Obama spying scandal and the failed attempted coup against Trump

[Don Giovanni]

They ran with the weakest charges. You could probably have impeached every president in the history of the republic on those articles.

It's only going to get worse from here on end for the Democrats. And they know it. That's why they're holding out on the trial in the Senate.

There's talk they will hold out indefinitely. They hope they can get more votes in the Senate and more testimony in the house to push it over the line. Not happening.

They think they're smart, but they're not that smart. Republicans are more united than they were before. I think even Democrat Senators in red states, like Joe Manchin, won't vote to impeach. The articles against Trump are too weak and his own constituents will see it that way.

Unless the House Democrats come to terms with the Republican led Senate soon, the trial will be cancelled, voiding the impeachment process and rendering the House vote even more meaningless. It's game over for them. There's talk of punting this over to the Supreme Court. They too can void the vote for constitutional reasons, although I'm not sure I agree with that and I find that prospect unlikely.

In any case, they thought they could have their cake and eat it too. If the Democrats hold out like this, then Trump was impeached only to be the first president ever to be unimpeached. They'll have to pass it over to the Senate if they want they're "symbolic" impeachment to stand.

Putin meanwhile is jumping on the chance to call the charges against Trump made up. Good. President Trump should give him a ring when this process is over and set things right with him. Let the security establishment go berserk with claims of collusion all they want. How many times can they keep crying wolf? Fuck them.

https://www.theguardian.com/world/20...-up-says-putin

[Reaper]

They ran with the weakest charges. You could probably have impeached every president in the history of the republic on those articles.

It's only going to get worse from here on end for the Democrats. And they know it.

This whole process mirrors almost exactly the Brexit process. Labour and the other parties gambled on blocking Brexit this year, took the PM to court - got him officially accused of lying with a sympathetic remainer judge and speaker. However, on the day of their biggest victory - the court blocking the Queen's speech - many articles came out - most in the Telegraph - saying that the Remainers have blown their chances and Brexit will be harder because of their desperate blocking tactics. Turns out those articles were right. This article is the key:

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...w-lost-brexit/

and of course others in the same vein:


https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...graph-readers/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...gment-forever/

https://www.telegraph.co.uk/politics...ce-left-party/

The organised blocking of Brexit by those MPs and judges not in power - by the media - was appalling and at one point very powerful, but it turned out to be a Pearl Harbour attack.

[Don Giovanni]

Pyrrhic victories. My only hope now is that once this charade is over, Trump can finally work out a positive relationship with Russia. Just like Nixon did with China. The national security establishment are the real losers. That's why Bolton is miffed with Trump, but the guy is a sellout. He doesn't even care about giving testimony, he only cares about cashing in with a book deal. If the US can work things out with Russia, we'll be building rockets to Mars, not more nuclear weapons.

[Don Giovanni]

Professor Jonathan Turley: “Let Them Impeach And Be Damned”: History Repeats Itself With A Vengeance As The House Impeaches Donald Trump

https://jonathanturley.org/2019/12/1...-donald-trump/

He was the one legal scholar called to testify by House Republicans.

[Don Giovanni]

Obviously I have soured on the president and feel he's a sincere danger and threat, who like Mohammad bin Salman thinks the world operates like something out of Brian De Palma's Scarface. In any case, he was surveilled. I don't think Obama will ever be charged or indicted for it. Trump wasn't the only victim of this surveillance. US journalists, like Sheryl Attkinson of CBS, were too:

https://sharylattkisson.com/2020/01/...ryl-attkisson/

A former US government agent has admitted participating in the illegal government surveillance on then-CBS News investigative reporter Sharyl Attkisson. She and her family have filed a lawsuit against former Deputy Attorney General and US Attorney Rod Rosenstein and four other men, for conducting illegal surveillance from 2011 to 2014 under a government operation based at the US Attorney’s office in Baltimore, Maryland. A forensic expert said that remote spies had access to Attkisson’s computer, files, photographs, internet activities, and could listen to her audio through Skype. Shawn Henry, one of the four men who Rosenstein reportedly ordered to spy on Attkisson, and other US citizens, left the FBI and now is president of CrowdStrike Services, a controversial cyber security company affiliated with the DNC. Attkisson wrote that government hackers report to Shawn Henry at Crowdstrike.

Why was she targeted?

At the time Attkisson was targeted by the illegal surveillance, she was a CBS News investigative correspondent who was uncovering news about the Department of Justice’s “gun walking” operation known as Fast and Furious. Attkisson’s reporting of the case ultimately was recognized with an Edward R. Murrow award and an Emmy Award for investigative reporting.

It's been alleged that the 'gun walking" scheme dubbed "Fast and Furious" was part of a broader effort to ship guns to Libya and then to Syria via back door channels, washing the US government's hands in arming jihadists like ISIS and al-Qaeda affiliates.

Unauthorized, remote surveillance of Attkisson continued throughout her subsequent reporting on the Islamic extremist attacks on Americans in Benghazi, Libya on Sept. 11, 2012. That reporting was recognized with an investigative Emmy nomination. CBS News first confirmed the illegal computer intrusions in August 2013.

The US government has a lot of bad apples and unfortunately Trump has done nothing to change that. If anything, he has emboldened many of the same forces who pose this danger. Consider the fact that nothing has been done to reign in the sweeping and pervasive powers the government has to spy on people. In fact, they have been reauthorized by Congress to carry on as normal despite obvious abuse designed to affect the outcome of the US election. This surveillance is a bigger issue than alleged Russian hacking.

In any case, Trump faces a legal problem now. Regardless of whether he wanted a quid pro quo, the GAO has made a report stating that the White House violated the law by simply withholding the aid without Congress's receiving notice. That in itself is a crime.

https://www.politico.com/news/2020/0...ao-says-099682

I don't believe the president will be convicted on these charges given the partisan make-up of the Senate. Trump still shares broad support among Republican voters and enough support from independents, which in turn keeps pressure on Republican Senators who might think otherwise.

https://news.yahoo.com/trump-senate-...090000031.html

The trial is almost certain to end with Trump’s acquittal on charges of abuse of power and obstruction of Congress; 67 votes are required to convict and no Republican senator has said the articles laid out by House merit his removal from office. But the entire proceeding will hang over his bid for re-election as well as his legacy.

[Don Giovanni]

Trump pardoned ex-Governor Rod Blagojevich. The reality is what he did, right or wrong, was pretty much the political norm and it appears he merely used Obama's seat for political advantage. As far as a I can tell, he didn't sell Obama's Senate seat, but the prosecutor made sure it appeared that way. It doesn't help that he talks like John Gotti either, but that's what politicians sound like when they're holding up babies and kissing their foreheads.

The current governor wasn't too happy about it, funny given he was angling for a seat at state treasury, which Blagojevich wouldn't give him. I wonder whose pockets he greased to try to get the job.

Politics is a nasty business and what happened to Blagojevich is more or less what they tried doing to Trump over this Ukraine affair. Now Trump and Blagojevich are free to speak up and have the final word, words that won't be very kind to Comey (who never had a backbone and was little more than a figurehead at the FBI) and the rest of the gang.

https://talkingpointsmemo.com/news/t...oj-at-the-time

[Reaper]

Nasty:

https://nypost.com/2020/02/25/ilhan-...urkeys-tyrant/

[Don Giovanni]

She's something else. A Somali-American community leader in Minneapolis is now confirming that she did indeed marry her brother to help him secure student loans:

EXCLUSIVE: Somali man who confirmed that Ilhan Omar married her brother says he is living in fear after a friend of the congresswoman posted a threatening YouTube video urging Somali-Americans to attack him

https://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/art...ving-fear.html

A woman close to Omar posted a YouTube video packed with degrading insults about wheelchair-bound Abdihakim Osman and pressed members of her Somali-American clan to go after him.

In the video, the woman, Malyun Ali, asked members of Omar’s Majeerteen clan ‘What is wrong with you?

Witten in the Somali language and translated of a special in African languages at the University

‘Why are you not protecting us from this nasty man who is composed only of a head and a stomach,’ she added, insulting his disabled status.

‘You Majeerteen men…why don’t you defend us from this person…this fat ram who gets money taken from the taxes we pay.’

She went on to say Osman has a ‘big bell, small udder, pillar-like head’ and mocked his disability which was caused by contracting polio as a child in Somalia.

Osman said his page has been inundated with threatening messages since DailyMail.com published his accusations about Omar. Many, he said, are purporting to be from people with Anglicized names, but he believes they are Somalis with false accounts.

One man, using the name Allan Landman, posted a message saying: ‘Shariah law will allow his accusers to kill him.’

When allegations that Omar’s husband was also her brother first appeared, the congresswoman said the idea that the spouses were also siblings were 'baseless, absurd rumors', accusing journalists of Islamophobia, but has since stayed quiet.

Her spokesman now says she does not discuss her personal life, ignoring the fact that marriage fraud is a federal crime.

[Reaper]

Even if she didn't marry her brother she broke the law many times over. How is she not in jail?

FBI seems very quiet..

https://nypost.com/2020/01/26/fbi-re...d-her-brother/

[Don Giovanni]

The charges against Mike Flynn have been dropped:

https://apnews.com/ae1ad252bb13490db2ceffc5d17b6d92
Justice Department is dropping Flynn’s Trump-Russia case

The Justice Department on Thursday said it is dropping the criminal case against President Donald Trump’s first national security adviser, Michael Flynn, abandoning a prosecution that became a rallying cry for the president and his supporters in attacking the FBI’s Trump-Russia investigation.

The action was a stunning reversal for one of the signature cases brought by special counsel Robert Mueller. It comes even though prosecutors for the past three years have maintained that Flynn lied to the FBI in a January 2017 interview about his conversations with the Russian ambassador.

This case just about bankrupted him! It turns out they entrapped him: Nowhere in that AP report did it mention it! He was a target for investigation because he embarrassed the CIA and Obama over their support of the jihadis in Syria and because, God forbid, the US actually worked with Russia in the Middle East to help secure peace! He's a hero and the president should give him his job back!

[Don Giovanni]

^ Mike Flynn is still fighting, but there's no reason for his case to carry on. The judge is dragging it out, but Flynn will soon be scot-free, as he ought to be.

In other news, Trump's chief of staff is saying charges and indictments will be forthcoming.

“You’re going to see a couple of other documents come out in the coming days that will suggest that not only was the campaign spied on but the FBI did not act appropriately as they were investigating. It’s all starting to unravel and I tell you – It’s time for people to go to jail and people were indicted,” he added.

Meadows remarks come after documents declassified by Sen. Lindsey Graham showing FBI agent Peter Strzok slamming a major New York Times piece from 2017 claiming Trump “colluded” with the Russian government a year before the election.

“This statement is misleading and inaccurate…we have not seen evidence of any individuals affiliated with the Trump team in contact with intelligence officials. The FBI has information on the following individuals in contact with Russians (both governmental and non-governmental): [redacted]. There is no known intel affiliation and little if any government affiliation,” Strzok wrote in an internal memo.

About fucking time.

[Don Giovanni]

[Don Giovanni]

The American press are quoting desperate Democrats in claiming this is more Russian interference. It's a preposterous claim. Ukraine is currently involved in a civil war with Russian-backed secessionists in the east.

[Don Giovanni]

Bill Binney, the courageous and well respected NSA whistle-blower of the Bush era, says he can prove through forensic evidence and extensive research that someone had leaked the data by transferring it to a thumb drive. His findings are significant and worthy enough to counter claims of a Russian effort to criminally influence Western elections that to date have never been proven with hard, forensic evidence.

[Don Giovanni]

Roger Stone is a conservative political hatchet man. I think he was the first man who honestly believed Donald Trump was presidential material (this is going back decades). He's in political terms a gadfly, a shit disturbing gossiper and stuntman at his worst. There's no way he threatened Trump with blackmail. It's totally preposterous, but he fact that Hillary goes there with that kind of accusation shows how she herself thinks things are really done in politics.

I think it's very clear that Hillary Clinton wanted to blackmail Trump when she became president. She was suppose to win. I think the Russian collusion investigation had nothing to do with finding links with Russia, because there never was anything substantial. It was about baiting Trump to shut down the investigation, so that they could hit him with obstruction of justice, to intimidate anyone close to him, and to drag his name in the mud. If Trump had lost, they would have used these investigation to dig up dirt and threaten Trump with financial ruin. That was always the goal of these investigations, to defeat Trump, not exposing some preposterous Russian effort to fix American elections.

[Don Giovanni]

Russian report from UK finally released, but it's a dud:

Sources said the document had ‘no smoking gun’ but it did detail extensive claims of Russian meddling spanning a number of years.

Former MI6 spy Christopher Steele, who compiled the explosive Russia-Trump dossier, was among those who gave evidence to the ISC.

That dossier is a 100% fraud.

Boris Johnson has come under criticism for delaying the publication of the report after it was cleared for release by spies in October last year.

It's a nothing document that accuses Russia Today, a news outlet, of trying to influence a Scottish independence referendum in 2014. Even if they did, clearly their influence held no sway. They're saying the report wasn't thorough enough because it doesn't address the fantasy that Russia influenced Brexit. There's no way Russia played a significant role influencing the outcome of Brexit.

This is about smearing Scots who desire national independence from the British monarchy as Russian dupes and that Scottish independence is nothing more than a Russian conspiracy. It's lies and no one should accept them.