Miscellaneous And Off Topic Subjects

[CGVT]

And you are not the Leader of the Free World.

[WingsFan]

What is your handicap crashcourse?

[Hannibal]

My big takeaway from this is that the law can easily be abused for overtly political reasons, which is exactly what this was.

Doesn't matter who it is. Trump can (and I think will) do it too.

[iam416]

It appears someone went to a FISA court for a tap on DJT in June and it was rejected -- which is actually saying something, as they're almost never rejected. That is, if you believe the omnipresent "unnamed sources" that rule the day in every story.

If true, someone from the Obama Administration ordered it. Well, that's my supposition. I can't say for certain that a rogue lackey didn't just show up at a FISA Court and try to get a wiretap on the Republican nominee.

[iam416]

My big takeaway from this is that the law can easily be abused for overtly political reasons, which is exactly what this was.

In a broader sense, those of us who are very bothered by the increase in unchecked Executive power need to hold DJT accountable when he does the same shit as Obama.

[Hannibal]

It appears someone went to a FISA court for a tap on DJT in June and it was rejected -- which is actually saying something, as they're almost never rejected. That is, if you believe the omnipresent "unnamed sources" that rule the day in every story.

If true, someone from the Obama Administration ordered it. Well, that's my supposition. I can't say for certain that a rogue lackey didn't just show up at a FISA Court and try to get a wiretap on the Republican nominee.

Such is the essence of plausible deniability. IMHO whether Obama ordered the wiretaps isn't worth devoting one second of effort to, because I am about 99.9% certain there would be no evidence one way or another. If my understanding of the situation is correct, and I'm welcome to being corrected in this case, then the debate (WRT to just this one event) is very simple. "The wiretaps happened and there was no legal wrongdoing in it". And it ends there.

With that said, it is blitheringly obvious by now that under the Obama administration, oversteps of power by appointees were not a bug. They were a feature.

[Hannibal]

In a broader sense, those of us who are very bothered by the increase in unchecked Executive power need to hold DJT accountable when he does the same shit as Obama.

Who said anything about holding him accountable? I'm looking forward to it. :twisted:

[iam416]

Such is the essence of plausible deniability. IMHO whether Obama ordered the wiretaps isn't worth devoting one second of effort to, because I am about 99.9% certain there would be no evidence one way or another.

Yeah, but plausible deniability is, first and foremost, a legal concept. In this case, the Obama Administration correctly followed the law, sought the warrant and, if "unnamed sources" are to be believed, were rejected. Nothing illegal at all.

Plausible deniability, however, doesn't do much when it comes to politics. I can, e.g., quote the entire Al Franken question to Session and the answer and, to me, it looks pretty clearly like he did not lie. In any event, it's absolutely plausible he did not. BUT, politically, you can snip it up and it's bad.

IF the Obama Administration tried to wiretap Trump and they actually did wiretap a few former campaign operatives, then the political optics of that are bad. Really bad, IMO.

It's not enough to offset the bad end of the political optics stick DJT is getting w/ Russia, but it'll do some good for him, IMO.

[iam416]

Who said anything about holding him accountable? I'm looking forward to it

Oh, I know you are. Heh. I may have to fight back smirking chuckles at long overdue comeuppance, but the process is the process. I can't brook executive overreach, period.

[hack]

First request was rejected. A second and narrower request was approved. But what's clear is that it was done legally and through proscribed methods. Unless I'm confused, the only person who questions that is Trump and his team.

Hanni, if I understand it correctly, a FISA tap is not part of a criminal investigation. It's there to find out if someone is compromising national security or is a foreign agent. This may explain Comey's ``I can deny...'' language, which seems like it could be parsing, because there's no confusion about whether there was a wiretap.

[froot loops]

1. The White House is referencing reports of that wire taps as their evidence. No actual reports made the tie to the Obama administration. It's not like he had evidence but he wasn't sharing. On the Sunday shows Sanders main evidence were those reports. The FBI had/has been investigating Trump's campaign for a long time. It is what he pens when you call foreign agents.

2. What is happening is people are conflating the FBI and the Obama administration. None of the reports that have gained traction on this actually say Obama's team ordered something, which is something they can't do officially. That has to come from the FBI. They could order something without a warrant on something foreign.

3. The FISA act was put into law to stop Presidents from doing what Trump is accusing. It was an outgrowth of Watergate.

4. Mark Levin talked about it last week, it got some run on Breitbart and Trump anger tweeted it on Saturday. This isn't that hard to see. He's a conspiracy theorist who doesn't like reading a lot. Thinking he might have evidence that we don't know of to prove it seems like a fools errand. He thinks he's under siege and he's lashing out. When 17 sources contact the Times to report on his Friday Trumper Tantrum, it's easy to see. He can't think clearly.

[CGVT]

He's a Buffoon

[crashcourse]

What is your handicap crashcourse?

didn't start playing til I got out of the army

started about 25 now down to 12--age 56

frankly id be surprised if trump wasn't under listening surveillance intermittantly starting about 2015.

you think intelligence agencies were going to let him ascend to the presidency without some type of intel including cell phone/internet habits/even listening devices

you know damn sure they do it overseas when they can--granted our laws are strictor but trump wouldn't have pulled that item out of the blue unless he had pretty good intel he was being monitored by intelligence agencies in 2015/2016 in my opinion

and frankly I think you cant let the potential leader of the free world free access to all without knowing a little something obtained clandestinely

checks and balances in a different way

[iam416]

Kevin Williamson with a piece I enjoyed: http://www.nationalreview.com/articl...-conservatives

Director of National Intelligence under Obama, James Clapper, on Meet the Press:

Clapper was also asked on “Meet the Press” if he had any evidence that the Trump campaign was colluding with the Russian government while the Kremlin was working to influence the election. “Not to my knowledge,” Clapper said, based on the information he had before his time in the position ended. “We did not include anything in our report … that had any reflect of collusion between members of the Trump campaign and the Russians. There was no evidence of that included in our report,” he said. “We had no evidence of such collusion.”

[hack]

Author of new Snowden book, Edward Jay Epstein: ``privacy is a conceit''. Agree or disagree, I think it's without question that the USG has been more interested in knowing about DJT than it has been about hack, Froot, crashcourse et al.