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| Silverfiddle Rant! |
CNN Headline:
A weasel in the bowels of our nation's overfed and undereffective Intel agencies has called a whistleblower hotline claiming President Trump "made a promise to a foreign leader." We don't know what the promise was, or to whom, but I wonder...
Did he whisper to Vlad that he would have more flexibility after his reelection?
Did he hand Iran's criminal dictators hundreds of millions of dollars?
Who knows. Here's what we do know:
US intelligence agencies are spying on the President.
Go here and watch the video snippet. CNN counterterrorism analyst Phil Mudd is a Trump-hater, and he rightly calls this what it is.
“The president can say what he wants. It’s not the responsibility of the intel guys to go police the president and go snitch on him to the Congress. Ridiculous!”
Depending on the circumstances, it could also be illegal.
This is another ginned up Democrat political stunt carried out by a toadie stooge at one of the agencies. Ordinarily, the whistleblower would be listened to, the matter investigated, and that's it. I suspect the Trump Administration is giving this full attention to avoid charges they used their power to squelch it. As a bonus, Schiff and the Pelosicrats in Congress will run with this, and it will be one more nothingburger blowing up in their faces.
Wait for it...
So now we have a Horowitz type able to investigate and keep track of Presidential phone calls. Wow...just when I thought it couldn't get any lower.
ReplyDeleteAnd we haven't even started the primary season. Only the beginning. They will make sure he never gets another term.
I’ll wait for some facts to emerge before I make an opinion on this. Whistleblower does not by default equate to “spying”.
ReplyDelete+1.
DeleteThe post does seem a rush to judgement.
The whistleblower had to have listened in on a phone conversation or read transcripts.
DeleteWithout getting into details, I know from my past that rules, regulations and federal law are extremely strict on domestic collection, and that there is a distinction between monitoring, collection, and having a human analyze it.
There is a potential here that someone broke the law.
This is an interesting use of the hotline. A hotline is set up to report abuses within a program.
Without getting into details....
DeleteAll generally true, but the picture known to the public at this point, is nowhere clear enough to provide enough evidence to do more than rest on perceptions and bias.
Interestingly, with the recent disdain for the IC, this incident pits two competing arguments from that same arena.
I've hated the CIA for a long time.
DeleteFrom CBS News...
DeleteThe relevant federal statute defines "urgent concern" as "a serious or flagrant problem, abuse, violation of law or Executive order, or deficiency" related to an "intelligence activity."
"The complaint forwarded to the [inspector general] does not meet the definition of 'urgent concern,'" general counsel Jason Klitenic wrote in a letter to Schiff on Tuesday. "This complaint ... concerned conduct by someone outside the Intelligence Community and did not relate to any 'intelligence activity' under the DNI's supervision."
That is my understanding of a whistleblower report.
I've hated the CIA for a long time.
DeleteI may certainly harbor disgust for management past and present, but my experience has been with their more 'blue collar' folks.
The CIA past and present has many heroes that I could never hold a candle to, but on balance--based on what I have read and my limited experience in Latin America--they may have done more harm than good. I view them as yahoos with lots of budget and no oversight.
DeleteSF,
ReplyDeleteExcellent video snippet!
My guess is that this has been going on for quite some time. When J. Edgar Hoover wasn’t dressing up in ladies’ clothes, he was quite prolific spying on US officials and keeping records that he could use to blackmail them later. I’m pretty sure he didn’t confine these activities to cabinet secretaries and members of congress —but then, presidents also had their ‘hit lists’ and FDR was one of the more abounding. Presidential blacklists didn’t become unpopular, though, until Nixon did it. The problem, or so it would seem to me, is that everyone has their own idea about what “serving their country” means, and few of us are able to separate “how we think” from “how we act.” In every case, however, at such time as a high-ranking official cannot, in good conscience, cheerfully and faithfully serve the president, he or she owes it to the country to step down. If such a person is truly principled, he or she will make that decision for themselves rather than having it forced upon them by the executive.
ReplyDeleteOne things for certain. Ginning up is an equal nefarious activity. Both rethugs and dems gin crap up all the time.
ReplyDeleteIt might be a toss up which party is the most proficient at it. But given the over 10,000 confirmred lies Trump has told who knows.
The intel community is going to screw around and get Churched again.
ReplyDeleteBased on the little I know and have seen, it seem plausible to me the CIA trafficked drugs into the US, among many other horrible things.
The Intelligence Industrial Complex has awesome powers and a cloak of secrecy. It could very easily become a grave danger to We the People and our Democratic Republic. Congress needs to start beating them with naily boards. I also think there needs to be audits, and efficiency upgrades. The Intelligence Industrial Complex has become one more unaccountable cyclops.
My guess: Firing John Bolton for not wanting to offer go away money to the Taliban on American soil on 9/11 was probably a bad idea for the failed Gameshow Host In Chief.
ReplyDeleteThere is the possibility that "Leaker" Bolton is involved.
DeleteIndeed.
ReplyDeleteJust how We the People get Our Congress, Senate, and Executive Branch to hold the Cyclops accountable to us I'm not sure. Not sure because We the People seem unable to hold the 3 branches of government accountable to US.
In short, We the People have been complicit in the perpetuation and growth of the Cyclops we put in posistions of power.
The position and power of Top Cyclops has grown HUGELY in the past 2 1/2 years. And the slippery slope is being greased as we type.
You're posting in bold face. Why are you imitating Franco?
DeleteBTW, when you post, your post would be interesting if you actually said something and staked out a position.
My position is simple... politicians are corrupt, thus the politics they support are corrupt. Of course there are degrees of corruption and not all politicians, politics, and parties are equally corrupt. After observing Guiliani during his interview with Coumo last night it is even clearer that Trump, as well as his supporters are the most corrupt in memory.
DeleteI did not like what GWB did but I generally respected Bush. Trump is not a man I can respect or trust. As bad as the GOP hypocrisy was before Trump it is much worse since his assent.
Don't agree Silverfiddle, that's fine. When it all comes out in the wash we'll know.
I know my position. Do you really know yours?
Good day.
My position is, I want the press, the people, and the government to apply the same standard to everyone.
DeleteImagine if a GOP intel toady had done this to Obama over his secret negotiations with the Iranian mullahs. I do not agree with Obama's deal with Iran, but he was within his bounds as president to do it.
This comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteCss Alexander Adelphi said
ReplyDeleteAll this game playing is so ubelievably childish, petty, small-minded and old-womanish it's not worthy of serious attention from anyone who imagunes himself to be an adult.
Allen Rothschild said
DeleteI couldn't agree more, Mr. Adelphi. It's one of the saddest facts of life that most human bengs never realy grow up at all. They remain obstreporous children addicted to petty squabbling focusng on minutiae while completely missing the Big Picture.
Biden brags about threatening Kiev to fire the prosecutor going after his son, or he would withhold US funds from them.
ReplyDeleteWhy is none of this news?
Has anyone bothered to read Valerie Plame or her friend Giraldi. These self anointed lunatics are more common than you think. The intelligence agencies need a house cleaning
ReplyDeleteI look forward to seeing the political swamp creatures going to prison for the crimes they committed against We The People.
ReplyDeletelolz!
ReplyDeleteExcerpt therefrom:
DeleteWell, well, well… the media cannot say President Trump didn’t try to warn them about throwing fake-news rakes in front of their narrative parade – then wondering why they keep getting black-eyes. Here we go, the details begin to surface.
With more reporting by John Solomon, cited and attributed to on-the-record officials in the State Department and Ukraine, a much more clear picture emerges. In reality, and unfortunately as expected, the fulsome picture is 180° divergent from the media narrative.
Some never learn, huh?
Well, with the continual fake news from POTUS, the picture is never really clear is it? We should be used to it by now.
DeleteWhen you wrestle with a tar baby, you shouldn't cry when most of the filth ends up on you...
DeleteGot that, Joe?
DeleteGrunton Hogg said
ReplyDeleteThis blog has become the moral equivalent of a poisoned well. A good place to stay away from.
Cool......then why aren’t you?
DeleteCI,
DeleteExactly!
Besides, one man's trash is another man's treasure.
Martha Dobey and Karen Wright said
ReplyDeleteFriends too eager to be friendly towards our enemies are not our friends.
Not only a poorly structured, unhinged rant befitting of an author who should have adult supervision on the internet.....but also quite against the blog rules.
ReplyDeleteGood job! I’m sure you’re proud.
And posted a mere two minutes after an aborted post seemingly in response to one from RN. Hmmm......
DeleteAilgivita Weidberth said
ReplyDeleteThe tone here has becime aour, hostile and most distasteful. UGH! Too bad! The place used to be interesting. Now it's just another poopfest That always happens when people start talkimg more about each other instead of the of the item posted, or at least related material. o need to tell me to stay away. I pomise I won't be back.
More like, "Herding Cats".
Delete