Trump

[Real ale Madrid]

In other news - you can expect a big anti-Trump rally tomorrow (Saturday) as Earth Day kicks off in the US.

Yeah well what do you expect intelligent people to do ? Trump thinks global warming is a Chinese invention to hinder US manufacturing!

All too easy to throw out mindless comments. Are you capable of having a comprehensive discussion to back up your claims?

Do you read Trump's twitter feed?

[osarusan]

All too easy to throw out mindless comments.

It has the potential to be a wild scene as the brainwashed students and George Soros mobsters

The lack of awareness is staggering.

[SkStu]

Is it the Soros connection you are questioning Osa?

[osarusan]

It's the bit about lamenting mindless comments being thrown about, while throwing out mindless comments like 'brainwashed students' and 'Soros mobsters'.

A bit like you lamenting the lack of reasoned, adult debate (or whatever words you used) while also using terms like 'sheeple' and 'liberal loony' and 'butthurt'.

[SkStu]

I presume you are referring to the bolded bit in the comment below. This is reference to what is going on more broadly in society.

These are really the things we should be questioning from a broader perspective as citizens. Things like google providing fact checks on searches, Facebook tagging what it determines to be "fake news". The ability to debate and discuss issues without being shouted down, attacked or labeled has all but disappeared. It is all about control. These are worrying developments for us all.

With respect to the words thrown out, I was quite clearly having a bit of light hearted banter when I responded with "butthurt" (in response by the way to an assertion that all Trump supporters must be on drugs!). Come on... the other two, I don't recall the context within which I used them but hardly the most upsetting or unreasonable terms that could be used. But sure, I have had a few lapses - I am not perfect - but I mostly try to enter into reasoned, adult debate, as you put it, in this thread. More genuinely than some others too, I think.

[osarusan]

I am not perfect - but I mostly try to enter into reasoned, adult debate, as you put it, in this thread. More genuinely than some others too, I think.

Fair enough, if you could get back to me on this please...

FISA Act operates under the oversight of the Presidents office therefore anything ordered by, say, the FBI is ordered by the President.

I don't think this makes any sense at all.

Depending on what they want to investigate, the FBI could apply for warrants to a number of different courts. If the FBI wants to investigate what they believe to be foreign spies operating inside the USA, they apply to a FIS court.

I don't see the logic behind the argument that an FBI request for a warrant to a FIS court is on somehow on behalf of the presidential administration.

"The FBI doing it is the same thing as the Obama administration doing it" doesn't make much sense to me at all.

[SkStu]

well you got into some other conversation about it before I had a chance to respond and then I was banned for a week.

My understanding is that the Act is a presidential instrument from which power is delegated to some bodies such as the FBI or AG - from Wikipedia:

Without a Court Order:
The President may authorize, through the Attorney General, electronic surveillance without a court order for the period of one year, provided that it is only to acquire foreign intelligence information,[5] that it is solely directed at communications or property controlled exclusively by foreign powers,[6] that there is no substantial likelihood that it will acquire the contents of any communication to which a United States person is a party, and that it be conducted only in accordance with defined minimization procedures

from the act itself relating to "With a Court Order"

(a) Necessary findings Upon an application made pursuant to section 1804 of this title, the judge shall enter an ex parte order as requested or as modified approving the electronic surveillance if he finds that—
(1) the application has been made by a Federal officer and approved by the Attorney General;
(2) on the basis of the facts submitted by the applicant there is probable cause to believe that—
(A) the target of the electronic surveillance is a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power: Provided, That no United States person may be considered a foreign power or an agent of a foreign power solely upon the basis of activities protected by the first amendment to the Constitution of the United States; and

If you believe that Obama just didn't know what was going on - because, granted, despite the act operating under his authority, he may not (although it is unlikely) have explicitly known that the FISA warrant would end up gathering intel on Trump and/or associates of Trump - then I refer you to Susan Rices comments on MSNBC on March 2nd (when she oopsed) and April 4th (when she tried to limit the damage).

Susan Rice on MSNBC on March 2nd:

I was urging my former colleagues, and, and frankly speaking the people on the Hill [Democrat politicians], it was more actually aimed at telling the Hill people, get as much information as you can – get as much intelligence as you can – before President Obama leaves the administration.”

Because I had a fear that somehow that information would disappear with the senior [Obama] people who left; so it would be hidden away in the bureaucracy, um, that the Trump folks – if they found out HOW we knew what we knew about their, the Trump staff, dealing with Russians – that they would try to compromise those sources and methods; meaning we no longer have access to that intelligence.

So I became very worried because not enough was coming out into the open and I knew that there was more. We have very good intelligence on Russia; so then I had talked to some of my former colleagues and I knew that they were also trying to help get information to the Hill. … That’s why you had the leaking.

Susan Rice on MSNBC on April 4th - describing the Presidents Daily Briefing:

Let me explain how this works. I was a National Security Adviser, my job is to protect the American people and the security of our country. That’s the same as the Secretary of State, Secretary of Defense and CIA Director.; and every morning, to enable us to do that, we receive – from the intelligence community – a compilation of intelligence reports that the IC, the intelligence community, has selected for us –on a daily basis– to give us the best information as to what’s going on around the world.

I received those reports, as did other officials, and there were occasions when I would receive a report in which, uh, a ‘U.S Person’ was referred to. Name, uh, not provided, just ‘U.S. Person’.

And sometimes in that context, in order to understand the importance in the report – and assess it’s significance, it was necessary to find out or request, who that U.S. official was.

[strangeirish]

All too easy to throw out mindless comments. Are you capable of having a comprehensive discussion to back up your claims?

I guess the 'Smiley' face is beyond your comprehension?

[osarusan]

well you got into some other conversation about it before I had a chance to respond and then I was banned for a week.

My understanding is that the Act is a presidential instrument from which power is delegated to some bodies such as the FBI or AG - from Wikipedia:

from the act itself relating to "With a Court Order"

If you believe that Obama just didn't know what was going on - because, granted, despite the act operating under his authority, he may not (although it is unlikely) have explicitly known that the FISA warrant would end up gathering intel on Trump and/or associates of Trump

I have to ask you to look back at your original claim, which is this:

Interesting. Even after illegally wiretapping his political rival, Obama and the DNC were unable to find anything to take Trump down.

Pathetic really. Obama is the one who was the biggest threat to democracy and individual rights. Scum.

Interesting times ahead.

It was quite clear - Obama and the DNC had illegally wiretapped Trump. You did back off from the 'illegal' claim but continued the 'wiretap' claim for a few more posts afterwards.

So are you saying that it was Obama and his administration that did it? Or are you saying that it was the FBI through FISC, the FBI doing it is the same as Obama doing it?

Are you saying that we are talking about literal wiretaps of Trump Tower, or are you saying what Spicer is now saying - that by "wiretap" they mean a wider range of monitoring activities, and by "Obama", they mean maybe other people in the administration, and not necessarily Obama himself?

As far as I can see, this all started with a Heat Street article that claimed the FBI had applied for a FISC warrant which ‘named Trump’ and when that was rejected, applied for another one with a narrower focus, and also claimed that the warrant applied to a server in Trump Tower. Then it looks like a Breitbart article, building on the Heat Street article, simply exaggerated the story into claims that Trump’s phone being tapped - claims that Trump seems to have regurgitated.

Because I think that at this stage, on the issue of an actual wiretap of Trump's phones, literally nobody has said they believed it happened.

[SkStu]

With respect, my original claim has nothing to do with the question you asked me in the previous post which I answered to the best of my ability and I question why you now bring up that original post again despite the fact that I've already suffered a ban as a result of that post and apologized for it.

From your post above, I would say that you are regurgitating points that were being made on the issue close to a month ago when the story broke. I think these have all been debated to death in many venues and there are still a lot of questions outstanding.

If you want to take the literal interpretation - whether talking about my post or Trump's tweets - of wiretap and Obama to ease your mind that's fine. I think some of the questions will be answered in due course.

I answered your question and have no interest in entering into another debate about the veracity or not of Trumps tweets.

[osarusan]

With respect, my original claim has nothing to do with the question you asked me in the previous post which I answered to the best of my ability and I question why you now bring up that original post again despite the fact that I've already suffered a ban as a result of that post and apologized for it.

Ok fair enough, I didn't see that you had apologised for that post. I asked because as I looked at your post from earlier today, I realised that I wasn't really clear on exactly what monitoring/surveillance has been done/alleged to have been done.

But, to the earlier post. Once again, I want to go back to your earlier post that said:

FISA Act operates under the oversight of the President’s office therefore anything ordered by, say, the FBI is ordered by the President.

If I understand you correctly, you are saying that because it is in a FISC, anything the FBI (or NSA, etc) applies for is effectively the same thing as the president doing it.

Now, if you hold this to be true in general terms (not specific to FISC), then you would have to conclude, as I earlier suggested to Mark12345, that this would effectively mean that the FBI investigating Clinton's emails is the same thing as Obama investigating Clinton's emails.

If you don't hold that to be true in general terms (and I expect you don't), then why is it something you believe to be true in a FISC court? You have quoted a wikipedia excerpt about what the president can do without a court order, but I am not seeing the relevance of that, as the claim has always been that the FBI did make a request (more than one) to FISC. So do you believe that Obama instructed the FBI to make the request? if so, do you have any evidence to support that? Or do you just argue that the FBI making the request is the same as Obama doing it - and if so, why?

You say that you think it is unlikely that Obama wouldn't have known what was going on - which makes me think you do not think he actually instructed the FBI to investigate Trump, as surely you would otherwise think it was impossible that he wouldn't know what was going on. Either way, you say that "the act operates under his authority", but what does that actually mean? There are over 1000 FISC Orders a year, and I would not be so sure that Obama was even aware of them all, never mind initiating them all.

Finally, to your quotes. The first one is not a quote from Susan Rice. It is a quote from a woman called Evelyn Farkas, when she was speaking to MSNBC. She spoke with them on March 2nd, to discuss the content of a New York Times article from the previous day, titled Obama Administration Rushed to Preserve Intelligence of Russian Election Hacking

What the article said, and what Farkas also said, was that in the final days of the Obama administration ( the best part of 2 months after Trump had won the election), the White House started sharing evidence of Russian interference in the election, which included evidence of possible contacts between Trump associates and Russians. They did this for two reasons - firstly, because they wanted it to be known more widely in political circles so that it could be properly investigated and therefore minimise the risk of it happening again, and secondly, because they had little faith that the Trump administration, having repeatedly denied any link to Russians, would be willing to conduct an investigation if they felt they could avoid one.

So the comments made by Farkas should be taken in the context of the NYT article of the previous day, and also in the context of the alleged Russian interference which was very much in the news at that time.

But for whatever reason, organisations like Fox News waited until March 28th, by which time the alleged wiretapping of Trump by Obama before the election was the big news, to highlight sections of Farkas' comments, and attempt to suggest her comments applied to that context instead, making no mention of the NTY article (in which it's claimed that among the 'leaked' documents was a cache of evidence of alleged Russian interference in elections worldwide, shared with both Democrats and Republicans).

With all that in mind, I wonder if you still see the comments made by Rice on April 4th as an attempt 'to limit the damage.'

The question does remain though, as to what evidence, if any, was gathered on aspects of his campaign before the election. Various sources, and Farkas' comments, make it pretty likely that some surveillance was done of Trump associates in relation to possible links to Russia during this period. Do you think this vindicates Trump's (and your) claims?

Indeed, Trump claimed that he felt 'somewhat vindicated' in his original allegations after comments made by the House Intelligence Committee Chair, Devin Nunes. Nunes commented that in investigating Russian interference in elections, the FBI had indeed ended up monitoring Trump associates, and in doing so, they had also monitored periods in which campaign matters were being discussed. Nunes called these periods of monitoring 'incidental collection' and according to Nunes, these collections happened during the transition period, after the election was over – not in the lead up to the election, as Trump had said.

[SkStu]

Look, as I said, id like Schiff and Nunes to try and answer the remaining questions about what was done, when and how before rolling back any further on this. You're right about Farkas of course. I knew that. I got it wrong as I am at work and rushing while I am reviewing/responding.

On my initial post, there is one question in your post that I think is pertinent to my earlier post that you want to discuss and here is my response:

Or do you just argue that the FBI making the request is the same as Obama doing it - and if so, why?

I think that the President, if he didn't order it directly, loses plausible deniability when a) his AG appointment approves all requests and b) these agents, such as FBI, reporting the collected information back to him and his administration, carry out these actions. More so during an election season or during transition of power. One of the many scandals of the Obama administration included the IRS targeting members of the conservative Tea Party movement. The former President took a lot of flak for that as it was done under his tenure and by agents of his administration. This is similar.

In my opinion, delegated power shouldn't protect the person in power from appropriate accountability.

[mark12345]

I guess the 'Smiley' face is beyond your comprehension?

My mistake. Smiley faces or sad ones for that matter, go right over my head.

[mark12345]

Because I think that at this stage, on the issue of an actual wiretap of Trump's phones, literally nobody has said they believed it happened.[/QUOTE]

Nobody has they believed it happened because they are waiting on the outcome of the investigation by the FBI. It seems that anyone who did comment on the issue (Devin Nunes for example) was castigated by the MSM and ended up recusing himself from the investigation. As far as the whole 'wiretap' claim goes, the word wiretap I generally took to mean was 'surveillance' as wiretaps have not been used since the 1970's I'm told. And on the subject of Obama not knowing about it, that is quite possible. But when you combine all the things he didn't know during his presidency (Fast And Furious, IRS scandal, Benghazi, Loretta Lynch meeting Bill Clinton in plane on tarmac, the 33,000 emails which went missing) then it is an awful lot he didn't know. Did he not know it by design? Or is he not very intelligent. You decide.

[KrisLetang]

Obama's lies about the Iran deal coming out more and more. This is another thing Trump is going to have to deal with.
Incidentally, Former Spokesperson Josh Earnest saying yesterday that Obama would become more engaged in comments about Trump "If this government crosses a red line" were hilariously unaware.

https://townhall.com/tipsheet/katiep...ealed-n2317349

http://thefederalist.com/2017/04/24/...tIZHZs.twitter

[mark12345]

It's the bit about lamenting mindless comments being thrown about, while throwing out mindless comments like 'brainwashed students' and 'Soros mobsters'.

A bit like you lamenting the lack of reasoned, adult debate (or whatever words you used) while also using terms like 'sheeple' and 'liberal loony' and 'butthurt'.

Oh I'm sorry, they are so reasoned human beings, those students. They see or hear something they don't like and they show up dressed from head to toe in black and whip out their clubs and pepper spray to beat anyone within striking distance. And when they're done with that they start smashing up the place. Perfectly normal behavior wouldn't you say. And if they are so proud of what they do, why do they have to hide their faces?

[mark12345]

Anne Coulter (conservative commentator) wanted to speak at Berkley University this week. She was given a date of April 27, but then they changed the venue and time to when no one would be in the school. Then they took back the invitation. When she threatened to sue, they reinstated the invitation. Then they told her they could not guarantee her safety. Speech was called off. Looks like Freedom Of Speech is dying a death in America. And no one else on here can see that?

[Charlie Darwin]

I want some of whatever mark is on.

[DannyInvincible]

And if they are so proud of what they do, why do they have to hide their faces?

Because they're engaging in activity that also happens to be illegal - or punishable by law, in other words - and they'd rather the authorities remained unaware of their identities for fear of potential adverse repercussions in the future? Just a guess...

Anne Coulter (conservative commentator) wanted to speak at Berkley University this week. She was given a date of April 27, but then they changed the venue and time to when no one would be in the school. Then they took back the invitation. When she threatened to sue, they reinstated the invitation. Then they told her they could not guarantee her safety. Speech was called off. Looks like Freedom Of Speech is dying a death in America. And no one else on here can see that?

Funnily enough, the most severe university campus attacks upon free speech rights in the contemporary US are against individuals and groups who are critical of Israeli policy in Palestine, but few conservatives have bothered to raise objections to such attacks on behalf of proponents of the Palestinian cause for some reason...

Anyhow, would this be regular-Fox-News-mouthpiece, frequent-speaker-at-conservative-conferences, Universal-Press-Syndicate-columnist and author-of-a-dozen-best-seller-books-printed-and-sold-by-major-publishers Ann Coulter that you're talking about? It's unfortunate that the event couldn't be accommodated over security fears (because the exchange of ideas and views is generally a healthy thing for any society), but let's not pretend Ann Coulter is a poor, voiceless soul on the powerless margins of US society here. She's also, irrespective of what she has claimed*, not actually entitled to the provision of a platform by anyone, never mind a university.

As far as I understand, it was Coulter herself who cancelled her speech. The Berkeley College Republicans had originally invited her to speak but had failed to consult with the university in respect of event security first. As a result, police were not able to offer advice on the most appropriate time and venue.

Alex Bollinger has conveniently summarised the consequences of this (in a much more rigorous and circumspect summary than your dubious portrayal, I might add) for LGBTQ Nation:

The university, concerned about student safety after several violent confrontations on campus this year between “outside groups,” changed the date of her appearance for a time when an indoor venue would be available – earlier in the day, and during a week when fewer students are on campus. These sorts of time, place, and manner restrictions on speech are constitutionally acceptable, but the BCR sued the university anyway.

The university's response is also worth re-posting here:

This semester, UC Berkeley has dedicated more resources — in the form of staff time, administrative attention, police resources and cash outlay — to facilitating BCR’s expressive activities than have been devoted to any other student group in memory. Dedicated staff and administrators have spent countless hours, including during weekends and vacations, working to enable BCR’s planned events and to maximize the possibility that those events can occur safely for the participants, the speakers, our students and others in our campus community.

The free speech of privileged conservatives is dying a death, you say? I'm afraid I'm not convinced. What is it exactly that you feel Coulter is deprived from spouting in the public arena?

As an interesting aside, wasn't Coulter recently condemning American footballer Colin Kaepernick for his conscientious refusal to stand for the US anthem (a means by which Kaepernick was exercising his right to free expression)? She went as far as calling for his suspension from the NFL and requested that he either like it or lump it. "I think it’s outrageous. He’s making a lot of money off this country. If he doesn’t like it I’m with Donald Trump, he can go to another country", said the outraged... erm, is "snowflake" the word I'm looking for here? I guess Kaepernick just didn't share with her the "correct" sort of politics...

In fact, as you probably well know, many conservatives like the hypocritical Coulter will moan of "political correctness gone mad" when their bigotry and ignorance is scrutinised and challenged, but that phrase is really just a pitiful device utilised to try and discredit or police what is often-valid criticism (an exercising of free speech in itself) of their lazy, inaccurate and offensive opinions. So, not the greatest of free speech advocates after all then, is she?

On the other hand, Noam Chomsky is always worth investing time in if you want to read or listen to a serious commentator of actual academic repute on matters relating to the protection and/or regulation of freedom of expression:



^{*She deludedly claimed: "Even the most lefty, Coulter-hating judge would probably have had to order Berkeley to let me speak."}

[NeverFeltBetter]

Well said Danny. The far-right myth-making over "attacks" on freedom of speech on college campus' is beyond irritating, as is the general "snowflake" narrative.

I had to smile at Trump's tax plan. How exactly is he planning to get that past a deficit obsessed Republican congress?