the night of June 17, 1972, Frank Willis, a low wage
African American security guard at Washington’s
luxury Watergate office complex, noticed a piece of duct
tape on one of the door locks to the Democratic National
Committee kept reappearing after he’d removed it. He
called the police who arrested five CIA employees on one
of their several “black bag” operations to burglarize
anywhere Pres. Nixon believed his enemies lurked.
Previous break-ins included the psychiatrist of former war
hawk Daniel Ellsberg who had leaked the “Pentagon
Papers” tracing official lies that led to, and persisted in
losing, the Vietnam war.
Ellsberg in particular drove Nixon nuttier. A White
House-based ‘plumbers unit’ (to plug leaks) was formed
that, with Nixon looking the other way, ran wild with
serial burglaries and fantasies of assassinating The Boss’s
enemies. Nixon was too busy to pay full attention since he
was conducting several wars at once, against the press (his
near-psychotic obsession), black people, the antiwar
movement and almost as an afterthought the Vietnamese.
For months the Watergate break-in was a minor police
matter and hardly appeared in the press except as a tiny
item on an inner page.
But due to the reality later dramatized by Robert Redford
(as reporter Bob Woodward) and Dustin Hoffman (as Carl
Bernstein) in All The President’s Men, and the persistence
of a powerful Beltway paper the Washington Post, it all
came undone.
The break-ins would have faded into history (as indeed the
Watergate scandal itself has) except for Nixon’s
hysterical attempts at cover-up. All it needed was these
two stubborn reporters and one CIA conspirator to lose his
nerve and confess, and the whole house of corruption came
tumbling down with Nixon’s impeachment and
indictment of 69 – no less- federal officials for perjury,
fraud, obstruction, whatnot.
56
A major conspirator, Atty Gen John Mitchell, a Jeff
Sessions predecessor, served 19 months prison.
As also did two UCLA school pals and drinking buddies of
mine, Nixon’s top aides Bob Haldeman (“I’m the
president’s sonofabitch”) and the President’s snarling
spymaster John Ehrlichman. I spent tons of time with Bob
at (a rather comfortable) prison and with Ehrlichman. The
bottom line of our talks was with dark energy. They
despised the press and journalists, the basic fuel for the
Watergate fiasco.
Unbelievably, their hatred of reporters went back years to
my college newspaper UCLA Daily Bruin which in
Haldeman’s view was a cabal of “Jewish liberals”. (And
we wonder where Nixon got his spewing anti-Semitism on
his office tapes?)
Roll to Today. Give Robert Redford, who got the movie
made, the next to last word. A few days ago on
Watergate’s 45th anniversary, he drew the parallel:
“When President Trump speaks of being in a ‘running war’
with the media, calls them ‘among the most
dishonest human beings on Earth’ and tweets that they’re
the ‘enemy of the American people,’ his language takes
the Nixon administration’s false accusations of ‘shoddy’
and ‘shabby’ journalism to new and dangerous heights.”
Back then, Redford says, “politicians from both sides of
the aisle put partisan politics aside to uncover the
truth”. He’s talking about a long-ago political Brigadoon,
almost lost in the mists, when now forgottens like Judge
Sirica, Sen. Sam Ervin, Archibald Cox – we musn’t forget
‘Woodstein’s secret source Deep Throat the FBI’s 2d in
command Mark Felt – outwrestled a once-popular and
impregnable Pres Nixon.
But Redford is concerned that in today’s “divided”
America, things might be different. “If we have another
Watergate, will we navigate it as well?
In the 1970s America was also “divided”. But today
somewhere out there another Frank Willis is alive, alert
and has an I-phone.
 Over 80% Of Russians Consider
US Attack On Syrian Airfield As 'Provocation'
© Sputnik/ Mikhail Voskresenskiy - World
09:26 20.04.2017
According to a new survey, 82 percent
majority of Russian nationals consider
the recent US missile attack on the
Syrian military airfield in Ash Sha’irat to
be a provocation aimed at destabilizing
the situation in the war-torn country.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) – An 82 percent majority of Russian
nationals consider the recent US missile attack on the
Syrian military airfield in Ash Sha’irat to be a provocation
aimed at destabilizing the situation in the war-torn country,
a new survey conducted by the Russian Public Opinion
Research Center (VTsIOM) revealed on Thursday.
"The majority of Russians, 82 percent, tend
to consider the April 7 US missile strike
on the Syrian military base to be a
provocation aimed at destabilization of the
situation, and over 70 percent [of
respondents] from all social and
demographic groups agree with that. Only
6 percent of our fellow citizens call
Washington's actions a response to the
57
use of chemical weapons by [Syrian
President] Bashar Assad's troops," the poll
said.
According to the poll, 12 percent of respondents were
unable to describe the motives behind the US strike.
The survey was carried out on April 11-12 and involved
1,200 respondents.
On April 6, the United States launched 59 Tomahawk
cruise missiles at the military airfield in Ash Sha’irat. The
US President Donald Trump said the attack was a response
to the alleged chemical weapon use in Syria's Idlib
province on April 4, which resulted in the death of over 80
people. The strikes were unanimously supported by NATO
member states.
Syrian Foreign Minister Walid Muallem denied the
government’s involvement in the Idlib incident, saying it
had never and will never use chemical weapons on either
civilians or terrorists operating in the country.
On April 5, the Russian Defense Ministry said that the
airstrike near Khan Shaykhun by the Syrian air force hit a
terrorist warehouse that stored chemical weapons lined
up for delivery to Iraq, and called on the UN Security
Council to launch a proper investigation into the incident.
On Wednesday, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov
called the chemical weapons incident in the Syrian
province of Idlib a provocation as well as an attempt
to undermine the ceasefire in the country.
 PROOF: Ex-CIA Director Brennan
Worked Directly With Foreign Spies To Keep Trump
OUT Of The Oval Office
By: JD Heyes
Date: April 21, 2017
If there is one intelligence scandal Congress ought to be
investigating involving foreign spies and the presidential
campaign of Donald J. Trump, this is it.
As reported by The Guardian, there is compelling
evidence to suggest that former CIA Director John
Brennan was the primary U.S. intelligence community
source working to undermine the Trump campaign in an
effort to prevent the billionaire businessman from
becoming president and, after he won, to undermine his
transition.
The bizarre tale actually begins with a Fox News analyst,
judicial analyst and former judge Andrew Napolitano. In
mid-March, he leveled an amazing allegation: That the
Obama administration used GCHQ, Great Britain’s
equivalent of the National Security Agency, to spy on the
Trump campaign during the campaign cycle so that no
paper trail would be left. (RELATED: Read Confirmed:
Rice ordered spy docs on Team Trump.)
“Three intelligence sources have informed
Fox News that President Obama went
outside the ‘chain of command’ to conduct
surveillance on Trump,” Napolitano
claimed. “Obama didn’t use the NSA, he
didn’t use the CIA, he didn’t use the FBI
and he didn’t use the Department of
Justice.
“What happened to the guy who ordered
this? Resigned three days after Trump took
office,” Napolitano said.
58
That would be Brennan.
The allegation caused such a stir that Fox News took
Napolitano off the air. And uncharacteristically, GCHQ
issued a public ridicule of Napolitano, calling the claim
“nonsense.”
Only, turns out that Napolitano’s sources were spot-on.
First, some background on why this sounded, to me, very
plausible from the outset. The U.K. is one of the so-called
“Five Eyes” countries that includes the U.S., Canada,
Australia and New Zealand. Often abbreviated as “FVEY”
and formed in the aftermath of World War II, this is a
signals intelligence-gathering and intelligence-sharing
treaty that has been enhanced several times since it was
launched.
In 2013, documents leaked to the media by former NSA
contractor Edward Snowden showed that FVEY was
essentially a supra-national intelligence operation that has
been used by member countries to spy on each others’
citizens. The information gathered is then shared among
the five countries in order to skirt restrictive laws limiting
or preventing domestic surveillance of their respective
populations.
So when I heard Napolitano’s accusations, I knew it was at
least feasible.
And now, thanks to some intrepid reporting by The
Guardian, we learn that not only was Napolitano correct,
but that the U.S. spymaster at the time, Brennan, was the
Obama administration official behind the effort:
According to one account, GCHQ’s then
head, Robert Hannigan, passed material in
summer 2016 to the CIA chief, John
Brennan. The matter was deemed so
sensitive it was handled at “director level.”
After an initially slow start, Brennan used
GCHQ information and intelligence from
other partners to launch a major inter-
agency investigation.
The spying, as other reporting has suggested, was not
really in relation to any suspected Russia-Trump collusion.
Rather, it was nothing more than a political operation to
gather whatever damning evidence might be available
about Trump and his campaign, under the guise of an
intelligence mission.
As for Brennan, the American Spectator noted in a special
exclusive, that his motives were entirely political:
Seeking to retain his position as CIA
director under Hillary, Brennan teamed up
with British spies and Estonian spies to
cripple Trump’s candidacy. He used their
phony intelligence as a pretext for a multi-
agency investigation into Trump, which led
the FBI to probe a computer server
connected to Trump Tower and gave cover
to Susan Rice, among other Hillary
59
supporters, to spy on Trump and his
people.
Brennan’s CIA, then, was nothing less than a political
branch office of the Clinton campaign. (RELATED:
Trump Says The Entire “Russia Hacked The Election”
Narrative Has Been Fabricated By Democrats.)
This is serious, serious stuff. Politicizing the U.S.
intelligence community to thwart the candidacy of a
legitimate presidential contender has involved criminal
leaking of sensitive intelligence information, the improper
unmasking of American civilians, and created a dangerous
distrust of the very agencies entrusted to protect our
country from attack.
Congress needs to investigate Brennan’s alleged role in all
of this and, if need be, refer the matter to the Justice
Department for further action and possible prosecution.
 Confirmed: Hillary And CIA
Colluded With Foreign Spies To Defeat Trump
By Voice Of Reason
Friday, April 21st, 2017
In an effort to once again demonize Trump with the tired
‘Russian collusion’ angle, liberal newspaper The Guardian
has instead proved what we have suspected all along.
60
The article states that European spy
agencies passed this ‘intel’ to CIA director
John Brennan, who then used to
orchestrate a full on campaign of political
espionage against Trump.
In the above video, Right Wing News re-examines the
timeline of the whole fiasco and explores Brennan’s
motivations. Did he become overly enamored by the
Muslim world during his time as a station chief in Saudi
Arabia and now views Trump’s realistic view of Islam as
anti-Islamic? That wouldn’t be at all surprising; Brennan
was an American Communist Party supporter at the height
of the Cold War and brought in a host of like-minded ilk
into the CIA. Or was it simple greed; did he just want to
keep his position as CIA director under a Hillary
presidency?
 Trump Fires Surgeon General
By Jesse Byrnes
04/21/17 11:30 PM EDT
U.S. Surgeon General Vivek Murthy, an appointee of President
Obama's, has been fired by the Trump administration.
In a statement, the Department of Health and Human
Services said Murthy had been asked to resign, and that he
would be replaced temporarily by Rear Adm. Sylvia Trent-
Adams, the current deputy Surgeon General.
“Today, Dr. Murthy, the leader of the U.S.
Public Health Service Commissioned
Corps, was asked to resign from his duties
.
61
as Surgeon General after assisting in a
smooth transition into the new Trump
Administration," the statement said.
"Dr. Murthy has been relieved of his duties
as Surgeon General and will continue to
serve as a member of the Commissioned
Corps," the statement continued, adding
that Health and Human Services Secretary
Tom Price "thanks him for his dedicated
service to the nation."
Murthy had been surgeon general since 2014 and his
sudden departure surprised employees at HHS, The New
York Times reported.
Murthy called gun violence a health threat to the United
States, however, which had won him opposition from the
NRA.
 Questions Raised About
Another Claim In Trump Dossier
Chuck Ross - Reporter
10:24 PM 04/21/2017

Just as it emerged this week that the FBI cited the Trump
dossier to obtain a surveillance warrant against Trump
advisers, another allegation made in the 35-page document
is coming under scrutiny.
A computer hacker identified in the dossier, compiled by
former British spy Christopher Steele, is currently in a
Russian prison on pedophilia charges, McClatchy reports.
And a Russian prison monitor who recently met with the
man, Sevastyan Kaptsugovich, says that the prisoner does
not have access to the Internet — a requirement for
carrying out the cyber attacks alleged in the dossier.
(RELATED: FBI Relied On Dossier To Obtain
Warrant To Spy On Trump Adviser)
As McClatchy reports, Kaptsugovich, 45, is in prison in a
small village in Russia’s Kirov region, 500 miles northeast
of Moscow. He has been in and out of jail for pedophilia-
related crimes since 2011. He was most recently sentenced
to 18 years in a penal colony in 2013 for operating a
network of child porn websites.
Kaptusgovich is identified in a Dec. 13 memo, Steele’s last
report for the dossier, which was published by BuzzFeed
on Jan. 10.
The human rights worker confirmed his recent meeting in
an email to The Daily Caller and said that Kaptsugovich is
treated “negatively” by other prisoners because of the
nature of his crimes. He also works in the prison
bathhouse, washing bedclothes for other inmates.
Sources who talked to McClatchy did say that it is still
possible that Kaptsugovich carried out the cyber attacks
alleged in the dossier while at the penal colony. Russian
intelligence services often recruit criminals and prisoners
for computer hacking operations.
But other parts of the Dec. 13 memo naming
Kaptusogovich have already been disputed.
The entry names the convict in the same paragraph as
Aleksej Gubarev, a tech executive who is head of the web
hosting companies, Webzilla and XBT Holdings.
In that paragraph, the dossier states that Gubarev’s
companies and
“affiliates had been using botnets and porn
traffic to transmit viruses, plant bugs, steal
data and conduct ‘altering operations’
against the Democratic Party leadership.”

Steele compiled the memos on behalf of Fusion GPS, an

opposition research firm working for an ally of Hillary
Clinton’s.

The dossier refers to the alleged hacker as Seva

Kapsugovich, a slight misspelling of his real name.
McClatchy was able to verify that he is a computer expert
and is currently in prison.

Artur Abashev, an official with the Public Monitoring

Commission, a group that monitors Russian prisons, told
McClatchy that Kaptsugovich is a prisoner at the penal
colony and that he does not have access to the Internet, a
computer, or a cell phone.
Abashev said that it is “unlikely” that Kaptsugovich would
have been able to carry out the alleged cyber attacks given
his lack of computer access.
62
Passage from Dec. 13 memo in dossier compiled by Christopher Steele
The memo alleges that Gubarev and Kaptsugovich were
recruited “under duress” by Russia’s spy services and were
“were significant players” in the operation to hack
Democrats.
But Gubarev strongly denies having been recruited by
Russian spies or taking part in any cyber attacks. He is
suing BuzzFeed News for publishing his name in the
dossier. The website responded to the suit by apologizing
to Gubarev and redacting his name from the online version
of the document. (RELATED: Russian Tech Exec Sues
BuzzFeed For Publishing His Name In Dossier)
BuzzFeed also appears to have redacted Kaptsugovich’s
name since its first publication of the dossier, though it is
unclear why.
Evan Fray-Witzer, a lawyer for Gubarev, told The Daily
Caller on Friday that there is “no connection whatsoever”
between Kaptsugovich and his client.
“Kaptsugovich has never worked for XBT
or Webzilla, has no connections to XBT or
Webzilla, and Mr. Gubarev does not know
him, nor has he ever met him,” Fray-Witzer
said, noting that the dossier itself does not
allege that Kaptsugovich worked for or was
connected in any way to Gubarev’s
companies.
“We know that the allegations in the
dossier [published by Buzzfeed] concerning
Mr. Gubarev, XBT, and Webzilla are wholly
without factual basis but, beyond that, we
cannot say what role others may have
played in the hacking of the DNC.”
“What Buzzfeed did was wildly
irresponsible and damaged our clients and
those facts aren’t going to change,” Fray-
Witzer said.
The source for the information in the Dec. 13 memo is
unclear. The identity of the source could be key to
weighing the veracity of the memo, but the name of the
person is redacted in the version of the dossier published
by BuzzFeed. The news outlet previously told The Daily
Caller that redactions were already included on the version
of the dossier it was provided.
The rest of the memo discusses an alleged meeting in
August in Prague between Trump lawyer Michael Cohen
and Kremlin officials. Other memos in the dossier allege
that Cohen and the Russian agents were discussing ways to
influence the election. Cohen has vehemently denied the
claims, saying that he was in the U.S. at the time he was
alleged to have been at the meeting.
.
63
Despite those inconsistencies in the dossier, the FBI
appears to have had enough confidence in some parts of
the document to cite it in an application for a surveillance
warrant on Carter Page, a former Trump campaign adviser
who has done business in Russia.
The FBI obtained the warrants in September, after Page
left the campaign.
Steele claims in the dossier that Page met secretly with
Kremlin officials and Igor Sechin, the president of Russian
oil giant Rosneft, to hammer out a plan to help Trump win
the election.
Page says he has never met Sechin and refers to the Steele
memos as the “dodgy dossier.”
In addition to citing the dossier in the FISA application,
FBI Director James Comey has reportedly cited it in recent
meetings with congressional investigators.
Republicans have questioned why the FBI would rely on
the dossier given the many questions about its veracity.
Some see it as a politically-motivated document given that
it was financed by a Clinton ally.
But Steele has worked with the FBI on other cases, and
intelligence community veterans have noted that it would
not be out of the ordinary for a document compiled by an
intelligence expert to have a mixture of accurate and
inaccurate information.
Ron Hosko, who served as assistant director of the FBI’s
criminal division until 2014, says that he has confidence
that FBI officials properly vetted the dossier, even if some
parts of the document are inaccurate.
“They wouldn’t be just dropping an
unvalidated dossier in the middle of a
surveillance warrant application and
treating it as if it was true in its entirety.
They may well take pieces of it,
characterize the source of the information,
talk about how they independently
validated it,” he told TheDC.
Hosko, who was critical of Hillary Clinton’s use of a
private email server, says he has faith that Comey, who he
has worked with closely, is conducting a fair investigation.
 Donald Trump: Ruling Class President
By Paul Street
April 21, 2017
The Ruling Class Reserve Tag
One of the many irritating things about the dominant
United States corporate media is the way it repeatedly
discovers anew things that are not remotely novel. Take its
recent discovery that Donald Trump isn’t really the
swamp-draining populist working class champion he
pretended to be on the campaign trail.
The evidence for this “news” is solid enough. His cabinet
and top advisor circle has been chock full of ruling class
swamp creatures like former Goldman Sachs President
Gary Cohn (top economic adviser), longtime top Goldman
Sachs partner and top executive Steve Mnuchin (Secretary
of the Treasury), and billionaire investor Wilbur Ross
(Secretary of Commerce). Trump has surrounded himself
with super-opulent and planetarily invested financial
gatekeepers – the very club he criticized Hillary Clinton
for representing.
Trump meets regularly with top corporate and financial
CEOs, who have been assured that he will govern in
accord with their wishes. He receives applause from
business elites for his agenda of significant large scale tax
cuts and deregulation for wealthy individuals and for the
giant, hyper-parasitic, and largely transnational
corporations they milk for obscene profits
Trump’s political strategist Steve Bannon is by numerous
reports being pushed aside by Cohn and by Trump’s
hedge-fund financier son-in-law Jared Kushner – a
longtime neoliberal Democrat – when it comes to holding
the president’s ear. Bannon has been reduced to bitterly
cursing Kushner as a “globalist cuckservative.”
64
Bannon’s white-nationalist “populist” bluster was of great
electoral use to Trump on his path to the White House. In
the real world of world capitalist power, however, the
Beast of Breitbart is a liability. His self-declared
nationalism does not jibe with the deeply rooted Open
Door policy preferences of an American corporate and
financial ruling class that has long been deeply invested
across national boundaries in the world capitalist system.
Trump, it turns out, is not the worker-friendly populist he
posed as while running for president. He’s not the great
anti-establishment outsider determined to return “power to
the people” he claimed to be in his Inauguration Address.
His economic program amounts to neo-liberalism on
steroids.
You don’t say! Gee, who knew? Anyone who’s paid
serious attention to American electoral politics and policy
over the course of history, that’s who. Seventeen years
ago, the then still left Christopher Hitchens usefully
described the “essence of American politics” as “the
manipulation of populism by elitism. That elite is most
successful,” Hitchens noted:
“which can claim the heartiest allegiance of
the fickle crowd; can present itself as most
‘in touch’ with popular concerns; can
anticipate the tides and pulses of public
opinion; can, in short, be the least
apparently ‘elitist.’ It is no great distance
from Huey Long’s robust cry of ‘Every man
a king’ to the insipid ‘inclusiveness’ of [Bill
Clinton’s slogan] ‘Putting People First,’ but
the smarter elite managers have learned in
the interlude that solid, measurable
pledges have to be distinguished by a
reserve’ tag that earmarks them for the
bankrollers and backers.”
Democracy Imprisoned by Capitalism
In a recent New York Times Magazine reflection on the
chilling extent to which Trump’s rise is consistent with
dodgy, fascist-like tendencies in the long history of the
American right, the prolific liberal historian Rick Perlstein
notes that the irony of a “populist” president who has
“placed so many bankers and billionaires in his cabinet,
and has relentlessly pursued so many 1-percent-friendly
policies” is “far from unique.” The Orange-Tinted Beast is
the latest version of what Perlstein calls
“The often-cynical negotiation between
populist electioneering and plutocratic
governance on the right.”
Perlstein is right to note the unoriginality of the
phenomenon. But why does Perlstein seem to think the
“cynical negotiation” is just a Republican phenomenon? It
was no less evident in the presidencies of Jimmy Carter,
Bill Clinton, and Barack Obama than it was during the
Reagan and Bush presidencies and under Trump today.
That is no small part of how and why the ugly Republican
right that Perlstein understandably fears gets its recurrent
trips into national and state-level power.
And just how mysterious is the tension between “populist
electioneering and plutocratic governance”? From Karl
Marx’s time and before to the present day, bourgeois
“constitutional” states practicing a strictly limited and
deceptive form of “democracy” have been torn by a
fundamental contradiction. On one hand, victorious
candidates have to win enough popular votes to prevail in
elections. They can hardly do that by proclaiming their
commitment to the rule of the wealthy capitalist Few. On
the other hand, they cannot garner the resources to win
elections and govern effectively without the backing and
cooperation of the investor/capitalist class, whose control
of money and the means of production is critical to
political power and policymaking.
Thirty-three years ago, the left political scientist Charles
Lindblom penned a convincing take on American power,
likening the capitalist marketplace to a prison. Lindblom’s
analysis is aptly summarized in a recent critique of “deep
state” discourse by Anthony DiMaggio:
“U.S. corporations exercised power over
communities, much like Kings do over
feudal serfs, by exercising ownership over
the means of production in the U.S.
economy. They command worker loyalty
due to their ability to hire and fire
Americans and provide basic benefits such
as health care or 401k and pension
benefits. But corporations also possess the
power to destroy people’s lives via capital
flight. Simply by threatening to leave a
community and move factories abroad in
pursuit of higher profits and weaker
environmental regulations, corporations
hold citizens hostage…The marketplace is
a prison, Lindblom warned, because these
corporations ultimately control the levers of
the U.S. economy, and control the life
outcomes of American workers.”
65
Beyond the ownership and investment/disinvestment
levers, concentrated capital achieves policy, cultural, and
societal outcomes it prefers in numerous other ways: the
buying of candidates and election through campaign
donations; the flooding of government with armies of well-
heeled lobbyists; the drafting and dissemination of Big
Business-friendly legislation; massive investment in public
relations and propaganda to influence the beliefs and
values of citizens, politicians, and other “opinion-shapers”;
direct “revolving door” capture of key government
positions; the offer of private sector positions to public
officials who reasonably expect significantly increased
compensation once they exit government; the “cognitive
[ideological] capture” (every bit as corrupting as bribery)
of state officials, politicians, media personnel, educators,
nonprofit managers, and other “influential;” the destruction
and undermining of organizations (i.e., labor unions) that
might offer some countervailing power to that of big
business; the granting of jobs, corporate board
memberships, internships, and other perks and payments to
public officials’ family members; the control of education
and publishing; the ownership, management, and
monitoring of mass media (including “entertainment” as
well as public affairs news and commentary).
The American philosopher John Dewey put things very
well in 1931.
He wrote that “politics is the shadow cast
on society by big business” and rightly
prophesized that U.S. politics would stay
that way as long as power resided in
“business for private profit through private
control of banking, land, industry,
reinforced by command of the press, press
agents, and other means of publicity and
propaganda.”
Ten years later, the U.S. Supreme Court Justice Louis
Brandeis made the elementary Aristotelian observation
that Americans “must make our choice. We may have
democracy,” Brandeis wrote, “or we may have wealth
concentrated in the hands of a few, but we can’t have
both.” That was an unwitting call for the abolition of
capitalism, which is marked among other things by an
inherent tendency towards the upward concentration of
wealth and power.
Let the People Be Taught
The fundamental contradiction between bottom-up
democratic pretense and top-down class-rule reality is
nothing new in American history. The New England
clergyman Jeremy Belknap captured the fundamental idea
behind the U.S. Founders’ curious notion of what they
liked to call “popular government.”
 “Let it stand as a principle,” Belknap wrote
to an associate in the late 1780s, “that
government originates from the people, but
let the people be taught…that they are
unable to govern themselves.”
Consistent with Belknap’s advice, the U.S. Constitution
was structured precisely and quite brilliantly to encode and
enforce the impossibility of the Founders’ ultimate
nightmare: popular sovereignty. American history remains
haunted by the darkly democidal enshrinement of the “first
new nation’s” crippling charter. The document invokes
“We the people” and “the general welfare” only to set up a
government dedicated to the hegemony of the propertied
Few.
A Common Masquerade
Dressing elite class and economic interests in popular garb
has always been a core function of the U.S. electoral and
party system in its various iterations. Its first assignment
was to rally ordinary citizens as voters for different
factions of the developing nation’s bourgeois class in its
recurrent intra-capitalist policy struggles. Across much of
the 19th century, some leading U.S. investors sought to
advance their interests in the development of the domestic
U.S. market and a manufacturing economy by pushing
through an “American System” of government-subsidized
internal improvements (transportation infrastructure above
all), government central banks, and tariffs on imports.
These capitalists tended to align with and fund the Whig
Party and its anti-slavery successor the Republican Party.
More export-, agricultural-, and free trade-oriented
investors aligned with the Democratic Party.
These not insignificant differences aside, all these
bourgeois parties made feverish electoral appeals to mass
constituencies in the name of “the common man” to win
votes in a republic with comparatively wide (universal
white male across most of the nation by the eve of the
Civil War) suffrage. The competing parties needed to
“masquerade as commoners” (in the words of the late and
great U.S. historian Alfred F. Young) to elected politicians
pledged to the “bankrollers and backers” preferred path of
capitalist development. The Hitchensian game – the
“manipulation of populism by elitism” – first came into
own not during the time of Huey Long but a century before
in the Andrew Jacksonian so-called “age of the common
man.”
“No Way to Vote Against Goldman Sachs”….
Policy specifics and party alignments have since shifted
more than once in accord with underlying political-
economic and demographic factors. Still, the basic
manipulative reality captured in Left political
scientist Thomas Ferguson’s “investment theory of [U.S.
two-] party competition” has continued throughout. During
66
the 1930s and 1940s, Ferguson has shown, the labor-allied
New Deal (Franklin Roosevelt) Democratic Party rose to
power with critical support from highly capital intensive
multinational corporations and internationally oriented
investment banks who were less concerned about wage
bills than the more nationally oriented, anti-union, and
protectionist industrial firms that dominated the reigning
(Teddy Roosevelt, William McKinley and Howard Taft)
Republican Party at the turn of the 20th century.
The end of rapid growth and of the United States’ short-
lived and near-absolute post-World War II global
economic hegemony during the late 1960s produced
inflation and growing fiscal and trade deficits, leading to
sharply raised interest rates, a strengthened dollar, and an
unprecedented flow of surplus capital from industry to
finance. The resulting new finance capital explosion
transformed the American party system, which stabilized
around 1980 with high finance atop the “hegemonic bloc”
of political (as well as economic) investors. With the arch-
neoliberal Clinton presidency of the 1990s, big finance
capital had clearly taken over the Democratic Party as well
as the Republicans, along with most of the nation’s
nonfinancial corporations.
There have been differences in the investor class profiles
of the two dominant parties through this century.
“Defense” (military) and oil and other Big Carbon firms
have tended to tilt towards the Republicans. Silicon
Valley and Hollywood lean Democratic. Beneath such
differences, the 1% is united in neoliberal consensus across
both parties around Wall Street-led globalization and a
huge Pentagon System to expand and protect global
finance capitalism. Both the Republicans and the
Democrats are committed to the neoliberal world-capitalist
and imperial order, with big finance calling the shots while
unions, the working class, and the poor are relegated to the
margins.
The two major parties have different historical,
demographic, ethno-cultural, religious, and geographic
profiles that matter. Still, they are united at the end of the
day in their shared manipulations of carefully calibrated
populist rhetoric and voter and partisan identity on behalf
of the bipartisan super-rich and their global empire. As the
Left author Chris Hedges noted four years ago:
“Both sides of the political spectrum are
manipulated by the same forces. If you’re
some right-wing Christian zealot in
Georgia, then it’s homosexuals and
abortion and all these, you know, wedge
issues that are used to whip you up
emotionally. If you are a liberal in
Manhattan, it’s – you know, they’ll be
teaching creationism in your schools or
whatever…Yet in fact it’s just a game,
because whether it’s Bush or whether it’s
Obama, Goldman Sachs always wins.
 There is no way to vote against the
interests of Goldman Sachs.”
…or (Earlier) J.P. Morgan
The Machiavellian ruling class exploitation of what is
today called “identity politics” is also less than novel in the
American historical experience. Fierce class conflict fueled
by intense class consciousness roiled the industrializing
United States across the late 19th and early 20th centuries,
creating the most violent labor history in the world during
those years. But great working class and farmer rebellions
against the emergent new corporate plutocracy never
translated into national politics thanks to the prior
existence of a constitutionally mandated winner-take-all
two party and elections system that channeled ballots into
one of two reigning capitalist parties – aptly described by
Upton Sinclair in 1904 as
“two wings of the same bird of prey” –
and in accord with differences of race, ethnicity, religion,
and region. State and national politics and “voting
behavior” were structured around ethnocultural and related
geographic (sectional) factors. It’s not for nothing that the
Marxist American historian Alan Dawley once referred to
the American ballot box as “the coffin of class
consciousness.” With all due respect to Eugene Debs’ high
water mark returns in 1912 (a mere 6% of the popular
vote), there was little way to meaningfully vote against the
interests of J.P. Morgan, Averill Harriman, and John
Rockefeller.
No Free Pass
It’s become fashionable on both left and right in recent
years to think of Wall Street’s untouchable power (along
with that of Silicon Valley and the military industrial
complex) as a reflection of the rule of the permanent “deep
state.” In its more measured and workable (non-
conspiratorial) usage, the term refers to the embedded
corporate and financial profit and power sectors that co-
exist and merge with entrenched government institutions
prominently including but not restricted to the ever-
mushrooming national security state (we should include
the Securities and Exchange Commission and the Federal
Reserve alongside the Pentagon, the CIA, and the FBI) to
govern the nation behind the electoral and parliamentary
“marionette theater” (Mike Lofgren) of the visible state
and its pseudo-democratic election rituals.
But, with all due respect for the chilling expansion of the
intertwined military, police, and surveillance states, it is
hard not to sense behind the notion of the “deep state” the
simple and less-than-secretive persistence of the class rule
regime called capitalism. The harsh authoritarian reality of
what Noam Chomsky has wryly called “really existing
67
capitalist democracy or RECD, pronounced as ‘wrecked’”
lives on today as long before. .
American capitalism has an equally evil Siamese twin
called imperialism, progenitor of the giant “national
security” and “foreign apparatus” that eats up the lion’s
share of U.S. federal discretionary spending – at no small
cost to social and environmental health even as it provides
s rich revenue stream for the nation’s unelected
dictatorship of money.
“The costs of empire,” Chomsky wrote
nearly half a century ago, “are in general
distributed over the whole of society, white
its profits revert to a few within.”
It is long past time for left thinkers to stop
giving the American capitalist ruling class a
free pass on Donald Trump, hoping for the
neoliberal deep state” to bring about his
demise from the top down.
Yes, the elite financial campaign finance and speech
royalty data suggest that Hillary Clinton was Wall Street’s
preferred candidate last year. Still, Trump was never
really an anti-establishment candidate beyond the
deceptive rhetoric he cynically employed – consistent with
the longstanding fake-populist “essence of American [and
bourgeois] politics” – to win enough white working class
and rural votes to prevail over dismal, dollar-drenched
Hillary Clinton. And you don’t have to join the right-wing
conspiracy mongers at Zero Hedge to agree with them that
“Trump is where the elites want him” and
“serves the establishment.”
Militarized Accumulation
A recent teleSur English reflection by the brilliant Marxian
sociologist William I. Robinson notes that the
transnational capitalist class (TCC) has turned to military
investment as a solution to its drastic over-accumulation of
capital in an increasingly unequal and poverty-ridden
world. As Robinson notes:
“Here there is a convergence around the
system’s political need for social control
and its economic need to perpetuate
accumulation. Unprecedented global
inequalities can only be sustained by ever
more repressive and ubiquitous systems of
social control and repression. Yet quite
apart from political considerations, the TCC
has acquired a vested interest in war,
conflict, and repression as a means of
accumulation. CIT has revolutionized
warfare and the modalities of state-
organized militarized accumulation,
including the military application of vast
new technologies and the further fusion of
private accumulation with state
militarization….”
“…The so-called wars on drugs, terrorism,
and immigrants; the construction of border
walls, immigrant detention centers, and
ever-growing prisons; the installation of
mass surveillance systems, and the spread
of private security guard and mercenary
companies, have all become major sources
of profit-making… The class interests of the
TCC, geo-politics, and economics come
together around militarized accumulation.
The more the global economy comes to
depend on militarization and conflict the
greater the drive to war and the higher the
stakes for humanity…after… Trump’s….
victory, the stock price of Corrections
Corporation of America…soared 40
percent, given Trump’s promise to deport
millions…Raytheon and Lockheed Martin
reports spikes each time there is a new
.
68
flare up in the Middle East…Within an hour
of the April 6th Tomahawk missile
bombardment of Syria, Raytheon’s stock
increased by $1 billion. Hundreds of
private firms from around the world have
put in bids to construct Trump’s
infamous…border wall.”
Trump, his team of politicized generals, and his call for a
10 percent increase in the already hyper-bloated Pentagon
budget are a perfect match for the militarized accumulation
strategy, with its “built-in war drive.”
Waiting for supposedly enlightened and decent elites atop
the “deep state” to dump Trump is a fool’s game. As
Robinson says,
“Only a worldwide push back from below,
and ultimately a program to redistribute
wealth and power downward, can counter
the upward spiral of international
conflagration.”
 Trump Administration Begins
Quiet Preparations For Government Shutdown
By Tyler Durden
Apr 21, 2017 11:59 PM
Even as Donald Trump is desperate to show to the US
population, and especially his voter base, some actual
achievement before his first 100 days run out next
weekend, prompting him to tell AP that he will unveil a
"tremendous" tax ut plan next week (recall he did the same
in February), the Trump administration is quietly preparing
for the possibility of a government shutdown, even though
the president and his staff believe one is unlikely to occur.
With the Senate reconvening on Monday and the House of
Representatives on Tuesday after a two-week recess,
lawmakers will have only four days to pass a spending
package to keep the government open beyond April 28,
when funding expires for numerous federal programs.
"I think we want to keep the government
open,"
Trump said on Thursday, adding he thinks Congress can
pass the funding legislation and perhaps also a revamped
healthcare bill.
Trump's wish may be problematic: as a reminder, the
government will shut down midnight on April 28 if
Congress cannot agree on a spending bill. As reported over
the past week, the measure hit various snags over Trump's
demands to include funding for Trump’s border wall and a
debate over money for an ObamaCare insurer subsidy
program, both programs which virtually assure the
spending bill will not pass.
As a result, the Office of Management and Budget (OMB)
has begun to coordinate with government agencies to plan
for a possible shutdown.
“While we do not expect a lapse,
prudence and common sense require
routine assessments will be made,”
OMB Director Mick Mulvaney said in a
statement.
The office set up a phone call to go over the agencies’
shutdown plans, which could include steps such as
furloughs for federal workers. The OMB said the plans
were reviewed ahead of a possible shutdown last
December and are unlikely to be revised.
69
As Compass Point analyst Isaac Boltansky, notes,
"wall funding is just one of many policy
potholes that could disrupt negotiations,
including ACA cost-sharing subsidies, coal
miner benefits, sanctuary cities."
To be sure, Congress can avoid a full-blown shutdown if it
passes a short-term spending measure to keep the
government open while negotiations over a broader
funding deal continue, but even that process has been put
into question.
"I think we're in good shape," President
Trump said when asked about the
possibility of a shutdown. “We remain
confident we’re not going to have a
shutdown,”
White House press secretary Sean Spicer told reporters at a
separate off-camera briefing, calling the preparation
“required steps” for the federal agencies and departments.
Some analysts disagree with the optimistic assessment.
According to Cowen's Chris Kruger
"shutdown theatrics reach fever pitch next
week, with one-week punt most likely
outcome" however he focuses on the
"White House’s misconception they have
any leverage with Democrats when it’s the
opposite, as Congressional Democrats
have less than zero incentive to
compromise with Trump and Trump needs
them to keep govt from shutting down."
As such unless Trump concedes to all demands, not only is
a full spending bill out of the question, but even a short-
term agreement appears precarious.
More ominously, Kruger adds that "until this week,
shutdown threat seemed very low as Congressional GOP
leadership, appropriators hammered out spending
agreements, were on same page as Democrats;
 that went sideways when White House
pushed more confrontational approach
on ObamaCare, immigration."
Meanwhile, Height Securities' Peter Cohn has noted the
House Democrats taking a hard line against even one-week
stopgap continuing resolution (CR)
"due to unresolved White House demands
on funding wall construction, withholding
funds from sanctuary cities."
He sees 25% odds for temporary partial shutdown, with
path to deal including boost for border "security" funds
(not wall), added military funding. Others, such as
Goldman see shutdown odds at one in three (and rising).
As Reuters adds, leading House
Democrats were voicing skepticism a
deal could be reached by the deadline.
In a telephone call for House Democrats, Representative
Nita Lowey, the senior Democrat on the House
Appropriations Committee, said:
"I don't see how we can meet that
deadline"
and avoid having to pass a short-term extension, according
to an aide on the call. The second-ranking House
Democrat, Representative Steny Hoyer, told his fellow
Democrats that they should only support such a short-term
measure if a deal on long-term bill is reached and only
finishing touches remained, the aide said.
Republican leaders face a familiar balancing act: satisfying
the party's most conservative members while not alienating
its moderates.
Rules in the 100-seat Senate mean Trump's party also
would need the support of at least eight Democrats even if
the Republicans remain unified, giving the opposition
party leverage. House Republican leaders would need
some Democratic votes if the most conservative
lawmakers object to the bill, as they did to the healthcare
plan championed by Speaker Paul Ryan.
With congressional elections looming
next year, Republicans acknowledge the
stakes are high.
"Even our most recalcitrant members
understand that if you shut down the
government while you're running it and you
.
70
control the House and the Senate, you
can't blame anybody but yourself," said
Representative Tom Cole, a senior House
Appropriations Committee Republican.
White House budget director Mick Mulvaney said the
Trump administration was willing to talk to Democrats
about funding for Obamacare subsidies in exchange for
their agreement to include some Trump priorities such as
the wall, the defense hike and more money for
immigration enforcement.
"It is ripe for some type of negotiated
agreement that gives the president some of
his priorities and Democrats some of their
priorities. So we think we've opened the
door for that," Mulvaney said.
Democrats reacted negatively.
"Everything had been moving smoothly
until the administration moved in with a
heavy hand. Not only are Democrats
opposed to the wall, there is significant
Republican opposition as well,” said Matt
House, a spokesman for Senate
Democratic leader Chuck Schumer.
***
Should the Trump and the GOP be unable to concede on
some of the controversial demands floated in recent days,
we expect the shut down odds to rise substantially, and
instead of a "massive" tax cut, the most likely outcome
may in fact be a closed government starting next weekend,
and lasting for the foreseeable future.
The government was last forced to close in October 2013,
when Republican Senator Ted Cruz and some of the most
conservative House Republicans engineered a 17-day
shutdown in an unsuccessful quest to kill Democratic
former President Barack Obama's healthcare law.
Meanwhile, the current Congress has passed no major
legislation since Trump took office in January. Among his
ambitions are hopes for major tax-cut legislation,
infrastructure spending and other bills.
A federal closure would shutter National Park Service
destinations like the Statue of Liberty, Yellowstone and the
Grand Canyon. Government medical research would be
suspended. Thousands of federal workers would be
furloughed with thousands more working without pay until
the shutdown ends, including homeland security personnel.
Some veterans benefits could be suspended.
 President Trump’s Disappearance
Paul Craig Roberts
21.04.2017
In my long experience in Washington, vice presidents did
not make major foreign policy announcements or threaten
other countries with war. Not even Dick Cheney stole this
role from the weak president George W. Bush.
But yesterday the world witnessed VP Pence threaten
North Korea with war. “The sword stands ready,” said
Pence as if he is the commander in chief.
Perhaps he is.
Where is Trump? As far as I can tell from the numerous
emails I receive from him, he is at work marketing his
presidency. Once Trump won the election, I began
receiving endless offers to purchase Trump baseball caps,
T-shirts, cuff-links, coffee mugs, and to donate $3 to be
entered into a raffle to win some memorabilia. The latest
offer is a chance to win one of “personally signed five
incredible photographs of our historic and massive
inauguration.”
71
For Trump, the presidency is a fund-raising device. If his
VP, National Security Advisor, Secretary of Defense, UN
Ambassador, CIA Director, whoever, want to start wars
wherever, that’s just more memorabilia to raffle off for a
$3 donation.
As a result of Trump’s failure to govern his own
government, we have VP Pence telling Russia and China
that there could be a nuclear exchange on their borders
between the US and North Korea. Although Pence is not
smart enough to know, this is not something Russia and
China will accept.
Washington worries about North Korea having nuclear
weapons, but the entire world worries that Washington has
nuclear weapons. And so many of them. World polls have
shown that the majority of the world’s population are far
more concerned about the threat to peace posed by
Washington and Israel than by Iran, North Korea, Russia
and China.
Pence prefaced his “the sword stands
ready” remark with “the United States of
America will always seek peace,” which
after Serbia, Somalia, Afghanistan, Iraq,
Libya, Yemen, Pakistan, and Syria is as
false a statement as it is possible to make.
From Washington’s perspective it is always
Washington’s victims that are “reckless and
provocative,” never Washington.
The US stands for war. If the world is driven to
Armegeddon, it will be Washington, not North Korea,
Iran, Russia, or China, that brings life on earth to an end.
 Psychiatrists Target Donald Trump
With Mental Illness Disinformation Campaign
"Unethical " Psychiatrists Want Democracy Overturned
By Alex Thomas -
04.22.2017 @10:17 PM EDT

(INTELLIHUB) — A group of left-leaning psychiatrists illness that renders him psychologically

recently told a conference at Yale University that Donald
Trump has the hallmarks of mental illness that
“compromise” his role as president despite never actually
meeting with him.
The 25 researchers have taken the campaign against
Trump to the next level, breaking away from all ethical
standards by discussing so-called evidence of his mental
health that has already been attacked by others within the
psychiatric community.
“Dr. James Gilligan, a psychiatrist, and
professor at New York University, said
many psychiatrists have been timid about
approaching the topic because of the
Goldwater rule,” reported the Daily Mail.
“The rule states it’s unethical for
psychiatrists to give a professional opinion
about public figures they have not
examined in person.”
“However, Dr. Gilligan insists his and his
colleagues’ duty comes from the Duty to
Warn, a concept about when a medical
professional fails to warn ‘victims’ when
someone communicates an explicit threat
of danger.”
incapable of competently discharging the
duties of President of the United States.
And we respectfully request he be removed
from office, according to article 4 of the
25th amendment to the Constitution, which
states that the president will be replaced if
he is “unable to discharge the powers and
duties of his office.”
Fortunately, some within the community have seen
through this transparent attempt at taking out the president
for political reasons with the man who co-wrote the literal
manual on mental disorders destroying the claims made by
Garner and his group.
“Most amateur diagnosticians have
mislabeled President Trump with the
diagnosis of narcissistic personality
disorder. I wrote the criteria that define this
disorder, and Mr. Trump doesn’t meet
them. He may be a world-class narcissist,
but this doesn’t make him mentally ill,
because he does not suffer from the
distress and impairment required to
diagnose mental disorder,” wrote Dr. Allen
Frances in a letter to the New York Times.

This is clearly yet another attempt by the global

The Daily Mail continued,
establishment to take out the anti-globalist sitting president
with the “priesthood” being simply the latest weapon
“The group, organized by psychiatrist Dr. deployed.
John Gartner, has considered the president
– who’s fast approaching his 100th day in
office on April 29 – an unfit leader for the
US.”

The group has gone so far as to start a petition that has

gathered over 40,000 signatures and specifically calls for
removing the sitting president literally based on the outside
opinion of 25 “professionals”.

We, the undersigned mental health

professionals (please state your degree),
believe in our professional judgment that
Donald Trump manifests a serious mental
72
 Trump Sends Princess Ivanka
To Germany With Crying Towel
By Patricia Doyle
4-22-2017
Hello Jeff … Trump is sending the Princess to Germany to
remind them how horrible they are and she is bringing a
huge crying towel along.
This 'holocaust' mourning is sickening. Always pick on
Germany. Trump did not live in Germany in the 20s and
30s and has NO IDEA as to what the Jews were doing to
the German people. The Germans finally fought back.
How come it is always the 'holocaust' that we have to
mourn? How come we never mourn the genocide of
Armenian people by Turks? The Turks tried to kill off all
Armenians and not one word ever gets mentioned. What
about Cambodia? Or the 50 million Stalin 'holocausted' in
Crimea and during the war? And so many more examples
of REAL holocausts.
So, now come the mourning and ceremonies of the so-
called 'holocaust.' The Jews love the holocaust! What a
payday for them! Imagine if they did not have a
'holocaust' to trot out. How many Jews worked with the
Germans in camps? The Jewish overseers were harder on
their own people then the Germans. Up to 500,000
German Jews volunteered and fought in the brave, heroic
and extremely tough German army. Most don't know that.
This Jewish Princess is really pushing the envelope. I
guess President Kushner pushed Trump to send her. The
Mossad loves to push the holocaust. Awesome for
business.
Sickening. This Trump Presidency is beneficial for the
Jews and Israel. NOT for America. And who is pushing
for the transfer of lowlife muslims to the US and the
West? Who else, the Jews.
The Jews want to be the number one nation in the world.
They have eliminated Germany and Europe, and the US is
on its way to Third World status as are Canada and
Australia. BTW, Australia and New Zealand are FILLED
with Orthodox jews.
.
73
The US would be a much better place if we had 0 Jews and
0 Muslims and Blacks. Sad to admit it but it is true...and it
is a fact.
An entire nation of white Christians sans Jews and blacks
and Muslims would be much better for us. The Jews will
see to it that that never happens. Meanwhile, they are busy
removing ALL non-jews from Israel. And no one says a
word...
Patty
PS - What do you make of the blackouts? China figured
out how to hack our grid about 15 years ago…they even
left a calling card. Practice. With bio- terrorism they
usually release a test amount of pathogen. They test to see
how quickly an outbreak gets identified, how hospitals will
handle it, etc. A test run. This was probably a test
blackout and the big one will hit this summer. They will
plan for the hottest day of the year. Could be really nasty
even. Many will die.
I know I would not survive in the heat of summer and no
air due to my COPD. A Generac lasts just so long. then
the gas runs out. Many elderly and babies will die. Might
be a good idea to have a couple of car batteries on hand
and have them fully charged and ready to go. Also have
some solar fans on hand. A good time to live in a fully
self-contained, off the grid, tiny house. The one I saw had
all solar power and could even run a room air conditioner.
I am so disappointed in Trump. He has packed the top
level of his administrations with Jews, his billionaire pals,
neocon maniacs and anything but genuine 'outsiders'.
Dump Trump. He has lied and betrayed us that same way
Obama did. That is the grim truth.
Patty
 Krieger: The American Empire Under Trump Has
Become Increasingly Desperate, Dangerous, & Insecure
Authored By Mike Krieger Via Liberty Blitzkrieg Blog
Apr 22, 2017 4:00 PM
My current working hypothesis is that the U.S. is a late-
stage empire about to enter a more serious and
dangerous period of collapse. In case you missed it, I
outlined my broad brush view in the very popular recent
post, Prepare for Impact – This is the Beginning of the
End for U.S. Empire. Here’s a brief excerpt:
I believe last night’s strike represents
the beginning of the end for U.S. empire.
Although the U.S. has been declining
domestically for this entire century,
America has still been calling all the
shots on the international front. This
makes sense in late-stage empire, as
the focus of the fat and happy “elite”
becomes singularly obsessed with
domination and power, while the
situation back home festers and rots.
Trump won on an “America first”
platform that promised to emphasize the
well-being of American citizens over
geopolitical adventurism. We now know
for certain he’s been manipulated into
the imperial mindset, and his
recklessness will merely accelerate U.S.
decline on the world stage, and in turn,
back home.
When I came across reports yesterday that the U.S. Justice
Department is trying to figure out a way to prosecute the
world’s most courageous and effective news publisher,
Wikileaks’ Julian Assange, I immediately saw it to
be further evidence of the incredible insecurity and
desperation of the American establishment.
The CIA is particularly enraged at Assange as a result of
last month’s initial Vault 7 release. Rather than apologize
for allowing zero day exploits in large tech companies to
remain open and therefore vulnerable to hacking from
anyone with the skills to do so (see: CIA Hacking Tools
Allow for an Unaccountable Intelligence Agency
Dictatorship), CIA director Mike Pompeo decided to
respond with an unhinged nervous breakdown during a
recent speech to the Saudi funded Center for Strategic and
International Studies (CSIS). Here are a few excerpts
from his deranged, incoherent, and unconstitutional
remarks courtesy of the CIA:
74
WikiLeaks walks like a hostile intelligence
service and talks like a hostile intelligence
service. It has encouraged its followers to
find jobs at CIA in order to obtain
intelligence. It directed Chelsea Manning in
her theft of specific secret information. And
it overwhelmingly focuses on the United
States, while seeking support from anti-
democratic countries and organizations.
This is what’s called “projection.”
It is time to call out WikiLeaks for what it
really is – a non-state hostile intelligence
service often abetted by state actors like
Russia. In January of this year, our
Intelligence Community determined that
Russian military intelligence—the GRU—
had used WikiLeaks to release data of US
victims that the GRU had obtained through
cyber operations against the Democratic
National Committee. And the report also
found that Russia’s primary propaganda
outlet, RT, has actively collaborated with
WikiLeaks.
We know this because Assange and his
ilk make common cause with dictators
today. Yes, they try unsuccessfully to cloak
themselves and their actions in the
language of liberty and privacy; in reality,
however, they champion nothing but their
own celebrity. Their currency is clickbait;
their moral compass, nonexistent. Their
mission: personal self-aggrandizement
through the destruction of Western
values.
They do not care about the causes and
people they claim to represent. If they
did, they would focus instead on the
autocratic regimes in this world that
actually suppress free speech and dissent.
Instead, they choose to exploit the
legitimate secrets of democratic
governments—which has, so far, proven to
be a much safer approach than provoking a
tyrant.
More projection.
No, Julian Assange and his kind are not the
slightest bit interested in improving civil
liberties or enhancing personal freedom.
They have pretended that America’s First
Amendment freedoms shield them from
justice. They may have believed that, but
they are wrong.
Assange is a narcissist who has created
nothing of value. He relies on the dirty
work of others to make himself famous. He
is a fraud—a coward hiding behind a
screen.
Really? Seems to me he’s created the most powerful and
impactful media organization of the 21st century, which is
precisely why you hate his guts.
And in Kansas, we know something about
false Wizards.
So we face a crucial question: What can
we do about this? What can and should
CIA, the United States, and our allies do
about the unprecedented challenge posed
by these hostile non-state intelligence
agencies?
While there is no quick fix—no foolproof
cure—there are steps that we can take to
undercut the danger. First, it is high time
we called out those who grant a platform to
these leakers and so-called transparency
activists. We know the danger that
Assange and his not-so-merry band of
brothers pose to democracies around the
world. Ignorance or misplaced idealism is
no longer an acceptable excuse for
lionizing these demons.
Third, we have to recognize that we can
no longer allow Assange and his
colleagues the latitude to use free
speech values against us. To give them
the space to crush us with misappropriated
secrets is a perversion of what our great
Constitution stands for. It ends now.
And finally—and perhaps most
importantly—we need to deepen the trust
between the Intelligence Community
and the citizens we strive to protect.
Deepen the trust? There is no trust.
At CIA, I can assure you that we are
committed to earning that trust every day.
We know we can never take it for granted.
We must continue to be as open as
75
possible with the American people so that
our society can reach informed judgments
on striking the proper balance between
individual privacy and national security.
The first thing to appreciate from the above excerpts is
how uncollected and unhinged Mike Pompeo appears to
be, and let’s also not forget that Donald Trump appointed
Pompeo of his own volition. Much of his commentary
centers around simple name calling, for instance referring
to Assange as a “narcissist,” a “false wizard” and a
“demon” in the span of just a few short paragraphs. His
seemingly unstable emotional state certainly doesn’t give
me a lot faith in the CIA, not that I had much to begin
with.
Moving along, Pompeo’s entire rant is filled with
projection. First let’s define Psychological Projection:
Psychological projection is a theory
in psychology in which humans defend
themselves against their own
unconscious impulses or qualities (both
positive and negative) by denying their
existence in themselves
while attributing them to others. For
example, a person who is
habitually rude may constantly accuse
other people of being rude. It
incorporates blame shifting.
Pompeo exhibits this behavior repeatedly in his remarks.
For instance, he accuses Assange of
“seeking support from anti-democratic
countries and organizations.”
I mean, that’s basically the CIA’s mission statement, and
its entire history is filled to the brim with
“seeking support from anti-democratic
countries and organizations.”
Moving along, he states
“Assange and his ilk make common cause
with dictators today,” and also says about
Wikileaks, “they do not care about the
causes and people they claim to
represent.”
Both of these statements summarize U.S. foreign policy to
a tee. After all, one of America’s closest foreign allies,
Saudi Arabia, is not only one of the world’s most
repressive, undemocratic states, it is also one of the leading
propagators of radical Islamic terrorism across the globe,
including the attacks of 9/11 (for more see: Meet the
Lawyer Who’s Suing Saudi Arabia for Financing the
9/11 Attacks).
Finally, Pompeo justifies his attack on the First
Amendment by pushing a false “us versus them
mentality.” He states:
Third, we have to recognize that we can no
longer allow Assange and his colleagues
the latitude to use free speech values
against us.
This implies that Assange and Wikileaks represent “the
enemy,” while the CIA is somehow some shining white
night. Unfortunately for Pompeo, this isn’t how many
Americans see the situation.
Let’s recall the following tweet, and
understand that John Harwood’s
following isn’t exactly filled with anti-
establishment types.
You can say that’s not a scientific poll, and that’s fine, but
I’d argue a large percentage of Americans think Wikileaks
is more patriotic than the CIA, and that poses an enormous
problem for the deep state.
In fact, Americans as a whole no longer trust most of the
institutions charged with managing the U.S. empire,
because those institutions have completely and utterly
failed the people. The only way to regain trust is to
actually start doing some decent things for the nation, but
that’s not what happens in late-stage empire. In late-stage
empire, the corrupt and foolish “ruling class” continues to
double and triple down on their own stupidity and theft
until the whole thing falls apart. This is precisely what I
expect to happen, and the ongoing Assange witch-hunt
simply further confirms my suspicions.
To further prove the point, take a look at the following
excerpt from CNN’s article on the topic:
US authorities have prepared charges to
seek the arrest of WikiLeaks founder Julian
76
Assange, US officials familiar with the
matter tell CNN.
The Justice Department investigation of
Assange and WikiLeaks dates to at least
2010, when the site first gained wide
attention for posting thousands of files
stolen by the former US Army intelligence
analyst now known as Chelsea Manning.
Prosecutors have struggled with
whether the First Amendment precluded
the prosecution of Assange, but now
believe they have found a way to move
forward.
Think about what you just read for a minute. The
DOJ apparently spent 7 years trying to figure out how to
void the First Amendment, yet it couldn’t jail a single bank
executive during that entire time. What does this tell you
about where the government’s priorities lie? Even more
disturbingly, it doesn’t matter which Goldman Sachs/deep
state puppet sits in the White House, the agenda moves
forward. It is an imperial agenda to protect and secure the
wealth and power of the few against the well being and
liberty of the many.
The U.S. empire doesn’t work for the people, it works for
a small handful of elitists and insiders who have
completely gamed a corrupt system for their advantage.
The America people are starting to figure this out, partly
due to the journalism of Wikileaks, which is why the deep
state hates Assange so passionately.
The American empire is becoming
increasingly insecure and desperate,
which also makes it increasingly dangerous.
Empires don’t reform,
and as we can see from Trump’s first 100 days, we
certainly aren’t going to see a reversal of course from him.
We the people need to keep our eye on
the prize and stop bickering with one
another over relatively trivial issues.
That is precisely what the status quo wants and actively
encourages us to do. They can’t keep us oppressed if we
stand together, so let’s not make their jobs easier by
constantly fighting with one another. We need to stand tall
and say enough is enough. That we are sick of your
puppets, your wars and your Wall Street bailouts. America
is tired of being controlled by a small group of
unaccountable, incompetent, greedy, unethical
crooks running around stealing everything in sight.
Enough is enough.
 Russia Used Trump's Advisers
To Meddle In Election Campaign - FBI
© AP Photo/ Pavel Golovkin World
10:04 22.04.2017
The Federal Bureau of Investigation
(FBI) said that Russian spies used
advisers of US President Donald Trump,
including Carter Page, to infiltrate the
election campaign, local media reported
Saturday, citing unnamed US officials.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — According to the CNN
broadcaster, the Russian side tried to use Trump's former
adviser Page, while he could be unaware that he was
in touch with Russian spies because of the way they
operated.
The FBI suggested that Page could have been
compromised by Russian intelligence after his speech at a
university in Moscow in July 2016, in which he criticized
US policy against Moscow, and raised concern that
.
77
Russian agents could be in contact with Page both
in Russia and in the United States, the broadcaster added.
On April 4, BuzzFeed News claimed that
Page met Victor Podobnyy, a Russian
intelligence operative who was charged
in January 2015 by the US government
for acting as unregistered agents of a
foreign government, back in 2013 while
working as an energy consultant. Page
said he met Podobnyy at an energy
industry event and merely exchanged
contacts and innocuous information.
On April 17, Page told the Washington
Times that the dossier, containing
information about his meetings
with Russian businessman Igor Sechin and
high-ranking Russian official Igor Diveykin,
was "completely false" and "full of lies."
On April 12, The Washington Post reported
that the FBI obtained a secret warrant last
year in order to investigate Page over his
alleged ties to Russia.
Moscow rejected having any secret ties to Trump and
repeatedly refuted allegations of interference in the US
elections. Trump has also rejected claims of undercover
dealings with Russia.
 What Do Trump And Clinton Share But Lack?
CLASS! In That Both Belong To The Upper Class. And Both Only Serve
The Interests Of Their Class--Whatever They May Tell Their
"Deplorable" Voters. Yet Neither Is A Class Act Like Vladimir Putin--The
Strong But Compassionate, True Christian President Of Russia.
Dr. William Wedin
Sat, Apr 22, 2017

And one of the perks of being in that Class is that unless

you're a Bernie Madoff and actually confess to a crime
(out of belated "Jewish" guilt that was so déclassé!), you
will never go to jail. Not if you're Donald Trump, you
won't.

And not if you're Hillary Clinton. Nope!

Not even if you've committed the most fragrant of felonies.

And Trump himself has led huge rallies of "deplorables"

against you, shouting:

"Lock 'er up! Lock 'er up!"

As soon as the election was over, Trump announced that

haggard Hillary had "suffered enough." And that was that.
Old friends

Trump and Clinton both belong to the Upper Class. They

move in the same circles. Their daughters, Chelsea and
Ivanka, are best friends.

So when The Donald invited the Clintons to his lavish

wedding reception at his lavish Mar-a-Lago estate in 2005-
-this time with Melania as his bride--of course, ever social-
climbing Hillary leaped at the chance and dragged Bill
along.

Just look at Hillary's utterly enraptured smile as The

Donald regales Bill with how he groped Melania the first
time they met. Do you know how much a man must be
worth for Hillary to smile at him like that?

I'm joking, of course. [He could be worth a million less;

and she'd still smile like that.]
Honestly, though, this photo did shock me a little. For it
made me realize--not for the first time, to be sure, but with
singular intensity--that Clinton and Trump really DO
belong to the same Club--the same Class. The Upper
Class.
Come on. Trump wasn't going to lock up the mother of
Ivanka's best friend. Not after the "poor woman" had spent
$1.2 billion against Trump's measly $600 million to defeat
him--and lost!
Losing money like that has gotta hurt!

78
Imagine if you lost money like that! But these people are paupers compared to the Arab Royal
Families who contribute to the Clinton Foundation and buy
Trump out of bankruptcies to the tune of millions.

Just as these Royal Families who actually own their oil-

rich emirates and kingdoms bought up George Bush Jr's
failing oil businesses back in the 1980's so George could
follow his father clear to the Presidency.

And what did these Royal Families want from Bill and
Hillary Clinton, George Bush, the newly-rich Obama, and
Donald Trump, in return?

Only war against Iraq, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria,

Yemen, and Iran. And the "cleansing" of all Christians and
Shiite Muslims from these lands.

Trump may have raged against Muslims

to those "deplorables" whom he and
Hillary and their Upper Class so deplore.
But since his election, Trump has done
exactly what these Arab Royal Families
have wanted of him. The travel ban. The
Yemeni raid. The Syria reversal. The
Tomahawk missile attack. So what does Vladimir Putin--that Monster of Evil--do?
And Trump has just begun. He kneels down and talks to this lonely little boy who so
needs a father right now. And in that one single simple
gesture of loving understanding--in my professional
***
judgment--Putin gives the lie to all the ugly charges that
have been hurled at him.
And then there is Vladimir Putin. And here's my very
favorite shot of him, talking to a little boy who's gotten so,
In kneeling down in tender compassion like that, Putin
so tired from standing at a long, long Russian Orthodox
shows real class.
service that he's just... well... sat down... right there... while
his mother in the pink sweater tries to ignore him.
.

79
 New Report: FBI Was Willing To Pay $50,000
To Former British Spy For Trump Dossier
Cristina Laila
Apr 22nd, 2017 2:29 Pm
More details are now emerging about
the largely debunked Trump dossier
provided by former British spy,
Christopher Steele.
We just reported on a lawsuit filed by Cause of Action
which revealed that the FBI perhaps paid for the Trump
dossier. A new report by The Times claims that the FBI
was willing to pay up to $50,000 for it, however; the
payment was never made.
Via The Times:
Mr. Steele met his F.B.I. contact in Rome in early October,
bringing a stack of new intelligence reports. One, dated
Sept. 14, said that Mr. Putin was facing “fallout” over his
apparent involvement in the D.N.C. hack and was
receiving “conflicting advice” on what to do.
The agent said that, if Mr. Steele could get solid
corroboration of his reports, the F.B.I. would pay him
$50,000 for his efforts, according to two people familiar
with the offer. Ultimately, he was not paid
Via The Daily Caller:
80
The Times reports that Steele and the FBI
settled on a $50,000 payout if the ex-MI6
agent could corroborate information
contained in his dossier.
As The Times notes, the payment was
never made, perhaps suggesting that
Steele was not able to confirm information
in his memos.
The report raises questions about the degree of confidence
that the FBI had in the dossier. And that level of
confidence is important because the FBI reportedly relied
on the dossier in a September application for a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against former
Trump campaign adviser Carter Page.
A Federal Intelligence Surveillance Court judge granted
that warrant, meaning that the court agreed there was
probable cause to believe that Page was working as an
agent of the Russian government.
Shame on the FBI for the lengths it went to destroy Trump.
This debunked dossier is also the subject of a lawsuit
against Buzzfeed and our government took it seriously
enough to the point a judge granted the FBI a FISA
warrant.
 Changing Narratives: Ex-Trump Adviser
Page Fires Back At CNN’s ‘Russia Contacts’ Claim
Published Time: 23 Apr, 2017 04:09Edited Time: 23 Apr, 2017 11:25
Commenting on the infamous dossier, Page told CNN:

“There are certain questions I have, frankly

speaking, just reading that report – two
weeks before the inauguration day, I might
add – that makes me wonder whether this
was really just a political stunt.”

“False narratives,” not the alleged Russian attempts, were

the ultimate form of meddling in the election, Carter Page
told CNN, striking back at the network’s anonymous
report claiming the FBI has proof he and other Trump
advisers interacted with Russian agents.

Carter Page made the comments to CNN on Saturday, just

one day after the news outlet alleged that the FBI had
gathered intelligence last summer suggesting that Russian
agents attempted to infiltrate the election by using Trump’s
advisers to do so.

Page was explicitly mentioned in the original CNN report,

which cited unnamed US officials as sources.

Responding to the CNN report, Page noted that it said that He added that
Russia “tried” to infiltrate the campaign – which is a far
cry from other terms previously used when it came to the
“we’ve seen that looking back at the history
Trump campaign's alleged ties with Moscow.
of political intelligence operations going
back many decades.”
“Remember the headlines for many, many
months. The Trump campaign ‘colluded’
The leaked dossier was said to be compiled by a former
[with Russia] or there [were] nefarious
British intelligence official for Trump’s political
things going on. Now they’re really reeling
opponents.
things back and someone is saying out
there the word ‘tried’,” Page pointed out.
The Friday CNN report claims that Page is one of several
“I’ve certainly seen a lot of ‘tries’ going Trump advisers that US and European intelligence found
back for much of the last year. Trying to put to be in contact with Russian officials and other Russians
in false narratives over many, many known to Western intelligence during the campaign.
months,” he went on.
It states that Page may have communicated with them
Page then referred to the “dodgy dossier” of unverified unknowingly
information which includes allegations of Russian ties to
the Trump campaign, calling it the “ultimate try” and
“because of the way Russian spy services
“swing and a miss.”
operate.”

81
But when asked whether he was aware of Russian efforts
of using him to get into the Trump campaign, Page was
confident he was never asked for any information that
would have breached the campaign.
“Nothing I was ever asked to do, or no
information that I was ever asked for, was
anything beyond what you can see on
CNN... nothing I ever talked about with any
Russian official extends beyond that
publicly available, immaterial information.”
Political commentator and satirist Tim Young told RT that
he isn’t sure if the allegations of Russian meddling will
ever end, adding that the left is merely looking for a
scapegoat for losing the election.
It comes less than two weeks after the Washington Post
reported that the FBI obtained a secret FISA warrant last
summer to monitor Page’s communications, stating that
there was probable cause to believe he acted as an agent
for Russia and
“knowingly engaged in clandestine
intelligence activities on behalf of Moscow.”
.
82
CNN asked Page about the FISA warrant on Saturday, in a
way which Young said was “baiting” him. He accused
CNN of trying to get Page to admit that the FISA court had
a reason to connect him to a crime with Russia, calling the
line of questioning “ridiculous.”
Young also noted that it was easy to “make up anything”
when it comes to reports from unknown sources, such as
the ones cited by CNN in the Friday report.
The US has repeatedly accused Russia of hacking the
Democratic National Committee’s computer networks
during the election, claiming Moscow was trying to
“interfere” with the results.
However, there is no evidence to show that the Kremlin
was behind the attack, with many in the intelligence
community stating that all signs point to an insider leak,
rather than an outside hack.
Moscow has denied Washington’s claims as untrue and
baseless.
 Trump: The Man Vs. His Ideas
By Jon Rappoport
April 23, 2017
“Well, my hero failed to live up to his
promises. He has feet of clay. So why
should I care about his ideas? They’re
unimportant. All I really wanted in the first
place was a hero. That was the only dream
that mattered.”
In past articles, I’ve praised Trump and criticized him.
Here I want to make a few remarks about his best effects
and the ripples that have spread from his words—but not
necessarily from his present and future actions.
Why do I make that distinction?
Because I’m far more interested in the millions of people
who decided to support Trump than I am in Trump
himself. Those millions will carry freight in the years to
come, here in the US and in other countries. If they turn
passive, the so-called populist movement will die on the
vine.
Trump has raised the issue of Globalism as no other
modern president has. Specifically, he’s spoken about the
horrendous consequences of: shipping jobs overseas,
throwing huge numbers of willing domestic workers on to
unemployment lines; and failing to lay on tariffs when
corporations who have gone overseas send their products
back here for sale.
He’s pointed to Globalist trade treaties as the source of this
calamity, and he has killed the TPP treaty.
More generally, he’s spoken about Globalism vs.
Nationalism; i.e., solving problems at home vs. trying to
incorporate America into an international framework of
governance.
His words have helped stimulate, confirm, and support the
Brexit decision in the UK, and the rise of pro-nationalism
anti-EU movements in Europe.
Trump has attacked the prime source of fake news, major
media, as no other president ever has. Time and time
again, he has gone after these scurrilous creatures as liars
and purveyors of false realities. In this effort, he has lent a
considerable hand to the expansion of independent media.
From the inception of major media here in America and
other countries, their news has functioned as the eyes, ears,
mouths, and brains for the public. How can authentic
83
change for the better occur as long as this preposterous
proxy-condition persists?
Trump has planted seeds for a revolutionary shift in
foreign policy, based on non-interference in the affairs of
other nations. Regardless of how far he moves in the
opposite direction (e.g., Syria, Russia), his initial position
on non-interference acknowledged untold numbers of
people in many countries who have been waiting to hear
that message.
To say, because Trump abandoned that stance, his
proclamation against Empire-building was wrong is a
fool’s errand. In the same way, people have claimed that
the Constitution and the Bill of Rights are meaningless
because some of the Framers owned slaves.
Failing to distinguish between ideas and the people who
espouse them is a sign of the lowest possible level of
intelligence.
The mainstream press displays that level every day.
Trump has pointed out, over and over, that an open borders
immigration policy is madness. The financial burden it
imposes; the open invitation it offers to immigrants, to take
advantage of free government services (never before the
intent of any US immigration program); the seeding of
communities with immigrants who have no intention of
becoming part of American society; the indifference
toward crimes and terrorist acts that result from non-
vetting; these and other factors demand a change of
approach.
For the so-called political Left, a sense of idealism implies
there will never be a ceiling on immigration. It is unlimited
and forever. Separate nations are a fiction. The world is
One Nation. These sentiments are, in fact, Globalism’s wet
dream, which by the way has nothing to do with kindness
and sharing. It has to do with top-down control of
civilization, from one end of the planet to the other.
Trump has built strong pillars with his words.
He has confirmed what untold numbers of people in many
nations believe and want.
There is every danger that, if Trump fails to live up to what
he has said, these people, many of them, will decide his
words mean nothing. His ideas mean nothing.
Again, that is because they can’t distinguish between ideas
and the individuals who espouse them. They have neither
the capacity nor the desire. They’re trapped along a fault-
line of their own cynicism; they’re looking for a reason to
say destiny is doom.
This attitude has plagued humanity since the beginning.
Those who championed freedom and the individual have
fought against it.
84
“Well, my hero failed to live up to his
promises. He has feet of clay. So why
should I care about his ideas? They’re
unimportant. All I really wanted in the first
place was a hero. That was the only dream
that mattered.”
Really?
Those are the words of a disappointed child.
 Trump’s Presidential Approval Rating
Within First 100 Days In Office Lowest Since 1945
Published Time: 23 Apr, 2017 18:17Edited Time: 23 Apr, 2017 21:09
As President Donald Trump is approaching the 100-day
benchmark in the White House, his approval rating has hit
a historical low of 42 percent. Twelve of his predecessors
averaged 61-percent at this point, a new Washington Post-
ABC News poll showed.
An average of 42 percent of Americans approve of
Trump’s performance as president, while 53 percent
disapprove. Past presidents’ ratings averaged 69 percent
approval and 19 percent disapproval by their 100th day in
office, the poll shows.
For example, Trump’s closest predecessor, Barack Obama
had a 69-26 percent rate.
The next president with such low ratings was former
President Bill Clinton who had 55 percent approval. The
highest approval rating for the first 100 days was achieved
by John F. Kennedy, who had 71 percent.
Despite the deplorable results, 96 percent of those who
supported Trump in November still stand by their vote
today.
Going into the details, the poll says that six out of 10
people
“doubt his [Trump’s] honesty and
trustworthiness, see him as out of touch,
and don’t think he understands the
problems of people like them.”
.
85
More than half of Americans, 56 percent, say
“he’s accomplished little or nothing in his
first 100 days,” while almost the same
number of people, 55 percent, say “he
doesn’t follow a consistent set of principles
in setting policy.”
However, no more than 48 percent see this as a problem.
However, there are some silver linings for Trump as well.
According to the survey results, as many as 73 percent of
Americans say it’s good that the new president is
pressuring companies to keep jobs in the United States.
That number includes Democrats, liberals, and non-whites
– the three groups, most unsupportive of Trump.
Moreover, 53 percent called Trump a “strong leader,”
though 77 percent of respondents considered Obama as
such at this stage.
Generally, Trump’s foreign policy ratings look quite
promising with 46 percent saying the situation with North
Korea is being handled “about right,” compared to 37
percent saying his actions are “too aggressive,” or to 7
percent calling him too “cautious.”
Conversely, Obama was seen as too cautious when dealing
with situations in Syria and Ukraine in 2014.
The poll, which is based on data collected from 1,004
adults surveyed April 17-20, 2017, was produced by
Langer Research Associates. The results are said to have a
margin of error of 3.5 points.
Trump’s 100th day in office, which is historically
considered the point when a newly-elected president’s
accomplishments can be measured for the first time, will
be April 29th.
 ‘Everyone Tunes In’:
Inside Trump’s Obsession With Cable TV
By Ashley Parker And Robert Costa
April 23 At 4:55 PM
President Trump's relationship with television goes back decades –
and now that he's in the White House, his TV-watching habit is still
going strong. (Peter Stevenson/The Washington Post)
During a small working lunch at the White House last
month, the question of job security in President Trump’s
tumultuous White House came up, and one of the
attendees wondered whether press secretary Sean Spicer
might be the first to go.
The president’s response was swift and unequivocal.
“I’m not firing Sean Spicer,” he said,
according to someone familiar with the
encounter. “That guy gets great ratings.
Everyone tunes in.”
Trump even likened Spicer’s daily news briefings to a
daytime soap opera, noting proudly that his press secretary
attracted nearly as many viewers.
For Trump — a reality TV star who parlayed his blustery-
yet-knowing on-air persona into a winning political brand
— television is often the guiding force of his day, both
weapon and scalpel, megaphone and news feed. And the
president’s obsession with the tube — as a governing tool,
a metric for staff evaluation, and a two-way conduit with
lawmakers and aides — has upended the traditional
rhythms of the White House, influencing many spheres,
including policy, his burgeoning relationship with
Congress, and whether he taps out a late-night or early-
morning tweet.
Those Trump tweet-storms, which contain some of his
most controversial utterances, are usually prompted by
something he has seen on television just moments before.
The president, advisers said, also uses details gleaned from
cable news as a starting point for policy discussions or a
86
request for more information, and appears on TV himself
when he wants to appeal directly to the public.
Some White House officials — who early on would appear
on TV to emphasize points to their boss, who was likely to
be watching just steps away in his residence — have
started tuning into Fox News’ “Fox & Friends” because
they know the president habitually clicks it on after waking
near dawn.
But Trump’s habits have consequences far beyond being
the quirky, unchanging ways of a 70-year-old man who
keeps an eye on cable as he goes about his day, as his
confidants describe his behavior. Foreign diplomats have
urged their governments’ leaders to appear on television
when they’re stateside as a means of making their case to
Trump, and U.S. lawmakers regard a TV appearance as
nearly on par with an Oval Office meeting in terms of
showcasing their standing or viewpoints to the president.
Former House speaker Newt Gingrich (R-Ga.) said
Trump’s intense monitoring cuts both ways.
“At times, it’ll lead to mistakes,” he said.
“Other times, it lets him move with
astounding speed.”
“It’s all part of him being this work in
progress who is constantly listening and
evolving,” Gingrich added.
Explaining his decision to launch 59 Tomahawk cruise
missiles at a Syrian air base, Trump even cited, publicly
and privately, the gruesome images of dead and dying
Syrian children poisoned with the nerve agent sarin,
images that dominated television for several days.
“President Trump is someone who comes to the White
House with a sophisticated understanding of how to
communicate, the power of television, the power of
imagery, the power of message, and how message,
messenger and delivery all work together,” said Kellyanne
Conway, counselor to the president.
The president’s fascination with television is born of
personal experience. Trump, long a fixture in the New
York tabloids, did not become a household presence until
2004, when he began hosting NBC’s hit reality TV show
“The Apprentice.” He relished the attention, boasting
about and fretting over his ratings, much as he now
handles political polls.
He is also a natural showman. During the campaign, he
riveted viewers with his raucous rallies, where he often
spoke for more than hour without any notes or
teleprompters. And in TV interviews, he sometimes offers
tips on matters including lighting and chair placement,
with an intuitive sense of what makes for good TV.
“He is very attuned to the fact that cable
networks have 24 hours a day that they
need to fill — and if you’re interesting, you
are gold,” Gingrich said.
Always tuned in
Trump’s quotidian viewing is unremarkable, based on his
profile. Fox News’s average prime-time viewer last year,
for instance, was 68 years old and mostly white, and the
average American watches more than four hours per day,
according to Nielsen data.
On his campaign plane, Trump watched television on full
volume — usually Fox News, sometimes CNN — almost
constantly, said someone who flew with him, shushing his
aides whenever he himself came on the screen and
listening with rapt attention. When Hillary Clinton
appeared, he’d similarly quiet his team, often before
pointing a finger at the TV and scolding:
“She’s lying! She’s lying!”
To relax, however, he would occasionally watch the Golf
Channel, while on his plane or in the clubhouses of some
of his private courses.
Now that he’s in the White House, friends and aides
describe a president who still consumes a steady diet of
cable news. During an intimate lunch recently with a key
outside ally in a small West Wing dining room, for
instance, Trump repeatedly paused the conversation to
make the group watch a particularly combative Spicer
briefing.
Trump turns on the television almost as soon as he wakes,
then checks in periodically throughout the day in the small
dining room off the Oval Office, and continues late into
the evening when he’s back in his private residence.
“Once he goes upstairs, there’s no
managing him,” said one adviser.
Sometimes, at night, he hate-watches cable shows critical
of him, while chatting on the phone with friends, said
someone familiar with the president’s routine — a quirk a
senior official jokingly called “multi-teching.”
87
In the morning, the president typically flips between “Fox
& Friends,” Maria Bartiromo’s show on Fox Business and
CNBC’s “Squawk Box.” West Wing aides assert that the
president stopped watching MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” after
the show’s hosts grew increasingly critical of his
presidency, but some confidants think he still tunes in,
especially for the top of the program.
His feelings toward CNN and its president, Jeff Zucker,
who greenlighted “The Apprentice” when he was running
NBC Entertainment, are similarly fraught. Trump is
furious with Zucker for what he thinks is the network’s
unfair coverage but admires Zucker’s business bona fides
and ratings growth, said a friend.
Most of the televisions in the West Wing
display four channels at all times — CNN,
Fox, Fox Business and MSNBC.
The president also likes One America News, a
conservative-leaning channel whose correspondent often
gets questions in Spicer’s daily news briefing, and before
the campaign told an aide that he occasionally enjoyed
watching Al Jazeera.
He is still in touch with Roger Ailes, the former Fox News
chairman who was ousted amid charges of sexual
harassment and who unofficially advised Trump near the
end of the presidential campaign. But, Trump has told
friends, he thinks Fox News is “nicer” to him in the post-
Ailes era. Fox News host Sean Hannity, meanwhile, is
especially close to Trump’s two older sons, as well as to
the president.
“For all the talk about how the media is so
tough on Trump, which they are, the most
interesting thing about Trump and the
media is that in the end, Trump totally
manipulated the media,” said Stephen
Moore, an economist for the Heritage
Foundation who served as a senior adviser
to the Trump campaign.
“The media is why he won — because he
completely dominated the media. That’s
the irony of the whole thing.”
Appearances matter
West Wing staffers have begun including local news
clippings in his morning briefing, said one, noting that an
issue such as rolling back environmental regulations may
earn the president poor press nationally but a more positive
headline —
“Trump saves coal jobs,” for example — in
a local paper.
But Trump — who has boasted to several advisers and
friends about having “the world’s best TiVo” — remains
most focused on what he sees on his flat screens, going so
far as to compliment print reporters on their television
appearances.
He can also be critical. When Spicer did his first briefing-
room appearance in an ill-fitting gray pinstripe suit, the
president made his displeasure known, and Spicer returned
the next week more crisply attired. Trump often asks his
West Wing staff whether they happened to catch their
colleagues’ TV hits, praising dramatically confrontational
or cool and smooth appearances.
“He prefers facts and figures; he likes when
people are defending but also explaining.
He likes toughness but also appreciates
polish, poise and positivity,” Conway said.
“He appreciates when you don’t look like
people are bothering you or getting the
best of you. He loves when you call out
media bias, or what the anchors have said
or not said.”
Trump was especially incensed, said a senior adviser, by
what he saw as cable news’ blanket coverage of his
campaign and what was portrayed as his administration’s
overly cozy ties to Russia.
Another time, Trump took particular issue with the
aesthetics of a male commentator who appeared sometimes
as a guest on “Morning Joe,” and began pestering the
hosts, imploring them to dump the analyst who so
offended his visual sensibilities, said someone with
knowledge of the episode.
But Trump’s interest in TV has proved a welcome — and
at times surprising — point of entry to the White House for
lawmakers and even pundits.
Rep. Elijah E. Cummings (D-Md.) once appealed to
Trump directly on “Morning Joe,” addressing the camera
to implore the president to call him so the two could chat
about prescription drugs. A day or so later, Cummings
said, the president himself responded.
“I was a little surprised that he called — I
thought his secretary would call, but he
actually called,” Cummings said. “But it’s
the way he operates. And he does watch
television and he’s very critical of
television, and I thought we had a good
conversation.”
Gingrich added that sometimes after an appearance
on “Fox & Friends,” he’ll have just left the studio and not
even reached his car when his cellphone will ring: the
president calling to tell him,
88
“That was good.”
Indeed, it is now a running joke in television green rooms
that if a trade association or special-interest group wants to
reach the president, the smartest use of their money is to
buy morning television ad time or book a representative on
air.
House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.), a
friend of the president’s, said he has been impressed with
how Trump will call attention to individual lawmakers in
meetings, recalling who said what about him or his
policies on TV.
“I’ve watched him in rooms where he goes
through person by person. He clearly
keeps track,” McCarthy said. “He’s not just
watching big shows, either. He has called
us up after watching our news conferences
here at the Capitol.”
Rep. Adam Kinzinger (R-Ill.), a nattily dressed 39-year-
old former Air Force pilot who now serves in the Air
National Guard, was taken aback when Trump singled him
out during an Oval Office meeting with several House
Republicans during health-care discussions, telling the
group to pay attention to how sharply attired and articulate
Kinzinger is on TV.
“We all come into the Oval, and right when
he sees me, he goes, ‘You’re really good
on TV,’ ” Kinzinger said, confirming the
anecdote with a chuckle. “Then, during our
meeting, he eventually gets to me, and
that’s when he tells the whole group. It was
fun to hear.”
Not everyone appreciates Trump’s television obsession.
Some of his tweets, often prompted by TV segments, have
left his aides scrambling to reverse-engineer information to
support his dubious assertions. Others worry about a
president who can seem to be swayed by the last thing he
sees on TV, a medium geared more for entertainment than
actual policymaking.
Rick Wilson, a veteran Republican consultant and vocal
Trump critic, said a number of Republicans in Congress
and in establishment party circles find the president’s
habits bizarre to the point of alarming, although they rarely
say so publicly because they do not want to draw his
wrath.
“There are many conversations where it
ends: ‘But of course, God knows, he could
watch Fox News tomorrow and change his
whole position,’ ” Wilson said. “They don’t
get him, because he’s a creature of
television and they’re creatures of politics.
 They care about the details, he cares about
what’s on TV.”
The president, Wilson added,
“is a TV character to them, and they have
to navigate around it.”
Either way, Trump’s viewing habits have seeped into the
ether of both the White House and the nation’s capital.
During the Republicans’ failed health-care push last
month, Trump invited a small group of conservative
activists to meet with him in the Oval Office.
When the meeting was over, said someone with knowledge
of the gathering, the president made a plea to the
participants:
89
“I know you have already said it’s a bad
deal, but Kellyanne is going to walk you out
to the microphones and I’d love it if you
could say it’s great,” Trump said.
The group never did embrace the health-care proposal. But
speaking briefly to reporters that evening, the attendees
were polite and took pains not to criticize Trump himself.
And later, as they began doing television appearances to
gin up opposition to the bill, they were always careful to
mention that they appreciated the open dialogue with the
president and his inviting them into the West Wing to
chat.
After all, they knew he’d be watching.
Dan Balz contributed to this report.
 US Threat Of War Forces
North Korea Into Siege State Mentality
Published Time: 23 Apr, 2017 09:59
In recent days, the Trump administration has been issuing
threats against North Korea, the nuclear-armed pariah
state, escalating tensions and creating a potentially
catastrophic situation in East Asia.
Ridiculously, many people in the West are worried about
the situation not because of Donald Trump’s insane
militarism, but that of North Korean leader Kim Jong-un.
Such thinking is irrational and ahistorical, and is rooted
largely in mass-media deception and good old-fashioned
'Yellow Peril' racism.
The Democratic People’s Republic of Korea (DPRK) has
invaded and bombed not a single country. The United
States of America, on the other hand, has invaded and
bombed dozens of countries - including Syria, Libya, Iraq,
Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Grenada, Nicaragua, Vietnam,
Laos, Cambodia and, yes, Korea.
The war waged by the US and its allies against North
Korea (1950-53) was nothing short of genocidal. All major
cities were destroyed. At least 20 percent of the population
was killed. Only through extraordinary heroism and
creative genius - along with the selfless support of China
and the USSR - did the country survive. Since then, the
North Korean people have lived every single day under the
threat of nuclear annihilation.
As Bruce Cumings, the leading Western academic expert
on the DPRK, puts it:
"North Korea is the only country in the
world to have been systematically
blackmailed by US nuclear weapons going
back to the 1950s, when hundreds of
nukes were installed in South Korea… Why
on earth would Pyongyang not seek a
90
nuclear deterrent? But this crucial
background doesn’t enter mainstream
American discourse. History doesn’t
matter, until it does - when it rears up and
smacks you in the face."
The DPRK’s leadership never tires of pointing out that it
doesn’t actually want to be a nuclear state; its demand is
for denuclearization of the whole Korean Peninsula.
However, given the nuclear threat that it lives with, it is by
no means unreasonable for it to develop a deterrent.
What about talks? The DPRK has consistently said it is
willing to engage in negotiations, as long as these don’t
take place in a context of bullying and threats. China has
worked hard over the years to facilitate such talks. It is
precisely the US that has made bilateral or multilateral
talks impossible, by including an unreasonable and
hypocritical precondition that the DPRK abandon its
weapons program.
Any reasonable person wants to see a nuclear-free Korean
Peninsula and to avoid a nuclear war. The key first step
towards this is for the US to drop its preconditions to
negotiations, and to lessen its aggressive stance – at least
by reciprocating the North Korean assurance of nuclear no
first use. Negotiations will need to cover a number of
tough issues, including the removal of US troops from
South Korea, removing the nuclear threat against North
Korea, and steps towards national reunification.
Resolution on these issues feels out of reach after so many
decades of mistrust, but as Selig Harrison writes in his
authoritative book, Korean Endgame: A Strategy for
Reunification and U.S. Disengagement,
“if the United States agrees to play the role
of an honest broker and to remove what
North Korea regards as threatening
aspects of its conventional force presence,
in return for missile limitations, Pyongyang
would be more likely than it is at present to
give up its nuclear weapons option and to
permit a meaningful inspection regime.”
Under international law, countries have the right to
independence and sovereignty; to choose their own path,
even if that path doesn't correspond with the needs of US
economic, political, cultural and ideological domination.
Do you want the DPRK to be less of a siege state; to
devote more resources to social welfare and less to military
development? Fine. The key to that is taking away the
constant threat of war, nuclear annihilation and regime
change.
North Korea is full of normal human beings who want to
enjoy their lives, live in peace, raise their children, learn,
love, socialize, dance, sing, and so on. They don't have the
same ideology as modern westerners, but frankly that's not
an entirely bad thing. And in many respects the DPRK is
surprisingly successful.
An internal CIA study almost grudgingly acknowledged
various achievements of this regime: compassionate care
for children in general and war orphans in particular;
“radical change” in the position of women; genuinely free
housing, free health care, and preventive medicine; and
infant mortality and life expectancy rates comparable to
the most advanced countries.
Life expectancy at birth is 70.4 years. Hospital bed density
(number of hospital beds per 1,000 of the population) is
13.2 – quadruple that of the United Kingdom. The entire
population has access to improved drinking water. The
literacy rate is 100 percent. Think these statistics come
from the DPRK’s ministry of propaganda? They’re from
.
91
the CIA World Factbook. Most developing countries
would be very happy to achieve such figures.
Bombing the Korean people would be reckless and
unjustifiable; all sides must work to avoid war. The
international community has almost unanimously
condemned the DPRK’s nuclear missile tests as an
unacceptable provocation. However, there should also be
recognition of Washington's double standards.
As General Charles Horner, former commander of the US
Space Command says:
"It's kind of hard for us to say to North
Korea, 'You are terrible people, you are
developing a nuclear weapon,' when the
United States has thousands of them."
(cited in Harrison, op cit)
It’s time to stop the escalation of tensions and for all sides
to sit down at the negotiating table.
Carlos Martinez is a political activist,
analyst and musician from London. He runs
the political history blog Invent the Future,
and produces hip-hop under the name
Agent of Change.
 You Got Trumped! Winning
Horse In Presidential Race Was Trojan
By Knave Dave
Apr 23, 2017 1:27 PM
Has there ever been a bigger or worse April fools
joke than the spectacle this month of Donald Trump
revealing the manifold ways in which he fooled the
multitudes? I sympathize with the many people who
hoped for a shot at changing the corrupt political-
industrial establishment as they feel their opportunity
evaporate around them. Their hopes were the best hope
this nation had, but the head-spinning transformation
of Trump has turned stomachs to where some of
Trump’s most ardent campaign supporters now publicly
deem him Traitor Trump. The rest are simply hoping
against hope that he is not. Everyone, conservative or
liberal, is seriously starting to wonder what happened to
Candidate Trump.
This is what April has consistently revealed: If you voted
for the Donald because you wanted to end America’s
endless wars for regime change and failed attempts at
nation building, you got Trumped. If you thought
Hillary’s red reset button with Russia was a disaster and
so you voted for the orange reset button as a path to
peace with Russia, you got Trumped. If you voted for the
Tweeter in Chief because he promised to get tough on
trade with China, you got Trumped. If you voted for
Trump in order to thump Fed Head Janet Yellen; she
doesn’t get thumped, but you got Trumped.
Back in September when he was still just Candidate
Trump, I wrote an article titled “Trump: Trojan Horse
for the Establishment or Mighty Mouth for
Mankind?” I knew that pointing out my deep
reservations about Trump would cost me readers because
I write an anti-establishment blog, and Trump was the
anti-establishment candidate of choice. I published the
article anyway. It not only cost me readers (from which I
haven’t recovered), but it also cost me websites that had
been carrying my articles. Such is the pursuit of truth
over popularity
92
Nevertheless, I continued to write on that theme in the
months that followed because I believed the warning was
important and because I choose to see and describe the
world as it is (as best I can) and not how I want it to be.
Because I criticize any political party as readily as
another, I am often seen as too conservative by liberals
and too liberal by conservatives. (I don’t get the benefit
of club membership that gains a writer an easy loyal
following.) So be it.
Here is some of that article, which is now looking like it
was spot on:
I crave the opportunity to see an anti-
establishment candidate win the election. I
would exult in seeing our
corrupt establishment shattered. So, while I
do not like Trump the man (as it would
appear he has never done anything that
didn’t entirely serve his own self-interest
and pompous ego), I have thoroughly
enjoyed seeing him upset establishment
Republicans and establishment Democrats
alike. (And, yes, they are “alike,” so let’s
just call them “the establishment” because
whether they are Republican or Democrat
is not relevant; both parties exist to serve
the same rich people and themselves
either way.)
I’ll even acknowledge that perhaps it takes someone as
brazen and blusterous as Trump in order to stand up to
such a powerful assemblage of egoists as we have
embedded in congress and in the president’s
administration, which now rules by decree…. While I
have never liked this particular publicity whore, I’d put
up with his relentless boasting and forgive his audacious
past if it takes that kind of brassy, risk-taking adventurer
to find someone with enough spine to stand up to the
intimidations of congress…. Whether or not I like him is
not important unless it is leading me to see flaws that
may mean Trump is not what he makes himself out to be.
From there, I pointed out such character flaws as made
me believe Trump would not prove to be what he was
making himself out to be. He would let his anti-
establishment supporters down hard:
Overturning a vast global establishment is the kind of
battle that will take someone with unbelievable tenacity,
intelligence, and courage. The opponents are rich, and
you can be sure some are willing to kill to keep the status
quo that is making them immensely rich
(and have killed).
Unfortunately, I have seen often in life that bellicose
people are usually nowhere near as brave as they sound.
People like Ike, who was strong in war and humble in
attitude, are usually the ones with real courage. It is not
usually the most blustery people who have the deepest
strength to carry through with the right thing for the right
reasons, regardless of cost to themselves.
Trump is aptly named for how often he blows his own
horn in order to create his own image; but his actions
show he backed out of previous presidential races when
it was clear they weren’t going to be an easy win after
getting lots of publicity for teasing people with the
possibility that he’d run. He has also backed out of many
business deals when things got rough, rather than push
forward to try to make things work….
It’s his latest political actions that concern me. In the few
places where we have seen Trump make actual political
decisions so far, his choices have been 100% pro-
establishment as I pointed out in a recent article titled
“Whirled Politics: Would you rather be Trumped or
Pillaried?” I wished very much to see something
different than what I am seeing.
The article delineated a number of tell-tale signs that
indicated Trump was anything but the anti-establishment
candidate he was presenting himself to be. I pointed out,
for example, how the Trump horse that was being
brought into the city gates was filled with neocons and
the Wall Street establishment, and how I believed they
would come to own Trump if they didn’t already. The
Trump horse was brazenly anti-establishment on the
outside, but almost total establishment on the inside.
I concluded my intro to the article with this warning:
Be careful that you don’t believe
something just because you want to
believe it so badly. That is how the
citizens of Troy were conquered in the
Trojan war. I’d love to have an anti-
establishment candidate roll in, too.
Sadly, I don’t think I do…. The time to
hold Trump to task is now, not after the
establishment makeover turns him into
their Trojan Trump card, but while they
are trying so that they don’t succeed.
And I closed the article by asking,
Is he force or farce?
April has demonstrated that Trump was either a Trojan
horse by design or, in the very least, that
his establishment makeover is nearly complete. Before
.
93
he has even finished his first hundred days as president,
President Trump has turned 180 degrees on almost every
promise Candidate Trump made, and the couple of times
Trump has tried to enact his promises, he has failed
“bigly.”
In this final week of April as Trump finishes his first
hundred days, I’m publishing a series of daily articles
that lays out the huge reversals toward serving the
establishment that Trump has already made. As Trump
would say, “They’re big! Really big! They’re the biggest
reversals you’ve ever seen.” Unfortunately, those turns
point consistently to one clear message:
“You got Trumped!”
Last week, I wrote about the Korean Missile
Crisis, and tomorrow this series will look at how
completely owned Trump has become by the military-
industrial complex. As one example among several,
Trump has revolved on Russia more quickly than I’ve
seen any politician spin, just as he did on Hillary, going
from “lock her up” to “she’s good people.”
I have to disagree with Guo Rui, the director of
the Institute of Northeast Asian Studies, who says
President Donald Trump’s domestic troubles should keep
him from engaging in a war with North Korea. I think
they may be doing just the opposite. There is nothing
like shifting the nation to a war footing to shift the
national conversation.
Did you notice how suddenly war has consumed the
press and congress so that inquests into President
Trump’s former relationship with Russia fell instantly to
the back pages of the news? Is that what the armada to
Korea that never happened, the biggest bomb in
Afghanistan, and the $50-million barrage that disabled
Assad’s airport for all of half a day were all about? Was
Trump acting alone to throw up as much flack as he
could to create distraction? Or was this month of military
muscle evidence of a Trump deal with the military-
industrial complex to get the intelligence community, the
Democrats and the McCains and Grahams in the
Republican party to back off from their Trump attacks?
We’ll close the week by looking at the degree to
which the Trump transformation has caused Trump to
lose some of his most ardent and outspoken supporters.
While some are sitting uneasily on the fence, hoping for
a better turn, others have stated emphatically,
“I’m off the Trump train!”
The following artice by David Haggith was first
published on The Great Recession Blog
 The Bait Goes On: ‘Russia Remains
Scapegoat For Hillary Clinton Losing To Trump’
Published Time: 23 Apr, 2017 13:43

losing the election and they are going after everyone. It

was a very interesting interview, and of course Carter Page
isn’t going to admit – they were trying to get him to admit
that he did something wrong, or that there should have
been probable cause. They were baiting him throughout
the entire interview on CNN, and they just want every little
nugget that they can get to blame the election on
something other than the Left and Hillary Clinton.

They are still trying to blame Russia

months and months after this election
© Stephen Morton / Getty Images for losing the election and they are
going after everyone.
Carter Page, former Trump adviser, was baited throughout
an entire interview with CNN in yet another effort to
blame the lost presidential election on something other
than the Left and Hillary Clinton, Tim Young, political
commentator and satirist, told RT.

According to the latest revelation by CNN, Russian special

services tried to use Trump advisers, including Carter
Page, to infiltrate the US Presidential elections. Citing
anonymous officials, the channel suggested Page didn't
know he'd been used by Moscow's agents.

Page says the allegations are groundless, calling the initial

report on alleged Russian meddling "a political stunt".

RT: What do you make of this latest round of allegations

about Russia's meddling in the US election? Will they ever
end?

Tim Young: These unknown sources… You can make up

anything that comes from an unknown source. I could
come to your program right now and say that - from an
unknown source that is very credible - I am the most
attractive man on the planet. And then you just have to
prove me wrong.
RT: Carter Page denies the allegations, but CNN insists
he must have been compliant. Why are they so convinced
they're right? Does the presumption of innocence still
matter in the US?
RT: What's your take on CNN's interview with Carter
Page? Some viewers complain Page wasn't listened to, and
CNN were trying to push their own agenda.
TY: Absolutely and that is what was going on. That entire
interview, which was about eleven minutes long, it seemed
like the interviewer had no desire to learn anything from
Page. He kept trying to bait him into admitting that the
FISA Court and someone else had some reason to connect
him to a crime with Russia. It was kind of ridiculous.

TY: Here’s the thing. It seems like to the Left, to the RT: Another allegation against Russia, more anonymous
people who lost this last election that it doesn’t matter – sources. Are they hiding their identities or don't the
everyone is automatically guilty. They are still trying to sources exist?
blame Russia months and months after this election for

94

TY: If somebody smart right now, they would go to a
news organization, make up a hot sounding story and
collect the pay check on it. It could be either way. These
could be completely false stories that they are just running
with a narrative. Who knows where they are coming from?
It could be the Democratic National Committee making up
95
these stories, or could be someone that is just making
profit of that. So far there has been no conclusive evidence
that anything has happened. All these sources are wrong.
RT:CNN "broke" this story on Saturday, but a similar one
was in the Washington Post ten days ago. So, what's new?
Why the obsession with so-called Russian meddling in the
elections?
TY: It is not necessarily an obsession with Russia as much
as: “I am not going to point a finger on myself for being
wrong here, I am going to point out finger at everyone
else.” The mainstream media in America does not like
Donald Trump, and loved Hillary Clinton. They are
looking for a scapegoat for losing this last election. And
this may never end at this rate. This is becoming a
ridiculous… line of stories that is coming up to try not to
take responsibility for losing an election.
 Candidate Trump: ‘I Love Wikileaks.’
President Trump: ‘Arrest Assange!’
Written by Ron Paul
Monday April 24, 2017
“I love Wikileaks,” candidate Donald Trump
said on October 10th on the campaign trail.
He praised the organization for reporting on the darker side
of the Hillary Clinton campaign. It was information likely
leaked by a whistleblower from within the Clinton
campaign to Wikileaks.
Back then he praised Wikileaks for promoting
transparency, but candidate Trump looks less like
President Trump every day. The candidate praised
whistleblowers and Wikileaks often on the campaign trail.
In fact, candidate Trump loved Wikileaks so much he
mentioned the organization more than 140 times in the
final month of the campaign alone! Now, as President, it
seems Trump wants Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
sent to prison.
Last week CNN reported, citing anonymous “intelligence
community” sources, that the Trump Administration’s
Justice Department was seeking the arrest of Assange and
had found a way to charge the Wikileaks founder for
publishing classified information without charging other
media outlets such as the New York Times and
Washington Post for publishing the same information.
It might have been tempting to write off the CNN report as
“fake news,” as is much of their reporting, but for the fact
President Trump said in an interview on Friday that issuing
an arrest warrant for Julian Assange would be, “OK with
me.”
Trump’s condemnation of Wikileaks came
just a day after his CIA Director, Michael
Pompeo, attacked Wikileaks as a “hostile
.
96
intelligence service.” Pompeo accused
Assange of being “a fraud — a coward
hiding behind a screen.”
Pompeo’s word choice was no accident. By accusing
Wikileaks of being a “hostile intelligence service” rather
than a publisher of information on illegal and abusive
government practices leaked by whistleblowers, he
signaled that the organization has no First Amendment
rights. Like many in Washington, he does not understand
that the First Amendment is a limitation on government
rather than a granting of rights to citizens. Pompeo was
declaring war on Wikileaks.
But not that long ago Pompeo also cited Wikileaks as an
important source of information. In July he drew attention
to the Wikileaks release of information damaging to the
Clinton campaign, writing,
“Need further proof that the fix was in from
President Obama on down?”
There is a word for this sudden about-face on Wikileaks
and the transparency it provides us into the operations of
the prominent and powerful: hypocrisy.
The Trump Administration’s declaration of war on
whistleblowers and Wikileaks is one of the greatest
disappointments in these first 100 days. Donald Trump
rode into the White House with promises that he would
“drain the swamp,” meaning that he would overturn the
apple carts of Washington’s vested interests. By
unleashing those same vested interests on those who hold
them in check – the whistleblowers and those who publish
their revelations – he has turned his back on those who
elected him.
Julian Assange, along with the whistleblowers who reveal
to us the evil that is being done in our name, are heroes.
They deserve our respect and admiration, not a prison cell.
If we allow this president to declare war on those who tell
the truth, we have only ourselves to blame.
 Sad ‘Morning Joe’ Is Floored That
Only Two Percent Of Trump Voters Regret Backing Him
By Curtis Houck
April 24, 2017 | 12:51 PM EDT
Just as the news media missed the boat in predicting the
outcome of the 2016 election, their behavior in 2017 have
shown they’ve learned absolutely nothing. On Monday’s
Morning Joe, the MSNBC panel was flabbergasted that the
new ABC News/Washington Post poll found only two
percent of President Trump’s voters regret voting for him.
Floored by the “remarkable number,” the liberals and
pseudo-Republicans attempted to explain away the number
and infer that it was much higher because Trump voters
wouldn’t be forthcoming with pollsters.
Co-host Joe Scarborough kicked things off, telling panelist
Mark Halperin:
But when I saw in the first poll that I read
yesterday morning, I think it was the
ABC/Washington Post poll that 96 percent
of people who voted for Trump are glad
they voted for Trump and two percent are
not glad they voted for Trump. If you're
Donald Trump, you're saying, okay, I've
done pretty damn well to go with my base.
People go, yeah, that's enough to beat
Hillary. No, the first thing you do in
American politics is you hold your base and
you win the nomination for your party and
then you get a chance to run again. I would
think that two percent would have been
closer to 10 or 15 percent.
Both Halperin and Scarborough blurted out the word
“remarkable” and Halperin fretted that
97
“there’s a tale of two Americans now”
as “[t]he people who voted for him still
happy with him, giving him a chance,
but his numbers, as Mika said, overall
are not enough to have sway with
Congress or to get things done.”
“[T]he reason I was shocked by that,
John Heilemann, it does have an impact
if you have a gerrymandered House and
you have districts that [are]
overwhelmingly Republican. If Donald
Trump is getting 96 percent, you know,
support from people who supported for
him in districts he won by 70 percent,
those House Republicans aren’t going
to move away from him,” Scarborough
replied (even if senators will).
Author and frequent panelist John
Heilemann added that this means the
President is “not in free fall” and “not
collapsing and it's also the number that
says Donald Trump can't do any of the
large, big, ambitious things that he’d
like to do.”
Co-host Mika Brzezinski read from NBC’s own poll and
then the ABC poll statistic about how few Trump voters
have dumped him. Brzezinski and Scarborough continued
to express their amazement:
SCARBOROUGH: Mika, how can that just
be two percent?
BRZEZINSKI: I’m supri — I mean, just
anecdotally we're asking Trump voters just
everywhere, they are wavering —
SCARBOROUGH: They are wavering.
BRZEZINSKI: — but maybe they still
support him. Maybe they’re wavering but
they still support him.
After more than enough complaining, Scarborough
suggested that it probably is high since
“[m]aybe they don't want to say to the
pollsters” and “it’s a tale of in the first
 month, we love him” whereas, in his
mind, its eroded since then.
The wealthy, current New England resident then
hilariously tried to claim he’s personally heard from
“a lot of Trump voters that at first month
said hell, yeah, we’re with him are gosh, I
wish the guy would just focus.”
Heilemann agreed, replying:
But that really is the difference between
wavering and abandonment, right? I think a
lot — we hear people are concerned,
worried, wavering but they’re not yet —
they’re not yet the point of Republicans.
Yes, supporters of Trump but they’re not
yet ready to say I've washed my hands of
this guy. He's a failure. They are not there
yet.
Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript from
MSNBC’s Morning Joe on April 24:
MSNBC’s Morning Joe
April 24, 2017
6:03 a.m. Eastern
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Before we go into subgroups. Mark
Halperin, I'm sure you'll disagree with me as does the entire
Twitter universe. But when I saw in the first poll that I read
yesterday morning, I think it was the ABC/Washington Post poll
that 96 percent of people who voted for Trump are glad they
voted for Trump and two percent are not glad they voted for
Trump. If you're Donald Trump, you're saying, okay, I've done
pretty damn well to go with my base. People go, yeah, that's
enough to beat Hillary. No, the first thing you do in American
politics is you hold your base and you win the nomination for your
party and then you get a chance to run again. I would think that
two percent would have been closer to 10 or 15 percent.
MARK HALPERIN: It's one of the remarkable numbers.
SCARBOROUGH: That’s remarkable number.
HALPERIN: And it's certainly because there's a tale of two
Americas now. The people who voted for him still happy with him,
giving him a chance. But his numbers, as Mika said, overall are
not enough to have sway with Congress or to get things done.
This is a big week for him.
SCARBOROUGH: Except —
MIKA BRZEZINSKI: Huge week.
98
SCARBOROUGH: — except and again, for people going, I
mean, the reason I was shocked by that, John Heilemann, it does
have an impact if you have a gerrymandered House and you
have districts that overwhelmingly Republican. If Donald Trump is
getting 96 percent, you know, support from people who
supported for him in districts he won by 70 percent, those House
Republicans aren’t going to move away from him. The senators
will. Joni Ernst will. But that number right there is significant
because he holds onto support in the House.
JOHN HEILEMANN: This is the number that says Donald Trump
is not collapsing and it's also the number that says Donald Trump
can't do any of the large, big, ambitious things that he’d like to
do. They are both true. He's not in free fall. There's a time a few
weeks ago where we thought, well, he could be down in the mid-
30s.
SCARBOROUGH: When he was like 34, 35 percent? That’s free
fall.
HEILEMANN: He gets there, then he's be in free fall and people
who would be his normal supporters in Congress start to say,
hey, you have no ability it sway me, you have no way intimidate
me, forget about you, buddy. Right now he's for the in collapse
but he's equally not able to do anything large at this level.
SCARBOROUGH: Exactly.
BRZEZINSKI: He's got this big marker coming up. So among
subgroups in NBC poll, the president has a positive 85 point net
approval rating among his own voters and a 69 point rating
among Republicans but he is at negative 23 points with
independents, a number that was only negative 10 back in
February and as we just showed, when Trump voters were asked
by The Washington Post poll about their decision to back him,
only two percent regret their support.
SCARBOROUGH: Mika, how can that just be two percent?
BRZEZINSKI: I’m supri — I mean, just anecdotally we're asking
Trump voters just everywhere, they are wavering —
SCARBOROUGH: They are wavering.
 SCARBOROUGH: Maybe they don't want to say to the pollsters.
Again, it’s a tale of in the first month, we love him. Second month,
you know, and now into the third month, I'm hearing a lot of
Trump voters that at first month said hell, yeah, we’re with him
are gosh, I wish the guy would just focus.

HEILIEMANN: But that really is the difference between wavering

and abandonment, right? I think a lot — we hear people are
concerned, worried, wavering but they’re not yet — they’re not
yet the point of Republicans. Yes, supporters of trump but they’re
not yet ready to say I've washed my hands of this guy. He's a
failure. They are not there yet.
BRZEZINSKI: — but maybe they still support him. Maybe they’re
wavering but they still support him.
.

99
 Trump Spits On America Again
By Jim Kirwan
4-24-2017
...While Trying to Applaud Israel
“...Today we're reminded of this
organizations long and heroic history of
fighting for the Jewish people. Your brave
leaders warned the world of the planned
attrocities that sought to extinguish an
entire people. ...we look back at the darkest
chapter of human history. We morn, we
remember, we pray, and we pledge
“NEVER AGAIN”. I say it 'never again'.
The mind cannot fathom the pain, the horror and the loss.
Six million Jews, two thirds of the Jews in Europe,
murdered by the Nazi genocide. They were murdered by
an evil that words cannot describe and that the human
heart cannot bear.
On this Holocaust Rememberance Day we tell the stories
of the father's, mothers's and children, whose lives were
extinguished; and whose love was torn from this earth. We
also tell the stories of courage in the face of death.
Humanity in the face of Barbarity, and the unbreakable
spirit of the Jewish people.
Today only decades removed from the Holocaust we see a
great nation risen from the desert and we see a proud Star
of David. Waving above the State of Israel...”
President Trump's Remarks to the World
Jewish Congress Plenary Assembly
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zB_r91
afuz0
3min 54sec VIDEO
For a sitting president of the United States to publicly lie
so profusely about the history of the Apartheid State of
Israel in a public proclamation, defending the pack of lies
that have long since been refuted by experts is obsene
100
given the facts of the massive slaughter of the Palestinian-
prisoners of War which Israel has been murdering by the
hundreds of thousands since 1948. Israel is an ever
spreading blood-stain upon the planet, that must be
silenced if history is to ever recapture anything like real
life or prgress anywhere in the currently known world.
Apparently Trump has forgotten that he is not the president
of Israel, he is supposed to be the president of All
Americans; would that he be arrested and charged for lying
about the true facts that accompany this fake saga of the
much amplified “plight of the Jews” when it was those
same Jews that actually launched their own war against
Germany in 1942 not to mention all their crimes
committed Against America and American troops
worldwide. Mabe it's time that Israel is thrown out of the
civilized world for the one hundreth and tenth time,
apparently the first 109 times were not enough...
Since Trump began to lose his mind, in public: First with
59 Tomahawk missiles that he launched on Syria to no
partictular point or purpose which he followed up a few
days later with “The Mother of All Bombs” somewhere
inside Afghanistan again with no military reason even
mentioned. It is as though Trump has clearly lost his mind.
Apparently he is also unaware that it is the responsibility
of the president to exercise total control over all branches
of the United States Military, at all times, and yet he just
gave away all the powers of control over the entire US
military to a bunch of feckless faceless generals, without
any civilian surpervision over any of our forces anywhere
in the wider world.
USS Michigan nuclear sub heads to South Korea, and is
expected to make a port of call on Tuesday
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/24/politics/uss-michigan-
nuclear-sub-south-korea/
Then just this morning Trump has called together all one
hundred U.S.senators in Washington on Wednesday for
something to do with Korea?
Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North Korea
briefing
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-
senate-idUSKBN17Q1LR
On Friday Secretary Rex Tillerson plans on charring a “These deals represent the tremendous
special meeting of the United Nations Security Council, on excitement that American companies feel
North Korea, this Friday in New York City. about opportunities in Indonesia,” said
Pence....”
Tillerson to Chair Meeting on North Korea
The country of Indonesia has the highest population on the
http://thehill.com/policy/international/un-treaties/330271- planet...
tillerson-to-chair-un-meet-on-north-korea
Pence announces $10 bn in deals on Indonesia trip
“JAKARTA: US Vice President Mike Pence
announced $10 billion in deals between
American and Indonesian companies http://www.arabnews.com/node/1088041/world
during a visit to Jakarta Friday, as he
pushed for greater access to Southeast Now wrap this whole charade up with this:
Asia’s top economy.
Kremlin advisor reveals 'cure' for US Aggression
Eleven deals were signed. Energy firm Exxon Mobil,
General Electric, and aerospace giant Lockheed Martin http://tass.com/politics/942643
were among the American companies involved in the
agreements.
kirwanstudios@outlook.com

101
 Insane Shrinks Say Trump
Mentally Ill: Official Science Howls At The Moon
By Jon Rappoport
April 24, 2017

My readers are familiar with my extended refutation of “The definition of NPD states that it
psychiatry as science. Here I’ll focus on the latest piece of comprises of a persistent manner of
non-logic from professional know-nothings. grandiosity, a continuous desire for
admiration, along with a lack of empathy. It
The Daily Mail: starts by early adulthood and occurs in a
range of situations, as signified by the
existence of any 5 of the next 9 standards
“A group of leading psychiatrists told a
(American Psychiatric Association, 2013):
conference that Donald Trump has clear
hallmarks of mental illness that A grandiose logic of self-importance
compromise his role as president. Twenty-
five researchers made a drastic break  A fixation with fantasies of infinite success, control,
away from ethical standards by meeting at brilliance, beauty, or idyllic love
Yale University on Thursday to discuss  A credence that he or she is extraordinary and
evidence questioning the commander-in- exceptional and can only be understood by, or should
chief’s mental health.” connect with, other extraordinary or important people or
institutions
Psychiatrist Allen Frances, who has played a central role in  A desire for unwarranted admiration
defining mental disorders, disagrees. He wrote in the NY  A sense of entitlement
Times:  Interpersonally oppressive behavior
 No form of empathy
 Resentment of others or a conviction that others are
“Most amateur diagnosticians have
resentful of him or her
mislabeled [Mr. Trump as having]
 A display of egotistical and conceited behaviors or
narcissistic personality disorder… He may
attitudes
be a world-class narcissist, but this doesn’t
make him mentally ill…”
Another model, characterizes NPD as having fair or
superior impairment in personality functioning, apparent
Dr. Frances makes an interesting point. He distinguishes
by characteristic troubles in at least 2 of the following 4
between behavior and earning a badge for having a
areas (American Psychiatric Association, 2013):
particular mental disorder.

1. Individuality
For example, a person can be sad, but that alone doesn’t
2. Self-direction
make him a candidate for the label, “clinical depression.”
3. Empathy
A person can take aggressive actions against authority, but
4. Closeness
that doesn’t necessarily mean he is suffering from
Oppositional Defiance Disorder.
No actual physical characteristics are seen with NPD, but
patients may have concurrent substance abuse, which may
If that were all there was to this story, I wouldn’t bother
be seen in the clinical examination.”
writing about it. There is another layer, however. The press
isn’t discussing it, because the press is clueless.
Got it? Now, think about this:
Consider the accusation that Trump has Narcissistic
Personality Disorder (NPD). What does that mean? What NOWHERE IN THE DEFINITION IS
is the official definition of NPD? Here is an excerpt from THERE ANY DEFINING DIAGNOSTIC
the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, TEST.
the official bible of the American Psychiatric Association.
Go ahead, plow through it, it’ll only take a minute: No blood test, urine test, saliva test, brain scan, genetic
assay. Nothing.
102
What you’ve just read is a collection of behaviors. This
collection was assembled by a committee of psychiatrists,
who decided that, taken together, they added up to a
mental disorder.
There is no defining diagnostic test for NPD.
We’re talking about psychiatrists sitting in a room and
arbitrarily deciding that a cluster of behaviors adds up to
an official mental disorder.
These psychiatrists are playing word games. They’re
inventing so-called mental disorders.
Underneath this story about Trump and the shrinks, there
is a far more important truth. Psychiatrists are world-class
purveyors of fake news. They always have been. Because
you see…
None of the roughly 300 officially certified
and labeled mental disorders has a
defining diagnostic test. None.
If you have the tenacity, read through the whole DSM and
you will see for yourself.
Or read this brief exchange. In a PBS Frontline episode,
“Does ADHD Exist?”, Dr. Russell Barkley, an eminent
professor of psychiatry and neurology at the University of
Massachusetts Medical Center, spelled out the fraud
clearly.
Here it is.
PBS FRONTLINE INTERVIEWER:
Skeptics say that there’s no biological
marker—that it [ADHD] is the one condition
out there where there is no blood test, and
that no one knows what causes it.
BARKLEY: That’s tremendously naïve,
and it shows a great deal of illiteracy about
science and about the mental health
professions. A disorder doesn’t have to
have a blood test to be valid. If that were
.
103
the case, all mental disorders would be
invalid…There is no lab test for any mental
disorder right now in our science. That
doesn’t make them invalid.
Oh, indeed, that does make them invalid. Utterly and
completely. All 300 mental disorders. Because there are no
defining tests of any kind to back up the diagnosis.
Psychiatrists can sway and tap dance all they like and they
won’t escape the noose around their necks. We are looking
at a science that isn’t a science.
That’s called fraud. Rank fraud.
Imagine this. You walk into a doctor’s office, you talk
with him for a few minutes, and then he says:
“You have cancer. You need to start chemo
at once.”
After you recover, you say,
“You didn’t give me a test.”
And he says,
“Well, we don’t need a test. We know what
the symptoms are because we convened a
high-level meeting of oncologists last year,
and we listed the answers to the questions
I just asked you. You gave those telltale
answers. So we start chemo tomorrow. We
may also need to surgically remove an
organ or two before we’re done.”
That’s psychiatry. That’s the way it works.
Those boys have quite a con going. And now, from a few
hundred miles away, they’ve diagnosed a sitting president.
Well, why wouldn’t they? They’ve been shucking and
jiving all the way to the bank for the entirety of their
professional lives.
 Trump Has Dangerous Mental Illness
By Ian Greenhalgh
April 24, 2017
The Independent
Donald Trump has ‘dangerous mental
illness’, say psychiatry experts at Yale
conference
Mental health experts say President is
‘paranoid and delusional’
Donald Trump has a “dangerous mental
illness” and is not fit to lead the US, a
group of psychiatrists has warned
during a conference at Yale University.
Mental health experts claimed the President was “paranoid
and delusional”, and said it was their “ethical
responsibility” to warn the American public about the
“dangers” Mr. Trump’s psychological state poses to the
country.
Speaking at the conference at Yale’s School of Medicine
on Thursday, one of the mental health professionals, Dr.
John Gartner*, a practising psychotherapist who advised
psychiatric residents at Johns Hopkins University Medical
School, said:
“We have an ethical responsibility to warn
the public about Donald Trump’s
dangerous mental illness.”
Dr. Gartner, who is also a founding member of Duty to
Warn, an organisation of several dozen mental health
professionals who think Mr. Trump is mentally unfit to be
president, said the President’s statement about having the
largest crowd at an inauguration was just one of many that
served as warnings of a larger problem.
104
“Worse than just being a liar or a narcissist,
in addition he is paranoid, delusional and
grandiose thinking and he proved that to
the country the first day he was President.
If Donald Trump really believes he had the
largest crowd size in history, that’s
delusional,” he added.
Chairing the event, Dr. Bandy Lee, assistant clinical
professor in the Yale Department of Psychiatry, said:
“As some prominent psychiatrists have
noted, [Trump’s mental health] is the
elephant in the room. I think the public is
really starting to catch on and widely talk
about this now.”
James Gilligan, a psychiatrist and professor at New York
University, told the conference he had worked some of the
“most dangerous people in society”,
including murderers and rapists — but that
he was convinced by the “dangerousness”
of Mr. Trump.
“I’ve worked with some of the most
dangerous people our society produces,
directing mental health programmes in
prisons,” he said.
“I’ve worked with murderers and
rapists. I can recognize dangerousness
from a mile away. You don’t have to be
an expert on dangerousness or spend
fifty years studying it like I have in order
to know how dangerous this man is.”
Dr. Gartner started an online petition earlier this year on
calling for Mr. Trump to be removed from office, which
claims that he is “psychologically incapable of
competently discharging the duties of President”. The
petition has so far garnered more than 41,000 signatures.
It states:
“We, the undersigned mental health
professionals (please state your degree),
believe in our professional judgment that
Donald Trump manifests a serious mental
 illness that renders him psychologically
incapable of competently discharging the
duties of President of the United States.
“And we respectfully request he be
removed from office, according to article 4
of the 25th amendment to the Constitution,
which states that the president will be
replaced if he is ‘unable to discharge the
powers and duties of his office’.”
The claims made in the conference have drawn criticism
from some in the psychiatric establishment, who say they
violate the American Psychiatric Association’s “Goldwater
rule,” which states psychiatrists are not to give
professional opinions on people they have not personally
examined.
They have also been condemned by Republicans,
including Connecticut Republican Party Chairman JR
Romano, who accused the group of
“throwing ethical standards out the window
because they cannot accept the election
results.”
Responding to the criticism, Dr. Gartner said:
“This notion that you need to personally
interview someone to form a diagnosis
actually doesn’t make a whole lotta sense.
For one thing, research shows that the
psychiatric interview is the least statistical
reliable way to make a diagnosis.”
A spokesperson for Yale University told The Independent
the panel at the conference abided by the Goldwater rule
during the discussions, but that the organiser was
“troubled” by the “silencing of debate”.
“The panel at Yale School of Medicine
abided by ‘the Goldwater rule’. Eminent
.
105
psychiatrists were invited to speak about
whether there are other ethical rules that
override it, as in ordinary practise,” said the
spokesperson.
“The organiser, Dr. Bandy Lee, agrees with
the Goldwater rule but is troubled by its
recent expansion (as of March 16, 2017)
and the silencing of debate. She hopes that
the public and politicians will understand
that mental health issues are not to be
used as a weapon, just as other health
issues are not.
“Dr. Gartner was invited as an activist and
was not on the actual panel. The organiser
emphasises that the event was
independently organised and did not
represent the views of Yale University or
Yale School of Medicine.”
The doctors have said that even if it is in breach of
tradition ethical standards of psychiatry, it was necessary
to break their silence on the matter because they feared
“too much is at stake”.
It is not the first time Mr. Trump’s mental health has been
called into question. In February, Duty to Warn, which
consists of psychiatrists, psychologists and social workers,
signed an open letter warning that his mental state
“makes him incapable of serving safely as
president”.
The letter warned that the President’s tendency to “distort
reality” to fit his “personal myth of greatness” and attack
those who challenge him with facts was likely to increase
in a position of power.
* John D. Gartner has not been affiliated with Johns
Hopkins since 2015
 Entire U.S. Senate To Go To
White House For North Korea Briefing
By Patricia Zengerle | WASHINGTON
Tue Apr 25, 2017 | 9:59am EDT
U.S. President Donald Trump (R) speaks next to Secretary of State
Rex Tillerson during a bilateral meeting with China's President Xi
Jinping (Not Pictured) at Trump's Mar-a-Lago estate in Palm Beach,
Florida, U.S., April 7, 2017. REUTERS/Carlos Barria
Top Trump administration officials will hold a rare
briefing on Wednesday at the White House for the entire
U.S. Senate on the situation in North Korea.
All 100 senators have been asked to the White House for
the briefing by Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary
of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of National Intelligence
Dan Coats and General Joseph Dunford, chairman of the
Joint Chiefs of Staff, said White House spokesman Sean
Spicer on Monday.
While administration officials routinely travel to Capitol
Hill to address members of Congress on foreign policy
matters, it is unusual for the entire Senate to go to the
White House, and for all four of those officials to be
involved.
Wednesday's briefing was originally scheduled for a secure
room at the Capitol, but President Donald Trump
suggested a shift to the White House, congressional aides
said.
Washington has expressed mounting concern over North
Korea's nuclear and missile tests, and its threats to attack
the United States and its Asian allies.
Trump, who called the leaders of China and Japan during
the weekend, told U.N. Security Council ambassadors on
106
Monday that "the status quo" is not acceptable, and said
the council must be ready to impose new sanctions.
Congressional aides suggested the briefing was being held
at the White House to underscore the message to North
Korea that Washington is serious about wanting a shift in
policy.
A senior Trump administration official said the flurry of
activity around North Korea was
"not a part of something choreographed"
and cautioned against over-interpretation.
Senators said they were happy to be hearing from the
White House.
"It's (the location) their choice," said
Senator Ben Cardin, the top Democrat on
the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. "I
hope that we hear their policy as to what
their objectives are, and how we can
accomplish that hopefully without dropping
bombs."
Republican Senator Lindsey Graham said the
administration should be telling senators it had a "red line,"
if it has one.
"By 2020, if nothing changes inside of
North Korea, they'll have the technology,
they'll have a breakthrough, to develop an
ICBM (intercontinental ballistic missile) that
can reach America. I hope this president
will say that's a non-starter," Graham said.
The briefing will take place at 3 p.m. EDT (1900 GMT).
Aides said they were working with the White House to
schedule a similar briefing for the House of
Representatives.
(Additional reporting by Steve Holland and Richard
Cowan; Editing by Jeffrey Benkoe and Lisa Shumaker)
A Global Catastrophe Is Being Orchestrated By The Elites:
“There Are Many Things The President Does Not Know”
Jeremiah Johnson
April 24th, 2017
Following the money is always the key and crucial element
to determining the “probable cause/modus operandi”
regarding to globalist actions. Although there are many
who believe that President Trump is the panacea to all our
problems, even they may perhaps admit that there are
forces other than the President that drive our country, as
well as the world. The shadowy cabal of globalists,
Bilderbergers, bankers, and other secretive organizations
bent on a “union” of totalitarian control are almost too
numerous to count.
There are many things the President
does not know. This is intentional on
the part of the moneyed interests that
control the very fabric of our society.
The interests are corporate, political, and religious: a three-
level tier of control over all the facets of human society.
Just as one individual person cannot “dominate” one of
these sectors, the sectors themselves cannot dominate.
They are forced into a symbiotic relationship rooted in
commensalism, where each of these “parasites” benefits
the other two.
The problem lies in the fact that these interests are elitists
who believe in the forced imposition of their philosophies
upon the masses. They also believe in “culling the herd,”
and maintaining a servile population at minimum levels to
carry out all menial labor and industrial production (the
Deltas and Epsilons of Huxley’s Brave New World) as
they direct.
107
Patiently these elitists have been
awaiting the day when their “1984”
society is a reality, crafting and shaping
it all along throughout the decades.
The numbers of humanity pose a problem, because they
cannot effectively eradicate all necessary without a large-
scale plague or a war, and after such an event, the planet
itself might be unsustainable.
The key question for them: how to kill
off about 6 to 6 ½ billion people without
destroying the world?
The most efficient way would be with a limited nuclear
war that destroyed enough key targets to minimize postwar
effectiveness of the major powers, in a manner that does
not irradiate most of the warring nations. The key to the
entire equation is to take down the United States. The
EMP (Electromagnetic Pulse) is the weapon of choice.
This would paralyze all the infrastructure, leading to (as so
eloquently outlined in the book “One Second After”)
mass die-offs and the reduction of populations to pre-
industrial societies.
The shielded and stocked communities of the elite could
just sit back and allow the populations to destroy
themselves and whittle down the numbers. After a time
(most likely already estimated and predetermined),
mercenary forces of the elitists could emerge to mop up
the remnant, enslaving and subjugating them completely.
The question isn’t whether this is in the works:
it is.
The elite have been following such plans as revealed in the
Iron Mountain Report, and the moneyed interests have
been crafting their plans long before House wrote Philip
Dru, Administrator, as he and Wilson created the Federal
Reserve and laid the roots for the cancer that is pervasive
and underlying the thin veneer of our phony, Hallmark-
Card society.
The numerous articles about the millionaires and
billionaires forming “intentional communities” and
compounds/complexes for the purpose of surviving an
apocalyptic event/societal collapse are not inaccurate. The
widespread reports of tunnel complexes, nonstop truck
deliveries, and the diversion of taxpayer-funded
government resources to secret locations throughout the
United States are not inaccurate. Jesse Ventura was
investigating many of these matters before the moneyed
interests put a stop to his actions and he retired from the
field without fanfare. Everyone who has exposed or
threatened to expose them has either been marginalized or
destroyed. Just as people search for the “one” hero, they
are also easily manipulated to focus upon “one” villain,
such as a Kim Jong-Un, or a Bashar al-Assad. Substitute
the name “Emmanuel Goldstein” for either of them before
the Two-Minutes Hate is conducted.
Fast forward to now. The bottom line is that when
different factors come together “coincidentally” the
probability for action by the elites and the point of no
return is increased exponentially.
They haven’t ushered in their era yet;
they will not until they’re certain they
can pull it off, but they will eventually
make a play for it.
These power-brokers will not commit themselves in the
gamble unless they’re sure of a win.
For this reason, it is important to monitor
the hot spots for those convergent
points to know when something is likely
to occur: when the possibility exists,
and the probability increases.
One of those points of convergence is this week.
The North Koreans are supposed to test another nuclear
device on or about the 25th of this month.
.
108
 “Coincidentally,” that EMP “drill” named Operation
Gotham Shield is supposed to run through April 25th,
and possibly a little longer.
 Coincidentally, there was a power outage in three
different U.S. cities: San Francisco, Los Angeles, and
New York City on Thursday.
 Coincidentally, Russian bomber and intelligence-
gathering aircraft have been flying test runs along the
coast of Alaska, for four days straight with the U.S. and
even Canada scrambling fighters to intercept.
 Coincidentally, the Russians claim to have electronic
devices with an EMP-type effect, already used against
the USS Donald Cook, a guided missile destroyer with
Tomahawk missiles back in November of 2014.
 Coincidentally, the U.S. naval armada is set to arrive in
the waters off the Korean coast on April 26th… right in
line with the EMP drill “Operation Gotham Shield.”
All these factors point
toward a false flag.
If the opportunity to pull such a false flag off arises, they
will seize upon it. Trolls without number try to disparage
this concept… the “nothing has happened yet, therefore
nothing will happen” crowd. The ones who are so certain
that all of this is just “fear porn” or a “sham” of some
kind…don’t pay their nonproductive and perhaps
remunerated redundancies any mind.
The whole point is to be aware of what
is going on and try to survive it.
Be that “10th man” as outlined in the film World War Z,
and consider what the herd has been conditioned not to
consider, and it might improve your chances to survive
what is coming: what the elites have planned and will
trigger with a False Flag.
“No matter how improbable it may
seem, the tenth man has to start
thinking with the assumption that the
other nine are wrong.”
 Oh My: Democratic Congressman Tells Child That
President Trump Is More Dangerous Than A Terrorist
Matt Vespa
Posted: Apr 24, 2017 12:45 PM

Back to Eden’s question:

“I think you should be concerned,”

DeSaulnier said. “This is dangerous stuff.
I’ve said a few times, the most
dangerous person in America isn’t a
terrorist, it’s the person who’s president
of the United States. So Eden, you’ve got
to read, you have to be thoughtful, and you
have to be engaged.”

Well, if you want another example of Trump Derangement This is ridiculous.

Syndrome, just look to Rep. Mark DeSaulnier (D-CA),
who told an 11-year-old girl that President Trump is more Democrats are telling people that the president of the
dangerous than a terrorist. The East Bay Times reported on United States is more dangerous than a terrorist.
this exchange at a town hall event. A girl named Eden was
that last questioner, but a staffer read it because it was past
What drugs do you have to be on to actually believe this is
her bedtime [emphasis mine]:
true?
My name is Eden, and I’m 11 years old. My
It's just another case of Democrats failing to respond to the
mom is worried about my future with
stinging defeat they suffered last November.
President Trump. On election night, my
mom cried. Kids at my school are worrying
about being deported. I’ve read and heard They don’t get that their agenda is too far left; they don’t
awful things about him. Should I be worried get that more voters view them as more out of touch on the
about my future? As a kid, what can I do issues than Republicans; and this serving up of red meat,
about it?” (i.e. bashing Trump and saying he’s worse than ISIS) isn’t
going to help them move forward. At the same time, I hope
they continue this death spiral.
“From the mouths of babes,” DeSaulnier said, apparently
affected by the question. And who wouldn’t be? The toxic
national discourse is dispiriting enough for adults. To hear A new ABC News/Washington Post poll showed that while
that it is trickling down to affect 11-year-olds? Trump’s approval isn’t solid, virtually no one who voted
for him has regrets. Clinton's support, on the other hand,
would have dropped six points. If the election were held
“It’s interesting,” he would say a few days
again today, Trump would still win—and he would also
later. “The night before in Richmond,
win more popular votes than the former first lady. So,
something similar happened. Both
telling kids that Trump is more threatening than a terrorist
instances were a little out of body for me. I
really isn't going help you win elections, but please keep
sort of responded to the way people were
on whining, left wingers.
responding to me.”
.

109
 Trump Tells UNSC Members
Status Quo On N Korea 'Unacceptable'
© Ap Photo/ Susan Walsh Us
20:57 24.04.2017(Updated 00:07 25.04.2017)
The UN Security Council should be
ready to issue a set of new punitive
measures against North Korea, US
President Donald Trump said prior to a
working lunch with ambassadors of the
Council’s 14 member states on Monday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Trump underlined that
North Korea remains "a real threat to the world" and a
problem that must be resolved as soon as possible.
"The status quo on North Korea is
unacceptable and the Council must be
prepared to impose additional and stronger
sanctions on North Korean nuclear and
ballistic missile programs," Trump told
reporters.
110
Earlier on Monday, US Ambassador to the UN Nikki
Haley stated that North Korean leader Kim Jong Un should
not take any provocative actions that may cause retaliation
against him with US military force.
On April 14, media reported that Trump might direct a
military strike against Pyongyang if the country's
leadership decides to launch another nuclear weapon test.
The North Korean General Staff responded with threats
of a "preemptive strike" against US military bases in Japan
and South Korea, as well as the presidential residence
in Seoul in case of US aggression.
The Pentagon sent the naval group from Singapore
toward North Korea earlier in April amid tensions on the
Korean Peninsula. US President Donald Trump said an
"armada" has been sent, but the date and time of the drill
remains unknown.
After it turned out that the Carl Vinson deployed to deter
North Korea did not reach the Sea of Japan reportedly
because White House and Pentagon failed to communicate
effectively and was spotted near Indonesia, it was reported
that it will finally reach the Korean Peninsula later this
month. The armada's current location is unknown.
 US Advocacy Group Warns
Of Corporate Takeover Of White House
Mon Apr 24, 2017 10:10PM
US President Donald Trump (C) signs the Memorandum Regarding
the Investigation Pursuant to Section 232(B) of the Trade Expansion
Act at the White House in Washington, DC, April 20, 2017, with
Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross (L). (Photo by AFP)
A Washington-based nonprofit
consumer advocacy group
is warning about the extraordinary grant
of power to corporate businesses and
the enrichment of US President Donald
Trump’s private businesses by the
administration.
In a report published on Monday, the head of Public
Citizen group sounded the alarm bells about Trump's
frequent meetings with corporate executives and also high-
profile positions in his administration occupied by former
business leaders.
“We are nearly 100 days into the Trump
administration, and it’s clear that there has
been a wholesale corporate takeover of the
government,” said Robert Weissman.
Since taking office, Trump has met with nearly 200
corporate executives while shaping America's future
policies. He also filled the vacancies in his cabinet with the
people who have strong ties with corporate America,
.
111
including Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin and
National Economic Council Director Gary Cohn (Goldman
Sachs), Secretary of State Rex Tillerson (Exxon Mobil),
Secretary of Defense James Mattis (General Dynamics)
and Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao (Wells
Fargo).
“Corporate interests are directly driving
policy on everything from pesticides to
China, regulation to for-profit college rip-
offs. Meanwhile, Trump is degrading the
office of the presidency to promote the
Trump brand, and the ethical vacuum in the
White House is ensuring that mega-
scandals will ensnare this administration.
America has never seen anything like this,
and we have endured only the first three
months,” Weissman noted.
The report further criticized Trump for destroying the
protective regulations established by former US president
Barack Obama, saying that the new rules could hurt
consumers, the environment and public health.
"Trump has signed 13 Congressional
Review Act resolutions passed by a GOP-
led Congress that were deemed gifts to big
business because they would roll back
regulatory protections established by the
Obama administration and were opposed
by industry. These have eradicated
protections for broadband privacy, Alaskan
wildlife, worker health and safety, women's
health and streams used to dump coal
mining waste."
 Trump’s First 100 Days:
Already Achieved Massive Cuts In Federal Regulations
By: JD Heyes
Date: April 25, 2017
President Donald J. Trump’s biggest accomplishments
since taking office Jan. 20 have come without much help at
all from the Republican-controlled Congress, which in and
of itself is a story. Still, the populist president has managed
to accomplish a great deal of what he promised during the
campaign, and that includes dramatically scaling back the
jobs-and-opportunity-killing federal regulations.
While negotiations are either ongoing or have just begun
regarding major legislation including an Obamacare
repeal-and-replace measure, as well as tax reform, Trump
has begun chipping away at the rules and regulations that
stifle the American dream for tens of millions.
(RELATED: What Donald Trump Just Said About
Regulations Is HUGE And Ought To Make Every
Business Owner And Job Seeker Happy)
As reported by The Daily Signal, it’s not as if Trump
hasn’t gotten any help at all from the Republican-
controlled Congress. Under this president, Republicans
have managed to roll back scores of last-minute Obama-
era rules using a little-known (and before now, little-
employed) law known as the Congressional Review Act.
Here’s how it works.
Passed in 1996 as part of the Contract With American
Advancement Act (Section 251), the law gives Congress
the power to disapprove a wide range of regulations that
are issued by federal agencies, generally speaking within
60 days of the rule being transmitted to Congress. The
disapproval must come in the form of joint resolution,
which must then be signed by the president.
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Until now, the law had not been used much because the
congressional majority differed from the party that held the
White House. Now, Republicans hold both.
But more than that, the GOP has an ally in Trump in that
the former businessman campaigned on the promise of
rolling back the federal bureaucracy, including last-minute
rules enacted by his predecessor.
“We’re excited about what we’re doing
so far. We’ve done more than that’s
ever been done in the history of
Congress with the CRA,” Rep. Doug
Collins, R-Ga., told The Daily Signal.
Here are some ways Congress and Trump have used the
CRA to thwart some of Obama’s rules:
 Coal mining regulations: Under House Joint
Resolution 41 (H.J. Res. 41), rules mandated by
Obama and finalized in 2016 were dismantled. The
rules “threatened to put domestic extraction companies
and their employees at an unfair disadvantage,” said
White House spokesman Sean Spicer. The measure
repealed rules that could save U.S. businesses
somewhere around $600 million a year.
 Streams – and coal mines: H.J. Res. 38 blocked
Obama administration rules which provided a vague
definition of what constituted a “stream” and which was
directed specifically at coal mining operations.
“Complying with the regulation would have put an
unsustainable financial burden on small mines,” said
Spicer.
 Protecting gun rights for the disabled: H. J. Res. 40
did away with an Obama rule that would have denied
some Americans with disabilities their right to keep and
bear arms “based on their decision to seek Social
Security benefits,” said Spicer.
Essentially the rule prohibited anyone who needed help
managing their affairs from getting a gun, but there was
no due process requirement in the regulation – denial
would have simply been up to the next bureaucrat in
line at some federal agency.
 Land management: H. J. Res. 44 undid a rule that
critics say put way too much power to manage and
 administer public lands in the hands of Washington
agencies. “The Obama administration wanted to shift
land policy from local governments with specific
expertise to the federal government, basically shifting
even more of the land management policy away from
those affected by it,” said Sen. Mike Lee, R-Utah.
 So-called Internet ‘privacy’: This rule, Spicer said,
essentially allowed “bureaucrats in Washington to pick
winners and losers in the industry.” Sen. Jeff Flake, R-
Ariz., introduced a resolution to block the regulation,
saying it would help keep consumers in charge of how
they want to share information electronically.
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With some backing from Congress and working on his
own, Trump is making good on promises to roll back
federal rules and regulations, giving the free market and
enterprising Americans back their ability to innovate and
grow the economy. (RELATED: As Trump Approaches
His 100th Day, Here Are The Promises He’s Kept And
Is Likely To Keep)
Trump, it is said, is establishing a “legacy” of
deregulation, even more so than did President Ronald
Reagan. As his 100th day in office approaches, he is
planning even more executive action aimed at cutting
federal rules.
 Trump’s ‘Big, Beautiful Wall’
Collides With Congress
Liz Goodwin - Senior National Affairs Reporter
April 25, 2017
Then-candidate Donald Trump visiting the U.S.-Mexico border in the
summer of 2015. (Photo: Rick Wilking/Reuters)
WASHINGTON — President Trump reportedly backed
off his demand that Congress include a down payment for
a wall spanning the entire U.S.-Mexico border in a crucial
spending bill that must pass by Friday night to keep the
government funded.
Republican lawmakers have urged the president to focus
on border security in general instead of the wall, which
Democrats have called a poison pill that would cause them
to reject the bill and shut down the government.
Trump told a group of conservative reporters he invited to
the White House on Monday that he was open to getting
funding for the wall in September when Congress debates
the 2018 budget, the Associated Press reported. This is a
sharp reversal from his position over the weekend and
early Monday, when he doubled down on his demand for
the wall. Trump tweeted repeatedly that the wall is
necessary to stop the flow of drugs into the United States.
“If the wall is not built, which it will be, the
drug situation will NEVER be fixed the way
it should be!” Trump exclaimed Monday,
adding: “#BuildTheWall.”
On Tuesday morning, the president claimed he had not
changed his position on the wall as the “fake media” was
claiming, but he didn’t specify whether he still believed he
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would get the funds in this week’s spending bill, which
increasingly looks like a political impossibility.
The president may have realized that with Democrats
ready to shut down the government over the wall and
many lawmakers in his own party skeptical of it, there was
little chance of reaching a deal on his signature campaign
promise before the Friday night deadline. Some critics
noted that Trump had long promised that Mexico — and
not the U.S. — would pay for the wall’s construction.
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer, D-N.Y., praised Trump
in a statement for taking the wall “off the table.” He had
earlier called the demand a “monkey wrench” the president
had thrown into sensitive negotiations between the parties
over a series of spending bills to keep the government
funded for the next five months.
But it’s possible the president will find a way to declare
victory even if his call for a wall goes unanswered by
Congress. Several Republican senators urged the president
to think of the “big, beautiful wall” he promised on the
campaign trail as symbolic of border security in general.
That way, the president could declare any increase in
border spending in the spending bill a victory, right as his
presidency passes the symbolic 100-day mark on Friday.
“Border walls and fences are part of an
overall plan, but there will never be a
2,200-mile wall built. Period,” Sen. Lindsey
Graham, R-S.C., told reporters Monday
evening. “I think [the wall] has become
symbolic for better border security. So it’s a
code word for better border security.”
Graham said the president would still be in “good shape” if
he gets funding for border security in the spending bill
that’s not specifically for a wall.
Sen. Thom Tillis, R-N.C., also pushed for interpreting
“border wall” as border security in general. “I know it’s
being generally referred to as a border wall, but I think it’s
the efforts to make sure that Border Patrol can have
adequate funding for the people, technology and
infrastructure they think they need to secure [the border],”
Tillis said.
“I think we can be less prescriptive about
exactly what the structure looks like and
more focused on the fact that we need to
secure the border.”
Both House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., and
Schumer have signaled openness to funding border
115
security in the spending bill as long as it doesn’t go to
construction of a wall or the “deportation force” Trump
mentioned during the campaign. The Democrats could
theoretically agree to funds for more surveillance
technology on the border, or to hire and train more border
patrol agents. But it’s harder to imagine them supporting
an increase in Immigration and Customs Enforcement
(ICE) agents, since they enforce immigration laws
internally in the United States and not at the borders.
Meanwhile, one of the president’s staunchest defenders in
Congress defended the delay of the president’s campaign
promise, urging Americans to be patient.
“He said we would build a wall and Mexico
would pay for it, … but he never said
when,” Rep. Louie Gohmert, R-Texas, said
Monday night on Fox Business. “Some
things just take time and don’t occur real
quick. I think that’s the way with the wall.”
 Dan Savage Raises 100K With
‘Impeach The Mother F**Ker Already’ Gear
By Sarah Stites
April 25, 2017 | 11:45 AM EDT

Dan Savage and his liberal followers want to impeach the

president, but they’re not putting it that nicely.

The groups he’s supporting should come as no surprise.

“This morning I had the distinct pleasure of

In an April 18 Instagram post, the gay speaker/activist
enthused about his recent project—selling hats, coffee
mugs, pins and other gear emblazoned with the acronym
ITMFA (“Impeach The Mother F**ker Already”).
Although he first began the initiative under the presidency
of George W. Bush, Savage resurrected the project to
support
“critically important and hugely effective
organizations fighting Donald Trump.”
“We’re in for a long and ugly four years,
readers,” he wrote in a January 25 blog
post. “Let’s raise some money for groups
fighting Trump, let’s bring ITMFA back into
our everyday vocabulary, and let’s
remember that we ― people who voted
against Trump, people who want to see
him out of office as quickly as possible...
are the majority.”
mailing off checks to Planned Parenthood
($33,333.34), the ACLU ($33,333.33) and
the International Refugee Assistance
Project ($33,333.33),” Savage wrote. And
although he met his $100,000 goal, he’s
going to strive to raise just as much in a
new wave of sales.
Besides supporting progressive causes, the activist
enthused over the “best part” of wearing the swag —
“when people are going to ask you what
ITMFA stands for and YOU GET TO TELL
THEM it stands for 'Impeach The Mother
F**ker Already!’”
But if kids are around, he conceded, you could replace the
“MF” with "Malicious Fascist," "Malodorous Fart" or
"Malignant Fraud."
Not like Savage really cares about polluting kids’ minds.
As the creator of the ABC comedy The Real O’Neals,
Savage has not shied away from the use of offensive
language, anti-Catholic content and flagrant sexual and
LGBT content.

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 The Madder Trump Gets,
The More Seriously The World Takes Him
By Robert Fisk
April 25, 2017
The more dangerous America’s crackpot President
becomes, the saner the world believes him to be. Just look
back at the initial half of his first 100 days: the crazed
tweeting, the lies, the fantasies and self-regard of this
misogynist leader of the Western world appalled all of us.
But the moment he went to war in Yemen, fired missiles at
Syria and bombed Afghanistan, even the US media Trump
had so ferociously condemned began to treat him with
respect. And so did the rest of the world.
It’s one thing to have a lunatic in the White House who
watches late night television and tweets all day. But when
the same lunatic goes to war, it now emerges, he’s a safer
bet for democracy, a strong President who stands up to
tyrants (unless they happen to be Saudis, Turks or
Egyptians) and who acts out of human emotion rather than
cynicism.
How else can one account for the extraordinary report
in The New York Times which recorded how Trump’s
“anguish” at the film of dying Syrian babies had led him to
abandon “isolationism”?
Americans like action, but have typically confused
Trump’s infantile trigger finger with mature decision-
making. What else is there to think when a normally sane
US columnist like David Ignatius suddenly compares
Trump to Harry Truman and praises his demented
President for his “flexibility” and “pragmatism”?
This is preposterous. A madman who goofs off at
something he doesn’t like on CNN is just plain wacky. A
man of unsound mind who attacks three Muslim countries
– two of which were included in his seven Muslim nation
refugee ban – is a danger to the world. Yet the moment he
fires 59 missiles at Syria after more than 60 civilians die in
an apparent chemical attack which he blames on Assad –
but none after far more are massacred by a Syrian suicide
bomber – even Angela Merkel takes leave of her senses
and praises Trump, along with the Matron of Downing
Street, Signora Mogherini and sundry other potentates.
Hasn’t someone cottoned on to the fact that Trump is now
taking America into a shooting war?
Handing more power to the Pentagon – about the most
perilous act of any US President – means that Defence
117
Secretary James “Mad Dog” Mattis is now encouraging
the head-chopping Saudis to bomb Yemen – adding even
more American intelligence “assets” to this criminal
enterprise — and encouraging the Gulf Arabs’ delusional
idea that Iran wants to conquer the Arab
world. “Everywhere you look,” Mattis told his Saudi hosts
this month, “if there’s trouble in the region, you find Iran.”
Is that the case with Egypt, then, now under Isis attack as
its President “disappears” thousands of his own people? Is
that the case in Turkey whose even more crazed President
has now locked up tens of thousands of his own people
while turning himself into a dictator-by-law?
Let’s just briefly take a look at Trump’s reaction to Recep
Tayyip Erdogan’s dodgy referendum, which has given him
a Caliph’s power over Turkey. A round-up of the latest
figures from Turkey by the French newspaper
Liberation show that there have been 47,000 arrests since
last year’s attempted coup, 140,000 passports revoked,
120,000 men and women fired from their jobs (including
8,000 military officers, 5,000 academics, 4,000 judges and
lawyers, 65 mayors and 2,000 journalists). One thousand
two hundred schools and 15 universities have been closed
down, 170 newspapers, television and radio stations shut.
And after the referendum which gave Erdogan a narrow (if
very dubious) majority to legitimise these outrages, Trump
called the Turkish President to congratulate him on his
victory. Just as he continues to congratulate Egyptian
President Abdul Fattah al-Sisi in his “battle” against
“terror”, a war which al-Sisi – whose coup d’etat against
Egypt’s first elected president originally brought him to
power – appears to be losing. Al-Sisi, Trump enthused,
would be someone “very close to him”.
We know that the US Special Forces raid on Yemen, in
which Navy Seal William Owens died, killed more
civilians than al-Qaeda members. We don’t know (or, I
suspect, care) very much what the “mother of all bombs”
did in the Nangahar province of Afghanistan. First it killed
60 Isis fighters. Then it killed 100 Isis fighters and not a
single civilian – surely a first in US military history? But
then, weirdly, nobody has been allowed to go to the site of
this monster bomb’s explosion. Because civilians were
indeed killed? Or because – and this is a fact – Isis
survivors went on fighting American ground troops after
the bombing?
Now Trump is sending a naval battle group to threaten
North Korea, a past master at childish threats itself. Ye
gods! And this is a man who is now “flexible” and
“pragmatic”? It’s instructive to note that after its first
edition, The New York Times changed its headline about
Trump’s Syrian “anguish” to “Trump Upends His Own
Foreign Policy”, still gifting him with a “foreign
policy” (which doesn’t exist) while cutting out the
“anguish”. I am told the first original edition headline read:
“On Syria Attack, Trump’s Heart Came First”. Intriguing.
If that is correct, you can see how The New York
118
Times slowly – far too slowly – realised it had itself started
to fall in love with its shooting-from-the-hip President.
Now we await the battle for Korea, forgetting that earlier
war which drowned the peninsula in blood, American and
British as well as Korean and Chinese. Maybe Trump, in
his vague, frightening way, has decided that Southeast
Asia will be his real war. And there, of course, the
comparison with Truman gets rather too close to home.
For Truman only came in at the end of the Second World
War, after Roosevelt’s death, and his crowning wartime
achievement was also in Southeast Asia: the atom-
bombing of Hiroshima and Nagasaki.
Heaven spare us the next 100 days.
 Matthews Strongly Defends, Re-Ups Comparing Trump
Family To Romanovs, Saddam’s Children
By Curtis Houck
April 25, 2017 | 9:41 PM EDT
Showing that he’s somewhat incapable of shame,
MSNBC’s Hardball host Chris Matthews re-upped and
defended on Tuesday night his near-endless comparisons
of the Trump family to the ultimately-slaughtered
Romanovs and Saddam Hussein’s murderous sons Uday
and Qusay.
Matthews was discussing First Daughter/Assistant to the
President Ivanka Trump’s visit to Germany with NBC
News political analyst Nicolle Wallace and Salon’s Joan
Walsh when he briefly suggested that Ivanka was only 27
years old getting prime seating at events like dinner with
the Chinese president.
For the record, Ivanka is 35 and will turn 36 in October,
but keep trying!
“There's a young person who’s never
worked in the government sitting next to
the President of China at a major event.
Sitting next to the President of China.
Another time she's sitting next to —
what's her name — to the chancellor of
Germany. These people must look over
and say, what is she doing here except
she's the President's daughter,”
Matthews whined.
Mirroring his litany of previous Romanov references,
Matthews used this 13th reference in 2017 to remind his
audience that he’s used this label
“because there's something about the
President who presumes that this is a
119
royal family taking its place at the table
of power” and thus both “un-American”
and “untraditional.”
In a brief aside, one has to wonder: What was the entire
Clinton family then?
After Wallace expressed her dismay at the arrangement but
clarified that this shouldn’t be everyone’s top concern
when it comes to the Trump administration.
Matthews returned, turning to Walsh and seemingly
changing his tune from April 11 when he stirred the pot,
quipping about how
“we know what happened to the
Romanovs”
in the end after their family lost power. Here he was:
MATTHEWS: Well, neither me, but I'm
fascinated by the Romanovs. Last word, do
you like the Romanovs? Do you like that
image? I'm not talking about what
happened to them ultimately —
JOAN WALSH: No, no, no.
MATTHEWS: — but I’m talking the power
they have over their country because of
their birth.
The far-left blogger agreed, stating that
“it fits...but I also think it means this
man does not have that many people
around him outside of his family that he
trusts, that he's developed a
relationship of trust with and that
bothers me also.”
Matthews seemed to be stepping back from the ledge of
incivility but quickly ran back as he resurrected the Uday
and Qusay Hussein comparison to Ivanka and husband
Jared Kushner (previous used here and here):
 Who wants to take on Jared Kushner in a
meeting on the Middle East? Have that
conversation. Scared to death. Everybody
— oh my gosh, they don't want to say
nothing. Anyway, little bit like Uday and
Qusay. Not that bad. Nicolle Wallace, thank
you, Joan Walsh, thank you. I shouldn’t be
that tough but I am.
Here’s the relevant portion of the transcript from
MSNBC’s Hardball on April 25:
MSNBC’s Hardball
April 25, 2017
7:24 p.m. Eastern
when it comes to their politics, were so comfortable dealing with
an American political family.
MATTHEWS: Yeah sure. Of course they are. But they're not a
democratic country.
WALLACE: But yeah and your question is it American? I mean,
there is no real precedent for this. I think it's weird too. I just have
to say, though, for all of the temperamental concerns that I have
about Donald Trump, for me, Ivanka being in an official capacity
in the White House is not one of the many, many, many things
that keeps me up at night.
MATTHEWS: Yeah, I know. Well, either me, but I'm fascinated
by the Romanovs. Last word, do you like the Romanovs? Do you
like that image? I'm not talking about what happened to them
ultimately —

JOAN WALSH: No, no, no.

MATTHEWS: — but I’m talking the power they have over their
country because of their birth.

WALSH: Right, I think it fits, Chris, but I also think it means this
man does not have that many people around him outside of his
family that he trusts, that he's developed a relationship of trust
with and that bothers me also.
CHRIS MATTHEWS: Well, let's get to the role that she plays
because of her father. I don't know about you, Nicole, but I know
your sense about the status like we all are, we watch status
statements that you don't want to be seated below the salt at a
meeting. You don’t want to be at the end of the table. Look at the
seating this person has gotten. At the age, what is she? 27? I
don’t know how old she is. There's a young person who’s never
worked in the government sitting next to the President of China at
a major event. Sitting next to the President of China. Another
time she's sitting next to — what's her name — to the chancellor
of Germany. These people must look over and say, what is she
doing here except she's the President's daughter. I've said the
Romanovs because there's something about the President who
presumes that this is a royal family taking its place at the table of MATTHEWS: I agree.
power. It is un-American. It is untraditional. It's somewhat weird,
although I know it must be comforting to have your kids around WALSH: So, you know, like Nicole, I'm — I’m in some ways glad
and I understand your son-in-law. I get the comfort factor. But is it she's there because I don't want bad things to happen. But it's
American? Your thoughts first, Nicolle. also — it's wrong. It's just wrong.

NICOLLE WALLACE: I'm going to quote John Oliver in The New
York Times in that order. John Oliver who was riffing on this over
the weekend said, you know, they're like our — our royal couple
except they're both very attractive, and then in The New York
Times leading up to the China meeting, there was a whole article
about how the Chinese, who deal in the family dynasty business
.
MATTHEWS: Who wants to take on Jared Kushner in a meeting
on the Middle East? Have that conversation. Scared to death.
Everybody — oh my gosh, they don't want to say nothing.
Anyway, little bit like Uday and Qusay. Not that bad. Nicolle
Wallace, thank you, Joan Walsh, thank you. I shouldn’t be that
tough but I am.

120
 President Trump’s First
100 Days In Office: Major Accomplishments
President Fulfills Long List Of Campaign Promises
Roger Stone | Infowars.Com
April 25, 2017
WASHINGTON, D.C. – Noting that this
coming Saturday, April 30, 2017, marks
President Trump’s 100th day as
president, the White House has begun
listing accomplishments.
“In his First 100 Days President Trump has
taken dramatic steps to undo burdensome
regulations, restore law and order, bolster
our military, revive the American dream,
change Washington by holding it
accountable, put the American worker first
and confirm Supreme Court Justice Neil
Gorsuch,” the White House press office
said in a statement published Monday.
“The people who put him in office can see
and feel the promises he is delivering on.
According to a new ABC News/Washington
Post poll, an incredible 96% of those who
supported the President in November say
they’d do it again today,” the White House
statement continued.
The White House also summed up President Trump’s first
100 days in office “by the numbers, noting the following:
 Enacted more legislation and signed more executive
orders in the First 100 days than any president in a half
century;
 Enacted 28 pieces of legislation, more than any other
president since Truman;
 Signed 25 executive orders, the most of any 100 days
in over 50 years (will be over 30 by day 100);
 Achieved first Supreme Court Confirmation in 100 days
since 1881;
121
 Instituted tough immigration policies that have driven
illegal border crossings to a 17-year low;
 Removed more job-killing regulations through
legislation than any president in U.S. history;
 Estimated savings: $18 billion annually;
 Economic optimism has been renewed, with consumer
confidence reaching its highest level in 16 years; and
 Ordered the toughest new rules to stop the revolving
door between Washington lobbyists and government
officials in history.
Already, the Trump administration can point to
accomplishments that fulfill campaign promises.
The Associated Press reported on March 3, 2017 that
according to the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment
claims dropped by 19,000 from 242,000 the previous week
to the lowest level in 44 years, since March 1973, when
Richard Nixon was president.
The Labor Department further reported that 2.07 million
Americans are collecting unemployment insurance, down
more than 7 percent from a year ago.
The Labor Department considers the U.S. job market to be
solid, with employers adding a healthy 227,000 jobs in
January, pushing the unemployment rate to 4.8 percent,
close to what economists consider full employment.
On Feb. 28, 2017, Fox News reported there was a
significant drop in illegal immigration across the southwest
border during President Trump’s first month in office
compared to that of the last three months of the Obama
presidency, according to U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CPB).
In January 2017, 31,575 individuals were taken into
custody between ports of entry on the southwest border,
compared with an average of more than 45,000 for each of
the previous three months, according to the CPB.
In an effort to detail President Trump’s major
accomplishments, Infowars.com surveyed the White
House press releases since the Inauguration on Jan. 20,
2017, coming up with a detailed list, focusing on
Executive Orders and legislation signed since President
Trump became president.

 Estimated savings: $18 billion annually;

 Economic optimism has been renewed, with consumer
confidence reaching its highest level in 16 years; and
 Ordered the toughest new rules to stop the revolving
door between Washington lobbyists and government
officials in history.

Already, the Trump administration can point to

accomplishments that fulfill campaign promises.

The Associated Press reported on March 3, 2017 that

according to the U.S. Department of Labor, unemployment
claims dropped by 19,000 from 242,000 the previous week
to the lowest level in 44 years, since March 1973, when
Richard Nixon was president.

The Labor Department further reported that 2.07 million

Americans are collecting unemployment insurance, down
more than 7 percent from a year ago.

The Labor Department considers the U.S. job market to be

solid, with employers adding a healthy 227,000 jobs in
January, pushing the unemployment rate to 4.8 percent,
close to what economists consider full employment.

On Feb. 28, 2017, Fox News reported there was a

significant drop in illegal immigration across the southwest
border during President Trump’s first month in office
compared to that of the last three months of the Obama
presidency, according to U.S. Customs and Border
Protection (CPB).

In January 2017, 31,575 individuals were taken into

custody between ports of entry on the southwest border,
compared with an average of more than 45,000 for each of
the previous three months, according to the CPB.

In an effort to detail President Trump’s major

accomplishments, Infowars.com surveyed the White House
press releases since the Inauguration on Jan. 20, 2017,
coming up with a detailed list, focusing on Executive
Orders and legislation signed since President Trump
became president.

122
123
.

124
 Trump Taps Ex-Cheney
Middle East Advisor For Senior Pentagon Post
© AP Photo/ Andrew Harnik - US
03:29 25.04.2017

“President Donald J Trump today

announced his intent to nominate… Robert
Story Karem of Washington District
of Columbia to be an Assistant Secretary
of Defense, International Security Affairs,”
the release stated on Monday. “Karem has
previously served in the White House as a
Middle East policy advisor to Vice
President Richard B. Cheney.”

Karem has also served as a foreign advisor to Cheney

at the American Enterprise Institute in Washington, DC,
US President Donald Trump will the release stated.
nominate a former Middle East policy
advisor to Vice President Dick Cheney Additionally, Karem had roles in the US Senate as a
to a senior position in the Department of Legislative Assistant to Majority Leader Mitch
Defense’s bureau on global security, the McConnell, and in the US House of Representatives as the
White House said in a press release. national security advisor to Majority Leaders Eric Cantor
and Kevin McCarthy, according to the release.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — The White House
announced Trump will nominate Robert Story Karem
for the post an Assistant Secretary of Defense,
International Security Affairs.

125
 CNN's Camerota Jokes About
Whether Guest Called Trump 'Maniac,' 'Insane'
By Brad Wilmouth
April 25, 2017 | 3:09 PM EDT
On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, during a pre-recorded
segment in which CNN's Alisyn Camerota was seen
speaking with six Donald Trump voters about how they
view the President's performance, the New Day host
cracked a joke about whether one panel member was
calling President Trump a "maniac" and "insane," or North
Korean dictator Kim Jong-Un.
After Camerota brought up the issue of North Korea, two
panel members -- one of whom regrets voting for Trump --
debated what should be done about North Korea's missile
program. The piece then switched to a clip of recurring
panel member and former New Hampshire State Rep. Paul
Johnson, who injected:
"Of course you have to talk and try to come
to a resolution. I mean, the guy is a
maniac. He's insane. But --"
A clip of Camerota was then seen smiling as she quipped:
"I know you're talking about Kim Jong-Un."
As the panelists laughed, and one male voice could be
heard proclaiming,
"Not Trump," Johnson smiled and
responded: "I'm glad you clarified that."
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the
Tuesday, April 25, New Day on CNN:
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Are you comfortable with where the
administration is today on North Korea?
126
SCOTT MCCOMMONS, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: I'm
not because, you know what, if these panelists believe --
some of the panelists believe that he gets the wrong
information and goes into North Korea and does something
stupid, it could be detrimental to this country. It really could.
CAMEROTA: Are you comfortable with the tough talk against
North Korea?
MCCOMMONS: You know what, I'll take any tough talk from
President Trump if he's going to back it up, but he's not
backing it up.
KRAIG MOSS, VOTED FOR DONALD TRUMP: What can we
do, though? What we've got a leader of a country that has
been flaunting the fact that he has these missiles, and he
sends them up. Do we have to wait until one of them is
nuclear-tipped and takes out one of our allies?
MCCOMMONS: Absolutely not. I'm not saying --
MOSS: Then I have to agree that, you know, we as a country
need to say, you know, "We're not going to turn our head
anymore." You know, this is something that I'm very
passionate about.
MCCOMMONS: You think tough talk will take care of that?
MOSS: I don't know about the tough talk, okay.
FORMER STATE REP. PAULA JOHNSON (R-NH): Of
course you have to talk and try to come to a resolution. I
mean, the guy is a maniac. He's insane. But --
CAMEROTA (smiling): I know you're talking about Kim Jong-
Un.
(Everyone laughs.)
UNIDENTIFIED MALE VOICE: Not Trump.
JOHNSON: I'm glad you clarified that.
 73% of Americans Want Independent
Probe of Russia's Alleged Election Meddling
© Sputnik/ Anton Denisov - US
06:45 25.04.2017(updated 07:30 25.04.2017)
A majority of Americans want an
independent investigation into Russia's
alleged involvement in the 2016 US
election, a new NBC News/Wall Street
Journal poll revealed on Monday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — An independent
investigation is favored by 73 percent of those surveyed;
just 16 percent wanted Congress to investigate.
A majority of Americans, 54 percent, still think that
Congress should look into possible contact between Russia
127
and the Trump campaign, which is nearly unchanged
from the same poll in February.
The poll found that only 39 percent had "some" or a "great
deal" of confidence in Congress' ability to run a fair and
impartial investigation.
The poll had a margin of error of 3.3 percentage points.
On March 20, the FBI and NSA heads testified in front
of the House Intelligence Committee during the first public
hearing on the alleged Russian meddling in the 2016
election. During the hearing, both Comey and Rogers
repeated the conclusions writted in the US intelligence
report released in January, which was mostly based
on media publications and social media. They also
confirmed that Russia in any way did not affect the vote
tallies in the US.
Moscow rejected having any secret ties to Trump and
repeatedly refuted allegations of interference in the US
elections. Trump has also rejected claims of undercover
dealings with Russia.
 New York Times Correspondent
Praises Trump’s Handling Of The Media
By Randy Hall
April 25, 2017 | 6:01 PM EDT

going to win. You know, winning the

Electoral College is, for a Republican, is
close to impossible, and I won it quite
easily.

And I think they are still recovering from that.

The topic then changed to Susan Rice, President Barack

Obama’s national security adviser, and her mishandling of
surveillance.

“It’s a bigger story than you know,” the

president stated. “Take a look at what’s
It’s no secret that many members of the press have been
happening. I mean, first of all, her
unhappy with the way President Donald Trump has usually
performance was horrible yesterday on
dealt with the “mainstream media.” However, on Monday,
television even though she was interviewed
April 24, New York Times White House Correspondent
by Hillary Clinton’s P.R. person, Andrea
Glenn Thrush actually praised the way the administration
Mitchell [the NBC News journalist].”
has handled its daily press conferences.
“What other people do you think will get
“When Obama had press conferences, he ensnared in this?” Thrush asked. “Can you
had a single piece of white paper and he give us a sense? How far this might extend
had six or seven organizations that he had -- ?”
pre-selected to call upon, and a lot of them “I think from the previous administration,”
were favorable to him,” Thrush stated. Trump noted before Thrush asked: “How
“Trump’s free-ranging press conferences, I far up do you think this goes? Chief of
think, are a lot more democratic than the staff? The president?”
way Obama conducted them.”
“I don’t want to say, but you know who,”
the president replied. “You know what was
The reporter’s statement comes after a wide-ranging going on. You probably know better than
interview on April 5 with Trump by several people at the anybody.”
Times, including Thrush and thus perhaps a reason why
Thrush offered praise for this aspect of the Trump
Trump then downplayed the suggestion that Russia
administration, but more on that later.
actually interfered in the nation's 2016 presidential
election, calling the concept
The reporter’s first question dealt with the nomination of
Neil Gorsuch to the Supreme Court:
“a total hoax. There has been absolutely
nothing coming out of that.”
“Why do you think Democrats feel the need
to oppose Gorsuch? What do you think the
When Thrush changed the topic to the use of chemical
politics is?”
weapons by Syria’s leader against his own people, Trump
said:
Trump replied:
“I think it’s a disgrace. I think it’s an affront
Well, I think that some of it had to do with to humanity. Inconceivable that somebody
the election. They thought they were

128
 could do that. Those kids were so
beautiful.”
“What do you think it says about the role of
Russia in Syria?” the correspondent asked.
“I think it’s a very sad day for Russia
because they’re aligned, and in this case,
all information points to Syria that they did
this,” Trump responded before noting that
the action was “very disappointing.”
.
129
“I never talk about what I do militarily,” he
continued. “I’ve been complaining about
that for years.”
After praising the Trump administration’s handling of the
press and taking part in a lengthy interview with the
president, could Thrush be looking for future
opportunities to speak with Trump or anyone on his staff?
Only time will tell.
 Trump Is Advised By Liars,
Like Bush Was
By Eric Zuesse
Global Research, April 25, 2017

Here will be documented that Donald Trump is now

clearly following in George W. Bush’s (and Barack
Obama’s) footsteps, being advised by liars, who deceive
the public into invading, on false pretexts — the chief
crime for which the Nazi military leaders at Nuremberg
were tried and executed. Now it’s America’s leaders, who
should be in the docks. This is an ugly reality, in which
America’s press is complicit by refusing to report it.
Indeed, America’s press is essential to the success of the
government’s fraud, which certainly succeeded against
Saddam Hussein in 2003, and which is again succeeding
As will be shown here, the U.S. federal against Bashar al-Assad now.
government, under President Donald
Trump, is repeating the very same
deception of the public, in regard to Syria’s
Bashar al-Assad, that it had perpetrated
back in 2002, against Iraq’s Saddam
Hussein, under U.S. President George
W. Bush. (By contrast, and for secret
reasons, the U.S. federal government does
everything possible to downplay the
barbarisms, such as are occurring in
Yemen, that are perpetrated by the
fundamentalist Sunni Kings of Saudi
Arabia, and Emirs of Qatar, even while
exaggerating the barbarisms by the
fundamentalist Shiite clerics who control There is a debate as to whether George W. Bush himself
Iran — a key ally of the secular and non- was a liar (which he certainly was), but there is no debate
fundamentalist Shiite leader of Syria. about whether his advisors were liars (which they also
were). For example, regarding “Saddam’s WMDs,” Bush’s
The U.S. ‘news’ media display no curiosity, Vice-President Dick Cheney said, on Aug. 26, 2002:
at all, to understand, much less to explain
to their public, why that partiality of the U.S.
“Simply stated, there’s no doubt that
government, in favor of fundamentalist
Saddam Hussein has weapons of mass
Sunni governments, against any Shiite
destruction.”
governments, exists; but, all of the 9/11
jihadists were fundamentalist Sunnis, and There certainly WAS “doubt” (and there
Al Qaeda itself is a fundamentalist Sunni was, in fact, no evidence at all that any
operation, as is ISIS; and these facts have active WMD program still existed in Iraq at
something to do with that ‘mystery’, of why the time when the United States invaded in
the U.S. ‘news’ media and government are 2003 and destroyed Iraq by our invasion).
so partial in favor of fundamentalist Sunnis, Dick Cheney was, quite simply, lying, there.
against Shiites. America’s soldiers are People who deny it are of only two types:
actually fighting foreign wars for foreign arrogant in their ignorance of the facts, or
powers who are claimed to be ‘allies’, but else outright liars themselves.
who are actually the ones that invade
America and slaughter Americans.) (Indeed, the infamous neoconservative Bill Kristol, and
other neocons at that time, were citing Cheney’s allegation
130
prominently as providing ‘a compelling case’ that we
should invade. It was no such thing, and the fascist —
euphemistically called “neoconservative” — Kristol
subsequently campaigned to get James Mattis elected as
the next President after Barack Obama, but succeeded
ultimately only in getting President-elect Donald Trump to
appoint Mattis to run U.S. foreign policy instead, from the
post of Mattis’s being Trump’s Pentagon chief and actual
top foreign-affairs advisor.) In today’s America, such
fascists aren’t embarrassed and shunned (much less
executed, or otherwise dealt with as war-criminals) — they
remain influential and powerful, in today’s Amerika.
Cheney was declared by the ‘news’media to have been the
nation’s “Chief Operating Officer” in G.W. Bush’s
Presidency, but that appellation was valid primarily for
Bush’s foreign policies (including all military matters). So,
that’s what we’re talking about here, the policies that have
international significance, these being the policies
regarding which any nation’s aristocracy tends to be the
most unified, and are therefore the most important to
America’s oligarchs — though often ignored by the
general public, and left by them simply to trust the
President on, and so we invade, again. And again. Very
profitable, for the chief stockholders in the weapons-
making firms.
The reliance that Bush had placed upon his Vice President,
big Dick Cheney, to make determinations about whether or
not to invade, is now the reliance that Trump places
upon his Secretary of ‘Defense’, today’s equally soft-
spoken big stick, James Mattis, to decide whether or not to
invade. Although Mattis is unlike Cheney in regards to
torture, both of these two key Presidential advisors,
Cheney and Mattis, share a lot in common, and Trump’s
placing military decisions in Mattis’s hands is, as Kristol
knew, very much like a second G.W. Bush Presidency, just
combined with a bit of the more ‘proper’ neoconservatism
of Barack Obama’s Presidency. (Obama was actually even
worse than Bush was in some important respects — but a
much more skillful liar than Bush was.)
131
On Friday April 21st, Mattis said at a press conference,
“There can be no doubt in the international
community’s mind that Syria has retained
chemical weapons in violation of its
agreement and its statement that it had
removed them all. There is no longer any
doubt,” just as there wasn’t any doubt
according to Cheney back in 2002 — “no
doubt that Saddam Hussein has weapons
of mass destruction.”
But, just as Cheney lied then about Saddam Hussein, in
order to invade, Mattis lies now about Bashar al-Assad, in
order to invade. (And here was that very same authority
disproving the allegation against Assad, back on 14
January 2014: disproving then Barack Obama’s
Administration’s continuing lies alleging at that time, that
Assad instead of the U.S. and its allies were behind the
2013 “red line” sarin gas attack in Syria — and Seymour
Hersh’s similar finding, in confirmation of that Obama-lie,
via Britain’s MI6.)
So, just like with George W. Bush, U.S. President Donald
Trump is relying upon not only the advice, but also the
military judgment, of clear-cut liars. They lie their way
into invasions, just like Hitler did. And, just like happened
with President George W. Bush, the debate among
historians will be as to whether President Donald Trump is
merely a fool who demands to be encircled by yes-men, or
is, himself, instead, a knowing liar, who can be
distinguished from President Barack Obama solely by the
latter’s having been a far slicker liar than Bush or Trump
(such as Obama displayed himself to be, here, and here).
Meanwhile, Trump helps his new-found friends, the
fundamentalist-Sunni royal owners of Saudi Arabia, to
create a famine and slaughter Shiites in their neighboring
country of Yemen, after the U.S. had sold $130 billion in
weapons to those Saudi royals and their fellow
fundamentalist-Sunni royals (and other Sunnis) assisting in
this slaughter of Yemenis.
Instead of Trump’s doing war against “radical Islamic
terrorists”, they turn out to be his friends.
 Donald Trump’s Failing Presidency
By Robert Parry
April 25, 2017

The 100-day mark may be an artificial measuring stick for
a U.S. president. Obviously much can happen in the
remaining 1,361 days of a four-year term. But Donald
Trump’s decisions in his first three months in office have
put him on an almost irreversible path to failure.
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017.
(Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
He now appears to be little more than a traditional
Republican with more than a little dash of Kardashian
sleaze in him, a boorish reality-TV star reading from a
neocon script that could have been written for many of his
GOP rivals, except he delivers his lines with worse
grammar and a limited vocabulary, favoring imprecise
words such as “beautiful” and “sad.”
Trump also has the look of a conman. He sold himself as a
populist who would fight for the forgotten Americans, but
is following domestic policies aimed at comforting his
super-rich friends while afflicting his most loyal blue-
collar supporters.
He promises a tax package that will give huge breaks to
the already well-to-do; he backed a Republican health-care
plan that would have left 24 million Americans without
insurance but saved billions for billionaires; he shows no
sign of delivering on his trillion-dollar infrastructure plan
although he keeps pushing his “beautiful” wall across the
entire border with Mexico; and his hectoring of U.S.
companies to stop exporting jobs has been more show than
substance.
On the foreign policy front, Trump has broken his vow to
move away from endless war and needless confrontation –
and avoid their extraordinary costs in blood and treasure.
After months of getting newspaper-slapped by the
mainstream media over Russia-gate, Trump has put his tail
between his legs and become a housebroken dog to neocon
132
dogma. He also licks the hand of Israel and Saudi Arabia
as he and his team keep repeating the favorite Israeli-Saudi
mantra that “Iran is the principal sponsor of terrorism.”
His administration also blames Iran – not Israel, Saudi
Arabia and indeed the United States – for Middle Eastern
instability. But it was President George W. Bush and his
neocon advisers who devised the disastrous invasion of
Iraq with Israeli backing; it was President Barack Obama
and Secretary of State Hillary Clinton who pushed for
“regime change” in Libya and Syria, another Israeli-Saudi
priority; it was Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State allies that
have armed Al Qaeda, Islamic State and other Sunni
terrorist groups; it is Israel that has persecuted the
indigenous Palestinian population for generations and
invaded Lebanon among other neighbors.
For all its faults, Iran has mostly opposed these operations
and is now contributing military forces to fight Islamic
State and Al Qaeda militants in Iraq and Syria. Yet, Trump
has now conformed to the upside-down view of the Middle
East that all the “important people” of Official Washington
know to be true, that it’s all Iran’s fault, except – of course
– what can be pinned on Russia.
Trump as Sociopath
Under intense pressure from the Democratic and
Republican establishments – and facing an intelligence-
community-driven hysteria over vague links between some
of his advisers and Moscow – Trump has further buckled
on his pledge to improve relations with Russia, instead
ratcheting up rhetoric and threats.
President Donald Trump welcomes Chinese President Xi Jinping to a
state dinner during their summit at Mar-a-Lago, Florida, on April 6,
2017. (Screen shot from whitehouse.gov)
Trump earned Official Washington’s pat on the head for
firing 59 Tomahawk missiles at Syria on April 6 before
any careful evaluation of a chemical-weapons incident in
northern Syria could be conducted, an action that Hillary
Clinton and the neocon-dominated commentator class of
Official Washington just loved.
Trump regaled Fox Business Network’s Maria Bartiromo
with the tale of how he disclosed the missile strike to
Chinese President Xi Jinping during a state visit to
Trump’s estate at Mar-a-Lago, giving the impression that
he might be similarly reckless in attacking North Korea.
Trump said he delivered the news over “the most beautiful
piece of chocolate cake that you’ve ever seen,” allowing
him to gauge the shock on Xi’s face.
“I said, ‘Mr. President, let me explain
something to you’ — this was during
dessert — ‘we’ve just fired 59 missiles’ —
all of which hit, by the way, unbelievable,
from, you know, hundreds of miles away,
all of which hit, amazing,” Trump said.
“And he [Xi] was eating his cake. And he
was silent,” Trump continued, adding that
the Chinese president paused for 10
seconds before asking his interpreter to
repeat what Trump had said. Trump clearly
was relishing the moment, although it
appears that a number of the Tomahawk
missiles missed the targeted Syrian airbase
with some striking a nearby village, killing
nine civilians including four children, Syrian
media reported.
Though Trump insisted that Xi approved of the attack,
Trump’s sociopathic behavior most likely confirmed to Xi
that Trump really is as mindlessly dangerous as many
critics have warned.
Trump seems to enjoy watching shocked looks on people’s
faces. I’m told that he explained to an associate that one of
his joys in grabbing women by “the pussy” is to see their
stunned reaction, fitting with his boast to Billy Bush of
“Access Hollywood” that women are powerless to object
given his status as a star.
“When you’re a star, … you can do
anything,” Trump said. “Grab ’em by the
pussy. You can do anything.”
Trump is more respectful — and obedient — toward men
with real money. His head was surely turned when
Sheldon Adelson, one of Israel’s most devoted advocates
who has publicly suggested dropping a nuclear bomb
inside Iran to coerce its government to do what Israel
wants, donated a record $5 million to Trump’s inaugural
festivities.
Indeed, what we have learned about Trump in the first 100
days is that he is a thin-skinned, insecure narcissist who
obsesses over slights and relishes tangible signs of praise
and approval. The Clinton campaign was right about one
133
thing at least, that Trump’s fragile ego puts the future of
mankind at risk given his control of the U.S. nuclear
arsenal.
Further enhancing that danger is that Trump apparently
thinks his erratic behavior is a plus, not realizing that there
are limits to what a madman can get away with even if he
has his twitchy finger on the nuclear button. At some
point, one of Trump’s crazed bluffs will be called and then
he will have little choice but to prove that he is, indeed, a
madman.
Lost Hope
Not that these criticisms come as much surprise, but there
was hope – after his surprise election – that this irascible
and arrogant figure might at least have the backbone to
stand up against Official Washington’s neoconservative
foreign policy orthodoxies and challenge the Israeli-Saudi
dominance of U.S. policies in the Middle East.
President Donald Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu at joint press conference on Feb. 15. 2017. (Screen shot
from Whitehouse.gov)
The thinking went that Trump was a self-centered
sonuvabitch but that personality might help him resist the
pressures from the Washington establishment and thus
avert a new, dangerous and expensive Cold War with
Russia. Cooperation with Russia also held out prospects
for finally ending the endless wars of his immediate
predecessors.
Some Trump supporters told me that perhaps someone like
Trump was the only hope to shatter the orthodoxies that
had come to encase Official Washington’s thinking in
concrete. These hopeful supporters saw him as an uncouth
buffoon, yes, but maybe someone who wouldn’t care what
was said about him on CNN or in The New York Times or
at a Brookings Institution conference, someone who was
unorthodox enough to sledgehammer cracks in the official
group thinks, allowing some necessary light of fresh
thinking to finally pour through.
But even if that were the case – if Trump were that person
– he faced very difficult obstacles, including the reality
that neocon groupthink had solidified deeply into the
foundation of the U.S. establishment, expanding from its
initial base in the Republican Party to effective control of
the national Democrats as well, although Democrats prefer
different labels such as liberal or humanitarian
interventionist to neoconservative (more a semantic
difference than substantial).
For Trump, Official Washington’s foreign-policy
consensus meant there were few credentialed individuals
who could help him break the mold – and win Senate
confirmation. Trump would have to look for people
outside the traditional establishment and such people
would find themselves under an aggressive review process
looking for any misstep to disqualify them. And the few
who might survive that ordeal would find themselves in
largely hostile bureaucracies – at the State Department, the
Pentagon, the intelligence agencies, or the National
Security Council – that would be determined to either
bring the outsider to heel or destroy him or her with leaks
and obstructions.
The ‘Deep State’
Despite denials from mainstream commentators about
America having a “deep state,” one does exist in
Washington, as should be obvious watching the cable news
shows or reading the major newspapers. Indeed, there is
arguably less diversity allowed in the vaunted “free press”
of America than in some supposedly authoritarian states.
President Donald Trump announces the selection of Gen. H.R.
McMaster as his new National Security Adviser on Feb. 20, 2017.
(Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
For instance, even people with solid professional
credentials who disagree with the U.S. government’s
interpretation of the evidence on the April 4 chemical
incident in Syria are excluded from participation in the
public debate. The major U.S. media even takes pride in
that exclusion because these people are deemed “fringe” or
responsible for “propaganda” or guilty of “fake news.” The
tendency toward careerist “groupthink” is very powerful in
Washington and the national media.
So, Trump faced daunting challenges when he entered the
presidency, requiring him to move quickly and decisively
if he hoped to change the direction of the neocon endless-
war bandwagon. He needed to put the establishment forces
on the defensive by telling the truth about events where the
134
Obama administration had kept the American people in the
dark, such as the Syria-sarin case on Aug. 21, 2013, which
was pinned on the Syrian government though evidence
pointed toward anti-government rebels, and the Malaysia
Airlines Flight 17 shoot-down over eastern Ukraine on
July 17, 2014, which was blamed on Russia while key U.S.
intelligence evidence was kept hidden. [See here and here.]
Trump also needed to show that he would not be the patsy
of either Israel or the Saudi royal family. That would have
required telling some unpleasant truths, such as the well-
known fact inside the U.S. intelligence community that
Saudi Arabia and its Gulf State allies have been state
sponsors of terrorism for decades, making the fanatical
killers from Al Qaeda and Islamic State possible, and that
Israel has bent U.S. foreign policy in the region for
generations.
If Trump really had the guts that he likes people to think
he has, he could have frozen or seized Saudi assets as
punishment for the kingdom’s state sponsorship of
terrorism and for using Sunni extremists as a paramilitary
force in its sectarian rivalry with Shiite-ruled countries like
Iran. Or if he wanted to demonstrate his defiance of the
hyped-up Russia-gate allegations, he could have
immediately announced a summit with Russian President
Vladimir Putin on how to bring the “war on terror” to a
conclusion, rather than play a timid defense.
At the outset of his presidency, Trump could have really
shaken things up. But instead he wasted his first days
proving that he was the pumped-up fool that his detractors
said he was. Rather than show some grace toward the
defeated Democrats, he insisted absurdly that his inaugural
crowd was bigger than President Obama’s (which it
wasn’t). He failed to appreciate or defuse the anger from
the Women’s March, which filled the streets of dozens of
cities the day after his Inauguration (with women wearing
pink pussy hats to chide Trump for his boasts about
grabbing women in the crotch).
Trump also could have acknowledged that he lost the
popular vote but note that he had won under the rules of
the Constitution and intended to be President for all the
people. Instead he put forth the absurd notion that he had
won the popular vote, which he lost by almost three
million ballots (and, no, there is no evidence of five
million illegal votes for Clinton).
Phony Tough Guy
Over those crucial early days, Trump continued to tweet
out silly comments, replete with bad spelling and sloppy
grammar. His aides then had to defend his “alternative
facts,” which played into the theme that Trump was a
pathetic know-nothing who acted like a pompous know-it-
all. All of that might have fit his image as a cad who cared
nothing for what the powers-that-be thought about him, but
it turned out that Trump was essentially a phony tough guy
who could be brought to his knees if pounded sufficiently
by the opinion leaders.
Defense Secretary Jim Mattis welcomes Saudi Deputy Crown Prince
and Defense Minister Mohammed bin Salman to the Pentagon,
March 16, 2017. (DoD photo by Sgt. Amber I. Smith)
Under the daily barrage of Russia-gate headlines, Trump
tossed aside his first national security adviser, retired Gen.
Michael Flynn, (essentially for not remembering every
detail of a phone conversation with Russian Ambassador
Sergey Kisylak). Trump then had his foreign-policy team
join in bashing Russia (to prove he wasn’t Putin’s
“puppet,” as Hillary Clinton had called him).
Trump’s policies toward Ukraine and Crimea became
indistinguishable from those of President Obama’s. Trump
also showed no curiosity regarding how the Obama
administration had stoked the Ukraine crisis and, in 2014,
had facilitated the violent putsch that overthrew elected
President Viktor Yanukovych and provoked Crimea’s
secession from Ukraine and the Ukrainian civil war.
In early April, after weeks of ignominious retreat under
media fire, Trump hoisted his white flag of capitulation.
He pleased the neocons and the liberal hawks with a rush
to judgment on a mysterious chemical incident in an Al
Qaeda-controlled area of northern Syria. Quickly blaming
the Syrian government, Trump ordered the firing of 59
Tomahawk missiles at a Syrian airbase on April 6. He also
suggested that the Russians shared in the Syrian
government’s guilt.
And, just like Obama, Trump hid whatever evidence he
had from the American people, insisting that they accept
his “high confidence” in his White House assessment.
Under Trump, Americans were still being treated like the
proverbial mushrooms except Trump’s crude declarations
had replaced Obama’s smooth disingenuousness. Indeed,
except for Trump’s Kardashian personality and his limited
vocabulary, Trump’s foreign policy reflects more
continuity with Obama – and with Hillary Clinton’s
hawkishness – than any genuine differences.
If anything, Trump is now shifting U.S. foreign policy
more into line with what the neocons demand than Obama
.
135
did. With Trump’s goal to work more cooperatively with
Russia smashed by Russia-gate, he is now cementing a
foreign policy that is almost indistinguishable from what
Trump’s vanquished Republican rivals, such as neocon
Senators Marco Rubio of Florida, or Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina, would have espoused. Or, for that matter,
Hillary Clinton.
As The Wall Street Journal reported on Monday,
“The Trump administration’s still-emerging
foreign policy has come into sharper focus
as Defense Secretary Jim Mattis continues
a whistle-stop tour through the Middle East,
quietly placing building blocks for resetting
ties that had been strained under the
Obama White House.
“Over the past week, Mr. Mattis visited
leaders in Saudi Arabia, Egypt and Israel
bearing the message that the Trump
administration wants to realign with those
nations and stressing that Washington and
capitals in the region have shared interests,
such as fighting terrorism. An animating
feature of Mr. Mattis’s effort is to counter
what he repeatedly has described as the
malign influence of Iran.”
In other words, Trump is signaling that he is now in thrall
to the influential Israeli-Saudi tandem and that means he
will continue to deform U.S. foreign policy to meet Israeli-
Saudi regional desires, which include a new bid for
“regime change” in Syria and a heightened confrontation
with Iran and Russia.
This strategy surrenders to the same falsehoods that
brought George W. Bush’s presidency to disaster. It means
the Saudis, the Qataris and other Sunni sheikdoms will
again have a free hand to quietly slip U.S.-manufactured
weaponry to Al Qaeda and its cohorts. It means the U.S.
government will have to pile on evermore lies to conceal
the sickening reality of a de facto U.S./Al Qaeda alliance
from the American people.
The attendant tensions with Russia – and eventually with
China – also could provoke a nuclear confrontation that
Trump is psychologically unfit to manage. Playing
madman – and counting on President Putin or President Xi
to play the adult – is not as clever as it may sound. Putin
and Xi have their own internal political pressures to
consider – and they may feel compelled to call one of
Trump’s bluffs.
Thus, Trump now appears on course to become a failed
U.S. president, maybe one of the worst. But let’s all hope
he is not the last.
 Trump Talks
Tough On North Korea
By Stephen Lendman
4-26-2017
On Monday, he called on Security Council members to
impose “stronger sanctions” on North Korea, heightening
tensions by claiming the DPRK “is a real threat to the
world…and it’s a problem that we have to finally solve.”
Pyongyang called the USS Carl Vinson carrier strike group
deployed off the Korean peninsula
“an extremely dangerous act by those who
plan a nuclear war to invade.”
China’s President Xi Jinping called for all sides to show
]“restraint, and avoid doing anything to
worsen the tense situation on the
peninsula.”
On Wednesday afternoon, Trump will hold a briefing for
all 100 senators on North Korea. Reportedly a similar
session is planned for House members - both meetings to
be held in a “sensitive compartmented information
facility” in the Eisenhower Executive Office Building.
Secretary of Defense Mattis, Joint Chiefs Chairman
Dunford, Director of National Intelligence Dan Coates,
and Secretary of State Tillerson will conduct the briefing.
On April 25, marking the anniversary of the founding of its
army, North Korea held live-fire drills, involving hundreds
of artillery pieces - instead of a sixth nuclear test some
observers expected.
According to China Foundation for International and
Strategic Studies Foreign Policy director Zhang Tuosheng,
pressure from China, Washington, South Korea and Japan
got Pyongyang to show restraint - whether short or longer-
term remains to be seen.
“Beijing sent a clear message to Kim Jong-
un that a nuclear test would lead to an
impasse,” Tuosheng explained.
Its Foreign Ministry spokesman Geng Shuang said
.
136
“(w)e hope that all parties, including Japan,
can work with China to promote an early
peaceful resolution of the issue…”
Knowfar Institute for Strategic and Defense Studies Zhou
Chenming believes Pyongyang will delay another nuclear
test at least until after South Korea’s May 9 presidential
election, hoping to discourage voters from choosing a
hardline leader.
In a US show of force, the guided-missile nuclear
submarine USS Michigan arrived in Busan, South Korea -
the same day Pyongyang’s People’s Army celebrated its
85th anniversary.
On Tuesday, China’s Global Times, representing Beijing’s
position, stressed
“(s)ticks alone are not enough to prompt
North Korea to stop its nuclear and missile
activities. The international community
should acknowledge the importance of the
carrot.”
Pyongyang understands
“the consequences if it continues to act
recklessly. What it is uncertain about,
though, is what benefit it will get if it stops
nuclear and missile activities.”
Washington broke earlier promises to its government,
undermining trust, making resolution of the current crisis
much harder.
Pyongyang justifiably believes America wants its
government toppled, knowing it’s vulnerable if it abandons
its nuclear and ballistic missile deterrents.
Trump’s rage for war heightens concerns. Waging it on the
Korean peninsula risks possible nuclear confrontation -
what all regional nations want avoided above all else.
 The Satanists Who Destroyed
The Middle East Are Back In Washington
By Jonas E. Alexis
April 26, 2017
Satanist Paul Wolfowitz
The Satanists who literally created
chaos in Iraq, Afghanistan, and Libya
are back in the White House. They are
currently chilling with the Trump
administration. One of those Satanists
is none other than Paul Wolfowitz. A
little background of this dude.
When he was told by deputy national security advisor
Stephen Hadley that there was no link between Al Qaeda
and Saddam Hussein, Wolfowitz responded with certainty,
“We’ll find it. It’s got to be there,”[1]
which is another way of saying that if it does not exist,
they would make it up.
Both Wolfowitz and Douglas Feith were under
investigation for passing classified documents to Israel.[2]
In other words, these people were and obviously still are
agents of the Israeli regime. It must be stated in passing
that the FBI has numerous documents tracing Israel’s
espionage in the U.S.,[3] but no one has come forward and
declared it explicitly in the media because most value their
careers and lives.
For example, when two top AIPAC officials—Steven
Rosen and Keith Weissman—were caught passing
classified documents from the Pentagon to Israel, Gabriel
Schoenfeld defended them.[4] In the annual FBI report
called “Foreign Economic Collection and Industrial
Espionage,” Israel is a major country that pops up quite
often.[5]
137
This is widely known among CIA and FBI agents and U.S.
officials for years.[6] One former U.S. intelligence official
declared,
“There is a huge, aggressive, ongoing
set of Israeli activities directed against
the United States. Anybody who worked
in counterintelligence in a professional
capacity will tell you the Israelis are
among the most aggressive and active
countries targeting the United States.
They undertake a wide range of
technical operations and human
operations. People here as liaisons…
aggressively pursue classified
intelligence from people. The denials
are laughable.”[7]
In 1991, the Israeli tried to recruit a former U.S.
intelligence official, but he declined. “I had an Israeli
intelligence officer pitch me in Washington at the time of
the first Gulf War. I said,
‘No, go away,’ and reported it to
counterintelligence.”[8]
Covert operations were done by the Israelis in
“a 1997 case in which the National Security
Agency bugged two Israeli intelligence
officials in Washington discussing efforts to
obtain a sensitive U.S. diplomatic
document. Israel denied wrongdoing in that
case and all others, and no one has been
prosecuted.”[9]
“Why not helping Israel and the Neocons?”
Yet this has rarely seen the light of day in the popular
media. Pointing these facts out, according to the reasoning
of Omri Ceren of Commentary, is tantamount to anti-
Semitism.[10] And since criticism of Israel and Jewish
behavior is anti-Semitism, then Satanists like Paul
Wolfowitz can walk on the political platform as they so
choose because no one can touch them.
Wolfowitz has obviously seen that Iraq
is not paradise, but he still wants to
bludgeon America in the region—
presumably for Israel. “The alternative
is to let a very important, critical part of
the world go to hell literally and lose
American influence,” he declares. “We
may not like to talk about oil, but this is
the engine of the world economy and if
it’s dominated by the wrong people, the
consequences here in the United States
are very serious.”[11]
Wolfowitz actually sees the Trump administration as a
puppet which needs to be manipulated.
“I think there is a fantastic opportunity
here,” he diabolically declared. “It’s only a
first step, it’s only an opportunity.”[13]
Opportunity to do what? To con the American people
again? To send a six-trillion dollar bill to decent
Americans who cannot even afford to feed their families?
To loot pension funds for perpetual wars?
Keep in mind that Wolfowitz completely disavowed
Trump during his election precisely because Trump kept
talking about “America First,” an idea which is antithetical
to perpetual wars in the Middle East. Now Satanists like
Wolfowitz are all over the Trump administration because
Trump has already prostrated before them.

Wolfowitz was elated when he heard that Trump attacked

Syria, and he has had private email conversation with

“Trump Defense Secretary Jim Mattis and

national security advisor H.R. McMaster,
both longtime contacts since his Bush
days.” He hopes that the Trump
administration “will pursue a U.S. strategy
of stepped-up engagement in the Middle
East.”[12]
.

[1] Thomas E. Ricks, “Fear Factor,” NY Times, October 5, 2012.

[2] Philip Giraldi, “The Spy Who Loves Us,” American Conservative, June 2, 2008.
[3] Ibid.
[4] Justin Raimondo, “Trotskyites for Romney,” Antiwar.com, October 19, 2012.
[5] Giraldi, “The Spy Who Loves Us,” American Conservative.
[6] See “France, Israel Cited in CIA Espionage Study,” LA Times, August 15, 1996; Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, “Israel Has Long
Spied on U.S., Say Officials,” LA Times, September 3, 2004 389. Bob Drogin and Greg Miller, “Israel Has Long Spied on U.S., Say
Officials,” LA Times, September 3, 2004.
[7] Ibid.
[8] Ibid.
[9] Ibid.
[10] Omri Ceren, “The Times’s Spectacular Bias Against Israel,” Commentary, September 8, 2012.
[11] Quoted in Susan B. Glasser, “Why Paul Wolfowitz Is Optimistic About Trump,” Politico, April 24, 2017.
[12] Ibid.
[13] Ibid.

138
 Trump Goes Off The Rails
In Fervent Support Of False Jewish Narrative
By Carolyn Yeager
Wed, 2017-04-26 15:23
The US Capitol Rotunda was filled with 'the Jewish people' on
Tuesday to commemorate the Six Million, parade flags, light candles,
and listen to a speech by the President of the United States.
PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP SPOKE FOR A
FULL 15 MINUTES at the annual Yom Ha'Shoah
remembrance ceremony at the US Capitol Rotunda on
Tuesday, and then sat down and applauded 'holocaust
survivors' who lighted candles, and Hebrew singers until
the boring tribute to Jews - and only to Jews - was over
and he was allowed to leave. That signalled the end of the
televised event. Trump's speech included these shocking
words:
“Those who deny the Holocaust are an
accomplice to this horrible evil and we'll
never be silent - we just won't - we will
never, ever be silent in the face of evil
again." (applause)
Denying the holocaust is only one of many
forms of dangerous anti-semitism that
continues all around the world. We've seen
antisemitism on university campuses, in the
public square, and in threats against
Jewish citizens Even worse, it's been on
display in the most sinister manner when
terrorists attack Jewish communities. And
when aggressors threaten Israel with total
and complete destruction.
(Have you ever read the first five books of the Old
Testament, Donald? During the campaign you said it was
139
your favorite book. And why do most of these threats
come from Jews themselves, as you have previously noted
- and is the case for this year's 100+ highly publicized
telephone crimes. Your own FBI broke the case.)
This is my pledge to you. We - will -
confront - anti-semitism!
We will stamp out prejudice, we will
condemn hatred, we will bear witness and
we will act. As president of the United
States, I will always stand with the Jewish
people, and I will always stand with our
great friend and partner, the state of Israel.
(Sounds treasonous to me. Has there ever been a national
referendum on this question? I think there needs to be.)
So today we remember the six million
Jewish men, women and children whose
lives and dreams were stolen from this
earth. We remember the millions of other
innocent victims the Nazis so brutally
targeted and so brutally killed. We
remember the survivors who bore more
than we can imagine. We remember the
hatred and evil that sought to extinguish
human life, dignity and freedom.
I am truly offended by these words, I can tell you. And I
would like to point out that we do not every year honor the
European and American dead of WWI and WWII (wars
instigated by the Jews, by the way, not the Germans), or
even our Civil War dead, but every year our American
president goes through this ritual of honoring the “six
million” Jews who supposedly perished in the “Holocaust”
in Europe.
My answer to President Trump:
Sorry Mr. President (not 'my' president any longer), but we
do have a right to deny the holocaust of 'six million' and
that there was a plan to exterminate 'every Jew in Europe'
and you have nothing to say about it.
Are you willing to destroy our American First Amendment May I ask why the Jews of the USHMM are allowed to use
free speech rights just to curry favor with the Jews? (Many (take over) a large hall of Congress, at the expense of
Jews are willing to do that, which tell us everything we need Congress, to hold a holocaust memorial ceremony that
to know.) could be held at their own building nearby? Is it antisemitic
to ask that question? Donald Trump has never spoken as
Who are you to call any law-abiding American evil?' highly of the American Christian people as he does of the
Jewish people. Nor does our Vice-President or any of our
politicians. It's a scandal because the Jews are not a great
I am a proud (and knowledgeable, which you are not)
light-giving people, but are a race of robbers and thieves,
holocaust denier and I know exactly what I'm denying. I
and sophisticated con-men. They are not victims, but
know how deniable it is. You are a partaker of fake news
perpetrators. Of those who died during WWII (not 6 million!)
and fake history. You know zilch about what really happened
many were illegal partisan fighters and saboteurs against
during the 5 years right before you were born – 1940-45.
the legal German army on both fronts, not in uniform, who
You would not be able to discuss it intelligently in your own
committed atrocious, unspeakable barbarities on German
words. The speech you monotonously read on Tuesday was
soldiers they captured. These thousands of bandits and
written for you, probably by Stephen Miller, and probably
vicious murderers are now being praised and mourned as
with the assistance of Jared Kushner – and very possibly
“victims” of evil Nazis. No! What is related at this ceremony
Ronald Lauder had a hand in it. The words are clearly not
is only the Jewish narrative – not the true history of the war.
your own, but I can tell you that when I speak on the subject
I can use my own words because I know something.
It is a deep, deep shame for our President to stand in our
nation's capitol building (as though a captive prisoner
Logically speaking, holocaust denial (or skepticism,
himself) and speak these false words. I am so very ashamed
reasonable doubt or disbelief about an accepted national
of him that he chose to read them, and identify himself with
narrative) is not antisemitism. That is a canard that has been
them. I am a German-American and will always stand with
introduced by the Jewish holocaust lobby in collaboration
my people – the real Germans, not the many traitors of
with the Jewish media. Now the organized World
today. I have every right to do so and cannot be called 'evil'
Jewry/Israel nexus are combining holocaust denial with
for it. I am not evil, but a truth-seeker, and will continue to
antisemitism at every opportunity. They have put these
speak the truth as I know it. I am an American and even the
words into your speech.
President of the United States cannot push me around. At
least, that's the story we're given. Is it true?
.

140
 Senators Describe 'Long And Detailed'
White House Briefing On North Korea
By Alexander Mallin & Meghan Keneally
Apr 26, 2017, 5:53 PM ET

talk about this and make sure North Korea

knows they won't get away with this."

Separately, a senior administration official told ABC News

that part of the current concern about North Korea comes
from China's view of North Korea as a threat.

US Senate receives a rare classified briefing on North Korea and its

nuclear threat

Several Senate Republicans described the full Senate

briefing on North Korea at the White House Wednesday as
a thorough accounting of the administration's diplomatic
and military options when it comes to dealing with Kim
Jong Un.

Sen. Ted Cruz, R-Texas, called it "a long and detailed

briefing."
"The military is obviously planning for a
number of options, as they should --
minimal military action to more significant
action," Cruz said. "It's of course the hope
of the administration and Congress that
military action isn't necessary. If there's a
clear and imminent threat to the U.S., our
military needs to be prepared to act and I
believe they are prepared to act to keep
our country safe."
The senators were invited at the personal invitation of
President Donald Trump after Senate Majority Leader
Mitch McConnell, R-Kentucky, requested a briefing. The
president stopped by the briefing at the Eisenhower
Executive Office Building on the White House grounds.
Sen. Cory Gardner, R-Colorado, said that one takeaway
from the meeting was that "we are a long ways away from
exercising all of our options on the diplomatic side."
KCNA via EPA - A photograph released by the Korean Central News
Agency April 26, 2017 shows the combined fire demonstration of the
services of the Korean People's Army in celebration of its 85th
founding, at an undisclosed location in North Korea.
"I think what's different about how China is
viewing the problem in North Korea today
is that China is viewing that problem as the
threat not only to U.S. interests and
security or South Korean or Japanese
interests and security, but also a threat to
Chinese interests and security and so I
think that is a big shift in and of itself," the
senior administration official told ABC
News.
White House officials say the South Auditorium would be
turned into a Sensitive Compartmented Information
Facility, or "SCIF," and the briefing will be led by
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Secretary of Defense
James Mattis, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Joseph
Dunford, and Director of National Intelligence Daniel
Coats.

"There were great questions within the When asked about the bus ride to the
briefing from both sides of the aisles," White House ground for the meeting,
Gardner said. "It shows how important this
issue is, to have that team assembled to
141
 Gardner said it was "a unique approach to Using the White House grounds for a full briefing with the
a classified briefing." Senate is a rare move, but administration officials told
ABC News that too much shouldn't be read into the choice
of location.

Officials said that after hearing of McConnell's request, the

president suggested nonchalantly that the senators should
come to the White House because he's a "gracious host."
Trump has cultivated a reputation in his meetings at the
White House for relishing the opportunity to show off his
historic digs.

ABC News' Ali Rogin and Katherine Faulders contributed

to this report.

KCNA via AFP/Getty Images - This undated picture released by

North Korea's official Korean Central News Agency on April 26,
2017 shows North Korean leader Kim Jong-Un attending a combined
fire demonstration of the services of the Korean People's Army.
.

142
 Senators: Little Learned During
Rare All-Hands North Korea Briefing
By Kevin Liptak, Sunlen Serfaty And Ted Barrett, CNN
Updated 10:11 PM ET, Wed April 26, 2017
(CNN)Nearly every US senator attended an unusual all-
hands meeting on North Korea at the White House
Wednesday, though afterward few said any new
information emerged about the increasingly tense US
standoff with Pyongyang.
Nonetheless, members of both parties said they were
reassured by the hour-long administration update, which
President Donald Trump appeared at only briefly before
handing the session off to his top national security aides.
"It was a sobering briefing, and an
important opportunity for the entire Senate
to hear the emerging plans of the Trump
administration to confront what is a very
real threat to our security," said Sen. Chris
Coons, a Democrat from Delaware.
Other lawmakers said they learned little during the session,
which was held in a large auditorium in a building adjacent
to the West Wing.
143
"It was an OK briefing," said Sen. Bob
Corker, the Republican chairman of the
Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Sen. Jeff Merkley, a Oregon Democrat, said on CNN's
"Erin Burnett OutFront" that they learned nothing new
in terms of details on the administration's thinking on
North Korea and any potential actions the US could take in
response to another nuclear test. He said he believed the
White House's decision to have the meeting was for
"optics."
"We learned nothing you couldn't read in
the newspaper," Merkley said.
Likewise, Sen. Tammy Duckworth, an Illinois Democrat,
said on CNN's "Anderson Cooper 360" that she did not
see new information in the White House briefing "at all."
"It felt more like a dog and pony show to
me than anything else," Duckworth said. "I
guess it has something to with this 100
days in office."
The varied responses came after some grumbling from
lawmakers about the highly unusual nature of convening
the session on White House grounds instead of on Capitol
Hill. Administration officials said it was merely a logistical
choice rather than an attempt to convey any particular
message.
Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, Director of National
Intelligence Dan Coats, Defense Secretary James Mattis
and Gen. Joseph Dunford, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs
of Staff, led Wednesday's session.
Lawmakers traveled together in a fleet of buses from
across town to attend the hour-long mid-afternoon
briefing. Returning to Capitol Hill, none said they heard
any new revelations from the administration officials.
"I didn't hear anything new because I have
been heavily briefed before," said Sen.
John McCain, the chairman of the Senate
Armed Services Committee. "It's a very
serious situation, just as I had (thought)
before I went there."
Expectations for the session had varied among lawmakers,
who are usually briefed on national security matters on
Capitol Hill.
Some said they looked forward to hearing directly from
Trump about his strategy moving forward. Others
questioned why the session was occurring at the White
House at all, suggesting the gathering could amount to a
substance-free -- and inconvenient -- photo-op.
N. Korea holds large-scale artillery drill amid tensions 03:54
Trump administration officials, however, downplayed any
suggestion that holding the meeting on the White House
campus was meant to convey any particular message.
Instead, they characterized it as a logistical arrangement
between Trump and Senate Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell.
"That meeting is a Senate meeting led by
Leader McConnell, just utilizing our space,"
White House press secretary Sean Spicer
said. "So that is their meeting. So we're not
there to talk strategy."
144
US submarine arrives in South Korea 00:40
Speaking to reporters, Coons said the decision to brief
every US senator sent a positive signal about the
administration's seriousness in addressing threats from
North Korea.
"I'm fine coming here," he said. "Frankly if
the President and his entire national
security leadership team wants to provide a
thorough, detailed consultation with the
Senate, I think that's constructive."
A spokesman for McConnell said Tuesday that Trump
himself offered the White House as a venue for the
briefing after McConnell requested an administration
update on North Korea.
"The President offered to host the meeting
and the Majority Leader agreed," said
McConnell's spokesman, David Popp.
The auditorium on the White House grounds is not
typically used for large-scale national security briefings,
but can be outfitted to accommodate classified discussions
among the lawmakers and officials, a White House official
said.
Senators are regularly briefed by the administration on
national security issues, particularly those lawmakers who
sit on committees with oversight of intelligence and
national security agencies. But typically those briefings
occur on Capitol Hill, where rooms are specially designed
for that type of sensitive discussion.
Following Wednesday's White House gathering, many of
the administration officials who conducted the meeting
traveled to Capitol Hill to brief members of the House.
"I, frankly, don't understand why it's not
easier to bring four people here than it is to
take 100 there," said Sen. Angus King, a
Maine independent who caucuses with
Democrats, on Capitol Hill Tuesday.
At Tuesday's weekly Democratic caucus lunch, there was
"grumbling" about the optics of senators being summoned
to the White House, according to a person in the room.
 "Is this a real briefing or is this another
Trump dog-and-pony show? This feels very
much that this is just a Trump request to
hold a photo-op, it is totally outside the
normal boundaries," said a Democratic
congressional aide, who also questioned
the security of the White House auditorium.
"A (secure facility) exists (on Capitol Hill)
for a reason," the aide said. "Will he be
treating this as a stunt, is that the approach
that he is bringing the briefing or will this be
a serious conversation about North
Korea?"
.
Popp, McConnell's spokesman, downplayed the notion that
the setting is unusual and waved off some Democratic
concerns over what they see as theatrics playing into the
briefing.
"This is just like any other all-senators
briefing. Just a different location," Popp
said.
CNN's Elizabeth Landers and Ashley Killough contributed
to this report.

145
 The Quantified Presidency
In Counting Trump’s “Historic Accomplishments” The Administration
Shows It Values Size Over Substance.
Elaine Godfrey
Apr 26, 2017
Pablo Martinez Monsivais / AP
First, it was crowd size. Then, it was health-care bill size.
On Tuesday, the Trump administration continued its habit
of conflating quantity with quality by releasing a list
detailing President Donald Trump’s “historic
accomplishments” from his first 100 days in office, a
milestone he will officially reach on Saturday. The list
boasts of the number of Trump’s Congressional Review
Act resolutions, his executive actions, and laws he’s signed
since his inauguration.
A few of these figures appear to be wrong. But what
matters more is that the administration is bothering to
count them in the first place.
Tuesday’s press release predicts that Trump will have
signed 30 executive orders by his 100th day in office, a
feat the administration says is greater than that of any other
president since Franklin D. Roosevelt, whom it credits
with signing only nine executive orders. Roosevelt actually
signed 99 executive orders by June 12th, his 100th day in
office.
On Twitter, historian Peter Schulman offered a plausible
theory for how the press release might have gotten it
wrong: Perhaps it was citing the numbers from the
American Presidency Project, which appears to list only
the most consequential executive orders from past
presidents. Schulman also pointed out that while the press
release is correct in saying that President Truman signed
25 executive orders within the first 100 days of his 1949
inauguration, Truman’s first 100 days actually took place
after he took over for Roosevelt in 1945. In that year,
146
Truman signed more than twice that many executive
orders.
Accuracy aside, it’s revealing that the Trump
administration is boasting about the number of executive
orders and laws the president has signed, rather than
highlighting the impact of those laws. The release says,
correctly, that Trump has signed 28 laws in his first 100
days—more than any president since Harry Truman. That
tally includes a recent law funding NASA and another
authorizing the National Science Foundation to promote
entrepreneurial programs for women.
But it also includes a dozen pieces of legislation rolling
back regulations issued by President Obama, and three
joint resolutions appointing men to the Board of Regents
of the Smithsonian Institution. In March, Trump signed
H.R. 609, dubbing the Veterans Affairs health-care center
in Butler County, Pennsylvania, the “Abie Abraham VA
Clinic.” Another act declares an outpatient clinic in
American Samoa the “Faleomavaega Eni Fa’aua’a Hunkin
VA Clinic.”
In other words, not all laws have equal impact. In his first
100 days as president, Bill Clinton had signed the Family
and Medical Leave Act. By March 2009, President Barack
Obama had signed the Lilly Ledbetter Fair Pay Act into
law, and later, employed the economic stimulus package
intended to end the recession.
But counting, rather than evaluating, has become a
trademark of an administration focused on ratings. During
a press briefing in March, White House Press Secretary
Sean Spicer illustrated the difference between the House
Republicans’ new health-care proposal and the Affordable
Care Act by setting them side by side on the dais in the
West Wing.
“This is the Democrats’,” Spicer said, gesturing to the
taller stack of papers. Then he pointed to the smaller stack.
“This is us,” he said, adding, “I think the greatest
illustration of the differences in the approaches is that
size.” But being shorter in length doesn’t make legislation
inherently better: The GOP proposal failed despite its
lower page count, because House Republicans couldn’t
agree on its contents.
In Friday’s interview with the Associated Press, Trump critique this latest release from the White House appears to
complained that the first-100-days threshold is an bolster.
“artificial barrier” that is “not very meaningful.” It’s a
.

147
 Trump Picks Retired General
To Lead Secret Service
Wed Apr 26, 2017 7:44AM
Retired Marine Corps general Randolph "Tex" Alles (file photo)
President Donald Trump has named a
new director for the US Secret Service,
the beleaguered agency tasked with
protecting the president and his family.
Trump chose retired Marine Corps general Randolph
"Tex" Alles to oversee the agency that has been beset with
a series of high-profile controversies.
Alles, who is the first Secret Service director not chosen
from within the ranks in recent history, is replacing Joseph
Clancy who joined the service in 1984.
Clancy became the leader of former President Barack
Obama’s security detail in 2009, before initially retiring in
2011 from that post.
This AFP file photo taken on March 15, 2016 shows Clancy as he
testifies during a House Appropriations Homeland Security
Subcommittee hearing on Capitol Hill in Washington, DC.
Alles, on the other hand, served in the Marine Corps for 35
years, but has recently been working as the acting deputy
148
commissioner of Customs and Border Protection. He also
oversaw the agency's air and marine division.
Key members of Congress have welcomed Trump’s
appointment which does not need Senate confirmation.
"Appointing a director from the outside
adds a necessary new perspective and
fresh approach to their zero-fail mission,"
House Oversight Committee Chairman
Jason Chaffetz said in a statement. "I look
forward to working with General Alles in
continuing to implement recommendations
put forth in our bipartisan Committee
report."
Secret Service members secure the perimeter as Trump (3rd R)
boards Air Force One at Andrews Air Force Base, Maryland, April
6, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
Alles will lead an agency that has dealt with a series of
security breaches and incidents of its agents engaging in
misconduct.
Last month, a man jumped the White House fence and
roamed the grounds for more than fifteen minutes before
he was arrested.
He managed to climb a five-foot fence as well as an eight-
foot gate and jump over another fence near the southeast
corner of the White House's East Wing before he was
captured.
This was not the first time that a person entered the White
House grounds. In September 2014, an Army veteran
carrying a knife, climbed the fence and made it through the
north portico doors, while the first family was not at the clearance after a female agent had accused him of sexually
White House. assaulting her.

Also in April 2015, the Secret Service placed a supervisor Xavier Morales, a senior supervisor of the security
on administrative leave and suspended his security clearance division, allegedly made the advance on a female
subordinate on the night of March 31, the same year.
.

149
 Michael Flynn Under Pentagon Investigation. AP Says He
Was Warned “Not To Accept Foreign
Government Payments”
Alex Christoforou
April 27, 2017
As the Russiagate fake news driven by mainstream media
for nearly 9 months fizzles into oblivion due to lack of an
iota of evidence, it look as if Michael Flynn will serve as
the sacrificial scalp for Hillary’s “Russia hacked my
server” campaign story that set off the entire Russia
hacking red-baiting.
There always has to be some sort of fall guy in these types
of witch-hunts, and Flynn is set to be that fall guy.
News is breaking that the Pentagon Inspector General has
launched an investigation of Michael Flynn.
Moments ago the AP reported…
CNN reports that former national security was warned by
the Defense Intelligence Agency in 2014 against accepting
foreign payments as he entered retirement.
“These documents raise grave questions
about why General Flynn concealed the
payments he received from foreign sources
150
after he was warned explicitly by the
Pentagon,” said Rep. Elijah Cummings, the
top Democrat on the House oversight
committee, in a statement. “Our next step
is to get the documents we are seeking
from the White House so we can complete
our investigation. I thank the Department of
Defense for providing us with unclassified
versions of these documents.”
Zerohedge reports…
This follows a report from earlier this week
according to which the House overnight
Committe said there was no evidence
Flynn properly disclosed payments for his
foreign lobbying connected to Turkey and
Russia, and noted that Flynn likely broke
the law on overseas payments.
As The Washington Post reported, Jason Chaffetz (R-
Utah) and ranking member Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) said
they believe Flynn neither received permission nor fully
disclosed income he earned for a speaking engagement in
Russia and lobbying activities on behalf of Turkey when
he applied to reinstate his security clearance, after viewing
two classified memos and Flynn’s disclosure form in a
private briefing Tuesday morning.
“Personally I see no evidence or no data to
support the notion that General Flynn
complied with the law,” Chaffetz told
reporters following the briefing. “He was
supposed to get permission, he was
supposed to report it, and he didn’t,”
Cummings said.
Chaffetz confirmed that Flynn had failed to reveal the
more than $45,000 he was paid to speak at a 2015 gala for
RT, the Kremlin-run TV network, as well as the money he
was paid by an air freight company and a cybersecurity
firm with direct connections to Russia. Chaffetz added that
the White House had refused to provide his committee
with information and documents related to Flynn’s security
clearance and payments from organizations tied to the
Russian and Turkish governments. The committee made
six requests, and the White House cited reasons it could
not comply with each of them, Cummings said.

Flynn’s life got even more complicated

when Cummings also revealed that the
inspector general of the Department of
Defense opened an investigation of
Flynn earlier this month, according to
an April 11 letter released by the
oversight committee Thursday.

Flynn’s lawyer, Robert Kelner, had previously said that

Flynn briefed the DIA on his speech to RT and the
payments, but Cummings said Thursday that another
document that was declassified this week shows no
evidence to support that statement. CNN has reached out
to Flynn’s attorney Thursday and have yet to receive a
response.

As Cummings said,

“These documents raise grave questions

about why General Flynn concealed the
payments he received from foreign sources
after he was warned explicitly by the
Pentagon. Our next step is to get the
documents we are seeking from the White
House so we can complete our
investigation. I thank the Department of
Defense for providing us with unclassified
versions of these documents.”

You can read the full statement issued by Cummins here.

151
 Sorry MSM: Leftists Confirm
That Protesters Are Paid
By P.J. Gladnick
April 27, 2017 | 3:07 PM EDT
Have you noticed how the mainstream media has
recently mocked the notion that leftwing protesters are
being paid? The idea is ridiculous they claim and only
Trump and his supporters are making that silly charge.
Well, guess what? A pair of leftwingers have confirmed in
the April 26 Washington Post that protesters are indeed
paid.
Before we get to that confirmation let us first review a
couple examples of MSM mockery of the charge of paid
protesters starting with the April 16 Politico in which
Rebecca Morin discounts that this could possibly happen
in Trump claims tax return protesters were paid:
President Donald Trump claimed Sunday
that protesters were paid to hold rallies
protesting the president for not releasing
his tax returns.
"I did what was an almost an impossible
thing to do for a Republican-easily won the
Electoral College! Now Tax Returns are
brought up again?" the president tweeted.
"Someone should look into who paid for the
small organized rallies yesterday. The
election is over!"
...The president has also in the past claimed that protesters
who have attended his rallies — and, more recently, those
who have attended town halls for GOP congressional
members — were paid to do so.
152
Activists have since denied Trump’s
claims that protesters were paid, which,
if true, would probably mean millions of
dollars had been paid to the thousands
of protesters around the country.
“We're like your taxes. Unpaid,” New York
political activist Nick Jack Pappas tweeted
in response to the president’s message.
The next example of MSM pooh-poohing the charge of
paid protesters comes from Daniella Silva NBC News on
the same day as Politico mocking that idea:
The president then followed up by
repeating an unsubstantiated claim he's
made before that some of the protesters
against him were "paid," an allegation
that became popular in some right-wing
circles in the build up to the 2016
presidential election, before noting that
the election was "over."
Unfortunately for the MSM ridicule of the charge of paid
protesters, we now have substantiation that this is indeed
the case from a couple of bonafide leftwingers. Leo
Gertner and Moshe Marvit write in a Washington Post
guest column, So what if protesters are paid?
...the allegations that even one participant
is paid immediately calls into question the
legitimacy of a cause. Behind these
accusation is the idea that social
movements should be entirely
spontaneous, volunteer-driven, and
 untarnished by the exchange of money.
Anything else would betray a lack of moral
purity and reveal ulterior motives. And
although successful protest movements
rarely if ever succeed without an
investment of resources, we create
simplified mythologies that perpetuate
these ideas of monetarily immaculate
conception.
In reality, organizations often do sponsor or support rallies
and send paid staff to help organize them, although unpaid
protesters typically outnumber organizers. Nonetheless,
history suggests that strong movements do well with both
paid and unpaid agents agitating for change.
153
... Political and grass-roots organizing and
paid work are not inherently contradictory,
as some would have us believe. One
cannot only do deeply committed political
work and be paid; it is often necessary for
the long slog that campaigns require.
Separating these ideas and acting as if one
infects the other fundamentally prevents us
from valuing the work of individuals who
need wages but also have principles,
something that could probably be said for
most of us.
And among those perpetrating the idea of "monetarily
immaculate conception" about leftist protesters is only
almost the entire MSM.
 Trump Is Puppet Of US
‘Deep State,’ Has No ‘Own’ Foreign Policy – Assad
Published Time: 27 Apr, 2017 21:48
Syria's President Bashar al-Assad (L) and US President Donald
Trump © Reuters
US president Donald Trump is not a truly independent
political leader but merely a puppet of US corporations,
military and intelligence, and who serves their interests,
Syrian President Bashar Assad has told the Latin American
TeleSUR TV network.
Trump pursues “no own policies” but only executes the
decisions made by the “intelligence agencies, the
Pentagon, the big arms manufacturers, oil companies, and
financial institutions,” the Syrian leader said in an
exclusive interview with TeleSUR.
"As we have seen in the past few weeks,
he changed his rhetoric completely and
subjected himself to the terms of the deep
American state, or the deep American
regime," Assad added.
He referred to the fact that Trump came to power on a
political platform promising a departure from the
interventionist policy of the previous US president, Barack
Obama, but soon forgot his promises and ordered a missile
strike against the Syrian air base following a chemical
weapons incident in Syria’s Idlib province.
The Syrian president also said that it is
“a complete waste of time to make an
assessment of the American president’s
foreign policy” as “he might say something”
but what he really does depends on “what
these [US military and business] institutions
dictate to him.”
He also added that it “is not new” and “has been ongoing
American policy for decades.”
.
154
"This is what characterizes American
politicians: they lie on a daily basis... That’s
why we shouldn’t believe what the
Pentagon or any other American institution
says because they say things which serve
their policies, not things which reflect reality
and the facts on the ground,” Assad told
TeleSUR.
He went on to say that the US continues to pursue its age-
long policy aimed at establishing and maintaining a global
hegemony by turning all countries that oppose it into war
zones.
"The United States always seeks to control
all the states of the world without
exception. It does not accept allies,
regardless of whether they are developed
states as those in the Western bloc or other
states of the world," the Syrian leader
explained.
He also added that
“what is happening to Syria, to Korea, to
Iran, to Russia, and maybe to Venezuela
now, aims at re-imposing American
hegemony on the world because they
believe that this hegemony is under threat
now, which consequently threatens the
interests of American economic and
political elites.”
Assad expressed similar views in an interview with
Russia’s Sputnik news agency about a week ago.
“The regime in the United States hasn't
changed,” he said, adding, “since the
collapse of the Soviet Union, the United
States has been attacking different
countries in different ways without taking
into consideration the Security Council or
the United Nations.”
He also said that for the US,
“the end justifies the means, no values, no
morals at all, anything could happen.”
Despite his criticism, Assad once again confirmed the
readiness of the Syrian government to cooperate with the
US if it could change its attitude towards respecting other
countries’ sovereignty and that of Syria in particular.
 The First 100 Days…
A Tale Of Two Trumps
By Dr. Patricia Doyle Phd
4-27-2017
Hello Jeff...
I find that the first hundred days of the Trump Presidency
has been and continues to be a truly giant disappointment.
Maybe it should be called A Tale of Two Trumps.
First, we had Trump I who drew those huge crowds and
presented them with an endless stream of messages and
promises that resonated brilliantly with most middle class
Americans. During the year and a half campaign, rigged
debates against him and all, he continued to make promise
after promise to an ever-growing constituency.
Chief among those pledges was his vow to deal with the
flood of America-hating, Christian-hating unknown,
unvetted, diseased muslim debris that was and is being
injected into the heart of America under a shady, globalist
UN 'refugee' agenda. He swore to stop all 'refugee'
Muslims coming into the US until, as he put it, 'We can
figure out what the hell is going on!'
Trump 1 also gave us his word of honor that he would
deport ALL immigrants here illegally, starting with those
having a criminal history.
And then there was his solemn promise to build a Wall to
seal off our southern border from the hordes of primarily
illegal hispanics who were surging in virtually unopposed.
He promised to end the colossal nightmare called
Obamacare. He promised to lower taxes for the middle
class and pledged that all Americans earning less than
$50,000 a year would pay ZERO income tax. Remember
that one?
He vowed that NATO was 'outdated' and that we would
get out of it. He talked about stopping all American
support of the rotten, NWO United Nations. He said we
would dump jobs-killing NAFTA and return to building
America's business infrastructure to create millions of new
jobs.
His enormous foreign policy promise, echoing the words
of George Washington, was 'America First'…that America
would no longer be embroiled in wars on foreign soil. He
vowed he would, as Commander-in-Chief, take us out of
Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. Trump 1 also promised a
close working relationship with Mr. Putin and
Russia…and suggested that an era of great peace and
prosperity was just ahead.
155
So said Mr. Trump 1...before the election and before he
took the oath of office.
We now introduce Trump 2...
Trump 2 came alive after the oath of office was
administered and immediately after his first day in office.
The Tale of Two Trumps has Trump 1 making all the
promises and a contract with America. Americans
believed in Trump 1 and supported him and Americans
elected him to follow through on those nation-saving
promises.
Trump 2 is the Disaster Trump or as some now call him,
Devil Trump. Trump 2 has broken just about every single
promise that Trump 1 made. There is no arguing, no
disputing it, Trump 2 has totally betrayed America and has
lost much - if not most - of his support base.
The first enormous disappointment of Trump 2 was on
immigration. He hastily scribbled out an Executive Order
halting the influx of people from 7 Countries deemed to be
supporters of terrorism and a threat to the US. Trump 2
never intended for that EO to keep out Muslims from those
7 countries. He KNEW the first Obama-appointed Federal
Judge to see an action brought against his EO would issue
a stay on it. A no-brainer.
IF he had really wanted to keep out the Muslim refugees,
and all illegals, he could have easily done so using the
existing immigration laws on the books. He certainly
could have also used Public Health laws that prevent those
with communicable diseases like Leprosy, TB, Chagas,,
Leishmaniasis, HIV-Aids, Syphilis and all sorts of diseases
from getting in. And that includes mental health diseases
and issues as well.
There are MANY illnesses and diseases that would bar
immigrants and refugees from entry to the US. No court
would be able to stop Trump from banning refugees and
immigrants or migrants who have these diseases based on
the LAWS already on the books. They would be sent
home to receive treatment in their country of origin. Once
well, they could formally and properly apply for
consideration to be allowed into our nation. Trump 2 has
not used ANY OF THESE LAWS to keep out ANY
migrants and refugees.
Not only did Trump 2 FAIL stop the flow of muslim
'refugees' from Third World countries like Somalia, Syria,
Sudan, etc, but Trump 2 has continued to bring in Muslim
and black Third World savages who hate America and
literally want to kill us. It is said the flow is at least equal
to that of Obama. And now, Princess Ivanka has come out
totally in favor of muslim immigrants. This is beyond
belief.
Trump 2 knew, and knows full well, that Europe has been
overwhelmed by Somali, African and Mideast Muslims
and that crime has soared out of sight there. Horrible,
endless rapes occur at the rate of one every 8 seconds.
Murder and robbery have skyrocketed and tourism to
European countries has now virtually stopped.
Trump 2 recently rubbed his betrayal further into our
faces. Trump 1 promised not to honor the deal Obama
made with Australia to take in thousands of their Muslim
and African refugees. So what happened when Pence
traveled to Australia last week? On behalf of Trump 2, he
promised the Australian PM that the US would be happy to
take in over 1,250 blacks and Muslims currently held in a
detention facility there.
IF, as we are being told, refugees are 'good' for America
and 'good' for Australia and Europe, etc, then WHY is
Australia insisting we take this garbage in? The answer is
these dregs are NOT good for ANY Western country.
They are a grievous drain on the First World and will be
hooked up to welfare, medicaid, food stamps, free housing,
free education, cars, cash and long-term (for LIFE) Social
Security. Yes, these 'people' are set for LIFE while 95
million Americans remain jobless and destroyed.
Let us also not forget that these Third Worlders multiply
worse than rabbits. 1,250 Muslims will become 10,250 in
a few short years. And each new birth brings a future
jihadi into our nation.
Millions of Americans are light years beyond disappointed
in the Disaster President…Trump 2. It has been A Tale of
Two Trumps...Trump 1, the lying, deceiving campaigner
and Trump 2, the betraying, back-stabbing Disaster
President.
Beside dropping the TPP, Trump 2 has broken virtually
every single promise made to the American people.
Trump 1 had promised major tax relief for the middle class
but he has now broken that promise as well. Trump 2 is
giving major tax help to the 1%. He has planned tax relief
.
156
for billionaires and also planned to give corporation large
breaks. Meanwhile, Trump 2 has asked for $58 billion
more for his Pentagon war machine. He does not seem to
have any serious restraint about using nuclear weapons in
North Korea or in the Middle East. Trump 2 and his 'team'
have no trouble threatening countries all over the planet.
And now, he says he is going to 'renegotiate' NAFTA! Do
you recall how Trump 1 said over and over that NAFTA is
a bad deal for America and that he was going to dump it?
Well, the last time I looked 'renegotiate' does not mean
'dump'.
Yes, A Tale of Two Trumps. It is a tale of broken
promises, duplicity, deceit and betrayal. He has not kept
one significant promise, aside from the TPP, that he made
as Candidate Trump. 100 days is plenty long enough to
see exactly where he is going.
This Tale of Two Trumps needs to end...and end now.
Trump 2 needs to be impeached. Trump 2 needs to be
removed from the Presidency for lying to the American
people and general incompetence. This is going to be the
longest 4 years in the history of any Presidency. By 2020,
America, as we knew it, will cease to exist. Get ready for
mass prayers in the streets, Sharia law, terror attacks and
the endless sexual mutilation of little girls. Welcome to
Trumpland.
ISIS has made no secret of sending many of its terrorists
disguised as refugees to the West. There are also Taliban
fighters, Al Shabob Somali fighters and ISIS zealot
killers. By 2020, it will be far too late to get all of these
savage invaders out of America and the West. Australia
recognized the error of taking in Muslims and black
invaders and found a way out...force them on the US.
How long before France and Germany will try to do the
same? The French know now that the Muslims are death
for their country and economy. Next, Trump 2 will offer
to take European Muslims. Just watch.
The Tale of Two Trumps has been a nightmare already.
Trump has turned on his support base, broken nearly every
solemn promise and vow he made during the campaign
and has now become a full-blown Neocon threat to middle
America.
The Trumpenstein monster.
Dump Trump now and write finis to A Tale of Two
Trumps.
 Reports Uncover Jared Kushner's
Business Ties With One Of Israel's Richest Families
The Ties Between The Kushners And Raz Steinmetz Reportedly Include
High-Stake Real Estate Deals In Manhattan Worth More
Than $150 Million
Amir Tibon Apr 27, 2017 12:32 PM
Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump in the East Room of the White
House in Washington, U.S., March 17, 2017.
JIM_BOURG/REUTERS
Two leading U.S. news outlets reported on Wednesday on
business ties totaling tens of millions of dollars between
the family of Jared Kushner, President Trump's son-in-law
and senior adviser, and the Steinmetz family, one of the
richest families in Israel which made most of its fortune in
the diamond industry in recent decades.
According to reports published in Bloomberg and in the
New York Times, the ties between the two families include
high-stake real estate deals in Manhattan worth more than
$150 million. Bloomberg says at least 15 different
buildings in downtown Manhattan are co-owned by Raz
Steinmetz, nephew of diamond dealer Beny Steinmetz, and
by Kushner family's Kushner Companies. The two also
invested together in a project bearing President Trump's
name in New Jersey, according to the report.
Steinmetz and Kushner worked on some of these joint
ventures through a company called Gaia, which according
to Bloomberg was listed on the Kushner Companies'
website as an investor in the past. A spokesperson for the
.
157
Kushners said that indeed, the two sides have been
longstanding business partners.
In the report published by the New York Times, a few
hours after the report in Bloomberg appeared, a
spokesperson for the Kushners made sure to note that Raz
Steinmetz, who is 53 years old, is "the only Steinmetz" the
family is doing business with. This was important to note,
since Raz Steinmetz's uncle, Beny Steinmetz, is currently
under police investigation for allegedly bribing officials in
Guinea in order to advance his mining business. He was
detained and investigated by the Israeli police half a year
ago.
Beny Steinmetz's investigation has also spread into the
United States, where it is overseen by the Justice
Department. The New York Times notes that this could
create complications for Kushner, especially since one of
his roles in the administration, according to past statements
by the president, is brokering Middle East peace. A White
House spokeswoman said that
"Mr. Kushner continues to work with the
Office of the White House Counsel and
personal counsel to ensure he recuses
from any particular matter involving specific
parties in which he has a business
relationship with a party to the matter."
The New York Times report mentioned that Beny
Steinmetz's attorney in the United States is Alan
Dershowitz, who said that his client had no business ties to
the Kushners. Last month, Haaretz reported that
Dershowitz was asked by Trump to convey a message to
Prime Minister Netanyahu on the importance and
possibility of reaching a peace deal with Palestinian
President Mahmoud Abbas.
 The Conservative Media Meets Trump
By Cal Thomas
April 27, 2017 | 7:29 PM EDT
President Trump did something Monday I have long
advocated. He met with a small group of conservative
journalists, pundits and radio talk show hosts. I was among
them.
After ticking off a list of what he said were his
accomplishments leading up to the arbitrary 100-day
marker of his presidency, we asked him questions.
What differed from the crowd of liberal journalists who
ask questions during formal news conferences -- and those
that toss questions at his spokesman, Sean Spicer, at the
daily press briefing -- is that our group asked questions
with the intent of getting information, instead of the
accusatory tone and "gotcha" questions that often
characterize what has come to be known as the mainstream
media.
The session was supposed to be on "background," meaning
the president could not be quoted, but halfway through he
declared it on the record, which is how news broke of his
decision to impose a 20 percent tariff on Canadian lumber
entering the U.S. Trump said it is "unfair" for the Canadian
lumber industry to receive government subsidies.
Reciprocity, he called it, "a word I like."
The questions were substantive, including mine about
North Korea ("Given your stated budding friendship with
China's President Xi Jinping and what do you say are his
efforts to dissuade North Korea's nuclear program, would
you say war is less likely, or about as likely?") The
president said he doesn't discuss military matters in public,
but in his answer to my follow-up question he said he's not
sure some of the armaments recently paraded through the
streets of Pyongyang are real, "but we'll see."
Conservatives should not be lapdogs for a Republican
president. No one asked the types of softball questions the
media usually toss at a Democratic president. The
president told us he doesn't expect to be free of criticism,
158
but appreciates fairness. He allowed that conservative
journalists are likely to be fairer to him than those his
strategist, Steve Bannon, has called "the enemy" and
"opposition party." A side note: Bannon stood off to the
side at our meeting with the president, frequently smiling.
Evidence that the major media tilt left is undeniable. The
Media Research Center, a conservative media watchdog
organization, has calculated that during the first 30 days of
his presidency "...the President and his team were the
subject of 16 hours of coverage on just the Big Three
evening newscasts, or more than half (54 percent) of all of
the news coverage during this period. And while most new
presidents enjoy a media honeymoon, the tone of Trump's
coverage was nearly as hostile (88 percent negative) as we
found during last year's presidential campaign (91 percent
negative)."
The New York Times on Tuesday provided a useful service.
It carried a story noting how differently conservative and
liberal reporters and commentators have treated President
Trump and his administration. Reading these suggests not
just different perspectives, but different realities.
The mini news conference ended with a promise by a
White House staff member that there would be more of
these gatherings. They seem to be an outgrowth of Sean
Spicer's strategy to broaden media access beyond the usual
collection of liberal journalists and even beyond
Washington, as he does with occasional questions via
Skype from reporters and anchors in other cities. Most of
these have also been substantive and reflect issues and
perspectives from outside the Washington Beltway.
While some reporters have groused about this exercise in
ideological pluralism, the public is getting more
information and a different perspective than what they are
used to. That can only be good for the country, for
conservative journalists who are often ignored by the
major media and for the president.
 Trump Fails To Force
Health Care Vote In First 100 Days
By Phil Mattingly, Deirdre Walsh, Ted Barrett And Lauren Fox, CNN
Updated 1:30 AM ET, Fri April 28, 2017
Washington (CNN)House GOP leaders, despite a furious
push Thursday, were unable to wrangle the votes necessary
to move forward on their latest effort to repeal and replace
the Affordable Care Act.
The development short-circuits, yet again, the House effort
to repeal the cornerstone domestic achievement of
President Barack Obama.
Whip count: Republicans who oppose new health care bill
It guarantees President Donald Trump will be without a
cornerstone legislative achievement on his 100th day in
office -- a symbolic moment that the White House has
focused on intently in recent days as negotiations on a
revised health care proposal accelerated.
"There will be no vote tomorrow," House Majority Leader
Kevin McCarthy told reporters as he departed a nearly
two-hour closed-door meeting of House leaders as they
sought to plot a path forward on the bill. Asked if there
was any chance there would be a vote at any point this
weekend, McCarthy also said no.
"We've been making great progress," he
said. "So when we have the votes we'll
vote on it."
159
The failure to collect the 216 votes needed to pass the bill
marks yet another setback on the House -- and White
House -- efforts to see the central GOP campaign promise
of the last seven years even reach the House floor.
Despite robust conservative support for the proposal,
Republican leaders found themselves bleeding support
from the conference's more centrist members, many of
whom voiced concern over whether it would undercut the
existing ban on pre-existing conditions.
A CNN count of where members stood had 16 solid "no"
votes on the bill and another 11 members undecided.
Still, a GOP leadership aide said the proposal, which
brought Republicans closer to the requisite number of
votes needed to pass a bill than any of the previous
iterations, was "100 percent" still alive.
"We're close, and moving in the right
direction, but not close enough to risk it,"
the aide told CNN. That indicates that GOP
leaders still see a window to move the bill,
possibly as soon as next week. But there is
unquestionably work to do.
"We're still educating members," McCarthy
said.
Focus on GOP moderates
Before the recess, all eyes were on the conservative House
Freedom Caucus, whose coalition of more than 30
members had stood united against House leadership's
health care bill. Now, however, with a new amendment
that gives states broader ability to opt out of Obamacare
regulations and roll back protections for individuals with
pre-existing conditions, moderates are the ones taking the
heat.
Rep. Charlie Dent, a moderate Republican from
Pennsylvania, called it "an exercise in blame shifting."
The amendment was negotiated between Tuesday Group
leader Rep. Tom MacArthur, a moderate Republican from
New Jersey, and House Freedom Caucus Chairman Mark
Meadows, with consultation from the White House and
House leadership. It has caused a lot of heartburn among
moderates, with many arguing that they had explicitly
asked their leadership not to negotiate with the Freedom
Caucus.
MacArthur defended his amendment to reporters
Wednesday.
"The latest proposal I made was just trying
to bridge this divide between people that
are holding two important views: people
that are saying 'we're not going to fix health
care unless we bring the cost down, which
means we have to give the states some
flexibility,' and people that are saying 'we
can't pull the rug out from under people
that are vulnerable," MacArthur said.
"And I agree with both of those. They are
both right positions, and my amendment
was just meant to bridge the divide
between those two."
What the GOP health care bill does
The MacArthur amendment would allow states to seek
waivers to weaken several key Obamacare insurance
reforms that protect those with pre-existing conditions,
including the benefits insurers must cover in their policies
and the ban on allowing carriers to charge more based on a
person's health background.
However, Americans who were continuously insured could
not be charged higher premiums because of pre-existing
conditions. Also, states that waived the ban would have to
put in place protections to minimize cost increases for
those with pre-existing conditions, such as high risk pools.
The amendment would also allow insurers to hike
premiums on older consumers in states that obtain waivers.
The original House GOP bill allowed insurers to charge
older consumers five times more than younger ones, but
states that request waivers could permit insurers to
increase those premiums even more.
The waivers would be pretty easy to get, as long as the
state explains how it would reduce average premiums and
increase enrollment. They'd be automatically approved
within 60 days, unless the Health Secretary objects. And
they'd last for 10 years.
The amendment initially called for exempting members of
Congress from these waivers, however Republicans
quickly filed another bill striking that provision.
While MacArthur stressed that states would not be allowed
to waive the Obamacare rule that requires insurers to cover
those with pre-existing conditions, health policy experts
say the amendment would greatly affect those who are sick
.
160
or have had medical issues in the past. It would allow
insurers to charge them more for coverage, and also it
would let insurers once again offer skimpy policies. That
would make it harder for the sick to find comprehensive
policies that cover their treatments.
Obamacare's protections for those with pre-existing
conditions are among the law's most popular provisions.
Likely no shutdown
On a positive note for Republican leaders, the failure to
move health care this week does appear to clear the path
for something else: keeping the government open through
May 5.
House Democrats threatened to oppose a short-term
government funding bill headed to the House floor
tomorrow if Republicans insisted on also voting on their
health care bill. That proposal, which would extend
Friday's government funding deadline for a week, is
designed to give House and Senate negotiators more time
to hammer out the final details of a longer term spending
package to fund the government through September.
The battle over a government shutdown appeared to be
mostly over late Thursday, with the push for border wall
funding sidelined and Democrats saying Trump's
administration will continue paying for subsidies for low-
income Americans as part of Obamacare.
The House is expected to vote Friday to keep the
government open through May 5 and give lawmakers more
time to negotiate a longer-term funding package.
The border wall and the health care spending had been two
sticking points for congressional and White House
negotiators during the past several weeks of discussions to
avert a shutdown.
White House officials told Democrats on the Hill
Wednesday that the Trump administration will continue
making the cost-sharing payments created under
Obamacare, multiple sources tell CNN.
As part of the Affordable Care Act, the federal government
pays health insurers to reduce the out-of-pocket costs for
low-income people trying to pay for health care. These are
referred to cost-sharing reduction (CSR) payments. The
payments are a major way Democrats ensured low-income
people would be covered under the Affordable Care Act,
but with a new Republican administration, their future is
uncertain.
CNN's Phil Mattingly, Manu Raju, Gloria Borger, Eli
Watkins, Jeff Zeleny and Tami Luhby contributed to this
report.
 Trump Continues To Disappoint
By Joel Skousen
4-28-2017
This Is A Snip From Joel's Superb 'World Affairs Brief'
Newsletter For A Complimentary Copy Just Write To
Editor@worldaffairsbri
This week Trump made several important compromises
that are disappointing for supporters who hoped for real
change in Washington. He allowed budget negotiations to
push aside funding for his key campaign promise to “build
the wall,” agreed not to pull out of NAFTA, and now VP
Pence has agreed to honor Obama’s promise to take
refugees off the hands of the Australian PM who doesn’t
want them in his country. Trump has failed to stop
refugees who continue to pour into the US in record
numbers without proper vetting. But the worst
compromises came in the budget bill where Trump agreed
to support maintaining Obamacare funding of subsidies in
order to please Democrats.
Democrats had tacitly agreed to back the budget if funding
for the physical wall was omitted, and then sensing they
could get more demanded the funding of Obamacare
subsidies. After two major compromises they are still
refusing to back the bill wondering how much more they
can extract from Trump. He’s turning out to be an easy
mark for compromise. So much for the “art of the deal.”
Above all, the Democrats have delayed any agreement
until after his first 100 days passes so the budget deal can’t
be added to his small “success list.”
.
.
161
Trump justified compromising on his signature campaign
promise by saying he was simply going to fund it in
September when the new fiscal year begins for federal
spending. But what makes Trump think it’s going to be
any easier then? Somebody is feeding Trump a line that
any experienced politician in Washington would see as a
lie.
Democrats suckered Trump in by saying they would agree
to some new money for border security as long as it was
not for a wall. Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer
continues to push the line that smart technology like
drones is “a much more effective way to secure the
border.” This is completely wrong. Cameras and drones
might tell agents miles away that someone is crossing the
border, but by the time they get there, they are long gone
and must be hunted down and captured at the risk of a
violent confrontation. A physical wall keeps most of that
from happening.
RINO Republican senator and globalist Lindsey Graham
vowed, “There will never be a 2,200-mile wall built,
period.” Sadly, he may be right, seeing the ease at which
Trump can be compromised. Sen. Rob Portman, a key
Republican on the Senate appropriation committee is
likewise talking down the wall saying “there could be a
wall in some places and technology in other places,”
implying a willingness not to build the wall. (end of snip)
 Trump: "I'm A Nationalist
And A Globalist"
Chris Menahan - Informationliberation
Apr. 28, 2017

mainstream group that is comfortable with

the trend toward globalization.

That mainstream group has been actively sending

reassuring signals to business leaders in other countries,
even as they have been locked in internal battles in
Washington.

One senior Toronto bank executive said Gary Cohn and

President Trump told the Wall Street Journal on Thursday
he's "both" a "nationalist" and a "globalist".
Steven Mnuchin -- former Goldman Sachs Group Inc.
executives now serving as chairman of the White House
National Economic Council and as Treasury Secretary,
respectively -- have on a few occasions reached out to
senior Canadian business officials in recent weeks to
counsel them that despite the internal Trump
administration divides over trade policies, they expect no
significant Nafta changes.

From the Wall Street Journal:

President Donald Trump was prepared to

end the North American Free Trade
Agreement deal, which had governed trade
relations for the past 23 years, with a
dramatic announcement Saturday at a
Pennsylvania political rally marking his
100th day in office.

As rumors spread of the possible action, Mexican

President Enrique Peña Nieto called the president urging
him not to pull out of the accord. "Let me think about it,"
Mr. Trump said. Within a half hour a call came in from
Canadian Prime Minister Justin Trudeau with a similar
request.
After the talks, Mr. Trump was convinced "they're serious
about it and I will negotiate rather than terminate," the
president said in an interview with The Wall Street Journal
on Thursday.
...Watching events play out, veterans of
past White Houses say Mr. Trump needs a
more consistent, unified message. Part of
the trouble may be that his White House is
split into factions: a nationalist wing
symbolized by chief strategist Steve
Bannon that is wary of multinational
treaties and trade deals, and a more
162
"This is a disputatious White House and we have to understand this
is going to spill out into the public," the Canadian banker said.
Atop the pyramid is Mr. Trump, who in his 1987 book,
"The Art of the Deal," wrote that he values flexibility
above all:
"I never get too attached to one deal or one
approach," he said.
Craig Fuller, who served eight years in former President
Ronald Reagan's White House, said in an interview:
"The trouble here is I don't see how you get
a course correction when there isn't a
course. It's just erratic.
 "He needs to go look at the two factions I'm pretty sure most people voted for a nationalist and not
inside the White House and get rid of one a globalist. That whole "America first" thing had real
of them. You can't operate that way in the appeal.
White House."

Mr. Trump dismissed talk about a split inside his White

House between aides with a nationalist or globalist
orientation.

"Hey, I'm a nationalist and a globalist," he

said. "I'm both. And I'm the only one who
makes the decision, believe me."

There was plenty of globalists like Jeb Bush and John

Kasich running in the election, they did terribly.

Hillary Clinton ran as an open borders, free-trade globalist.

She also lost.

The rust belt voted for you because of your anti-free trade
stance which was totally unique and separated you from
the rest of the pack.

Not one person who voted for you would have voted for
Gary "Globalist" Cohn and Steve Mnuchin.
.

163
 Trump’s Deplorable
First 100 Days
By Stephen Lendman
4-28-2017
Saturday, April 29, is his 100th day in office. He’s off to a
deplorable start, the worst likely ahead.
A White House press release (WHPR) turned truth on its
head, praising what demands condemnation.
WHPR: Trump prioritized “putting America first (and)
protecting national security…”
Fact: He’s consistently put America first for its wealthy,
powerful and privileged exclusively - no one else.
Fact: National security needs no special protection at a
time America’s only enemies are ones it invents - to
destructively advance its imperium.
WHPR: Trump wants an additional $54 billion for so-
called “defense.”
Fact: He wants it for warmaking, toppling independent
governments, and enriching war-profiteers.
WHPR: He “stood up to countries that have threatened our
national security after years of failed diplomacy.”
Fact: No countries anywhere threaten America.
Washington’s rogue agenda threatens humanity’s survival.
WHPR: Trump “(s)ent a message to the world with his
swift and decisive order to strike the Syrian air base that
launched a horrific chemical weapons attack on innocent
civilians.”
Fact: Trump authorized naked aggression against a
sovereign state based on a Big Lie. At no time throughout
over six years of war, did Syria use CWs. No evidence
suggests otherwise.
WHPR: Trump “(f)urther isolated Syria and Russia at the
United Nations through successful diplomacy with
President Xi Jinping of China.”
Fact: Both countries have an enduring partnership. China’s
Xi Jinping calls it unbreakable. According to his chief of
staff Li Zhanshu, “Chinese-Russian relations are going
through their best period in our history.”
.
164
Fact: Bilateral ties are solid, despite serious international
challenges and efforts by rogue US officials to disrupt
them. Trump’s White House lied claiming otherwise.
WHPR: He “(i)mposed sanctions on Syria for its use of
chemical weapons against innocent civilians.”
Fact: Illegal sanctions were unilaterally imposed based on
a Big Lie. No Syrian use of CWs occurred.
WHPR: He “(i)mposed sanctions on Iran for violating an
international agreement that restricts its ballistic missile
program.”
Fact: Iran’s ballistic missile program is entirely legitimate,
violating no international or any other agreement.
WHPR: He “(w)orked to isolate North Korea and
repositioned military assets to confront the regime’s
provocative missile tests.”
Fact: His Korean peninsula brinksmanship risks
unthinkable nuclear war, the ultimate nightmarish
scenario.
The White House boasted about meeting with an array of
world leaders - including brutal Israeli, Saudi and Egyptian
despots.
Trump’s so-called border protection scheme is racist and
illegitimate. His proposed southern border wall offends
Mexico, will cost billions of dollars if built, and will
accomplish little.
His domestic policies aim to make America more of a
police state than already. He supports monied interests
exclusively. His foreign policy risks humanity-destroying
nuclear war.
His deplorable first 100 days suggests greater horrors
ahead. He’s a rogue actor, serving wealth, power and
privilege at the expense of most others at home and abroad
- at the same time, threatening world peace.
 Every Promise President Trump
Has Broken That Candidate Trump Made
Kaitlan Collins -
White House Correspondent
11:09 AM 04/29/2017
Donald Trump has been in office for 100 days now.
Though he has touted his nomination of Judge Neil M.
Gorsuch to the Supreme Court as one of his biggest
accomplishments, the president has flip-flopped or not
fulfilled several central promises he made to his
supporters throughout the campaign.
He has given various reasons for his one-eighties.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act?
“Nobody knew health care could be so
complicated.” China? “What am I going to
do? Start a trade war with China?” NATO?
“It’s no longer obsolete.”
As the clock ticked down to Trump’s first 100 days, he has
increasingly looked less like the man he ran as.
(Photo: Mark Wilson/Getty Images)
Repealing the Affordable Care Act and replacing it
Trump said he would do this in his first 100 days.
“I will work with Congress to introduce the
following broader legislative measures and
fight for their passage within the first 100
days of my administration,” he said during
a speech in Pennsylvania last fall. “The
Repeal and Replace Obamacare Act. Fully
165
repeal Obamacare and replace it with
health savings accounts. We can do that.”
House Republicans pulled their proposed bill to repeal and
replace the Affordable Care Act in March, just minutes
after they were scheduled to vote on it, when it become
clear they didn’t have the votes to pass.
Terminating Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals
On the campaign trail, Trump promised to “immediately
terminate” DACA, which protects hundreds of thousands
of undocumented immigrants who came to the country as
children from deportation, but he changed his tune in an
interview with the Associated Press in April when he said
the administration is “not after the dreamers.”
“We are after the criminals,” Trump said.
“That is our policy.”
Ending the H-1B visa program
Trump pledged to kill the H-1B visa program with “no
exceptions” because, he believes, it allows companies to
import foreign workers and replace American workers for
a lower cost. In mid-April, he signed an executive order
seeking to enforce the H-1B visa program so it “serves the
national interest” by awarding visas to the most-skilled and
highest-paid applicants without bypassing American
workers who are qualified for those jobs.
Eliminating the Export-Import bank
Trump reversed his position on the agency when he said he
no longer wants to eliminate it, but reshape it.
He recently called it “a very good thing” and announced
plans to nominate two board members.
“Actually, it’s a very good thing,” Trump told
the Wall Street Journal. “And it actually
makes money, it could make a lot of
money.”
“It turns out that, first of all, lots of small
companies are really helped, the vendor
companies. When other countries give it
 we lose a tremendous amount of When asked if this could be seen as softening his stance on
business.” China, Trump credited his newfound relationship with
Chinese President Xi Jinping and the looming nuclear
The relevance of NATO weapons problem in North Korea.
“I said it was obsolete,” Trump said. “It is
no longer obsolete.” “What am I going to do? Start a trade war
with China in the middle of him working on
a bigger problem, frankly, with North
Labeling China a currency manipulator
Korea? So, I’m dealing with China with
“They’re not currency manipulators,” Trump great respect. I have great respect of him.”
recently told the Wall Street Journal.
.

166
 Exclusive: Trump Says He Thought
Being President Would Be Easier Than His Old Life
By Stephen J. Adler, Jeff Mason And Steve Holland | WASHINGTON
Sat Apr 29, 2017

24-hour Secret Service protection and its accompanying

constraints.

"You're really into your own little cocoon,

because you have such massive protection
that you really can't go anywhere," he said.

When the president leaves the White House, it is usually in

a limousine or an SUV.
He misses driving, feels as if he is in a cocoon, and is
surprised how hard his new job is.
He said he missed being behind the wheel himself.
President Donald Trump on Thursday reflected on his first
"I like to drive," he said. "I can't drive any
100 days in office with a wistful look at his life before the
more."
White House.

Many things about Trump have not changed from the

"I loved my previous life. I had so many
wheeler-dealer executive and former celebrity reality show
things going," Trump told Reuters in an
host who ran his empire from the 26th floor of Trump
interview. "This is more work than in my
Tower in New York and worked the phones incessantly.
previous life. I thought it would be easier."
He frequently turns to outside friends and former business
A wealthy businessman from New York, Trump assumed
colleagues for advice and positive reinforcement. Senior
public office for the first time when he entered the White
aides say they are resigned to it.
House on Jan. 20 after he defeated former Secretary of
State Hillary Clinton in an upset.

More than five months after his victory and two days shy
of the 100-day mark of his presidency, the election is still
on Trump's mind. Midway through a discussion about
Chinese President Xi Jinping, the president paused to hand
out copies of what he said were the latest figures from the
2016 electoral map.

"Here, you can take that, that's the final

map of the numbers," the Republican
president said from his desk in the Oval
Office, handing out maps of the United
States with areas he won marked in red.
"It’s pretty good, right? The red is obviously
us."
He had copies for each of the three Reuters reporters in the
room.
Trump, who said he was accustomed to not having privacy
in his "old life," expressed surprise at how little he had
now. And he made clear he was still getting used to having
The president has been at loggerheads with many news
organizations since his election campaign and decided not
to attend the White House Correspondents' Dinner in
Washington on Saturday because he felt he had been
treated unfairly by the media.
"I would come next year, absolutely,"
Trump said when asked whether he would
attend in the future.

167
The dinner is organized by the White House (Writing by Jeff Mason; Editing by Kieran Murray and
Correspondents' Association. Reuters correspondent Jeff Howard Goller)
Mason is its president.

168
 CNN's Brian Stelter: Trump Remarks Mocking CNN And
MSNBC Are 'Insidious' And 'Poisonous'
By Tim Graham
April 29, 2017 | 11:26 PM EDT
In the minutes leading up to their live coverage of the
White House Correspondents Dinner, CNN turned to
media reporter Brian Stelter, who caused unintentional
laughter when he claimed that the journalists inside the
dinner had no political interests in their Trump coverage.
They're "just trying to do their best work."
He slammed the president's speech
Saturday night as "insidious" and
"poisonous," even as he admitted it was
nothing new. He's perpetually outraged.
STELTER: [Jeffrey] Lord and I were just
debating how effective the presdient’s anti-
media attacks are, and we’re in agreement,
they are effective. But let’s recognize how
poisonous they are as well. Every single
president disputes some news coverage of
their presidency, but no president until now
gets up at a rally and calls news outlets
fake. No president gets up at a podium and
says the things we’ve heard from this
president tonight.
It’s nothing new from him, this was really a
copy-and-paste speech, as you all were
just talking about. But it is insidious, it is
poisonous, and I think for the
journalists in this room – just trying to
do their best work – it is disappointing
.
169
to continue to hear the president taking
this tone.
Trump told his rally crowd in Harrisburg that CNN and
MSNBC are fake news. Stelter suggested Trump was
insincere:
"Even if he doesn’t believe CNN is fake
news, and I don’t think he does, some of
his audience does, and that’s a problem."
Sen. Rick Santorum then said he would agree with Stelter
that Trump doesn’t believe that all of CNN’s news is fake
news,
“but he does believe, and I know his base
believes, that what you choose to cover,
and the tone with you cover it, is not
representing the reality of the situation. In
that sense, it’s fake, in their eyes."
Santorum said in his political career,
“I’ve always felt I had to fight tooth and nail
to get any kind of honest coverage out of
the national media.”
Stelter began the interview:
"Everybody in the audience here [at the
Correspondents Dinner] has this pin this
First Amendment pin, that’s been handed
out, and President Trump needs to wear
one as well."
Isn't that ironic? From the people who refuse to ever wear
a U.S. flag pin on camera, even if that might represent a
free press? We also can't imagine reporters like Stelter
wearing a pin honoring the Second Amendment. They
cherry-pick the Bill of Rights for honors.
 Trump’s Deadly Legacy.
One Hundred Days And Counting.
And There’s More To Come…
By Michael T. Bucci - Global Research
April 29, 2017

January 20, 2017 (Friday):

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/20
17/01/21/u-s-border-agents-turned-away-canadians-
– Trump signs first executive action
hoping-to-come-to-the-womens-march/
canceling Obama’s FHA mortgage rate
premium cuts
– Throughout weekend, Trump argues
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/20/t about size of his inaugural crowds
rumps-first-executive-action-cancel-obamas-mortgage- compared to those who attended Women’s
premium-cuts/96853446/ rally

http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/315484-
– Trump signs executive order to roll-
trump-defends-size-of-his-inaugural-crowd
back Obamacare hours after taking
office
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/21/us/politics/trump-
white-house-briefing-inauguration-crowd-size.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/trump-signs-
executive-order-on-obamacare/
January 23, 2017 (Monday):
– Trump writes memo temporarily
banning new federal government – Trump signs repeal of TPP.
regulations.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/315654-
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/20/politics/reince-priebus- trump-signs-orders-on-tpp-abortion-federal-hiring-freeze
regulations-memo/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/23/us/politics/tpp-
January 21, 2017 (Saturday) trump-trade-nafta.html

– Massive Women’s march in U.S. and

world.

https://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2017/01/21/world/w
omens-march-pictures.html

http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/21/politics/trump-women-
march-on-washington/

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/01/21/
womens-march-aims-start-movement-trump- – Trump freezes federal hiring (except
inauguration/96864158/ military).

– U.S. Customs asks Canadians entering https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-

for D.C. if “pro-Trump” or “anti-Trump”. freezes-hiring-of-federal-workers/2017/01/23/f14d8180-
Some anti-Trump barred from entering. e190-11e6-ba11-63c4b4fb5a63_story.html

170
 – Trump bans federal money to those
who counsel on abortions (incl
international groups).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2017/01/23/trump-reverses-abortion-related-
policy-to-ban-funding-to-international-health-groups/
– Trump blames voter fraud for loss of
popular vote.
http://elections.ap.org/content/trump-wrongly-blames-
fraud-loss-popular-vote
January 24, 2017 (Tuesday)
– Executive Order to continue
construction of Keystone XL and Dakota
Access pipelines.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/jan/24/keystone-xl-dakota-access-pipelines-
revived-trump-administration
– Trump orders EPA freeze and media
blackout, banning press releases, blog
updates or posts to the agency’s social
media accounts. Also told Agricultural and
Interior Depts, if not also DHS.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/01/23/trump-administration-tells-
epa-to-freeze-all-grants-contracts/
January 25, 2017 (Wednesday)
– Trump sends directives to build a
2,000 mile wall at the US-Mexican border
and curtail immigration.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/24/us/politics/wall-
border-trump.html
– Trump vows to strip funding from
cities shielding illegal immigrants.
171
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2017/01/25/trump-
slashes-federal-funding-sanctuary-
cities/CEXMyIvNZXEgtDTOOoyn3N/story.html
– Trump to direct federal resources
toward building a border wall.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/01/24/politics/donald-trump-
immigration-refugees/
– DOW hits 20,000
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-
idUSKBN1591HP
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/markets/2017/01/
25/dow-20000-news-story/95367276/
January 26, 2017 (Thursday)
– Trump calls Chelsea Manning an
“ungrateful traitor.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/trump-manning-
234207
– Trump tells Republicans meeting in PA,
“now is the dawn of a new era.”
https://www.c-span.org/video/?422829-1/president-trump-
tells-congressional-republicans-now-deliver
– Mexico cancels meeting with Trump
citing disagreement over paying for wall.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/world/mexicos-
president-cancels-meeting-with-trump-over-wall.html
– Trump calls for 20% tax on Mexican
imports to pay for border wall.
http://www.businessinsider.com/sean-spicer-trump-
considering-20-tax-on-mexican-imports-2017-1
– Scientists move Doomsday Clock ahead 30 seconds,
closest to midnight in 63 years, due to threats such as
nuclear weapons, climate change and Donald Trump’s
election
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-science-doomsdayclock-
idUSKBN15A2JJ
http://thebulletin.org/sites/default/files/Final%202017%20
Clock%20Statement.pdf
– Bannon tells the NY Times the media is the “opposition
party” of the new administration and should “keep its
mouth shut.”
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/steve-
bannon-donald-trump-war-media-transparency-liberal-
elite-interview-new-york-times-a7548406.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/26/business/media/step
hen-bannon-trump-news-media.html
– Trump signs first presidential proclamation declaring
this week “National School Choice Week.”
http://finance.yahoo.com/news/president-trump-proclaims-
national-school-195900813.html
– DHS has temporarily halted trips by staff to interview
refugees abroad
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-refugees-
idUSKBN15A2TD
– Trump pulls ad budget in the closing days of
HealthCare.gov. Former Obama officials call it
“sabotage”.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/01/27/news/economy/obamaca
re-ads-trump/
January 27, 2017 (Friday)
172
– U.S. U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley warned U.S. allies
if they don’t support Washington, she is “taking names”
and will respond.
– Trump signs executive order that will limit
immigration and refugees from some Muslim-majority
countries for six months; suspends the United States’
Syrian refugees program indefinitely.
– Trump signs executive action to begin military
buildup
http://www.defensenews.com/articles/report-draft-
executive-order-would-give-pentagon-short-term-funding-
boost
– British PM Theresa May and Trump pledge allegiance
to special relationship. White House misspelled Theresa
“Teresa” three times. British press corp was locked outside
the White House because their birthdates were submitted
in UK format and Secret Service didn’t understand it.
– Melania Trump wins first round in libel lawsuit
against MD blogger (Webster Tarpley) for citing she was
in escort service. Tarpley asked for dismissal of suit and
denied by judge.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/01/melania-trump-
libel-suit-blogger-234263
– Trump tells Mexican president Peña Nieto, “You have
a bunch of bad hombres down there. You aren’t doing
enough to stop them. I think your military is scared. Our
military isn’t, so I just might send them down to take
care of it.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-
badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-
30e57e57e05d_story.html
January 28, 2017 (Saturday)
– Trump’s immigration ban causes chaos and
controversy
 https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/no-gday-mate-on-call-with-australian-pm-trump-
badgers-and-brags/2017/02/01/88a3bfb0-e8bf-11e6-80c2-
30e57e57e05d_story.html

– The federal court for the Eastern District of New York

issued an emergency stay halting President Donald
Trump’s executive order banning entry to the US from
seven majority-Muslim countries

https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-
https://www.theguardian.com/us- issues/refugees-detained-at-us-airports-challenge-trumps-
news/2017/jan/28/airports-us-immigration-ban-muslim- executive-order/2017/01/28/e69501a2-e562-11e6-a547-
countries-trump 5fb9411d332c_story.html

– Trump and Putin discuss ‘mutually beneficial’ trade,

January 29, 2017 (Sunday)
security

(Leaked later – Feb. 9 – and reported by Reuters, Putin

raised possibility of extending START treaty. Trump
asked his aides what it was and then told Putin the treaty
was one of several bad deals negotiated by the Obama
administration, saying that New START favored Russia.
Trump also talked about his own popularity, the sources
said.)

http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-putin-
idUSKBN15O2A5
– Trump signs executive order banning administration
officials from ever lobbying the U.S. on behalf of a
foreign government and imposing a separate five-year
ban on other lobbying.
http://time.com/4652703/president-trump-lobbying-ban/
– Trump signs memorandum giving military leaders 30
days to construct and present a report outlining the U.S.
strategy for defeating ISIS.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-executive-order-isis-defeat-30-days-
a7551521.html
– Trump signs memorandum ordering a reorganization
of the National Security Council, gives seat to Steve
Bannon.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/jan/28/lobbying-ban-trump-executive-order-
isis-strategy
– Trump blasted Australian Prime Minister Malcolm
Turnbull over a refugee agreement and boasted about the
magnitude of his electoral college win.
– Trump travel ban continues to sow chaos at airports,
outrage at protests.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/jan/29/protest-trump-travel-ban-muslims-
airports
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/29/nyregion/trump-
travel-ban-protests-briefing.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-
protests-idUSKBN15D15H
– Judges in Massachusetts, Virginia and Washington state
block federal authorities from enforcing Trump’s
executive order restricting immigration from seven
Muslim-majority countries
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/volokh-
conspiracy/wp/2017/01/29/four-federal-judges-issue-
orders-blocking-parts-of-trumps-executive-order-on-
immigration/
– Global backlash:

173

German Chancellor Merkel: global fight against terrorism
“does not justify putting people of a specific
background or faith under general suspicion.”
British Foreign Minister Boris Johnson tweeted:
“Divisive and wrong to stigmatise because of
nationality.”
French President Hollande: defending democratic
principles required compliance with “the principles on
which it is founded, in particular the acceptance of
refugees”.
UK PM Theresa May said she “did not agree” with the
restrictions.
Prime Minister Mark Rutte of the Netherlands said his
country believes refugees “deserve a safe haven” … “we
reject this travel ban.”
– Presidential counselor Kellyanne Conway said
television networks should be “cleaning house” of
“these people who said things that just weren’t true [about
Donald Trump] … The election was three months ago.
None of them have been let go.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/president-trump-
seeks-to-quash-dissent-inside-the-
government/2017/02/01/788bdefa-e7ed-11e6-b82f-
687d6e6a3e7c_story.html
January 30, 2017 (Monday)
– Mass protests continue over Trump immigration ban.
174
– Trump denies chaos at airports from immigration
ban but from computer glitch, demonstrators and “fake
tears” of Charles Schumer.
http://www.abc.net.au/news/2017-01-31/trump-denies-
immigration-ban-to-blame-for-airport-chaos/8225196
– Trump signs an executive action aimed at cutting
regulations for small businesses – a “one in, two out”
plan, requiring government agencies requesting a new
regulation to identify two others they will cut.
http://www.bbc.com/news/business-38800090
– Trump fires acting justice department head Sally
Yates for refusing to enforce immigration ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/30/justice-
department-trump-immigration-acting-attorney-general-
sally-yates
– State Department officials circulated a draft memo
criticizing Trump’s executive order on immigration.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-
cables-idUSKBN15E21X
– Washington State sues Trump over immigration
order.
http://www.businessinsider.com/washington-becomes-
first-state-to-sue-trump-over-immigration-order-2017-1
– Trump replaces acting Immigration Enforcement
head.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/317025-
trump-boots-acting-ice-head-report
January 31, 2017 (Tuesday)
– Democrats stall confirmation hearings of Steven
Mnuchin (Treasury) and Tom Price (DHHS).
– More State Dept protests on their dissent channel
drawing 1,000 signatures.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/01/31/world/americas/state apparent “price-fixing” by Medicare, rather than
-dept-dissent-cable-trump-immigration-order.html working to stymie the industry’s grip on drug prices.

– New York, Massachusetts and Virginia join http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal

Washington state sue Trump over immigration ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/jan/31/trump-
travel-ban-state-lawsuits
– Trump nominates Neil Gorsuch to be associate justice
of the Supreme Court.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-trump-
idUSKBN15F1OW
d-trump-big-pharma-prescription-drug-prices-lobbyists-
medicare-negotiations-a7557726.html
– Senate confirms Rex Tillerson as secretary of state,
sworn in.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/01/us/politics/rex-
tillerson-secretary-of-state-confirmed.html
February 2, 2017 (Thursday)

– European Commission President Donald Tusk lists US
administration as one of EU’s ‘external threats’.
http://www.dw.com/en/ec-president-tusk-lists-us-
administration-as-one-of-eus-external-threats/a-37360291
– The European parliament’s main political parties are
making an unprecedented attempt to block Trump’s likely
choice as ambassador to the European Union from EU
buildings, describing Ted Malloch as hostile and
malevolent.

February 1, 2017 (Wednesday) https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/02/european

-union-trump-ambassador-ted-malloch-parliament
– Senate Republicans suspend the rules to approve two
Trump nominees, Rep. Tom Price (R-Ga.) for secretary
of health and human services and Steve Mnuchin to lead
the Treasury. Republicans also advanced the nomination
of Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.) for attorney general, and
they finalized confirmation of former ExxonMobil chief
executive Rex Tillerson for secretary of state by a vote of
56 to 43. Trump urged Senate Republican leaders
Wednesday to be prepared to tear up the rules of the
Senate and “go nuclear” if Democrats try to block
Supreme Court nominee Gorsuch — that is, change
long-standing Senate rules to permit the confirmation of a
Supreme Court nominee with a simple majority vote.

https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/republicans- – Defense Sec. Mattis warns North Korea of “effective

ram-through-committee-approval-of-trump-cabinet-
nominees/2017/02/01/aa2b5458-e87f-11e6-b82f-
687d6e6a3e7c_story.html
– Trump’s national security adviser Michael Flynn
delivered a tight-lipped warning to Iran over its most
recent ballistic missile test, “As of today, we are officially
putting Iran on notice.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/with-flynn-putting-iran-on-notice-the-first-days-
of-president-trumps-foreign-policy-set-a-combative-
tone/2017/02/01/0645f248-e709-11e6-b82f-
687d6e6a3e7c_story.html
– Trump reverses campaign pledge to let Medicare
negotiate for lower prescription drug promises. After
meeting with Big Pharma lobbyists, he would oppose
and overwhelming” retaliation if country attacks U.S.
ally.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-southkorea-usa-mattis-
idUSKBN15I060
February 3, 2017 (Friday)
– Trump signed a pair of executive orders aimed at
lightening the regulatory load on financial institutions,
setting the stage for a broader push to scale back the
Dodd-Frank financial reform law.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/317799-trump-signs-
executive-orders-to-loosen-wall-street-regs
– The Trump administration slapped new sanctions on
Iran after the administration signaled it wanted to punish

175
Tehran for its latest ballistic missile test. The Treasury
Department announced that 13 people and 12 companies
face new restrictions
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/iran-sanctions-
234604
– A U.S. judge imposed a nationwide hold on Trump’s
ban on travelers and immigrants from seven
predominantly Muslim countries.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/2017/02/03/report-
federal-judge-refuses-block-trump-immigration-
ban/97466178/
Trump Cries ‘Witch Hunt’ as Russia Questions Pile
Up.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/first-read/trump-cries-
witch-hunt-russia-questions-pile-n728611
February 4, 2017 (Saturday)
– Trump administration filed notice of appeal to
suspension of immigration ban.
http://www.seattletimes.com/seattle-news/politics/trump-
administration-appeals-seattle-judges-halt-of-refugee-
travel-ban/
– “So-called” judge in immigration hold decried by
Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2017/02/04/trump-lashes-out-at-federal-judge-who-
temporarily-blocked-travel-ban/
– Tens of thousands join marches across UK against
Trump’s travel ban.
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2017/feb/04/tens-
of-thousands-in-new-march-against-trumps-travel-ban
– Thousands swarm New York’s Stonewall Inn to
protest Trump.
http://www.nbcnewyork.com/news/local/Hundreds-Push-
Back-Against-Executive-Orders-at-Stonewall-Inn-
LGBTQ-Rally-412783683.html
– Hundreds of anti-Trump protesters marched on
Trump’s private Mar-a-Lago resort in Palm Beach, Fla.
Other protests at White House, Supreme Court and Paul
Ryan’s hometown office.
176
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/317942-
hundreds-of-anti-trump-protesters-march-on-mar-a-lago-
resort
– Trump stands by voter fraud claim in Fox News
interview.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/317946-
trump-defends-claims-of-widespread-voter-fraud
– Iran would use its missiles if its security is under
threat after Trump imposed sanctions on entities linked to
the Revolutionary Guards. Flynn said it put the country
“on notice” after it test-fired ballistic missiles.
http://in.reuters.com/article/iran-usa-military-missiles-
idINKBN15J0DX
February 5, 2017 (Sunday)
– A federal appeals court denied an initial bid by the
Trump administration to restore its controversial
immigration order.
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/
ct-trump-travel-ban-20170205-story.html
– Trump attacks judge and court system. Trump said
Americans should blame U.S. District Judge James Robart
and the court system if anything happened.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-immigration-
idUSKBN15K0AF
– Trump said he would put Vice President Mike Pence
in charge of a commission to probe what he believes
was voter fraud in last November’s election.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-voterfraud-
idUSKBN15K0TS
February 6, 2017 (Monday)
– Corporate titans among 100 companies joining brief
against Trump travel ban. “The order inflicts significant
harm on American business, innovation, and growth as a
result. Immigrants or their children founded more than 200
of the companies on the Fortune 500 list.”
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/feb/06/amicus-brief-trump-travel-ban
– Trump reaffirmed his support for NATO before
military leaders and troops at U.S. Central Command, and
laced his speech with references to homeland security.
http://www.voanews.com/a/trump-to-visit-
centcom/3707656.html
– New York Assembly passes bill to make New York
State a “sanctuary state” in response to Trump’s
promised crackdown on sanctuary cities.
http://www.politico.com/states/new-
york/albany/story/2017/02/assembly-passes-sanctuary-
state-bill-as-trump-response-109389
February 7, 2017 (Tuesday)
– Betsy DeVos is confirmed Education Secretary.
Senate voted 50-50 with V.P. Pence casting decisive vote.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation/2017/02/07/b
etty-devos-education-secretary-confirmation/97589282/
– Author Webster Tarpley settles defamatory lawsuit
filed by Melania Trump paying her a “substantial sum”.
He had repeated rumors in his blog that Melania Trump
had worked as a “high-end escort”. Her lawyers claimed
she suffered “multiple millions of dollars” in economic
damages because of the lost value to her brand.
https://www.buzzfeed.com/zoetillman/melania-trump-
settles-her-defamation-lawsuit-against-a-blogg
– Sen. Elizabeth Warren was stopped by Republicans
from reading a nine-page letter written by the late
Coretta Scott King, Martin Luther King’s widow. In the
1986 letter, addressed to Strom Thurmond, then the Senate
Judiciary committee chairman, King expressed her
opposition to Sessions, who had been nominated for a
federal judgeship in Alabama. She was accused of
‘impugning’ Jeff Sessions.
http://time.com/4663497/coretta-scott-king-letter-warren-
senate-sessions/
February 8, 2017 (Wednesday)
– Jeff Sessions confirmed as Attorney General.
177
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/08/us/politics/jeff-
sessions-attorney-general-confirmation.html
– Trump bashes Nordstrom after it drops Ivanka’s line.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/02/08/514203791/trump-slams-nordstrom-for-
dropping-ivanka-s-clothing-line
– Supreme court nominee Neil Gorsuch calls Trump
judge attacks ‘demoralizing’ and ‘disheartening.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/21/politics/neil-gorsuch-
trump-criticism-disheartening/
– Trump went after a panel of federal judges weighing
whether a court order blocking his travel ban should be
lifted. Trump argued the law gives him broad powers to
control who enters and leaves the U.S.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318451-
trump-attacks-judges-weighing-travel-ban
– ACLU vows to sue Sessions if he violates Constitution
as AG.
http://www.businessinsider.com/aclu-warns-jeff-sessions-
attorney-general-trump-civil-rights-2017-2
– New York Post reporter sues after being fired for
critical Trump tweet. He Bart Hubbuch called Trump’s
election a “national tragedy,” and compared his victory to
the 1941 attack on Pearl Harbor and the Sept. 11 terrorist
attacks.
http://www.nydailynews.com/new-york/writer-sues-new-
york-post-firing-anti-trump-tweet-article-1.2967303
February 9, 2017 (Thursday)
– British PM Theresa May says Trump’s travel ban is
wrong and Britain does not plan to adopt a similar policy.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/02/01/b
ritish-leader-theresa-may-trumps-travel-ban-divisive-and-
wrong/97330620/

– NY Times and Washington Post report Michael
Flynn, National security adviser, discussed sanctions
with Russian ambassador during the month before
Trump took office, contrary to public assertions by Trump
officials, current and former U.S. officials said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/national-security-adviser-flynn-discussed-
sanctions-with-russian-ambassador-despite-denials-
officials-say/2017/02/09/f85b29d6-ee11-11e6-b4ff-
ac2cf509efe5_story.html
– Trump signs three executive orders to combat crime,
further his “law and order” agenda, crack down on
international crime and crimes against law enforcement.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/politics/trump-
law-enforcement-drug-cartels-order.html
– In call with Putin, Trump denounced Obama-era
nuclear arms treaty.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-putin-
idUSKBN15O2A5
– Federal appeals court rules 3 to 0 against Trump on
travel ban, a sweeping rebuke of the administration’s
claim that the courts have no role as a check on the
president.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/09/us/politics/appeals-
court-trump-travel-ban.html
– Trump calls the appeals court ruling “a political
decision.” “SEE YOU IN COURT, THE SECURITY OF
OUR NATION IS AT STAKE!” Trump wrote on Twitter.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318838-
trump-responds-to-ruling-see-you-in-court
– Trump promises Chinese president Xi Jinping he’ll
honor ‘One China’ policy.
http://fortune.com/2017/02/09/trump-one-china-xi-jinping/
178
February 10, 2017 (Friday)
– Trump meets with Japan’s President Shinzo Abe but
only takes questions from Murdoch owned media reporters
from the New York Post and Fox Business Network.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/318971-
rupert-murdoch-owned-outlets-get-only-us-questions-at-
trump-japan
– Trump hints at new travel order coming next week.
https://www.msn.com/en-us/news/politics/trump-hints-at-
new-travel-order-coming-next-week/ar-AAmOqxG
– Education Secretary Betsy DeVos was greeted with
protesters when she tried to enter a Washington middle
school.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/education/protester
s-rally-at-dc-school-ahead-of-visit-by-education-secretary-
betsy-devos/2017/02/10/faad4962-ef06-11e6-b4ff-
ac2cf509efe5_story.html
– British government drops plan to allow Trump to
address joint houses of Parliament. Officials are trying
to ensure that Trump is not in London at a time when
parliament is sitting, in order to avoid a formal snub.
https://www.theguardian.com/politics/2017/feb/10/british-
officials-drop-plans-donald-trump-address-parliament-
queen-elizabeth
– Obamacare opponent Tom Price sworn in as Health
Secretary.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/10/us/politics/tom-
price-health-secretary-senate.html
– The Central Intelligence Agency has denied elite
security clearance for Michael Flynn’s top National
Security Council deputy Africa Robin Townley.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/319073-top-
flynn-aide-rejected-for-key-security-clearance-report
– Democrats call for Michael Flynn’s dismissal after
reported Russia talks, a potential violation of the Logan
Act, which prohibits private citizens from negotiating with
foreign governments in disputes involving the American
government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/flynn-holds-call-with-pence-amid-calls-for-
probes-of-contacts-with-russian-
ambassador/2017/02/10/f8fb83a0-efe1-11e6-9973-
c5efb7ccfb0d_story.html
– Undocumented Immigrants Arrested Nationwide,
Stoking Fears Of Trump’s ‘Deportation Force’.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-immigration-
raids-
deportation_us_589e1eb0e4b094a129eb03b0?2t8f9pbl78u
22ihpvi
February 11, 2017 (Saturday)
– Anti-abortion protesters rallied at scores of Planned
Parenthood clinics to urge Congress and President Trump
to strip the health services provider of federal funding,
while supporters of the organization staged counter-
demonstrations around the United States. All told, rallies
and marches were called in 45 states in cities large and
small.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-abortion-
idUSKBN15Q0AS
– Army veterans return to Standing Rock to form a
human shield against police.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/feb/11/standing-rock-army-veterans-camp
– Trump claimed that his daughter Ivanka had been
“abused” by news media following renewed scrutiny
over the family’s potential conflicts of interest.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-media-
abused-ivanka-234933
February 12, 2017 (Sunday)
NO ENTRIES
February 13, 2017 (Monday)
– GOP says it will not investigate Trump’s tax returns.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-tax-returns-
idUSKBN15S2GZ
179
– Senate confirms Steven Mnuchin as treasury
secretary.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/
13/senate-confirms-mnuchin-as-treasury-secretary/
– Justin Trudeau meets with Trump at W.H.
http://news.nationalpost.com/news/canada/canadian-
politics/trudeau-trump
February 14, 2017 (Tuesday)
– Trump national security aide Flynn resigns over
Russian contacts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-
idUSKBN15S0BR
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/michael-flynn-resigns-as-national-security-
adviser/2017/02/13/0007c0a8-f26e-11e6-8d72-
263470bf0401_story.html
– Secret Service director to step down.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-secretservice-
idUSKBN15T2J0
– Intel leaks reveal Trump aides were in constant touch
with senior Russian officials during campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/14/politics/donald-trump-
aides-russians-campaign/index.html
– Trump signs repeal of transparency rule for oil
companies, to scrap Dodd-Frank rule on oil extraction.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/money/2017/02/14/trump
-scraps-dodd-frank-rule-resource-extraction-
disclosure/97912600/
February 15, 2017 (Wednesday)
– NY Times and Washington Post cast doubt on claims
made by Trump’s team that there had been no contact
with Russian officials; report intel knows of contacts
between Trump campaign figures and Russia. “Phone
records and intercepted calls show that members of Donald
J. Trump’s 2016 presidential campaign and other Trump
associates had repeated contacts with senior Russian
intelligence officials in the year before the election.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/paloma/
daily-202/2017/02/15/daily-202-it-s-bigger-than-flynn-
new-russia-revelations-widen-trump-s-credibility-
gap/58a3c5b9e9b69b1406c75cb4/
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/14/us/politics/russia-
intelligence-communications-trump.html
– Andy Puzder withdraws nomination for labor
secretary after he admitted employing an illegal
immigrant as a former housekeeper.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/15/politics/top-senate-
republicans-urge-white-house-to-withdraw-puzder-
nomination/
– Trump blasts ‘criminal’ leaks by intelligence
agencies, calls Flynn ‘wonderful’.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-flynn-
idUSKBN15U2C1
February 16, 2017 (Thursday)
– Trump gives 76 minute press conference and berates
media.
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/trump-media-out-of-
control_us_58a5ea16e4b07602ad529bb7
– Mick Mulvaney, staunchly conservative tea-party,
confirmed by Senate to run Trump’s OMB.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/02/16/515578360/senate-narrowly-confirms-
mulvaney-as-trumps-nominee-for-omb-director
– Six Donald Trump staffers fired today, escorted out
of White House, after flagged by FBI.
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/donald-trump-
forced-fire-six-white-house-staffers-fail-fbi-background-
checks/1564/
February 17, 2017 (Friday)
– Senate confirms climate-denier Scott Pruitt to head
EPA.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/02/17/scott-pruitt-long-time-
adversary-of-epa-confirmed-to-lead-the-agency/
– John McCain broke with the reassuring message that
U.S. officials visiting Germany have sought to convey
saying that the administration of President Donald
Trump was in “disarray”.
180
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-germany-security-usa-
idUSKBN15W1J2
– Trump considered using national guard to round up
immigrants, memo suggests.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/17/trump-
immigration-roundup-national-guard
http://hosted.ap.org/dynamic/stories/U/US_TRUMP_NAT
IONAL_GUARD?SITE=AP&SECTION=HOME&TEMP
LATE=DEFAULT&CTIME=2017-02-17-15-07-35
– Trump Calls the News Media the ‘Enemy of the
American People’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/17/business/trump-
calls-the-news-media-the-enemy-of-the-people.html
– Senate Intelligence Committee meets behind closed-
doors, summoning Comey, to discuss Trump-Russian
ties.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/320161-comey-
meets-with-intel-senators-amidst-russia-uproar
– Senate Intelligence Committee asked more than a
dozen agencies, organizations and individuals to
preserve communications related to the panel’s
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election. (This wasn’t reported until days later.)
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/19/politics/senate-
intelligence-committee-russia-materials/
February 18, 2017 (Saturday)
– (story) Eight people flee U.S. border patrol to seek
asylum in Canada.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-canada-refugees-
idUSKBN15W2GN
– Trump holds rally in Orlando complete with promises
to repeal the health care law, insults for the news media
and a playlist highlighted by the Rolling Stones.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/feb/18/donald-trump-attacks-press-dishonest-
media-florida-rally
– At Orlando rally Trump states that a terrorist attack
had occurred in Sweden, which has admitted tens of
thousands of refugees in recent years. He based it on a Fox
News report. (No such attack took place.)
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/feb/19/sweden-trump-cites-non-existent-terror-
attack
– Memos signed by DHS secretary describe sweeping
new guidelines for deporting illegal immigrants.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/memos-signed-
by-dhs-secretary-describe-sweeping-new-guidelines-for-
deporting-illegal-immigrants/2017/02/18/7538c072-f62c-
11e6-8d72-263470bf0401_story.html
– U.S. inquiries into Russian election hacking include
three FBI probes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-cyber-
idUSKBN15X0OE
February 19, 2017 (Sunday)
– NY Times reveals a back-channel plan for Ukraine and
Russia was circulated with aims to unseat President
Poroshenko, install a pro-Russian president, lift sanctions,
“lease” Crimea to Ukraine.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/19/us/politics/donald-
trump-ukraine-russia.html
February 20, 2017 (Monday)
181
– Trump named Lieutenant General Herbert Raymond
McMaster as his new national security adviser, again
turning to the U.S. military to play a central role on his
foreign policy team.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-
idUSKBN15Z1Z0
– Russia’s ambassador to the UN, Vitaly Churkin, died
suddenly in New York after being taken ill at work, the
Russian Foreign Ministry said.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/russia
n-ambassador-un-vitaly-churkin-dead-diplomat-dies-
suddenly-new-york-puton-a7590366.html
– Norway pledges $10 million to counter Trump’s
global anti-abortion move.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-norway-
abortion-idUSKBN15Z1KL
– Protests take place across the US for “Not My
President’s Day”.
http://www.usatoday.com/picture-
gallery/news/nation/2017/02/20/not-my-presidents-day-
protests-across-the-usa/98164442/
– The Senate Intelligence Committee has now informed
more than a dozen government agencies that they must
secure documents relating to the Trump-Russia
investigation and are not allowed to destroy them.
http://www.msnbc.com/rachel-maddow-show/trumps-
russia-scandal-takes-unexpected-turn
– More than 100 headstones at the Chesed Shel Emeth
cemetery in St Louis were damaged or knocked. More
than 50 bomb threats had been made against Jewish
organisations in the US since January, including 11 today.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/feb/21/vandals-
damage-dozens-of-headstones-in-jewish-cemetery-in-
missouri
February 21, 2017 (Tuesday)
– Millions of people living in the United States illegally
could be targeted for deportation – including people
simply arrested for traffic violations – under a sweeping
rewrite of immigration enforcement policies announced
Tuesday by the Trump administration. The broad scope of
the president’s ambitions are: to publicize crimes by
immigrants; enlist local police officers as enforcers; strip
immigrants of privacy rights; erect new detention facilities;
discourage asylum seekers; and, ultimately, speed up
deportations.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/21/us/politics/dhs-
immigration-trump.html
February 22, 2017 (Wednesday)
– Mexico fumes over Trump deportations to Mexico.
DHS unveiled plans on Tuesday to consider almost all
illegal immigrants subject to deportation, and will seek
to send many of them to Mexico if they entered the United
States from there, regardless of their nationality.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-
idUSKBN16127O
– Police surrounded the Standing Rock camps to evict
the remaining Native American activists fighting the
Dakota Access pipeline.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/feb/22/dakota-access-pipeline-standing-rock-
evacuation-police
– DoJ moves to prevent CIA official from detailing role
in Bush-era torture.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/22/cia-
torture-gina-haspel-court-deposition-trump
– Trump Administration Rescinds Rules on Bathrooms
for Transgender Students.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/learning/questions-
for-trump-rescinds-rules-on-bathrooms-for-transgender-
students.html
February 23, 2017 (Thursday)
– Alt-right leader Richard Spenser expelled from
CPAC after organizer denounces ‘sinister organization’.
Dan Schneider, the executive director of the American
Conservative Union labeled the alt-right leftist: “We must
not be deceived by [a] hateful, left-wing fascist group,” a
reference to National Review columnist Jonah Goldberg’s
“Liberal Fascism”.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/201
7/02/23/cpac-organizer-denounces-alt-right-as-left-wing-
fascist-group/
– Conservative activist O’Keefe posts tapes targeting
CNN.
182
https://www.yahoo.com/tv/conservative-activist-james-
okeefe-release-cnn-tapes-115023325.html
– At CPAC, Bannon states Trump administration is
locked in an unending battle against the media and
other globalist forces to “deconstruct” an outdated system
of governance. “If you think they are giving you your
country back without a fight, you are sadly mistaken.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/201
7/02/23/bannon-trump-administration-is-in-unending-
battle-for-deconstruction-of-the-administrative-state/
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/2017/2/23/1637159/-
President-Bannon-threatens-media-We-re-going-to-make-
it-worse-every-day-for-you
– Trump says efforts to remove undocumented
immigrants is a “military operation.”
http://www.politico.com/blogs/donald-trump-
administration/2017/02/trump-undocumented-immigrants-
military-operation-235308
– At CPAC, Ted Cruz suggested that another seat on
the U.S. Supreme Court will open up this summer (with
no explanation).
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/powerpost/wp/201
7/02/23/ted-cruz-predicts-second-supreme-court-vacancy-
this-year-but-doesnt-explain-why/
– Rep. Louie Gohmert (R-Texas) on Thursday invoked
the 2011 shooting of former Rep. Gabby Giffords (D-
Ariz.) at a constituent event as a reason not to hold a public
town hall. “At this time there are groups from the more
violent strains of the leftist ideology, some even being
paid, who are preying on public town halls to wreak havoc
and threaten public safety,” Gohmert said in a statement.
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/2/23/1636854/-
Louie-Gohmert-invokes-Giffords-shooting-as-reason-not-
to-hold-town-hall
– White House chief of staff Reince Priebus asked a top
FBI official to dispute media reports that Trump’s
campaign advisers were frequently in touch with
Russian intelligence agents during the election.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/23/politics/fbi-refused-
white-house-request-to-knock-down-recent-trump-russia-
stories/index.html

– Trump tells Reuters he wants to expand nuclear
arsenal, make US ‘top of the pack’.
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/02/23/trump-tells-reuters-he-
wants-to-expand-nuclear-arsenal-make-us-top-of-the-
pack.html
February 24, 2017 Friday
– Trump addresses CPAC: calls for an arms-race, vows
military build-up, hammers nationalist themes; reiterates
that media is “enemy of the people”. He vowed to “do
something about it [the press].”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-
idUSKBN1630HH
– Trump blasted the FBI for being “totally unable to
stop the national security ‘leakers’ that have permeated
our government for a long time.”
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/fbi/320954-
trump-fbi-totally-unable-to-stop-leaks
– Trump promises border wall ‘soon, way ahead of
schedule’.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39080356
– Trump issues executive order requiring federal
agencies to create “deregulatory” task forces
responsible for eliminating outdated and unnecessary rules.
183
https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-
office/2017/02/24/presidential-executive-order-enforcing-
regulatory-reform-agenda
– Media outlets were denied entry to later press
briefing by Spicer: Guardian, the New York Times,
Politico, CNN, BBC, LA Times, The Hill, NY Daily
News, Huffington Post, Daily Mail, BuzzFeed and others.
AP, USA Today and Time were invited but boycotted the
briefing to show solidarity with fellow news outlets. The
White House Correspondents Association condemned the
White House’s move
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/24/media-
blocked-white-house-briefing-sean-spicer
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/trump-media-
makes-up-sources-235345
– State legislators take steps to criminalize protests.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/321018-state-
legislators-take-steps-to-criminalize-protests
– The White House acknowledged its chief of staff
Reince Priebus asked the FBI’s deputy director to
dispute a New York Times article alleging Moscow
links.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39080673
– Trump puts regulation monitors in U.S. agencies.
Trump signed the executive order in the Oval Office with
chief executives of major U.S. corporations standing
behind him including Dow Chemical Co., Lockheed
Martin Corp. and U.S. Steel Corp.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-regulations-
idUSKBN1631NV
– Hate crime is feared as 2 Indian engineers are shot in
Kansas. It raised new alarms about a climate of hostility
toward foreigners in the United States, where Trump has
made clamping down on immigration a central plank of his
“America first” agenda.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/24/world/asia/kansas-
attack-possible-hate-crime-srinivas-kuchibhotla.html
– John Dean Accuses The White House Of A Russia
Cover-Up.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/02/24/john-dean-trump-
white-house-covering-russia-scandal.html
February 25, 2017 Saturday
– Wary of Trump unpredictability, China ramps up naval
abilities.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-china-defence-navy-
idUSKBN16500P
– Trump decides to skip White House press dinner.
U.S. President Donald Trump announced on Saturday that
he would not attend the annual White House
Correspondents’ Association dinner, a high-profile event
that draws celebrities, politicians and journalists.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-press-
idUSKBN1640TF
– Former Secretary of Labor Tom Perez was elected
DNC Chair in a close election, and in his first move as
Chair, he created the new position of DNC Deputy Chair
for his opponent Keith Ellison. The Democratic Party is
now led by a Hispanic son of immigrants and a Muslim.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/02/25/us/politics/dnc-
perez-ellison-chairman-election.html
February 26, 2017 Sunday
– Trump’s first budget proposal will spare big social
welfare programs such as Social Security and Medicare
from any cuts, Treasury Secretary Steven Mnuchin said in
an interview. (Entitlements will be cut, says a NYT report.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-economy-
idUSKBN1650LL
– Spicer cracking down on leaks coming out of the
West Wing, with increased security measures that include
random phone checks of White House staffers, overseen
by White House attorneys.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/02/sean-spicer-
targets-own-staff-in-leak-crackdown-235413
– Sixty to one-hundred Jewish headstones vandalized in
Philadelphia.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/26/us/jewish-cemetery-
vandalism-philadelphia/
February 27, 2017 Monday
– House Intelligence chairman Nunes denies evidence of
Trump team’s ties to Russia. Nunes contended there was
no need at this time for a special prosecutor. Instead, the
“major crimes” that have been committed are leaking to
the news media on the subject of Russia.
184
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-
intelligence-chairman-denies-evidence-of-trump-teams-
ties-to-russia/2017/02/27/66495ce8-fcfd-11e6-99b4-
9e613afeb09f_story.html
– Trump will propose a federal budget that
dramatically increases defense-related spending by $54
billion while cutting virtually all other federal agencies
by the same amount.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-to-
propose-10-percent-spike-in-defense-spending-massive-
cuts-to-other-agencies/2017/02/27/867f9690-fcf2-11e6-
99b4-9e613afeb09f_story.html
– Wilbur L. Ross, Jr., a former banker and investor who
earned billions during decades of buying and selling
industries, dubbed the “king of bankruptcy”, was
confirmed as secretary of commerce by the Senate in a
72-to-27 vote.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/02/
27/billionaire-investor-wilbur-ross-confirmed-as-trumps-
secretary-of-commerce
– Trump administration will formally end opposition
to Texas voter ID law. Justice department says
administration won’t challenge the strict law, in a shift
from Obama-era opposition to such discriminatory laws.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/feb/27/texas-
voter-id-law-trump-administration-no-challenge
– Jewish community centers in Cherry Hill, NJ, North
Jersey, Wilmington, Delaware, and York, Pennsylvania,
were among those evacuated, targeted in wave of bomb
threats. NBC News lists at least 20 bomb threats to Jewish
Community Centers and day schools in 13 states.
http://www.courierpostonline.com/story/news/local/south-
jersey/2017/02/27/cherry-hill-jewish-community-center-
evacuated/98476938/
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/321338-
new-wave-of-bomb-threats-against-jewish-community-
centers
– A federal appeals court rejected a Justice
Department request to place on hold an appeal over
President Donald Trump’s travel ban on people from
seven majority-Muslim countries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-
idUSKBN16627W
– House Republicans beat back a Democratic attempt
to smoke out President Donald Trump’s tax returns,
after the issue was forced on the floor.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/house-gop-thwarts-
democrats-pursuit-of-donald-trumps-tax-returns-
1488251818
– Sens. Rand Paul (R-Ky.), Ted Cruz (R-Texas) and
Mike Lee (R-Utah) argue they want full repeal of
Obamacare.
http://thehill.com/policy/healthcare/321489-cruz-lee-paul-
demand-full-repeal-of-obamacare
February 28, 2017 Tuesday
– Washington Post reports FBI once planned to pay
MI6 agent Christopher Steele. An agreement with the
FBI was reached a few weeks before the election for the
bureau to pay him to continue his work.The agreement fell
apart once Steele’s dossier was published and reported.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/fbi-once-
planned-to-pay-former-british-spy-who-authored-
controversial-trump-dossier/2017/02/28/896ab470-facc-
11e6-9845-576c69081518_story.html
– White House lawyers instructed Trump’s staff to
preserve materials that could be connected to Russian
interference in November’s election.
https://apnews.com/23cca28e11b74f0cb369fda6fac64d67
– Trump gives address to Congress heralding a “new
chapter of American greatness,” overhauling the health
care system, boosting military spending, spending $1
trillion to upgrade infrastructure, tax relief for middle-class
and reduction in corporate tax rates, promotes new
immigration crime office. Trump invited relatives of those
killed by undocumented people to Capitol Hill.
– Donald Trump signs bill allowing mentally ill people
to buy guns.
185
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-guns-bill-mentally-ill-background-
checks-nra-a7604876.html
– House Judiciary Committee voted along party lines
not to investigate the Trump-Russia scandal.
https://thinkprogress.org/house-republicans-government-
information-trump-russia-852121abe2d6
March 1, 2017 Wednesday
– Senate confirms Ryan Zinke to head Interior
Department.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/03/01/senate-confirms-ryan-zinke-
as-interior-secretary/
– Justice Department admits Sessions had contacts with
Russians, though he had denied it earlier. Adam B. Schiff,
the ranking Democrat on the House Intelligence
Committee, said in a statement that if the reports about Mr.
Sessions were accurate, “it is essential that he recuse
himself from any role in the investigation of Trump
campaign ties to the Russians.” Mr. Schiff added, “This is
not even a close call; it is a must.” Nancy Pelosi, the
Democratic leader of the House, called on Mr. Sessions to
resign, saying on Twitter that “he is not fit to serve as the
top law enforcement officer of our country.”
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/01/us/politics/obama-
trump-russia-election-hacking.html
– House Intelligence Committee has agreed an
investigation into Russia’s alleged interference in the
2016 US elections.
http://www.theindependentbd.com/post/83382
http://thehill.com/policy/cybersecurity/321924-house-
intelligence-sets-goals-for-russia-investigation
– Trump Delays New Travel Ban After Speech to
Congress Gets High Marks. “We want the [executive
order] to have its own ‘moment,’” a White House official
told CNN.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/28/politics/trump-travel-ban-
visa-holders/
March 2, 2017 Thursday
– Ben Carson confirmed to head HUD.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/politics/ben-
carson-housing-urban-development.html
– Trump stands by Session in Russia controversy.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-
sessions-idUSKBN16908L
– Euro lawmakers press EU to impose visas on U.S.
citizens. (File under Western nationalism.)
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-eu-usa-visa-
idUSKBN1691Q9
– Senate confirms Rick Perry as Energy Secretary.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/rick-perry-
confirmed-energy-secretary-235617
– Sessions recuses himself on all current and future
investigations into Russia ties with the Trump
campaign.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/top-gop-
lawmaker-calls-on-sessions-to-recuse-himself-from-russia-
investigation/2017/03/02/148c07ac-ff46-11e6-8ebe-
6e0dbe4f2bca_story.html
– White House EPA budget proposal cuts climate
protection program 70 percent to $29 million, targets
climate, clean water programs. An EPA climate protection
program on cutting emissions of greenhouse gases like
methane that contribute to global warming would be cut 70
percent to $29 million.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-epa-budget-
idUSKBN1692XA
– Adam Schiff, leading Democrat on the House
Intelligence Committee, claims FBI holding back
information on Russia probes. “At this point we know
less than a fraction of what the FBI knows.”
https://www.yahoo.com/news/fbi-not-answering-congress-
questions-russia-probe-democrat-190000262.html
– Vice President Mike Pence used a private email
account to conduct public business when he was
governor of Indiana, a practice that was legal but raised
questions about the security of the communications, some
of which addressed sensitive topics.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/02/us/mike-pence-
used-private-email-as-governor-news-report-says.html
186
– ‘The fuse is lit’: Dan Rather says Trump-Russia
scandal is about to go off like a bomb.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/the-fuse-is-lit-dan-
rather-says-trump-russia-scandal-is-about-to-go-off-like-a-
bomb/
March 3, 2017 Friday
– Women and children crossing together illegally into
the United States could be separated by U.S. authorities
under a proposal being considered by the Department of
Homeland Security.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-
children-idUSKBN16A2ES
– Vice President Pence said there was “no comparison
whatsoever” between his use of a private email account
for state business while he was governor of Indiana and
the email woes of former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/mike-pence-
personal-email-
address/http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/03/politics/mike-
pence-personal-email-address/
– Trump administration is seeking a 17 percent cut to
the budget of the government’s meteorological agency
that monitors the climate and issues daily weather
forecasts. Proposed reductions in NOAA would affect
research and satellite programs and eliminate funding for
some smaller programs.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/03/03/white-house-proposes-steep-
budget-cut-to-leading-climate-science-agency/
– Current and former officials said that in a departure
from past practice, access to a classified computer
system at the White House has been tightened by
political appointees to prevent professional staffers from
seeing memos being prepared for the new president.
And at the Department of Homeland Security, some
officials told Reuters they fear a witch hunt is under way
for the leaker of a draft intelligence report which found
little evidence that citizens of seven Muslim-majority
countries covered by Trump’s now-suspended travel ban
pose a threat to the United States.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-secrecy-
exclusive-idUSKBN16A0GD
– The Transportation Security Administration has
started using a new and more rigorous pat-down at
airports, which one passenger this week likened to “groin
scrutiny.”
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/nation-
now/2017/03/03/tsa-rolls-out-new-more-intimate-airport-
pat-downs/98713844/
– European Parliament votes to end visa-free travel for
Americans. The passing of the non-binding resolution
comes after the US failed to agree visa-free travel for
citizens of five EU countries.
http://www.business-standard.com/article/news-
ians/european-parliament-ends-visa-free-travel-for-
americans-117030301077_1.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/03/world/europe/eu-
visas-parliament-united-states.html
– Trump leaves White House furious that Sessions
recused himself.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/322363-
reports-trump-told-aides-sessions-shouldnt-have-recused-
himself
– Carter Page, Adviser Once Linked to Trump Campaign,
Met With Russian Ambassador.
http://www.nbcnews.com/politics/politics-news/carter-
page-adviser-once-linked-trump-campaign-met-russian-
ambassador-n728511
March 4, 2017 Saturday
– Trump suggested Obama had improperly tapped his
phones, without citing evidence, in a series of tweets on
Saturday morning. “No president can order a wiretap.
Those restrictions were put in place to protect citizens
from people like you,” Ben Rhodes wrote on Twitter.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-obama-
idUSKBN16B0CC
– The White House budget director Mulvaney
confirmed that the Trump administration will propose
“fairly dramatic reductions” in the U.S. foreign aid
budget later this month.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-budget-
idUSKBN16B0NC
– Mexico opened legal aid centers at its 50 consulates
across the United States on Saturday to defend its
citizens, the Mexican government said, amid worries of a
crackdown on illegal immigration under U.S. President
Donald Trump.
187
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-mexico-
immigration-idUSKBN16B0PL
– Supporters of Trump held a second day of small
rallies in communities around the country, a counterpoint
to a wave of protests that have taken place since his
election in November.
http://www.newsweek.com/trump-backers-series-small-
rallies-support-president-563923
– The U.S. Department of Citizenship and Immigration
Services will temporarily suspend expedited processing
of H-1B visas, halting the option for American companies
to quickly bring skilled immigrants to the United States for
employment.
http://time.com/money/4691238/us-suspends-expedited-
processing-h1b-visas/
– Before heading to his so-called winter White House in
Palm Beach, Florida, Trump summoned some of his
senior staffers to the Oval Office and went “ballistic,” a
senior White House source told ABC News. Trump furious
that Sessions recused himself. Washington Post reporter
Robert Costa tweeted Saturday morning that Trump left
the White House “in a fury” on Friday, “fuming about
[Jeff] Sessions’s recusal and telling aides that Sessions
shouldn’t have recused himself,” also calling the reports of
his meeting “bull.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/322363-
reports-trump-told-aides-sessions-shouldnt-have-recused-
himself
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/trump-flashes-anger-
sessions-recusal-russia-stories-tense/story
March 5, 2017 Sunday
– White House asks Congress to probe Trump’s
accusation of Obama wiretap.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-
idUSKBN16C0MG
– Former DNI James Clapper tells “Meet the Press”
“There was no such wiretap activity mounted against
the president-elect at the time, or as a candidate or against
his campaign.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-
idUSKBN16C0MG
– James B. Comey, the director of the F.B.I., asked the
Justice Department to publicly reject President
Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama
ordered his phones to be tapped. It has not.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-
seeks-inquiry-into-allegations-that-obama-tapped-his-
phones.html
– In a Mere 6 Weeks, Trump Alters More Than 90
Regulations. The Trump administration has pushed a
flurry of deregulations, giving more freedoms to gun
sellers, bankers and miners, and corporate lobbyists are
clamoring for more.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/05/us/politics/trump-
deregulation-guns-wall-st-climate.html
– Priebus and Bannon didn’t fly with Trump to
Florida. Various interpretations allege Trump punished
them.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-4284566/Video-
emerges-Trump-s-Oval-Office-row-Bannon.html
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/04/politics/donald-trump-
jeff-sessions-reince-priebus/
March 6, 2017 Monday
– Trump signed a revised executive order for a U.S.
travel ban, leaving Iraq off the list of targeted countries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-
exclusive-idUSKBN16D154
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/new-executive-order-bans-travelers-from-six-
muslim-majority-countries-applying-for-
visas/2017/03/06/3012a42a-0277-11e7-ad5b-
d22680e18d10_story.html
– Senators push Trump to release White House, Mar-a-
Lago visitor logs.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-visitors-
idUSKBN16D2AG
– House Republicans reveal bill to repeal and replace
Obama’s healthcare law. American Health Care Act
would shrink government role in healthcare and could
leave more people without insurance despite Trump
administration promises. Replaces subsidies with tax
credits.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/mar/06/house-republicans-healthcare-law-bill-
obamacare-repeal
188
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/new-details-
emerge-on-gop-plans-to-repeal-and-replace-
obamacare/2017/03/06/04751e3e-028f-11e7-ad5b-
d22680e18d10_story.html
– Senate votes to repeal labor protection laws that
safeguarded poultry workers.
https://www.theguardian.com/business/2017/mar/06/labor-
protection-laws-repeal-poultry-industry-workers
– Ben Carson compared slaves to immigrants seeking a
better life in his first official address Monday as HUD
secretary.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/03/
06/carson-compares-slaves-to-immigrants-coming-to-a-
land-of-dreams-and-opportunity/
– Gold Star father of American soldier killed in Iraq
who criticized Trump says travel rights reviewed. Khizr
Khan had planned to speak at a luncheon in Toronto on
Tuesday in a discussion about President Trump’s
administration.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-khan-
idUSKBN16D2MI
http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/toronto/khizr-khan-
toronto-talk-cancelled-1.4012696
– The US has temporarily suspended the fast-track
processing of H1B visas, leaving many foreign workers
in limbo. H1B visas allow skilled workers to come to the
US temporarily. They are in high demand, particularly in
Silicon Valley and the medical sector, and are allocated by
lottery.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/06/us-
h1b-visa-program-suspended-trump-silicon-valley
– The Homeland Security Department is considering
separating children from parents caught crossing the
Mexican border illegally, Secretary John Kelly said.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/morning-
mix/wp/2017/03/07/dhs-is-considering-separating-
mothers-and-children-who-cross-the-border-illegally/
– The Supreme Court is leaving the issue of
transgender rights in schools to lower courts for now
after backing out of a high-profile case.
http://bigstory.ap.org/article/8cb7fb31f1214e63851028bd7
31bc332
– Top member ff House Intel Committee, Rep. Adam
Schiff, questions Trump’s mental state on MSNBC.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/06/top-member-
house-intel-committee-questions-trumps-mental-state-
msnbc.html
March 7, 2017 Tuesday
– House intelligence chief has seen no evidence to back
Trump’s wiretap charge.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-
hearing-idUSKBN16E2RS
– House schedules first hearing in Trump-Russia
investigation.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/house-trump-
russia-investigation-hearing-235789
– Conservatives rebel against Trump-backed
Republican healthcare plan. Republican Senator Rand
Paul of Kentucky decried it as “Obamacare Lite.”
Conservative groups including Heritage Action for
America, the Club for Growth, Americans for Prosperity
and Freedom Partners, backed by the billionaire
Republican donor Koch brothers, urged its defeat for
different reasons.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-
idUSKBN16D2RC
– Bomb threats against Jewish centers continue: The
threats Tuesday targeted facilities in at least eight states,
Washington, D.C., and Toronto, officials said. “Four ADL
offices in Atlanta, Boston, New York and Washington
D.C. received bomb threats. Before Tuesday, the ADL had
reported 121 bomb threats made across the United States
and Canada.
– A vast portion of the CIA’s computer hacking arsenal
appeared to have been exposed by the anti-secrecy
organization WikiLeaks, which posted thousands of files
revealing secret cyber-tools used by the agency to convert
cellphones, televisions and other ordinary devices into
implements of espionage.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/wikileaks-says-it-has-obtained-trove-of-cia-
hacking-tools/2017/03/07/c8c50c5c-0345-11e7-b1e9-
a05d3c21f7cf_story.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2017/03/07/as-more-jewish-facilities-get-
threats-senators-ask-trump-administration-for-swift-action/
189
– Trump’s nominee for deputy attorney general, Rod
Rosenstein, declined Tuesday to endorse the
appointment of a special prosecutor to investigate ties
between the Trump campaign and Russian officials,
bucking pressure from Democrats.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/322772-doj-
nominee-declines-to-back-special-prosecutor-on-russia
March 8, 2017 Wednesday
– Trump’s administration is weighing a deployment of up
to 1,000 American soldiers to Kuwait to serve as a reserve
force in the fight against Islamic State as U.S.-backed
fighters accelerate the offensive in Syria and Iraq, U.S.
officials told Reuters.
– Mexico has canceled existing sugar export permits to the
United States. The letter sent by Mexico’s sugar chamber
to mills on Monday partly blamed the situation on unfilled
positions at the U.S. Department of Commerce, which it
said has led to a “legalistic” interpretation of rules with no
U.S. counterparts in place in Washington for Mexican
officials to negotiate with.
– China has granted preliminary approval for at least 35
trademarks linked to Donald Trump, documents on
China’s state trademark office show, giving the U.S.
President and his family protection were they to develop
the “Trump” brand in the market.
– Pivotal industry and consumer groups mounted
intensifying opposition to the Republican health care bill.
The American Medical Association, the American
Hospital Association and AARP, the nation’s largest
advocacy group for older people, were arrayed against the
GOP measure.
– Many American women stayed home from work, joined
rallies or wore red Wednesday to demonstrate how vital
they are to the U.S. economy, as International Women’s
Day was observed with a multitude of events around the
world.
– The Trump administration has considered more than $6
billion in cuts at the Department of Housing and Urban
Development, according to preliminary budget documents
obtained by The Washington Post. The plan would squeeze
public housing support and end most federally funded
community development grants. HUD’s budget would
shrink by about 14 percent to $40.5 billion in fiscal 2018,
which begins in October. While suggesting significant
cuts, the preliminary budget maintains the same level of
funding to rental assistance programs and avoids
reductions that could directly put families on the streets.
Budgets for public housing authorities — city and state
agencies that provide subsidized housing and vouchers to
local residents — would be among the hardest hit. Under
the preliminary budget, those operational funds would be
reduced by $600 million, or 13 percent. Under the
proposal, direct rental assistance payments — including
Section 8 Housing and housing vouchers for homeless
veterans — would be cut by at least $300 million, to $19.3
billion. Additionally, housing for the elderly — known as
the Section 202 program — would be cut by $42 million,
nearly 10 percent.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-
administration-considers-6-billion-cut-to-hud-
budget/2017/03/08/1757e8e8-03ab-11e7-b1e9-
a05d3c21f7cf_story.html
– Hawaii Mounts Legal Challenge To President’s Revised
Travel Ban.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/03/08/519263084/hawaii-will-mount-legal-
challenge-to-presidents-revised-travel-ban
– Turkish client paid $530,000 to Michael Flynn’s
consulting firm. Flynn, fired last month from his White
House post, formally registered as a foreign agent this
week with the Justice Department and disclosed the details
of his work for Inovo BV, a Dutch consulting firm owned
by a Turkish businessman with ties to Turkey’s President
Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/08/
michael-flynn-received-530000-from-turkish-client-
during-trump-campaign/98917184/
March 9, 2017 Thursday
– Two House of Representatives committees approved the
legislation that would undo much of the 2010 Affordable
Care Act, popularly known as Obamacare, moving it
closer to a vote before the full House.
– Three states suing to block Trump’s new travel ban:
Hawaii, NY and Oregon.
http://thehill.com/homenews/state-watch/323226-three-
states-sue-to-stop-trumps-new-travel-ban
– EPA head Scott Pruitt denies that carbon dioxide causes
global warming.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/09/e
pa-scott-pruitt-carbon-dioxide-global-warming-climate-
change
– Bill Clinton, “Resurgent nationalism ‘taking us to the
edge of our destruction’”
190
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/bill-clinton-
nationalism-235894
– U.S. Is Sending About 400 Marines To Syria.
March 10, 2017 Friday
– Trump’s administration is asking for resignation letters
from all 46 remaining U.S. attorneys appointed by
President Barack Obama.
– More States Join Legal Challenge to Trump Travel Ban:
Massachusetts, Minnesota New York and Oregon.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/more-states-join-
legal-challenge-to-travel-ban
– Maryland joins states suing over Trump’s travel ban.
– State Dept asked NYC Medical Examiner not to disclose
cause of death of Russian UN ambassador who died last
month.
– Seattle synagogue targeted by anti-Semitic vandalism.
“Holocaust is fake history” was spray-painted across a
wall of Temple de Hirsch Sinai, with each instance of the
letter “S” replaced with dollar signs.
http://thehill.com/blogs/ballot-box/323545-seattle-
synagogue-targeted-by-anti-semitic-vandalism-report
– Trump’s revised travel ban dealt first court setback. A
federal judge in Wisconsin dealt the first legal blow to
President Donald Trump’s revised travel ban on Friday,
barring enforcement of the policy to deny U.S. entry to the
wife and child of a Syrian refugee already granted asylum
in the United States.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-
idUSKBN16I02F
March 11, 2017 Saturday
– Defiant U.S. prosecutor fired by Trump. A prominent
Obama appointed U.S. prosecutor said the Trump
administration fired him on Saturday after he refused to
step down, adding a discordant note to what is normally a
routine changing of top attorneys when a new president
takes office.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-justice-
idUSKBN16I0PZ
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/attorney-preet-bharara-donald-trump-lawyer-
manhattan-us-barack-obama-a7625081.html
– Man faces 10-year sentence after scaling White House
fence today.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-intruder-
idUSKBN16I0KU
– A federal court has dealt Texas another loss over voting
rights, finding that Republicans racially gerrymandered
some congressional districts to weaken the electoral
influence of the state’s booming minority population. A
federal three-judge panel in San Antonio invalidated three
Texas congressional districts for violating the Voting
Rights Act or the Constitution in a decision late Friday
night.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/texas-redistricting-
racial-lines-235956
https://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/invalidated-texas-
congressional-districts
– 134 foreign policy experts condemn Trump travel ban
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/323559-
134-foreign-policy-experts-condemn-trump-travel-ban
– Sanders: US facing ‘very scary times’. “We have a
president who is a pathological liar. Trump lies all of the
time. He lies in order to undermine the foundations of
American democracy.”
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/323550-
sanders-very-scary-times-but-we-must-fight-back
– ACLU To Hold ‘Resistance Training’ So Americans Can
Fight Trump’s Dangerous Policies.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/03/11/aclu-host-
resistance-training-americans-fight-trumps-dangerous-
policies.html
– Preet Bharara was investigating Fox News when Sean
Hannity urged Donald Trump to fire him.
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/preet-bharara-was-
investigating-fox-news-when-sean-hannity-urged-donald-
trump-to-fire-him/1887/
March 12, 2017 Sunday
– Aides to Trump attacked the credibility of The
Congressional Budget Office that will analyze the costs
of a replacement for Obamacare, as the White House
sought to quell opposition from many conservative
Republicans.
191
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-
idUSKBN16J0XH
– Mayors of Santa Fe and Philadelphia said in a SXSW
panel that the president’s orders and immigration policies
represent a threat to the safety and prosperity of US cities.
‘We cannot submit to a bully’.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/mar/12/trump-immigration-sxsw-sanctuary-
cities-philadelphia-santa-fe
– A Jewish community center in Rochester, New York,
closed temporarily on Sunday after receiving its second
bomb threat in less than a week.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/12/us/jcc-rochester-ny-
bomb-threat/index.html
– Kellyanne Conway suggests Obama could have spied
on Trump through a microwave.
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/12/
kellyanne-conway-surveillance-trump-campaign-
wider/99109170/
– Trump budget expected to seek historic contraction of
federal workforce.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/throu
gh-his-budget-a-bottom-line-look-at-trumps-new-
washington/2017/03/12/29739206-05be-11e7-b9fa-
ed727b644a0b_story.html
March 13, 2017 Monday
– CBO: 14 million would lose coverage in 2018 under
GOP Obamacare repeal.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/cbo-gop-
obamacare-repeal-plan-236007
– Trump gives CIA authority to conduct drone strikes.
The move would be a change from the policy of former
President Barack Obama’s administration of limiting the
CIA’s paramilitary role.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-cia-drones-
idUSKBN16K2SE
– White House Seeks to Cut Billions in Funding for
United Nations. U.S. retreat from U.N. could mark a
“breakdown of the international humanitarian system as
we know it.”
http://foreignpolicy.com/2017/03/13/white-house-seeks-to-
cut-billions-in-funding-for-united-nations/
– The chief federal prosecutors in Connecticut and
northern New York have won short-term reprieves from
Trump’s abrupt action Friday demanding immediate
resignations from several dozen U.S. attorneys
appointed by President Barack Obama.
– Trump signs Executive Order on a Comprehensive
Plan for Reorganizing the Executive Branch. The order
directs OMB Director Mick Mulvaney to “propose a plan
to reorganize governmental functions and eliminate
unnecessary agencies … components of agencies and
agency programs.” The Executive Branch Is About to Be
‘Reorganized’ into Oblivion. Steve Bannon’s time has
come.
http://www.esquire.com/news-
politics/politics/news/a53848/trump-executive-order-
reorganization/
http://www.cnbc.com/2017/03/13/trump-to-sign-
executive-order-aiming-to-see-where-money-is-being-
wasted-in-government-spicer-says.html
March 14, 2017 Tuesday
– ‘Never Trump’ Republicans join call for select
committee to investigate Russia and Trump. “Never
Trump” Republicans are planning to pressure GOP leaders
to establish a bipartisan select committee to take over the
inquiries and settle the matter once and for all.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/josh-
rogin/wp/2017/03/14/never-trump-republicans-join-call-
for-select-committee-to-investigate-russia-and-trump/
– Secretary of State Tillerson told the U.N. advocates and
human rights groups that the U.S. “continues to evaluate
the effectiveness” of the Human Rights Council but is
skeptical about being in a group with nations such as
China, Egypt and Saudi Arabia, which have poor human
rights records, Foreign Policy reported.
192
– Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer warned
Republicans on Tuesday that they’d risk a government
shutdown if they try to attach money for Trump’s U.S.-
Mexico border wall to a must-pass bill to keep the
government open. The same applies to any attempt to
defund Planned Parenthood, Schumer said.
– Trump set to completely scrap US consumer protection
agency.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-scrap-us-consumer-protection-
agency-randy-neugebauer-cfpb-texan-congressman-
finance-a7614731.html
– Trump gives CIA power to carry out its own drone
strikes. New authority sparks fears about accountability as
until now all lethal remote strikes had to be launched by
military.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-cia-power-drone-strikes-military-a7628561.html
– Trump’s administration is preparing to release a
wide-ranging executive order to reduce the role that
climate change plays in policy decisions. The move could
alter how U.S. agencies weigh regulations on a broad array
of industries, from drilling, coal mining and auto
manufacturing to refining.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-carbon-
idUSKBN16L2R4
– Kushners, Trump In-Laws, Weigh $400 Million Deal
in sale of NY skyscraper with Chinese Firm. The
Kushner family, owners of the tower, would reap a
financial windfall courtesy of a Chinese company, even as
Jared Kushner, a senior adviser to Mr. Trump as well as
his son-in-law, helps oversee American foreign policy.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/14/nyregion/kushner-
companies-anbang-insurance-group.html
March 15, 2017 Wednesday
– Hawaii judge halts Trump’s new travel ban before it
can go into effect. A U.S. federal judge in Hawaii dealt
another legal blow to President Donald Trump on
Wednesday, issuing an emergency halt to his revised travel
ban just hours before it was set to go into effect early on
Thursday. U.S. District Judge Derrick Watson put out an
emergency stop on Trump’s executive order, which aimed
to temporarily bar entry to the United States of most
refugees as well as travelers from six Muslim-majority
countries.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-court-
idUSKBN16M17N
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/social-
issues/lawyers-face-off-on-trump-travel-ban-in-md-court-
wednesday-morning/2017/03/14/b2d24636-090c-11e7-
93dc-00f9bdd74ed1_story.html
– The U.S. Senate voted overwhelmingly to confirm
former Republican senator Dan Coats to be Trump’s
director of national intelligence and to approve Army
Lieutenant General H.R. McMaster’s transfer to become
his national security adviser.
– The Republican chairman of the House Intelligence
Committee, Devin Nunes, who has been one of the few
defenders of Trump’s claims, made clear Wednesday that
there is zero evidence to suggest Trump Tower was
wiretapped.
– US Federal Reserve raises interest rates to 1% in bid
to hold off inflation. Fed chair Janet Yellen says US
economy in strong health as she announces third rate rise
since 2008 and the first of several expected this year
– US charges two Russian spies and two hackers in
Yahoo data breach.
– Trump has begun the process of rolling back carbon
pollution standards for vehicles following a meeting with
automakers in Detroit, Michigan. Trump has directed the
EPA to review fuel efficiency standards that were a key
plank of Barack Obama’s effort to reduce greenhouse gas
emissions. The move is a victory for carmakers who have
claimed the standards are too onerous and out of step with
Americans’ car buying habits.
– FBI Director James Comey briefed a group of top
senators Wednesday amid growing demands that he
clarify if the bureau is investigating any contacts
between Moscow and the Trump campaign.
March 16, 2017 Thursday
– The Republican and Democratic leaders of the Senate
Intelligence Committee said on Thursday they saw no
evidence to support Trump’s claim that the Obama
administration tapped his phones during the 2016
presidential campaign.
– Trump vows to appeal against travel ban ruling to
Supreme Court.
– Trump unveiled a $1.15 trillion budget, proposing a
far-reaching overhaul of federal spending that would slash
many domestic programs to finance a big increase for
the military and make a down payment on a U.S.-Mexico
193
border wall. Massive cuts to the arts, science and the
poor.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump
-federal-budget-2018-massive-cuts-to-the-arts-science-
and-the-poor/2017/03/15/0a0a0094-09a1-11e7-a15f-
a58d4a988474_story.html
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/16/us/politics/trump-
budget.html
March 17, 2017 Friday
– The White House has apologized to the British
government after alleging that a UK intelligence agency
spied on President Donald Trump at the behest of former
President Barack Obama.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/17/politics/gchq-trump-
wiretap-denial/index.html
– U.S. prepared to take military action against N. Korea, if
necessary, Sec. of State Tillerson says.
– Merkel Meets Trump, the Defender Versus the
Disrupter.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/angela
-merkel-donald-trump.html
– Trump defiantly backs-away from apologies to Britain at
his news conference with Angela Merkel, making clear
that the White House had nothing to retract or apologize
for because his spokesman had simply repeated an
assertion made by a Fox News commentator. Fox itself
later disavowed the report.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/17/world/europe/trump
-britain-obama-wiretap-gchq.html
– Immigration judges headed to 12 U.S. cities to speed
deportations.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-judges-
exclusive-idUSKBN16O2S6
– The U.S. government took the legal battle over President
Donald Trump’s travel ban to a higher court on Friday,
saying it would appeal a federal judge’s decision that
struck down parts of the ban on the day it was set to go
into effect.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-appeal-
idUSKBN16O2MT
March 18, 2017 Saturday
– On the heels of a visibly awkward visit from the German
chancellor, Angela Merkel, Donald Trump said that
Germany owed “vast sums of money” to Nato and the US,
even though the alliance does not stipulate payments to
America. His remarks prompted a former US permanent
representative to Nato to reply “that’s not how Nato
works.”
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/mar/18/trump-
merkel-nato-germany-owe-money-tweet
– China has rebuffed Donald Trump’s latest Twitter attack
after the US president accused Beijing of doing little to
help force North Korea’s leader, Kim Jong-un, to abandon
his nuclear ambitions. Speaking in Beijing alongside the
US secretary of state, Rex Tillerson, the Chinese foreign
minister, Wang Yi, claimed a responsible China had
“devoted a lot of energy and effort over the years” to
resolving the North Korean issue.
– G20 Leaders Roll Back Free Trade Pledge After
Pushback From Trump Administration. At a meeting of
finance ministers and central bankers from the Group of 20
industrialized and emerging nations and the European
Union, Steven Mnuchin signaled that American policy
would follow the campaign promises made by President
Trump to put “America first” and review existing trade
agreements to seek better deals for the United States.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/18/business/group-of-
20-summit-us-trade.html
– Roger J. Stone Jr., an informal adviser to President
Trump, has been asked by the Senate Intelligence
Committee to preserve any records he may have in
connection to a broader inquiry into Russian attempts to
interfere with United States elections.
– One person was in custody after a car drove up to a
White House checkpoint late Saturday and the driver
claimed to have a bomb in the vehicle, CNN reported.
There wasn’t any immediate confirmation that a device
was in the car, but the vehicle was being checked, CNN
reported citing law enforcement sources. The report
followed another incident earlier Saturday when a man
was detained after jumping a pedestrian barrier near the
White House.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/324669-
1-person-in-custody-after-driver-makes-bomb-claim-at-
wh-report
March 19, 2017 Sunday
– Germany rejects Trump’s claim it owes NATO and U.S.
‘vast sums’ for defense.
194
– Sir Peter Westmacott, writing in the Guardian, has
accused the White House of ‘peddling falsehoods’ by
suggesting British intelligence spied on Trump Tower.
– Intruder Arrested at White House After Saying He Has
‘Bomb in the Trunk’.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/19/us/politics/white-
house-intruder-bomb.html
– White House installs political aides at Cabinet agencies
to be Trump’s eyes and ears.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/white-house-
installs-political-aides-at-cabinet-agencies-to-be-trumps-
eyes-and-ears/2017/03/19/68419f0e-08da-11e7-93dc-
00f9bdd74ed1_story.html
– Chair of the House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes
told Fox News host Chris Wallace on-air that a current
person in the White House is under investigation and
surveillance.
http://shareblue.com/wait-what-house-intel-chair-says-no-
one-at-white-house-under-surveillance-but-one/
– The top Democrat on the House Intelligence Committee,
Adam Schiff, said Sunday there was “circumstantial
evidence” of collusion between the Trump campaign and
Russian officials — and “direct evidence” of deception.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-trump-
russia-democrats-investigation-236231
March 20, 2017 Monday
– Day 1 of Neil Gorsuch Senate Hearings.
– FBI: Trump campaign, Russia ties investigated, no
wiretap evidence found. In a hearing before the House
Intelligence Committee, FBI Director James Comey said
for the first time Monday that the bureau is investigating
whether there was any coordination between the Trump
campaign and Moscow while Russia was interfering in the
presidential election. Comey also delivered an implicit
rebuke to President Donald Trump, saying that he had “no
information” to support claims by the President that he was
wiretapped on the orders of predecessor Barack Obama.
What made the moment even more extraordinary was
Trump’s tweeted commentary on – and misrepresenting of
– the hearing as it was happening. Trump’s spokesman
Sean Spicer said Trump would not apologize to Obama for
the accusations against him, adding that there were
questions still remaining about surveillance that may or
may not have taken place during the campaign.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/20/politics/comey-hearing-
russia-wiretapping/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/20/fbi-
director-comey-confirms-investigation-trump-russia
http://www.bbc.com/news/live/world-us-canada-39328507
– Donald Trump tweets lies during Russia hearings, but
MSNBC corrects him in real time.
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/donald-trump-live-
tweets-russia-hearings-but-msnbc-corrects-his-false-
claims-in-real-time/1992/
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/lie-james-comey-
donald-trump-russia-tweet/1994/
March 21, 2017 Tuesday
– Day 2 of Neil Gorsuch Senate Hearings.
– Trump tells GOP critics of health-care bill: ‘I’m gonna
come after you’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/trump-
arrives-on-capitol-hill-to-sell-house-gop-health-care-
package/2017/03/21/e8ede3d2-0e2b-11e7-9b0d-
d27c98455440_story.html
– Chair of House Intelligence Committee Devin Nunes
received a phone call that caused him to bail on his Uber
ride and disappear from the staffer he was with.
http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2017/03/24/devin-
nunes-vanished-the-night-before-he-made-trump-
surveillance-claims.html
March 22, 2017 Wednesday
– House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes –
without any notice to the committee’s Democrats – held a
press conference and then briefed the White House on
what he called new evidence, provided to him by an
unnamed source, that members of the Trump transition
might have been improperly monitored by U.S.
intelligence agencies following the November election.
March 23, 2017 Thursday
– Trump hosted conservative talk show host Rush
Limbaugh for dinner at the White House. Limbaugh and
his wife had dinner with the president, Vice President
Pence and Pence’s wife Karen at the White House.
195
http://thehill.com/homenews/news/327525-trump-invited-
limbaugh-to-dine-at-the-white-house-report
March 24, 2017 Friday
– New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio is calling what
police said was a racially-motivated murder of a black
Manhattan resident by a white man who traveled to the
city from Baltimore an “act of domestic, racist terrorism.”
And he believes that “a dynamic of hatred” is growing in
America that “is clearly related to the rhetoric of Donald
Trump and even other candidates during the presidential
election.”
http://www.politico.com/states/new-york/city-
hall/story/2017/03/de-blasio-dynamic-of-hatred-is-clearly-
related-to-donald-trump-110677
– Republican Chairman Devin Nunes of the House
Intelligence Committee cancels next week’s open hearing
where Sally Yates, John Brennan and James Clapper were
to give public testimony. Democratic Co-Chair Schiff
strongly objected, calls it a “serious mistake”.
http://www.newsweek.com/russia-election-probe-public-
session-canceled-house-intelligence-chair-573893
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2017/3/24/1646841/-
Breaking-Nunes-Cancels-Public-Intelligence-Committee-
Hearings
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/adam-schiff-slams-
intel-chair-devin-nunes-for-caving-to-white-house-and-
canceling-key-russia-hearing/
– The head of the House Intelligence Committee secretly
went to the White House grounds to meet with a source,
before he surprised his colleagues by briefing the president
— and the press — on information they hadn’t seen.
http://www.npr.org/sections/thetwo-
way/2017/03/27/521667814/head-of-house-intel-
committee-went-to-white-house-grounds-to-meet-source
– Democrats are plotting their next move after questioning
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’
fitness to lead the panel’s investigation into Russia’s
involvement in the 2016 election.
– House repeal and replacement of ACA fails, is pulled
lacking enough votes. Ryan said he told President Trump
the best thing to do was pull this bill and Trump agreed
with that decision. Trump blamed Democrats.
http://www.rollcall.com/news/politics/ryan-concedes-on-
health-care-says-house-will-move-on
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/house-
leaders-prepare-to-vote-friday-on-health-care-
reform/2017/03/24/736f1cd6-1081-11e7-9d5a-
a83e627dc120_story.html
– FBI Director James Comey was at the White House on
Friday, days after he confirmed his bureau is investigating
ties between associates of President Trump and Russia.
The White House said Comey visited to attend a “routine
interagency meeting,” but did not say with whom he met.
No meeting with Comey was listed on the president’s
public schedule. Comey was spotted leaving the White
House less than an hour later after television cameras
showed him entering the West Wing.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/325670-fbi-
director-comey-visits-white-house
– NBC News Chief Andrea Mitchell has learned that
staffers in the Trump Administration are racing to “purge
their cellphones” of relevant information as the threat of a
subpoena by one of the three investigations into the Trump
team’s potentially treasonous collusion with the Russian
Federation grows with each passing day.
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/03/25/nbc-just-busted-
trump-team-purging-smartphones-hide-proof-russian-
treason/
March 25, 2017 Saturday
– New York Mayor De Blasio blames Trump for ‘dynamic
of hatred’ in US.
http://thehill.com/homenews/325782-nyc-mayor-links-
race-related-murder-to-trump
– Fights erupt at pro-Donald Trump rally on California
beach.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/mar/26/fights-
erupt-at-pro-donald-trump-rally-on-california-beach
– Trump aide Boris Epshteyn leaving White House,
officials say.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/25/politics/epshteyn-leaving-
white-house/
– Politico and London Times reveals Trump handed
Angela Merkel a bill thought to be for more than £300
billion supposedly owed by Germany to NATO.
http://www.politico.eu/article/donald-trump-handed-
angela-merkel-outrageous-nato-bill-report/
March 27, 2017 Monday
196
– Nunes said Monday that he did not coordinate his
allegations that President Donald Trump’s transition team
was monitored by U.S. intelligence officials with the
White House. CNN reported on Monday morning that
Nunes had gone to the White House grounds to view those
documents, which further raised the question of whether
the Trump administration had given them to him and
coordinated the story.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/devin-nunes-
trump-intelligence-wiretapping-236567
– The storm around intensified Monday after it was
revealed that Nunes secretly visited the White House
grounds the day before announcing incidental surveillance
of President Trump’s transition team. The visit raised
questions about whether the White House itself was the
source of the mysterious intelligence that Nunes, but no
one else on Capitol Hill, has seen. Nunes has vowed to
protect his source while offering contradictory descriptions
of what the documents reveal.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/326036-storm-
builds-around-intel-chair-after-secret-white-house-trip
– Pelosi, Schiff call on Nunes to recuse himself from
Russia probe. The calls are a stunning breakdown for a
committee that has traditionally operated in a bipartisan
manner.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/schiff-calls-on-
nunes-to-recuse-himself-from-russia-probe-236565
– Trump is reportedly creating a new White House
innovation office that will be led by his son-in-law and
senior adviser, Jared Kushner. The new office, which is
described in the Post report as a “SWAT team” to fix the
federal bureaucracy, is working with tech giants. It is
expected to pull ideas from the business world and may
consider privatizing some government functions. The team
will include former business executives, according to the
report.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/325869-
kushner-to-lead-white-house-innovation-office-report
– Trump criticized former Secretary of State Hillary
Clinton’s policies on Russia in a series of tweets Monday
night, adding, the “Trump Russia story is a hoax.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-clinton-
russia-236571
March 28, 2017 Tuesday
– Trump administration sought to block Yates from
testifying to Congress on Russia.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/trump-administration-sought-to-block-sally-yates-
from-testifying-to-congress-on-
russia/2017/03/28/82b73e18-13b4-11e7-9e4f-
09aa75d3ec57_story.html
– Trump signs executive order to sweep away Obama-era
climate change regulations. The decree’s main target is
Obama’s Clean Power Plan that required states to slash
carbon emissions from power plants – a critical element in
helping the United States meet its commitments to a global
climate change accord reached by nearly 200 countries in
Paris in 2015. The so-called “Energy Independence” order
also reverses a ban on coal leasing on federal lands, undoes
rules to curb methane emissions from oil and gas
production, and reduces the weight of climate change and
carbon emissions in policy and infrastructure permitting
decisions.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-energy-
idUSKBN16Z1L6
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/trump-moves-decisively-to-wipe-out-obamas-
climate-change-record/2017/03/27/411043d4-132c-11e7-
9e4f-09aa75d3ec57_story.html
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-
world/national/article141773404.html
– Europe poised to take baton from US as leader in global
efforts to fight climate change, with America’s
commitment to Paris accords at risk.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/mar/28/cl
imate-change-eu-leader-trump-executive-order
– White House backs repeal of broadband privacy rules.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-
idUSKBN16Z2JI
– Congress voted to kill rules meant to prevent internet
service providers from selling users’ web browsing
histories and app storage histories to advertisers.
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/mar/28/pri
vacy-protection-sell-web-browsing-history-data
– House of Representatives Republican leaders said on
Tuesday they still intended to repeal and replace
Obamacare after their White House-backed bill failed to
get enough support and collapsed last week.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-
republicans-idUSKBN16Z23K
197
– House Republicans on Tuesday blocked more attempts
by Democrats to obtain President Donald Trump’s tax
returns from the IRS.
http://www.wcax.com/story/35017580/house-gop-blocks-
effort-by-democrats-to-obtain-trumps-taxes
– Trump asks police union officials (FOP) to find out
which cops didn’t vote for him.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/watch-police-union-
officials-laugh-uneasily-when-trump-asks-them-to-find-
out-which-cops-didnt-vote-for-him/
– Dan Rather warns Americans of Trump’s ‘power to
decimate and destroy’.
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/03/he-is-a-threat-dan-
rather-warns-americans-of-trumps-power-to-decimate-and-
destroy/
https://www.facebook.com/theDanRather/posts/10158421
087140716
– Trump Administration Omits LGBTQ People from 2020
Census.
http://www.out.com/news-opinion/2017/3/28/breaking-
trump-administration-removes-lgbtq-people-2020-census
March 29, 2017 Wednesday
– (incidentally) Britain’s PM May triggers Brexit. Britain
now has two years to negotiate the terms of the divorce
before it comes into effect in late March 2019.
http://www.bbc.com/news/uk-politics-39431428
– Trump’s business network reached alleged Russian
mobsters (USA Today)
http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2017/03/28/tr
ump-business-past-ties-russian-mobsters-organized-
crime/98321252/
– A judge in Hawaii has extended a broad block on
Trump’s revised travel ban, turning aside pleas from the
federal government to narrow or drop an earlier order
forbidding the president from implementing key parts of
his plan.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/trump-travel-ban-
order-hawaii-236675
– A supervisor at the Energy Department’s international
climate office told staff this week not to use the phrases
“climate change,” “emissions reduction” or “Paris
Agreement” in written memos, briefings or other written
communication, sources have told POLITICO.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/energy-
department-climate-change-phrases-banned-236655
– Seattle filed a lawsuit against the Trump
administration Wednesday, charging that President Donald
Trump’s executive order threatening funding for
“sanctuary cities” is “unconstitutional and ambiguous,”
and violates the 10th Amendment of the Constitution.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/seattle-trump-
sanctuary-cities-236672
– Ivanka Trump will become a federal employee as part
of unpaid White House role.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/03/ivanka-trump-
federal-employee-unpaid-236657
March 30, 2017 Thursday
– First day of Senate Intelligence Committee hearings
on Trump-Russia probe. Clinton Watts informed the
committee that Russia had been targeting Rubio, along
with other of Donald Trump’s Republican opponents, with
propaganda or fake news stories during the primary.
– Pence broke a tie in a Senate vote to roll back federal
funding for family planning and reproductive health
(derail grants flowing to clinics that provide contraception
and other health services to low-income women in states
that want to block the funding, e.g., Planned Parentood). In
recent years states such as Texas have blocked some
healthcare providers from receiving the grants.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-abortion-
idUSKBN1712NY
– Nineteen U.S. states have introduced bills that would
curb freedom of expression and the right to protest
since Donald Trump’s election as president, an “alarming
and undemocratic” trend, U.N. human rights investigators
said on Thursday. Maina Kiai and David Kaye,
independent U.N. experts on freedom of peaceful assembly
and expression respectively, said in a statement that the
state bills were incompatible with international human
rights law.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-rights-un-
idUSKBN1712SG
– Mike Flynn, President Trump’s former national security
adviser, has told the FBI and congressional committees
investigating the Trump campaign’s potential ties to
198
Russia that he is willing to be interviewed in exchange
for a grant of immunity from prosecution.
https://www.wsj.com/articles/mike-flynn-offers-to-testify-
in-exchange-for-immunity-1490912959
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/mar/30/michael-flynn-trump-russia-
investigation-testify-immunity
March 31, 2017 Friday
– Trump urged Mike Flynn, his former national security
adviser, to strike an immunity deal because he’s facing “a
witch hunt.”
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/wireStory/michael-flynn-
talks-congress-wary-prosecution-46484973
– Trump officials defend immigration arrests at
California courthouses. Sessions and Department of
Homeland Security Secretary John Kelly gave no
indication that agents would stop the arrests.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-
courthouses-idUSKBN1722T1
– Come Monday, the Trump administration may quietly
revoke the ability of hundreds of thousands of
immigrants — almost all women — from legally
working in the United States, forcing them to choose
between heading back to their kitchens or leaving the
country altogether.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/trump-may-
force-thousands-of-legal-immigrants-to-stop-working-or-
head-home/2017/03/30/27d2d8c6-1586-11e7-833c-
503e1f6394c9_story.html
– Trump’s EPA has issued a new, more detailed plan for
laying off 25 percent of its employees and scrapping 56
programs including pesticide safety, water runoff control,
and environmental cooperation with Mexico and Canada
under the North American Free Trade Agreement.
– Trump signs executive order aimed at identifying and
targeting foreign trade abuses and orders stricter and
more effective enforcement of US anti-dumping laws to
prevent foreign manufacturers from undercutting US
companies by selling goods at an unfair price.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/31/politics/donald-trump-
executive-order-signing-walk-out/index.html
– The Trump administration released the financial
disclosure forms from members of the White House
staff.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/03/31/us/politics/white-
house-releases-staff-financial-disclosures.html
April 1, 2017 Saturday
– A federal judge has rejected President Donald
Trump’s free speech defense against a lawsuit accusing
him of inciting violence against protesters at a campaign
rally. Trump’s lawyers sought to dismiss the lawsuit by
three protesters who say they were roughed up by his
supporters at a March 1, 2016 rally in Louisville,
Kentucky.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/judge-to-trump-
no-protection-for-speech-inciting-
violence/2017/04/01/e9320d68-1737-11e7-bb16-
269934184168_story.html
– Wealthy White House staffers’ finances detailed in
new disclosures.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-disclosures-
idUSKBN173331
– Fox, Bill O’Reilly settle claims with five women
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twenty-firstfox-oreilly-
idUSKBN1733W8
April 2, 2017 Sunday
– EPA chief, Scott Pruitt, said the Paris climate change
agreement is a “bad deal” for the country. He did not
confirm whether the United States would remain in the
global climate change pact, under which nearly all
countries agreed in 2015 to halt or curb their greenhouse
gas emissions, even as the world’s biggest emitter China
reaffirmed its commitment to the agreement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-climatechange-
paris-idUSKBN1740NP
– Adam Schiff accused Trump of trying to divert
Congress from its investigations of Russia’s role in the
2016 U.S. election and any links between Moscow and the
Trump campaign. He said the Republican president and his
aides have instead attempted to throw the focus on the
possibility of illegal leaks of classified information and
whether Trump or his associates were caught up in
incidental collection by surveillance that was targeting
foreigners.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-
idUSKBN1740OL
April 3, 2017 Monday
199
– Democrats secure enough votes to block Gorsuch,
setting stage for ‘nuclear option’. Senate Democrats
secured enough votes to filibuster the nomination of Judge
Neil Gorsuch to the U.S. Supreme Court on Monday,
increasing the likelihood that Republicans will change the
rules of the U.S. Senate to ensure his confirmation later
this week.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/senate-panel-
prepares-to-consider-gorsuch-as-threat-of-filibuster-
looms/2017/04/03/129bcd8c-186a-11e7-bcc2-
7d1a0973e7b2_story.html
– Trump signed a resolution approved by the U.S. House
and Senate to revoke a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service
rule banning most predator control on Alaska refuges.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/national-politics/article142522494.html
– Attorney General Jeff Sessions ordered Justice
Department officials to review reform agreements with
troubled police forces nationwide, saying it was
necessary to ensure these pacts do not work against the
Trump administration’s goals of promoting officer safety
and morale while fighting violent crime.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/article142521054.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/sessions-orders-justice-department-to-review-all-
police-reform-agreements/2017/04/03/ba934058-18bd-
11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html
– Blackwater founder, Erik Prince, held secret Seychelles
meeting to establish Trump-Putin back channel.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/blackwater-founder-held-secret-seychelles-
meeting-to-establish-trump-putin-back-
channel/2017/04/03/95908a08-1648-11e7-ada0-
1489b735b3a3_story.html
– California lawmakers gave initial approval to a
measure that prevents law enforcement from
cooperating with federal immigration officials, a
measure that proponents said rebukes President Donald
Trump for his immigration crackdown. It makes California
a statewide sanctuary for many people who are in the
country illegally.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/national-politics/article142506584.html
– The Senate Judiciary Committee approved Neil
Gorsuch’s nomination to the Supreme Court, the first
hurdle in a week heading towards a political showdown
and a permanent change to Senate rules.
http://time.com/4723448/neil-gorsuch-confirmation-vote-
senate
– Top White House officials met moderate and
conservative Republicans in the U.S. House of
Representatives on Monday in an effort to revive a plan
to repeal and replace Obamacare.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-obamacare-pence-
idUSKBN1752Q2
– Ever since he seized power in a military takeover nearly
four years ago, President Abdel Fattah el-Sisi of Egypt has
been barred from the White House. But Trump made clear
on Monday that the period of ostracism was over as he
hosted Mr. Sisi and pledged unstinting support for the
autocratic ruler.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/03/world/middleeast/-
egypt-sisi-trump-white-house.html
– Ex-Trump adviser, Carter Page, gave energy industry
documents to Russian spy, court files show.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/03/trump-
russia-carter-page-energy-industry-files-spy
– Trump signed into law a resolution that repealed
protections requiring Internet service providers to get
your permission before collecting and sharing data.
Democrats and privacy advocates have argued this
approach effectively hands over the customer’s personal
information to the highest bidder.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/03/technology/internet-
privacy-law-trump/index.html
– Trump and his son hype misleading reports blaming
Susan Rice for alleged wiretap. Right-wing conspiracy
theorist Mike Cernovich claims Obama’s national security
adviser, Susan Rice, ordered the “unmasking” of Trump
campaign associates ensnared in U.S. surveillance of
foreign agents. It was picked up by Bloomberg’s Eli Lake
and then amplified in other conservative media outlets —
as vindication of the president’s claims, which have been
debunked by various lawmakers, intelligence officials and
federal investigators.
https://www.rawstory.com/2017/04/trump-and-his-son-
hype-misleading-reports-blaming-susan-rice-for-alleged-
wiretap/
https://www.bloomberg.com/view/articles/2017-04-03/top-
obama-adviser-sought-names-of-trump-associates-in-intel
200
– Fox News hit with new Ailes harassment suit in wake
of O’Reilly bombshell.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/03/media/julie-roginsky-
lawsuit-fox-news-roger-ailes/index.html
– Eleven killed in suspected suicide bombing on Russian
metro train.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-russia-blast-metro-
idUSKBN17519G
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/03/europe/st-petersburg-
russia-explosion/index.html
April 4, 2017 Tuesday
– A chemical attack occurred in Syria and Trump
blamed the Syrian regime’s “heinous actions” on the
Obama administration’s “weakness and irresolution.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/activists-say-gas-
attack-kills-civilians-in-syria-as-eu-leaders-discuss-
reconstruction/2017/04/04/16093d24-190a-11e7-8003-
f55b4c1cfae2_story.html
– Advertisers flee ‘The O’Reilly Factor’ amid sexual-
harassment claims against host.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/lifestyle/style/advertisers
-flee-the-oreilly-factor-amid-sexual-harassment-claims-
against-host/2017/04/04/38f63464-1959-11e7-855e-
4824bbb5d748_story.html
– U.S. would slash EPA vehicle testing budget under
Trump plan.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-autos-environment-
idUSKBN1762R4
– Trump’s senior adviser Kushner meets Iraqi PM.
http://www.aljazeera.com/video/news/2017/04/trumps-
senior-adviser-kushner-meets-iraqi-pm-
170404083555815.html
– Democratic Rep. Joaquin Castro predicted Tuesday that
the investigations into Trump’s campaign’s ties to
Russia would lead to imprisonment for some of the key
players. “I wouldn’t be surprised after all of this is said and
done that some people end up in jail.”
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/04/politics/joaquin-castro-
cnntv-jail/
– Republicans are set to use the “nuclear option” to get
Neil Gorsuch confirmed to the Supreme Court.
http://mindy-fischer-writer.com/2017/04/republicans-
using-nuclear-option-win-democratic-party-base/
– North Korea test-fires missile into sea ahead of Trump-
Xi summit.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-
idUSKBN1762XX
– Trump officials told the newspaper they are evaluating
whether to require foreign nationals who visit the U.S.
to divulge cellphone contacts and passwords for social
media; new rules could potentially force visitors to supply
their phones to authorities to check their contacts. Another
method would require visitors to supply authorities with
the passwords for online accounts so they may view both
public and private interactions. Foreigners entering U.S.
could be forced to hand over phones, answer questions on
ideology; changes could apply to allies like France and
Germany.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327133-
administration-reviewing-extreme-vetting-policies-report
https://www.wsj.com/articles/trump-administration-
considers-far-reaching-steps-for-extreme-vetting-
1491303602
– Infowars host Alex Jones threatens Adam Schiff: “I’ll
beat your goddamn ass”.
http://www.salon.com/2017/04/04/infowars-host-alex-
jones-threatens-adam-schiff-ill-beat-your-goddamn-ass/
https://www.mediamatters.org/video/2017/04/04/trump-
ally-alex-jones-threatens-beat-rep-adam-schiff-s-goddamn-
ass-anti-gay-tirade/215903
– Politico.com reports Gorsuch plagiarized. Supreme
Court nominee Neil Gorsuch copied the structure and
language used by several authors and failed to cite source
material in his book and an academic article, according to
documents provided to POLITICO.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/gorsuch-writings-
supreme-court-236891
April 5, 2017 Wednesday
201
– Trump removed his chief strategist Steve Bannon
from the National Security Council on Wednesday,
reversing his controversial decision early this year to give
a political adviser an unprecedented role in security
discussions. The New York Times reported Wednesday
evening that Bannon “resisted the move” and threatened to
resign if the change was made. It took the intervention of
billionaire Rebekah Mercer to persuade him to stay after
he was ousted from the NSC saying that achieving their
shared nationalistic goals was a “long-term play” and that
he needed to remain. The shifting roles also restored the
Joint Chiefs chairman and intelligence director roles as
“regular attendees” of the Principals Committee on the
NSC.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-security-
idUSKBN17724S
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/327534-
bannon-threatened-to-quit-if-removed-from-national-
security-council
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/bannon-
threatens-to-quit-white-house
– House GOP mulls emergency meeting to push
Obamacare repeal.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/obamacare-repeal-
republican-emergency-236941
April 6, 2017 Thursday
– Senate Republicans on Thursday crushed a
Democratic blockade of Trump’s U.S. Supreme Court
nominee in a fierce partisan brawl, approving a rule
change dubbed the “nuclear option” to allow for
conservative judge Neil Gorsuch’s confirmation by
Friday. Trump had encouraged Republican Senate
Majority Leader Mitch McConnell to “go nuclear.” “In 20
or 30 or 40 years, we will sadly point to today as a turning
point in the history of the Senate and the Supreme Court, a
day when we irrevocably moved further away from the
principles our founders intended for these institutions:
principles of bipartisanship, moderation and consensus,”
Senate Democratic leader Chuck Schumer said on the
Senate floor.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-court-gorsuch-
idUSKBN17814Y
– Trump arrived in Florida to hold his first meeting with
Chinese President Xi Jinping, facing pressure to make
good on promises for trade concessions and prevent a
spiraling crisis with North Korea.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-china-
idUSKBN17815O
– Twitter Inc said in a lawsuit on Thursday that it had
received a demand from U.S. officials for records that
could reveal the user behind an account opposed to
Trump and that it was challenging the demand in court.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-twitter-lawsuit-
idUSKBN1782PH
https://www.buzzfeed.com/chrisgeidner/twitter-sues-feds-
over-attempt-to-reveal-identity-behind
– Devin Nunes steps aside from House intelligence
committee’s Russia inquiry. Nunes said he would
‘temporarily’ leave the inquiry into Trump’s connections
to Russia, saying that ‘leftwing activists’ had filed ethics
complaints against him.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/06/devin-
nunes-leaves-house-intelligence-committee-russia-inquiry-
ethics-inquiry
– Trump weighing military options following chemical
weapons attack in Syria. When asked if Trump would be
organizing an international coalition to remove Assad,
Tillerson said, “Those steps are underway.”
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/trump-weighing-military-options-following-
chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/2017/04/06/0c59603a-
1ae8-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html
202
https://www.yahoo.com/news/tillerson-steps-way-remove-
assad-power-syria-200018022.html
– The House Ethics Committee announced today that it is
investigating Nunes’ actions after “allegations of
unauthorized disclosures of classified information,” noting
that the investigation “does not itself indicate that any
violation has occurred.”
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/congress/article143054719.html
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/rep-devin-nunes-steps-
russia-probe/story?id=46620555
http://www.alternet.org/news-amp-politics/devin-nunes-
russia-probe
– House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) told
Republicans as they departed Washington on Thursday
that their recesses could be cut short if a deal is reached
on legislation to repeal and replace ObamaCare.
http://thehill.com/blogs/floor-action/house/327616-gop-
leader-suggests-house-could-be-called-back-from-recess-
to-vote
– Trump launches military strike against Syria. US
warships launched between 50-60 Tomahawk cruise
missiles at a Syrian government airbase where the
warplanes that carried out the chemical attacks were based,
US officials said.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/06/politics/donald-trump-
syria-military/index.html
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/trump-weighing-military-options-following-
chemical-weapons-attack-in-syria/2017/04/06/0c59603a-
1ae8-11e7-9887-1a5314b56a08_story.html
– Canada Welcomes Tech Companies That Are
Spooked by Trump.
http://time.com/4728289/canada-welcomes-tech-
companies-spooked-trump/
April 7, 2017 Friday
– The Republican-led Senate confirmed Neil Gorsuch to
the Supreme Court tilting it to the right for decades.
https://www.theguardian.com/law/2017/apr/07/senate-
confirms-neil-gorsuch-supreme-court-trump
– Russia warns of “extremely serious consequences”
from U.S. strike in Syria. Russian Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev charged that the U.S. strikes were one step
away from clashing with Russia’s military.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-
idUSKBN1782S0
– Russia is suspending a communications channel with
the United States set up to avoid midair incidents between
Russian and U.S. pilots in the skies over the Syria.
http://thehill.com/policy/defense/327751-russia-suspends-
communication-line-with-us-meant-to-avoid-collisions-in-
syria
– Truck drives into crowd in Stockholm, killing four
people. Suspect arrested over incident which police are
treating as act of terrorism.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/07/truck-
crashes-in-central-stockholm-sweden
– Syrian military officials appeared to anticipate
Thursday night’s raid on Syria’s Shayrat air base,
evacuating personnel and moving equipment ahead of the
strike, according to an eyewitness.
http://abcnews.go.com/International/eyewitness-syrian-
military-anticipated-us-raid/story
– Syrian strikes didn’t target runway as to not effect
Russians, says US military official, & Tomahawk type
used was precision, not cratering. This might offer some
reassurance to Assad that the air strikes were more a slap
on the wrist than the beginning of a knockout blow.
https://twitter.com/CarlaBabbVOA/status/8503582989184
94209
https://www.csmonitor.com/World/Middle-
East/2017/0407/US-strike-sends-message-to-Syria-what-it-
didn-t-say
203
http://en.addiyar.com/article/1340877-pentagon-informed-
several-countries-of-planned-targeted-missile-strikes-in-
syria
https://www.state.gov/secretary/remarks/2017/04/269543.h
tm
– The US had provided Russia with advance
information of its deadly missile strikes on Syria,
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Friday.
https://sputniknews.com/world/201704071052397457-
russia-kremlin-syria-strike/
April 9, 2017 Sunday
– A joint command center made up of the forces of
Russian, Iran and allied militia alliance supporting
Syrian President Bashar al Assad said the U.S. strike on a
Syrian air base crossed “red lines” and it would now
respond to any new aggression.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-mideast-crisis-syria-
allies-idUSKBN17B0K7
Asked at a press conference whether the U.S. would lead
an international coalition to oust the Syrian leader,
Tillerson replied that “those steps are underway.”
http://www.wfaa.com/news/world/tillerson-steps-are-
underway-to-oust-syrias-assad/429294858
– Palm Sunday bombings of Egyptian Coptic churches
kill 44.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-egypt-violence-
idUSKBN17B06U
– As the US navy deployed a strike group towards the
western Pacific Ocean, to provide a presence near the
Korean peninsula, the secretary of state, Rex Tillerson,
said China agreed with the Trump administration that
“action has to be taken” regarding North Korea.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/09/us-navy-
strike-group-north-korea-peninsula-syria-missile-strike
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/08/politics/navy-korean-
peninsula/index.html
– Third Trump ally KT McFarland removed from
National Security Council. Her departure follows that of
Michael Flynn and Stephen Bannon.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/kt-
mcfarland-national-security-council-singapore-
ambassador-stephen-bannon-michael-flynn-donald-
a7675361.html
April 10, 2017 Monday
– North Korea ‘ready for war’ after US navy strike team
redeploys. Pyongyang cites ‘reckless moves’ by US and
says it will defend the country from invasion ‘by powerful
force of arms’.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/11/north-
korea-ready-for-war-us-navy-redeploys
– White House warns of potential US ‘red line’ over
Syria barrel bomb attacks
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/10/syria-
top-of-agenda-as-g7-foreign-ministers-meet-in-italy
– Neil Gorsuch is Sworn in as Supreme Court Justice,
placing a devoted conservative in the seat once occupied
by Justice Antonin Scalia and handing President Trump a
victory in his push to shape the court for decades to come.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/10/us/politics/neil-
gorsuch-supreme-court.html
– Russia and Iran request an ‘unbiased investigation’
into Syrian chemical attack
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/syria-
chemical-attack-russia-iran-joint-investigation-weapons-
donald-trump-sergey-lavrov-mohammad-a7676856.html
– Russia and Iran warn US they will ‘respond with
force’ if red lines crossed in Syria again.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/middle-
east/russia-iran-us-america-syria-red-lines-respond-with-
force-aggressor-air-strikes-war-latest-a7675031.html
– Don Benton, the controversial former state senator from
Vancouver who was an early Donald Trump supporter,
will be nominated to head the U.S. Selective Service
System.
http://www.seattletimes.com/nation-world/nation-
politics/after-tension-at-epa-ex-state-sen-don-benton-to-
lead-selective-service/
[Other] It’s not just Syria. Trump is ratcheting up wars
across the world.
https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/10/
not-just-syria-trump-ratcheting-up-wars-world
204
April 11, 2017 Tuesday
– White House spokesman Sean Spicer triggered an
uproar on Tuesday by saying Adolf Hitler did not use
chemical weapons.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-hitler-
idUSKBN17D2N9
– North Korean state media warned on Tuesday of a
nuclear attack on the United States at any sign of
American aggression, if provoked.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-
idUSKBN17D0A4
– The FBI obtained a secret court order last summer to
monitor the communications of Carter Page saying
there was probable cause to believe Page was acting as an
agent of a foreign power (Russia).
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-russia-
idUSKBN17E00G
– Trump’s message to bankers: Wall Street reform rules
(Dodd-Frank) may be eliminated. Trump said major
banking rules put in place after the 2008 financial crisis
were planned to get a “major haircut”.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-business-
idUSKBN17D1ZD
April 12, 2017 Wednesday
– Russian President Vladimir Putin said trust had eroded
between the United States and Russia as Moscow
delivered an unusually hostile reception to Secretary of
State Rex Tillerson in a face-off over Syria.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-
idUSKBN17E1AF
– Trump administration moving quickly to build up
nationwide deportation force.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/trump-
administration-moving-quickly-to-build-up-nationwide-
deportation-force/2017/04/12/7a7f59c2-1f87-11e7-be2a-
3a1fb24d4671_story.html
– Trump on NATO: ‘I said it was obsolete. It’s no longer
obsolete.’
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2017/04/12/trump-on-nato-i-said-it-was-
obsolete-its-no-longer-obsolete/
April 13, 2017 Thursday
– U.S. drops ‘mother of all bombs’ in Afghanistan. The
United States dropped a massive GBU-43 bomb (cost
$16M), also known as the “mother of all bombs,” in
eastern Afghanistan on Thursday against a series of caves
used by Islamic State militants, the military said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-bomb-
idUSKBN17F27U
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/checkpoint/wp/201
7/04/13/u-s-military-drops-22000-pound-bomb-on-
islamic-state-forces-in-afghanistan/
http://www.deagel.com/Defensive-Weapons/GBU-
43B_a000978001.aspx
– China warns against force against North Korea. With
a U.S. aircraft carrier group steaming to the area and
tension rising, China said military force cannot resolve
tension over North Korea.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-event-
idUSKBN17E2CT
– NATO deploys troops to Poland. Poland on Thursday
welcomed the first U.S. troops in a multi-national force
which is being posted across the Baltic region to counter
potential threats from Russia.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-nato-russia-poland-
idUSKBN17F290
– Improperly stored raw meat among violations found at
Trump’s Mar-a-Lago. Undercooled meat, potentially
dangerous raw fish and broken coolers were among 13
violations found by restaurant inspectors at Mar-a-Lago.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-maralago-
idUSKBN17F23A
– Trump signed a resolution that will allow U.S. states to
restrict how federal funds for contraception and
reproductive health are spent, a move cheered by anti-
abortion campaigners.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-abortion-
idUSKBN17F2IH
– CIA director labels WikiLeaks a ‘hostile intelligence
service’.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/mike-pompeo-
wikileaks-hostile-intelligence-service-237206
205
– British intelligence passed Trump associates’
communications with Russians on to US counterparts.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/13/politics/trump-russia-
british-intelligence/index.html
https://www.theguardian.com/uk-
news/2017/apr/13/british-spies-first-to-spot-trump-team-
links-russia
– Trump signs bill that guts Title X emboldening states
that try to block access to health care, particularly at
Planned Parenthood health centers, which provides basic
health care, including family planning, to millions of
Americans every year.
http://shareblue.com/donald-trump-just-killed-family-
planning-for-millions-of-americans/
– The former head of the British Secret Intelligence
Service went on the record saying Donald Trump owes
money to Russia, putting Trump in a compromised
position that “lingers” over him as president.
http://shareblue.com/breaking-former-uk-spy-chief-says-
trump-likely-owes-money-to-russia/
– Trump administration issued a final rule that will
shorten the Obamacare enrollment period and give
insurers more of what they say they need, likely making it
harder for some consumers to purchase insurance. It could
also raise out-of-pocket medical expenses, the experts
said, because it gives insurers more flexibility in
determining the value of their coverage.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-rule-
idUSKBN17F2RX
– Trump administration halts Obama-era rule aimed at
curbing toxic wastewater from coal plants.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/04/13/trump-administration-halts-
obama-era-rule-aimed-at-curbing-toxic-wastewater-from-
coal-plants/
– Trump’s administration has been quietly loosening
firearms restrictions in the United States after
successfully seeking the support of gun owners on the
campaign trail.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/white-house/article144436204.html
April 14, 2017 Friday
– China fears North Korea-US conflict ‘at any moment’.
China said tension over North Korea had to be stopped
from reaching an “irreversible and unmanageable stage.”
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39600426
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-event-
idUSKBN17E2CT
– Trump will keep list of White House visitors secret.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
politics/wp/2017/04/14/trump-to-discontinue-obama-
policy-of-voluntarily-releasing-white-house-visitor-logs/
– EPA chief Scott Pruitt calls for an ‘exit’ from the Paris
climate agreement.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/04/14/trumps-epa-chief-scott-pruitt-
calls-for-an-exit-to-the-paris-climate-agreement/
– Trump’s lawyers in a federal court filing argued that he
cannot be sued for inciting his supporters to hurt
protesters because, as the president, he is immune from
civil lawsuits.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/trump-inciting-
violence-protest-rally-lawsuit-237249
April 15, 2017 Saturday
– Thousands at U.S. rallies demand Trump release tax
returns.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-taxes-
idUSKBN17H0FW
– Right, left-wing protesters clash in Berkeley,
California park.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-berkeley-protests-
idUSKBN17H0LU
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/national-politics/article144817389.html
– U.S. judge puts hold on Arkansas plan for successive
executions. Arkansas planned to begin the lethal injections
of at least six convicted murderers on Monday and
complete the executions before the end of April (totaling
8). Arkansas had scheduled the fast-paced series of
executions in order to beat the expiration date on its
batch of one of the three drugs used in its lethal injection
cocktail.
206
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-arkansas-execution-stay-
idUSKBN17G1L4
– Former Afghan president calls decision to drop massive
U.S. bomb ‘treason’.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-afghanistan-bomb-
idUSKBN17F27U
– North Korea displays apparently new missiles as U.S.
carrier group approaches. New missiles centre of huge
parade as Kim Jong-un aide threatens ‘annihilating’
nuclear strike
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-
anniversary-idUSKBN17G0WU
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/north-
korea-nuclear-war-weapons-tests-launch-kim-jong-un-
donald-trump-parade-missiles-day-of-the-sun-
a7684776.html
– Maxine Waters rallies Tax March crowd for Trump’s
impeachment.
http://thehill.com/homenews/house/328979-waters-rallies-
tax-march-crowd-for-trumps-impeachment
– Man accused of assaulting woman at election rally
says Trump inspired him. Lawyers for veteran being
sued over an altercation at a Trump campaign rally in
Kentucky says he acted at the candidate’s urging.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/15/trump-
campaign-rally-lawsuit-assault-kentucky
– G.O.P. Bill Would Make Medical Malpractice Suits
Harder to Win.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/15/us/politics/republica
ns-health-care-bill-medical-malpractice-suits.html
April 16, 2017 Sunday
– EPA emerges as major target after Trump solicits
policy advice from industry, dramatic steps that Trump
officials are likely to take in overhauling federal policies,
especially those designed to advance environmental
protection and safeguard worker rights.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/epa-emerges-as-
major-target-after-trump-solicits-policy-advice-from-
industry/2017/04/16/87a8a55a-205d-11e7-ad74-
3a742a6e93a7_story.html
– ICE immigration arrests of noncriminals double
under Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/local/immigration-
arrests-of-noncriminals-double-under-
trump/2017/04/16/98a2f1e2-2096-11e7-be2a-
3a1fb24d4671_story.html
– Trump reverses campaign pledge to label China
‘currency manipulator’ in light of North Korea
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-china-currency-manipulator-
treasury-department-report-manufacturers-xi-jinping-
meeting-a7686261.html
– Trump claimed that the tens of thousands of protesters
that want his tax returns made public were paid;
demanding an investigation into who paid them.
http://www.politicususa.com/2017/04/16/trump-bonkers-
demands-investigation-protesters-tax-returns.html
– Mike Pence warns North Korea: ‘Era of strategic
patience is over’; reiterates commitment to protect South
Korea during visit the heavily armed border with the
North.
https://www.theguardian.com/world/2017/apr/17/mike-
pence-north-korea-missile-nuclear-strategic-patience-is-
over
April 17, 2017 Monday
– Trump called Turkey’s Erdogan to congratulate him
on referendum win.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-turkey-election-usa-
idUSKBN17J1M3
– Burying ‘Trumpomania,’ Kremlin TV says Trump
scarier than North Korean leader.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-trump-media-
idUSKBN17J16D
– Trump’s travel policies hurting ‘U.S. brand’ and
discouraging tourists, experts say.
http://money.cnn.com/2017/04/17/news/economy/trump-
travel-tourism/index.html
– Trump says he has ‘exposed the total failure’ of
Obama’s foreign policy.
207
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-obama-foreign-policy-failure-tweet-syria-
afghanistan-twitter-a7687331.html
April 18, 2017 Tuesday
– Trump ordered federal agencies to look at tightening a
visa program used to bring high-skilled foreign workers
to the United States, as he tries to carry out his campaign
pledge to put “America First.”
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-visa-
idUSKBN17K02U
– Asylum applications in Mexico surge after Trump
election win.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-
mexico-exclusive-idUSKBN17K2CE
– Congressional critics of the Department of Homeland
Security should “shut up’’ and assume the agency is
acting appropriately and following the law, the agency’s
chief said in a combative public speech.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/national-
security/dhs-secretary-kelly-says-congressional-critics-
should-shut-up-or-change-laws/2017/04/18/8a2a92b6-
2454-11e7-b503-9d616bd5a305_story.html
– Trump just targeted a new opponent — Canada’s
dairy trade industry.
http://time.com/4745273/donald-trump-canada-dairy-
trade-industry/
– World Leaders On Edge as Trump Weighs Pulling
U.S. Out of Paris Climate Deal.
http://time.com/4723481/donald-trump-paris-agreement-
withdraw/
– Pruitt allies explore hiring private lawyers to rewrite
EPA rule to bypass the EPA employees who spent five
years writing the Waters of the U.S. regulation — the
kinds of career federal bureaucrats whom supporters of
President Donald Trump often deride as the “deep state.”
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/pruitt-water-rules-
private-lawyers-237339
– U.S. carrier not near North Korea after all despite
what the president said.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/18/
donald-trump-carl-vinson-north-korea-armada/100611334/
https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/despite-talk-of-a-
military-strike-trumps-armada-was-a-long-way-from-
korea/2017/04/18/e8ef4237-e26a-4cfc-b5e9-
526c3a17bd41_story.html
April 19, 2017 Wednesday
– U.S. House banking chairman unveils Dodd-Frank
replacement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-banks-doddfrank-
idUSKBN17L2VE
– Putin-linked think tank drew up plan to sway 2016
U.S. election to Trump and undermine voters’ faith in
the American electoral system.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-russia-election-
exclusive-idUSKBN17L2N3
– The EPA said it would begin the process of shrinking
its 15,000-employee workforce through buyouts, in the
wake of President Trump’s executive order last month
aimed at streamlining agencies throughout the federal
government.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/energy-
environment/wp/2017/04/19/epa-plans-to-offer-buyouts-
as-part-of-trump-push-to-shrink-workforce/
– Berkeley cancels conservative firebrand Ann Coulter’s
speech over fears of more violent protests.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/post-
nation/wp/2017/04/19/berkeley-cancels-ann-coulter-
speech-over-fears-of-more-violent-protests/
– [Other] How Bill O’Reilly created Donald Trump.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/19/politics/bill-oreilly-fox-
news-ailes/index.html
– [Other] Neurologist Diagnoses Trump With
‘Cognitive Failure’ – Mental Ability Limited.
http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/04/19/neurologist-
diagnoses-trump-with-cognitive-failure-mental-ability-
limited-details/
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/donald-trumps-
mental-lapses-rapidly-worsen-as-he-keeps-calling-paul-
ryan-by-wrong-name/2352/
http://www.palmerreport.com/politics/brain-specialist-
doctor-believes-donald-trumps-frontal-lobe-is-
failing/2354/
208
– The White House is gearing up for a government
shutdown fight to secure money for a border wall, more
immigration enforcement officers and a bigger military.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/19/donald-trump-
border-security-shutdown-fight-237376
– [Other] Dan Rather: While we were distracted by
O’Reilly, Trump brought us closer to World War III.
http://resistancereport.com/politics/dan-rather-oreilly/
April 20, 2017 Thursday
– White House Officials, Craving Progress, Push Revised
Health Bill.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/20/us/politics/affordabl
e-care-act-house-republicans-trump.html
– Trump launches trade probe targeting Chinese steel.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-steel-
idUSKBN17M237
– U.S. Representative Jason Chaffetz, the Republican
chairman of the House oversight committee, said on
Thursday he has not ruled out leaving before his term
finishes.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-politics-chaffetz-
idUSKBN17M29S
– Rex Tillerson Warns Iran Over ‘Alarming’ Behavior in
The Middle East.
http://time.com/4747912/rex-tillerson-iran-middle-east-
nuclear-deal/
– Exxon seeking U.S. permission to resume oil project in
Russia. With its old C.E.O. Rex Tillerson running the
State Department, this should be a piece of cake.
http://www.vanityfair.com/news/2017/04/exxon-russia-
sanctions-rex-tillerson
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/19/business/energy-
environment/exxon-mobil-russia-sanctions-waiver-oil.html
– U.S. defense secretary James Mattis met with Saudi
royals, American officials suggested that Washington
might provide additional military and intelligence
assistance to the kingdom’s fight in Yemen.
http://www.newsweek.com/yemen-civil-war-us-saudi-
arabia-airstrikes-houthi-rebels-587018
– US could end visa-free travel for Europeans, Trump’s
Secretary of Homeland Security says.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/us-visa-waiver-ends-european-travel-donald-
trump-john-kelly-homeland-security-a7692861.html
– Trump hosts man who called for death of Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton at White House.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-ted-nugent-sarah-palin-white-house-
visit-kid-rock-photo-a7693361.html
– Pentagon chief: US won’t reveal ‘mother of all bombs’
toll.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/national-politics/article145732534.html
– A divided Supreme Court has rejected appeals that
would have put off the execution of Arkansas inmate
Ledell Lee. New justice Neil Gorsuch voted with the
majority of five to deny the stay of execution sought by
Lee and the other inmates.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/national-politics/article145719289.html
– US prepares charges to seek arrest of WikiLeaks’
Julian Assange.
http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/20/politics/julian-assange-
wikileaks-us-charges/index.html
– UC Berkeley reverses course, re-books canceled Ann
Coulter speech.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-coulter-
idUSKBN17M1W1
– White House turns up heat on Congress to revise the
Affordable Care Act.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/gop-leaders-
downplay-revisions-to-health-care-bill-offered-by-house-
moderate/2017/04/20/3890a8f8-25d7-11e7-bb9d-
8cd6118e1409_story.html
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/20/obamacare-
repeal-republicans-new-deal-237397
– Trump’s lawyers argued in a Thursday court filing that
protesters “have no right” to “express dissenting
views” at Trump’s campaign rallies because such
protests infringed on his First Amendment rights.
209
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/20/donald-trump-
protest-rallies-speech-237431
– Palin invited Ted Nugent and Kid Rock to the White
House because ‘Jesus was booked’.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/20/trump-ted-
nugent-kid-rock-sarah-palin-237402
– Jeff Sessions doesn’t think a judge in Hawaii — a.k.a.
‘an island in the Pacific’ — should overrule Trump.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2017/04/20/jeff-sessions-doesnt-think-a-judge-in-
hawaii-a-k-a-an-island-in-the-pacific-should-overrule-
trump/
April 21, 2017 Friday
– Sanctuary Cities Face Aid Cuts as Justice Dept.
Tightens Screws. Trump administration sent letters Friday
to nine jurisdictions telling them they were obligated to
prove compliance.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/us/politics/sanctuary
-city-justice-department.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-
sanctuary-idUSKBN17N2JA
– California cities ready to fight Trump’s call to punish
so-called ‘sanctuary cities’.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/nation-
world/national/article146093959.html
– [Other] Tech firms look to Canada in light of Trump
H1-B visa reform.
https://ca.finance.yahoo.com/news/tech-firms-look-
canada-light-trump-h1-b-visa-reform-122513990.html
– Arkansas execution flurry marks early test for new
Justice Gorsuch who casts death-penalty vote in one of
his first Supreme Court cases. Gorsuch helped clear the
way for Arkansas to hold its first execution in 12 years, a
sign of the challenges facing other inmates seeking to
block their executions next week.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/gors
uch-casts-death-penalty-vote-in-one-of-his-first-supreme-
court-cases/2017/04/21/2d9bc5dc-26a8-11e7-a1b3-
faff0034e2de_story.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-arkansas-execution-
idUSKBN17N1IO
– Treasury Department will not grant exemptions to
companies looking to drill in Russia, including Exxon
Mobil, in a move aimed at showing the United States
would maintain a tough stance on sanctions against
Moscow.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-exxon-mobil-sanctions-
russia-usa-idUSKBN17N2B5
– Trump: Marine Le Pen is ‘strongest candidate’ in
French election. Trump claims he did not ‘explicitly
endorse’ when appearing to support the far-right leader
known for her Islamophobic and xenophobic platform.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/21/donald-trump-marine-le-pen-french-
presidential-election
– Trump ordered his Treasury Department to review
measures put in place by the Obama administration, setting
the stage for a rollback of regulations that were
intended to curtail corporate tax evasion and prevent
another financial crisis.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/21/us/politics/trump-
order-takes-aim-at-tax-regulations-imposed-by-
obama.html
– U.S. states realign in legal battle over Trump’s travel
ban which faces its second challenge at a U.S. appeals
court next month, and this time more Republican states are
backing the measure.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-legal-
idUSKBN17O00W
– Trump on US charging Julian Assange: ‘It’s OK with
me’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-julian-assange-wikileaks-response-
a7696326.html
– Trump has ‘dangerous mental illness’, say psychiatry
experts at Yale conference. Mental health experts say
President is ‘paranoid and delusional’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-dangerous-mental-illness-yale-psychiatrist-
conference-us-president-unfit-james-gartner-
a7694316.html
– Indian techies, IT firms fret as Trump orders U.S. visa
review.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-india-
immigration-idUSKBN17N1VA
210
– Transcript of AP interview with Trump.
https://apnews.com/c810d7de280a47e88848b0ac74690c83
April 22, 2017 Saturday
– March for Science draws big crowds across U.S. The
marches were effectively protests against steep cuts that
Trump has proposed for federal science and research
budgets and his administration’s skepticism about
climate change and the need to slow global warming.
‘There is no Planet B’. More than 600 marches held
around the world, with organizers saying science ‘under
attack’ from a White House that dismisses the threat of
climate change.
https://www.theguardian.com/environment/2017/apr/22/m
arch-for-science-earth-day-climate-change-trump
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/big-turnout-expected-for-march-for-science-in-
dc/2017/04/21/67cf7f90-237f-11e7-bb9d-
8cd6118e1409_story.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-earth-day-usa-march-
idUSKBN17O09F
– Trump’s promised “big announcement” next week on
overhauling the U.S. tax code will consist of “broad
principles and priorities,” an administration official said.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-trump-
idUSKBN17O0KY
– Trump officials delay grant for Caltrain upgrade.
California officials, who had hoped the long-awaited
project would mesh nicely with Trump’s call for fresh
spending on the nation’s aging infrastructure but an
otherwise popular initiative has become a GOP target,
seen as a pet project of the former president.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/though-shovels-
are-ready-trump-officials-delay-grant-for-caltrain-
upgrade/2017/04/22/013ee458-160c-11e7-ada0-
1489b735b3a3_story.html
– Surgeon general is removed by Trump
administration, replaced by deputy for now.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-
health/wp/2017/04/22/surgeon-general-vivek-h-murthy-
removed-by-trump-administration-replaced-by-deputy-for-
now/
– Trump and his top aides have been calling on Congress
to take dramatic action in the coming week: vote on
health care, take up tax reform and demand that
Democrats agree to a stopgap spending measure that
includes funding for a wall along the U.S.-Mexico
border.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/ryan-
promises-to-keep-government-open–and-makes-no-
promises-on-health-care/2017/04/22/2f9aeaea-2769-11e7-
b503-9d616bd5a305_story.html
April 23, 2017 Sunday
– (Other) North Korea says it is ready to strike U.S.
aircraft carrier.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-japan-
idUSKBN17P01Y
– Trump, Pence allies rake in millions as new
Washington lobbyists.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/23/
trump-pence-allies-cash-lobbyists-swamp-
president/100782332/
– Senior US officials hint that Donald Trump’s Mexican
border wall could lead to government shutdown.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/mexic
an-us-border-wall-funding-congress-donald-trump-veto-
shut-down-government-john-kelly-mick-a7697846.html
– Trump has worst poll approval rating at 100 days than
any President since 1945.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-worst-approval-rating-since-1945-barack-obama-
higher-foreign-policy-jobs-hillary-a7697381.html
April 24, 2017 Monday
– Trump pressed congressional Republicans to use the
threat of a government shutdown to win funding for a
wall along the U.S.-Mexico border.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/powerpost/showdown-
looms-as-trump-demands-funding-for-wall-on-us-mexico-
border/2017/04/23/5e0a2840-276a-11e7-b503-
9d616bd5a305_story.html
– Trump’s boastful AP interview – Some of the claims
are truly remarkable, including that he may have given
the greatest speech in the history of the House chamber
and that a Democrat told him he’d be among the greatest
presidents ever.
211
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/the-
fix/wp/2017/04/24/trumps-bragging-boastful-ap-interview-
annotated/
– U.S. college campuses have been the “hotbed of anti-
Semitism,” according to researchers at Tel Aviv
University. The Anti-Defamation League found that anti-
Semitic incidents overall, which it says were driven by
the presidential election, skyrocketed last year and in
first months of 2017.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/acts-of-
faith/wp/2017/04/24/the-hotbed-of-anti-semitism-isnt-a-
foreign-country-but-u-s-college-campuses-report-says/
– Trump calls for new U.N. sanctions on North Korea.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-
idUSKBN17Q06N
– China urges ‘restraint’ amid North Korea threat to
sink a U.S. aircraft carrier. Xi Jinping Urges Trump to
‘Avoid Aggravating’ North Korea.
http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-39695503
http://time.com/4753577/xi-jinping-donald-trump-north-
korea-restraint/
– Entire U.S. Senate to go to White House for North
Korea briefing. All 100 senators have been asked to the
White House for the briefing by Secretary of State Rex
Tillerson, Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Director of
National Intelligence Dan Coats and General Joseph
Dunford, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-nuclear-usa-
senate-idUSKBN17Q1LR
– U.S. Senate confirmed former Georgia Governor Sonny
Perdue as secretary of agriculture.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-perdue-
idUSKBN17Q2BS
– U.S. State Department website published an article
this month about Trump’s Mar-a-Lago resort in
Florida, stoking criticism from prominent ethics experts.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-resort-ethics-
idUSKBN17Q2BC
– Students who invited conservative commentator Ann
Coulter to speak at the University of California at
Berkeley sued school officials saying their postponement
of her talk was discriminatory and violated free speech
rights.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-california-coulter-
idUSKBN17Q22Y
– Trump to impose tariffs on Canadian softwood
lumber.
http://thehill.com/business-a-lobbying/business-a-
lobbying/330335-trump-to-impose-tariffs-on-canadian-
softwood-lumber
– AP uses the word “Unintelligible” sixteen times in its
interview transcript with Donald Trump.
http://www.palmerreport.com/opinion/ap-uses-the-word-
unintelligible-sixteen-times-in-its-interview-transcript-
with-donald-trump/2432/
– Transcript of AP interview with Trump.
https://apnews.com/c810d7de280a47e88848b0ac74690c83
– US Supreme Court clears way for rare double
execution in Arkansas. Ruling came just minutes before
another inmate was pronounced dead. Lethal injections
will be first double execution in more than 16 years.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/24/arkansas-double-executions-supreme-
court-jack-jones-marcel-williams
– Trump fumes about supposedly ‘fake’ polls giving him
a dismal approval rating.
https://www.yahoo.com/news/trump-fumes-supposedly-
fake-polls-giving-dismal-approval-rating-131804187.html
– Trump seeks 15 percent corporate tax rate, even if it
swells the national debt. Trump has instructed advisers to
propose cutting the corporate tax rate from 35 percent to
15 percent, according to White House officials.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/business/economy/trump
-seeks-15-percent-corporate-tax-rate-even-if-it-swells-the-
national-debt/2017/04/24/0c78a35c-2923-11e7-be51-
b3fc6ff7faee_story.html
– Supreme Court Justice Sonia Sotomayor wrote
Monday that the court is developing a “disturbing
trend” of siding with police officers accused of excessive
force at the expense of their alleged victims, a notion
disputed by two of her colleagues.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/courts_law/soto
mayor-sees-disturbing-trend-of-unequal-treatment-
regarding-police-alleged-victims/2017/04/24/dfe8c368-
2912-11e7-b605-33413c691853_story.html
212
– Republicans in Congress push for religious liberty
executive order asking Trump to scale back Obama-era
protections for gays and lesbians in order to make good on
a campaign promise to protect religious liberty.
https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/politics/2017/04/24/
republicans-congress-push-religious-liberty-executive-
order/100842590/
April 25, 2017 Tuesday
– German crowd boos Ivanka Trump for calling her
father a ‘champion’ for families.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/
25/ivanka-trump-wants-to-help-female-entrepreneurs-they-
say-her-dad-is-making-their-work-harder/
– Public pans Republicans’ latest approach to replacing
Affordable Care Act. American public disagrees with
the course that Trump and congressional Republicans
are pursuing to replace the Affordable Care Act with
conservative policies, according to a new Washington
Post-ABC News poll.
https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/health-
science/public-pans-republicans-latest-approach-to-
replacing-affordable-care-act/2017/04/25/25355eb0-26aa-
11e7-bb9d-8cd6118e1409_story.html
– Trump signals delay on border wall funding to avoid
government shutdown; tells conservative media his
$1.4bn demand could be pushed to September, avoiding a
spending freeze on his 100th day in office.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/25/trump-
signals-delay-on-border-wall-funding-to-avoid-
government-shutdown
– Michael Flynn’s Russia payment likely broke
disclosure laws, the leading Republican and Democrat on
the House oversight committee said.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/25/michael-flynn-russia-payment-house-
panel-investigation
– White House refuses to hand over documents to
House Oversight Committee on Michael Flynn to
Trump-Russia investigation.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/trump-russia-investigation-michael-flynn-
documents-white-house-a7701921.html
– Trudeau vows to defend Canada interests as U.S.
targets lumber and trade tensions between the two
countries escalated, sending the Canadian dollar to a 14-
month low..
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-canada-trade-
idUSKBN17R1VZ
– Trump to strip all funding from State Department
team promoting women’s rights around the world.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-budget-2018-state-department-cut-
office-global-womens-issues-oxfam-ivanka-
a7701631.html
– Trump behaviour ‘showing a lot of signs’ of
dangerous mental illness, says psychiatrist.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/donald-trump-mental-illness-signs-yale-
psychiatrist-dr-bandy-lee-dangerous-us-president-
goldwater-a7700816.html
– Hannity: Liberal ‘fascism’ trying to silence every
conservative voice.
http://thehill.com/homenews/media/330362-hannity-
liberal-fascism-trying-to-silence-every-conservative-voice
– Sen. Richard Burr, Republican chairman of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, said in a recent interview that the
U.S. and Russia are locked in a new Cold War.
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/330439-burr-us-
in-new-cold-war-with-russia
– A U.S. judge blocked Trump’s executive order that
sought to withhold federal funds from so-called
sanctuary cities, dealing another legal blow to the
administration’s efforts to toughen immigration
enforcement.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-immigration-ruling-
idUSKBN17R2QO
– [Other] New Alt-Right “Fight Club” Ready for Street
Violence.
https://www.splcenter.org/hatewatch/2017/04/25/new-alt-
right-%E2%80%9Cfight-club%E2%80%9D-ready-street-
violence
April 26, 2017 Wednesday
– Trump unveiled a one-page plan proposing deep U.S.
tax cuts, many for businesses, that would make the
213
federal deficit balloon if enacted, and would be the
largest overhaul since Reagan era.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/us/politics/trump-
tax-cut-plan.html
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-tax-
idUSKBN17S1CE
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/26/trump-
tax-cuts-proposal-deductions-brackets
– Mnuchin: Trump has ‘no intention’ of releasing his
tax returns.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/26/trump-no-tax-
returns-steven-mnuchin-237642
– U.S. Commerce Department launched an
investigation to determine whether a flood of aluminum
imports from China and elsewhere was compromising
U.S. national security, a step that could lead to broad
import restrictions on the metal.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trade-aluminum-
idUSKBN17T044
– Republican lawmakers launched the next round in
their fight against federal regulation as the U.S. Senate
began work on legislation to change nearly every step
agencies take in creating and applying new rules.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-regulation-
idUSKBN17S33P
– The conservative House Freedom Caucus came out in
support of a reworked U.S. healthcare overhaul bill.
The bill would replace Obamacare’s income-based tax
credit with a flat age-based credit, roll back an expansion
of the Medicaid government health insurance program for
the poor and repeal most Obamacare taxes. The
nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office estimated 24
million fewer people would have insurance under the
bill.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-healthcare-
idUSKBN17S2F1
– FCC Chairman Ajit Pai proposed overturning the
landmark 2015 Obama-era net neutrality rules that
prohibit broadband providers from giving or selling access
to certain internet services over others.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-fcc-neutrality-
idUSKBN17S2I3
– Trump looks to renegotiate, not cancel NAFTA With
Canada.
http://time.com/4757113/trump-nafta-renegotiate-cancel/
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/27/525918213/trump-looks-
to-renegotiate-nafta-with-canada
– Trump is considering splitting up the U.S. Court of
Appeals for the Ninth Circuit after its recent rulings that
have blocked two of his executive orders.
http://time.com/4756872/donald-trump-ninth-circuit-court/
– Pentagon and Trump officials sound alarm on North
Korea nuclear threat, summoning all 100 senators to
the White House to hear top defense officials declare that
defending the U.S. from a possible nuclear attack has
become a top priority.
http://www.mcclatchydc.com/news/politics-
government/white-house/article147000349.html
http://thehill.com/policy/national-security/330791-
senators-get-n-korea-briefing-in-rare-meeting
– Iran fires new cruise missiles amid gulf tensions with
U.S.
http://www.newsweek.com/iran-military-fire-cruise-
missiles-gulf-tensions-us-590462
– US conducts missile test amid growing tensions over
North Korea.
214
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
missile-test-intercontinental-ballistic-minuteman-
california-donald-trump-north-korea-kim-jong-un-
a7704391.html
– Nuclear attack drills staged near Manhattan as US-
North Korea tensions escalate.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/new-york-nuclear-attack-drills-manhattan-north-
korea-bomb-threat-trump-a7704516.html
– Watergate journalist Carl Bernstein on Trump-Russia
investigation: ‘Oh my god, there’s a cover-up going on’.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/us-
politics/trump-russia-investigation-cover-up-michael-
flynn-carl-bernstein-a7704381.html
April 27, 2017 Thursday
– U.S. Senate confirms R. Alexander Acosta to head
Labor Department, first Hispanic member of the Trump
cabinet.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-congress-labor-
idUSKBN17T3D1
– FCC chief unveils plan to scrap Obama-era internet
rules to reverse the landmark 2015 “net neutrality” order
and disclosed the agency may withdraw “bright line” rules
barring internet companies from blocking, throttling or
giving “fast lanes” to some websites.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-internet-fcc-
idUSKBN17T34W
– Mike Flynn under formal investigation by Pentagon
over payments from Russia.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/27/mike-
flynn-pentagon-formal-investigation-russia
– White House press secretary Spicer blames Obama for
Flynn’s security clearance.
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/330925-
spicer-blames-obama-for-flynns-security-clearance
– Senate Minority Leader Schumer objected to a deal
on passing a one-week stopgap government funding
bill, citing concerns about ongoing negotiations over a
larger spending agreement. Schumer said there were still
unresolved “poison pill riders” being worked out on a
longer spending deal that would fund the government
through Sept. 30.
– Senate Democrats are exploring a lawsuit against
Trump on the grounds that his vast business empire has
created conflicts of interest that violate the
Constitution.
– Rep. Adam Schiff said Trump is likely to blame his
predecessor Barack Obama for any shortcomings or
difficulties during his time in office. “I’m confident of
this, Chuck: On the last day of the Trump administration,
Trump will be blaming Obama for something,” Schiff told
MSNBC.
http://thehill.com/blogs/blog-briefing-room/news/331011-
schiff-trump-will-blame-obama-during-his-entire-
presidency
– Trump will abolish women’s right to abortion, warns
expert US doctor. Dr Willie Parker said he expected the
Trump presidency to succeed in overturning Roe v
Wade.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/donal
d-trump-abortion-illegal-dr-willie-parker-planned-
parenthood-roe-v-wade-pro-life-choice-neil-
a7670496.html
– House Republican leaders delayed a vote on their
Obamacare repeal bill until next week at the earliest,
denying Trump a major legislative victory during his
first 100 days in office.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/27/house-
republicans-obamacare-repeal-votes-237685
April 28, 2017 Friday
– The House passed legislation to avoid a government
shutdown just hours ahead of a midnight deadline. The
weeklong stopgap measure easily passed. After the Senate
clears the bill late Friday, lawmakers will have one week
to hash out a longer-term spending package that lasts
through September.
http://thehill.com/policy/finance/331058-house-passes-bill-
to-avoid-shutdown
– Attorney General Sessions recuses himself from any
Michael Flynn investigation. The attorney general
recused himself from the Justice Department’s
investigation into Russian interference in last year’s
election amid reports that he had met on multiple
occasions with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the
campaign even though he had testified during his Senate
confirmation hearing that he had not interacted with
Russian officials.
215
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/28/jeff-sessions-
recusal-michael-flynn-investigation-237736
– Trump picks former anti-abortion leader, Charmaine
Yoest, for health and human services post
https://www.theguardian.com/us-news/2017/apr/28/trump-
health-human-services-anti-abortion-charmaine-yoest
– Trump warns of ‘major, major conflict’ with North
Korea, though he would prefer to solve the standoff over
the country’s nuclear and missile programmes through
diplomacy.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/28/donald-trump-warns-of-major-major-
conflict-with-north-korea
– Trump pledges fealty to NRA gun lobby.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-guns-
idUSKBN17U2SX
– House and Senate approve stopgap spending measure
while negotiators work to reach an agreement over a
longer-term funding package.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/28/government-shutdown-congress-hours-
before-deadline
– Trump tells NRA: ‘I am going to come through for
you’.
https://www.theguardian.com/us-
news/2017/apr/28/donald-trump-nra
– DeMint to be ousted from Heritage Foundation.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/28/demint-set-to-
be-ousted-from-heritage-foundation-237754
– EPA scrubs website of references to Obama climate
plans.
http://www.politico.com/story/2017/04/28/epa-website-
scrubbed-obama-climate-plans-237779
– North Korea test-fires ballistic missile in defiance of
world pressure.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-
idUSKBN17U2XB
– U.S. could speed up North Korea sanctions in
response to missile test.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-missiles-usa- http://www.reuters.com/news/picture/first-100-days-of-
idUSKBN17U34D trump

– U.S. says time to act on North Korea, China says not
up to Beijing alone.
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-northkorea-usa-un-
tillerson-idUSKBN17U27O
Trump’s first 100 Days: What media has said:
Wikipedia:
Guardian:
https://www.theguardian.com/tv-and-
radio/2017/apr/27/the-simpsons-trump-first-100-days
Politico:
http://www.politico.com/magazine/story/2017/04/26/trump
-first-100-days-president-rating-accomplishments-215071

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/First_100_days_of_Donald_ Time:
Trump%27s_presidency
http://time.com/4748940/historians-president-trump-100-
The White House: days/

https://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press- Newsweek:
office/2017/04/27/president-trumps-100-days-
accountability http://www.newsweek.com/simpsons-trump-first-100-
days-us-president-590692
Washington Post:
NBC News:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/wonk/wp/2017/04/
28/the-32-word-history-of-trumps-first-100-days/ http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/president-trumps-first-
100-days
USA Today:
CBS News:
https://www.usatoday.com/pages/interactives/trump-100-
days http://www.cbsnews.com/trump-first-100-days/

Wall Street Journal: ABC News:

http://www.wsj.com/livecoverage/donald-trumps-first- http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/photos/trumps-100-days-
100-days 45102963/image-47090714

New York Times: CNN:

https://www.nytimes.com/2017/04/26/opinion/donald- http://www.cnn.com/2017/04/28/politics/donald-trump-
trumps-first-100-days-the-worst-on-record.html 100-days-tweets/

Fox News: BBC (UK):

http://insider.foxnews.com/2017/04/27/president-trump- http://www.bbc.com/news/world-us-canada-39724045
best-and-worst-moments-his-first-100-days
The Telegraph (UK):
NPR:
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/2017/04/25/donald-
http://www.npr.org/2017/04/27/525584236/in-trumps- trumps-achievements-failures-first-100-days-president/
first-100-days-a-dramatic-reduction-in-immigration
CBC (Canada):
Reuters:
http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/donald-trump-100-days-
analysis-boag-1.4083673
216
Deutsche Welle (Germany)
http://www.dw.com/en/100-days-of-us-president-donald-
trump-what-you-need-to-know/a-38605502
France 24 (France):
http://www.france24.com/en/20170425-trump-mark-first-
100-days-white-house-usa-president
RT (Russia):
https://www.rt.com/shows/boom-bust/386412-donald-
trump-100-days/
Global Times (China)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/president-
trump-completes-100-days-so-did-he-keep-his-
promises/story-8D8xGLYAyk5QShH3weh6KK.html
.
217
Hindustan Times (India)
http://www.hindustantimes.com/world-news/president-
trump-completes-100-days-so-did-he-keep-his-
promises/story-8D8xGLYAyk5QShH3weh6KK.html
South China Morning Post (Hong Kong):
http://www.scmp.com/topics/donald-trumps-first-100-days
What Trump said:
http://thehill.com/homenews/administration/331154-
trump-first-100-days-just-about-the-most-successful-in-
history
[Note: With few exceptions, sources are from mainstream
media and updated daily with additions and changes.]
 'Broken By US Power Machine':
Trump’s 100 Days Prove His Maverick Image Was Fake
Published Time: 29 Apr, 2017 05:15Edited Time: 29 Apr, 2017 16:50

Donald Trump’s election strategy relied to a degree on the

image of an anti-establishment billionaire who could fix a
broken DC. Instead, his actions in office have been aligned
with the policies of the same special interests he used to
speak out against.
Some of Trump’s critics say he was dishonest from the
start. Others, like Russian Prime Minister Dmitry
Medvedev, believe he has been "broken" by the US
establishment, which would not tolerate a president that
wanted to improve relations with Moscow or stop
America’s perpetual wars.
Either way, the 45th US president has proven himself
consistently inconsistent during his first 100 days in office.
Here are some of the issues Trump has done a 180 flip-flop
on since taking the Oval Office.
NATO
Skipping forward, Trump now says NATO is a “bulwark
of international peace and security.” So it may be just a
matter of time before the US calls on its allies to bomb
some country’s government out of power, regardless of
what goes on in the UN Security Council, just as it did in
Iraq in 2003.
China
China played the boogeyman in Trump’s campaign. It was
blamed for lost US jobs and other maladies affecting of the
American worker. Candidate Trump repeatedly accused
Beijing of manipulating its currency, saying he would not
allow it “to rape our country.” Moreover, he called the
US’ decades-old “one China policy” into question, while
complaining about China failing to reign in North Korea.

The trans-Atlantic military bloc was an early target of

Trump’s ire. During the election campaign, he branded the
alliance “obsolete” and complained that its European
members were benefiting from America’s protection,
while failing to pay for it. Some British media outlets have
even reported that he had handed German Chancellor
Angela Merkel a multibillion dollar bill for services
rendered. Both governments have denied this, however.

218
Now, he claims that he and Chinese President Xi Jinping
developed a wonderful relationship during a meeting at the
Mar-a-Lago resort over “the most beautiful chocolate
cake.” However, the evening’s menu didn’t include a Big
Mac, which Trump promised he would offer Xi before
sitting down to work when he was a candidate. The
Chinese media has been mocking the US leader’s U-turn.

‘Policeman of the world’

During the presidential campaign, Trump insisted that the

US “cannot be the policeman of the world,” but now the
president is apparently quite comfortable in that very
position. Although he certainly didn’t shy away from
sending Navy SEALS to raid Yemeni villages supposedly
held by Al Qaeda shortly after his inauguration, it was the
barrage of Tomahawk missiles he launched on a Syrian The Trump administration had reportedly been considering
military airfield that set things straight on this issue. withdrawing from the deal via an executive order the same
way it quashed the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) in
January.

Russia

Trump, who repeatedly promised during his campaign that

he would improve America’s relations with Russia, saying
that “it would be great,” doesn’t sound very committed
anymore. Maybe it has something to do with US comedy
shows lampooning him as a weakling blackmailed by the
Kremlin or some vocal members of the media still crushed
by Hillary’s loss, who constantly excoriate him for having
‘Russia ties’, regardless of whether they have any proof or
not.

The White House said its act of international aggression

was a response to an alleged use of chemical weapons by
the Syrian government – which is yet to be properly
investigated. Ironically, that chemical incident came just
days after senior members of the Trump administration
had stated that deposing the government in Damascus was
no longer a goal for Washington.

NAFTA

Among the latest things Trump has backtracked on is the

free trade deal between the US, Canada, and Mexico,
better known as NAFTA. On the campaign trail, he called
it the “single worst trade deal ever” and a “killer” of US
jobs, but, on Thursday, the White House said the treaty
would remain in place.
Or, maybe, America’s elusive ‘Deep State’, which so
many in the US say doesn’t exist, is more powerful than
the most powerful man in the world, as the person sitting
in the Oval Office is often described. One can now wonder
where the US and Russia will be after Trump’s four years
and whether that place would have been any different if
Hillary Clinton had been at America’s helm.

219
 ‘Buffoonery On Steroids’:
Analyzing Trump’s First 100 Days As President
© Ap Photo/ Andrew Harnik - Politics
03:52 29.04.2017(Updated 03:58 29.04.2017)

and promises that he said he would do,

he’s done them, but he’s been knocked
back, primarily by the federal courts. [He]
also has met with widespread massive
resistance all over the place."

Smolarek said that so far, the Trump presidency has been

"an all-out attack on poor and working

people," specifically the proposed federal
budget which has "devastating cuts."
As US President Donald Trump closes
in on the much ballyhooed first 100
days mark, questions remain about his
effectiveness, as the president comes
up short on his litany of campaign
promises.

Radio Sputnik’s Loud and Clear spoke with Yahne Ndgo

from the Ubuntu Nation project, Sputnik News analyst
Walter Smolarek, Kevin Akin of the Peace and Freedom
Party and radio host Anoa Changa about Trump’s dubious
accomplishments and how his presidency so far has been
colored by mass resistance.
© REUTERS/ Peter Nicholls - Trump 'Can Take Credit' for Creating
'Large-Scale' Revolts Across US in First 100 Days
Smolarek noted that the Army will be receiving an
additional$ 50 billion while essential social services
for citizens most in need will be slashed. He also said that
Trump’s American Health Care Act

Changa said there has been "buffoonery on steroids
coming out of the White House" in Trump’s 100 days,
saying the deadline has been
"a challenge to actually be what (Trump)
claimed or portrayed that he was. He made
all these grand pronouncements that were
not grounded in anything factual."
She added,
"We’ve seen how he’s built on certain
things left behind for him by the Bush and
Obama administrations, but in terms
of carving out many of the key programs
220
"is as much a gift to the insurance
companies as Obamacare was; this would
line their pockets even more. I think the
policies have shown that this is certainly a
government of the oligarchs, a government
of looting."
Loud and Clear Host Brian Becker pointed out that the
Republicans were not successful in their constant criticism
of and attempts to repeal Obamacare. Trump took this
up as campaign promise, despite the fact that the
legislation was modeled after measures enacted by Mitt
Romney, a Republican, when he was governor
of Massachusetts.
Ndgo called this effort,
"A throwback to the racism that was
demonstrated during Obama’s presidency.
This is very specifically about Obama as a
president and their insistence on not
supporting anything that he did, and not
allowing him to have any piece of his
legacy, him being a black man as well a
Democrat."
She added,
221
"So it has nothing to do with the Affordable
Care Act [Obamacare] itself because it is a
much more conservative measure
than what we would have expected
to come out of that environment."
Akin remarked, "The less Trump gets done, the less
damage is done to working people, because he is all
about doing damage to working people: that’s his whole
reason for existence. That’s the reason for most
billionaires, all the more so when one of them becomes
president."
 Jews Celebrate Successful
Coup Against Trump Administration
Marcus Cicero
April 29, 2017
If you don’t already, I suggest you study the Jewish Press
– the ones based in Israel – in order to get a full
understanding of what they routinely plan in respect to the
Stupid Goyim.
You’ll usually see them admitting things that would never
make it into the American media, and if you’re not up on
the Jewish Problem, their rantings can be quite
enlightening, indeed.
Like this little piece for example, which conclusively
proves once and for all that Donald Trump is no longer a
trustworthy asset for White America, but is instead at the
mercy of his Jew advisers beyond any chance at
redemption/salvation.
From Jewish Daily Forward:
Among many moves aimed at reversing
his predecessor’s policies, President
Trump recently decided not to make
public the White House visitors logs.
Had they been open, the lists would
reveal the profound change 100 days of
a Trump administration had brought
about to the Jewish community’s power
structure.
“The atmosphere has changed, at least
for us. There’s a sense of familiarity and
greater receptivity and that makes a
better atmosphere,” said Abba Cohen,
vice president for federal affairs at
222
Agudath Israel of America, a group
representing the ultra-Orthodox stream.
Liberal-leaning Jewish activists, once the backbone of
communal advocacy, had been pushed aside in favor of a
new elite made up of activists who are more conservative
in their politics and more Orthodox in their religious
practice.
The new leaders representing American
Jewish interests in the White House are
keen to shape policy on education and
religious expression and to ensure a
pro-Israel stance more in line with the
Netanyahu government.
…
But there’s also the personal aspect.
With the center of gravity moving from
Washington, D.C. and New York’s Upper
West Side to New Jersey and Long
Island’s modern Orthodox enclaves, a
new power structure is emerging, one
that was forged in the pews of Teaneck
synagogues and at New York religious
school fundraisers.
No one knows this better than Ben Chouake, a New Jersey
physician who heads NORPAC, America’s largest pro-
Israel PAC. Greenblatt and Friedman were on his board,
and he even used to meet the Kushners at weddings and
family events. “I have a lot more comfort with this
administration,” Chouake said. In part, he says, it’s
because he shares background and beliefs with some of
Trump’s senior staffers. “This administration is much,
much more congenial to U.S.-Israel relations,” he added.
…
The Zionist Organization of America,
which was largely ignored by the
Obama White House, is also seeing its
star rise under the new administration. It
was the first to score a meeting with a
 member of the Trump team after the once the millions of Trump supporters realize that they’ve
election. President Mort Klein met in New been conned and tricked in a manner that is almost
York with an aide, Anthony Scaramucci. He legendary in its scope.
left the White House shortly after.
That is our mission for the immediate future – convert the
The Orthodox Union raised its profile by lobbying in masses and solidify into a cohesive group that will be able
support of David Friedman’s confirmation. Chabad to make the corridors of power in Washington tremble.
welcomed Jared Kushner and Ivanka Trump to
Washington, and Sheldon Adelson, one of Trump’s top
donors, who is not Orthodox, was already invited to a
private dinner with the President at the White House.
Groups Adelson supports, including the Republican Jewish
Coalition and Christians United for Israel, also got their
share of face time with Trump in the first 100 days of his
presidency.

But let’s just remember that Trump was just one step along
the road of Nationalism.

His Movement was truly real, and we need to take that into
account in the coming months – we shall grow stronger
.

223
 CNN's Cabrera Baffled At Ben Stein
Finding Anti-Trump Minhaj Jokes 'Sickening'
By Brad Wilmouth
April 30, 2017 | 10:49 PM EDT
As Ben Stein appeared as a guest on Sunday's CNN
Newsroom, host Ana Cabrera was visibly surprised that the
right-leaning actor and economist slammed Hasan
Minhaj's anti-Donald Trump jokes as "sickening" as the
two discussed the liberal comedian's appearance at the
White House Correspondents' Dinner.
Stein also called out the media as a "joke" and a "sharp
instrument of the left" that are constantly "attacking"
President Trump.
At 7:27 p.m. ET, Cabrera introduced the segment:
The annual White House Correspondents' Dinner took
place in the nation's capital last night without the usual
guest of honor. President Donald Trump decided to skip
this event, and instead attend a rally in Pennsylvania.
Comedian Hasan Minhaj pulled no punches in Trump's
absence.
After showing a couple of clips featuring Minhaj calling
President Trump the "liar-in-chief," and joking about
Russian President Vladimir Putin being the leader of the
U.S., Cabrera brought aboard Stein and began by asking:
Ben, you had previously defended Mr. Trump's decision to
skip this dinner, saying he's a punching bag day after day
in the media. Do you still feel that that's the case? Is this
justified taking that position after watching the show?
Stein immediately railed against Minhaj as he began:
224
"I thought what Mr. Minhaj said was
sickening. Frankly, I felt like vomiting, and I
couldn't watch it for very long."
Confused, Cabrera exclaimed,
"Why?!"
The right-leaning actor and former Nixon administration
speech writer took aim at the media as he continued:
I think it's stunning to belittle and attack
and mock a President at such a base and
villainous level, and to describe him as a
Soviet agent and "liar-in-chief," especially
to the media. The media is a joke in this
situation. First of all, they're the ones who
built him up. Without the media, he would
still be back running casinos somewhere.
He has played the media fantastically well.
The media is not his enemy. He has
cleverly made the media his main ally, and
the media is laughing as if they think
they're somebody great and holy and
neutral and above it all. They're not above
it all.
Stein continued excoriating the media as he added:
They are a sharp instrument of the left in
this country, and -- but Trump has
managed to turn it on its head and make
them the bad guys out there in
Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and places he
was never expected to win. So, I mean,
they're laughing -- they should be laughing
at themselves, not laughing at him.
Cabrera then tried to defend the media as she responded:
Well, I think the media did laugh at
ourselves. He, of course, the comedian
also took a lot of jabs at the media through
all of this. But, as you point out, I mean, the
President has had a contentious
relationship with the media, but other
 Presidents in the past, too, have had
similar challenges in dealing with the
media.
You know, our job as journalists is to hold
their feet to the fire, to hold government --
elected officials accountable. And, of
course, Presidents and people in power
don't always like that.
Stein argued that the media have been historically hostile
to President Trump as he continued:
Well, you know, I, if I may say this, I was a
speech writer for President Nixon -- I've
always been a fan of President Nixon.
Even Nixon was not held up to the same
level of ridicule, mockery, and vicious
attacks than Trump is.
After admitting that he has been a long-time critic of
Trump, the right-leaning economist added:
So I'm not a huge fan of his, but the level of
attack on him by the media has been so
vicious, I've never seen anything like it.
And every day's newspaper has got more
stories attacking him, attacking him,
attacking him. They just don't give the guy
a break.
Below is a transcript of the relevant portion of the Sunday,
April 30, CNN Newsroom with Ana Cabrera:
7:27 p.m. ET
ANA CABRERA: The annual White House Correspondents'
Dinner took place in the nation's capital last night without the
usual guest of honor. President Donald Trump decided to skip
this event, and instead attend a rally in Pennsylvania. Comedian
Hasan Minhaj pulled no punches in Trump's absence.
HASAN MINHAJ, CLIP #1: We got to address the elephant that's
not in the room. The leader of our country is not here, and that's
because he lives in Moscow. It is a very long flight. It would be
hard for Vlad to make it. Vlad can't just make it on a Saturday. It's
a Saturday. As for the other guy, I think he's in Pennsylvania
because he can't take a joke.
MINHAJ CLIP #2: We are here to talk about the truth. It is 2017,
and we are living in the golden age of lying. Now is the time to be
a liar, and Donald Trump is liar-in-chief. And, remember, you
guys are public enemy number one. You are his biggest enemy --
journalists, ISIS, and normal-length ties. And somehow you're the
bad guys.
225
CABRERA: Comedian, actor, and economist Ben Stein joins us
now from Las Angeles. Ben, you had previously defended Mr.
Trump's decision to skip this dinner, saying he's a punching bag
day after day in the media. Do you still feel that that's the case?
Is this justified taking that position after watching the show?
BEN STEIN: I thought what Mr. Minhaj said was sickening.
Frankly, I felt like vomiting, and I couldn't watch it for very long.
CABRERA: Why?!
STEIN: I think it's stunning --
CABRERA: What specifically?
STEIN: I think it's stunning to belittle and attack and mock a
President at such a base and villainous level, and to describe him
as a Soviet agent and "liar-in-chief," especially to the media. The
media is a joke in this situation. First of all, they're the ones who
built him up. Without the media, he would still be back running
casinos somewhere. He has played the media fantastically well.
The media is not his enemy. He has cleverly made the media his
main ally, and the media is laughing as if they think they're
somebody great and holy and neutral and above it all. They're
not above it all.
They are a sharp instrument of the left in this country, and -- but
Trump has managed to turn it on its head and make them the
bad guys out there in Pennsylvania and Wisconsin and places he
was never expected to win. So, I mean, they're laughing -- they
should be laughing at themselves, not laughing at him.
CABRERA: Well, I think the media did laugh at ourselves. He, of
course, the comedian also took a lot of jabs at the media through
all of this. But, as you point out, I mean, the President has had a
contentious relationship with the media, but other Presidents in
the past, too, have had similar challenges in dealing with the
media. You know, our job as journalists is to hold their feet to the
fire, to hold government -- elected officials accountable. And, of
course, Presidents and people in power don't always like that.
STEIN: Well, you know, I, if I may say this, I was a speech writer
for President Nixon -- I've always been a fan of President Nixon.
Even Nixon was not held up to the same level of ridicule,
mockery, and vicious attacks than Trump is. And I want to tell
you something -- I am not a big fan of Trump. I was writing in
Barron's -- I suspect at least 30 years ago -- that this guy
possibly should be held up for criminal charges of fraud and
securities fraud.
So I'm not a huge fan of his, but the level of attack on him by the
media has been so vicious, I've never seen anything like it. And
every day's newspaper has got more stories attacking him,
attacking him, attacking him. They just don't give the guy a break.
 The Trump Rescue Flare Is Fading Out Fast
By Ted Twietmeyer
4-30-2017
Why is Trump flip-flopping on so many campaign
promises? Here is one logical conclusion: It wasn't Trump
that was threatened if he continued as promised, but
instead dark forces have threatened his family. This is
almost certainly his weak spot and is often used by dark
forces to stop things from happening. There is nothing
more powerful than a family threat to a family man to
force anyone to obey.
Trump (or someone in his family) was probably told in
secret that if he actually pulled out of NAFTA and/or TPP,
something very bad would happen to his family. He is
smart enough to know that no one can truly be protected
from harm anywhere in this world, no matter who they are.
Consider there are literally trillions of dollars at stake here.
The rich and powerful people who really run this planet
have no respect for anyone in office, no matter who they
are.
All the rich basically care about is keeping their money
and increasing cash flow. Anyone who doubts this base
fact should ask a billionaire about this. God help anyone
who stands in their way. He is butting heads with
established ways of doing things in Washington, and it is a
battle he cannot win. America is like corporate culture in a
200 year old company, but on a far, far bigger scale than
Trump ever realized.
Proof this has happened before: John F Kennedy - his
motorcade was suddenly rerouted to go past the school
book depository by the secret service that very morning.
Why? Before going to Dallas he signed an order to return
to the gold standard and abolish the privately held Federal
Reserve.
Another example: Remember the bus that blew up in
London on 7/7/2005? It too, was re-routed that morning to
take the bus through Tavistock Square where the Tavistock
Institute is located. This is the same institution that worked
on mind control using television flicker to open back
channels into the mind. Brains, blood and body parts were
splattered on the front doors of the institute when the bus
just "happened" to detonate in the street right in front of
the Tavistock Institute. Makes one think of a blood
226
sacrifice. It was the security service there that re-routed the
bus for no good reason that day, too.
No matter what leader of any country may be on this
planet, there are always secret organizations higher up than
any president, dictator, king or queen which tells them
what they can and cannot do. Even Putin is told what he
can and cannot do, but he will never admit it. The entire
world is nothing more than a chess board for the rich and
powerful. Unseen dark forces are the hands that move the
chess pieces around the board.
Presidents may run for office on good intentions and
promises. When they get into office the proverbial riot act
is read to them when they first begin to get out of line. It is
done in a such a effective, carefully orchestrated and
planned way that presidents always walk away realizing
that now they too, are just puppets whether they like it or
not. There are no exceptions. But no president can be told
this secret fact until they are elected and functioning in
office. They get to play freely their new role as president
for a few weeks until they are reined in. If they refuse to
play the game the same way as it has been done for over
200 years, the real law is laid down to them.
Trump was America's last real chance to save the republic
from globalist controlling scum. At least he tried, far
harder than any other American presidential candidate in
the past ever has. His revision attempts to change the
course of America and run America like a true business
fizzled out in less than 100 days. This is not a record; some
like Carter, the Bushes, Clinton and Obama went into
office already obedient to their handlers. Trump was like a
rescue flare launched from a flare gun. His light of reform
burned brightly for many weeks, only to have his
revisionist light slowly put out by secret dark forces.
He could slow down and become another do-nothing Taft
for the remainder of his presidency, finding his hands are
tied and unable to change the ongoing course of America.
He may become so disillusioned he won't even run for
office next time. But he will never, ever admit there are
forces more powerful than he is. That would be too
humiliating.
 Trump Calls Out Media
Dishonesty On CBS’s ‘Deface the Nation’
By Nicholas Fondacaro
April 30, 2017 | 1:42 PM EDT
President Donald Trump sat down with CBS’s John
Dickerson for an interview about the first 100 days of his
presidency, which aired on Sunday’s Face the Nation. In
between talking about the serious topics, the President took
shots at the media, including his host.
“You know, it is very funny when the fake
media goes out, which we call the
mainstream media, which sometimes I
must say is you,” he told Dickerson.
“I love your show. I call it ‘Deface the
Nation,’ but, you know, your show is
sometimes not exactly correct.
The CBS’s moderator let it roll off his back and didn’t
seem to mind the criticism. A short time later he asked
Trump:
“What do you know now on day 100 you
wish you knew on day one of the
presidency?” To which Trump replied,
saying, “Well, one of the things that I have
learned is how dishonest the media is,
really.”
“I have done things that are, I think very
good. I’ve done-- I have set great
foundations with foreign leaders. We have,
you know, NAFTA,” Trump argued trying to
defend his record so far.
He also took issue with the way the media covered his
handling of the North American Free Trade Agreement.
227
“The media said: ‘Oh, I didn't terminate
NAFTA.’ First of all, if you look at my
statements I said: ‘If I’m not able to
renegotiate NAFTA, I will terminate
NAFTA,’” he explained.
He also attempted to set the recorded straight on why he
put off on terminating NAFTA:
As you know, I was going to terminate it but
I got a very nice call from a man I like, the
president of Mexico. I got a very nice call
there Justin Trudeau, the prime minister of
Canada. And they said please, would you
rather than terminating NAFTA-- I was all
set to do it. In fact, I was going to do it
today. I was going to do it as we’re sitting
here I would have had to delay you, I was
going to do it today, I was going to
terminate NAFTA but they called up and
they said: ”Would you negotiate?” And I
said: “Yes, I will negotiate.”
“Every president comes into the job, it’s
different than they expected, they must
adapt,” Dickerson said, trying to change the
subject. “Surely you’ve learned something
else other than the media is dishonest.” He
also recalled that Trump had known about
the dishonest media because he talked so
much about it during the campaign.
“No, no. It’s one of my disappointments,”
Trump concluded. He finally answered
Dickerson’s question by noting that he
learned just how slow the legislative
process actually goes. He blamed the
sluggishness on the “very, very
bureaucratic system.”
Transcript below:
CBS
Face the Nation
April 30, 2017
10:37:32 AM Eastern
…
DONALD TRUMP: And I think actually I have been very
consistent. You know, it is very funny when the fake media goes
out, which we call the mainstream media, which sometimes I
must say is you.
JOHN DICKERSON: You mean me personally or…?
TRUMP: Eh… your show. I love your show. I call it “Deface the
Nation,” but, you know, your show is sometimes not exactly
correct.
… statements I said: “If I’m not able to renegotiate NAFTA, I
10:39:57 AM Eastern
DICKERSON: What do you know now on day 100 you wish you
knew on day one of the presidency?
TRUMP: Well, one of the things that I have learned is how
dishonest the media is, really. I have done things that are, I think
very good. I’ve done-- I have set great foundations with foreign
leaders. We have, you know, NAFTA. As you know, I was going
to terminate it but I got a very nice call from a man I like, the
president of Mexico. I got a very nice call there Justin Trudeau,
the prime minister of Canada. And they said please, would you
rather than terminating NAFTA-- I was all set to do it. In fact, I
.
228
was going to do it today. I was going to do it as we’re sitting here
I would have had to delay you, I was going to do it today, I was
going to terminate NAFTA but they called up and they said:
”Would you negotiate?” And I said: “Yes, I will negotiate.”
DICKERSON: That's all you have learned about the media? You
knew from the campaign about the media, you have said it all the
time.
TRUMP: But the media didn't cover it that way, the media said:
“Oh, I didn't terminate NAFTA.” First of all, if you look at my
will terminate NAFTA.” Well, I’ll make that statement right now: if
I am not able to renegotiate NAFTA we will terminate NAFTA.
DICKERSON: Let’s step back a minute. Presidents have to learn
how to adapt. Every president comes into the job, it’s different
than they expected, they must adapt. Surely you’ve learned
something else other than the media is dishonest.
TRUMP: No, no. It is one of my disappointments.
DICKERSON: Give me another thing you learned that you’re
going to adapt and change because all presidents have to at this
stage.
 Trump’s Op-Ed Big Lies
By Stephen Lendman
4-30-2017
All politicians lie! Believe nothing they say! Rare
exceptions prove the rule! Trump is America’s Liar-in-
Chief - a billionaire businessman, now dirty politician!
In a Washington Post op-ed, commemorating his first 100
days in office, he lied claiming he kept promises made to
Americans.
Trump: “One hundred days ago, I took the oath of office
and made a pledge: We are not merely going to transfer
political power from one party to another, but instead are
going to transfer that power from Washington, DC, and
give it back to the people…I kept that promise - and
more.”
Fact: False! He broke every positive pledge made, let
hawkish generals, billionaires, Wall Street and right-wing
extremists run things - serving wealth, power and privilege
exclusively at the expense of ordinary people he promised
to serve equitably.
A same-day article covers his deplorable first 100 days in
detail, comparing it to FDR’s historic comparable period.
Trump: “(W)e are giving the people their country
back…(T)his government is working for the citizens of our
country and no one else.”
Fact: False! Dirty business as usual continues - so far,
worse than under his predecessors.
Trump: “We have opened the White House doors to listen,
engage and act. We’ve invited in labor leaders, factory
owners, police officers, farmers, veterans and Democrats,
Republicans and independents.”
Fact: Public Citizen president Robert Weissman explained
“there has been a wholesale corporate takeover of the
government. Corporate interests” drive policy on
“everything.” An “ethical vacuum” exists, “megascandals”
surely coming - all this in just 100 days.
Trump: “The change began with the termination of the
Trans-Pacific Partnership - a 12-nation pact that would
have shipped millions more jobs to other countries.”
Fact: Global Trade Watch director Lori Wallach blasted
his trade agenda, saying it “could have come from any past
pro-NAFTA (pro-TPP) administration.”
229
Trump: “(T)o bring back our jobs, we are going to pursue
a complete renegotiation of the North American Free
Trade Agreement (NAFTA).”
Fact: He reneged on abandoning NAFTA. Material leaked
showing his new scheme is like the old one - favoring
investors over consumers, ignoring offshoring jobs,
maintaining NAFTA and TPP jobs-destroying rules.
Trump: “(W)e’ve undertaken the most far-reaching effort
in history to remove job-killing regulations.”
Fact: His deregulation scheme aids maximum profit-
making unrelated to jobs creation. It abandons consumer
protections and ecosanity.
Trump: “…I’ve signed 29 pieces of legislation in total…”
Fact: He issued a blizzard of largely pro-business, racist,
Islamophobic executive orders - no significant legislative
achievement so far.
Trump: “We’ve canceled restrictions on the production of
oil, natural gas and clean coal.”
Fact: He abandoned environmental safety for maximum
industry profits. No “clean coal” exists - nor any other
clean fossil or nuclear power source.
Fact: Renewable clean, green energy alone is the future - if
humanity survives to enjoy it.
Trump: “What we’ve accomplished on immigration and
criminal enforcement is nothing short of historic.”
Fact: He’s waging war on immigrants of color and
Muslims. He’s made America more of a police state than
already.
Trump: “(T)he first duty of government is to protect
American citizens.”
Fact: In his first 100 days alone, he inflicted enormous
harm on America’s most vulnerable - offering a bonanza
for its rich and powerful.
Trump: “The Defense Department has begun to rebuild
and restore our military readiness. We’ve reasserted
American leadership by holding the Bashar al-Assad
regime in Syria accountable for its monstrous use of
banned chemical weapons against helpless, innocent
civilians.”
Fact: We wants tens of billions more dollars spent on
militarism and warmaking at a time America’s only
enemies are ones in invents.
Fact: No evidence suggests Assad used CWs any time
during over six years of US proxy war, using ISIS and
other terrorists as imperial foot soldiers - aided by
Pentagon terror-bombing of vital infrastructure and
government targets, massacring civilians.
Trump: We “restor(ed) our credibility with our friends and
our deterrence with our foes.”
Fact: His rage for endless wars, possibly ahead with
nuclear weapons, is humanity’s greatest threat.
Trump: “I delivered on one of my biggest promises,
appointing and confirming a new justice to the Supreme
Court who will be faithful to the US Constitution.”
Fact: Justice Neil Gorsuch is a right-wing extremist,
Senate voting rules changed to confirm him.
Trump: “Thousands of new jobs are being re-shored back
to America…”
.
230
Fact: Jobs creation remains largely low-pay, poor-or-no
benefit service ones. Nearly one fourth of working age
Americans are unemployed, most others way
underemployed. The nation’s only growth industry is
poverty.
Trump: “We are proving that Buy and Hire American isn’t
just a slogan…”
Fact: It’s a fabricated hoax. He’s making America great for
its wealthy, powerful and privileged alone.
Trump: “The White House is once again the People’s
House. And I will do everything in my power to be the
People’s President - to faithfully, loyally and proudly
champion the incredible citizens who love this nation and
who call this God-blessed land their home.”
Fact: Throughout US history, the White House was never
the people’s house - nor Congress, the courts or other
institutions of government.
America is run by the people who own and control it -
governance of, by and for its privileged few exclusively.
 99 Problems: NY Times Unwittingly
Reveals Own Bias With Collection Of Trump Headlines
By Clay Waters
April 30, 2017 | 8:26 PM EDT
Saturday’s New York Times featured the paper unwittingly
showing its anti-Trump tilt, with a full-page "story"
featuring the first 99 days of headlines from its coverage of
the Trump Administration, in
“(Almost) 100 Days Of Front Page
Headlines About No. 45.”
While the Times obviously thinks its headlines stand by
themselves as some objective and reliable historical
recording of the ebb and flow of the Trump
Administration, in fact the word, subject, and tonal choices
reveal a political double standard.
Of the 99 lead story headlines that have appeared in print
during that period, virtually all (95) involved Trump or his
administration in some way. A subjective analysis
determined that 10 of those were positive headlines, 35
neutral, and 50 negative, for a negative-positive ratio of
5:1.
By contrast, there were very few negative headlines for
Obama’s first 100 days in 2009 (headline comparisons for
Obama and President George W. Bush only appeared in
the online version), and somewhat less obsession with
Obama in headlines than the paper had with Trump. While
.
231
the first headline of the Trump term was neutral (“Trump,
Sworn In, Issues A Call: This American Carnage Stops”)
the first of the Obama administration was celebratory:
“Obama Takes Oath, and Nation in
Crisis Embraces the Moment.” The
headline that appeared on Day 3(!) of the
Trump Administration: “Trump’s Rocky
Start Jeopardizes Leverage.” Already?
Another glimpse of the double standard are these
headlines, the first pair from Obama 2009, the second from
Trump 2017, both involving ways to stimulate the
economy, Obama through government spending, Trump
via tax cuts.
Obama: “As Jobs Vanish, Senators Reach
Deal on Stimulus” and “Economic Dive
Deepens, Giving Stimulus Urgency.”
Trump: “Tax Overhaul Would Aid
Wealthiest” and “Economy Grows At
Slowest Rate In 3 Years: 0.7%.”
Notice that there was no “...Giving Tax Cuts Urgency” to
be found in the Times’ coverage of Trump’s tax plan.
 Assessing Trump’s First 100 Days:
He DID Get A Lot Accomplished…
Now If He Could Only Get Congress On Board
By: JD Heyes
Date: April 30, 2017
The Dow Jones Industrial Average (DJIA) has risen more
than 15 percent since the Nov. 8 election; it closed Nov. 9
at 18,332 and closed March 1 at 21,115. Between
Inauguration Day Jan. 20 – March 1, the DJIA rose 6.5
percent. It closed at 20,940.51 on Friday.
As expected, the so-called “mainstream media” is going
out of its way to deny President Donald J. Trump his due
credit for a busy first 100 days. Instead of pointing out his
accomplishments so far, the media is focusing on his
failure to sign Obamacare repeal-and-replace legislation
and harping about his tax and budget cuts.
But the reality is, Trump has been far less successful than
he might have been only because the competing factions
within his Republican Party have thus far been unable to
come together on the most fundamental pieces of
legislation, especially getting rid of the Affordable Care
Act – leading its namesake to wrongly claim in a speech
last week that the law was “more popular than ever.” In
fact, only recently have more Americans begun to favor
Obamacare over a prospective GOP replacement bill, in
large part because it is an unknown and people tend to be
more suspicious of unknown quantities. Also, the GOP
replacement legislation was a horrible bill that didn’t really
repeal very much of Obamacare.
In any event, Trump as president – doing what he can in
the Executive Branch – has indeed been busy. As noted by
The Gateway Pundit, what he’s done so far has been
nothing short of monumental, and moreover, his executive
actions are making it easier for Congress down the road to
send him legislation that will solidify in law much of what
he’s accomplishing as policy:
 Wall Street was gaining anyway, but beginning the day
after Trump won the presidency the stock market
began a meteoric rise to newer heights. That means
millions of Americans’ retirement accounts are growing
by leaps and bounds.
232
 Since Trump was inaugurated, overall the market has
gained $2 trillion in value, and the Standard & Poor’s
500 broke $20 trillion for the first time in its history.
 During Obama’s first 100 days, the U.S. national debt
grew by more than $560 billion; during Trump’s first
100 days, the debt decreased by about $100 billion.
Meanwhile, the U.S. manufacturing index has
skyrocketed to a 33-year high, as some 298,000 jobs
have been added to the economy since November.
 Simply by enforcing the immigration law, illegal border
crossings are down an astounding 67 percent across
the board, with potential illegal aliens figuring out it isn’t
worth giving a human smuggler thousands of dollars
only to be caught and sent back home right away.
(RELATED: Great again: Illegal border crossings drop
to 17-year low in Rio Grande Valley)
 As promised, Trump has begun taking on the vast
federal bureaucracy with executive orders requiring two
rules to repealed for every new rule implemented, and
ordering agency and department heads to find ways to
reduce regulatory burdens on businesses, industry and
the private sector in general.
 After making an issue of the fact that NATO countries,
by and large, do not pay their required share of
expenses, the alliance’s military spending, collectively,
has risen by $10 billion.
 Trump nominated, and the Senate – by adopting the
nuclear option for all judicial nominees – confirmed
Judge Neil M. Gorsuch to the Supreme Court, a
constitutional originalist (who was taken from his pre-
election list of conservative judicial candidates).
 In all, the president has signed 66 executive orders,
including regulatory reform, rebuilding the military,
getting the U.S. out of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
globalist trade agreement, requiring so-called
“sanctuary cities” to follow the law in order to continue
receiving Justice Dept. grants, approving oil pipelines
and calling for ways to extract the federal government
from local education. (RELATED: America, We Have A
YUUUUUGE Opportunity To Get Government Off Our
Backs)
Also, Trump has managed to meet with leaders of most
major allies and potential adversaries, lay down the law in
Syria, and begin to build an international consensus aimed
at thwarting North Korea’s maturing nuclear weapons and
ballistic missile programs. The leaders he’s met with
include Chinese President Xi Jinping, Japanese Prime
Minister Shinzo Abe, Canadian Prime Minister Justin
Trudeau, and Mexican President Enrique Pena Nieto.
As The Gateway Pundit noted, however:
The President [has] also pointed out
numerous times that the MSM (Main
.
233
Stream Media) reports only on a made up
Russia conspiracy story and ignores these
accomplishments. These actions are
making the majority of Americans aware of
the tremendous bias in the media in the US
and abroad. This too is another major
Trump accomplishment.
President Trump is Making America Great Again, 100
days at a time. Imagine what he could have accomplished
if the GOP Congress was on board with his agenda as well.
 'Disturbing' Speech By 'Moral Midget';
CNN Suffers Epic Meltdown Post-Trump Rally
By Curtis Houck
April 30, 2017 | 1:33 AM EDT
Most readers of NewsBusters and consumers of cable news
are used to liberal media meltdowns since November 8.
However, that’s not to say they’re any less enjoyable.
Saturday night featured another temper tantrum by CNN
with anchors and guests labeling Trump’s 100 Days rally
in Pennsylvania a “deeply disturbing” and “stunning”
speech by a “moral midget.”
Moments before the Trump-free White House
Correspondents’ Dinner (WHCD) began, the most asinine
of all the comments on CNN were those of senior political
commentator David Gergen. The same guy who either
willingly or purposely forgot that William Henry Harrison
and Abraham Lincoln had far worse first 100 days than
Trump uncorked another set of loony comments.
“[Y]ou know, to bring your campaign
speech into the presidency is
something Presidents rarely do. This
was — this was the most divisive
speech I've ever heard from a sitting
American president. Others may
disagree about that,” Gergen complained.
Clearly forgetting a Kansas speech by Barack Obama or
the actions of the Wilson administration during World War
I, Gergen continued his ride aboard the crazy train with
Brian Stelter, ruling Trump’s remarks were “disturbing”:
He played to his base and he treated his other listeners —
the rest of the people who have been disturbed about him
or oppose him, he treated them basically as I don't care —
I don’t give a damn what you think because you're frankly
like the enemy. You’re like the enemy with the press. I
thought it was a deeply disturbing speech in that regard.
234
Coming a close second was former Clinton administration
official and CNN political commentator Paul Begala, who
derided Trump as “a moral midget” seeking “affirmation
from his base because...he is a deeply insecure person.”
Begala continued:
He's haunted by the fact that the vast
majority of Americans — 54 percent voted
against him. He lost to Hillary Clinton in the
popular vote by 2.8 million. He’s haunted
by that. He sort of needs that. He's a needy
little baby. What he needs as a president is
to unify the country. He needs it as a
politician it to expand his base. If you want
to be small minded he needs to expand his
base but as a president he needs to
expand. The moment that — when we
were watching this — John, you pointed
out when he hollered at that protester, that
is not how a president behaves[.]
Begala went onto recall a moment from the 2016 campaign
in which then-President Barack Obama treated a protester
at a Hillary Clinton rally differently than Trump to make a
point about class before going back into the gutter, again
calling Trump a “moral midget.”
Rewinding back a few minutes, weekday morning CNN
Newsroom co-anchors John Berman and Poppy Harlow
were in Washington for the WHCD, with Berman first
fretting that Trump’s
“speech began with a ten-minute attack
on the media and then what followed
was a several minute attack on the
Obama administration before laying out
some of the things that his
administration has done and then going
back to some of his campaign themes.”
Harlow replied in agreement, hilariously commenting how
“stunning” it was that the President spent so much time
attacking the media.
Senior White House correspondent Jeff Zeleny must have almost like a therapy session there. And also filled with some
drawn the short straw as he was in Harrisburg and not at protests. There were several protesters throughout the evening,
the WHCD, complaining that it was “a campaign rerun.” so many at one point, the police seemed to be having a little bit
of a hard time keeping up.
“He rarely talked about anything
different, and it was, you know, filled
with attacks on the media, like you said,
filled with one grievance after, another
almost like a therapy session there. And
also filled with some protests,” Zeleny
added.

Here’s the relevant portions of the transcript from CNN’s

meltdown on April 29:

CNN Newsroom with John Berman and Poppy Harlow

April 29, 2017
8:48 p.m. Eastern (....)

8:53 p.m. Eastern

JOHN BERMAN: President Trump finishing up a 58-minute
speech in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, marking his 100th day in this
office. The speech began with a ten-minute attack on the media
and then what followed was a several minute attack on the
Obama administration before laying out some of the things that
his administration has done and then going back to some of his
campaign themes from the last year.
POPPY HARLOW: That's right. It was 12 minutes into this big
rally in Harrisburg, Pennsylvania, that the President really got to
jobs and to the people of Pennsylvania. The first ten minutes plus
spent attacking the media, actually saying what grade — what
rate should the media get in its first 100 days. It was — it was
stunning.
DAVID GERGEN: Well, you have to say, To follow up, I think did
move his base the he has solidified his hold with his base, he
played to their fears and to their concerns and I think they have
very legitimate concerns and I think he's been consistent about
that. At the same time, you know, to bring your campaign speech
into the presidency is something Presidents rarely do. This was
— this was the most divisive speech I've ever heard from a sitting
American president. Others may disagree about that. He played
to his base and he treated his other listeners — the rest of the
people who have been disturbed about him or oppose him, he
treated them basically as I don't care — I don’t give a damn what
you think because you're frankly like the enemy. You’re like the
enemy with the press. I thought it was a deeply disturbing speech
in that regard.
(....)
8:57 p.m. Eastern

(....)

8:49 p.m. Eastern

JEFF ZELENY: The only way to describe this speech, I believe,

is to call it a campaign rerun. It was exactly a vintage Donald
Trump speech from the campaign from one of these rallies that
brought him to the White House. I mean, if you thought back, you
might be thinking we were living in 2016. He rarely talked about
anything different, and it was, you know, filled with attacks on the
media, like you said, filled with one grievance after, another
235
PAUL BEGALA: He needs this affirmation from his base because
he's a moral midget and he is a deeply insecure person. He's
haunted by the fact that the vast majority of Americans — 54
percent voted against him. He lost to Hillary Clinton in the
popular vote by 2.8 million. He’s haunted by that. He sort of
needs that. He's a needy little baby. What he needs as a
president is to unify the country. He needs it as a politician it to
expand his base. If you want to be small minded he needs to
expand his base but as a president he needs to expand. The
moment that — when we were watching this — John, you
pointed out when he hollered at that protester, that is not how a
president behaves and I went back and looked, during this
campaign — the one we just finished – President Obama was
speaking in North Carolina and a protester stood up and
interrupted his speech for minutes on end, much longer than
236
Trump and the President of the United States told the crowd,
which was rabid pro-Obama of course, stop, look at this man. He
said first of all, he's older and he is entitled to our respect.
Second, we believe in free speech in this country, it's an
American value. Third, he had a shirt or hat that looked like he
was a veteran. He said we owe him thanks for his service. He
called that crowd to a higher, better place. Trump is incapable of
doing that and if we're going to wait 1,361 days and he's still
going to be the moral midget you saw on that stand in Harrisburg
tonight.
 Trump Dismantling Shadow
Cabinet As Infighting Escalates: Sources
Mon May 1, 2017 7:43PM
White House chief of staff Reince Priebus (R), US Vice President
Mike Pence (C) and senior advisor Jared Kushner watch from the
Rose Garden as Marine One carrying US President Donald Trump
and his daughter Ivanka takes off from the White House in
Washington, DC, on February 1, 2017.
US President Donald Trump is reportedly dismantling
his shadow cabinet in the wake of a rise in tensions with
his secretaries.
The so-called White House advisors, appointed by Trump
to monitor the cabinet secretaries, are “not DC guys,”
according to an administration source, and that is why the
president is reassigning or dismissing them, Politico
reported Monday.
After a recent meeting with White House chief of staff
Reince Priebus and the president’s son-in-law, Jared
Kushner, in attendance, infighting has apparently
escalated.
“These guys are being set up for failure,”
said a source. “They’re not DC guys.
They’re campaign people. They have no
idea how government works.”
The Trump administration is now showing willingness to
allow the high-powered politicians to decide whether or
not to keep the minders in their departments.
.
237
(L-R) White House Chief of Staff Reince Priebus, senior advisor
Jared Kushner, Vice President Mike Pence and counselor to the
president Kellyanne Conway arrive for a press conference by US
President Donald Trump.
The advisers have mostly been assigned temporarily,
according to an unnamed official.
“Most individuals serving in the temporary
positions during the present transition will
have the opportunity to move into a more
permanent role within the administration –
either in the agency they now serve or in
another area of the federal government,”
the official said.
Infighting in the White House recently led to dismissal of
controversial chief strategist Stephen Bannon from the
National Security Council.
The isolated strategist’s opinion was also rejected later by
Kushner, which meant the president could successfully
issue an order for a missile attack against the Syrian
government on April 6.
 Media Can’t Stop Whining
About ‘Poisonous’ ‘Dangerous’ Trump
By Geoffrey Dickens
May 2, 2017 | 10:58 AM EDT
Time to send out the waahmbulance for the press because
they just can’t stop whining about Donald Trump.
President Trump’s pushback against the unfair liberal
media has journalists from DC to New York throwing
hissy fits.
CNN’s Brian Stelter called Trump’s
criticisms of the press “poisonous” “attacks”
that are “bad for the country.”
His colleague Jim Acosta claimed Trump was doing “real
damage to the First Amendment” and the New York Times
Executive Editor Dean Baquet called the President
“dangerous.”
And when they weren’t complaining about Trump’s slams
on the press, they were spinning for the Democratic Party
as NBC’s Savannah Guthrie called Georgia congressional
candidate Jon Ossoff’s loss in Georgia an “ominous sign”
for the GOP. And over on MSNBC Joy Reid and Dean
Obeidallah were labeling the Republican’s attempt to
repeal and replace ObamaCare a racist “death to poor
people” act.
Liberal reporters and hosts also went nuts about Trump’s
bombing of terrorists and even how he handled the Easter
Egg Roll. The following is a compilation of the worst
media outbursts from the past month:
“Poisonous” “Dangerous” Attacks on the Press are
“Bad for the Country”
238
“[Jeffrey] Lord and I were just debating how
effective the president’s anti-media attacks
are, and we’re in agreement, they are
effective. But let’s recognize how
poisonous they are as well. Every single
president disputes some news coverage of
their presidency, but no president until now
gets up at a rally and calls news outlets
fake. No president gets up at a podium and
says the things we’ve heard from this
president tonight. It’s nothing new from
him, this was really a copy-and-paste
speech, as you all were just talking about.
But it is insidious, it is poisonous, and I
think for the journalists in this room – just
trying to do their best work – it is
disappointing to continue to hear the
president taking this tone.”
— CNN host Brian Stelter on CNN’s live coverage of
the White House Correspondents Dinner, April 29.
“You think about some of these words
[from Donald Trump], some of these
tweets, some of these campaign rallies
back last year as – as poison, as a form of
poison that has entered into the
bloodstream. What I’m really interested in
now is how is that poison affecting the body
politic, how is that poison affecting the
consumers, because it’s not something any
of us were seeing or covering five years
ago.”
— CNN Reliable Sources host Brian Stelter on the
Buzzfeed editor Ben Smith’s April 26 podcast of
Newsfeed with Ben Smith.
 “I think what [Reince] Priebus said and I
think what the president is doing right now,
to be frank, in regards to the media is
dangerous. I think that he is portraying the
media as his enemy. I think he is making
the media sort of the punching bag. And I
think it illustrates perhaps not
understanding the role of the media. We’re
supposed to be tough. We’re supposed to
ask him hard questions. I’m not sure he
gets that. And I think, the more he beats us
up, to be frank, I think that’s bad for the
country. I think it's bad for the free flow of
information and criticism, including criticism
of him.”
— New York Times Executive Editor Dean Baquet on
CNN’s Reliable Sources, April 30.
enemy. You’re like the enemy with the
press. I thought it was a deeply disturbing
speech in that regard.”
— David Gergen on CNN Newsroom with John Berman
and Poppy Harlow, April 29.
Lecturing Trump About “Fake News”
“The effort today to get this best obtainable
version of the truth is largely made in good
faith. Mr. President, the media is not fake
news. Let’s take that off the table going
forward.”
— Washington Post Associate Editor and author Bob
Woodward at the White House Correspondents
Dinner, April 29.

Trump Vs. The First Amendment ObamaCare Repeal Is “Death to Poor People” Act
“I was out on the campaign trail time and
again when he [Donald Trump] referred to
the news media as the dishonest news
media, the disgusting news media. He
called us liars and crooks and thieves and I
can’t think of all of the other names that he
called us....I think that the President has to
understand that he is doing real damage to
what we do. He is doing real damage to the
First Amendment in this country when he
refers to the news media as the enemies of
the people.” Host Joy Reid:

— CNN correspondent Jim Acosta at April 12
Newseum event “Trump and the Press.”
Trump’s “Deeply Disturbing” Speech
“It’s in the old Confederate states where
they have refused to put about four million
people onto the Medicaid rolls out of this
sense that this is sort of brown people who
just want to take, and that is the reason
they want to have it expanded.”...

Daily Beast columnist Dean Obeidallah:

“This [repealing ObamaCare] will kill

people. Why not just call it ‘Death to Poor
People’? Maybe more people in the
Freedom Caucus will actually support it
then. Because fundamentally that's what
“To bring your campaign speech into the they’re doing.”
presidency is something Presidents rarely
do. This was — this was the most divisive — MSNBC’s AM Joy, April 29.
speech I’ve ever heard from a sitting
American president. Others may disagree Who Do the Trumps Think They Are? The Kennedys?
about that. He played to his base and he The Clintons?
treated his other listeners — the rest of the
people who have been disturbed about him
or oppose him, he treated them basically
as I don't care — I don’t give a damn what
you think because you’re frankly like the
239

“Look at the seating this person [Ivanka
Trump] has gotten. At the age, what is
she? 27? I don’t know how old she is.
There’s a young person who’s never
worked in the government sitting next to
the President of China at a major event.
Sitting next to the President of China.
Another time she’s sitting next to....the
chancellor of Germany. These people must
look over and say, ‘What is she doing here
except she’s the President’s daughter.’ I’ve
said the Romanovs because there’s
something about the President who
presumes that this is a royal family taking
its place at the table of power. It is un-
American. It is untraditional. It’s somewhat
weird, although I know it must be
comforting to have your kids around and I
understand your son-in-law. I get the
comfort factor. But is it American?”
— Host Chris Matthews on MSNBC’s Hardball, April
25. Ivanka Trump is 35-years-old, the same age as
Bobby Kennedy when his brother named him to be
Attorney General of the United States.
Mika Begs for Obama to Save the Party
“Could you do a favor for me and ask
President Obama something for me? Could
you – could he come back and save the
party and tell them [Democrats] what to
do?”
— Co-host Mika Brzezinski to Valerie Jarret on
MSNBC’s Morning Joe, April 20.
Brian Pretends to Be Worried About the State of
Conservatism
240
“For many years, you were the Republican
on mainstream media, before the days
where every American woke up to a cable
network custom designed to agree with
them. I think my dad, may he rest in peace,
went to his grave believing you were the
nation’s Republican. What do you then
make of the brands of conservatism,
whether it's Buckley, Reagan, Kemp —
where is that? What has happened to it?”
— Host Brian Williams to conservative columnist
George Will on MSNBC’s The 11th Hour, April 20.
Democrat Failure = “Ominous Sign for Republicans”
“Near Miss? The Democratic candidate
almost wins in a special congressional race
in a seat Republicans have held since the
1970s....Democrat Jon Ossoff nearly
pulling off the shocking upset....[To Sen.
Lindsey Graham] Do you look at this as an
ominous sign of things to come for
Republicans?”
— Host Savannah Guthrie on NBC’s Today, April 19.
“[John] Ossoff got awfully close, enough to
have the political world asking, could
Georgia become a referendum on
President Trump?....The results suggest
some Republicans may be dissatisfied with
the direction of their party.”
— Correspondent Kristen Welker on NBC’s
Today, April 19.
MSNBCer Urges ISIS to Bomb Trump Property
“This is my nominee for first ISIS suicide
bombing of a Trump property.”
— April 18 tweet from MSNBC’s counter terrorism
analyst Malcolm Nance. Tweet featured a picture of a
Trump property in Turkey, in response to Trump
congratulating Turkish president Recep Tayyip
Erdogan on his win. Nance later deleted the tweet.
Mother of All Dumb Metaphors
“Uncomfortable football-as-war metaphor:
The size of the bomb is directly
proportional to a team’s desperation and
rarely impacts the score.”
— April 13 tweet by CNN host and former ABC
Nightline anchor Bill Weir talking about Trump’s
dropping a MOAB (“mother of all bombs”) ISIS cave
complex in Afghanistan.
That “Brutal Thug” Assad Reminds Me of Cheney
“Bashar al-Assad was a brutal thug when
he was torturing prisoners on behalf of the
CIA. Saddam Hussein was America’s
friend when he was using chemical
weapons. We need to have more than just
the immediate crisis memory. We need to
understand the historical context of how a
butcher like Assad actually has more in
common with someone like Dick Cheney
than he does with the average Syrian or
the people who are on these airwaves as
brave reporters.”
— The Intercept founder Jeremy Scahill on CNN’s
Reliable Sources, April 9.
Don’t Be Distracted By Trump’s “Trained Monkey”
Act
“A flurry of unfounded allegations clutter
our news feeds. Susan Rice. Wiretapping
of the Trump team by President Obama.
The latest Fox News induced Twitter rant.
The smoke machine is turned on. There’s a
trained monkey dancing in the corner. The
magician is buckling his cufflinks. The
misdirection meter is turned up full. We
cannot let ourselves be distracted....We
know that Russia – led by a former KGB
agent - actively worked to undermine our
election. We know that there are serious
investigations into collision [sic] between
Trump associates and Russian operatives.
241
That is the story. Everything else is just
noise and dust until proven otherwise.”
— Disgraced former CBS Evening News anchor Dan
Rather in an April 5 Facebook post “The Dangers of
Distraction.”
Criticism of Susan Rice Fueled by Racism
“At the end of the day, we need some
element of decency. When Rand Paul gets
out there and says she’s [Susan Rice]
abused this right, there is not an iota of
evidence that she’s abused anything.
Calling her Typhoid Mary? She — all we
know now is that she did her job. Did she
do something wrong? There is no
information indicating that. So they are
making her, you know, basically they’re
defaming her without any reason to do so
because she’s a woman. Maybe because
she’s a black woman.”
— Mother Jones Washington bureau chief David Corn
on MSNBC’s Hardball, April 4.
Chuck Sets Speed Record for “Lame Duck” Labeling a
New President
“You have a presidency right now that I
think is, it’s beyond saying it is in crisis
mode. It is, you know, it’s on the brink. The
question is on the brink of what? Is it on the
brink of collapse? Is it on the brink of
becoming a temporarily lame duck
presidency? And maybe it feels like it’s
lame duck-ish temporarily right now.”
— Meet the Press host Chuck Todd on MSNBC’s
Andrea Mitchell Reports, March 31.
Pushing Trump from the Left to Attack Freedom
Caucus
“On this question of going after the – the
Freedom Caucus, the far right in – in the –
in the House Republican caucus has
essentially paralyzed that party now for
 years. John Boehner couldn’t deal with it
and Trump confronts the same problem.
And I actually think that there’s something
to be said for a president, the leader of the
party, who says, ‘I’m not going to allow you
to paralyze our agenda. We need to be a
governing party, and you stand in the way
of that.’ So I don’t know if he can’t deliver
on this, he just looks like – like a – like a
blow hard. But the idea that he take them
on, I don’t think that’s a crazy idea.”
— Washington Post columnist David Ignatius on CBS’s
Face the Nation, April 2.
Trump Cuts “Likely to Hurt Children”
“Cuts to the Environmental Protection
Agency’s budget are likely to hurt children
the most, experts say.”
— April 13 tweet from CNN’s official Twitter account.
Trump’s True Test is The Easter Egg Roll?
“The president facing some major tests the
past few weeks, and add this one to the
list. The White House Easter Egg Roll.
Sounds trivial, yes, but this is considered
‘the’ biggest social event held at 1600
Pennsylvania Avenue, a tradition for more
than 100 years. Here’s the problem – as of
earlier this week many key vendors and
schools say they haven’t heard a peep
about it....Will this whole event, flop? And
what does it say about this
administration?”
— Substitute anchor Dave Briggs on CNN Newsroom,
April 14.
“Mad King” “Menace” Trump “Needs
Impeached”
“The thing about Trump is, the things he
has said seriously about nuclear weapons
is quite frightening. I'll give you a couple.
To Chris Matthews, he asked, ‘Why do we
make them, he said, if we wouldn't use
them?’ Ok. The possibility of nuclear war
between Japan and North Korea: ‘It would
be a terrible thing. If they do, they do.’
Good luck. Enjoy yourselves, folks. He said
he was open to nuking Europe because ‘it’s
a big place.’...Why doesn’t everybody face
it? He needs to be taken out of office. He
needs to be impeached. He is a menace.
You say Kim Jong Yum-yum is crazy? So
is he. So is he. Get real. Come on. He is
nuts and we’re in the middle of it!”
— Co-host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 3.
“Well, I think, if I was editing Vanity Fair, I
would put him in the cover of Mad King
Ludwig. I would have him in a gold
bathrobe wearing a crooked crown holding
his iPhone tweeting, because we’re
covering a kind of – it’s almost like being in
the ward of a mental hospital half the time
with what’s going on with Trump. You can’t
make it up.”
— Former Vanity Fair, The New Yorker and Daily Beast
editor Tina Brown on CNN’s Reliable Sources, April 2.
Kid Rock Visit Sadder Than Burning The White House
to the Ground?
to Be
242
 “Kid Rock, Ted Nugent and Sarah Palin,
kinda giving the thumb, but you know what
they wanted to do to Hillary Clinton. So is
this the saddest day in the history of White
House since the British burned it to the
ground in 1814?”
— Host Joy Behar on ABC’s The View, April 21.
When Fact-Checking Goes Ridiculously Too Far
“The White House press secretary tried to
twist a cap on reporters’ questions Tuesday
about the Trump team’s alleged ties to the
.
243
Kremlin. ‘If the President puts Russian
salad dressing on his salad tonight,
somehow that’s a Russia connection,’
Sean Spicer said. Thing is, Russian
dressing isn’t Russian. (Also, it’s really not
for salads, but more of a sandwich spread
– usually a Reuben.) The mayo and
ketchup concoction – often dressed up
with horseradish and spices – was created
in Nashua, New Hampshire.”
— Michelle Krupa in a March 29 CNN.com article
“Russian dressing is actually from Nashua, New
Hampshire.”
 CNN Defends Rejecting
'False' Trump Campaign Ad
By Ben Kamisar
05/02/17 11:42 AM EDT
CNN said Tuesday that is refusing to air a campaign ad
from President Trump because the spot refers to the media
as "fake news."
"CNN requested that the advertiser remove
the false graphic that says mainstream
media is 'fake news,'" CNN's public
relations department tweeted Tuesday.
"The mainstream media is not fake news,
and therefore the ad is false. Per our
policy, it will be accepted only if that
graphic is deleted. Those are the facts."
The ad, released by the Trump campaign on Monday,
dismisses questions about whether the administration's first
.
244
100 days lived up to the president's promises on the
campaign trail.
After ratting off a list of successes — including the
confirmation of Supreme Court Justice Neil Gorsuch,
authorization of the Keystone XL Pipeline and eliminated
regulations — the ad blames the media for hiding those
accomplishments.
"You wouldn't know that from watching the
news," the narrator says as a group of
cable news reporters — including CNN's
Wolf Blitzer — appear on the screen.
The Trump campaign in a statement to reporters earlier
Tuesday morning accused the network of stifling free
speech.
“It is absolutely shameful to see the media
blocking the positive message that
President Trump is trying to share with the
country. It's clear that CNN is trying to
silence our voice and censor our free
speech because it doesn't fit their
narrative," Michael Glassner, the Trump
campaign's executive director, said.
Tuesday's kerfuffle is the latest in the clash between
Trump and the network, which has become a regular target
for Trump.
In an interview last month with The Associated Press,
Trump claimed to no longer watch the network because of
its perceived unfair coverage. He also has regularly railed
against the network on the campaign trail and has not
appeared on the network since last August.
But CNN has been willing to push back on Trump's
criticisms in statements standing by its reporters and their
reporting.
--Joe Concha contributed to this report, which was last
updated at 11:48 a.m.
 Concha Trashes Liberal Media Claim
That Trump Is A Threat To First Amendment
By Nicholas Fondacaro
May 2, 2017 | 12:05 AM EDT

actions, not words. That’s more

important. That’s more of a threat to the
press,” he recalled.

The takedown of the liberal press’s hysteria continued on

Monday’s Tucker Carlson Tonight, where Concha argued
that the WHCD was deeply anti-Trump.

“Absolutely it seemed personal. No

question about it. There was vitriol
The White House Correspondents’ Dinner was supposedly
toward Donald Trump, Tucker, that we
a celebration of the first amendment, but Saturday’s dinner
have never seen with any other
was a Donald Trump bashing fest with cries of his threat to
president,” he stated.
journalism. But during Sunday’s MediaBuzz on Fox News,
The Hill’s Joe Concha unloaded on his liberal colleagues
for their overblown hysteria.

“Here is what I will say to that. Press

briefings with Sean Spicer have never
been more democratic,” he declared.
“There are more voices than ever before
in terms of reporters, in terms of Skype,
journalist is still on Air Force One,” he
explained. “Also, Trump is doing an
enormous amount of interviews … this
week alone, Howie, Trump has done
interviews with The Washington Post, He then cited a study by the Media Research Center that
New York Post, Washington Examiner, documented the sky-high levels of negativity against
New York — Post, CBS News, Reuters, Trump from network evening news.
Associated Press, Wall Street Journal,
Fox News.” “I get they are conservative but I did a
study that showed 89% of stories are
He also argued that negative toward Donald Trump,” he
shared.
“just because you criticize reporters
doesn't mean you are attacking the first But he back that up with an equally damaging study out of
amendment. Actually, it’s the opposite the Switzerland:
because he’s exercising his right to free
speech.” Okay. Let's go to the Swedes. They have a
company called Media Tenor-- research
Concha had a harsh reminder for the liberal media: former firm. 97 out of 100 stories by the CBS
President Obama was the greater threat to the first Evening News and the NBC Nightly News
amendment. were negative toward Donald Trump and
his first month. I get it if it’s 65, 35, it’s
always going to skew negative. But 97-3,
“Spied on James Rosen. Secretly seized
that tells me that there is probably an
AP phone records. Rejected a record
agenda there.
number of FOIA requests. Those are
245
Concha also chastised the White House Correspondents
Association for not taking their extreme stance under the
Obama administration.
“They spied on James Rosen. Not only
that … they designated him as a flight
risk so they were then have to tell them
about their surveillance,” he exclaimed.
“They secretly seized Associated Press
phone records. They rejected a record
number of FOIA request, freedom of
information requests. Those are threats
to the first amendment!”
The best way that Concha described the difference
between Obama and Trump, in terms of them being a
threat to the first amendment, was simple:
“Actions: Obama. Words: Trump.”
Transcripts below:
FNC
MediaBuzz
April 30, 2017
11:51:32 AM Eastern
HOWARD KURTZ: So, Zucker said this while accepting an
award. Is the Trump White House threatening journalism?
JOE CONCHA: I heard this a lot last night at the White House
Correspondents’ Dinner. The First Amendment is under
attack. Here is what I will say to that. Press briefings with
Sean Spicer have never been more democratic. There are
more voices than ever before in terms of reporters, in terms
of Skype, journalist are still on Air Force One. Also, Trump is
doing an enormous amount of interviews, not to mention
he’s tweeted 98 out of 100 times during his first 100 days in
office — 98 days out of 100. But this week alone, Howie,
Trump has done interviews with The Washington Post, New
York Post, Washington Examiner, New York — Post, CBS
News, Reuters, Associated Press, Wall Street Journal, Fox
News. So, does that sounds like the First Amendment is
under attack? Just because you criticize reporters doesn't
mean you are attacking the first amendment. Actually, it’s
the opposite because he’s exercising his right to free
speech.
246
KURTZ: He has the right as well and I would just note that the
Obama administration prosecuted more — dragged reporters into
the prosecutorial process in these leak investigations and that
was threatening journalism. Alright —
CONCHA: Spied on James Rosen. Secretly seized AP phone
records. Rejected a record number of FOIA requests. Those
are actions, not words. That’s more important. That’s more
of a threat to the press.
...
FNC
Tucker Carlson Tonight
May 1, 2017
8:13:38 PM Eastern
TUCKER CARLSON: I wasn't there. I was on the other side of
the continent. I usually go. But watching the tape of it, as I did
today, it seemed from beginning to end, hostile to the President.
Let me be totally clearly still not clear. I think reporters' job is to
hold the powerful to account and to apply a lot of scrutiny to
people in power, but this seemed personal. Did it feel that way
there?
JOE CONCHA: Absolutely it seemed personal. No question
about it. There was vitriol toward Donald Trump, Tucker, that
we have never seen with any other president. I base that our
numbers, that’s not my opinion. Media Research Center. I
get they are conservative but I did a study that showed 89%
of stories are negative toward Donald Trump. Okay. Let's go
to the Swedes. They have a company called Media Tenor
research firm. 97 out of 100 stories by the CBS Evening
News and the NBC Nightly News were negative toward
Donald Trump and his first month. I get it if it’s 65, 35, it’s
always going to skew negative. But 97-3, that tells me that
there is probably an agenda there.
And by the way, a threat to the first amendment doesn't
happen when a president is mean to the press. When he is
nasty to them. That’s him actually exercising his first
amendment right. You could say it is beneath the
presidency. But we’re confusing Trump being mean to the
press with first amendment being suppressed.
 Dawdling Congress Tests Trump's Patience
The Prolonged GOP Effort To Upend Obamacare Could Push Tax Reform
And Other High-Profile Issues Into 2018, An Election Year
By Burgess Everett And Seung Min Kim
05/02/17 05:15 AM EDT
President Donald Trump is starting to flash frustration at the all-
GOP Congress’ sluggish pace. | Getty
The congressional GOP’s protracted efforts to repeal
Obamacare could exact a heavy toll on the rest of Donald
Trump’s legislative agenda.
If repeal in the House is successful, action on some of the
president's top legislative priorities is expected to be
pushed back to late this year or even next year, when
lawmakers will be up for reelection and more reluctant to
cast tough votes. The delay also threatens to sap whatever
Republican momentum remains from the election, in the
midst of what’s often the most prolific stretch of a new
presidency.
Tax reform is the most prominent issue expected to be put
on the back burner. But lawmakers haven't even begun
discussing Trump's trillion-dollar infrastructure proposal.
And the GOP’s long-held vow to get its appropriations
process in order looks like a lost cause.
Trump, not a man known for his patience, is starting to
flash frustration at the all-GOP Congress’ sluggish pace.
He told Fox News last week that he’s “disappointed” that
the legislative process “doesn’t go quicker”; on Sunday,
the president said on CBS’ “Face the Nation” that
congressional procedures, particularly those in the Senate,
are “unfair.” On Tuesday he called to gut the legislative
filibuster or develop a 60-vote majority to steamroll
Democrats and suggested the country could use a
government shutdown this fall.
Promises from party leaders to open the Trump presidency
with a legislative bonanza — repealing and replacing
Obamacare, rewriting the tax code and funding Trump’s
border wall all before the August recess — have given way
247
to Republican divisions and Democratic resistance. The
biggest piece of legislation so far this year is a five-month
spending bill that explicitly refuses to fund Trump’s wall.
Some Republicans are now urging party leaders to
abandon the traditionally placid summer calendar in order
to get moving on legislation and dozens of Senate
confirmations.
“We have nine weeks until the August
break. I’ve already started a conversation:
I’m not sure that we should leave for the
August break,” said Sen. David Perdue (R-
Ga.), a close ally of Trump. “Because I
don’t see how we get this all done by” then.
Even in the best-case scenario, the calendar looks
daunting.
Even if the House manages to pass its Obamacare repeal
bill this week and send it to the Senate, it might take a
month or more to overhaul the legislation in the more
centrist chamber, according to multiple sources familiar
with the process. That would almost surely delay
consideration of a new budget, complicating efforts by
Republicans to get the congressional spending process on
track and avoid another round of shutdown brinkmanship
in September.
There’s also this problem: Because of the Senate’s
procedural constraints, Republicans need to dispense with
health care before they move on to a new budget and tax
reform. That means the timeline for the GOP’s top two
priorities is sure to stretch far beyond what party leaders
and Trump had in mind, unless Republicans admit defeat
on health care and simply move on to taxes.
The already-forbidding politics of passing tax reform will
become only more treacherous if the issue gets pushed into
an election year. Democrats are already accusing
Republicans of trying to slash health care for the poor
while cutting taxes for the rich.
“I want to see us pick up the pace,” said
Sen. Steve Daines (R-Mont.). “I do think
the Senate is not always the model of
 efficiency, and, in part, because the
Founding Fathers designed it that way. But
we can do better, and I think we need to.”
Back in January, House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) and
Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
sketched out a 200-day plan that took into account the
Senate’s slow pace and byzantine rules: By the end of
April, Obamacare would be repealed and the tax code, as
well as Trump’s border wall, would be funded by August.
That’s looking less realistic with each passing day.
Technically, Republicans are still on track to pass much of
their agenda along party lines using the majority-vote tool
of reconciliation. The sequence: Approve a 2017 budget to
unlock reconciliation to repeal Obamacare, gut the law,
clear a 2018 budget to unlock the same process for tax
reform, then rewrite the tax code.
It’s just that Republicans are running way, way behind.
The only part they’ve completed so far is the 2017 budget,
which was approved just before Trump was sworn in in
January.
Senate Finance Committee Chairman Orrin Hatch (R-
Utah), who will be at the center of Senate efforts to
overhaul the tax code and replace Obamacare, said he has
“major concerns” that the plodding pace on health care is
hurting the timeline for taxes. Added Sen. John Thune of
South Dakota, the No. 3 GOP leader:
“The major ticket items are going to take a
while. This is big consequential stuff. We’re
not going to be able to kick it out
overnight.”
“I could see this stretching out through
2017 and into the fall,” said Senate Majority
Whip John Cornyn (R-Texas) of tax and
health care reform, insisting even the
delayed timeline has the GOP on track.
Republicans in the two chambers are hoping to smooth the
way for tax reform by discussing ideas for a potential
proposal before the heavy legislative work begins. They
want to avoid two dramatically different plans emerging
from the House and Senate, which is almost certain to
happen on Obamacare repeal if the House repeals the law
this month.
In the near term, there’s little for the Senate to do beyond
repealing more Obama-era regulations under the
Congressional Review Act and processing more of
Trump’s nominees. Those include Jay Clayton to lead the
Securities and Exchange Commission; his nomination will
be on the floor next week. The Senate has just one
.
248
Cabinet-level official left to consider: Robert Lighthizer,
the nominee to become the U.S. trade representative.
McConnell has ordered up bipartisan legislation from his
committees that could conceivably pass while Senate
Republicans negotiate on Obamacare and tax reform.
Assistance for small banks or a wireless broadband bill are
among the options in the short term, though no final
decision has been made, according to senators and aides.
“There are a number of bills of a bipartisan
nature,” said Sen. Roger Wicker (R-Miss.),
who also said he wants to move promptly
on an infrastructure bill. "There will be
plenty of things to do.”
With so much early focus on confirming Trump’s Cabinet
and Supreme Court nominees, Congress has passed little
legislation into law.
“The CRAs have been trivial. When you’re
not accomplishing anything, you make a
bigger deal out of nothing,” said Senate
Minority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.).
In addition to the high-profile policies they want to enact,
Republicans are hoping to finally get the appropriations
process in order by passing 12 individual spending bills by
the end of September. But first, they must pass a budget
document that’s sure to expose deep fault lines in the party
among military hawks, fiscal conservatives and moderates
over the party’s spending priorities.
At this point, there’s little optimism that Republican-
controlled Washington can pass spending bills through
committees and then individually on the floor. Doing so
could take months of Senate floor time.
A newer generation of Senate Republicans, including
Daines and Sen. Mike Rounds , are still eager to find ways
to speed up the appropriations process, including getting
rid of a procedural vote on the motion to proceed on
funding bills. And Sen. Dean Heller (R-Nev.) has revived
his legislation that would block lawmakers' pay if they
don't pass a budget.
“We continue to go through this daily,
weekly, monthly, year after year without
getting anything accomplished," Heller
said, "without being able to talk about those
budgets that determine what’s good for our
states."
Rachael Bade contributed to this report
 Trump's Adviser And Son-In-Law Fails
To Report Dealings With Soros
© Reuters/ Kevin Lamarque - Us
19:19 02.05.2017(Updated 16:17 03.05.2017)
US President Donald Trump's senior
adviser and son-in-law Jared Kushner
did not disclose existing business
connections with the investment firm
Goldman Sachs Group Inc. and
billionaires George Soros and Peter
Thiel, media reported on Tuesday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Kushner holds shares of a
New York-based real-estate financial firm Cadre that
works on a number of project with Goldman Sachs and
prominent investors, including Soros, The Wall Street
Journal reported citing securities filings.
249
Trump's son-in-law also failed to report
nearly $1 billion in loans from more
than 20 lenders to his corporations and
properties, according to the filings.
Kushner’s lawyer Jamie Gorelick said
his client disclosed his ownership
of BFPS Ventures LLC, which is a
housing company for Cadre.
Since Trump took office in January, US media and
lawmakers have detailed a number of his and his family’s
business dealings and possible conflicts of interest. In
April, Senator Michael Bennet suggested foreign
individuals, entities and governments may patronize
Trump businesses to influence the White House policies.
Kushner is a former real estate developer who began
advising Trump and meeting foreign leaders after the
November election. He was named to an official White
House position on January 9, the same day he announced
he would step down as CEO of the Kushner Companies.
 CNN's Begala: 'My Dog
Would Be A Better President Than Trump'
By Brad Wilmouth
May 2, 2017 | 3:24 PM EDT
On Tuesday's New Day on CNN, during a discussion of
President Donald Trump ending his interview with John
Dickerson when the CBS host started pressing him about
his claims that President Barack Obama had ordered
wiretapping against him, liberal CNN political
commentator Paul Begala lambasted Trump as someone
who makes a worse President than a dog would make.
And, as if the comment on its own were not tasteless
enough, the remark came right after he had just declared
that fellow guest and right-leaning CNN commentator
Kayleigh McEnany herself would make a better President
than Trump. Begala:
"Kayleigh would be a much better
President than Trump. My dog Gus would
be a better President than Trump."
At 8:34 a.m. ET, host Alisyn Camerota brought up the
CBS interview with Trump, and McEnany conceded that
the President should clarify his accusations President
.
250
Obama and possibly apologize if he was wrong. Begala
then went after Trump as he began:
President Trump's head of the FBI -- no
friend of the Democrats -- Jim Comey, has
said President Obama did not wiretap
anybody -- certainly not candidate Trump.
President Trump's own head of the
National Security Agency -- Admiral
Michael Rogers -- said the same thing in
congressional testimony. Because it's a lie.
He then continued:
And I twist myself -- and I guess we all do -
- into a pretzel. What's the method behind
the mendacity? What's the purpose of the
prevarication? Why does this guy lie all the
time?! And I just think it's his nature. I think
he can't help it. I don't forgive it -- I don't
excuse it. Kayleigh is right.
The dog comparison came as the liberal commentator
added:
Kayleigh would be a much better President
than Trump. My dog Gus would be a better
President than Trump, but -- Gus would be
a fine President. He's loyal and loving.
 Donald Trump's Stunning
U-Turn In Less Than Seven Days
Trump's Latest Tweets Have Sent Washington Into A Spin.
By Jordan Bhatt
May 2, 2017 15:53 BST

The budgetary delay to September has also meant that the

funds to build Trump's "great wall" will also be harder to
accrue.

Tweet attacking Democrats about possible shutdown

US President Donald Trump appears on stage at a rally in

Harrisburg, PennsylvaniaCarlo Allegri/Reuters

Donald Trump is no stranger to causing controversy, but

his latest tweets have seen a total volte-face on what could
define the US in the coming months.

At the end of April it became clear that a government

shutdown was possible if there wasn't an agreement on the
budget.

In the end, the budget was secured until September.

But before an agreement could be reached, he attacked
Democrats for the developing budget row, saying:
"Families prepare for summer vacations in
our National Parks – Democrats threaten to
close them and shut down the government.
Terrible!"
But what was then a "terrible" prospect of a shutdown, has
now turned into something that the President has
welcomed.
Over two tweets, Trump said: "The reason for the plan
negotiated between the Republicans and Democrats is that
we need 60 votes in the Senate which are not there! We
either elect more Republican Senators in 2018 or change
the rules now to 51%. Our country needs a good
'shutdown' in September to fix mess!"
According to Standard and Poor's, the 16-day shutdown in
October 2013 cost the US $24bn.
On Monday, senior Republican Senator John McCain told
the press to:

On Tuesday 2 May, Trump issued two tweets aimed at "Watch what Trump does, not what he
Democrats and his own Republicans, many of whom are at says."
loggerheads over the prospect of repealing and replacing
Obamacare. It remains to be seen if Trump performs another U-turn in
the days ahead.

251
 Scarborough Smears:
I’m Not Saying Trump Has Dementia, But…
By Mike Ciandella
May 2, 2017 | 12:44 PM EDT

On Tuesday’s edition of Morning Joe, co-host Joe

Scarborough suggested President Trump was exhibiting Earlier in the broadcast, Princeton Professor of Religion
symptoms of dementia, while a Princeton professor and African-American Studies, Eddie Glaude Jr., not only
accused Trump supporters of using Trump’s “ignorance” agreed with Scarborough and Brzezinski’s assessment of
to justify “not really wanting to be informed.” Trump’s mental state; he went on to declare that Trump
supporters were not only willfully ignorant, but that they
used Trump’s alleged ignorance to justify their own.
In the May 2 broadcast, which focused mainly on Trump’s
statements on Andrew Jackson and the Civil War,
Scarborough and co-host Mike Brzezinski zeroed in on “And then the third point is he seems to
Trump’s mental faculties. make ‘not knowing’ a good. That is to say,
there's a sense in which – the comments
around Andrew Jackson, not knowing, just
“I will tell you, for better or worse, and
ignorance – a good. And it seems to
no matter what people have thought along
justify people who are his base not
the way, we have known this man for a
really wanting to be informed. And that
very long time. And we're not seeing the
seems to me deeply problematic for a
same guy here,” Brzezinski stated.
democracy. It seems to me.”
Historian and political commentator Doris Kearns
Goodwin volunteered, “Well, he lives in the present. It's
like he lives in the present so that that's the only moment
that matters. So whatever happened in the past, whatever
he said two weeks ago – this is the moment. But then you
never know that that moment is not going to change.”

At this point, Scarborough gave what he insisted wasn’t a

diagnosis, but sounded exactly like one.

“My mother lives in the moment,

too. And I'm not saying that
Donald Trump has dementia, but
my mother has dementia. She lives in
the moment. She forgets what she said
a day ago, a week ago. We can't have
presidents that do that. And I'm not
saying that he has dementia. I will leave
that to his physician to figure that out.”
Brzezinski agreed,
“Something is wrong, and to the point
where you can't even have a bigger
debate, excuse me, Joe, about the issue at
hand that he's talking about, because he's
nonsensical”
PARTIAL TRANSCRIPTS FOLLOW:
FIRST TRANSCRIPT:
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Eddie, he said not so long ago that we
could be heading to a major, major war with North Korea. And
now he's honored to meet – again, it’s as if he doesn't remember
what he said five minutes ago.
EDDIE GLAUDE JR, PRINCETON: Right. And you know, it's
really interesting. On the one hand, we've seen this with regards
to his embrace, quote, unquote of Putin, the call to Erdogan of
Turkey, now the gesture to North Korea and also the Philippines
with Duterte, right? There's a sense at which there's this
attraction to strong men, so there's that element of it. And then
there's the sense, the clip – kind of reaction of a petulant child,
instead of owning responsibility for what he did, there's a kind of

252
displacement and then the reaction to go just, ‘I'm done,’ and go
sit down at a desk with nothing to do.
SCARBOROUGH: And, and, ‘I don't stand by anything’ is his
quote. ‘I don't stand by anything.’
GLAUDE: Yeah. And then the third point is he seems to make
‘not knowing’ a good. That is to say, there's a sense in which--
the comments around Andrew Jackson, not knowing, just
ignorance – a good. And it seems to justify people who are his
base not really wanting to be informed. And that seems to me
deeply problematic for a democracy. It seems to me.
SECOND TRANSCRIPT:
MIKA BRZEZINKSI: Yeah. I will tell you, for better or worse, and
no matter what people have thought along the way, we have
known this man for a very long time. And we're not seeing the
same guy here.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Really. You think it's gotten worse.
JOE SCARBOROUGH: Oh, my god.
BRZEZINKSI: Oh, absolutely. Especially after taking a short
break.
SCARBOROUGH: A lot worse.
BRZEZINKSI: And then coming back. This is not funny. I can't
even –
.
253
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Well, he lives in the present. It's like he
lives in the present so that that's the only moment that
matters. So whatever happened in the past, whatever he said
two weeks ago – this is the moment. But then you never know
that that moment is not going to change.
SCARBOROUGH: My mother lives in the moment, too. And I'm
not saying that Donald Trump has dementia, but my mother has
dementia. She lives in the moment. She forgets what she said a
day ago, a week ago. We can't have presidents that do that. And
I'm not saying that he has dementia. I will leave that to
his physician to figure that out.
BRZEZINKSI: Something is wrong, and to the point where you
can't even have a bigger debate, excuse me, Joe, about the
issue at hand that he's talking about, because he's
nonsensical. Like that's what Republican Congressmen and
everybody who is backing up here have to keep in mind. As they
think about the decisions they're going to make moving
forward. Are you going stand by this guy? Because he's
nowhere. He doesn't stand by anything. And I'm quoting him right
now.
Doris Kearns Goodwin: Right. Right.
SCARBOROUGH: I stand by nothing. Flip flop on North
Korea. Flip flop on NAFTA. Flip flop on health care. Flip flop on
everything. And often, it's not a day or two, a week, it's just hours
apart these flips. And, there’s nobody inside the white house, is
there, that can actually rein this in. At all.
 Trump: US "Needs A Good Shutdown
In September To Fix This Mess"
By Tyler Durden
May 2, 2017 6:57 PM
With Congress poised this week to approve a deal to fund
the government through September, the first major
bipartisan legislation of Trump's presidency, after
lengthy negotiations (which have appeared to signal
numerous 'folds' by President Trump), apparently
frustrated by the lack of tryannical powers that a simple
majority grants him, President Trump has lashed out this
morning at disagreeable Democrats, and in particular
Senate Democrats.
But Trump has a solution.
As a reminder, the proposed government funding deal does
not include funding for Trump’s proposed wall along the
U.S.-Mexico border or include language stripping federal
money from so-called sanctuary cities, both of which the
White House demanded at the outset of negotiations. In
fact, as we reported yesterday, the bill has been seen
widely as a victory for Democrats, something which has
been panned by the conservative press. While the White
House also backed off a threat to withhold ObamaCare
subsidy payments to insurance companies, Trump did
secure increased military spending in the 2017 budget
deal.
According to the Hill, the comments are likely irk top
Republican lawmakers, who have been frustrated by
Trump’s repeated attempts to intervene in the legislative
process. The businessman-turned-president, in turn, has
vented frustration with the slow pace of work on Capitol
Hill.
254
“I’m disappointed that it doesn’t go
quicker,” Trump told Fox News last week
when asked about the Republican effort to
repeal and replace ObamaCare.
Commenting on Trump's tweets, Citi asks rhetorically
whether
"this could be a case of cutting one’s nose
to spit one’s face? – Potentially problematic
when the nose in question is attached to
the current administration… It seems
counterintuitive that a sitting president
would want a shutdown, unless he was to
blame it on the opposition in order to force
through reform/encourage a voter
backlash."
Bloomberg reports that “The message appeared to
encourage the Republican-controlled Senate to change
rules that now require 60 votes to end a filibuster of
legislation. Republicans reduced the threshold to 51 votes
for Supreme Court nominees this year and could do the
same for legislation with a simple majority vote.”
USD does not seem to have reacted to the President’s
tweet (it can’t every time, after all), which may just be
more political manoeuvring rather than a signal of intent.
In any case, we're not so sure there is such a thing as a
"good" shutdown of the US government - and with what
will be over $20 trillion in debt and a declining GDP by
that time, one wonders which ratings agency will have the
balls to downgrade the world's reserve currency this time?
Meanwhile, it did not take long for Trump to get a
response. Democratic Re. Eric Swalwell responded that
“our country needs a White House shutdown” following
President Trump’s call for a “good shutdown” of the
government.
 NBC Calls Out Colbert
For ‘Crude’ Anti-Trump Tirade
By Kyle Drennen
May 3, 2017 | 11:35 AM EDT
After CBS Late Show host Stephen Colbert launched into
and vicious and vulgar tantrum against President Trump
Monday night, the broadcast networks were initially silent
on the controversy swirling around the left-wing
comedian. However, that silence was broken Wednesday
morning when NBC’s Today actually provided a full
report on the backlash against the “crude” tirade.
Correspondent Stephanie Gosk began the segment by
declaring:
“It was the late night joke that left
audiences shocked.”
A soundbite followed of Colbert’s nasty attack on the
President: “You talk like a sign language gorilla who got
hit in the head. In fact, the only thing your mouth is good
for is being Vladimir Putin’s [bleep] holster.” Gosk
explained:
“Stephen Colbert used a crude phrase
while attacking President Trump during
a 12-minute monologue Monday night.
The comments received instant
backlash online. The #FireColbert
trending worldwide.”
She noted that “conservatives pounced,” with a clip
featured of Karl Rove on Fox News reacting to the
remarks:
“I thought that was obscene, I though it
was lewd, I thought it was inappropriate.
And it shows how out of touch that part
255
of the media is with the rest of
America.”
However, Gosk also highlighted how even fellow liberals
were denouncing Colbert’s rant:
“And it wasn’t just Trump supporters
blasting the late night host, some called
the comments anti-gay.”
The reporter read a tweet blasting the late night host:
“Colbert explicitly mocks gay intimacy
with the cover of mocking Trump. This
is hate speech.”
The headline on-screen read: “Colbert’s ‘Homophobic’
Trump Joke?; Comic in Hot Water Over Attack on
President.”
After showing Colbert being lambasted across the political
spectrum for his cruel comments, Gosk noted that he
“ignored the controversy Tuesday night” and wrapped up
the report by telling viewers:
“...we reached out to CBS, they have not
commented on his comments or any of the
calls for his dismissal.”
Tuesday’s CBS Evening News and Wednesday’s CBS This
Morning both ignored the controversy. ABC News has
also avoided the topic.
Here is a full transcript of Gosk’s May 3 report:
7:31 AM ET
SAVANNAH GUTHRIE: And now to the two late night hosts who
find themselves in the political cross hairs this morning. NBC’s
Stephanie Gosk is here with that story. Steph, good morning to
you.
STEPHANIE GOSK: Guys, good morning. You know, late night
hosts riff on politics all the time, but it doesn’t always make news.
This morning, two of the biggest names in late night are in the
headlines for very different reasons because of comments they
made in their monologues, and they are both taking political heat.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Comics In the Political Cross Hairs;
Colbert, Kimmel at Center of Heated Debates]
GOSK: It was the late night joke that left audiences shocked.
STEPHEN COLBERT [CBS’S LATE SHOW]: You talk like a sign
language gorilla who got hit in the head. In fact, the only thing
your mouth is good for is being Vladimir Putin’s [bleep] holster.
GOSK: Stephen Colbert used a crude phrase while attacking
President Trump during a 12-minute monologue Monday night.
The comments received instant backlash online. The
#FireColbert trending worldwide. While on cable news,
conservatives pounced.
KARL ROVE [FOX NEWS]: I thought that was obscene, I though
it was lewd, I thought it was inappropriate. And it shows how out
of touch that part of the media is with the rest of America.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Colbert’s “Homophobic” Trump
Joke?; Comic in Hot Water Over Attack on President]
GOSK: And it wasn’t just Trump supporters blasting the late night
host, some called the comments anti-gay. [Tweet from Yusuf
Naqvi] “Colbert explicitly mocks gay intimacy with the cover of
mocking Trump. This is hate speech.”
COLBERT: Last night was one of rare times that I did not just
watch our show. I also watched our dear friend Jimmy Kimmel.
GOSK: But amid some calls for his firing over the comments,
Colbert ignored the controversy Tuesday night. Instead urging his
audience to watch competitor Jimmy Kimmel’s monologue from
the night before.
COLBERT: I just want to say to anybody out there is if you
haven’t seen Jimmy’s monologue last night, it’s an absolutely
beautiful heart-felt story.
.
256
GOSK: Kimmel in the headlines as well for his emotional
monologue.
[ON-SCREEN HEADLINE: Kimmel Gets Personal and Political;
Reaction From Both Sides of Aisle to Health Care Plea]
JIMMY KIMMEL: Billy was born with a heart disease.
GOSK: Detailing his newborn’s son emergency heart surgery.
KIMMEL: They opened the valve and the operation was a
success. It was the longest three hours of my life.
GOSK: But Kimmel’s opening monologue wasn’t just about tiny
Billy’s traumatic first few days. He inserted himself directly into
the battle over health care.
KIMMEL: You know, before 2014, if you were born with
congenital heart disease, like my son was, there was a good
chance you’d never be able to get health insurance because you
had a preexisting condition.
GOSK: Kimmel praised one of ObamaCare’s signature features,
insurance companies can’t deny coverage for people who
already have health issues. President Obama took advantage of
the moment, tweeting, “Well said, Jimmy. That’s exactly why we
fought so hard for the Affordable Care Act, and why we need to
protect it for kids like Billy.”
After taking a political stand, Kimmel ended with a heartfelt plea.
KIMMEL: If your baby is going to die and it doesn’t have to, it
shouldn’t matter how much money you make. I think that’s
something that whether you’re a Republican or a Democrat or
something else, we all agree on that, right?
GOSK: The answer to that question may be yes, but how good,
affordable health care should be provided still deeply divides this
country. What Kimmel reminded everyone with his story about
his son is what’s on the line if we get it wrong.
As for that Colbert controversy, we reached out to CBS, they
have not commented on his comments or any of the calls for his
dismissal.
LAUER: Interesting times, Steph. Thank you very much.
GOSK: You’re welcome.
 DNC Just Admitted They
Had The Legal Right To Rig The 2016 Primaries
By - Matt Agorist
May 3, 2017
Last year, the political election process exposed Americans
to more corruption and vote rigging than at any time in
their history. Now, a recent lawsuit has exposed that this
corruption and fraud is actually standard operating
procedure.
The lawsuit, filed against the Democratic National
Committee, and its former chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz, by Bernie Sanders donors reveals the DNC
believes its own rules of impartiality don’t apply, and they
can pick whatever candidate they wish.
“We could have voluntarily decided that,
‘Look, we’re gonna go into back rooms
like they used to and smoke cigars and
pick the candidate that way,” DNC’s
lawyer Bruce Spiva told a Florida court.
The lawsuit, originally filed in June, accuses the DNC and
its former chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of seven
different violations, including fraud, negligent
misrepresentation, unjust enrichment, and negligence.
As RT reports,
South Florida court presided over by U.S.
Federal Judge William J. Zloch heard the
defendants argue a Motion to Dismiss last
week, which revealed a number of
surprising arguments made by the DNC’s
lawyers.
257
The most shocking was the argument that, despite
impartiality being part of both its charter and bylaws, the
DNC is free to choose the nominee it wishes, and could
“go into back rooms like they used to
and smoke cigars and pick the
candidate that way.”
The defendants’ lawyers also argued the suit is based on an
“internal rule” which cannot be enforced, and that the term
“impartial” can’t be defined.
“People paid money in reliance on the
understanding that the primary elections for
the Democratic nominee—nominating
process in 2016 were fair and impartial,”
the plaintiff’s lawyer Jared Beck said. “And
that’s not just a bedrock assumption that
we would assume just by virtue of the fact
that we live in a democracy, and we
assume that our elections are run in a fair
and impartial manner.”
“But that’s what the Democratic National
Committee’s own charter says. It says it in
black and white.”
However, as the Free Thought Project pointed out last
year, impartiality was nowhere to be found.
Beginning in Iowa and eventually getting blown wide open
in Arizona, the fraud and suppression of votes quickly let
Americans know that the DNC was set in their rigging
ways.
Examples of this fraud were captured on video,
documented on paper, and even broadcast live on
television.
The defendants, in their motion to dismiss the lawsuit,
argued that a judge cannot determine how the DNC carries
out its nomination process, noting that it would “drag the
Court right into the political squabbles.”
However, Judge Zlock responded by saying,
 “So you are suggesting that this is just
part of the business, so to speak, that
it’s not unusual for, let’s say, the DNC,
the RNC to take sides with respect to
any particular candidate and to support
that candidate over another?”
And that is exactly what voters witnessed last year.
The mainstream media was even complicit in the selection
of Hillary Clinton over Sanders. As the Free Thought
Project reported last year, a firestorm exploded when the
AP abruptly announced Clinton had garnered sufficient
delegates and superdelegates to clinch the nomination —
before California even held its primary. Irate voters
justifiably condemned the inexplicable announcement as
258
premature, especially in light of California polls showing
Clinton outpaced by or neck and neck with Bernie
Sanders.
Whether or not the judge will rule to dismiss the case
remains unknown. However, if it does go to
court, Wasserman Schultz and others would be forced to
give depositions. And, during these depositions, evidence
from WikiLeaks, Guccifer and others will be presented.
Make no mistake, the DNC admitting to having the right to
rig the 2016 democratic primary is just the tip of the
iceberg. If this goes to trial, America will see even more of
the dark underbelly that is the American election process.
 Susan Rice Declines To
Testify Before Senate Subcommittee
By Austin Wright
05/03/17 06:34 PM EDT
Susan Rice has drawn the ire of Republicans following reports last
month that, as national security adviser, she requested the names of
President Donald Trump's transition aides who were referenced in
intelligence reports after the election. | Getty
Former Obama administration National Security Adviser
Susan Rice on Wednesday declined a request to testify
next week before a Senate subcommittee, citing separation
of powers between the executive and legislative branches
and the fact that the invitation was not bipartisan.
Rice’s decision to decline the invitation to testify on
Russia’s election meddling came in a letter from her
lawyer, Kathryn Ruemmler, to the leaders of the Senate
Judiciary Subcommittee on Crime and Terrorism, Lindsey
Graham (R-S.C.) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-R.I.).
The letter, first reported by CNN, notes that the invitation
to testify came only from Graham and that Whitehouse
“has informed us by letter that he did not agree to” the
request, which Ruemmler calls “a significant departure
from the bipartisan invitations extended to other
witnesses.”
“Moreover,” Ruemmler writes, “Chairman
Graham's invitation was extended only
after the hearing was noticed, less than two
weeks before the hearing was scheduled to
.
259
occur, and without consultation with
Ambassador Rice, a professional courtesy
that would customarily be extended to any
witness.”
The Judiciary subcommittee is holding a hearing next
Monday that will feature testimony from former acting
Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper.
Rice has drawn the ire of Republicans investigating
Russia’s interference in November’s presidential election
following reports last month that, as national security
adviser, she requested the names of President Donald
Trump's transition aides who were referenced in
intelligence reports after the election.
Rice denied using intelligence for political purposes in an
interview on MSNBC last month.
“The allegation is that somehow Obama
administration officials utilized intelligence
for political purposes,” Rice said. “That’s
absolutely false.”
Whitehouse said Wednesday he believes Rice’s testimony
would be a distraction from the issues that Monday’s
hearing is set to address.
“We’ve got a specific focus for this hearing
that both the former deputy attorney
general and the former director of national
intelligence can speak to," he said. "She
wasn’t one of the witnesses that we noticed
the hearing for."
James Comey: Loretta Lynch's Tarmac Meeting With Bill
Clinton Was The Turning Point In The Email Investigation
Allan Smith
May 3, 2017, 3:49 PM
FBI Director James Comey on Wednesday said former
Attorney General Loretta Lynch's tarmac meeting with
President Bill Clinton in late June was the turning point in
the investigation into Hillary Clinton's use of a private
email server.
Comey said the meeting aboard an airplane in Phoenix set
off a series of events that ended with a bombshell
revelation in the FBI director's letter to congressional
leaders 11 days before the November 8 election that the
bureau would reopen the investigation.
During testimony on Capitol Hill before the Senate
Judiciary Committee, Comey said "a number of things"
had caused him to worry that Department of Justice
leadership
"could not credibly complete the investigation
and decline prosecution without grievous
damage to the American people's confidence in
the justice system."
The "capper," he said, was the meeting.
"I'm not picking on the attorney general, Loretta
Lynch, who I like very much, but her meeting with
President Clinton on that airplane was the capper
for me," he said. "And I then said, 'You know
what? The department cannot, by itself, credibly
end this.'"
260
The meeting happened days before Comey held a press
conference to announce the conclusion of the
investigation, at which he said the bureau would not
recommend criminal charges but that the former secretary
of state had acted recklessly by using the private server.
Comey said he called Lynch the morning of the press
conference to alert her to his decision to hold it. But
Comey said he would not tell her what he was planning to
say.
"I said to her, 'I hope someday you'll understand
why I think I have to do this,'" Comey said. "But
look, I was not loving this. I knew this would be
disastrous for me personally. But I thought this is
the best way to protect these institutions we care
so much about."
He mentioned the press conference and his subsequent
testimony under oath that the investigation was complete
as reasons he had to go public when he knew that emails
possibly relevant to the investigation were found on former
New York Rep. Anthony Weiner's computer.
"When the Anthony Weiner thing landed on me
on October 27 and there was a huge — this is
what people forget — new step to be taken, we
may be finding the golden missing emails that
would change this case, if I were not to speak
about that, it would be a disastrous, catastrophic
concealment," he said. "It was an incredibly
painful choice, but actually not all that hard,
between very bad and catastrophic.
"I had to tell Congress that we were taking these
additional steps," he continued. "I prayed to find
a third door. I couldn't find it. Two actions: speak
or conceal. I don't think many reasonable people
would do it differently than I did, no matter what
they say today. If you were standing there staring
at that on October 28, would you really conceal
that? So I spoke."
Bill Clinton and Lynch said they discussed their
grandchildren during the tarmac meeting, which lasted
about 30 minutes.
In December, Lynch told CNN's Jake Tapper she regretted
the meeting.
"I wish I had seen around that corner and not
had that discussion with the former president, as
innocuous as it was, because it did give people
concern," Lynch said. "It did make people
wonder is it going to affect the investigation that's
.
261
going on, and that's not something that was an
unreasonable question for anyone to ask."
Hillary Clinton, the 2016 Democratic presidential
nominee, said on Tuesday that the letter from Comey to
congressional leaders played a large role in her defeat by
President Donald Trump.
 Trump Blasts Susan Rice
For Declining Request To Testify Before Senate Panel
By Louis Nelson
05/04/17 07:34 AM EDT
President Donald Trump criticized former national security
adviser Susan Rice on Thursday morning, writing on
Twitter that it was “not good” that Rice refused an
invitation from Sen. Lindsey Graham to testify before a
Senate subcommittee.
Rice, who served as U.S. ambassador to the United
Nations and then as national security adviser for former
President Barack Obama, officially turned down Graham’s
invitation to testify regarding Russia’s interference in last
year’s election before the Senate Judiciary Committee’s
Subcommittee Crime and Terrorism.
Rice, already a controversial figure for her incorrect
explanation of the terrorist attack on the U.S. consulate in
Benghazi, Libya, has also been accused of requesting the
names of individuals associated with Trump’s campaign
and transition team that were referenced in intelligence
.
262
reports. Rice has denied that she or anyone else in the
Obama administration used intelligence information for
political purposes.
“Susan Rice, the former National Security
Advisor to President Obama, is refusing to
testify before a Senate Subcommittee next
week on allegations of unmasking Trump
transition officials. Not good!” Trump wrote
on Twitter, breaking his message up into
two posts to accommodate the platform’s
character limit.
Rice, who declined Graham’s request for testimony via a
letter from her lawyer, said she turned down the invitation
because it came only from the South Carolina Republican
and was not bipartisan in nature. Rice’s attorney wrote that
the former national security adviser had been advised by
the subcommittee’s ranking Democrat, Sen. Sheldon
Whitehouse of Rhode Island, that he did not agree
Graham’s request.
Rice’s attorney also wrote that Graham’s invitation came
less than two weeks before the scheduled hearing and was
sent without consultation with Rice herself,
“a professional courtesy that would
customarily be extended to any witness.”
 Tom Fitton: Comey Has ‘Repeatedly And Improperly
Protected Clinton And Her Top People From
Consequences Of Criminal Behavior’
By John Hayward
4 May 2017
Judicial Watch President Tom Fitton discussed FBI
Director James Comey’s testimony to Congress with
SiriusXM host Alex Marlow on Thursday’s Breitbart
News Daily.
Hillary Clinton has blamed Comey for her 2016 election
loss, but Marlow argued that if Comey had concealed the
FBI’s discovery that Clinton was handling classified
material irresponsibly – in the most spectacular instance,
allowing it to be forwarded to disgraced former
congressman Anthony Weiner – it would have been “the
end of the FBI as we know it.”
“You put your finger on it – the end of the FBI as
we know it,” Fitton agreed. “Comey is very
interested in protecting his own reputation and
why he should have done X or why he should
have done Y.”
“In the final analysis, what happened was that
Comey has repeatedly and improperly protected
Hillary Clinton and her top people from the
consequences of their criminal behavior by
coloring the law, misstating the law, and focusing
on everything but the elephant in the living room:
why didn’t he prosecute her? Why didn’t he
recommend a prosecution? Why was immunity
granted to all of these individuals? Why is it he
said that he needed to prove intent, when in fact
all they really needed was gross negligence,
which was proven beyond the shadow of a
reasonable doubt, and he probably had the intent
there anyway?” he asked.
“Looking at the testimony generally yesterday,
Alex, I just was reassured that Judicial Watch
and all the critics of the way the Justice
Department and the FBI handled this during the
Obama administration are right, that the
investigation into Hillary Clinton needs to be
opened. He keeps on telling us other reasons
why it needs to be opened, by disclosing
additional crimes that his FBI has been covering
up for eight months now. For instance, Huma
Abedin mishandled classified information in
263
sending it along to someone unauthorized to see,
review it, or have it – Anthony Weiner, her
husband,” said Fitton.
Marlow recalled the “surreal reversal” of Comey’s famous
press conference, in which he laid out a compelling case
for indicting Clinton – and then said he would not indict
her.
“But the media has set the narrative, Tom, which
is that he should actually be apologizing for
saying anything negative about Her Highness
Hillary Clinton, and not the way you and I are
seeing it, which is that still we don’t know why
she isn’t indicted, given all that we’ve learned,”
he said.
“That’s right,” Fitton agreed. “I can understand
why that letter was concerning to those people
who were in the middle of a campaign. Mrs.
Clinton’s conduct was requiring an FBI
investigation, but the scandal is the FBI
investigation was half-baked.”
He said Judicial Watch litigation has revealed that
“the FBI was using Judicial Watch documents
that we’ve gotten through the Freedom of
Information Act to question some of the
witnesses in the Clinton investigation.”
“Why haven’t they gotten them on their own,
through grand juries or subpoenas or other law
enforcement action?” he asked. “They seem to
be following our lead here. I don’t think Comey’s
heart was in it. He was always concerned, and
he reaffirmed that yesterday, about getting
involved in politics. If he was nervous about a
letter getting involved in politics, can you imagine
what he would have been nervous about if an
indictment was in the offing, something that he
wanted to pursue in the face of what he
confirmed to be Justice Department interference
and lack of good faith?”
 “He’s just highlighting the fact that A) he
shouldn’t be FBI Director, and B) the Justice
Department was so thoroughly corrupt that he
couldn’t even trust them to tell you what the time
of day was, and C) that the investigation into
Hillary Clinton needs to be reopened by
someone independent and serious, and Comey
should have nothing to do with it,” Fitton
contended.
“There is precedent for this. I recall at the
beginning of the Obama administration – you
may remember this – remember the investigation
into the four CIA saps who were charged with
using enhanced interrogation techniques? They
had been exonerated by the Bush administration.
The Obama administration came in and re-
initiated a special prosecution, an investigation of
them. This is what should be done with Hillary
Clinton,” he advised.
Marlow asked about the new standard of “criminal intent”
as a requirement for indictment, which seems to apply only
to “rich and powerful” individuals like Hillary Clinton.
“I don’t know why Mr. Comey is falsely stating
what the law is under oath again before
Congress,” Fitton replied. “There is no intent
needed to prosecute someone for the
mishandling of classified information. Just
imagine, if someone is so careless about
classified information that they leave it on the
Internet equivalent of a park bench, of course
they’re going to get prosecuted, and they should.
That’s what Hillary Clinton did.”
“Not only that, but let’s say they said, ‘Let’s be
sure because it’s going to be tough to prosecute
her, let’s be sure that we have more than just the
gross negligence standard that the law requires.
Let’s say that we need the intent standard,’” he
continued. “Well, Mrs. Clinton was warned
repeatedly – again, uncovered by Judicial Watch
documents the FBI had – not to use a system
separate from the State Department system
because of the security concerns. She
acknowledged those warnings and did it anyway.
No matter how you slice it, they had the case.”
Another Judicial Watch revelation noted by Marlow was
the discovery of emails from Abedin that show
“the Clinton Foundation and State Department
were linked together on Haiti,”
a relationship earlier revealed by Breitbart News Editor-at-
Large Peter Schweizer’s book Clinton Cash.
.
264
“There were some emails showing that after the
terrible Haitian earthquake in 2010, there was an
almost immediate conference call involving the
Clinton Foundation,” Fitton explained.
“Now, Mrs. Clinton promised that sort of thing
wouldn’t happen – that the Clinton Foundation
and the State Department, there would be a
bright line demarcating, and the two wouldn’t
meet. But instead they did meet, and obviously
we later found out that Bill Clinton and his
foundation effectively ran U.S. government
operations down there, despite Mrs. Clinton’s
promises that they’d have nothing to do with
government when she was in the Secretary of
State position, because that’s what she had to do
in order to get the position of Secretary of State –
promising a bright line between the Clinton
Foundation and her Secretary of State office,
because both Republicans and Democrats and
even the White House, Barack Obama’s White
House, had concerns about it,” he said.
“And by the way, the documents we have this
week also show more classified information
being shared with Huma Abedin and others that
Hillary Clinton was sending and receiving on her
system. Unbelievable, unbelievable,” Fitton
exclaimed.
Marlow criticized President Trump’s announcement that
Clinton would not be investigated further, and asked how
such a determination could be made when relevant facts of
the case are still being uncovered to this day.
“The charitable interpretation of that is that it was
a reactive comment, and he doesn’t really
believe it,” Fitton said of Trump’s statement on
the matter. “I really don’t think he thinks that’s the
case. Technically speaking, he can’t prosecute
Hillary Clinton. The operational question is, is the
Justice Department going to be staffed now by
people in the Trump administration who
understand what their roles and duties are, and
their obligations are, to the American people and
do their jobs?”
“All I’m asking is for is the thumb of politicians to
be taken off the scales of justice, and allow a
prosecution, a regular one, to proceed against
Hillary Clinton,” he declared. “Certainly an
investigation or a grand jury, a serious one. That
doesn’t necessarily mean that she’ll be
prosecuted, but the American people will be
reassured that the rigged game that went on last
year isn’t going to happen again, and there’s
going to be finally a full vetting of what went on.”
 Top Democrat ‘Has Seen No Evidence
Of Trump-Russia Collusion’ (VIDEO)
Published Time: 5 May, 2017 20:21

Former Republican Governor of Alaska, Sarah Palin, also

tweeted:

Senate Judiciary Committee ranking member Sen. Dianne Feinstein
(D-CA) © Kevin Lamarque / Reuters
A top Democratic member of the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence has told CNN that she has seen no evidence
of collusion between Trump associates and Russian
officials during last year’s US presidential election.
Dianne Feinstein was interviewed on the news channel
following a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing
Wednesday where FBI Director James Comey was
questioned about possible collusion between Trump
officials and Russia.
Referring to a briefing Feinstein attended at CIA
Headquarters in Langley on the alleged Russia meddling
on Tuesday, host Wolf Blitzer asked:
“Do you have evidence that there was in fact
collusion between Trump associates and Russia
during the campaign?”
“This is huge.”
This seems significant given (a) who is saying it,
(b) how decisive her answer is, and (c) that she
just got back from a CIA briefing on it.
https://t.co/xEgERG4UJY
— Glenn Greenwald (@ggreenwald) May 5,
2017
This is huge. https://t.co/daSXKP0N2X
— Sarah Palin (@SarahPalinUSA) May 4, 2017
Members of the House Intelligence Committee have
previously implied that they were aware of evidence of
collusion. California Representative Adam Schiff said in
March that there was “more than circumstantial evidence”
of coordination.
While last month, California Representative Eric
Swalwell, said “there is evidence of collusion,” but failed
to expand on the details, citing “classified information.”
"There is evidence of collusion."
—Rep. Eric Swalwell on
@hardballhttps://t.co/Tj7ms7KifLpic.twitter.com/V
lyI2oXSPT
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) April 28, 2017

“Not at this time,” Feinstein replied.

“Well, that’s a pretty precise answer,” Blitzer

said, quickly bringing the interview to an end.

Journalist and co-founder of The Intercept Glenn

Greenwald described Feinstein’s answer as significant for
several reasons, including

“(a) who is saying it, (b) how decisive her answer

is, and (c) that she just got back from a CIA
briefing on it.”
.

265
 James Comey Didn't Sink Hillary, Hillary Sank Hillary
Rather Than Smearing Comey, Clinton Should Be Thanking
Him For Not Suggesting She Be Indicted.
David Harsanyi
May 5, 2017
Hillary Clinton was back earlier this week, taking
"absolute personal responsibility" by blaming Russia, FBI
Director James Comey and misogyny for her second
presidential election loss. If the election had taken place on
Oct. 27, Clinton maintained, she'd be president.
Perhaps if we were to all live in a vacuum where the
electorate ignored everything the Democratic Party's
flawed nominee said and did (and tried to hide), she would
be in the White House—although even that's debatable.
Clinton's counterfactual tale about the infamous Comey
letter has been a security blanket for many Democrats. But,
as luck would have it, the FBI director was testifying in
front of a Senate Judiciary Committee on Wednesday, and
he reminded us of some factors that Clinton ignored. That's
because even if we concede that Comey's letter to
Congress helped sink Clinton, Clinton deserved that letter
and Comey had no choice but to send it.
In essence, what many Democrats have been arguing for
the past six months is that Comey should have actively
buried evidence that was pertinent to an ongoing
congressional investigation—one that incidentally turned
up plenty of potential wrongdoing—because it might hurt
their preferred candidate's chances.
Comey confirmed that the FBI learned that classified
emails were forwarded from Clinton's email account by
Clinton aide Huma Abedin to her husband, former Rep.
Anthony Weiner, so he could print them out. (This appears
to be illegal, but perhaps all those immunity deals Comey
was handing out came in handy.) Her computer, like other
servers and laptops Clinton's staff tried to dispose of, hide,
clean and whatnot, were supposed to have been in the
hands of the FBI.
It's worth pointing out that everything in the Comey letter
was almost surely going to leak anyway, not only because
of its connection to the Clinton investigation but also
because this "fella Anthony Weiner," as Comey referred to
him, had access to classified information.
That may not have made things any better for Clinton, but
it certainly would have made the FBI look like it was
266
actively protecting a candidate—which is undoubtedly
why Comey said it was potentially "catastrophic."
Whatever his political calculations, however, there was
simply no reason for him not to apprise Congress of that
kind of discovery. As an article by Newsweek pointed out
at the time, Comey had an ethical obligation to inform
Congress despite the best contrary efforts of overt
partisans like Attorney General Loretta Lynch, not only
because Department of Justice rules maintain that relevant
committees should be apprised of new evidence but also
because Comey had informed Congress that he had
completed its review. Once he did that, and once he came
into possession of significant evidence that would have to
be examined by the FBI, Comey had a duty to notify
Congress to amend his initial testimony, which was no
longer true.
Setting all that aside, however, it's also worth reiterating
that it was Hillary, not Comey, who initially set up a secret
server to circumvent transparency, likely to hide favor
trading related to her foundation. It was Hillary, not
Comey, who sent unsecured classified documents through
that server, which she almost surely knew was wrong. (The
New York Times pointed out that chances are high these
documents were intercepted by foreign powers.) It was
Hillary, not Comey, who was responsible for attempts to
destroy all evidence related to that server. It was Hillary's
people, as Comey noted in his original congressional
testimony, that had "cleaned their devices in such a way as
to preclude complete forensic recovery." And it was
Hillary's aide who failed to inform the FBI about classified
emails on her computer.
It was Hillary who ran a poor campaign and lost to one of
the most unpopular presidential candidates in history. As
former President Barack Obama's adviser David Axelrod
pointed out Wednesday, she never took responsibility for
any of it.
He said:
"But Jim Comey didn't tell her not to campaign in
Wisconsin after the convention. Jim Comey didn't
say, 'Don't put any resources in Michigan until
the final week of the campaign.' One of the
 things that hindered her in the campaign was a
sense that she never fully was willing to take
responsibility for her mistakes, particularly that
server."
267
Moreover, as Comey basically admitted again today,
Clinton had clearly broken the law. The only struggle was
proving intent (though gross negligence was the standard).
So rather than smearing Comey, Clinton should be
thanking him for not suggesting she be indicted.
 Comey’s Quixotic Quest
To Prove Russian Involvement In Elections
Wayne MADSEN
08.05.2017
Federal Bureau of Investigation director James Comey
may be physically imposing at 6 feet, 8 inches tall.
However, when it comes to his oratorical skills, or, in his
case, the lack thereof, Comey is nothing more than a
«snake oil» salesman trying to market fanciful conspiracies
masked as fact. Trying to emulate one of his predecessors,
J. Edgar Hoover, Comey said that when it comes to
protecting the democratic process, Russia is «the greatest
threat to any nation on earth, given their intention and their
ability». Comey’s rhetoric is right out of the pages of the
Cold War and Senator Joe McCarthy’s anti-Communist
«witch hunts». Comey engaged in McCarthyite tactics by
referring to WikiLeaks as «a conduit for the Russian
intelligence services».
It is hard to tell whether President Trump agrees with Mr.
Comey. Trump has indicated that it is within his power to
fire Comey, but has given no further indication as to
whether the FBI director will serve out the traditional ten-
year term. There is one thing for certain. Comey may not
want to appear as a right-wing, Cold War-mentality
neoconservative, but his professional and personal history
indicates that when it comes to Russia-bashing, it is in his
blood. Comey supported and donated to the presidential
campaigns of the psychotically anti-Russian John McCain,
as well as the neocons’ darling Mitt Romney.
After leaving the Justice Department in 2005, Comey
became General Counsel and Senior Vice President of
Lockheed Martin, the Pentagon’s largest contractor. When
it comes to war-making, Lockheed Martin has profited
handsomely from ensuring that military tension remains a
hair-trigger from war from the Baltic region and the
Balkans to the Korean peninsula and the Middle East.
Feeding the «war-porn» addicts in the U.S. Congress,
including the likes of Republican Senators Lindsey
Graham of South Carolina and Ted Cruz of Texas,
improves the bottom line of Lockheed Martin, a firm in
which Mr. Comey likely still has a significant personal
financial stake.
Comey and his neocon friends have decided that the best
way to challenge the anti-globalist populist wave that is
sweeping the world is to deploy a wide brush and paint
every sovereigntist political campaign and leader – both
left and right – as Russian «tools» and Kremlin «agents».
268
It worked for Hoover during the Cold War when he
decided that the best way to avert the attention of the
American public away from his friends in organized crime
and his own well-known homosexuality was to claim that
«Communists» had infiltrated every sector of American
society. In his attempt to fill Mr. Hoover’s high-heeled
shoes, Comey accuses Russia of being the greatest threat
to free elections on earth.
One only need examine the record of the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency since its creation in 1947 to find out
that it has been the United States that has been the greatest
threat to free and fair elections around the globe. When it
comes to election interference, no country – Russia, China,
the former Soviet Union, apartheid South Africa, or North
Korea – holds a candle to the boys at Langley. In 1948, a
CIA full-court press of bribes, threats, and infiltration
ensured the defeat of the Communist Party by the U.S.-
supported Christian Democrats in the Italian general
election. This same template was used again and again by
Washington in countries ranging from Chile and Nicaragua
to Australia and Russia.
Now, the CIA, headed by the neo-Cold Warrior and right-
wing religious extremist Mike Pompeo, and its allies, are
trying to turn the tables in suggesting that Russia has been
able to almost singlehandedly affect the U.S. presidential
campaign, the «yes» vote in the European Union Brexit
referendum in the United Kingdom, the French
presidential election, and the «no» vote in the Italian
constitutional reform referendum. There is a major
problem with this thinking. If Russia were as powerful as
claimed by the Comey, Pompeo, and others, Austrian
nationalist Norbert Hofer, not the anti-Russian emigré
from Estonia, Alexander Van der Bellen, would have won
the Austrian presidential election. And it would have been
the Dutch Freedom Party nationalist Geert Wilders, not the
globalist Prime Minister Mark Rutte, who would have
been the victor in the Netherlands election.
If Russia’s intentions were as malignant as claimed by the
neocons and the Cold Warriors, a dubious Russian-backed
coup operation in Montenegro would have been successful
and not a failure. When it comes to coup-making and
putsches, it is Langley that excels, especially with its own
unlimited funds, coupled with those of international hedge
fund tycoon George Soros, at its disposal. It is American
fingerprints that have been found in successful and aborted
«color revolutions» in Ukraine, Georgia, Serbia,
Macedonia, Moldova, Kyrgyzstan, Belarus, Armenia, and
the Srpska Republic of Bosnia-Herzegovina. It was joint
CIA-Soros funds that gave rise to the bloody «Arab
Spring» uprisings in Libya, Syria, Tunisia, Egypt, and
Yemen. The Arab Spring template has been moved by the
globalist power centers to create havoc in socialist
Venezuela, with their eyes soon to be set on Bolivia.
The strategy of the globalists and their puppets, such as
Comey, Lindsey Graham, and others, is to demonize as
«Russian agents» those who pose a threat to the «world
order» fashioned by the CIA, Wall Street, and the
Pentagon. Therefore, leftist anti-globalists like British
Labor Party leader Jeremy Corbyn, French leftist leader
Jean-Luc Mélenchon, and U.S. Independent Socialist
Senator Bernie Sanders are given the same McCarthyite
«Russian agent» labels, as have Donald Trump, Marine Le
Pen, Prime Minister Viktor Orban in Hungary, and
Alternative for Germany leader Frauke Petry.
Globalist politicians – left and right – now routinely
engage in claims of Russia involvement in their nations’
political processes to mask their own ineffective
leadership. In January of this year, Swedish Social
Democratic Prime Minister Stefan Löfven said he could
not rule out «Russian interference» in Sweden’s 2018
general election. There is little doubt that if Löfven loses,
he will blame it all on «the Russians».
The New York Times suggested that Russia was financially
backing Mr. Wilders in the Netherlands election but the
.
269
paper paid scant attention to the fact that Israel is the
Dutch opposition leader’s biggest financial «sugar daddy».
It is amazing that the tools of the globalists, like The New
York Times and The Washington Post, did not claim that
Russia interfered in the February 5, 2017 general election
in the Principality of Liechtenstein, because an anti-EU
and anti-migrant party, «Die Unabhängigen», («The
Independents»), came in third, beating a traditional third
party.
Mr. Comey testified about intelligence proof he has
confirming Russian interference in the U.S. election. Let’s
examine the history of U.S. intelligence «proof». It
includes intelligence reports from a phony Iraqi defector
named «Curveball» that Saddam Hussein possessed
weapons of mass destruction, fake signals intelligence
intercepts on a non-existent North Vietnamese naval attack
on the USS Maddox and USS Turner Joy in 1964 in the
Gulf of Tonkin, phony intelligence reports on Libyan
leader Muammar Qaddafi committing mass executions of
Libyans in 2011, fake reports on Iranian nuclear weapons
development after it ended its weapons program in 2003,
and, more recently, a dubious intelligence dossier from a
mid-level former British MI-6 employee who successfully
shopped «dirt» to the Jeb Bush and Hillary Clinton
campaigns on Trump and «golden shower» parties in
Moscow. The dossier, embraced by Comey, is said to
«prove» Russian involvement in the 2016 presidential
election. British «dossiers» on just about everything, from
the Number 10 «dodgy dossier» on Saddam Hussein’s
weapons to the «dirty dossier» on Trump, are about as
credible as everything else in the British tabloids. Comey
should read Harry Potter books, not FBI and CIA
intelligence reports, if he wants to wallow in fiction.
 'No Evidence Russia Influencing
Voter Tallies In...50 States' ‒ US Ex-Intel Chief
Published Time: 8 May, 2017 19:46 Edited Time: 9 May, 2017 00:55
While testifying before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee
on alleged Russian interference in the 2016 campaign, ex-
National Intelligence Director James Clapper said he
doesn't have any evidence that Moscow influenced voter
tallies on Election Day.
The Senate Judiciary Committee is investigating alleged
Russian meddling in the 2016 US presidential election.
Clapper appeared with former Acting Attorney General
Sally Yates. The highly anticipated hearing was expected
to fill in key details in the chain of events that led to the
ouster of General Michael Flynn, President Donald
Trump's first national security adviser, during the
administration’s first month in office.
"Can we agree that the Russians attempted to
influence the outcome of the election?” asked
Senator John Neely Kennedy (R-Louisiana)
during the Subcommittee on Crime and
Terrorism hearing on Monday.
"Yes," Clapper and Yates replied.
"Did they succeed?" asked Kennedy.
270
“We could not make that call,” replied Clapper.
"The only thing we said was we saw no evidence
of influencing voter tallies in any of the 50 states,
but we were not in a position to judge whether ‒
what actual outcome on the election," added
Clapper.
Kennedy then asked "Have you ever leaked?"
“Not wittingly or knowingly,” replied Clapper.
"Classified or unclassified?," said Kennedy.
“Unclassified is not leaking," remarked Clapper
as laughter erupted in the room.
When it came to the January 6 report that accused Russia
of “influence campaign” during the US presidential
election, some “two dozen or so” handpicked analysts
from three agencies – the CIA, the FBI and the NSA –
compiled the information, Clapper told the subcommittee,
headed by Senators Lindsey Graham (R-South Carolina)
and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-Rhode Island). All 17
intelligence agencies were consulted in some form ahead
of the report’s release, and Clapper said he was “not aware
of anyone who dissented or disagreed.”
“The most important thing is to educate the
electorate as to what the Russian objective is,”
Clapper said. “There needs to be more done in
the way of sanctions to the Russians or any other
government that attempts to interfere with our
election process.”
"#Russia congratulating themselves, exceeded
wildest expectations" - Former ODNI #Clapper
on #Russiagate
LIVE:
https://t.co/Fq68KIe1Kxpic.twitter.com/Dx3VFMR
jGG
— RT America (@RT_America) May 8, 2017
"Russia’s influence activities in the run-up to the
2016 presidential election constituted the high-
water mark of their long-running efforts since the
1960’s to disrupt and influence our elections,"
 said Clapper. "They must be congratulating
themselves for having exceeded their wildest
expectations. They are now emboldened to
continue such activities in the future, both here
and around the world, and to do so even more
intensely."
Moscow likely spent some $200 million, not including
government support for RT, enabling them to interfere
“with minimal resource expenditure,” Clapper told Sen.
Amy Klobuchar (D-Minnesota).
“RT is essentially a propaganda mouthpiece for
the government,” Clapper added. “The
management is close to Putin.”
Clapper also told Sen. Ben Sasse (R-Nebraska)
that “In comparison with classical military
expenditures, it’s a bargain for them.”
All the ways RT ‘influenced’ American politics ‒
it’s not what the ODNI thinks
https://t.co/xFuUQianZMpic.twitter.com/2lLdxUm
BaV
— RT America (@RT_America) January 9, 2017
Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-California) called alleged
Russian involvement “a foregone conclusion.”
Clapper incorrectly claimed that no Republican data was
released during the campaign, WikiLeaks co-founder
Julian Assange said on Twitter, offering documents
published in August 2016 as proof.
DNI Clapper just misled or perjured himself to
Congress saying that there was no release of
Republican data. Proof:
https://t.co/A2u3YFHShM
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 8,
2017
Clapper echoed remarks by CIA Director Mike Pompeo
that WikiLeaks is propaganda platform for Russia and that
it’s a non-state intelligence actor.
Yates reminded the committee of her 27-year career at the
Department of Justice and praised their “impartial and
thorough investigation” of the Russian threat.
“The efforts by a foreign adversary to interfere
with and undermine our democratic processes ‒
and those of our allies ‒pose a serious threat to
all Americans,” she said.
271
Yates told the panel that she warned the White House
about Flynn multiple times, including “two in-person
meetings and one phone call” with White House counsel
Don McGahn about Flynn’s activities. At that point, on
January 26, she had “notes that described” the FBI’s
interview with Flynn from the day before, and didn’t want
to wait to get a readout of the interview.
Yates and another DOJ official went to the White House
because they were
“worried American people may have been misled
about Gen. Flynn’s underlying conduct,” and that
the Russians knew “and likely had proof” which
created a compromising situation because Vice
President Mike Pence “was unknowingly making
false statements to the public” and thus “Flynn
was compromised with regards to the Russians.”
“We felt the vice president was entitled to know”
that the information he was giving the public was
not true, Yates said, but would not reveal what
Flynn’s “underlying conduct” because that was
“based on classified information.”
Yates said that, during her meeting with McGahn, he
“certainly demonstrated that he understood this was
serious.”
“If nothing was done, then certainly it would be
concerning,” she added.
White House spokesman Sean Spicer confirmed media
reports that former President Barack Obama had spoken
against Flynn in a transition meeting with Trump.
“This is a guy who was very outspoken in his
criticism of President Obama’s policies,” Spicer
said of Flynn during the White House press
briefing on Monday, going on to question why the
Obama administration allowed Flynn to travel to
Russia and did not revoke his security clearance.
“If they were concerned, why didn’t they take any
steps?” asked Spicer.
If #Obama was concerned about #Flynn's
security clearance, 'then what did they do and, if
nothing, then why not?' –
#Spicerpic.twitter.com/qBmY5J43zq
— RT America (@RT_America) May 8, 2017
During the hearing, Clapper addressed such questions in
the hypothetical, noting that he didn’t have any specifics of
how the Trump transition team vetted Flynn, but saying
that the vetting process for the White House is supposed to
be
 “far, far more invasive and far, far more
thorough.”
There were nearly 2,000 requests to unmask the identity of
surveillance targets in 2016, Clapper noted, adding that he
had never requested unmasking for personal, political or
voyeuristic purposes, nor was he
“aware of any instance of such abuse by anyone
else.”
There were many questions Yates couldn’t answer in an
open hearing because her responses contained classified
information, including Graham’s query of whether there
was any evidence that anyone in the Trump campaign
colluded with Russia.
#Clapper & #SallyYates deny having shared or
enabled information sharing with media on
#Trump and associates
https://t.co/Fq68KIe1Kxpic.twitter.com/kCOFYK3
nHi
— RT America (@RT_America) May 8, 2017
Neither Clapper nor Yates knew how information from
Flynn’s conversation with Russian Ambassador Sergey
Kislyak ended up in the Washington Post, and both denied
leaking any stories about Trump and his associates to the
press, whether directly or through someone else.
Yates was the acting attorney general at the time of
Trump’s first travel ban, and was fired after refusing to
enforce it. On Monday, Trump urged the committee to
question her under oath about classified information she
was privy to ended up in the media, implying that the
former Obama appointee may have been behind the leaks.
272
Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how
classified information got into the newspapers
soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.
— President Trump (@POTUS) May 8, 2017
Several senators asked Yates about her memo to the
Justice Department, in which she argued that Trump’s first
travel ban was unconstitutional.
“I believed that any argument that we would have
to make in its defense would not be grounded in
the truth,” she told Sen. John Neely Kennedy (R-
Louisiana), adding that the intent behind the
executive order didn’t convince her that it was
constitutional.
“Who appointed you to the US Supreme Court?”
he retorted.
US ex-intel chief Clapper believes Russia-Trump
claims, despite ‘no evidence to his knowledge’
https://t.co/fOum9uC2Xz
— RT America (@RT_America) March 6, 2017
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vermont) pointed out that, during
her confirmation hearing, then-Senator Jeff Sessions (R-
Alabama) pressed Yates to say that she would defy an
illegal order from the president.
The Senate committee hearing occurred at the same time
as government lawyers were arguing that the
administration’s second ban should be allowed to proceed.
LIVE: Yates & Clapper testify on alleged Russian
interference in US 2016 election
Posted by RT America on Monday, May 8, 2017
 Yates / Clapper Hearing: Flynn In Deep Trouble But Still
"No Evidence" Of Trump Collusion With Russia
Below is a summary of some of the key topics covered
during today's Senate Judiciary Committee hearing with
former DNI Director Clapper and Former Acting Attorney
General Sally Yates.
Yates On Flynn Warnings To The White House:
With regards to General Flynn, Yates testified that she had
two in-person meetings and 1 phone call with the White
House out of concerns that Vice President Pence was
unknowingly making false statements in the media about
Flynn's interactions with Russian officials...false
statements that Yates alleged were the result of Flynn
interntionally lying to the Vice President.
 Yates also testified that "potential prosecution" of Flynn
was discussed at the second in-person meeting at the
White House.
 YATES: 2 IN-PERSON MEETINGS, ONE PHONE
CALL WITH W.H. ON FLYNN
 YATES: TOLD WHITE HOUSE KNEW ACCOUNTS
OF FLYNN CONDUCT UNTRUE
 YATES: GAVE WHITE HOUSE `FAIR AMOUNT' OF
DETAIL ON FLYNN ACTS
 YATES: TOLD MCGAHN PENCE ENTITLED TO
KNOW HE GOT FALSE INFO
 YATES: RUSSIAN KNOWLEDGE
POTENTIAL BLACKMAIL SITUATION
 YATES: MCGAHN ASKED IF FLYNN SHOULD BE
FIRED, SAID NOT HER CALL
 YATES: POTENTIAL PROSECUTION OF FLYNN
DISCUSSED AT 2ND MEETING
Yates says "yes," she discussed criminal
prosecution of Flynn with WH counsel
#YatesHearing pic.twitter.com/TqxULkPlbI
— Tommy Christopher (@tommyxtopher) May 8,
2017
By Tyler Durden
May 8, 2017 8:14 PM
And Yates' response to a question from White House
Counsel McGahn as to why the DOJ was concerned
whether one White House official lied to another White
House official...in summary, Yates testified that the lack of
transparency created a situation whereby Flynn was
susceptible to "blackmail" from Russian agents who knew
that he had lied to the White House and would need to
protect that lie in order to keep his job.
Yates: "...the National Security Adviser,
essentially, could be blackmailed by the
Russians." —via @MSNBC
pic.twitter.com/DTIAQcZ6y0
— Kyle Griffin (@kylegriffin1) May 8, 2017
Yates/Clapper On Collusion:
Senator Graham opened by asking both Clapper and Yates
about whether either had intelligence that would confirm
collusion between the Trump administration and the
Kremlin. Clapper once again said there is no evidence
of such collusion and Yates refused to answer on the basis
that such an answer would reveal classified information.
 CLAPPER: STILL TRUE HE DOESN'T KNOW OF
TRUMP-RUSSIA COLLUSION
 YATES SAYS SHE CAN'T ANSWER QUESTION
ABOUT POSSIBLE COLLUSION
CREATED  YATES CITES CLASSIFIED INFORMATION FOR
DECLINING TO ANSWER
Yates and Clapper On Whether They've Ever Been An
'Anonymous' Source For The Media:
Both Yates and Clapper denied, under oath, ever being an
anonymous source in press reports:
Former DNI Clapper, former acting AG Yates
deny ever being anonymous source in press
reports on Trump or associates
https://t.co/VO91R4PRlb
pic.twitter.com/bk2RkRnNgm
273
 — ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 8,
2017
Travel Ban:
On Trump's travel ban, Yates testified that she instructed
the DOJ to not defend the executive order because it was,
at least in her opinion, "unlawful" and "unconstitutional".
Sally Yates said she made determination as
acting AG that Pres. Trump's travel ban was
"unlawful":
https://t.co/Okz2bwUl4f
pic.twitter.com/Pc7uiUTNxt
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 8, 2017
And while Yates seemingly scored a quick victory over
Ted Cruz in Round 1 over the legality of her refusing to
defend Trump's travel ban ....
Sally Yates just shut down Ted Cruz on
Constitutional Law. pic.twitter.com/ONlwEYm64D
— jordan ???? (@JordanUhl) May 8, 2017
...Senator Kennedy quickly came back and scored his own
decisive victory in Round 2 by asking Yates very simply:
"who appointed you to the United States
Supreme Court?"
Senator Kennedy asks Sally Yates, "who
appointed you to the United States Supreme
Court?"
https://t.co/N2XqdigO37 https://t.co/duaEAZYAko
— The Lead CNN (@TheLeadCNN) May 8, 2017
Julian Assange On Clapper's Assertion That Hackers
Only Targeted Democrats:
Meanwhile, here is Julian Assange's response to Clapper's
assertion that hackers only targeted Democrats and never
revealed sensitive information obtained from Republican
targets.
DNI Clapper just misled or perjured himself to
Congress saying that there was no release of
Republican data. Proof:
https://t.co/A2u3YFHShM
— Julian Assange (@JulianAssange) May 8,
2017
And Some Other Takeaways:
274
Director Clapper used his opening remarks to speculate
that Russia
"must be congratulating themselves for
having exceeded their wildest expectations
with a minimal expenditure of resources."
Clapper: Russia "must be congratulating
themselves for having exceeded their wildest
expectations" https://t.co/vktuPvsZr8
pic.twitter.com/HO77f1oIq1
— POLITICO (@politico) May 8, 2017
***
Senator Whitehouse of Rhode Island opened with a very
handy checklist detailing the "Russian Toolbox" for
hacking the 2016 election. It includes everything from
"Propaganda, Fake News, Trolls, And Bots" to
"Assassination and Political Violence."
***
For those who missed it, here is our original preview from
earlier today:
Moments from now, at 2:30PM EST, former
Acting Attorney General Sally Yates and Former
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
will take the stand before the Senate Judiciary
Committee to answer more questions about the
alleged "Russian Interference in the 2016 United
States Election."
As we noted earlier, President Trump submitted his
question list for the Senate panel earlier this morning via
Twitter:
"Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows
how classified information got into the
newspapers soon after she explained it to
W.H. Council."
Ask Sally Yates, under oath, if she knows how
classified information got into the newspapers
soon after she explained it to W.H. Counsel.
 — Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May 8,
2017
Meanwhile, the anchors at CNN decided to jump on the
tweet as a form of "witness intimidation." Per The Hill:
“Before I covered politics all the time, I used
to cover the courts a lot. A lawyer would call
that witness intimidation,” King, the host of
"Inside Politics," said.
Bash agreed with that charge.
“Completely. Look, I think that we have all been
kind of desensitized, in some way, to his tweets
and to his statements that are so out of the
norm," Bash, the network's chief political
correspondent, said. "This is beyond out of the
norm. This is inappropriate."
"For the president of the United States to be this
aggressive with somebody who used to work for
him, who is coming before the United States
Congress in sworn testimony hours later, is
beyond the pale. It just is.”
Of course, Sally Yates is now most famous for her
attempted "mutiny" back in late January when she refused
to enforce President Trump's travel ban executive order.
Her insubordination got her fired within a matter of just a
few hours and resulted in the following statement from the
White House (see "Trump Fires Acting Attorney General
Yates For "Betrayal"):
Statement on the Appointment of Dana
Boente as Acting Attorney General
The acting Attorney General, Sally Yates, has
betrayed the Department of Justice by
refusing to enforce a legal order designed to
protect the citizens of the United States. This
order was approved as to form and legality by
the Department of Justice Office of Legal
Counsel.
Ms. Yates is an Obama Administration appointee who is
weak on borders and very weak on illegal immigration.
275
It is time to get serious about protecting our country.
Calling for tougher vetting for individuals travelling from
seven dangerous places is not extreme. It is reasonable and
necessary to protect our country.
Tonight, President Trump relieved Ms. Yates of her duties
and subsequently named Dana Boente, U.S. Attorney for
the Eastern District of Virginia, to serve as Acting
Attorney General until Senator Jeff Sessions is finally
confirmed by the Senate, where he is being wrongly held
up by Democrat senators for strictly political reasons.
"I am honored to serve President Trump in this
role until Senator Sessions is confirmed. I will
defend and enforce the laws of our country to
ensure that our people and our nation are
protected," said Dana Boente, Acting Attorney
General.
The Democrats are delaying my cabinet picks for
purely political reasons. They have nothing going
but to obstruct. Now have an Obama A.G.
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump)
January 31, 2017
According to a CNN report from last week, Yates is set to
testify that she told the White House that Flynn might have
misled the administration about the content of his
communications with Ambassador Sergey Kislyak weeks
before he was finally relieved of his duties by the White
House.
Former Acting Attorney General Sally Yates is
prepared to testify before a Senate panel next
week that she gave a forceful warning to the
White House regarding then-National Security
Advisor Michael Flynn nearly three weeks
before he was fired, contradicting the
administration's version of events, sources
familiar with her account tell CNN.
In a private meeting January 26, Yates told White
House Counsel Don McGahn that Flynn was
lying when he denied in public and private
that he had discussed US sanctions on
Russia in conversations with Russian
Ambassador to the US Sergei Kislyak.
Flynn's misleading comments, Yates said, made him
potentially vulnerable to being compromised by Russia,
according to sources familiar with her version of events.
She expressed "serious concerns" to McGahn, making it
clear -- without making a recommendation -- that Flynn
could be fired.
Of course, Trump did subsequently fire Flynn in early
February after reports he misled Vice President Pence and
other White House officials about his conversations with
Kislyak.

Tune in below for the fireworks:

276
 Sources Claim That Comey Firing Could Release Of
Documents, Potential New Clinton Probe
William Craddick
May 9, 2017
In the wake of Donald Trump’s dismissal of FBI Director
James Comey citing “serious mistakes” and mishandling
of the Hillary Clinton investigation, emerging information
appears to indicate that in the aftermath of Comey’s firing
the FBI intends to begin releasing documents on the
Clinton investigation and the Department of Justice may
request a second look at the investigation.
This afternoon, the White House announced that James
Comey would be removed as Director of the FBI upon the
recommendation of Attorney General Jeff Sessions and
Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein. Deputy
Attorney Rosenstein cited Mr. Comey’s public
announcement of his findings in July 2016, derogatory
statements he made about Secretary Clinton at the time, his
letter to Congress informing them of his decision to reopen
the FBI’s investigation into Mrs. Clinton after uncovering
emails on personal devices belonging to former
Congressman Anthony Weiner among other actions
Comey had taken which the Deputy Attorney General
descripted as a violation of Comey’s obligation to
“preserve, protect and defend” the traditions of the FBI.
277
Upon news of Comey’s removal, Julian Assange tweeted
that a source within the FBI had informed him that the
Bureau would begin leaking documents from the
investigation. He urged the FBI to release documents in
full to prevent any misrepresentations by the press. On the
heels of Assange’s announcement, an additional source
claimed that the Deputy Attorney General will now
oversee a new Clinton probe following Comey’s dismissal,
and would do so in close proximity to acting FBI Director
Andrew McCabe for lack of trust.
If confirmed, the reports indicate that Comey’s firing
represents a renewed focus on information pertaining to
the investigation into Hillary Clinton, after the previous
one was criticized by both supporters and detractors of the
Former Secretary of State and Senator, both of whom
painted the investigation as being either politically
motivated or hampered by alleged attempts to cover up
evidence of wrongdoing.
This is a developing story.
 "This Is Nixonian" - Democrats Demand "Immediate
Emergency Hearings" Over Comey Termination
By Tyler Durden
May 9, 2017 7:57 PM

Despite comments from White House Press Secretary Sean investigation — a tough rebuke to a man Schumer has long
Spicer that: admired...

 *SPICER: COMEY FIRING SHOULD BE
WELCOMED BY DEMOCRATS
 *SPICER: GOAL OF COMEY FIRING WAS
TO RESTORE CONFIDENCE IN FBI
 *SPICER: COMEY FIRING SHOULD
RECEIVE BIPARTISAN SUPPORT
It appears his opinion is not being listened to...In a
desperate bid to ensure their flip-flopping over Comey is
not misunderstood, and the focus of the narrative remains
on the "Russia-Trump collusion hoax," Democrats are
demanding they get their say over President Trump's
termination of FBI Director Comey. Chuck Schumer has
called the firing a "big mistake," Elizabeth Warren has
called for a special prosecutor "who Trump can't fire"
in the Russian election interference probe, and Elijah
Cummings has issued a statement demanding "immediate
emergency hearings."
"I do not have confidence in him any longer,”
said the New York Democrat, who has criticized
as “appalling” Comey’s decision to send a
letter to lawmakers 11 days before the election
disclosing the bureau’s new review of e-mails
potentially pertinent to the investigation of
Clinton’s private server."
Sen. Elizabeth Warren (D-Mass.) hit President Trump for
his bombshell decision to fire FBI Director James Comey
on Tuesday, calling on Congress to "get their heads out
of the sand" and use a special prosecutor to investigate
Trump.
As The Hill reports, Warren responded to the news, saying,
"we need a real, independent prosecutor who
[Trump] can't fire, Sessions can't intimidate
and Congress can't muzzle."

Senate Minority Leader Charles Schumer (D-N.Y.)

says he told President Trump that his decision to fire FBI
Director James Comey was a "big mistake."

"Earlier this afternoon President Trump called me

and informed me he was firing Director Comey,"
Schumer told reporters on Tuesday. "I told the
president, 'Mr. President, with all due respect,
you are making a big mistake.’ ”

"They fired Sally Yates. They fired Preet

Bharara. And now they fired Director
Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) on Tuesday demanded
Comey...This does not seem to be a
“immediate emergency hearings” over President Trump’s
coincidence," says Schumer
firing of FBI Director James Comey. As The Hill reports,
pic.twitter.com/BPQrrLWO2t
Cummings said in a statement.
— CBS News (@CBSNews) May 9, 2017
“Congress needs to have immediate
emergency hearings to obtain testimony
As a reminder, here is what Schumer said on Nov 2nd
directly from Attorney General [Jeff]
2016 - Senate Democratic leader-in-waiting
Sessions, the deputy attorney general and
Chuck Schumer said Wednesday he’s lost confidence in
FBI Director Comey,”
FBI Director James Comey over his handling of the most
recent disclosure in the Hillary Clinton e-mail

278
 “The White House was already covering up for
[former national security adviser] Michael Flynn
by refusing to provide a single document to
Congress, and now the President fired the one
independent person who was doing the most to
investigate President Trump and his [2016]
campaign over allegations of coordination with
Russia.”
Cummings added that Sessions’s involvement in Comey’s
ouster is “mindboggling,” noting that Sessions stated that
he would recuse himself from investigations into any ties
between Trump and Russia.
“There is now a crisis of confidence at the
Justice Department, and President Trump is not
being held accountable because House
Republicans refuse to work with us to do our
job,” the top Democrat on the House Oversight
Committee added.
And the rest of The Senate Democrats appeared to be
singing from the same hymn sheet, slamming President
Trump's decision and drawing comparisons to former
President Richard Nixon.
"This is Nixonian,” Sen. Bob Casey (D-Pa.)
said in a statement.
Sen. Patrick Leahy (D-Vt.) echoed that language, noting
that Trump fired Comey
"in the midst of one of the most critical national
security investigations in the history of our
.
279
country — one that implicates senior officials in
the Trump campaign and administration."
"This is nothing less than Nixonian," Leahy
said.
Rep. Adam Schiff (D-CA), ranking member on House
Oversight committee:
The firing "harkens back to a similarly tainted
decision by President Nixon."
Sen. Ed Markey (D-MA):
Comey firing "disturbingly reminiscent of the
Saturday Night Massacre during the
Watergate scandal & the natl turmoil that it
caused."
Rep. Gerry Connolly (D-VA):
"Time to revive Watergate vocabulary:
obstruction, cover-up, suborn, conspiracy,
inoperative, criminal conspiracy, independent
prosecutor."
Sen. Tim Kaine (D-VA):
"Trump firing Comey shows how frightened
the Admin is over Russia investigation."
DNC Chair Tom Perez:
"Trump fired the man investigating him — a
deeply dangerous abuse of power. We need a
special prosecutor, now."
ACLU:
"The independence of the FBI director is
meant to ensure that the president does not
operate above the law. For President Trump to
fire the man responsible for investigating his own
campaign's ties to the Russians imperils that
fundamental principle."
* * *
Finally, we have a potential replacement...
.@SheriffClarke: If Trump made me his FBI
Director I would be arresting Hillary Clinton
today. #Comey pic.twitter.com/QZ0tTiJ2Zp
— Tennessee (@TEN_GOP) May 9, 2017
 Loretta Lynch Busted:
Leaked Email Shows She ‘Would Do
Everything She Could’ To Protect Hillary From
Criminal Charges (VIDEO)
By Jim Hoft, The Gateway Pundit:
May 9, 2017

that had been obtained by Russian hackers. And

that the document indicated that Lynch would do
whatever it took to prevent criminal charges to be
brought against Hillary Clinton in the email probe.

FBI Director James Comey told US Senate leaders he

could not talk about the email in a public forum and
refused to discuss it.

Catherine Herridge: In several of the questions referring

Leaked emails shows Loretta Lynch would do everything
she could to protect Hillary from CRIMINAL CHARGES
Loretta Lynch leaving plane after meeting with former
President Bill Clinton on tarmac in Arizona.
to Loretta Lynch the FBI director said he couldn’t discuss
it in an open unclassified setting… The FBI director said
today he felt boxed in by Lynch and kind of a victim of
circumstances. But that really didn’t wash with
Republicans who were on the committee.

Catherine Herridge from FOX News dropped this BOMB

ON LORETTA LYNCH on Friday afternoon.

Catherine Herridge:

This is the most significant headline coming out

of the investigation today… What we heard today
for the first time were details about a document
that related to Attorney General Loretta Lynch
.

280
 F.B.I. Director
James Comey Is Fired By Trump
By MICHAEL D. SHEAR And MATT APUZZO
MAY 9, 2017
James B. Comey last week during a Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing in Washington. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The New York
Times
WASHINGTON — President Trump on Tuesday fired the
director of the F.B.I., James B. Comey, abruptly
terminating the law enforcement official leading a wide-
ranging criminal investigation into whether Mr. Trump’s
advisers colluded with the Russian government to steer the
outcome of the 2016 presidential election.
The stunning development in Mr. Trump’s presidency
raised the specter of political interference by a sitting
president into an existing investigation by the nation’s
leading law enforcement agency. It immediately ignited
Democratic calls for an independent prosecutor to lead the
Russia inquiry.
Mr. Trump explained the firing by citing Mr. Comey’s
handling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s use of a
private email server, even though the president was widely
seen to have benefited politically from that inquiry and had
once praised Mr. Comey for having “guts” in his pursuit of
Mrs. Clinton during the campaign.
But in his letter to Mr. Comey, released to reporters by the
White House, the president betrayed his focus on the
continuing inquiry into Russia and his aides.
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on
three separate occasions, that I am not under
investigation, I nevertheless concur with the
judgment of the Department of Justice that you
are not able to effectively lead the bureau,” Mr.
281
Trump said in a letter to Mr. Comey dated
Tuesday.
The White House said Attorney General Jeff Sessions and
the deputy attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, pushed for
Mr. Comey’s dismissal.
“I cannot defend the director’s handling of the
conclusion of the investigation of Secretary
Clinton’s emails,” Mr. Rosenstein wrote in a letter
that was released by the White House, “and I do
not understand his refusal to accept the nearly
universal judgment that he was mistaken.”
Reaction in Washington was swift and fierce. In a call with
Mr. Trump, Senator Chuck Schumer, the Democratic
leader, told the president he was making a big mistake;
publicly, Mr. Schumer called the firing a cover-up. Many
Republicans assailed the president for making a rash
decision that could have deep implications for their party.
Mr. Comey, who is three years into a 10-year term at the
helm of the F.B.I., learned from news reports that he had
been fired while addressing bureau employees in Los
Angeles. While Mr. Comey spoke, television screens in the
background began flashing the news. In response to the
reports, Mr. Comey laughed, saying that he thought it was
a fairly funny prank.
But shortly after, Mr. Trump’s letter was delivered to
F.B.I. Headquarters in Washington.
The sudden dismissal of one of Washington’s most
prominent officials added to the sense of chaos in a White
House that has been roiled by controversy, dogged by
scandal and engaged in a furious fight with adversaries.
Mr. Trump had already fired his acting attorney general for
insubordination and his national security adviser for lying
to the vice president about contacts with Russians. But
firing Mr. Comey raises much deeper questions about the
independence of the F.B.I. and the future of its
investigations under Mr. Trump.
F.B.I. officers were enraged by the firing and worried
openly that Mr. Trump would appoint someone seen as a
White House ally. Mr. Comey was widely liked in the
F.B.I., even by those who criticized his handling of the
Clinton investigation, and officers regarded him as a good
manager and an independent leader.
Mr. Comey was on Capitol Hill last week when he offered
his first public explanation of his handling of the Clinton
email case. He said he had no regrets about the decisions
he made, but said he felt “mildly nauseous” that his actions
might have tipped the election to Mr. Trump.
Last July, Mr. Comey broke with longstanding tradition
and policies by publicly discussing the Clinton case and
chastising her “careless” handling of classified
information. Then, in the campaign’s final days, Mr.
Comey announced that the F.B.I. was reopening the
investigation, a move that earned him widespread
criticism.
Yet many of the facts cited as evidence for Mr. Comey’s
dismissal were well known when Mr. Trump kept him on
the job: Mr. Comey was three years in to a 10-year term.
And both Mr. Trump and his attorney general, Jeff
Sessions, had praised Mr. Comey back then for reopening
the Clinton investigation by saying his public
announcement “took guts.” On Tuesday, that action was at
the heart of Mr. Comey’s firing.
“It is essential that we find new leadership for the
F.B.I. that restores public trust and confidence in
its vital law enforcement mission,” Mr. Trump
wrote.
Officials at the F.B.I. said they learned through news
reports of Mr. Comey’s dismissal, which Mr. Trump
described as effective immediately. The president has the
authority to fire the F.B.I. director for any reason.
Under the F.B.I.’s normal rules of succession, Mr.
Comey’s deputy, Andrew G. McCabe, a career F.B.I.
officer, becomes acting director. The White House said the
search for a director will begin immediately.
The firing puts Democrats in a difficult position. Many had
hoped that Mrs. Clinton would fire Mr. Comey soon after
taking office, and blamed him for costing her the election.
But under Mr. Trump, the outspoken and independent-
minded Mr. Comey was seen as an important check on the
new administration.
“Any attempt to stop or undermine this F.B.I.
investigation would raise grave constitutional
issues,” said Senator Richard J. Durbin,
Democrat of Illinois. “We await clarification by the
White House as soon as possible as to whether
this investigation will continue and whether it will
have a credible lead so that we know that it’ll
have a just outcome.”
282
Senator Roy Blunt, Republican of Missouri, praised Mr.
Comey’s service but said new leadership at the F.B.I. “will
restore confidence in the organization.”
“Many, including myself, have questioned his
actions more than once over the last year,” Mr.
Blunt, who sits on the Senate Intelligence
Committee, said in a statement.
Mr. Trump’s decision to fire Mr. Comey marks the second
time since taking office that the president has fired a top
law enforcement official. In early February, Mr. Trump
fired Sally Q. Yates, who had worked in the Obama
administration but was serving as acting attorney general.
But the president’s firing of Mr. Comey was far more
consequential. Ms. Yates was a holdover, and would have
served in the Trump administration for only a matter of
days or weeks.
A longtime prosecutor who served as the deputy attorney
general during the George W. Bush administration, Mr.
Comey came into office in 2013 with widespread
bipartisan support. He has essentially been in a public feud
with Mr. Trump since long before the presidential election.
In a Twitter message this week, Mr. Trump accused Mr.
Comey of being
“the best thing that ever happened to Hillary
Clinton,” accusing him of giving her “a free pass
for many bad deeds.”
Senator Ron Wyden, Democrat of Oregon and a member
of the Senate Intelligence Committee, said in a post on
Twitter that Mr. Comey
“should be immediately called to testify in an
open hearing about the status of Russia/Trump
investigation at the time he was fired.”
Sean Spicer, the White House press secretary, offered a
veiled hint of the bombshell earlier in the day on Tuesday,
though no reporters picked up on it.
During his daily briefing, Mr. Spicer was asked — as he
frequently is — whether Mr. Comey still has the
confidence of the president. Instead of saying yes, Mr.
Spicer danced around the question.
“I have no reason to believe — I haven’t asked
him,” Mr. Spicer said. “I have not asked the
president since the last time we spoke about
this.”
A reporter noted that Mr. Spicer had previously indicated
that the president did have confidence in Mr. Comey, but
asked whether recent revelations about Mr. Comey’s
misstatement during testimony on Capitol Hill would
change that.
“In light of what you’re telling me, I don’t want to
start speaking on behalf of the president without
speaking to him first,” Mr. Spicer said.
The president’s decision to fire Mr. Comey appeared to be
the culmination of the bad will between the men that
intensified in early March, when the president posted
Twitter messages accusing former President Barack
Obama of wiretapping his office.
The next morning, word spread quickly that Mr. Comey
wanted the Justice Department to issue a statement saying
.
283
that he had no evidence to support the president’s
accusation. The department did not issue such a statement.
For weeks after, Mr. Trump insisted that his accusation
was correct. In dramatic testimony later in March, Mr.
Comey said that he had no information to back up the
president’s allegations.
That set up a remarkable dynamic — an F.B.I. director
directly contradicting a sitting president at the same time
that the bureau was pursuing a possible criminal
investigation into the president’s aides.
Reporting was contributed by Maggie Haberman, Glenn
Thrush, Julie Hirschfeld Davis and Matthew Rosenberg.
 President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey
By Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous And Philip Rucker
May 9 At 6:23 PM
President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on
Tuesday, at the recommendation of senior Justice
Department officials who said he had treated Hillary
Clinton unfairly and in doing so damaged the credibility of
the FBI and the Justice Department.
The startling development comes as Comey was leading a
counterintelligence investigation to determine whether
associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to
interfere with the U.S. presidential election last year. It
wasn’t immediately clear how Comey’s ouster will affect
the Russia probe, but Democrats said they were concerned
that his ouster could derail the investigation.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Comey’s
deputy, Andrew McCabe, would be the acting director of
the FBI. As a presidential candidate, Trump explicitly
criticized Comey and McCabe for their roles in the Clinton
probe while at other points praising Comey for his “guts.”
“The president has accepted the
recommendation of the attorney general and the
deputy attorney general regarding the dismissal
of the director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation,” press secretary Sean Spicer told
reporters in the White House briefing room. The
firing is effective “immediately,” he said.
Comey was in Los Angeles on Tuesday on a recruiting
trip.
FBI Director James Comey appeared before the Senate Judiciary
Committee on May 3. Here are key moments from that hearing.
(Video: Sarah Parnass/Photo: Matt McClain/The Washington Post)
Officials said Comey was fired because senior Justice
Department officials concluded that he had violated Justice
Department principles and procedures last year by publicly
284
discussing the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a
private email server. Democrats have long argued that
Comey’s decisions in the months and days before the
election hurt Clinton’s standing with voters and affected
the outcome, but the president and his closest advisers had
argued that Comey went too easy on Clinton and her aides.
Just last week, Trump publicly accused Comey of giving
Clinton “a free pass for many bad deeds’’ when he decided
not to recommend criminal charges in the case.
Officials released a Tuesday memo from the deputy
attorney general, Rod Rosenstein, laying out the rationale
behind Comey’s dismissal and attributing it all to his
handling of the Clinton case. Officials said Rosenstein
began examining Comey’s conduct shortly after being
sworn into office two weeks ago.
“The FBI’s reputation and credibility have
suffered substantial damage, and it has affected
the entire Department of Justice,” Rosenstein
wrote. “I cannot defend the director’s handling of
the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary
Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his
refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment
that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees
that the director made serious mistakes; it is one
of the few issues that unites people of diverse
perspectives.”
But Democrats immediately linked the dismissal to the
Russia probe.
“The decision by a President whose campaign
associates are under investigation by the FBI for
collusion with Russia to fire the man overseeing
that investigation, upon the recommendation of
an Attorney General who has recused himself
from that investigation, raises profound questions
about whether the White House is brazenly
interfering in a criminal matter,” Rep. Adam B.
Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the
House Intelligence Committee, said in a
statement.
The House committee is looking into Russian interference
in the election.
Some Republicans were also concerned.
 “I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of
Director Comey’s termination,” said Sen. Richard
Burr (R-N.C.), head of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, which is also examining Russian
meddling. “I have found Director Comey to be a
public servant of the highest order, and his
dismissal further confuses an already difficult
investigation by the Committee.”
There were multiple calls by Democrats on Tuesday night
for the appointment of a special prosecutor to lead the
Russia investigation and take the matter out of the hands of
Justice Department leadership.
Rosenstein wrote in the memo that when Comey
announced on July 5 that he had decided not to
recommend charges in the Clinton case, he did so
“without the authorization of duly appointed
Justice Department leaders. Compounding the
error, the director ignored another longstanding
principle: we do not hold press conferences to
release derogatory information about the subject
of a declined criminal investigation . . . we never
release it gratuitously . . . It is a textbook example
of what federal prosecutors and agents are
taught not to do.”
Rosenstein was also critical of Comey’s decision to reveal
in late October that the Clinton email probe had resumed,
and he dismissed the FBI director’s recent defense to
Congress that not doing so would have effectively been to
“conceal” important information.
“ ‘Conceal’ is a loaded term that misstates the
issue,” Rosenstein wrote. “When federal agents
and prosecutors quietly open a criminal
investigation, we are not concealing anything; we
are simply following the longstanding policy that
we refrain from publicizing non-public
information. In that context, silence is not
concealment.”
In a letter to Trump, Sessions said that he agreed Comey
had to go.
“I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at
the leadership of the FBI,’’ Sessions wrote. “I
must recommend that you remove Director
James B. Comey, Jr. and identify an experienced
and qualified individual to lead the great men and
women of the FBI.’’
But in October — when Sessions was a senator supporting
Trump, and Comey revealed less than two weeks before
the election that he had reopened the investigation into
Clinton’s use of a private email server — Sessions
applauded the decision in an appearance on Fox Business
Network.
285
“He had an absolute duty, in my opinion, 11 days
or not, to come forward with the new information
that he has and let the American people know
that, too,” Sessions said at the time.
Nothing in the Rosenstein memo suggests that the Clinton
investigation will be reopened.
Tuesday afternoon, White House aide Keith Schiller, who
has long served Trump as a bodyguard, visited FBI
headquarters to hand-deliver Trump’s dismissal letter to
Comey’s office, although the director wasn’t there to
receive it, officials said.
Trump wrote to Comey:
“You are hereby terminated and removed from
office, effective immediately.’’
The president added:
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on
three separate occasions, that I am not under
investigation, I nevertheless concur with the
judgment of the Department of Justice that you
are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.’’
The news stunned Washington.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said Comey’s decisions
“have called into question the trust and political
independence of the FBI.’’
The senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee,
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, compared
Tuesday’s developments to the Watergate scandal and said
the actions
“reek of a coverup and appear to be part of an
ongoing effort by the Trump White House to
impede the investigation into Russian ties and
interference in our elections.’’
Over the past two years, Comey had assumed an
extraordinary role in Washington — overseeing not one,
but two investigations involving presidential candidates. In
some ways, that made him more powerful than the Justice
Department officials to whom he reported.
After Clinton lost to Trump, many Democrats blamed
Comey for what they viewed as his unprecedented
interference in the election process, but most later came to
see him as an independent figure in the Trump
administration who would be critical to a fair and thorough
investigation of any possible ties between Russia and
Trump associates.
Several current and former officials said the relationship
between the White House and the FBI had been strained
for months, in part because administration officials were
pressuring Comey to more aggressively pursue leak
investigations over disclosures that embarrassed the White
House and raised questions about ties with Russia.
That pressure was described as conversational challenges
to FBI leadership to pursue the source of leaks seen as
damaging to the administration, the officials said, speaking
on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal
deliberations. Although the FBI is investigating disclosures
of classified information, the bureau has resisted calls to
prioritize leak investigations over the Russia matter, or
probe matters that did not involve leaks of classified or
otherwise sensitive information, the officials said.
.
286
“The administration has been putting pressure on
the FBI to focus more on the leaks and weren’t
satisfied with the results,’’ said a former senior
U.S. official familiar with the matter. A current
official said administration figures have been
“very aggressive’’ in pressuring the FBI.
The Justice Department inspector general has been
investigating how Comey and his top deputy handled the
Clinton probe, though that investigation is expected to
continue for months.
Shortly before the announcement, the FBI notified
Congress by letter that Comey had misstated key findings
involving the Clinton email investigation during testimony
last week, but nothing about that issue suggested it might
imperil Comey’s job.
 Trump Fires FBI Director James Comey
Published Time: 9 May, 2017 21:48 Edited Time: 10 May, 2017 00:05
President Donald Trump has fired FBI Director James
Comey at the recommendation of US Attorney General
Jeff Sessions and Deputy Attorney General Rod
Rosenstein, according to a White House announcement.
287
"The FBI is one of our Nation's most cherished
and respected institutions and today will mark a
new beginning for our crown jewel of law
enforcement," said President Trump.
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on
three separate occasions, that I am not under
investigation, I nevertheless concur with the
judgment of the Department of Justice that you
are not able to effectively lead the Bureau,”
Trump told Comey in a letter.
The letter announcing the termination was hand-delivered
to FBI headquarters by Keith Schiller, a Trump security
aide, according to several reports citing a White House
official.
288
289
290
291
292
A search for a new permanent FBI Director will begin
immediately.
The firing of Comey comes days after he testified to
Congress on investigations into alleged Russian meddling
in the 2016 US election.
URGENT: #FBI director Comey: I have ‘never’
been anonymous source on #Clinton, #Trump
investigations
https://t.co/0CCO1CDdB3pic.twitter.com/KHMaR
eQLJ5
— RT America (@RT_America) May 3, 2017
Earlier Tuesday, the FBI wrote to Congress to correct
misstatements Comey made regarding a separate
investigation into Hillary Clinton's mishandling of
classified information.
Comey had testified that top Clinton aide Huma Abedin
had forwarded "hundreds and thousands" of emails to her
husband, former New York Congressman Anthony
Weiner, the FBI clarified that most of those emails had
been on his laptop via backup devices, while only a few
had been the result of forwarded emails, the Associated
Press reported.
Comey reportedly heard of the news from TV
reports while addressing FBI employees at the
Los Angeles field office, according to New York
Times reporter Michael Schmidt and New York
Magazine reporter Yashar Ali. Comey was due to
speak at an FBI recruiting event in Hollywood
Tuesday evening, but that speech has been
canceled.
. @nytmike's sources match with my source
pic.twitter.com/Ej3O4SSs6o
— Yashar (@yashar) May 9, 2017
In a memorandum to Sessions from Rosenstein,
the deputy attorney general wrote that over the
past year, "the FBI's reputation and credibility
have suffered substantial damage, and it has
affected the entire Department of Justice."
Deputy AG's memorandum on recommendation
to fire Comey takes issue w/ his handling of
#Clinton email investigation.
293
https://t.co/3emyAla8Vnpic.twitter.com/t17VKZE
ChY
— RT America (@RT_America) May 9, 2017
Rosenstein wrote that he could not defend
"the Director's handling of the conclusion of the
investigation of Secretary Clinton's emails, and I
do not understand his refusal to accept the
nearly universal judgment that he was mistaken."
"Almost everyone agrees that the Director made
serious mistakes; it is one of the few issues that
unites people of diverse perspectives," the
deputy attorney general added in the memo to
Attorney General Sessions.
Rosenstein cited the July 5, 2016 announcement by Comey
that the probe into Clinton had concluded without
prosecution, which Rosenstein said was not the function of
an FBI director, but rather the DOJ.
Rosenstein called Comey's press conference
"a textbook example of what federal prosecutors
and agents are taught not to do."
US Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-California) said in a
statement that Trump called her at 5:30pm and
"indicated he would be removing Director
Comey, saying the FBI needed a change."
Feinstein added that "the next FBI director must
be strong and independent and will receive a fair
hearing in the Judiciary Committee," of which
she is the ranking Democrat.
Acting as FBI director will be Andrew McCabe, who had
been the deputy director under Comey. Attorney General
Sessions is anticipated to name an interim replacement,
while the process to confirm a permanent replacement
takes shape.
Comey, 56, was appointed to head the FBI by former
President Barack Obama in September 2013. FBI directors
typically serve 10-year terms.
The only other time in US history an FBI director has been
dismissed was in 1993, when President Bill Clinton and
Attorney General Janet Reno pushed out William Sessions
amid ethical concerns.
 10 Major FBI Scandals On Comey's Watch
The FBI Interviewed Almost Every Terrorist Who Successfully Struck America
May 9, 2017
News just broke that President Trump is dismissing the
director of the FBI, James Comey.
Comey will inevitably be remembered for the controversial
role he played in the 2016 presidential election, where his
agency conducted surveillance of the Trump campaign as
well as investigated the Clinton camp for mishandling
classified materials, giving both sides arguments for how
the FBI ultimately swayed the vote.
But even before the 2016 campaign, the FBI endured a
number of humiliations under Comey's tenure. Most
damning were revelations that the FBI was generally
aware of almost every terrorist who successfully struck
America over the last eight years.
Here are 10 of Comey's biggest embarrassments at the
FBI:
1. Before he bombed the Boston Marathon, the FBI
interviewed Tamerlan Tsarnaev but let him go. Russia
sent the Obama Administration a second warning, but
the FBI opted against investigating him again.
2. Shortly after the NSA scandal exploded in 2013, the
FBI was exposed conducting its own data mining on
innocent Americans; the agency, Bloomberg reported,
retains that material for decades (even if no
wrongdoing is found).
3. The FBI had possession of emails sent by Nidal Hasan
saying he wanted to kill his fellow soldiers to protect the
Taliban -- but didn't intervene, leading many critics to
argue the tragedy that resulted in the death of 31
Americans at Fort Hood could have been prevented.
4. During the Obama Administration, the FBI claimed that
two private jets were being used primarily for
counterterrorism, when in fact they were mostly being
used for Eric Holder and Robert Mueller's business and
personal travel.
5. When the FBI demanded Apple create a "backdoor"
that would allow law enforcement agencies to unlock
294
the cell phones of various suspects, the company
refused, sparking a battle between the feds
and America's biggest tech company. What makes this
incident indicative of Comey's questionable
management of the agency is that a) The FBI jumped
the gun, as they were indeed ultimately able to crack
the San Bernardino terrorist's phone, and b) Almost
every other major national security figure sided with
Apple (from former CIA Director General Petraeus to
former CIA Director James Woolsey to former director
of the NSA, General Michael Hayden), warning that
such a "crack" would inevitably wind up in the wrong
hands.
6. In 2015, the FBI conducted a controversial raid on a
Texas political meeting, finger printing, photographing,
and seizing phones from attendees (some in the group
believe in restoring Texas as an independent
constitutional republic).
7. During its investigation into Hillary Clinton's
mishandling of classified material, the FBI made an
unusual deal in which Clinton aides were both given
immunity and allowed to destroy their laptops.
8. The father of the radical Islamist who detonated a
backpack bomb in New York City in 2016 alerted the
FBI to his son's radicalization. The FBI, however,
cleared Ahmad Khan Rahami after a brief interview.
9. The FBI also investigated the terrorist who killed 49
people and wounded 53 more at the Pulse Nightclub in
Orlando, Fla. Despite a more than 10-month
investigation of Omar Mateen -- during which Mateen
admitting lying to agents -- the FBI opted against
pressing further and closed its case.
10. CBS recently reported that when two terrorists sought
to kill Americans attending the "Draw Muhammad"
event in Garland, Texas, the FBI not only had an
understanding an attack was coming, but actually had
an undercover agent traveling with the Islamists, Elton
Simpson and Nadir Soofi. The FBI has refused to
comment on why the agent on the scene did not
intervene during the attack.
 Krauthammer: ‘Highly Implausible’ To Claim Comey
Was Fired For How He Handled Clinton Investigation
By Ian Hanchett
9 May 2017
On Tuesday’s broadcast of the Fox News Channel’s
“Special Report,” columnist Charles Krauthammer argued
that Deputy Attorney General Rod J. Rosenstein’s claim
that FBI Director James Comey should be fired due to his
mishandling of the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s
emails is “highly implausible.”
295
Krauthammer said, “[A]ccording to the letter by the deputy
attorney general, this is about something that occurred on
July the 5th. This, it’s — so we start out with something
that is highly implausible. If that was so offensive to the
Trump administration, what you would have done is, in the
transition, you would have spoken with Comey, and said,
we are going to let you go. That’s when a president could
very easily make a decision to have a change. That’s not
unprecedented. But to fire him summarily with no
warning, in the middle of May, because of something that
happened in July, is almost inexplicable.”
He continued, “Do we really believe that Donald Trump,
after all these months, decided suddenly he had to fire this
guy because he damaged Hillary back in July? Another
implausible conjecture.”
 Trump Changes His Twitter Banner To Include Tweet
Citing Former Intelligence Director Clapper Saying
There Is 'No Evidence Of Collusion' With Russia
President Trump Changed The Banner On His Twitter Profile Monday Night
He Added A Tweet About Clapper's Testimony To His Current Banner
Picture The Tweet Was Part Of Trump's Banner Pic For Three
Hours Before He Took It Down At Midnight
By Ann Schmidt For Dailymail.Com
Published: 02:07 EDT, 9 May 2017 | Updated: 08:36 EDT, 9 May 2017

President Donald Trump changed his Twitter banner

Monday night after the Senate Judiciary Committee
hearing.

During the hearing, Trump tweeted four times in ten

minutes, commenting on the testimonies from former
Attorney General Sally Yates and former Director of
National Intelligence James Clapper.

After the hearing, around 6.40pm, the President added one

of those tweets to his banner picture on his profile.

The tweet said: 'Director Clapper reiterated what

everybody, including the fake media already knows- there Former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper, left, and
is "no evidence" of collusion w/ Russia and Trump.' former Attorney General Sally Yates, right, gave testimony at the
Senate subcommittee hearing

After the Senate Judiciary Committee hearing on Monday
night, Trump changed his Twitter banner picture to include
one of his earlier tweets about the hearing.
He added that tweet to the bottom of his banner picture,
according to the New York Daily News. The picture, which
is still the banner on Trump's profile, is a photograph of
House Republicans celebrating the American Health Care
Act in the Oval Office.
Trump tweeted four times in ten minutes about the Yates and
Clapper's testimonies at the hearing
But the tweet was gone from the picture by midnight,
according to the Daily News. It only lasted for about three
hours.
Trump's tweet was referencing a moment in the hearing
when Senator Lindsey Graham asked Clapper if he stood
by his March 5 statement that there was 'no evidence' of

296
'collusion between members of the Trump campaign and 'The Russia-Trump collusion story is a total hoax,
the Russians'. when will this taxpayer funded charade end?'

Clapper confirmed that he did. 'Biggest story today between Clapper & Yates is
on surveillance. Why doesn't the media report on
Graham went on to ask Yates if she had any evidence of this? #FakeNews!'
collusion with the Russians.
Trump then stopped tweeting for the night.
Yates responded:

'My answer to that question would require me to

reveal classified information. And so, I — I can't
answer that.'

After that first tweet, Trump continued to tweet for the

next ten minutes.

He said:

'Sally Yates made the fake media extremely

unhappy today --- she said nothing but old news!'

297
 Trump Ax Falls
On FBI's Comey In Midst Of Russia Probe
By JULIE PACE And ERIC TUCKER - Associated Press
May 10, 2:35 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (AP) -- President Donald Trump abruptly
fired FBI Director James Comey Tuesday, dramatically
ousting the nation's top law enforcement official in the
midst of an FBI investigation into whether Trump's
campaign had ties to Russia's meddling in the election that
sent him to the White House.
In a letter to Comey, Trump said the firing was necessary
to restore "public trust and confidence" in the FBI. Comey
has come under intense scrutiny in recent months for his
public comments on an investigation into Democrat
Hillary Clinton's email practices, including a pair of letters
he sent to Congress on the matter in the closing days of
last year's campaign.
Trump made no mention of Comey's role in the Clinton
investigation, which she has blamed in part for the election
result. But in announcing the firing, the White House
circulated a scathing memo, written by Deputy Attorney
General Rod Rosenstein, criticizing Comey's handling of
the Clinton probe, including the director's decision to hold
a news conference announcing its findings and releasing
"derogatory information" about Clinton.
Since Attorney General Jeff Sessions recused himself from
the bureau's Trump-Russia probe, Rosenstein has been in
charge.
This is only the second firing of an FBI director in history.
President Bill Clinton dismissed William Sessions amid
allegations of ethical lapses in 1993.
Comey was speaking to agents at the FBI's field office in
Los Angeles when the news of his firing flashed on TV
screens, according to a law enforcement official who was
there. Comey initially chuckled, then finished his speech,
said the official who spoke to The Associated Press on
condition of anonymity because the official wasn't
authorized to discuss the situation publicly.
Comey later left on a plane to return to Washington.
Democrats slammed Trump's action, comparing it to
President Richard Nixon's "Saturday Night Massacre"
decision to fire the independent special prosecutor
overseeing the Watergate investigation in 1973, which
prompted the resignations of the Justice Department's top
two officials.
298
The Democrats expressed deep skepticism about the stated
reasons for Tuesday's firing, raising the prospect of a
White House effort to stymie the investigations by the FBI
and congressional panels.
"This is Nixonian," Sen. Bob Casey, D-Pa.,
declared on Twitter. "Outrageous," said Oregon
Sen. Ron Wyden, calling for Comey to
immediately be summoned to testify to Congress
about the status of the Trump-Russia
investigation.
Rep. Adam Schiff of California, top Democrat on the
House intelligence committee, said the White House was
"brazenly interfering" in the probe.
Republican Sen. John McCain of Arizona said Congress
must form a special committee to investigate Russia's
interference in the election.
Trump will now appoint Comey's successor. The White
House said the search for a replacement was beginning
immediately. Comey's deputy, Andrew McCabe, takes
over in the interim.
Trump has ridiculed the investigations as a "hoax" and has
denied that his campaign was involved in Russia's
meddling. In his letter to Comey, he asserted that the FBI
director had informed him "on three separate occasions
that I am not under investigation."
Tuesday's stunning announcement came shortly after the
FBI corrected aspects of Comey's sworn testimony on
Capitol Hill last week. Comey told lawmakers that Huma
Abedin, a top aide to Hillary Clinton, had sent "hundreds
and thousands" of emails to her husband's laptop,
including some with classified information.
On Tuesday, the FBI told the Senate Judiciary Committee
that only "a small number" of the thousands of emails
found on the laptop had been forwarded there while most
had simply been backed up from electronic devices. Most
of the email chains on the laptop containing classified
information were not the result of forwarding, the FBI
said.
Some lawmakers did welcome news of the dismissal.
 "Given the recent controversies surrounding the
director, I believe a fresh start will serve the FBI
and the nation well," said Republican Lindsay
Graham of South Carolina, chairman of a Senate
Judiciary subcommittee investigating the Russian
campaign interference.
Comey, 56, was nominated by President Barack Obama
for the FBI post in 2013 to a 10-year term, though that
appointment does not ensure a director will serve the full
term.
Praised frequently by both parties for his independence
and integrity, Comey has spent three decades in law
enforcement.
But his prominent role in the 2016 presidential campaign
raised questions about his judgment and impartiality.
Though the FBI did not recommend charges against
Clinton for mishandling classified information, Comey
was blisteringly critical of her decision to use a personal
email account and private internet server during her four
years as secretary of state.
Comey strongly defended his decisions during the hearing
last week. He said he was "mildly nauseous" at the thought
of having swayed the election but also said he would do
the same again.
Clinton has partially blamed her loss on Comey's
disclosure to Congress less than two weeks before Election
Day that the email investigation would be revisited.
Comey later said the FBI, again, had found no reason to
bring any charges.
Trump disagreed with Clinton's assessment, tweeting that
Comey actually
"was the best thing that ever happened to Hillary
Clinton in that he gave her a free pass for many
bad deeds!"
Clinton's advisers were stunned by Trump's decision
Tuesday. Former campaign spokesman Brian Fallon said
that while he believed Comey had
299
"inflicted severe damage" on the FBI, "the timing
and manner of this firing suggest that it is the
product of Donald Trump feeling the heat on the
ongoing Russia investigation and not a well
thought out response to the inappropriate
handling of the Clinton investigation."
Though Comey was well-liked within the bureau, his
independent streak occasionally rankled the Obama
administration, including his repeated contention that a
spike in violent crime might be linked to police officer
anxiety over public scrutiny.
Before the past months' controversies, Comey, a former
deputy attorney general in the George W. Bush
administration, was perhaps best known for a remarkable
2004 standoff with top officials over a federal domestic
surveillance program.
In March of that year, Comey rushed to the hospital bed of
Attorney General John Ashcroft to physically stop White
House officials in their bid to get his ailing boss to
reauthorize a secret no-warrant wiretapping program.
Comey described the incident in 2007 testimony to
Congress, explaining that he believed the spy program put
in place after the Sept. 11, 2001, terror attacks was legally
questionable.
When he learned that Andrew Card, the president's chief of
staff, and Alberto Gonzales, the White House counsel,
were heading to Ashcroft's hospital room despite
Ashcroft's wife's instructions that there be no visitors,
Comey told Congress, Comey beat them there and watched
as Ashcroft turned them away.
"That night was probably the most difficult night
of my professional life," Comey said.
---
AP writers Darlene Superville, Ken Thomas, Vivian
Salama, Catherine Lucey and Sadie Gurman in
Washington and Michael Balsamo in Los Angeles
contributed to this report.
 CNN Exclusive: Grand Jury Subpoenas
Issued In FBI's Russia Investigation
By Evan Perez, Shimon Prokupecz And Pamela Brown, CNN
Updated 5:52 AM ET, Wed May 10, 2017
Subpoenas issued in FBI's Russia investigation 01:25
Washington (CNN)Federal prosecutors have issued grand
jury subpoenas to associates of former National Security
Advisor Michael Flynn seeking business records, as part of
the ongoing probe of Russian meddling in last year's
election, according to people familiar with the matter.
CNN learned of the subpoenas hours before President
Donald Trump fired FBI director James Comey.
The subpoenas represent the first sign of a significant
escalation of activity in the FBI's broader investigation
begun last July into possible ties between Trump campaign
associates and Russia.
The subpoenas issued in recent weeks by the US
Attorney's Office in Alexandria, Virginia, were received
by associates who worked with Flynn on contracts after he
was forced out as director of the Defense Intelligence
Agency in 2014, according to the people familiar with the
investigation.
Robert Kelner, an attorney for Flynn, declined to
comment. The US Attorney's Office in Alexandria, the
Justice Department and the FBI also declined to comment.
Obama warned Trump about hiring Flynn
Investigators have been looking into possible wrongdoing
in how Flynn handled disclosures about payments from
clients tied to foreign governments including Russia and
Turkey, US officials briefed on the matter have told CNN.
The Flynn inquiry is one piece of the broader
investigation, which FBI Director James Comey testified
in a Senate hearing last week is led jointly by the
Alexandria US Attorney's Office and the Justice
Department's National Security Division.
Flynn was forced to resign as Trump's national security
advisor in February after failing to disclose the nature of
300
phone discussions with Russia's ambassador in
Washington, Sergey Kislyak.
Congressional investigators have also accused Flynn of
possibly breaking the law by not properly disclosing a
$45,000 payment for an appearance he made at an event in
Moscow to celebrate Russia Today. The Russian
government-funded news outlet that US intelligence
agencies say played a key role in disseminating stolen
emails intended to damage the candidacy of Hillary
Clinton in the 2016 presidential election.
Flynn's lawyer, Robert Kelner, has said that Flynn was not
hiding anything, noting that he briefed the DIA on his trip
to Russia.
"As has previously been reported, General Flynn
briefed the Defense Intelligence Agency, a
component agency of DoD, extensively regarding
the RT speaking event trip both before and after
the trip, and he answered any questions that
were posed by DIA concerning the trip during
those briefings," Kelner said in a statement.
In March, Flynn's lobbying firm registered as a foreign
agent for the Turkish government, under a $500,000
contract.
Flynn, a retired Army lieutenant general, emerged in 2015
as a strident critic of the Obama administration, which
fired him. He built a close relationship last year with then-
candidate Trump and became a frequent Trump campaign
surrogate before assuming a brief tenure as national
security advisor.
US Attorney Dana Boente, whose office issued the
subpoenas, is also leading the investigation into WikiLeaks
and the effort to bring possible charges against the group's
founder, Julian Assange. Boente is also acting as head of
the Justice Department's national security section.
The FBI interviewed Flynn about the December calls with
Kislyak and determined that he wasn't intentionally trying
to be deceptive about the nature of what was discussed,
according to US officials briefed on the investigation. But
investigators have been investigating Flynn's business ties
after he left the government and before he joined the
Trump administration.
 Updates And Reactions
To F.B.I. Director Comey’s Firing
By The New York Times
Updated 6:40 Am, May 10, 2017
 President Trump has fired James B. Comey, the F.B.I.
director, the White House spokesman Sean Spicer said
on Tuesday.
 Mr. Comey was delivering a speech in Los Angeles
when he learned he had been fired.
 His dismissal drew a quick rebuke from Democrats and
concern from several Republican lawmakers.
 Several lawmakers called for a special counsel to take
over the investigation into Russian meddling in the
election.
James B. Comey, the F.B.I. director, testifying before the Senate
Judiciary Committee last week. Credit Gabriella Demczuk for The
New York Times
Comey heard the news while giving a speech
Mr. Comey was addressing a group of F.B.I. employees in
Los Angeles when a television in the background flashed
the news that he had been fired.
In response, Mr. Comey laughed, saying he thought it was
a fairly funny prank.
Then his staff started scurrying around in the background
and told Mr. Comey that he should step into a nearby
office.
Mr. Comey stopped addressing the group. He proceeded to
shake hands with the employees he had been speaking to.
Then he stepped into a side office, where he confirmed that
301
he had been fired. At that point, he had not heard from the
White House.
Shortly thereafter, a letter from Mr. Trump was delivered
to the F.B.I.’s headquarters, just seven blocks from the
White House.
Mr. Comey’s day had begun in Florida, where he
spoke to a group of police officers. He then flew
to Los Angeles, where he was also scheduled to
speak at a diversity meeting.
— Michael S. Schmidt
Calls mount for a special counsel
Mr. Comey’s firing immediately fueled calls for an
independent investigator or commission to look into
Russia’s efforts to disrupt the election and any connections
between Mr. Trump’s associates and the Russian
government.
Calls to appoint an independent prosecutor have simmered
for months, but until now, they had been voiced almost
entirely by Democrats.
Mr. Comey’s firing upended the politics of the
investigation, and even Republicans were joining the call
for independent inquiries.
Subpoenas are issued in Flynn case
In a sign of the F.B.I.’s intense interest in Mr. Trump’s
advisers, a grand jury in Virginia recently issued
subpoenas for records related to the former White House
national security adviser, Michael T. Flynn, according to
an official familiar with the case.
Mr. Flynn is being investigated for his financial ties to
Russia and Turkey.
Grand jury subpoenas are a routine part of
federal investigations and are not a sign that
charges are imminent. And it was not clear
whether the subpoenas, first reported by CNN,
were related to Mr. Comey’s firing.
— Matt Apuzzo
Trump to meet Russian foreign minister
In an instance of bizarre timing and optics, the White
House announced late Tuesday night that Mr. Trump will
meet in the Oval Office with Sergey V. Lavrov, Russia’s
foreign minister, on Wednesday morning.
McCabe is acting director
Andrew G. McCabe at a press conference in 2015. Mr. McCabe
became the acting F.B.I. director after Mr. Comey was fired. Credit
Chip Somodevilla/Getty Images
At 7:57 p.m., F.B.I. employees received an email from
Attorney General Jeff Sessions officially announcing their
new boss.
“The president of the United States has
exercised his lawful authority to remove James
B. Comey Jr. as the director of the Federal
Bureau of Investigation,” the email read.
“By operation of law and effective immediately,
deputy director Andrew McCabe assumed the
position of acting director of the F.B.I. As you
well know, the F.B.I. is an exceptional law
enforcement and intelligence agency. It is made
so by you, the devoted men and women who
work tirelessly to keep our country safe. Thank
you for your steadfast dedication and
commitment during this time of transition.”
— Rebecca R. Ruiz
‘Why now?’
Senator Chuck Schumer of New York, the Democratic
leader, said Mr. Trump had called him earlier on Tuesday
to inform him of the firing.
“I simply said to him, ‘Mr. President, in all due
respect, you’re making a very big mistake,’” Mr.
Schumer recalled at a hastily arranged news
conference Tuesday evening. “And he didn’t
really answer.”
302
Mr. Schumer said the first question the administration
must answer was,
“Why now?”
“This investigation must be run as far away as
possible from this White House and as far away
as possible from anyone President Trump has
appointed,” he said of the inquiry into ties
between Mr. Trump’s associates and Russia.
He called for a special prosecutor to investigate
those ties and said that firing Mr. Comey
continued a “deeply troubling pattern” from the
administration, citing the removals of Sally Q.
Yates as acting attorney general and Preet
Bharara as United States attorney in Manhattan.
— Matt Flegenheimer
Trump accuses Schumer of a double standard
Mr. Trump took to Twitter late Tuesday to respond to Mr.
Schumer’s criticism, citing a comment Mr. Schumer made
in early November, shortly after the F.B.I. briefly reopened
its inquiry into Hillary Clinton’s use of a private email
server.
Cryin' Chuck Schumer stated recently, "I do not
have confidence in him (James Comey) any
longer." Then acts so indignant. #draintheswamp
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
10, 2017
Building a case
Senior White House and Justice Department
officials had been working on building a case
against Mr. Comey since at least last week,
according to administration officials. Mr.
Sessions had been charged with coming up with
reasons to fire him, the officials said.
— Michael S. Schmidt
‘This is Nixonian’
Senator Bob Casey, a Democrat who is up for re-election
next year in Pennsylvania, a state Mr. Trump won, said,
“This is Nixonian.”
He called for the deputy attorney general, Rod Rosenstein,
to
“immediately appoint a special counsel to
continue the Trump/Russia investigation.”
Mr. Casey drew a direct link between Mr. Comey’s
dismissal and the F.B.I.’s investigation into Russian
involvement in the election.
“On March 20, Director Comey said, ‘I have been
authorized by the Department of Justice to
confirm that the F.B.I., as part of our
counterintelligence mission, is investigating the
Russian government’s efforts to interfere in the
2016 presidential election, and that includes
investigating the nature of any links between
individuals associated with the Trump campaign
and the Russian government, and whether there
was any coordination between the campaign and
Russia’s efforts,’” Mr. Casey said.
“This investigation must be independent and
thorough in order to uphold our nation’s system
of justice.”
— Matt Flegenheimer
Or maybe not?
The Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum used
Twitter to issue a not-so-subtle rebuke to the idea that Mr.
Comey’s firing was “Nixonian.” Despite Nixon’s firing of
the Watergate special prosecutor in October 1973 and the
resignations of the attorney general and deputy attorney
general in the “Saturday Night Massacre,” he never fired
the F.B.I. director, the library said:
FUN FACT: President Nixon never fired the
Director of the FBI #FBIDirector #notNixonian
pic.twitter.com/PatArKOZlk
— RichardNixonLibrary (@NixonLibrary) May 9,
2017
Support from one top Senate Republican …
Senator Charles E. Grassley arrived for a Judiciary Committee
hearing where Mr. Comey testified last week. Credit Gabriella
Demczuk for The New York Times
303
Some of the reaction to the firing broke down along party
lines. Senator Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa and
chairman of the Judiciary Committee, said Mr. Comey’s
handling of the Clinton email investigation was:
... a clear example of how Comey’s decisions
have called into question the trust and political
independence of the F.B.I. In my efforts to get
answers, the F.B.I., under Comey’s leadership,
has been slow or failed to provide information
that Comey himself pledged to provide.
The effectiveness of the F.B.I. depends upon the
public trust and confidence. Unfortunately, this
has clearly been lost.
— Matt Flegenheimer
… but concern from others
Senator Richard M. Burr, a North Carolina Republican and
chairman of the Intelligence Committee, which is
investigating Russia’s role in the election, was among the
few Republicans to openly criticize Mr. Comey’s firing.
His voice is important because his committee’s inquiry has
been the party’s principal justification for resisting calls
for a special prosecutor.
My statement on the dismissal of FBI Director
Comey
https://t.co/ovoe34xajZ
pic.twitter.com/1hB0QveczE
— Richard Burr (@SenatorBurr) May 9, 2017
And Senator Jeff Flake of Arizona expressed concern
about the timing.
I've spent the last several hours trying to find an
acceptable rationale for the timing of Comey's
firing. I just can't do it.
— Jeff Flake (@JeffFlake) May 10, 2017
Senator sees ‘grave constitutional issues’
Speaking on the Senate floor, Senator Richard J. Durbin of
Illinois raised concerns about the firing and how it would
affect the investigation into Russian election meddling.
“Any attempt to stop or undermine this F.B.I.
investigation would raise grave constitutional
issues,” he said. “We await clarification by the
White House as soon as possible as to whether
this investigation will continue and whether it will
have a credible lead so that we know that it’ll
have a just outcome.”
 — Matt Flegenheimer
Rubio expects no effect on Senate inquiry
“I don’t think it will have an impact, certainly not
on the Intelligence Committee’s work,” said
Senator Marco Rubio of Florida, a Republican on
the committee. Asked whether Mr. Comey’s firing
would fuel calls for a special prosecutor, Mr.
Rubio demurred, saying, “That’s somebody
else’s decision to make.”
— Emmarie Huetteman
Trump didn’t ‘fire the entire F.B.I.’
In an interview on Fox News, Senator Susan Collins,
Republican of Maine and a member of the Senate
Intelligence Committee, noted that Mr. Trump did not “fire
the entire F.B.I.”
“He fired the director of the F.B.I.,” she said. “And
any suggestion that this is somehow going to
stop the F.B.I.’s investigation of the attempts by
the Russians to influence the elections last fall is
really patently absurd.”
— Thomas Kaplan
Trump aides take to TV
Facing a maelstrom of criticism, the White House took its
case to President Trump’s favorite arena: prime-time
television.
Kellyanne Conway, whose recent absence from the
airwaves was mocked on last weekend’s “Saturday Night
Live,” jousted with Anderson Cooper of CNN in an
extended and sometimes awkward interview, at one point
saying repeatedly, “It’s not a cover-up.”
Video by CNN
On Fox News, the deputy White House press secretary,
Sarah Huckabee Sanders, was asked by Tucker Carlson
why the White House had not waited to announce Mr.
Comey’s firing until Mr. Comey himself had been notified.
“Why sit on it?” Ms. Sanders replied.
304
Cable news coverage was dominated by
helicopter footage of Mr. Comey’s motorcade on
a freeway in Los Angeles, where he was headed
to the airport. The footage — standard in Los
Angeles-area local news — offered a strange
echo of the memorable low-speed chase
involving O. J. Simpson in 1994.
— Michael M. Grynbaum
Surprise in the briefing room
Reporters at the White House were taken by surprise when
Mr. Spicer, the press secretary, poked his head into the
briefing room and, after a bit of prodding, read a one-
sentence statement about the firing.
The news quickly spread to other reporters in the building,
who had begun preparing for the end of the day. A few
minutes earlier, the White House press office had declared
“a lid,” indicating that the president would not be traveling
or appearing for the rest of the day.
Within minutes, dozens of reporters had
descended on the small office where the press
assistants for the White House sit. The assistants
indicated that Mr. Spicer might come out to talk
to reporters later in the evening.
— Michael D. Shear
Trump and Sessions once backed Comey
James Comey with Attorney General Jeff Sessions in February.
Credit Yuri Gripas/Reuters
In the final days of the presidential campaign, while
Democrats were criticizing Mr. Comey for publicly
reopening the Clinton investigation, Mr. Trump had his
back. He said that what Mr. Comey had done “took guts.”
Those actions are now at the heart of Mr. Comey’s firing.
In an Oct. 28 interview with Lou Dobbs, Mr. Sessions,
then a senator from Alabama, said he supported Mr.
Comey’s decision to send a letter to Congress just days
before the election about newly discovered emails related
to the Clinton investigation.
Mr. Sessions said Mr. Comey “had an absolute
duty, in my opinion, 11 days or not, to come
forward with the new information that he has and
let the American people know that, too. So she is
under criminal investigation.”
— Matt Apuzzo and Adam Goldman
More coverage from The Times
 The firing raised the specter of political interference by
a sitting president in an existing investigation by the
nation’s leading law enforcement agency, and it
immediately ignited Democratic calls for an
independent prosecutor to lead the Russia inquiry.
 Mr. Trump’s decision drew instant comparisons to
President Richard M. Nixon’s firing of the special
prosecutor looking into the Watergate burglary that
would eventually bring him down.
 Read Mr. Trump’s letter to Mr. Comey, and the memos
from top Justice Department officials recommending
his dismissal.
 Mr. Comey’s ouster was the culmination of a slowly
unfolding and toxic dynamic between him and the
president.
305
 A memo recommending the dismissal, written by Rod
Rosenstein, the deputy attorney general, focused on
the continuing fallout from Mr. Comey’s handling of an
F.B.I. inquiry into Mrs. Clinton’s use of a private email
server as secretary of state.
 Investigations into the Clinton campaign’s emails and
possible Trump campaign ties to Russia dominated
much of Mr. Comey’s time at the F.B.I.
 In the F.B.I.’s 109-year history, only one director had
been fired — until Tuesday. In July 1993, President Bill
Clinton fired William S. Sessions, who had been
nominated to the post by President Ronald Reagan in
1987.
 Shortly before Mr. Comey was fired, the F.B.I. sent a
letter to the Senate Judiciary Committee clarifying
testimony he had delivered last week about how
classified information ended up on the laptop of the
disgraced former congressman Anthony D. Weiner.
 Finally, read our investigation, published in April, of Mr.
Comey’s involvement in the two investigations tied to
last year’s election.
 President Trump Fires FBI Director Comey
By Devlin Barrett, Adam Entous And Philip Rucker
May 10 At 7:35 AM
The Washington Post's Philip Rucker explains how and why FBI
director James Comey was fired, as well as how the FBI's
investigation of the Trump campaign's possible connections with
Russia may be impacted. (Whitney Shefte/The Washington Post)
President Trump fired FBI Director James B. Comey on
Tuesday, at the recommendation of senior Justice
Department officials who said he had treated Hillary
Clinton unfairly and in doing so damaged the credibility of
the FBI and the Justice Department.
The startling development comes as Comey was leading a
counterintelligence investigation to determine whether
associates of Trump may have coordinated with Russia to
interfere with the U.S. presidential election last year. It
wasn’t immediately clear how Comey’s ouster will affect
the Russia probe, but Democrats said they were concerned
that his ouster could derail the investigation.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions announced that Comey’s
deputy, Andrew McCabe, would be the acting director of
the FBI. As a presidential candidate, Trump explicitly
criticized Comey and McCabe for their roles in the Clinton
probe while at other points praising Comey for his “guts.”
“The president has accepted the
recommendation of the attorney general and the
deputy attorney general regarding the dismissal
of the director of the Federal Bureau of
Investigation,” press secretary Sean Spicer told
reporters in the White House briefing room. The
firing is effective “immediately,” he said.
On Wednesday, Trump shot back at Democrats outraged
by Comey’s firing, but did not give further details on the
White House decision.
“The Democrats have said some of the worst
things about James Comey, including the fact
306
that he should be fired, but now they play so
sad!” Trump wrote in a Twitter post.
Lawmakers react after President Trump fired FBI director James
Comey on May 9. (Victoria Walker/The Washington Post)
In a separate tweet, Trump said Comey had “lost the
confidence of almost everyone in Washington, Republican
and Democrat alike.”
“When things calm down, they will be thanking
me!” Trump wrote.
Trump also defended his action by claiming Comey would
be “replaced by someone who will do a far better job” and
restore “the spirit and prestige of the FBI.”
Comey was in Los Angeles on Tuesday on a recruiting
trip.
Officials said Comey was fired because senior Justice
Department officials concluded that he had violated Justice
Department principles and procedures last year by publicly
discussing the investigation of Hillary Clinton’s use of a
private email server. Democrats have long argued that
Comey’s decisions in the months and days before the
election hurt Clinton’s standing with voters and affected
the outcome, but the president and his closest advisers had
argued that Comey went too easy on Clinton and her aides.
Just last week, Trump publicly accused Comey of giving
Clinton “a free pass for many bad deeds’’ when he decided
not to recommend criminal charges in the case.
Officials released a Tuesday memo from the deputy
attorney general, Rod J. Rosenstein, laying out the
rationale behind Comey’s dismissal and attributing it all to
his handling of the Clinton case. Officials said Rosenstein
began examining Comey’s conduct shortly after being
sworn into office two weeks ago.
“The FBI’s reputation and credibility have
suffered substantial damage, and it has affected
the entire Department of Justice,” Rosenstein
wrote. “I cannot defend the director’s handling of
the conclusion of the investigation of Secretary
Clinton’s emails, and I do not understand his
refusal to accept the nearly universal judgment
that he was mistaken. Almost everyone agrees
that the director made serious mistakes; it is one
of the few issues that unites people of diverse
perspectives.”
Democrats skeptical
But Democrats immediately linked the dismissal to the
Russia probe.
“The decision by a President whose campaign
associates are under investigation by the FBI for
collusion with Russia to fire the man overseeing
that investigation, upon the recommendation of
an Attorney General who has recused himself
from that investigation, raises profound questions
about whether the White House is brazenly
interfering in a criminal matter,” Rep. Adam B.
Schiff (Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the
House Intelligence Committee, said in a
statement. The House committee is looking into
Russian interference in the election.
Some Republicans were also concerned.
“I am troubled by the timing and reasoning of
Director Comey’s termination,” said Sen. Richard
Burr (R-N.C.), head of the Senate Intelligence
Committee, which is also examining Russian
meddling. “I have found Director Comey to be a
public servant of the highest order, and his
dismissal further confuses an already difficult
investigation by the Committee.”
There were multiple calls by Democrats on Tuesday night
for the appointment of a special prosecutor to lead the
Russia investigation and take the matter out of the hands of
Justice Department leadership.
In an attempt to pressure Republicans to join calls for an
independent prosecutor, Senate Democrats have been
asked by Minority Leader Charles E. Schumer (D-N.Y.) to
be in the Senate chamber at 9:30 a.m. Wednesday when
the legislative day begins.
In a late-night tweet Tuesday, Trump targeted Schumer.
307
“Cryin’ Chuck Schumer stated recently, “I do not
have confidence in him (James Comey) any
longer.” Then acts so indignant.
#draintheswamp,” the president wrote.
Trump plans to meet with Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov on Wednesday. It will be the first face-to-face
contact between the president and a senior official of the
Russian government.
Rosenstein wrote in the memo that when Comey
announced on July 5 that he had decided not to
recommend charges in the Clinton case, he did so
“without the authorization of duly appointed
Justice Department leaders. Compounding the
error, the director ignored another long-standing
principle: we do not hold news conferences to
release derogatory information about the subject
of a declined criminal investigation . . . we never
release it gratuitously . . . It is a textbook example
of what federal prosecutors and agents are
taught not to do.”
Rosenstein was also critical of Comey’s decision to reveal
in late October that the Clinton email probe had resumed,
and he dismissed the FBI director’s recent defense to
Congress that not doing so would have effectively been to
“conceal” important information.
“ ‘Conceal’ is a loaded term that misstates the
issue,” Rosenstein wrote. “When federal agents
and prosecutors quietly open a criminal
investigation, we are not concealing anything; we
are simply following the long-standing policy that
we refrain from publicizing non-public
information. In that context, silence is not
concealment.”
In a letter to Trump, Sessions said that he agreed Comey
had to go.
“I have concluded that a fresh start is needed at
the leadership of the FBI,’’ Sessions wrote. “I
must recommend that you remove Director
James B. Comey, Jr. and identify an experienced
and qualified individual to lead the great men and
women of the FBI.’’
But in October — when Sessions was a senator supporting
Trump, and Comey revealed less than two weeks before
the election that he had reopened the investigation into
Clinton’s use of a private email server — Sessions
applauded the decision in an appearance on Fox Business
Network.
“He had an absolute duty, in my opinion, 11 days
or not, to come forward with the new information
 that he has and let the American people know
that, too,” Sessions said at the time.
Nothing in the Rosenstein memo suggests that the Clinton
investigation will be reopened.
Tuesday afternoon, White House aide Keith Schiller, who
has long served Trump as a bodyguard, visited FBI
headquarters to hand-deliver Trump’s dismissal letter to
Comey’s office, although the director wasn’t there to
receive it, officials said.
Trump wrote to Comey:
“You are hereby terminated and removed from
office, effective immediately.’’
The president added:
“While I greatly appreciate you informing me, on
three separate occasions, that I am not under
investigation, I nevertheless concur with the
judgment of the Department of Justice that you
are not able to effectively lead the Bureau.’’
Speaking to reporters Tuesday evening, Spicer said he did
not know what the three occasions were when Comey told
Trump that he wasn’t under investigation. Spicer also
rejected calls for a special prosecutor.
“Special prosecutor, for what? On multiple
occasions, they said that the president wasn’t
under investigation. What are we investigating?”
he said.
The news of Comey’s firing stunned Washington.
Sen. Charles E. Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said Comey’s decisions
“have called into question the trust and political
independence of the FBI.’’
The senior Democrat on the House Judiciary Committee,
Rep. John Conyers Jr. (Mich.), however, compared
Tuesday’s developments to the Watergate scandal and said
the actions
“reek of a cover-up and appear to be part of an
ongoing effort by the Trump White House to
impede the investigation into Russian ties and
interference in our elections.’’
308
Over the past two years, Comey had assumed an
extraordinary role in Washington — overseeing not one,
but two investigations involving presidential candidates. In
some ways, that made him more powerful than the Justice
Department officials to whom he reported.
After Clinton lost to Trump, many Democrats blamed
Comey for what they viewed as his unprecedented
interference in the election process, but most later came to
see him as an independent figure in the Trump
administration who would be critical to a fair and thorough
investigation of any possible ties between Russia and
Trump associates.
Strains over leak cases
Several current and former officials said the relationship
between the White House and the FBI had been strained
for months, in part because administration officials were
pressuring Comey to more aggressively pursue leak
investigations over disclosures that embarrassed the White
House and raised questions about ties with Russia.
That pressure was described as conversational challenges
to FBI leadership to pursue the source of leaks seen as
damaging to the administration, the officials said, speaking
on the condition of anonymity to discuss internal
deliberations. Although the FBI is investigating disclosures
of classified information, the bureau has resisted calls to
prioritize leak investigations over the Russia matter, or
probe matters that did not involve leaks of classified or
otherwise sensitive information, the officials said.
“The administration has been putting pressure on
the FBI to focus more on the leaks and weren’t
satisfied with the results,’’ said a former senior
U.S. official familiar with the matter. A current
official said administration figures have been
“very aggressive’’ in pressuring the FBI.
The Justice Department inspector general has been
investigating how Comey and his top deputy handled the
Clinton probe, though that investigation is expected to
continue for months.
Shortly before the announcement, the FBI notified
Congress by letter that Comey had misstated key findings
involving the Clinton email investigation during testimony
last week, but nothing about that issue suggested it might
imperil Comey’s job.
David Weigel, Ed O’Keefe, Jenna Johnson, Ellen
Nakashima and Brian Murphy contributed to this report.
 Comey’s Firing Means
Hillary Clinton Can Be Prosecuted
By Max McGuire
05/10/2017
This is the opening we have been waiting for. FBI Director
James Comey never intended to launch a real investigation
into Hillary Clinton’s crimes. The DNC’s own internal
memos prove that they were sure the Obama
administration would not allow the investigation to "go too
far."
James Comey found this memo during the investigation
and he buried it. He found evidence of collusion between
the Democrats and the Obama administration to put their
finger on the scale and he hid it away.
Loretta Lynch met with James Comey personally and
instructed him to stop referring to the Clinton investigation
as an “investigation.” Instead, she instructed him to start
referring to it as a “matter,” repeating the Clinton
campaign’s talking points that there was no criminal
investigation. Days after this meeting, Comey met with
reporters and referred to the investigation as a “matter,”
precisely how Lynch and the Clintons wanted them to.
Then, when it came time to recommend prosecution,
Comey reinterpreted the law to let Hillary off the hook.
Even though the law does not require intent to prosecute –
only gross negligence – Comey recommended Clinton not
be prosecuted because he couldn’t prove intent. It made
absolutely no sense. But now that we know he was
working with the Obama administration to repeat Clinton
campaign talking points, his actions make a lot more
sense…
Then, when it became obvious that some of Clinton’s
classified emails were being forwarded to Anthony
309
Weiner’s laptop, Comey once again let Clinton off the
hook. When Congress referred Hillary Clinton’s server
technician to the FBI for prosecution, Comey completely
ignored the referral.
Comey was told to go easy on Clinton and despite all the
evidence of her guilt, he still let her off the hook. But the
statute of limitations has not yet expired…
Now, he’s gone and it is time to finish this!
President Trump was gracious. He offered to move on
from the Clinton investigation. All Hillary needed to do
was just disappear off into the sunset. Instead, she is
launching a Super PAC to fight Trump at every turn.
Yesterday, White House Social Media Manager Dan
Scavino teased that he was going to release the video of
Hillary Clinton calling Donald Trump to concede the
election. The White House is going to show the world that
Hillary Clinton conceded defeat and wished the President-
elect success, only to turn around and commit to
undermining him.
Hillary Clinton is no longer off limits!
We know that Obama was protecting her. He's gone.
We know that Loretta Lynch was protecting her. She’s
gone.
James Comey took Lynch’s instructions to protect her.
He’s gone.
Now is the time to strike!
Send your urgent FaxBlast to Congress and FORCE them
to finish what they started and formally charge Hillary
Clinton with Contempt of Congress!
Hillary Clinton lied under oath. She told Congress that she
handed over all work-related emails and we know for a
FACT that the FBI discovered new, never-before-seen
classified emails on her private server. Clinton had tried to
delete them, but apparently not hard enough because they
were recovered.
Just last week, the State Department was forced to
publicize a few dozen classified emails that the FBI had
recovered.
The acting Director of the FBI is Andrew McCabe. If that
sounds familiar, it should. His wife received more than
half a million dollars from a Clinton ally to help her run
for state office. Andrew McCabe even appeared in a
campaign ad that was made using this Clinton money. This
donation came while McCabe was leading the
investigation into Clinton emails and he did not disclose
the conflict. He is just as crooked, if not more crooked,
than James Comey.
.
310
Congress has the authority to refer individuals to the FBI
for prosecution, but that is a dead end. McCabe will not
prosecute the family that gave his wife all that money.
But there is also a statute that allows Congress to bypass
the FBI and DOJ entirely. If Congress holds someone in
Contempt of Congress for lying under oath, refusing to
appear, or violating a subpoena, then the law requires that
the Attorney General "must" convene a Grand Jury.
Neither the FBI nor the DOJ would have the authority to
intervene.
We are calling on Congress to hold Hillary Clinton in
Contempt for lying under oath, but we need your help to
make it happen!
 Trump Fires Comey:
Spin Doctors Go Wild In The Swamp
By Jon Rappoport
May 10, 2017
In the political swamp that is Washington, and in the press
swamp, motor boats began speeding every which way in
the wake of Trump’s decision to fire FBI Director Comey.
People in the boats are holding up signs to explain the
reason for the firing.
The first sign was: COMEY LIED. Comey lied the other
day. He lied in testimony before Congress, when he said
Huma Abedin, Hillary Clinton’s long-time aide, had sent
“hundreds and thousands” of emails to her husband,
Anthony Weiner, some of which contained classified
information. The truth was, the FBI says, contradicting
Comey, a great many of those emails were merely “backed
up” on Weiner’s laptop via “backup devices.” Huh? Does
that actually mean something? Weiner obtained those
emails out of the sky, delivered by a chariot, and not from
Huma? Weiner’s laptop was serving as a storage device, a
personal little cloud? Somebody not connected to the
Hillary campaign was using the social-media’s porn star as
a backup for classified data? Who would that be? Putin?
Putin hacked the Hillary/DNC emails, and sent them to
both WikiLeaks and Anthony Weiner? “Hi Anthony. Vlad
here. Keep these thousands of emails for posterity.”
The next motor boat running through the swamp featured a
sign that said: COMEY SCREWED UP THE
HILLARY INVESTIGATION. This sign can be
interpreted several ways, depending on who is in the boat.
One, Comey didn’t press the investigation into Hillary’s
personal email server far enough last summer and fall. He
stalled it. He didn’t ask for an indictment. That’s why
Trump fired him yesterday. Trump didn’t fire Comey right
after he was elected president, when it would have been a
simple bye bye. No, Trump waited five months and then
lowered the boom. Sure.
The other meaning of COMEY SCREWED UP THE
HILLARY INVESTIGATION is:
Comey improperly told the world (last summer) that the
FBI was investigating Hillary. His announcement
influenced the election. The FBI is supposed to keep
absolutely quiet about ongoing investigations. Comey
didn’t. Then he publicly closed the book on the
investigation, opened it again, and closed it again. That’s
why Trump just fired him. Again, Trump waited five
months after the election and then got rid of Comey. And
311
of course, Trump was morally outraged that Comey
exposed Hillary in the first place, when Comey should
have remained silent. Sure. That makes a lot of sense.
The next motor boat speeding across the swamp held up a
big sign that said, TRUMP FIRED COMEY TO STOP
THE FBI FROM INVESTIGATING THE TRUMP-
RUSSIA CONNECTION. You see, for five months,
Trump happily left Comey in place, knowing Comey was
investigating him, Trump, and yesterday Trump had
enough of that, so he fired the FBI director. Right.
The next motor boat in the swamp held up a sign that said,
THIS IS NIXON ALL OVER AGAIN, THIS IS
TRUMP’S WATERGATE. The sign refers to the last
sign, but ups the ante. And there is another sign that says,
in the same vein, NOW WE CAN IMPEACH TRUMP.
And another one that says, APPOINT AN
INDEPENDENT COUNSEL TO INVESTIGATE THE
TRUMP-RUSSIA CONNECTION.
I’m waiting for Bob Woodward of Watergate fame to step
in and say, “It’s all right, folks, I’m on the case. I’ll handle
it. I was just eating lunch and sipping a fine wine in my
underground parking garage when a shadowy figure
stepped out of the gloom and whispered, ‘My throat is
deep, and I’ll spoon-feed you secrets for the next year, but
you’ll have to dig up the facts. Everybody is involved in
the cover-up. Comey, Sessions, Pence, Bannon, Conway,
Ivanka, Putin, Gorbachev, Yeltsin, Stalin.”
So why did Trump fire Comey yesterday?
I don’t know, but the short answer might be: Comey’s
boss, Attorney General Jeff Sessions, told Trump to get rid
of Comey. Sessions made the call.
Sessions now has a specific plan to make the FBI over in
the image he prefers. Sessions wants to shape the Bureau
according to his agendas. Sessions has looked into the
Bureau and he now knows which people he wants to fire.
He wants to get rid of the Obama crowd. He wants
loyalists. He doesn’t want a Dept. of Justice that is going
in one direction, while the FBI is going in another.
Sessions wants a predictable FBI. His own.
Joel Pollak, writing at Breitbart, has a simpler answer to
the question, why fire Comey now? Pollak writes:
“But why fire Comey now? The answer is
simple. The day before, President Barack
Obama’s former Director of National
Intelligence James Clapper repeated,
under oath, what he told NBC News’ Chuck
Todd on Meet the Press on March 5 — that
he had seen no evidence of collusion
between the Trump campaign and the
Russian government. That gave the Trump
administration the breathing room to
dismiss Comey — which it simply did not
have before.”
In other words, now Trump can’t be accused of firing
Comey to stop “the truth” emerging about a Trump-Russia
collusion, because there isn’t any collusion.
Theoretically, that might be the case—but the spin
machine doesn’t care about the truth or who is right and
.
312
who is wrong. The machine keeps running. Those motor
boats keep moving across the swamp. Signs come out.
People yell and scream.
Chuck Schumer may soon compare Trump to Benedict
Arnold.
For the past 65 years, the CIA has been infiltrating media
and promoting many messages. In certain cases, an op
involves promoting CONFLICTING messages, because
the intent is sowing discord, chaos, and division. In this
instance (Comey/Trump), it’s a walk in the park (or a ride
in the swamp). All sorts of people on both sides already
have steam coming out of their ears, without any nudging
or provocation.
A child could run this spin counter-spin op.
And we’re just getting started.
 Phoenix Trump Nazi Billboard
Funded With Taxpayer Dollars
MAY 11, 2017
A controversial billboard depicting President Donald
Trump as a Nazi was funded with taxpayer dollars and was
commissioned by an “arts advocate” paid by a U.S. city to
“diminish barriers,” records obtained by Judicial Watch
reveal. The massive billboard caused a ruckus when it was
unveiled in downtown Phoenix, Arizona in mid-March
because it features a menacing portrait of Trump
surrounded by mushroom clouds—in the shape of laughing
clowns—and swastikas modified as dollar signs. A pin of a
Russian flag appears on the president’s lapel.
The huge display towers over Grand Avenue and Taylor
Street in downtown Phoenix and will remain there
throughout Trump’s presidency, according to the local art
gallery that claims to own it and conveniently omits that
public money is involved. A multitude of local and
national media outlets covered the controversy
surrounding the artist that created it and the contentious
image it portrays, but all have failed to uncover the
important fact that taxpayer dollars are behind it. Instead,
the media has reported that the Trump Nazi billboard was
commissioned by the billboard owner, Beatrice Moore, a
longtime patron of the arts on Grand Avenue. Moore’s
deep ties to the city and the cash she receives for her
various public art endeavors have remained secret. The
news reports have also focused on the death threats that the
artist, Karen Fiorito, has received. A local paper reported
that the billboard went up during an annual art event and
that the artist aimed to stir up a controversy.
313
Mainstream national media also failed to report the
important fact that taxpayer dollars contributed to the
offensive billboard. The Washington Post opted to serve as
a mouthpiece for Fiorito’s anti-Trump tirade. In a piece
published days after the billboard controversy hit the artist
calls Trump supporters “scumbags” and says the country is
on a “very dangerous path” toward “total annihilation.” A
California news outlet focused on Fiorito’s death threats
and her interpretation of the art, which “represents global
destruction, warfare and annihilation of the planet.” The
dollar swastikas represent “corporate power and greed and
how our society has become all about money and
corporatism,” the artist says in the story.
Shortly after the billboard was erected Judicial Watch filed
a public records request with the city of Phoenix to obtain
details related to public monies connected to organizations
and organizers of the sign. This week Judicial Watch
received the documents that show the city of Phoenix has
awarded Moore, the Trump Nazi billboard owner and a
prominent figure in the local art community, thousands of
dollars in grants for a program she runs called Grand
Avenue Arts & Preservation (GAP), which encompasses
the Art Detour event where the Nazi billboard made its
debut. The publicly funded annual art celebration is touted
as having “a diverse slate of activities created by local
artists and art venues to celebrate the growing, vibrant
Phoenix arts scene” and is described as “…one of the most
important events in Phoenix’s calendar” by Phoenix Mayor
Greg Stanton. The event is produced by a group called
Artlink, which was founded by Moore, in partnership with
the city of Phoenix. Former Phoenix Deputy City Manager
Rick Naimark, who retired in 2015 with a hefty pension,
sits on the board of Artlink.
Moore and her various publicly-funded art enterprises
received $3,500 from the city of Phoenix in July 2016, the
records obtained by Judicial Watch show, which
encompasses the March 2017 Art Detour event that kicked
off with the Trump Nazi billboard. In August 2016 Artlink,
founded by Moore, was awarded $1,800 for the 2017 Art
Detour event, according to the records. Moore, who
contracted Fiorito to create the anti-Trump billboard, is
recognized by the city as an “artist, community organizer
and arts advocate” and the annual festival she puts together
with public money aims to “diminish barriers,” the records
say. Funds come from “government grant monies,”
including the Arizona Commission on the Arts, and the
money is used for “artists’ fees.” The objectionable Trump Phoenix and seems to fall short of Moore’s stated goal of
billboard, which involves taxpayer money, doesn’t appear “diminishing barriers” through art.
to promote a “growing, vibrant” art scene in the City of
.

314
 Michael Snyder Is Calling For An Army Of Pro-Trump
Activists To Run For Office All Over America
By Michael Snyder
May 11th, 2017
It is really easy to sit back and complain about the
direction of this country, but what America really needs at
this hour are men and women that are willing to step into
the fight to save our constitutional republic. As I have said
before, getting Donald Trump elected was the greatest
miracle in U.S. political history, but he should not have to
wage this battle alone. Trump has very few friends in
Congress at this point, and so it is absolutely critical that
we get him some during the 2018 mid-term elections. So I
am calling for an army of pro-Trump activists to run for
national, state and local offices all over America in 2018.
Donald Trump started this revolution, and now it is our job
to continue it.
My father was in the U.S. Navy, and so sometimes I like to
put things in military terms. When an amphibious
invasion is being conducted, it is the troops that hit the
beach first that take the most fire. To me, that is a perfect
picture of what is happening to Donald Trump right now.
He has established a beachhead, and now the rest of us
need to rush to shore to back him up.
If we are not willing to try, what is going to happen? Our
political system on the national, state and local levels will
continue to be dominated by Democrats and “progressive
Republicans”, and our once great nation will continue to
fall apart all around us.
We need patriotic men and women to challenge every
available seat in America in 2018. Some of us will win
and others will lose, but at least we will have given the
American people a choice.
We are never going to have a true political revolution if we
don’t at least try, and this election cycle represents a
315
tremendous opportunity. I really like how Rush Limbaugh
made this point during one of his programs…
Do you realize what a nothing burger the Democrat Party
is? Do you realize the Democrat Party literally has nothing
virtuous, positive, uplifting to run on? In all of this, the
Democrat Party dares not ask people, “Hey, take a look at
us. We got better ideas. Hey, take a look at us. We can fix
this.” None of that. The only thing they’ve got is this
insane, invisible, nonexistent, so-called connection
between the Russians and our election. They have no
ideas. They have no optimism. They have no leaders. They
have no vision. They are ripe for being smoked for
generations! This is the time to move in politically and
wipe them out. …
Don’t misunderstand here, folks. I’m not saying the
Democrats don’t pose a threat. I’m not… Look, two things
here. The Democrats are in deep trouble, electorally. The
Democrats are not running the left; the media is. And the
media is clearly not inconsequential. Don’t misunderstand.
I’m not saying that what’s happening here is obviously to
everyone. I’m saying the Republican Party has a golden
opportunity here to continue to hammer the nail into the
coffin of the Democrat Party.
Our founders intended for us to have a constitutional
republic with a limited central government, but the
globalists have turned the federal government into an
absolute monster. We need to tame that monster and
restore the constitutional republic that our founders
originally designed.
The easy route would be to sit back and wait for someone
else to do something.
But I have decided not to do that.
Earlier today, I announced on the Alex Jones Show that I
am “strongly considering” running for Congress in 2018…
On Tuesday, U.S. Representative Raul Labrador
announced that he will not seek another term because he
plans to run for governor in Idaho.
Labrador represents the district in which my wife and I
live, and when I heard this news I realized that this
represents a truly unique opportunity.
Congressman Labrador has been doing a wonderful job,
and if he had run again he would have won by a landslide.
But now that he is not running, there is no incumbent and
the race is entirely wide open.
If I decide to run, and I am very strongly leaning in that
direction, the key to the race will be to win the Republican
primary. Hillary Clinton got only 27.5 percent of the vote
in Idaho last November, and Labrador won his last election
by more than 120,000 votes. So whoever wins the
Republican primary will almost certainly win the general
election.
Donald Trump has shown us that nothing is impossible in
politics. When he first declared his candidacy, liberal
pundits literally laughed at him on the air because they
thought his candidacy was such a joke. But his bold
message struck a chord with conservative voters all over
the country, and now he is the president of the United
States.
If he can do it, why can’t we?
If I run, I plan to continue the absolutely outstanding work
that Congressman Labrador has been doing, and I plan to
be a key ally for President Trump in Congress. Right now
Trump has very few friends in Congress, and that
desperately needs to change.
.
316
In recent years, the House has lost some tremendous
conservative voices. I plan to continue the legacy of Ron
Paul, Michele Bachmann and so many others that stood
strong for conservative causes at a time when it was not
always popular to do so.
But if I am going to do this, I am going to need lots of
assistance. If you have experience with campaigns on a
state or local level, or if you just want to help out any way
that you can, please feel free to drop me an email or
contact me on Facebook. I have never run for office
before, and so I have a lot to learn, and I greatly value the
advice and counsel of others.
Also, if there are other pro-Trump activists out there that
plan on running in 2018, we should definitely connect. If
we all work to promote one another, we can create a giant
groundswell of momentum which could sweep a whole
bunch of pro-Trump activists into political positions all
around the country.
For a long time I have been writing about the great
problems that this nation is facing, and now I am trying to
be part of the solution.
It has been said that life is like a coin. You can spend it
any way that you want, but you can only spend it once.
As for me and my house, we are going to spend our lives
doing things that really matter.
 WikiLeaks Offers "US$100k
For The Trump-Comey Tapes"
By Tyler Durden
May 12, 2017 2:01 PM

Following what many have described as a threat from
President Trump earlier this morning directed at former
FBI Director James Comey, WikiLeaks has just blasted out
the following tweet offering a $100,000 reward for the
"Trump-Comey tapes." Moreover, folks who want to up
the reward are encouraged to send bit coins.
"WikiLeaks offers US$100k for the Trump-
Comey tapes. To increase the
reward send Bitcoin to reward address:
1FfzC3KrbrJ3CRbz4hqHnxSqvYfy9M5CT"
WikiLeaks offers US$100k for the Trump-Comey
tapes. To increase the reward send Bitcoin to
reward address:
1FfzC3KrbrJ3CRbz4hqHnxSqvYfy9M5CT
pic.twitter.com/CJInYx4fcw
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) May 12, 2017
.
Of course, the message is a direct response
to Trump's tweet from earlier which implied
that there may in fact be recordings of his
conversations with Comey.
James Comey better hope that there are no
"tapes" of our conversations before he starts
leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
12, 2017
For a White House that has been plagued with leaks from
day 1, we have to imagine this added incentive is
somewhat concerning for a Presidency under siege from
all angles.

317
 Trump Threatens Comey Not To Leak To The Press:
"Better Hope There Are No Tapes"
By Tyler Durden
May 12, 2017 4:00 PM
Update: according to CNN, James Comey is "not
worried" about President Trump's suggestion that
conversations between the two of them could have been
taped.
"If there is a tape, there's nothing he is worried
about," a source familiar told CNN, although
when it comes to CNN and anonymous sources,
one probably should apply a healthy truth
discount.
Meanwhile, NBC News said on Friday that the ousted FBI
chief "hopes there are tapes" citing another anonymous
source:
"That would be perfect."
***
In the most Nixonian-sounding comment yet during this
week's craziness, President Trump, clearly angry about the
leaking sieves that are the White House and the US Intel
Community, just issued a cryptic threat to former FBI
Director Comey, warning in no uncertain terms about
retaliation should the leaks continue and saying the fired
FBI director should hope there are no recordings of their
conversations.
James Comey better hope that there are no
"tapes" of our conversations before he starts
leaking to the press!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
12, 2017
Several overnight reports from FBI "sources" emerged
which contradicted former Trump’s account of a meeting
he had with Comey earlier this year, a development which
has clearly pushed Trump close to the edge. Recall that
during his NBC interview on Thursday, Trump said that
Comey had requested a dinner with him during which he
asked to stay on as the FBI head. Trump also said Comey
told him three times — twice over the phone and once at
their dinner meeting — that he was not the subject of any
FBI investigations. FBI officials however denied Trump's
claims and said that the dinner meeting was requested by
the White House, and a former senior FBI official said
318
Comey would have never told the president he was not
under investigation.
Additionally, the New York Times cited “two people who
have heard his account of the dinner” who said Comey was
asked by Trump for his loyalty at the dinner. The then-FBI
head reportedly responded that he would offer his honesty
but not political loyalty.
Earlier on Friday, Trump said that no one should expect
his White House to give completely accurate information.
“As a very active President with lots of things
happening, it is not possible for my surrogates to
stand at podium with perfect accuracy!” he wrote
on Twitter.
“Maybe,” he added a few moments later, “the
best thing to do would be to cancel all future
‘press briefings’ and hand out written responses
for the sake of accuracy??
As the NYT amusingly adds,
"Trump’s mention of tapes did nothing to dispel
the echoes of Watergate heard in Washington
this week. His dismissal of Mr. Comey in the
midst of an investigation into Mr. Trump’s
associates struck many as similar to President
Richard M. Nixon’s decision in October 1973 to
fire Archibald Cox, the Watergate special
prosecutor, in an incident that came to be known
as the Saturday Night Massacre."
Trump’s defenders have said Watergate comparisons are
overwrought and that there is no evidence of collusion
between Mr. Trump’s campaign and Russia during last
year’s election. American intelligence agencies have
concluded that Russia attempted to meddle in the
campaign with the aim of tilting the election to Mr. Trump.
And speaking of tapes, it is probably safe to assume that
they indeed exist, nd their "leaking" will provide the next
and even more entertaining iteration of this particular
dumpster fire.
Separately, Trump continued his angry Friday morning
tweetfest, and clearly troubled by the relentless allegations
of Russian interference, asked
"When James Clapper himself, and virtually
everyone else with knowledge of the witch
hunt, says there is no collusion, when does it
end?"
.
319
Well, if nothing else works, he can always bomb Syria
again to find out.
When James Clapper himself, and virtually
everyone else with knowledge of the witch hunt,
says there is no collusion, when does it end?
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
12, 2017
 BREAKING: FBI Source
Drops Comey Bombshell, People Are Going To Prison
May 12, 2017
The deep state has been working overtime to dismantle the
Trump presidency. These unelected bureaucrats threaten
the integrity of our democracy, and the mainstream media
is protecting them.
Thankfully, there are still some honest journalists willing
to expose the deep state swamp creatures.
Washington reporter Jack Posobiec
announced that his FBI sources say that
Comey dropped the Susan Rice
investigation because it would have
implicated himself. Look out, Comey!
(via Investment Watch Blog)
The deep state operatives infesting the swamp and the
mainstream media have been working together to
undermine the Trump presidency. The Susan Rice
investigation was mysteriously dropped with no further
inquiry. We demand the truth.
Unfortunately, when the mainstream media has a story
they don’t like, they simply ramp up the news cycle. The
Susan Rice investigation was forgotten because of the
media’s leftist strategies. The deep state loved it.
With these two anti-American groups working together,
they will completely undermine our democracy. At least
Donald Trump plans to drain the swamp. With Trump in
office, these deep state operatives will be charged for
.
320
breaking the law, and the mainstream media will have no
more leaks to rely on.
Meanwhile, the corrupt Democrats are celebrating their
petty victories. With the deep state and the mainstream
media working together, the radical Left is gaining ground.
We cannot allow these leftist radicals to overtake our
government.
The American people have rejected liberalism. The silent
majority voted for Trump, not Clinton. We don’t want
these deep state Obama holdovers infesting our
government. We don’t want to listen to the mainstream
media’s pathetic lies.
These anti-American forces have come together to form
the perfect storm of political mischief. We need to support
Trump as he pushes back against extremist Democrats.
After eight years of Obama, the sheer amount of deep state
operatives is terrifying. There are so many operatives
working against Trump — I’m surprised entire
departments haven’t been replaced. We need to hold
Obama accountable for his anti-American policies and
hiring decisions.
The Obama era left our government in a bloated and
confused state, but Trump is going to fix the Obama mess.
He is going to trim back the size of government, so that
even if a Democrat gets into office, they won’t easily be
entrenched in the swamp.
The deep state needs to be purged, and Donald Trump is
the man for the job. We will drain the swamp, and clean
our the halls of our Capitol. The mainstream media hates
this. They don’t want to lose their leaks.
The mainstream media and the deep state are in trouble.
We cannot wait to witness the end of the swamp.
 As Clinton Blames Comey & Russia, Authors Of
“Shattered” Expose Aimless Campaign
Source: The Real News
Published: May 13, 2017
AARON MATE: It’s The Real News, I’m Aaron Mate.
For many, the shock of the 2016 US election has not yet
worn off, and major stories like the Trump/Russia
investigation, and now the firing of James Comey, keep
that historic campaign fresh on our minds. At a recent
event, Hillary Clinton gave her most extensive explanation
to date for her loss to Donald Trump.
HILLARY CLINTON: It wasn’t a perfect campaign.
There is no such thing, but I was on the way to winning
until a combination of Jim Comey’s letter on October 28th
and Russian WikiLeaks raised doubts in the minds of
people who were inclined to vote for me but got scared off.
AARON MATE: Well, a new book offers a different take
on Clinton’s loss. It’s an inside, extensive account of the
campaign’s struggles and that starts with the failure to
hone Clinton’s core message, including even her reason for
running. The book is “Shattered: Inside Hillary Clinton’s
Doomed Campaign,” and I’m joined now by one of its co-
authors, Jonathan Allen, a columnist for Rollcall. Jonathan,
welcome.
JONATHAN ALLEN: My pleasure to be here.
AARON MATE: There are a number of revelations in
your book, but I’ve got to say the one that I was most
shocked by was your reporting that the campaign couldn’t
come up for a reason for Hillary to run. That’s just
shocking. Can you talk about how you found that out and
what you found?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Sure. We talked to a lot of people
that worked on her messaging and other parts of the
campaign, and they said they too were surprised that after
321
running for President for almost 10 years, she still didn’t
have a clearly articulable reason … Funny I hesitated there
on the word “articulable” but a clearly articulable reason
for running for President. The sort of, “Why her, why
now?” questions. One of her senior aides even said to me
and my co-author, “I would have had a reason for running
or I wouldn’t have run.”
AARON MATE: He’s joking when he says that?
JONATHAN ALLEN: No, he means it. He means that it
was not clearly defined even to the people who worked for
her why she was running for President. The very simple
thing, the one big idea or set of small things that fit into the
same sort of bucket of why voters should look to Hillary
Clinton now as the person who can lead the United States
forward and provide the kind of change from the status
quo that voters were looking for.
AARON MATE: And yet, the struggled so hard over
policy, they focus grouped everything, tweets were
extensively debated. Why was it so difficult to come up
with a core message about why the candidate was running
for President?
JONATHAN ALLEN: In some ways, I think it was over
saturation of policy. This is somebody who sat down
before she even really launched her campaign and worked
out a whole set of policy ideas with her advisors, and I
think she tried to build a message from all of that policy
and tried to put some glue in between all of those things.
Amy and I have said before that in the campaign
headquarters, there was a wall that said, “Hillary is for”
and then there were Post-it notes all over the place saying,
“Hillary’s for the economy. Hillary’s for debt free tuition.
Hillary’s for X, Y, and Z,” and the thing that somebody
said to Amy was if you’re for everything, you’re for
nothing.
I think that was the problem. If you look at Bernie Sanders
or Donald Trump by contrast, each of them had a very
easy idea to understand. For Bernie Sanders, it was that
money and power should be moved away from the wealthy
and toward everyone else. For Donald Trump, it was his
brand of nationalism, cracking down on illegal
immigration, building a wall between the United States
and Mexico, coming back from foreign engagements and
included in that, rewriting or canceling out trade
agreements. It was pretty easy to figure out what those two
guys were about, and most of their other policies fit into
those ideas.
With Hillary Clinton, there were a million scattershot
policy ideas, and she’s certainly a master of those details,
but it was hard to really define what she was about in a
simple and easy for voters to swallow way.
AARON MATE: There’s a really striking anecdote that
you have in the book where Hillary Clinton is speaking to
a close advisor and she says, “I don’t understand what’s
happening with the country. I can’t get my arms around
this.” How was it that someone who was so experienced in
politics and so well versed in policy and what’s happening
in the country couldn’t understand the prevailing anger
with the political and economic system?
JONATHAN ALLEN: It’s really a telling moment in this
campaign. Hillary Clinton has been walled off from
regular people for lack of a better term, for quite a while,
as Secretary of State, as a senator, as First Lady. I think
she could tell people were angry but I’m not sure she was
ever able to really get why or certainly was not able to
offer them something that made them believe she was
willing to break down the system rather than trying to
change it subtly from within.
AARON MATE: Let’s hone in one one state where this
dynamic plays out, Michigan. I first want to play a clip
from Donald Trump during the Republican primary where
he predicted that he would take Rust Belt states like
Michigan. Here he is.
DONALD TRUMP: With me, I add a lot of states that
aren’t even in play for anybody else. I mean, I add all of
the Rust Belt states. I own states that … I will get states
that are unbelievable, that are unthinkable for the
Republican party.
AARON MATE: That’s Donald Trump saying he’s going
to win Rust Belt states, and low and behold, he does,
including in a place like Michigan. Jonathan, your book
goes into detail about how the Clinton campaign handled
Michigan and another one of your astonishing revelations
is that the campaign decided that they didn’t want to
contest in states like Michigan where they felt the more
attention Hillary got, the more attention they’d call to the
election, and the worse he chances would get because her
message just wasn’t reaching voters. Can you talk about
this?
JONATHAN ALLEN: It’s really astounding. During the
primary, she and her husband were sent to population
centers, to Detroit, to Flint, and not so much into the
suburbs where you had white working class voters, and the
more her … This is according to the people we talked to
for the book, this is according to campaign staffers and
322
people around the campaign. The more she went and
focused on voters in cities, particularly African American
voters and Latino voters, she ended up alienating some of
the white working class and her message wasn’t resonating
with them. They cared about three things: trade, trade, and
trade, and her position on trade was much more nuanced
than that of Bernie Sanders or that of Donald Trump, both
of whom were basically just opposed to it.
After the Michigan primary, her team decided that it really
wasn’t helping her to get extra voters at, particularly extra
voters in the white working class suburbs outside Detroit,
and so they decided that they really didn’t want to send her
to Michigan, because they believed that the more she
showed up there, the more people would be aware of the
election, the more people who were loosely affiliated
voters would actually show up and that that would be bad
for her. She mostly stayed out of Michigan for the general
election. I think she made a trip to Grand Rapids right at
the end, but it’s kind of the same reasoning for them not
having gone to Wisconsin at all.
AARON MATE: Yeah, the quote you have from a
campaign staffer on Michigan is, “Every time there was a
mention of the election there, we did worse. To make the
election a bigger deal was not good for our prospects in
Michigan.” But given that she lost the primary to Sanders
so badly, was there ever thought to saying, “Hey, maybe
we should rethink our message. Maybe we should come
out more strongly against things like TPP?”
JONATHAN ALLEN: There were a ton of people on the
ground in Michigan telling the campaign that they needed
to do just that, and also that they needed to show up and
that they needed to try to persuade people. The campaign
manager, Robby Mook, had basically given up on
traditional methods of persuasion, so instead of trying to
persuade people who didn’t agree with her, he spent all of
his time and energy and money on trying to find people
who already agreed with her, getting them out to the polls.
That didn’t work in a lot of states.
You could see huge follow off from Democrats in
particular areas of the country, 70,000 fewer votes in
Milwaukee, for example, in 2016, compared to 2008. They
gambled big on turning out the base and abandoning
persuasion, and those who defend that decision, they can
say, “It was hard for Hillary Clinton to persuade people
after all this time in the public eye.” There weren’t very
many people, they thought, who could be persuaded, who
were on the fence or even mildly opposed to her.
AARON MATE: That’s one of the fascinating things that I
learned from your book, which is that the Clinton
campaign approach is not to try to reach people to
persuade them and try to speak to their concerns, but just
to mobilize those who they feel were already on their side.
You mentioned Robby Mook, the campaign manager.
Let’s talk about his approach a little bit. Instead of trying
to reach people with policy, he focused heavily on data
analytics. Can you tell us about that?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Sure. I mean, data analytics
actually means a whole lot of things, but one of the things
it means is they’re essentially slicing and dicing the
electorate, trying to figure out what the most efficient way
is to reach voters, trying to figure out which voters are
with them, how they can find all the voters who agree with
them and mobilize them. They also learn about what’s
most effective in terms of television advertising or on the
ground efforts to get people out to the polls. Mook was
obsessed with efficiency, he was always concerned the
campaign was going to run out of money. They raised a
billion dollars and still always felt like they were on a
shoestring, so he thought that it was most effective to try to
get people to turn out because it cost less money, and also
because he believed it was difficult to persuade voters to
come over to Hillary Clinton.
AARON MATE: You have a fascinating account in your
book where former President Bill Clinton is trying to
appeal to Mook and saying, “Listen, you need to campaign
more in the Rust Belt and appeal to the concerns of
working class voters,” and Mook responds, “The data run
counter to your anecdotes.”
JONATHAN ALLEN: Yeah, I mean, this was a long
running point of tension between President Clinton and
Mook, and Hillary Clinton went with her campaign
manager over her husband. Bill Clinton kept telling them,
“You’ve got to get out there, we’ve got to talk start talking
to people, we’ve got to acknowledge their anger and their
fear,” and we saw that a little bit with President Clinton in
October when he said that Obamacare is the craziest thing,
and was basically talking about some of the premium
spikes. People were feeling that all across the country, the
campaign wasn’t really acknowledging it, I think in large
part because they didn’t want to separate from Barack
Obama or separate from the democratic orthodoxy which
is that Obamacare was essentially perfect. Might need a
tweak here or there, but really wasn’t [inaudible 00:11:18]
and problematic.
Bill Clinton got his knuckles wrapped by the campaign.
They said that this was a mistake on his part, when in fact
it sounded like he was just talking to voters in the way they
thought.
AARON MATE: Another way to reach voters could have
been picking a Vice Presidential running mate who would
appeal to the concerns of the working class more than Tim
Kaine. You write that Elizabeth Warren was considered for
this role, but ultimately was rejected. What happened
there?
323
JONATHAN ALLEN: One of the revelations in this book
was that Hillary Clinton was very upset with or
disappointed in her shortlist for Vice Presidential
candidates, which included Kaine and Agriculture
Secretary Tom Vilsack and New Jersey Senator Cory
Booker, and she was looking to shake things up a little bit,
looking to put a little magic on her ticket, and she started
talking to Elizabeth Warren more. She sat down with
Warren more, went out on the campaign trail for her.
There was a little movement inside the campaign for
Warren, and ultimately, what we were told by people who
were familiar with the decision making was that Clinton
decided that she hadn’t enough of a background of
transactions with Elizabeth Warren.
They hadn’t really gotten to know each other in the
political world enough, and I think there was some concern
that Warren might get into office and grandstand if she
disagreed with Hillary Clinton. Of course, I think if she
could go back, she wouldn’t think so much about who was
her partner in office, and maybe more about who could get
her into office.
AARON MATE: You write about how a major strategy for
the campaign was to try to turn out African American
voters, both in the primary and the general. This in some
ways contrasts with the message that we got from Clinton
in 2008, when I remember she bragged about her appeal to
white Americans and the white working class during her
primary run against President Obama, but for this
campaign, she had a much different message and what’s
interesting is that she actually started off her effort with a
policy speech that addressed the issue of mass
incarceration. Let’s go to a clip of that.
HILLARY CLINTON: It’s time to change our approach.
It’s time to end the era of mass incarceration. We need a
true national debate about how to reduce our prison
population while keeping our communities …
AARON MATE: Jonathan, this was obviously a big issue
for the Clintons. They faced a lot of criticism from Black
Lives Matter activists because of Bill Clinton’s policies,
overseeing an expansion of mass incarceration, also
gutting welfare. It was striking that this topic of criminal
justice reform was the Clinton campaign’s choice of topics
for her first major policy speech. My question is, to what
extent did this reflect an actual ideological shift on
Clinton’s part? To what extent was it simply just polling,
them trying to reach a base that they hadn’t reached before,
especially in 2008?
JONATHAN ALLEN: I think it’s important to remember
that during Bill Clinton’s presidency he was working with
a Republican Congress so not all of these things were his
policies. You mentioned welfare reform, I think he vetoed
welfare reform two or three times before he signed it. The
crime bill had provisions he liked, provisions he didn’t
like, but no doubt he was somebody who was a tough on
crime candidate in the early ’90s or tough on crime
President in the early ’90s, and Hillary Clinton had some
words that came back to bite her. I think she understood
after watching Barack Obama in 2008 that if you could get
African Americans to vote heavily in your favor,
essentially as a block for you, that you would be able to
win the democratic primary.
There’s tremendous advantage in the way the democratic
rules are structured to getting a huge constituency like
African American voters mobilized, and in high
percentages in your direction. I mean, I think she just
understood the politics but at the same time, what helped
her win the primary, I think during that period she started
to alienate, at least this is what people who worked for her
said, started to alienate a lot of those working class white
voters that she would have needed in the general election.
At least one staffer said to me and my co-author, we talk
about this in the book, that she might have been better off
starting with that base of working class white voters that
she had from 2008 and building out from that.
AARON MATE: Let’s go to the issue of emails. Very
much in the news right now, with the firing of James
Comey and the Trump administration claiming that it was
handling of the Clinton investigation, Clinton email
investigation that prompted that dismissal. Your book
reveals though, actually, a different side of the Clinton
email issue which is that after her 2008 loss to Barack
Obama in the primary, she got staffers to give her the
emails of her staff members to see who had possibly
betrayed her?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Yeah. There’s a scene in one of the
chapters of the book, I think it chapter four, opens with this
moment in 2008 where she instructs one of her tech aides
to go out and get the top senior staff emails from the 2008
campaign to look through and to see who was leaking to
the press, who was stabbing people in the back. It helped
give her a picture for an autopsy she was doing of that
campaign, give her a picture of what was going on in her
headquarters while she was out on the campaign trail.
What it shows is that she’s somebody who’s very
knowledgeable about information systems. I don’t mean
that she’s going to be hacking into anyone’s computer, or
that she’s even particularly familiar with her own devices,
but she understands how information moves.
.
324
She certainly understands how vulnerable you can be if
someone else is reading your email, which goes to that
question of, “What was she thinking when she set up the
private email server?” Which would have, if not found,
would have precluded people from getting her records as
Secretary of State. Ultimately it was discovered and there
were lawsuits, and her email came out anyway, so if that
was her intent, it certainly backfired.
AARON MATE: This book in my mind is not just about
one candidate or one campaign. It offers striking lessons
about our political system. After covering this campaign so
extensively, speaking to more than 100 people, what do
you think are the main lessons from your book about how
our politics work and how future campaigns should be run
in light of all the mistakes that you detail were made in this
one?
JONATHAN ALLEN: Number one, it’s mostly about the
candidate. You’ve got to have a candidate who bridges the
divides within your own party and is able to reach out to
the other party. That was not Hillary Clinton. Number two,
you’ve got to have a candidate who has a message that’s
clear and easy for the electorate to digest about why they
should be President, what they’re going to do with the
awesome power of the presidency, and it’s got to be
succinct. Number three, we live in a time of increasing
data and we’re always trying to slice and dice people in
terms of trying to sell things to them, in terms of political
campaigns, but the truth is in politics, victory is equal to
both science and art.
The art of persuasion still matters in politics. You’ve got to
be able to go out there, talk to people who don’t agree with
you, and if you don’t win them over to vote for you, if you
don’t make them agree with your point, you may at least
win their respect.
AARON MATE: Jonathan Allen, the book is “Shattered:
Inside Hillary Clinton’s Doomed Campaign,” and it’s now
a best seller. Jonathan, thanks so much.
JONATHAN ALLEN: My pleasure.
AARON MATE: And thank you for joining us on The
Real News.
 The ‘Soft Coup’ Of Russia-Gate
By Robert Parry
May 13, 2017
Special Report: The Russia-gate hysteria has grown
stronger after President Trump’s firing of FBI Director
Comey, but the bigger question is whether an American
“soft coup” is in the works, reports Robert Parry.
Where is Stanley Kubrick when we need him? If he hadn’t
died in 1999, he would be the perfect director to transform
today’s hysteria over Russia into a theater-of-the-absurd
movie reprising his Cold War classic, “Dr. Strangelove,”
which savagely satirized the madness of nuclear
brinksmanship and the crazed ideology behind it.
A scene from “Dr. Strangelove,” in which the bomber pilot (played
by actor Slim Pickens) rides a nuclear bomb to its target in the Soviet
Union.
To prove my point, The Washington Post on Thursday
published a lengthy story entitled in the print editions
“Alarm at Russian in White House” about a Russian
photographer who was allowed into the Oval Office to
photograph President Trump’s meeting with Russian
Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov.
The Post cited complaints from former U.S. intelligence
officials who criticized the presence of the Russian
photographer as “a potential security breach” because of
“the danger that a listening device or other surveillance
equipment could have been brought into the Oval Office
while hidden in cameras or other electronics.”
To bolster this alarm, the Post cited a Twitter comment
from President Obama’s last deputy CIA director, David S.
Cohen, stating “No, it was not” a sound decision to admit
the Russian photographer who also works for the Russian
news agency, Tass, which published the photo.
325
One could picture Boris and Natasha, the evil spies in the
Bullwinkle cartoons, disguised as photographers slipping
listening devices between the cushions of the sofas.
Or we could hear how Russians are again threatening to
“impurify all of our precious bodily fluids,” as “Dr.
Strangelove” character, Gen. Jack D. Ripper, warned us in
the 1964 movie.
Watching that brilliant dark comedy again might actually
be a good idea to remind us how crazy Americans can get
when they’re pumped up with anti-Russian propaganda, as
is happening again now.
Taking Down Trump
I realize that many Democrats, liberals and progressives
hate Donald Trump so much that they believe that any
pretext is justified in taking him down, even if that plays
into the hands of the neoconservatives and other
warmongers. Many people who detest Trump view Russia-
gate as the most likely path to achieve Trump’s
impeachment, so this desirable end justifies whatever
means.
Boris and Natasha, the evil spies from the Rocky and Bullwinkle
shows.
Some people have told me that they even believe that it is
the responsibility of the major news media, the law
enforcement and intelligence communities, and members
of Congress to engage in a “soft coup” against Trump –
also known as a “constitutional coup” or “deep state coup”
– for the “good of the country.”
The argument is that it sometimes falls to these
Establishment institutions to “correct” a mistake made by
the American voters, in this case, the election of a largely
unqualified individual as U.S. president. It is even viewed
by some anti-Trump activists as a responsibility of
“responsible” journalists, government officials and others
to play this “guardian” role, to not simply “resist” Trump
but to remove him.
There are obvious counter-arguments to this view,
particularly that it makes something of a sham of
American democracy. It also imposes on journalists a need
to violate the ethical responsibility to provide objective
reporting, not taking sides in political disputes.
But The New York Times and The Washington Post, in
particular, have made it clear that they view Trump as a
clear and present danger to the American system and thus
have cast aside any pretense of neutrality.
The Times justifies its open hostility to the President as
part of its duty to protect “the truth”; the Post has adopted
a slogan aimed at Trump, “Democracy Dies in Darkness.”
In other words, America’s two most influential political
newspapers are effectively pushing for a “soft coup” under
the guise of defending “democracy” and “truth.”
But the obvious problem with a “soft coup” is that
America’s democratic process, as imperfect as it has been
and still is, has held this diverse country together since
1788 with the notable exception of the Civil War.
If Americans believe that the Washington elites are
removing an elected president – even one as buffoonish as
Donald Trump – it could tear apart the fabric of national
unity, which is already under extraordinary stress from
intense partisanship.
That means that the “soft coup” would have to be carried
out under the guise of a serious investigation into
something grave enough to justify the President’s removal,
a removal that could be accomplished by congressional
impeachment, his forced resignation, or the application of
Twenty-fifth Amendment, which allows the Vice President
and a majority of the Cabinet to judge a President
incapable of continuing in office (although that could
require two-thirds votes by both houses of Congress if the
President fights the maneuver).
A Big Enough ‘Scandal’
That is where Russia-gate comes in. The gauzy allegation
that Trump and/or his advisers somehow colluded with
Russian intelligence officials to rig the 2016 election
would probably clear the threshold for an extreme action
like removing a President.
326
President Donald Trump being sworn in on Jan. 20, 2017. (Screen
shot from Whitehouse.gov)
And, given the determination of many key figures in the
Establishment to get rid of Trump, it should come as no
surprise that no one seems to care that no actual
government-verified evidence has been revealed publicly
to support any of the Russia-gate allegations.
There’s not even any public evidence from U.S.
government agencies that Russia did “meddle” in the 2016
election or – even if Russia did slip Democratic emails to
WikiLeaks (which WikiLeaks denies) – there has been
zero evidence that the scheme resulted from collusion with
Trump’s campaign.
The FBI has been investigating these suspicions for at least
nine months, even reportedly securing a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant against Carter Page,
an American whom Trump briefly claimed as a foreign
policy adviser when Trump was under fire for not having
any foreign policy advisers.
One of Page’s alleged offenses was that he gave a speech
to an academic conference in Moscow in July 2016 that
was mildly critical of how the U.S. treated countries from
the former Soviet Union. He also once lived in Russia and
apparently met with a Russian diplomat who – apparently
unbeknownst to Page – had been identified by the U.S.
government as a Russian intelligence officer.
It appears that is enough, in these days of our New
McCarthyism, to get an American put under a powerful
counter-intelligence investigation.
The FBI and the Department of Justice also reportedly are
including as part of the Russia-gate investigation Trump’s
stupid campaign joke calling on the Russians to help find
the tens of thousands of emails that Clinton erased from
the home server that she used while Secretary of State.
On July 27, 2016, Trump said, apparently in jest,
 “I will tell you this, Russia: if you’re listening, I
hope you’re able to find the 30,000 emails that
are missing.”
The comment fit with Trump’s puckish, provocative and
often tasteless sense of humor, but was seized on by
Democrats as if it were a serious suggestion – as if anyone
would use a press conference to seriously urge something
like that. But it now appears that the FBI is grabbing at any
straw that might support its investigation.
The (U.K.) Guardian reported this week that
“Senior DoJ officials have declined to release the
documents [about Trump’s comment] on grounds
that such disclosure could ‘interfere with
enforcement proceedings’. In a filing to a federal
court in Washington DC, the DoJ states that
‘because of the existence of an active, ongoing
investigation, the FBI anticipates that it will …
withhold all records’.
“The statement suggests that Trump’s
provocative comment last July is being seen by
the FBI as relevant to its own ongoing
investigation.”
The NYT’s Accusations
On Friday, in the wake of Trump’s firing of FBI Director
James Comey and the President’s characterization of
Russia-gate as “a total hoax,” The New York Times
reprised what it called “The Trump-Russia Nexus” in a
lead editorial trying to make the case of some fire behind
the smoke.
Former Trump foreign policy adviser Carter Page .
Though the Times acknowledges that there are “many
unknowns” in Russia-gate and the Times can’t seem to
find any evidence of collusion, such as slipping a Russian
data stick to WikiLeaks, the Times nevertheless treats a
host of Trump advisers and family members as traitors
because they’ve had some association with Russian
officials, Russian businesses or Russian allies.
Regarding Carter Page, the Times wrote:
327
“American officials believe that Mr. Page, a
foreign policy adviser, had contacts with Russian
intelligence officials during the campaign. He
also gave a pro-Russia speech in Moscow in July
2016. Mr. Page was once employed by Merrill
Lynch’s Moscow office, where he worked with
Gazprom, a government-owned giant.”
You might want to let some of those words sink in,
especially the part about Page giving “a pro-Russia speech
in Moscow,” which has been cited as one of the principal
reasons for Page and his communications being targeted
under a FISA warrant.
I’ve actually read Page’s speech and to call it “pro-Russia”
is a wild exaggeration. It was a largely academic treatise
that faulted the West’s post-Cold War treatment of the
nations formed from the old Soviet Union, saying the rush
to a free-market system led to some negative
consequences, such as the spread of corruption.
But even if the speech were “pro-Russia,” doesn’t The
New York Times respect the quaint American notion of
free speech? Apparently not. If your carefully crafted
words can be twisted into something called “pro-Russia,”
the Times seems to think it’s okay to have the National
Security Agency bug your phones and read your emails.
The Ukraine Case
Another Times’ target was veteran political adviser Paul
Manafort, who is accused of working as “a consultant for a
pro-Russia political party in Ukraine and for Ukraine’s
former president, Viktor Yanukovych, who was backed by
the Kremlin.”
New York Times building in New York City. (Photo from Wikipedia)
Left out of that Times formulation is the fact that the
Ukrainian political party, which had strong backing from
ethnic Russian Ukrainians — not just Russia– competed in
a democratic process and that Yanukovych won an
election that was recognized by international observers as
free and fair.
Yanukovych was then ousted in February 2014 in a violent
putsch that was backed by U.S. Assistant Secretary of
State Victoria Nuland and U.S. Ambassador Geoffrey
Pyatt. The putsch, which was spearheaded by right-wing
nationalists and even neo-Nazis, touched off Ukraine’s
civil war and the secession of Crimea, the key events in the
escalation of today’s New Cold War between NATO and
Russia.
Immediately after the Syria chemical-weapons deal in
September 2013, key U.S. neocons began focusing on
Ukraine as what National Endowment for Democracy
president Carl Gershman called “the biggest prize” and a
first step toward unseating Putin in Moscow.

Nazi symbols on helmets worn by members of Ukraine’s Azov

battalion. (As filmed by a Norwegian film crew and shown on
German TV)

Though I’m no fan of U.S. political hired-guns selling their

services in foreign elections, there was nothing illegal or
Assistant Secretary of State for European Affairs Victoria Nuland,
even unusual about Manafort advising a Ukrainian who pushed for the Ukraine coup and helped pick the post-coup
political party. What arguably was much more offensive leaders.
was the U.S. support for an unconstitutional coup that
removed Yanukovych even after he agreed to a European
Gershman’s grant-giving NED stepped up its operations
plan for early elections so he could be voted out of office
inside Ukraine while Assistant Secretary Nuland, the wife
peacefully.
of arch-neocon Robert Kagan, began pushing for regime
change in Kiev (along with other neocons, including Sen.
But the Times, the Post and virtually the entire Western
John McCain).
mainstream media sided with the Ukrainian coup-makers
and hailed Yanukovych’s overthrow. That attitude has
The Ukraine coup in 2014 drove a geopolitical wedge
become such a groupthink that the Times has banished the
between Obama and Putin, since the Russian president
thought that there was a coup.
couldn’t just stand by when a virulently anti-Russian
regime took power violently in Ukraine, which was the
Still, the larger political problem confronting the United
well-worn route for invasions into Russia and housed
States is that the neoconservatives and their junior
Russia’s Black Sea fleet at Sevastopol in Crimea.
partners, the liberal interventionists, now control nearly all
the levers of U.S. foreign policy. That means they can
Rather than defend the valuable cooperation provided by
essentially dictate how events around the world will be
Putin, Obama went with the political flow and joined in the
perceived by most Americans.
Russia-bashing as key neocons raised their sights and put
Putin in the crosshairs.
The neocons and the liberal hawks also want to continue
their open-ended wars in the Middle East by arranging the
An Unexpected Obstacle
commitment of additional U.S. military forces to
Afghanistan, Iraq and Syria – and perhaps a new
For the neocons in 2016, there also was the excited
confrontation with Iran.
expectation of a Hillary Clinton presidency to give more
momentum to the expensive New Cold War. But then
Early in Obama’s second term, it became clear to the
Trump, who had argued for a new détente with Russia,
neocons that Russia was becoming the chief obstacles to
managed to eke out an Electoral College win.
their plans because President Barack Obama was working
closely with President Vladimir Putin on a variety of
Perhaps Trump could have diffused some of the hostility
projects that undermined neocon hopes for more war.
toward him but his narcissistic personality stopped him
from extending an olive branch to the tens of millions of
Particularly, Putin helped Obama secure an agreement
Americans who opposed him. He further demonstrated his
from Syria to surrender its chemical weapons stockpiles in
political incompetence by wasting his first days in office
2013 and to get Iran to accept tight constraints on its
making ridiculous claims about the size of his inaugural
nuclear program in 2014. In both cases, the neocons and
crowds and disputing the fact that he had lost the popular
their liberal-hawk sidekicks were lusting for war.
vote.
328
Widespread public disgust over his behavior contributed to
the determination of many Americans to “resist” his
presidency at all junctures and at all costs.
Peter Sellers playing Dr. Strangelove as he struggles to control his
right arm from making a Nazi salute.
329
Russia-gate, the hazy suggestion that Putin put Trump in
the White House and that Trump is a Putin “puppet” (as
Clinton claimed), became the principal weapon to use in
destroying Trump’s presidency.
However, besides the risks to U.S. stability that would
come from an Establishment-driven “soft coup,” there is
the additional danger of ratcheting up tensions so high with
nuclear-armed Russia that this extreme Russia-bashing
takes on a life – or arguably many, many deaths – of its
own.
Which is why America now might need a piercing satire of
today’s Russia-phobia or at least a revival of the Cold War
classic, “Dr. Strangelove,” subtitled “How I Learned to
Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb.”
[For more on this topic, see Consortiumnews.com’s
“Watergate Redux or ‘Deep State’ Coup.”]
 CORRUPTION Confirmed As Email Reveals FBI Head
James Comey Protected Clinton, Lynch From Prosecution
By: Jayson Veley
Date: May 13, 2017
Apart from the appointment of Neil Gorsuch to the
Supreme Court, President Trump’s firing of FBI Director
James Comey may have been one of his best decisions to
date. Over the past year, it has become abundantly clear
that Comey does not possess the focus and leadership
skills that are required to run such a prestigious institute.
Perhaps the most revealing moment that demonstrated
Comey’s lack of leadership was when he announced that
Hillary Clinton would not be changed for storing classified
information on her private server, despite the fact that her
actions were in clear violation of the Espionage Act.
During a hearing before the Senate Judiciary Committee
on Wednesday, Republican Senator Chuck Grassley asked
Comey for his thoughts on a recent New York Times
article, which stated that former Attorney General Loretta
Lynch had assured Secretary Clinton that the FBI
investigation into her use of a private server wouldn’t go
too far.
“How, and when, did you first learn of this
document? Also, who sent it and who received
it?” Senator Grassley asked. “That’s not a
question I can answer in this forum, Mr.
Chairman, because it would call for a classified
response,” Comey replied. “I have briefed
leadership of the intelligence committees on that
particular issue, but I can’t talk about it here.”
If the FBI knew that Loretta Lynch was defending Hillary
Clinton in the months leading up to the election, why
.
330
wasn’t the public informed? And more importantly, why
didn’t James Comey take action against Lynch for her
blatant act of political corruption? Could it be because
James Comey was more interested in defending Hillary
Clinton’s presidential campaign than he was in upholding
the integrity of the Federal Bureau of Investigation? It sure
seems that way.
By firing James Comey, President Trump demonstrated to
the country that he is committed to fighting corruption and
restoring the peoples’ faith in America’s governmental
agencies. Of course, the democrats and the mainstream
media are now having a blast pointing to Trump’s firing of
Comey as evidence that he’s trying to disrupt the Russia
investigation, but in reality, the president’s decision had
nothing to do with that. It goes without saying that if the
president no longer trusts those who work for him, then it
is virtually impossible to carry out even the most basic
functions of the federal government.
With James Comey officially out at the FBI, the Trump
administration is now beginning to process of looking for
someone to take his place. Some names have been thrown
around, like the suggestion of Merrick Garland from Utah
Senator Mike Lee, but nothing has yet been officially
confirmed.
 Classified Bombshell Hyperventilation
Submitted by Mike Shedlock via MishTalk.com,
May 16, 2017 9:15 AM

Some people I would normally expect not to lose their
minds following anti-Trump hype did lose their minds. Of
course, the standard nutcases one might expect would lose
their minds did so as well.
The result is has been a steady stream of
nonsense all day regarding Trump’s alleged
disclosure of highly classified information to
Russia.
It took a collaboration of six (Jack Goldsmith, Susan
Hennessey, Quinta Jurecic, Matthew Kahn, Benjamin
Wittes, Elishe Julian) to come up with Bombshell: Initial
Thoughts on the Washington Post’s Game-Changing
Story.
The article starts out …
The Washington Post this afternoon published a stunning
story reporting that President Trump disclosed highly-
classified information to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov and Ambassador Sergey Kislyak during their visit
to the Oval Office last week.
6. Sixth, it matters hugely, at least from an atmospheric
point of view, that the people in the room were Russian
and one of them was Sergey Kislyak of all people.
Conjecture and Hype
Point number 1 is correct. So is point number 4. The rest
is conjecture and hype.
In regards to point number four, Trump may very well
have decided it was in the US’s best interest to cooperate
with Russia. If so, I would agree wholeheartedly.
In points 2-6 the authors spew out hype about what Top
Secret means and whether the president violated his oath
of office.
Top Secret
I like this tidbit: “In general, a Top Secret classification is
applied to information the unauthorized disclosure of
which could be expected to cause exceptionally grave
damage to national security…”

After firing off rounds of innuendo from BuzzFeed, the

New York Time, the Washington Post, and Reuters, the
authors admit
“the President did not ‘leak’ classified
information in violation of law. He is
allowed to do what he did.”
Does anyone believe that? I don’t. Stuff is kept top secret
for years to cover up lies, false flag events, support for
corrupt regimes, illegal operations, and in general “cover
my ass” kind of stuff that would be embarrassing but
would constitute no real threat to national security.
Double Standard

In a very long-winded synopsis, the article discusses six

The New York Times joins the BS parade with its
points.
take Trump Revealed Highly Classified Intelligence to
Russia, in Break With Ally, Officials Say.
1. First, this is not a question of “leaking classified
information” or breaking a criminal law.
The revelation also opens Mr. Trump to criticism of a
2. Second, this is not a garden variety breach, and
double standard. The president made Hillary Clinton’s
outrage over it is not partisan hypocrisy about
mishandling of classified information through her private
protecting classified information.
email server central to his campaign, leading chants of
3. Third, it is important to understand the nature of
“lock her up” at rallies. But there was never any indication
sources and methods information in order to fully
that Mrs. Clinton exposed sensitive information from an
understand the gravity of the breach.
ally or gave it to an adversary.
4. Fourth, it really matters why Trump disclosed this
information to Russian visitors.
5. Fifth, this may well be a violation of the President’s There is no “double standard”. The president
oath of office. gets to decide what is classified and what
isn’t.
331
 Does the NY Times presume everyone gets to — Caroline Baum (@cabaum1) May 15, 2017
decide for themselves?
Nutting was expected. I replied to Baum …
What Did Trump Disclose?
@cabaum1 @RexNutting Are you serious or are
The answer is “information about an Islamic State plot” of the both of you drinking way too many tonight?
some sort.
— Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) May 16,
2017
Good grief. After all the above hyperventilation, I have a
simple question:
Impeachment?! Over What?

Why shouldn’t we disclose to Russia Hopefully, Baum was joking and I failed to catch it.
pertinent facts regarding Islamic state
plots?
For the record, I disagree withy Trump on NAFTA, free
trade in general, the Wall, his immigration order, and
Do we want to keep this information to ourselves as numerous other things.
happened on numerous occasions in Europe? As happened
more recently with the NSA developing and using
loopholes in Microsoft code? However, talking with Russia makes
sense, warmongering with Russia over
Syria doesn’t.
If the US has information on an alleged plot by ISIS we
absolutely should disclose that fact to other governments
unless we believe they may be involved or compromised. Question of the Day

Off the Deep End Would we be better off if we declassified everything but
ongoing criminal and terrorist investigations?
Nancy Pelosi asks ‘What do the Russians have on Donald
Trump?’ Classified Bombshell Hyperventilation:Should we
declassify everything but ongoing
criminal/terrorist investigations?
In another clickbait article Harvard law professor Alan
https://t.co/lVefx1vATJ
Dershowitz hypes ‘This is the most serious charge ever
made against a sitting president’ — Mike Mish Shedlock (@MishGEA) May 16,
2017
When you write bullsheet like that, expect to be mocked,
not taken serious, at least by any rational person. Certainly, we would stop a lot of unwise, unconstitutional,
and immoral activities if that was our new policy.
@RexNutting Let the impeachment proceedings
begin.
.

332
 Are They Really Out To Get Trump?
Sometimes Paranoia Is Justified
By Philip Giraldi - The Unz Review
16 May 2017
President Donald Trump is not exactly known for his self-
restraint. The recent firing of Federal Bureau of
Investigation (FBI) Director James Comey was not
handled with any delicacy and has unleashed a firestorm of
criticism coming from across the political spectrum. And
since Comey’s abrupt dismissal the backstabbing has
become even worse, with many coming around to the view
that Trump is actually crudely threatening Comey over the
issue of what might or might not have been said at dinners
and meetings between the two men.
What exactly drove the firing at this time remains
somewhat of a mystery though the media has been quick to
link it directly to Trump’s reported anger at the seemingly
endless investigation into his Administration’s possible
ties to Russia, an investigation that nominally Comey
headed as FBI Director. But that explanation somehow
makes no sense as even a white-hot Trump would have
realized that getting rid of Comey would only make the
Russiagate problem worse as everyone would assume
cover-up and would come after the White House with even
greater intensity, which is precisely what has happened.
Was Trump dumb enough to dig himself into a deeper
hole? Possibly, but it seems unlikely.
What is real, however, is that constant innuendo means
that anti-Russian hysteria has been mounting, including
completely speculative pieces wondering whether the
entourage of Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov had sought
to sneak a recording device into the White House during
last week’s visit.
333
And what if there really is a conspiracy against Donald
Trump being orchestrated within the various national
security agencies that are part of the United States
government? The president has been complaining for
months about damaging leaks emanating from the
intelligence community and the failure of Congress to pay
any attention to the illegal dissemination of classified
information. It is quite possible that Trump has become
aware that there is actually something going on and that
something just might be a conspiracy to delegitimize and
somehow remove him from office.
President Trump has also been insisting that the “Russian
thing” is a made-up story, a view that I happen to agree
with. I recently produced my own analysis of the
possibility that there is in progress a soft, or stealth or
silent coup, call it what you will, underway directed
against the president and that, if it exists, it is being
directed by former senior officials from the Obama White
House. Indeed, it is quite plausible to suggest that it was
orchestrated within the Obama White House itself before
the government changed hands at the inauguration on
January 20th. In line with that thinking, some observers are
now suggesting that Comey might well have been party to
the conspiracy and his dismissal would have been perfectly
justified based on his demonstrated interference in both the
electoral process and in his broadening of the acceptable
role of his own Bureau, which Trump has described as
“showboating.”
Two well-informed observers of the situation have recently
joined in the discussion, Robert Parry of Consortiumnews
and former CIA senior analyst Ray McGovern of the
Veteran Intelligence Professionals for Sanity. McGovern
has noted, as have I, that there is one individual who has
been curiously absent from the list of former officials who
have been called in to testify before the Senate Intelligence
Committee. That is ex-CIA Director John Brennan, who
many have long considered an extreme Obama/Hillary
Clinton loyalist long rumored to be at the center of the
information damaging to Team Trump sent to Washington
by friendly intelligence services, including the British.
Ray suggests that Brennan and also Comey may been at
the center of a “Deep State” combined CIA-NSA-FBI
cabal working to discredit the Trump candidacy and
delegitimize his presidency. Brennan in particular was
uniquely well placed to fabricate the Russian hacker
narrative that has been fully embraced by Congress and the
media even though no actual evidence supporting that
claim has yet been produced. As WikiLeaks has now
revealed that the CIA had the technical ability to hack into
sites surreptitiously while leaving behind footprints that
would attribute the hack to someone else, including the
Russians, it does not take much imagination to consider
that the alleged trail to Moscow might have been
fabricated. If that is so, this false intelligence has in turn
proven to be of immense value to those seeking to present
“proof” that the Russian government handed the
presidency to Donald Trump.
Robert Parry asked in an article on May 10 th whether we
are seeing is “Watergate redux or ‘Deep State’ coup?” and
then followed up with a second Piece “The ‘Soft Coup’ of
Russia-gate” on the 13th. In other words, is this all a cover-
up of wrongdoing by the White House akin to President
Richard Nixon’s firing of Watergate independent special
prosecutor Archibald Cox and the resignations of both the
Attorney General and Deputy Attorney General or is it
something quite different, an undermining of an elected
president who has not actually committed any “high
crimes and misdemeanors” to force his removal from
office. Like Parry, I am reluctant to embrace conspiracy
theories, in my case largely because I believe a conspiracy
is awfully hard to sustain. The federal government leaks
like a sieve and if more than two conspirators ever meet in
the CIA basement it would seem to me their discussion
would become public knowledge within forty-eight hours,
but perhaps what we are seeing here is less a formal
arrangement than a group of individuals who are loosely
connected while driven by a common objective.
Parry sees the three key players in the scheme as John
Brennan of CIA, Director of National Intelligence James
Clapper and James Comey of the FBI. Comey’s role in the
“coup” was key as it consisted of using his office to
undercut both Hillary Clinton and Trump, neither of whom
was seen as a truly suitable candidate by the Deep State.
He speculates that a broken election might well have
resulted in a vote in the House of Representatives to elect
the new president, a process that might have produced a
Colin Powell presidency as Powell actually received three
votes in the Electoral College and therefore was an
acceptable candidate under the rules governing the
electoral process.
Yes, the scheme is bizarre, but Parry carefully documents
how Russiagate has developed and how the national
security and intelligence organs have been key players as it
moved along, often working by leaking classified
information. And President Barack Obama was likely the
initiator, notably so when he de facto authorized the wide
distribution of raw intelligence on Trump and the Russians
through executive order. Parry notes, as would I, that to
date no actual evidence has been presented to support
allegations that Russia sought to influence the U.S.
election and/or that Trump associates were somehow
334
coopted by Moscow’s intelligence services as part of the
process. Nevertheless, anyone even vaguely connected
with Trump who also had contact with Russia or Russians
has been regarded as a potential traitor. Carter Page, for
example, who was investigated under a Foreign
Intelligence Surveillance Act warrant, was under suspicion
because he made a speech in Moscow which was mildly
critical of the west’s interaction with Russia after the fall
of communism.
Parry’s point is that there is a growing Washington
consensus that consists of traditional liberals and
progressives as well as Democratic globalist
interventionists and neoconservatives who believe that
Donald Trump must be removed from office no matter
what it takes. The interventionists and neocons in
particular already control most of the foreign policy
mechanisms but they continue to see Trump as a possible
impediment to their plans for aggressive action against a
host of enemies, most particularly Russia. As they are
desirous of bringing down Trump “legally” through either
impeachment or Article 25 of the Constitution which
permits removal for incapacity, it might be termed a
constitutional coup, though the other labels cited above
also fit.
The rationale Trump haters have fabricated is simple: the
president and his team colluded with the Russians to rig
the 2016 election in his favor, which, if true, would
provide grounds for impeachment. The driving force, in
terms of the argument being made, is that removing Trump
must be done “for the good of the country” and to “correct
a mistake made by the American voters.” The mainstream
media is completely on board of the process, including the
outlets that flatter themselves by describing their national
stature, most notably the New York Times and
Washington Post.
So what is to be done? For starters, until Donald Trump
has unambiguously broken a law the critics should take a
valium and relax. He is an elected president and his
predecessors George W. Bush and Barack Obama certainly
did plenty of things that in retrospect do not bear much
scrutiny. Folks like Ray McGovern and Robert Parry
should be listened to even when they are being provocative
in their views. They are not, to be sure, friends of the
White House in any conventional way and are not
apologists for those in power, quite the contrary. Ray has
been strongly critical of the current foreign policy, most
particularly of the expansion of various wars, claims of
Damascus’s use of chemical weapons, and the cruise
missile attack on Syria. Robert in his latest article
describes Trump as narcissistic and politically
incompetent. But their legitimate concerns are that we are
moving in a direction that is far more dangerous than
Trump. A soft coup engineered by the national security
and intelligence agencies would be far more dangerous to
our democracy than anything Donald Trump can do.
 Michael Moore Once Again
Claims He’s Going To Take Trump Down With A Movie
By Brian Anderson
May 16, 2017
If Michael Moore did a sit-up every time he claimed he
was going to bring down Donald Trump he’d have a six-
pack by now and a much longer life-expectancy. For about
the millionth time, the portly documentarian and
professional resister is claiming one of his works will end
Trump’s presidency. All of the other times that it didn’t
work he was just kidding, but this time he’s serious.
In a press release it was announced that the Weinstein
Company has acquired the rights to Moore’s latest
documentary titled Fahrenheit 11/9. It’s a play on one of
his other garbage films Fahrenheit 9/11, which failed to
bring down George W. Bush as promised. The “11/9” is in
reference to the day Donald Trump was declared the
winner of the presidential election.
Michael Moore took the caramel-coated battered-fried
turkey leg out of his mouth long enough to explain just
exactly how this movie will utterly destroy president
Trump:
The filming has been done under a strict cloak of secrecy
and is expected to be key in dissolving Trump’s “teflon”
shield and, in turn, his presidency.
“No matter what you throw at him, it hasn’t
worked,” says Moore.
No matter what is revealed, he remains standing. Facts,
reality, brains cannot defeat him. Even when he commits a
self-inflicted wound, he gets up the next morning and
keeps going and tweeting.
“That all ends with this movie.”
Oooh, that sounds like some serious shit. I mean, there are
no specifics or anything, but it’s not like Moore has ever
335
misled us before. Well, if you don’t count everything he
has ever said, but besides that, he’s always been right on.
Remember before the election when Moore said his movie
TrumpLand was going to derail the Trump campaign? It
actually achieved the exact opposite, making a solid case
for why people should vote for him instead of Hillary
Clinton. And as you may have noticed, Trump actually
won the election.
Then there is Michael Moore’s broadway play The Terms
of My Surrender, which again he claims is going to take
down Trump once and for all. It’s being marketed by
asking,
“Can a Broadway show bring down a sitting
president?” and answering “yes it can.”
Of course this play hasn’t started showing yet, so there is
the possibility that it might, but clearly Moore doesn’t
have confidence in it if he went ahead and made another
film to take Trump out.
Seriously, if he already has a play that will kick Trump out
of office, what is the point of making a movie to do the
same thing? This just seems redundant.
After so many failed predictions of Trump’s demise, why
does Moore think anyone will believe him this time? As
funny as it sounds, in the press release Moore claims
credibility because he warned that Trump might actually
win the election. The reasoning here is that if Moore
thought Trump could win than he must have mad powers
of prognostication and therefore you should believe him
when he says he’ll blast Trump into orbit with his new
film.
Just for argument’s sake let’s suppose that Fahrenheit 11/9
fails to result in Trump’s impeachment, where does he go
from there? I’m going to use my prediction skills and say
that Micheal Moore will make yet another film that he
claims will take Trump out and when that one doesn’t
work, he’ll make another one after that. Eventually heart
disease or diabetes will get the best of Moore and that’ll be
the end of it.
 Retired Green Beret Warns A Successful Derailment Of
Trump's Efforts Is Well Under Way; War Is Inevitable
Authored By Jeremiah Johnson, Nom De Plume Of A Retired Green Beret Of The United States
Army Special Forces, Via Shtfplan.Com,
May 16, 2017 10:50 PM
In previous articles, I mentioned the importance of the
midterm elections, and how (to run the country
effectively and to be reelected) the President needs
success within his first six months in office. Although he
is more than willing to make changes and has
demonstrated his good intentions, the battle with the
ensconced Marxists labeling themselves as either
“progressives” or “centrists” is being lost. Why is it being
lost? It is because these prior Obama appointees in the
Circuit courts and the Supreme Court, along with the
innumerable holdovers within the administration’s
machinery effectively amount to a “fifth column,” bent
on sabotaging the President’s efforts.
The successful derailment is well under way. As I wrote
in other articles, all that is needed for the Democrats to
take the Senate and the House of Representatives in the
upcoming Midterm elections is for the President to not
make visible and productive changes within the first six
months of his term.
The stultified public will perceive it as a
failure, and with the RINO (Republicans In
Name Only) Republican party to help with a
“shove” here and there, the President will fall
right into the pool.
The planned border fence will not be built, the repeal of
Obamacare will not take place, the flood of illegals will
neither be stopped or reversed, and financial measures to
stimulate the domestic economy are being implemented at
glacial speed. All the President’s executive orders are
being struck down by the Obama-appointed judges in the
courts.
There is not much time remaining before the
Midterm congressional elections. We are a
336
year out, and even before the campaigning
has begun, it appears it will be up for grabs.
Obamacare is the best example of what has been outlined.
Aetna recently bowed out and pulled out of the machinery
as far as private insurance companies run. They stated that
the arena was “untenable” and that the firm could no
longer underwrite with the budgetary shortfalls and the
nebulosity that lacked a demarcation of where government
responsibility was to pick up what the company did not
underwrite. From an economic perspective, everyone with
a brain knew that Obamacare would not function properly
and would be a financial and administrative disaster.
That is why Obamacare is a success: it was
meant to collapse the system and the
insurance companies, forcing into existence
a single-payer system and a government
“exchange” that intruded on the lives of
every citizen…pure “Cloward and Piven” at
its finest.
The Republican Party is responsible for the continuance of
Obamacare. Nobody is focusing upon this fact. Right
now, everyone is focused upon Comey and a potential tie-
in with Flynn and any connection to Russia regarding pre-
election campaign communiques between then-candidate
Donald Trump and the Russian leadership. Obamacare is
all but forgotten.
With the Republicans in control of both the
Senate and the House of Representatives, at
this point, the bill to repeal Obamacare
should have already passed both houses of
Congress and been on the President’s desk
to sign: this was not done, and the
Republican Party is to blame.
If the President is unable to make a change while he has
both houses of Congress under Republican control, what
will happen after the Midterm election changes the
complexion of Congress and makes it Democrat? How
will he be reelected, and if so, to what end? He waited too
long to fire Comey…a name that will torment us in the
news even more than that of Natalie Holloway…and now
it is turning around to bite him. What is the solution?
War. War is the means an administration uses to sway Carter with Desert One (the failed Iranian hostage rescue
public opinion and garner the Congress and the other attempt),
nabobs into lockstep under the guise/choice of “you’re
either patriotic or unpatriotic,” forced upon all of them Reagan with Grenada,
in the court of public opinion and on the media’s stage.
War is supported by the Congress, who is bought by the
Margaret Thatcher of Great Britain with the Falkland
MIC (Military Industrial Complex) and the oligarchy and
Islands,
their army of lobbyists.
The administration is not accomplishing Bush Sr. with Iraq (I),
anything effectively, but a war can “rescue” it
from its difficulties and divert the public’s Clinton with the bombing of Serbia and the war in Bosnia,
attention.
and Bush Jr. with Iraq (II).
There are several theaters that can easily metastasize into a
full-blown conflict and then draw in other nations for an
all-out war. To catalyze such actions would be a simple Will this administration take similar measures in any of
feat for any administration with the resources of the United the “powder keg” theaters of Ukraine, North Korea, or
States backing it. The question remains to be answered Syria? The question remains to be answered, and the
whether the administration will take such a step to save probability is high that the answer will be “yes.”
itself.
History proves out a high probability that an
administration will do such:

337
 BREAKING: Putin Offers
Congress Transcript Of Trump-Lavrov Meeting
Alexander Mercouris
May 17, 2017
Russian President Putin ridicules suggestion US President
Trump disclosed secrets in the Oval Office to Russian
Foreign Minister Lavrov. Offers to provide US Congress
with a transcript of the meeting.
Russian President Putin has weighed in to the furore
surrounding the allegation that President Trump disclosed
‘highly classified information’ to Russian Foreign Minister
Lavrov during their meeting in the Oval Office.
Describing the allegation as nonsense, Putin has offered to
make available to Congress the complete transcript of the
conversation so that they can see for themselves that no
‘highly classified information’ and no secrets were
discussed.
These are comments Putin is reported to have made during
a press conference today following a meeting with the
Italian Prime Minister.
Here is what TASS reports Putin to have said (see here and
here)
At the same time, we see that the United States has been
developing political schizophrenia, this is the only thing I
can think of when I hear allegations saying that the
president has revealed some secrets to Lavrov….
I will have to reprimand him because he shared these
secrets neither with me nor with the Russian secret
services which is very bad of him….
If the US administration considers it possible, we are ready
to submit a transcript of Lavrov’s talk with Trump to the
.
338
US Senate and Congress, if, of course, the US
administration would want this…..
(bold italics added)
The highlighted words underline a point I have made
previously. It is far from obvious from the Washington
Post’s account of the meeting that Lavrov was aware that
Trump had supposedly revealed some ‘highly classified
information’ to him. If that did happen then it is highly
likely that it took the publication of the story in the
Washington Post to reveal to the Russians this fact. If so
then the blame for compromising US national security
interests lies not with Trump but with the Washington
Post.
Putting that aside, Putin’s offer is to be welcomed.
As I have said previously, both teams of interpreters would
have made verbatim transcripts of the meeting and it is
highly likely the White House made a tape recording as
well. Diplomatic protocol requires that both sides to a
negotiation agree before such a transcript is published
though back in 2014 Putin threatened to publish
unilaterally the transcript of a meeting he had with then
EU Commission President José Manuel Durão Barroso
after Barroso falsely claimed that Putin had told him that
the Russian military were ready to take Kiev in 2 weeks
(Barroso immediately retracted the claim).
I hope that both the Trump administration and Congress
feel able to agree to Putin’s offer, with both the US and the
Russians providing Congress with all the records of the
meeting that each of them made.
 Why FBI Can’t Tell All on Trump, Russia
Incomplete Investigation Would Jeopardize US Democracy
Russ Baker, C. Collins and Jonathan Z. Larsen
May 17, 2017
Photo credit: James Hughes / NY Daily News via Getty Image
As much as President Donald Trump would like to make
the various investigations into Russia’s interference in the
US election go away, it is still the biggest story of the year.
WhoWhatWhy has done its part in advancing it by
publishing several exclusives on the issue.
The biggest one was undoubtedly our bombshell article on
whether the FBI’s Russia investigation was compromised
because it could interfere with the Bureau’s objective of
fighting organized crime originating in the former Soviet
Union. Part of that story details Trump’s various ties to
organized crime and contacts associated with mobsters.
A lot has happened since we published it 7 weeks ago, not
the least of which was the firing of James Comey. Another
recent development was the airing of an engaging Dutch
documentary by the program Zembla, which highlights
some of Trump’s most dubious connections (Part 1 & Part
2). Although there are some errors of fact, including
miscasting a plaintiff’s attorney as a state prosecutor, it’s
still worth watching.
And you’ll definitely want to brush up on our original
article (reprinted below) and our deep-digging followups,
which we linked to above. Because this story isn’t going
away. It’s just going to get bigger.
The Federal Bureau of Investigation cannot
tell us what we need to know about Donald
339
Trump’s contacts with Russia. Why? Because
doing so would jeopardize a long-running,
ultra-sensitive operation targeting mobsters
tied to Russian President Vladimir Putin —
and to Trump.
But the Feds’ stonewalling risks something
far more dangerous: Failing to resolve a
crisis of trust in America’s president.
WhoWhatWhy provides the details of a two-
month investigation in this 6,500-word
exposé.
The FBI apparently knew, directly or
indirectly, based upon available facts, that
prior to Election Day, Trump and his
campaign had personal and business
dealings with certain individuals and entities
linked to criminal elements — including
reputed Russian gangsters — connected to
Putin.
The same facts suggest that the FBI knew or
should have known enough prior to the
election to justify informing the public about
its ongoing investigation of potentially
compromising relationships between Trump,
Putin, and Russian mobsters — even if it
meant losing or exposing a valued informant.
It will take an agency independent of the Federal Bureau
of Investigation (FBI) to expose Donald Trump’s true
relationship with Moscow and the role Russia may have
played in getting him elected.
Director James Comey recently revealed in a congressional
hearing for the first time that the FBI
“is investigating … the nature of any links
between individuals associated with the Trump
campaign and the Russian government and
whether there was any coordination between the
campaign and Russia’s efforts.”
However, a two-month WhoWhatWhy investigation has
revealed an important reason the Bureau may be facing
undisclosed obstacles to revealing what it knows to the
public or to lawmakers.
Our investigation also may explain why the FBI, which
was very public about its probe of Hillary Clinton’s
emails, never disclosed its investigation of the Trump
campaign prior to the election, even though we now know
that it commenced last July.
Such publicity could have exposed a high-value, long-
running FBI operation against an organized crime network
headquartered in the former Soviet Union. That operation
depended on a convicted criminal who for years was
closely connected with Trump, working with him in
Trump Tower — while constantly informing for the FBI
and the Department of Justice (DOJ), and being legally
protected by them.
Some federal officials were so involved in protecting this
source — despite his massive fraud and deep connections
to organized crime — that they became his defense
counsel after they left the government.
In secret court proceedings that were later unsealed, both
current and former government attorneys argued for
extreme leniency toward the man when he was finally
sentenced. An FBI agent who expressed his support for the
informant later joined Trump’s private security force.
In this way, the FBI’s dilemma about revealing valuable
sources, assets and equities in its ongoing investigation of
links between the Trump administration and Russian
criminal elements harkens back to the embarrassing, now
infamous Whitey Bulger episode. In that case, the Feds
protected Bulger, a dangerous Boston-based mobster
serving as their highly valued informant, even as the serial
criminal continued to participate in heinous crimes. The
FBI now apparently finds itself confronted with similar
issues: Is its investigation of the mob so crucial to national
security that it outweighs the public’s right to know about
their president?
Jack Blum, a former senior Senate investigator and one of
America’s foremost experts on white-collar financial
crime, sums up the complexity — and the urgency — of
the situation:
“What makes this investigation especially difficult
is that it will lead into the complex relations
between the counterintelligence operations of the
FBI and its criminal investigative work,” says
Blum.
“Further, it is likely other elements of the
intelligence community are involved and that they
have ‘equities’ to protect. Much of the evidence,
justifiably, will be highly classified to protect
sources and methods and in particular to protect
340
individuals who have helped one or another of
the agencies involved.”
“I Can’t Go into Those Details Here”
In his March 20 testimony before the House Intelligence
Committee, FBI Director James Comey said that he could
not go into detail about its probe into the Trump
administration’s Russian connection.
If he had, we might have learned that, for more than three
decades the FBI has had Trump Tower in its sights. Many
of its occupants have been targets of major investigations,
others have been surveilled, and yet others have served as
informants. One thing many of them have in common is
deep ties to organized crime — including the Russian
mafia.
Photo credit: FBI
Felix Sater fits all of these categories. A convicted felon,
Sater worked in Trump Tower, made business deals with
Donald Trump through Sater’s real estate firm, Bayrock,
cooperated with the FBI and CIA and was subsequently
protected by the DOJ from paying for his crimes. And the
Moscow-born immigrant remains deeply linked to Russia
and Ukraine.
Based on documents examined by WhoWhatWhy, it is
possible to draw certain conclusions that help connect the
dots between Trump, the FBI, Russia and the mob.
The resulting picture is not a pretty one for Donald Trump.
However, because of its efforts to neutralize the
organization of perhaps the world’s most powerful mobster
— a man considered a serious national security threat —
the Bureau might just have compromised its own ability to
provide to Congress or inform the American public about
all of the ties that exist between Trump, his presidential
campaign and the regime of Vladimir Putin.
Further, Trump’s business association with Sater and
Bayrock may have put the president’s financial interests at
substantial risk, including possibly millions of dollars in
fines, penalties, or other damages, should civil or criminal
misconduct be proven in court or otherwise resolved if
claims were triggered. Anyone who knew of Trump’s
jeopardy in this matter would have enormous leverage
over the Trump operation.
The government’s kid-glove treatment of Sater is partially
explained in those long-suppressed legal documents, which
reveal that the mobbed-up businessman was perceived by
the authorities to be extraordinarily cooperative and useful.
Legal filings on Sater’s behalf state that he “reported
daily” to the FBI for many years.
Sater agreed to assist the US government on issues of
national security and organized crime. His activities were
first revealed in a lawsuit brought by a former employee of
Sater’s real estate firm, Bayrock. While working with
Trump, Sater’s name became “Satter” publicly —
presumably with the knowledge if not the encouragement
of the FBI. This distanced Satter the businessman, and his
partners, from Sater the criminal.
Attorneys representing the plaintiff spent years untangling
the financial machinations of Bayrock — which they
allege involve hundred of millions of dollars in claims
arising from, among other things, money laundering and
fraud.
They also sought to expose the government’s awareness of
— even complicity in — Sater’s activities.
Their efforts to unseal court documents, including Sater’s
legal history, have been met with a concerted pushback by
DOJ lawyers, mischaracterizations of the case record, and
even — according to the attorneys — anonymous death
threats.
Felix Sater could not be reached for comment.*(See
Editor’s Note at bottom for update)
A Stunning Discovery
The story of Donald Trump’s business dealings with a
Russian mobster might never have come out were it not for
a Bayrock employee stumbling upon Sater’s cooperation
341
agreement with the FBI, among other sensitive
information, that had inadvertently been left accessible.
That employee sought out attorney Fred Oberlander, who
combed through the documents. Over time, Oberlander —
who was instructing undergraduates at Yale University in
computational physics and computer science from age 18
— began to deconstruct the byzantine financial structure
that was Bayrock, which allegedly hid a range of crimes,
including massive-scale money laundering from sources in
the former Soviet Union.
On February 10, 2010, the US Court of Appeals for the
Second Circuit, in Manhattan, instructed Oberlander, in a
secret order, not to inform the legislative branch of the
United States government what he knew about Felix Sater.
(That order remains under seal, but a federal judge has
unsealed a redacted version.)
Apparently, the appellate court was persuaded that the
unusually broad order was justified on the merits, but the
lawyers opposing Sater found the imposed remedy
extraordinary.
“Our being ordered to not tell Congress what we
know may well be the first and only hyper-
injunction in American history,” asserts
Oberlander’s own attorney, Richard Lerner. “If
there are others who have been scared silent by
judges who wish to nullify Congressional and
public oversight, we may never know. That is
frightening.”
Photo credit: WhoWhatWhy
Characters Out of a James Bond Movie
Preventing the Russian mafia from expanding its foothold
in the United States has been one of the Bureau’s top
priorities. In fact, it might be the FBI’s most important
function apart from its role in the fight against terrorism.
The Russian mob has a breathtaking and underappreciated
reach. It is so powerful that FBI Agent Peter Kowenhoven
told CNN in 2009 that Semion Mogilevich, its “boss of
bosses,” is a strategic threat, and a man who “can, with a
telephone call or order, affect the global economy.”

US authorities came to see Mogilevich, who is described
as close with Putin, as not only a danger to the financial
system but a potential threat to world peace. He had access
to stockpiles of military weapons and even fissionable
material, snapped up as the Soviet Union fell apart.
His rumored ability to deliver the makings of weapons of
mass destruction to the highest bidder — as well as his
experience in smuggling opium from Afghanistan —
would take on the very highest importance after 9/11,
when European intelligence sources reported that al-Qaeda
representatives had contacted Mogilevich in search of
nuclear material.
The Russian mob should also not be confused with a mere
crime syndicate. It is an organization comprised of state
actors, oligarchs, and specific groups of individuals
working collectively with the authority of the Russian
government — a “mafia state.” At times, it is difficult to
tell where the mob ends and the government begins.
To some, the Russian mob brings to mind the globalized
villains of a James Bond movie, who want everything and
will stop at nothing.
Donald Trump and Roy Cohn, October 18,
Photo credit: Bettmann Archive / Getty Images
Robert I. Friedman, a former colleague of the authors of
this article at The Village Voice, drew the ire of
Mogilevich for his reporting on the Russian mafia. The
“boss of bosses” put a $100,000 price on Friedman’s head
soon after the publication of one of his fearless exposés of
Mogilevich, and the FBI suggested that he stop reporting
on the topic. (Friedman died in 2002, at the age of 51, of a
rare blood disease he was said to have contracted on a trip
to India.)
Enter Trump
Right from the earliest days of Trump Tower, in 1983,
some of the choicest condominiums, including those in the
10 floors immediately below the future president’s own
triplex apartment, went to a rogues gallery of criminals and
their associates.
Granted, the construction and gambling industries have
long been bedeviled by connections to organized crime. It
may have been impossible for Trump to have avoided
those ties altogether. Nevertheless, according to many
news stories and public records, Trump has repeatedly
been linked to organized crime figures and their associates.
To be sure, nouveaux riches of all stripes were attracted to
the Trump “glamour” and might well have had difficulty
gaining approval of traditional condo or coop boards.
Nonetheless, Trump must have known that many of his
occupants were problematic — and likely to draw the
attention of law enforcement.
Tower occupants have included:
 Verina Hixon, a close friend of John A. Cody, New
York’s concrete union boss, living in six units just below
Trump’s triplex. Cody, with ties to the Gambino crime
family, was later sentenced to five years in prison for
racketeering. Trump and Cody reportedly helped Hixon
with a loan so she could pay for the units.
 Robert Hopkins, who was arrested in his suite for
ordering a mob murder of a gambling competitor.
Hopkins would eventually be convicted of running a
massive gambling ring, partly from Trump Tower, an
operation that occasioned what was perhaps the first of
many wiretaps in the building. Trump appeared in
person at the closing on the apartment, where,
according to our Village Voice colleague Wayne
Barrett’s 1991 Trump biography, Hopkins sat at the end
of a conference table counting out $200,000 in cash. (It
was mob lawyer Roy Cohn who introduced Hopkins to
Trump.)
 Sheldon and Jay Weinberg, an enterprising father-son
duo: The father was masterminding the biggest
Medicaid fraud known at the time; the son was later
1984. indicted on grand larceny and insurance fraud. The
Weinbergs rented directly from Trump three
condominiums he had kept for himself.
 David Bogatin purchased five apartments on the 62nd
floor while running a massive tax avoidance scandal
involving commercial gasoline sales. Bogatin had ties
with Italian and Russian mobsters. He would later flee
to Poland and set up a highly successful chain of banks
342
 there before being extradited to the US, where he
ended up in the maximum-security state prison in
Attica, NY.
 Joseph Weichselbaum, Trump’s helicopter pilot,
convicted of drug trafficking on three occasions.
 Glamorous international art dealer Helly Nahmad, then
34, who lived in a sprawling apartment in Trump Tower
(and according to some accounts owned the entire 51st
floor), was later convicted and served five months of a
one-year sentence for running an illegal gambling
operation. He helped orchestrate super-high-stakes
card games that sometimes were played in Trump
Tower and “catered to billionaires, Russian oligarchs,
Hollywood stars, and pro athletes,” including Leonardo
DiCaprio, Matt Damon, Tobey Maguire, and Ben
Affleck. Also convicted were Vadim Trincher and his
sons Eugene and Ilya; the Trinchers had apartments in
Trump Tower too.
Of course, living in Trump Tower by no means suggests
any sort of criminality or association between or among
the residents. Still, the list is impressive.
But even in this company, one man stands out. Not
surprisingly, he is from the former Soviet Union.
out he was living in a luxury condo in Trump
Tower.”
The moment the Feds spotted him, he vanished again, only
to resurface later in an Atlantic City casino: Trump’s Taj
Mahal.
Thus, by the early 1990s, both the arrival of Russian
organized crime in the US and the strange attraction of
Trump properties for Russian mobsters were on the
Bureau’s radar.
FBI activity in Trump Tower dates back to soon after it
was built, in 1983. Around that time, the Bureau put
electronic surveillance in the building with a tap on the
phone of the above-mentioned Trump Tower resident
Robert Hopkins, a Lucchese crime family associate, who
was eventually arrested in the Tower for ordering a
murder.
FBI interest in Trump Tower continued through the 1990s,
when the Bureau, working closely with US prosecutors at
the Eastern District (which includes Brooklyn), began to
focus on the business operations of a man with ties to
Mogilevich: the aforementioned Felix Sater.

Spying on Trump Tower — Since 1983
When the Soviet Union was breaking up in the early
1990s, Mogilevich (AKA “The Boss of Bosses,” AKA
“The Brainy Don”) suborned a Russian judge to spring a
ruthless and canny lifetime criminal from a Siberian
prison. His name was Vyacheslav “Yaponchik” Ivankov.
At about the same time, Trump found himself in a bind
with his commercial lenders, who kept his public mystique
alive while in essence secretly stripping him of control of
his casinos and putting him on an “allowance,” as they
tried to salvage what they could from the wreckage of his
disastrous business decisions. They retained the Trump
name on his most iconic properties, based on the cold
calculation that his “brand” might still help draw
customers.

Трамп и его деньги (Trump and his Money)

As Trump lost access to traditional lines of credit, his

desperate need for financing led to sources that are murky,
at best, including monies traceable back to the former
Soviet Union — a circumstance that may explain Trump’s
refusal to release his tax returns.

According to two pages of Trump’s 2005 tax returns,

Vyacheslav Ivankov and Semion Mogilevich
Photo credit: Alchetron (public domain) and FBI / Wikimedia
Four months later, in March 1992, Ivankov arrived in the
United States to organize a new criminal network. He
would take the disparate elements of already-established
Russian-speaking criminals and use them to create a
sophisticated, well-managed operation that could launder
funds and generate cash flow as part of a transnational
network. But authorities had no idea where he was.
(inset)
purportedly sent anonymously to reporter David Cay
Johnston, Trump appeared to make an enormous amount
of money that year — earning more than $153 million,
which put him into a tiny class of super-rich Americans,
probably numbering in the dozens.
Trump’s windfall seems to have developed around the
same time that investors from countries of the former
Soviet Union started opening the cash spigot.

“And then,” recounted a former FBI agent in

Robert I. Friedman’s book Red Mafiya, “we found
343

Former Attorney General Loretta Lynch with FBI Director James Comey
(left), and US Attorney Preet Bharara at a press conference on March
24, 2016. Photo credit: FBI
A 2013 indictment of the illegal high-stakes card games’
organizers, brought by US Attorney Preet Bharara, alleged
not only high-stakes illegal gambling and the laundering of
approximately $100 million dollars, but also extortion, as
ring members used threats and force to strip ”money and
property” from clients.
One of the operation’s leaders, Alimzhan “Taiwanchik”
Tokhtakhounov, an alleged international crime boss and
admitted friend of top Mogilevich lieutenant Vyacheslav
“Yaponchik” Ivankov (who, as noted, was found living in
Trump Tower at one point), managed the ring from afar;
he could not legally enter the US as he was already wanted
on charges of trying to bribe ice-skating judges at the 2002
Winter Olympic Games in Salt Lake City. Tokhtakhounov
has often been tied to Boss of Bosses Semion Mogilevich.
Bharara, whom Trump recently fired — after accepting the
resignations of other US attorneys left over from the
Obama administration — is not the only big name who
was involved in investigating the goings-on in Trump
Tower. Former US Attorney General Loretta Lynch also
played a part. Lynch, first a prosecutor and then the US
Attorney for the Eastern District of New York, would have
had knowledge of an FBI operation that involved Sater, the
Russian mobster-turned-cooperating-witness.
“If he (Sater) were sitting in a room right now, I
really wouldn’t know what he looked like.” –
Donald Trump, 2013 deposition
While Sater has recently been the subject of some news
coverage — his name came up during the March 20 House
Intelligence Committee’s public hearing on Russia, when
Rep. Eric Swalwell (D-CA) asked FBI Director James
Comey about him — no thorough exploration of the
Bureau’s dealings with this key informant has been
published.
Until now.
The information below is based on an extensive
exploration of those dealings, and of previously
344
unexamined and unpublished legal documents, which the
government has sought to suppress.
The picture that emerges goes to the heart of the many
questions raised about Trump’s relationship to Putin’s
Russia in the weeks before and after the presidential
election.
Efforts to try to get this information to the public appear to
have been aggressively blocked by the DOJ because it
would potentially expose their own operations — both
those that have been effective and others that have not.
Felix Sater had been on the Bureau’s radar since the mid-
1990s, when they were investigating Russian mob–
affiliated financial scams.
Very soon after Semion Mogilevich associate
“Yaponchik” Ivankov arrived in the US, in 1993, Sater,
together with an Italian mob associate named Salvatore
Lauria, and others, had taken over a firm called White
Rock and created a criminal brokerage whose only purpose
was to fleece investors and launder money.
It excelled at “pump and dump” scams, a practice in which
stock prices are artificially inflated, then sold to
unsuspecting investors — especially targeting elderly and
unsophisticated buyers with high-pressure cold-calling
tactics. White Rock included members and associates of
four of the five major New York City organized crime
families, including the nephew of mobster Carmine “the
Snake” Persico and the brother-in-law of Gambino hit man
Sammy “the Bull” Gravano, as well as Russian criminal
elements.
The Art of the (Double) Deal
Although shuttering Sater’s operation was considered a
great success, authorities soon decided they could leverage
it to get even bigger fish. Thus, they cut a deal with Sater,
seemingly to help them go after the Russian-speaking mob,
and its “Brainy Don,” Semion Mogilevich.
Instead of serving jail time, Sater became a highly valued
FBI informant. Using unnamed connections, Sater
arranged to locate some Stinger missiles that Osama bin
Laden had supposedly placed on the market — an older
model that could be used to shoot down commercial
airliners.
Immediately after September 11, 2001, Sater received a
call from the chief of a new section in the FBI who wanted
to talk to him about Stingers, according to Salvatore Lauria
in The Scorpion and the Frog, co-authored with journalist
David S. Barry. Months later, Sater joined Bayrock — the
real estate development company with offices in Trump
Tower — and he was soon partnering in business deals
with Donald Trump himself. This raises some interesting
questions: Did Sater take the job at Bayrock at the FBI’s
direction? Indeed, was Sater’s business relationship with
Trump at the FBI’s behest?
One thing is certain: Bayrock became one of the most
important links between Trump and big-money sources
from the former Soviet Union.
The firm was founded by Tevfik Arif, a former
Communist Party functionary in the Soviet republic of
what is now Kazakhstan. Arif had formed another entity
called Bayrock in Moscow in 1989, during the very last
years of the Soviet Union.
Many Soviet functionaries transitioned to successful
careers in market capitalism with the help of friends in
high places: those with access to resources could make
enormous profits by pilfering the moribund Soviet state,
and such funds were best laundered and moved abroad for
safekeeping and investment. Real estate was generally
seen as a stable investment.
Donald Trump, Bayrock partner Tevfik Arif, and Felix Sater attend the
Trump Soho Launch Party on September 19, 2007 in New York. Photo
credit: Mark Von Holden / WireImage
During the five years Sater worked at Bayrock, he traveled
throughout the former Soviet Union, ostensibly looking for
real estate sites to develop with the Trump Organization —
while also allegedly laundering hundreds of millions of
dollars in illicit funds from mysterious sources in the
former Soviet Union. And all the while he was working as
an informant for the FBI.
Soon after joining Bayrock (about late 2001 to early 2002),
he effectively took control of it — while of necessity
hiding that fact from its lenders and clients. Sater was the
firm’s Chief Operating Officer, and according to assertions
in a lawsuit filed by a former Bayrock employee, by 2006
he owned more than 63% of the firm.
345
Sater’s dominant role came despite the fact that he was a
felon. Because of the services he was providing to the US
government, this information was withheld from banks and
others with whom Bayrock signed contracts, including
condominium buyers.
The Trump organization lent its name to Bayrock projects
in Toronto, Florida, Arizona, and in New York City, in the
chic SoHo neighborhood; the SoHo project was the only
Bayrock development into which the Trump Organization
actually put up any equity. Most of the Bayrock-affiliated
projects failed, though, leaving a trail of angry investors as
well as a string of lawsuits and countersuits. According to
legal depositions, most of the projects that Sater worked to
develop overseas — necessitating trips to Russia, Poland,
and Ukraine (including numerous trips to Crimea) —
never seemed to get off the drawing board.
Sater and Trump sometimes traveled together. In
September 2005, Trump and apparently Sater flew along
with his wife Melania to Colorado, where Sater talked to a
local reporter about possible Trump-Bayrock development
projects in Denver.
The real estate tycoon and the undercover mobster were
close enough that, according to his deposition testimony,
Sater could simply walk up a flight of stairs to Trump’s
office and stop in for an impromptu chat. Indeed, Sater and
the Trump clan grew so close that in February 2006, at the
personal request of Donald Trump, the mobster joined his
children Ivanka, Donald Jr., and his son’s wife Vanessa in
Moscow to show them around, according to his deposition
testimony. While he was in Moscow he emailed a
journalist about possible Trump-Bayrock developments in
Denver, in which he indicated he was with Don Jr.; a few
days later Sater is alleged to have called one of the partners
at the Arizona project and threatened to have him “tortured
and killed,” according to later court filings.
Sater’s tenure at Bayrock might have lasted longer, had
The New York Times not “outed” his criminal past in 2007.
Yet a few years later, after Sater had left Bayrock, he could
still be found in Trump Tower. But now he was apparently
working directly for Trump himself, with an office,
business cards, phone number and email address all
provided by the Trump Organization. The cards identified
him as a “Senior Advisor to Donald Trump.”
Today, Trump claims to have trouble remembering Sater.
“Trump was asked about Sater in depositions
related to other cases in 2011 and 2013. In the
first, Trump acknowledged that he used to speak
with Sater ‘for a period of time.’ Yet in the
second, Trump said, ‘if he were sitting in a room
right now, I really wouldn’t know what he looked
like,’” Mother Jones reported.
 In early December 2015, Trump still seemed
unclear when asked by an Associated Press
reporter about Sater. “Felix Sater, boy, I have to
even think about it,” he said. “I’m not that familiar
with him.” Ivanka and Don Jr. also later said that
they had no memory of being with him in
Moscow.
FBI agent Leo Taddeo definitely did not “have to think
about it.” Taddeo had worked in the Italian and Russian
organized crimes sections of the New York FBI office and
had directly witnessed the ramifications of the arrival of
“Yaponchik” Ivankov in 1992 — and the influence of
Mogilevich — in the Russian-speaking community, New
York financial markets, and beyond. He rose to be the
head of the Russian organized crime section — and was
one of Sater’s FBI handlers. Taddeo testified on Sater’s
behalf at his sentencing, praising his “extraordinary”
cooperation and stressing how “capable,” “important,” and
“effective” he was.
During the years when Trump and Bayrock pursued their
joint projects, the Trump SoHo was planned, designed and
funded, and ground was broken for it.
So Bayrock, of which Sater came to own a majority, and
the Trump Organization, headed by the future president
himself, did several high-profile deals together and had
offices close by each other in Trump Tower, and yet the
current president claims that he is “not that familiar with
him.”
There are a number of possible reasons why Trump has
had to tread lightly around the issue of Sater. Aside from
what Trump might have known about Sater’s back-channel
connections to the Russian government or organized
crime, their joint projects also pose enormous financial risk
to Trump.
If he or anyone around him — such as other Trump
Organization executives, accountants and lawyers — had
knowledge of Sater’s criminal past and yet entered into
contracts with him and Bayrock, Trump and his company
would then be liable for hundreds of millions of dollars —
and possible jail time.
Why?
346
Because parties to bank loans and investment contracts
must confirm that no owner or manager has been convicted
of fraud, and if that confirmation is false, anyone who
knew of the fraud is potentially liable. The same would be
true even if someone learned about Sater’s criminal status
after signing the contract but continued with it.
Thus, if Trump knew Sater was a convicted felon but did
business with him anyway, he, the Trump Organization,
and anyone within the company who knew of it could face
substantial penalties or fines. This might especially be true
for the Trump-Bayrock projects, as so many of them ended
terribly, with multiple lawsuits across many states.
However, the information of Sater’s past financial
criminality was officially hidden because his legal docket
in the White Rock/State Street case was kept secret (owing
to his continuing “cooperating witness” status). For this
reason, even after performing due diligence, someone
entering business agreements with Sater would find no
evidence of his criminal past.
Ukraine: The Big Prize
.The FBI’s failure to fully expose Trump’s
Russian connection before the election
seemingly emboldened the entire Trump team
— from the president to his former campaign
manager to his “bulldog” personal lawyer —
along with Sater, to take actions that can be
seen to have benefited Putin. Nowhere is this
more true than with Ukraine.
This former Soviet republic is central to Putin’s dream of
restoring Russia to its Cold War-era greatness and
protecting its borders. Annexing Crimea from Ukraine was
a huge victory for him. Holding on to that strategically
important region and maintaining access to it by
controlling eastern sections of Ukraine itself are vital to
Putin’s ambitions.
Other crucial strategic issues concerning Ukraine include
its desire to join NATO, seen by Russia as a huge threat.
There is also the matter of a pipeline that brings natural gas
from Russia through Ukraine into fuel-hungry Europe,
importantly Germany. Mogilevich was later named as the
secret majority owner of the Ukrainian stake in a
mysterious intermediary company, half-owned by Russian
energy giant Gazprom. (Mogilevich, as well as Sater’s
father, who has been identified as part of the Mogilevich
organization in a Supreme Court petition, both hail from
Ukraine. Mogilevich’s lawyer denied that his client had
any connection to the company.) While questions swirled
about the deal, Sater, then serving as an FBI informant,
traveled to Ukraine and Russia — ostensibly searching for
properties to develop with the Trump Organization. (For a
post-publication response from Felix Sater on these points,
see Editor’s Note at bottom.)
For his part, candidate Trump didn’t even acknowledge
that Russia had annexed Crimea or engaged its military in
Eastern Ukraine, when the issue came up early in the
presidential campaign.
“Just so you understand. [Putin] is not going to
go into Ukraine, all right?” Trump said in an
interview shortly after he was nominated —
before being corrected on the facts.
Trump’s platform chairman J. D. Gordon reportedly had
met with the Russian ambassador during the convention. In
an interview with CNN’s Jim Acosta, Gordon said he had
advocated the softening of the GOP platform language on
Ukraine — a softening that Trump himself had advocated
earlier in the year at a meeting with Gordon. Gordon’s
later comments seem to walk that assertion back, but the
GOP platform was changed.
Photo credit: Disney | ABC Television Group / Flickr (CC BY-ND 2.0)
At that time, Trump Tower resident Paul Manafort was
still running the campaign — until he was forced out
because of his ties to former Ukrainian President Viktor
Yanukovych and other powerful forces sympathetic to
Russia. But Manafort’s connections to Russia ran even
deeper than suspected back then.
On March 22, the Associated Press reported that Manafort
had been paid the astonishing sum of more than $10
million a year in the 2000s by Russian oligarch Oleg
Deripaska, a close Putin ally, to implement a plan that
would “greatly benefit the Putin Government.”
Stranger still, just last month, Trump associates Sater and
Michael D. Cohen, Trump’s personal attorney, lobbied
then-National Security Adviser Michael Flynn with a
scheme to lift sanctions on Russia, imposed after it seized
Crimea. They delivered a proposed “peace plan” for
Ukraine that infuriated the country’s current prime
minister. The proposal would have advanced the ambitions
347
of a pro-Russian politician whose movement Manafort
helped shape
It turns out that, like so many other figures in this story,
Cohen has his own substantial Ukrainian ties. After
graduating from what is considered by many to be a third-
tier law school, Cohen became a personal injury lawyer.
He married a woman whose parents are Ukrainian, and his
brother, also a lawyer, married a woman whose father rose
from humble Ukrainian roots to become a billionaire.
Much Less Than Six Degrees of Separation
.
While all this high-stakes maneuvering between the US
and Russia over Ukraine was unfolding, the DOJ and FBI
were hard at work to prevent the Sater-Trump story from
becoming widely known.
WhoWhatWhy has learned that a number of key law-
enforcement figures associated with Sater’s role as a
government informant have continued protecting him —
which has inevitably helped to keep under wraps the
criminal goings-on in Trump Tower. One of these figures
even went on to work for Trump.
FBI Special Agent Gary Uher not only investigated
(alongside fellow Agent Leo Taddeo) the early “pump and
dump” case that originally snared Sater, he also apparently
served as one of Sater’s handlers. After Uher retired from
the Bureau’s New York office in 2011, he went into the
private security business with another former FBI agent, in
a firm named XMark — which became one of a small
army of private security firms that guarded Trump during
the presidential campaign. (Neither Uher nor Taddeo
responded to requests for comment.)
In fact, both XMark and Uher personally began receiving
payments from the campaign as soon as Trump announced,
in June 2015. Uher’s name surfaced in the press a handful
of times, sometimes in allegations that he roughly handled
protestors at Trump rallies. Yet until now, no one has
pointed out that before he went to work for Trump, Uher
ran Sater.
It is not clear how Trump and Uher would have even
known each other were it not for the man both knew in
common — the man Trump was consistently vague about
during the campaign — Felix Sater.
As for Taddeo, in July 2016, as talk of possible efforts by
the Kremlin to help Trump’s campaign continued to pick
up steam, the Washington Post ran a story that
downplayed the possibility and quoted the ex-agent, now
in the private sector:
 “This is not Putin trying to help Trump,’’ he said.
The article identified Taddeo as “a former FBI
special agent in charge of cyber and special
operations in New York”.; it did not tell readers
he had been Sater’s former FBI handler when
Sater worked with Trump.
Left to right: XMark partners Ed Deck and Gary Uher accompany
Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump with his private
security director, longtime Trump Organization employee Keith
Schiller, after delivering an address in Birch Run, Michigan, August 11,
2015. Photo credit: Bill Pugliano / Getty Images
The paths of other central characters in the case are also
curious.
Two of Loretta Lynch’s colleagues at the Eastern District
US Attorney’s office, Leslie Caldwell and Kelly Anne
Moore, left government service to join the law firm of
Morgan, Lewis & Bockius, and both represented Sater at
his 2009 sentencing hearing. Caldwell returned to
government work in late 2013 when she was tapped to
serve as Assistant Attorney General for the Criminal
Division — the number three position at the Justice
Department.
Moore is still at Morgan Lewis. That firm was hired post-
election by Trump to sort out ethical issues concerning
possible conflicts of interest — which considering this
history takes on a whole new meaning. (Neither Caldwell
nor Moore responded to requests for comment.)
Trump’s announcement that he had retained Morgan Lewis
as ethics counsel was clearly meant to blunt calls for
disinvestment or use of a blind trust for the oversight of his
businesses. Curiously, on the same day that Trump made
the announcement, the Moscow office of Morgan Lewis
was named “Russia Law Firm of the Year” for 2016 by an
industry association.
By entrusting Morgan Lewis with addressing his conflicts
— and presumably demanding confidentiality agreements
in the process, as is his practice — was Trump insulating
himself from the release of information that would reveal
the true nature of his financial relationship with Sater,
Bayrock, and others?
348
Such revelations — which could have exposed Sater’s
criminal history, his interactions with Trump, the full
scope of Bayrock’s financial arrangements with the Trump
Organization, and perhaps the true source of Bayrock’s
financing — all would be covered by attorney-client
privilege.
With so many players and so many layers of involvement,
getting to the bottom of Trump’s Russian connection is a
Herculean task. And there is one further complication.
The Trump-Sater-Mogilevich-Putin saga, with its
intertwining domestic and international threads, is almost
certainly a battleground for powerful elements in the US
intelligence complex. Even unravelling one thread — the
FBI’s “running” of Felix Sater as an informant — is a
challenge at every level. The FBI historically has been
riven by internal battles over priorities and strategies —
and the Bureau has waged fierce turf wars with other
intelligence agencies, notably the CIA.
Why We Need an Independent Investigation
.
To sum up, WhoWhatWhy’s investigation suggests that the
FBI, in using an informant with a strong connection to
Trump and alleged ties to Russian mobsters — including
one deemed a national security threat by the US — has
seemingly tied its own hands in investigating the president.
This makes it difficult for the Bureau to pursue the
president’s long-running proximity to mobsters, including
gangsters from the former Soviet Union, and to those with
close connections to the Russian president and oligarchic
elite.
This in part could explain the FBI’s odd behavior and the
confusing back and forth on what the government knows
about Russia’s interventions in the 2016 election.
In this complex tale, it is sometimes hard to keep focused
on the most important connections. The FBI used Sater in
high-value projects; perhaps to help take down the Brainy
Don Mogilevich, who takes us straight to Putin. That
connection is so sensitive as to be deadly. Indeed after
Ivankov, Mogilevich’s lieutenant and Trump Tower
resident, publicly discussed Mogilevich’s close ties to
Putin, he was gunned down by a sniper on a Moscow
street.
At the end of 2015, the Justice Department’s criminal
division, headed by Leslie Caldwell — the former Eastern
District prosecutor and later Sater’s attorney — removed
Mogilevich from the FBI’s Ten Most Wanted list, an
extremely rare occurrence. Suspects are usually removed
from the list for only two reasons: arrest or death.
 Something doesn’t add up.

Whatever it is, we need to know. And, as this article

demonstrates, the FBI, for a variety of reasons, is not likely
to tell us the whole story.

And, it should be pointed out, what is vitally important to

Assistant Attorney General Leslie R. Caldwell of the Justice
Department’s Criminal Division, July 21, 2016. Photo credit: The Justice
Department / YouTube
Donald Trump has been a big Putin fan for years. This has
been a subject of speculation and derision, but it has not
gone further than that.
the public interest is not always what the Bureau considers
a crime. That is why the role of independent investigators,
including, notably, journalists, is so vital. Jack Blum, the
former senior Senate investigator and leading expert on
white-collar financial crime, stresses the gravity and
urgency of the situation:
“However complicated an investigation might become, it
goes to the heart of our democracy and it must go forward.
This time, unlike other investigations, including the
Kennedy assassination, CIA-Chile, and Iran-Contra, it has
to go to the heart of the matter no matter how long it takes
and no matter how shocking the conclusions.”

Given how close Trump was with Sater, and Sater with the
FBI, and the fact that the FBI was working to thwart
Mogilevich (who was close to Putin), the big question is
this: Why is this president’s unusual enthusiasm for the
Russian leader, and Russia in general, not already a formal
topic of urgent inquiry?

Photo credit: Donald Trump / Twitter Tweet 1 and Tweet 2

FBI wanted poster for Semion Mogilevich, 2009.
Photo credit: FBI and Zscout370 / Wikimedia
.

349
RED ALERT: Attempted Political Coup Now Taking Place
In D.C. With Effort To Impeach Trump For
Fabricated “Obstruction Of Justice”
By: Mike Adams
Wednesday, May 17, 2017
This is a high priority alert. The Washington Post, now
exposed as a CIA propaganda front, and the New York
Times (a fiction-pimping anti-American rag owned by a
Mexican national) have tag-teamed their way to their
desired finish line:
The impeachment and indictment of
President Donald J. Trump.
This has been accomplished through the publishing of a
seemingly endless stream of utterly fabricated fake news
stories, nearly all of which are based on “anonymous
sources” that are probably little more than schizophrenic
voices in the heads of the reporters writing the “news” in
the first place.
The aim has been to accuse President Trump of every
imaginable crime, from “leaking intel to the Russians” to
“obstruction of justice.”
Keep in mind that these same discredited media
outlets gave Obama a pass when he
laundered $1.7 billion in cash and delivered it
to Iran on a military cargo plane.
They are the same fake news media that looked the other
way when Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on the
tarmac in a private meeting to pressure Lynch to back off
any potential criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s
long list of crimes.
They are the same anti-American media that said nothing
when Hillary Clinton cheated during the presidential
350
debates by receiving the debate questions in advance from
CNN. (She also pre-sold her anticipated presidency by
collecting tens of millions of dollars in “donations” and
“speaking fees” from foreign interests.)
They are the same media that stood silent when former
President Obama weaponized the IRS to suppress the
speech of conservative non-profits. Similarly, nobody in
the media seems to be alarmed at all that Obama abused
the state surveillance apparatus to spy on his political
opponents such as Rand Paul.
These are all serious crimes, serious abuses of power and
treasonous acts carried out by Obama, a Democrat. Yet the
left-wing media remains silent on every one of them.
What’s obvious from all this is that, according to the left-
wing media, Democrats can do no wrong and all their
crimes are whitewashed by default (even the obvious
murder of Seth Rich). Yet Republicans are instantly guilty
of the worst crimes imaginable, even when they’ve done
nothing wrong at all.
REAL crimes committed by Democrats are deliberately
overlooked, in other words, while FAKE accusations
against Republicans are hyped up until they’re made to
look legitimate and damning, to the point where
Democrats are all madly hyperventilating and claiming to
be “triggered” by nearly everything.
It is against this background of wild disinformation, media
lies and conspiratorial plotting that President Trump is
now facing the most serious challenge of his
administration: An aggressive attempt to remove him from
office through impeachment and indictment over entirely
fabricated, baseless accusations that are lacking any real
facts.
Congressman Al Green just called for
Trump’s impeachment on the House floor
Right on cue, Texas congressman Al Green (a Democrat
from Houston, no surprise) just called for Donald Trump’s
impeachment. As Zero Hedge reports:
 For now it is unclear what Congressman Al
Green’s reasoning is… apart from anonymously-
sourced evidence-free reports from a clearly
biased mainstream media perpetuating a
narrative designed to ‘resist’. Apparently the
argument is that Trump “obstructed justice”,
although we hope Mr. Green has some evidence
to back up his accusations.
Indeed, nearly every media accusation against Trump has
been based on nothing but innuendo, misleading headlines,
fake “anonymous sources” (a Washington Post favorite) or
outright misrepresentations of hard facts. The New York
Times and Washington Post have deliberately published
fake news, then whipped it all into a “media circle jerk”
frenzy where the same false stories are repeated across the
‘net, all hyped up by Facebook’s selective oppression of
liberty-oriented news so that left-wing media lies are more
easily shared.
Google then tweaks its search engine algorithms to censor
truth media while giving extra rankings to the lies of the
left-wing media, making sure that all searches on political
topics return mainstream media propaganda results rather
than independent media stories that are actually far more
truthful. The fix is in, in other words, and it’s a
coordinated network involving the media, tech giants, deep
state intelligence organizations and of course late night
television which drives all the false narratives into the
brains of young, gullible hipsters.
The goal of all this is the overthrow of the
Republic and the final crushing of all voices
of liberty
As should be obvious by now, the Democrats seek to run
a totalitarian, fascist police state that they control. It will
be called a “tolerant” society, of course, where anyone
who disagrees with any left-wing narrative is censored off
the ‘net, labeled a threat to humanity and imprisoned or
executed. The Boston Herald is already calling for mass
executions of people who disagree with California’s SB
277 vaccine mandate which allows the state government to
force mass injections of toxic substances into human
babies. Netflix has now memory-holed videos that teach
the science of genetics, making sure that nobody
remembers how gender is determined by XX or XY
chromosomes, not a “momentary feeling” of a gender-
confused individual. Google eliminated the entire
NaturalNews.com website from its index for a six-day
period, attempting to memory hole 140,000+ independent
news articles, and Facebook is now blocking nearly all
sharing of independent media in order to make sure that
only the fake news narratives of the delusional Left can be
shared on its twisted social media platform (which serves
as little more than a front for the NSA to collect
intelligence on the citizenry).
351
The real goal in all this — which is also being pursued by
the evil globalist Jeff Bezos, founder of Amazon.com and
owner of the fake news Washington Post — is the
overthrow of the Republic. This will be followed, of
course, by a massive false flag school shooting, a call for
the complete disarmament of the U.S. citizenry, and a final
rollout of the totalitarian police state run by Leftists. All
liberty-oriented websites will be de-indexed from Google,
banned from Facebook sharing, blocked by email ISPs and
possibly even shut down at the domain level through
government seizures of domain names. All voices of
liberty will be silenced, and only obedient conformity will
be tolerated in the name of “tolerance.”
We are right now on the very precipice of this unfolding
before our very eyes in the days ahead. An effort is under
way to impeach President Trump or declare him mentally
unfit. Rumors are swirling that his own cabinet is prepared
to say he suffers from Alzheimer’s or dementia and is
therefore “unfit for command” and must be replaced. An
actual political coup is forming up at this very moment,
and the anti-American forces within the media and the
bureaucracy are planning to move swiftly to out-pace
public awareness or dissent against the coup that’s taking
place.
Why a coup against Trump will likely set off a
civil war and a catastrophic market collapse
I plan to discuss this is more detail in a subsequent article,
but according to my analysis, a coup against President
Trump is likely to be the catalyst for the outbreak of civil
war as well as a catastrophic market crash. In that civil
war, I predict a strong possibility that the headquarters of
Google, Facebook, Twitter and other tech gatekeepers
will be overrun by pro-America forces in order to halt their
collusion with fascist left-wing traitors who are trying to
overthrow the Republic.
We should expect to see similar strategic occupation
efforts targeting the Washington Post and the New York
Times, which is where all the anti-American propaganda
originates, run by nefarious globalists who despise liberty
and Trump. I would not be surprised at all to see all the
major media centers of America seized and forced to stop
running their anti-American, anti-liberty, fascist
propaganda that has deliberately sought to overthrow the
duly elected President of these United States.
On the streets, the mass protests will of course spill out
across every U.S. city, where brainwashed, delusional left-
wing activists will carry out mass violence against
innocent white people, looting white neighborhoods and
torching white-owned businesses. This mass violence will
be uncontrolled and unstoppable by local police, who will
be vastly outnumbered. At some point, watch for local
citizens who own firearms to start shooting back in their
own defense, and from there it all escalates into open
warfare on the streets of America. (Hint: Gun owners who
can accurately shoot rifles will out-range the left-wing
criminals who only know how to use handguns.)
If you are not yet prepared for the outbreak of mass
violence across America, your time is running short. You
will obviously need a means of self-defense, and you will
need plenty of organic survival food, a non-electric water
filter, emergency first aid items and emergency
communications gear. If you don’t yet own a firearm for
your protection, find recommended choices for self-
defense at Guns.news and Gear.news. You will need
plenty of hollow point ammo, which you can find at
MidwayUSA.com or AmmoToGo.com. My personal
recommendation is to acquire a Glock 19 as your starting
pistol, and get a POF-USA.com rifle if it’s legal to own
one in your area. (If it’s not legal to own a rifle, you are
living in the wrong state. Time to move…)
Prepare to defend your property, your community and
perhaps even your country. It really is coming down to an
outbreak of civil war across America, and the insane,
fascist Left will stop at nothing to stomp out all voices of
liberty and install their own totalitarian system of
government under which no dissent is allowed at all.
Leftism is fascism, remember. If you do not agree with all
their insane, delusional narratives about climate change,
transgenderism, government spending or socialized health
care, then you will be silenced and punished. The book
burnings have literally begun; the Left’s calls for the mass
killings of the voices of liberty are on the rise, and the Left
352
has become a mindless mass of dangerous zombies who
are mentally ill (and extremely violent). This will
obviously not end peacefully.
PRIORITY: How to stay informed as the attempted coup
and civil war unfolds
 STOP using Google as your search engine. Start using
GoodGopher.com instead.
 STOP using Google News to find out what’s
happening. Use Censored.news instead.
 STOP using Facebook, period. Use GAB.ai instead.
 STOP buying from Amazon.com. Every purchase funds
the same owner as the Washington Post, which is a
traitorous, fake news propaganda front that’s actively
trying to overthrow the Republic.
 NEVER believe what you get from NPR, NYT, CNN,
WashPost or other anti-American, left-wing media
outlets. They are all deliberately fabricating fake news
that’s intended to overthrow the Republic and crush all
voices of liberty and reason.
 Each day, go directly to NaturalNews.com,
NewsTarget.com, Trump.news or other websites to find
out what’s happening. Natural News is now updated
every morning and evening, so check it at least twice a
day.
 Subscribe to our email newsletter to receive email
alerts. Do not use a gmail address, as gmail
deliberately blocks Natural News content as a form of
censorship.
 White House Vows
To Audit The Pentagon, Which Would Be A First
By Russell Berman The Atlantic Read bio
May 17, 2017
The goal is audacious enough, but promises of a record
spending increase makes it even more complicated.
The Pentagon will spend the next several months
gearing up for a mission so complicated that many officials
doubt it can be pulled off, an undertaking so immense that
the military hasn’t once dared to try it before.
No, this isn’t a story about deploying a fancy new weapon,
or unveiling a new aircraft, or launching a military
operation of any kind: The Department of Defense is
preparing for its first-ever audit.
That the nation’s most sprawling and expensive
bureaucracy—and the world’s largest employer—has yet
to undergo a formal, legally mandated review of its
finances is a source of embarrassment among budget
watchdogs, and it has become a preoccupation for
members of Congress intent on demonstrating their fiscal
prudence even as they appropriate more than $600 billion
annually to the Pentagon. “Like Waiting for Godot,” one
Democratic senator, Jack Reed of Rhode Island, quipped
about the absent audit at a recent hearing. The lack of
formal accountability has left unanswered basic questions
about how the military spends taxpayer money, like the
precise number of employees and contractors its various
branches have hired. Cost overruns have become
legendary, none more so than the F-35 fighter-jet program
that has drawn the ire of President Trump. And partial
reports suggest that the department has misspent or not
accounted for anywhere from hundreds of
billions to several trillion dollars.
After years of missed deadlines, the mounting political
pressure and a renewed commitment from the Trump
administration might finally result in an audit. For the first
time last year, both major political parties called for
auditing the Pentagon in their campaign platforms. That
353
unites everyone from Hillary Clinton and Elizabeth
Warren to Ted Cruz and the House Freedom Caucus. And
last week, Trump’s nominee to serve as comptroller for the
Pentagon, David Norquist, testified at his Senate
confirmation hearing that he would insist on one whether
the department could pass it or not.
“It is time to audit the Pentagon,” Norquist
told members of the Senate Armed Services
Committee in his opening statement.
As comptroller for the Homeland Security Department a
decade ago, Norquist, the brother of the anti-tax advocate
Grover Norquist, undertook the first successful audits of
that much younger federal agency. The Defense
Department is unlikely to meet a statutory deadline to be
“audit-ready” by the end of September. But Norquist said
he would begin the process even if the Pentagon’s
financial statements were not fully in order, and he
committed to having the report completed by March 2019.
What has prevented the Pentagon from being examined
this way before? The answer lies somewhere “between
lethargy and complexity,” said Gordon Adams, a
distinguished fellow at the Stimson Center who was the
top budget official for national security in the Clinton
White House.
“It hasn’t been done ever,” he told me, “partly
because it’s incredibly complicated to do and
also because there’s not a great, powerful will in
the building to do it.”
The complexity of the project dates back to the Civil War,
Adams said, when the Army and the Navy set up their own
separate accounting systems. The Air Force also went its
own way after its creation following World War II, and the
military build-ups of the last four decades scrambled the
department’s financial records many times over. The
explosion of military contractors since 9/11 has made
scrubbing the books harder still. Adams estimated that an
audit would have to account for 15 million to 20 million
contracting transactions each year. The Pentagon has spent
several billion dollars over the last seven years just trying
to consolidate its accounting systems in preparation for a
potential audit.
Despite the ramp-up costs, the project has never risen to be
a top priority; the Pentagon has simply been too busy
fighting wars. “The military has repeatedly argued that
they need to focus on the war effort and accountability can
come later,” said Kori Schake, a fellow at the Hoover
Institution who previously served in a variety of national-
security positions in the government. That excuse carried
more weight with lawmakers in the years when the United
States had hundreds of thousands of troops fighting in Iraq
and Afghanistan.
Now, top Republicans like Senator John McCain of
Arizona, chairman of the Armed Services Committee, are
pressing for an audit with more urgency.
“This has been a very public continuing failure for
the Department of Defense, in large part due to
the failure of senior management to make this a
priority for the department and invest the
necessary time and will to get it done,” McCain
said at the outset of Norquist’s hearing. “This
must end with you,” he told the
president’s nominee.
Yet those fiscal hawks hoping that the long-awaited report
will spur substantial reforms to defense spending are just
as likely to be disappointed. An audit by itself won’t
dismantle the “military industrial complex” that former
President Dwight Eisenhower famously warned about, nor
will it lead members of Congress to stop fighting to protect
the bases and weapons systems that are manufactured in
their districts—and the jobs that come with them. Several
times in recent years, it has been congressional lobbying
that has kept up production of weapons and equipment that
the military no longer considers necessary.
“An audit does not raise the big issues,” Adams
said. “It doesn’t tell you that we’re not getting the
.
354
right bang for the buck. It doesn’t tell you
anything about whether we’re getting the right
forces for the threat. It doesn’t tell you how well
the forces perform. It doesn’t tell you where we
are wasting capability that we don’t need.”
“What it allows a member of Congress to do,” he
continued, “is to look tough on defense and
spend a lot on defense at the same time.”
Spending a lot on defense is what the Trump
administration wants to do, even as it pledges its support
for a Pentagon audit. The White House has asked Congress
for a $54 billion increase in the military budget over the
next year and secured about $15 billion of that in the
recent spending deal.
“It’s harder when there’s a big inflow of cash to
focus on something like the audit,” said William
Hartung, director of the arms and security project
at the Center for International Policy. “There’s
still that incentive to just push the money out
the door.”
There’s some hope among audit advocates that the
administration’s demand for more money will give
congressional spending hawks leverage to insist on
progress toward the accounting milestone in exchange for
a budget increase. But they also don’t believe leverage
should be necessary to demand that a department with a
workforce pegged at more than 3 million people commit,
at long last, to some basic bookkeeping.
“We would never accept the argument that the
Department of Education is too big and too
complicated to be accountable,” Schake argued.
“Why do we accept that for Defense?”
 Congressman Calls For Trump
Impeachment For "Obstruction Of Justice"
By Tyler Durden
May 17, 2017 9:25 AM

Update: Rep. Green has called for the impeachment of the The first Congressman (Maxine Waters must be pissed off)
president... has come forward to demand Trump's impeachment...

CLIP: @RepAlGreen: "I rise today...to call for the
impeachment of the President of the United
States of America for obstruction of justice."
pic.twitter.com/k3OMGcZbEF
— CSPAN (@cspan) May 17, 2017
Today on the floor of the Congress of the United
States of America, I will call for the Impeachment
of the President between 9am & 10am CST.
— Congressman Al Green (@RepAlGreen) May
17, 2017

* * * For now it is unclear what Congressman Al Green's

With Trump impeachment odds spiking...
reasoning is... apart from anonymously-sourced evidence-
free reports from a clearly biased mainstream media
perpetuating a narrative designed to 'resist'. Apparently the
argument is that Trump "obstructed justice", although we
hope Mr. Green has some evidence to back up his
accusations.

.@RepAlGreen to @ABC: "The president is not

within his rights...when it comes to obstruction of
justice." https://t.co/tTVq2aJqWb
pic.twitter.com/dbOh0tKMMr
— ABC News Politics (@ABCPolitics) May 16,
2017

15 minutes of fame?
.

355
 The Dow Plunges 372 Points As Trump
Impeachment Talk Reaches A Fever Pitch On Capitol Hill
By Michael Snyder
May 17th, 2017

The wolves are circling, and members of Congress from The financial markets had already “priced in” big tax cuts,
both political parties are now openly talking about reduced regulations and a massive increase in
impeaching President Trump. On Wednesday, speculation infrastructure spending.
of a looming Trump impeachment sent stocks plunging.
The Dow was down 372 points, and the S&P 500 and the If the markets believe that none of those things are going
Nasdaq both experienced their largest declines in eight to happen now, that is likely to result in a significant
months. This downturn was sparked by a New York downturn for stocks.
Times report that said that a memo that FBI Director
James Comey wrote in February stated that Trump
Of course the Democrats are just thrilled by these latest
requested that Comey “end the investigation into former
developments. U.S. Representative Jim Himes told
national security adviser Michael Flynn”. Democrats and
MSNBC that the Republican agenda is now
Republicans are both jumping on this memo as potential
evidence of “obstruction of justice”, but as I will explain
below, even if everything that Comey is saying is true “lying in ruins on the floor of this building”…
there is no evidence of obstruction of justice in this case.
However, perception is often more important than reality, Speaking earlier on Wednesday, Rep. Jim Himes (D-
and at this moment Wall Street and many of Trump’s Conn.), a member of the House intelligence committee,
fellow Republicans in Washington believe that the Trump said the Republican legislative agenda
administration is coming apart at the seams. After the
events of this week, it is clearer than ever that it is “is lying in ruins on the floor of this building.”
imperative that we get Trump some friends in Congress in
“It was tenuous when they got through their so-
2018.
called health care bill in the House. You can still
see blood on the floor here for what it cost them
Following Trump’s surprise election victory in November, to get that through the House,” Himes told
stocks surged as investors anticipated the implementation MSNBC’s “Morning Joe” in an interview from the
of a robust pro-business agenda. U.S. Capitol.
“Now, you know, things like tax reform , which is,
But now that the Trump administration is deeply
you know, very, very difficult in the best of times
embroiled in controversy, many fear that Trump’s pro-
— with that cloud, with this cloud, hanging over
business agenda will never become a reality…
this building, that legislative agenda is all but
gone.”
“A week ago, we were talking about the agenda
grinding to a halt,” the Republican said. “Now,
Previously, I have warned about the “gangster culture” in
the train is going down the hill backwards.”
Washington D.C., and the truth is that the “Deep State” has
been out to get Trump since the moment he was elected.
And even before Wednesday’s revelation about Comey’s
memo, some top Republican leaders were already
There are thousands upon thousands of laws that apply to
disavowing Trump’s agenda. For example, just check out
the presidency, and the jackals among the establishment
what Bloomberg is reporting about Senate Majority Leader
have been waiting for Trump to trip up just a little bit so
Mitch McConnell…
that they can try to take him down for good.
Earlier Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell
And things are starting to move very quickly now.
said he’s prepared to block Trump on many of his
proposed budget cuts and won’t support major tax cuts that
add to the deficit. Nor would he commit to building Within hours of the revelation about the Comey memo,
Trump’s border wall. Democratic Representative Al Green called for Trump to
be impeached from the House floor:

356
 “This is about what I believe. And this is where I
stand. I will not be moved. The president must be
impeached.”
It isn’t much of a surprise to see this sort of rush to
judgment from the Democrats, but the speed at which
Republicans are turning on Trump is more than just a little
bit alarming…
 -Senator John McCain raised the specter of
impeachment when he told the press that the crisis
surrounding Trump has reached “Watergate size and
scale”.
 -McCain’s partner in crime, Senator Lindsey Graham,
released a statement that said he “will follow the facts
— wherever they may lead”. Graham has always been
one of Trump’s biggest critics, and he clearly is ready
to move forward with impeachment.
 -According to the Hill, U.S. Rep. Justin Amash is saying
that if Comey’s memo is true “it would merit
impeachment”.
 -Commenting on Trump’s troubles, U.S. Rep. Carlos
Curbelo (R-Fla.) told reporters that obstruction of
justice “has been considered an impeachable offense”.
But what none of them understand is that Trump has not
committed any crime.
As a former lawyer with two law degrees (a JD and an
LLM), it is my opinion that even if everything in Comey’s
memo is true (and that is a big if), it still would not mean
that President Trump is guilty of obstruction of justice.
And I am far from alone in this regard. Someone that
agrees with me is ultra-liberal George Washington
University law professor Jonathan Turley…
A good place to start would be with the federal law,
specifically 18 U.S.C. 1503. The criminal code demands
more than what Comey reportedly describes in his memo.
There are dozens of different variations of obstruction
charges ranging from threatening witnesses to influencing
jurors. None would fit this case. That leaves the omnibus
provision on attempts to interfere with the “due
administration of justice.”
However, that still leaves the need to show that the effort
was to influence “corruptly” when Trump could say that he
did little but express concern for a longtime associate. The
term “corruptly” is actually defined differently under the
various obstruction provisions, but it often involves a
showing that someone acted “with the intent to secure an
unlawful benefit for oneself or another.” Encouraging
leniency or advocating for an associate is improper but not
necessarily seeking an unlawful benefit for him.
Then there is the question of corruptly influencing what?
There is no indication of a grand jury proceeding at the
357
time of the Valentine’s Day meeting between Trump and
Comey. Obstruction cases generally are built around
judicial proceedings — not Oval Office meetings.
You can’t charge someone with a crime just because you
don’t like that person.
We are not supposed to be a nation that conducts witch
hunts. The law is supposed to be applied equally to all of
our citizens, and that includes the president of the United
States.
I know that the left and the establishment Republicans that
hate Trump would love to use the law as a weapon to
remove Trump from office, but the truth is that there is no
evidence that Trump has done anything wrong.
And if the law was actually applied objectively in our land,
it is quite likely that Barack Obama, Bill Clinton and
Hillary Clinton would all be in very hot water about now.
The following comes from Mike Adams of Natural
News…
Keep in mind that these same discredited media
outlets gave Obama a pass when he
laundered $1.7 billion in cash and delivered it
to Iran on a military cargo plane.
They are the same fake news media that looked the other
way when Bill Clinton met with Loretta Lynch on the
tarmac in a private meeting to pressure Lynch to back off
any potential criminal investigation of Hillary Clinton’s
long list of crimes.
They are the same anti-American media that said nothing
when Hillary Clinton cheated during the presidential
debates by receiving the debate questions in advance from
CNN. (She also pre-sold her anticipated presidency by
collecting tens of millions of dollars in “donations” and
“speaking fees” from foreign interests.)
They are the same media that stood silent when former
President Obama weaponized the IRS to suppress the
speech of conservative non-profits. Similarly, nobody in
the media seems to be alarmed at all that Obama abused
the state surveillance apparatus to spy on his political
opponents such as Rand Paul.
For much more on the crimes of the Clintons in particular,
I would commend a book by Edward Klein entitled
“Guilty as Sin: Uncovering New Evidence of
Corruption and How Hillary Clinton and the
Democrats Derailed the FBI Investigation”. The fact
that neither of the Clintons have ever been to prison says a
lot about the state of criminal justice in America today.
It is literally going to take a miracle for Trump to survive
the next couple of years. If he can do that, we can
definitely greatly strengthen his hand by sending hordes of
Trump supporters to D.C. during the mid-term elections in
2018.
If the impeachment process moves forward, there are a
whole lot of Republicans that would gleefully plunge
knives into Trump’s back. So Trump needs to be very
.
358
careful, because he doesn’t have a lot of true friends in
Congress at this point.
This is why we can no longer vote for someone just
because they carry the label of “Republican”. What we
really need is a conservative revolution in this country, and
my hope is that we can start a movement that will turn
Washington D.C. completely upside down.
 US Congress Should Not
Rush To Impeach Trump - Schiff
© AP Photo/ Jim Lo Scalzo/Pool Image - US
19:49 17.05.2017
The US Congress should not hurry to impeach President Donald Trump
before all the facts about his actions are known, House of
Representatives Intelligence Committee ranking member Adam Schiff
said at a press conference on Wednesday.
WASHINGTON (Sputnik) — Earlier in the day, US
Congressman Al Green said Trump should be impeached
for obstructing the Federal Bureau of Investigation’s (FBI)
probe into the possible relationship between the president
and the Russian government.
Justin Amash, a Republican, also raised the idea
on Wednesday in an interview with The Hill newspaper.
.
359
"No one should rush to embrace the most
extraordinary remedy… removing the president
from office," Schiff told reporters. "I think we’re a
long way from knowing the facts here."
Schiff spoke after congressional Democrats announced
they had signed a discharge petition calling on Congress
to establish an independent investigation into ties
between Trump and Russia.
During the press conference, Schiff and other House
Democrats said the bipartisan investigation into alleged
ties between Trump and Russia has been blocked by the
White House as well as some Republicans.
Lawmakers were reacting to recent reports in the
Washington Post and New York Times that Trump had
shared sensitive information with Russian Foreign
Minister Sergey Lavrov and had asked former FBI
Director James Comey to drop a probe into former national
security advisor Mike Flynn.
Trump and his National Security Adviser H.R. McMaster
have stated the media reports were false.
 Banker: "One Million Will March
On Washington If They Impeach Trump.
They Will Be Armed"
By Vince Lanci, Via Soren K Group And Marketslant
May 17, 2017 1:19 PM
Because He's TNT
Sometime contributor Bon Scott who happens to be not
only a Trump supporter but more importantly a
Constitutional expert and Big "L" Libertarian had this to
say in response the 'Impeach Trump' escalation.
10,000,000 people will march on Washington
if they try to impeach Trump... they will be
heavily armed. I will be one of them. No
kidding
While our colleague seems given to hyperbole consider
this. Last year as early as February he said:
"Trump can win. Ignore the polls. Polls are
meaningless in an election with so many
“shock events”. The truth is Donald Trump
can win the election in a landslide.
That was true. We quoted him in our October 2016 post.
SKG contributor Vince Lanci echoed Bon's words in this
Aug post:
On the flip side Trump fans should be happy.
If past calls are any indication Trump will
indeed win in landslide..
Bon also said in our July Post
Trump will spend like a drunken sailor
This is also true in Trumps's attempts if not in execution
yet.
Can you argue With Bon?
The truth is, while our pseudonymous contributor is given
to outrageously couched statements, he has picked up on
something that is close to our hearts. You can see it in
360
how polls are just wrong consistently. And to us that is
explainable. The statistical world relies to heavily on
polls. Polls are merely "snapshots' of moments.
What is not revealed in polls is the subjectivity of the
person being polled!. We know the bias of pollsters. But
what has been ignored for years is subjective probability.
That concept relates to trends when humans are involved.
Do you think people are going to be honest with pollsters
anymore? No, they say what you want to hear so they can
move on. Voting is very private. And people are taking
back that privacy. On a broader scale, subjective or
conditional probability includes drifts or trends. Nassim
Taleb is a key proponent of this, and we count him as a
genius in taking his options knowledge and applying it to
many fields in need of improvement. We also enjoy his
lambasting those dogmatists that do not get it. Jim
Rickards is another subscriber to Bayesian theorems.
What Is Bayesian Probability?
Simply put, is it a 50/50 chance the sun rises tomorrow?
Statistically the answer is yes to an uneducated caveman
seeing it for the first time. But how many times can that
caveman stick with those stats when 5 years later the sun
continues to rise?
Personal example: If it is 50/50 that a coin lands on heads
or tails, then how come I could at one time flip a coin and
make it land on heads 10x in a row? Statisticians will say "
Luck, law of large numbers will fix that". Sorry guys that
is just not true.
Here is why. I practiced coin flipping at one point in my
trading career to make it a skill. I measured how high it
had to go, what side the coin had to start on, and how hard
I had to flip it. Was I cheating? No. What people see as
randomness is actually a skill based event via intense
practice. Had I let the coin land on the ground it would
have been randomized. But I did not.
Pollsters Do Not Get it
This is the essence of the core ignorance of pollsters and
statisticians. They ignore the human factor. And with that,
they miss grass roots macro trends like the populism that
triggered Brexit. They do not see what our friend Bon
does, that people are not numbers, and the more we rely on
models dogmatically, the more likely we are to be
surprised. Or as he would say:
Don’t be stupid! Trump is going to win in a
landslide.
So while numbers are counted by Nate Silver, conditional/
subjectivity of the person polled is not factored in. This is
the problem in modern polling and stats.
In trading we used to Fade brokers to protect ourselves
from this. We were taught statistically that it is 50/50 every
order is buy/sell. But when a broker came in everyday at
the same time for 2 months straight and bought from us,
that concept meant shit. We used to say: Crap, how high
do I have to make this price so he would not buy from us?
And the answer was essentially NONE. That broker was a
buyer and would continue to be one until he began
unwinding his position.
Option Traders Don't Get it
At the time I understood this as Bayesian probability and
explained the rationale for "fading" markets to my boss
and mentor. He disagreed. He did not get it. He was an
extremely hard working savant who in the end became a
bitter detractor despite my idol worship and his own
immense success. When you quit working for him, with
only a couple exceptions, you were the enemy. All this
because the man, like the modern pollster could not
grasp that whenever human behaviour is involved,
probability has a subjective factor.
What are the Odds of a DC March if a Populist
President is Impeached?
Can we afford to ignore "Bon", our colleague who is quite
sane, does not represent the lunatic fringe, and is
intimately aware that while Trump may not be a beltway
darling, he has governed through populism.
Witness how Trump castrated the media with his
"Fake News" press conference. He literally made people
reject the MSM info as false and further likely turned
people off to even looking at it.
He effectively put them in a box where they could not sell
their wares anymore.
This is no easy task. Winning elections via populism is
easy game. But actually governing that way is not easy.
We'd dare say, it has not been done ever in a Republic.
361
So here we are. A populist-ly elected President who has
thus far governed through populism. A president with a
loyal following that is likely to not take an unconstitutional
impeachment sitting down. Trump will not go quietly into
the night. He will appeal to the public. He is a narcissist.
And to his credit, narcissists are all about winning
popularity contests.
And against him are now the legal types who will use the
Constitution to undermine it.
To Bon we joked:
"To get you and your pals to disburse, all we
have to do is kill the wifi."
To which he responded:
That isn't enough. You may get some to go home
with Beer bribes, but the core people mean
business. They will not stand for this.
People vs. Elites
Do you want to bet against a DC march if Trump is
impeached? Do you want to be short Gold or long stocks if
that happens?
A march would be an exponential increase in uncertainty.
The people vs the Elites. And in the end with Elitist power
at their disposal including manipulating the press, social
media, revoking freedom of speech and rights to assemble
and restricting gun ownership; it wont be enough. There
will be the fallback to the use of force. People in power
always lean on that when needed. And while they may
have learned marketing and manipulation tricks, at bottom,
there is always metal hammer inside that velvet wrapper
you see.
People are fed up. Impeach at Your Own Risk
We personally own 2 guns. A Benelli shotgun for skeet,
and a 357 magnum for target range shooting. As believers
in gun control laws for non law abiding citizens, we will
not be inclined to subscribe to giving up what protects us
from a deep state that does what it wants and when it
loses, changes the rules. This is the potential beginning
of the libertarian left and right People aligning against the
authoritarian left and right Elitists.
Impeachment Adds Uncertainty, Not Closure
So this will not end with impeachment. It will only stir
more problems at grass roots levels. To tell 50% of the
country that already distrusts its institutions that those
same institutions are collaborating to kill off their
president may be a spark of revolt unlike anything seen
since the 1960s.
This is the cause that would unite libertarians, rednecks,
NRA types, uneducated (but no less human and entitled to
.
constitutional rights) and the silently suffering suburban
middle class under one banner. People evolve at their own
pace. Stop telling us what is best for us. That is not
working out so well for you in the world. Don't do it here

362
 CNN Brazenly Suggests The 'Deep State'
Is Responsible For Memogate Revenge Against The
President
By The_Real_Fly
May 17, 2017 9:34 PM

CNN's Dana Bash took to the airwaves this evening to

chastise the President for his demeanor towards the Earlier today, President Putin responded to the
unelected 4th branch of government, the 'intelligence unchastened lunacy taking place by the leftist wing of
community.' government, calling it 'political schizophrenia.'

Speaking freely, Ms. Bash suggested the recent leaks that
depicted Trump leaking 'top secret' intel to the Russians,
and the Comey memos, were acts of revenge by people
inside the IC for the way that the President fired Director
Comey.
He added, 'when we were looking at how the internal
political battle was developing in the U.S., we thought it
was funny. As of today, it's not just sad, but concerning to
us because it's hard to imagine what the people who
produce such nonsense can come up with next. This is all
being done based on stirring anti-Russian sentiment.'

363
 Top GOP Lawmakers Were Secretly
Recorded Saying They Think Putin Pays Trump
Rhett Jones
May 17, 2017
Thanks to the ubiquity of recording devices and the
duplicitousness of members of the GOP, we now know
that top Republican congressmen were discussing potential
collusion between Trump and Putin before he was even
nominated. They didn’t care then and they don’t care now.
The Washington Post has obtained a recording from a
private meeting between House GOP leaders that
happened on Capitol Hill on June 15th, 2016. The Post
was able to listen to, verify and transcribe the recording
and let’s just say, it looks pretty bad.
Four people are identified in the transcript:
 Speaker of the House Paul Ryan,
 House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy,
 House Majority Whip Steve Scalise and
 Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rogers.
Ryan and McCarthy discuss their meetings with the Prime
Minister of Ukraine that day. They talk about Russia
funding populist politicians to destabilize Europe’s
democracies, and then they shift to how it could be
happening here. They mention the incredibly sophisticated
propaganda machine that Russia is using, and then talk
turns to the DNC hacking that was reported the day before.
McCarthy says that he thinks two people in politics are on
Putin’s payroll: Californian Republican Representative
364
Dana Rohrabacher, who is known for defending Putin, and
Donald Trump. He laughs, but then says, “swear to god.”
Ryan then insists that this is just between them, right?
From the report:
When initially asked to comment on the
exchange, Brendan Buck, a spokesman for
Ryan, said: “That never happened,” and
Matt Sparks, a spokesman for McCarthy,
said: “The idea that McCarthy would assert
this is absurd and false.”
After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the
exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership,
said:
“This entire year-old exchange was clearly
an attempt at humor. No one believed the
majority leader was seriously asserting that
Donald Trump or any of our members were
being paid by the Russians. What’s more,
the speaker and leadership team have
repeatedly spoken out against Russia’s
interference in our election, and the House
continues to investigate that activity.”
Hahahahahaha. It was just a joke. And we know that Ryan
has been tireless in supporting Devin Nunes as the head of
the House Intelligence Committee. He continually insisted
Nunes shouldn’t recuse himself from the Russia
investigation even though Nunes very obviously colluded
with the White House to muddy the waters of the inquiry.
Does this recording show that they wouldn’t mind if
Trump was working with Russia? Not at all. It mostly
shows that they understood the gravity of Russia’s political
operations, and that once Trump was president, they
decided to ignore it and drag their feet on the investigation.
Check out this exchange:
Ryan: “Russia is trying to turn Ukraine
against itself.”
Rodgers: “Yes. And that’s...it’s
sophisticated and it’s, uh...”
Ryan: “Maniacal.”
 Rodgers: “Yes.”
Ryan: “And guess, guess who’s the only
one taking a strong stand up against it? We
are.”
Rodgers: “We’re not…we’re not…but,
we’re not.”
McCarthy [referring to DNC hacking]:“I’ll
guarantee you that’s what it is...The
Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp
[opposition] research that they had on
Trump.”
Ryan: “The Russians hacked the DNC...
McHenry: “...to get oppo...”
Ryan: “On Trump and like delivered it
to...to who?”
McCarthy: “There’s... there’s two people, I
think, Putin pays: Rohrabacher and
Trump...[laughter]...Swear to God.”
Ryan: “This is an off
record...[laughter]...No
leaks...[laughter]...alright?!. This is how we
know we’re a real family here.”
.
Scalise: “That’s how you know that we’re
tight.”
[laughter]
Ryan: “What’s said in the family stays in
the family.”
Tight.
Yeah, there’s a lot of laughter in there. It’s totally
believable that they aren’t fully convinced that Trump
coordinated with Russia. But, really, that’s not what this
whole drama has been about. If Trump really did
coordinate with Russia, that would be insane. What we do
know is that Russia used many tactics to meddle in our
election, a review needs to take place, and Republicans
have insisted there’s nothing to see here because they don’t
want to jeopardize their power. This recording makes it
clear—top Republicans know exactly what they’re doing:
putting party before country.
the Luckily, Trump pissed off the Deputy Attorney General in
charge of the investigation, who proceeded to appoint a
special counsel to handle the investigation independently
today. Maybe he’ll have some questions for these
chuckleheads.
365
 House Majority Leader To Colleagues
In 2016: ‘I Think Putin Pays’ Trump
By Adam Entous
May 17, 2017

prompting McCarthy to shift the conversation from

Russian meddling in Europe to events closer to home.

Some of the lawmakers laughed at McCarthy’s comment.

Then McCarthy quickly added:

“Swear to God.”

Ryan instructed his Republican lieutenants to keep the

conversation private, saying:
The Post’s Adam Entous discusses a 2016 conversation of GOP
leaders in which House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R-Calif.) “No leaks. . . . This is how we know we’re a real
made an explosive claim. (Video: Bastien Inzaurralde/Photo: Melina family here.”
Mara/The Washington Post)

The remarks remained secret for nearly a year.

KIEV, Ukraine — A month before Donald Trump clinched
the Republican nomination, one of his closest allies in
The conversation provides a glimpse at the internal views
Congress — House Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy —
of GOP leaders who now find themselves under mounting
made a politically explosive assertion in a private
pressure over the conduct of President Trump. The
conversation on Capitol Hill with his fellow GOP leaders:
exchange shows that the Republican leadership in the
that Trump could be the beneficiary of payments from
House privately discussed Russia’s involvement in the
Russian President Vladimir Putin.
2016 election and Trump’s relationship to Putin, but
wanted to keep their concerns secret. It is difficult to tell
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: from the recording the extent to which the remarks were
Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy (R-Calif.) meant to be taken literally.
said, according to a recording of the June 15,
2016, exchange, which was listened to and
The House leadership has so far stood by the White House
verified by The Washington Post. Rep. Dana
as it has lurched from one crisis to another, much of the
Rohrabacher is a Californian Republican known
turmoil fueled by contacts between Trump or his
in Congress as a fervent defender of Putin and
associates with Russia.
Russia.

House Speaker Paul D. Ryan (R-Wis.) immediately
interjected, stopping the conversation from further
exploring McCarthy’s assertion, and swore the
Republicans present to secrecy.
Before the conversation, McCarthy and Ryan had emerged
from separate talks at the Capitol with Ukrainian Prime
Minister Vladimir Groysman, who had described a
Kremlin tactic of financing populist politicians to undercut
Eastern European democratic institutions.
News had just broken the day before in The Washington
Post that Russian government hackers had penetrated the
computer network of the Democratic National Committee,
House Republican leaders have so far resisted calls for the
appointment of an independent commission or a special
prosecutor to investigate Russian interference, though
pressure has been mounting on them to do so after
Trump’s firing of FBI Director James B. Comey and the
disclosure that the president shared intelligence with
Russian diplomats.
Late Wednesday, Deputy Attorney General Rod J.
Rosenstein announced he had appointed Robert S. Mueller
III, a former prosecutor who served as the FBI director
from 2001 to 2013, as special counsel to oversee the
Russia probe.

366
Evan McMullin, who in his role as policy director to the
House Republican Conference participated in the June 15
conversation, said:
“It’s true that Majority Leader McCarthy said that
he thought candidate Trump was on the
Kremlin’s payroll. Speaker Ryan was concerned
about that leaking.”
McMullin ran for president last year as an independent and
has been a vocal critic of Trump.
When initially asked to comment on the exchange,
Brendan Buck, a spokesman for Ryan, said:
“That never happened,” and Matt Sparks, a
spokesman for McCarthy, said: “The idea that
McCarthy would assert this is absurd and false.”
After being told that The Post would cite a recording of the
exchange, Buck, speaking for the GOP House leadership,
said:
“This entire year-old exchange was clearly an
attempt at humor. No one believed the majority
leader was seriously asserting that Donald
Trump or any of our members were being paid
by the Russians. What’s more, the speaker and
leadership team have repeatedly spoken out
against Russia’s interference in our election, and
the House continues to investigate that activity.”
“This was a failed attempt at humor,” Sparks
said.
Ken Grubbs, a spokesman for Rohrabacher, said the
congressman has been a consistent advocate of
“working closer with the Russians to combat
radical Islamism. The congressman doesn’t need
to be paid to come to such a necessary
conclusion.”
When McCarthy voiced his assessment of whom Putin
supports, suspicions were only beginning to swirl around
Trump’s alleged Russia ties.
At the time, U.S. intelligence agencies knew that the
Russians had hacked the DNC and other institutions, but
Moscow had yet to start publicly releasing damaging
emails through WikiLeaks to undermine Trump’s
Democratic challenger, Hillary Clinton. An FBI
counterintelligence investigation into Russian efforts to
influence the presidential election would open the
following month, in late July, Comey has said in testimony
to Congress.
367
Trump has sought to play down contacts between his
campaign and the Russians, dismissing as a “witch hunt”
the FBI and congressional investigations into Russian
efforts to aid Trump and any possible coordination
between the Kremlin and his associates. Trump denies any
coordination with Moscow took place.
Presidential candidate Trump’s embrace of Putin and calls
for closer cooperation with Moscow put him at odds with
the House Republican caucus, whose members have long
advocated a harder line on Russia, with the exception of
Rohrabacher and a few others.
Among GOP leaders in the House, McCarthy stood out as
a Putin critic who in 2015 called for the imposition of
“more severe” sanctions for its actions in eastern Ukraine
and the annexation of Crimea.
In May 2016, McCarthy signed up to serve as a Trump
delegate at the Republican National Convention, breaking
ranks with Ryan, who said he still was not ready to
endorse the candidate. McCarthy’s relationship with
Trump became so close that the president would
sometimes refer to him as “my Kevin.”
Trump was by then the lone Republican remaining in the
contest for the nomination. Though Ryan continued to hold
out, Trump picked up endorsements from the remaining
GOP leaders in the House, including Rep. Steve Scalise,
the majority whip from Louisiana, and Republican
Conference Chairman Cathy McMorris Rodgers (Wash.)
— both of whom took part in the June 15 conversation.
Ryan announced on June 2 that he would vote for Trump
to help “unite the party so we can win in the fall” but
continued to clash with the candidate, including over
Putin. While Trump sought to cast Putin as a better leader
than then-President Obama, Ryan dubbed him an
“aggressor” who didn’t share U.S. interests.
On the same day as Ryan’s endorsement, Clinton stepped
up her attacks on Trump over his public statements
praising Putin.
“If Donald gets his way, they’ll be celebrating in
the Kremlin,” she said.
Ukrainian officials were unnerved by Trump’s statements
in support of Putin. Republicans, they had believed, were
supposed to be tougher on Russia.
When Trump named Paul Manafort as his campaign
manager in April 2016, alarm bells in Kiev started ringing
even louder. Manafort was already well known in Ukraine
because of his influential role as a political consultant to
Viktor Yanukovych, the country’s former Kremlin-
friendly ruler until a popular uprising forced him to flee to
Russia. Manafort had also consulted for a powerful
Russian businessman with close ties to the Kremlin.
“Ukraine was, in a sense, a testing ground for
Manafort,” said Ukrainian political scientist Taras
Berezovets, who became a grudging admirer of
Manafort’s skills in the “dark arts” of political
stagecraft while Berezovets was working for one
of Yanukovych’s political rivals.
At the urging of Manafort, Yanukovych campaigned with
populist slogans labeling NATO a “menace” and casting
“elites” in the Ukrainian capital as out of touch,
Berezovets said. Trump struck similar themes during the
2016 campaign.
The FBI is now investigating whether Manafort, who
stepped down as Trump’s campaign manager in August,
received off-the-books payments from Yanukovych’s
party, U.S. officials said. As part of that investigation, FBI
agents recently took possession of a newly discovered
document that allegedly details payments totaling
$750,000. Ukrainian lawmaker Sergii Leshchenko, who
368
first disclosed the new document, declined to comment on
his contacts with the FBI.
A spokesman for Manafort has said that Trump’s former
campaign manager has not been contacted by the FBI.
Manafort has also disputed the authenticity of the newly
discovered document.
Groysman, on an official visit to Washington, met
separately with Ryan and McCarthy on June 15 at the
Capitol.
He told them how the Russians meddled in European
politics and called for “unity” in addressing the threat,
according to U.S. and Ukrainian officials. Ryan issued a
statement after the meeting saying,
“the United States stands with Ukraine as it
works to rebuild its economy and confront
Russian aggression.”
Later, Ryan spoke privately with McCarthy, Rodgers,
Scalise and Rep. Patrick T. McHenry (R-N.C.), the deputy
whip, among others.
Feb. 2, 2016 House Speaker Paul D. Ryan of Wisconsin speaks in
Washington. J. Scott Applewhite/AP
Ryan mentioned his meeting with Groysman, prompting
Rodgers to ask:
“How are things going in Ukraine?” according to
the recording.
The situation was difficult, Ryan said. Groysman, he said,
had told him that Russian-backed forces were firing 30 to
40 artillery shells into Ukrainian territory every day. And
the prime minister described Russian tactics that include
“financing our populists, financing people in our
governments to undo our governments.”
Ryan said Russia’s goal was to “turn Ukraine against
itself.” Groysman underlined Russia’s intentions, saying,
“They’re just going to roll right through us and go
to the Baltics and everyone else,”
according to Ryan’s summary of the prime minister’s
remarks in the recording.
.
369
“Yes,” Rodgers said in agreement, noting that the
Russians were funding nongovernmental
organizations across Europe as part of a wider
“propaganda war.”
“Maniacal,” Ryan said. “And guess, guess who’s the only
one taking a strong stand up against it? We are.”
Rodgers disagreed. “We’re not . . . we’re not . . . but, we’re
not,” she said.
That’s when McCarthy brought the conversation about
Russian meddling around to the DNC hack, Trump and
Rohrabacher.
“I’ll guarantee you that’s what it is. . . . The
Russians hacked the DNC and got the opp
[opposition] research that they had on Trump,”
McCarthy said with a laugh.
Ryan asked who the Russians “delivered” the opposition
research to.
“There’s . . . there’s two people I think Putin
pays: Rohrabacher and Trump,” McCarthy said,
drawing some laughter. “Swear to God,”
McCarthy added.
“This is an off the record,” Ryan said.
Some lawmakers laughed at that.
“No leaks, all right?,” Ryan said, adding: “This is
how we know we’re a real family here.”
“That’s how you know that we’re tight,” Scalise
said.
“What’s said in the family stays in the family,”
Ryan added.
Andrew Roth in Moscow, Michael Birnbaum in Brussels
and Robert Costa in Washington contributed to this report.
 OBSESSED! 92% Of
CNN’s Trump Coverage Is Negative
By Robert Gehl
May 17, 2017

the 11 p.m. CNN Tonight with Don Lemon, a total of 20

hours of material.

“After excluding commercials, teases and

There’s an understanding in the news business that any
story — pro or con — about President Trump grabs
eyeballs, but CNN has taken it to a new level.
As for the angle of coverage, MRC found:
A new Media Research Center survey of a full day of CNN
coverage found that 92 percent of the news time was spent
on Trump stories, The Washington Examiner reports.
And the angle: CNN featured 96 critics and just seven
supporters.
promos, our analysts found 13 hours, 27 minutes
of actual news coverage, an average of just over
40 minutes per hour. Of that, a whopping 92
percent (12 hours, 19 minutes) was devoted to
the Trump presidency, with a mere 68 minutes —
a little more than three minutes per hour —
devoted to all of the other news of the day,” said
the report.
“The vast majority of all of CNN’s guests that day
(96, or 78% of the total) were Trump critics,
compared to a handful of pro-Trump guests (just
seven, or 6% of the total). Another 13 guests
were neutral, and seven offered mixed
assessments of the administration.”

MRC analysts reviewed a day of coverage on Friday,

starting with the 4 a.m. Early Start and continuing through
.

370
 Putin Says Can Prove
Trump Did Not Pass Russia Secrets
By Reuters
May 17, 2017 AT 9:17 AM Last Updated: May 17, 2017 4:20 pm
SOCHI, Russia—Russian President Vladimir Putin said on
Wednesday that U.S. President Donald Trump had not
passed on any secrets to Russian Foreign Minister Sergei
Lavrov during a meeting in Washington last week and that
he could prove it.
Speaking at a news conference alongside Italian Prime
Minister Paolo Gentiloni in the Black Sea resort of Sochi,
Putin quipped that Lavrov was remiss for not passing on
what he made clear he believed were non-existent secrets.
“I spoke to him (Lavrov) today,” said Putin with a
smile. “I’ll be forced to issue him with a
reprimand because he did not share these
secrets with us. Not with me, nor with
representatives of Russia’s intelligence services.
It was very bad of him.”
Putin, who said Moscow rated Lavrov’s meeting with
Trump “highly,” said Russia was ready to hand a transcript
of Trump’s meeting with Lavrov over to U.S. lawmakers if
that would help reassure them.
371
A Kremlin aide, Yuri Ushakov, later told reporters that
Moscow had in its possession a written record of the
conversation, not an audio recording.
Complaining about what he said were signs of “political
schizophrenia” in the United States, Putin said Trump was
not being allowed to do his job properly.
“It’s hard to imagine what else can these people
who generate such nonsense and rubbish can
dream up next,” said Putin.
“What surprises me is that they are shaking up
the domestic political situation using anti-Russian
slogans. Either they don’t understand the
damage they’re doing to their own country, in
which case they are simply stupid, or they
understand everything, in which case they are
dangerous and corrupt.”
Two U.S. officials said on Monday that Trump had
disclosed highly classified information to Lavrov about a
planned Islamic State operation, plunging the White House
into another controversy just months into Trump’s short
tenure in office.
Russia has repeatedly said that anti-Russian politicians in
the United States are using groundless fears of closer ties
with Moscow to sabotage any rapprochement and damage
Trump in the process.
 Trump Campaign Said To Have
18 Previously Undisclosed Russia Contacts: Reuters
by Tyler Durden
May 18, 2017 6:05 AM
Just when it seemed that Trump was about to put the
Russian allegations in the rearview mirror, if only for the
time being, thanks to the appointment of special counsel
Robert Mueller tasked with overseeing the federal
investigation into Russian interference in the 2016
election, this morning Reuters reported citing "familiar
sources" that "Michael Flynn and other advisers to Donald
Trump’s campaign were in contact with Russian officials
and others with Kremlin ties in at least 18 calls and emails
during the last seven months of the 2016 presidential race."
Specifically, the 18 calls and electronic messages took
place between April and November 2016, a period that is
already in the public domain as being the focus of ongoing
investigations, focusing on Flynn and Trump's ex-advisor
Paul Manafort.
According to the Reuters sources,
"in the conversations during the campaign,
Russian officials emphasized a pragmatic,
business-style approach and stressed to
Trump associates that they could make deals
by focussing on common economic and
other interests and leaving contentious
issues aside"
On the surface the story is a recap of what is already
known: as Reuters itself points out inside the report, these
previously undisclosed interactions "form part of the
record now being reviewed by FBI and congressional
investigators" which has now culminated with the
appointment of a special counsel: one way or another, if
Trump indeed colluded with Russia, as the daily barrage of
media reports suggests, we will know shortly.
Furthermore, as Reuters also explicitly states, the sources
"had seen no evidence of wrongdoing or
collusion between the campaign and Russia
in the communications reviewed so far",
something which various FBI personnel have confirmed on
more than one occasions under oath.
However, it's a Russia story, it has details, it names Trump
(and it's not from the WaPo or NYT) so as one would
372
expect, early traders were transfixed by it, and have sent
risk sliding to session lows.
Here are some more details from Reuters:
Six of the previously undisclosed contacts
described to Reuters were phone calls between
Kislyak and Trump advisers, including Flynn,
Trump’s first national security adviser, three
current and former officials said. Conversations
between Flynn and Kislyak accelerated after
the Nov. 8 vote as the two discussed
establishing a back channel for
communication between Trump and Russian
President Vladimir Putin that could bypass
the U.S. national security bureaucracy, which
both sides considered hostile to improved
relations, four current U.S. officials said.
Furthermore, Reuters also notes that while
"contact with foreign officials during a campaign
was not unusual, the number of interactions
between Trump aides and Russian officials and
others with links to Putin was exceptional."
“It’s rare to have that many phone calls to foreign
officials, especially to a country we consider an
adversary or a hostile power,”
Richard Armitage, a Republican and former deputy
secretary of state, told Reuters.
Reuters adds that these "discussions focused on mending
U.S.-Russian economic relations strained by sanctions
imposed on Moscow, cooperating in fighting Islamic State
in Syria and containing a more assertive China." Some
further details:
In addition to the six phone calls involving Kislyak, the
communications described to Reuters involved another 12
calls, emails or text messages between Russian officials or
people considered to be close to Putin and Trump
campaign advisers. One of those contacts was by Viktor
Medvedchuk, a Ukrainian oligarch and politician,
according to one person with detailed knowledge of the
exchange and two others familiar with the issue.
It was not clear with whom Medvedchuk was in contact
within the Trump campaign but the themes included U.S.-
Russia cooperation, the sources said. Putin is godfather to
Medvedchuk’s daughter. Medvedchuk denied having any
contact with anyone in the Trump campaign.
"I am not acquainted with any of Donald Trump's
close associates, therefore no such conversation
could have taken place," he said in an email to
Reuters.
Beyond Medvedchuk and Kislyak, the identities of the
other Putin-linked participants in the contacts remain
classified and the names of Trump advisers other than
Flynn have been “masked” in intelligence reports on the
contacts because of legal protections on their privacy as
American citizens. However, officials can request that they
be revealed for intelligence purposes.
373
On the Ukraine angle, it is likely that Medvedchuk
communications took place with Paul Manafort, who was
fired by Trump long ago. As for Flynn, who is the only
campaign individual "unmasked" as part of the revelations,
he too was sacked by Trump just three weeks into Trump's
administration.
At its core, the Reuters report is a recap of what is already
known, while putting some numbers to already known
communications between the Trump campaign and various
Russian individuals. As to whether this is a smoking gun,
the good news is that with Mueller now supervising the
probe, an answer will be provided in the not too distant
future.
Expect an imminent response from the White House as
well as something from Trump himself, who has been
surprisingly quiet on Twitter over the past 24 hours.
 Articles Of Impeachment
For Donald J. Trump
By Phillip Carter, Slate
18 May 17
Even if Republicans won’t act, Democrats, like House Intelligence
Committee ranking member Adam Schiff, should make their
intentions clear. (photo: Joshua Roberts/Reuters)
A first draft of an impeachment bill for the president.
he framers of our Constitution likely never imagined a
President like Donald J. Trump. And yet, they inserted
impeachment provisions into the original text of the
Constitution, some 230 years ago, to empower Congress to
act in case a rube, tyrant, or criminal came to occupy the
nation’s highest office.
It’s not crystal clear which Trump might be, but the
president’s latest outrageous actions—the reported passing
of highly classified intelligence to Russian diplomats in the
Oval Office—should awake Republicans and Democrats in
Congress to the dangers posed by Trump to the nation in
case that wasn’t already obvious. His conduct now goes far
beyond mere offense or incitement to constitute actual
damage to U.S. national security, the very definition of
“high crimes and misdemeanors” contemplated by the men
who crafted the Constitution’s impeachment clauses. With
this latest act, the time has come to commence the slow,
deliberate process of demonstrating that Trump needs to be
removed from office so he can harm the nation no more. A
broad congressional inquiry should begin immediately, to
inform drafters who will prepare articles of impeachment
for consideration by the House and Senate. While
Republican control of Congress means that such
proceedings won’t occur anytime soon, it’s clear that they
are warranted. We don’t yet know for certain what
precisely such an investigation would yield, but there is
enough public information already available to roughly
map out what such articles of impeachment might—and
probably should—look like.
Historically, impeachment articles have focused on broad
violations of constitutional duty and specific discrete acts
374
like clashing with Congress over Reconstruction,
commanding the Watergate break-in, or testimonial
perjury. In Trump’s case, there is ample evidence for both
the more general violations and the more specific abuses,
much of them admitted by the president through his own
indelicate tweets (including admissions Tuesday morning
regarding the passing of classified information to the
Russians).
So what might an impeachment bill against President
Trump include?
The Andrew Johnson, Richard Nixon, and Bill Clinton
impeachment bills used common language to put their
specific violations in context. Any Trump articles of
impeachment should also include such language at the start
of each article:
In his conduct while president of the United States, Donald
J. Trump, in violation of his constitutional oath faithfully
to execute the office of president of the United States and,
to the best of his ability, preserve, protect, and defend the
Constitution of the United States, and in violation of his
constitutional duty to take care that the laws be faithfully
executed, has engaged in conduct that resulted in misuse
and abuse of his high office:
Beyond this preamble, the Trump impeachment bill might
include, but not be limited to, the following articles:
Article 1: Compromising the integrity of the presidency
through continuing violation of the Constitution’s
Emoluments Clause. From his first day in office, Trump’s
continuing stake in Trump Organization businesses has
violated the clause of the Constitution proscribing federal
officials from receiving foreign payments. The true and
full extent of Trump’s conflicts of interest remains
unknown. For his part, Trump has transferred day-to-day
control over these interests to his adult children and the
management of the Trump Organization. However, he
remains the ultimate beneficiary for these businesses, so
the fundamental conflict of interest remains. These foreign
business ties violate both the letter and spirit of the
Constitution’s Emoluments Clause, and arguably provide
the clearest basis for impeachment based on the facts and
law.
Article 2: Violation of his constitutional oath to faithfully
execute the duties of his office by disregarding U.S.
interests and pursuing the interests of a hostile foreign
power, to wit, Russia. L’affaire Russia began during
Trump’s campaign for the presidency, during which
several top aides reportedly had contacts with Russia and
its intelligence service. His campaign manager also had
reportedly worked either directly or indirectly for the
Kremlin. These contacts continued, famously, into the
presidential transition, when the president’s chosen
national security adviser, Michael Flynn, had his ill-fated
contacts with Russia. Beyond these contacts, Trump has
substantively acted in myriad ways that benefit Russia,
including dangerous diplomacy that has reportedly frayed
relationships with our allies and allegedly put allied
intelligence assets at risk. By offering classified
information to the Russians, it was reported that Trump
risked the intelligence assets of a Middle Eastern ally that
already warned American officials that it would stop
sharing such information with America if that information
was shared too widely. In risking that relationship, Trump
has opened up the possibility for the loss of that
information stream for combatting terrorism, and
potentially put American lives at risk from the loss of
intelligence that could inform officials about future attacks
on Americans at home and abroad.
Article 3: Impairment and obstruction of inquiries by the
Justice Department and Congress into the extent of the
Trump administration’s conflicts of interests and Russia
ties. The Trump administration has systematically
impeded, avoided, or obstructed the machinery of justice
to obscure its business relationships, its Russia ties, and the
forces acting within the Trump White House to animate
policy. The most egregious and visible examples have
been Trump’s firings of Acting Attorney General Sally
Yates and FBI Director James Comey. [Update, 6:18 p.m.:
The New York Times reported on Tuesday afternoon on an
even more egregious case of apparent obstruction of
justice, wherein Trump allegedly directly asked Comey to
end the FBI's investigation of Michael Flynn.] Each
termination had what appeared to be a lawful pretext;
subsequent statements or admissions have indicated each
had more to do with obstructing justice than holding
leaders accountable. Alongside these sackings, the Trump
administration has also worked to starve Justice
Department inquiries of resources and refocus
investigators on suspected leaks instead of the White
House’s own Russia intrigues. The Trump administration
also interfered with congressional inquiries through
attempting to block witnesses like Yates from appearing or
selective leaking of classified information to House
Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes, compromising Nunes
so badly he had to recuse himself from the matter.
Article 4: Undermining of the American judicial system
through felonious intimidation of potential witnesses. In
his desire to continue Comey’s public humiliation, and
ensure Comey remained silent about Trump’s possible
375
sins, the president threatened Comey on Twitter with
disclosure of “tapes” of their conversations. This follows a
pattern of Trump roughly treating witnesses and litigation
adversaries that stretches back for decades before his
presidency. Since taking office, Trump has also used the
bully pulpit of his office to threaten intelligence officials
for purported leaks and badger former Yates before her
congressional testimony. In addition to falling beneath the
dignity of the presidency, these verbal assaults also
constitute obstruction of justice, prohibited by federal
statutes on witness intimidation, retaliation against a
witness, and obstruction of federal proceedings. These
attacks don’t just harm the individuals who are targeted;
they assault and undermine the rule of law. As such, they
constitute further grounds for impeachment of Trump and
his removal from the presidency.
Article 5: Undermining of his office and the Constitution
through repeated assaults on the integrity of the federal
judiciary and its officers. During the presidential
campaign, Trump publicly attacked federal district Judge
Gonzalo Curiel on the basis of his ethnicity, saying Curiel
had been “extremely hostile to (Trump),” and that the
judge had ruled against Trump because of his “Mexican
heritage.” Since taking office, Trump has continued his
unpresidential assaults on the federal judiciary, particularly
after repeatedly losing court battles over his travel bans. At
one point, he described a member of the bench as a “so-
called judge,” undermining the premise of an independent
judiciary. These statements also undermined both the
dignity and power of the presidency, and threaten the rule
of law by attacking the integrity of the federal judiciary.
Article 6: Demeaning the integrity of government and its
public servants, particularly the military and intelligence
agencies, in contravention of his constitutional duties to
serve as chief executive and commander in chief of the
armed forces. Trump swept into office with considerable
disdain for the government and its military. Indeed, during
his campaign, he insulted former prisoners of war, Purple
Heart recipients, and Gold Star families; criticized the
military for its performance in Iraq; and said today’s
generals and admirals had been “reduced to rubble” during
the Obama administration. Trump carried this disdain into
the presidency, through his attacks on the “deep state” of
military and intelligence officials that he believed to be
obstructing his agenda. He also demeaned the military and
its apolitical ethos through use of military fora and
audiences as public spectacle—first to sign his
immigration order in the Pentagon’s Hall of Heroes, and
then to deliver rambling speeches at military and
intelligence headquarters suggesting that pro-Trump
elements in those agencies were grateful Trump had taken
power. Trump has also continued to wage political war
against his intelligence community, suggesting as recently
as Tuesday morning that it was sabotaging his
administration through leaking and other nefarious
activities. In doing these things, Trump has undermined his
constitutional office as president and commander in chief
of the armed forces.
Article 7: Dereliction of his constitutional duty to
faithfully execute the office of president by failing to
timely appoint officers of the United States to administer
the nation’s federal agencies. Shortly after taking office,
Trump administration strategist Stephen Bannon
articulated his plan for the “deconstruction of the
administrative state.” During its first four months in office,
the Trump administration’s neglect of governance
illustrates how this strategy is to be executed: delay of
political appointments, failure to reach budget agreements
with Congress in a timely manner, and deliberate neglect
of governance and government operations. These actions
and failures risk the health, welfare, and security of the
nation, and represent a dereliction of Trump’s
constitutional duty to faithfully execute the office of the
presidency.
Any one of the offenses above could constitute the basis
for rigorous investigation of the Trump White House and
.
376
its failures. Together, the totality of Trump’s
malfeasance—once proven after a rigorous investigation—
would likely make clear that he “warrants impeachment
and trial, and removal from office and disqualification to
hold and enjoy any office of honor, trust or profit under the
United States,” to quote from the bill of impeachment
passed against President Clinton.
The time has come for Congress to act and for leaders on
both sides of the aisle to put country before party and
politics. Speaker Paul Ryan and Majority Leader Mitch
McConnell ought to, in cooperation with Democratic
leaders, begin the sequence of events that would likely
lead to impeachment and removal proceedings for Trump.
Given that this is unlikely, Democrats should make clear
of their intentions to do what is necessary under our
Constitution should they win back control of the House of
Representatives in 2018. This process should be as full,
fair, and transparent as our Constitution requires. Anything
less would demean and harm the country even more than
Trump has already done.
 Banana Republic Antics in Washington
By Stephen Lendman
5-18-2017
What’s going on is shocking and appalling - how banana
republics operate.
The term refers to politically unstable and repressive
countries where a privileged few have a disproportionate
share of wealth and power, where ordinary people are
exploited, many persecuted, where a police state apparatus
enforces control, where nonbelievers face gulag
imprisonment.
It’s a plutocracy run by a criminal class, bipartisan in
America, complicit with corporate predators. It’s
gangsterism run for personal gain at the expense of the
general welfare.
It’s what US governance is all about, fantasy democracy,
fundamental freedoms disappearing in plain sight - tyranny
headed toward becoming full-blown.
Trump’s domestic and geopolitical policies warrant strong
criticism. Instead he’s targeted for the wrong reasons, a
moving train heading toward removing him for office one
way or another if things continue on their present course -
a shocking indictment of a debauched system.
Russian expert Steven Cohen calls assaulting him a threat
to national security “beyond belief.”
His Oval Office discussion with Sergey Lavrov and
ambassador Sergey Kislyak was part of his job - not
improper dealings with representatives of another country,
not an act of treason.
No transmittal of secret classified information occurred,
nothing justifying criticism and hysteria.
During his Wednesday Coast Guard Academy address to
graduates, Trump was right, saying “(n)o politician in (US)
history…has been treated worse and more unfairly” than
himself.
The witch-hunt investigation into possible improper
dealings by him, his team, and/or campaign with Russia is
an embarrassment to legitimate governance. So is falsely
accusing Moscow of US election hacking, no evidence
suggesting any of the above.
Yet the witch-hunt persists, former FBI director Robert
Mueller appointed as special counsel to head it - part of the
scheme to remove Trump from office based on phony
allegations and accusations.
377
In appointing Mueller, Deputy Attorney General
Rosenstein explained his
“decision is not the finding that crimes have been
committed or that any prosecution is warranted. I
have made no such determination.”
No evidence suggests it, including a Comey memo, no one
outside the Justice Department has seen if it exists as
portrayed, alleging Trump asked the then-FBI director to
drop the Michael Flynn investigation.
A White House statement stressed
“the president has never asked Mr. Comey or
anyone else to end any investigation, including
any investigation involving General Flynn.”
In response to Mueller’s appointment, Trump said “a
thorough investigation will confirm what we already
know. There was no collusion between my campaign and
any foreign entity. I look forward to this matter concluding
quickly.”
Claims otherwise are
“not a truthful or accurate portrayal of the
conversation between (himself) and Mr. Comey.”
Suggestions of obstruction of justice are way overblown. It
involves attempting to impede or interfere with the judicial
system and due process of law, including actions to
prevent disclosure of damaging or criminal information.
Guilt depends on having knowledge of an investigation
and attempting to improperly influence it. No evidence so
far suggests it, just differing versions of what may or may
not have happened.
In US judicial proceedings, beyond a reasonable doubt is
the highest standard of proof required - especially
important in criminal cases where lives and welfare are at
stake.
Most important is the fate of the nation. Removing a
president unjustly is how despotic banana republics
operate - America on course toward replacing the republic
with full-blown tyranny.
Maybe nuclear war on Russia, China and Iran will follow
under new leadership - the three leading independent states
dark forces in Washington want eliminated.
 Comey-Probing Congressman
Announces Early Resignation From Politics
By Tyler Durden
May 18, 2017 11:17 AM

Juat a month after comments that he had begun exploring

employment possibilities outside of Congress, Politico
reports Rep. Jason Chaffetz is expected announce today
that he is resigning before the end of this congressional
term, according to three sources familiar with his plans.
Multiple sources say he will leave Congress on June 30.
Chaffetz, 50, is chairman of the House Oversight and
Government Reform Committee, the top investigative
body in the chamber.
He recently subpoenaed James Comey's
memos, and invited the fired FBI director to
testify next week before his panel.

Additionally, the U.S. prosecutor overseeing price-fixing

probes is said to step-down...(via Bloomberg)

Brent Snyder, the head of criminal enforcement at the U.S.

Justice Department’s antitrust division, is stepping down,
according to two people familiar with the matter.

As Politico details, Chaffetz did not respond to a request

for comment Wednesday evening or Thursday morning.
.

378
 Putin Accused Of Bribing Trump
By Stephen Lendman
5-18-2017
You have to be delusional to believe it, neocon Senate
Majority Leader Kevin McCarthy (R. CA) making the
baseless accusation, saying:
“There’s two people I think Putin pays: (Rep. Dana)
Rohrabacher and Trump,” according to a June 15, 2016
recorded discussion with other Republicans, including
Speaker Paul Ryan.
It followed talks on Capitol Hill with putschist Ukrainian
prime minister Vladimir Groysman, bashing Russia
irresponsibly, claiming the Kremlin bribes politicians to
serve its interests.
It was around the time Moscow was falsely accused of
hacking last year’s US presidential election, McCarthy
joining the chorus of Russia bashers.
Irresponsibly saying Trump was bribed puts him on the
wrong side of good governance, maybe covertly
.
379
supporting his ousting as president even though
Republican leadership maintains public support.
For how long remains open to question. After balking for
months, maybe they’ll agree with calls for a special
prosecutor and independent commission to investigate
alleged Trump/Russia ties - despite no evidence suggesting
any, baseless allegations and accusations alone.
A Rohrabacher spokesman said he supports “working
closer with the Russians to combat radical Islamism. The
congressman doesn’t need to be paid to come to such a
necessary conclusion.”
Anyone in Washington supporting improved relations with
Russia for any reason, including to combat terrorism,
automatically becomes targeted for vilification.
Trump suggesting it got himself marked for removal. He’s
fighting for his political life, a battle he may lose.
 Trump: Russia Probe Is Greatest
Witch Hunt Of A Politician In US History
Published Time: 18 May, 2017 12:03 Edited Time: 18 May, 2017 15:57
The West Wing White House in Washington, US © Jonathan Ernst /
Reuters
US President Donald Trump says he is the victim of the
“single greatest witch hunt of a politician in American
history,” in an apparent reference to the investigation
regarding the president’s alleged ties with Russia.
This is the single greatest witch hunt of a
politician in American history!
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
18, 2017
He went on to speak about “illegal acts” that took place
during Hillary Clinton’s campaign and throughout the
Obama administration, noting that there was
“never a special councel (sic) appointed.”
It comes just one day after the US Justice Department
named former FBI chief Robert Mueller as special counsel
to investigate alleged Russian interference in the US
election and possible collusion between Trump’s campaign
and Moscow.
Trump’s tweets follow similar words from the president on
Wednesday, in which he said that no politician
“has been treated worse or more unfairly.”
Mueller will have sweeping powers and the authority to
prosecute any crimes he uncovers during the investigation,
according to AP.
380
Trump reiterated his innocence on Wednesday, saying in a
statement that a
“thorough investigation will confirm what we
already know – there was no collusion between
my campaign and any foreign entity.”
Trump is also facing allegations that he leaked highly
classified information to Russian officials during a meeting
in the US capital last week.
That claim has been denied by both Washington and
Moscow, with Russian President Vladimir Putin offering
on Wednesday to release the records of the meeting, while
accusing the US of developing “political schizophrenia.”
'No evidence Russia influencing voter tallies
in...50 states' - US ex-intel chief
https://t.co/7FSbg5r1ni
— RT America (@RT_America) May 8, 2017
Earlier this week, the Washington Post published a report
claiming that Trump had
“revealed highly classified information to the
Russian foreign minister [Sergey Lavrov] and
ambassador in a White House meeting,”
allegedly related to Islamic State (IS, formerly
ISIS/ISIL).
While Trump has said the “facts” discussed included
terrorism and airline flight safety, which he had an
“absolute right” to discuss with Russia, Lavrov on
Thursday was also asked to comment on the matter.
“We do not comment on gossip, but we do read
[US] newspapers,” Lavrov told the media in
Cyprus. “If I remember rightly, around a month-
and-a-half or two months ago, the Trump
administration decided to ban passengers from
seven Middle Eastern countries from carrying
any electronic devices on board... I don't
understand where the secret is.”
 NYT Praise For
Witch-Hunt Investigations
By Stephen Lendman
5-18-17
Anti-Trump dark forces in Washington want him
denigrated, weakened and ousted from office, puppet
leadership they control replacing him.
That’s what the hysterical climate is all about, inventing
stuff to render him too damaged to continue as president -
an unrelenting, media supported, onslaught greater than
anyone can withstand.
Media scoundrels support what demands condemnation.
The NYT is Trump’s leading antagonist, disgracing itself
more than already, serving as press agent for powerful
interests at the expense of journalism the way it should be -
absent on issues mattering most.
Its editors hailed the appointment of former FBI director
Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of
investigating possible Trump/Russia ties. No evidence
suggests any, just phony allegations, including fabricated
claims of Russia US election hacking.
Deplorable events in Washington are unprecedented in US
history, an assault on the republic, on the remaining
vestiges of freedom, things heading toward full-blown
tyranny - with full support and encouragement from dark
media scoundrels, notably The NYT - serving
Machiavellian pure evil.
381
Times editors: Mueller is charged with revealing the truth
about suspicions that reach into the highest levels of the
Trump campaign and White House.”
Fact: Charges and allegations are baseless. No evidence
suggests wrongdoing.
Time editors: Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein “has
done the nation a service in choosing Mr. Mueller one of
the few people with the experience, stature and reputation
to see the job through.”
Fact: Just societies reject witch-hunt investigations. The
FBI, CIA, NSA and DHS comprise the national Gestapo,
serving powerful interests at the expense of justice.
Times editors urge congressional witch-hunt investigations
and a separate independent commission, along with what
Mueller will pursue - part of the plot they hope will oust
Trump from office.
What’s ongoing is a national disgrace, the shame of the
nation, how despotic regimes operate.
The only solution is nonviolent revolution, the only way to
change America’s deplorable state - from the bottom up,
never top down.
 Tapping Ex-FBI Head To Lead
Russia Probe Likely To Hurt Russia-US Ties
© REUTERS/ Jason Reed/File Photo - Politics
14:05 18.05.2017
The former FBI director's appointment as head of the US investigation
into Russia’s alleged interference in the 2016 US election may
negatively affect US-Russian relations if it leads to Donald Trump's
decision to deny any bilateral cooperation plans, including the fight
against terror, Russian senior lawmaker Victor Ozerov, told Sputnik
Thursday.
Anti-Trump dark forces in Washington want him
denigrated, weakened and ousted from office, puppet
leadership they control replacing him.
That’s what the hysterical climate is all about, inventing
stuff to render him too damaged to continue as president -
an unrelenting, media supported, onslaught greater than
anyone can withstand.
Media scoundrels support what demands condemnation.
The NYT is Trump’s leading antagonist, disgracing itself
more than already, serving as press agent for powerful
interests at the expense of journalism the way it should be -
absent on issues mattering most.
Its editors hailed the appointment of former FBI director
Robert Mueller as special counsel in charge of
investigating possible Trump/Russia ties. No evidence
suggests any, just phony allegations, including fabricated
claims of Russia US election hacking.
.
382
Deplorable events in Washington are unprecedented in US
history, an assault on the republic, on the remaining
vestiges of freedom, things heading toward full-blown
tyranny - with full support and encouragement from dark
media scoundrels, notably The NYT - serving
Machiavellian pure evil.
Times editors: Mueller is charged with revealing the truth
about suspicions that reach into the highest levels of the
Trump campaign and White House.”
Fact: Charges and allegations are baseless. No evidence
suggests wrongdoing.
Time editors: Deputy Attorney General Rosenstein
“has done the nation a service in choosing Mr.
Mueller one of the few people with the
experience, stature and reputation to see the job
through.”
Fact: Just societies reject witch-hunt investigations. The
FBI, CIA, NSA and DHS comprise the national Gestapo,
serving powerful interests at the expense of justice.
Times editors urge congressional witch-hunt investigations
and a separate independent commission, along with what
Mueller will pursue - part of the plot they hope will oust
Trump from office.
What’s ongoing is a national disgrace, the shame of the
nation, how despotic regimes operate.
The only solution is nonviolent revolution, the only way to
change America’s deplorable state - from the bottom up,
never top down.
 Trump Team Knew About FBI
Probe Into Flynn Before Naming Him Top Security Aide
© AP Photo/ Drew Angerer / GETTY IMAGES NORTH AMERICA - US
08:29 18.05.2017G
Donald Trump’s team knew about an FBI probe into Michael Flynn’s
lobbying work for the Turkish government before giving him the job of
the national security adviser, US media said Wednesday.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Officials familiar with the matter
told the New York Times that the disclosure was made
to the transition team’s chief lawyer on January 4, two
weeks before Trump’s inauguration.
.
383
The newspaper suggested that the president-elect knew
about the investigation, which probed the Flynn Intel
Group’s contract with a Dutch firm owned by a Turkish
businessman to run a campaign to allegedly discredit US-
based cleric Fethullah Gulen, blamed by Ankara
for staging the 2016 failed coup.
Flynn was forced to resign after only 24 days in office. He
has since been at the center of accusations against Trump
over his campaign’s alleged ties to Russia after he
purportedly discussed US sanctions on Russia with its
envoy to the United States, Sergey Kislyak.
Last week, Trump fired FBI director James Comey, raising
claims of a cover-up. An explosive report emerged in the
New York Times this Tuesday suggesting the US president
had asked Comey to close the probe into Flynn’s links
to Russia.
Russia has repeatedly denied US claims that it meddled
in the 2016 presidential vote, calling such allegations
absurd. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov has said
Moscow did not have official contacts with Trump's team
during the campaign.
 Mike Flynn Refuses
To Honor Senate Subpoena
By Tyler Durden
May 18, 2017 1:55 PM
Just a few short days after receiving a subpoena from the
Senate Intelligence Committee, requesting documents
relevant to the Committee's investigation into Russian
interference with the 2016 election, AP reports that
Senator Burr, the top Republican on the committee, says
that Michael Flynn's lawyers say he will not honor
subpoena.
Last week, in a joint statement from Commttee chair
Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and ranking member Mark Warner
(D-Va.) the committee disclosed that it had first requested
the documents in an April 28 letter to Flynn, but he
"declined" to cooperate with the request.
The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence
today issued a subpoena for former National
Security Advisor Lieutenant General Michael
Flynn. The subpoena requests documents
relevant to the Committee's investigation into
Russian interference with the 2016 election.
The Committee first requested these documents
in an April 28, 2017 letter to Lieutenant
General Flynn, but he declined, through
counsel, to cooperate with the Committee's
request.
.
384
CNN also reported that the FBI had also issued subpoenas
relating to Flynn's business records, so the ousted National
Security Adviser is now at at the center of both
investigations, although as disclosed, he did not comply
with the committee's earlier request.
And today we get confirmation from Senator Burr, via AP,
that Michael Flynn's lawyers say he will not honor
subpoena.
This is perhaps not entirely surprising given Yahoo's
reporting that late last month, fired National Security
Adviser Michael Flynn—under investigation by federal
prosecutors, with his lawyer seeking immunity for him to
testify to Congress–met with a small group of loyalists at a
restaurant in the northern Virginia suburbs.
Saddled with steep legal bills, Flynn wanted to reconnect
with old friends and talk about potential future business
opportunities. But one overriding question among those
present were his views on the president who had fired him
as national security advisor. Flynn left little doubt about
the answer.
Not only did he remain loyal to President
Trump, he indicated he and the president
were still in communication. “I just got a
message from the president to stay strong,”
Flynn said after the meal was over, according
to two sources who are close to Flynn and are
familiar with the conversation, which took place
on April 25.
We are sure Democratic leadership will have some great
soundbites soon (of course, forgeting Hillary-related
obfuscations of various government subpoenas during the
election campaign).
 US Air Strikes Pound Pro-Assad Forces In Syria
Fox News
Published May 18, 2017
The U.S. military launched fresh air strikes against pro-
Assad troops in Syria after they ignored repeated warnings
from both coalition and Russian forces, officials told Fox
News Thursday.
The Syrian forces, in several vehicles including at least
one tank, were near the Jordanian border and deemed a
threat to coalition partners on the ground, a Pentagon
official said. They were repeatedly ordered to stop their
advance toward a de-escalation zone, but ignored the
warning, officials said.
"The coalition commander assessed the threat
and after shows of force didn't stop the regime
forces and those forces refused to move out of
the deconfliction zone, the commander on the
ground called for the air strike as a matter of
force protection," a senior U.S. defense official
told Fox News.
Another military source told The Associated Press it
appeared the Syrian forces were poised to attack an area
that included U.S. advisers.
"They were building a fighting position" about 55
kilometers from a U.S.-coalition base close to At
Tanf, where advisers train members of the Syrian
Democratic Forces and Syrian Arab Coalition,
the second official said.
Defense Secretary James Mattis briefly addressed the
strikes Thursday during a meeting with Swedish Defense
minister Peter Hultqvist.
.
385
"We're not increasing our role in the Syrian civil
war but we will defend our troops, and that is a
coalition element made up of more than just U.S.
troops, and so we'll defend ourselves," Mattis
said. "If people take aggressive steps against us,
and that's been a going in, a policy of ours for a
long time."
The U.S. and Russia, which is allied with the pro-Assad
forces, have established buffer zones around their separate
areas of operation to avoid collateral damage. Each side
has agreed to notify the other if the deploy forces within
the buffer zones.
In this case, an official told The Associated Press, Russia
tried multiple times to contact the Syrian forces. It was at
that point that U.S. and coalition jets escalated their
warnings.
"We conducted a show of force. We conducted
warning shots. All to no avail," the official said.
The American strikes were the first against Assad
positions since the Pentagon rained 57 Tomahawk missiles
on the Shayrat air base near Homs. But the strikes
confirmed Thursday were believed to be the first targeting
Syrian personnel.
The attack on forces does not reflect an escalation, the
Pentagon official said.
"There is no change in policy," the official said.
Fox News' Jennifer Griffin contributed to this report.
 Liberal Activists Organizing
Nationwide Impeachment Marches
Peter Hasson - Associate Editor
2:33 PM 05/18/2017
Liberal activists are ramping up the pressure on Congress
to impeach President Donald Trump.
The increased pressure comes as the White House has been
hit with a series of damaging leaks regarding Trump’s
relationship with former FBI director James Comey, whom
Trump abruptly fired last week.
Trump reportedly asked Comey to let go of his
investigation into former national security adviser Michael
Flynn, according to a memo Comey authored after meeting
with the president in the Oval Office. Part of the memo
was leaked to the New York Times by one of Comey’s
associates after Trump fired the unpopular FBI director.
One group of activists is organizing nationwide
“Impeachment Marches” on July 2 to pressure
congressional representatives to “do their job and start the
process to impeach this president.”
U.S. President Donald Trump and Vice President Mike Pence (R) attend
a ceremonial swearing-in for U.S. Homeland Security Secretary John
Kelly at Homeland Security headquarters in Washington, U.S., January
25, 2017. REUTERS/Jonathan Ernst
The organizers of the Impeachment March were
also behind the Tax Day protests against Trump’s
withholding of his tax returns. The marches are set to take
place in at least 14 cities across the country, although that
number may grow as frustration continues to build with the
scandals surrounding the White House. The Impeachment
March in Los Angeles has already received more than
11,000 confirmed attendees, according to the event’s
Facebook page.
386
“Donald Trump has been in violation of the
Constitution from the day he was sworn into the
office of President. The Constitution gives the
House of Representatives the sole power to
impeach an official, and it makes the Senate the
sole court for impeachment trials,” a description
for the Impeachment March reads. “It is time that
congressional representatives do their job and
start the process to impeach this president. We
believe president Trump has committed
constitutional breaches, consistently lied,
cheated, and enforces laws that primarily benefit
him and his billionaire friends at the expense of
the country.”
Other left-wing activist organizations are also pressuring
Congress to impeach the president, less than four months
into his term.
“This latest move by the Trump administration is
too little, too late. With each passing day, we are
learning of new ways in which Donald Trump is
placing our country and our institutions in greater
danger. Mueller was appointed by the same man
who gave Trump cover for firing Comey, and his
chain of command leads back to Donald Trump
himself,” said Charles Chamberlain, executive
director of left-wing advocacy group Democracy
for America.
“We cannot afford to have Congress sit back and
watch this play out the same way it just did, with
Trump and his stooges obstructing another
investigation into their corruption and high
crimes. Congress needs to act now to impeach
Trump, the first step of which is empowering a
committee to do its own investigation into
impeachable offenses.” (RELATED: Trump
Impeachment Talk Started Before He Was
Even Nominated)
Some Democratic representatives have already begun
calling for impeachment.
California Rep. Maxine Waters raised the impeachment
issue before Trump ever took office, and has continued to
do so since then, even leading a crowd in a chant to
impeach the president. Waters’ colleagues are beginning to
follow suit — 24 House representatives have now
discussed impeaching Trump, according to CNN’s count.
A spokesperson for New York Rep. Adriano Espaillat told
CNN that “Rep. Espaillat is calling for Trump’s
impeachment.”
New Jersey Rep. Donald Payne Jr. said in a statement
Wednesday that “All options — including impeachment —
should be on the table for President Trump.”
.
387
That same day, Texas Democratic Rep. Al Green became
the first congressman to call for Trump’s impeachment on
the House floor.
“Mr. Speaker, I rise today with a heavy heart. I
rise today with a sense of responsibility and duty
to the people who have elected me, sense of
duty to this country, a sense of duty to the
Constitution of the United States of America,”
Green said. “I rise today, Mr. Speaker, to call for
the impeachment of the President of the United
States of America.”
 This email has also been verified by Google DKIM 2048-bit RSA key

Re: Wash Post story -- Sorry to write this on a Saturday night

From:robbymook2015@gmail.com To: john.podesta@gmail.com CC: jbenenson@bsgco.com Date: 2015-02-22 21:20 Subject:
Re: Wash Post story -- Sorry to write this on a Saturday night

I agree--when we have press staff, this will be MUCH easier. And I would love an example being made. On Sun, Feb 22, 2015
at 6:12 PM, John Podesta <john.podesta@gmail.com> wrote: > Agree. Happy to talk to the David's. Call me crazy, but I think
if we can > survive the next month, it will be possible, maybe even straightforward to > get our arms around this once there is
an actual campaign. I'm definitely > for making an example of a suspected leaker whether or not we have any real > basis for
it. > > JP > --Sent from my iPad-- > john.podesta@gmail.com > For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com > > On Feb 22, 2015, at
5:56 PM, Joel Benenson <jbenenson@bsgco.com> wrote: > > John, > > We are in massive agreement that we need a strategy
and process now to > enable and disable as you say and I think this is worth spending some time > making it practicable. I
would strongly recommend either one of you or > both talking with Plouffe about he and Axe created that culture from the >
start in 07. > > > > Here are some thoughts but I realize this topic will take a dedicated > conversation to figure out what will
work. > > > > I do believe that this starts with alignment on our campaign culture and a > paradigm shift in the old Clinton
M.O. I know HRC believes the more > people you talk to the better but it simply isn’t. Especially for her. We > really need to
tighten who she talks to and make sure that Huma/schedulers > route most people through high level folks on the campaign
so that they are > being listened to. > > > > I think Robby rightly says that a lot of our leaks are coming through job > searches
we’re doing. I think every conversation has to either begin or > end by telling people if you’re name appears in print as a
result of the > conversations the job is off the table. > > > > I think we have to make examples now of people who have
violated the trust > of HRC and the rest of the team. People going forward need to know there > are stiff consequences for
leaking, self-promotion, unauthorized talking > with the press. No one – literally no one talked to the press in either > Obama
campaign without clearing it with campaign brass. > > > > Joel > > > > *From:* John Podesta [mailto:john.podesta@gmail.com
> <john.podesta@gmail.com>] > *Sent:* Sunday, February 22, 2015 10:47 AM > *To:* Joel Benenson > *Cc:* Robby Mook
2015 (robbymook2015@gmail.com) > *Subject:* Re: Wash Post story -- Sorry to write this on a Saturday night > > > > Joel, > >
I generally agree with the point, but we need a strategy on this that goes > beyond internal discipline. This story could have
been written without any > of these big mouths blabbing. The mere involvement of Wendy gave them > license to write this.
The only thing in the story that indicated that > someone on the inside was talking was the reference to the H, although one >
of Peter Sealey's big clients is Coke so we probably know where that came > from. We can and should try to shut this down,
but it is going to be tough > until we get to a point where someone can actually talk on behalf of the > campaign. One
particular challenge is Spence. He's worked with them for 40 > years. He's like Harold Ickes-Reporters will think he's inside
even if he's > not. We need a strategy to enable people who are real and disable those > that aren't. > > John > > JP > > --Sent
from my iPad-- > > john.podesta@gmail.com > > For scheduling: eryn.sepp@gmail.com > > > On Feb 21, 2015, at 10:12 PM,
Joel Benenson <jbenenson@bsgco.com> wrote: > > But this is by far the most damaging story and most damaging type of >
story we can have. > > > > The press will love writing these. I did when I was a reporter. > > > > I think we need a paradigm
shift in how this world operates we have to > convince HRC and probably WJC that her meeting with 200 people doesn’t >
help her. Hiring corporate wizards has never been a successful strategy in > campaigns. And anyone whose name is in the
paper 48 hours after they meet > with her needs to be cut off completely from her campaign. . > > > > Almost everyone on
this team that has been assembled has been busting > their tail to make this work and to work against this kind of stuff and >
it’s going to get demoralizing in a hurry. > > > > I’m open to all and any alternatives on how to truly solve this but I > really feel
that when she is back from CA we have to solve this. > > > > Thanks, > > Joel > > > > > > >
http://www.washingtonpost.com/politics/the-making-of-hillary-50-marketing-wizards-help-reimagine-clinton-
brand/2015/02/21/bfb01120-b919-11e4-aa05-1ce812b3fdd2_story.html > >
.

388
 Impeachment Odds: Record Bets
Online That Trump Won’t Last Until Year-End
Published Time: 18 May, 2017 10:34 Edited Time: 19 May, 2017 08:37
US President Donald Trump © Yuri Gripas / Reuters
Online wagering sites are taking bets on whether Donald
Trump, mired in controversies over the dismissal of FBI
Director James Comey, will serve out a full term as the
45th US president or will be impeached before year-end.
Political stock market PredictIt is seeing record bets on
contracts about whether Trump would still be president at
the end of the year.
The contract “Will Donald Trump be impeached in
2017?” saw its popularity skyrocket after reports of a
memo written by Comey that said Trump had allegedly
asked him to shut down the FBI’s inquiry into ties between
former NSA Advisor Michael Flynn, national security
adviser to Trump, and Russia.
At its peak on Wednesday, the price of a ‘yes’ contract on
the impeachment question reached a record 33 cents,
implying a 33 percent probability that Trump would be
impeached, as compared to only 7 percent last week.
The UK-based bookmaker Paddy Power said its customers
had staked over £5,000 (US$6,470) Trump’s early
departure. The odds are currently at 21-10 that Trump is
impeached in 2017.
Impeachment aside, odds are at 4-6 against Trump's
survival of a full first term, Paddy Power spokesman Lee
Price said.
389
“We’ve been betting on impeachment for all
recent US presidents but, even at the height of
the Lewinsky scandal, Bill Clinton was only ever
6-1 to be impeached,” Price said, as cited by
brocker.org. Clinton, of course, ultimately was
impeached, though he survived trial and finished
his presidency.
British betting firm Ladbrokes also noted that the bookies
had to cut the price of a Trump impeachment from 11-10
to 4-5, following controversies over Comey’s dismissal.
“Political punters are wondering how many more
scandals can Trump overcome [sic],” Ladbrokes
spokeswoman Jessica Bridge said in a
statement.
“And despite the short price on offer, money has
poured in for the president to be impeached,
leaving us with little option but to cut the odds,”
she added.
On Wednesday, US House Oversight Chairman Jason
Chaffetz demanded that the FBI turn over all documents
about communications between Trump and Comey. His
request came after the New York Times reported that
Trump allegedly asked Comey to shut down the FBI's
investigation into national security adviser Michael Flynn,
who stepped down in February over his phone talks with
the Russian ambassador to the United States, Sergey
Kislyak.
Flynn was forced to resign after he “inadvertently
briefed the Vice President-elect and others with
incomplete information regarding his phone calls
with the Russian Ambassador,”
he wrote in his resignation letter. His 24-day run on the
National Security Committee was the shortest- ever stint as
national security adviser.
“If true, these memoranda raise questions as to
whether the president attempted to influence or
impede the FBI's investigation as it relates to Lt.
Gen. Flynn,”Chaffetz wrote to acting FBI Director
Andrew McCabe.
 How To Impeach The President (Or Not)
It's More Complicated Than You Think And One Method Involves A
Constitutional Amendment Invoked When Presidents Get Colonscopies.
Austin Bragg
May 18, 2017
Want to get rid of the president?
There are two ways, basically.
First, find an impeachable offense. According to the
Constitution an impeachable offense: treason, bribery, or
"Other High Crimes and Misdemeanors." What counts for
that last part? Nobody knows. Some people say it means
bad things only people in high office can do—like
misusing public assets, dereliction of duty, or having sex
and then lying about it. Others say it's any crime or
misdemeanor at all, even if it has nothing to do with a
president's position or power. Did you steal a pen from
work? Petty theft is a misdemeanor. You should no longer
be president.
Once you get an impeachable offense, get a majority of
House members to vote in favor of the motion and then go
to trial in the Senate, with the chief justice of the Supreme
Court presiding. After the highest-rated programming in
C-SPAN history, the senators vote. If 67 senators find the
president guilty, he's gone.
There is another way, however, without all that messy
legal stuff.
.
390
The vice president and a majority of the cabinet can invoke
the 25th amendment and present a written declaration to
Congress that the president is "unable to discharge the
powers and duties of his office." So what does that mean?
In the past it's been used for things like, "Hey, I'm getting a
colonoscopy, can you cover for me for ,a few hours?" but
now some people want it to mean "I just think this guy is
an asshat." Regardless of the rationale, once those articles
are invoked, the magic wand is waved and the president is
immediately stripped of power. No trial, no witnesses, no
evidence, no votes, just gone.
Of course, the president is going to say, "Hey, I'm totally
fit for office, get out of my chair." But if the vice president
won't budge, then it goes back to Congress, which will
have three weeks to decide who gets to run things. This
time though, you need two-thirds of the Senate and two-
thirds of the House. Or maybe it's two-thirds of the total
number of members of both the Senate and the House.
Nobody really knows because it's never happened before
and it'll probably end up going to the Supreme Court
anyway.
Anyhoo, if enough of them agree that the president is an
asshat or whatever, the vice president stays put and the
president is never heard from again. Or, more likely, the
former president goes on twitter and says this was an
extra-judicial coup by Washington insiders and starts a
new civil war. Only this time with bigger guns and planes
and bombs and stuff.
So maybe we shouldn't decide to get rid of presidents just
because we hate them and then afterwards figure out how
to pretend it's the law.
About 2 minutes. Written and produced by Austin Bragg.
 Trump: Where Was Special Counsel
For Hillary and Obama?
May 18, 2017
President Trump fired off a series of tweets in which he
called the investigation into his campaign’s links with
Russia “the single greatest witch hunt of a politician in
American history!” He posted, “With all of the illegal acts
that took place in the Clinton campaign & Obama
Administration, there was never a special councel [sic]
appointed!” His furious response overturned the White
House’s spin effort, which claimed that he was reacting
calmly to the announcement of a special counsel.
A New York Times report published early Thursday
described an account of Trump’s initial response to the
news. Just 30 minutes before the rest of the world knew,
the White House was informed the Justice Department
would be appointing a special counsel—with the
president’s son-in-law, Jared Kushner, said to be one of the
only advisers who wanted to put up a fight. According to
.
391
the Times, Kushner, who had urged Trump to fire FBI
Director James Comey, suggested a “counterattack” after
the announcement.
When Trump was informed at 5:35 p.m., and his team,
including Press Secretary Sean Spicer, Communications
Director Michael Dubke, Kushner, Chief of Staff Reince
Priebus, longtime aide Hope Hicks, Senior Adviser
Kellyanne Conway, and Chief Strategist Stephen Bannon
were all summoned to his office, the Times reports.
Nearly everyone, except Kushner, suggested that Trump
take a conciliatory stance and publicly accept Deputy
Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s decision. In the end,
the White House released a statement declaring the
president’s innocence and its hope for a quick
investigation.
 The Ghost Of Mike Flynn
The Retired General’s Short Tenure As National-Security Adviser
Continues To Haunt The White House.
Rosie Gray
May 18, 2017

“Stay strong.”

Trump has exhibited a remarkable amount of loyalty to

Flynn, despite ultimately firing him. Flynn’s ouster came a
full 18 days after the acting attorney general at the time,
Sally Yates, warned the White House that his talks with
Russia made him susceptible to blackmail. Trump was
“stampeded into” firing Flynn, said Roger Stone, a
longtime Trump confidant who is himself under scrutiny in
the Russia probe.

“I think he likes Flynn, and he thinks he did him a

disservice,” Stone said. “On the other hand we
don’t know what Flynn has done, if anything, in
addition to the things we know.”
The ghost of Michael Flynn haunts this White House.
“They got so close during the campaign,” said a
He only served as national-security adviser for 24 days.
senior White House official who was brought on
But Flynn propelled Donald Trump’s fledgling presidency
by Flynn and has stayed after his departure.
into a constant state of accelerating crisis. Some of the key
When Flynn left, “the real person who probably
events of the last two weeks—the firing of FBI Director
took it hardest was the president because
James Comey, Trump’s reported ask to Comey to stop
General Flynn was the person closest to him on
investigating Flynn—lead back directly to the melodrama
national-security matters.”
of Flynn’s brief tenure.
Flynn was asked to resign on February 13 after it was
And the Flynn shoes have continued to drop, one after publicly revealed that he had lied about his contacts with
another: Last week, the Senate Intelligence Committee the Russian ambassador, including to Vice President Mike
issued a subpoena for documents related to Flynn’s contact Pence, who had gone on television defending him. He was
with Russian government officials. NBC News reported on replaced by H.R. McMaster, a decorated and respected
Wednesday evening that Flynn and former Trump
general who cleared out some Flynn appointees but kept
campaign chairman Paul Manafort are now subjects of a others on the National Security Council.
criminal investigation as part of the FBI’s probe into
Russia’s interference in the 2016 election.
But Flynn has continued to percolate around the edges of
this administration. On March 31, his lawyer Robert
Also on Wednesday night, a New York Times story Kelner released a statement saying that Flynn would testify
revealed that the Trump transition team knew Flynn was in exchange for immunity. “General Flynn certainly has a
under federal investigation for his clandestine lobbying
story to tell, and he very much wants to tell it, should the
work for the Turkish government even before Trump’s circumstances permit,” Kelner wrote.
inauguration. And McClatchy reported that Flynn, before
the inauguration, was looped into the Obama
Trump “has questioned whether he should have
administration’s plan to partner with Kurdish forces to
fired Flynn,” a source close to the White House
retake Raqqa—and told them to delay it, which happened
told The Atlantic last week. “They don’t know
to align with the wishes of his Turkish clients. Then on
what Flynn's going to say."
Thursday, Yahoo reported that Flynn told friends late last
month that Trump had reached out to him with a message:
Flynn had joined the campaign at a time when many other
Republicans were still steering clear. He wholeheartedly
392
embraced Trumpian politics, famously leading a “lock her
up” chant at the Republican convention. Flynn had come
on to advise the campaign during the primaries, and was
even considered for the running-mate slot.
In some ways, it was an unlikely relationship; Flynn had
been a registered Democrat, and although he had had a
long and storied career in the military, he had left under
less-than-stellar terms after then-President Barack Obama
dismissed him from his post as head of the Defense
Intelligence Agency.* In recent years, Flynn had shown a
tendency toward Islamophobic sentiment and a weakness
for conspiracy theories. But Trump’s affinity for Flynn
appears to have been unshaken. Trump has shown a
fondness for generals, and has picked several for his
administration: Secretary of Defense Jim Mattis, Secretary
of Homeland Security John Kelly, and, after Flynn was
given the boot, McMaster.
The Trump people can’t say they weren’t warned. (Indeed,
Obama is reported to have explicitly warned Trump not to
hire Flynn in a meeting during the transition.) “We all
knew Flynn had issues,” a senior White House official told
me last month. During the transition, Flynn became a
frequent story, especially when news outlets discovered his
son’s Twitter account which pushed Pizzagate conspiracy
theories and interacted with figures on the alt-right.
By the time he was appointed, the transition team had been
made aware of the FBI investigation, according to the
Times. Flynn’s paid trip to a Russia Today gala at which
he dined with Vladimir Putin was known at that point.
“You have to admit that taking half a million
dollars from the Turks or meeting with the
Russian ambassador does not sound very
savvy,” Stone said.
Flynn’s ouster, and the ascension of McMaster, led to
some changes on the National Security Council: Some
Flynn hires were moved elsewhere, and Deputy National-
Security Adviser K.T. McFarland is expected to leave soon
for the ambassadorship to Singapore. But others have
stayed, and they are integrating.
“The president certainly misses General Flynn
and of course he didn’t want him to resign but I
think he’s pretty happy with H.R.,” the senior
White House official said, adding that Trump is
pleased that McMaster had been “been front and
center” and “put his reputation on the line” to
defend Trump after an explosive Washington
Post story this week revealed he had shared
classified information in a meeting with Russian
officials.
“Obviously the ongoing investigations and the
interest in [Flynn] make it very hard from a public
393
perspective to move on—but the institution has
moved on,” the official said.
Publicly, at least, it has. But it’s clear that the Flynn story
has not died, and may not anytime soon. Since Flynn’s
firing, there has been a series of negative leaks about
McMaster and Deputy National-Security Adviser Dina
Powell, a McMaster hire, to the far-right pro-Trump
media. Flynn remains popular among the online Trump
base, which includes his son Michael Flynn Jr.
Mike Cernovich, the “new right” blogger and tweeter
(whose Twitter biography now identifies him as a “White
House correspondent”), has written critically about
McMaster. Cernovich has broken stories that were later at
least partially confirmed by other outlets; his information
appears to have come from sources either within or close
to the White House. The notorious troll Charles C.
Johnson’s website GotNews cited two NSC sources in a
negative story about McMaster just this week.
“Flynn still is beloved,” Cernovich said. “Beloved
by the base. The base wasn’t happy when he
was fired. Flynn was at all the Trump rallies.
Jared wasn’t; Ivanka wasn’t.”
He was circumspect about who within the White House
may be leaking him information.
“The only thing I would say is that my work
stands on its own,” Cernovich said. He said he
uses burner cell phones to communicate with his
sources. “Most of my sources, I don’t know their
names and I don’t want to know their names.”
As for Flynn himself, he seems to be laying low. After the
report that Trump had asked Comey to stop investigating
him, sources close to Flynn told Fox News that he had
never asked Trump to intervene on his behalf.
Michael Ledeen, Flynn’s co-author on the book The Field
of Fight, said he had had lunch with Flynn recently and the
topic of the investigation and related scandals didn’t come
up.
Ledeen said it’s not clear what Flynn will do next.
“The current thing has to end first I think,” he
said. “All this nonsense about he’s a Russian
agent—that’s nonsense. People just made it up.”
What’s clear is that the issue remains unresolved, and may
for some time. Why is Trump so loyal? Despite his “you’re
fired” catchphrase, Trump is known not to enjoy sacking
people. But the sheer number of Flynn-related scandals
raises questions about just why the president ever brought
him on board, let alone why he kept him even after the
White House had been warned by Yates.
In the course of his lobbying work, though it wasn’t
disclosed at the time, Flynn wrote an op-ed about Turkey.
Its final line offers one answer, and captures the siege * This article originally identified Mike Flynn as director
mentality now on display at the White House: “In this of national intelligence. We regret the error.
crisis, it is imperative that we remember who our real
friends are.”
.

394
 McCain Questions Rationality
Of Calls To Impeach US President
© AP Photo/ J. Scott Applewhite - US
06:22 18.05.2017

Rep. Al Green reiterated the call in a House floor speech

on Wednesday after he accused the president
of obstructing justice.

"I don't think very many people take that very

seriously," McCain told reporters, as quoted
by the Washington Examiner. "Every day, we are
all surprised by some other twist and turn of this
issue so I can only respond now and now I do
not think that is a rational approach."

Pressure has built on Trump since he fired FBI chief James

Republican Sen. John McCain, a critic of President Donald Trump, said
Wednesday impeaching him would not be rational, according to local
media.
Comey last week amid an investigation into Russia’s
alleged meddling in the US electoral process. A memo
reportedly penned by Comey after a February meeting
with Trump suggested the president had asked him to halt
a probe into former national security adviser Michael
Flynn's ties to Russia.

Russia has repeatedly denied US claims that it interfered

in the presidential vote, calling such allegations absurd.
MOSCOW (Sputnik) — Some Democrats in the US Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Moscow did not
Congress have suggested filing an impeachment motion have official contacts with Trump's team during the
against Donald Trump over his alleged links to Russia. electoral campaign.

395
 The Washington Post:
America's #1 Source Of Mass Hysteria
Robert Bridge
Published Time: 18 May, 2017 15:33 Edited Time: 18 May, 2017 15:36

The Post article in question was polluted with wholly

subjective comments sprinkled with some half-baked
truths:

"For almost anyone in government, discussing

such matters with an adversary would be illegal.
As president, Trump has broad authority to
declassify government secrets, making it unlikely
that his disclosures broke the law."

The most widely circulated publication in Washington DC,

a weapon of mass distribution, has sparked a political
firestorm with an unsubstantiated report leveled against -
any guesses? - President Donald Trump and his supposed
bromance with Putin's Russia.

Dear reader, if that opening summary gives you a sense of

déjà vu, you're not alone. We’ve been down this dark road
before; it’s not a bad dream. It's just The Washington
Post’s latest addition to the steaming compost pile,
featuring lies, fabrication and fake news aimed at
protecting the Swamp monsters at all cost.

"President Trump revealed highly classified

information to the Russian foreign minister and
ambassador in a White House meeting last
week, according to current and former U.S.
officials, who said Trump’s disclosures
jeopardized a critical source of intelligence on the
Islamic State," the Bezos-owned Post reported,
blatantly bereft of a single verifiable source.
Thus was launched the latest salvo in The Post’s non-stop
fake news campaign, apparently to compromise the 45th
President of the United States to such a degree that calls
for his impeachment will be a foregone conclusion
(Incidentally, The Post, judging by a Trump hit-piece that
appeared just one day before the latest bombshell, seems to
be at the forefront of that movement).
396
First, some fact-checking. Russia is only an "adversary" of
the United States to the degree the American media
proclaims it to be. After all, Russia has taken upon itself
the unenviable task of routing Islamic State in Syria, and
with stunning success. Major Syrian cities, like Palmyra
and Aleppo, have been liberated from the terrorist yoke.
And let's not forget that before Russia appeared on the
scene, ISIS somehow found the time to run a profitable oil-
export business through a loophole on the Turkish border.
What next? ISIS issuing IPOs on Wall Street? Russia put
an end to that startup venture in short order. All things
considered, one would think Washington would be seeking
more "enemies" like Russia, which seems to be Trump’s
rationale.
Concerning allegations that Trump somehow was wrong to
share intelligence with Russia that involved Islamic State,
even The Post admitted that
 "Trump has broad authority to declassify
government secrets." Yet, several lines later, it
performed a perfect flip-flop into the shallow end,
saying: "At a more fundamental level, the
information wasn’t the United States’ to provide
to others."
Then, to conceal its tracks into the jungle of fake news,
The Post was forced to ratchet up the intrigue, alleging that
"the partner" who had provided the intelligence (the
identity of the "partner" - like so much in this story -
remains a source of speculation)
"had not given the United States permission to
share the material with Russia."
Really? Let's be honest. Would any other US Commander-
in-Chief aside from Donald J. Trump be blamed for not
sitting on smoking intelligence if it meant thwarting an
ISIS attack? Probably not. So why the double-standards
when it comes to The Donald?
There is another serious matter here that few are
mentioning, and that is the identity of these serial leakers.
As Trump could be practically heard screaming over
Twitter, where is the investigation into these high-level
loud mouths? More importantly, why is the media not
using more discretion when quoting such sources? Which
leads us to the real question: are these “leaks” in reality
nothing more than fake news dressed up like bonafide
facts?
I have been asking Director Comey & others,
from the beginning of my administration, to find
the LEAKERS in the intelligence community.....
— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) May
16, 2017
Whatever the case may be, the US mainstream media in
general and The Washington Post, in particular, are
ramping up domestic tensions to levels rarely seen before.
The stakes are high. The reason is because Trump refuses
to do the bidding of the Deep State, not to mention the
'media industrial complex, which is hell-bent on war in
Syria. Proof of that assertion was readily available when
Trump bombed a desolate Syrian airfield in early April.
Establishment cheerleader Fareed Zakaria led the round-
table rabble when he gleefully gushed, “I think Donald
Trump became President of the United States” following
the Syrian fireworks display. Really, Fareed? All it took
was that little rusty hook - the promise of another US
military invasion - to drag you over to Team Trump? Now
that Trump is showing a willingness to cooperate with
Russia, thereby dashing the fantasies of those media
warmongers who - like MSNBC anchor Brian Williams
397
getting all misty-eyed at the "beauty of our weapons" -
must start reviling him all over again.
History of Fakery
Since 2013, when the Graham family sold the newspaper
to Amazon.com founder Jeff Bezos for $250 million in
cash, the publication has morphed into some sort of
political parody knockoff of the National Enquirer. It's new
motto, "Democracy Dies in Darkness," emblazoned below
its title, seems to serve more like a funeral epitaph than
any guiding principle that it dutifully follows.
Albert Einstein famously defined insanity as "doing the
same thing over and over again and expecting different
results." If so, then a lot of readers of The Washington
Post must be insane, unless they are not expecting a
different result, which would be fact-based reporting
without some political ax to grind. In that case, regular
readers of The Post who don't expect different results are
not necessarily clinically insane, but rather happily
delusional.
Since the public has a rather notorious short memory when
it comes to news, here’s a quick trip down the Memory
Road of WaPo Fake News.
1. Comey goes Begging?
After Donald Trump fired FBI Director James Comey, The
Washington Post reported Comey had just sought more
funds from the Justice Department to investigate Trump’s
alleged ties to the Russians.
However, apparently, The Post never bothered to ring up
the Department of Justice, because as it turned out Comey
never requested more funds.
https://twitter.com/BretBaier/status/86234110596
6346241?ref_src=twsrc%5Etfw&ref_url=http%3A
%2F%2Fwww.thegatewaypundit.com%2F2017%
2F05%2Fwashington-post-just-publish-4th-
major-fakenews-story-last-week%2F
2. DOJ hissy fit?
The Post, quoting a “person close to the White House
(perchance a lost tourist?),” reported that Deputy Attorney
General Rod J. Rosenstein, the man to whom Comey
reported, threatened to resign following the decision to fire
Comey.
Yet here we have a video of Rosenstein himself denying
that he had considered resigning.
 Deputy AG #Rosenstein says he didn't threaten
to quit over #Comey#FBI firing
https://t.co/s4ODR9Qkme@MichelleMacTV@Le
andraB_sbgpic.twitter.com/x4U3pjJePo
— Liz McKernan (@LizMcKernan) May 11, 2017
3. Spicer in the bushes?
Following news of Comey's firing, The Post, apparently in
some lame effort to sound like a Saturday Night Live
episode, reported that Sean Spicer, the White House
spokesman, was "hidden in the darkness and among the
bushes" trying to avoid reporters.
When that was proven to be yet another steaming pile of
horse manure, The Post was forced to add this note to the
fake story
EDITOR’S NOTE: This story has been updated
to more precisely describe White House Press
Secretary Sean Spicer’s location late Tuesday
night in the minutes before he briefed reporters.
Spicer huddled with his staff among bushes near
television sets on the White House grounds, not
“in the bushes,” as the story originally stated.
4. Russians turned off the lights?
And then there was the time The Post reported that a
“Russian operation” was responsible for hacking into the
state of Vermont’s power grid? The story is still sitting
there, in fact, carrying the same scaremongering headline,
positioned over yet another Editor’s Note divesting
Russian hackers of any blame:
Editor’s Note: "An earlier version of this story
incorrectly said that Russian hackers had
penetrated the US electric grid. Authorities say
there is no indication of that so far. The
computer at Burlington Electric that was hacked
was not attached to the grid."
5. The Post decides what's fake
Finally, the mother of all ironies. The Post’s crown gem of
all fake news was essentially a fake news story blaming
Russia – and a host of alternative websites – for spreading
fake news. I kid you not. In fact, much of the unfounded
hysteria over “Russia hacking American democracy”
resulted from a now debunked Post article that used
material from a group called PropOrNot, which, despite
proclaiming to gauge the media on behalf of the public,
shuns the public spotlight, preferring anonymity. The Post
article by one Craig Timberg alleged
398
“a sophisticated Russian propaganda campaign
that created and spread misleading articles
online with the goal of punishing Democrat
Hillary Clinton, helping Republican Donald Trump
and undermining faith in American democracy...”
PropOrNot issued a report identifying more than 200
websites that, in its opinion, "echoed" Russian
propaganda.
So next we'll be banning echos, I guess.
*WaPo's Editorial Note that accompanies the
above-mentioned 'scoop' is so lengthy I must,
regrettably, refer the reader to The Washington
Post to read it online.
Meanwhile, it is worth noting that The Post’s latest bit of
insanity against Trump and Russia comes at a time when
an ongoing investigation into the murder of Seth Rich, the
Democratic National Committee staffer who was gunned
down on July 10 on a Washington, DC street, has taken a
very interesting and disturbing turn.
Rod Wheeler, a retired Washington homicide detective and
Fox News contributor, said his efforts are pointing to Rich
having made contact with WikiLeaks before his untimely
death.
Reward for the killers of Seth Rich is now
$130,000 https://t.co/KAiNFJusIb
— WikiLeaks (@wikileaks) January 19, 2017
Why is this important? Because of all the possible suspects
to have leaked DNC emails to WikiLeaks, thus possibly
sidetracking Hillary Clinton's hopes for the White House,
it seems that Mr. Rich, who was the Voter Expansion Data
Director at the DNC, was far ahead of Russia on that
score.
Yet US media scoffed at any attempt to make a connection
between Mr. Rich and the DNC leaks, even after
WikiLeaks decided in August to issue a US $20k reward
for information leading to conviction for the murder of the
young staffer. It's important to note that WikiLeaks never
said Rich was the source of the leaked emails. And
Washington metropolitan police reported his killing was
related to a robbery gone awry.
Nevertheless, Wheeler's recent comments are raising some
eyebrows. In fact, The Washington Post would have
performed much more of a public service by examining
this story rather than seeing a Russian behind every tree.
“My investigation up to this point shows there
was some degree of email exchange between
Seth Rich and WikiLeaks,” Wheeler said. “I do
 believe that the answers to who murdered Seth Coincidence or not, The Washington Post story on Trump
Rich sits on his computer on a shelf at the DC allegedly passing intelligence to the Russians was
police or FBI headquarters.” published less than an hour after the Seth Rich story broke.

399
 Comey Admits Under Oath That
Obstructions To Investigations "Never Happened"
By Tyler Durden
May 19, 2017 3:40 AM
Update: Citi's Aerin Williams notes that the USD is
higher on the Comey video below:
DXY is rallying as traders pass around a CSPAN video of
Comey testimony from May 3. This is not a new
testimony. Under oath, he suggests that there have been no
obstructions by saying that a President did not seem to be
telling Comey to stop investigations for political reason.
One could imagine that the deputy Attorney General saw
this testimony before appointing a special prosecutor, but it
adds to the puzzle investors are trying to put together.
Bloomberg Dollar Index:
Note - 10Y Yields are not moving on this.
* * *
As we detailed earlier, next week's James Comey hearing
is certainly setting up as a 'grab yr popcorn' moment with
Democrats lining up for their 5 minutes of fame to ask the
question that 'proves' Trump deserves impeachment.
However, it appears there is no need for the
hearing as Mr. Comey already confirmed -
under oath - that "he has not been pressured
to close an investigation for political
purposes."
Testifying under oath in front of the Senate Judiciary
Committee on May 3rd, Comey states that he has not been
pressured to close an investigation for political purposes,
"not in my experience."
.
400
COMEY: Not in my experience. Because it would be a
big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing something like that
-- without an appropriate purpose.
I mean where oftentimes they give us opinions that we
don't see a case there and so you ought to stop investing
resources in it. But I'm talking about a situation where
we were told to stop something for a political reason,
that would be a very big deal.
It's not happened in my experience.
Caught on tape?
Some have pointed out that Comey is responding
specifically to a question whether someone at the
Department of Justice or the Attorney General had
ever asked him to halt an investigation.
That is true, however, his response is not specific. His
response is general...
" it would be a big deal to tell the FBI to stop doing
something like that -- without an appropriate purpose... I'm
talking about a situation where we were told to stop
something for a political reason, that would be a very big
deal... It's not happened in my experience."
It seems like ANY "pressure" to stop an
investigation is a "big deal" and that's "not
happened."
 Deep State Cover-Ups,
Conspiracies & Lies
By Patrick J McShay
5-19-2017
Never before in our history has it been easier to spot the
traitor's in our Government. The truth is that most of our
Congress and Senate are threatened, blackmailed or on the
payroll of big pharma, big banks, big oil, big Defense
Firms or some other big conglomerate like Monsanto or
GlaxoSmithKline. The food we eat is Genetically
Modified and filled with poisons, Toxins and Carcinogens.
A recent study determined that 80% of Processed food sold
in the US would be banned in other countries. Activist Erin
Brockovich recently said that there are over 100 cities
who's Water supply is as bad or worse than Flint Michigan.
Most Americans would be shocked to learn that $10
Trillion Dollars are missing at the Pentagon. No
explanation has yet been given by our clueless politicians .
These Congressmen and Senators don't write the bills they
vote on and in most cases don't even read the bills before
they vote.
Donald Trump is a Nationalist and is surrounded by
Globalist Traitors. This is bigger than Democrat vs
Republican. Many of the never Trumpers are Republicans
who are for everything Trump is against. John McCain and
Paul Ryan head a long list of Neo Con's and globalist trolls
who represent a party that purports to advocate for strong
border security, less gun control, stopping the flow of
illegals/ refugees, Tax reform and less Federal Regulation
and control over the American People.
The Republican leadership are unashamed globalist
traitors. Paul Ryan has to go. He enthusiastically worked
with Obama on his agenda and is clearly not on the same
page as Trump or "We the People". There is much
evidence that "Traitor" McCain runs ISIS to pursue regime
change in Syria for his masters in Israel. Billions of barrels
of Oil have been found in The Golan Heights on Syrian
land stolen by Israel that they have no intention of ever
returning. A never Trumper, McCain has masqueraded as a
Republican for years and after 10 years of living in
Arizona I didn't talk to a single person who supported him.
McCain was formally reprimanded by his own party in
Arizona in 2014 for his liberal voting record and working
to closely with the Democrats. What does it say about a
man whos own State Party thinks he's a rat.
I certainly don't support everything Trump has done. His
pick for the FDA Dr Scott Gottlieb has a long relationship
with GlaxoSmithKline and his frightening support of strict
enforcement of State mandatory vaccination laws are
unconstitutional and a violation of the Nuremberg Code.
401
As I write this the State of Oregon is threatening forced
spraying of Poisonous Glyphosate on the crops of Organic
Farms and threatening them with a court order unless they
comply. This is outrageous! Is Dr Gottlieb behind this?
What will Trumps pick for the FCC Ajit Pai do on Net
Neutrality. Net Neutrality activists are calling for the FCC
to ban Alternative News websites. Banning free speech is
always a must in a totalitarian Police State. Trump is a big
supporter of the Men in Blue but says nothing about the
roughly thousand people a year murdered by the Police,
Most of whom were unarmed and posed no threat. Oh and
dopey Jeff Sessions wants to restart the War on Marijuana.
He maintains there is no medical benefit from Cannabis in
spite of the Government holding several Patents for for
Medicinal Cannabis. Go back to the 50's Jeff. And earlier
this year a number of Jewish groups were successful in
persuading Amazon, the World's largest bookseller, to ban
nearly a hundred books that they disapproved of. How can
a people that represent less than 0.2% of the World's
population have so much power over the rest of us?
We are at a dangerous crossroad in our country's history.
Former Congressman Dennis Kucinich says the Deep State
is out to destroy Trump. These Globalist scum and the
illegal Aliens they are allowing to flood our borders, don't
care one bit for the American People, traditions or our
culture. Our Economy has shown little or no growth in
years and is getting worse every day while we spend $150
billion a year on Illegals. Few understand how bad things
have gotten. Our Congress has stolen trillions of Dollars
from Social Security over the years and now our
politicians tell us it is unsustainable.We are illegally spied
on and lied to at every turn.
I don't trust Robert Mueller to do much but take a long
time to do little or nothing. How will Trump govern in the
middle of this circus of distractions? Mueller has long been
thought of as a fixer for the Deep State, or as the great
Journalist Sherman Skolnick called them The
"Bush/Clinton Crime Family". Many people have accused
him of cover-ups at Waco, Ruby Ridge and the Oklahoma
City Bombing. Mueller also worked on covering up Bush
Sr's involvement in the BCCI and BNL Banking Scandals
as well as the Bush/Daniel Noriega criminality and the
numerous cover ups before and after 911.
If James Comey had a mentor it would be Robert Mueller.
They are cut from the same cloth. Comey's involvement in
a number of cases are troubling. You Might recognize
some of them. Whitewater, the Illegal surveillance on
Americans, the Benghazi gun running, the Fast and
Furious gun running, the IRS targeting of Conservatives
and a dozen more. He worked as a Director at HSBC when
they were caught laundering money for Drug Cartels, and
most importantly refused to enforce existing Immigration
.
402
Laws. James Comey lied to Congress and has been caught.
Will this make any difference? Don't hold your breath.
Traitor James Clapper lied to Congress about the illegal
spying and it was no big deal. In a time of universal deceit
telling the truth is a revolutionary act. The Fact that John
McCain and Lindsey Graham approve of Mueller should
give Patriots everywhere cause for concern.
 Fmr. Rep. Kucinich Says The ‘Deep State’
Is Trying To Destroy Trump And Associates
Fmr. Congressman Tell It Like It Is, Calls Ou The 'Deep State'
By Shepard Ambellas -
05.20.2017 @2:48 PM EDT

(INTELLIHUB) — Fmr. congressman Dennis Kucinich

told Fox News recently that the federal government has
been salted by the deep state and seeks to destroy Donald
Trump’s presidency.

The former congressman wouldn’t characterize a particular

agency but said the C.I.A. was involved.

“We’ve got to protect the presidency,” Kucinich

said. “[…] when these agencies become
politicalized it is deadly for this country.”
“This goes way beyond politics,” he said. “There
has to be a cleaning out from top to bottom of
these agencies.”
.

403
 Internet Freedom Fighter Kim Dotcom
Questions Why Seth Rich’s Murder Is Not Solved,
Presents Camera Locations To Be Checked
Mega Upload Founder Kim Dotcom Takes Seth Rich
Investigation One Step Further Than Police
By Shepard Ambellas -
05.20.2017 @10:43 AM EDT

Why have murderers of #SethRich not been

identified? The crime area is littered with
cameras. Several cam locations identified by PI.
pic.twitter.com/BlHkiVQcBZ
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 18, 2017

Posobiac appeared on Infowars Live 2-5 stream Friday

where he explained a few overlooked details in the Seth
Rich case.

Mega Upload founder Kim Dotcom (Sam Churchill/Flickr)

WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) — Internet freedom

fighter and Mega Upload founder Kim Dotcom has been
putting the pressure on D.C Metro Police who were
reportedly given an order to ‘stand down’ on the Seth Rich
murder case.

The information came to light earlier this week after a

private investigator who was hired on behalf of the family
to solve the case told the press the shocking details, as
reported on March 16, 2017, in the Intellihub article titled: The famed D.C. operative said that he plans on traveling to
a few of the businesses and locations next week where a
“Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the number of cameras were present during the time of Rich’s
“DNC emails” Wikileaker: Confirmed.” murder in an attempt to gain valid information on the
matter.
Following up on Thursday, the Mega-millionaire tweeted:
“We are going to find out if they specifically had
information on these cameras or if that
“Why have murderers of #SethRich not been
information was turned over to the D.C. police,”
identified? The crime area is littered with
Posobiac said. “Even if it’s grainy footage we can
cameras. Several cam locations identified by PI.”
tell so much from that […] number of people,
size, appearance.”
A screen capture listing various camera locations near the
murder scene was included with Dotcom’s tweet which
Kim Dotcom was raided while at his New Zeland
was also delivered to D.C. Meto Police by political
residence by 17 armed agents of the elite Special Tactics
operative Jack Posobiac who claims to be in contact with
Group in January of 2012 over his revolutionary file
Dotcom.
sharing enterprise known as Mega Upload.

404
 Dotcom said that during the raid he was “scared and
worried” as he hid by a pillar in an upstairs room where he
was apprehended by agents some 13-minutes later.

“I had a punch to the face, I had boots kicking me

down to the floor, I had a knee into the ribs, my
hands were on the floor and one man was
standing on my hands,” the Mega Upload
founder revealed in a 2012 television interview.

Subsequently, Dotcom’s mother’s residence was raided

where a number of items which were listed on a warrant
were taken by police.
.

405
 Kim Dotcom Confirms May 16, Intellihub Report:
Murdered DNC Staffer Seth Rich Was
The “DNC Emails” Wikileaker
Seth Rich Is The DNC Wikileaker
By Shepard Ambellas -
05.20.2017 @2:25 PM EDT
(INTELLIHUB) — Mega-millionaire freedom fighter Kim
Dotcom has a bone to pick with the deep state after his
New Zeland residence was raided in 2012 by 17 special
agents.
Friday the larger than life business mogul tweeted: “If
Congress includes #SethRich case into their Russia probe
I’ll give written testimony with evidence that Seth Rich
was @Wikileaks source.”
If Congress includes #SethRich case into their
Russia probe I'll give written testimony with
evidence that Seth Rich was @Wikileaks source.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 19, 2017
Judging by his tweets, Dotcom appears to be fed up with
the democrats “pay4play” activity which runs rampant in
Washington.
“Democrats destroyed my business, attacked my
family, stole my assets in a pay4play strike for
the @MPAA,” he tweeted.
Democrats destroyed my business, attacked my family,
stole my assets in a pay4play strike for the @MPAA
Counterstrike:
Trump Presidency
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 19, 2017
Even more interesting is the fact that Fox News anchor
Sean Hannity responded to Dotcom’s original tweet
regarding Dotcom’s testimony on Seth Rich.
406
“You have evidence??” Hannity tweeted,
questioning Dotcom.
You have that evidence??
https://t.co/l96B0jSQEr
— Sean Hannity (@seanhannity) May 20, 2017
“I am the evidence,” Dotcom responded. “I knew Seth
Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks source. I was
involved.”
I'm the evidence!! https://t.co/w9WHrC4yW8
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017
I knew Seth Rich. I know he was the @Wikileaks
source. I was involved. https://t.co/MbGQteHhZM
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017
“I’m meeting my legal team on Monday. I will issue a
statement about #SethRich on Tuesday. Please be patient.
This needs to be done properly,” Dotcom tweeted.
I'm meeting my legal team on Monday. I will
issue a statement about #SethRich on Tuesday.
Please be patient. This needs to be done
properly.
— Kim Dotcom (@KimDotcom) May 20, 2017
Kim Dotcom’s statements confirm a May 16, 2017,
Intellihub report titled:
“Murdered DNC staffer Seth Rich was the
“DNC emails” Wikileaker: Confirmed.”
Kim Dotcom follows Intellihub’s Shepard Ambellas on
twitter @ShepardAmbellas.
 Trump Shakes Hands With Saudi Leader,
Doesn't Bow As Obama Appeared To Do
Fox News
Published May 20, 2017
President Trump upon arriving in Saudi Arabia on
Saturday did not bow to the Gulf leader as former
President Barack Obama appeared to do -- a move
interpreted as American weakness.
In 2009, Obama appeared to bow to then-Saudi leader
King Abdullah at a G-20 summit in London.
Videos show Obama bending at the waist toward the king.
The White House at the time purportedly denied that the
president had bowed, with a source saying Obama was
taller than the king, so he had to lean.
Trump's visit to Saudi Arabia marks the start to his nine-
day, overseas tour that will also take him to Israel and
Europe. The international trip is Trump’s first since taking
office in January.
Trump was greeted at the Saudi airport with an elaborate
ceremony, punctuated by a military flyover and a
handshake from Saudi King Salman.
First lady Melania Trump wore a black pantsuit with a
golden belt and did not cover her head for the arrival,
.
407
consistent with custom for foreign dignitaries visiting
Saudi Arabia.
The 81-year-old King Salman greeted Trump at the airport.
The two leaders exchanged pleasantries and Trump said it
was "a great honor" to be there.
“Two things need to happen,” Zuhdi Jasser,
founder of the American Islamic Forum for
Democracy, told Fox News on Saturday about
Trump’s trip. “President Trump needs to shore up
our alliance with the Sunnis who feel abandon,
and that starts with Saudi Arabia. And in the
short-term, he needs to create a coalition that will
decimate and defeat ISIS.”
Obama critics said the former president suggested several
times in 2009, just after getting elected, that the United
States owed the Arab world an apology.
“There have been times when America has
shown arrogance … even dismissiveness,”
Obama said that year in France.
Saudi Arabia offered Trump the elaborate welcome ahead
of his two-day stay. Billboards featuring images of Trump
and the king dotted the highways of Riyadh, emblazoned
with the motto "Together we prevail."
Trump's luxury hotel was bathed in red, white and blue
lights and, at times, an image of the president's face.
Trump and the king met briefly in the airport terminal for a
coffee ceremony before the president headed to his hotel
before the day's other meetings.
The Associated Press contributed to this report.
 Latest Anti-Trump Media Assault
By Stephen Lendman
5-20-17
At the start of his first foreign trip, departing Friday,
lasting nine days, returning home next weekend,
America’s two leading broadsheets sent him on his way
with denigrating reports.
Along with other media scoundrels, it’s part of their
sinister plot to weaken, delegitimize, and oust him from
office for wrongheaded reasons, not warranted ones.
The deplorable NYT headlined “Trump Told Russians
That Firing ‘Nut Job’ Comey Eased Pressure From
Investigation,” saying:
During Sergey Lavrov’s Oval Office visit, along
with ambassador Sergey Kislyak, Trump
reportedly said “ ‘I just fired the head of the FBI.
He was crazy, a real nut job,’ ” according to an
unnamed US official, the president allegedly
adding:
“I faced great pressure because of Russia, That’s
taken off. I’m not under investigation.”
The Times has no credible evidence of what Trump said,
just unverified allegations, using them to jump all over
him, saying:
Firing Comey
“reinforces the notion that the president
dismissed him primarily because of the bureau’s
investigation into possible collusion between (his)
campaign and Russian operatives.”
According to press secretary Sean Spicer,
“(b)y grandstanding and politicizing the
investigation into Russia’s actions, James
Comey created unnecessary pressure on our
ability to engage and negotiate with Russia.”
“The investigation would have always continued,
and obviously, the termination of Comey would
not have ended it. Once again, the real story is
that our national security has been undermined
by the leaking of private and highly classified
conversations.”
Accusations of Russian US election hacking, along with
alleged improper activities by Trump team with Moscow
.
408
are all about Kremlin bashing and a plot to oust the
president from office.
The Times lied claiming Trump “disclosed (classified)
intelligence” to Lavrov and Kislyak. No such disclosure
occurred.
Nor was justice obstructed for firing Comey, as The Times,
other media scoundrels and many Democrats suggested.
The neocon/CIA house organ Washington Post headlined
“Russia Probe Reaches Current White House Official,
People Familiar With The Case Say,” claiming:
An unnamed “significant person of interest” was
identified, “someone close to the
president…Current administration officials who
have acknowledged contacts with Russian
officials include President Trump’s son-in-law,
Jared Kushner, as well as Attorney General Jeff
Sessions and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.”
Contacts are customary practices, nothing suggesting
improper or criminal activities. Since investigations into
alleged Russia US election hacking and possible improper
Trump team dealings with Russia, no corroborating
evidence was found. None exists.
Breitbart News was right, saying
“(t)he common element in nearly all the major
New York Times and Washington Post stories
about President Donald Trump this week is that
they are based on source documents the outlets
cannot authenticate, do not possess, admit are
partial, and refuse to share.”
Maybe they don’t exist or perhaps what’s in them is much
different than reports suggest. If hard evidence of Russia
US election hacking and/or Trump team improper dealings
with Moscow existed, it would have been publicly reported
with credible documentation.
Instead just baseless accusations, allegations, innuendo,
distortions, disinformation and damn lies - the stuff
propaganda is made of, rubbish media scoundrels feature
daily, polar opposite responsible journalism, why their
reporting lacks credibility. Ignore them!
 Kushner ‘Person Of Interest’
In Russia Probe: Report
Sat May 20, 2017 2:4AM

White House Senier Adviser Jared Kushner (at the back) listens as
US President Donald Trump speaks at a meeting with business
leaders in the Roosevelt Room at the White House in Washington,
DC, January 23, 2017. (Photo by AFP)
Donald Trump’s son-in-law and senior
adviser, Jared Kushner, has become a
“person of interest” in the ongoing
investigation into the new US president and
his team’s ties with Russia, according to a
report.
Investigators are believed to have questioned Kushner with
regards to the case, the New York magazine reported on
Friday.
Earlier, The Washington Post reported that a senior adviser
to Trump was being investigated. It said the person under
investigation was close to the President, but did not
identify them.
“It’s Jared Kushner. Have confirmed this with four
people. I’m not speculating,” Yashar Ali, a New
York magazine reporter, said in a tweet.
Kushner, who is married to Trump’s eldest daughter
Ivanka, went to Washington earlier on Friday to
accompany Trump on his first foreign trip.
FBI Director James Comey (Photo by AFP)
Trump has admitted that Comey’s firing had to do with
“the Russian thing,” raising the possibility that his son-in-
law might have pushed him to dismiss the FBI chief.
If true, this won’t be the first time that Kushner is using his
influence in the White House to take down people he
doesn’t feel comfortable working with.
He reportedly persuaded Trump to remove Chief White
House Strategist Steve Bannon from the National Security
Council‘s principals committee in early April.
Trump has seemingly assigned Kushner with taking care
of Washington’s affairs in the Middle East.
He has negotiated with Saudis over $100 billion of arms
deals, which Trump is expected to sign during his trip to
the kingdom.
Trump has also tasked Kushner, who lacks political
experience, with brokering a peace deal between Palestine
and Israel.
Trump relieved after firing ‘nut job’ Comey

Trump’s critics say the trip, which involves stops in Saudi
Arabia, Israel and Vatican respectively, is designed to take
away attention from the chaos that swept the White House
following Trump’s decision to fire FBI chief James
Comey.
409
Meanwhile, The New York Times reported Friday that
Trump had discussed Comey’s firing with Russian
officials.
"I just fired the head of the F.B.I. He was crazy, a
real nut job," the Times quoted Trump as saying,
citing a document summarizing the Republican
 president’s last week meeting with Russian "I faced great pressure because of Russia. That's
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov at the White taken off," he said at the meeting, which was
House. also attended by Russian ambassador Sergey
Kislyak.
.

410
 Trump Comes To Israel Citing
A Palestinian Deal As Crucial
By PETER BAKER And IAN FISHER
MAY 22, 2017
President Trump at a welcoming ceremony in Tel Aviv on Monday.
Credit Amir Cohen/Reuters
JERUSALEM — President Trump began a two-day visit
to Israel on Monday with a blunt assessment for Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu: If Israel really wants peace
with its Arab neighbors, the cost will be resolving the
generations-old standoff with the Palestinians.
For years, Mr. Netanyahu has sought to recalibrate
relations with Sunni Arab nations in a mutual bid to
counter Shiite-led Iran, while subordinating the Palestinian
dispute as a secondary issue. But as Mr. Trump arrived in
Jerusalem after meetings in Saudi Arabia, the president
indicated that he and those Arab states see an agreement
with the Palestinians as integral to that new regional
alignment.
“On those issues, there is a strong
consensus among the nations of the world
— including many in the Muslim world,” Mr.
Trump said. “I was deeply encouraged by
my conversations with Muslim world
leaders in Saudi Arabia, including King
Salman, who I spoke to at great length.
King Salman feels very strongly and, I can
tell you, would love to see peace with Israel
and the Palestinians.”
Mr. Trump added that line to the remarks prepared for
him, in effect tying the future of the anti-Iran coalition to
the Palestinian issue despite Mr. Netanyahu’s longtime
efforts to unlink the two.
411
“There is a growing realization among your
Arab neighbors that they have common
cause with you in the threat posed by Iran,
and it is indeed a threat, there’s no
question about that,” Mr. Trump said.
The president has backtracked on several issues that are key to
Israel, including the location of the U.S. Embassy and settlement-
building.
The president has backtracked on several issues that are
key to Israel, including the location of the U.S. Embassy
and settlement-building.
The president’s arrival here opened a new chapter in
Middle East peacemaking, one that will test whether a
career of business-deal-making can translate to success in
the world of international diplomacy.
Mr. Trump sought to showcase his friendship with Mr.
Netanyahu as the two shared dinner with their wives and
called each other “Donald” and “Bibi,” the prime
minister’s nickname.
But neither publicly cited any concrete steps in pursuing a
peace agreement. Mr. Trump did not formally recognize
Jerusalem as the capital of Israel, as some Israeli officials
hoped he would do since he has shelved his promise to
move the American Embassy here from Tel Aviv. Nor for
that matter did he publicly press Israel to curb settlement
construction in the West Bank as Palestinians hoped.
Mr. Netanyahu offered nothing more than a few modest
gestures like extending the hours at the border crossing
between the West Bank and Jordan, recycled from
previous moments in the long-running dispute with the
Palestinians. During his most extended comments, toward
the end of the day, Mr. Netanyahu skipped right over the
Palestinian question to focus on Iran.
He, too, saw the possibility of an accommodation with
Arab neighbors but did not tie it to the Palestinian dispute.
“For the first time in my lifetime, I see a real
hope for change,” he told Mr. Trump. “The
Arab leaders who you met yesterday could
help change the atmosphere, and they
could help create the conditions for a
realistic peace.”
Even as they talked, the pressures that underscore the
complexities of any negotiation were evident. More than
1,000 Palestinians in the occupied West Bank marched to
the Qalandiya checkpoint from Ramallah, carrying posters
of Palestinian inmates on hunger strike in Israeli prisons,
and setting off clashes with Israeli soldiers, who fired tear-
gas containers, rubber bullets and live ammunition.
In a separate episode, Israeli authorities reported that a
Palestinian teenager who tried to stab police officers near a
Palestinian town on the outskirts of Jerusalem was shot to
death.
On the other side of the equation, Mr. Netanyahu came
under continuing pressure from the right wing of his
governing coalition not to make concessions. Naftali
Bennett, a pro-settler cabinet minister, used the
opportunity of meeting Mr. Trump in an airport receiving
line to press him to recognize Jerusalem as Israel’s capital.
President Trump, center, with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu,
right, and President Reuven Rivlin of Israel. Credit Jim
Hollander/European Pressphoto Agency
“He can be the one who goes into history,”
Mr. Bennett told an Israeli radio station. Mr.
Trump’s reported reply was noncommittal.
“Trump said, ‘That’s an idea,’” Mr. Bennett
recalled.
To some on the political left, the president’s message
linking an anti-Iran coalition to peace with the Palestinians
seemed a chance that Mr. Netanyahu should seize.
412
“The regional opportunity is ready and
ripe,” Isaac Herzog, head of the opposition
Labor Party, said in an interview after
meeting Mr. Trump in the same receiving
line. “I was very pleased as one who leads
the Israeli opposition and the peace camp
in Israel. We were very pleased that the
president showed he is trying to break the
impasse.”
Mr. Trump arrived on what was believed to be the first
open, direct flight to Israel from Saudi Arabia, which do
not have diplomatic relations, a sign of the possibility he
sees for what he has called “the ultimate deal.”
Mr. Trump at a bilateral meeting with Mr. Rivlin in Jerusalem.
Credit Stephen Crowley/The New York Times
After meeting with Reuven Rivlin, who holds the largely
ceremonial position of president of Israel, Mr. Trump
toured the Church of the Holy Sepulcher, home of what is
believed to be the tomb of Jesus Christ. He then became
the first sitting president to visit the Western Wall, the
holiest site for Jewish prayer, where he donned the
traditional skullcap and left a note in a crevice.
On Tuesday, Mr. Trump is to travel the short distance to
Bethlehem, in the West Bank, to meet with President
Mahmoud Abbas of the Palestinian Authority. Mr. Trump
is then scheduled to return to Jerusalem to lay a wreath at
Yad Vashem, the Holocaust remembrance center, and to
deliver a speech at the Israel Museum.
At the airport arrival ceremony, Mr. Netanyahu repeated
his longstanding position that he “shares the commitment
to peace” but with the same conditions as always.
“Israel’s hand is extended in peace to all
our neighbors, including the Palestinians,”
he said. “The peace we seek is a genuine
and durable one, in which the Israeli state
is recognized, security remains in Israel’s
hands and the conflict ends once and for
all.”
No previous American president has come to Israel this
early in his tenure. Bill Clinton visited in his second year
in office and Jimmy Carter in his third, while Richard M.
Nixon, George W. Bush and Barack Obama all waited
until their second terms to make the trip.
Mr. Trump and his wife, Melania, visiting the Church of the Holy
Sepulcher in Jerusalem on Monday. Credit Stephen Crowley/The
New York Times
But a visit that was once anticipated as a powerful
expression of solidarity between two like-minded leaders,
Mr. Trump and Mr. Netanyahu, has become more
complicated amid a series of logistical and political stress
points.
Among other things, Mr. Trump last week disclosed to
Russia’s foreign minister and ambassador some classified
information that came from Israel about an Islamic State
plot, potentially jeopardizing the Israeli intelligence source
and deeply angering some Israeli security officials.
Determined not to spoil the visit, Mr. Netanyahu had
resolved not to mention the intelligence breach publicly.
When a reporter asked the two leaders about it on Monday,
the prime minister brushed it off.
“Intelligence cooperation is terrific,” he said.
“It’s never been better.”
Mr. Trump, who said last week that he had every right to
disclose the information, denied identifying Israel as the
source.
“I never mentioned the word or the name
Israel,” he said. “Never mentioned during
that conversation. They’re all saying I did,
so you have another story wrong. Never
mentioned the word Israel.”
.
413
Mr. Trump at the Western Wall. Credit Stephen Crowley/The New
York Times
The stories did not report that he had mentioned Israel by
name. Instead, they quoted current and former intelligence
officials as saying that he had mentioned enough details
about the intelligence to potentially expose the source.
The $110 billion in arms sales that Mr. Trump announced
in Saudi Arabia was also a source of concern in Israel.
Secretary of State Rex W. Tillerson sought to reassure the
Israelis. “There has been nothing entered into with the
arms sales agreements with the kingdom of Saudi Arabia
or any of the other countries that do not fully allow us to
fulfill our commitments to Israel and the longstanding
security arrangements we have with Israel,” he told
reporters on Air Force One.
Still, much as he was in Saudi Arabia, Mr. Trump was
greeted by many in Israel as a welcome change from Mr.
Obama, whose relationship with Mr. Netanyahu soured
early on after Mr. Obama called for a settlement freeze,
and only worsened when he struck an agreement with Iran
intended to curb its nuclear program.
Mr. Trump repeated his criticism of the nuclear deal on
Monday with Mr. Netanyahu standing by his side. He also
credited Mr. Netanyahu with being serious about peace
with the Palestinians, an assessment the prime minister’s
critics do not share, and expressed optimism about
reaching an agreement.
“I’ve heard it’s one of the toughest deals of
all,” he said, “but I have a feeling we’re
going to get there eventually. I hope.”
 Washington Post Exposed
As A CIA Front Propaganda Rag Working
To Overthrow The Trump Administration And Install
Political Puppets
By: JD Heyes
Date: May 22, 2017
It’s become very obvious that the discredited Washington
media is helping to lead the Deep State establishment
effort to overthrow President Donald J. Trump, our duly
elected president who has angered the D.C. swamp by
promising to drain it.
One of the major media players in this effort is the
Washington Post, a once-respected broadsheet that, in the
Age of Trump, has become little more than a fake news
outlet filled with #trumphate innuendo and allegations.
Owned by Amazon founder and multi-billionaire Jeff
Bezos, it has to be said that he’s no fan of the president,
especially after Trump made a threat to break up what he
called the Amazon “monopoly.”
“He thinks I’ll go after him for antitrust,”
Trump told Fox News’ Sean Hannity in May
2016. “Because he’s got a huge antitrust
problem because he’s controlling so much,
Amazon is controlling so much of what they
are doing.
“He’s using the Washington Post, which is
peanuts, he’s using that for political
purposes to save Amazon in terms of taxes
and in terms of antitrust,” Trump added.
In recent days Matt Drudge, founder of the insanely high-
trafficked news aggregator website bearing his name, the
Drudge Report, reminded all of us in a tweet of this
potentiality:
414
WASHPOST owner personally motivated in
bloodsport after Trump threat of AMAZON
monopoly breakup. Follow the clicks!
MATT DRUDGE (@DRUDGE) May 16,
2017.
But others see more chicanery on the part of the Bezos-
owned WaPo.
The same year Bezos bought the Post, 2013, he was
awarded a $600 million contract from the CIA (more than
two times what the ailing Post cost him),
“a conflict of interest which Bezos’ paper to
this day never discloses per universal
journalistic protocol when reporting on U.S.
intelligence,” writes Caitlin Johnstone on
her Medium site.
Before then, she noted, Bezos
“proved his loyalty to America’s unelected
power establishment” by taking WikiLeaks
off Amazon’s computer servers in 2010.
Not surprisingly, she further notes, the WaPo has become
the biggest cheerleader for the Washington establishment
and Deep State — which of course includes the vast
intelligence community led primarily by the CIA, as well
as that agency’s preferred outlet for leaks on the Trump
administration. What’s more, the paper has been out front
pushing the false narrative that the Russians “colluded”
with the Trump campaign to “steal” the election from the
hapless Hillary Clinton, a charge for which there is
absolutely no evidence to support.
“So I think it’s understandable if people
want to take it with a teensy weensy grain
of salt when this glorified CIA trade rag tells
us that anonymous sources say Donald
Trump is colluding with those darn
Russians again. In fact, I think it’s
understandable if, knowing what we know
 about the CIA’s massive surveillance
systems, we all found the timing of this
release to be highly suspicious,” wrote
Johnstone.
She points to the burgeoning story that emails from the
Democratic National Committee published by WikiLeaks
were leaked to the site and not hacked by the Russians as
proof that the narrative is losing its validity, if it ever had
any. Fox News reported earlier this week that murdered
DNC staffer Seth Rich was found to have been in contact
with WikiLeaks via email, and that he made contacts with
Gavin MacFadyen, an American investigative reporter
who is now deceased.
the source of the DNC emails; that they were sent to the
whistleblower website by a disgruntled DNC staffer upset
at how the organization was rigging the Democratic
nomination against Sen. Bernie Sanders in favor of Hillary
Clinton.
The WaPo has been pushing that lie, as well, by the way
— that Russia is the root of all Election 2016 evil — that
is, when former FBI Director James Comey wasn’t being
blamed.
But now, it’s all falling apart. Stay tuned.
Stay informed at Wapo.news and newsfakes.com.

In December, Natural News — citing a report by the

U.K.’s Daily Mail, noted also that the Russians were not
.

415
 Donald Of Arabia:
A Disgusting Spectacle
This Is The Worst Yet
By Justin Raimondo
May 22, 2017
Has there been a more disgusting spectacle during the four
months of this presidency than the sight of Donald Trump
slobbering all over the barbarous Saudi monarch and his
murderous family of petty princelings? It’s enough to
make any normal American retch, especially when one
remembers what Trump said about them during the
election:
“Saudi Arabia and many of the countries that gave vast
amounts of money to the Clinton Foundation want women
as slaves and to kill gays. Hillary must return all money
from such countries!”
And then there was this tweet:
“Tell Saudi Arabia and others that we want (demand!) free
oil for the next ten years or we will not protect their
private Boeing 747s. Pay up!”
Now Trump’s son in law, Jared Kushner, is calling up
Lockheed-Martin to get a discount for the Saudis,
personally brokering the biggest arms deal in US history.
What a difference a presidency makes!
The old Trump told us that the Saudis were “mouth pieces,
bullies, cowards,” who were “paying ISIS,” but now
they’re our partners in the “war on terrorism.” Why it
seems like only yesterday that he was calling out Saudi
princes like Alwaleed bin Talal for thinking they can
“control our US politicians” – today he’s kowtowing to
them.
Most tellingly, it was Trump who made a campaign issue
out of the missing 28 pages redacted from the Joint
congressional report on the 9/11 terrorist attacks. In calling
for their release, he painted a scenario in which the Saudi
royals assisted the hijackers and said:
“You know, it’s sort of nice to know who your friends are,
and perhaps who your enemies are.”
416
Does Trump know who are our friends and who are our
enemies?
While the US government, under both Trump and Obama,
has routinely maintained that Iran is the biggest exporter of
terrorism, that is utter nonsense: the Saudis easily outdo
the mullahs of Tehran. Riyadh funds radical madrassas
throughout the world that preach pure hatred of the West:
they are incubators of terrorism, and have been wreaking
havoc from one end of the globe to the other for decades.
The terrorist groups that have destroyed Syria are the
progeny of the Saudis, and their allies among the Gulf
states.
Most shameful of all, the Saudis have invaded nearby
Yemen, slaughtering children and women with impunity,
bombing funeral processions, and causing a famine that
will kill hundreds of thousands of noncombatants: the very
young, the sick, and the old. And they’re doing it with US
assistance, a pact signed in blood under the Obama
administration, now continued and beefed up under
Trump.
In all fairness, this is nothing new as far as the US is
concerned: our relationship with the Saudi monarchy goes
all the way back to Franklin Roosevelt, who cemented the
alliance in 1943 by declaring that the defense of their
medieval dictatorship was “vital” to our national security:
US taxpayer dollars flowed into the Saudi treasury via the
Lend-Lease giveaway. The flow hasn’t stopped since that
time: indeed, it has only increased.
And the flow will turn into a torrent if Trump’s wacky idea
of an Arab NATO ever comes to fruition. We’ll be paying
their “defense” bills unto eternity, while they send their
army of head-chopping assassins out to murder infidels on
a global scale – and US arms dealers rake in cash hand
over fist.

Yes, the US-Saudi relationship is one of the central pillars
of our globalist foreign policy – but wasn’t Trump
supposed to be different? Wasn’t he supposed to be putting
America first? Of all the betrayals we’ve had to endure
since he took the White House, his pilgrimage to the
epicenter of world terrorism has got to be the absolute
worst. As he kneels before the Saudi king, he humiliates
all of us.
Trump’s next stop is Israel, and that’s no accident: the
Jewish state is Saudi Arabia’s main ally in the region,
although the relationship is supposed to be covert. They
don’t even bother to keep it under wraps anymore. While
the Saudis fund the head-chopping barbarians who have
destroyed Syria, the Israelis succor them in their hospitals
and then set them free to kill and maim again. Israeli
officials openly state their preference for ISIS over Bashar
al-Assad. If and when Trump’s loopy “Arab NATO” ever
comes to pass, Israel will be a silent partner.
The third leg of Trump’s trip will be the Vatican, and there
an ambush awaits him. This Pope is no friend of the White
House, and he is likely to issue a public rebuke on the
.
417
immigration issue, at the very least. The whole thing is a
public relations disaster waiting to happen, and a testament
to the very bad advice Trump is getting from his clueless
advisors.
The mawkish idea of visiting the sites of the world’s three
major religions is more appropriate for a television special
than for a President on his first major trip abroad. Quite
aside from the fact that it leaves out the Hindus, the Greek
Orthodox, and the Buddhists, the whole concept is typical
of the way this administration thinks in terms of mindless
clichés, catchphrases without context or real meaning.
Speaking of which, the less said about Trump’s speech in
Riyadh the better: it was a farrago of falsehood,
kowtowing, and brazen hypocrisy. To top it off, he
announced that a new “Global Center for Combating
Extremist Ideology” is to be opened in the Kingdom –
which is, itself, the world capital of extremist ideology,
having done more to spread religious hatred than any
country on earth.
Of all Trump’s many betrayals – and they’re piling up at
such a rate that he’s creating a veritable Mountain of
Mendacity – this Saudi trip has got to be the one that will
demoralize and alienate even his hardcore supporters.
After rising to power on the strength of portraying Islam as
inherently violent and dangerous, he’s now joining hands
with the leaders of what he once described as “the hateful
ideology of radical Islam.” It’s as if Mother Theresa had
embraced the Church of Satan.
It’s been a very long four months – that seems more like
four years. In voting for Trump, many of his supporters –
some of whom are now among Antiwar.com’s regular
readers and supporters – were hoping for a return to
normalcy. What they got instead was a descent into
Bizarro World.
 D.C. Surgeon Who Operated On Seth Rich:
‘The DNC Staffer Was Alive And Well After Surgery,
Before A Group Of Leos Showed Up To The ICU’
DNC Staffer's Plug Pulled In ICU?
By Shepard Ambellas -
05.22.2017 @9:17 AM EDT
WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) — A 4-year resident
surgeon at Washington Hospital Center claims that Seth
Rich was alive and recovering well in facility’s Intensive
Care Unit (ICU) after being treated for a total of 3 routine
gunshot wounds — that is until a number of law
enforcement officers arrived eight hours later kicking most
everyone out of the ICU and physically barring doctors
and others from attending to Rich.
The surgeon who witnessed this bizarre behavior decided
to come forth with the information despite the fact that he
or she may be easy to identify.
Posted on May 17, to 4chan under the anonymous ID:
“rhotYJAg,” the surgeon wrote:
4th year surgery resident here who rotated
at WHC (Washington Hospital Center) last
year, it won’t be hard to identify me but I
feel that I shouldn’t stay silent.
Seth Rich was shot twice, with 3 total
gunshot wounds (entry and exit, and entry).
He was taken to the OR emergently where
we performed an exlap and found a small
injury to segment 3 of the liver which was
packed and several small bowel injuries
(pretty common for gunshots to the back
exiting the abdomen) which we resected
~12cm of bowel and left him in
discontinuity (didn’t hook everything back
up) with the intent of performing a washout
in the morning. He did not have any major
vascular injuries otherwise. I’ve seen
418
dozens of worse cases than this which
survived and nothing about his injuries
suggested to me that he’d sustained a fatal
wound.
In the meantime he was transferred to the
ICU and transfused 2 units of blood when
his post-surgery crit came back ~20. He
was stable and not on any pressors, and it
seemed pretty routine. About 8 hours after
he arrived we were swarmed by LEOs and
pretty much everyone except the attending
and a few nurses was kicked out of the ICU
(disallowing visiting hours -normally every
odd hour, eg 1am, 3am, etc- is not
something we do routinely). It was weird as
hell. At turnover that morning we were
instructed not to round on the VIP that
came in last night (that’s exactly what the
attending said, and no one except for me
and another resident had any idea who he
was talking about).
No one here was allowed to see Seth
except for my attending when he died. No
code was called. I rounded on patients
literally next door but was physically
blocked from checking in on him. I’ve never
seen anything like it before, and while I
can’t say 100% that he was allowed to die,
I don’t understand why he was treated like
that. Take it how you may, /pol/, I’m just
one low level doc. Something’s fishy
though, that’s for sure.
 Via 4chan archive

Was Seth Rich set up by DC Metro Police and left to die or murdered in the hospital as the post claims?

419
 ‘Spirit Cooking Creep’ John Podesta
Bashes Trump, One Obvious Reason Why
Dawn Luger
May 22, 2017
John Podesta, the original source of the 60,000 leaked
emails from Hillary Clinton’s campaign released by
WikiLeaks, has decided to go on a rampage against
Donald Trump. As the irony in politics continues as the
disturbed human who is Podesta is now taking shots at the
man who beat his horribly constructed campaign. But
there’s probably a good reason for his anger.
Podesta, who was Hillary Clinton’s campaign chair last
year, is saying that we shouldn’t expect an impeachment of
Donald Trump anytime soon. The “spirit cooking creep”
said that Republican congressional leaders Paul Ryan and
Mitch McConnell have chosen to “Velcro their own
political fate” to Trump’s. According to Podesta, the right
won’t pursue allegations against the president of their own
party unless forced to do so by a 2018 midterm election
debacle or further revelations.
“It is clear to me that Republicans on
Capitol Hill are not going to begin to turn on
him at this point,” Podesta says.
It’s almost like Podesta finally decided to publicly
announce that partisan politics are being used to divide the
sheep into two groups. But it’s only OK when the
democrats do it. Were conservatives to expect an
impeachment of Obama for the bombing of more countries
than George W. Bush? No, of course not. That’s not how
political games are played.
He also let out a barrage of other simple statements hardly
rooted in fact, yet designed to gin up an emotional
response from his and Hillary’s followers. He basically
420
described Obama’s presidency, while changing the
buzzwords from “democrats” to “republicans,” and
“Obama” to “Trump.”
“The problem in the Trump White House is
they have no one who really stands up to
him,” Podesta says. “He’s impetuous, he’s
impulsive, he fires things off and if
anything, they enable him rather than trying
to contain what are moves that in any other
context would seem, you know, absolutely
crazy. … If they’re going to try to right this
place and be able to be effective, I think
they need a much stronger team who can
resist his impulses and tell him that he’s
wrong.”
Obama got away with being a war monger and shoving
Obamacare through the government simply because the
left-leaning media (who was determined to lessen the blow
of the communism they so lovingly adore) covered his
indiscretions.
“It’s laughable, really laughable that Donald
Trump would fire Jim Comey because of
his interference which damaged Hillary
Clinton. I mean, it was laughable from the
very beginning,” Podesta says. “Just a
complete misreading of reality.”
If more people had read the Podesta emails, he would be
holed up somewhere not showing his face in public. But
again, partisan politics and the political elites are in charge,
not the voters. At this time, it’s easy to point out Podesta
has egg on his face. The long-winded rant against Trump
was what was laughable. John Podesta having any sort of
trust from the left is actually hilarious at this point. He
clearly rigged the primary election against Bernie Sanders.
It seems like no one wants to say it, so I will:
Let’s face it. Podesta is just ticked off that
he lost a rigged election. That’s probably
whey he feels so burned. Of course, that’s
speculation, because liberals and the
leftists in the media won’t bother reading
Hillary Clinton and Podesta’s leaked emails
 without their (D) filters on, so we’ll never
know how deep the rigging truly goes –
only that it does, in fact, exist. Take this
email,(which can be read in full here) for
example:
Notice that the date on this email discussion begins on
September 18, 2008 (WikiLeaks ID 33374). That’s nearly
two months before the election, yet politicians are
chomping at the bit for a chance to write Obamacare and
be a part of Barack’s transition team. How did these
democrats know Obama would beat McCain two months
ahead of the election? But that’s just one email, what about
this one also declaring Obama the winner:
421
This one is even earlier than the last email, written around
September 5, 2008. Again, don’t take my word for it. Read
the entire email here on WikiLeaks website (WikiLeaks ID
46340). To know the left rigged the election for Obama,
yet assume they didn’t for Hillary after knowing they
rigged the primaries against Sanders is willful ignorance at
this point. Podesta is pissed he lost a rigged election. It’s
pretty simple to put these pieces together, but he preys on
the gullibility of the left and unfortunatly, they continue to
comply.
It isn’t a secret that elections are rigged, and Podesta is
extremely upset. It doesn’t take a genius to see that the left
controls the vast majority of the media and that there are
very few non-partisan sources from the outside looking in.
Trump is running the White House like a total baboon, but
it’s nothing different than what Barack Obama did during
his tenure as president. The only difference is the letter
behind his name. It’s all the same. It’s all politics.
 Coulter: If Trump Doesn't Keep His Promises,
Dems Will Win Big In 2018 & Impeach Him
May 22, 2017
Ann Coulter was one of President Donald Trump's most
outspoken supporters during the 2016 election, but so far
she's been underwhelmed by his presidency.
On "Varney & Co." today, Coulter said that the American
people elected Trump to build a wall along the U.S.-
Mexico border, enforce immigration laws, end NAFTA
and end our role as the world's police.
.
422
"Unfortunately, we're not getting what we voted for,"
Coulter said.
She acknowledged, however, that much of the "vicious and
violent" criticism of Trump is unfair.
"Both political parties for years and years have been
pushing whatever Wall Street and the elites want. Trump
was the only candidate who was going to put Americans
first," Coulter said. "I just want him to get back to his
campaign promises."
She said if he fails to do that, then the Democrats will
destroy the Republicans in the 2018 midterms, and they
"absolutely" will impeach him.
"The left-wing base is just obsessed with that, so Trump
better keep his promises," Coulter said.
She noted that there's still plenty of time for Trump to get
it together, but she's still waiting to see the "bull in a china
shop" that he promised to be in Washington, D.C.
 Kim Dotcom Tweets:
I Was Involved With Seth Rich.
Public Statement Tuesday #Wikileaks
May 22, 2017
KiwiYouTube phenom Ed, creator of both “The Outer
Dark” and “The Outer Light” channels is reporting here on
tweets made by fellow Kiwi, Internet impresario, Kim
Dotcom who claims that he was personally involved in
DNC staffer Seth Rich’s leaks, which were published by
WikiLeaks and helped throw the US Presdential
Electionand that he will be making an official
announcement about this on “Tuesday”, which is May
23rd for Kiwis and May 22 for people in the Western
Hemisphere, depending on one’s location in reference to
the International Dateline.
Kim will apparently be appearing on Sean Hannity’s radio
and TV broadcasts.
In response to this, Julian Assange tweeted: “WikiLeaks
has never disclosed a source. Sources sometimes talk to
other parties but identities never emerge from WikiLeaks.
#SethRich”
(Which sounds a lot like he’s disclosing a source to me!)
Here is Kim Dotcom’s preliminary statement:
#SethRich was a hero
I know that Seth Rich was involved in the DNC leak.
I know this because in late 2014 a person contacted me
about helping me to start a branch of the Internet Party in
.
423
the United States. He called himself Panda. I now know
that Panda was Seth Rich.
Panda advised me that he was working on voter analytics
tools and other technologies that the Internet Party may
find helpful.
I communicated with Panda on a number of topics
including corruption and the influence of corporate money
in politics.
He wanted to change that from the inside.
I was referring to what I knew when I did an interview
with Bloomberg in New Zealand in May 2015. In that
interview I hinted that Julian Assange and Wikileaks
would release information about Hillary Clinton in the
upcoming election.
The Rich family has reached out to me to ask that I be
sensitive to their loss in my public comments. That request
is entirely reasonable.
I have consulted with my lawyers. I accept that my full
statement should be provided to the authorities and I am
prepared to do that so that there can be a full investigation.
My lawyers will speak with the authorities regarding the
proper process.
If my evidence is required to be given in the United States
I would be prepared to do so if appropriate arrangements
are made. I would need a guarantee from Special Counsel
Mueller, on behalf of the United States, of safe passage
from New Zealand to the United States and back. In the
coming days we will be communicating with the
appropriate authorities to make the necessary
arrangements. In the meantime, I will make no further
comment.
Statement from
Kim Dotcom
 Fox Drops Seth Rich Murder
Story As Sean Hannity Attacks 'Liberal Fascism'
Fox Says Report That DNC Staffer Had Been In Contact With Wikileaks
Prior To His Fatal Shooting Was Not Given A ‘High Degree Of
Editorial Scrutiny’
Sabrina Siddiqui In Washington
Tuesday 23 May 2017 23.27 EDT
In the wake of the Fox News report, law enforcement officials
disputed that Rich’s laptop had even been in possession of, or
examined by, federal authorities. Photograph: Mary Altaffer/AP
Fox News has retracted a story on the 2016 murder of
Democratic National Committee staffer Seth Rich, which
was roundly condemned for perpetuating conspiracy
theories, while host Sean Hannity said he would cease
further discussion of the subject on his show in the
network’s evening lineup.
Both Fox and Hannity invited a torrent of criticism for a
report on 16 May that Rich, a 27-year-old staffer at the
DNC, had been in contact with the website WikiLeaks
prior to his fatal shooting in Washington in July of 2016.
The unsubstantiated report was published and promoted on
both Fox News, most heavily on Hannity’s primetime
show, and the network’s local Washington affiliate,
WTTG-TV.
In a statement issued on Tuesday, Fox News said the
article in question
“was not initially subjected to the high
degree of editorial scrutiny we require for
all our reporting”.
“Upon appropriate review, the article was
found not to meet those standards and has
since been removed,” the statement read.
424
“We will continue to investigate this story
and will provide updates as warranted.”
Hours later, Hannity addressed the controversy at the top
of his program and was largely unapologetic, but said he
would back down from the story for the time being.
“Out of respect for the [Rich] family’s
wishes, for now, I am not discussing this
matter at this time,” Hannity said.
Even so, the characteristically bombastic anchor blamed
what he dubbed as “liberal fascism” amid a campaign
targeting Hannity’s advertisers in the wake of his
promotion of the false report.
“I promise you I am not going to stop doing
my job,” Hannity said. “I am not going to
stop trying to find the truth.”
Rightwing websites and commentators have sought to tie
Rich’s murder to the release of the hacked DNC emails
ahead of the party’s convention last July, as well as to
Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign, despite no
evidence to support such a link.
In an emotional op-ed published on the Washington Post
on Tuesday, Rich’s family said he was in fact excited
about an opportunity to join Clinton’s campaign on the day
he was killed.
“Every day we wake up to new headlines,
new lies, new factual errors, new people
approaching us to take advantage of us
and Seth’s legacy,” his parents, Mary Rich
and Joel Rich, wrote.
“It just won’t stop. The amount of pain and
anguish this has caused us is unbearable.”
Following Hannity’s broadcast, his family’s spokesman
said:
 “We hope that Mr Hannity will join Fox
News in their rededicated commitment to
editorial integrity.”
Rich’s case remains unresolved, but the Metropolitan
police department of Washington have said the evidence
suggests the murder resulted from a botched robbery.
Fox News falsely alleged federal authorities had found
thousands of emails between Rich and Wikileaks, when in
fact law enforcement officials disputed that Rich’s laptop
had even been in possession of, or examined by, the FBI.
Fox nonetheless continued to feature the report, which was
widely characterized as an example of the “fake news”
phenomenon.
.
425
Rich’s family pleaded with the network and host to
suspend its promotion of a conspiracy theory.
Brad Bauman, a spokesman for the Rich family, told CNN
earlier on Tuesday they were grateful for the retraction.
“The family would like to thank Fox News
for their retraction on a story that has
caused deep pain and anguish to the family
and has done harm to Seth Rich’s legacy,”
Bauman said in a statement.
“We are hopeful that in the future Fox
News will work with the family to ensure the
highest degree of professionalism and
scrutiny is followed so that only accurate
facts are reported serving this case.”
 The Republic Has Fallen:
The Deep State’s Plot To Take Over America
Has Succeeded
By John W. Whitehead
May 23, 2017
No doubt about it.
The coup d’etat has been successful.
The Deep State—a.k.a. the police state a.k.a. the military
industrial complex—has taken over.
The American system of representative government has
been overthrown by a profit-driven, militaristic corporate
state bent on total control and global domination through
the imposition of martial law here at home and by
fomenting wars abroad.
When in doubt, follow the money trail.
It always points the way.
Every successive president starting with Franklin D.
Roosevelt has been bought—lock, stock and barrel—and
made to dance to the tune of the Deep State.
Enter Donald Trump, the candidate who swore to drain the
swamp in Washington DC.
Instead of putting an end to the corruption, however,
Trump has paved the way for lobbyists, corporations, the
military industrial complex, and the Deep State to feast on
the carcass of the dying American republic.
Just recently, for instance, Trump agreed to sell Saudi
Arabia more than $110 billion in military weapons.
Meanwhile, Trump—purportedly in an effort to balance
the budget in 10 years—wants to slash government
funding for programs for the poor, ranging from health
care and food stamps to student loans and disability
payments.
The military doesn’t have to worry about tightening its
belt, however. No, the military’s budget—with its trillion
dollar wars, its $125 billion in administrative waste, and its
contractor-driven price gouging that hits the American
426
taxpayer where it hurts the most—will continue to grow,
thanks to Trump.
This is how you keep the Deep State in power.
The rich will get richer, the poor will get poorer, the
military will get more militaristic, America’s endless wars
will get more endless, and the prospect of peace will grow
ever dimmer.
As for the terrorists, they will keep on being played for
pawns as long as Saudi Arabia remains their breeding
ground and America remains the source of their weapons,
training and know-how.
Follow the money. It always points the way.
As Bertram Gross noted in Friendly Fascism: The New
Face of Power in America, “evil now wears a friendlier
face than ever before in American history.”
Writing in 1980, Gross predicted a future in which he saw:
…a new despotism creeping slowly across America.
Faceless oligarchs sit at command posts of a corporate-
government complex that has been slowly evolving over
many decades. In efforts to enlarge their own powers and
privileges, they are willing to have others suffer the
intended or unintended consequences of their institutional
or personal greed. For Americans, these consequences
include chronic inflation, recurring recession, open and
hidden unemployment, the poisoning of air, water, soil and
bodies, and, more important, the subversion of our
constitution. More broadly, consequences include
widespread intervention in international politics through
economic manipulation, covert action, or military
invasion...
We’ve been losing our freedoms so incrementally for so
long—sold to us in the name of national security and
global peace, maintained by way of martial law disguised
as law and order, and enforced by a standing army of
militarized police and a political elite determined to
maintain their powers at all costs—that it’s hard to
pinpoint exactly when it all started going downhill, but
we’re certainly on that downward trajectory now, and
things are moving fast.
The “government of the people, by the people, for the
people” has perished.
It will not be revived or restored without a true revolution
of values and a people’s rebellion the likes of which we
may not see for a very long time.
America is a profitable business interest for a very select
few, and war—wars waged abroad against shadowy
enemies and wars waged at home against the American
people—has become the Deep State’s primary means of
income.
After all, war is big business.
In order to maintain a profit margin, one would either have
to find new enemies abroad or focus on fighting a war at
home, against the American people, and that’s exactly
what we’re dealing with today.
 Wars waged abroad to the tune of trillions of
dollars since 9/11.
 Military equipment sold to foreign enemies.
 Local police transformed into a standing army in the
American homeland through millions of dollars’ worth of
grants to local police agencies for military weapons,
vehicles, training and assistance.
 The public acclimated to the sights and sounds of
martial law through urban training exercises and
domestic military training drills timed and formulated to
coincide with or portend actual crises.
 The citizenry taught to fear and distrust each other and
to welcome the trappings of the police state.
Had the government tried to ram such a state of affairs
down our throats suddenly, it might have had a rebellion
.
427
on its hands. Instead, the American people have been given
the boiling frog treatment, immersed in water that slowly
is heated up—degree by degree—so that they’ve fail to
notice that they’re being trapped and cooked and killed.
“We the people” are in hot water now.
As I make clear in my book Battlefield America: The War
on the American People, the Constitution doesn’t stand a
chance against a federalized, globalized standing army
protected by legislative, judicial and executive branches
that are all on the same side, no matter what political views
they subscribe to: suffice it to say, they are not on our side
or the side of freedom.
From Clinton to Bush, then Obama and now Trump, it’s as
if we’ve been caught in a time loop, forced to re-live the
same thing over and over again: the same assaults on our
freedoms, the same disregard for the rule of law, the same
subservience to the Deep State, and the same corrupt, self-
serving government that exists only to amass power, enrich
its shareholders and ensure its continued domination.
The republic has fallen to fascism with a smile.
Elections will not save us.
Learn the treacherous lessons of 2008 and 2016:
presidential elections have made a mockery of our
constitutional system of government, suggesting that our
votes can make a difference when, in fact, they merely
serve to maintain the status quo.
Don’t delay.
Start now—in your own communities, in your schools, at
your city council meetings, in newspaper editorials, at
protests—by pushing back against laws that are unjust,
police departments that overreach, politicians that don’t
listen to their constituents, and a system of government
that grows more tyrannical by the day.
If you wait until 2020 to rescue our republic from the
clutches of the Deep State, it will be too late.
 Partisan WashPost Editor
Convicts Trump: This ‘Feels Like’ Watergate
By Scott Whitlock
May 23, 2017 | 12:28 PM EDT
The Washington Post’s executive editor has convicted
Donald Trump. One would assume the only solution is
impeachment. Appearing on CBS This Morning, Marty
Baron touted the Post’s war against the President. He
concluded,
“When I was coming out of high school,
there was Nixon and Watergate. And so,
I wasn't in the middle of that, obviously.
But this feels like that in many ways.”
Richard Nixon was driven from office in the wake of
impeachment inquiries and The Washington Post's
reporting. Baron admitted this might not be a “perfect
analogy, but what does his comment suggest the
newspaper has in mind for Trump?
The interview included a lot of journalistic self-love as the
CBS hosts thrilled over the “stunning” Post, saying it has
“never been better.” Gayle King noted that the paper has
been scooping its liberal competitor, The New York Times:
This has got to be a very satisfying feeling
for you. You're very calm and very
controlled. Aren't you guys over there
doing the hula about what is
happening?
Assume for a minute that the Post has the goods on Trump
and he’s actually guilty of crimes. “Satisfying?” “Doing
the hula?” Would that be the reaction for such a
tumultuous, difficult time for the country?
The best the CBS reporters could manage was for King to
lightly broach the topic of relying on anonymous sourcing.
428
She wondered, “Help us understand the leak process, how
it operates at your place. How can you trust the people that
are leaking stories to you?” King then followed up by
cheering, “And don't you double check, triple check? It's
not like you rely on just one source.”
Nowhere in the fawning interview were examples of the
Post getting things wrong when it came to investigating
Trump. The MRC’s Brent Bozell and Tim Graham
explained on May 16:
Since Trump won the election, the Post has
been caught in a string of over-aggressive
anti-Trump stories that were based on
anonymous sources and turned out to be
untrue. Just last week, the Post reported
deputy attorney general Rod Rosenstein
offered to resign in the wake of the firing of
FBI director James Comey. Rosenstein
denied ever doing such a thing. The Post
also reported the FBI asked for additional
resources for its probe of Trump campaign
collusion with the Russian government.
The acting FBI director testified under oath
that was not true. It's a shame Congress
doesn’t get to put the media’s anonymous
sources under oath.
At one point, Baron asserted,
“This is an administration, like every
administration, requires scrutiny and we
have more people probably covering the
White House now than I think The
Washington Post ever has had.”
Where was that scrutiny during the Obama administration?
Where were all those investigative reporters over that eight
year span?
This type of fawning coverage of other journalists is
common for CBS. On May 16, the hosts talked to the
publisher of Rolling Stone about the magazine’s 50th
anniversary. King explained away the publication’s fake
claim of rape at the University of Virginia, excusing the
false reporting, “It happens so rarely to you.”
A transcript of the segment is below:
CBS This Morning
5/23/17
8:32am ET
CHARLIE ROSE: Political news has dominated headlines
from the 2016 campaign into the beginning of President
Trump's administration. The Washington Post has been
behind several of the biggest stories. They include the
leaked Access Hollywood video and the Justice
Department's concern about Michael Flynn. The paper won
a Pulitzer Prize for its investigation into Mr. Trump's
charitable donations. The newspaper also broke the story
about President Trump's revelation of highly classified
information to Russian official. And yesterday, the Post
reported that Trump asked top intelligence officials to deny
evidence that his campaign colluded with Russia. Marty
Baron is executive editor of The Washington Post and we’re
pleased to have him at this table. Welcome.
MARTY BARON: Thank you.
ROSE: What’s happened to The Washington Post? I mean,
everybody is saying it's never been better and you’ve got
remarkable reporting.
BARON: Well, thank you. We appreciate that we have a
great team. Great team in the newsroom. Very proud of
what they are doing.
ROSE: Has the addition avenue ownership made a
difference?
BARON: Yeah. Jeff Bezos is now our owner. He's owned us
for about three and a half years. He's brought not only
financial capital, but intellectual capital. I think he has helped
us adjust to the digital age and that’s been — He’s been a
tremendous owner and stood behind us.
ROSE: Look at today's news. I mean, how does a paper
cover this kind of story?
BARON: Well, we have a tremendous team that covers
politics and policy and The Washington Post, of course, has
done that for a very long time. And this is an administration,
429
like every administration, requires scrutiny and we have
more people probably covering the White House now than I
think The Washington Post ever has had.
GAYLE KING: Have you ever seen this many leaks, Marty,
the President has called you all fake media, leaks that the
media is out to get him. Help us understand the leak
process, how it operates at your place. How can you trust
the people that are leaking stories to you?
BARON: Well, look, there are a lot of people in government
who are concerned about what's happening. They feel it's
information that the public needs and deserves to know. Our
reporters have a lot of experience. Over the many years
they've cultivated sources in government. People who know
them. They know the source. These are reporters on our
staff who have a lot of experience and expertise. And so,
when people want to talk they talk to us.
KING: And don’t you double check, triple check? It’s not like
you rely on just one source.
BARON: Absolutely. We do not rely on one source. We
always have to have extra confirmation of anything. In many
instances, the White House has said something that was not
true and then a day later or two days later who confirms it?
The President of the United States actually confirmed our
reporting.
NORAH O’DONNELL: Marty, this is another stunning piece
of reporting, an excellent original reporting about the
president asking his intelligence chiefs to deny collusion.
One of the things I read between the lines is he asked them
to do it just days after Comey testified. So there's this very
short period of time where the President is ramping up his
activity, not only against Comey, but the intelligence chiefs.
On the question of leaks, though, just to contextualize about
that, people are not calling The Washington Post giving you
information. Your reporters are asking questions and then
they give up information, correct?
BARON: Yes. For the most part. These are reporters who
have a lot of experience, a lot of expertise. They talk to a lot
of people over many, many years. They developed their
confidence. Earned their confidence because of the quality
reporting they've done. Now people are willing to talk to
them.
O’DONNELL: And they trust them. So, let me ask you this:
You're the editor. What questions remain unanswered for
you?
BARON: Well, there are a lot and that's why there's an
investigation taking place. And obviously we want to know
all the same things that the FBI is investigating. That the
committees in Congress are investigating. We want to know,
obviously, whether there was obstruction of justice, what
constitutes obstruction of justice? We do want to know if
 there was collusion between the Trump campaign and the
Russians. We can't say for sure at the moment.
O’DONNELL: And yet, on Friday your paper, the Post,
reported that a current White House official is a significant
person of interest in the Russian investigation. But you didn't
name who that person is. Do you know who that person is?
BARON: Well, we didn't name the person. I don't plan to
name the person because we haven't confirmed who that is.
KING: If you could just give us the initials, please.
BARON: If we can confirm — this is what we do. When we
can't confirm, we don't report.
ROSE: So what do you need to confirm?
BARON: We need an additional source or two.
ROSE: So you do have sources that said it's a certain
person. You need that to be confirmed by other people.
BARON: We need more confirmation. That’s about all I can
say.
O’DONNELL: What does that mean? There's a single
person who is a person, a significant person of interest?
BARON: Well, it's a person who is the subject to
investigation. Someone who the FBI and others are looking
at very closely to see whether there was a particular
connection to the Russians that had some influence in what
the Russians that had some influence in what the Russians
KING: Are you close to confirming that person? I know you
said you’re still looking. Are you close?
BARON: I really can’t — I really can't say any more about it.
ROSE: A broader question, what is this feel like for you?
You're in Boston where they made a remarkable movie of
what happened when you were editor there. Think about
this: I mean in terms of — you've lived through a lot of
political drama. Has it ever been, in your feeling, in you
judgment, anything like this?
430
BARON: Well, look, when I was coming out of high school
there was Nixon and Watergate. And so, I wasn't in the
middle of that, obviously. But this feels like that in many
ways. Now, that's not to say that it's a perfect analogy. We'll
have to see. We need to see the evidence. We need to do
more investigating. The law enforcement officers, the FBI
and the congressional committees need to do more
investigating and we in the journalism community need to do
more investigating as well.
KING: I like Charlie's question, though, because I think there
seems to be such a competition between The New York
Times and The Washington Post. Norah pointed out in the
green room that it's something The New York Times is
quoting The Washington Post. This has got to be a very
satisfying feeling for you. You're very calm and very
controlled. Aren't you guys over there doing the hula about
what is happening?
BARON: No. We really don't do that. We're very serious
about what we do.
KING: I understand that. I understand that.
KING: People know that we're held to account like
everybody else is held to account like everyone else is held
to account. But we need to make sure our information is
accurate.
KING: And you do that. That takes a lot of hard work. With
regard to The New York Times, great. We do not coordinate
with The New York Times, great. We compete with The New
York Times. I think it's to the public benefit that there are two
news organizations, and other news organizations as well,
that are vigorously pursuing this story. That's what the
meaning of the First Amendment is. The press and public,
by the way, supposed to hold their government to account.
That's the meaning of self-governance.
ROSE: Great to have you.
O’DONNELL: Your speech at Penn State is a must read for
everybody and for certainly journalists. Thank you for being
here. Congratulations to all the great reporters at the Post.
 Why Trump Is On Track
To Disappoint Israel’s Netanyahu
By Ishaan Tharoor
May 23 At 1:00 AM
Even by their standards, the bromance between President
Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin
Netanyahu seemed particularly deep in Jerusalem on
Monday. Netanyahu, relaxed and beaming, welcomed the
American president to the “united capital of the Jewish
state,” the second stop on Trump's overseas tour.
“I think we quote each other,” said
Netanyahu, with Trump grinning at his side.
“We understand each other and so much of
the things that we wish to accomplish for
both our countries.”
It was a marked change in atmosphere
from meetings with Trump's
predecessor.
Netanyahu and former president Barack Obama clashed
over the American role in brokering a nuclear deal with
Iran, which Netanyahu actively lobbied against —
including during a 2015 speech to Congress. The
American refusal to veto a U.N. Security Council
resolution on Israeli settlements in the waning weeks of the
Obama presidency led to howls of fury from the Israeli
government. Now all is sunny again.
President Trump and first lady Melania Trump with Sara and
431
Benjamin Netanyahu. (Mandel Ngan/Agence France-Presse via Getty
Images)
But no matter the comparatively good
vibes surrounding Trump's trip to Israel,
Netanyahu may grow disappointed in
the coming months and years.
Trump's election lifted hopes among Israeli right-wingers
and ultranationalists that Washington would shelve talk
about the two-state solution and look the other way as vast
settlement expansion took place in the West Bank. But,
just a few months later, Trump seems genuinely eager to
strike a peace accord and has slow-pedaled his promise to
move the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, a gesture that would
enrage Palestinians and infuriate the Arab statesmen
Trump hopes to enlist in his peace efforts. That has some
on the Israeli right grumbling already.
There's also no indication so far that the president is
moving to scrap the nuclear deal, which Netanyahu and his
allies hoped would be jettisoned soon after Trump took
office.
Sure, Trump did offer up the sort of harsh language on Iran
— Israel's regional foe — that Netanyahu wanted to hear.
The United States would work with Israel to roll back “the
threat of an Iranian regime that is threatening the region
and causing so much violence and suffering,” Trump said.
He also took the unprecedented step of visiting the
Western Wall, something no sitting American president
has ever done because of the sensitivities around the site
and Jerusalem's disputed status. Netanyahu celebrated the
act, telling Trump that the “people of Israel applaud you
for it” — but Trump pointedly did not bring any Israeli
politicians along on his visit.
“The bottom line is that not only does
Trump have no intention of jeopardizing his
relations with Sunni Arab leaders by
moving the U.S. Embassy to Jerusalem, he
won’t even make the tiniest gesture in that
direction by allowing Netanyahu to join him
for a few minutes in the Old City,” wrote
Haaretz journalist Anshel Pfeffer.
Instead of breaking from the past,
Trump seems to be taking the
equivocating posture of his
predecessors.
 “The early perceptions that Trump would
reverse all of Obama’s policy decisions and
never challenge Israel very quickly proved
inaccurate,” wrote Daniel Shapiro, the
former U.S. ambassador to Israel under
Obama. “So far, his administration has
embarked on a much more traditional
approach of seeking to restrain Israeli
settlements, curtail Palestinian violence
and incitement, and revive Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations toward a two-state
solution, with the support of key Arab
states.”
On Tuesday, Trump will travel to Bethlehem to meet
Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, a
politician who is increasingly unpopular at home but still
championed by foreign leaders as a key interlocutor for
Mideast peace.
Trump “has built up Abbas by treating him
with respect. And his envoy is pressing the
Israelis to take meaningful steps to allow
the Palestinians to grow their economy,”
said Martin Indyk, a former U.S. envoy for Israeli-
Palestinian negotiations, in an interview with the Atlantic.
“It’s almost exactly what Bill Clinton did
when he was president.”
Anti-Trump demonstrators protest near the American Consulate in
Jerusalem. (Lior Mizrahi/Getty Images)
.
432
The big question is whether Trump will
follow through on his stated zeal to fix
the problem, especially when the status
quo seems to serve his friend
Netanyahu's interests.
“Both the Israelis and Palestinians are
aware that even a more traditional
American president is unlikely to have the
political will to do what is necessary to
broker a just peace agreement,” wrote
Yousef Munayyer, a scholar at the Middle
East Institute.
“With Trump, they know the chances are
even more remote. At the same time,
neither can afford to alienate Washington.
So they must carefully play along as Trump
engages the issues, and they will likely
seek opportunities to get whatever they can
from him in the process.”
Ilan Goldenberg, a Middle East expert at the Center for a
New American Security, suggested Netanyahu is now
“freaked out because Trump seems serious about peace.”
That means he “will have to produce” at the risk of
antagonizing key right-wing allies — and likely losing
votes to their parties.
“With Obama, Israelis may not always have
gotten everything they wanted,” wrote
Shapiro. “But they always got consistency.”
With Trump, it appears, Netanyahu may get neither.
 Chris Cuomo Defends Illegal Leaks,
Dismisses Any Damage Done, Blames The President
By Alex Xenos
May 23, 2017 | 1:22 PM EDT
CNN anchor Chris Cuomo defended the illegal leaks
aimed at the Trump administration Tuesday morning on
CNN’s New Day. He dismissed any possible damage done
to national security by these unlawful acts. In an interview
with Senator Joe Manchin (D-WV), he asked:
“You know Marco Rubio was just on.
He said I'll tell you what concerns me,
it’s not just these reports but their
source, the leaks, could be
compromising national security, could
make foreign leaders not want to work
with us. What has come out that has
compromised national security or chill a
foreign leader?”
Manchin explained:
“Well, I guess the old saying that ’loose
lips sink ships’ and people are
concerned, can they trust us with
information, can they trust us with the
intel?”
Cuomo was clearly offended by the suggestion that
material that helped his network and damaged his enemy
in the White House, could be harmful to the country.
CUOMO: Right, but that applies to the
President, sir. He's the one that may or
may not have leaked sensitive
information in the media. Not the media.
If not for these leaks, who knows
whether or not the White House would
have operated on what was going on
433
with Michael Flynn. We wouldn't have
heard about these Comey memos, we
wouldn’t have heard these
conversations with the DNI and the
NSA. Are the leaks the problem here?
Manchin went on to urge that leakers not release sensitive
material to the press but rather to the Senate Intelligence
Committee.
Earlier on the program, Senator Marco Rubio (R-FL)
provided one of the dangers that comes with these leaks:
“And by the way, related to that are these
leaks that are coming out. Again, I
understand that the public wants to
know. But I also think we have an
environment now in the Executive
Branch where the President and the
people around them are potentially
cautious or afraid because they don't
know what the people -- they don't trust
the people around them. They know
someone in that room or someone in
that building is leaking things to the
press, sometimes selectively. So we've
got a broader issue here, and that is the
ability of the intelligence community to
function for its most important client,
the President of the United States.”
Co-host Alisyn Camerota quickly changed the subject to
possible obstruction of justice committed by the President,
upon hearing Rubio’s accurate point.
The media has been doing their best to dismiss any
concerns about the leaking of sensitive information, since
the information has been harmful to President Trump.
However, to deny the harm done by leaks is dishonest.
Leaks of private conversations disrupt the Executive
Branch and inhibits their ability to conduct their business,
as Senator Rubio pointed out. This is especially true when
it comes to the intelligence community. Additionally, by
leaking conversations the President and other American
officials have with foreign leaders/officials, they are
endangering the country’s ability to communicate and
gather intelligence from other nations. If someone is
concerned with what the President or any other official is
doing, they can go to superiors, Congress, or an IG. They
should go to other places within the government, not the
dishonest media.
As we have seen, the media is completely blowing the
information they have received from anonymous sources
out of proportion. None of the requests President Trump
made to officials were examples of obstructions of justice,
even if they were inappropriate. In respect to the sharing of
classified information with Russia, we haven’t the slightest
clue whether any wrong doing was actually committed.
We know National Security Advisor H.R. McMaster has
claimed it was “wholly appropriate.” McMaster, of course,
is a respected Lt. General in the United States Army.
The bottom line is that the media has an agenda and any
information given to them will be spun to fit their
narrative.
rd
See below for a more complete transcript of the May 23
interviews:
CHRIS CUOMO: You know Marco Rubio was just on.
He said I'll tell you what concerns me, it’s not just
these reports but their source, the leaks, could be
compromising national security, could make
foreign leaders not want to work with us. What has
come out that has compromised national security
or chill a foreign leader?
JOE MANCHIN: Well, I guess the old saying that
“loose lips sink ships” and people are concerned,
can they trust us with information, can they trust
us with the intel?
CUOMO: Right, but that applies to the President,
sir. He's the one that may or may not have leaked
sensitive information in the media. Not the media.
If not for these leaks, who knows whether or not
the White House would have operated on what
was going on with Michael Flynn. We wouldn't
have heard about these Comey memos, we
wouldn’t have heard these conversations with the
DNI and the NSA. Are the leaks the problem here?
.
434
MANCHIN: Let me say this to those people who have
this information that the so-called leaks are coming
from, come and leak it to the intelligence
committee. Come and leak it to the professionals,
come and leak it to the staff that has the ability to
go through the sources to find out if they are
credible or not. Don't play them out in the news
media, which they are and you all are doing your job
and that's exactly what you should be doing. But if
they really want to get to the source of the problem
and clear this mess up and get some confidence back
in the American public that this government can
function and protect them, we took an oath. All of us
took the same oath. So I would say to all those who
have sensitive information come to us. We'd love to
have it. If you want to come before us, come before
us. If you want to give us the information, give it to us
and let us sort it out. But we have a professional
staff that can do this job.
(...)
8:23 AM
MARCO RUBIO: And by the way, related to that are
these leaks that are coming out. Again, I understand
that the public wants to know. But I also think we
have an environment now in the Executive Branch
where the President and the people around them
are potentially cautious or afraid because they
don't know what the people -- they don't trust the
people around them. They know someone in that
room or someone in that building is leaking things
to the press, sometimes selectively. So we've got a
broader issue here, and that is the ability of the
intelligence community to function for its most
important client, the President of the United
States.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: But is it an obstruction of justice
in your mind? If this happened as reported, is it an
obstruction of justice?
(...)
 Kim Dotcom Releases New
Statement On Seth Rich And It May Shock You
Kim Dotcom Smashes Deep State Narrative
By Shepard Ambellas -
05.23.2017 @1:39 PM EDT
(INTELLIHUB) — Internet freedom fighter and Mega
millionaire Kim Dotcom came forth Tuesday with his full
statement on Seth Rich as promised.
In the statement, Dotcom claims that he knows that Seth
Rich was involved in the DNC leak.
Dotcom writes:
I know this because in late 2014 a person
contacted me about helping me to start a
branch of the Internet Party in the United
States. He called himself Panda. I now
know that Panda was Seth Rich.
Panda advised me that he was working on
voter analytics tools and other technologies
that the Internet Party may find helpful.
I communicated with Panda on a number of
topics including corruption and the
influence of corporate money in politics.
“He wanted to change that from the inside.”
I was referring to what I knew when I did an
interview with Bloomberg in New Zealand
in May 2015. In that interview I hinted that
.
435
Julian Assange and Wikileaks would
release information about Hillary Clinton in
the upcoming election.
The Rich family has reached out to me to
ask that I be sensitive to their loss in my
public comments. That request is entirely
reasonable.
I have consulted with my lawyers. I accept
that my full statement should be provided
to the authorities and I am prepared to do
that so that there can be a full investigation.
My lawyers will speak with the authorities
regarding the proper process.
If my evidence is required to be given in the
United States I would be prepared to do so
if appropriate arrangements are made. I
would need a guarantee from Special
Counsel Mueller, on behalf of the United
States, of safe passage from New Zealand
to the United States and back. In the
coming days we will be communicating with
the appropriate authorities to make the
necessary arrangements. In the meantime,
I will make no further comment.
 Did Several Democratic IT Staffers
Under Investigation Just Flee To Pakistan?
Michael Krieger
Posted Tuesday May 23, 2017 At 1:40 Pm
Today’s post is a little different than most, and highlights
the very strange case of a few Democratic IT Staffers who
have apparently fled to Pakistan while under investigation.
If what The Daily Caller reported yesterday is accurate,
it’s certainly something to keep your eye on.
First a little background. Politico reported the following
back in March.
Two House Democrats this week fired technology
staffers linked to an ongoing criminal investigation,
more than a month after the couple in question was
barred from House computer networks.
Rep. Gregory Meeks (D-N.Y.) confirmed to Politico that Hina
Alvi’s last day as an IT support staffer in his office was
Tuesday. Her husband, Imran Awan, was working for Rep.
Marcia Fudge (D-Ohio) as of Tuesday evening, but a
spokeswoman for Fudge said midday Wednesday that Awan
was no longer an employee.
As of Wednesday, Awan was still working as a
technology adviser for Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
(D-Fla.), although he’s been blocked from accessing the
House computer system since early February.
Alvi, Awan and three other House aides, including Abid
Awan and Jamal Awan, relatives of Imran Awan, and Rao
Abbas, are all linked to the criminal investigation being
conducted by the U.S. Capitol Police.
The five current and former House staffers are accused
of stealing equipment from members’ offices without
their knowledge and committing serious, potentially
illegal, violations on the House IT network, according to
multiple sources with knowledge of the probe.
Awan made nearly $2 million since starting as an IT support
staffer for House Democrats in 2004, according to public
salary data. Alvi, who worked for House Democrats
beginning in 2007, earned more than $1.3 million as an IT
staffer during that time.
As shared employees, Awan, Alvi and their relatives worked
for dozens of House Democrats at a time, meaning no one
lawmaker was responsible for paying their full salary.
436
With that out of the way, here’s some of what The Daily
Caller reported yesterday:
A criminal suspect in an investigation into a major
security breach on the House of
Representatives computer network has abruptly left the
country and gone to Pakistan, where her family has
significant assets and VIP-level protection, a relative
and others told The Daily Caller News Foundation’s
Investigative Group.
Hina Alvi, her husband Imran Awan, and his brothers
Abid and Jamal were highly paid shared IT
administrators working for multiple House Democrats
until their access to congressional IT systems
was terminated Feb. 2 as a result of the investigation.
Capitol Police confirmed the investigation is ongoing,
but no arrests have been reported in the case.
The Awans are “accused of stealing equipment from
members’ offices without their knowledge and committing
serious, potentially illegal, violations on the House IT
network,” according to Politico. Many of the Democrats who
employed the Awans are members of the House Committee
on Homeland Security, the Committee on Foreign Affairs
and the Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence. (A list
of potentially compromised members is listed below.)
Their positions gave them access to members’ emails and
confidential files. In addition, Imran was given the password
for an iPad used by then-Democratic National Committee
Chairwoman Debbie Wasserman Schultz, a Florida
Democrat. The five came to the U.S. from Pakistan.
Since the investigation became public, the Awans have
abruptly moved from longtime homes in Lorton and
Springfield, Va.
Imran and Hina recently withdrew their children from their
schools, according to members of the Holly Elementary and
Lorton Station Middle school communities. Multiple people
said Hina told them she was headed to Pakistan where the
family has significant property.
Real estate records show Hina listed both the Lorton house
and an apartment she owns for sale.
 “I came to know from one of their relatives that Hina Alvi and
her daughters are moved to Pakistan, Hina Alvi saying ‘we
have moved here in Pakistan permanently,’” the Awans’
stepmother, Samina Gilani, told TheDCNF.
Two other sources close to the family, who requested
anonymity because they believe it is a “national security
issue,” also said that Hina has gone to Pakistan.
Gilani said in court documents the Awan brothers have
convinced Pakistani officials that they are VIPs and travel
the country with a police motorcade — an assertion that
seemingly gives them a major incentive to seek protection
there, as well as raising questions about how the computer
jockeys obtained that status.
437
Imran, who has worked for Wasserman Schultz since
2005, “boasted he had many contacts in USA and
Pakistan also. He also said that if [I called even] the
whole United States police on them,” he would not face
consequences, Gilani told TheDCNF. “Imran Awan
threatened that he is very powerful” and would use that
power to have people kidnapped in Pakistan, she said in
court documents.
I’m not sure what to make of this, or if all of the above is
even true, but the entire saga seems like something we
should be aware of.
 New Cracks In Russia-Gate ‘Assessment’
By Robert Parry
May 23, 2017
Former CIA Director John Brennan at a White House meeting
during his time as President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism
adviser.
Exclusive: President Obama’s ex-intelligence chiefs admit
they limited input into the Russia-gate “assessment,”
which was handled by “hand-picked” analysts, raising the
specter of politicized intelligence, Robert Parry reports.
At the center of the Russia-gate scandal is a curious U.S.
intelligence “assessment” that was pulled together in less
than a month and excluded many of the agencies that
would normally weigh in on such an important topic as
whether Russia tried to influence the outcome of a U.S.
presidential election.
The Jan. 6 report and its allegation that Russia “hacked”
Democratic emails and publicized them through
WikiLeaks have been treated as gospel by the mainstream
U.S. media and many politicians of both parties, but two
senior Obama administration intelligence officials have
provided new information that raises fresh doubts about
the findings.
On Tuesday, former CIA Director John Brennan told the
House Intelligence Committee that only four of the 17 U.S.
intelligence agencies took part in the assessment, relying
on analysts from the Central Intelligence Agency, the
National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of
Investigation, under the oversight of the Office of the
Director of National Intelligence.
Brennan said the report “followed the general model of
how you want to do something like this with some notable
exceptions. It only involved the FBI, NSA and CIA as well
as the Office of the Director of National Intelligence. It
wasn’t a full inter-agency community assessment that was
438
coordinated among the 17 agencies, and for good reason
because of the nature and the sensitivity of the information
trying, once again, to keep that tightly compartmented.”
But Brennan’s excuse about “tightly compartmented”
information was somewhat disingenuous because other
intelligence agencies, such as the State Department’s
Bureau of Intelligence and Research (INR), could have
been consulted in a limited fashion, based on their areas of
expertise. For instance, INR could have weighed in on
whether Russian President Vladimir Putin would have
taken the risk of trying to sabotage Hillary Clinton’s
campaign, knowing that – if she won as expected and
learned of the operation – she might have sought revenge
against him and his country.
The Jan. 6 report argued one side of the case – that Putin
had a motive for undermining Clinton because he objected
to her work as Secretary of State when she encouraged
anti-Putin protests inside Russia – but the report ignored
the counter-argument that the usually cautious Putin might
well have feared infuriating the incoming U.S. President if
the anti-Clinton ploy failed to block her election.
A balanced intelligence assessment would have included
not just arguments for believing that the Russians did
supply the Democratic emails to WikiLeaks but the
reasons to doubt that they did.
Pre-Cooked Intelligence
However, the restricted nature of the Jan. 6 report –
limiting it to analysts from CIA, NSA and FBI – blocked
the kind of expertise that the State Department, the
Defense Department, the Department of Homeland
Security and other agencies might have provided. In other
words, the Jan. 6 report has the look of pre-cooked
intelligence.
That impression was further strengthened by the admission
of former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper
before a Senate Judiciary subcommittee on May 8 that “the
two dozen or so analysts for this task were hand-picked,
seasoned experts from each of the contributing agencies.”
Yet, as any intelligence expert will tell you, if you “hand-
pick” the analysts, you are really hand-picking the
conclusion. For instance, if the analysts were known to be
hard-liners on Russia or supporters of Hillary Clinton, they
could be expected to deliver the one-sided report that they
did.
Director of National Intelligence James Clapper (right) talks with
President Barack Obama in the Oval Office, with John Brennan and
other national security aides present. (Photo credit: Office of
Director of National Intelligence)
In the history of U.S. intelligence, we have seen how this
approach has worked, such as the determination of the
Reagan administration to pin the attempted assassination
of Pope John Paul II and other acts of terror on the Soviet
Union.
CIA Director William Casey and Deputy Director Robert
Gates shepherded the desired findings through the process
by putting the assessment under the control of pliable
analysts and sidelining those who objected to this
politicization of intelligence.
The point of enlisting the broader intelligence community
– and incorporating dissents into a final report – is to guard
against such “stove-piping” of intelligence that delivers the
politically desired result but ultimately distorts reality.
Another painful example of politicized intelligence was
President George W. Bush’s 2002 National Intelligence
Estimate on Iraq’s WMD that removed INR’s and other
dissents from the declassified version that was given to the
public.
Lacking Evidence
The Jan. 6 report – technically called an Intelligence
Community Assessment (or ICA) – avoided the need to
remove any dissents by excluding the intelligence agencies
that might have dissented and by hand-picking the analysts
who compiled the report.
However, like the declassified version of the Iraq NIE, the
Russia-gate ICA lacked any solid evidence to support the
conclusions. The ICA basically demanded that the
American public “trust us” and got away with that bluff
because much of the mainstream U.S. news media wanted
to believe anything negative about then-President-elect
Trump.
439
President George W. Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney receive
an Oval Office briefing from CIA Director George Tenet. Also
present is Chief of Staff Andy Card (on right). (White House photo)
Because of that, the American people were repeatedly –
and falsely – informed that the findings about Russian
“hacking” reflected the collective judgment of all 17 U.S.
intelligence agencies, making anyone who dared question
the conclusion seem like a crackpot or a “Russian
apologist.”
Yet, based on the testimonies of Clapper and Brennan, we
now know that the ICA represented only a hand-picked
selection of the intelligence community – four, not 17,
agencies.
There were other biases reflected in the ICA, such as a
bizarre appendix that excoriated RT, the Russian television
network, for supposedly undermining Americans’
confidence in their democratic process.
This seven-page appendix, dating from 2012, accused RT
of portraying “the US electoral process as undemocratic”
and offered such “proof” as RT’s staging of a debate
among third-party presidential candidates who had been
excluded from the Republican-Democratic debates
between Mitt Romney and Barack Obama.
“RT broadcast, hosted and advertised third-
party candidate debates,” the report said,
as if allowing political figures in the United
States who were not part of the two-party
system to express their views, was
somehow anti-democratic, when you might
think that letting Americans hear
alternatives was the essence of
democracy.
“The RT hosts asserted that the US two-
party system does not represent the views
of at least one-third of the population and is
a ‘sham,’” the report continued.
Yet, polls have shown that large numbers of Americans
would prefer more choices than the usual two candidates
and, indeed, most Western democracies have multiple
parties, So, the implicit RT criticism of the U.S. political
process is certainly not out of the ordinary.
The report also took RT to task for covering the Occupy
Wall Street movement and for reporting on the
environmental dangers from “fracking,” topics cited as
further proof that the Russian government was using RT to
weaken U.S. public support for Washington’s policies
(although, again, these are topics of genuine public
interest).
Assessing or Guessing
But at least the appendix offered up some “evidence” – as
silly as those examples might have been. The main body of
the report amounted to one “assessment” after another with
no verifiable evidence included, at least in the unclassified
version that the American people were allowed to see.
President Donald Trump delivering his inaugural address on Jan. 20,
2017. (Screen shot from Whitehouse.gov)
The report also contained a warning about how unreliable
these “assessments” could be:
“Judgments are not intended to imply that
we have proof that shows something to be
a fact. Assessments are based on collected
information, which is often incomplete or
fragmentary, as well as logic,
argumentation, and precedents.”
440
In other words, “assessing” in intelligence terms often
equates with “guessing” – and if the guessers are hand-
picked by political appointees – it shouldn’t be surprising
that they would come up with an “assessment” that would
please their bosses, in this case, President Obama and his
appointees at CIA, NSA, FBI and ODNI.
The timing and speed of the Jan. 6 report also drew some
attention at Tuesday’s House Intelligence Committee
hearing, where Rep. Elise Stefanik, R-New York, noted
that President Obama requested the ICA on Dec. 9 and the
last entry was dated Dec. 29.
“This report was produced in just 20 days
in December,” Stefanik said, adding:
“It’s of concern to me that there was a two-
month lag” between when Obama’s
intelligence agencies first alleged Russian
“hacking” of Democratic emails and when
Obama ordered the ICA.
Of course, the ICA’s flaws do not mean that Russia is
innocent or that WikiLeaks is telling the truth when it
asserts that the two batches of Democratic emails – one
from the Democratic National Committee and the other
from Clinton campaign chairman John Podesta – did not
come from the Russians.
But the Jan. 6 report has served as the foundation for a
series of investigations that have hobbled the Trump
administration and could lead to the negation of a U.S.
presidential election via the impeachment or forced
resignation of President Trump.
The seriousness of that possibility would seem to demand
the most thorough examination and the fullest vetting of
the evidence. Even just the appearance that the ICA might
be one more case of politicized intelligence would do more
to destroy Americans’ faith in their democratic system
than anything that Putin might dream up.
 Want Donald Trump Impeached?
Be Careful What You Wish For
Lily Dane The Daily Sheeple
May 23, 2017

President of the United States in the event that neither a

President nor Vice President is able to “discharge the
powers and duties of the office.” The current Act was
adopted in 1947.

Some of you out there really, really hate President Trump.

Here’s how the Succession Lineup looks under Trump:
Some of you despise the guy so much you want him
impeached, and are looking for any reason to make that 1. Vice President Mike Pence
happen. 2. Speaker of the House Paul Ryan
3. Senate President Pro Tempore Orrin Hatch
Heck, some of you were talking about impeaching him 4. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson
before he was the Republican nominee. 5. Secretary of the Treasury Steven Mnuchin
6. Secretary of Defense James Mattis
7. Attorney General Jeff Sessions
But there’s an old saying, and I think it applies here…
8. Secretary of the Interior Ryan Zinke
9. Secretary of Agriculture Sonny Perdue
Be careful what you wish for. 10. Secretary of Commerce Wilbur Ross
11. Secretary of Labor Alexander Acosta
Take a deep breath and step away from your social media 12. Secretary of Health and Human Services Tom Price
rantings for a few minutes to learn how impeachment 13. Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Ben
actually works, and what would happen if Trump were to Carson
be removed from office. 14. Secretary of Transportation Elaine Chao *
15. Secretary of Energy Rick Perry
First, watch this short video from Reason that explains 16. Secretary of Education Betsy DeVos
how impeachment works (crude humor warning – for the 17. Secretary of Veterans Affairs David Shulkin
transcript, click here): 18. Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly

Second, consider who would replace Trump if he were *Chao is not a natural-born US citizen, and is therefore
removed from office (Do you want Mike Pence? Because ineligible.
impeaching Trump is how you get Mike Pence).
Impeaching Trump would send us down
There are eighteen (yes, eighteen!) people in the queue for a succession rabbit hole…
the job.

The Presidential Succession Act establishes the line of

succession to the powers and duties of the office of
441

As you can see, it isn’t like impeaching Trump would lead
to the candidate of your choice (Hillary and Bernie
supporters, I am looking at you) miraculously being placed
in the throne Oval Office, suddenly making everything
right with the world.
And, speaking of popular candidates…technically,
“Nobody” won the election anyway:
Nick Gillespie of Reason offers some words of caution to
those who are throwing the I word around:
But impeachment talk this soon and this
thick is coming not from a place of
seriousness but pure partisanship and
ideology masquerading as disinterested
belief in the public good. When the
.
442
Republicans moved to impeach Bill Clinton
back in the 1990s, it was the same thing
and it didn’t exactly work out that well for
many of the main conspirators, or for the
country at large. Among other things, the
impeachment push indirectly led to the
ouster of Newt Gingrich as Speaker of the
House, which eventuated in an actual child
molester being way high up in the
presidential line of succession.
The impeachment of Bill Clinton was one of the major
mileposts in the long, ongoing shift of America from a
high-trust to a low-trust country, one in which faith, trust,
and confidence in most of our major public, private, and
civic institutions have taken a massive beating for decades
now.
And, as Steve Chapman explains,
Forcing a president from office is among
the gravest tasks members of Congress
can undertake, and they should refrain
unless he gives them no choice. To attempt
it with so many questions yet unanswered
would look like partisan revenge — not just
against Trump but against the people who
voted for him.
…
It’s crucial for impeachment to reflect more than a
campaign against a president by the opposition party.
Effectively overturning the result of a democratic election
demands a national consensus that the president is guilty of
serious offenses. Abusing his powers, behaving corruptly
or violating his oath of office qualify. Ineptitude, folly and
malignance don’t.
Under the best of circumstances, impeachment is a
national trauma with lasting consequences, for good or ill.
Trump made it to the White House because the nation was
so divided. If he is removed, it should be because the
nation is united.
It is important to understand that no matter how despicable
you may find Trump (and perhaps rightfully so – I am
certainly not defending him; I am one of the 46.9% who
did not vote), impeaching him will have consequences –
potentially disastrous ones.
 Pastorum Group Spokesperson
In Seth Rich Case Tied To Democrat Propaganda Chief
William Craddick
May 24, 2017
The acting spokesperson for the Rich family, Brad
Bauman, is connected to Democratic propaganda czar
David Brock according online observers. The discovery is
the latest in a long line of revelations showing deep
Democratic National Committee (DNC) involvement in
the Seth Rich case.
Earlier today, independent investigators discovered that
Bauman runs a foundation in his name. The Bauman
Foundation’s Board of Directors includes David Brock, the
one time Republican operative who went on to become the
founder of multiple DNC-affiliated propaganda outlets
including Media Matters, Correct the Record and
Shareblue. Brock’s ventures have been criticized by
Democrats as causing more harm than good due to his
heavy reliance upon online harassment and censorship.
Disobedient Media has previously reported that Brock and
his affiliated organizations have ties to the Chinese
government, foreign special interests and organized crime.
Brock’s ties to foreign interests may mean that he is in
violation of the Foreign Agent Registration Act, 22 U.S.C.
§ 614. The Bauman Foundation’s Board also includes
Deepak Bhargava, who acts as the executive director of the
Center for Community Change for George Soros’ Open
Society Foundation.
443
Brock’s organizations have been active in harassing and
attacking journalists looking into the Seth Rich story.
Affiliates of Brock have taken to Change.org to attack
companies advertising with Fox 5 DC. The boycott
campaign is organized by Karl Frisch, a former senior
fellow at propaganda group Media Matters for America
who spent his time at the organization helping develop
“long-term strategy to target Fox News as a political
actor.” Media Matters has also targeted Fox News anchor
Sean Hannity for discussing the case.
David Brock’s personal involvement with Brad Bauman
only serves to intensify speculation about political
interference in attempts to uncover answers concerning the
death of Seth Rich. Disobedient Media has previously
noted an August 2016 tweet from Wikileaks which
revealed that Bauman is a crisis public relations consultant
working with the Pastorum Group. A media release from
the Pastorum Group reveals that Bauman previously
worked for the DNC and the Service Employees
International Union (SEIU). The SEIU is the client of a
group founded by Democratic operative Robert Creamer.
In 2016, Creamer was implicated in footage obtained by
journalist James O’Keefe which revealed that Creamer was
engaging in voting fraud and violent disruption of political
events, sometimes using his connections to unions who
were as clients of his. Legal representatives sending cease
and desist letters on behalf of the Rich family also have
ties to the law firm at the center of the Whitewater
controversy.
Brad Bauman has in the past week insisted that anyone
who continued to push the story either had a “transparent
political agenda,” or were a sociopath. But given the
intense attacks which organizations tied to David Brock
have engaged in against any journalists discussing the Rich
case, Brock’s connections to Bauman intensifies questions
about whether or not the DNC has become involved in the
Seth Rich case out ulterior motives.
 Caught On Tape: Wasserman Schultz Threatens
Police Chief For Investigating Her IT Staff's Crimes
By Tyler Durden
May 24, 2017 1:30 PM

Something stinks here. make sure everybody is entitled to due

process,” Meeks said.
February we first reported on the Anwan brothers, the “They had provided great service for me.
(Not-Russian) IT Staff Who Allegedly Hacked Congress' And there were certain times in which they
Computer Systems. had permission by me, if it was Hina or
someone else, to access some of my data.”
Imran Awan seen below with Bill Clinton
Fudge told Politico on Tuesday she would employ Imran
Awan until he received “due process.”

“He needs to have a hearing. Due process

is very simple. You don’t fire someone
until you talk to them,” Fudge said.

On Wednesday, Lauren Williams, a spokeswoman for

Fudge, wouldn’t provide details about Imran Awan’s firing
but did confirm he was still employed in Fudge’s office as
of Tuesday afternoon.
The brothers were barred from computer networks at the
House of Representatives Thursday, The Daily Caller The bottom line is simple - these House
News Foundation Investigative Group has learned. Democrats decided it was better to be at
risk of hacking and extortion than to be
accused of racism.
Three members of the intelligence panel and five members
of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs were among
the dozens of members who employed the suspects on a
shared basis. The two committees deal with many of the
nation’s most sensitive issues, information and documents,
including those related to the war on terrorism.

The brothers are suspected of serious violations, including

accessing members’ computer networks without their
knowledge and stealing equipment from Congress.

The three men are “shared employees,”

meaning they are hired by multiple offices,
which split their salaries and use them as
needed for IT services.
Then yesterday we reported that
Then in March, we noted that House Congressional Aides Fear Suspects In
Democrats decided to delay the firing IT Breach Are Blackmailing Members
(until today) because their Muslim With Their Own Data...
background, some with ties to Pakistan,
could make them easy targets for false The baffled aides wonder if the suspects are blackmailing
charges. representatives based on the contents of their emails and
“I wanted to be sure individuals are not files, to which they had full access.
being singled out because of their
nationalities or their religion. We want to
444
 “I don’t know what they have, but they
have something on someone. It’s been
months at this point” with no arrests,
said Pat Sowers, who has managed IT
for several House offices for 12 years.
“Something is rotten in Denmark.”
A manager at a tech-services company that works with
Democratic House offices said he approached
congressional offices, offering their services at one-fourth
the price of Awan and his Pakistani brothers, but the
members declined. At the time, he couldn’t understand
why his offers were rejected but now he suspects the
Awans exerted some type of leverage over members.
“There’s no question about it: If I was
accused of a tenth of what these guys
are accused of, they’d take me out in
handcuffs that same day, and I’d never
work again,” he said.
And today, The Daily Caller's Luke Rosiak
reports Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz
threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol
Police with “consequences” for holding
equipment that she says belongs to her
in order to build a criminal case against
a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive
cybersecurity breaches involving
funneling sensitive congressional data
offsite.
The Florida lawmaker used her position
on the committee that sets the police
force’s budget to press its chief to
relinquish the piece of evidence
Thursday, in what could be considered
using her authority to attempt to
interfere with a criminal investigation.
The Capitol Police and outside agencies are pursuing
Imran Awan, who has run technology for the Florida
lawmaker since 2005 and was banned from the House
network in February on suspicion of data breaches and
theft.
“My understanding is the the Capitol Police
is not able to confiscate Members’
445
equipment when the Member is not under
investigation,” Wasserman Schultz said in
the annual police budget hearing of
the House Committee On Appropriations’
Legislative Branch Subcommittee.
“We can’t return the equipment,” Police
Chief Matthew R. Verderosa told the
Florida Democrat.
“I think you’re violating the rules when you
conduct your business that way and you
should expect that there will be
consequences,” Wasserman Schultz said.
As one of eight members of the Committee on
Appropriations’ Legislative Branch subcommittee,
Wasserman Schultz is in charge of the budget of the police
force that is investigating her staffer and how he managed
to extract so much money and information from members.
In a highly unusual exchange, the
Florida lawmaker uses a hearing on the
Capitol Police’s annual budget to spend
three minutes repeatedly trying to
extract a promise from the chief that he
will return a piece of evidence being
used to build an active case.
“If a Member loses equipment and it is
found by your staff and identified as that
member’s equipment and the member is
not associated with any case, it is
supposed to be returned. Yes or no?” she
said.
Police tell her it is important to “an
ongoing investigation,” but presses for
its return anyway.
The investigation is examining members’
data leaving the network and how Awan
managed to get Members to place three
relatives and a friend into largely no-
show positions on their payrolls, billing
$4 million since 2010.
The congresswoman characterizes the
evidence as “belonging” to her and
argues that therefore it cannot be seized
unless Capitol Police tell her that she
personally, as opposed to her staffer, is a
target of the investigation.
When TheDCNF asked Wasserman Schultz Monday if it
could inquire about her strong desire for the laptop, she
said “No, you may not.” After TheDCNF asked why she
wouldn’t want the Capitol Police to have any evidence
they may need to find and punish any hackers of
government information, she abruptly turned around in the
middle of a stairwell and retreated back to the office from
which she had come.
Her spokesman, David Dameron, then emerged to say Wasserman Schultz resigned as Chairman of the
Democratic National Committee in 2016 after Wikileaks
“We just don’t have any comment.” published thousands of internal emails obtained by an as-
yet unidentified hacker.
Though on the surface Wasserman
Schultz would have been a victim of
The last 30 seconds of the exchange can also be seen
Awan’s scam, she has inexplicably
here...
protected him, circumventing the
network ban by re-titling him as an
“adviser” instead of technology
administrator.

Politico described him and his wife, Hina Alvi, as having a

“friendly personal relationship” with both Wasserman
Schultz and Rep. Gregory Meeks of New York.

That baffled a Democratic IT staffer, who said

“I can’t imagine why she’d be that good

of friends with a technology provider.”
“Usually if someone does bad stuff, an
office is going to distance themselves”
rather than incur political fallout for a
mere staffer.
.
As we said at the start - something stinks
here!! But do not expect the mainstream
media to report on it. One can't help but
wonder if anything related to Seth Rich is
lurking on that laptop?

The Pope is not happy.

446
The Mime Goes Wild

447
448
449
450
 Key Democratic Officials Now Warning Base
Not To Expect Evidence Of Trump/Russia Collusion
Glenn Greenwald – The Intercept_
May 24, 2017 2017, 10:41 A.M.

“In the intelligence business, we would say

that Mr. Putin had recruited Mr. Trump as
an unwitting agent of the Russian
Federation.”

From MSNBC politics shows to town hall meetings across

the country, the overarching issue for the Democratic
Party’s base since Trump’s victory has been Russia, often
suffocating attention for other issues. This fixation has
persisted even though it has no chance to sink the Trump
presidency unless it is proven that high levels of the Trump
campaign actively colluded with the Kremlin to
manipulate the outcome of the U.S. election — a claim for
which absolutely no evidence has thus far been presented.

The principal problem for Democrats is that so many

media figures and online charlatans are personally
benefiting from feeding the base increasingly unhinged,
fact-free conspiracies — just as right-wing media
polemicists did after both Bill Clinton and Obama were But on Wednesday night, Morell appeared at an
elected — that there are now millions of partisan soldiers intelligence community forum to “cast doubt” on
absolutely convinced of a Trump/Russia conspiracy for “allegations that members of the Trump campaign
which, at least as of now, there is no evidence. And they colluded with Russia.”
are all waiting for the day, which they regard as inevitable
and imminent, when this theory will be proven and Trump “On the question of the Trump
will be removed.
campaign conspiring with the
Russians here, there is smoke, but
Key Democratic officials are clearly worried about the there is no fire at all,” he said, adding,
expectations that have been purposely stoked and are now
“There’s no little campfire, there’s no
trying to tamp them down. Many of them have tried to
little candle, there’s no spark. And
signal that the beliefs the base has been led to adopt have
there’s a lot of people looking for it.”
no basis in reason or evidence.

Obama’s former CIA chief also cast serious doubt on the

The latest official to throw cold water on the MSNBC-led
credibility of the infamous, explosive “dossier” originally
circus is President Obama’s former acting CIA chief
published by BuzzFeed, saying that its author, Christopher
Michael Morell. What makes him particularly notable in
Steele, paid intermediaries to talk to the sources for it. The
this context is that Morell was one of Clinton’s most vocal
dossier, he said,
CIA surrogates. In August, he not only endorsed Clinton in
the pages of the New York Times but also became the first
high official to explicitly accuse Trump of disloyalty, “doesn’t take you anywhere, I don’t think.”
claiming,

451
Morell’s comments echo the categorical remarks by
Obama’s top national security official, James Clapper, who
told Meet the Press last week that during the time he was
Obama’s DNI, he saw no evidence to support claims of a
Trump/Russia conspiracy.
“We had no evidence of such collusion,”
Clapper stated unequivocally.
Unlike Morell, who left his official CIA position in 2013
but remains very integrated into the intelligence
community, Clapper was Obama’s DNI until just seven
weeks ago, leaving on January 20.
Perhaps most revealing of all are the Democrats on the
Senate Intelligence Committee — charged with
investigating these matters — who recently told BuzzFeed
how petrified they are of what the Democratic base will do
if they do not find evidence of collusion, as they now
suspect will likely be the case.
“There’s a tangible frustration over what
one official called ‘wildly inflated’
expectations surrounding the panel’s
fledgling investigation,” BuzzFeed’s Ali
Watkins wrote.
Moreover,
“several committee sources grudgingly say,
it feels as though the investigation will be
seen as a sham if the Senate doesn’t find a
silver bullet connecting Trump and Russian
intelligence operatives.” One member told
Watkins: “I don’t think the conclusions are
going to meet people’s expectations.”
What makes all of this most significant is that officials like
Clapper and Morell are trained disinformation agents;
Clapper in particular has proven he will lie to advance his
interests. Yet even with all the incentive to do so, they are
refusing to claim there is evidence of such collusion; in
fact, they are expressly urging people to stop thinking it
exists. As even the law recognizes, statements
that otherwise lack credibility become more believable
when they are ones made “against interest.”
Media figures have similarly begun trying to tamp down
expectations. Ben Smith, the editor-in-chief of BuzzFeed,
which published the Steele dossier, published an article
yesterday warning that the Democratic base’s expectation
of a smoking gun
“is so strong that Twitter and cable news
are full of the theories of what my colleague
Charlie Warzel calls the Blue Detectives —
the left’s new version of Glenn Beck, digital
blackboards full of lines and arrows.”
452
Smith added:
“It is also a simple fact that while news of
Russian actions on Trump’s behalf is clear,
hard details of coordination between his
aides and Putin’s haven’t emerged.”
And Smith’s core warning is this:
Trump’s critics last year were horrified at the rise of “fake
news” and the specter of a politics shaped by alternative
facts, predominantly on the right. They need to be careful
now not to succumb to the same delusional temptations as
their political adversaries, and not to sink into a filter
bubble which, after all, draws its strength not from
conservative or progressive politics but from human
nature.
And those of us covering the story and the stew of real
information, fantasy, and — now — forgery around it need
to continue to report and think clearly about what we know
and what we don’t, and to resist the sugar high that comes
with telling people exactly what they want to hear.
For so long, Democrats demonized and smeared anyone
trying to inject basic reason, rationality, and skepticism
into this Trump/Russia discourse by labeling them all
Kremlin agents and Putin lovers. Just this week, the Center
for American Progress released a report using the language
of treason to announce the existence of a “Fifth Column”
in the U.S. that serves Russia (similar to Andrew
Sullivan’s notorious 2001 decree that anyone opposing the
war on terror composed an anti-American “Fifth
Column”), while John McCain listened to Rand Paul
express doubts about the wisdom of NATO further
expanding to include Montenegro and then promptly
announced:
“Paul is working for Vladimir Putin.”
But with serious doubts — and fears — now emerging
about what the Democratic base has been led to
believe by self-interested carnival barkers and partisan
hacks, there is a sudden, concerted effort to rein in the
excesses of this story. With so many people now doing
this, it will be increasingly difficult to smear them all as
traitors and Russian loyalists, but it may be far too little,
too late, given the pitched hysteria that has been
deliberately cultivated around these issues for months.
Many Democrats have reached the classic stage of
deranged conspiracists where evidence that disproves the
theory is viewed as further proof of its existence, and those
pointing to it are instantly deemed suspect.
 needed. That’s true primarily so that conspiracies no
longer linger and these questions are resolved by facts
rather than agenda-driven anonymous leaks from the CIA
and cable news hosts required to feed a partisan mob.

It’s certainly possible to envision an indictment of a low-

level operative like Carter Page, or the prosecution of
someone like Paul Manafort on matters unrelated to
hacking, but the silver bullet that Democrats have been led
to expect will sink Trump appears further away than ever.

But given the way these Russia conspiracies have drowned

A formal, credible investigation into all these questions,
where the evidence is publicly disclosed, is still urgently
.
out other critical issues being virtually ignored under the
Trump presidency, it’s vital that everything be done now
to make clear what is based in evidence and what is based
in partisan delusions. And most of what the Democratic
base has been fed for the last six months by their unhinged
stable of media, online, and party leaders has decisively
fallen into the latter category, as even their own officials
are now desperately trying to warn.

453
 Trump In Rome
By Stephen Lendman
5-24-2017
On Wednesday, he arrived following his Riyadh and Israel
visits. He and the pontiff are more alike than dissimilar,
despite Vatican pretense.
Papal history isn’t pretty. Pontiffs notoriously meddle
where they don’t belong. Liberation theology supporting
social justice is verboten.
Pope Francis’ high-minded rhetoric belies papal tradition,
supporting wealth and power interests, paying lip service
alone to popular needs and welfare.
The papacy is notoriously ultraconservative. In his book
titled “God and His Demons,” Michael Parenti exposed
the myth of organized religions being above reproach,
criticizing Old and New Testament dogma.
He challenged notable religious figures, exposing their
dark side. Author John Allen blasted Pope Benedict XVI,
saying he
“believe(d) the best antidote to political
totalitarianism is ecclesial totalitarianism.”
He and other pontiffs exercised dictatorial powers,
governing as they wished, their decrees having final say.
Pope John Paul II was involved in counter-revolutionary
activities, supporting right-wing dictatorships, calling them
“bulwarks against communis(m).”
Greed isn’t just good on Wall Street. Holy See self-
enrichment comes at the expense of the faithful. Papal
policies pursue reactionary goals.
.
454
Mixing religion with politics, Roman Catholicism and
other hard-right faiths spread ideological extremism to
mass audiences, claiming to serve God’s will.
Fundamentalism dominates, liberal theology favoring
equity and justice for everyone shut out.
Before becoming archbishop of Buenos Aires in 1998,
then a cardinal in 2001, Jorge Mario Bergoglio (Pope
Francis) supported Argentina's military dictatorship
(March 1976 - December 1983) - a brutal dirty war period
backed by Washington.
Thousands were disappeared, held in detention centers,
tortured and killed. Anyone expressing dissent or
considered an ideological or political threat was
vulnerable.
Communists, socialists, independent journalists, human
rights supporters, trade unionists, priests endorsing social
justice, and students were targeted.
In his earlier capacity, Pope Francis was complicit in what
went on, supporting instead of denouncing it responsibly.
His rhetoric belies his business as usual agenda.
Welcoming Trump to the Vatican for a private audience
ignores his war on humanity at home and abroad.
Later on Wednesday, he’ll fly to Brussels to meet with EU
and NATO leaders, then a Sicily G7 summit on Friday
before heading home over the weekend.
 Seth Rich Likely Murdered Over Hillary Clinton’s
Uranium One Ties, The Offloading Of 20%
Of America’s Uranium Supply To The Russians
Seth Rich Murder Case Deepens As Podesta-Clinton Russian Ties Emerge
To Forefront
By Shepard Ambellas –
05.24.2017 @10:26 PM EDT

The report makes it clear that the DNC staffer was

“conscious and breathing” when he was transported to a
local area hospital.

Based on a May 16 Intellihub report by Shepard Ambellas

titled: “D.C. surgeon who operated on Seth Rich: ‘The
DNC staffer was alive and well after surgery, before a
group of LEOs showed up to the ICU’,” Rich was taken to
Medstar Washington Hospital Center which is located just
3 minutes away from where he was shot.

US Embassy Kabul Afghanistan/Flickr

WASHINGTON (INTELLIHUB) — Crucial information

obtained by Intellihub regarding the murder of DNC
staffer Seth Rich can not be overlooked and shall serve as
a starting point in solving the case once and for all. The
information contained herein this article is considered
sensitive and needs to be shared with everyone, including
high-level officials of the Trump Administration until the
case is closed once and for all and the perpetrators are
behind bars.

According to the D.C. Metropolitan Police Department Location A: Crime scene; Location B: Medstar Washington Hospital
Center (Via MapQuest)
Public Incident Report CCN #16113797 Seth Rich was
shot at 4:20 a.m. on July 10, 2016.
According to Ambellas’ report, “A 4-year resident surgeon
at Washington Hospital Center claims that Seth Rich was
The public narrative reads as follows: “CIC reports the
alive and recovering well in facility’s Intensive Care Unit
sound of gunshots at 2134 Flagler Pl. NW. Upon arriving
(ICU) after being treated for a total of 3 routine gunshot
to the scene, the decedent was laying in the Southwest
wounds — that is until a number of law enforcement
corner of the intersection of W St. and Flagler Pl. NW. The
officers arrived eight hours later kicking most everyone
decedent was conscious and breathing with apparent
out of the ICU and physically barring doctors and others
gunshot wound(s) to the back. The decedent was
from attending to Rich.”
transported to local area hospital and was pronounced by
attending physician at 0557 hours.”

455
So who was attending to Rich as all of this was taking
place?
MedStar Health’s website states: “Jack Sava, MD, is
director of the Gold Surgery team at MedStar Washington
Hospital Center. Dr. Sava’s team manages a broad
spectrum of urgent general surgical conditions (including
problems of the intestine, gallbladder,
stomach, liver, and other abdominal organs) and staffs the
MedStar trauma unit, a Level-1 trauma center.”
As director of the Gold Surgery team, Dr. Sava should
have been in charge of the operation and would have been
privy to access Rith’s room at all times.
Dr. Jack Alfred Sava, a.k.a. Jack A Kountoupes, a.k.a.
Jack A Ateljevich, is related to Lisa M Kountoupes,
according to Radaris records.
Additionally, the name “Sava Ateljevich” appears on the
2008 Bohemian Grove guest list.
Both Jack Sava and Lisa Kountoupes appeared on the MV
DSCC 2015 guest list.
Moreover, Lisa Kountoupes was a co-host for the Kate
McGinty “Democrat for United States Senate fundraiser,”
along with the Podesta brothers which took place on Feb.
22, 2016, which can be found in the Wikileaks “Podesta
emails.”
Lisa Kountoupeswas one of the Hill’s top lobbyists in
2016 and also reportedly lobbied for the Clinton’s.
Kountoupes also worked for the U.S. Department of
Energy and has known ties to Uranium One, a Russian
proxy company that Hillary Clinton offloaded 20% of the
U.S. uranium supply to during her tenure in the State
Department, as reported by Intellihub’s Shepard Ambellas
456
in a January 2016, report titled: “Clinton Foundation took
massive payoffs, promised Hammond Ranch and other
publicly owned lands to Russians along with one-fifth of
our uranium ore.”
The Hill reported in December 2011: “Kountoupes
Consulting has been hired by Uranium One Inc. to lobby
on “issues related to uranium mining and the uranium
market.” Uranium One is more than half-owned by
Atomredmetzoloto of Moscow. Lisa Kountoupes, former
policy adviser to the chairman of the Energy and
Commerce Committee, and Shawn Whitman, a former
chief of staff to Sen. John Barrasso (R-Wyo.), are working
on the account.”
Kountoupes also appears on a participants list for a
January 2017 Nuclear Fuel Supply Forum.
Lisa Kountoupes also visited the White House 23 times
since 2009 and her last visit was on May 31, 2016, as
posted on archive.is.
Lisa M. Kountoupes’s visit occurred on Tuesday, May 31,
2016. Kountoupes made appointment number U16748 at
12:00 pm on May 26, 2016 through caller Jaime Kreager.
The appointment was scheduled to begin at 3:00 pm with
Jaime Kreager in the Eisenhower Executive Office
Building 276 and included a group of one person.
Originally scheduled to end at 11:59 pm, this visit should
have lasted approximately 9 hours and was one of
Kountoupes’s 23 total visits since 2009. The appointment
is described in the records as “Request (Sf) Merge with
Appointment # 656188”.
John Podesta visited the White House just 3-days later on
May 26, 2016, according to archive.is.
John D. Podesta’s visit occurred on Thursday, May 26,
2016. Podesta made appointment number U15174 at 12:00
pm on May 24, 2016 through caller Zealan Hoover. The
appointment was scheduled to begin at 3:00 pm with
Zealan Hoover in the White House West Wing and
included a group of one person.
Originally scheduled to end at 11:59 pm, this visit should
have lasted approximately 9 hours and was one of
Podesta’s 140 total visits since 2009.
Keep in mind that the last leaked email occurred on May
25, 2016.
All of this signifies that Seth Rich quite possibly was
murdered over information he obtained regarding
Clinton’s dealings with the Russians.
Please share this with everybody and comment below!
This key information must get out.
 Comey’s Upcoming Senate
Testimony Much Ado About Nothing
By Stephen Lendman
5-24-2017
He’ll testify in open Senate hearing about investigations
into nonexistent Russia US election hacking and alleged
improper Trump team connections to Russia.
Months of investigations found nothing - so what is there
for Comey to explain? Democrats, media scoundrels and
Republicans want Trump weakened, delegitimized and
ousted from office.
Comey is a prop toward this objective, wanting him used
to advance Trump’s political demise, heading like a
moving train in this direction.
His testimony is scheduled after the Memorial Day holiday
weekend, Senate Intelligence Committee chairman
Richard Burr (R. NC), saying:
“The Committee looks forward to receiving
testimony from the former Director on his
role in the development of the Intelligence
Community Assessment on Russian
interference in the 2016 US elections, and I
am hopeful that he will clarify for the
American people recent events that have
been broadly reported in the media.”
Committee vice-chairman Mark Warner (R. VA) said
Comey
“deserves an opportunity to tell his
story…(T)he American people deserve an
opportunity to hear it.”
What has he got to tell? No evidence suggests Russia US
election meddling, despite baseless claims otherwise.
Nothing indicates improper or wrongdoing Trump team
connections with Russia. Allegations and accusations are
part of a fabricated hoax to continue longstanding Russia
bashing and replace Trump with easily-controlled Pence, a
right-wing hardliner, a deep state puppet, a coup d’etat
president-in-waiting.
.
457
Warner added he hopes Comey will clarify why he was
sacked. Does it matter? Presidents have a right to choose
administration officials, some subject to Senate
confirmation like a new FBI director.
Firing Comey didn’t obstruct justice as the deplorable New
York Times and other media scoundrels claimed. It didn’t
impede or undermine continuing investigations going
nowhere because nothing improper exists to be found.
On Friday, commenting on Comey’s firing, press secretary
Sean Spicer said
“(b)y grandstanding and politicizing the
investigation into Russia’s actions, James
Comey created unnecessary pressure on
our ability to engage and negotiate with
Russia.”
“The investigation would have always
continued, and obviously, the termination of
Comey would not have ended it. Once
again, the real story is that our national
security has been undermined by the
leaking of private and highly classified
conversations.”
He referred to last week’s spurious NYT and WaPo
reports, coincidental with Trump leaving on a 9-day
foreign trip, sending him off on a sour note.
Putin has proof no secret classified information was shared
by Trump with Sergey Lavrov and ambassador Sergey
Kislyak during their Oval Office visit. Congress declined
to see it. He blasted what’s going on in Washington as
“political schizophrenia.”
It’s mostly a sinister coup d’etat plot to oust a sitting
president - what goes on in banana republics, never in
democratic ones - America very much the former, not the
latter.
 "Secret" Russian Document Influenced
Comey's Probe Into Hillary Clinton: Report
By Tyler Durden
May 24, 2017 6:41 PM
As part of Wednesday's late day bombshell dump, the
Washington Post has revealed that former FBI Director
James Comey’s decision to unilaterally announce the
closure of the investigation into whether Hillary Clinton
intentionally mishandled classified information was
inspired by a "secret, dubious" Russian document, that
FBI officials now believe was “bad intelligence.”
The secret document, which purported to be a piece of
Russian intelligence, claimed that former Attorney General
Loretta Lynch had privately assured someone in the
Clinton campaign that the investigation into Clinton’s
handling of classified information would go nowhere, "a
conversation that if made public would cast doubt on the
inquiry’s integrity."
The document in question is referenced in the following
clip:
Here’s WaPo:
Current and former officials have said that
document played a significant role in the
July decision by then-FBI Director James
B. Comey to announce on his own, without
Justice Department involvement, that the
investigation was over. That public
announcement — in which he criticized
Clinton and made extensive comments
about the evidence — set in motion a chain
of other FBI moves that Democrats now
say helped Trump win the presidential
election.
But according to the FBI’s own assessment, the document
was bad intelligence —
458
and according to people familiar with its
contents, possibly even a fake sent to
confuse the bureau. The Americans
mentioned in the Russian document
insist they do not know each other, do
not speak to each other and never had
any conversations remotely like the
ones described in the document.
Whil FBI Investigators have long doubted the document's
veracity, by August the FBI had concluded it was
unreliable.Comey
The “document” in question is an email allegedly written
by disgraced former DNC Chairwoman Debbie
Wasserman Schultz and sent to Leonard Benardo, who is
an official with the George Soros organization Open
Society Foundations. According to the document,
Wasserman Schultz claimed Lynch had assured senior
Clinton campaign staffer Amanda Renteria that the
investigation would not go too far
Supporters of Comey claim that the document gave him
good reason to take the microphone in July, without
consulting with Lynch, to announce the close of the
Clinton probe in great detail.
“It was a very powerful factor in the decision to go
forward in July with the statement that there shouldn’t be a
prosecution,” a person familiar with the matter told the
Post. “The point is that the bureau picked up hacked
material that hadn’t been dumped by the bad guys
involving Lynch. And that would have pulled the rug out
of any authoritative announcement.”
As the Post explains, that decision set off a chain of events
that Democrats believe contributed to Clinton’s shocking
loss in November. The White House has also cited
Comey's handling of the close of the probe in its official
rationale for the former director's dismissal earlier this
month.
In other words, this is reportedly yet
another angle which casts the blame for
Hillary's loss on Russia, even if in this
case it was mediated by alleged FBI
incompetence.
The report is the second within a week’s time to raise
serious doubts about the competence of U.S. intelligence
agencies,
the first being the NYT report about how
China’s Communist Party murdered or
imprisoned nearly two dozen CIA
operatives between 2010 and late 2012
while outspoken Clinton Supporter MIke
Morell was in charge of the agency.
According to WaPo, Comey believed he had “little choice”
but to announce the closure of the Clinton investigation
and detail the nature of the evidence against her without
the involvement of the AG because if the document
leaked, he feared that the legitimacy of any announcement
by the AG would be questioned.
It's hard to imagine the outpouring of support and
sympathy for Comey that Democrats exhibited following
his firing by President Trump will continue now that WaPo
459
has revealed that the director's strategy for publicizing
information about nature of the Clinton investigation -
something liberals believe cost her the election - was based
on unreliable Russian intelligence.
Comey's decision to announce the closure
of the Clinton investigation back in July set
off a chain of events that eventually led
to him announcing, just a week before
the Nov. 8 vote, that the FBI had
reopened the investigation after finding
some of Clinton's emails on a laptop
owned by Anthony Weiner,
the then-husband of top Clinton aide Huma Abedin, the
paper reported. Wapo also notes that the veracity of the
document was under suspicion from the moment the
bureau received it in early March 2016.
But as is typical of the leaks that have trickled out from the
intelligence agencies since the election, this one too
contains an important caveat. To wit:
Comeys defenders still insist that there is reason to believe
the document is legitimate and that it rightly played a
major role in the director's thinking.
Earlier today, the Daily Caller reported that DWS
reportedly threatened the chief of the U.S. Capitol Police
with “consequences” for holding on to a laptop she says
belongs to her. The police are holding the computer as
evidence in a case against a Congressional staffer accused
of wide-ranging data breaches. So a parallel question is:
what is on that laptop that DWS doesn't want us to see?
 Egyptian President Calls Out Trump
And Saudi Arabia For Aiding And Abetting Terrorism
Isaac Davis, Staff Writer
May 24, 2017

Speaking at the high-profile Arab Islamic American INTERPOL.” ~Egyptian President Abdel
Summit in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, president of Egypt Abdel Fattah el-Sisi
Fattah el-Sisi made comments directly to Mr. Trump and
Saudi King Salman, which in effect call out Saudi Arabia
and the United States for supporting international terrorism
and contributing to its proliferation. A fact that is
extremely relevant under the completion of another
massive arms deal between the two nations.

His translated comments, as presented before President

Trump and Saudi King Salman at the summit, are
transcribed below:

“Comprehensive counter terrorism means

confronting all terrorist organizations
without differentiation. It is not possible to
reduce the confrontation to a terrorist
organization or two. Who provides terrorists
with media and financial support is a
partner in their crimes. The criminal is not
only the militant, but also those who
finance, train and arm them. And provides
them with political and ideological cover.
Let me ask you frankly: Where are the safe
havens to train these terrorists? And
medical treatment of injured terrorists? The
replacement of military equipment and
militants? Who buys from them the natural
materials that they control, such as the oil?
Who colludes with them in trading
archaeological monuments and drugs, from
where they get financial support? And how
do they get media support by media outlets
acting as mouthpieces of the terrorist
organizations?
Anyone who does this is a genuine partner
in terrorism. Unfortunately, there are
countries that have been involved in
supporting and financing terrorist
organizations, and providing safe havens
for them. There are also countries that
refuse to provide intelligence information
and database on foreign fighters, even with
.
El-Sisi is not alone with his subtly veiled allegations that
terrorism would not be possible without the material and
financial support of Western nations and Middle East
super powers. Ron Paul has pointed this out, and
Congresswoman Tulsi Gabbard has even introduced
legislation to stop funding terrorist organizations such as
ISIS.
Russian President Putin has also said as much in public,
outing ISIS’s G20 financiers, yet astoundingly the message
does not seem to have gone mainstream, and Western
media still maintains that ISIS is an organic phenomenon.
Some of President Trump’s comments at the summit are a
signal that nothing will change. He is still framing this
issue in the simplest of terms, good vs. evil, without giving
heed to the full breadth of the complicated story of how
international terror was created and is sustained by the
major geo-political players today.
“This is not a battle between different
faiths, different sects or different
civilizations. This is a battle between
barbaric criminals who seek to obliterate
human life, and decent people of all
religions who seek to protect it. This is a
battle between good and evil.” ~President
Donald Trump

460
 Anti-Trump Media Bias
By Stephen Lendman
5-25-2017
Trump’s complaint about unprecedented media bias is
justified.
Campaigning he said
“I’m not running against crooked Hillary. I’m
running against the crooked media.”
As president, he criticized
“dishonest media…fake news…publish(ing)
one false story after another, with no
sources, even though they pretend to have
them.”
“They just don’t want to report the
truth…They’re…part of the problem.
(They’re) part of the corrupt system.”
A new Harvard Kennedy School’s Shorenstein Center on
Media, Politics and Public Policy report, analyzing news
coverage of his first 100 days, bears him out.
Analysis was based on NYT, WaPo, and WSJ broadsheet
reports, plus ones from CBS, CNN, Fox News, NBC, the
BBC, Financial Times and Germany’s ARD.
Reports about Trump were overwhelmingly negative, 98%
of the time from one news sources, significantly more
hostile than the last three administrations, bias more
extreme than any administration since Nixon’s second
term.
Here’s the scorecard:
 CNN: 93% negative
 NBC: 93% negative
 CBS: 91% negative
 NYT: 87% negative
 WaPo: 83% negative
 WSJ: 70% negative
 Fox News : 52% negative
 Germany’s ARD: 98% negative
 The Financial Times: 84% negative
461
 The BBC: 74% negative
In covering Trump, Fox News alone was balanced, a near-
50-50 split between positive and negative stories. The
report stated:
“President Trump dominated media
coverage in the outlets and programs
analyzed, with Trump being the topic of 41
percent of all news stories - three times the
amount of coverage received by previous
presidents. He was also the featured
speaker in nearly two-thirds of his
coverage.
Republican voices accounted for 80
percent of what newsmakers said about the
Trump presidency, compared to only 6
percent for Democrats and 3 percent for
those involved in anti-Trump
protests.
European reporters were more likely than
American journalists to directly question
Trump’ fitness for office.
Trump has received unsparing coverage
for most weeks of his presidency, without a
single major topic where Trump’s
coverage, on balance, was more positive
than negative, setting a new standard for
unfavorable press coverage of a president.
Fox was the only news outlet in the study
that came close to giving Trump positive
coverage overall, however, there was
variation in the tone of Fox’s coverage
depending on the topic.”
Media scoundrels despise Trump, few exceptions
supporting or at least giving him balanced coverage. He’s
right challenging unfair media bias, inventing ways to bash
him - for the wrong reasons, not the right ones.
.
 The Latest Deceptive NYT
Deep State Press Release
By Stephen Lendman
5-25-17
Deep state fake news and press releases are NYT
specialties.
They’re daily features, instead of legitimate journalism,
absent on major issues, mainly geopolitical ones, notably
on US imperial policies, especially anything about Russia
and phony allegations of its ties to Trump.
Made up stuff, or claims without credible evidence from
the usual dubious unnamed sources, substitute for
scrupulous truth-telling - verboten in Times reports,
publishing propaganda, not real news, information and
analysis.
On May 24, it headlined “Top Russian Officials Discussed
How to Influence Trump Aides Last Summer,” saying:
“American spies collected information last
summer revealing that senior Russian
intelligence and political officials were
discussing how to exert influence over
Donald J. Trump through his advisers,
according to” unnamed US sources.
NYT accusations without evidence are baseless, part of its
diabolical campaign to delegitimize Trump, wanting him
ousted from office for the wrong reasons.
It’s so-called sources are likely Obama administration
holdovers, leaking or inventing things to bash Trump
relentlessly.
If solid evidence existed, it would have been revealed long
ago. Instead, strategy appears to be a plot to destroy his
presidency by a steady drip of denigrating claims - nothing
credible supporting them.
No evidence suggests Russian US election hacking.
Nothing indicates improper or criminal Trump team’s ties
to Moscow. Nothing proves any Russian activities to
influence America’s political system.
The Times claimed information in its latest report was
“collected last summer,” allegedly “pass(ed) to the FBI.”
Yet nothing published until now suggests it’s just the latest
distorted accusation to bash Trump and Russia.
.
462
In Tuesday testimony before House Intelligence
Committee members, former FBI director John Brennan
lied, saying
“I know what the Russians try to do. They
try to suborn individuals and try to get
individuals, including US individuals, to act
on their behalf, wittingly or unwittingly.”
He lied accusing Putin of trying to influence the outcome
of America’s 2016 presidential election - in his entire
testimony presenting no evidence supporting his spurious
accusations.
Trump correctly calls what’s going on a “witch hunt”
featuring “fake news,” insisting no improper contacts
between his team and Russia occurred - nothing disproving
him.
Contacts by officials of one country with others is standard
practice, certainly not improper or illegal.
Claims otherwise attempting to connect Trump’s team
nefariously with Russia are entirely spurious, without
credible evidence proving otherwise.
None exists or it would have been revealed long ago - just
baseless accusations and allegations, a steady drumbeat of
Russia and Trump bashing, the self-styled newspaper of
record the leading scoundrel media culprit.
According to The Times, its dubious unnamed sources
“agreed to discuss (their claims) only on
the condition of anonymity because much
of it remains highly classified, and they
could be prosecuted for disclosing it.”
What rubbish! No one with any sense would leak classified
information, risking prosecution.
Making baseless accusations to bash Russia and Trump is
another matter entirely - The Times conspiratorially
involved in the denigrating plot.
 MRC’s Brent Bozell Condemns
CNN As ‘National Disgrace’ For Trump Coverage
By NB Staff
May 25, 2017 | 11:46 AM EDT

Media Research Center President Brent Bozell on

Thursday condemned CNN as a “national disgrace” for the A transcript is below:
networks coverage of Donald Trump. Appearing on the
Fox Business Network, he assailed the network for Varney and Co.
5/25/17
“blam[ing] Donald Trump. He gets credit for 9:15am ET
nothing. He gets blamed for everything.”
[Clips of Montana incident and Don Lemon talking about
Bozell continued, attacking, it.]

“I think that CNN is something like 37,
38 years old and it has become a
national disgrace.”
Regarding the President’s international trip, the MRC
President reasoned,
“If Donald Trump had made a mistake,
instead of doing well as he is doing... you
know full well it would be blanket coverage.
But he's not making mistakes. So, they're
ignoring him.”
CHARLES PAYNE: Joining us now Brent Bozell with the
Media Research Center. All right, Brent, what are your
thoughts? CNN now blaming — Don Lemon at least is
blaming Donald Trump for something that happened in
Montana while he is in Europe.
BRENT BOZELL: Donald Trump is responsible for
everything that is wrong in the world today. I’m frankly
sick and tired of the fact that it’s been raining in
Washington D.C. for the last four days. I blame Donald
Trump. And this is the mind set that you have from CNN.
Remember, this is a network that has been covering him
with 97 percent negativity since he became president.
This is a network that is committed to his removal. This
is a network that finds any excuse and invents excuses
to come after him. I was thinking about this. It’s not a
Kevin Bacon, Six Degrees of Separation where you
eventually blame Donald Trump, it’s a one degree of
separation. You immediately blame Donald Trump. He
gets credit for nothing. He gets blamed for everything.

Bozell issued this challenge to CNN on the Russia story:

I'm going to issue a challenge to CNN:

CNN loves doing special reports, these one
hour specials. I want to challenge them to
put on the air a documentary, a one hour
documentary: Trump/Russia Connection:
The Evidence. As a matter of fact, they
only need five minutes.
He added that “there is no evidence”
and called CNN "disgraceful."

463
 PAYNE: But here’s the thing though. It's one thing if you
disagree on policy and ideology. When you start talking
about a sort of responsibility for any sort of violent scene
or episode, I think that’s taking us down a path that can
get very dangerous, Brent. And that's where journalists, I
would suspect, have an even bigger responsibility to
their audience.
BOZELL: Well, but I would consider where the news
media are concerned, you shouldn't participate in a
discussion on policy or politics. That’s not your job. Your
job is to report the news and nothing but that. And you've
got CNN and MSNBC — look, I think that CNN is
something like 37, 38 years old and it has become a
national disgrace. It does nothing but attack Donald
Trump. He goes overseas, do you think, do you think,
Charles, for a moment that they've been ignoring his trip
overseas. If Donald Trump had made a mistake instead
of doing well as he is doing, if he had made a mistake,
you know full well it would be blanket coverage. But he’s
not making mistakes. So, they’re ignoring him. So, what
do they talk about? The Russia connection and the
.
464
Russia/Trump connection. And now, on that note,
Charles, I’m going to issue a challenge to CNN: CNN
loves doing special reports, these one hour specials. I
want to challenge them to put on the air a documentary,
a one hour documentary: Trump/Russia Connection: The
Evidence. As a matter of fact, they only need five
minutes.
PAYNE: I was going to say, could it be a one-hour
special? Sounds like it probably be between commercial
breaks.
BOZELL: They can't do it and do you think about the
thousands of stories that have been run on these
networks and the hundreds of hours they've spent. And
yet, there's nothing, there's no evidence of this. It’s
disgraceful.
PAYNE: Brent Bozell, thank you very much. You’re the
ultimate straight shooters and always appreciate being
able to talk to you.
 Judiciary Now Attempting To Nullify The Presidential
Election With Ridiculous Ruling On Trump’s Travel Ban
By: JD Heyes
Date: May 25, 2017
Another ruling from a federal appeals court signifies once
again why President Donald J. Trump must focus anew on
filling judicial vacancies with constitutional originalists
who are not Left-wing political hacks dressed in black
robes.
An en banc panel of the U.S. Court of Appeals for the
Fourth Circuit upheld a lower court’s ruling that Trump’s
travel ban on persons entering the country from terrorism-
infested countries is somehow unconstitutional not based
on law and the president’s statutory and constitutional
authority to issue such orders, but on what he said during
the campaign.
As reported by Breitbart News, the 10-3 ruling is very
likely to set up a showdown over presidential powers and
actual written statutes at the U.S. Supreme Court, where
there are more constitutional jurists than there are Left-
wing ideologues (allegedly).
The appeals court, in a 67-page ruling, essentially said that
“even an executive order that makes no
mention of Islam in its text can be
invalidated for violating the First
Amendment’s Establishment Clause
because of comments Trump and his
associates made during and after the 2016
presidential election,” Breitbart News
reported.
Writing for the appeals court, Chief Judge Roger Gregory
called the Establishment Clause an
465
“untiring sentinel for the protection of one of
our most cherished founding principles,”
adding that the travel ban order “in text
speaks with vague words of national
security, but in context drips with religious
intolerance, animus and discrimination.”
In other words, all these judges who so far have blocked
Trump’s two travel orders are doing so on the premise
that they can somehow read his mind, which is as absurd
as it is preposterous (and never mind that Trump’s first
foreign trip as president was a visit to the heart of Islam
— Saudi Arabia).
“Congress granted the President broad
power to deny entry to aliens, but that
power is not absolute,” Gregory wrote.
Yes, it is. The “broad power” is very clearly stated in the
Immigration and Nationality Act that all presidents,
including the last one, have used to block entry of certain
aliens, for a variety of reasons. Section 212(f) of the
Immigration and Nationality Act of 1952 states:
“Whenever the President finds that the
entry of any aliens or of any class of
aliens into the United States would be
detrimental to the interests of the United
States, he may by proclamation, and for
such period as he shall deem
necessary, suspend the entry of all
aliens or any class of aliens as
immigrants or nonimmigrants, or
impose on the entry of aliens any
restrictions he may deem to be
appropriate.”
Very clearly then, national security can be just one of
multiple reasons why a president would want to block
entry by aliens.
To underscore the insanity of the reasoning behind the
court’s ruling, the majority cited several quotes from
Trump and his advisers as well as the campaign’s website
as ‘proof’ that the president’s travel ban is really just a way
of favoring one religion over another.
The court also relied on an Establishment Clause precedent
that has never once been applied in the context of an
immigration-related order, deciding that Trump’s pledge to
keep Americans safe from terrorism is a BS excuse to keep
more Muslims out of the country.
One of the quotes used by the majority to reinforce their
phony narrative was that of one-time Trump campaign
spokeswoman Katrina Peirson, who said on CNN,
“I think Islam hates us… [W]e can’t allow
people coming into this country who have
this hatred… [w]e’ve allowed this
propaganda to spread all through the
country that [Islam] is a religion of peace.”
And yet, every terrorist attack that has occurred in the U.S.
and the West since 9/11 has been conducted by Islamic
extremists. (RELATED: Two liberal activist judges
block Trump’s revised travel ban)
466
Even more than that, to confer meaning into Peirson’s
statement without context is not simply disingenuous, it’s
wholly inappropriate.
There is more, and you can read the ruling here. But the
fact is, the Obama-appointed federal judiciary is
attempting to overturn the results of a valid presidential
election one court ruling at a time, undermining a president
whose principal duty is to protect the country.
Let it be said as clearly as possible:
Presidents have the constitutional and
statutory authority to keep anyone they
want out of the country, for any reason
they deem necessary.
Period.
They don’t have to ask federal courts for permission.
 Still No Proof Of Trump/Russia Collusion,
Economic Update, MSM Is Fake News
By Greg Hunter
May 26, 2017

reason for the wild calls both up and down,

according to Mannarino.
There is a new Harvard poll out, and it
proves the mainstream media’s (MSM)
biased reporting is nothing more than
propaganda and “fake news.”

According to the new Harvard-Harris poll,

“65% of voters believe the MSM

publishes fake news.”

That poll says it all and proves the MSM is killing its own
business with its biased political reporting.
Former CIA Director John Brennan testified on Capitol
Hill this week and told Congress that he was “concerned” Join Greg Hunter as he looks at these stories and more in
and “aware of information and intelligence that revealed the Weekly News Wrap-Up.
contacts and interactions between Russian officials and . . .
the Trump campaign.” The big headline buried in the (There is much more in the video newscast.)
mainstream media (MSM) reporting was Brennan
admitting in the same hearing,

“I don’t know whether or not such

collusion . . . existed. I don’t know.”
That means there is still zero evidence
that anyone in the Trump campaign
colluded with the Russians. The “Witch
Hunt” continues.

The Fed warns of “vulnerabilities” from elevated asset

prices. Noble Prize winner in economics Robert Shiller
opines the stock market could go up “50%” from here.
Legendary investor Asher Edelman admits on CBNC, “I
have no doubt” the Plunge Protection Team in the federal
government is propping up the stock market. What gives?
Why all the wild predictions? Gregory Mannarino of
TradersChoice.net says,
After the Wrap-Up:
The guest for the “Early Sunday Release” will be Chris
Martenson from PeakProsperity.com. Martenson says it’s
a mathematical certainty that the central bank controlled
global financial system will crash. He warns,

“Nobody can get their head around the
magnitude of the distortions in the markets.
. . . They are off the charts.” This is the
.
“Somebody is going to eat the losses.”
Guess who is going to “eat” them? Hear what he says you
can do to protect yourself now.

467
 Trump's Right About Germany
His Diagnosis Is Imprecise But Merkel's Economic Policies
Really Are Hurting The U.S.
By Danny Vinik
05/26/2017 12:47 PM EDT
President Donald Trump had harsh words for Germany at a
NATO meeting in Belgium this week, where he reportedly
referred to the Germans as “bad, very bad.” Gary Cohn,
the president’s top economic adviser, later clarified that
Trump was referring to Germany’s trade practices.
The criticism of a close U.S. ally at a typically pre-
programmed diplomatic conference raised eyebrows across
Europe, as world leaders sought to understand the new,
unpredictable American president. But to many
economists, such criticism was long overdue. They believe
Germany’s economic policies really have hurt global
economic growth, especially in Europe whose recovery
from the 2008 financial crisis has been very slow — much
slower than in the United States.
“They are valid criticisms, certainly of the
German macroeconomic policies,” said
Gary Hufbauer, a trade expert who worked
in the Treasury Department in the 1970s.
The U.S.-German relationship is one of the strongest in the
world and was especially close over the past eight years, as
German Chancellor Angela Merkel and former U.S.
President Barack Obama formed a tight personal bond that
led to increased cooperation on national security issues.
But Obama also was reticent to publicly criticize Merkel,
even as many economists warned that Germany was
holding back European growth and dragging down the
global economy.
Trump and Merkel have no such close personal ties and
the president has shown little hesitancy to break long-held
diplomatic norms, especially on trade policy, one of his top
campaign issues. Already, Trump has pulled the U.S. out
468
of the Trans-Pacific Partnership, given Congress official
notice of his intent to renegotiate NAFTA and promised to
eliminate the U.S. trade deficit. He has criticized South
Korea’s trade practices, targeted cheap Chinese steel, and
slapped a large tariff on Canadian lumber.
It’s a protectionist trade agenda the likes of which the U.S.
has not seen for decades and it has left many economists,
who generally oppose tariffs for restricting the free flow of
goods, scratching their heads. But when it comes to
Germany and its economic policies, they say, Trump is
aiming in the right direction, although his diagnosis still
misses the mark.
At the NATO summit on Thursday, Trump focused on
Washington’s $65 billion trade deficit in goods with
Berlin, the U.S.’s fifth largest with any country, and
German tariffs on American-made cars and trucks. Trump
has a point when he criticizes the U.S.-Germany trade
deficit: German exports really are artificially inflated.
Contrary to Trump’s focus on automobile tariffs, though,
this isn’t because of any specific German trade policy. In
fact, Germany doesn’t even have its own trade policy.
Instead, the European Union sets trade policy for its
members and Germany is a part of it.
“The European Union is a full customs
union — lock, stock and barrel,” said Brad
Setser, a former senior official in the
Treasury Department under Obama.
“Germany is one voice amongst many in
setting the common European tariff policy."
How are German exports inflated then? It has to do with
Germany’s fiscal policy and the European Union’s
currency. For years, German rules and regulations have
held down wage growth. With productivity growing faster
than workers' pay, German manufacturers have developed
a competitive advantage against their international
counterparts. Furthermore, this slow wage growth, in
combination with tight fiscal policy, has led to less
German consumer demand, an especially large problem for
countries like Spain, Greece and Italy that have suffered
because of lower consumer demand since the financial
crisis. In other words, German citizens could be buying
Greek wines and Italian pastas, providing an influx of
money into those countries. But German economic policies
have choked off such consumer spending, holding back
both the recovery of their weaker neighbors as well as the
global economy.
“By not encouraging a stronger domestic
demand, Germany continues to be reliant
on trade and exports to maintain their
economic strength,” said Bruce Hirsh, a
former assistant U.S. trade representative.
“They would, of course, claim that’s just
good economics. Whether that’s the case
or not, it’s certainly having that impact.”
Germany has also benefited from the euro. The value of
the euro is based on international trade and capital flows of
the 18 countries that use the currency. Because Germany
has a relatively stronger, more productive economy than its
EU counterparts, the euro is effectively undervalued for
Germany. In other words, if Germany was still using the
deutschmark, the currency would be stronger, reducing
exports and increasing imports. Germany would be less
competitive internationally if it had a national currency.
According to an International Monetary Fund report from
last year, German’s inflation-adjusted exchange rate is
undervalued by 10 percent to 20 percent, up from 5 percent
to 15 percent in 2014. And in 2016, Germany’s dollar-
denominated current account surplus — the amount
savings exceed investment — was $300 billion, the largest
in the world.
“When the euro is weak, Germany will be
exceptionally competitive globally,” said
Setser. “That’s a byproduct of participation
in the euro.”
.
469
The Germans have also exported these macroeconomic
policies to the rest of the Eurozone by forcing nations like
Greece to adopt tight fiscal policy in exchange for bailouts.
Such policies have benefited German manufacturers which
have maintained their economic competitiveness, but it has
led to a very slow recovery across Europe, which has
weighed on the global economy.
The Obama administration pressured Germany to ease its
fiscal policy and support looser monetary policy at the
ECB, including through semi-annual Treasury Department
reports on foreign exchange rate policies and privately
during international forums. It’s tough to tell how much
those entreaties actually accomplished; economists still
hold that German economic policy is too tight, although
the European economic recovery appears to be
accelerating.
Will Trump’s blunt language have a stronger effect?
Economists are skeptical. After all, Trump in targeting
German carmakers is missing the true problems with
German economic policies and by focusing on German
tariffs, he is getting basic facts wrong about European
trade policy. In addition, his broader protectionist stance
on trade has not engendered much goodwill with European
leaders and the fate of the U.S.-EU trade deal, the
Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, remains
unknown. None of this gives Merkel, who is up for
reelection later this year, any reason to change course.
Said Hufbauer,
“The Germans are quite happy with their
surplus with Europe and surplus with the
U.S. So what can really be done?”
 FBI Refuses To Hand Over
“Comey Memos” To Congress
Zero Hedge
May 26, 2017

House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz said

today that the FBI had decided to withhold documents,
including memos, notes, summaries, and recordings,
requested by his committee in regards to the ongoing
Russia probe. This was revealed in a letter sent by Chaffetz
to the FBI responding to the agency’s decision to withhold
documents requested by the Committee on May 16, 2017.

The FBI’s denial to cooperate is presented below:

470
According to a statement by the Oversight Committee,
“Chaffetz requested memos, notes,
summaries, and recordings to assist in
the Committee’s investigation of the
FBI’s independence, and which are
outside the scope of the Special
Counsel’s investigation.”
The documents are due June 8, 2017, but that may not
happen as it appears the FBI is suddenly unwilling to
cooperate.
As Chaffetz elaborates, after a New York Times report that
former Federal Bureau of Investigation Director James
Corney memorialized the content of phone calls and
meetings with the President in a series of memoranda, he
requested those memoranda and any related notes,
summaries, and recordings.
The FBI is withholding those
documents, citing to the appointment of
Robert Mueller as Special Prosecutor.
According to a letter from your staff: “In light of this
development and other considerations [the Bureau] is
undertaking appropriate consultation to ensure all relevant
interest implicated by your request are properly evaluated.
The letter states:
“The Committee has its own,
Constitutionally-based prerogative to
conduct investigations. But the Committee
in no way wants to impede or interfere with
the Special Counsel’s ability to conduct his
investigation. In fact, the Committee’s
investigation will complement the work of
the Special Counsel. Whereas the Special
.
471
Counsel is conducting a criminal or
counterintelligence investigation that will
occur largely behind closed doors, the
Committee’s work will shed light on matters
of high public interest, regardless of
whether there is evidence of criminal
conduct.
“The focus of the Committee’s investigation
is the independence of the FBI, including
conversations between the President and
Comey and the process by which Comey
was removed from his role as director. The
records being withheld are central to those
questions, even more so in light of
Comey’s decision not to testify before the
Committee at this time.”
“I am seeking to better understand
Comey’s communications with the White
House and Attorney General in such a way
that does not implicate the Special
Counsel’s work.”
As Chaffetz concludes,
“Congress and the American public
have a right and a duty to examine this
issue independently of the Special
Counsel’s investigation. I trust and hope
you understand this and make the right
decision-to produce these documents to
the Committee immediately and on a
voluntary basis.”
The American public is certainly looking forward to the
FBI’s release of the full content of the Comey’s memos,
not only those relating to his meetings with Trump, but just
as importantly, with Loretta Lynch, as well as Barack
Obama and/or Hillary Clinton.
 Trump Will Be IMPEACHED: Clinton Returns To Her
University To Launch All-Out Attack On President
 Hillary Clinton Returned To Wellesley, Where She Gave The First Student Speech To
Graduating Students In 1969
 She Immediately Invoked The Issue Of Impeachment And Richard Nixon
 She Mentioned 'Obstruction Of Justice' And Referenced The Saturday Night Massacre
 Brings Up 'Authoritarian' Regimes
 'Some Were Even Denying Things We See With Our Own Eyes, Like The Size Of Crowds'
 Early In Her Remarks, She Lost Her Voice, As She Did Several Times On The Campaign
Trail
 She Asked For A Lozenge As She Tried Managed To Gain Control Of Her Cough
 She Joked About Her Loss, Mentioning 'Long Walks In The Woods. Organizing My
Closets. I Won’t Lie, Chardonnay Helped A Little Too'
By Geoff Earle, Deputy U.S. Political Editor For Dailymail.Com
Published: 12:15 EDT, 26 May 2017 | Updated: 13:48 EDT, 26 May 2017

Hillary Clinton suggested her campaign rival President

Trump will get impeached, in sharp remarks in a
commencement address Friday where she brought up
'obstruction of justice' and warned of the steps to
authoritarianism.
Speaking to gowned graduates at the school where she
addressed students in 1969, Clinton referenced the
resignation of President Richard Nixon and a House
committee's impeachment investigation – but it was clear
to graduating students what she was really talking about.
'We were furious about the past
presidential election of a man whose
presidency would eventually end in
disgrace with his impeachment for
obstruction of justice,' the defeated
presidential candidate said – as members
of the crowd at the liberal campus erupted
into cheers.
Hillary Clinton addressed graduates at Wellesley and
brought up impeachment and obstruction of justice
Both were obvious shots at Trump, who fired FBI Director
James Comey in the midst of an agency probe of Russian
meddling in the U.S. elections. The move brought parallels
to Nixon's 'Saturday Night Massacre,' when Nixon got rid
of independent special prosecutor Archibald Cox.
As she addressed students, Clinton also pointed to the
evolution of 'authoritarian' regimes, in a criticism of
Trump's constant attacks on the media and his critics.
'When people in power invent their own
facts and attack those who question them,
it can mark the beginning of the end of a
free society,' she warned. 'That is not
hyperbole, it is what authoritarian regimes
throughout history have done.'

Then she brought up Nixon's 'firing the the person running 'You are graduating at a time when there is
the investigation into him at the Department of Justice' – a a full-fledged assault on truth and reason,'
line that brought laughs and more cheers. she told graduates, referencing White
House counselor Kellyanne Conway's
defense of 'alternative facts.'

472

'We were furious about the past
presidential election of a man whose
presidency would eventually end in
disgrace with his impeachment for
obstruction of justice'
In yet another shot at Trump, Clinton said:
'Some were even denying things we see
with our own eyes, like the size of crowds.'
Clinton joked about her loss, but said she has had time for
grandchildren and long walks in the woods.
'Chardonnay helped a little too,' she
quipped
'We got through that tumultuous time,' she
told the students, as she described the
social conflicts during the late 1960s when
she graduated.
'We revved up the engine of imagination
and innovation. We turned back a tide of
intolerance and embraced inclusion,' she
said.
'It was millions of ordinary citizens, especially young
people, who voted, marched and organized' to bring
changes, she said.
Clinton served as a young staffer when the House
Judiciary drew up articles of impeachment against Nixon
and investigated his actions during Watergate.
473
She didn't mention that her husband Bill Clinton was
impeached during his second term, in an event that brought
blowback for the Republicans who went after him.
Former U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton arrives for
Commencement at Wellesley College in Wellesley, Massachusetts,
U.S., May 26, 2017
Clinton began with remarks about the 'amazing futures' of
school grads. She encouraged them to seek office and take
other steps to make the world better.
It didn't take long for her to break into a coughing fit,
something that happened frequently during her campaign.
'And I’ve gotta get a lozenge,' she said, as
the crowd clapped in support.
'Whatever your path, you dreamed big,' she told graduating
students.
Back in 1969, Clinton spoke about the push and pull of
politics to fellow graduates of her school.
'We've had lots of empathy; we've had lots
of sympathy, but we feel that for too long
our leaders have viewed politics as the art
of the possible,' she said. 'And the
challenge now is to practice politics as the
art of making what appears to be
impossible possible.'
Clinton started her remarks with a familiar coughing fit,
then took out a lozenge
'You may have heard that things didn’t go
exactly the way I’ve planned. But you know
what, I’m doing okay,' she said to laughs.
'I’ve gotten to spend time with my family,
especially my amazing grandchildren,' she
said.
'Long walks in the woods ... Organizing my
closets ... I won’t lie, Chardonnay helped a
little too,' she quipped.

Clinton brought up her 'Onward together' PAC, but

provided little information about how it would work. She
said it would involve recruiting candidates and other
organizing.

Even as she went after President Trump by alluding to

crimes, she also made light of her defeat.
.

474
 Lone Congresswoman Calls Out Trump For Insane Arms
Deal With Human Rights Violator Saudi Arabia
Isaac Davis, Staff Writer
May 26, 2017
As Western nations are being told to brace for more terror
attacks like Manchester, mainstream media continues to
simplify the narrative for public consumption, hoping that
the general public will believe this is just a simple struggle
between good and evil, black and white, right and wrong.
There are some, however, who are telling the whole story.
Hawaii State Representative Tulsi Gabbard however, has
been working to expose the truth and strike the roots of
international terror. After actually traveling to Syria she
introduced the Stop Arming Terrorists Act, which
acknowledges that ISIS and other terror organizations
would not exist without our financial and material support.
Now she has condemned Trump’s recent arms deal with
Saudi Arabia, one of the world’s most egregious human
rights violators.
President Trump, who during his campaign said he would
hold Saudi Arabia accountable for 9/11 and would put
them in their place, just signed the largest arms deal ever,
promising to outfit the House of Saud with some $350
billion worth of arms over the next decade.
“The agreement included an arms deal;
almost $110 billion worth of defense
capabilities, the White House reports. “This
package of defense equipment and
services supports the long-term security of
Saudi Arabia and the Gulf region in the
face of malign Iranian influence and Iranian
related threats,” wrote the Trump
administration officials.
475
The deal was signed during President
Trump’s meeting today in Saudi Arabia with
the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques
King Salman bin Abd al-Aziz Al Saud,
Crown Prince Mohamed bin Nayef, and
Deputy Crown Prince Mohamed bin
Salman. It is the first foreign trip of the
Trump presidency.” [Source]
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard’s comments regarding this
development are so far the only remarks from a U.S.
Congressperson which actually honor the truth in how
turmoil in the Middle East is perpetuated by Western
governments, especially through arms deals.
Gabbard, a Democrat, blasted the deal – which she said
includes an additional $350 billion over the next 10 years –
saying Saudi Arabia is
“a country with a devastating record of
human rights violations at home and
abroad, and a long history of providing
support to terrorist organizations that
threaten the American people.”
“Saudi Arabia is the world’s largest sponsor
and propagator of the extremist Wahhabi
Salafist ideology that fuels terrorist groups
like ISIS and al-Qaeda,” a media release
from Rep. Gabbard stated. “Based on
Saudi Arabia’s history and track record,
there is a significant likelihood these
weapons will be used against innocent
civilians or end up in the hands of terrorist
groups.”
“Saudi Arabia has spent hundreds of
billions of dollars spreading their extreme
Wahhabi Salafist ideology around the
world, creating fertile ground for terrorist
organizations like ISIS and al-Qaeda to
recruit, while simultaneously providing
direct support to terrorist groups who pose
a direct threat to US interests and who are
fighting to overthrow the Syrian
government. The hypocrisy in the Trump
administration’s actions toward Saudi
Arabia began in February 2017 with the
newly-appointed CIA Director Mike
 Pompeo presenting Saudi Crown Prince
bin Nayef with the George Tenet Award in
recognition of Prince bin Nayef’s ‘excellent
intelligence performance, in the domain of
counter-terrorism and his unbound
contribution to realise world security and
peace.’ This hypocrisy continues now as
the Trump administration talks tough
against ISIS and terrorism, while selling
weapons to, supporting, and praising a
country that beheads dissidents, oppresses
women, persecutes religious minorities,
atheists, and LGBT people, and is the
greatest supporter of terror groups like al-
Qaeda and ISIS in the world today. This
arms deal will enable Saudi Arabia to use
U.S.-made weapons in their war crimes
against Yemeni civilians in a brutal civil
war, and continue perpetuating human
rights atrocities at home and abroad,” said
Rep. Tulsi Gabbard.
The arms deal runs contrary proposed bipartisan legislation
supported by Gabbard: H.R. 608, the Stop Arming
Terrorists Act, which Gabbard says
“would prohibit any Federal agency from
using taxpayer dollars to provide weapons,
cash, intelligence, or any support to armed
.
476
militants who are allied with al-Qaeda, ISIS
and other terrorist groups, and it will
prohibit the U.S. government from
funneling money and weapons through
other countries like Saudi Arabia, Turkey,
and Qatar who are directly or indirectly
supporting terrorists.”
Gabbard says she recently sent a letter to Defense
Secretary Jim Mattis
“urging an end to the United States’ military
participation in Yemen’s civil war, where 19
million people need emergency support
and which has never been authorized by
Congress, and calling for a Congressional
briefing on the White House’s strategy in
Yemen.” [Source]
Final Thoughts
As ISIS takes credit for bombings like we just witnessed in
Manchester, it is critical that we connect the dots on this
international terror organization, and Gabbard’s comments
remind us that these organizations are the result of our
actions in the Middle East which continually inflame the
region by supplying weapons and finances. Even President
El-Sisi of Egypt recently called out Trump and King
Salman of Saudi Arabia for aiding and abetting ISIS.
 How Team Obama
Tried To Hack The Election
By Paul Sperry
May 26, 2017 | 7:44pm
New revelations have surfaced that the Obama
administration abused intelligence during the election by
launching a massive domestic spy campaign that included
snooping on Trump officials.
The irony is mind-boggling: Targeting political opposition
is long a technique of police states like Russia, which
Team Obama has loudly condemned for allegedly using its
own intelligence agencies to hack into our election.
The revelations, as well as testimony this week from
former Obama intel officials, show the extent to which the
Obama administration politicized and weaponized
intelligence against Americans.
Thanks to Circa News, we now know the National
Security Agency under President Barack Obama routinely
violated privacy protections while snooping through
foreign intercepts involving US citizens — and failed to
disclose the breaches, prompting the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Court a month before the election to rebuke
administration officials.
The story concerns what’s known as “upstream” data
collection under Section 702 of the Foreign Intelligence
Surveillance Act, under which the NSA looks at the
content of electronic communication. Upstream refers to
intel scooped up about third parties: Person A sends Person
B an email mentioning Person C. Though Person C isn’t a
party to the email, his information will be scooped up and
potentially used by the NSA.
477
Further, the number of NSA data searches about
Americans mushroomed after Obama loosened rules for
protecting such identities from government officials and
thus the reporters they talk to.
The FISA court called it a
“very serious Fourth Amendment issue”
that NSA analysts — in violation of a 2011
rule change prohibiting officials from
searching Americans’ information without a
warrant — “had been conducting such
queries in violation of that prohibition, with
much greater frequency than had been
previously disclosed to the Court.”
A number of those searches were made from the White
House, and included private citizens working for the
Trump campaign, some of whose identities were leaked to
the media. The revelations earned a stern rebuke from the
ACLU and from civil liberties champion Sen. Rand Paul.
We also learned this week that Obama intelligence
officials really had no good reason attaching a summary of
a dossier on Trump to a highly classified Russia briefing
they gave to Obama just weeks before Trump took office.
Under congressional questioning Tuesday, Obama’s CIA
chief John Brennan said the dossier did not “in any way”
factor into the agency’s assessment that Russia interfered
in the election. Why not? Because as Obama intel czar
James Clapper earlier testified,
“We could not corroborate the sourcing.”
But that didn’t stop Brennan in January from attaching its
contents to the official report for the president. He also
included the unverified allegations in the briefing he gave
Hill Democrats.
In so doing, Brennan virtually
guaranteed that it would be leaked,
which it promptly was.
In short, Brennan politicized raw
intelligence. In fact, he politicized the
entire CIA.
Langley vets say Brennan was the most politicized director
in the agency’s history. Former CIA field operations
officer Gene Coyle said Brennan was
“known as the greatest sycophant in the
history of the CIA, and a supporter of
Hillary Clinton before the election. I find it
hard to put any real credence in anything
that the man says.”
Coyle noted that Brennan broke with his predecessors who
stayed out of elections. Several weeks before the vote, he
made it very clear he was pulling for Hillary. His deputy
Mike Morell even came out and publicly endorsed her in
the New York Times, claiming Trump was an “unwitting
agent” of Moscow.
.
478
Brennan isn’t just a Democrat. He’s a
radical leftist who in 1980 — during the
height of the Cold War — voted for a
Communist Party candidate for president.
When Brennan rants about the dangers of strongman
Vladimir Putin targeting our elections and subverting our
democratic process, does he not catch at least a glimpse of
his own reflection?
What he and the rest of the Obama gang
did has inflicted more damage on the
integrity of our electoral process than
anything the Russians have done.
 CNN Reporter Admits: We Report From
Progressive 'Arc Of History' As Defined By Obama, Hillary
By Tim Graham
May 27, 2017 | 11:02 AM EDT
Soopermexican at The Right Scoop caught an amazing
admission in the midnight hour on Friday morning, as
CNN was beginning to mourn another Democratic loss in a
special election for the House of Representatives. Media
reporter Dylan Byers lamented that voters in Montana
weren't even really paying attention to their incessant
coverage of GOP candidate Greg Gianforte's violent
treatment of Ben Jacobs, a reporter for the leftist British
newspaper The Guardian, on the night before the election.
DYLAN BYERS: There’s this conversation
that’s happening among people following
the news industry, which is how can we
bridge the sort of gap between all of those
conservatives who don’t trust the media,
and get them to start knowing that, you
know, we’re acting in good faith, with good
intentions? Maybe you can’t, because
they’re not even listening. From the
second, it’s not as though they’re reading
the article and considering it, or listening
the audio and considering it. They’re just
not paying attention to it, because they
don’t trust us.
And this, by the way, you look at the tapes of Trump there.
Two things have happened. One, over the course of several
decades,
the conservatives have done a masterful
job at capitalizing [on] the waning trust
in media and using it to their advantage.
.
479
But a second thing has happened, too, which is, on
occasion, more than the media would like to admit, we
have not told the story of conservative Americans,
disenfranchised Americans, who believe that they are
losing their country.
The story we have largely been telling is
a story that is more or less in step with
the arc of history as defined by Barack
Obama and Hillary Clinton. It does not
mean we favor them to win.
It just means that sort of vision of a progressive future, a
global future, and that is not one that resonates with so
many conservative American voters.
And so there is this chasm, and no one exploited as well as
Donald Trump did, and no one made it as violent and
aggressive and sinister as Donald Trump did, and that laid
the foundation for the sorts of incidents that happened saw
last night.
Soopermexican writes:
"I mean you have to hand it to him that he
at least admits most reporters are stuck
telling the story of the progressive future as
envisioned by Obama and Hillary – that is
an insight that most in the media seem
physiologically incapable of making."
Except Byers is half-admitting it, that they tilt ever so
slightly toward their "arc of history" bias, but it doesn't
mean they favor Democrats. That they tilt away from
"telling the story" of conservative Americans, when in
reality they demonize conservative Americans with all the
"isms" and "phobias" you can list. And worst of all, Byers
says conservatives have "capitalized on waning trust" of
the liberal media, instead of admitting that conservatives
have exposed the liberal media, reported on and captured
the liberal media inside their bubble.
 Report: Sean Hannity To Be Fired
By Fox News Over Seth Rich Murder Coverage
The Purging Of Anyone Who Questions The Seth Rich Murder Continues
By Alex Thomas -
05.27.2017 @11:20 PM EDT
(INTELLIHUB) — Over the last several weeks we have
seen a massive corporate media operation targeting anyone
who dares to cover the possible connection between
hacked DNC emails, Wikileaks, and the murder of Seth
Rich.
The media, with help from leftist groups like Media
Matters, has gone into overdrive attacking any news outlet
or reporter that even considers the possibility that Rich was
murdered because he was the person who gave the emails
to Wikileaks in the first place.
Now, one of the more prominent voices who have
questioned the official story may soon pay for it with his
job.
According to a report by independent journalist Joe
Biggs, a source close to Hannity has revealed that the
popular Fox News host will be fired sometime next week
as a result of his coverage of the Seth Rich conspiracy.
480
“I had a conversation with a source close to
Hannity who showed me an internal email
at fox where Adam Housley spoke to Sean
and he said he believes he will be fired
next week sometime by Fox News for his
coverage of the Seth Rich murder,”
reported Biggs.
The report also claims that a source within the FBI may
soon provide documents that prove that Rich was indeed in
direct contact with Wikileaks.
If Hannity is fired it would prove once again that the entire
establishment is unbelievably scared about the real details
surrounding the horrific death of Rich and essentially
wants the entire story squashed for good.
Stay tuned as Intellihub will continue to cover the Seth
Rich murder story regardless of any threats or attacks by
the deep state shills throughout the media.
 WSJ’s Strassel Destroys Stacked
Anti-Trump Panel on ‘Meet the Press’ With Facts
By Nicholas Fondacaro
May 28, 2017 | 3:13 PM EDT

The liberal network shows were all busy Sunday morning

pushing accusations and speculation about President
Trump and his adviser Jared Kushner. Their discussion
was driven by more anonymous sources telling The
Washington Post that Kushner tried to set up a
backchannel discussion between Trump and the Russians
to talk about Syria. CNN even accused the action of being
“treasonous.” The hysteria was also present on NBC’s
Meet the Press, but theirs was shattered by The Wall Street
Journal’s Kimberley Strassel after she introduced facts to
the discussion.
Reid then leaned on more anonymously sourced claims
and raised questions about Kushner trying to negotiate
business deals with the Russians for Trump. But Strassel
deflated Reid’s enthusiasm, noting that
“we don’t know the answers to any of those
questions because what we’re getting here
are half leaks and anonymously by
sources.”

“I think we are having a discussion that is

absolutely divorced from reality this week.
It is astonishing,”

she quipped as she reminded them of how then candidate

Obama (not President-elect Obama) set up a highly covert
back channel with the Iranians:

Let me set the scene for you: It’s 2008, we

are having an election and candidate
Obama, he’s not even president elect,
sends William Miller over to Iran to
establish a backchannel, and let the
Iranians know should he win the election
they will have friendlier terms. Okay? So
this is a private citizen going to foreign soil,
obviously in order to evade U.S.
intelligence monitoring and establishing a
backchannel with a sworn enemy of the
United States who was actively disrupting
our efforts in the military in the Middle East.
Joining Strassel on the panel was MSNBC’s loony Joy
Reid who’s normally wildly triggered by anything outside
of her worldview. She lived up to expectations and
completely dismissed Obama’s back channeling with the
radical Iranians.
“You have to follow the money, you have to
follow the meetings, the lies, the attempts
to derail this investigation,” loudly
exclaimed former conservative talk show
host turned token anti-Trump Republican,
Charlie Sykes.
He seemed to have conveniently forgotten how acting FBI
Director Andrew McCabe and former FBI Director James
Comey had previously testified to Congress that there had
been no attempts made to interfere with the investigation.
After Strassel had noted that perhaps the Trump transition
didn’t want Obama officials listening into those
conversations, Reid jumped to the defense of Obama’s
administration.

“In October, the collective judgment of the
17 intelligence agencies had been: Russia
had been taking active measures to
interfere with our elections. Quite a
difference. We don’t think that Iran was
doing that,” she argued.
481
“Are you telling me that the now elected
Trump administration did not trust John
Brennan that somehow these straight
arrow guys in our intelligence services
were going to now work to actively
 undermine, are they now seeing them as
some sort of dissidents,” she wondered.
Strassel again ripped Reid’s “these straight arrow guys”
argument to tatters with the facts, this time about the
unconstitutional actions of Obama’s NSA:
One of the most interesting pieces of news
that actually came out this week, was the
FISA court revelation that they said that the
Obama administration had been actively
engaged in abusing fourth amendment
protections by unmasking people’s
identities on a routine basis, which they did
not acknowledge to the court. And which
they said, brought up major, major
concerns. So maybe you wouldn’t trust that
team in fact.
This is the first time that story had made its way onto any
network news program. They and the liberal cable
channels seem to be having a total blackout since
Wednesday.
“Who said that? Who is the source of that
information,” demanded Reid frantically.
“The FISA court,” Strassel calmly
responded. Reid’s only reaction was to
blurt out the tired and untrue line that FISA
warrants were hard to get. Strassel called
Reid’s nonsense out, saying: “You are not
talking about what I just mentioned.”
Moderator Chuck Todd saved Reid some of the
embarrassment by cutting off discussion and going to a
commercial.
The showing by Strassel demonstrates how the liberal
media is constantly craving news stories that are damaging
to the Trump administration, no matter the facts behind
them. In their minds, Trump is guilty beyond doubt and
they’re itchy for a conviction despite the public evidence
or lack thereof.
Transcript below:
NBC
Meet the Press
May 28, 2017
11:10:00 AM Eastern
KIMBERLEY STRASSEL: I think we are having a discussion
that is absolutely divorced from reality this week. It is
astonishing. Let me set the scene for you:
It’s 2008, we are having an election and candidate Obama,
he’s not even president elect, sends William Miller over to
482
Iran to establish a backchannel, and let the Iranians know
should he win the election they will have friendlier terms.
Okay? So this is a private citizen going to foreign soil,
obviously in order to evade U.S. intelligence monitoring and
establishing a backchannel with a sworn enemy of the
United States who was actively disrupting our efforts in the
military in the Middle East.
So, is that bad judgment? Is that a bad thing that happened?
Backchannels are completely normal, they happen all the
time. Reagan did them, Obama did them, everyone did. So,
I am not quite sure why, supposedly having at least the
President is now elected setting up a backchannel with the
Russians, it is somehow out of bounds.
JOY REID: Well, here is one key difference. In October,
months before this latest meeting and it was 18 separate
contacts that we know of between the Trump Campaign and
Russia, our primary adversary in the world.
STRASSEL: And a major super power.
REID: In October, the collective judgment of the 17
intelligence agencies had been: Russia had been taking
active measures to interfere with our elections. Quite a
difference. We don’t think that Iran was doing that. So we
know that was happening in October. So in December, the
now President-Elect decides he's going to name Jim Mattis
his secretary of defense. But he doesn’t open a
backchannel, he sends his real estate developer son-in-law
supposedly-- or the real estate development son-in-law
decides to open this backchannel.
…
REID: Then, if it is a channel about opening up negotiations
in terms of something realistic-- in terms of something about
foreign policy. Why are they also back-channeling with a
bank? A Kremlin-connected Russian bank and why is the
Reuters report saying that part of the discussion was a
possibility of opening up opportunities for financing for
Trump-related – Trump-related—
STRASSEL: But we don’t know the answers to any of those
questions because what we’re getting here are half leaks
and anonymously by sources.
 [Crosstalk]
CHARLIE SYKES: You have to follow the money, you have
to follow the meetings, the lies,—
STRASSEL: And we don’t have any of that information.
SYKES: --the attempts to derail this investigation! Don't have
any of that information. And the reality here is Jared
Kushner and the Trump administrations apparently trusted
the Russians more than the intelligence community. Look,
how could this not be suspicious?
STRASSEL: Why would you trust—I’m sorry, by the way.
We can’t forget that the intelligence services and also the
Defense Department were being run by the Obama
administration. They had plenty of reasons not to want
administrations.
…
.
483
REID: In December, the election was over. In this country,
we have a continuity of government, we hand over peaceful
power from one party to another all the time and have done
so for more than 240 years. Are you telling me that the now
elected Trump administration did not trust John Brennan that
somehow these straight arrow guys in our intelligence
services were going to now work to actively undermine, are
they now seeing them as some sort of dissidents?
[Crosstalk] That has never happened in the history of the
United States.
STRASSEL: One of the most interesting pieces of news
that actually came out this week, was the FISA court
revelation that they said that the Obama administration had
been actively engaged in abusing fourth amendment
protections by unmasking people’s identities on a routine
basis, which they did not acknowledge to the court. And
which they said, brought up major, major concerns. So
maybe you wouldn’t trust that team in fact.
REID: Who said that? Who is the source of that information?
STRASSEL: The FISA court.
REID Do you know how difficult it is to get a FISA warrant
against an American citizen—an American person.
STRASSEL: You are not talking about what I just
mentioned.
 What Did Trump Accomplish On His First Foreign Trip?
Some Firm Handshakes, Forced Smiles, And Awkward Sword Dances.
In Short, Nothing.
Eliot A. Cohen
May 28, 2017
President Donald Trump and First Lady Melania Trump arrive at the
airport.
Let’s hear it for the Rainbow Tour
It’s been an incredible success
We weren’t quite sure, we had a few doubts
Will Evita win through?
But the answer is yes
There you are, I told you so
Makes no difference where she goes
The whole world over just the same
Just listen to them call her name
And who would underestimate the actress now?
—Andrew Lloyd Webber and Tim Rice, Evita
Like Donald Trump, Juan and Eva Perón were populists.
They seem to have shared Trump’s understanding of the
purposes of philanthropy (for more, read up about the Eva
Perón Foundation) and the importance of fiscal probity.
And like Eva in 1947, Donald Trump has just completed a
glitzy overseas trip.
It had ample farcical episodes: the Saudi king, the dictator
of Egypt, and the president of the United States placing
their hands on a glowing orb that evoked for some a
lampoon of Lord of the Rings. The secretary of state
assuring us that no one overseas was paying attention to
Trump’s domestic troubles (palpably, indeed laughably,
untrue) even as his spokesman excluded the American
press from a briefing attended by the considerably more
docile reporters of the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The
national-security adviser insisting, “The entire trip is about
human rights, about all civilized people coming together to
fight the hatred”—an odd remark to make in a country that
484
lops the hands off thieves and the heads off apostates. The
commerce secretary, in one of his more witlessly thuggish
remarks, observing complacently about urban Riyadh:
“There was not a single hint of a protester anywhere there
during the whole time we were there.” And then there were
the video clips: Melania flicking away her husband’s
groping hand and the Leader of the Free World giving the
prime minister of little Montenegro a good hard shove.
It is proof of how low our standards are for judging
Trump’s competence that he got high marks for delivering
speeches more or less accurately, if woodenly, from
teleprompters and scripts. He did not declare war on Islam.
He spent only 15 minutes at Yad Vashem and left a semi-
literate note there, but at least said nothing egregiously
stupid. He was polite to the Pope. He said that the
Germans were “bad, very bad” on trade but admired
Egyptian president Sisi’s shoes. His motorcade was not
stormed by angry European leftists. But what did he
accomplish?
Normally, a president’s first overseas trips are to
America’s immediate neighbors Canada or Mexico. Maybe
to Europe, to engage with close allies like Britain or
Germany. A daring move might have been to meet with
similarly close partners like Australia and Japan; it might
have been more audacious yet to go to India, whose
burgeoning cooperation with the United States is the
biggest geopolitical fact in our favor in Asia. In any case,
the purpose is to cement the relationships that are our
greatest source of international strength.
Instead, some tin-horn Talleyrand in the president’s
entourage thought that this serial and unrepentant swindler,
fornicator, and prevaricator was the man to bring together
the three Abrahamic faiths by going to Riyadh, Jerusalem,
and the Vatican. This conceit must strain Christian charity,
let alone more austere Jewish and Muslim moralism.
It was foolish to begin the trip in Saudi Arabia, of all
places. It is an ally, to be sure, but was also the home of
roughly three-quarters of the 9/11 terrorists, and the source
(from private funding) of terrorist financing, and far worse,
of the teaching of Wahhabi doctrines inimical to the
moderate forms of Islam that once prevailed around the
world. Saudi and Gulf-funded religious schools, preachers,
textbooks, and travel are a critical part of the story of the
last several decades of violent jihad. The kingdom
represses non-Muslim faiths and women, and it tolerates
the barbarous treatment of foreign nationals. We forget
those facts at our peril.
While there Trump, in effect, put the United States
squarely in the camp of Arabs against their Persian
enemies. This also largely put the U.S. in the camp of
Sunni versus Shia Islam, which is profoundly unwise. Like
the Saudis, the Gulf kingdoms, too, are indeed our allies,
but it is not in America’s long term interest to take sides in
the bitter sectarian divide that is now afflicting Islam. Iran
is hostile, but in the long-term—although only after the
revolutionary regime collapses or is overthrown—Iran will
probably be more important to us than the Arab states, as it
was before Khomeini toppled the shah. A quiet set of
diplomatic missions would have sufficed.
The visit to Israel was merely silly. President Trump
declared that he had not mentioned the word “Israel” in his
now infamous session with Messrs. Lavrov and Kislyak in
which he blew Israeli secrets to the Russians. In so doing
he acted like the 8-year-old who, his hand caught in the jar
filled with chocolate-chip cookies, adamantly insists that
he has not filched a single oatmeal cookie. The Israelis
welcomed his protestations of friendship, shrugged their
shoulders at his chumminess with Bibi Netanyahu, quietly
resolved to be more judicious in the future about what
intelligence they share with the Americans, and after likely
heaving a sigh of relief when Trump’s plane took off, went
about celebrating the 50th anniversary of their 1967
victory.
What Trump certainly did not do, because it is impossible,
is advance a long-term Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement.
At the moment, no Palestinian leader will accept an
agreement that does not re-divide Jerusalem and provide
for a right of return, but will acknowledge the legitimacy
of the Jewish claim to the land of Israel. No Israeli leader
can accept the former or conclude an agreement without
the latter. Moreover, no sane Israeli, looking at the chaos
engulfing Syria, the ominous pressures building in Jordan,
and the active terrorist threat in Egypt can think that this is
the right moment to put Ben Gurion airport within easy
range of rockets and surface-to-air missiles from a new
Palestinian state.
The Pope and the President were cordial, which was nice.
Trump skipped the bits about common values with our
NATO allies, or gratitude for their invoking the mutual-
defense provisions of the North Atlantic Treaty on our
behalf in the wake of 9/11. He did however complain
.
485
about how unfair they were to American taxpayers and
then quite reasonably nagged them about defense
spending, as have his predecessors, and likely with as little
result. He punted on deciding whether or not to endorse the
Paris climate accords. Following this he attended a few
more meetings, made a few more churlish remarks, and
came home.
He inked some big arms deals in Saudi Arabia. In a very
Middle Eastern (or Peronist) way, $100 million will now
come sloshing in to one of Ivanka’s favorite charities. He
got firm handshakes, glum looks, forced smiles, and
awkward sword dances. In short, he got nothing serious.
Actually, less than nothing. He made it clear, yet again,
that his administration relegates issues of human rights and
decent governance to the rank of tertiary concerns. This, in
turn, is anything but realistic, because without necessary
reforms those Arab authoritarian regimes will blow up
sooner or later. Meanwhile, walking away from American
values in the Middle East and Europe also diminishes what
the United States is, has been, and should be.
During these spectacles, at home the scandal news came
not in drips but spattering gouts. We learn that a “person of
interest” close to the president is a focus of the Russia
investigation, and that this is apparently is none other his
son-in-law, Jared Kushner. Making matters worse,
Kushner was reported to have requested a communications
channel directly through the Russian Embassy, to avoid
U.S. government surveillance. We discover that the
president had improperly asked the director of the National
Security Agency and the director of National Intelligence
to clear his late campaign of Russian connections. His
former National-Security Adviser Michael Flynn decided
to take the 5th, which from a judicial point of view means
that one cannot infer his guilt, but from a common-sense
point of view makes it look highly probable.
Meanwhile, in non-scandal news, the courts again threw
out Trump’s Muslim travel ban, Republican politicians
vied for the most creative way of saying “dead on arrival”
about his budget, and the Congressional Budget Office
unhelpfully observed that Trumpcare would deprive some
23 million Americans of healthcare.
For Trump, like other presidents—Richard Nixon most
notably—foreign travel may have seemed an escape from
domestic troubles. But like Evita’s Rainbow Tour, such
junkets end sometime, yielding no result save to show us,
yet again, how little there is beneath the façade of this
paper mâché presidency.
 McCain: Russia Is A Bigger Threat Than ISIS;
Comey Investigated Clinton Over 'Fake News'
Source: iBankCoin.com
Published: May 29, 2017

Writing about McCain is like writing about Maxine
Waters. Both are disconnected from reality, crooked as the
day is long. Both have an agenda that runs counter to the
goals of ordinary American plebs. In this case, McCain
clearly has an agenda in the Ukraine. He panders to them
and uses their internal struggles vs Moscow to foment anti-
Russian rhetoric in the United States.
How many US marines have the Russians killed over the
past 10 years?
How many public beheadings have the Russians
undertaken and how much clay have they taken from Iraq
and Syria?
Even suggesting that Russia is a greater threat than ISIS is
absurd. But, this is John 'Fucking' McCain, so don't expect
normal to come out of his mouth.
document detailing an implicit deal between Clinton’s
campaign and the Justice Department regarding the inquiry
into her private email server, the paper said.
The document, obtained by the FBI, described how the
Attorney General at the time, Loretta Lynch, had privately
assured a Clinton campaign member that the email
investigation would not go too far, the Post reported.
Receipt of the document then allegedly helped influence
the July decision by then-FBI Director James Comey to
announce on his own, without the Justice Department’s
involvement, that the investigation into Clinton was
finished and that no charges against Clinton would be
forthcoming.
The public announcement set off an uproar on both sides
of the political spectrum.

Towards the end of this clip, McCain, incredulously, stated
that Comey investigated Hillary based upon 'fake news'
disseminated by the Russians. What part of Hillary's
unprotected email server and destruction of evidence fake
news? Moreover, how was the then acting AG Lynch
meeting with Bill Clinton on the tarmac for a secret 30
minute meeting fake news?
According to the Washington Post, the prime driver behind
Comey closing the Hillary investigation was because he
had received a fake document stating that AG Lynch told a
Clinton staffer that the investigation wouldn't go too far,
not to worry.
According to The Post, the FBI later determined that the
document was illegitimate. It may have been a fake sent to
confuse the bureau, people familiar with its contents told
the paper.
The Americans mentioned in a purported email exchange
in the document have since insisted that they don’t know
each other, don’t speak to one another and never had
conversations like those detailed in the document.
By August, the month after Comey’s public
announcement, the FBI had concluded that the document
was bogus, the Post said.

Former FBI Director James Comey's investigation into

Hillary Clinton was shaped by a bogus Russian document,
according to a new Washington Post report.

A phony Russian document influenced the way the FBI

handled the investigation into Hillary Clinton’s server,
according to The Washington Post.

During the middle of the 2016 presidential primary season,

the bureau received a purported Russian intelligence
.

486
 Truth About Seth Rich Murder May Expose The
Establishments ‘Russian Hacking’ Propaganda
May 29, 2017

On July 10, 2016, DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered in Some have speculated that this is the reason for his
Washington D.C. murder.

Was Rich the source who provided Wikileaks with the If true, what becomes of the mantra “Russia did it?”
DNC’s internal emails?

487
.

488
 Huge Piece Of The Seth Rich Murder Puzzle - Report: FBI
Memo Connects Seth Rich To Wikileaks After His Murder
But Before Wikileaks Released Leaked
DNC/Podesta Emails
By Susan Duclos - All News Pipeline
May 29, 2017
There always seemed to be something sinister about how
the MSM and law enforcement went out of their way to
avoid investigating how a DNC data analyst was murdered
just days before Wikileaks started publishing internal
emails leaked from the DNC and the Hillary Clinton
campaign, where any mention or logical questions as to
whether Rich was involved with the leaks were treated as
insane "conspiracy" theories.
It was called a robbery attempt yet nothing was taken from
the victim. Wikileaks offered a 20K reward for
information leading to an arrest in the Rich murder, the
very same day that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange
spoke publicly about the "risks" leakers take, right before
using Rich as an example of those risks.
The case being investigated by the DC police seemed to go
cold until a former homicide detective, Rod Wheeler, hired
as a private investigator to run a parallel investigation into
the murder went on Fox News and said that there were tens
of thousands of emails on Rich's computer that he had sent
to Wikileaks, immediately followed by a Washington Post
story that was meant to discredit any talk of a
Rich/Wikileaks connection by labeling it a "conspiracy,"
but instead blew up the Internet.
.
489
Fox News was forced to remove the story. Sean Hannity
who highlighted it, was forced to stop talking about it and
now there is talk of him either leaving Fox News or being
fired because of it. Seth Rich's cousin even tweeted that he
was killed because he knew something, just to be
reprimanded publicly by another member of the family,
then deleting his tweeted assertion, but screen shots were
captured before it could be disappeared.
A HUGE PUZZLE PIECE HAS JUST BEEN
PUBLISHED - IT IS A SMOKING GUN
One of the conflicting pieces of information was that the
FBI somehow had some type of part in the investigation,
specifically in finding files on Rich's computer that
directly connected him to being the source of the DNC
leaks to Wikileaks, yet the media reported the FBI was not
investigating the case.
Well, Joe Biggs, over at Borerland Alternative Media just
solved that conflict after obtaining heavily redacted FBI
memo, where the majority of it is blacked out but the
portions that can be seen clearly show the date, July 15th,
just five days after Richs murder, and just days before
Wikileaks started releasing the leaked emails. The memo
also references Wikileaks, the DNC, "src" laptop, (the
victims name was Seth Conrad Rich= SCR) as well as the
letters "set" with three spaces blacked out (redacted) then
"ich."
According to Biggs, it is true the FBI was not investigating
Rich's murder at that time, but the FBI was called in by the
DC police to unlock the lap top and obtained the
information held on it for the DC police, which in turn
generated a technician's memo regarding the work done.
490
Via Biggs:
At the bottom right it has code that can be
used to look up the official FBI memo
SCRDC-408
What that code means is name of person
being looked into. “SCR” Seth Conrad
Rich. Location “DC” with “408” documents.
Any FBI Memo, if it’s a target of an
investigation will show a code that can be
used by journalists to request a FOIA. So
FOIA experts can use that code and obtain
a less redacted version.
On July 15, the date on the FBI memo, Wikileaks had not
started releasing the DNC emails yet, emails which it is
prudent to mention, resulted in former DNC chair Debbie
Wasserman-Schultz being forced to step down from her
DNC position.
Related: Seth Rich Timeline Reveals Questions That
Haven't been Annswered
WHAT IS ON THE LAPTOP WASERMAN-
SCHULTZ WANTS BACK SO BADLY
Which brings us to another recent revelation, where
Schultz was captured on camera threatening the DC police
Chief for his refusal to return a "laptop" that was in police
custody because it was part of an ongoing investigation.
According to "official" reports the laptop in question is
assumed to be part of an investigation into a criminal case
against a Pakistani staffer suspected of massive
cybersecurity breaches involving funneling sensitive
congressional data offsite, as reported by The Daily Caller.
After listening to the exchange between Wasserman-
Schultz and the DC Police Chief though, there is no
specific mention of what the investigation regarding the
laptop is about.
.
491
The DC story indicates their assertion that the laptop in
question pertains to the investigation of the IT staffer
comes from a
"federal employee with knowledge of the
situation and who requested anonymity,"
telling the DC "that as House authorities
closed in on Imran Awan and his brothers,
a laptop used by Imran was hidden in an
unused crevice of the Rayburn House
Office Building. Wasserman Schultz’s office
is in Longworth House Office Building, a
separate structure.
The laptop was later found by Capitol
Police and seized because it was relevant
to the criminal investigation, the source
said."
It is interesting that the only connection between the
Wasserman-Schultz attempted intimidation of the DC
Police Chief and the "laptop" in question, and the IT staff
member's investigation, is an anonymous "federal
employee," when we consider just how hard the MSM and
law enforcement has been pushing any connection bewteen
Rich and Wikileaks as a "conspiracy."
We have to wonder at this point how
truthful any "federal employee" is going to
be with the media in this matter.
Could Wasserman-Schultz be so desperate in the video
above to have a "laptop" returned to her because it would
provide conclusively that Seth Rich was murdered because
he was the DNC leaker?
 White House Slams "False & Unverifiable"
CNN Claims Of Intercepted Russian Trump Threats
By Tyler Durden
May 30, 2017 11:11 AM
Seemingly dredging up old 'fake' news as new bombshells,
CNN reports that Russian government officials
reportedly talked about having possibly "derogatory"
information about President Trump and some of his top
aides during the 2016 presidential race.
As The Hill details, the officials' discussions were
intercepted by U.S. intelligence, CNN reported, citing two
former intelligence officials and a congressional source.
A source told CNN the information was
related to finances.
Russians appeared to think "they had the
ability to influence the administration
through the derogatory information," the
source said.
However, not only is The White House slamming the
suggestions...
"This is yet another round of false and
unverified claims made by anonymous
sources to smear the President," a White
House spokesman told CNN.
492
"The reality is, a review of the President's
income from the last ten years showed he
had virtually no financial ties at all. There
appears to be no limit to which the
President's political opponents will go to
perpetuate this false narrative, including
illegally leaking classified material."
The spokesman said the story plays "into
the hands of our adversaries and put
our country at risk."
But CNN itself admits this is all bluster...
...sources said the Russians claims
"could have been exaggerated or even
made up."
Sources declined to say specifically which aides were
being discussed.
"The Russians could be overstating
their belief to influence," said one of the
sources.
Still, when has anonymous sourcing of unverifiable claims
held the liberal media back from penning another
Democrat narrative-confirming article to spoon-feed to the
echo-chamber?
 DNC Lawsuit Exposes Corruption,
Data Breaches, Raises Questions About
Death Of Shawn Lucas
Elizabeth Vos
May 30, 2017
In June of last year, attorneys Jared Beck and Elizabeth
Beck of law firm Beck and Lee filed a class action law suit
against the DNC and former chairwomen Debbie
Wasserman Schultz. The suit claims that the DNC acted
against its charter when it showed demonstrable favoritism
towards Hillary Clinton in the Democratic primary, and
failed to secure the data of DNC donors. The suit could
have massive significance for the Democratic Party and
could have an even wider impact if the origin of the DNC
leaks are disclosed in the proceedings.
Attorney Elizabeth Beck described the lawsuit to US
Uncut:
“We think that the DNC has been running
absolutely out of control and completely
disregarding their responsibilities, rights,
and duties to the public.”
The DNC lawsuit has so far received very little press
coverage, despite revealing blatant corruption in the
Democratic establishment. The death of Shawn Lucas, a
process server who would have been a federal witness for
the Becks, added further fuel to speculations of corruption
surrounding the case. Jared Beck has also stated that Seth
Rich would have been a potential witness in their case.
The lawsuit has so far revealed an absolutely unabashed
level of corruption in the Democratic Party establishment.
Attorney Bruce Spiva stunningly argued in defense of the
DNC during the latest April 25th hearing on the case:
493
“There’s no right to not have your
candidate disadvantaged or have another
candidate advantaged. There’s no
contractual obligation here,” Spiva
further stated that the party had the right to
select its candidate in any way it chooses
and was “not bound by pledges of
fairness.”
Spiva’s defense has proved controversial, as it effectively
admits the DNC primary process was rigged, but argues
that this was not illegal. Jared Beck told US Uncut that he
believed their suit would prove successful based on Article
5, Section 4 of the DNC charter which explicitly requires
the chair of the DNC to remain impartial during the
primary.
The New York Times reported that the DNC leaks that
formed the impetus for the DNC lawsuit had suggested the
DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz of Florida, and
other officials “favored Hillary Clinton over Mr. Sanders.”
The DNC leaks have also raised serious questions
regarding DNC funding methods.
Debbie Wasserman Schultz is a defendant in the DNC lawsuit.
(AP Photo/Keith Srakocic)
Disobedient Media spoke with Jared Beck, who said that
the initial momentum for the case stemmed from the
rigging of the primary, but added:
“There’s another aspect to this case that
deals with why information leaked into the
public domain, and that’s also part of this
very intense mystery… that a lot of us are
very concerned about right now.”
Beck told Disobedient Media that in addition to the claims Adding further questions surrounding the lawsuit was the
based on donations made to the Bernie Sanders campaign, unexpected death of Shawn Lucas, who was filmed serving
and to the DNC, he also believed that there is a claim defendants in the suit last July. Police reports describe how
based on the DNC’s negligent failure to secure the data of Luca’s girlfriend found him unconcious on the bathroom
its donors. This may be an important claim in terms of floor in early August. Paramedics were unable to revive
establishing why that data was released into the public him. The Becks have indicated Shawn Lucas was to be a
(due to DNC negligence, in Beck’s view). Beck stated that Federal witness in the proceedings.
he thought his team might be able to get discovery on this
issue and specifically how it came to be that the data was
released. Beck said that he believed the topic to currently
be a very important issue right now given public interest
about who leaked the DNC documents.

Beck also discussed how the DNC lawsuit’s claims

regarding DNC negligence with donor data may be
especially important as it relates to the unsolved murder of
Seth Rich. Rich was a staffer for the DNC who died in an
unsolved murder last July. In August last year Fox News
reported that Wikileaks founder Julian Assange had
strongly hinted that Seth Rich was the source for the DNC
leaks. The Washington Post also reported that Wikileaks
Jared Beck told Disobedient Media that Lucas would have
had offered a reward for information leading to a
served as a witness in order to rebut the defendant’s
conviction in Seth Rich’s murder. Jared Beck
contention that process was incorrectly served. This would
has stated via twitter that Seth Rich would have been a
have included a sworn declaration from Lucas; Beck
potential witness in the DNC lawsuit.
stated that footage of Lucas serving process had
been introduced as evidence in the case in his stead, due to
the unexpected death.

The Becks have provided Disobedient Media with copies

If the Becks successfully gain the right to discovery on the
origin of the DNC documents, the mystery regarding
whether Seth Rich leaked the information might
potentially be resolved. If Rich did indeed leak the DNC
emails to Wikileaks, the ‘Russian hacking’ narrative would
be utterly negated.
The Becks based their lawsuit on Guccifer2.0’s release of
the information, which occurred in June last year, before
Wikileaks had announced they would be releasing DNC
documents. Guccifer2.0’s role in the DNC leaks was
discussed in a previous report by Disobedient Media.
There has been speculation that Guccifer2.0’s early release
of the information was intended to smear Wikileaks and
potentially Seth Rich as the leaker, by intentionally
fabricating evidence of ‘Russian hacking’ in the earliest
available version of the data.
.
of their communications with Washington D.C. police that
include discussion regarding the body cameras worn by
police as well as Shawn Lucas’ death report. Lucas’ cause
of death was described by the Office of Chief Medical
Examiner of Washington D.C as “Combined adverse
effects of fentanyl, cyclobenzaprine, and mitragynine,”
with the manner of death listed as “accident.” Fentanyl is a
strong opioid pain medication, sometimes used as part of
anaesthesia. Cyclobenzaprine is a muscle relaxant, while
mitradynine is a substance found in Kratom.
As the case continues to be a developing story,
Disobedient Media will provide further coverage of the
DNC lawsuit should new facts emerge.

494
 Trump's White House
Communications Director Has Resigned
By Tyler Durden
May 30, 2017 7:35 AM
Two days after Trump returned from his first international
trip, and confirming media reports of an imminent shale up
within the White House communication team (and away
from it) moments ago NBC and ABC reported that
Trump's communications director, Mike Dubke has
resigned and is leaving the White House.
Dubke, 47, had been tasked with helping to shape the
president's message, a process that Trump became
increasingly frustrated with in recent weeks. According to
Axios which first reported Dubke's departure, the veteran
Republican served for just three months before tendering
his resignation May 18. He offered to stay through the
overseas trip, and Trump accepted. He has been trying to
help restructure the press and communications operation,
and is parting on good terms, a senior administration
official said, which probably suggests he is not suspected
of leaking Trump confidential information.
Dubke is still coming into work, and his last day has not
yet been set. Previously, he had helped found Crossroads
Media, a Republican media services firm.
Dubke's resignation may serve as an opportunity to revamp
Trump's communications team, which has frequently come
under criticism during the early months of the president's
term.
The high profile departure is the start of a wave of changes
as the West Wing struggles to cope with burgeoning
scandals and a stalled agenda, according to Axios which
.
495
also adds that Trump is considering much broader changes,
including the possibility of bringing in David Urban, a
prominent GOP lobbyist who was a senior adviser on the
campaign, as chief of staff.
Friends say Urban, 53, who's credited with helping Trump
win his crucial upset in Pennsylvania, brings seasoned
political judgment and no personal agenda. He's a West
Point graduate, has a master's in government
administration from Penn, and a law degree from Temple.
Urban was on Trump's plane and in his green rooms during
frequent campaign stops in the Keystone State, and the two
became cellphone buddies.
Trump met yesterday with two top officials from his
campaign, Corey Lewandowski and David Bossie, about
joining the crisis-communications war room he's setting
up, perhaps as part of an outside-inside duet.
And a list of the likely changes to take place at the White
House over the coming days:
 Sean Spicer will stay as press secretary, but will do
fewer on-camera briefings (although he's on-camera
today at 2 p.m.)
 More briefings will be on-record but off-camera.
 Trump is likely to travel more — at least once a
week, some top officials hope.
 Trump may take a few questions from the press
when he's on the road, and will take more questions
when he's appearing at photo ops with foreign leaders.
 An official explained why Trump will do more of the
talking for the White House: "He says things exactly the
way he wants them to be said."
 Translation: When he says it, he can't second-guess
his staff.
 New Evidence Suggests Seth Rich Was DNC Leaker
Rich Had Access To Leaked DNC Emails - Part 1 Of In-Depth,
Investigative Report Into Rich's Murder
Jerome Corsi | Infowars.Com
May 30, 2017

“But clearly it wasn’t sufficient to keep a

determined hacker out. In a campaign
everything is always rushed, a crisis, so
until after there was a data breach, nobody
prioritized data security. I never spent
much of my time thinking about it.”

Starting in 2015, the DNC and the Clinton campaign

experienced a series of computer hacks that appear to have
originated from more than one attacker.

This article is Part 1 in a series of three articles In addition, Seth Rich’s breach of data security was a leak,
investigating the Seth Rich murder. Hillary’s campaign not an attack, in that Seth Rich reportedly stole emails off
was lax on cybersecurity, inviting cyberattacks, hacks and a DNC computer, whereas hackers were external agents
leaks. By conspiring with the DNC to make sure Sanders attacking the DNC computer from the outside.
did not have a chance of winning, Hillary invited backlash
from Sanders-supporters within the DNC. This series of
articles explores the evidence that Seth Rich, a young,
progressive operative hired to an IT position by the DNC,
leaked to WikiLeaks thousands of John Podesta’s emails.

The breakthrough in this series of articles is the attempt to

apply intelligence analytical techniques to sort out the
various known cybersecurity attacks on the Democrats
during the 2016 presidential campaign to determine the
rogue agent responsible for each separate known
cybersecurity attack.

WASHINGTON, D.C. – The investigation of the Seth
Rich murder begins with understanding the complex
network of progressive data managers that were
involved in the Democratic Party’s 2016 presidential
campaign.
Sanders hires the “Garbage Man”
In August 2015, Bernie Sanders’ campaign hired Zack
Exley, a George Soros-sponsored labor-union organizer
and computer hacker to run his nationwide ground game.

“There was a culture of really bad security,
weak security, among progressive data
practitioners in the 2016 Democratic
presidential campaign,” a trusted source
from within the Sanders campaign told
Infowars.com on deep background, under a
promise of anonymity.
“There was some security at the DNC
(Democratic National Committee) such that
you had to have passwords and credentials
to access certain data files,” he explained.
496
Exley was dubbed by George W. Bush as “the garbage
man” after hacking Bush’s 2000 presidential campaign
website, tracing back to a “political satire” campaign
website Exley had created in 1999, georgewbush.com, on
which Exley had posted a hacked photograph of Bush,
with a straw up his nose, inhaling white lines in an obvious
parody designed to suggest Bush had a history of cocaine
use.
Bush charged the mock website was produced by a
“garbage man,” when he filed a Federal Election
Commission complaint, threatening to sue Exley for using
photographs hacked from Bush’s official campaign
website.
After serving as the director of online communications and
online organizing for the unsuccessful 2004 presidential
campaign of Sens. John Kerry and John Edwards, Exley in
2015 co-founded the New Organizing Institute, NOI, as a
think tank to produce computer-savvy field operatives for
left-oriented Democratic Party political campaigns.
Serving with Exley on the advisory board of NOI was
Nathaniel G. Pearlman, another leftist political operative.
In 1997, Pearlman founded NGP Software Inc., a
computer-oriented company organized to provide political
software identifying Democratic voters.
Pearlman also served as the chief technology officer for
Hillary Clinton’s unsuccessful 2008 presidential campaign.
Clinton hired Pearlman and his then-fledgling NGP
Software in her first 1999 Senate election campaign to
clean up campaign data on donors that had contributed
some $30 million.
As chief technology officer for Clinton’s 2008 presidential
campaign, Pearlman supervised the campaign’s Internet
technology director, Bryan Pagliano.
As I first reported for WND in March 2016, Pagliano’s
résumé on Linkedin.com notes he worked for Clinton from
2006-2009.
In 2008, he
“headed the design and build of the
campaign headquarters’ data center and
orchestrated the continuous movement of
technical equipment and staff among
nationwide field officers in response to
ever-changing organizational needs.”
When Clinton’s 2008 presidential campaign disbanded,
Pagliano moved to working for her political action
committee.
In March 2009, Bryan Pagliano installed Hillary’s private
email server in the basement of the Clintons’ Chappaqua,
NY home; Bill and Hillary Clinton personally paid
Pagliano $5,000 for “computer services” prior to his
becoming a State Department employee, according to a
financial disclosure form Pagliano filed in April 2009.
The payment evidently was for establishing a private
server for the Clintons in their home in Chappaqua, New
York.
497
In May 2009, the State Department employed Pagliano as
a special adviser.
The record shows Pagliano lied to the State Department to
hide continued payments from the Clintons to maintain the
Chappaqua e-mail server.
Even after he became a State Department employee, the
Clintons continued paying Pagliano privately to maintain
the server for Hillary Clinton.
Pagliano, however, neglected to list the outside income in
the required financial disclosures he filed with the State
Department each year until concluding his full-time
employment in February 2013, coincident with Hillary
Clinton’s departure as secretary of state.
Enter NGP VAN
In 2010, NGP (National Geographical and Political
Software, supposedly not an acronym based on Pearlman’s
initials), the voter data company created in 1997 by
Pearlman in Washington, D.C., acquired with the Voice
Activation Network, VAN, created by Mark Sullivan in
2001, to form NGP VAN.
According to the NGP VAN website, NGP VAN is the
architect of the DNC “Vote Builder” database that
developed originally for the Obama presidential campaign
NGP, still today headquartered in Washington, D.C.,
operates exclusively to manager donor contributions.
VAN, headquartered today in Somerville, Massachusetts,
operates to manage voter databases.
More specifically, voter records are seeded into VAN from
various sources, Catalyst, a progressive voter database
company that maintains data on virtually every adult in the
United States, from the Democratic National Party, and
from each campaign using the VAN system.
It is important to understand the NGP VAN system during
the 2016 presidential campaign was installed in the DNC.
So, even though the Clinton and Sanders campaign each
had their own databases for donors and for prospective
voters, both campaigns had to access the DNC to use the
NGP VAN system to manage their donor and voter
databases.
In December 2015, software technology expert Will
Conway explained the DNC’s relationship to the NPG-
VAN technology as follows:
NGP VAN has a contract with the
Democratic National Committee in which
 their customers’ data is owned and
retained by the DNC. In exchange, the
DNC provides data to NGP VAN
customers  —  those using NGP VAN get
the data of every previous NGP VAN user
and the DNC, which basically covers every
Democrat to run for office in modern
history.
Conway noted there is also the following problem:
… campaigns don’t actually own the
relationships they build in the software. The
Democratic National Committee does. The
deal struck with the DNC ensures an
incredible competitive advantage for NGP
VAN: use our software, or be cut off from
all Democrats’ data. Moreover, if you break
our rules, we’ll kick you off the platform and
cut you off from your own data.
Also note, the private email server Pagliano established for
Clinton at the State Department involved email technology
that was separate and distinct from the NGP VAN
technology that both the Clinton and Sanders campaigns
used to manage their donor and voter databases.
Ultimately, though the course of the 2016 campaign,
Hillary’s personal email server was hacked, the NGP VAN
system was hacked, the DNC was hacked, the Sanders
campaign was hacked, and the Clinton campaign was
hacked.
Seth Rich was reportedly a leaker, not a hacker, and his
sole offense was to steal and leak documents out of the
Clinton campaign.
As we shall see in the second article in this series,
identifying and distinguishing each hacking incident that
plagued the Democrats during the 2016 presidential
campaign is critical in unraveling the mystery of Seth
Rich’s murder.
The Democrats could have avoided all the hacking
problems in 2016 had the progressives managing
Democratic data been more diligent about cybersecurity
issues.
But the Democrats could not prevent leaks from
employees from within the DNC and the Clinton campaign
who became disaffected with Hillary Clinton.
The leaks that plagued the DNC and Hillary’s campaign
stemmed from internal conflicts of interest.
These conflicts developed when the Sanders campaign
(and Sanders loyalists working in the DNC and even
498
within Hillary’s campaign) realized the DNC under Debbie
Wasserman Schultz was implementing a plan developed in
conjunction with Clinton campaign top operatives to steal
the Democratic Party nomination from Sanders by rigging
the primary contests and subsequent delegate count in
Clinton’s favor.
DNC hires Seth Rich
In March 2012, Rich came to Washington from his
hometown Omaha, Nebraska, to work as a Research Data
Associate for the Greenberg Quinlan, Rosner, a
Democratic Party political operative organization that
posed as an opinion research and public relations firm.
The background for Rich’s hire involved a meeting
arranged by Democratic Party operative Amy Dacey
(subsequently CEO of the DNC from January 2014 until
August 2016), attended by John Podesta and Progressive
Insurance billionaire Peter Lewis, on Sept. 27, 2007, in
New York City at the Fifth Avenue offices of the Soros
Fund Management, followed by dinner at the Fifth Avenue
home of George Soros.
The purpose of the meeting was to develop a new voter
mobilization contact methodology for the DNC – a
purpose which ultimately became Seth Rich’s job at the
DNC when he was hired there in June 2014 as the DNC’s
Voter Expansion Data Director, where his job was to adapt
the “Voter Builder” component of VAN such that a
prospective voter could print out a map of their nearest
polling location.
While reporting for WND, I investigated Greenberg,
Quinlan, Rosner in 2010.
Here is what I found:
1. Emanuel lived for five years rent-free in an apartment
owned by Rep. Rosa DeLauro, D-Conn., and her
husband, Stanley Greenberg, whose consulting firm
was a prime architect in BP’s efforts to recast itself as a
“green” corporation and recipient of hundreds of
thousands of dollars awarded through a committee
chaired by Emanuel.
 2. 
The Greenberg Quinlan Rosner (GQR) consulting
“helped BP plan and evaluate its successful re-
branding campaign, focusing the company’s branding
on energy solutions, including the development of solar
and other renewable energy sources,” according to a
webpage that has since been removed from the GQR
website.
3. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner’s research also contributed
to a $200 million advertising campaign in which British
Petroleum attempted to shorten its name to “BP” and
redesign its corporate insignia to emphasize a “Beyond
Petroleum” theme.
4. Critics have characterized the BP advertising campaign
prompted by Greenberg Quinlan Rosner research as
“greenwashing,” a process in which corporations
disingenuously portray their efforts as fitting into a
politically correct, “green,” environment-oriented
sensitivity to alternative energy.
5. Greenberg Quinlan Rosner is also tied heavily to the
Democratic Party, as it created a sister political
consulting company named “GCS,” an acronym based
on the last names of the principals – Stanley
Greenberg of GQR, James Carville, the long-term
adviser of Bill Clinton, and Bob Schrum, the campaign
manager for Sen. John Kerry’s unsuccessful 2004
presidential campaign.
Emanuel served as chairman of the Democratic
Congressional Campaign Committee, which gave
Greenberg polling contracts worth $239,996 in 2006 and
$317,775 in 2008.
In 2011, GQR was hired by Kenyan Prime Minister Raila
Odinga, a self-proclaimed communist who had
accompanied then Sen. Barack and Michelle Obama in
their 2006 tour of Kenya, setting the stage for Obama’s
2008 presidential run.
Odinga hired GQR to assist him in a planned second
attempt to win the presidency in Kenya, after Obama had
assisted him become Kenyan prime minister in a complex
power-sharing agreement Obama negotiated in 2008, after
Odinga disputed the results of a presidential election he
narrowly lost.
In 2013, while Rich was working for GQR, the firm’s
research was central to creating a strategy that Democratic
candidate Terry McAuliffe implemented to beat GOP
gubernatorial challenger Ken Cuccinelli.
McAuliffe championed “women’s rights” issues to appeal
to unmarried women voters by running a series of
controversial television ads designed to frame Cuccinelli
as a right-wing zealot on contraception and abortion issues.
GQR’s research showing a Democrat running for election
could beat a generic Republican candidate by winning
two-thirds of the votes cast by unmarried women, provided
499
the Democrat could brand the GOP opponent exactly as
McAuliffe cast Cuccinelli during the Virginia 2013
gubernatorial contest – a prediction that turned out right as
McAuliffe won the votes of unmarried women by 67
percent to 25 percent for Cuccinelli, while Cuccinelli beat
McAuliffe among married women by a much narrower
margin, 51 percent to 42 percent.
Brian Pagliano and Seth Rich: A case study in loyalty
Seth Rich shared much with Brian Pagliano – with both
majoring in political science in college, neither were IT
specialists – with Seth Rich graduating with a B.A. in
political science from Creighton University in Omaha,
Nebraska, in 2011.
Like Pagliano, Rich was committed to progressive
Democratic Party politics, as evidenced by Pagliano
joining Pearlman, the father of NGP VAN software used
exclusively in Democratic Party election campaigns, and
by Seth Rich coming to Washington to work for GQR, an
opinions research and public relations firm that works
exclusively for Democrats, when it comes to election
campaigns.
But while Pagliano was firmly committed to Hillary
Clinton, Seth Rich joined the DNC, an organization he
may have presumed (or wanted to make sure) would be
equally fair to all Democratic Party presidential
candidates, treating Bernie Sanders as fairly as Hillary
Clinton, despite Hillary being the party’s presumed
nominee from the moment the 2016 presidential campaign
began.
Perhaps the most important point of comparison is that
both Brian Pagliano and Seth Rich were implicated in
breaches of email systems – for Pagliano, emails on
Hillary’s private email server were hacked by the first
Guccifer, the Romanian hacker currently in U.S. prison;
for Rich, emails of Podesta and several other key members
of Hillary Clinton’s 2016 presidential campaign were
leaked, ultimately to be published on WikiLeaks.
Neither Pagliano nor Rich were involved in the hacking of
Hillary Clinton voter data that demanded a breach of the
VAN system – Pagliano never had access to the NGP
VAN computer system, and Rich worked only indirectly
with VAN, given that his job at the DNC was not IT
manager, but a subordinate responsible to develop a way
the Vote Builder system could print out poling locations
for prospective Democratic voters.
The point is this: In 2016, Hillary Clinton’s cybersecurity
was so notoriously lax that many hackers – both known
and not yet disclosed – freely hacked Hillary Clinton’s
private email server, the DNC email server, as well as the
campaign files and voter databases of the DNC and its
various operations during the campaign.
 The first sub-point is this: Hillary
Clinton and the DNC left themselves
open to leaks from within once Debbie
Wasserman-Schultz and Donna Bazile at
the DNC decided to throw the primary
elections for Hillary – all email leaks in
2016 involved Hillary Clinton, not Bernie
Sanders.
The second sub-point is this: No
information of any importance was ever
hacked or leaked out of the Bernie
Sanders campaign – certainly no emails,
no campaign files, and no voter data.
As we shall see in the second article in this series, the only
way to distinguish who was hacking into Hillary’s emails,
Hillary’s campaign files, and Hillary’s voter databases, or
who was leaking from within Hillary’s campaign and/or
from within the DNC can only be distinguished by the
content of what they stole and made public, plus what we
can conclude from what we know of the various
methodologies the hackers/leakers utilized to get their
hands on the goods.
Seth Rich remained loyal to his progressive ideals, finding
himself at growing odds with Clinton as it became clear to
him the DNC had rigged the primaries so Bernie Sanders
would lose.
Editor’s Note: Imran Awan, Debbie
Wasserman Schultz’s IT staffer who is
under investigation for data breaches,
had easy access to internal DNC emails.
Schultz was caught on tape threatening
the Chief of Capitol Police to return one
of Awan’s laptops secured as evidence.
Awan recently fled to Pakistan. If he had
easy access, Rich would’ve as well, and
Rich, a progressive idealist, had more
motive to leak DNC emails, as the article
above reveals.

Pagliano remained loyal to Hillary, refusing to provide

evidence against her, even after he was granted immunity
by the FBI.

500
 Seth Rich Mystery: DNC Leaks
Came From Inside, Not Russian Hackers
Evidence Reveals Emails Leaks An Inside Job Not Due To Hacking
Jerome Corsi | Infowars.Com
May 30, 2017

To sort this out, we begin with the first hack attack on

Clinton emails, the hack that began with Guccifer in
March 2013.

March 2013: Guccifer, the first hacker

In March 2013, a Romanian hacker Marcel Lazar, who

This article is Part 2 in a series of three articles
investigating the Seth Rich murder. Read Part 1 HERE.
Part 1 developed the following: Hillary’s campaign, lax on
cybersecurity and working with the DNC to make sure
Sanders did not have a chance of winning, invited multiple
attacks from both hackers on the outside and from leakers
on the inside.
Part 2 makes clear the multiple hacks and multiple leaks
that plagued Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign came
from multiple sources.
The breakthrough in this series of articles is the attempt to
apply intelligence analytical techniques to sort out the
various known cybersecurity attacks on the Democrats
during the 2016 presidential campaign to determine the
rogue agent responsible for each separate known
cybersecurity attack.
went by the username “Guccifer,” a combination of
“Gucci” and “Lucifer,” shocked the world by the
revelation Hillary Clinton had utilized a private email
server while secretary of state.
On March 15, 2013, the Smoking Gun broke the story,
disclosing that Guccifer had spent the past several months
“breaking into the e-mail accounts of family, friends, and
political allies of the Bush family,” only to “cross party
lines” and illegally access the AOL account of a former
senior White House advisor to former President Bill
Clinton, then 64-year-old Sidney Blumenthal, a longtime
confident of Hillary Clinton.
Guccifer entertained himself by reading the cache of
Blumenthal emails that went back to 2005, with emails
sent to “an array of Washington insiders, including
political operatives, journalists, and government officials.”

WASHINGTON, D.C. – Hillary’s 2016

presidential campaign was hit by so
many hack attacks and so many leaks,
the CSI problem is almost impossible to
decipher.

By election day, Hillary Clinton’s electronic campaign

began to resemble a corpse killed by multiple gunshot
wounds.
The pattern of wounds upon wounds evident in the corpse
were so combined and so confused, it is today hard to tell –
if not impossible – how precisely many shooters there
were or who fired the fatal round.
501
When he realized some of the emails between Blumenthal
and Hillary involved an email address Hillary used,
hdr22@clintonemail.com — causing Guccifer a “WOW”
moment when he realized the initials matched Clinton’s
maiden name, Hillary Diane Rodham – and the email
address “clintonemail.com” revealed the use of a private,
unsecured email server.
During an interview given in Romania in 2015, Guccifer
then in prison commented to a reporter that he accessed in
Hillary’s hacked emails memos that Clinton got as
secretary of state, with CIA briefings attached.
“I used to read her memos for six or seven
hours then I’d get up and do the gardening
in the yard,” Guccifer said.
Guccifer never published a trove of Clinton emails,
tending to be more malicious than politically motivated, as
demonstrated in March 2013, when he hacked Colin
Powell’s AOL email account and defaced Powell’s
Facebook page with an anti-Bush diatribe.
In June 2013, after Clinton had left office as secretary of
state, the private server was moved from the Clintons’
Chappaqua home to a data center in northern New Jersey,
where it was maintained by Platte River Networks in
Denver; in early 2014, Platte River Network staff uploads
Hillary’s emails to a Gmail account and then transfers
them over to a Platte River Network server.
That Hillary had used a private server at the State
Department was largely ignored until the New York Times
ran a front page article on March 2, 2015, reporting that
Clinton had turned over 55,000 pages of emails from her
personal server to comply with federal record-keeping
practices as required by the Federal Records Act.
In the period March 25-31, 2015, Platte River Staff
member Paul Combetta realized he forgot to wipe
Hillary’s email archive from the Platte River Network
server, as he had been advised to do by Hillary aide
Monica Hanley the previous December.
Now desperate, Combetta decided to use BleachBit
software to wipe Hillary’s emails from the Platte River
Network server, despite a subpoena Hillary received from
the House Select Committee on Benghazi on March 4,
2015, instructing Clinton to preserve and deliver all emails
from her personal servers.
The thousands of Hillary Clinton’s State Department
emails that have been made public have resulted not from
Guccifer’s hacking efforts in 2013, or from the private
email server Pagliano set up for Clinton in Chappaqua, or
from the Platte River Network server) to which Hillary’s
State Department-era emails were transferred.
All Hillary Clinton emails from her term as Secretary of
State that are public today have come either from Judicial
Watch FOIA requests, or from various subpoenas Clinton
was issued in Congressional investigations.
The Clinton emails that have been made public were
archived as they were being released on the Judicial Watch
website and on the U.S. Department of State website.
502
Guccifer was arrested in Romania on Jan. 22, 2014, and
convicted to four years in prison, where he remained until
he was extradited to the United States in March 2016 to
face U.S. federal criminal charges.
On Sept. 1, 2016, a U.S. district judge in Alexandria,
Virginia, sentenced Guccifer to four years in federal
prison, after he pleaded guilty to one count each of
aggravated identity theft and unauthorized access to a
protected computer.
What this timeline makes clear is that
the Podesta emails dating through May
25, 2015, published by WikiLeaks
starting in October 2016, could not
possibly have resulted from Guccifer’s
2013 hacking efforts, if only because
Guccifer/Marcel Lazar has been in
prison non-stop since he was arrested
in Romania in January 2014.
It should also be clear that the source of the Podesta emails
published by WikiLeaks in October 2016 could not have
resulted from someone hacking the Pagliano server.
The Pagliano server remained unplugged in storage in
New Jersey from June 2013 until the FBI seized it in
August 2015.
In late-March 2015, the Platte River Network servers were
scrubbed of all Hillary emails making it impossible for
Podesta emails dated in May 2015 to have been hacked
from that source.
The “Russian Hack” and Guccifer 2.0
On June 14, 2016, the Washington Post reported Russian
government hackers had penetrated the DNC computer
network, gaining access to the entire database of
opposition research on GOP candidates – an article that
cited unnamed “U.S. officials” who claimed the intrusion
into the DNC was one of several targeting “American
political organizations,” including the computer networks
of the Clinton and the Trump campaign “targeted by
Russian spies,” as well as computers of various GOP
PACs.
 “I completely rule out a possibility that
the(Russian) government or the
government bodies have been involved in
this,” Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin
spokesman told Reuters in Moscow, on the
same date.
The next day, June 15, 2016, cybersecurity firm
CrowdStrike, Inc. posted a notice on its website that two
separate Russian intelligence-affiliated adversaries began
hacking DNC computers in May 2016.
The CrowdStrike posting noted that on June 15, 2016, a
blog post to a WordPress site “authored by an individual
using the moniker Guccifer 2.0” claimed credit for
breaching the DNC.
“Whether or not this posting is part of a
Russian Intelligence disinformation
campaign, we are exploring the documents’
authenticity and origin,” CrowdStrike
commented.
“Regardless, these claims do nothing to
lessen our findings relating to the Russian
government’s involvement, portions of
which we have documented for the public
and the greater security community,”
CrowdStrike concluded.
In the June 15, 2016 posting on WordPress, Guccifer 2.0
revealed he had advance warning of the CrowdStrike
conclusions ready to be posted the next day.
“Worldwide known cyber security company
CrowdStrike announced that the
Democratic National Committee (DNC)
servers had been hacked by ‘sophisticated’
hacker groups,” Guccifer 2.0 wrote under
the heading “DNC’s Servers Hacked by
Lone Hacker.”
Guccifer 2.0 bragged that hacking the DNC’s servers was
“easy, very easy.”
“Guccifer (Marcel Lazar) may have been
the first one who penetrated Hillary
Clinton’s and other Democrats’ mail
servers,” Guccifer 2.0 noted. “But he
certainly wasn’t the last. No wonder any
other hacker could easily get access to the
DNC’s servers.”
Then Guccifer 2.0 bragged:
“Shame on CrowdStrike: Do you think I’ve
been in the DNC’s networks for almost a
year and saved only 2 documents? Do you
503
really believe it? Here are just a few docs
from the many thousands I extracted when
hacking into the DNC’s networks.”
On June 15, 2016, Guccifer 2.0 published on WordPress
an opposition research report the DNC wrote on Donald
Trump, marked “Confidential,” and dated Dec. 19, 2015;
several pages of donor lists, suggesting Guccifer 2.0 may
have breached the NGP database; but no emails.
Guccifer 2.0 claimed he sent the main part of the hacked
documents, “thousands of files and mails,” to WikiLeaks,
bragging that WikiLeaks “will publish them soon.”
From June 15, 2015, through Oct. 18, 2016, Guccifer 2.0
published a series of documents, making it clear he had
extensive access to DNC internal memorandums and donor
lists.
But what was missing in the Guccifer
2.0 publication of DNC hacked
documents were emails, suggesting
Guccifer 2.0 had not penetrated the DNC
email server, or the private email
archives of John Podesta and other
Clinton campaign officials.
Also absent from the Guccifer 2.0 publications of DNC
hacked documents were any documents prepared by the
Clinton campaign.
The Guccifer 2.0 controversy flared again when the Wall
Street Journal published on May 25, 2017, published an
article claiming Guccifer 2.0 had sent Aaron Nevins, a
GOP Republican consultant in Florida, 2.5 gigabytes of
Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee (housed
in the same building with the DNC) documents, some of
which Nevins published on a blog HelloFLA.com that
Nevins ran using a pseudonym.
Nevins told the Wall Street Journal he set up a Dropbox
account
“so whoever was using the Guccifer 2.0
name could send large amounts of
material.”
This episode confirms that Guccifer 2.0 had hacked only
the DNC computers, the donor data in the VAN computer
servers in Massachusetts, and the data in the NPG
computer servers in Washington.
Guccifer 2.0 confirms this in a post to his WordPress site
posted on Jan. 12, 2017, in which Guccifer 2.0 wrote the
following:
 “I already explained at The Future of Cyber
Security Europe conference that took place
in London in last September, I had used a
different way to breach into the DNC
network. I found a vulnerability in the NGP
VAN software installed in the DNC system.”
Note also that Guccifer 2.0 is a different person than the
first Guccifer, Marcel Lazar, whose hacking capabilities
have been severely limited during his continuing
imprisonment that began with his arrest in Romania in
January 2014.
Give that the WikiLeaks publication of hacked documents
that began in October 2016 – the hacked document dump
the Clinton campaign, the FBI, and the U.S. intelligence
agencies want to blame on Russia – consists almost
entirely of emails from Podesta and others related to the
Clinton campaign and/or the Clinton Foundation, it is
extremely unlikely Guccifer 2.0 was the source, regardless
how many assertions U.S. intelligence makes that Guccifer
2.0 was a Russian agent – something Guccifer 2.0
continues to deny.
U.S. intelligence blames WikiLeaks on Russians
The CrowdStrike post dated June 15, 2016, explained their
experts had identified the “sophisticated adversaries”
attacking the DNC computers as “Cozy Bear” and “Fancy
Bear” – both identified by CrowdStrike as “Russian-
based.”
On Jan. 6, 2017, the office of the Director of National
Intelligence released a report entitled, “Background to
‘Assessing Russian Activities and Intentions in Recent
U.S. Elections’: The Analytic Process and Cyber Incident
Attribution.”
This report concluded “with high confidence” that Russian
military intelligence “used the Guccifer 2.0 persona” to
release the Podesta files to WikiLeaks, but the report also
admitted the identification of the origin of a cybersecurity
attack was “difficult” based only on “tradecraft” that relies
on circumstantial evidence at best, presuming a hacker
leaves a signature, such that cyberattacks like “Cozy Bear”
504
and “Fancy Bear” can be reliably be attributed to Russian
intelligence operatives.
On March 7, 2017, WikiLeaks released 8,761 documents
on the CIA’s “global covert hacking program” that
included documents from a project called “Umbrage”
proving the CIA could launch “false flag” cyberattacks and
make them look as if they originated from other countries,
such as Russia.
“The CIA’s Remote Devices Branch’s
UMBRAGE group collects and maintains a
substantial library of attack techniques
‘stolen’ from malware produced in other
states including the Russian Federation,”
WikiLeaks noted.
“When UMBRAGE and related projects the
CIA cannot only increase its total number
of attack types but also misdirect attribution
by leaving behind the ‘fingerprints’ of the
groups that the attack techniques were
stolen from,” WikiLeaks continued.
In December 2016, after Clinton had lost the election, John
Podesta said on NBC’s “Meet the Press” that the first time
he was contacted by the FBI was two days after Oct. 7,
2016, the date WikiLeaks started dropping his emails.
If the FBI had no reason to believe the
then-known hacks of Clinton’s private
email server and the DNC had also
breached Podesta’s email files until
after WikiLeaks began publishing
Podesta’s emails, this strongly
suggests the person who leaked
Podesta’s emails was not Guccifer,
Guccifer 2.0, “Cozy Bear,” or “Fancy
Bear,” but a separate and distinct
incident, likely carried off by someone
not previously identified.
Yet, to date, the U.S. intelligence agencies have insisted on
lumping together all hacks of the Democrats during the
2016 presidential, blaming the Russians for every hacking
incident, regardless of the content released by the hack or
the target data source known to have been hacked.
What seems likely is the FBI had no idea Podesta emails
had been hacked (or leaked) until WikiLeaks started
publishing them.
Yet, despite this intelligence failure, U.S. intelligence
agencies took their fallback position, concluding the
Russians must have hacked Podesta’s emails too.
On Dec. 30, 2016, after the presidential election was over,
then-President Obama took a step to implant the “Russian
interference” meme into the U.S. mainstream media, by
expelling 35 Russians from the United States and ordered
sweeping new sanctions as retaliation, stressing that U.S.
intelligence services believe Russia had ordered
cyberattacks on the DNC.
Interestingly, there was an earlier expulsion of Russian
diplomats during the 2016 presidential convention.
On July 8, 2016, the Obama administration expelled two
Russian diplomats from the United States supposedly in
retaliation for a Russian police guard who had tackled a
U.S. diplomat outside the American Embassy in Moscow
in a scuffle that was captured on security footage and
broadcast on Russian television.
Anonymous, in a video released May 24, 2015, provides
an alternative explanation why these two diplomats were
expelled.
Anonymous claimed Mikhail Fradkov, the head of
Russia’s SVR intelligence agency from Oct. 6, 2006 to
Oct. 5, 2016, authorized an emergency contact with the
U.S. State Department on July 7, 2016, to reveal the details
of Seth Rich’s breach of Podesta’s emails and the
subsequent danger to his life, only to find themselves
expelled immediately.
Fox News host Sean Hannity got suspended over the
Memorial Day holiday following a series of broadcasts
beginning March 12, 2017, in which Hannity appeared to
be advancing what is being termed the “WikiLeaks’
conspiracy theory.”
This theory suggests U.S. intelligence agencies hacked
Hillary’s email server, the DNC, the VGP-VAN database,
and Podesta’s emails, in a “false flag” that used tradecraft
leaving cyberattack “fingerprints” that traced back to the
Russians.
On the broadcast March 12, 2017, two former U.S.
intelligence operatives, Lt. Col. Tony Shaffer and former
NSA official William Binney, told Hannity that retired
NSA intelligence officers were responsible for hacking the
DNC.
“Sean, we did it [hack the DNC], not me,
but our guys—former members of NSA,
retired intelligence officers used these tools
to break in there and get the information
out. That’s what the Democrats don’t want
to talk about because it doesn’t fit their
narrative,” Shaffer explained.
The U.S. Intelligence agencies have assumed the Russian
government hacked the Democrats because Vladimir Putin
wanted Donald Trump to win.
505
But there is well-documented proof the Russians had been
paying Hillary Clinton through the Clinton Foundation for
her decision as secretary of state to support the Frank
Giustra ploy that resulted in Russia getting control of 20
percent of the uranium in the United States, while Russia
was using a shell company in the Netherlands to pay
Podesta in stock for supporting the “technology transfer”
to Russia the Obama administration had authorized under
Secretary Clinton’s “reset” initiative.
How would Russia know in advance that hacking Hillary,
Podesta, and the DNC would turn up sufficiently damaging
documentary evidence to throw the election for Trump?
Why would Putin want Trump to be
president, when the Russians had
invested millions during the Obama
administration to establish their
blackmail potential to control the
actions of both Clinton and Podesta,
starting the minute Hillary took the oath
of office as president of the United
States?
Despite all the U.S. intelligence and
Democratic Party hoopla, the fact
remains there is no irrefutable proof the
Russians hacked Hillary Clinton or the
DNC during the 2016 presidential
campaign, nor is there any proof the
Russians accessed John Podesta’s
email account.
So far, the “Russian Collusion” meme implicating Trump
in a supposed Russian hacking scheme is nothing more
than a lame Clinton excuse for losing.
In the final analysis, if Hillary and the DNC had not
conspired to steal the nomination from Sanders, and if
Podesta’s emails were not so filled with dark brooding and
scheming (often aimed at HRC herself), it would not have
mattered their documents were hacked, leaked, and
published.
The dark, dirty truth is that Hillary Clinton could not
sustain the revelation to the American people of the truth
Podesta and the DNC spoke in private, almost every day,
as they schemed to put Hillary in the White House.
Hillary even today refuses to acknowledge the problems
that continue to dog her White House ambitions, ranging
from Benghazi, to the Clinton Foundation, to her handling
of classified material transmitted over her private email
server, to name just a few.
 Evidence Backs Claim
Pro-Bernie Seth Rich Was DNC Leaker
Wikileaks Emails An Inside Job To Get Back At Hillary,
Evidence Suggests
Jerome Corsi | Infowars.Com
May 30, 2017
This article is Part 3 in a series of three articles
investigating the Seth Rich murder.
Part 1 developed the following: Hillary’s campaign, lax on
cybersecurity and working with the DNC to make sure
Sanders did not have a chance of winning invited multiple
attacks from both hackers on the outside and from leakers
on the inside.
Part 2 makes clear the multiple hacks and multiple leaks
that plagued Hillary’s 2016 presidential campaign came
from multiple sources.
This Part 3 makes the case that Seth Rich was the likely
source of both the WikiLeaks DNC emails published
starting on July 22, 2016, and of the “Podesta File” of
emails that WikiLeaks began publishing on Oct. 7, 2016.
The breakthrough in this series of articles is the attempt to
apply intelligence analytical techniques to sort out the
various known cybersecurity attacks on the Democrats
during the 2016 presidential campaign to determine the
rogue agent responsible for each separate known
cybersecurity attack.
WASHINGTON, D.C. – The purpose of
this third and last article in the three-
part series is to determine if Seth Rich
is a likely suspect for having leaked to
WikiLeaks the DNC emails that
WikiLeaks emails published starting on
July 22, 2016, and of the “Podesta File”
506
of emails that WikiLeaks began
publishing on Oct. 7, 2016.
The first hurdle is to determine if Seth Rich had a motive
to harm Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. The
precipitating incident establishing Seth Rich’s motive
demands an investigation of the December 2015 incident
in which four IT specialists in Sanders’ campaign were
proven to have breached the DNC voter database to
transfer Clinton campaign proprietary voter data to their
Sanders’ campaign computers.
Seth Rich: Motive
On Wednesday, Dec. 16, 2015, NGP VAN, the software
system operated by the DNC that provided donor data
(NGP based in Washington) and voter data (VAN based in
Somerville, Massachusetts) released a software
modification that contained a bug that dropped a firewall,
opening a window of approximately 40 minutes, during
which IT specialists in Bernie Sanders’ campaign were
allowed to view and copy voter data proprietary
from Hillary Clinton’s campaign.
A DNC email released by WikiLeaks made clear Amy
Dacey, Communications Director for the Clinton
Campaign, had concluded the data breach was serious.
“As a result of this analysis, NGP VAN
found that campaign staff on the Sanders
campaign, including the campaign’s
national data director, had accessed
proprietary information about which voters
were being targeted by the Clinton
campaign – and in so doing violated their
agreements with the DNC,” Dacey found.
“These staffers [in the Sanders campaign]
then saved this information in their
personal folders on the system, and over
the course of the next day, we learned that
at least one staffer appeared to have
generated reports and exported them from
the system,” Dacey charged.
The New York Times in reporting on the data breach
quoted an unnamed Clinton staffer who compared the data
breach to “the opposing general getting your battle plans,”
in that the DNC through the VAN system provides all
Democratic presidential campaigns with Democratic
voters’ names, phone numbers, and addresses, along with
managing proprietary data each Democratic campaign
maintains in the VAN system protected by firewalls from
view by competing Democratic campaigns.
Because of this incident, there is evidence to suggest Seth
Rich, a Bernie supporter, felt Amy Dacey, his boss on the
voter mobilization campaign, used the incident to
embarrass the Sanders campaign.
Bernie supporters HATED Hillary during the 2016
campaign:

On Dec. 18, 2015, a Twitter user “Iowa Starting Line”

posted the log-book data from NPG VAN documenting by
name four Sanders campaign staffers, including Sanders’
National Data Director Josh Uretsky, who accessed
various Clinton campaign data files that were saved by the
Sanders campaign staffers into their own computers,
appearing to steal the data from the Clinton campaign.

The log book entries show the files the Sanders campaign
took from Clinton’s proprietary VAN voter data was
potentially useful tactical information, with lifted files
Infowars.com has established by interviews with various
identified, for instance, “Turnout 60+” from folder
DNC and Sanders campaign staff that Seth Rich felt
“Ranged Targets,” and “Turnout 40-60” and “Not
Dacey, a staunch Clinton loyalist and spirited Sanders
Sanders,” both also from folder “Ranged Targets.”
critic, had overreacted, blaming Uretsky for purloined data
instead of accepting responsibility that a glitch in a NGP
The log book entries showed four Sanders IT specialists VAN patch had opened a firewall that allowed the Sanders
spent two hours in the data without notifying NPG VAN of campaign to view the proprietary Clinton voter database.
the firewall being down, calling up information from about
a dozen states, downloading data that included a “turnout”
In the DNC organizational chart, Seth Rich reported to
variable showing on a scale of 1 to 100 how likely a
Technology Director Andrew Brown, the person Sanders
person is to vote, with the goal of establishing a high
identified as having recommended he hire Uretsky as the
“Priority” score to someone the campaign should make an
national data director for the Sanders campaign.
effort to contact and persuade.
In the aftermath of the incident, Sanders went so far as to
David Atkins, a campaign consultant and county official in
charge the breach of the Clinton voter data may have been
the California Democratic Party, told Politfact.com the
a “false flag” attack staged by the DNC and carried off by
information would give the Sanders campaign a view of
a “plant,” namely Uretsky, who Sanders hired on the
how the Clinton campaign was targeting voters, as well as
recommendation of Andrew Brown, the DNC’s National
a view of polling data indicating how well Clinton was
Data Director, and Bryan Whitaker, the former COO of
doing in various states.
NGP VAN.

When the breach became known, a huge controversy

developed in which the DNC cut off Sanders from DNC
proprietary data in the NPG VAN system, forcing Sanders
to sue the DNC.
The matter was resolved acrimoniously but quickly, in a
midnight settlement on Friday, Dec. 18, 2015, that allowed
Sanders to regain access to VAN, both for the shared DNC
historical Democratic voters.
“I mean here we are being attacked for the
behavior of an individual [Uretsky], which
we ultimately fired,” Sanders said. “We
agree he acted improperly, but it’s just
amazing to me that this … individual that
actually caused this trouble in our
campaign was recommended by these
guys. It’s not as if we conjured this guy
Josh from thin air.”

On Dec. 18, 2015, as the settlement was being reached,
Sanders fired Uretsky, who maintains even today his
intervention into the Clinton campaign proprietary
database was aimed only at doing his job, being diligent to
document the seriousness of the breach, so NPG VAN
could make sure they never again installed a patch that
compromised a firewall.
507
Sanders insisted his campaign had not hacked the DNC’s
NGP VAN system, but had taken advantage of a computer
glitch, yet the result was the Sanders campaign was being
attacked by both the DNC and by NGP VAN.
But as the incident resolved, Sanders loyalists seethed that
NGP VAN provided the Clinton campaign audit of the
data breach that the Clinton team made sure was released
to the media, while the Sanders’ team was kept in the dark.
“It’s easy to speculate how Seth Rich could
have become disgruntled after witnessing
the DNC attempt to sabotage the Sanders
campaign. As such, it’s not a stretch to
imagine that Rich – a guy with access to
sensitive emails and technical skills, did in
fact communicate with WikiLeaks in order
to expose and root out the DNC’s
misdeeds,” a poster identified as
“ZeroPointNow” posted on the
ZeroHedge.com blog on May 19, 2017.
July 22, 2016: WikiLeaks starts publishing DNC emails
Starting on Friday, July 22, 2016, WikiLeaks began
releasing over 2 publications 44,053 emails and 17,761
attachments from seven key figures in the DNC, none of
whom included then-DNC Chair Debbie Wasserman
Schultz.
By far, the largest number of emails came from DNC
Communications Director Luis Miranda (10,520 emails),
who had approximately three-times the emails released for
the next highest on the list, National Finance Director
Jordon Kaplan (3,799 emails) and Finance Chief of Staff
Scott Corner (3,095 emails).
The emails covered the period from January 2015 until
May 2016, with the last email dated May 25, 2016.
The emails have in common that one or more of the
“From,” “To,” and or “CC” listings indicate the email was
sent by or to an addressee using the DNC email server,
identified as @dnc.org.
While the DNC email server could have been hacked, what
is equally plausible is that someone on the inside (perhaps
an employee with their own @dnc.org email address)
could have discerned the usernames (possibly identical
with the person’s email address) and the password for each
of the seven DNC officials included in the WikiLeaks
release.
508
If obtaining the DNC emails was an “inside job,”
downloading the emails would have been as simple as
accessing each official’s email account and downloading
all emails listed there.
Unless each DNC official made sure emails on the DNC
email server were erased (not simply that the emails were
erased as viewed within a downloading computer), the
leaker could have downloaded conceivably every email
that user had written and/or received from the first email in
the system.
If the email theft was a leak (as opposed to a hack from the
outside), the DNC officials exposed may have been less
attentive to cybersecurity in their choice and use of
usernames and passwords, as well as less well trained on
the hazards of failing to delete emails on the server.
The New York Times, reporting on Friday, July 22, 2016,
commented the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks
showed top officials at the DNC
“criticized and mocked Senator Bernie
Sanders of Vermont during the primary
campaign, even though the organization
publicly insisted it was neutral in the race.”
The New York Times noted that in an email dated May 21,
Mark Paustenbach, a committee communications official,
“wrote to a colleague about the possibility
of urging reporters to write that Mr.
Sanders’s campaign was ‘a mess’ after a
glitch on the committee’s servers gave it
access to Clinton voter data.”
“Wondering if there’s a good Bernie
narrative for a story, which is that Bernie
never ever had his act together, that his
campaign was a mess,” Mr. Paustenbach
wrote to Luis Miranda, the communications
director for the committee.
The WikiLeaks emails, released the Friday before the
Monday, July 25, 2016, start of the Democratic National
Convention had the immediate impact of forcing DNC
Chair Debbie Wasserman Schultz to resign under fire on
Sunday, July 24 – a move that threw the national
nominating convention into disarray.
Recall that in June 2016, the DNC had acknowledged its
computer network had been breached, a conclusion that led
the DNC to hire cybersecurity expert CrowdStrike that
investigated and reported the Russian government had had
used two separate hacker groups, identified as “Cozy
Bear” and “Fancy Bear,” to hack the DNC computer.
As reported in the second article on this series, the
CrowdStrike report appears to have been the basis the
DNC and U.S. intelligence used to conclude incorrectly
that Guccifer 2.0 was responsible for providing the DNC
emails WikiLeaks started making public on July 22, 2016,
despite the fact there is no evidence Guccifer 2.0 ever
hacked into any Democratic email server.
Recall, Guccifer 2.0 only ever published hacked internal
documents from the DNC and the DCCC, as well as donor
data apparently hacked from the NGP database.
Still, on July 22, 2016, DNC officials in interviews with
the Washington Post blamed the WikiLeaks publication of
DNC emails on Guccifer 2.0, citing the CrowdStrike
investigation as proof.
Oct. 7, 2016: WikiLeaks begins publishing Podesta
emails
WikiLeaks began publishing the Podesta emails on Oct. 7,
2016, less than one hour after the Washington Post
published the lewd Access Hollywood video with Trump
making lewd comments to Access Hollywood’s Billy Bush.
WikiLeaks continued publishing a total of 57,153 Podesta
emails in a series of drops, with the final “Part 34”
published on Nov. 7, 2016, three days after Election Day.
The last date of a Podesta email published by WikiLeaks
was March 21, 2016, approximately two months earlier
than the last date of the DNC emails published by
WikiLeaks in July.
Of the 57,153 Podesta emails, 48,862 contain “Podesta@”
making it clear the key breach producing the emails
WikiLeaks began releasing Oct. 7, 2016, was one John
Podesta’s email @gmail.com – the email Podesta appeared
to use almost exclusively, shunning the use of a Clinton
campaign email address.
That Podesta was lax about cybersecurity is obvious from
emails in the cache indicating Podesta lost his cell phone
in a taxicab, fell victim to a phishing attack, and shared
with an assistant his Apple ID and password.
Given that Podesta used
john.podesta@gmail.com as his Apple
ID (username) and “Runner4567” as his
password, it is likely Podesta (given his
apparent disregard for Internet security)
may have used this username and
password for all, or most, of the Internet
websites to which he subscribed, as
well as using the password for other
transactions, maybe even including
credit card or ATM transactions.
509
Again, an insider familiar with Podesta’s use of his
@gmail.com account for virtually all his campaign email
correspondence would only need to know (or guess at) his
password to gain access to all undeleted Podesta emails
that remained on the gmail.com email server, possibly
back to the very first Podesta sent or received.St.
When WikiLeaks began publishing the Podesta emails in
October 2016, the Democrats reacted once again to claim
the Russians had used Guccifer 2.0 to hack Podesta’s
emails.
“We are not going to confirm the
authenticity of stolen documents released
by Julian Assange who has made no secret
of his desire to damage Hillary Clinton,”
Clinton spokesman Glen Caplin told the
press on Oct. 7, 2016.
“Guccifer 2.0 has already proven the
warnings of top national security officials
that documents can be faked as part of a
sophisticated Russian misinformation
campaign,” Caplin continued.
That the last date of the Podesta emails precedes the last
date of the DNC emails released by WikiLeaks suggests an
internal operative seeking to leak emails damaging to
Hillary may have accessed Podesta’s @gmail.com account
first.
That the last date of the DNC emails was May 25, 2016,
suggests events may have influenced the internal operative
that the emails should be released right then.
What happened in May 2016?
The Democratic Party Indiana Primary took place on May
3, 2016.
Sanders achieved a 5 point victory upset over Clinton in
Indiana, winning 52.46 percent to 47.54 percent, but the
“superdelegates” swung to Clinton, giving Clinton a total
of 46 delegates from the Indiana primary, compared to 44
to Sanders.
What in May was clear was that the Democrats had
stacked the deck for a DNC-preferred candidate to win the
nomination, with the clear majority of the 712
superdelegates (about 15 percent of all delegates) would
vote for Clinton, such that Sanders could earn a majority of
the 1,670 delegates up for grabs in popular voting during
the primaries, and still lose the nomination.
By June 7, 2016, in the early hours of counting the ballots
in the Democratic Party California primary, the Associated
Press declared that Hillary Clinton had won enough
delegates and superdelegates to win the Democratic Party
nomination for president.
The likely scenario is that a leaker internal to the
Democratic Party released to WikiLeaks both the DNC
emails and the Podesta emails at one time in late May or
early June 2016.
The final determination of how to sort out the emails and
when to publish them remained a decision WikiLeaks
would reserve exclusively to itself.
Even President Obama in his final news conference
appeared to concede the DNC emails were leaked to
WikiLeaks, not the result of a hacking attack from the
outside.
“The conclusions of the intelligence
community with respect to the Russian
hacking were not conclusive as to whether
WikiLeaks was witting or not in being the
conduit through which we heard about the
DNC e-mails that were leaked,” President
Obama said.
“I don’t pay a lot of attention to Mr.
Assange’s tweets, so that wasn’t a
consideration in this instance,” he
continued. “And I’d refer you to the Justice
Department for any criminal investigations,
indictments, extradition issues that may
come up with him.”
The strongest evidence Seth Rich leaked the WikiLeaks
emails
The strongest indication that Seth Rich leaked the DNC
and Podesta emails to WikiLeaks comes from Julian
Assange himself.
In an interview broadcast on Dutch television on Aug. 9,
2016, the host Eelco van Rosenthal asked Assange,
“The stuff that your sitting on, is an October
Surprise in there?”
Assange insisted,
510
“WikiLeaks never sits on material,” even though Assange
had previously said WikiLeaks yet ha more material
related to the Hillary Clinton campaign that had yet to be
published.
Then, on his own initiative, without
being specifically asked, Assange
began talking about Seth Rich.
“Whistleblowers go to significant efforts
to get us material, and often very
significant risks,” Assange volunteered.
“There’s a 27-year-old that works for the
DNC who was shot in the back,
murdered, just a few weeks ago, for
unknown reasons, as he was walking
down the streets in Washington,”
Assange continued.
Van Rosenthal objected that the murder of DNC staffer
Seth Rich was a robbery.
“No, there’s no findings,” Assange
answered.
“What are you suggesting?” Van Rosenthal
interjected.
“I’m suggesting that our sources take risks
– and they become concerned to see
things occurring like that,” Assange
responded.
There was no reason for Assange to have spontaneously
brought up Seth Rich in the context of the risks his leakers
take if Rich were not the leaker involved in the DNC and
Podesta emails that WikiLeaks published.
On Aug. 9, 2016, WikiLeaks offered a $20,000 reward
“for information leading to the conviction for
the murder of DNC staffer Seth Rich.”
Again, why would WikiLeaks do this if Seth Rich were not
the leaker in question?
Repeatedly, Assange has denied that the Russians “or any
state party” supplied WikiLeaks with the DNC and/or
Podesta emails.
The attempt to distinguish is disingenuous, suggesting the
Russians may have been responsible for the hack, turning
the information to a third party, not the Russians or a state
actor, who handed WikiLeaks the emails and thus became
“the source.”
Speaking plainly, Assange – a political operative with an
established reputation of telling the truth – has denied the
Russians or any state actor was involved, knowing he was
leaving the clear impression the DNC and Podesta emails There appears to be some 2 ½ hours unaccounted time
traced back to a leaker internal to the DNC – the same between 1:15 a.m. when Rich left a local bar and 4:25 a.m.
conclusion President Obama suggested in his final press when he was shot near his home, even considering the time
conference. Rich would have required to walk home.

Why the cover-up in the Seth Rich murder Sorting through the thin evidence is unlikely to produce a
investigation? conclusive break-through in the case, as long as the
Washington Police Department withhold all investigative
The next most convincing reason to believe Seth Rich is reports and the Democratic National Party continue to
the leaker revolves around the way the Washington Police dismiss the Seth Rich murder as a “conspiracy theory,” so
Department and the Democratic Party have perpetrated a as to deflect any threat to their determination to advance
cover-up of key evidence of his murder investigation. the “Russian collusion” meme that itself lacks evidence.

About all the Washington Police Department have released These articles have argued a tighter,
with certainty is that Sean Rich was shot to death in the forensic case, premised on examining
Bloomingdale section of Washington, D.C., in the early the content and context of each known
hours of Sunday, July 10, 2016. cyberattack against the Clinton
campaign so as to determine the most
To date, the Washington Police have refused to release any likely means required to pull the
cyberattack off successfully and, from
investigative report or autopsy that precisely described the
there, to determine the most likely
wound.
perpetrator.
Despite intensive research efforts by Internet sleuths, we The conclusion of these three articles is
do not know for certain which hospital in D.C. the that the DNC and Podesta emails
Washington Police took Rich for treatment after the published by WikiLeaks during the 2016
shooting. presidential campaign were stolen and
leaked by an operative within the
Democratic Party, with the likely
Was there any identification of the shooting suspects, or
perpetrator of the leak being Seth Rich.
results from a subsequent police investigation?
.

511
 Chris Cuomo Thinks CNN Needs
To Hear From More Anti-Trump Voices
By Alex Xenos
May 30, 2017 | 11:22 AM EDT
CNN’s New Day anchor Chris Cuomo is frustrated that we
are not hearing enough from those who oppose Trump.
Sad! On Tuesday morning, he grumbled:
CUOMO: He does have a blessing among his base of
people really believing the President wants to do the
right thing and giving him the benefit of every
doubt. Though every time I see one of these panels now,
I want you to sit with the people who are not
for Trump.
This statement came off as a bit strange seeing how we are
constantly hearing from people who oppose Trump. He
then went on to state that there is “a base that's
equally upset with the media about how they are
covering Trump but for the exact opposite reasons of
the Trump folks.” That view is even more deranged
considering how the media’s purpose is to take down
Trump. In fact, 80 percent of media coverage on Trump
has been negative. One only needs to examine any recent
MRC study to find proof.
512
Although Cuomo’s statements may have been strange and
absurd, they certainly are not surprising (see previous
antics here). This incident highlights the media’s habit of
sharing false personal views when they are supposed to be
impartially sharing the news.
See the more complete transcript below:
MAY 30 6:41 AM
CHRIS CUOMO: He does have a blessing among his
base of people really believing the President wants
to do the right thing and giving him the benefit of every
doubt. Though every time I see one of these panels now,
I want you to sit with the people who are not
for Trump.
ALISYN CAMEROTA: Who are not for trump?
CUOMO: They are the bigger part of the country. They
are trying to organize themselves.
CAMEROTA: We hear from them a lot.
CUOMO: I know, but the Trump people say, well
that's the media. But you have a base that's
equally upset with the media about how they are
covering Trump but for the exact opposite reasons of
the Trump folks.
(...)
513