President Donald John Trump says that his phones were tapped during the presidential campaign by the federal government.
If you look at the denials from the Obama administration, most are conditional. Such as, Obama didn’t tap the phones.
Well, that seems to be a given. Of course President Barack Obama didn’t tap the phones. One could interpret some of the denials to mean that Obama himself did not personally put the wiretaps on the phones, which nobody is claiming. What Trump is claiming is that the Obama administration, the people working for Obama, tapped his phones, and the denials of that are extremely weak.
There is a notable exception: Former National Intelligence Director James Clapper said that to his knowledge there was no tapping of Trump’s phones. Great. This is the man that – testifying under oath before Congress – said that the federal government was not collecting data on American citizens but only on foreigners. No matter what you think of Edward Snowden, he proved that was a false statement.
Some in Congress wanted Clapper to be charged with perjury. But what we do know is that Clapper had no problems lying under oath to Congress, so why in the world would anyone believe him now? He has proven that he will say whatever is convenient and protect the former president if he needs to.
When Trump said that he was wiretapped by the Obama administration, the news media went nuts. When The New York Times on Jan. 19, 2017, the day before Trump was inaugurated, reported that the campaign was wiretapped in much more detail, the rest of the news media ignored it.
As White House adviser Kellyanne Conway said, Trump is the president of the United States and has access to information the rest of us don’t.
Trump has called for an investigation to prove that he is telling the truth about his phones being tapped. Trump is a smart operator. It would be dumb for him to make such an accusation and then ask for an investigation if he didn’t already know the outcome of that investigation.
We know that Obama has no trouble lying to the American people. He did it about Benghazi and sent Susan Rice – who at the time was the US ambassador to the United Nations – out to lie on network show after network show. Obama knew that what Rice was telling the American people was totally false.
The story she told didn’t even make any sense. A spontaneous mob may throw rocks, bottles and even fire a few guns, but it does not attack two US compounds over a 13-hour period with machine guns and mortars.
The lie worked for Obama. He created enough confusion over the Benghazi attack that by the time it was all sorted out he had been reelected president and it didn’t matter what anyone believed.
There isn’t enough time or space to list all the lies that Obama and his minions told about Obamacare, but “you can keep your doctor” is one that people remember.
So it shouldn’t surprise anyone that Obama is once again sending people out to lie for him. Obama’s problem here is that he is no longer president, and Trump, not Obama, has access to the information that Obama doesn’t want released.
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The mainstream media are nothing if not consistent. No evidence has been produced that the Trump campaign was in league with the Russians to affect the outcome of the presidential election.
The New York Times says that it’s true, but have offered no transcripts or recordings to prove it – only anonymous sources.
In the news business, named sources are considered much more reliable than anonymous sources. Trump, a named source, says that it isn’t true, but the mainstream media keep pointing out that he has offered no evidence that it’s not true.
What the mainstream media conveniently overlook is that there has been no evidence that it is true except the unnamed sources The New York Times claims to have.
Where is the evidence that Trump is lying? There hasn’t been one piece of evidence released so far. You can’t prove a negative. What could Trump possibly do to prove that he wasn’t working with the Russians, unless there is a specific allegation – on this date at this time this person working for Trump called Russian President Vladimir Putin and said this. You can prove that isn’t true if you have a phone log of every phone that might have been used or a recording of the conversation itself. Otherwise you can’t prove it.
A general allegation like The New York Times is making with no evidence can’t be disproved because there isn’t enough information to disprove it. Trump cannot possibly prove that no one in his campaign ever spoke to any Russian during the 16 month long campaign. In fact, we know that some people working for the campaign did speak to Russians during the campaign. However, to jump to the conclusion – as the mainstream media have – that because someone who worked with or for the campaign spoke to a Russian, to the fact that this proves there was collusion on Russian interference in the campaign, is ridiculous. Even Clapper says that there is no evidence of collusion.
Trump doesn’t need to prove that no one on his campaign spoke to a Russian because there is nothing illegal about a member of the Trump campaign speaking to a Russian. Americans, even Americans working for a campaign, still have freedom of speech; it is not suspended for people working on a political campaign, even a Republican presidential campaign.
Does anyone else think that it’s a little strange that none of the mainstream media news organizations are investigating whether anyone who worked on the Hillary Clinton campaign ever spoke with a Russian during the campaign?
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Let’s say that all the conspiracy theories the far left media led by The New York Times are promoting are correct, which means Putin and Trump were secretly conspiring.
Why would Putin do that? Putin is nothing if not a smart operator. He would never draw to an inside straight. Trump was very much an inside straight. Almost everyone including the Russians thought that Hillary Clinton had the election in the bag. Even the betting odds heavily favored Hillary Clinton, and those gamblers don’t give a hoot about politics.
So why would Putin collude with Trump when he was almost certain that Trump, on Nov. 9, would be just another rich real estate developer who had added this line to his obituary: “In 2016 was the unlikely Republican presidential nominee.”
Putin would, like everyone else, figure that Hillary Clinton would be elected president and she would have access to information that he had worked with Trump. Hillary Clinton would know and the relationship with Russia would be even worse than it would have been. And it would have been bad anyway because the Russians recognize Hillary Clinton for exactly what she is, which is someone whose sole notable accomplishment in life was to marry a future president and then parlay that marriage into a couple of jobs for which she was totally unsuited.
All of this stuff being promoted by The New York Times is conspiracy theories run amuck.
But then consider the other side. Would the Obama administration authorize surveillance of Trump? Obama, like Putin and just about everyone else, had no doubt that Hillary Clinton was going to be the next president. If you accept that premise, what is the downside of putting surveillance on Trump?
Hillary Clinton in their minds was going to be the next president and there is no way that Hillary Clinton would turn on Obama and release highly confidential information about surveillance on Trump. Most of the people working for Hillary Clinton after she was elected would have been the same folks who worked for Obama. They were not going to tattle on themselves.
So during the election it seemed like an incredibly safe move. No one was going to find out and they might come up with some really juicy stuff about Trump. To the Obama folks it looked like a win-win. There was no downside as long as Hillary Clinton won, and they all believed she would.
The problem became a problem when, according to Obama and his team, the impossible happened and Trump was elected. As president they knew that Trump would have access to the information that they thought would forever be kept secret. No wonder they scrambled and tried to figure out some way to prevent the information from being made public. Accusing Trump of colluding with the Russians would be a logical way to prevent the information that was gleaned from the wiretaps from being made public, because in their minds Trump wouldn’t do what he has done and demand the whole affair be investigated.
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I’m worried I’m going to be under investigation. No doubt the National Security Administration under former President Obama has my phone tapped and is keeping track of each keystroke on my computer. I hate the fact that they have discovered what a poor typist I am and how often I have to retype misspelled words. They have found out that I can’t spell bureaucrat close enough for spell check to figure out what word I was trying to type.
But that is the state of the country it seems.
I suspect I am under surveillance because last year I had a room full of Ukrainian journalists in my office and, I admit it, we discussed politics – even the presidential campaign.
Evidently there is some law against discussing politics with Russians and I’m assuming that the same law applies to Ukrainians. Since one of the Ukrainians was from Crimea, which is now part of Russia, he might even be considered a Russian, although he considers himself a Ukrainian who can’t go home.
National Security Advisor Mike Flynn was forced to resign because he talked to some Russians before he became national security advisor. I didn’t understand what the crime was, but evidently it is a crime for people who were not in the Obama administration to talk to Russians.
Now Attorney General Jeff Sessions is under the gun for the same crime.
I imagine the Russian ambassador to the US, Sergey Kislyak, must be getting pretty lonely because I can’t imagine anyone in Washington, DC, meeting with him these days. Those who do meet with him are hauled in before congressional committees and interrogated about their meetings.
What I haven’t quite figured out yet is why it was perfectly acceptable for Secretary of State John Kerry to meet with the Russians frequently, and it was considered a feather in her cap by Democrats when Secretary of State Hillary Clinton met with the Russians. Hillary Clinton meeting with the Russians was a positive thing, as were Kerry’s meetings with the Russians, as were Obama’s meetings with Putin. But according to what is currently happening in Washington, it is illegal for Republicans to meet with Russians.
All I can hope is that the Obama administration, which I thought was out of power, will be kind and accept my explanation that as an American I thought I had the right to free speech and the right to speak to whoever I wanted about whatever I wanted.
I now realize I was wrong and will promise not to have any more meetings with anyone from Eastern Europe in my office, and if any Russians or Ukrainians should wander into my office, we will only talk about the weather, sports and vodka. I think those are all safe topics.
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Trump made a major mistake in his first month in office. Trump allowed the Democrats to create so much controversy about National Security Advisor Mike Flynn that Flynn resigned. Trump should have stood behind Flynn and fought against the Democrats tooth and nail to keep the man he wanted as National Security Advisor. Flynn’s crime was being politically naive.
But now the Democrats, with the help of the mainstream media, are trying to pull the same stunt on Sessions.
I agree with Trump that Sessions made his first mistake when he agreed to recuse himself from the investigation of the campaign. Every elected official in Washington was involved in the presidential campaign to some degree. How can Congress investigate the campaign if everyone in Congress was involved? If Sessions has to recuse himself then why shouldn’t the rest of Congress have to recuse themselves also?
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One of the obvious problems that Trump has as president is that he has no political experience. It’s one reason he was elected, because he promised to “drain the swamp.” It’s a promise I hope he keeps, but first he’s going to have to learn where the drain is so he can unplug it.
It appears that Trump has been a little naive in his first six weeks on the job. He should have fired every Obama political appointee on Jan. 20. If it turned out some of them were not loyal to Obama, he could have rehired them. But for the most part anyone who would work for Obama, Trump doesn’t want working for him because their worldviews are diametrically opposed.
It’s not too late. Political appointees work at the pleasure of the president. Trump should have seen the handwriting on the wall when he promoted Sally Yates to acting attorney general and then she refused to do her job. Trump evidently interpreted this as one woman loyal to Trump, but he should have generalized. If she was willing to give up the job as acting attorney general because it conflicted with her core Obama-love principles then others in less high profile positions are probably in the same boat.
Trump now has some of his own people in place. The federal government has such redundancy that it doesn’t really shut down when there is a government shutdown and all nonessential employees are told to stay home. The federal government can operate without Obama appointees in place for a few weeks.
Trump should clean house. It won’t stop all the leaks because some of those leaks are coming from career federal employees who are predominantly liberal Democrats, and are nearly impossible to fire, but it would help.
The other mistake Trump is making, which is along the same lines, is expecting some bipartisan support. Trump should listen to what House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi and Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer are saying and realize they speak for the Democratic delegation. He’s not going to get the support of the leadership or their followers. At best he can hope to peel off a Democrat or two, but he has to realize that whatever he gets through Congress will go through just like his cabinet appointments have – with overwhelming Democratic opposition.
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Republicans by now should have learned something from their Democratic friends across the aisle. For years the Republicans were the minority party; this meant that the leadership could allow Republicans to vote however they wanted. It didn’t matter because the bills would pass or fail based on the Democrats.
But now the Republicans are in control of the House and Senate – both nationally and in North Carolina. Republicans need more party discipline. When you are the governing party you can’t allow the members of your party to vote however they want because it does make a difference when you are trying to pass legislation.
Those who want to vote against the party have to be severely reprimanded by the leadership; depending on how important the bill is they should be removed from powerful committees, put in tiny offices, have their parking spaces taken away and, most importantly, it should be made crystal clear that they will receive no money from the party and will face a well-funded primary challenger if they don’t go along with the program. If they can’t learn to work with their fellow Republicans then they should be treated like Democrats.
The Republicans need to start playing to win.
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One of the complaints from the mainstream media and other left-wingers is that Trump hasn’t gone into detail about how he is going to accomplish what he has said he is going to do.
The entire Star Wars missile defense system that brought the Soviet Union to its knees was, according to legend, the result of President Ronald Reagan listening to a proposal from his military leaders and commenting that is was an interesting idea, or something along those lines.
The president of the United States sets policy. It’s his job, for instance, to support a wall on the southern border to stem the flow of illegal immigrants into this nation. It is not his job to decide how tall the wall will be, what it will be made of, who is going to build it or exactly where the funding will come from.
He determines the policy and then people who work for him are supposed to make sure that policy is carried out.
It’s silly to expect this president or any president to get into details. We did have one president in the past 50 years who would do that – Jimmy Carter – who is widely recognized as one of the worst presidents in modern history.
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I love it. The Washington Post ran an article stating that The New York Times was not inaccurate, as Trump claims, and the proof The Post offered was that The New York Times hasn’t run major corrections to stories about Trump, but most of the corrections it has run about Trump stories were minor facts or typos.
If The Post reporters would visit a prison they would discover that virtually nobody in the place committed the crimes for which they were convicted. If The Post editors taught school, after a couple of months they might begin to wonder why the dogs owned by their students weren’t chronically ill from the homework they had eaten.
No doubt Trump-deniers will tout the article as proof that Trump is wrong, but the whole issue is that formerly responsible news organizations like The Washington Post and The New York Times don’t run corrections when they find their stories have been misleading or just wrong.
No one has provided any evidence that Russia in any way tampered with the presidential election results or that there was any collusion between the Trump campaign and the Russians, but what The New York Times and The Washington Post want everyone to believe is that the Trump campaign worked with the Russians to affect the election results.
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I’ve written about this before but it’s worth mentioning again: The so-called fact checking done by mainstream news organizations is just a clever way of the mainstream media getting another bite at the apple.
News articles are purported to be unbiased and report only the facts, but they aren’t. By the same token, the fact checking is a brilliant way to make trashing conservatives seem to be unbiased.
How many times did former Vice President Joe Biden have anything he said fact checked? But that’s another story.
If fact checking were fair and unbiased it would be a useful tool, but it isn’t. Take for instance the fact that when Trump said most of the terrorist attacks on the United States came from people who were not from here. According to the US Justice Department, Trump is right; according to the Associated Press, he is wrong.
This is pretty simple. Were most of the people who have committed terrorists in the United States since 2001 born in this country? The answer is no.
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It’s amazing how the rules of political correctness keep changing. The basic rule was any white person who mentioned slavery was a racist, but black people could talk about slavery all they wanted. But it appears because he is a Republican, the white person rule is being applied to Secretary of Housing and Urban Development Dr. Ben Carson. He didn’t say that slaves came to the US voluntarily, but that is what the PC police are saying that he said.
