Freedom Caucus: Freedom is just another word for nothing left to lose

The Freedom Caucus is only about 40 members strong, yet heavily funded by the Koch Brothers.  Their members are in lockstep obeying every command of their financial backers and look more like the Manson Family than politicians.  Donald Trump’s enemies within are the GOP establishment, i.e. Paul Ryan and Mike Pence.  We are already living in the hell that was brought to the American people by the unholy alliance of the DNC and RNC.  That hell is our new found freedom that is we, the American people have nothing left to lose.

America is not broke, we’ve been robbed.  Since the year 2000 Americans have lost their homes, their jobs, their education system, their airwaves, their bank accounts, their health and their safety all the result of the actions of congress in the name of preserving freedom.  The budget that was presented to President Trump by his GOP-selected Director of Management and Budget, Mick Mulvaney slashes programs for the middle class and lower class while engorging the military industrial complex.  From Politico:

Excerpt:

Mulvaney justifies budget: We can't ask a coal miner to pay for the Corporation for Public Broadcasting

As they fleshed out the budget blueprint released Thursday morning by the White House, Office of Management and Budget director Mick Mulvaney said officials from the administration of President Donald Trump asked themselves: Can we ask the taxpayer to pay for this?

For a dramatic uptick in military funding, Mulvaney said, the answer was yes. For a wide array of domestic programs, it turns out, the answer was no.  Trump’s budget, which Mulvaney said was assembled in part by examining excerpts from the president’s speeches and media interviews, delivers on his campaign promise to build up the military, designating an additional $54 billion in defense spending…

And asked about cuts to educational programs, including aid to low-income students, teacher training and after-school and summer programs, Mulvaney said that they, by and large, are ineffective and cannot justify their existence.

“A lot of those programs that we target, they sound great, don't they? They always do. We don't put a bad name on a program. Programs are always wonderful. It’s always small business or whatever. They don't work. A lot of them simply don't work,” he said. “I can't justify them to the folks who are paying the taxes. I can't go to the autoworker in Ohio and say ‘please give me some of your money so that I can do this program over here, someplace else that really isn't helping anybody. I can ask them to help pay for defense. But I can’t do it anymore. I can’t go to them and say ‘I need your money to go help this program.’”

Ah yes, Mulvaney can’t ask the taxpayers to fund Meals on Wheels for the elderly or after school programs or to fund combating the opioid epidemic but he can ask them to plow more and more money into the Military Industrial Complex that funds his congressional campaigns. 

This GOP budget comes on the heels of a report by the ActivistPost that over a period of twenty years, the Pentagon cannot account for $10 trillion dollars.

Excerpt:

$10 Trillion Missing From Pentagon And No One — Not Even The DoD — Knows Where It Is

Over a mere two decades, the Pentagon lost track of a mind-numbing $10 trillion — that’s trillion, with a fat, taxpayer-funded “T” — and no one, not even the Department of Defense, knows where it went or on what it was spent.

Even though audits of all federal agencies became mandatory in 1996, the Pentagon has apparently made itself an exception, and — fully 20 years later — stands obstinately orotund in never having complied.

Because, as defense officials insist — summoning their best impudent adolescent — an audit would take too long and, unironically, cost too much.

“Over the last 20 years, the Pentagon has broken every promise to Congress about when an audit would be completed,” Rafael DeGennaro, director of Audit the Pentagon, told The Guardian recently. “Meanwhile, Congress has more than doubled the Pentagon’s budget.”

Worse, President Trump’s newly-proposed budget seeks to toss an additional $54 billion into the evidently bottomless pit that is the U.S. military  — more for interventionist policy, more for resource-plundering, more for proxy fighting, and, of course, more for jets and drones to drop more bombs suspiciously often on civilians.

Maybe.

Because, without the mandated audit, the DoD could be purchasing damned near anything, at any cost, and use, or give, it — to anyone, for any reason…

Astonishingly, the Pentagon’s own watchdog tacitly approves this technically-illegal workaround — and the legally-gray and, yes, literally, on-the-books-corrupt practices in tandem — to what would incontrovertibly be a most unpleasant audit, indeed.

Budget after budget has slashed money to fund programs that are designed to ensure the health, wealth and wellbeing of the American people to fund war the myriad of hogs at the trough that goes along with it.  And, what do we get for sacrificing the lives and future lives of our kids?  From Stephen Lendman:

Excerpt:

Lies and Coverup of US War Crimes in Syria and Iraq

Early in his administration, Trump is guilty of horrendous crimes of war and against humanity in Syria, Iraq and elsewhere - governing lawlessly like his predecessors, escalating aggression, not ending it.

Delegating authority for military operations to Defense Secretary Mattis, National Security Advisor McMaster, Joint Chiefs chairman Dunford and other Pentagon commanders doesn’t shift responsibility of the buck stopping with him on all administration policies, none more serious than waging war.

Civilians in harm’s way pay the greatest price in all US war theaters. Pentagon terror-bombing massacres them indiscriminately in Syria and Iraq, all targets considered legitimate ones, including residential neighborhoods, schools, hospitals, mosques with worshipers at prayer, and others.

Pentagon claims about taking great care to avoid or minimize civilian casualties are bald-faced lies. High crimes are either denied or blamed on others. So-called investigations when conducted are whitewashed to absolve US forces of accountability.

Most Americans have no idea about high crimes committed in their name, with their tax dollars, in all US war theaters because media scoundrels are part of the cover-up - either reporting nothing or sanitizing what’s ongoing…

Liberation isn’t the objective. Iraqi ground forces are as vicious as ISIS, shelling and killing their own people indiscriminately…  

America is the most vicious, unaccountable aggressor in world history, responsible for millions of casualties, civilians harmed most of all - directly from war, related violence, preventable diseases, starvation, displacement, along with overall deprivation and desperation…

Discussing military operations in Mosul, neocon/CIA-connected Washington Post editors lied, accusing Russian and Syrian forces of “deliberate(ly) bombing…civilian targets, including hospitals, food stores and aid convoys, at the cost of thousands of lives…

Fact: Russian and Syrian forces scrupulous try avoiding civilian casualties - why liberating Aleppo entirely from US-supported al-Nusra terrorists took so long.

Fact: No Russian or Syrian airstrikes targeted hospitals, aid convoys or other nonmilitary sites. Claims otherwise are Big Lies…

America’s permanent war agenda threatens humanity’s survival. Is catastrophic thermonuclear confrontation just a matter of time?

Everything the Bush and Obama Administrations told us that has allowed them to wage endless wars was a lie.  Now the Trump Administration is promoting the same bull shit to continue with their global savage pillaging.  The lies spread in the US about Russia are just that, lies.  From Paul CraigRoberts:

Excerpt:

Ukraine Annexed Crimea in the 1990s

Something else “our” government and its media whores did not tell us is that under the Crimean Constitution of 1992, Crimea existed as a legal, democratic, secular state. Crimea’s relationship with Ukraine was based on bilateral agreements. In 1995 Ukrainian special ops forces and Ukrainian Army troops invaded Crimea and annexed the territory.

The Autonomous Republic of Crimea was established by the 1991 All-Union Referendum in which 94% of Crimeans voted in favor of re-establishing their status as an autonomous republic. Crimeans repeated the vote in 2014 by an even higher percentage, and this time prevented another Ukrainian invasion by reuniting with Russia.

Why didn’t you know this? Why instead do you hear nothing but lies about a “Russian invasion and annexation of Crimea”?

Trillions and trillions of dollars, stolen from our schools, pensions, healthcare, wages and bank accounts to fund wars and what do we have to show for it?  From Black AgendaReport:

Excerpt:

U.S. Becomes Ungovernable, Elites Blame it on Russians

U.S. rulers are experiencing a “crisis of political governance, a meltdown of the political system,” due to the “collapse of the parties of the duopoly,” said Dr. Anthony Monteiro, the Philadelphia-based Duboisian scholar. The policies and practice of both parties “became antagonistic to the minimal expectations of the masses.”  

The elite didn’t see it coming,” said Monteiro. “In order to reestablish their legitimacy, they have to say that the Russians hacked the election and are threatening western ‘democracy,’ itself.” The real crisis is “their inability to govern the country.”

That is what “freedom” looks like, ungovernable.  When the 911 attacks took place, George W. Bush said “they hate us for our freedoms” and launched a wars on Iraq and Afghanistan.  The reason for the wars was to bring them freedom, now that they have nothing left to lose.  We overthrew the elected government of Ukraine, stole their gold and shipped it to the New York Federal Reserve Bank and installed a puppet regime to bring Ukraine freedom.  Now Ukrainians have nothing left to lose.  When Assad was reelected in Syria, we brought in terrorist rebels from other countries that we armed and trained to bring freedom to Syria.  They are now known as ISIS and Syrians have nothing left to lose. 

If the bar for success is “freedom” and freedom means nothing left to lose, than the more than $20 trillion stolen from our treasury to fund endless wars and hostile financial takeover of other countries, then the past Bush and Obama Administrations have been wildly successful.  Trump won by telling the American people he would end these senseless wars, he would negotiate drug prices, I would do everything to combat the heroin epidemic, he would end Obamacare for a national program that would cover everyone. 

According to Mick Mulvaney:  Trump’s budget was assembled in part by examining excerpts from the president’s speeches and media interviews, DELIVERS ON HIS CAMPAIGN PROMISE to build up the military, designating an additional $54 billion in defense spending.  Jebus, doesn’t even come close.  But there is one Fox News Host who is screaming out to Trump.  Janine Pirro:

Pirro is right it is time for Donald Trump to search for those people in congress that will work with him to ensure ALL Americans have healthcare, not insurance.  Make sure the people have jobs, good paying jobs that support families make sure these wars are ended to pay for infrastructure.  It’s time to address the opioid addiction foisted on the American people by the Afghan war and big pharma.  It’s time Mr. President listen to Janine Pirro.  We don’t want freedom if freedom means nothing left to lose.

By Patricia Baeten

Lawless America: The new norm, wiretapping, fake news, election tampering, assassinations

It has been a red letter day in America, is there any tidbit of Democracy still alive in the experiment called America?  We have spy agencies who operate in an extrajudicial manner answering to no one.  This has been occurring for a very long time in America but what is different now is the confluence of the two-parties with big media to destroy our freedoms. 

The erosion of Democracy began on December 12, 2000 when five corrupt Republicans on the Supreme Court overturned the results of the 2000 election and installed George W. Bush as president.  Three days later the U.S. Senate voted for The Commodity Futures Modernization Act of 2000 that deregulated over the counter derivatives trading.  The CFMA was signed into law December 15, 2000.  The first official action by President Bush was to seal the presidential papers of his father, George Herbert Walker Bush.  From Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press:

Excerpt:

Presidential Records Remain Sealed By Bush

Attempting to place his gubernatorial records outside the reach of the Texas Public Information Act was not President George W. Bush's only effort to limit access to executive records.

On Nov. 1, 2001, Bush signed Executive Order 13233. Prior to the order, presidential records were sealed for 12 years, after which they were reviewed for release by the National Archives. Under the new order, both the former and incumbent president must review the records before they are released by the archives, and either could block disclosure indefinitely.

A number of Bush's current advisors were also members of Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush's administrations, and their actions could be detailed in the documents. Reagan's 12-year limit was to expire in 2001…

A coalition of historians and open government advocates, including The Reporters Committee for Freedom of the Press and Public Citizen, filed a lawsuit in federal district court in Washington, D.C., on Nov. 28, 2001. In American Historical Association v. National Archives and Records Administration, the coalition contends that the executive order illegally circumvents the Presidential Records Act of 1968 and asks for an injunction preventing the order from being enforced.

With the judges appointed by George W. Bush presiding over the case who do you think won?  An interesting thing happened this week.  The FreeThought Project is reporting that George Herbert Walker Bush destroyed records when he headed up the CIA:

Excerpt:

New Docs Expose Bush Sr. Illegally Destroying Evidence of US Crimes While Head of CIA

Documents recently dredged from the CIA’s massive database expose an effort by the former director to destroy documents evincing the agency’s illegal activities and operations.  That director — George H.W. Bush, who served in the role from January 1976 until January 1977 — went on to become the 41st President of the United States…

As Muck Rock reports, “In 1976, Congresswoman Bella Abzug wrote to CIA Director George H.W. Bush about the existing moratorium on the destruction of CIA files…  In a draft response to the congresswoman, the agency originally stated, “Destruction of Agency material will be in accordance with the recommendations of the President’s Commission on CIA Activities within the United States, Presidential directives and as permitted by law.”

But edits scribbled on this draft indicate transparency in procedural record-keeping not only didn’t matter to the Central Intelligence Agency, it directly countered Director Bush’s and the agency’s interests…  “A decision as to the disposition of those files concerning activities which the President’s Commission considered illegal and improper has not been finalized and the moritorium [sic] on destruction is still in effect…

Remember the CIA’s abhorrently sadistic torture program? You might — but obtaining the original copy of the report on its nefarious practice won’t be possible. As The Free Thought Project reported on May 17, 2016,  “[T]he CIA inspector general’s office recently admitted to ‘mistakenly’ destroying their only copy of the classified report. Although CIA Director John Brennan possesses another copy of the torture report, he refuses to send a replacement to the internal watchdog’s office.

“Last summer, the Senate Intelligence Committee and the Justice Department were privately informed that CIA employees at the inspector general’s office had both destroyed the disk and deleted the file containing the full Senate Torture Report. Despite the fact that the Justice Department ordered all copies of the classified document to be preserved, acting CIA Inspector General Christopher Sharpley was unable to locate another copy and eventually informed the Senate Intelligence Committee that his officers has mistakenly ruined their only copies...”

Oops.

Award-winning investigative journalist and current editor of Consortiumnews, Robert Parry, penned an article in 2000 concerning a 1976 car bombing in Washington, D.C.’s highbrow Embassy Row — about which the agency created a fake report to throw off the feds and further its own agenda.

“In early fall of 1976,” Parry wrote, “after a Chilean government assassin had killed a Chilean dissident and an American woman with a car bomb in Washington, D.C., George H.W. Bush’s CIA leaked a false report clearing Chile’s military dictatorship and pointing the FBI in the wrong direction…

“In a 21-page report to Congress on Sept. 18, 2000, the CIA officially acknowledged for the first time that the mastermind of the terrorist attack, Chilean intelligence chief Manuel Contreras, was a paid asset of the CIA...”

Perhaps it should be asked, what else could George Herbert Walker Bush — and the CIA — be hiding?

It’s been my experience that when you make a mistake the benefits yourself you’re likely to make that mistake over again.  Under the direction of John Brennan those torture reports were “mistakenly” eliminated.  Odd isn’t it?  The transition from the Bush Administration to the Obama Administration was seamless.  Obama kept a lot of the same people in the intelligence agencies, State Department and Defense Department from the Bushes. 

Both Administrations hated the Clintons as well as Donald Trump, so is it any wonder that both Hillary and Donald were surveilled by the Obama Administration?  Today it was revealed that the Trump transition team was under surveillance by the Obama Administration and information gleaned from that investigation was illegally disseminated across the intelligence apparatus.  From The Daily Mail:

Excerpt:

I've been 'somewhat' vindicated says Trump as Republican intel committee chair says Obama administration WAS eavesdropping - and may even have picked up his personal calls

The U.S. Intelligence Community collected 'incidental' information about President Donald Trump' and his transition team during the three months following the 2016 election, House Intelligence Committee chairman Devin Nunes today revealed.

Nunes told reporters on Capitol Hill that the information collected was 'legally collected' pursuant to a warrant issued by a FISA judge in a federal court, and concerned 'foreign' surveillance - before he went to the White House to tell the president.

He said 'it's possible' that the now-president's personal communications were among those which were part of the 'incidental' collection - but did not say definitively if that was the case.  But that 'did not involve Russia or any discussions with Russians,' Nunes said, adding that he was 'alarmed' to learn what he did.

The surveillance would have occurred while Obama was still president. Nunes said he could not rule out the involvement of senior Obama administration officials.  Standing in front of the White House, the Republican lawmaker told reporters: 'This is information that was brought to me that I thought the president needed to know about incidental collection where the president himself and others in the Trump transition team were clearly put into intelligence reports that ended up at this White House and across a whole bunch of other agencies, and I thought it was important for the president to know…'

So disturbed was the House intel chairman by the reports he says he saw, he came to the White House straight away to brief the president - after first holding a news conference on Capitol Hill with reporters.  'What I have read bothers me, and I think it should bother the president himself and his team because I think some of it seems to be inappropriate,' Nunes said after his sit-down with Trump.

The statement was in response to a question about the nature of the surveillance. Nunes said it had 'nothing to do' with Russia or the FBI's Russian investigation, prompting an inquiry as to whether he thought it was politically motivated. He did not answer in the affirmative, yet he did not bat the suggestion down.

So the surveillance had “nothing to do with Russia or the FBI’s Russian investigation” then why were the names of individuals in the Trump transition team “unmasked” and disseminated across the intelligence apparatus?”  Why did James Comey deny any surveillance took place and who is James Comey anyway?  From Common Sense:

Excerpt:

Comey Oversaw Drug Cartel Money Laundering Operations As a Top Executive At HSBC Bank

My best insider source states that FBI Director James Comey has absolutely no law enforcement background, and is not qualified to run the FBI. To add insult to injury, the FBI Director held an executive position at HSBC Bank, while extreme money laundering operations where being carried out by the Mexican Drug Cartel and their terrorist allies with the direct assistance of HSBC banking officials. I asked my source if Comey would have known, and he replied “he would have to have been drunk 24/7 to not know what was going on”.

Comey did not just work at HSBC bank as his resume indicates (see below). He was on the Executive Board at the very time the HSBC scandal was breaking. There is no way he did not know as he looked the other way. And when he was vetted for his job as FBI Director, they knew then, he was in a key position of an organization that was caught laundering Mexican drug cartel money for the Sinoloas, the Los Zetas and their terrorist allies.

Oh, goodness I guess the main qualification to head up the FBI is a tawdry background that insures that your employer HSBC gets away with just a fine for blatant criminality including money laundering and terrorist financing.  From Rolling Stone:

Excerpt:

The deal was announced quietly, just before the holidays, almost like the government was hoping people were too busy hanging stockings by the fireplace to notice. Flooring politicians, lawyers and investigators all over the world, the U.S. Justice Department granted a total walk to executives of the British-based bank HSBC for the largest drug-and-terrorism money-laundering case ever. Yes, they issued a fine – $1.9 billion, or about five weeks' profit – but they didn't extract so much as one dollar or one day in jail from any individual, despite a decade of stupefying abuses…

For at least half a decade, the storied British colonial banking power helped to wash hundreds of millions of dollars for drug mobs, including Mexico's Sinaloa drug cartel, suspected in tens of thousands of murders just in the past 10 years…

The bank also moved money for organizations linked to Al Qaeda and Hezbollah, and for Russian gangsters; helped countries like Iran, the Sudan and North Korea evade sanctions; and, in between helping murderers and terrorists and rogue states, aided countless common tax cheats in hiding their cash…

That nobody from the bank went to jail or paid a dollar in individual fines is nothing new in this era of financial crisis… 

Don’t forget it was Comey who ensured a Hillary Clinton defeat by announcing he had reopened his investigation into her ten days before the election.  Hillary Clinton had planned to restructure the Federal Reserve Bank, something the banking cartels didn’t want.   But there’s more news.  Former Trump campaign manager, Paul Manafort has been accused of working for Vladimir Putin.  This is not a new allegation, I wrote about it in my blog last August.

Excerpt:   

Paul Manafort, Trump’s campaign chief who worked with the ELECTED Ukrainian president prior to the CIA coup, is viciously attacked by media.

Veep Joe Biden campaigning for Hillary Clinton proclaimed “Donald Trump cannot be given the nuclear codes!”  PNAC member Biden a self-proclaimed Zionist, was up to his ears in the coup in Ukraine.  Biden’s son Hunter and John Kerry’s stepson Chris Heinz are collecting million dollar salaries at the CIA’s Ukrainian energy company Burisma Holdings. 

In 2013 after a failed CIA coup against elected President Viktor Yanukovych, the CIA set up a tent city in Maidan Square equipped with first-aid stations and canteens.  Enraged by Yanukovych’s snub of the EU trade deal in favor Vladimir Putin’s, the demonstrators demanded Yanukovych’s ouster.   The CIA backed “color revolution” was part of PNAC’s "eastern neighborhood policy" introduced in 2005 by W. Bush…

The CIA controlled American media is touting “handwritten” ledgers showing $12.7 million in so-called undisclosed cash payments Manafort received from Yanukovych from 2007 to 2012.  The documents were provided by the “newly formed National Anti-Corruption Bureau” in Poroshenko’s Ukraine. 

While the “handwritten” ledgers are not official government documents, they are being used to accuse Manafort of being a Russian backed evil doer, proof the Trump campaign is backed by Russia.  Charge up the batteries on your “bullshit” detectors America because you are going to need them.

The allegations are coming from an official from Ukraine’s illegitimate government that was installed by Washington after a CIA backed coup removed their democratically elected President Yanukovych.  Ten years ago, Paul Manafort worked for the Ukrainian government.

Yes these bogus charges are nothing new, the only thing new is that candidate Trump is now President Trump.  But the neoliberal Tom Friedman and the Democrats are now calling for a “Palace Coup” against Donald Trump.  From World Socialist Website:

Excerpt:

Democratic Party floats proposal for a palace coup

On Wednesday, New York Times columnist Thomas Friedman addressed an open letter to a group of generals, deep state operatives and a corporate executive in President Trump’s cabinet, effectively calling on them to organize a palace coup.

The recipients of Friedman’s letter, code-named “Calling On a Few Good Men,” are three generals—Secretary of Defense James Mattis, National Security Adviser H. R. McMaster and Secretary of Homeland Security John Kelly—along with CIA Director Mike Pompeo and the former oil tycoon and current Secretary of State Rex Tillerson.

Using the language of a political toady, Friedman’s column begins: “Dear Sirs, I am writing you today as the five adults with the most integrity in the Trump administration. Mattis, McMaster and Kelly, you all served our nation as generals in battle. Pompeo, you graduated first in your class at West Point and served as a cavalry officer.”

He continues, “I am writing you directly because I believe you are the last ‘few good men’ who can stand up” to Trump. Referring to the impeachment of Richard Nixon, Friedman declares, “The last time our country faced such a cancer on the presidency, the Republican Party’s leadership stood up and put country before party to get to the truth.” But today’s Republican Party has “declared moral bankruptcy” and “abdicated its responsibility.”

Combining flattery with self-abasement, he continues, “I ask those of you who honored our country as military officers how you would have reacted if your commanding officer had charged his predecessor with a high crime that violated his constitutional oath…

Friedman gives voice to tendencies in and around the Democratic Party that are prepared, in pursuit of their McCarthyite-style demonization of Russia, to welcome a palace coup that would impose a military/intelligence/corporate junta on the American people. The wealthy and corrupt social layers for whom the millionaire columnist speaks are motivated by two primary concerns.

First, that Trump is threatening US imperialist interests around the world by backing away from the Obama administration’s war-mongering policies toward Russia, and at the same time undermining the image of the US internationally with his overt lying and bullying of Washington’s allies…

He cites US imperialist strategist Richard Haass, president of the Council on Foreign Relations, who warns that without an urgent course correction, the US could find itself “not with America first, but with America alone.”

The second major concern is that Trump is stoking popular discontent at home that could spiral out of control and threaten the entire economic and political system… the Democratic Party is fixated on avoiding at all costs the emergence of a movement of the working masses. That is why it appeals to the military/intelligence apparatus and the corporate aristocracy in its struggle with the faction of the ruling class represented by Trump.

Yes, that’s the new Democratic Party brought to you by Barack Obama, Joe Biden, Chuck Schumer and the late Teddy Kennedy.  A party of neo-Fascist millionaires hell bent on avoiding at all costs the “emergence of a movement of working masses”, you know the people who voted for Donald Trump.  This is the confluence of the GOP/DNC/big media at its worst, for they serve only the Deep State.  From Glen Ford at Black Agenda Report:  

Excerpt:

The U.S. Deep State Rules – On Behalf of the Ruling Class

 “The U.S. Deep State is unlike any other, in that there is no other global superpower bent on world domination.”

The Deep State is busy denying that it exists, even as it savages a sitting president and brutally bitch-slaps its host society, demanding the nation embrace its role as global psycho thug and kick some Russian ass. The New York Times, always available to divert attention from the essential facts of who rules America, points to Egypt, Turkey and Pakistan as the natural habitats of Deep States. Apparently, Deep State-infected countries tend to be nations with majority Muslim populations, whose military-intelligence apparatus hovers over society and periodically seizes control of the civil government.

The Times quoted high-ranking operatives of the Deep State to prove that such structures are alien to the U.S. Michael V. Hayden, who ran the CIA under Democratic President Obama and Republican George Bush, recoiled at the term. He “would never use” the words Deep State in connection with his own country. “That’s a phrase we’ve used for Turkey and other countries like that, but not the American republic…”

Loren DeJonge Schulman, a former Obama National Security Council official, claimed to be repelled by the very idea of an American Deep State. “A deep state, when you’re talking about Turkey or Egypt or other countries, that’s part of government or people outside of government that are literally controlling the direction of the country no matter who’s actually in charge, and probably engaging in murder and other corrupt practices,” she said…

Apparently, Ms. Schulman did not consider it murder when Obama and his top national security advisors met every Tuesday at the White House to decide who would be assassinated by drone or other means. But she is “shocked” to hear “that kind of [Deep State-phobic] thinking from” President Trump “or the people closest to him.”

In reality, the U.S. Deep State is by far the world’s biggest and most dangerous version of the phenomenon; a monstrous and not-so subterranean “web of common and nefarious purpose” that is, by definition, truly global, since its goal is to rule the planet…

The best way to describe the imperial Deep State is: those individuals and institutions that are tasked with establishing the global supremacy of the corporate ruling class. Such activities must be masked, since they clash with the ideological position of the ruling class, which is that the bourgeois electoral system of the United States is the world’s freest and fairest…

The truth is that an oligarchy rules, and makes war on whomever it chooses -- internationally and domestically -- for the benefit of corporate capital…  The Deep State is where corporate power achieves its class aims outside the public processes of government. It’s where the most vicious class warfare takes place, whether on a foreign killing field, or in the corporate newsroom that erases or misrepresents what happened on that battlefield.

The ruling class and its War Party, now consolidated within the Democratic Party and regrouping among Republicans, have effectively neutralized a sitting president whose party controls both Houses of Congress, less than two months into his term.

Only a Deep State could pull that off.

Yes indeed, it has been a red letter day in America, the Deep State rules this country.  The GOP is now rewriting Obama Care to clear a path from the American Treasury directly into the coffers of the Medical Industrial Complex and Big Pharma.  But the main goal of the Deep State is to remove Donald Trump from the Presidency. 

While Big Media ridicules Donald Trump for continuing to take his case to the American worker, Donald Trump is outsmarting the Deep State.  Trump has continued to win, win, win and thus the Deep State is calling on the Generals to oust our elected President and lock down the state to ensure there is no emergence of a movement of the working masses.  Hopefully they are too late.

By Patricia Baeten

Vortex of evil: Mike Pence and Paul Ryan decimate Medicaid and Medicare to fund $600 billion tax cut for rich and war

There is no question about it, President Trump is the victim of Deep State tyranny led by Veep Mike Pence and Speaker Paul Ryan.  Trump won the election in spite of the GOP not because of it.  When Trump allowed Veep Mike Pence to head up his transition team he sealed his fate, the fix was in.  The president now finds himself surrounded by enemies.  From Lew Rockwell:

Excerpt:

Is Pence the Deep State’s Insurance Policy?

Last month, Anti-Media reported on leaked intelligence that forcibly ousted national security adviser Michael Flynn from the Trump administration. Flynn’s successor, General H.R. McMaster, is far more hawkish, and in comparison to Flynn, takes a much more anti-Russian stance…

Despite this, the media still perpetuates anti-Russian hysteria and repeated claims regarding the Trump administration’s ties to Russia — despite the fact that Flynn, Trump’s supposed go-between with Russia, has already relinquished his power…

Why would this be?

Both Clinton and Obama had very hawkish approaches to Russia and Russia’s strategic allies in the Middle East. In contrast, Trump was clear that he respected Russia’s president and wanted to forge closer relations.

The first thing to note is that Trump has been keeping most of his campaign promises to date — even the most outlandish ones. The second is that Flynn was actually in the process of offering a deal on economic sanctions against Russia and a ceasefire in Ukraine, suggesting there was substance behind Trump’s pro-Russia rhetoric…

Evidently, there are those behind the scenes within the deep state and the intelligence community who still fear that Trump could take away their long-held anti-Russian narrative, which has arguably been fueling the need for such a large and oversized military budget since World War II.

So where is this headed?

If Trump doesn’t adopt the Cold War 2.0 approach of Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton and is forced out of his own administration in the same manner as Flynn, it will become clear why once we learn who would replace him: Mike Pence.

As the Washington Post’s Josh Rogin observed:

“Pence is seen by many in Washington as a figure who might stand up for the traditionally hawkish views he espoused while in Congress, a proxy of sorts for the GOP national security establishment…”

As head of the transition, he was instrumental in bringing several traditionally hawkish Republicans into the top levels of the administration’s national security team, including Director of National Intelligence-designate Dan Coats, CIA Director Mike Pompeo and U.N. Ambassador Nikki Haley.”

The ultra-right wing Pence is an entrenched member of the Deep State as is Paul Ryan.  The Deep State enriches their own off wars designed to keep America deep in debt enslaving its citizens.  Pence has populated the Trump Administration with enemies of the American people that plot to overthrow the president to enact the long desired GOP agenda.  From USA Watchdog:

Excerpt:

Trump Has Treason in White House-Robert David Steele

Former CIA operative and military Intel officer, Robert David Steele, says there is no doubt President Trump is dealing with “treason in his own house.” Steele explains, “Donald Trump’s biggest worry right this minute is they are stripping away every single one of his loyal staff members and planting spies in the White House.  Reince Priebus, in my judgment, is not loyal to Donald Trump. 

Reince Priebus’ highest mission in life is to keep Donald Trump from unrigging the system, while helping the neo-conservative and the extreme left two party establishment strip away all of Trump’s options to the point that they drive Trump out of office, and Mike Pence is the go along, get along President that keeps the two-party tyranny in place. . . .

Steele goes on to point out that the real enemy of “We the People” is the so-called Deep State… Steele, who is Latino, contends, “We are all black now.  White people are feeling what it is like to be black with no resources, nobody on your side and the state against you and the authorities against you.  We are all black now…

Steele says unrigging the voting system should be a top priority in the Trump Administration, and, yes, there is voter fraud by the millions. Steele contends there are “at least three million illegal voters in this last election, period.  It’s not disputable.”  Steele goes on to say, “The key thing is the Electoral Reform Act with 50 states in thirty days . . . that stops the violent American spring in its tracks. 

That’s priority one, not all this nonsense about Russia and Iran.  In my “Memo for Trump,” I say all of your enemies are right here at home, in Washington D.C., New York City and in some areas of California and Texas.”

The treacherous Deep State now has Trump illegally escalating the war in Syria for which there can be no good outcome.  From Ron Paul at Lew Rockwell:

Excerpt:

Why Trump’s Syria 'Surge' Will Fail

Last week President Trump significantly escalated the US military presence in Syria, sending some 400 Marines to the ISIS-controlled Raqqa, and several dozen Army Rangers to the contested area around Manbij. According to press reports, he will also station some 2,500 more US troops in Kuwait to be used as he wishes in Iraq and Syria.

Not only is it illegal under international law to send troops into another country without permission, it is also against US law for President Trump to take the country to war without a declaration. But not only is Trump’s first big war illegal: it is doomed to failure because it makes no sense.

Part of the problem is that President Trump’s advisors believe the myth that the US “surge” in Iraq and Afghanistan was a great success and repeating it would being the victory that eluded Obama with his reliance on drones and proxy military forces.

A big show of US military force on the ground – like the 100,000 sent to Afghanistan by Obama in 2009 – is what is needed in Syria, these experts argue. Rarely is it asked that if the surge worked so well why are Afghanistan and Iraq still a disaster?

President Trump’s escalation in Syria is doomed to failure. He is being drawn into a quagmire by the neocons that will destroy scores of lives, cost us a fortune, and may well ruin his presidency. He must de-escalate immediately before it is too late.

Ron Paul is right, the neocons’ wars are not supposed to be won, they are supposed to decimate America leaving it weak and vulnerable with a population that is sick, starving, drug addicted and ignorant from lack of resources.  The neocons’ loyalty is to Israel, not America.  And now Paul Ryan’s healthcare plan is the final nail in the American coffin.  From The Intercept:

Excerpt:

More Guns, Less Medicine: Trump’s Military Spending Binge Would Swamp Savings From Health Care Repeal

THE CONGRESSIONAL BUDGET OFFICE (CBO) released its analysis of the American Health Care Act (AHCA) on Monday, finding that the Trump-backed House Republican bill that seeks to repeal and replace Obamacare would save the federal government $337 billion over 10 years — at the cost of throwing 24 million people off of health insurance coverage by 2026.

But those theoretical savings would be more than wiped out by an also theoretical increase in military spending that President Trump wants Congress to pass…  The reason the AHCA doesn’t save more is because it also includes a $600 billion tax cut, most of it aimed at benefiting wealthier taxpayers, by paring back taxes used to support the Affordable Care Act.

AHCA’s impact on the federal budget deficit is hardly the whole picture, of course. The CBO estimates that 14 million people would lose health insurance coverage in its first year. The cost of health insurance premiums would go up for many. The CBO notes, for example, that someone 64 years old earning $26,500 a year would see their net premiums increase from $1,700 annually to $14,600:

Caching.  Mission accomplished.  But if you think that Ryan’s plan is really much different than Obamacare, you’d be mistaken, the goals were the same.  Democrats are equally corrupt.  From World Socialist Website:

Excerpt:

US ruling elite moves to repeal the 1960s

The repeal of Obamacare, which began last week with the introduction of legislation drafted by Republican House Speaker Paul Ryan, working in conjunction with the Trump administration, has become the vehicle for a much wider program of social reaction.

The new legislation, which will cut off health coverage for 24 million people, will essentially put an end to Medicaid, one of the major social reforms of the 1960s, a program that has funded health care for tens of millions of poor, blind or otherwise disabled people, as well as nursing home care for the low-income elderly. It sets the stage, as Ryan has indicated, for even more sweeping legislation that will undermine and eventually destroy Medicare, which has provided health coverage for most elderly people in the United States for more than 50 years…

The attacks were accelerated greatly under Republican Ronald Reagan, who smashed the PATCO air traffic controllers strike, giving the green light for a decade of corporate union-busting and wage-cutting, and slashed federal social spending to fuel a record military buildup.

Reagan set the pace for further attacks on the programs established in the 1960s and even in the 1930s, from Clinton’s abolition of Aid to Families with Dependent Children to Bush’s targeting of aid to public education with his “No Child Left Behind” legislation, co-authored by Democrat Edward Kennedy, and the first steps towards the privatization of Medicare.

The Obama administration did not mark a reversal of this decades-long process, but rather its intensification. Obamacare was not an expansion of the welfare state, as its apologists claimed, but a reactionary effort to shift the cost of health care from employers and the government to working people. The all-out support of the Democrats for this legislation, worked out in collaboration with the insurance industry and the drug monopolies, testifies to the rightward evolution of the Democratic Party over the past 40 years.

The eight years of the Obama administration--begun with promises of “hope” and “change” and filled instead with endless war, attacks on jobs and living standards, and the steady erosion of social services such as education and health care--created the conditions for the Republican takeover of Congress and finally the victory of Donald Trump…

Now, every one of Great Society liberalism’s “big four,” as one historian described the laws enacted in a six-month period from April to October 1965, is targeted for destruction:

·        The Elementary and Secondary Act of 1965: This legislation provided the first extensive federal support for local public schools, which had become politically possible following the legal abolition of segregated public schools in the South…

·        Medicare and Medicaid, established through the Social Security Act of 1965: This bill for the first time provided government-backed health insurance for those over 65, half of whom had no coverage in 1965…

The Obamacare repeal legislation would put an end to Medicaid as an entitlement program beginning in 2020, when grants to the states would be capped, forcing them to ration care to the poor and disabled. Medicare was already significantly undermined through Obamacare itself, which cut $700 billion in reimbursements over 10 years, and the repeal legislation will set the stage for even larger cuts, based on Ryan’s plan to convert the program from an entitlement to a voucher program.

·        The Voting Rights Act of 1965 was the most radical democratic measure enacted by a US Congress since post-Civil War Reconstruction. It targeted those states, mainly in the Deep South, where denial of the franchise to minorities was widespread…

The US Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act by a 5-4 decision in 2013 in Shelby vs. Holder, ruling that the targeting of the southern states for federal intervention could no longer be justified, despite repeated renewal and extension of the law by Congress, most recently in 2006.

·        The Immigration and Nationality Act of 1965, also known as the Hart-Celler Act after its leading Senate and House sponsors, abolished longstanding restrictions on immigrants from Asia, Africa and the Middle East, and ended the preference for immigrants from Northern and Western Europe over those from Southern and Eastern Europe.

The Democratic Party has collaborated in one attack after another on the social reforms with which it was once identified. The Democrats have spearheaded the attacks on public education, introduced major cuts in Medicare funding as part of Obamacare, and did not lift a finger to restore enforcement after the Supreme Court gutted the Voting Rights Act. They oppose Trump, not in defense of social services, but on behalf of sections of Wall Street and the military-intelligence apparatus, attacking the new administration over its supposed softness towards Russia.

It’s hard to put lipstick on that pig.  Thus we have it, Donald Trump is out of the picture and Paul Ryan, Reince Priebus and Mike Pence are enacting their agenda not that of Donald Trump.  Gone are the lofty promises of returning power to the people.  Trump’s pledges to work for the working men and women of our great country have been blown to bits and scattered to the wind by a coalition of Democrats and Republicans. 

If the Democrats think they can make a silk purse out of this sow’s ear, they are even more craven and disgusting than I thought.  Breaking news from WikiLeaks from FreeThought Project:

Excerpt:

Assange: Clinton Conspiring With Deep State to Oust Trump for “A Pence Takeover”

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange suggested on Twitter Tuesday Hillary Clinton and certain unnamed members of the U.S. Intelligence Community are plotting a takeover by Vice President Mike Pence.

“Clinton stated privately this month that she is quietly pushing for a Pence takeover,” Assange tweeted. “She stated that Pence is predictable hence defeatable.”

“Two IC officials close to Pence stated privately this month that they are planning on a Pence takeover,” he added in another tweet. “Did not state if Pence agrees.”

Further, he continued, “By handing unilateral power to the CIA over its drone strikes at this time White House signals that bullying, disloyalty & incompetence pays.”

In response to shocked reactions to the tweets, Pence lambasted Assange’s suggestion of a takeover as “absurd” and “frankly offensive” in an interview with radio host Laura Ingraham, asserting, “I would find all of that dialogue to be absurd and frankly offensive… 

To wit, the Wall Street Journal reported last night, “President Donald Trump has given the Central Intelligence Agency secret new authority to conduct drone strikes against suspected terrorists, U.S. officials said, changing the Obama administration’s policy of limiting the spy agency’s paramilitary role and reopening a turf war between the agency and the Pentagon…

Zero Hedge handily summarized what this coup brewing behind Washington D.C.’s curtains could entail for the rest of us:

 “No matter what one makes of Trump – or his administration and the policies that have been initiated thus far – the fact remains that Trump won the U.S. election. The people working behind the scenes to oust him are not subject to democratic controls, nor are they working in the best interests of the American public. We are left to ask ourselves exactly how renewing relations with Russia –  a nuclear power –  could possibly endanger American lives.    

“Either way, we are more or less left with two paths ahead of us. The first path involves Trump giving in and adopting an anti-Russian agenda, as is already apparent in his decision to send more ground troops to Syria alongside Saudi troops, who will intentionally oppose the Syrian regime (a close ally of Russia). The second involves the possibility of another direct coup within the Trump administration, this time one that may ultimately force Trump out of the White House so he can be replaced by Mike Pence, a war hawk who will be more than happy to do the job Hillary Clinton wanted to do.”

Well that didn’t take long.  The vortex of evil, Mike Pence and Paul Ryan are wielding the GOP meat cleaver to decimate America’s safety net while engorging the military industrial complex with cash, a neocon dream since the sixties.  The only question is, will Trump abandon the American people who put him in office and risk impeachment or worse assassination?  I guess time will tell but so far it doesn’t look good for America, there’s a devil inside.

By Patricia Baeten

Treason: Obama illegally wiretapped Trump campaign and fabricated Russian election hacking

My, my, my.  Oh what a tangled web we weave, as Obama continues to deceive.  What a liar.  The proverbial shit is hitting the fan in a fast and furious way.  Sunday morning when Donald Trump tweeted that President Barack Obama wiretapped Trump’s communications at Trump Tower, big media went into a rapid fire spin cycle to slur Trump as a conspiracy theorist.  My, my, my.  That great big lump under the media’s carpet isn’t going to go away.   What America needs now is a truth commission. 

Today Donald Trump issued a revised Executive Order banning travel into the United States from six predominantly Muslim counties ravaged by war that are unable to properly vet their people.  The order had to be revised due to a court order suspending the original order after congressional Democrats objected to Iraqi’s being included on the list.  Remember the tears and outrage on the part of Senate Minority Leader Chuck Schumer when the original travel ban was issued?

Why, you may ask was Chuck Schumer so upset.  Well it seems the Obama Democrats in congress have been employing members of the Muslim Brotherhood as their congressional staffers and allowed them access to our country’s most sensitive intelligence.  From The Daily Caller:

Excerpt:

EXCLUSIVE: House Dem IT Guys In Security Probe Secretly Took $100K In Iraqi Money

Rogue congressional staffers took $100,000 from an Iraqi politician while they had administrator-level access to the House of Representatives’ computer network, according to court documents examined by The Daily Caller News Foundation’s Investigative Group.

The money was a loan from Dr. Ali al-Attar, an Iraqi political figure, and was funneled through a company with “impossible”-to-decipher financial transactions that the congressional information technology (IT) staffers controlled. 

Imran Awan, ringleader of the group that includes his brothers Abid and Jamal, has provided IT services since 2005 for Florida Democrat Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz, the former Democratic National Committee (DNC) chairwoman. The brothers are from Pakistan.

The trio also worked for dozens of other House Democrats, including members of the intelligence, foreign affairs and homeland security committees. Those positions likely gave them access to congressional emails and other sensitive documents.  The brothers, whose access to House IT networks has been terminated, are under criminal investigation by the U.S. Capitol Police…

Wasserman Schultz resigned from her DNC post following a disastrous email hack during the 2016 campaign. Her House spokesman did not respond to The DCNF’s question Monday about Imran’s employment status. As of Feb. 6, she had declined to fire Imran. 

Investigators found that congressional information was being copied to an off-site server and they suspect the brothers of improperly accessing information and stealing congressional property. Chiefs of staff for the employing Democrats were notified Feb. 2.

Soon after Imran began working for members of Congress, Imran’s and Abid’s wives — Hina Alvi and Natalia Sova — also began receiving congressional paychecks, The DCNF found. Imran’s employers included two members of the intelligence committee, Indiana Democrat Rep. Andre Carson and California Democrat Rep. Jackie Speier.

By 2009, the family was simultaneously managing a full-time car dealership in Virginia, with Abid running day-to-day operations after contributing $250,000 in startup cash. It was called Cars International A, LLC, referred to as “CIA” in court documents… 

After Rao Abbas, who was owed money by the dealership, threatened to sue amid allegations of deception and theft, Abbas appeared on the congressional payroll and received $250,000 in taxpayer payments…

Despite numerous family members making $160,000 congressional salaries, debts went unpaid by the brothers, including to the Congressional Federal Credit Union.  “It was very bad record-keeping in Cars International … it is close to impossible to make any sense out of all the transactions that happened,” Khattak said in court documents.

The $100,000 loan came as the dealership continued to rack up debt, court records show.  “Ali Al-Attar was out of the country as he was involved in politics and the formation of the Iraqi government,” Khattak said in court documents…  “Having lost my and Abid’s collective investment of $500k due to Awan’s mismanagement, [CIA] was further in debt $400k to other creditors,” Khattak said in a lawsuit…

In 2012, Abid declared personal bankruptcy listing more than $1 million in liabilities. While debts to others went unpaid, he kept ownership of two houses, and Imran kept his own substantial property, despite his admitted role in the failed business.  Not long after, Abbas appeared for the first time on the congressional payroll, and collected $250,000 from taxpayers through the end of last year.

No wonder Chuck Schumer was crying crocodile tears.  The American people are being told that Donald Trump is making “unsubstantiated” claims that Obama wiretapped his communications.  Are we supposed to believe that?  All of the allegations by Obama’s Democrats that Russia hacked our election are total BS.  From Lew Rockwell:

Excerpt:

Washington and America Self-Implode at the Hands of a Treasonous, Obama Led Shadow Government

The United States federal government in Washington is under attack today. Our nation’s capital is presently under siege, not from military bombs or rockets fired by any foreign enemy but from powerful enemies within.

With Obama-Hillary-Soros forces ostensibly maneuvering outside official government channels, against America’s legitimately elected President Trump, and their loyalist foot soldiers – the neocons and intelligence community loyalists within the CIA/NSA/FBI still operating inside deep state, criminally conspiring with Mainstream Media, this sinister alliance is also organizing legions of clueless young leftist protesters to be at the ready for deployment in the streets to wreak havoc violently rioting as paid agitator insurgents.

At no time in our prior history has anything so openly subversive and treacherously treasonous ever been perpetrated on the United States of America before… the closest being the covert conspiracy singlehandedly thwarted by America’s military hero General Smedley Butler in 1934 when a band of elitist bankster traitors attempted a coup d’état against the FDR administration...

Trump rightfully called mainstream media fake news “an enemy of the American people.” Tactics deployed by MSM and Trump’s multiplicity of enemies are so blatantly illegal and highly unethical that as a fair-minded journalist seeking the truth, I feel compelled to address this demonization of Donald Trump perpetrated by the same crowd that’s been demonizing Vladimir Putin and Bashar al-Assad for years. Understanding the why and the wherefore of this unprecedented full-scale attack on a standing US president is key to recognizing the truly diabolical bigger picture unfolding at the behest of the planetary controllers…

The ruling elite’s longtime agenda has been to destroy the United States and the West from within. In reaction to last year’s growing anti-globalist movement, represented by the Brexit vote and “anti-establishment” Trump election, the elite is becoming desperately aggressive now, fighting for absolute domination and population control, insidiously whipping up unstable domestic conditions throughout the Western world, engineered to explode with racial, class, religious and politically charged civil war violence in both America and Europe…

In the meantime, deep state traitors are currently pushing humanity off their doomsday cliff into a totally insane and unjustified war against Russia, latching onto every illegally monitored communique between Trump administration officials and designated Russian enemies in order to oust the president’s closest staff advisors (first it was Michael Flynn and now under their gun is Attorney General Jeff Sessions), which of course only adds fuel to their anti-Putin and anti-Trump warmongering echo chamber incinerator…

Democrats are now charging Sessions with lying during his Senate confirmation hearings when he stated he knew of no conversations between Trump staff and the Russians. Then apparently once again through NSA deep state sources, like with Flynn before him, the opposition rag the Washington Post…  to reveal that Sessions did meet with Russian Ambassador Sergey Kislyak…

It has just been revealed that the source of all these illegal wiretap leaks at the Trump White House is former President Obama. The latest is Trump is claiming that Obama even wiretapped his Trump Towers. As early as June last year Obama requested a FISA warrant to spy on Trump for any contact with Russians. After FISA initially turned him down, in October it was granted.

Assigned the globalist mission to destroy America from within, for months Barack Hussein Obama has been busily mobilizing his anti-Trump opposition forces, both inside and outside of government. The topper is, Obama secretly signed an executive order just 17 days before he left office authorizing not only the NSA but 16 other intelligence agencies to illicitly collect surveillance on the Trump administration.

This readily explains how just 24 days on the job, National Security Advisor Flynn was the first to be targeted for removal by having his illegally taped classified conversations with the Russian ambassador criminally handed over to the Washington Post and now it’s Sessions turn to navigate this same conspiratorial ring of fire.

Man oh man, the shit is hitting the fan.  Big media is in full protection mode of the Obama White House cranking up the Wurlitzer and spinning away.  But this is not going to go away any time soon.  Can you imagine if Obama’s campaign had been wiretapped by an incumbent President?  This is really serious.  From Law Newz:

Excerpt:

Yes, There Could Be Serious Legal Problems if Obama Admin Involved in Illegal Surveillance

President Trump recently tweeted claiming that former President Obama wiretapped him during his campaign…  Do liberals understand what Pandora’s Box Obama opened up by Obama using the powers of the NSA, CIA and FBI to spy on his political opponents? Even Nixon never did that.

If the stories are correct, Obama or his officials might even face prosecution. But, we are still early in all of this and there are a lot of rumors flying around so the key is if the reports are accurate. We just don’t know at this time.

The stories currently are three-fold: first, that Obama’s team tried to get a warrant from a regular, Article III federal court on Trump, and was told no by someone along the way (maybe the FBI), as the evidence was that weak or non-existent; second, Obama’s team then tried to circumvent the federal judiciary’s independent role by trying to mislabel the issue one of “foreign agents,” and tried to obtain a warrant from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act “courts”, and were again turned down, when the court saw Trump named (an extremely rare act of FISA court refusal of the government, suggesting the evidence was truly non-existent against Trump); and so, third, Obama circumvented both the regular command of the FBI and the regularly appointed federal courts, by placing the entire case as a FISA case (and apparently under Sally Yates at DOJ) as a “foreign” case, and then omitted Trump’s name from a surveillance warrant submitted to the FISA court, which the FISA court unwittingly granted, which Obama then misused to spy on Trump and many connected to Trump. Are these allegations true? We don’t know yet, but if any part of them are then Obama and/or his officials could face serious trouble.

Can a President be charged with a crime? Only once out of office…   What crimes could have been committed? Ironically, for Democrats falsely accusing Attorney General Sessions, perjury and conspiracy to commit perjury, as well as intentional violations of FISA. Rather shockingly, no law currently forbids misusing the power of the presidency to spy on one’s adversaries. What the law does forbid is lying to any judicial officer to obtain any means of surveillance. What the law does forbid, under criminal penalty, is the misuse of FISA.

FISA can only be used for “foreign intelligence information…” An agent of a foreign power cannot be a United States person unless they are knowingly involved in criminal espionage. No warrant is allowed on that person unless a FISA court finds probable cause the United States person is knowingly engaged in criminal espionage. Even then, if it involves a United States person, special steps must be taken to “minimize the acquisition and retention, and prohibit the dissemination, of non publicly available information concerning un-consenting United States persons…”

Democrats may regret Sessions’ recusal, as his replacement is a mini-Sessions: a long-respected, a-political, highly ethical prosecutor, Dana Boente, whose reputation is well-warranted from his service at the Tax Division, and who won’t be limited by any perceived ties to Trump, given his prior appointment by Obama. Obama himself appeared scared of Boente, as he removed Boente from the successor-to-Sessions position during the lame-duck part of Obama’s presidency, but Trump restored Boente to that role earlier this month. Democrats may get the investigation they wanted, but it may be their own that end up named in the indictment.

The Obama Doctrine appears to be “lie and stick with it.” While past presidents move on to work on their libraries, Obama is setting up shop less than two miles from the White House to sabotage the Trump Administration.  From New York Post:

Excerpt:

How Obama is scheming to sabotage Trump’s presidency

When former President Barack Obama said he was “heartened” by anti-Trump protests, he was sending a message of approval to his troops. Troops? Yes, Obama has an army of agitators — numbering more than 30,000 — who will fight his Republican successor at every turn of his historic presidency. And Obama will command them from a bunker less than two miles from the White House.

In what’s shaping up to be a highly unusual post-presidency, Obama isn’t just staying behind in Washington. He’s working behind the scenes to set up what will effectively be a shadow government to not only protect his threatened legacy, but to sabotage the incoming administration and its popular “America First” agenda.

He’s doing it through a network of leftist nonprofits led by Organizing for Action… Obama is intimately involved in OFA operations and even tweets from the group’s account. In fact, he gave marching orders to OFA foot soldiers following Trump’s upset victory…

Far from sulking, OFA activists helped organize anti-Trump marches across US cities, some of which turned into riots. After Trump issued a temporary ban on immigration from seven terror-prone Muslim nations, the demonstrators jammed airports, chanting: “No ban, no wall, sanctuary for all!”

Run by old Obama aides and campaign workers, federal tax records show “nonpartisan” OFA marshals 32,525 volunteers nationwide. Registered as a 501(c)(4), it doesn’t have to disclose its donors, but they’ve been generous. OFA has raised more than $40 million in contributions and grants since evolving from Obama’s campaign organization Obama for America in 2013…

Obama will be overseeing it all from a shadow White House located within two miles of Trump. It features a mansion, which he’s fortifying with construction of a tall brick perimeter, and a nearby taxpayer-funded office with his own chief of staff and press secretary. Michelle Obama will also open an office there, along with the Obama Foundation.

The 55-year-old Obama is not content to go quietly into the night like other ex-presidents.

My, my, my.  Oh what a tangled web we weave, as Obama continues to deceive.  The Democrats have really gotten themselves into a dilemma.  They have joined forces with the Never Trump neocons and have sold their collective souls to the devil.  The facts are just beginning to come to light and big media is doing their best to extinguish that light.  We need a truth commission to investigate sedition in our congress, both Democrats and Republicans.  It’s time to restore the power to the people.

By Patricia Baeten