Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

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paperburn1
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by paperburn1 »

Ion Mihai Pacepa is a former three-star general in the Securitate, the secret police of Communist Romania back when communist Russia was at there heyday. He was one of their operation chiefs in charge of dis-information. I seem to remeber him being turned several ways and times.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

Why Susan Rice Wrote an Email To Herself
Posted on February 13, 2018 by John Hinderaker


What were the secrets that Obama wanted to keep from the new administration? We can easily surmise that the fact that the Steele memo was paid for by the Democratic Party; that the FBI had to some degree collaborated with Steele; that the Clinton campaign had fed some of the fake news in the dossier to Steele; and that Comey’s FBI had used Steele’s fabrications as the basis for FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign were among the facts that Obama and his minions didn’t want Michael Flynn and Donald Trump to know. Susan Rice, we can infer, was told to keep these secrets, and if anyone ever asked why she had failed to disclose them to Michael Flynn and others on Trump’s team, or even lied to those people, she would have the defense that President Obama ordered her to do it.
Scott wrote this morning about the extraordinary email that National Security Advisor Susan Rice wrote to herself at 12:15 on January 20, 2017, within minutes of when President Trump was inaugurated. It must have been her last act, more or less, before she vacated the White House. So obviously the email was important to her. But why would it be important to send an email to herself (the only person copied was one of her aides)?

If you read the email, which Scott posted along with Senator Grassley’s letter to Rice, it is obvious that it is a CYA memo. But the question is, whose A is being C’d?

Most attention, so far, has focused on the first two paragraphs of the email, which describe a meeting that occurred around two weeks earlier. The participants included Barack Obama, Joe Biden, James Comey, Sally Yates–who turns up like a bad penny whenever skulduggery is afoot–and Rice:


President Obama began the conversation by stressing his continued commitment to ensuring that every aspect of this issue is handled by the Intelligence and law enforcement communities “by the book”. The President stressed that he is not asking about, initiating or instructing anything from a law enforcement perspective. He reiterated that our law enforcement team needs to proceed as it normally would by the book.

This is pure boilerplate. It represents, obviously, the company line. But Rice did not write her email to cover Barack Obama’s rear end. If she or anyone else had wanted to document the claim that Obama said to proceed “by the book,” the appropriate course would have been an official memo that copied others who were present and would have gone into the file. (My guess is that such a memo was written, but we haven’t seen it.) In my opinion, the important part of the email is not the paragraph that purports to exonerate Obama, but the paragraphs that follow:


From a national security perspective, however, President Obama said he wants to be sure that, as we engage with the incoming team, we are mindful to ascertain if there is any reason that we cannot share information fully as it relates to Russia.

The next paragraph of the email remains classified and has been redacted. The email concludes:


The President asked Comey to inform him if anything changes in the next few weeks that should affect how we share classified information with the incoming team. Comey said he would.

Why did Susan Rice send herself an email purporting to document this part of the meeting? Because she was C’ing her own A. Rice was nervous about the fact that, at the president’s direction, she had failed to “share information fully as it relates to Russia” with President Trump’s incoming national security team. This violated longstanding American tradition. Outgoing administrations have always cooperated in the transition to a new administration, whether of the same or the opposing party, especially on matters relating to national security.

Susan Rice is far from the brightest bulb on the tree, but she was well aware that by concealing facts ostensibly relating to national security from her counterpart in the new administration–General Michael Flynn–she was, at a minimum, violating longstanding civic norms. If she actually lied to Flynn, she could have been accused of much worse. So Rice wanted to be able to retrieve her email, if she found herself in a sticky situation, and tell the world that she hid relevant facts about Russia from the new administration on Barack Obama’s orders.

What were the secrets that Obama wanted to keep from the new administration? We can easily surmise that the fact that the Steele memo was paid for by the Democratic Party; that the FBI had to some degree collaborated with Steele; that the Clinton campaign had fed some of the fake news in the dossier to Steele; and that Comey’s FBI had used Steele’s fabrications as the basis for FISA warrants to spy on the Trump campaign were among the facts that Obama and his minions didn’t want Michael Flynn and Donald Trump to know. Susan Rice, we can infer, was told to keep these secrets, and if anyone ever asked why she had failed to disclose them to Michael Flynn and others on Trump’s team, or even lied to those people, she would have the defense that President Obama ordered her to do it.

There may be more to it than this. The redacted paragraph likely contains more information about what it was that Rice wasn’t supposed to tell the Trump team. One of these days, we will learn what was blacked out.

The fact that Michael Flynn was Susan Rice’s counterpart in the incoming administration may also be significant. We know that the FBI agents who interviewed General Flynn–even Peter Strzok!–reported that they didn’t think he had lied about anything. And yet, Obama’s DOJ and Bob Mueller’s “investigation”–basically a continuation of Obama’s corrupt Department of Justice under another, less accountable name–persecuted Flynn to the point where he finally pled guilty to a single count of lying to the FBI in order, as he says, to end the madness and the financial drain.

Why were the Democrats so determined to discredit General Flynn? Perhaps because they wanted to pre-empt any outrage that may otherwise have followed on revelations that the Obama administration’s National Security Advisor hid important facts from her successor during the transition, and may have lied to him about those facts, in violation of all American tradition.

CYA memos are rarely a good idea. Most often, they reveal what the author was trying to conceal. I think that is the case with regard to Susan Rice’s now-infamous email to herself.

http://www.powerlineblog.com/archives/2 ... erself.php

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

TRADE WAR: Targeting REELECTION & North Korea's ROCKETMAN
.

Black Pigeon Speaks


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hte0TEAo6zY

Diogenes
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by Diogenes »

williatw wrote:TRADE WAR: Targeting REELECTION & North Korea's ROCKETMAN
.

Black Pigeon Speaks


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hte0TEAo6zY

I've only seen a few "Black Pigeon" videos, but the ones I have seen were excellent and informative.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

williatw
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Location: Ohio

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

This offers an explanation of why Donald Trump signed the bill he said he disliked so much; the key seems to be that the bill (signed) wasn't a budget but an omnibus spending bill:


Trump Sneaked Wall Funding into Spending Bill.
.

HOT NEWS TODAY 365

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVHPnue94uw

Rush Limbaugh is saying the same thing:

Rush Limbaugh Said Trump PULLED A FAST ONE Signing the Omnibus Bill

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RDAufWTC-tM&t=477s

The meat of the argument is that an Omnibus Spending Bill has more leeway built into it as far as the Prez being able to spend funds in it as he sees fit, rather than a formal budget where it is more set in stone, needing an act of Congress to change it. He (Trump) could therefore in the former case build the wall using the Pentagon's budget appropriation (actually larger than he asked for). He Trump is sending out Tweets/statements to the effect that he believes that if he sees fit as commander-in-chief he can order the border wall built as a measure to promote national security. The Army Corps of Engineers is supposedly already working on it (the wall). If this is true and he does build the wall, between this and the "trade war" that China apparently is about to cave in on, Trump just locked up his reelection in 2020 and brilliantly out-maneuvered the Dems.

paperburn1
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by paperburn1 »

He has a lot less leeway than he thinks, its call misappropriation of funds.
In criminal law, misappropriation is the intentional, illegal use of the property or funds(taxes) of another person for one's own use or other unauthorized purpose, particularly by a public official, a trustee of a trust, an executor or administrator of a deceased person's estate or by any person with a responsibility to care for and protect another's assets (a fiduciary duty)
He is treading on very thin ice with the real possibility of penalty.
In business you can easily do things like that but in government it is a lot harder with many more legal hurdles to jump through.
Me think he was misadvised on this.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:He has a lot less leeway than he thinks, its call misappropriation of funds.
The key is that it was not a formal budget but an "omnibus spending bill"; the claim (by Limbaugh and others on the internet) is that there is a "loophole" in a 1985 or so rule change or something that allows him to do this. Can't find any corroboration on that particular point, the "main stream media" just repeats the tweet/statement of Trump's desire to use military budget to fund the wall building and saying that he would need Congressional approval to redirect the funds. The main stream media just keeps parroting this, no mention of the supposed loophole if it even exists. We shall have to see how this plays out.

Addendum, the letter mentioned in above posted link:


Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate



Budget & Spending

Issued on: March 23, 2018


Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

In accordance with section 7058(d) of division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 1625; the “Act”), I hereby designate as an emergency requirement all funding so designated by the Congress in the Act pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, for the accounts referenced in section 7058(d).

The details of this action are set forth in the enclosed memorandum from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Sincerely,

DONALD J. TRUMP
https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefings-st ... senate-21/

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

How President Trump will use the omnibus spending bill to build the Wall


Is President Trump constitutionally obliged to obey Congress’ omnibus spending bill? Yes and no.
Appropriations bills, like the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, specify how much money will go to different government agencies and programs. There are two types of spending:
1.Mandatory spending that the federal government must by law pay out, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Being mandatory, this spending is authorized by Congress; it is not subject to appropriations.
2.Discretionary spending is the part of the U.S. federal budget that Congress appropriates each year to fund spending that are not Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, which means all the other federal agencies, such as DOD, DHS, Education, Energy, HUD, NASA, and the State Department.

Both Congress and the President must abide by the mandatory spending. It is the discretionary spending part of the omnibus spending bill that President Trump’s enigmatic letter of March 23 addresses.
Three days ago, on Friday, March 23, 2018, President Trump signed the so-called bipartisan “budget deal” into law.

The Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 (aka HR 1625) funds the federal government through September 30, 2018. It is a bloated piece of legislation full of pork, which seems to betray many of Trump’s campaign promises by:
•Not funding the $25 billion for Trump’s US-Mexico border wall. Instead, the bill has only $1.6 billion to repair and upgrade existing fencing along the border.
•Not penalizing sanctuary cities that refuse to enforce federal immigration laws.
•Not prohibiting federal funding for the Planned Parenthood abortion mills.
•Not eliminating federal funding for PBS (Corporation for Public Broadcasting).
•Not eliminating federal funding for PBS (Corporation for Public Broadcasting).
•Increasing the budget of the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities by $3 million.

On the same day that he signed the “budget deal,” President Trump also sent a fascinating and somewhat cryptic letter to the leaders of the House and the Senate (WhiteHouse.gov):


Text of a Letter from the President to the Speaker of the House of Representatives and the President of the Senate

Issued on: March 23, 2018

Dear Mr. Speaker: (Dear Mr. President:)

In accordance with section 7058(d) of division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 1625; the “Act”), I hereby designate as an emergency requirement all funding so designated by the Congress in the Act pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, for the accounts referenced in section 7058(d).

The details of this action are set forth in the enclosed memorandum from the Director of the Office of Management and Budget.

Sincerely,

DONALD J. TRUMP

What does the letter mean?

To begin, the so-called “budget deal” — the ConsolidatedAppropriations Act of 2018 — is actually an omnibus spending bill, not a federal budget bill.

Note: The word “appropriations” means funding or spending. The word “omnibus” refers to a legislative bill comprised of two or more generalsubjects that is designed to compel the executive to approve provisions thathe or she would otherwise reject but that he or she signs into law to preventthe defeat of the entire bill.




Congress is supposed to create a new budget for the federal government each other, having been designated by the U.S. Constitution as having “power of the purse”. But Congress has failed in exercising that power by not passing a federal budget bill for FY 2018. It is precisely because they have failed to pass an annual budget that led to Congress passing a series of appropriations bills, like the Consolidate Appropriations Act of 2018, as “stop gap” measures to fund the huge apparatus of the federal government, because federal agencies cannot spend money unless funds are authorized and appropriated.

What is President Trump’s constitutional role in all this?

According to the National Priorities Project, “The Constitution does not, however, specify . . . a role for the president in managing the nation’s finances“.

Is President Trump constitutionally obliged to obey Congress’ omnibus spending bill?

Yes and no.



Appropriations bills, like the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018, specify how much money will go to different government agencies and programs. There are two types of spending:
1.Mandatory spending that the federal government must by law pay out, such as Social Security, Medicare and Medicaid. Being mandatory, this spending is authorized by Congress; it is not subject to appropriations.
2.Discretionary spending is the part of the U.S. federal budget that Congress appropriates each year to fund spending that are not Social Security and Medicare/Medicaid, which means all the other federal agencies, such as DOD, DHS, Education, Energy, HUD, NASA, and the State Department.

Both Congress and the President must abide by the mandatory spending. It is the discretionary spending part of the omnibus spending bill that President Trump’s enigmatic letter of March 23 addresses.

His letter says:


In accordance with section 7058(d) of division K of the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2018 (H.R. 1625; the “Act”), I hereby designate as an emergency requirement all funding so designated by the Congress in the Act pursuant to section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, for the accounts referenced in section 7058(d).

(1) Section 7058(d) of the Consolidated Appropriations Act of 2018 refers to “Repurposed Funds“.



(2) The Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985, aka the Gramm-Rudman Act, was the first binding spending constraints on the federal budget, signed into law by President Ronald Reagan. The Act aimed to cut the federal budget deficit (which at the time, in dollar terms, was the largest in history) by providing for for automatic spending cuts (“sequestration”) to all departments and programs by an equal percentage, if the discretionary spending in Congress’ appropriation bills exceeds that year’s budget totals.

Alas, Gramm–Rudman failed to prevent large budget deficits. Balanced budgets did not actually emerge until the late 1990s when budget surpluses (not accounting for liabilities to the Social Security Trust Fund) emerged. However, the budgets quickly fell out of balance after 2000 and have run consistent and substantial deficits since then.

(3) Section 251(b)(2)(A) of the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985 says:


(b) ADJUSTMENTS TO DISCRETIONARY SPENDING LIMITS.—

(2) SEQUESTRATION [automatic spending cuts] REPORTS.—When OMB submits a sequestration report under section 254(e), (f), or (g) for a fiscal year, OMB shall calculate, and the sequestration report and subsequent budgets submitted by the President under section 1105(a) of title 31, United States Code, shall include adjustments to discretionary spending limits (and those limits as adjusted) for the fiscal year and each succeeding year, as follows:

(A) EMERGENCY APPROPRIATIONS; OVERSEAS CONTINGENCY OPERATIONS/GLOBAL WAR ON TERRORISM.

In other words, in his March 23, 2018 letter to the respective leaders of the House and the Senate, President Trump is saying he intends to “repurpose” certain funds that Congress had appropriated as “discretionary spending,” towards “emergency appropriations, overseas contingency operations/global war on terrorism”.

What might those “emergency appropriations” and “global war on terrorism” be?

In his speech to the nation on March 23, announcing that he has signed the omnibus spending bill, President Trump called the funding of the border wall and illegal “immigration” — and by extension, sanctuary cities and states — a matter of “national security“. His March 23 letter to Congress suggests he intends to “repurpose” or use the discretionary funds appropriated in the omnibus spending bill to construct the border wall and combat illegal immigration, including sanctuary cities.

There is precedent of a president “repurposing” discretionary funds for some other purpose. He is none other than Barack Obama.

From a FoxNews report on July 21, 2009:


President Obama has irked close allies in Congress by declaring he has the right to ignore legislation on constitutional grounds after having criticized George W. Bush for doing the same.

Four senior House Democrats on Tuesday said they were “surprised” and “chagrined” by Obama’s declaration in June that he doesn’t have to comply with provisions in a war spending bill that puts conditions on aid provided to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund.

In a signing statement accompanying the $106 billion bill, Obama said he wouldn’t allow the legislation to interfere with his authority as president to conduct foreign policy and negotiate with other governments.


Earlier in his six-month-old administration, Obama issued a similar statement regarding provisions in a $410 billion omnibus spending bill….

“During the previous administration, all of us were critical of (Bush’s) assertion that he could pick and choose which aspects of congressional statutes he was required to enforce,” the Democrats wrote in their letter to Obama. “We were therefore chagrined to see you appear to express a similar attitude.”

[…] Obama issued his first signing statement after receiving a $410 billion omnibus spending bill. He said the bill would “unduly interfere” with his authority by directing him how to proceed, or not to, in negotiations and discussions with international organizations and foreign governments.

Lastly, there is also another way that President Trump can thwart the omnibus spending bill — by not spending some of the discretionary funds appropriated by Congress, in the interest of slashing the bloated budget.

Indeed, Politico had reported in August 2017:


Lawmakers and activists are preparing for the possibility that President Donald Trump’s administration, in its zeal to slash the federal budget, will take the rare step of deliberately not spending all the money Congress gives it — a move sure to trigger legal and political battles.

The concern is mainly focused on the State Department, where Secretary of State Rex Tillerson has drawn criticism for failing to spend $80 million allocated by Congress to fight Russian and terrorist propaganda . . . . Activists and congressional officials fear such practices could take hold at other U.S. departments and agencies under Trump.



So cheer up, my fellow Deplorables. Things are not as bleak as they appeared to be last Friday. For although he signed the monstrous omnibus spending bill, President Trump has every intention to use the bill to fulfill some of his campaign promises.

When he indeed “repurposes” the discretionary funds in the omnibus spending bill toward building the Wall, the proverbial sh*t will really hit the fan, and the Left’s heads will explode. When that happens, President Donald John Trump will need our support even more. Please keep him in your prayers.


http://www.investmentwatchblog.com/how- ... -the-wall/
Last edited by williatw on Thu Mar 29, 2018 7:16 am, edited 2 times in total.

paperburn1
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by paperburn1 »

ancient chinese curse
May you live in interesting times.

things are interesting, very interesting.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:ancient chinese curse
May you live in interesting times.

things are interesting, very interesting.


Trump Boasts About Border Wall: 'We're Getting That Sucker Built'
President Donald Trump on Thursday boasted about his planned wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, hinting at a Sept. 28 ground-breaking and telling Ohio construction workers "we're getting that sucker built."

"We started building our wall," Trump told members of Local 18 of the Ohio Operating Engineers Union at their Apprenticeship and Training Center in Richland, near Cleveland. "I'm so proud of it. We started.

"We have $1.6 million," referring to the amount appropriated by Congress in the $1.3 trillion omnibus budget bill he signed Friday. "We've already started.

"What a thing of beauty.

"And on Sept. 28, we go further — and we're getting that sucker built."

Trump has pushed for a border wall to stop illegal immigration since announcing his candidacy in 2015, though he declared it would be paid for by Mexico, which officials there have rebuffed.

Congress has resisted the idea of spending an estimated $21.6 billion for Trump's wall, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has spoken with the president about the potential use of military funds to pay for the barrier.

President Donald Trump on Thursday boasted about his planned wall on the U.S. border with Mexico, hinting at a Sept. 28 ground-breaking and telling Ohio construction workers "we're getting that sucker built."

"We started building our wall," Trump told members of Local 18 of the Ohio Operating Engineers Union at their Apprenticeship and Training Center in Richland, near Cleveland. "I'm so proud of it. We started.

"We have $1.6 million," referring to the amount appropriated by Congress in the $1.3 trillion omnibus budget bill he signed Friday. "We've already started.

"What a thing of beauty.

"And on Sept. 28, we go further — and we're getting that sucker built."

Trump has pushed for a border wall to stop illegal immigration since announcing his candidacy in 2015, though he declared it would be paid for by Mexico, which officials there have rebuffed.

Congress has resisted the idea of spending an estimated $21.6 billion for Trump's wall, but Defense Secretary Jim Mattis has spoken with the president about the potential use of military funds to pay for the barrier.

"They have talked about the proposal, potentially, but remember securing Americans and securing the nation is of paramount importance to the secretary," Pentagon spokeswoman Dana White said Thursday.

White provided no further details, saying these were "initial" conversations between Mattis and the president.


"We've done the planning," Trump said Thursday. "The wall looks good.

"It's properly designed. We have something special happening."

Regarding the $1.6 million from the budget bill, President Trump slammed Republicans for not supporting the plan.

https://www.newsmax.com/politics/border ... id/851558/


I have been listening to politicians lie/bs my entire life....but you know I think he means to get that wall built. And I believe it was 1.6 billion not million actually appropriated (so far). Although I am still not very happy about the trillion dollar deficit the omnibus spending bill is supposed to generate; however the thought of Chuck Schumer's and Nancy Pelosi's heads exploding (as well as the lib talking heads in the media like Rachel Maddow & Mika) when Trump builds the wall any way (with no dreamer/DACA deal) does amuse/gladden me somewhat.

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

President Trump hints he may use Defense budget to build the border wall now

By Thomas Lifson

The President has National Security as his Primary Responsibility and it's his job to use whatever funds and declarations he needs to for that job. No Court in this Nation (except corrupt on the take Judges) would EVER rule against a President for exercising that authority.
1) Let's talk about what the President can and can't do for this Omnibus Bill. There's a lot of discussion both ways so let's examine how money gets allocated & spent in the US Government:

1. Congress allocates money to be spent. The President spends the allocated money.

2. Once Congress allocates money, their job is oversight of the money being spent. They don't spend the money and have no say HOW it gets spent as long as it's spent legally. That's their job to monitor with oversight.

3. Once the President is given the money with the instructions to spend it, he has a number of choices to make in spending it. There are some rules he has to follow & some of the money is fungible and some isn't.

4. However there are some other factors that are in play here. One of them is that the President has declared a Human Rights Emergency AND has notified Congress that he's invoking the Balanced Budget and Emergency Deficit Control Act of 1985. 5. This opens up new options.

6. By making these two declarations President Trump has just communicated that he has the authority to NOT spend any funds he doesn't deem necessary and will return them to the US Treasury. So, funds for Planned Parenthood? He can simply not allocate the funds.

7. Also, these declarations make some funds fungible. For instance if he determines that building a Wall on the Southern Border is a defense against Human Trafficking? He can move funds from anywhere else in the Defense Dept Allocation & simply build the Wall.

8. Congress is powerless to stop cash reallocations on an omnibus bill AND cannot stop the DOD from taking measures under a declared Emergency. 9. Despite their language in the Omnibus Bill about the Border Wall, it is trumped by the State of Emergency that Trump declared.

8) So in summary - This will go to the Courts. Congress will sue the President over the Border Wall. But here's how it will play out - Congress and the President are co-equal branches with different functions. Congress allocates. The President spends.

9) The President has National Security as his Primary Responsibility and it's his job to use whatever funds and declarations he needs to for that job. No Court in this Nation (except corrupt on the take Judges) would EVER rule against a President for exercising that authority.

10) In the end the Supreme Court (yes, that's where it will end) will fully VALIDATE the President's Constitutional Authority & the Wall will be built. /end #MAGA #QAnon #TQFam #8Chan #TheGreatAwakening #TheStormIsHere @POTUS #InternetBillOfRights #FreeTheInternet

https://www.americanthinker.com/blog/20 ... l_now.html

williatw
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Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

Finally, something Trump and Reagan have in common
A couple of months ago I had this exchange on Twitter with a lefty Irishman who I follow mainly because he is so consistently wrong on just about everything. The subject was Ronald Reagan:

Image

I don’t doubt this chap did engage in several years of intensive post-graduate study of Russian history and politics, but I suspect he went in with his mind made up on Reagan and no amount of evidence was going to change it. If his research really did reveal that the Soviet decision-making process which led to the end of the Cold War was based on Carter-era policies while the election of Reagan only made things worse, he’d have written a book on it, and would be lecturing history somewhere. He didn’t, and he isn’t.

The left’s re-writing of history to deny Reagan any credit for ending the Cold War is important in the context of this story:


Friday’s summit between the leaders of North and South Korea was a “historic meeting” paving the way for the start of a new era, North Korea’s media say.

The North’s Kim Jong-un and Moon Jae-in of South Korea agreed to work to rid the peninsula of nuclear weapons.

In a rare move, state-run TV and the official KCNA news agency hailed the talks and the leaders’ commitment to seek “complete denuclearisation”.

The summit came just months after warlike rhetoric from the North.

It saw Mr Kim become the first North Korean leader to set foot in South Korea since the end of the Korean War in 1953.

The two men warmly shook hands and then stepped symbolically over the military demarcation line to the North Korean side.

Firstly, let’s not get carried away. I don’t believe for one minute that North Korea has given up its nuclear ambitions and so far nothing has been agreed. But in the context of the conflict between North and South Korea, these developments are huge steps forward. Yes it might be just theatre but theatre has a certain importance, particularly when North Korea is involved, a country which is as much theatre as anything else. That the North Korean media are reporting this visit is extremely important, meaning this visit is not just for the benefit of western hawks and South Korean doves.


The two leaders said they would pursue talks with the US and China to formally end the Korean War, which ended in 1953 with a truce, not total peace.

If that happens, it will be the biggest diplomatic coup of the century thus far. So how much of this is down to Trump? Well, quite a lot. It was he who refused to bend to North Korean threats, instead responding with threats of his own with a dose of outright mockery thrown in. And it was he, thankfully via mediums other than Twitter, who put pressure on the Chinese to reign in their rogue puppy, convincing them it was in everyone’s interests to do so. Others have played their role for sure, namely the South Koreans, Chinese, and even Kim Jong-un himself, but this would never be happening without Trump. If the Korean War officially ends as a result of this, he will have pulled off a geopolitical triumph orders of magnitudes more important than Obama’s sucking up to Cuba and throwing money at Iran in a desperate attempt to secure his “legacy”.


However, you can be sure the global elites, the media, and Trump’s ideological enemies at home and abroad will do everything in their power to downplay, ignore, or misrepresent Trump’s role in whatever progress is made on the Korean peninsula from hereon. Like those who can’t bring themselves to accept that Reagan’s policies were instrumental in bringing about the end of the Cold War rather than leading to nuclear Armageddon, those who claimed Trump was recklessly endangering the world will be incapable of acknowledging he’s probably made it safer. How much safer remains to be seen, but let’s recall Barack Obama was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for doing absolutely nothing except winning the presidency after George W. Bush. Nobody is ever going to award the Nobel prize to Donald Trump even if he permanently eliminates war and suffering by tomorrow night, but Obama could at least gift him his.



http://www.desertsun.co.uk/blog/6718/

Diogenes
Posts: 6967
Joined: Mon Jun 15, 2009 3:33 pm

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by Diogenes »

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Daniel Greenfield is 100% right. John Kerry should be immediately arrested and prosecuted to the fullest extent of the law. Of course, it would help immensely if we didn't have a legal system, judiciary and elected officials that are thoroughly corrupted and sworn to protect the Deep Staters who openly lord over us. Just ask Scooter Libby, Mike Flynn or Michael Caputo. In related news, Dinesh D'Souza is rightfully enraged at how Rosie O'Donuts has egregiously broken campaign contribution laws by orders of magnitude worse than he had been sent to jail for, and yet the fat, sack of bile still waddles the streets free as a bird. Of course, it didn't help D'Souza that Obama-led DoJ persecuted him because he was an effective critic of the regime and had to be silenced. Revolutions have been fought for much less than this. BTW, sorry for quoting Karl Marx above, but it is oddly appropriate.


http://acecomments.mu.nu/?post=375144
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »

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Special Report Robert Mueller’s Gaping Self-Inflicted Wound


It’s a doozy and very embarrassing, as he has clearly been outsmarted.


Against all expectations, in April, lawyers for one of the Russian corporate defendants, Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, entered their appearances in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They followed up by serving extensive discovery requests on Team Mueller seeking full disclosure of the government’s case and investigation including sensitive national security and intelligence information.

This type of discovery is called “graymail” (as distinguished from blackmail) in which the government is faced with having to disclose closely guarded state secrets in order to proceed with the prosecution. The alternative is to drop the charges.

Given that the maximum penalty against Concord is an uncollectable $500,000 fine or equally uncollectable compensation to anyone damaged by the alleged conspiracy, the choice is all the more bitter for Team Mueller. Should they litigate the discovery requests? If they lose and are faced with having to disclose sensitive intelligence information about the case and their investigation, should they withdraw the indictment against Concord? And, if they drop the charges, are they prepared for the resulting public mockery and howls of derision?



On February 16, 2018, Special Counsel Robert Mueller obtained a federal indictment of 13 Russian nationals and 3 Russian companies for conspiring to wage “information warfare” by “impairing, obstructing, and defeating the lawful functions of the United States by dishonest means in order to enable Defendants to interfere with U.S. political processes, including the 2016 presidential election.”




According to the indictment, in 2014 the defendants, posing as U.S. persons, contacted American political and social activists on social media sites. Using information derived from these contacts, they structured disinformation operations to be used in the upcoming presidential election.

Once the presidential campaign started, they used stolen Social Security numbers and birth dates of real U.S. persons to set up bank and PayPal accounts. Through these, the defendants funded their “operations primarily intended to communicate derogatory information about Hillary Clinton, to denigrate other candidates such as Ted Cruz and Marco Rubio, and to support Bernie Sanders and then-candidate Donald Trump.”

Quoting from the defendants’ communications, the indictment avers that they set up social media accounts to spread content that focused on “politics in the USA” and to “use any opportunity to criticize Hillary and the rest (except [Bernie] Sanders and Trump — we support them).” The indictment outlines a number of online media postings and other efforts that attacked Clinton and encouraged support for Sanders, Green Party candidate Jill Stein, and Trump.


Also while posing as U.S. persons, the indictment says they contacted Trump campaign operatives to provide support. The indictment makes clear that the Trump organizers were unaware of the Russians’ true identities and motives.

Not until page 23 of the 37-page indictment does the defendants’ true purpose come into focus. As stated there, after the election, they organized and promoted rallies “in support of president-elect Trump, while simultaneously using other false U.S. persons to organize and coordinate rallies protesting the results of the 2016 presidential election.”

For example, on November 12, 2016, the defendants and their unnamed co-conspirators organized a rally in New York designed to “show your support for President-Elect Donald Trump” while on the same date they organized a rally in New York called “Trump is NOT my President.” Three days later, they organized a North Carolina rally entitled “Charlotte Against Trump.”

In addition to undercutting the Trump-Russia collusion narrative, these anti-Trump measures make apparent that, rather than achieve any particular electoral outcome, the defendants intended to sow dissension, bitterness, and distrust among the American electorate. They were trying to do in America what Russia has done in other countries by mounting disinformation campaigns to undermine trust and confidence in democratic institutions.


In announcing the indictment, Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein emphasized that it neither alleges that any American knowingly acted in concert with the defendants nor that the defendants’ efforts changed the outcome of the election. While all of that is undoubtedly true, it must be recognized that the defendants had to have known that their efforts described in the indictment would not have any material effect on the election results. Like everyone else, they could read the polls. Hillary was going to win, and Trump was guaranteed to lose. That solid and inescapable political consensus limited what they could hope to accomplish.

So causing one candidate to win and another to lose was not their goal. Instead their mission was to weaken and erode Americans’ confidence in our democratic institutions and to poison and sabotage the acceptance of the election outcome by millions of Americans who supported the losing candidate. In short, they wanted to cause turmoil, dissension, and disorder and to cripple our government. Given the post-election chaos, division and bitterness, they certainly seem to have achieved their purpose.

The indictment was heralded by the media as a major achievement by Team Mueller. But a few observers questioned whether Mueller truly expected any of the defendants to appear in a U.S. court to answer the charges. Others asked if the indictment was merely an empty public relations move by Mueller attempting to show that his investigation was producing solid results.

The answers to these questions have started to emerge. Against all expectations, in April, lawyers for one of the Russian corporate defendants, Concord Management and Consulting, LLC, entered their appearances in the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia. They followed up by serving extensive discovery requests on Team Mueller seeking full disclosure of the government’s case and investigation including sensitive national security and intelligence information.

This type of discovery is called “graymail” (as distinguished from blackmail) in which the government is faced with having to disclose closely guarded state secrets in order to proceed with the prosecution. The alternative is to drop the charges.

Given that the maximum penalty against Concord is an uncollectable $500,000 fine or equally uncollectable compensation to anyone damaged by the alleged conspiracy, the choice is all the more bitter for Team Mueller. Should they litigate the discovery requests? If they lose and are faced with having to disclose sensitive intelligence information about the case and their investigation, should they withdraw the indictment against Concord? And, if they drop the charges, are they prepared for the resulting public mockery and howls of derision?

On Friday May 5, 2018, Team Mueller immediately began backtracking by filing a motion asking U.S. District Judge Dabney Friedrich to postpone Concord’s arraignment set for May 9, 2018.

They claimed that it was unclear whether Concord had formally accepted the court summons related to the case. In their motion, they included Concord’s discovery requests.

“Until the Court has an opportunity to determine if Concord was properly served, it would be inadvisable to conduct an initial appearance and arraignment at which important rights will be communicated and a plea entertained,” wrote the prosecutors. “That is especially true in the context of this case, which involves a foreign corporate defendant, controlled by another, individual foreign defendant, that has already demanded production of sensitive intelligence gathering, national security, and foreign affairs information.” [Emphasis added]

Team Mueller proposed that the arraignment be postponed while the parties briefed the issue of whether the court summons has been properly served on Concord.

The next morning, Concord’s lawyers replied, “Defendant voluntarily appeared through counsel as provided for in [the federal rules], and further intends to enter a plea of not guilty. Defendant has not sought a limited appearance nor has it moved to quash the summons. As such, the briefing sought by the Special Counsel’s motion is pettifoggery.” [Emphasis added]

Defense counsel argued that Team Mueller was trying “to usurp the scheduling authority of the Court” by waiting until Friday afternoon to try to delay a proceeding scheduled for the following Wednesday. They also stated that the special counsel’s office has not replied to Concord’s discovery requests and, ratcheting up the pressure on the Muellerites, stated that their client intends to assert its speedy trial rights.

Judge Friedrich, a Trump appointee, denied Team Mueller’s request and ruled that the arraignment would proceed as scheduled on May 9.

So what happened at the arraignment? Did things get better for Team Mueller? Hardly.

At the arraignment, Concord’s lead counsel, Eric Dubelier, was asked whether he represents Concord Catering, another one of the charged Russian companies. He replied that he did not and added, “I think we’re dealing with the government having indicted the proverbial ham sandwich. That company didn’t exist as a legal entity during the time period alleged by the government.” [Emphasis added]

Then, hinting at more of the graymail yet to come, he remarked darkly that, “We now know that the special counsel apparently has access to [Concord’s] confidential filings at the Office of Foreign Assets Control, which in and of itself is a disturbing fact.”

Dubelier stated, “Your Honor, we waive formal reading of the indictment. We enter a plea of not guilty. We exercise our right to a speedy trial.” [Emphasis added]

So, what does all of this mean? Metaphorically speaking, it would appear that the yapping dog chasing the car has sunk its teeth into the spinning tire. There is no way for Rover to escape injury. Even if Mueller and his pit bulls win the discovery battle and the case at trial, what’s the prize? A $500,000 fine or compensation to victims? How will they collect?

https://spectator.org/robert-muellers-g ... ted-wound/

williatw
Posts: 1912
Joined: Mon Oct 12, 2009 7:15 pm
Location: Ohio

Re: Sell The Whitehouse to Trump

Post by williatw »


About That FBI ‘Source’


Did the bureau engage in outright spying against the 2016 Trump campaign?

By
Kimberley A. Strassel


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House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes at the Conservative Political Action Conference, Feb. 24 at National Harbor, Md. Photo
The Department of Justice lost its latest battle with Congress Thursday when it agreed to brief House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source that was part of the FBI’s investigation of the Trump campaign. Even without official confirmation of that source’s name, the news so far holds some stunning implications.


Among them is that the Justice Department and Federal Bureau of Investigation outright hid critical information from a congressional investigation. In a Thursday press conference, Speaker Paul Ryan bluntly noted that Intelligence Chairman Devin Nunes’s request for details on this secret source was “wholly appropriate,” “completely within the scope” of the committee’s long-running FBI investigation, and “something that probably should have been answered a while ago.” Translation: The department knew full well it should have turned this material over to congressional investigators last year, but instead deliberately concealed it.

House investigators nonetheless sniffed out a name, and Mr. Nunes in recent weeks issued a letter and a subpoena demanding more details. Deputy Attorney General Rod Rosenstein’s response was to double down—accusing the House of “extortion” and delivering a speech in which he claimed that “declining to open the FBI’s files to review” is a constitutional “duty.” Justice asked the White House to back its stonewall. And it even began spinning that daddy of all superspook arguments—that revealing any detail about this particular asset could result in “loss of human lives.”

This is desperation, and it strongly suggests that whatever is in these files is going to prove very uncomfortable to the FBI.


The bureau already has some explaining to do. Thanks to the Washington Post’s unnamed law-enforcement leakers, we know Mr. Nunes’s request deals with a “top secret intelligence source” of the FBI and CIA, who is a U.S. citizen and who was involved in the Russia collusion probe. When government agencies refer to sources, they mean people who appear to be average citizens but use their profession or contacts to spy for the agency. Ergo, we might take this to mean that the FBI secretly had a person on the payroll who used his or her non-FBI credentials to interact in some capacity with the Trump campaign.

This would amount to spying, and it is hugely disconcerting. It would also be a major escalation from the electronic surveillance we already knew about, which was bad enough. Obama political appointees rampantly “unmasked” Trump campaign officials to monitor their conversations, while the FBI played dirty with its surveillance warrant against Carter Page, failing to tell the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court that its supporting information came from the Hillary Clinton campaign. Now we find it may have also been rolling out human intelligence, John Le Carré style, to infiltrate the Trump campaign.


Which would lead to another big question for the FBI: When? The bureau has been doggedly sticking with its story that a tip in July 2016 about the drunken ramblings of George Papadopoulos launched its counterintelligence probe. Still, the players in this affair—the FBI, former Director Jim Comey, the Steele dossier authors—have been suspiciously vague on the key moments leading up to that launch date. When precisely was the Steele dossier delivered to the FBI? When precisely did the Papadopoulos information come in?

And to the point, when precisely was this human source operating? Because if it was prior to that infamous Papadopoulos tip, then the FBI isn’t being straight. It would mean the bureau was spying on the Trump campaign prior to that moment. And that in turn would mean that the FBI had been spurred to act on the basis of something other than a junior campaign aide’s loose lips.

We also know that among the Justice Department’s stated reasons for not complying with the Nunes subpoena was its worry that to do so might damage international relationships. This suggests the “source” may be overseas, have ties to foreign intelligence, or both. That’s notable, given the highly suspicious role foreigners have played in this escapade. It was an Australian diplomat who reported the Papadopoulos conversation. Dossier author Christopher Steele is British, used to work for MI6, and retains ties to that spy agency as well as to a network of former spooks. It was a former British diplomat who tipped off Sen. John McCain to the dossier. How this “top secret” source fits into this puzzle could matter deeply.

I believe I know the name of the informant, but my intelligence sources did not provide it to me and refuse to confirm it. It would therefore be irresponsible to publish it. But what is clear is that we’ve barely scratched the surface of the FBI’s 2016 behavior, and the country will never get the straight story until President Trump moves to declassify everything possible. It’s time to rip off the Band-Aid.


Correction
The FBI briefed House Intelligence Committee members about a top-secret intelligence source but did not allow them to see documents. An earlier version of this article misstated this.





https://www.wsj.com/articles/about-that ... m=referral

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