That Wiretap Story Is Spinning Out of Control
Louise Mensch on being at the center of the wiretap story
Louise Mensch on being at the center of the wiretap story
Mensch: It's legit, it's a court of the United States. Contrary to rumor, people just can't go around wire tapping everybody and etc. What was interesting to me and I think probably many of the other journalists who later corroborated my story or at least reported the same thing, which includes the BBC and the Guardian, is that nobody that reported this warrant ever mentioned so much as a wire tap at all. We just reported the warrant that our sources told us existed and we all reported the same thing. So this, the only people that reported a wire tap at Trump Tower were Breitbart News. Nobody else! And if there's been some leaks, maybe Steve Bannon or some of these other ex-Breitbart staffers have got something to answer to.
FOX: Well, do you think it's that they have more information than you initially had or do you think it's a misunderstanding of what the FISA warrant is?
Mensch: Uh, it could be a little bit of both but after all, tweets came out from the President's own accounts. Now, I don't know, I don't even know for sure if he himself is making those tweets but somebody made those tweets under his name and they said he just found out about a wire tap just before the victory. Well that's fascinating to me 'cause I never reported it. Uh, so either the President has a terrific imagination or the President is receiving some solid information that somebody in his team has been caught up, like your correspondent Catherine Herridge, said in incidental collection and that's not very good for team Trump.
FOX: Well original sourcing and reporting on this you mentioned came from you, from the BBC, and the Guardian all say they've got sources as to these FISA warrants, or FISA warrant, singular. Now the former DNI Director James Clapper appeared on the Sunday shows yesterday. He says if it existed, he would know about it and he categorically denied it. What do you make of that?
Mensch: Well I don't know that he categorically denied what I reported which was a FISA warrant on communications between two Russian banks. He was being asked about the President's accusation that President Obama had targeted a warrant politically at him or at Team Trump and at Trump Tower. There's no such FISA warrant and it would be impossible to get one and indeed, I faithfully reported that the couple of times that Director Comey apparently went to the court and asked for a warrant that named Mr. Trump, he was turned down flat. So I think you heard DNI Clapper, former DNI Clapper denying that there was a politically motivated, targeted FISA warrant at Donald Trump. And I haven't reported that to my knowledge nor has anyone else.
FOX: Yeah, my remembrance of his discussion was that he was asked if there was such an order.
Mensch: Yes.
FOX: So but is it possible that the DNI wouldn't know about it?
Mensch: Um I don't know because I don't, honestly, I don... I try not to bluff when I don't know things.
FOX: Good for journalists, we should stick with what we know
Mensch: I believe he has, but such an order, does that mean no FISA warrant of any kind, which I think would be really hard for a DNI to deny or confirm. I think that would be kind of illegal even. But I think what he was saying is there's no order of a politically targeted FISA court warrant that was aiming directly at Trump Tower and the political campaign.
FOX: And you're confident in your sources and what you've reported and again it was dealing with banks that were communicating with each other and if Trump staffers or Trump campaign officials or people connected to him in any way were caught up in it, that would have been secondary.
Mensch: It gave permission, incidental permission, for people caught up in this secondary communication, incidental communication, it gave permission for the FBI to look at that but they were not the target. Communications between two Russian banks were the target my sources said.
posted by JimK at 7:35 PM
175 Comments:
And now look:
The Trump White House is totally changing its tune on wiretapping and hoping you don’t notice
"...On Tuesday afternoon, in his first on-camera briefing in a week, White House press secretary Sean Spicer said this when asked for proof of Trump's wiretapping claims: “It’s not a question of new proof or less proof or whatever.” Instead, he insisted, the goal of Trump's tweets was simply to get congressional investigators to look into the possibility of wiretapping. Congress is now doing this, so, in Spicer's mind, mission accomplished.
Except that what Trump tweeted and what Spicer is now saying aren't the same thing. Not at all. And it is a question of “new proof.” Or, at the very least, some — any? -- proof.
Trump tweeted Saturday that he had “just found out” that then-President Barack Obama had ordered a wiretap at Trump Tower during the 2016 campaign. That means conclusive evidence existed and had been presented to Trump about the wiretapping. There's no other interpretation for the language in that tweet.
What Spicer is saying now is that Trump thinks the right thing to do is to have Congress investigate to find out whether wiretapping occurred.
But Trump already stated definitively that it had! Why does Congress need to investigate something the president of the United States already has evidence of?
The most likely answer — and Spicer didn't mention this — is that Trump doesn't really have evidence of Obama wiretapping him during the 2016 campaign. Instead, as has been well documented, he read a Breitbart News story detailing conservative radio talk show host Mark Levin's theory of an attempted “silent coup” by Obama during the campaign and simply tweeted it.
In the aftermath of that tweet, everyone from Obama to FBI Director James B. Comey to former director of national intelligence James R. Clapper Jr. insisted that Trump's claim was without merit, that no wiretap of Trump Tower had ever been approved by the Obama administration.
With no actual evidence to go on, the White House decided to pivot. It's no longer a question of what evidence Trump had (or didn't have), Spicer argued Tuesday. Instead it's about Congress doing its due diligence by investigating whether Trump Tower was wiretapped.
In short: The White House is now pushing for investigations in search of the very evidence that Trump claimed he already possessed.
This isn't about a separation of powers — as Spicer claimed Tuesday — or anything else. It's about Trump tweeting first and thinking second. And a White House scrambling to make lemonade — or at least lemon water — from lemons."
Live global coverage IWD protests, activism, and strike
DC rallies today:
11-1:30 starts at Freedom Plaza, with march to White House. Focus on reproductive rights. Theme is "Kill the Gag" (global gag rule)
2-3 in front of the Supreme Court, organized by the Democratic Socialists of America. Demanding socialist solutions to America's problems.
3:30-5:30 at Labor Dept. (500 C St. NW) Theme is "Women Worker's Rising" for dignity, pay equity & respect. Organized by a large coalition and includes performances, flash mob, music, poetry, speeches (Eve Ensler, etc.)
HAPPY WOMEN'S DAY - AND HAPPY STRIKING!!!
And if you can't strike, wear red in solidarity!
Trump on International Women's Day asks us to join him in honoring the critical role of women here in America & around the world
"That Wiretap Story Is Spinning Out of Control"
how so?
she basically confirmed what everyone else has said
the Obama administration tried to get a FISA to surveil (?) Trump and was turned down
they came back with a FISA for some others where Trump could be a secondary and got approved
where's the spin?
"the Obama administration tried to get a FISA to surveil (?) Trump and was turned down"
even if turned down, this was way out of bounds
especially since Obama's director of national intelligence said there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russian government
and especially since the Obama administration let Hillary off the hook for clearly illegal behavior so as not to subvert the democratic process
this is the current scandal
Anon can't stop obsessing over Hillary's criminal behavior. Uh huh, let's see, on one hand, a private email server. On the other hand working as a secret agent for the Russians... Wow, those are just about the same.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "and especially since the Obama administration let Hillary off the hook for clearly illegal behavior so as not to subvert the democratic process".
LOL, Riiiiight, Hillary's "criminal" private email server, exactly like the private email servers run by Republicans Collin Powel, Condoleeza Rice, and Trump right hand man Mike Pence.
Lock Pence up!
Lock Pence up!
Lock Pence up!
Lock Pence up!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
So, after a February that felt like spring we're getting some unseasonably cold weather in Saskatchewan.
Time for Wyatt/bad anonymous to claim this disproves global warming despite record high global average temperatures this year.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director Michael Hayden on Russia and Trump: “there’s a lot of smoke.”
“This does deserve an investigation because there are just so many coincidences,” Hayden said. He added that there seems to be a lot of what he would call “connective tissue between at least elements of the Trump campaign and people inside the Russian Federation — an unusual number.”
Hayden pointed out, for example, that Roger Stone — Trump’s longtime friend and a former campaign adviser — said he had a “back channel” to WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. And late last summer, Stone said he knew that a batch of emails that were about to be released by WikiLeaks would be about Hillary Clinton’s former campaign chief, John Podesta, before they were leaked.
“I don’t think that’s good,” Hayden said. “It may not be criminal, but it does raise questions.”
So, too, does Trump’s “absolute refusal during the campaign to say anything even modestly critical” about Russian President Vladimir Putin, Hayden said.
Hayden, who has also served as director of the National Security Agency and as principal deputy director of national intelligence, further criticized Trump’s evidence-free assertion that his phones were wiretapped by former President Barack Obama before the election.
“Barack Obama could not authorize this. It had to go through the courts,” he said. “If this happened, if some sort of warrant were granted, I’m not even sure that the president would know.” To obtain such a warrant — known as a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court Act order, or FISA — the FBI, NSA or CIA would have to prove to a judge that the target of the surveillance was either “an agent of a foreign power, or involved in criminal activity.”
“If those are your options, that can’t be good news for the administration,” Hayden said.
Hayden said he believes Trump’s tweeted wiretapping claim was strategic. The president had a rocky couple of days in which his attorney general, Jeff Sessions, weathered a firestorm over undisclosed communications with Russia’s ambassador during the campaign.
“He’s trying to detract attention from what was a very, very, bad news cycle,” Hayden said. “The president of the United States put his reputation, the reputation of his predecessor, and the reputation of this nation at risk to get at least a ‘draw” out of the next 24 hours.”
But Trump can expect some blowback from the intelligence community because of his wiretap attack, Hayden said.
“They’ve gone to battle stations,” he said. “They’re going to push back on that story if only in their own self-defense, because what the president has accused them of — it’s called a felony.”
House schedules first hearings in Trump/Russia investigation
This is going to be juicy!
"especially since Obama's director of national intelligence said there was no evidence of collusion between Trump and the Russian government"
Clapper also said:
"CHUCK TODD:
So you feel like your report does not get to the bottom-- you admit your report that you released in January doesn't get to the bottom of this?
JAMES CLAPPER:
It did-- well, it got to the bottom of the evidence to the extent of the evidence we had at the time. Whether there is more evidence that's become available since then, whether ongoing investigations will be revelatory, I don't know.
CHUCK TODD:
There was a conclusion that said, "It's clear that the Russians interfered and did so in an attempt to help Donald Trump." Do you still believe that conclusion?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Yes, I do."
Here's the relevant part of the transcript of Clapper's 3/5/17 appearance on Meet the Press:
"...CHUCK TODD:
Well, that's an important revelation at this point. Let me ask you this. Does intelligence exist that can definitively answer the following question, whether there were improper contacts between the Trump campaign and Russian officials?
JAMES CLAPPER:
We did not include any evidence in our report, and I say, "our," that's N.S.A., F.B.I. and C.I.A., with my office, the Director of National Intelligence, that had anything, that had any reflection of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report.
CHUCK TODD:
I understand that. But does it exist?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Not to my knowledge.
CHUCK TODD:
If it existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER:
This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.
CHUCK TODD:
At some--
JAMES CLAPPER:
But at the time, we had no evidence of such collusion.
CHUCK TODD:
There's a lot of smoke, but there hasn't been that smoking gun yet. At what point should the public start to wonder if this is all just smoke?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Well, that's a good question. I don't know. I do think, though, it is in everyone's interest, in the current President's interests, in the Democrats' interests, in the Republican interest, in the country's interest, to get to the bottom of all this. Because it's such a distraction. And certainly the Russians have to be chortling about the success of their efforts to sow dissention in this country.
CHUCK TODD:
So you feel like your report does not get to the bottom-- you admit your report that you released in January doesn't get to the bottom of this?
JAMES CLAPPER:
It did-- well, it got to the bottom of the evidence to the extent of the evidence we had at the time. Whether there is more evidence that's become available since then, whether ongoing investigations will be revelatory, I don't know.
CHUCK TODD:
There was a conclusion that said, "It's clear that the Russians interfered and did so in an attempt to help Donald Trump." Do you still believe that conclusion?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Yes, I do.
CHUCK TODD:
But at this point, what's not proven is the idea of collusion.
JAMES CLAPPER:
That's correct..."
"Anon can't stop obsessing over Hillary's criminal behavior"
Hillary's behavior is still relevant because of the contrast between the approach the Obama administration took to real crime and the excuse they used to investigate Trump for no crime
"Uh huh, let's see, on one hand, a private email server"
there are lower rank personnel who have access to classified information and gone to prison for accidentally compromising it - even when it didn't get out
things like accidentally putting a classified memo in your backpack with other papers or a buddy talking a selfie without realizing something secret is behind them
"On the other hand working as a secret agent for the Russians... Wow,"
wow is right
the same people who complain Trump made a leap about Obama wiretapping him..keep saying this, even after Obama's DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE has said there is absolutely no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump
Obama was clearly investigating Trump in some manner using his office to do it in ways that no one else could
he did that to harass groups being set up to work against his re-election in 2012, and probably won because of his use of the IRS
Obama needs to be brought to justice
he fought against the Constitution as President and, on the way out, his crimes became more brazen
"those are just about the same"
no, Trump is innocent
"It's clear that the Russians interfered and did so in an attempt to help Donald Trump."
if that's so clear, Chuck, could you ask Clapper this?:
if Russians hacked the Hillary campaign and released the e-mails, why were John Podesta's emails the only ones released? why no Hillary emails?
didn't he admit that he fell for a common phishing attempt and revealed his password?
are you guys just making this up because you worked for Obama?
Sketchy Donald Trump deal in former soviet state eyed for ties to Iranian terrorist organization
It notes in the video above that Trump's income tax returns are key in revealing the degree of his involvement in this sketchy deal and several others. That's why Trump will never release them voluntarily and they need to be investigated to see how deep Trump's collusion with Russia goes.
"the same people who complain Trump made a leap about Obama wiretapping him..keep saying this, even after Obama's DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE has said there is absolutely no evidence of collusion between Russia and Trump"
Once again that is half of the truth.
Obama's DIRECTOR OF NATIONAL INTELLIGENCE, CLAPPER was quoted immediately above your pure spin statement.
The parts you keep leaving out include:
"CHUCK TODD:
If it existed, it would have been in this report?
JAMES CLAPPER:
This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government.
CHUCK TODD:
At some--
JAMES CLAPPER:
But at the time, we had no evidence of such collusion."
and
"2. CHUCK TODD:
There was a conclusion that said, "It's clear that the Russians interfered and did so in an attempt to help Donald Trump." Do you still believe that conclusion?
JAMES CLAPPER:
Yes, I do."
"are you guys just making this up because you worked for Obama?"
Oh brother!
Yeah, Obama people are the ones who make up the conspiracy theories!
Like birther conspiracy that President Obama was not a US citizen.
< eye roll >
We're the ones who tweeted all about how the elections are rigged.
< eye roll >
We're the ones who bullshitted about millions of illegals voting and nonexistent voter fraud in 2016.
< eye roll >
And now we're the ones claiming the US intelligence community is trying to bring down the White House.
< eye roll >
Sorry, LIAR, but it's Donnie Boy who said all that shit!
White supremacists, emboldened by the 2016 elections and the current political climate, are currently engaged in an unprecedented outreach effort to attract and recruit students on American college campuses.
Among the identified white supremacist groups doing the campus recruiting are Identity Evropa, American Vanguard, and American Renaissance. The first two groups only formed late last year. You know why.
Trump Tweets “Tremendous Respect” For Women, World Responds With “Grab Them By The Pussy” References
"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty."
Joeseph Goebbles Nazi Propaganda Minster and Wyatt/bad anonymous.
“And you once said that the best way to treat a woman is to treat her like doody,” Howard Stern said. “I never said that,” Trump said. “It was attributed to me.” Stern joked that he agreed with that statement, saying women don't listen otherwise and were “troublemakers.”
“So you treat women with respect?” Stern asked.
“Uh, I can't say that either,” Trump said, smiling.
Trump: "I moved on her like a bitch! (and she was married)". And so was he.
And hypocritical Wyatt/bad anonymous condemns gays, but not Trump, for being promiscuous.
"Once again that is half of the truth"
because he left office 6 weeks ago?
well, who has said there's more?
the media was trying to imply, back when he was DNI, that the intelligence agencies were investigating this, with good reason
it was all basically a deception
since, there have been disclosures of normal contacts
and they were already public record, and minimal
there's ample material to attack Trump without making crap up
and the hysteria just works to his advantage
Tulsa LGBT centre threatened, vandalized with pellet gun by bigots emboldened by anti-gay climate Trump has created.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "since, there have been disclosures of normal contacts".
If they were "normal" contacts Sessions and Flynn wouldn't have lied about them, they'd have revealed them and given innocuous reasons the meetings took place. That they tried to cover up the meetings reveals mens rea (knowledge of wrongdoing). They tried to hide the meetings because they knew they were doing something wrong.
Poll: Most americans want AG Jeff Sessions to resign for lying under oath about Russia meetings
American voters say 52 – 40 percent that U.S. Attorney General Jeff Sessions lied under oath during his confirmation hearings and say 51 – 42 percent that he should resign, according to a Quinnipiac University national poll released today.
Voters disapprove 54 – 32 percent of the way President Donald Trump is handling U.S. policy towards Russia.
American voters support 66 – 30 percent an “independent commission investigating potential links between some of Donald Trump’s campaign advisors and the Russian government.”
A total of 61 percent are “very concerned” or “somewhat concerned” about President Trump’s relationship with Russia. A total of 62 percent of voters say Russian interference in the 2016 election is a “very important” or “somewhat important” issue.
funny, 'round Halloween, Hillary said she wasn't worried about the wikileaks
she said it was all baked into the cake already
then, she lost, and it became a national security crisis of the first order
but, the leaks had nothing to do with her loss
she lost because:
1. SCOTUS
2. Obamacare
3. her personality
now, dems are trying to start up a new cold war
they talk about how the ban is alienating muslims
how about the tensions they are stoking with the nation that has more nukes than any other?
we're bound to have enough problems with them sooner or later, why start this over nothing?
http://thefederalist.com/2017/03/08/the-hysteria-over-russia-is-causing-serious-foreign-policy-problems/
Oh Hillary darling would you look at that!
Trump supporters miss you soooooo much.
Trump supporters pine away for you regularly here at Vigilance.
Trump supports miss you because it's so easy to putting you down but not so easy building up the toxic abomination they elected.
"now, dems are trying to start up a new cold war"
Ya think?
I think you need to guess again but inform yourself first.
Dec 23, 2016: "U.S. President-elect Donald Trump sowed more doubt about his position on nuclear proliferation on Friday, reportedly welcoming an arms race even as his spokesman insisted that an atomic weapons build-up was not likely to happen.
Trump, who takes office on Jan. 20, caused alarm on Thursday on Twitter, saying the United States "must greatly strengthen and expand its nuclear capability until such time as the world comes to its senses regarding nukes."
On Friday, he had an off-air phone conversation about the tweet with MSNBC TV host Mika Brzezinski, who said Trump told her: "Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all." MSNBC did not play his comments on air.
But Trump spokesman Sean Spicer said in a round of television interviews on Friday that Trump's comments were meant to send a general message of strength to countries like Russia and China rather than indicate the United States planned to build up its nuclear capabilities...."
Feb 23, 2017: "President Donald Trump said on Thursday he wants to build up the U.S. nuclear arsenal to ensure it is at the "top of the pack," saying the United States has fallen behind in its atomic weapons capacity.
In a Reuters interview, Trump also said China could solve the national security challenge posed by North Korea "very easily if they want to," ratcheting up pressure on Beijing to exert more influence to rein in Pyongyang's increasingly bellicose actions.
In his first comments about the U.S. nuclear arsenal since taking office on Jan. 20, Trump said the United States has "fallen behind on nuclear weapon capacity."
"I am the first one that would like to see everybody — nobody have nukes, but we're never going to fall behind any country even if it's a friendly country, we're never going to fall behind on nuclear power...."
Who's trying to start a new cold war?
"Who's trying to start a new cold war?"
the Democrats
Clapper says there is no evidence that Russia tried to recruit Trump campaign officials
no one will back up Comey's claim that the Obama administration didn't tap Trump Tower
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/top-spy-chief-evidence-trump-campaign-aides-recruited/story?id=46013305
The President you support tweets all about his desire for there to be an arms race and you blame the Democrats for that.
Keep repeating your lie, it's all you have.
Heed your President's advice.
"Clapper says there is no evidence that Russia tried to recruit Trump campaign officials"
Clapper said there WAS no evidence before he left his job and he also added:
"This could have unfolded or become available in the time since I left the government."
And
"It did-- well, it got to the bottom of the evidence to the extent of the evidence we had at the time. Whether there is more evidence that's become available since then, whether ongoing investigations will be revelatory, I don't know."
And when asked:
"There was a conclusion that said, "It's clear that the Russians interfered and did so in an attempt to help Donald Trump." Do you still believe that conclusion?"
Clapper responded:
"Yes, I do.
"no one will back up Comey's claim that the Obama administration didn't tap Trump Tower"
Yet.
"The President you support tweets all about his desire for there to be an arms race and you blame the Democrats for that"
no I blame them for increasing tensions with the Russians for political purposes by making assertions without evidence and using Russia as a straw man
we already have enough nukes on both sides for MAD
building more doesn't change much
"Clapper said there WAS no evidence before he left his job and he also added"
about 6 weeks ago, but no one has asserted anything new since then
the media was making the same accusations and implications back then
""no one will back up Comey's claim that the Obama administration didn't tap Trump Tower"
Yet."
probably not, because, let's face it:
the Obama administration did wiretap Trump Tower
everyone knows it
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/obama-wiretapping-trump-evidence-of-former-preside/
what Clapper didn't say:
http://www.nationalreview.com/article/445588/james-clapper-trump-statements-reveal-omission
"everyone knows it
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/7/obama-wiretapping-trump-evidence-of-former-preside/"
And you produce an opinion piece from the Moonie rag as your evidence?
Oh brother!
It is possible everyone in your bubble knows it -- that'd be you alone!
The rest of us know this is just another conspiracy theory like birtherism -- total bullshit to try to divert attention away from the Russia-Manifort-Stone-Flynn-Page-Tillerson-Gordon-Sessions-Kushner-Trump connections.
You are full of opinions written by others this morning yet you and they are short on facts.
Clapper also did not say:
“An ‘extremely credible source’ has called my office and told me that Barack Obama’s birth certificate is a fraud”
“My fingers are long and beautiful, as, it has been well documented, are various other parts of my body.”
“I’ve said if Ivanka weren’t my daughter, perhaps I’d be dating her.”
“Grab 'em by the pussy. You can do anything.”
"When you’re a star … you can do anything"
“When Mexico sends its people, they’re not sending the best. They’re not sending you, they’re sending people that have lots of problems and they’re bringing those problems with us. They’re bringing drugs. They’re bring crime. They’re rapists… And some, I assume, are good people.”
“One of they key problems today is that politics is such a disgrace. Good people don’t go into government.”
“Happy New Year to all, including to my many enemies and those who have fought me and lost so badly they just don’t know what to do. Love!”
"Let it be an arms race. We will outmatch them at every pass and outlast them all."
“You know, it really doesn’t matter what the media write as long as you’ve got a young, and beautiful, piece of ass.”
"Accuse the other side of that which you are guilty."
Joeseph Goebbles Nazi Propaganda Minster and Wyatt/bad anonymous.
Ryan: Only Lowering Costs Matters, not People’s Lives
Paul Ryan has been furiously trying to sell his new Obamacare replacement bill and failing miserably. But he really gave away the whole game when asked about the millions of Americans who would lose their health insurance as a result. All that matters, he said, is lower costs.
“By some estimates, 10 million people could lose coverage. Is that acceptable?” one reporter asked Ryan at a press conference Tuesday afternoon. Though the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office has not released its analysis of the House GOP’s Obamacare replacement plan, Standard & Poors released such an analysis Tuesday.
S&P found that 2 to 4 million people enrolled in Obamacare’s individual marketplaces could lose coverage under the American Health Care Act, in addition to 4 to 6 million people currently covered by Medicaid.
“What matters is that we’re the lowering costs of health care and giving people access to affordable health care plans,” Ryan responded. “The government will always win the war on government-run plans, saying, if we mandate everybody buys what we say they have to buy, then the government will always estimate that they’ll buy it.”
“I just think that’s bogus, that entire premise of that comparison doesn’t work,” he continued. “The fact is, we’re not going to have the government tell you what you must do, tell you what you must buy.”
Everything after that first sentence is a Sarah Palin-worthy word salad. Utter gibberish. But the one coherent sentence tells you all he needs to know. What matters is not that millions of people will lose their insurance, but that the cost of health care is lowered. There’s just one problem: His plan would raise the cost of healthcare quite dramatically at the same time that it cuts millions out of the insurance market entirely. It does this by eliminating the mandate, which will totally distort the insurance markets and drive premiums higher, and by causing the amount of uncompensated health care, which will send the amount charged by doctors, clinics and hospitals skyrocketing.
Americans overwhelmingly support Obama's Affordable Care Act. Republicans don't care that its far better than their plan, they only care about destroying it because its Obama's. Americans will punish them at the ballot box for doing so.
"You are full of opinions written by others this morning yet you and they are short on facts"
oh, there is the testimony and assertions of the Director of National Intelligence
and then there's the reporting of the FISA requests in media reports, including the NY Times
and the fact that the only thing being denied by anyone is that Obama personally ordered a direct wire tap of Trump (Nixon never did either - wink, wink)
other than that, the previous media reporting and the absence of denial by Obama officials would make it seem that, yes, Obama was investigating Trump and using wire taps directed at persons in the Trump Tower that could incidentally hear Trump, even if he wasn't the stated target
it's also confirmed by a pattern of ends-justifies-means behavior of the Obama White House
Good anonymous said "You are full of opinions written by others this morning yet you and they are short on facts"
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "oh, there is the testimony and assertions of the Director of National Intelligence".
As has been repeatedly pointed out the Director has said that there certainly could be evidence that Trump and his people colluded with the Russians.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "and then there's the reporting of the FISA requests in media reports, including the NY Times and the fact that the only thing being denied by anyone is that Obama personally ordered a direct wire tap of Trump (Nixon never did either - wink, wink".
Trouble with your claim is that Nixon did order the break in, Obama did not and could not order a wire tap. Any FISA requests had to go through a judge and that requires evidence that a crime was committed. So, either way, Trump falsely accused Obama, and if there is an investigation into Trump it is because there is evidence of criminal wrongdoing.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "other than that, the previous media reporting and the absence of denial by Obama officials would make it seem that, yes, Obama was investigating Trump and using wire taps directed at persons in the Trump Tower that could incidentally hear Trump, even if he wasn't the stated target".
More lies, Obama and his officials most certainly have condemned Trump for lying about Obama tapping Trump Tower. Even the highly partisan Republican Director of the FBI says that's bullshit and he's the one who interfered in the election to get Trump elected. When you've lost Comey you're obviously full of it.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "it's also confirmed by a pattern of ends-justifies-means behavior of the Obama White House".
LOL, there is no such "ends justifies the means" behavior in the Obama White House, that's strictly the province of Republicans - note how Trump encouraged the Russians to perform espionage on Hillary and the Democrats during the election.
All you need to know about Wyatt is that he has repeatedly said
"there are many situations where its appropriate to lie"
"The rest of us know this is just another conspiracy theory like birtherism -- total bullshit to try to divert attention away from the Russia-Manifort-Stone-Flynn-Page-Tillerson-Gordon-Sessions-Kushner-Trump connections."
With Wyatt/bad anonymous's constant vigorous defending of crooked Trump why has he claimed he's not a Trump supporter?
Just kidding, we know why, Wyatt said it himself "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie".
look, another Trump accomplishment
looks like we don't have to worry about anything nasty coming over the border from Canada
only those who believe in truth, justice and the American way:
http://www.cnn.com/2017/03/08/politics/border-crossings-huge-drop-trump-tough-talk/
I responded to Wyatt/bad anonymous "LOL, there is no such "ends justifies the means" behavior in the Obama White House, that's strictly the province of Republicans - note how Trump encouraged the Russians to perform espionage on Hillary and the Democrats during the election.".
And let's not forget Trump calling for "second amendment solutions" if Hillary got elected and was able to appoint Supreme Court Justices.
Talk about "ends justifying the means"!
The Republican replacement for Obamacare would drastically increase insurance costs for the poor and middle class, explode health care costs, deprive 10 million who now have health care insurance of that insurance, and provide a massive tax cut for the wealthy.
Trump and his surrogates are insisting they don't want anyone to call it "Trumpcare" - he doesn't want this farce hung around his neck.
Go figure!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Trump voters freak out about his plan to destroy health care
Be careful what you wish for Trump voters - Trumpcare is coming!
Watch Republican lawyers admit Trumpcare will cut off coverage to millions suffering from mental illness
But at least the Republicans made sure the mentally ill can buy guns!
Video: Its becoming increasingly clear that Russian intervention in U.S. politics did not stop after the election
Rachel Maddow Continues To Link Together Trump’s Connections To Russia And Wikileaks [VIDEO]
All week Rachel Maddow has been piecing together the labyrinthian connections between the Trump campaign and Russia. Last night’s update was especially revealing. Via Raw Story:
Maddow described a Politico report, released Wednesday, that revealed authorities investigated Konstantin Kilimnik, an associate of former Trump campaign chairman Paul Manafort, over Kilimnik’s suspected ties Russian intelligence.
Maddow explained that authorities are “looking into a Russian citizen in conjunction with one of the incidents on the Trump campaign last year which defied explanation at the time.” That incident, Maddow said, was the Trump campaign’s decision to gut a GOP party platform that encouraged a hardline approach against Russia.
“This was one of the first direct signs that something strange was up,” Maddow said, explaining that while much of the GOP party platform last year didn’t “seem very Trumpian,” the campaign “let everything else in the platform slide” except for the adversarial stance against Russia.
Maddow said it was “weird at the time,” but it wasn’t until recently that we learned the platform change was made “specifically at Donald Trump’s request.”
On February 17, 2016, Trump said, "We're going to have great plans. They're going to be much less expensive and they're going to be much better because the Obama plan is unaffordable and it's a disaster....But what I say is this, we're going to have great plans. But there will be a group of people that is not doing well, that has no money. We cannot let them die in the streets."
Also in February 2016, Trump said, "You will end up with great health care for a fraction of the price and that will take place immediately after we go in. Immediately! Fast! Quick!"
On March 7, 2017 Trump tweeted, "Our wonderful new Healthcare Bill is now out for review and negotiation. ObamaCare is a complete and total disaster - is imploding fast!"
So now we have TrumpScare and it is opposed by
The American Medical Association
The American Association of Retired People
The American Hospital Association
Plenty of other, smaller or specialty trade associations have also expressed deep concerns with the bill, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Federation of American Hospitals.
What Rachel and her staff are doing is weaving together info from the 35 page dossier with other news stories to create a more complete picture of how the trump campaign collaborated with Russia. The Dossier is a lot more than the "golden shower" story and verifies several stories that were reported on after the dossier was written. The Carter Page story is part of the dossier and the JD Gordon admission last week that he requested the change to RNC Platform concerning military aid to Ukraine at the request of trump, an action that both trump and Manafort denied at the time, is also in the dossier.
There's a direct link to Trump ordering J D Gordon to do this and lying about it , this will be important . He may have to testify , and lying under oath is the best route to impeachment .
IF the Republicans show themselves unwilling to take these investigations seriously, Kurt Eichenwald has said that FOREIGN intelligence services will release what THEY know.
Watergate on steroids...
March 9, 2017 - Hatred On The Rise, American Voters Say, Quinnipiac University National Poll Finds; Concern About Anti-Semitism Jumps In One Month
"The level of hatred and prejudice in the U.S. has increased since Donald Trump was elected president, 63 percent of American voters say in a Quinnipiac University national poll released today. Another 32 percent say the level hasn't changed and 2 percent say it has decreased.
A total of 77 percent of voters say prejudice against minority groups in the U.S. is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem, the independent Quinnipiac (KWIN-uh-pe-ack) University poll finds.
Concern about anti-Semitism has jumped in the last month: Looking specifically at prejudice against Jewish people, a total of 70 percent of American voters say it is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem, up from 49 percent in an February 8 Quinnipiac University Poll.
American voters are divided on President Donald Trump's response to bomb threats against Jewish community centers and vandalism of Jewish cemeteries as 37 percent approve and 38 percent disapprove.
"Americans are concerned that the dark forces of prejudice and anti-Semitism are rearing their ugly heads. Voters are less than confident with the new administration's response," said Tim Malloy, assistant director of the Quinnipiac University Poll.
From March 2 - 6, Quinnipiac University surveyed 1,323 voters nationwide with a margin of error of +/- 2.7 percentage points. Live interviewers call landlines and cell phones.
The Quinnipiac University Poll, directed by Douglas Schwartz, Ph.D., conducts public opinion surveys in Pennsylvania, New York, New Jersey, Connecticut, Florida, Ohio, Virginia, Iowa, Colorado and the nation as a public service and for research.
Visit poll.qu.edu or www.facebook.com/quinnipiacpoll "
"So now we have TrumpScare and it is opposed by
The American Medical Association
The American Association of Retired People
The American Hospital Association
Plenty of other, smaller or specialty trade associations have also expressed deep concerns with the bill, including the American Academy of Pediatrics, the American Psychiatric Association, and the Federation of American Hospitals."
you mean groups that make tons of money when the government taxes hardworking people to give out free money to others to spend at the groups' hospitals and offices are against ending their bonanza?
what a shocker!!
it's almost like teacher unions' opposing any alternative to public education where they bribe local officials into giving them ridiculously lucrative benefits
hey, I'm sensing a pattern here
"Concern about anti-Semitism has jumped in the last month: Looking specifically at prejudice against Jewish people, a total of 70 percent of American voters say it is a "very serious" or "somewhat serious" problem, up from 49 percent in an February 8 Quinnipiac University Poll"
that's odd
Trump has never uttered an anti-Semitic word, has thrived in the city with the largest Jewish population in the world, has a daughter and grandkids who are orthodox Jews, has made a foreign policy priority to wipe out hateful and bigoted anti-Jewish Islamic groups
so, you wonder why anyone would think anti-Semitism is elboldened
wonder no more: it's the media that has fooled these societal leeches into thinking they are ascendant
at least we think so
the only one caught so far has been a leftist journalist who made a string of threats, he said to make Trump look bad
"Funny" how Trump fights with CIA and wikileaks divulges CIA secrets.
Wikileaks doesn't leak any damaging information on Russia or the Republicans.
Wikileaks and Trump are working to further the interests of Russia at the expense of the free world.
"Trump has never uttered an anti-Semitic word"
Two words: Steve Bannon
Haaretz reports Steve Bannon Described U.S. Jews as 'Enablers' of Jihad
The Times of Israel reports Stephen Bannon: 5 things Jews need to knowA primer on the former Breitbart editor accused of anti-Semitism, now Trump’s new chief strategist
Heat Street reports How Stephen Bannon Promoted Racists and Anti-Semites to the Front of American Politics
still waiting for those words uttered by Trump
really don't think leftist journalists across America are calling in bomb threats because Trump hired someone accused of some past anti-Semitic remarks
it's a stretch
like most things you think
Trump Condemns Attacks On Jews – After Earlier Suggesting They Are Meant To Make Him Look Bad
"...the president [and some of his followers like the one above] believes the threatened attacks on Jewish communities around the United States are not the product of anti-Semitic terrorism, but instead are part of a campaign by his political enemies to make him look bad.
On Tuesday morning, he reportedly told a gathering of state attorneys general that “sometimes it’s the reverse” when asked about such incidents as the toppling of nearly a hundred headstones in a Philadelphia Jewish cemetery.
Pennsylvania Attorney General Josh Shapiro told reporters: "He just said, 'Sometimes it's the reverse, to make people — or to make others — look bad,' and he used the word 'reverse' I would say two to three times in his comments," Shapiro said. "He did correctly say at the top that it was reprehensible."
The president reportedly promised the attorneys general that he would lay the matter to rest that evening, but his remarks in his speech did not clarify what he meant by “the reverse.” The denunciation in the speech was so generic, in fact, that it wasn’t clear who he believed was responsible for the “hate and evil in all its forms.”
Earlier, Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt had requested some clarification of the meaning of his remarks to the attorneys general. “We are astonished by what the President reportedly said,” Greenblatt said in a statement. “It is incumbent upon the White House to immediately clarify these remarks. In light of the ongoing attacks on the Jewish community, it is also incumbent upon the President to lay out in his speech tonight his plans for what the federal government will do to address this rash of anti-Semitic incidents.”
The Anne Frank Center for Mutual Respect, which had earlier criticized Trump’s slowness to address the issue, was unimpressed with Trump’s speech.
"After weeks of our organization’s having to plead, cajole and criticize this president to speak out against anti-Semitism, we give him credit for doing the right thing tonight by beginning his speech to address anti-Semitism and other hate. But his suddenly dulcet tones weren’t matched by substantive kindness," executive director Steven Goldstein said in a statement.
"The president didn’t say exactly what he would do to fight anti-Semitism – how he could have stayed so vague? We’ve endured weeks of anti-Semitic attacks across America and we didn’t hear a single proposal from the president tonight to stop them," Goldstein said.
The claim that the “other side” is intentionally causing a wave of post-election hate-related incidents – which has reached 1,372 and counting – has increasingly appeared in the president’s responses to the press when queried about it...
...In response to a question about the threats against Jewish community centers, Trump said: "So here’s the story, folks. No. 1, I am the least anti-Semitic person that you’ve ever seen in your entire life," adding later, "I find it repulsive. I hate even the question because people that know me."
Former Trump campaign fundraiser Anthony Scaramucci also earlier Tuesday suggested on Twitter that Democrats were responsible for the threats against the Jewish community.
“It's not yet clear who the #JCC offenders are. Don't forget @TheDemocrats effort to incite violence at Trump rallies,” Scaramucci wrote, linking to a Breitbart News story.
Trump has also claimed that President Obama is secretly behind the recent protests at town halls faced by Republicans, as well as leaks within his administration.
he said anti-Semitism is "repulsive"
what else is someone trying to make him say?
the constant harping on telling him exactly what to say is all politics, simply a way to make it appear that he is responsible
the only person apprehended in these crimes so far was a leftist journalist who called in eight of the bomb threats and said he wanted to make Trump look bad
admittedly, he appeared to be a nut
as for the ADL wanting to know how Trump was going to stop it, we don't have a national police force
crime is handled at the local level
does Greenblatt really want to change that?
"The WikiLeaks CIA dump is quickly turning into a conspiracy theory: The CIA did the hacks!
If this were a normal time—if a crazy person weren’t president of the United States—the Wikileaks document dump would be the biggest story in the country right now. The documents, which were published on Tuesday, are part of the largest leak in CIA history and detail the agency’s techniques for breaking into cell phones, computers, and televisions. According to The New York Times:
"The initial release, which WikiLeaks said was only the first installment in a larger collection of secret C.I.A. material, included 7,818 web pages with 943 attachments, many of them partly redacted by WikiLeaks editors to avoid disclosing the actual code for cyberweapons. The entire archive of C.I.A. material consists of several hundred million lines of computer code, the group claimed.
In one revelation that may especially trouble the tech world if confirmed, WikiLeaks said that the C.I.A. and allied intelligence services have managed to compromise both Apple and Android smartphones, allowing their officers to bypass the encryption on popular services such as Signal, WhatsApp and Telegram. According to WikiLeaks, government hackers can penetrate smartphones and collect “audio and message traffic before encryption is applied.”"
The leaks have been described as being “Snowden 2.0” and “bigger than Snowden.” Ordinarily you’d expect blanket condemnation from the commander-in-chief, but Trump is not an ordinary commander-in-chief. There are two reasons why he may be holding his tongue.
The first is that the leak largely tracks with his argument that the intelligence agencies are bad and should not be trusted. Trump believes this not because he’s opposed to surveillance per se, but because he is furious about leaks to the press that he believes have come from the intelligence agencies. It’s not farfetched to imagine Trump tweeting: “Don’t believe that CIA is leaking all this FAKE NEWS about me? They broke into your phones and TVs!”
The second would be preposterous for any president who wasn’t Trump. But Wikileaks has also alleged that among the programs used by the CIA is one called “Umbrage.” Umbrage supposedly “collects and maintains a substantial library of attack techniques ‘stolen’ from malware produced in other states including the Russian Federation,” WikiLeaks says. With this program, the CIA can conduct hacks itself, while making it look like they were conducted by Russia and others.
This is a mischaracterization of the program and the malware used to hack the Democratic National Committee isn’t included. But you can see where this is going. The story is already on the front page of Brietbart and the message is clear. It wasn’t Russia that hacked the DNC and John Podesta, it was the CIA—who did it to blame Russia and discredit Trump. This is incredibly convoluted. For one, why would they do this? But it’s going to be trotted out as evidence by every conspiracy-leaning Putin and Trump apologist out there—and no one is a bigger conspiracy-leaning Putin and Trump apologist than Trump himself."
folks, as I've been pointing out from the beginning, all intelligence agencies hack anyone that may affect their nation
they'd be incompetent not to
both the KGB and CIA hacked Hillary
so what?
btw, the already reviled media is gambling what little credibility they have left on a lot of speculation without evidence in the Russia stories
they will likely lose
and we need a free press
the whole thing is tragic
remember, Trump is President because the American people preferred this despicable individual to the preposterous press
that's really a low place to reside already:
http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/taibbi-russia-story-is-a-minefield-for-democrats-and-the-media-w471074
"remember, Trump is President because the American people preferred this despicable individual to the preposterous press"
Wrong.
The orange asshole is president because of 70,000 midwesterners votes won him the electoral college, however, as he so graciously pointed out himself, he did not win the popular vote, Hillary did.
This fact means the American people did NOT prefer the twittiot you fervently support.
WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was fired from his prominent White House job last month, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for $530,000 worth of lobbying work before Election Day that may have aided the Turkish government.
Paperwork filed Tuesday with the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Unit said Flynn and his firm were voluntarily registering for lobbying from August through November that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." It was filed by a lawyer on behalf of the former U.S. Army lieutenant general and intelligence chief.
After his firm's work on behalf of a Turkish company was done, Flynn agreed not to lobby for five years after leaving government service and never to represent foreign governments.
Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, U.S. citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign government or political entities must disclose their work to the Justice Department. Willfully failing to register is a felony, though the Justice Department rarely files criminal charges in such cases. It routinely works with lobbying firms to get back in compliance with the law by registering and disclosing their work...
"This fact means the American people did NOT prefer the twittiot you fervently support"
I don't support him generally, although I'm coming around in some ways
I assumed he would be a big government guy but am pleased he has turned out to be for reducing the size of government
and like all thinking people, I think he's right about the conduct of the media
I won't be with him if he takes any legal action but I agree with his assessment of the media's performance
still, someone with his character make-up shouldn't be President in a perfect world and I disagree with him on trade, immigration, health care, eminent domain, social security, and drug legalization, among other things
he didn't lose any popular vote, regardless of what he says
we didn't have a popular vote
10% of Americans live in California and they gave Republicans no compelling reason to vote
so millions didn't
plus, while he surely exaggerates, he's probably right the illegal immigrant voting was a factor to an extent
how could it not be?
"WASHINGTON (AP) — President Donald Trump's former national security adviser, Michael Flynn, who was fired from his prominent White House job last month, has registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for $530,000 worth of lobbying work before Election Day that may have aided the Turkish government.
Paperwork filed Tuesday with the Justice Department's Foreign Agent Registration Unit said Flynn and his firm were voluntarily registering for lobbying from August through November that "could be construed to have principally benefited the Republic of Turkey." It was filed by a lawyer on behalf of the former U.S. Army lieutenant general and intelligence chief.
After his firm's work on behalf of a Turkish company was done, Flynn agreed not to lobby for five years after leaving government service and never to represent foreign governments.
Under the Foreign Agent Registration Act, U.S. citizens who lobby on behalf of foreign government or political entities must disclose their work to the Justice Department. Willfully failing to register is a felony, though the Justice Department rarely files criminal charges in such cases. It routinely works with lobbying firms to get back in compliance with the law by registering and disclosing their work..."
so what? big effin' deal
one of the stories going around among leftists about how trump's clinically insane?
according to Van Jones, socialist from the Obama administration, it's liberals who are insane:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/video/2017/03/09/van_jones_trump_driving_liberals_insane.html
People without medical degrees should not go around diagnosing others.
That includes pastors without medical degrees.
Watch 20/20 tonight and learn all about the Hundreds of Christian Anti-Gay 'Conversion Camps' for Kids 'Operating Across the Country'
"ABC News' "20/20" Friday night will report on anti-gay so-called conversion therapy camps run by pastors and preachers who use "the Bible and sometimes the belt" to try to change children from being homosexual or bisexual to heterosexual.
Despite the practice being emotionally damaging and dangerous, despite being opposed by every major medical organization in the country, and linked to self-harm and suicide, Christian parents are still sending their children away to these torture camps.
On Friday's "Good Morning America" ABC News' Brian Ross previewed his report, which will air tonight. A linked ABC News report says the "investigation found a cottage industry of so-called conversion camps operating across the country."
"Christian ministries or camps, where gay teens are sent by parents who want their children to change their sexuality," Ross says.
The Blessed Hope Christian Academy, Ross says, is run by a Christian pastor who charges $21,000 a year to "deal with teenagers who consider themselves gay." And he says parents give written consent for their children to be hit if they "act up."
The pastor on hidden camera says "it is going against the word of God. It is not biblically right."
Susan Cottrell of Freedhearts on camera says, "for every camp like this there are a hundred more that nobody knows about."
Ross also shows another camp, "unlicensed, and surrounded by barbed wire." As the clip continues, the "Christian pastor," Ross says, "has a track record of physical abuse and cruelty."
At the end of the clip, ABC's Robin Roberts pay tribute to her very religious mother for accepting her "as a gay woman."
""Any assertion that Vice President-elect Pence supported or advocated for conversion therapy is patently false and is a mischaracterization of language from a 16-year old campaign website. As a candidate for Congress in 2000, the Vice President-elect's website advocated that public funding in the Ryan White CARE Act be directed to groups that promoted safe sexual practices in the hopes of reducing the spread of HIV.
As a member of Congress, the Vice President-elect voted with a bipartisan majority of Republicans and Democrats to reauthorize the Ryan White CARE Act in 2006 and again in 2009. The Vice President-elect has a long record of supporting efforts to reduce the spread of HIV/AIDS, was also a strong supporter of AIDS Africa relief legislation (known as PEPFAR) and, as Governor of Indiana, provided strong and compassionate leadership to confront an HIV epidemic in Southern Indiana in 2015.""
http://abcnews.go.com/Politics/statement-marc-lotter-press-secretary-vice-president-mike/story?id=45953296
"so what? big effin' deal"
So what?
We are a country of laws!
Don't believe me?
Ask Breitbart: Donald Trump Targets Illegal Aliens: ‘We Are a Country of Laws’
Having a foreign agent on staff of his campaign and then elevating him to a National Security Advisor shows what a DANGEROUS STUPID EFFING MORON this Grab Our Pussy President is.
Trump asked a former foreign agent to be White House National Security Advisor.
Did the president not consider why this might be a bad idea?
This came up, not surprisingly, during yesterday’s briefing with Press Secretary Sean Spicer, when a reporter asked if Trump was aware of the fact that Flynn was acting as a foreign agent when the president appointed him to serve as NSA. “I don’t believe that that was known,” Spicer replied, leaning heavily on passive voice.
It’s hard to say with confidence whether Spicer is telling the truth or not, but under the circumstances, even if we accept the answer at face value, it’s not unreasonable to wonder how and why the president didn’t know.
It’s been public knowledge for months that Flynn’s record included problematic and legally dubious lobbying work with Turkey. In fact, on Nov. 18, Rep. Elijah Cummings (D-Md.) notified Team Trump about Flynn’s Turkish ties. (Trump offered Flynn the NSA job on Nov. 17.)...
Is this evidence of a president who’s simply incurious about his staff’s connections with foreign governments? Did he ignore all of the coverage? Did Trump not ask or not care about the former foreign agent overseeing national security policy in his White House?
What’s more, to appreciate the full context of the story, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the fact that Flynn, throughout the campaign season, accused Hillary Clinton of being at the center of pay-to-play controversies involving federal governments.
During the Republican National Convention last year, Flynn joined the unhinged crowd in chanting “Lock her up!” while going after Hillary Clinton. “If I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today,” Flynn said at the time.
In retrospect, it’s a comment he almost certainly shouldn’t have made.
That's so what.
The Creator Of Barbaric ‘Ex-Gay Conversion Therapy’ Practice Dies:
Joseph Nicolosi is largely credited with the discredited practice.
"So what?
We are a country of laws!
Don't believe me?"
it's not a matter of belief
you're wrong
I have a friend who I have arguments with all the time because he's been a big Trump supporter over the last year
he makes the same stupid argument all the time:
we're a nation of laws
we're actually not
we're a nation of rights
we're a society that recognizes that any time a law infringes on rights, we have a moral obligation to violate it and take it to the SCOTUS so they can eliminate these stupid laws
happens all the time and the lawbreaker becomes a hero
because we're not a nation of laws, we're a nation of rights
see the difference?
"Having a foreign agent on staff of his campaign and then elevating him to a National Security Advisor shows what a DANGEROUS ....
Trump asked a former foreign agent to be White House National Security Advisor."
you do realize that Turkey is a NATO ally, right?
we are obligated by treaty to defend them
I have a feeling that Britain wouldn't be the same problem to you
you're biased against Muslims
probably because they don't put up with any gay crap
"It’s hard to say with confidence whether Spicer is telling the truth or not"
well, I don't have the same problem with you
I'm confident you're a liar
"What’s more, to appreciate the full context of the story, it’s worth pausing to appreciate the fact that Flynn, throughout the campaign season, accused Hillary Clinton of being at the center of pay-to-play controversies involving federal governments."
you mean when she was Secretary of State and some country would give a million to the Foundation and then torture some gays and she'd give them a break at the negotiating table?
yeah, that was bad
she should have gone to jail
"During the Republican National Convention last year, Flynn joined the unhinged crowd"
unhinged?
they were so hinged they took over the country
and all Dems, libs and TTFers can do is whine
even Van Jones the socialist says you leftists have become unhinged
"in chanting “Lock her up!” while going after Hillary Clinton. “If I did a tenth of what she did, I would be in jail today,” Flynn said at the time.""
that's true
anyone else would
she compromised the security of our nation of rights
we have the right to toss her in the slammer
"That's so what."
sounds like you're unhinged
call a carpenter for reparative therapy!!
Trump supporters call for “liberal genocide” and deportation of Jews at Arizona rally
Things get ugly fast at a "March for Trump" in Phoenix, Arizona
gay writer for Out magazine says liberals are unplugged from reality
he says coming out as a Trump supporter now is like coming out as gay fifty years ago
liberals persecute, attack and tell lies about anyone who supports Trump in any way
of course, anyone who's had the misfortune to stumble on this site knows that
look at "unhinged" above
one guy was even bragging the other day how Obama let out 9 terrorists from Gitmo
and all the hysteria about anyone who has talked to Russians is a throwback to Joseph McCarty:
http://www.salon.com/2017/03/07/gay-conservative-liberals-misguided-in-thinking-theres-some-sort-of-fascist-element-in-power/
well, since a pro-growth President took over the entire mood of the country is paying dividends
the stock market: booming, at record highs
consumer confidence: highest in 15 years
jobs growth: averaging 237K a month (Obama averaged 117k a month - that's...HALF!)
the wall is going up, school choice is coming, our government will stop funding Planned Parenthood, the EPA will have to do with less, the military is getting an upgrade, ditto for infrastructure, the Keystone pipeline is going over the river, the trans bathroom cases are being turned back by the SCOTUS, Neil Gorsuch will end legalized abortion....
and all because you trusted Hillary and the Clinton crime syndicate
you know what the funniest thing is?
they flail around desperately, making up lies, screaming at town halls, revving up a red scare, inciting racism .. and, if they get what they want and Trump leaves....it's Mike Pence, author of the Indiana Religious Freedom Act and TTF nemesis for President
Undercover at a so-called gay conversion camp
Advocates of long-discredited gay conversion therapy programs say they are heartened by the election of Donald Trump and are counting on Vice President Mike Pence and congressional Republicans to help fight off efforts to make such programs illegal.
“I certainly hope that this administration will pull back from some of the aggressive activism that the Obama administration engaged in,” said Peter Sprigg of the Family Research Council, a powerful conservative lobbying group in Washington that is active in supporting sexual reorientation efforts.
Conversion therapy has been outlawed for licensed mental health providers in California, Oregon, New Jersey, Vermont, Illinois and the District of Colombia, according to the Human Rights Campaign, an LGBT advocacy group.
The Family Research Council and Sprigg have helped to fight legislative proposals in 20 other states that would make gay conversion therapy illegal.
“They certainly should not be outlawed. They certainly should not be prohibited by law,” Sprigg said in an interview to be broadcast this Friday on the ABC News program “20/20” in an investigation of gay conversion therapy programs.
“As a Christian, I believe that the Bible teaches that to choose to engage in homosexual conduct is a sin,” he said, adding that he believes therapy can cause people to make different choices.
The camps practicing conversion therapy uncovered by the “20/20” investigation were not operating as licensed mental health facilities and are therefore not covered by laws prohibiting the practice.
At the Republican National Convention last year, delegates voted for a party platform that appeared to tacitly endorse the right of parents to send their teens to conversion programs, supporting the “right of parents to determine the proper medical treatment and therapy for their minor children.”
The party position mirrors the position of the Family Research Council, which considers sexual reorientation therapy mental health care.
Sprigg said that his groups does not believe that “same-sex attractions are a choice” but that he also does “not believe that experiencing same-sex attractions is a normal and natural variant of human sexuality.”
He added that he believes Pence will be helpful in any battle with what he called the “gay lobby.”
The Family Research Council is optimistic Republicans will back its position.
“I see it as unlikely that any sort of legislative – federal legislative attack upon sexual reorientation therapy will ... go anywhere," Sprigg said.
The practice however has long been discredited by respected medical and mental health institutions.
The Blatant Republican Hypocrisy on the Debt Limit
The American government is coming up against its statutory debt limit again, which means the Republicans will once again put their rank hypocrisy on the issue on stark display. When a Democrat is in the White House, it’s an outrage to raise the debt limit. A Republican there instead? Well of course they’ll raise the debt limit.
Donald Trump’s Treasury Secretary, Steven Mnuchin, has quietly requested Congress to “raise the federal debt limit at the first opportunity.” Notably, Mnuchin does not propose offsetting the debt limit increase with spending cuts or tax increases.
Mnuchin’s letter is effectively the opposite of the policy Trump pledged to pursue as president.
In 2011, Trump said that if he were president would “wouldn’t raise” the debt limit and instead “make a deal.” Trump promised to “stop [the debt] right now.”
In a tweet, Trump said that “there is no revenue problem” and that “the debt limit cannot be raised” until Congress cuts spending and balances the budget.
Obama’s call to increase the debt limit without draconian cuts to spending was “destroying our country,” Trump said…
Now that Trump is president, his approach is the complete opposite. Via Mnuchin, Trump is asking Congress to raise the debt limit without demanding any spending cuts in return.
Instead he is seeking to enact a new health care plan (with no funding mechanism), a massive military spending increase and, in the near future, a massive tax cut for corporations and the wealthy.
When asked about it by Politico, Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell said that of course they’d raise the debt limit, a stark contrast to when the Republicans shut down the federal government a few years ago because Obama was in office. Hypocrisy doesn’t get any more brazen than that.
Paul Ryan Just Isn’t Very Bright
For some reason, Republicans think Paul Ryan is some kind of policy wonk, a Very Serious Man. In reality, he’s abysmally ignorant on most public policy issues and he put that ignorance on stark display in promoting the new anti-Obamacare bill.
Speaker Paul Ryan (R-WI), the Great and Knowledgeable Policy Wonk and Wise Knower of Many Things About Health Care, has no idea how insurance works.
The Great Wonk’s poor grasp of one of the most basic financial instruments was clear after a Power Point presentation he gave Thursday advocating for the House GOP’s embattled health care bill.
The problem with Obamacare, Ryan claimed in this presentation, is that “the young healthy person is going to be made to buy health care and they’re going to pay for the person who gets breast cancer in her 40s or heart disease in their 50s.” He then pointed to a pie chart showing a thin red slice cut into a larger blue pie.
The red slice here are what I would call people with preexisting conditions. People who have real health-care problems. The blue is the rest of the people in the individual market — that’s the market where people don’t get health insurance at their jobs where they buy it themselves. The whole idea of Obamacare is the people on the blue side pay for the people on the red side. The people who are healthy pay for the people who are sick.
Well, yes, that is the whole idea of Obamacare. It’s also the whole idea of any form of insurance of any kind whatsoever.
This man is the Speaker of the House, one of the most powerful men in the country. And he’s spectacularly clueless about how insurance works while he pushes a reform measure that will destroy insurance markets. Stunning.
shut up, Priya
you're not an American, you don't pay taxes to the US government, and you will never set foot on our land
our budget is none of your business
NOAA: Global Carbon Dioxide Levels Hit Record High
Atmospheric carbon dioxide levels hit a new high last year and have only continued to climb in the first two months of 2017, federal scientists reported Friday. Carbon dioxide levels jumped by 3 ppm between 2015 and 2016 and have “surged” by 6 ppm over two years, a level of growth unseen in the Mauna Loa observatory’s 59-year history, NOAA said. The rate of CO2 growth over the last decade is 100 to 200 times faster than what the Earth experienced during the transition from the last Ice Age.
Devastating effects of global warming are already being seen in the oceans. Carbon dioxide is increasing the acidity of the water and this is killing off marine life. Coral reefs around the world are dying off with less than 50% remaining. In Australia 90% of the Great Barrier Reef is dead.
Earlier this month the Trump administration proposed massive cuts to the NOAA budget. American scientists are rushing to spirit vast government data bases of climate records to Canada for safekeeping as the Trump administration seeks to destroy it so it can't be used to show the warming trend.
Wow anon, you're a little testy, arntcha? Paul Ryan's complaint about the healthy having to pay for the sick showed that he has no freakin' idea how insurance works.
This comment has been removed by a blog administrator.
"Earlier this month the Trump administration proposed massive cuts to the NOAA budget"
well, you just got finished describing how horrible the situation is, so apparently all the money we've spent has had no effect
if just the people in this country who think global warming is a big problem would start walking and riding bikes everywhere and use cars for only emergencies, the imaginary problem would be solved
will you do it?
also, Al Gore needs to stay home and stop jetting all over the world
"American scientists are rushing to spirit vast government data bases of climate records to Canada for safekeeping as the Trump administration seeks to destroy it so it can't be used to show the warming trend."
why don't they just take it home?
it's not confidential
problem is, if you give it to Canadian, you won't be able to "adjust" every couple of weeks to suit your agenda
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "shut up, Priya blah, blah, blah, blah...".
LOL, remember when Wyatt the chronic liar said:
"it will be a cold day in hell before you get another response to any other of your inane comments"?
What else can you expect from someone who says "there are many situations where its appropriate to lie."?
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "well, you just got finished describing how horrible the situation is, so apparently all the money we've spent has had no effect".
Compared to the massive unpaid for spending increase Trump's planning for the military the NOAA budget is essentially zero. The U.S. spends more money on defence than the next largest spending 10 countries combined. The military says its capability is vast and more spending is unnecessary. Trump's indiscriminate targeting of Muslims and painting them all as enemies is actually decreasing the security of the U.S. Working with Muslims is what's needed to increase American security, not a larger military. That's what makes Trump's slashing of NOAA's budget so obscene.
The only money the U.S. spent on global warming so far is for documenting that its happening and none has been spent on doing anything about it.
Dealing with global warming will be expensive but it will be far, far cheaper than dealing with the consequences of global warming unchecked. Just imagine how much it will cost to move entire cities of multi-millions inland due to rising oceans.
Not only does Trump not want to do anything about global warming, he wants to stop the documenting the warming trend and destroy existing data to hide from the disastrous reality. At least Obama signed the U.S onto the Paris Accord with 200 other countries and made a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions. Trump is taking the U.S. and the world backwards by pulling out of the agreement.
The U.S. emits 1/4 of the world's CO2. Republicans need to accept that the U.S. is not the unconditional owner of the land it occupies. The world's citizens are in a sense joint owners of all the worlds land, regardless of which country it is in - pollution knows no boundaries.
As the largest per capita emitter of CO2 the U.S. can't sit out CO2 reduction. It needs to have some skin in the game to show other countries they need to do their part as well.
"The U.S. spends more money on defence than the next largest spending 10 countries combined"
yeah, our tax dollars go to pay for the defense of the rest of the free world, leaving everyone else with the extra pocket change to hand out lollipops to their voters
in France, they pay for everyone's lunch,
in Canada, they let nutcases have computers
in Britain, they give free healthcare to anyone who get's off aplane
"That's what makes Trump's slashing of NOAA's budget so obscene"
funny, you don't seem to find anything else obscene
"The only money the U.S. spent on global warming so far is for documenting that its happening and none has been spent on doing anything about it"
well, if that's true, why is everyone complaining about Trump cutting the funding?
I think you've just revealed yet another liberal lie
Obama didn't spend any money on global warming in 8 years?
what a traitor to his cause!
"Dealing with global warming will be expensive but it will be far, far cheaper than dealing with the consequences of global warming unchecked. Just imagine how much it will cost to move entire cities of multi-millions inland due to rising oceans"
it's fine
when it gets too hot here, we're going to invade Canada and enslave the population, making them fan us and feed us cool grapes all day
"Not only does Trump not want to do anything about global warming, he wants to stop the documenting the warming trend and destroy existing data to hide from the disastrous reality"
news flash: researchers could prevent that by making their data public, like other fields of science
oh, that's right
they can't
the data is false
At least Obama signed the U.S onto the Paris Accord with 200 other countries and made a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions"
don't defend that fool
he let 9 terrorists go free
"The U.S. emits 1/4 of the world's CO2"
I know
and liberals are the worst
they all should sell their cars and walk
they can call Uber for urgencies
"Republicans need to accept that the U.S. is not the unconditional owner of the land it occupies. The world's citizens are in a sense joint owners of all the worlds land, regardless of which country it is in - pollution knows no boundaries"
and here we have, at last, the real agenda revealed
those who don't live in the world's greatest country want there to be a one world government
it's just resentment
last year, 'round about now, Dems thought they had it made in the shade. now, it's difficult to see them as a viable party until the 22nd century:
https://www.bostonglobe.com/news/politics/2017/03/09/for-democrats-won-easy/UwXqnHIC3uqrhkaSbSsouN/story.html
remember the gay Nate Silver that TTF used to like so much. he thinks they're bubble heads:
https://fivethirtyeight.com/features/there-really-was-a-liberal-media-bubble/
LOL, Wyatt/bad anonymous has all the self control of a two year old. He's repeatedly claimed he's not going to respond to my comments but he can't help himself.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahahaha!
Paul Ryan is a Massive Douchebag
Paul Ryan continues to futilely try to sell this vile “replacement” for Obamacare, making monumentally idiotic arguments along the way (like not knowing what insurance means). In an interview with Hugh Hewitt he revealed just how callous he can be about people’s lives.
HEWITT: "Finally, the CBO’s going to come out with a number, Speaker Ryan, that says 15 million people are going to lose their insurance. Now you can’t really lose what you don’t use, and can’t use. How are you going to combat that number to get through the narrow gate of 51 senators?"
RYAN: "That’s right. I’ve been telling our members, “Just get ready.” This is always what happens with CBO. We couldn’t, you know — we often mark up bills in what we call authorizing committees like Ways and Means and Commerce before you have a score, and then the score comes. That’s very typical.
But we always know you’re never going to win a coverage beauty contest when it’s free market versus government mandates. If the government says thou shall buy our health insurance, the government estimates are going to say people will comply and it will happen. And when you replace that with we’re going to have a free market, and you buy what you want to buy, they’re going to say not nearly as many people are going to do that. That’s just going to happen.
And so you’ll have those coverage estimates. We assume that’s going to happen. That’s not our goal. Our goal is not to show a pretty piece of paper that says we’re mandating great things for Americans. Our goal is to get a vibrant health-care system that’s patient-centered, that brings down costs, that increases choices, that has a marketplace so that we lower the costs and increase, and therefore increase the access to affordable care [He's lying, experts say Trumpcare will explode health care costs and the cost of insurance]. That’s our goal, and it’s not to win some coverage beauty contest."
RYAN: "But you’re right: You’re going to see some number coming out; I have no doubt in my mind about that. I’ve spoken to our members about that. We’re going to talk to our members constantly about this, because we’re not going to get into a bidding war with the left about how much we can mandate or put entitlements out there for people. If you’re repealing one entitlement and bloc-granting to the states another entitlement, the government’s not going to say we’re getting more entitlements. It’s just simple. But that is going to be, I think, something a little bit confusing to people. And we’ve been telling our members all along you know that’s what’s going to happen, so get ready."
So he admits that there’s no way the free market can provide access to health insurance on par with Obamacare, and he doesn’t dispute Hewitt’s prediction of 15 million people losing their insurance if this bill passes. But that’s just a “beauty contest.” What a horrible human being. Eliminating health insurance for 15 million people — or 10 million, 5 million or one million — is not a damn beauty contest. Those are real human beings with real health problems that they are far less likely to die from if they have access to health care that, by Ryan’s own admission, they won’t have under his plan.
But Ryan doesn’t care. Let people die, as long as they don’t get a dreaded “entitlement.” Because they aren’t entitled to life. I mean, if they were fetuses, then they’d have a “right to life.” But they made the mistake of being born, so they no longer matter and the Republican party is more than happy to see them get eliminated in the name of the free market.
LOL, remember when Wyatt the chronic liar said:
"it will be a cold day in hell before you get another response to any other of your inane comments"?
I told him he couldn't resist responding to my comments, watch him do it again!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha!
Amerikanski said...
"Wow anon, you're a little testy, arntcha?".
LOL, I know, right? : )
Its friggin hilarious!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Refugees from the United States make dangerous boarder crossing to seek asylum in Canada
The political climate in the United States is so bad under Trump increasing numbers of refugees from the U.S. are walking across miles of frozen fields to get to Canada. They're losing body parts to frostbite and risking their lives because they're desperate to escape the Trump regime.
Canadian citizens near the boarder are welcoming the American refugees with open arms.
"a little testy" -- it was a pun, Anon, sort of like when Trump had small inaugural balls. Same joke.
This comment has been removed by the author.
Russia tries to discredit Canadian Foreign Minister over Canada's strong support for Ukraine
Canada has taken a strong stance against Russia's attempt to reassert control over a sovereign Ukraine and its infuriated Putin given the Trump regime's support for the Russian takeover of a sovereign nation. Chrystia Freeland, Canada's foreign minister, has been an outspoken critic of the Russian war on Ukraine.
As has been previously documented on TTF, the Republican party removed from the party platform language supporting Ukraine and condemning Russian aggression there at the request of Trump who is under the influence and control of Putin and Russia.
Trump has sought to further Russian goals of destroying NATO so Russia can have free reign to dominate countries around the world.
I said "At least Obama signed the U.S onto the Paris Accord with 200 other countries and made a commitment to reducing CO2 emissions"
Wyatt/bad anonymous desperately trying to deflect said "don't defend that fool he let 9 terrorists go free".
Standard flaming hypocrisy from Wyatt/bad anonymous. Republican president Bush let over one hundred terrorists go free but somehow Obama is the bad guy and Bush isn't.
There's a bottomless pit of hypocrisy Republicans like Wyatt/bad anonymous reside in.
what if an American President made a secret deal with the Russians, before an election, to compromise the security of the United States, if the Russians would just cooperate and make him look good so he could be elected?
his name was Barack Obama
in 2012, he whispered to a Russian official that he would make concessions on arms negotiations after the election if he got re-elected
the press treated it like some minor campaign slip-up
on the other hand, if there is any evidence of any Trump official having a conversation with a Russian, it's proof positive they are working with the Russians
and yet, no content of these conversations has been revealed
the media thus shows their contempt for the public
http://www.washingtonexaminer.com/when-the-media-didnt-care-about-secret-talks-with-russia/article/2617102
""a little testy" -- it was a pun, Anon, sort of like when Trump had small inaugural balls. Same joke."
I didn't catch it, Americanski, but it's a rare joke that's funny even when explained
what a rarity, a TTFer that doesn't take himself too seriously
"March 12, 2017 1:35 PM Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author."
look at that
I told Priya to shut up and it worked!
ha-ha!
it's like in the primary debates when Trump told Jeb Bush "shhh" and Bush shut up!!
"I told Priya to shut up and it worked!"
No, you misattributed another commenter's gender and your comment got deleted. As a result, your sparkling and witty insights were lost on our vast reading public.
JimK
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "look at that I told Priya to shut up and it worked!".
LOL, after one brutal intellectual pummeling after another Wyatt's so desperate for a win he's reduced to an eight year old's comeback.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Another hilarious one:
After repeatedly claiming the sub-five percent jobs reports were fake and unemployment was really as high as 42% Trump is suddenly claiming the jobs reports are real "now" despite being produced by the same people using the same methods and sources.
Economists say it takes about a year for an incoming president's policies to start having an effect on the economy so he's dishonestly trying to take credit for Obama's success.
We've seen this since the election with Trump pathetically trying to claim credit for companies starting job creating projects that were announced up to a year and a half before the election.
Trump can't do anything right, his entire life has been him claiming credit for other's achievements and blaming others for his failures - what a loser!
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "what if an American President made a secret deal with the Russians, before an election, to compromise the security of the United States, if the Russians would just cooperate and make him look good so he could be elected? his name was Barack Obama in 2012, he whispered to a Russian official that he would make concessions on arms negotiations after the election if he got re-elected".
Lies. He never said he'd make concessions, he said he'd have greater flexibility to negotiate once re-elected which was true of course. There was no quid pro quo there like there was with Trump. Contrary to your lies Obama never offered to trade favours, He didn't ask Russia to "cooperate and make him look good" and they didn't do anything legal or illegal to help re-elect him. There was nothing controversial about Obama's comment.
Trump on the other hand agreed to do Putin's bidding if Putin would illegally hack the American election and help elect him. Trump encouraged Russia to conduct espionage on the U.S. Russia did so to help elect Trump and in return Trump withdrew Republican opposition to Putin's war in Ukraine, promoted the destruction of NATO, praised Putin endlessly, and opposed sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine and supporting the Syrian dictator's genocide on Syrians.
Also, hidden in that sentence that begins " "what if an American President made a secret deal..." is the word "President." There is nothing scandalous about the President negotiating with a foreign power -- that's his job. There is something scandalous about private individuals making promises to foreign governments and lying to Congress and the public about it.
"There is nothing scandalous about the President negotiating with a foreign power -- that's his job"
that wasn't negotiating
he was conspiring with Russians to deceive the voters
to the detriment of the country
"There is something scandalous about private individuals making promises to foreign governments"
no evidence that happened
"and lying to Congress and the public about it"
something would have to be true before you could lie by denying it
just simple logic
let's talk about those "lies"
Flynn didn't lie to Congress
he lied to Pence
probably because it was a story and he was afraid the Trump administration would disapprove because of appearances
Sessions said he hadn't met with Russians
he did twice:
1. he met the Russian at a large gathering of ambassadors while mingling at a reception
2. he met at a meeting in his Senate office, in his capacity as a member of a foreign policy committee
these were both publicly known meetings and it was unlikely he thought he was lying
he probably thought Franken the comedian was asking about a certain type of secret meeting
btw, most Americans don't think lying to Congress is some great sin
they actually think Congress and Congress' pompous and politically motivated questions are contemptible
so that discounts "lying" to Congress
it's an obsession of the media and liberals whenever a conservative is giving testimony
""I told Priya to shut up and it worked!"
No, you misattributed another commenter's gender and your comment got deleted. As a result, your sparkling and witty insights were lost on our vast reading public.
JimK"
that's not when I told Priya to shut up
that whole gender obsession of yours was when you deleted my comment, not when Priya deleted Priya's comment because I told Priya to shut up
when I told Priya to shut up, it worked
The world's oceans are warming 13 per cent faster than previously thought scientists warn.
The research, published in the journal Science Advances, also found the rate of ocean warming had changed significantly over the last 60 years.
The warming rate from 1992 was found to be almost twice as great as the warming rate from 1960.
"In other words, the planet is warming quite a lot more than we thought," Keven Trenberth, a co-author of the study, said.
Scientists are concerned by such an increase, as 90 per cent of the extra heat absorbed by greenhouse gasses ends up in the ocean, meaning it is considered one of the most important measurements of global warming.
"We know the oceans are much warmer now and they contain the memory of climate change. Higher sea surface temperatures are continually reinforced by the extra heat beneath the ocean surface," the team wrote in a press release.
"The oceans are affecting weather and climate through more intense rains. This process is a major reason why 2016 was the hottest year ever recorded at the Earth’s surface, beating out 2015 which was the previous record.
"Additionally 2015 was a year with record hurricanes, heat waves, droughts, and wild-fires around the world."
Appearing on Russian state television, longtime Trump adviser Roger Stone pushes Trump’s wiretap lie
"President Donald Trump’s ally and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” Roger Stone appeared on the Russian state-funded outlet RT yet again, and pushed Trump’s false claim that former President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower.
In an interview with RT, at least his fifth since 2015, Stone stated that both he and Trump believe that Trump Tower “was under surveillance by the federal government and the intelligence agencies” during the 2016 presidential campaign in “potentially the greatest scandal in American history.” Stone added that if wiretapping did occur, “it is unlikely” it was done “without the permission and knowledge of the President.” He called for a “grand jury” where Obama would be “questioned under oath.” Current and former intelligence officials have said Trump’s charge is false.
During the interview, Stone also disputed the American intelligence community’s consensus that Russia interfered with the 2016 election, claiming, “The mainstream media in this country keeps repeating it ad nauseam despite a stunning lack of evidence,” and bemoaned former national security adviser Michael Flynn’s resignation from his post and Attorney General Jeff Sessions’ recusal from any campaign-related probes. Flynn was ousted after it was made public that he lied to Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions with the Russian ambassador to the U.S. Similarly, Sessions recused himself from investigations of the Russian influence on the election after it was revealed that he also met twice with the Russian ambassador and failed to disclose those meetings when asked under oath during his confirmation hearing.
Stone, a longtime friend, ally, and adviser to Trump, is reportedly under investigation by law enforcement as part of a probe of links between Trump associates and Russian officials during the 2016 campaign. Stone claimed last August that he personally was in communication with WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange. A March 8 report also alleges that he exchanged private Twitter messages with “Guccifer 2.0,” an entity U.S. officials believe was created by Russian officials to publicize emails stolen from the Democratic National Committee (DNC).
This is not Stone’s first interview with RT, a Russian-funded media network that Western countries believe works to “sow doubt about democratic institutions and destabilize the West.” Since June 2015, when Trump launched his presidential campaign, Stone appeared on RT at least four times before this latest interview. He claimed in a 2015 interview that Chelsea Clinton was a “co-conspirator” in the “profiteering” and “bribes” of the Clinton Foundation, and said in a February 2016 RT interview that Jeb Bush “brings out his mother” Barbara Bush “on those rare occasions when she’s sober” and that the Bush family is “like an organized crime family.” In another February 2016 interview, he pushed for the election of Trump and said the U.S needed “to have a leader, to have a president kind of like Comrade Putin.” More recently, he suggested in a January 31 interview that former DNC staffer Seth Rich was murdered over the hacking of the organization’s emails and that the “entire notion that the Russians hacked this election and did so in order to affect the result is a falsehood, is a canard.”...
Continued
"...Stone has a decades-long history of employing dirty tricks, was banned from multiple American cable outlets, and regularly spouts violent, racist, and sexist rhetoric, including calling Hillary Clinton a “cunt” and advocating her execution. He has also attacked various media figures, calling them things like “professional negro” and “stupid bitch.” Stone is a discredited researcher and conspiracy theorist who claims that the Clintons and the Bushes secretly murdered dozens and that the collapse of World Trade Center Building 7 was “suspicious.” He believes that President Lyndon Johnson killed President John F. Kennedy, President George H.W. Bush tried to assassinate President Ronald Reagan, and the Clintons killed John F. Kennedy Jr."
McCain Calls On Trump To Retract Obama Wiretap Claim Or Prove It
"When it comes to President Donald Trump’s claim that he was wiretapped, Sen. John McCain (R-Ariz.) wants the evidence to speak for itself.
The chairman of the Senate Armed Services Committee called on Trump on Sunday to either prove that his predecessor Barack Obama illegally tapped his phones or retract the allegation. His request comes roughly one week after Trump made the unprecedented claim on Twitter without offering any evidence backing it up.
“The president has one of two choices, either retract or provide the information that the American people deserve,” McCain told CNN’s Jake Tapper, host of State of the Union. “I have no reason to believe that the charge is true, but I also believe that the president of the United States could clear this up in a minute.”
So far FBI Director James Comey, as well as former senior U.S. officials and an Obama spokesman have called the claim false. Some Trump critics have accused him of making up the allegation to divert attention from investigations into his administration’s potential ties to Russia.
Instead, it’s just created another talking point — one that wasn’t missed by McCain.
“There’s a lot of things about our relations with Russia that trouble me a lot,” he said after asked about Trump National Security Advisor Michael Flynn’s past paid work as a foreign agent for Turkey.
“There’s a lot of aspects of this whole relationship with Russia and Vladimir Putin that requires future scrutiny and so far I don’t think that the American people have gotten all of the answers and in fact I think there’s a lot more shoes to drop from this centipede,” he said.
Though Trump has yet to produce evidence or again address the claim, two senior senators have since asked the FBI and Justice Department to produce whatever information they have on the matter.
In a letter addressed on Wednesday to Comey and Acting Deputy Attorney General Dana Boente, Republican Sen. Lindsey Graham and Democrat Sen. Sheldon Whitehouse demanded to know whether any warrants were obtained or requested by Obama. If the federal agencies do no cooperate, Graham told CNN that subpoenas will be issued."
climate change and green energy: the alarmists have created a disaster in Europe, America was right all along
http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/europes-lesson-teaches-us-dont-go-green/
all the TTF-type losers in the last election have been pushing a boycott of Ivanka's clothes line
result: sales up 350%
it's like when the gaynuts try to boycott CHik-Fil-A
America was having none of it
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/mar/9/editorial-the-sour-smell-of-success/
Trump allowing Afghanis who aided the U.S. military to be killed
The Trump administration and Congress are apparently going to just allow the number of special visas offered to Afghanis who worked with the American military and other agencies in their country during the war to expire. Because why not just let them be hunted down, right?
The State Department is running out of visas for Afghans who are in danger because they worked with the U.S. government in Afghanistan.
On Thursday, the U.S. State Department announced that it expected the visas to be depleted by June 1 and that “No further interviews for Afghan principal applicants … will be scheduled after March 1, 2017.”
NPR’s Quil Lawrence reported, “The Special Immigrant Visa program was designed to reward Iraqis and Afghans who help U.S. forces at war, but it’s been plagued by a lengthy vetting process and changing politics in Washington.”
The special visas also apply to spouses and children of people who worked as translators, drivers and other staff for the U.S. military and other agencies.
A State Department official told NPR in an email on Thursday that more than 15,000 Afghans are currently “at some stage of the [special visa] application process” and that as of March 5, only 1,437 visas remain to be given out.
The Taliban actively hunts for these people and when they find them, they will kill them and their entire families. This is incredibly short-sighted, just like Trump’s Muslim travel ban. If we ever expect people to cooperate with us again in situations like this, we need to keep our promises to them to keep them and their families safe. But Trump thinks that the only tool in existence to fight terrorism is the military and that there is no value to working with Muslims in that effort.
Despite a crackdown on wastewater injection volumes, Oklahoma has once again been named the state with the highest risk of human-induced earthquakes, according to new seismicity maps released Wednesday by the U.S. Geological Survey (USGS)
Geologists believe that these man-made quakes are triggered by wastewater from oil and gas operations being injected into deep underground wells. These fluids can cause pressure changes to faults and makes them more likely to move.
This process has been blamed for the Sooner State’s alarming rise in seismic activity. Between 1980 and 2000, Oklahoma averaged only two earthquakes greater than or equal to magnitude 2.7—the level at which ground shaking can be felt—per year.
But in 2014, the numbers jumped to about 2,500 in 2014, 4,000 in 2015 and 2,500 in 2016.
The USGS said that the decline in 2016 quakes could be due to injection restrictions implemented by the state officials. According to Bloomberg, “State regulators aiming to curb the tremors have imposed new production rules cutting disposal volumes by about 800,000 barrels a day and limiting potential for future disposal by 2 million barrels a day.”
However, even if there were fewer tremors last year, Oklahoma felt more 4.0+ quakes in 2016 than in any other year. Of the earthquakes last year, 21 were greater than magnitude 4.0 and three were greater than magnitude 5.0.
Some of the biggest quakes include a 5.0-magnitude temblor that struck Cushing, one of the largest oil hubs in the world, on Nov. 6. And the largest quake ever recorded in the state was a 5.8 that hit near Pawnee on Sept. 3.
Even with a decrease in wastewater injection volumes, the USGS determined that the 3.5 million people who live and work in areas of the central and eastern U.S. (CEUS) face significant potential for damaging shaking from induced seismicity in 2017. The majority of this population live in Oklahoma and southern Kansas.
Remarkably, man-made temblors have put this area’s earthquake risk on par with another notoriously earthquake-prone state.
“The forecasted chance of damaging ground shaking in central Oklahoma is similar to that of natural earthquakes in high-hazard areas of California,” the USGS said.
"President Donald Trump’s ally and self-proclaimed “dirty trickster” Roger Stone appeared on the Russian state-funded outlet RT yet again"
Trump and a heap of his people are entirely too cozy with the rogue Russian government.
Trump withdrew Republican opposition to Putin's war in Ukraine, promoted the destruction of NATO, praised Putin endlessly, and opposed sanctions on Russia for invading Ukraine and supporting the Syrian dictator's genocide on Syrians.
Trump and his people are Putin's puppets. They want to implement Putin's agenda to dominate countries around the world and replace the democracies of the free world with Russian style authoritarian kleptocracies.
Putin has systematically dismantled the fledgling Russian democracy and Trump admires him for that and is trying to do the same thing in the States.
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "climate change and green energy: the alarmists have created a disaster in Europe, America was right all along
http:politics/columnists/europes-lesson-teaches-us-dont-go-green"
Stephen Moore, the author of that book works for a far right wing conservative group funded by the fossil fuel industry. His book spews a gusher of misinformation.
Moore is a professional right-wing economy talker best known for advocating tax cuts for the wealthy and being constantly wrong.
Media Matters recently commented that Moore has a long histories of playing fast and loose with the facts while making outlandish and incorrect claims about the economy. An expert who read his book said "I couldn’t agree more with this characterization."
"Understanding the premise, data and conclusions of “Fueling Freedom” — and similar seemingly authoritative but deceptive books — are important for people working hard to transition to future energy sources. So Listen Up to the Energy Show on Renewable Energy World to hear my perspective and rebuttal of these specious arguments for past polluting power plants."
Moore penned an op-ed for The Kansas City Star attempting to strike a public blow to Paul Krugman’s math skills. Krugman had recently mentioned Moore in a New York Times column about Kansas’ economy going downhill after the state cut income taxes. Moore claimed that actually, a host of states that had recently cut taxes had also seen huge job gains. “No-income-tax Texas gained 1 million jobs over the last five years, California, with its 13 percent tax rate, managed to lose jobs. Oops,” he wrote. “Florida gained hundreds of thousands of jobs while New York lost jobs. Oops.”
Take that, Krugman! Except when the Star’s own editorial writer fact-checked the column a few weeks later, he discovered that Moore’s numbers were totally wrong, and the actual data didn’t support his claims. The paper ran a detailed correction. Oops!
In a 2011 appearance on “The Rachel Maddow Show,” Moore denied that income inequality worsened during the Reagan years, arguing that “the lowest-income people had the biggest gains.” In fact, inequality did worsen during that time, as gains for the rich wildly outpaced those of everyone else. This fall, Moore called Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen “Class Warrior In Chief“ for acknowledging the increase in income inequality over the past three decades in a speech.
It will be hard to deal with the defining issue of our time if we can’t even talk about it.
Not surprisingly, during the 2016 election Moore promoted global warming denier and fossil fuel promoter, Kathleen Hartnett White (who helped write his dishonest book), for head of the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA).
Moore has a
long
https://mediamatters.org/video/2012/04/02/on-fox-wsjs-stephen-moore-pushes-myth-that-cutt/184632
history
https://mediamatters.org/research/2012/05/25/myths-amp-facts-about-wind-power/183968
of
https://mediamatters.org/research/2009/09/28/fox-emits-misinformation-about-loans-to-fuel-ef/155110
misinforming
https://mediamatters.org/research/2006/05/04/wsjs-moore-ny-post-spew-gusher-of-misinformatio/135590
on energy and the environment along with a whole host of other issues.
For example, contrary to Moore's wild claims, the Energy Information Administration report shows that wind power coming online in 2017 is cheaper than conventional or advanced coal brought online in 2017. Research from Bloomberg New Energy Finance shows that The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators. A study by Synapse Energy Economics found that wind could save consumers in the U.S. midwest billions on energy costs.
[Sorry for not putting in the links above, for some reason blogger wouldn't post my comment with them in]
shut up, Priya
you're just lying
"The best wind farms in the world already produce power as economically as coal, gas and nuclear generators"
if this stupid lie was true, money would be pouring in to wind farms
in our capitalist society, people don't spurn any opportunity to make an easy buck
of course, you wouldn't know that
you'll never set foot in your favorite land again
we're keeping the riffraff out
The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) released its highly-anticipated analysis of the new legislation to repeal and replace Obamacare on Monday afternoon, including findings that the law will leave millions more people uninsured compared to the current health care law.
The CBO report finds that under the American Health Care Act, which repeals the Affordable Care Act signed into law by former President Barack Obama, 14 million more people would be uninsured than under current law by 2018.
"Most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate," the report states.
Additional data suggests that the deficit of uninsured Americans would rise to 24 million in 2026 and the report also indicates the legislation bill "would reduce federal deficits by $337 billion" by 2026 as well.
As opioid overdoses rise, police officers become counselors, doctors and social workers
GOP plan would be ‘a major retreat’ in addressing addiction crisis
Clinton campaign officials had contact with Russians
we need a Congressional investigation lickety-split:
"https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/13/vladimir-putin-spokesman-hillary-clinton-campaign-met-russian-officials/21884725/"
"The CBO report finds that under the American Health Care Act, which repeals the Affordable Care Act signed into law by former President Barack Obama, 14 million more people would be uninsured than under current law by 2018.
"Most of that increase would stem from repealing the penalties associated with the individual mandate," the report states."
so 24 million would not be insured if big daddy government stops spanking them for not having insurance?
I've got an idea
if we just torture everyone who doesn't have insurance, they'll all get it
problem solved
the liberal way!!
"As opioid overdoses rise"
this problem is easily solved
just keep the Canadians out of the country
they're transsexuals, they're drug dealers
and some, I assume, are good people
The New Colossus
Not like the brazen giant of Greek fame,
With conquering limbs astride from land to land;
Here at our sea-washed, sunset gates shall stand
A mighty woman with a torch, whose flame
Is the imprisoned lightning, and her name
Mother of Exiles. From her beacon-hand
Glows world-wide welcome; her mild eyes command
The air-bridged harbor that twin cities frame.
"Keep ancient lands, your storied pomp!" cries she
With silent lips. "Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
‘Unprecedented effort’ by ‘white supremacists’ to recruit and target college students, group claims
"Emboldened by the current political climate, groups that the Anti-Defamation League identifies as white supremacist are pushing to recruit college students and plaster campuses with their message, according to an analysis by the ADL.
The Anti-Defamation League described “an unprecedented outreach effort to attract and recruit students on American college campuses.”
The group, which seeks to document and prevent anti-Semitism and other bigotry, has tracked 104 incidents since the beginning of the school year in September, with an apparent surge in intensity in 2017: More than half of the incidents happened since January...."
Right here at home:
White-supremacist signs posted at George Washington University
"Signs promoting America as “a white nation” were posted on the campus of George Washington University, shocking and upsetting some students.
The signs mirrored those found on many other campuses in recent weeks. Groups that the Anti-Defamation League, which seeks to document and prevent bigotry, identifies as white supremacist have been pushing to spread their message on campuses and recruit college students, according to a recent analysis by the ADL. The report said the groups have been emboldened by current politics, and called it an unprecedented outreach to American college students. The ADL says more than 100 such incidents have happened this academic year, with more than half of them since January...."
"Give me your tired, your poor,
Your huddled masses yearning to breathe free,
The wretched refuse of your teeming shore.
Send these, the homeless, tempest-tost to me,
I lift my lamp beside the golden door!"
still applies
America is a glorious melting pot and will remain so
those who believe in the freedom and Constitution that makes us a nation of rights rather than laws are welcome
those who don't want to be part of it, who want to destroy our society and replace it are not, however, welcome
remember when Obamacare was passed over the objections of the American people?
one argument was that the CBO said it would reduce the deficit
now, yesterday, the CBO said repealing it would reduce the deficit
huh?
they aren't fortune tellers
never were
"if we just torture everyone who doesn't have insurance, they'll all get it
problem solved
the liberal way!!"
Sure, and black is white, up is down, bad is good, and lies are "alternative facts" the Trumpettes say.
How George W. Bush and Dick Cheney brought torture to America
Make America torture again: President Trump looks for ways to revive the illegal “enhanced interrogation” program
nice way to change the subject
going with your logic, however, we get this:
Republicans believe torture of terrorists is OK to protect Americans and their freedom
and Democrats believe in punishing Americans to keep them safe from themselves, their freedom be damned
do I state your position correctly?
uniformed militants from Canada are being stopped from entering:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/03/13/girls-guides-suspend-trips-to-us-citing-border-concerns.html
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "uniformed militants from Canada are being stopped from entering:".
LOL, nice attempt at spinning a story unflattering to the U.S. - anyone who reads the article can see they're choosing not to come to the U.S. because of Trump's white supremacist actions.
Repealing the Affordable Care Act will kill more than 43,000 people annually
The impact of Republicans' war on Obamacare is likely to be worse than anyone expects.
~3,000 dead in NYC, PA and DC in September 2001 = Big deal
4 dead in Benghazi = HUGEST DEAL EVAH MUST INVESTIGATE FOREVAH NO MATTER HOW MUCH IT COSTS!!!1one!
32k gun deaths in U.S. every year = Shut up, NRA sez so. Also, crazy people allowed to buy guns now.
43k preventable American deaths every year = Meh. Rich people need bigger yachts and planes. Ram this through now.
In Vietnam, it took almost two decades to kill 58,000 Americans. At home, it won't even take Paul Ryan two years. 43k dead a year. And he's proud that would be his legacy.
People with Cystic Fibrosis live 10 years longer in Canada compared to the US!!
Rachel Maddows laser focus on Trump Admin's corruption has propelled her solitary show to a tie with total Fox viewership
She's becoming the next Walter Cronkite. A face you can actually trust.
The fact that Fox News is seeing a ratings drop while MSNBC is growing suggests that conservative viewers are not as motivated and engaged at the moment as the non-Trump supporting audience. MSNBC’s ratings have grown by an impressive 72%, while Fox News has seen a 14% decline.
MSNBC is coming up fast on Fox News, and the big reason why is the explosive growth of The Rachel Maddow Show. A majority of Americans want their country back, and they want a dose of calm reality to offset the fact-free chaos of Trump.
"LOL, nice attempt at spinning a story unflattering to the U.S. - anyone who reads the article can see they're choosing not to come to the U.S. because of Trump's white supremacist actions"
shut up, Priya
if you're just gonna lie, don't bother
"Repealing the Affordable Care Act will kill more than 43,000 people annually
The impact of Republicans' war on Obamacare is likely to be worse than anyone expects"
by this line of logic, anytime someone spends money other than providing free health care, they are killing them
let's try it:
not seizing all of Priya's assets and selling them to provide free health insurance to Eskimos kills one person a year
that works
this could be a fun game!!
"People with Cystic Fibrosis live 10 years longer in Canada compared to the US!!"
is that because anyone with genetic susceptibility is aborted?
"Rachel Maddows laser focus on Trump Admin's corruption has propelled her solitary show to a tie with total Fox viewership"
she's very biased but I always watch her when I'm flipping news channels
my favorite lesbian, and that's saying something
"A majority of Americans want their country back,"
they got it
Obama's gone and Trump is cutting back the career agency administrators who have terrorized the country without accountability to the voters
bye-bye government workers who robbed small town America with confiscatory taxes and used it to boom the building and restaurant industries in Washington
it's payback time!
Wyatt/bad anonymous repeatedly said he wasn't going to respond to my comments.
For example:
"yes, you are welcome to mumble to yourself you continue to be subject to shunning" (his previous comment where he said he was going to ignore my posts was deleted because he got "dispassionate" again.)
"it will be a cold day in hell before you get another response to any other of your inane comments"
I told Wyatt that he didn't have the self control to resist responding to my comments. What is he, five years old?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Former North Carolina Governor Pat Mccrory is having trouble finding work because he passed bigoted anti-LGBT law HB2
Karma's a bitch, ain't it Pat?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "not seizing all of Priya's assets and selling them to provide free health insurance to Eskimos kills one person a year".
LOL, nice try Wyatt, everyone has free health care in Canada regardless. Maybe one day the States will join the civilized world and offer health care to all its citizens as all first world democratic nations do.
Wyatt's really bad at spin, isn't he?
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaahaha!
Maybe Pat Mccrory can clean bathrooms for Chik-fil-a.
Hahahahahahaahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I said "A majority of Americans want their country back,"
Wyatt said "they got it".
No they didn't the majority of Americans wanted Hillary to be president:
WASHINGTON (AP) - Hillary Clinton received nearly 2.9 million more votes than President-elect Donald Trump, giving her the largest popular vote margin of any "losing" presidential candidate.
Even with the FBI and Russia colluding to interfere in the election to favour Trump and Republican politicians wide spread suppression of minority voters (who typically vote Democrat) Trump still lost the popular vote! Imagine if there had been a fair election!
Donald Trump is the most illegitimate president in U.S. history.
Now respond to this again and show us how you're shunning and ignoring me and it will be "a cold day in hell" before you respond to another one of my comments.
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
"March 14, 2017 2:43 PM Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
March 14, 2017 2:47 PM Blogger Priya Lynn said...
This comment has been removed by the author"
it worked again!!!!!!
amazing!
just tell Priya to shut up and half the comments disappear!
Good one Wyatt!
That's really impressive...for a five year old.
Hahahahahahahahahahah
ahahahahahahahahaha!
Wyatt/bad anonymous said "just tell Priya to shut up and half the comments disappear!".
And just like a five year old he's "great" at math too!
Hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahahaha!
I can see with this Priya usually deletes half of their posted comments. Maybe someone should say shut up again!
Okaaay!
shut up, Priya!!
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/politics/
by law, in America, everyone's income tax information is confidential
Rachel Maddow has now obtained and disclosed Donald Trump's 2005 tax return
she can expect a jail sentence
you'll remember that during the campaign, the press kept echoing that he was carrying forward a NOL at the time and was paying no tax
another lie by the media during the campaign
Despite all the posturing by conservatives about how their movement represents “real” America and liberal political attitudes are restricted mainly to the “coastal elite,” new research from the Public Religion Research Institute suggests that, at least in political terms, most Americans are secular in their orientation. While many Americans may still hold conservative personal beliefs, when it comes to the issue of church-state separation, large majorities are rejecting efforts by the religious right to use the power of the state to impose conservative Christian values on others.
In fact, the polling data shows there’s really only one group of Americans that rejects a secular society: white evangelical Christians. And this study is just further evidence that a lot of the political polarization in our country is the direct result of white evangelical Christians realizing that they no longer are the dominant majority and lashing out angrily in an effort to regain the levels of influence they used to enjoy.
For instance, the poll found that while a majority of Americans from all walks of life has come to embrace the rights of gay and lesbian Americans, white evangelicals remains stubbornly opposed to the gay rights movement. White evangelicals are the only category of the population to support business owners who want to discriminate against gay and lesbian customers.
They want their own religious freedom but don't want to allow gay Americans theirs.
This gulf between white evangelicals and everyone else goes a long way toward explaining how Donald Trump was able to turn white evangelicals out at the polls, despite his seedy personal history and inability to put on a persuasive display of personal religiosity.
“Yes, there were a lot of feelings of economic insecurity, but there [were] also pervading and pervasive cultural fears that the U.S. was changing, not just racially and ethnically, but religiously as well,” said Daniel Cox, the director of research for PRRI.
The trends that are making white evangelicals nervous, Cox explained, are real enough. “We’re seeing, just during the Obama era, a significant drop in Americans who identify as white Christian,” he said. Instead, the number of Americans who claim to have no religious affiliation or who align themselves with a non-Christian religion is rising.
Trump didn’t need to convince conservative Christians that he was one of them to receive their votes for his presidential bid, Cox suggested. All he needed to do was to assure them that he saw they represented a privileged category and would treat them as such.
“At a time when white evangelical Protestants were really feeling under assault culturally, you had someone pugnaciously saying, ‘You know, we’re going to turn back the clock to a place where you were so much more comfortable and you had more influence,'” Cox said. He observed that Trump won an even bigger share of the white evangelical vote than even George W. Bush, even though the latter was indisputably a person of faith who was fluent with white evangelical traditions.
The PRRI survey shows that many white people, especially white conservatives, are confusing the loss of cultural dominance with oppression. While nearly every other group of Americans believes that Muslims face more discrimination than Christians in the United States, white evangelicals hold the reverse is true.
about the only thing the above gets right is that "evangelical Christians", as defined by the secular media, are the main swing group responsible for the Trump victory
they weren't engaged in the last couple of elections but when they are, they determine the winner
will dissect this later today
"another lie by the media during the campaign"
It wasn't a lie when it was based on the only tax forms made public. Trump brought on the speculation himself by refusing to release his tax forms as every other US president in modern times has. And now it looks like Donnie Boy himself or someone in his inner circle, released these tax forms that were clearly marked "Client Copy"
Read all about it:
Speculation about who released President Donald Trump's 2005 federal tax returns began swirling almost immediately after the documents were announced on Tuesday night.
The documents were originally leaked to Pulitzer Prize-winning investigative reporter David Cay Johnston. While talking about the pages with MSNBC's Rachel Maddow, Johnston suggested Trump himself could have leaked the documents to him.
Images of the 1040 forms were marked with a "Client Copy" stamp that suggested the documents may have been leaked by someone close to Trump, if not Trump himself.
The information contained within the tax documents also shed some light on Trump's finances. They suggest that Trump indeed paid some income tax — bucking an October 2016 report from The New York Times that indicated a copy of Trump's 1995 tax documents showed that he may have avoided paying taxes for 18 years.
Johnston was not the only reporter who pondered the source of the leak.
"Think [about the] calculus of leaker if he/she is hostile to Trump," tweeted New York Times reporter Noam Scheiber. "[I'm] going to leak tax return showing he paid... $38m in 05? What's that do for [you]?"...
Johnston also gave some credence for the theory, "It's entirely possible that [Trump] sent this to me," he said on the show. Maddow herself acknowledged on her program that the tax returns themselves wasn't an important story in itself, but that the fact that it was leaked to a reporter, was...
There's a stamp that reads "Client Copy." pic.twitter.com/GxmHGQDmd0
The timing of the release was also called into question, as the Republican Party faces hefty opposition to its controversial proposal to replace Obamacare. The GOP's American Health Care Act took a big hit on Monday after the Congressional Budget Office issued a damaging assessment of the legislation...
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/15/reporter-who-got-trumps-tax-return-questioned-if-trump-leaked-i/21893897/
"Rachel Maddow has now obtained and disclosed Donald Trump's 2005 tax return
she can expect a jail sentence"
And where did you go to law school?
"The White House announced that President Donald Trump paid $38 million in taxes on more than $150 million in income on Tuesday evening.
The announcement came in response to MSNBC host Rachel Maddow's report that she had obtained Trump's 2005 tax returns.
Maddow shared a copy of the president's 1040 form, confirming that he paid more than $38 million on income of more than $150 million.
Maddow invited tax reporter David Johnston of DC Report, who obtained the returns, onto her show to explain them in more detail.
Johnston said that the Trumps paid $5.3 million in federal income tax that year, while paying an additional $31 million in what's known as the "alternative minimum tax."
President Trump has at times called for the elimination of the alternative minimum tax, a point Johnston made repeatedly during the interview. Without the alternative minimum tax, the tax rate would have been less than 4 percent. With the alternative minimum tax, he paid more than 20 percent.
Johnston also claimed during his interview that Trump has done business with a drug king pin and mobsters, saying that those prior interactions justify the release of Trump's returns so the American people can know more of about the president's financial dealings.
"You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago," the White House said in a statement released shortly before the report.
"It is totally illegal to steal and publish tax returns," the White House statement continued. "The dishonest media can continue to make this part of their agenda, while the President will focus on his, which includes tax reform that will benefit all Americans."
"For the record, the First Amendment gives us the right to publish this return," Maddow said in response to that statement.
Maddow said during the program that Johnston of DC Report shared the returns with her. Johnston said he received the returns in the mail.
Trump became the first major party presidential candidate in modern history to refuse to release his tax returns during the 2016 campaign cycle. He justified that decision by saying he was under audit and could not until it was done.
Since taking office, members of his administration have repeatedly reiterated he had no intentions to, insisting that voters and citizens were not interested in it.
Prior reports have shown that at certain points in his career Trump paid no federal income taxes. That includes at least twice in the late 1970s, according to a Washington Post report from last year."
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/14/white-house-trump-paid-38-million-in-taxes-on-more-than-150-million-in-income/21890807/
"It wasn't a lie when it was based on the only tax forms made public"
Actually, it was one of those lies the media tells without technically lying. They are experts in that kind of lie. They said he "may not have paid tax for 20 years". They were trying to make the reader think "wink-wink, we can't prove it but this is what happened". It would be like someone saying "TTF may run a homosexual prostitution ring". No one has any basis for saying that but by throwing in "may", you can't actually call it a lie.
The media made an insinuation without any evidence and now we see they were wrong.
"Trump brought on the speculation himself by refusing to release his tax forms as every other US president in modern times has"
And by "every other US president in modern times", you mean since Nixon. There's no law that says a President has to and the American people elected Trump even though his refusal to release the returns was well publicized.
"And now it looks like Donnie Boy himself or someone in his inner circle, released these tax forms that were clearly marked "Client Copy""
flat out lie by this commenter
the reporter who claims this was sent to him now says that, given the White House reaction, Trump probably didn't leak it
"Images of the 1040 forms were marked with a "Client Copy" stamp that suggested the documents may have been leaked by someone close to Trump"
could have been any number of people who could break into wherever the documents are stored, or if they are digitally stored, which is likely, it could have been Hillary hacking the records from her dining room table
indeed, unless they were stolen from the IRS or his tax preparer's office, any other copy would likely be marked Client's Copy
the possibilities are endless
"The information contained within the tax documents suggest that Trump indeed paid some income tax"
more than Warren Buffet, actually
"bucking an October 2016 report from The New York Times that indicated a copy of Trump's 1995 tax documents showed that he may have avoided paying taxes for 18 years"
NY Times make an unsubstantiated speculation?
imagine that
"Maddow herself acknowledged on her program that the tax returns themselves wasn't an important story in itself, but that the fact that it was leaked to a reporter,"
good way to divert from the fact that you previously had lied
why is the content only news if it backs up the media's lies and not news if it doesn't?
"The timing of the release was also called into question, as the GOP's American Health Care Act took a big hit on Monday after the Congressional Budget Office issued a damaging assessment of the legislation..."
you mean when they said 24 million Americans won't choose to buy insurance unless the government threatens to fine them?
the CBO report that didn't take into account the billions of dollars in block grants to states to provide health insurance to its residents?
the CBO that said years ago that Obamacare would reduce the deficit but now says repealing it would reduce the deficit?
ever heard of the Keystone Cops?
"And where did you go to law school?"
you don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows
"President Trump has at times called for the elimination of the alternative minimum tax, a point Johnston made repeatedly during the interview"
so, someone who has paid a tax has no right to oppose it?
you probably opposed the Boston Tea Party
""For the record, the First Amendment gives us the right to publish this return," Maddow said"
not if you stole them, or were an accomplice
it would be like a bank robber, when the cops find the bills in his bedroom saying "someone left that in a bag on my doorstep"
there needs to be a trial
"He justified that decision by saying he was under audit and could not until it was done"
he said he advised not to
probably good advice
that would expand the number of people auditing his return from a few IRS agents to the entire press corp
"Prior reports have shown that at certain points in his career Trump paid no federal income taxes. That includes at least twice in the late 1970s, according to a Washington Post report from last year."
there are no reports he didn't pay tax he owed
the Post is a riot
this morning, one of their many basis comments was "ATM is a tax paid when a taxpayer requests too many itemized deductions"
did you know taking itemized deductions was a "request"?
unbelievable level of shameless deception
did you know that the theory of anthropogenic global warming is not settled science?
yep, it's not settled science:
http://www.bostonglobe.com/opinion/columns/2017/03/14/why-are-climate-change-models-flawed-because-climate-science-incomplete/hekwjPBTScRpFyXaXnrWhI/story.html
"more than Warren Buffet, actually"
also, more than Hillary, Bernie and Barack combined
and they dared to suggest he didn't make a contribution
chutzpah city, baby
Oh for sure Trump released his 2005 tax forms because that was probably the only year he did pay taxes.
"it's not settled science"
Yawn.
It's not settled science for you, your formerly practicing lawyer and current conservative Boston Globe opinion writer, and 3% of climate scientists.
The majority of Americans are with the 97% of climate scientists who find the science to be good.
Yesterday Gallup reported: Global Warming Concern at Three-Decade High in US
WASHINGTON, D.C. -- Record percentages of Americans are concerned about global warming, believe it is occurring, consider it a serious threat and say it is caused by human activity. All of these perceptions are up significantly from 2015.
...Record High Believe That Effects of Global Warming Are Evident...
...Americans' Increasingly Blame Human Activity...
...Bottom Line
U.S. public concern about global warming has ebbed and flowed over the past decade and a half but has generally been on an upswing since hitting a recent low point in 2011. Concern has increased each of the past two years, coinciding with an improved economy and back-to-back unseasonably warm winters.
Whatever the reason, the percentage of Americans worrying a great deal about global warming is at a record high, as is Americans' belief that its effects have already begun and that human activity is the major cause....
Oh for sure, you're lying
there's no evidence he or his buddies leaked it
the reporter who started that idea has recanted it
as a matter of fact, there's not one bit of evidence that Trump ever underpaid or misrepresented his taxes
he's been creating jobs and economic growth for years while Hillary, Bernie and Barack stirred resentment rather than actually making a contribution
btw, how much did you pay in taxes last year?
You know the White House leaked the 2005 tax forms because White House circulated a response before the segment aired, complete with its go-to “dishonest media” broadside.
“You know you are desperate for ratings when you are willing to violate the law to push a story about two pages of tax returns from over a decade ago,” a White House spokesman said anonymously in a statement.
The return shows Trump and wife Melania paid most of their income taxes as an alternative minimum tax. Taxpayers requesting many itemized deductions must pay the AMT in certain circumstances. The AMT rejects specific deductions, including for dependents and assorted real estate write-downs. In his tax-reform plan, Trump has called for eliminating the AMT.
"It's not settled science for you, your formerly practicing lawyer and current conservative Boston Globe opinion writer, and 3% of climate scientists"
or any thinking person
I notice you didn't refute any of his points
"The majority of Americans are with the 97% of climate scientists who find the science to be good"
it's been well documented that anyone trying to enter the field without preconceived belief in AGW will be harassed, shunned and blocked from advancement
you can't have them questioning the goose that lays the golden egg
a lot of people are making a lot of money off this alarmism
for a couple of decades we hear that we're at the point of no return
then, we hear it's happening faster than we thought
if you believe all this crap, we passed the point of no return long ago
but, as some TTFer slipped and mentioned not long ago, this is really about justifying the creation of a global government as opposed to the current state of affairs where the U.S. dominates
"Record percentages of Americans are concerned about global warming, believe it is occurring, consider it a serious threat and say it is caused by human activity"
why wouldn't they?
they aren't scientists
the Hollywood-media complex tells them his all the time
it's disinformation
"You know the White House leaked the 2005 tax forms"
the reporter who claims to have received them disagrees
"The return shows Trump and wife Melania paid most of their income taxes as an alternative minimum tax. Taxpayers requesting many itemized deductions must pay the AMT in certain circumstances."
you don't "request" itemized deductions
you are either entitled to them or not
AMT is a check when you are entitled to so many deductions that you have no tax
so you figure your tax another way
again, it's not optional or a "request" from either the taxpayer or the IRS
it is what it is
and you are what you are:
a liar
"In his tax-reform plan, Trump has called for eliminating the AMT"
as do other pro-growth advocates
way too many middle class Americans now pay it because of bracket creep
that wasn't the intent when AMT was created
It's almost as though Republicans are tired of having President Trump's evidence-free allegations laid at their feet. Almost.
Late Monday, a spokesman for House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.) threatened to subpoena the Trump administration to produce evidence of Trump's claim that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump Tower during the campaign. The White House has declined to produce this evidence publicly, offering various excuses, including the Constitution's separation of powers and — most recently on Monday — arguing that Trump wasn't speaking literally when he made the claim.
The Justice Department missed Nunes's deadline to provide evidence Monday, which drew Nunes's subpoena threat.
“If the committee does not receive a response, the committee will ask for this information during the March 20 hearing and may resort to a compulsory process if our questions continue to go unanswered,” Nunes spokesman Jack Langer said.
Then, on Tuesday, Sen. Lindsey O. Graham (R-S.C.) made his own threat. Last week, Graham — who is clearly skeptical of the wiretapping claim and chairs a subcommittee looking into it — asked the Justice Department and the FBI to provide copies of any warrants or court orders related to the alleged wiretapping. Having not received anything, Graham said he may push for a special committee.
“They're about to screw up big time if they keep running to the intel committee and not answer that letter,” Graham said, according to CBS's Alan He. He added: “If they don't honor this request and give us an answer, then I would say that we need a joint select committee because regular order is not working.”
On Wednesday morning, Graham said he might also go the subpoena route and hold up deputy attorney general Rod J. Rosenstein's nomination. "Congress is gonna flex its muscle here, and you see that all over the place," Graham said.
It's clear as day what's going on here.
The White House's reactions to Trump's evidence-free claims — be it this one or the one about millions of illegal votes in 2016 — is to call for investigations. That has the triple benefit of putting the onus on someone else to look into it, to buy some time and hope people forget that the president is making such wild allegations, and, in this case, to give themselves an excuse to clam up. The White House initially said it wouldn't comment on Trump's wiretapping claim while it was being investigated and then it said it couldn't provide evidence because of separation of powers — another claim that strained credulity.
But that also puts Republicans such as Nunes and Graham in the position of having to account for these claims — and calling on Trump and his team to put up or shut up. By pushing the administration to produce evidence — or else — they are effectively putting the ball back in the executive branch's court. The subtext: You can't just make these claims and then ask us to deal with the fallout.
Nunes in particular has faced some very tough questions from reporters, and he must feel as though he's being hung out to dry. Graham's angle is slightly different, in that he clearly doesn't think Trump's claim is accurate and wants to prove it. “If there is no warrant, then we’ll have solved this problem: There was no wiretapping,” he said this week.
Whether this will actually give Trump any pause in the future when making such allegations is an open question. But these members want to make sure he and the people around him at least think twice before saddling them and their GOP colleagues with another evidence-free Trump claim.
why don't they require evidence Trump colluded with the Russians before investigating?
good news!
climate change is no longer considered a viable theory by the US govt:
http://www.reuters.com/article/us-usa-trump-climatechange-idUSKBN16L2J1
http://www.nysun.com/editorials/trumps-finest-hour/89923/
more good news from Washington:
http://www.detroitnews.com/story/news/politics/2017/03/15/trump-will-offer-boost-carmakers-today/99193908/
it worked like a charm!
so sad about Rachel
she was so fun,
and now she must go to jail:
http://www.slate.com/blogs/browbeat/2017/03/15/rachel_maddow_s_trump_taxes_scoop_was_a_cynical_self_defeating_spectacle.html
the Clinton crime syndicate has set its sights on the Big Apple:
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/15/hillary-clinton-exploring-running-for-mayor-of-new-york-city-report/21896689/
haha! she's just a glutton for punishment!!
this could be all kinds of fun!!!!!
we regularly read in the media about Donald Trump's horrible approval ratings
what you rarely read about is that the public approval rating of the media is much worse than Trump's:
http://www.investors.com/politics/columnists/l-brent-bozell-the-media-hides-its-own-disapproval-rating/
yesterday, someone posted a comment about evangelical support for Trump
interestingly, I know many evangelicals and while there are some who support Trump, they are definitely a minority
yet, the polls show the opposite
I had assumed it was a regional thing but I read this article yesterday that makes some sense
turns out if you drill down in poll results, you find that Trump did not lead among evangelicals who attended church weekly but he was far ahead among people who described themselves as evangelicals but who didn't attend church
you find the same thing on many issues of tolerance, for example the group that didn't attend church are anti-immigrant while churchgoers are not
https://www.theatlantic.com/magazine/archive/2017/04/breaking-faith/517785/?utm_source=twb
Staff members at the Santa Fe Public Library told the Santa Fe Police Department last Friday that a man and woman had been causing trouble at their Southside branch during multiple visits in early March, according to the Santa Fe New Mexican. Leslie Simmons, the library manager, said that staff members found three copies of the Quran damaged “by a yellowish liquid substance” after one of the couple’s visits. Staffers also said that the books smelled of urine, according to the police report.
Surveillance footage shows the couple at the library using their computer and reading books, according to a police report obtained by local news station KOB 4. The video also shows the man picking up books, then bringing them back.
Police said the low-quality video did not show which books the man picked up, but it does show the man going to the same locations where library workers found damaged copies of the Quran and Bill Clinton’s autobiography, “My Life.”
Library staffers told police that the couple started visiting the library every few days since March 2 and that they were loud and disruptive, according to KOB 4. Library workers also claimed the couple placed copies of the Bible and books written by conservative commentator Ann Coulter around the library “as if they were placed on display for all to see,” according to a police report.
that's a fascinating story
urinating on library books is already illegal in most places (other than Takoma Park, where urinating is always appropriate)
other than apprehend the perpetrators, anything else you want to do about it?
hey, I got an idea: why don't you blame Trump?
I remember a few years back where tax money was paid to some guy to dip a crucifix in his own urine
maybe this is that guy with a new performance art piece
anyway, if you don't like such things, no worries
Trump is eliminating government funding for such things
once a group starts acting without integrity, the consequences can spread without control
thus, MCPS approved a gay curriculum, with no regard to scientific fact, a few years back and soon MCPS students were failing their math exams at startling rates
now, we hear news that the National Weather Service knew the snow storm would be a dud on Tuesday but kept predicting disaster to keep everyone on alert
this is just part of the culture in climate science
which has for years been fiddling with the temperature data to make global warming seem much worse than it is
they feel facts are less important than advocacy
once credibility is lost, it rarely comes back
as our land continues to recover from the liberal convulsions that have shook our society, Donald Trump's approval rating continues to explode upward:
https://www.aol.com/article/news/2017/03/15/poll-president-trumps-approval-rating-is-on-the-rise/21897249/
Ivanka goes out on the town with Justin Trudeau
http://www.nydailynews.com/news/national/new-besties-trudeau-trump-common-article-1.2999852
"Donald Trump's approval rating continues to explode upward"
Yahoo! All the way up to 42% approve and only 53% disapprove
You must be so proud that he's doing 8 percentage points better than the last GOPer President, Dumbya, who left office with an approval rate of 34 %
once credibility is lost, it rarely comes back
"once credibility is lost, it rarely comes back"
just look at the media
worse rating than Trump
of course, then there's the pollsters
had Hillary in a landslide in November
WASHINGTON ― The Senate Select Committee on Intelligence said Thursday that it has found no evidence to substantiate President Donald Trump’s claim that former President Barack Obama had Trump Tower wiretapped.
“Based on the information available to us, we see no indications that Trump Tower was the subject of surveillance by any element of the United States government either before or after Election Day 2016,” committee Chairman Richard Burr (R-N.C.) and Vice Chairman Mark Warner (D-Va.) said in a statement.
He took Trump’s allegations seriously, Burr told reporters on Wednesday, so he “searched and talked to every federal agency about whether there were any warrants that existed” before reaching a conclusion.
With the statement from the Senate Intelligence Committee chiefs, it’s a bicameral bipartisan assessment that the president accused his predecessor of wiretapping him without any evidence to back up the claim.
House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes (R-Calif.), who served on Trump’s transition team, told reporters on Wednesday that if you “take the tweets literally … then clearly the president was wrong.” Trump’s willingness to “make such an accusation without basis,” said Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.), the ranking Democrat on the committee, is a national security concern because it could make the public less likely to trust the president during a time of crisis.
once credibility is lost, it rarely comes back
============
“I think you’re going to find some very interesting items coming to the forefront over the next two weeks,” Trump told Fox News’ Tucker Carlson, saying he would have evidence “very soon.”
When Carlson asked Trump how he’d learned about the supposed wiretapping, Trump offered a baffling, almost information-free response, saying he found out by “reading about things.”
Carlson asked why, as president, Trump did not simply call intelligence officials to verify the claim.
“I don’t want to do anything that’s going to violate any strength of an agency,” Trump replied.
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