President Trump

Russia! Russia! Russia!

I have no idea what's going on with the Russia involvement in the election. Trump was saying the election was rigged and Obama told him to basically shut up because no one could rig our elections. Then Trump wins and everyone is saying Russia rigged the election (or tampered with it). FWIW - Wikileaks said it wasn't Russia that provided Podesta emails. Then Trump said Obama wiretapped him, while offering no proof.

Todays news is that Susan Rice is the one who unmasked General Flynn in conversations with Russia and exposed him to the Washington Post.



http://thehill.com/policy/national-...d-testify-under-oath-about-unmasking-of-trump

Sen. Rand Paul (R-Ky.) on Monday said former national security adviser Susan Rice should testify under oath about her reported requests to “unmask” the identities of Americans associated with President Trump in intelligence reports.

Paul was referencing a report by Bloomberg View columnist Eli Lake on Monday that said Rice asked for the identities of individuals in intelligence reports associated with Trump’s transition team and campaign, making such requests dozens of times.

The Kentucky senator, while acknowledging he has little information about the matter beyond the news report, called the unmasking an “enormous deal” and indicated that it should be illegal.

“I don’t think we should discount how big a deal it was that Susan Rice was looking at these, and she needs to be asked, did President Obama ask her to do this? Was this a directive from President Obama?” Paul told reporters.

“I think she ought to testify under oath on this. I think she should be asked under oath, did she reveal it to The Washington Post.” “I think they were illegally basically using an espionage tool to eavesdrop or wiretap — if you want to use the word generally — on the Trump campaign,” Paul said.

The report about Rice appears to be connected to House Intelligence Committee Chairman Devin Nunes’s (R-Calif.) claim that information was incidentally collected on members of the Trump transition in foreign surveillance activities and widely disseminated in intelligence community reports.

Nunes made the claim nearly two weeks ago, infuriating his Democratic colleagues by briefing the media and Trump on the information before revealing it to his committee. Nunes said he was particularly concerned with the possibility that Trump associates were “unmasked” in the intelligence reports.

Since then, reports have emerged that officials in the Trump White House played a role in Nunes receiving the information.

Nunes revealed the information weeks after Trump accused Obama of having his “wires tapped” at Trump Tower ahead of the presidential election, a claim that has been widely dismissed by officials and lawmakers in both parties.

U.S. citizens who are caught up incidentally in foreign intelligence surveillance are typically subject to minimization rules to conceal their identities, though there are some exceptions.

But individuals can be exempt from the minimization rules if their identities are necessary to understand the value of the foreign intelligence.

Paul used Monday’s development to renew his push for reform of a controversial provision of the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) that allows the U.S. intelligence community to target non-Americans outside the United States without a warrant. The provision, Section 702, is up for renewal later this year.

Paul also signaled that he sees Nunes — who has long been an advocate for the foreign intelligence law — as a potential ally for reform.

Nunes previously took issue with the fact that Michael Flynn, Trump's former national security adviser, had his communications monitored by the intelligence community, which were later the subject of media reports.

“I have been very impressed with Devin Nunes,” Paul said. “All of the intelligence hawks don’t like him because he appears to have found something and he’s willing to talk about it with the president.”

“I think it is inappropriate and it should be illegal,” Paul said of the incidental collection on Americans without a warrant. “I don’t think you should be allowed to listen to Americans’ conversations without a warrant. They are doing it without a warrant. They are targeting a foreigner, and because they are targeting a foreigner they are gathering all of this information on Americans.”

“Is there a possibility that Susan Rice was politically motivated? Let’s ask her why she was opening up all of the conversations with Trump transition figures,” he said.

Paul played a round of golf with Trump over the weekend and hinted that he brought up the need to reform U.S. intelligence activities during their seven hours of play.

“He never said anything to me about it, but I may have given him my opinion on it,” Paul said when asked by a reporter. “I think I told him that it’s probably very explosive.”

Democrats have demanded Nunes recuse himself from the committee’s Russia investigation following his explosive claim, suggesting that it was coordinated with the White House.

Ranking member Adam Schiff (D-Calif.) was invited to the White House on Friday to view documents related to Nunes’s claims about incidental collection of information on Trump associates. Schiff confirmed that the documents were “precisely the same materials” provided to Nunes, but noted that nothing about them seemed out of step with normal review procedures.

“Nothing I could see today warranted a departure from the normal review procedures, and these materials should now be provided to the full membership of both committees,” Schiff said Friday.

“The White House has yet to explain why senior White House staff apparently shared these materials with but one member of either committee, only for their contents to be briefed back to the White House.”

 

We are now at war with Syria.

Assad using chem weapons on his people can't be allowed, but I'm not sure it's our job to lead the fight. Can't we just draw Red Lines and drone them like before?

 

I feel the same. I am not eager for war at all. I'm glad my buddies got out of the Marines when they did.

Chemical warfare cannot be tolerated. It's evil and we must stand up to evil but this is a drastic step.

 

We should have all expected this idiot would start a war at some point in his presidency.

He's also threatening war with North Korea.

 

Like I said, we should've just continued droning countries like the past 8 years. No one seemed to mind that.

 

Limited troop endangerment. It's the best course of action. I knew drone operators. They weren't out of danger, but they weren't exactly taking gun fire either.

Seems like Trump wanted to make a statement instead of making a good decision.

 

I see people freaking out on FB and I'm like, "you know we've been doing this for the past 14 years, right?" Apparently not.

 

What do you mean by this part?

Without a doubt, Bush is guilty of engaging the Middle East, but so is Obama. Obama bombed more Middle East countries than Bush did. More people died under Obama than Bush (both Americans and people of Middle East). Way more bombs dropped by Obama too. Just because the media ignored it doesn't mean it didn't happen.

As for Trump and yesterday's missle attacks, I wish we minded our own business, but at the same time, it's difficult to sit back and watch these atrocities.

No perfect answer.

 

I don't want to derail this thing into an Obama vs. Trump or an Obama vs. Bush thing about who started what and who holds the most responsibility for lives.

All I'll say is that people will use this narrative to fuel their beliefs. I had a heated argument with my wife this morning because all I said was: if you have the power to stop evil and you don't do it, what does that make you?

I wholeheartedly understand the desire to stay out of it. I also understand that sometimes you have to fight for what's right. Thought of in a different light: if Trump had been more welcoming to immigrants from Syria and then had bombed Assad, wouldn't people claim he's the savior of those people? Instead he's a callous warmonger. The shades of gray in this are deep. I need more time to process this. I do agree (I think we all do) that this type of action requires a long, thoughtful process.

 

I wouldn't engage American troops. At this stage, with the technology afforded us, I think we could easily get away with drone strikes that limit American troop exposure.

I wouldn't blitz Syria and overthrow the government. There's a limit to how much we can do. Speaking to my military friends and family they all say the same thing. They say there are two truths out there: 1) they hate Americans and 2) their wars will not be solved by us. These countries will continue warring on each other forever regardless of our involvement. We could try to establish a democracy, we could try to establish a Eutopia, but the reality is they don't want our help. It's their problem and this is how they choose to solve it. It's how they've always chosen to solve it.

I suppose if the logic is that we're some sort of moral referees in the middle of an atrocity, it's not that much better than no involvement at all... I honestly don't know what to do. I would have an incredibly hard time looking victims of these attacks in the face and not doing anything.

 

"Trump Has Already Spent Almost Double Obama’s Annual Travel Budget


President Donald Trump, son Barron, and wife Melania step off Air Force One upon arrival at Palm Beach International Airport in West Palm Beach, Florida, on March 17.

Mandel Ngan/AFP/Getty Images

This marked the seventh weekend that President Trump spent at what he has come to call the “Winter White House” since taking office on Jan. 20. It is estimated that each of the president’s trips to Mar-a-Lago costs taxpayers around $3 million. Meaning that since taking office, Trump has already spent around $21 million in taxpayer cash for his weekend travels, which also double as great advertisements for his Trump-branded properties.

In contrast, President Obama’s travel was estimated to have cost taxpayers somewhere between $85 million and $96 million, according to Public Citizen, a progressive advocacy group. Taking the highest estimate into account, that would translate into $12 million per year.

If Trump keeps up the current pace of trips, he could spend $60 million in taxpayer cash solely to visit Mar-a-Lago this year. And, of course, that doesn’t even come close to estimating the full cost of protecting the president and his family. The most obvious additional cost involves first lady Melania Trump and son Barron, who are staying in New York at least until September. The New York Police Department has said it costs as much as $146,000 per day to protect the first family.

Trump has visited a Trump-branded property on 28 of the days he has been president, “meaning that he visits a property that’s part of his private business empire more than one-third of the days he’s been in office, or once every 2.8 days,” notes the Washington Post. Many ethics experts have raised red flags about the way Trump is making sure his properties have a key mention in the history books. “President Donald Trump is diminishing the office of the presidency by turning himself into a walking advertisement for his global resort properties,” notes Public Citizen.

Although the president is exempt from rules that other government employees must follow, Trump seems to be brazenly ignoring the basic principle that public officials shouldn’t use their offices for private profit. "The president's recurrent trips to Mar-a-Lago and other properties he owns, particularly with leaders that make the visits newsworthy, means he is in effect using the presidency to promote his business," said Kathleen Clark, a former ethics lawyer for the District of Columbia and a law professor at Washington University in St. Louis. "He's a very effective marketer, and he's using the presidency as though it's just part of him being famous and doesn't come with other moral, if not legal, obligations."

Late last month, the Government Accountability Office said it was going to examine the travel costs of Trump’s frequent travels to the Florida resort. A group of Democratic lawmakers requested the investigation after reports that Trump discussed a North Korea missile launch in full view of guests."

http://www.slate.com/blogs/the_slat...most_double_obama_s_annual_travel_budget.html

 

^^^ a few thoughts on it:

- Trump going to Mar a lago (spelling) aren't really vacations because it's just the weekend and he's meeting with world leaders while there.

- the costs associated with it and Melania living in N.Y. and ridiculous. Either Trump starts footing the bill or she needs to move to DC.

 

Anyone think Spicer has a job after this week?

 

That's gotta be a job nobody else wants, right? Standing up there and trying to explain the stuff that comes out of Trump's mouth and some of the stuff he does. It seems like a can't-win job, but I suppose eventually that person is gonna snap and have a breakdown and they'll replace them often as they get used up quick.