The mystery deepens….

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

 

House Intelligence Committee Chair Devin Nunes went to the White House on Wednesday afternoon to personally brief President Trump about intelligence he says he has seen regarding surveillance of foreign nationals during the presidential transition.

The surveillance could have inadvertently picked up the president or members of his transition team, the chairman said.

“What I’ve read seems to me to be some level of surveillance activity, perhaps legal. I don’t know that it’s right,” Nunes said to reporters outside the White House. “I don’t know that the American people would be comfortable with what I’ve read.”

“The president needs to know these intelligence reports are out there,” Nunes added. “I think the president is concerned, and he should be.”

President Trump was asked if he felt vindicated after Nunes’s visit in his claims that he was wiretapped during the campaign at his Trump Tower headquarters by President Obama’s administration. That claim has been roundly rejected by members of the intelligence community, including FBI Director James B. Comey and even Nunes himself, who again rejected the wiretapping allegation on Wednesday outside of the White House.

Nunes’ behavior seems unprecedented  Is it his place to go call on the President to alert him to irregularities?  Why didn’t someone from the FBI, CIA, or NSA go inform the President if it was appropriate?  Why is a congressman doing this?

Furthermore, what the hell is he talking about?  I listened to his press conference and it sounded like a bunch of mumbo-jumbo.  What intelligence reports?  Why aren’t the FBI and NSA aware of these reports?

I smell a huge, giant rat, once again.  It sounds like Nunes is providing one big cover-up.  Surely not.  Maybe he just wanted to be on TV.  His press conference told me nothing.

Trump: I’m gonna come after you!

MoonHowler

Politico.com:

President Donald Trump didn’t have to issue his threat seriously — “I’m gonna come after you,” he said jokingly to a ringleader of House GOP hardliners opposing his health care bill — to be taken seriously by the 200 Republicans gathered in the Capitol basement.

For a president with a penchant for vengeance – who named “an eye for an eye” as his favorite biblical passage, who banned media outlets from campaign events when he didn’t approve of their coverage, who ousted a GOP state chairman after the election whom he viewed as disloyal, who reminded a GOP governor just last week who didn’t endorse him that “I never forget” – the roll call vote on the Republican health care plan, expected Thursday, will be the first accounting of who’s with him and who’s against him on Capitol Hill.

Those close to Trump describe his largely binary world view: you’re either on Team Trump or against Team Trump. “Get even with people,” Trump outlined his philosophy in a 2011 speech. “If they screw you, screw them back 10 times as hard. I really believe it.”

The president may be ideologically flexible, even to the point of disinterest, on the particulars of the health care legislation. But Trump’s been clear and consistent about one message: He wants it done.

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David Leonhart: All the president’s lies

MoonHowler

 

NewYorkTimes.com:

David Leonhardt 

The ninth week of Donald Trump’s presidency began with the F.B.I. director calling him a liar.

The director, the very complicated James Comey, didn’t use the L-word in his congressional testimony Monday. Comey serves at the pleasure of the president, after all. But his meaning was clear as could be. Trump has repeatedly accused Barack Obama of wiretapping his phones, and Comey explained there is “no information that supports” the claim.

I’ve previously argued that not every untruth deserves to be branded with the L-word, because it implies intent and somebody can state an untruth without doing so knowingly. George W. Bush didn’t lie when he said Iraq had weapons of mass destruction, and Obama didn’t lie when he said people who liked their current health insurance could keep it. They made careless statements that proved false (and they deserved much of the criticism they got).

But the current president of the United States lies. He lies in ways that no American politician ever has before. He has lied about — among many other things — Obama’s birthplace, John F. Kennedy’s assassination, Sept. 11, the Iraq War, ISIS, NATO, military veterans, Mexican immigrants, Muslim immigrants, anti-Semitic attacks, the unemployment rate, the murder rate, the Electoral College, voter fraud and his groping of women.

He tells so many untruths that it’s time to leave behind the textual parsing over which are unwitting and which are deliberate — as well as the condescending notion that most of Trump’s supporters enjoy his lies.

Trump sets out to deceive people. As he has put it, “I play to people’s fantasies.”

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A president with no self-control….

MoonHowler

Is this the only way that the boy president can control himself? Donald Trump is making this country a laughing stock.

Hopefully some of you all who voted for him will figure out how to make him stop lying and start governing.  Donald J. Trump needs to be impeached and removed from office.

Sorry for so few posts.  There really is just nothing to say.

 

McCain defends the free press

MoonHowler

NBCnews.com:

Sen. John McCain is taking a veiled swipe at President Donald Trump’s ongoing attack on the fourth estate, cautioning that “how dictators get started” is by shutting down the press.

The Republican Arizona senator, in an exclusive interview on Meet the Press airing Sunday, admitted that the relationship between the media and elected officials can sometimes be tense — highlighted by the Trump administration’s repeated sparring with reporters and the president calling news organizations “fake news.”

Half-jokingly, McCain said, “a fundamental part of that new world order was a free press. I hate the press. I hate you especially. But the fact is we need you.”

His defense of the media came in response to a Friday tweet from President Donald Trump in which he called certain news outlets “the enemy of the American People.”

What educated, informed people exist in an echo chamber, only hearing one side of an issue?  Perhaps that is the root of Trump’s problem–his problem with inaccuracy and ignorance.  He only listens to one side of an issue.   How can the media be “the enemy of the American people?”  This current time isn’t the only time in American history where the press brought down candidates, or elected officials.

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Senior policy advisor says powers of the president will not be questioned

MoonHowler

telegraph.co.uk:

The court ruling against Donald Trump’s travel ban is “a judicial usurpation of power,” the White House said on Sunday, as one of the president’s closest advisers strongly defended his troubled policy.

“Our opponents, the media and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned,” said Stephen Miller, Mr Trump’s senior policy director.

The 31-year-old, who began his rapid rise to power with attacks on multiculturalism, criticism of women’s protests against pay inequality, and urging against political correctness, was dispatched on Sunday to hammer home the president’s point of view on television chat shows.

On ABC News, he argued that the Judge James Robart, the Washington state judge who blocked the travel ban on February 3, had made his ruling for political reasons.

Apparently Mr. Miller, the chief policy director of Donald J. Trump needs a civics lesson. Any president can be questioned and overruled by the courts.   It appears that not a week goes by that there isn’t some Constitutional crisis brought on by this administration.

What if a policy advisor of Obama had said the same thing?  I can only imagine the uproar.  This administration holds the greatest amount of cry-babies and authoritarian personalities I have ever seen.  Trump needs a reset with personnel.  Stephen Miller needs to be fired immediately, rather than getting an “atta boy.”

 

Shep Smith calls out Sean Spicer and Trump for not telling the truth

MoonHowler

Rawstory.com:

Fox News host Shepard Smith slammed President Donald Trump and White House press secretary Sean Spicer on Tuesday for his assertion that the media was ignoring terror attacks.

He said Trump appeared to be echoing “fringe media” like the publications InfoWars and Breitbart.

“In short, the president’s assertion is false,” Smith said. “The White House knows that it was false or could have learned that it was false with a quick Google check, but either did not do so or decided not to tell the truth.”

The Trump administration published a list of 78 terrorist attacks it claimed were under-reported by the media. But the Fox News host said that his network had covered every major terror attack.

“What they’re saying is not true, again,” he quipped, while introducing his guest. “Why bother?”

 

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KellyAnne Conway: lies and more lies

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

Kellyanne Conway has taken “alternative facts” to a new level.

During a Thursday interview with MSNBC’s Chris Matthews, the counselor to the president defended President Trump’s travel ban related to seven majority-Muslim countries. At one point, Conway made a reference to two Iraqi refugees whom she described as the masterminds behind “the Bowling Green massacre.”

“Most people don’t know that because it didn’t get covered,” Conway said.

The Bowling Green massacre didn’t get covered because it didn’t happen. There has never been a terrorist attack in Bowling Green, Ky., carried out by Iraqi refugees or anyone else.

At what point is KellyAnne Conway going to stop lying?  I knew Trump was a serial liar but it seems that KellyAnne is now proving that he has surrounded himself with people of the lie.

There was never a Bowling Green Massacre.  Conway, Spicer and others who speak for the president just seem to continually spew crap to justify their boss’s incompetence and screw ups.

Is Bannon the Wizard of Oz?  Is he the Rasputin behind the man who knows nothing?

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Trump threatens to cut off federal funding @Berkley

MoonHowler

Washingtonpost.com:

President Trump raised the threat of pulling federal funds from the University of California at Berkeley on Thursday after the institution canceled a talk by provocateur Milo Yiannopoulos and put the campus on lockdown after intense protests against the planned speech.

While Trump framed his early morning tweet around free speech and opposition to violent demonstrations, his critics are likely to interpret the message as indirect support for Yiannopoulos, a deeply polarizing figure who portrays himself as a champion of open expression but whose detractors view as a hatemonger.

“If U.C. Berkeley does not allow free speech and practices violence on innocent people with a different point of view — NO FEDERAL FUNDS?” wrote Trump.

Since when does any president control federal funding to institutes of higher learning?  I thought that was the job of Congress.  More threats out of Trump.

U. C. Berkeley is not practicing violence on innocent people with a different point of view.  Individuals are practicing violence.  They should be arrested.

What I find odd is that Milo Yiannopoulos pretty much is a hate monger.  The student body at Berkley feels he is repugnant and they don’t want him at their school.  For certain there is a fee associated with his speech.   Don’t they have a right to express their displeasure?  Those who break the law should be arrested.  Setting fires and rioting is illegal.

The scofflaws don’t represent the entire student body.  Why should everyone be threatened with loss of funding?  I wouldn’t want this speaker being paid to speak at my college either.  Milo Yiannopoulos is not just a different point of view, any more than the KKK is a different point of view.  He is an extremist and supports ideas that most of us feel are unAmerican.

Shame on Trump for threatening the entire student body at Berkeley.

 

 

Subliminal messages {choke} from the DoD

MoonHowler

So when the Department of Defense on Monday tweeted this…

So when the Department of Defense on Monday tweeted this...

Buzzfeed.com (see above)

One just have to wonder if there is a connection between the message and POTUS.  Between the election and the inauguration  POTUS has used his Twitter account to attack no less than 30 people and things.

It wouldn’t surprise me if we don’t see more of this.  As POTUS attempts to censor more and more agencies, we will see more rogue messages.  Then perhaps POTUS will understand that he isn’t the only one with a Twitter account.  This dude isn’t too far off from being a dictator.

 

 

 

President Paranoid?

MoonHowler

 

Washingtonpost.com:

The way President Trump tells it, the meandering, falsehood-filled, self-involved speech that he gave at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters was one of the greatest addresses ever given.

“That speech was a home run,” Trump told ABC News just a few minutes into his first major television interview since moving into the White House. “See what Fox said. They said it was one of the great speeches. They showed the people applauding and screaming. … I got a standing ovation. In fact, they said it was the biggest standing ovation since Peyton Manning had won the Super Bowl, and they said it was equal. I got a standing ovation. It lasted for a long period of time.”
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Lies, more lies and offensiveness

MoonHowler

Huffingtonpost.com:

WASHINGTON ― President Donald Trump told Capitol Hill leaders Monday evening that he lost the popular vote because 3 million to 5 million “illegals” voted for Democrat Hillary Clinton, according to three sources in both parties familiar with the meeting.

Trump has repeatedly claimed that he lost the popular vote in November’s election because of voter fraud. There is no evidence of this, and none that millions of undocumented immigrants voted for Clinton. It’s a fixation for Trump, who won the election because of Electoral College votes, but has had trouble accepting that Clinton won the popular vote by more than 2.8 million.

“I don’t think he was joking,” said one person familiar with what happened in the meeting. “He spent 10 minutes on his win and said he won the popular vote, except 3 to 5 million illegals voted for” Clinton.

Another source confirmed Trump used the word “illegals,” considered an offensive term for undocumented immigrants.

First off, the term “illegals” is just offensive.  The President of the United States should not be using offensive language about any one.

Secondly, he didn’t win the popular vote because he got 2.8 million votes fewer than Hillary Clinton.  Yet he won.  Isn’t that enough?  Must he whine over the popular vote while he sits in the White House?  What kind of ingrate does that?

Thirdly, he lied.  Yes, he lied.  I don’t feel like making nice and calling it a falsehood.  He has no proof or even hint or suggestion that illegal immigrants voted.   The lying needs to stop and he will be held accountable for his lies.  The continual, verifiable lies are obvious and undeniable.  He doesn’t even care that we know he lies.  I suppose in his mind, he excuses it because of the megalomania personality.