Over the weekend, President Trump Tweeted the he had just learned that former President Obama had wiretapped the campaign headquarters at Trump Towers. The mainstream media is largely ignoring the actual claims – certainly there is very little investigative journalism going on over it – but in reality this may be coming to a showdown: either President is so incredibly reckless that he would falsely accuse his predecessor of a serious crime, or former President Obama has indeed committed the most serious political crime since Watergate. What will happen? We discuss in today’s Ron Paul Liberty Report:
Reprinted from The Ron Paul Institute for Peace & Prosperity.
It’s pretty sad that Ron Paul can’t just accept this as Trump’s stupidity. Or in the least wait until the story unfolds completely. That’s my take. Anybody want to put their reputation up and support Ron’s idea that there’s something in it?
Maybe this kind of kneejerk nonsense is the reason why Ron Paul was treated so badly by the establishment?
What’s even worse is that you just can’t accept that the possibility exists that there is something to it.
Maybe YOU should wait until the story unfolds completely?
I’m ready to say that it’s all nonsense that Trump made up and he got it from Breitbart’s rabid dogs. No, I don’t accept that a possibility exists that it could be true. And I think it hurts Ron Paul to say there ‘is’.
Many people don’t accept that kind of mistake and that’s the reason that Ron Paul lost opportunity to become president at least in part. It’s too bad because if he threw out the libertarian stuff, he would be good solid antiwar.
Are you ready to stake your reputation on Trump? Is Obama guilty as charged of wiretapping Trump tower?
FACT: Yes, 122 prisoners were released from Gitmo.
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FACT: 113 prisoners were released under the W. Bush administration.
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FACT: 9 prisoners only were released under the Obama administration.
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FACT: Donald Trump got his information from a Fox News Tweet, which did not blame President Obama for the release of the 122 prisoners.
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FACT: Donald Trump blatantly lied again and knowingly besmirched President Obama in blaming him for the release of the 122 prisoners.
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FACT: Donald Trump is insane, lazy, racist, a despicable, shameless pathological liar.
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FACT: Trump is so lazy, that he’d trust news from conservative news media, without caring to ever check with his National Security advisers and experts or care to verify any of those info with people who should give him a national security daily briefing. And the reason is because Trump loves to blatantly lie and make up things.
Some solid truth with no political preference getting in the way! Well done!
If they could get rid of their denial it becomes as plain as the noses on their faces. For the most part they’re very stupid people, but Raimondo isn’t. He should be able to rise above the Trump scam.
A personality flaw getting in the way? Republican party support? Libertarian priorities? Some others?
And now, no way of escaping it quickly but maybe a bit in each piece he writes for the next six months or so. If it doesn’t get just too ridiculous for him more quickly?
He calls me a lunatic! I couldn’t hope for a bigger asshole to apply the label!
Is there any chance that Trump’s every communication, in fact his every single fart, was not monitored from the get-go? You really come across as impossibly naive.
Personally, I would sure hope so, but sadly it’s not likely.
Rabid Dogs from Breitbart?
I read it in the New York Times.
The impeccable Grey Lady of Integrity laden journalism.
LOL
I do not know whether Trump’s phones were tapped or not.
I will not be a bit surprised if they were.
I wouldn’t just be a bit surprised, I’d be very embarrassed. Because there’s no doubt I’ve staked my reputation on it all being nothing but Trump bullsh-t again.
Why are you now turning toward supporting Raimondo on Trump? Do you now think that Trump was honest on his comment during his campaign about improving relations with Russia. Has Trump said something recently, like since January 20 that’s convinced you he’s for real on Russia?
I know there’s something because several people have alluded to it, as you will know. I think it’s time to let it out, don’t you?
Prepare to be embarrassed.
“Why are you now turning toward supporting Raimondo on Trump?”
My attitude hasn’t changed — toward Trump, or toward Raimondo.
Thanks for your reply. I was starting to get the perception that you were becoming more supportive of Raimondo’s ideas from recent recent exchanges between us.He wrote a line in his last story that seemed to me that he was sort of applauding US military working together with Russian troops against ISIS. I won’t bother to look it up. You’ll probably remember. It seemed to me that he slipped into a trap fro himself in order to make what could have possibly been a different point, and you disagreed. I just never got to the point as which I could feel comfortable with your disagreement. But forget it, no big deal. We’ll keep a close eye on him from now on.
“I was starting to get the perception that you were becoming more supportive of Raimondo’s ideas from recent recent exchanges between us.”
I almost always agree with Raimondo on foreign policy proper.
When he starts trying to analyze domestic politics outside a very narrow scope relating directly to foreign policy, it’s like someone put PCP in his breakfast cereal.
“I almost always agree with Raimondo on foreign policy proper.”
That sounds like a reasonably safe position to take. At least if one is willing to exclude Raimondo’s backing of Trump based on what he said he would do and what he has no intention of doing. I don’t think if’s safe to ignore that.
On domestic policy, it’s encouraging to hear a new movement toward Bernie already starting to happen. Trump’s support can’t stand up for long when there are no payoffs to the disenfranchized and too many indications of him and the R congress screwing the little people. Health care is one of the biggest that has no answers for Trump’s future popularity but it’s only one of many.
This site probably has enough Trump supporters from whom we can gauge the Trump support of either rising or falling. I wouldn’t say either way with any kind of conviction quite yet.
Ron Paul was shafted by the establishment because he spoke truth to power.
The Obama administration CIA bugged senators working on the report on CIA torture, wiretapped FOX and AP reporters to find leaks, and utilized the IRS against political opponents. A democratic operative who had to resign for paying agitators to stir up violence at Trump rallies was a frequent WH visitor. With all the Russia baiting to use as cover, the temptation to get FISA Warrants (as originally reported in The Guardian) on Trump and/or associates was probably irresistible.
If la ancien regime was doing so much to sabotage the election, then they must be the most incompetent organization on earth and it would be proven as such by the regime nouveau. Or, here’s a nother yet third option: What if it was actual, and was done under the regime of any president starting with Reagan? As they all have a really low moral standard.
Also, paranoia isn’t quite ‘stupidity’, but if you go around making a lot of enemies, including those in his/their country club, maybe especially, each of whom believes him/herself above all laws by reason of their self image of being Elite, what’s that stupid crap Ayn Rand wrote? But if you have power filled friends/rivals, each with enormous resources and enormous ego, then you have powerful enemies as well…. and they all practice paranoia…. sometimes to a level that approaches a religious experience…
Suddenly the cast of potential villains grows. And all that predicated on the notion that the wiretapping actually happened. If you want, just a suggestion, ask Derek Black for a spot of help. I only know him by reputation, with the solid notion that he has a really good knowledge base when it comes to electronic security and for over a decade has monitored other people friend and foe to his father’s organization. Notably, Breitbart put the story forward.
So he knows a lot of extremists. And Breitbart isn’t above lying. The hit on ACORN was so obviously false, but there are still people on the Right who actually believe that he walked into an ACORN office dressed like an early 70s pimp and that ACORN was actually going to help him set up a kiddy whorehouse.
It’s like the prosecutor in Texas pointed out, after more than a hundred convictions for “crack cocaine” were actually for possession of drywall.
“We convict them on the front page and exonerate them in the back pages”
And the ACORN staffers, when Breitbart went in dressed in very normal business attire, and he DID try to get ACORN to set up such a “business deal” the staffers did what we’re all trained to do… when somebody does crap like that, lead him into a back office, stall him with paperwork and “advice” while the front desk called the police.
So we’re faced with a perceptual deal. The Republicans and Democrats have a long and rich history of manipulating the “Great Unwashed”. There are professional liars in every election.
Which brings up the paranoia question, and how it can be manipulated.
Another option with that is “What If Trump Paid Somebody To Put In Wiretaps And Paid Another to ‘discover’ The taps?”
It’s not like he’s above that kind of action, he brags about defrauding Gadafi on a rental agreement. A crime which is apparently taboo to address in the supposed “anti-Trump” MSM
And Trump’s staff aren’t above double/triple agent actions either.
And based on a supposition that the wiretap was actually true.
There was an Air Force film done in the early 70s which was presented at a MAS briefing when I was in Basic Training on electronic communications security. “Basic”ly, messages go on hardwire only to the local exchange, and yes, even in the 70s, from exchange to exchange over the air. Where it can be intercepted and decoded.
And while I don’t have nearly the computer geek skills I wish, I do know that the seventies era computing capacity is what we today would look upon as an archaeological dig. Something buried next to a mummified woolly mammoth.
A physical tap microphone would be anachronism. And since Trump uses a cell phone for a lot of his crap-fest, maybe the ‘bug’ is in his delicately manicured elitist hand.
A couple of comments on that: Anything can be fabricted as you suggest. But there’s great danger in Trump’s people attempting to do that, so I suspect they won’t try.
And most important of all, do Trump or his people have the credibility and the reputation to pull off some kind of a political hit on Obama?
I would just suggest that it won’t be Trump and the Republicans who will try to keep this story alive. It will be the Dems who pursue it to Trump’s grave, just as they are pursuing his campaign nonsense on improving relations with Russia. What a shame for Trump as he didn’t mean it and it probably didn’t gain him that many voters. So let’s wait and see who keeps the story alive. I think that already most of the Republicans haven’t even gotten themselves into it! And likely won’t! LOL
Something real about it to note is that Levin didn’t directly accuse Obama he says. Trump was careless when he picked up on the story. It’s being demanded of Trump that he produce the source of the story so we’ll see very soon, one way or the other where it started?
Fwiw, I’m sticking with my original position but I’m not feeeling any more secure on it. I was 100% confident to begin with.
It’s become a very important issue. The Dem side is talking it up as a possible impeachment issue, and they’re suggesting that they could get Repub support on it.
For that reason it’s not going to be something that goes away quickly. It’s now begging for proof from both sides.
Trump’s reputation doesn’t speak well for his side. I don’t think his supporters would even debate that with any real confidence now.
And so, something real to add to the story now: Raimondo’s second paragraph seals it. And the rest of his piece is just fluff that has nothing to do with the topic at question here.
So now it becomes a question of whether or not Trump’s wild and wrongful accusation against Obama is grounds for impeachment. I think what the rest of Raimondo’s lengthy rambling actually does is dress it up into something that could save Trump from impeachment.
(my apologies for not commenting on Raimondo’s peace. I’m banned from there)
I think that there’s enough for the Republicans to dig in with so that impeachment can be spared Trump over this. But there’s also the question of whether or not the Repubs want to prolong the agony?
Any bets?
“whether or not Trump’s wild and wrongful accusation against Obama is grounds for impeachment.”
Grounds for impeachment include “high crimes and misdemeanors.” Nowhere in the Constitution is impeachment linked to “saying something Don doesn’t believe.”
If insane, (Maybe) that would be set for the Surgeon General to act. There’s never been a U.S. president taken out for being oh, what’s that esoteric diagnosis? Oh yeah.. “crazy as a sh#thouse rat and probably dangerous”. Of course, there’s never been a president taken out by impeachment either.
Mr Trump has a record of filing suit on the grounds of libel or slander, that would be a misdemeanor at best. More like a tort, unless somebody smart-mouths the judge.
If somebody wanted to tap a phone why not just do it through intermediates, like Rick Perry or some other obnoxious loudmouth with a tiny pr#ck? Data analysis works best with that included. It’s why I don’t do facebook or twitter. “They” (whoever They are) would probably get more information by intercepting a few phone numbers from other people calling him or, his subordinates who get calls from him. It’s a “birds of a feather” paradigm. Analyzing the language used, the catchphrases they each will mimic. The “Talking Points”, Find out who are mere cult members and who is the Inner Circle.
Thomas is just plain wrong on this not being grounds for impeachment. But that’s just Thomas’s domestic partisan politics talking before he understands the severity of the crime.
We need to excuse him for not remembering how Clinton was impeached for lying about getting a blowjob. Because this involves a racist from his own party, lies possibly told to congress on converstations with a foreign government don’t rise to the same level.
That’s Thomas’s definition of high crimes and misdemeanours. The misdemeanour part was failing to swallow and the high part was Bill’s excitement which caused him to lose control of ‘it’.
Third party /off.
Not to say that I would subscribe to all the nonsense about Russia involved, blah, blah, because I don’t, and you know very well I don’t. I’ve made it clear when challenged (seldom) that all countries hack each other and Russia just was involved in doing the same. Remember when I won that one? The difference here is that the stage was set for impeachment with Clinton and you’re full of shit with your high crimes and misdemeanours.
And no, it won’t happen because your government is completely corrupt and rigged to accept any crime by the party that has the numbers. But that doesn’t mean that you fail your libertarian high priorities by choosing to be one of them. That cheap third party shot told me enough.
Have Republicans always been this stupid about everything, forever?
I published this elsewhere, on Not My Tribe and Space 4 peace.
Here’s some more… what if Trump is himself bankrupt… if his
financial sector freinemies that’s a corruption of friends and enemies
in case anybody is curious. … but his professed hate of Wall Street
and the bankers, what if they have doubts of his ability to pay his
loans… what if that’s the reason he’s scrounging big money projects
with a 100 day time limit… What if he’s overstretched… what if such a
revelation of that would cause a bear market, and suddenly… what if
they use their vast resources of a) a whole lot of pissed off
ex-employees and suddenly jobless regulatory official and b) Beaucoup
money to buy such agents to actually tap his phone calls… just, you
know, protecting their hard earn.. uhmm, hard stolen money.
That kind of information would be quite well received to people who might lose billions apiece in a bear market.
It
would also explain the Congress –both houses –which are really a
bunch of very rich elitists themselves, and are literally his co-signers
on the debt which comes due in 50 days or so… They, like Trump, have a
loudly proclaimed disdain for bankers but they give the bankers a
butt-load of bread on a regular basis… What if they realize they won’t
ever again get a huge windfall like the Real Estate Bailout….
What if that’s the reason the ReBubblyCons voted unanimously to hide the Drama Queen in Chief’s tax records? The half billion he had invested in the DAPL, did he really divest or did he pull a George Bush the First signing over control of Halliburton, the world’s largest Corporate Welfare client…to Richard Cheney who wasn’t officially a government official at the time… to avoid conflict of interest charges. Along with his enablers in the Congress –both houses– who didn’t even investigate it…
That half billion, which is about 20% of the total up front price… did he just do a sleight of hand? In his book Art of the Deal he goes on and on about doing basically no-funds check writing and hoping the projects make money quickly enough he can redeem the hot checks. What if the 8 billion he reportedly controls isn’t actually there?
The Dems have a mechanism with which they can get Trump’s tax returns. It’s been mentioned but I don’t remember how it works. Do you? In any case, it’s likely going to happen.
There’s a conflict of interests rule that works along the line of taking the pay of foreign governments Bush Senior had his assets transferred to Richard Cheney, who wasn’t in public office at the time. And got away with it. One factor is keeping the public imagination on focus, which is really difficult. The News Cycle is what we’re supposed to follow. For somebody to bring up a former Big Story and show relevance is rare. Another reason to not trust social media. I can see it as a tool but not to shape my opinion. Perception. Or memory.
Nineteen Eighty Four was written while computers still had moving parts and transistors were still in the future. Now there’s the possibility that the news cycle gets generated by Artificial Intelligence like Siri or Watson.
All it would take is analysis of trends and manipulating them.
Thus the Memory Hole. There’s another dystopic novel equally as valid as Orwell’s offering but a Capitalist dystopia, Brave New World. Between the novel and the scientific background book Brave New World Revisited were like 24 years between them, and Nineteen Eighty Four almost immediately in the middle, you could say they’re on an average, contemporary.
It’s a nice pattern and I like patterns. The grids predict better than any other method I can recall.
The other other time Conflict of Interest was brought sharply up it was the Teapot Dome scandal. It’s recorded in the history books I had in school as having brought down Harding AND Standard Oil. But Standard doesn’t exist as an official corporate entity anymore. But then again, the Baby Standards sure are acting with a great deal of collusion. The people at the very top and the very bottom got to keep their jobs.
Thanks for that Brother Jonah but that’s still not ringing a bell for me. I guess we’ll see eventually because I think they’re going to have to bring this fu-ker down eventually.
As for the title of this thread, it wasn’t true of course. It looks like the spooks are at work on something else going on in Trump tower. Unless that just turns out to be Comey’s dodge to play for time. It can only get better!
There was a partial of his 2015 tax form published and the DQiC is supposedly livid about it. by the by, Livid means ‘in livor mortis’ when your corpse starts to rot, and you’re grayish green and swelling from the gas. Which would be really satisfactory, or maybe not. I’m not really spiteful but really hate people doing stupid things for their profit at the expense of all others. Richard Cheney, on the other hand, I would like to have a week or so advance notice he’s fixin’ to die. I’ll buy up all the stakes and mallets I can afford. Always remember the first rule of grave dancing, dance first, then pee. So you don’t get your shoes muddy.
Rachel Maddow scored the run on that. Trump and his associates feel that it’s not polite and not anybody’s business how much they stole and from whom. And they’re saying so, but now they realize that as public servants (ahem cough cough) they are living in a glass house. I could go with the president having to live every detail of his life in the White House on camera, except of course for his potty time. Not worried about decency, just good taste being flushed away.
Publicly broadcast all day every day.
Supposedly his private enterprises are just that, but since we the people have subsidized his every move even when he wasn’t an elected official…. he owes us. WE want to see where our money is going just like he would jealously guard his own.
Ron Paul chose to be a Republican because that party was less of a compromise of his libertarian agenda than being a Dem. Too bad because it’s a dilemma that always compromised him and his attempts at honesty. And now he’s retired and it’s too late. He couldn’t make it to pres as a Republican but he likely wouldn’t have done any worse if he chose to be independent.
Ron is a Republican first, a libertarian second, and antiwar third. All antiwar people on this site at least need to hold his feet to the fire and tell him that he has to be antiwar first. I’ll continue to do that as long as I’m allowed to post.
There’s likel a lot of good to be heard from Ron and Daniel but we must cause them to rise above their Republican convictions. That can’t work for antiwar people or libertarians.
Good to see this story still up here. Hopefully it can be preserved until it’s announced as decided. However, the the results of the outcome are huge. So huge that it’s likely that Comey can’t clearly go either way.
My best hunch if that Trump tower was wifetapped by somebody who went to a lot of trouble to make it look like Obama did it on an illegal basis, as opposed to the legal route. I would say that’s the best Comey can offer to Trump.
Anyone else still interested in guessing on the outcome that will be satisfactory to both sides?
Business diversion tactic, Trump is doing a lot while you pay attention to the claim..even though he did wiretap our allies