Trump Trainwreck - Ongoing diary of betrayal and evil

[Eric the Green]

from Dave Kiehl

Sharing with permission. From an Environmental Protection Agency staffer. "So I work at the EPA and yeah it's as bad as you are hearing: The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can't be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.
Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response.
All grants and contracts are frozen from the contractors working on Superfund sites to grad school students working on their thesis.
We are still doing our work, writing reports, doing cancer modeling for pesticides hoping that this is temporary and we will be able to serve the public soon. But many of us are worried about an ideologically-fueled purging and if you use any federal data I advise you gather what you can now.
We have been told the website is being reworked to reflect the new administration's policy.
Feel free to copy and paste, you all pay for the government and you should know what's going on. I am posting this as a fellow citizen and not in any sort of official capacity."
If you share, please do so with copy and paste.

[Warren Dew]

(01-28-2017, 01:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: from Dave Kiehl

Sharing with permission. From an Environmental Protection Agency staffer. "So I work at the EPA and yeah it's as bad as you are hearing: The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can't be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.
Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response.
All grants and contracts are frozen from the contractors working on Superfund sites to grad school students working on their thesis.
We are still doing our work, writing reports, doing cancer modeling for pesticides hoping that this is temporary and we will be able to serve the public soon. But many of us are worried about an ideologically-fueled purging and if you use any federal data I advise you gather what you can now.
We have been told the website is being reworked to reflect the new administration's policy.
Feel free to copy and paste, you all pay for the government and you should know what's going on. I am posting this as a fellow citizen and not in any sort of official capacity."
If you share, please do so with copy and paste.

I'm  sure the so called "lockdown" will be raised as soon as Pruitt is confirmed and can put new policies and procedures in place.

It's not reasonable to expect anything to happen until Trump's nominees are confirmed, though.

[Eric the Green]

(01-28-2017, 10:03 PM)Warren Dew Wrote:

(01-28-2017, 01:28 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: from Dave Kiehl

Sharing with permission. From an Environmental Protection Agency staffer. "So I work at the EPA and yeah it's as bad as you are hearing: The entire agency is under lockdown, the website, facebook, twitter, you name it is static and can't be updated. All reports, findings, permits and studies are frozen and not to be released. No presentations or meetings with outside groups are to be scheduled.
Any Press contacting us are to be directed to the Press Office which is also silenced and will give no response.
All grants and contracts are frozen from the contractors working on Superfund sites to grad school students working on their thesis.
We are still doing our work, writing reports, doing cancer modeling for pesticides hoping that this is temporary and we will be able to serve the public soon. But many of us are worried about an ideologically-fueled purging and if you use any federal data I advise you gather what you can now.
We have been told the website is being reworked to reflect the new administration's policy.
Feel free to copy and paste, you all pay for the government and you should know what's going on. I am posting this as a fellow citizen and not in any sort of official capacity."
If you share, please do so with copy and paste.

I'm  sure the so called "lockdown" will be raised as soon as Pruitt is confirmed and can put new policies and procedures in place.

It's not reasonable to expect anything to happen until Trump's nominees are confirmed, though.

But those policies would be based on the sort of view that folks like you have on this issue, wouldn't they? In other words, the lockdown and censorship will continue. Bush showed the way for Trump on this.

[Eric the Green]

Trump Just Removed White Supremacist Groups From Terror Watch Program
By Grant Stern, Posted on February 2, 2017
http://occupydemocrats.com/2017/02/02/tr...h-program/

Reuters reports that the Trump regime is implementing a new change to America’s domestic terrorism programs that will officially install religious profiling against Muslims and remove the dangerous white supremacist extremist groups who are responsible for much violence across the United States from the watch lists.

The program, “Countering Violent Extremism,” or CVE, would be changed to “Countering Islamic Extremism” or “Countering Radical Islamic Extremism,” the sources said, and would no longer target groups such as white supremacists who have also carried out bombings and shootings in the United States.

Just in the past two years, authorities blamed radical and violent ideologies as the motives for a white supremacist’s shooting rampage inside a historic African-American church in Charleston, South Carolina and Islamist militants for shootings and bombings in California, Florida and New York.

A reporter at ThinkProgress tweeted that eliminating the tracking of America’s homegrown extremists similar to the Ku Klux Klan, certain far-right “patriot” groups and neo-Nazi groups will also eliminate the crucial tracking that the CVE program does to monitor the ranks of these hate-crime gangs and criminal enterprises.

[Eric the Green]

Journalists still not released, as far as I know...

Felony Charges for Journalists Arrested at
Inauguration Protests Raise Fears for Press Freedom
New York Times, by Jonah Engel Bromwich
Jan.26

At least six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering the violent protests that took place just blocks from President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington on Friday, according to police reports and court documents. The journalists were among 230 people detained in the anti-Trump demonstrations, during which protesters smashed the glass of commercial buildings and lit a limousine on fire. The charges against the journalists — Evan Engel, Alexander Rubinstein, Jack Keller, Matthew Hopard, Shay Horse and Aaron Cantu — have been denounced by organizations dedicated to press freedom.

[Eric the Green]

ABC News Hits Trump Hard With New Scandal, Leaked Documents Prove Guilt
By Friday Foster - February 4, 2017
http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/02/04/a...ove-guilt/

Donald Trump lied about surrendering control of his businesses to his sons. He didn’t give an alternative fact, nor did he misspeak, terms his chief advisor Kellyanne Conway has used to excuse her own lies and those of Donald Trump and Sean Spicer.

According to ABC News:

‘New documents confirm that Donald Trump retains a direct tie to his business interests through a revocable trust now being overseen by one of his adult sons and a longtime executive of the Trump Organization.’

ABC News further reports that Donald Trump “Is the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is tied to his Social Security number as the taxpayer identification number, according to documents published online by the investigative nonprofit ProPublica.”

The new information regarding the trust was in a letter dated 27 Jan 17, addressed to the Washington Liquor Board. Trump’s trust has a liquor license for one of its hotels that opened last year in a building owned by the federal government. Nothing about any of that sounds ethical.

Further skewing the lines between the potential for abuse of power and gaining financially because of that abuse of power, ABC asserts:

‘The trust contains a mix of cash from Trump’s sales of stock investments over the summer and his physical and intellectual properties, such as Trump Tower in New York, Mar-a-Lago in Florida and branding rights.’

Per Trump’s tweets regarding the operation of his businesses:

Even though I am not mandated by law to do so, I will be leaving my busineses before January 20th so that I can focus full time on the……

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2016

Presidency. Two of my children, Don and Eric, plus executives, will manage them. No new deals will be done during my term(s) in office.

— Donald J. Trump (@realDonaldTrump) December 13, 2016

While Trump seemed intentional about tweeting the caveat about not being “mandated by law” to sign-over his businesses, countless political and legal experts have made it clear that his dual roles are an ethical nightmare. Although ABC confirms that the new information regarding Trump’s businesses “align with what Trump and attorney Sheri Dillon outlined,” it proves that Dillon and Trump played semantics and framed their information in what will sound/feel to many as a lie of omission.

A lie of omission is still a lie. Whether those who voted for Trump knew he was a billionaire businessperson before they elected him or not, the American people deserve to be represented by someone whose decisions will be based on the needs of the country’s citizens, not their person pocketbook. No matter how Trump spins this, he lied about what the structure of his businesses will look like and who will benefit from their earnings while he is in office.

To review the footage from the presser at which Trump cleverly played with words to announce the “transfer” of his holdings to his sons, watch the clip below, via YouTube:

[Eric the Green]

(02-03-2017, 04:35 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Journalists still not released, as far as I know...

Felony Charges for Journalists Arrested at
Inauguration Protests Raise Fears for Press Freedom
New York Times, by Jonah Engel Bromwich
Jan.26

At least six journalists were charged with felony rioting after they were arrested while covering the violent protests that took place just blocks from President Trump’s inauguration parade in Washington on Friday, according to police reports and court documents. The journalists were among 230 people detained in the anti-Trump demonstrations, during which protesters smashed the glass of commercial buildings and lit a limousine on fire. The charges against the journalists — Evan Engel, Alexander Rubinstein, Jack Keller, Matthew Hopard, Shay Horse and Aaron Cantu — have been denounced by organizations dedicated to press freedom.

Charges dropped against more journalists arrested after inauguration rioting

By Jack MooreJanuary 30, 2017 5:23 pm


http://wtop.com/dc/2017/01/charges-dropp...n-rioting/

Police fire pepper spray on protestors during a demonstration after the inauguration of President Donald Trump, Friday, Jan. 20, 2017, in Washington. (AP Photo/John Minchillo)

WASHINGTON — Prosecutors in D.C. Monday moved to dismiss rioting charges against three journalists arrested after a violent outburst by protesters shortly before the inauguration of President Donald Trump.

Felony rioting charges were dropped Monday against RT America reporter Alex Rubinstein, documentary producer Jack Keller and independent journalist Matt Hopard.
[color=#111111]
Photos: Inauguration protests in DC
On Jan. 20, Donald Trump was sworn in as the 45th president of the United States. Americans flocked to the nation’s capital to both celebrate and protest the new president.

“After a review of evidence presented to us by law enforcement, we have concluded that we will not proceed with the charges against the three defendants, who are journalists,” Bill Miller, a spokesman for the U.S. attorney’s office for D.C., said in a statement Monday.

Prosecutors are continuing to work with D.C. to review evidence, Miller said.

“As in all our cases, we are always willing to consider additional information that people bring forward,” he said in the statement.

In all six journalists were among the 230 people arrested after a group of protesters began smashing windows in downtown D.C. and later clashed with police on Jan. 20.

Last week, the U.S. attorney’s office announced it was dropping charges against another of the journalists, Evan Engel with the online news site Vocativ.

As of Monday afternoon, felony rioting charges had not yet been dropped against independent journalists Shay Horse and Aaron Cantu.

The American Civil Liberties Union has raised concerns about the journalists’ arrests and police conduct during the inauguration.

Monica Hopkins-Maxwell, the executive director of the ACLU of the District of Columbia, said last week the group reviewing whether police indiscriminately corralled protesters including journalists.

In a response to a previous WTOP inquiry, a D.C. police spokesman said police are directed to try to identify journalists and not arrest them during protests. Journalists who were initially detained in downtown D.C. on Inauguration Day who could provide media credentials were released, the spokesman said in the statement.

“Information regarding all other individuals arrested at that time was presented to the US Attorney’s Office, which made the determination to charge those detained with felony rioting,” the spokesman said in a statement. “Currently, the investigation is being carried out by the US Attorney’s Office.”

[Galen]

(02-06-2017, 02:37 PM)Eric the Obtuse Wrote: ABC News Hits Trump Hard With New Scandal, Leaked Documents Prove Guilt
By Friday Foster - February 4, 2017
http://bipartisanreport.com/2017/02/04/a...ove-guilt/

Donald Trump lied about surrendering control of his businesses to his sons. He didn’t give an alternative fact, nor did he misspeak, terms his chief advisor Kellyanne Conway has used to excuse her own lies and those of Donald Trump and Sean Spicer.

According to ABC News:

‘New documents confirm that Donald Trump retains a direct tie to his business interests through a revocable trust now being overseen by one of his adult sons and a longtime executive of the Trump Organization.’

ABC News further reports that Donald Trump “Is the sole beneficiary of the Donald J. Trump Revocable Trust, which is tied to his Social Security number as the taxpayer identification number, according to documents published online by the investigative nonprofit ProPublica.”

That would be the normal way to go about this sort of thing.  What Trump did was surrender day to day control of his business to his sons.  I never thought that he would give up those assets permanently and you are an idiot if you thought he would.  Now that I think of it, I don't recall any other presidents even going this far.

[Eric the Green]

Some people here have suggested that the Democrats and progressives must "pick their battles." I say no. The Democrats are going to need to block virtually everything, every day. They can't "pick their battles."

Trump and the GOP are not legit. They don't have a mandate, and they should not get their way in their project to empower billionaires, hurt the common people, destroy the environment and take away human rights.

And whatever Galen said, and I ignored, was wrong

[Galen]

(02-06-2017, 03:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some people here have suggested that the Democrats and progressives must "pick their battles." I say no. The Democrats are going to need to block virtually everything, every day. They can't "pick their battles."

If Reid hadn't of eliminated the filibuster for most presidential appointments then the Dims wouldn't be in this situation.  McConnell would leave the filibuster intact but knowing that his opponents will eliminate the filibuster when an nominee they favor comes up provide him with the incentive to go nuclear at this point.  The only reason they haven't now is because they are waiting to see if the Dims are going to be even remotely sane.

I don't think the Dims are even remotely in a position to block everything.

[Eric the Green]

I guess if Democrats can't stop the trainwreck, judges can. And foreign governments can. Unless of course Drump just rolls over the law and foreign governments.

http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/08/middleeast...-missions/

Yemen requests no US ground missions without approval after raid
By Hakim Almasmari and Angela Dewan, CNN
Updated 2:07 PM ET, Wed February 8, 2017

Sanaa, Yemen (CNN)Yemen's government has requested that the United States stop ground operations in the country unless it has the government's full approval after an anti-terror raid authorized by US President Donald Trump killed civilians, two senior Yemeni defense officials told CNN on Wednesday.

The Yemeni officials said the government had sent a firm message to the US administration condemning the January 29 operation that left one US Navy Seal dead along with Yemeni women and children, complaining of a lack of coordination with its officials.

A US defense official, however, told CNN that "nothing has changed" in terms of restrictions on American counterterrorism efforts. The defense official said Yemen officials were notified of last month's raid before it happened.

And acting US State Department spokesman Mark Toner told CNN on Wednesday that counterterror operations are "consistent with international law and in coordination with the government of Yemen."

"We will not relent in our mission to degrade, disrupt and destroy al Qaeda and ISIS," Toner said.

The operation, according to US defense officials, was geared toward collecting as much intelligence as possible on al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula, or AQAP, to facilitate future raids and strikes against the extremist group and prevent terror attacks.

Intelligence collection wasn't the only objective of the raid -- the group's leader Qassim al-Rimi was also a target, a senior US military official told CNN on Monday.

Toner added, "Yemen suffers most directly from the threat of AQAP and (President Abdu Rabbu Mansour Hadi) has been a stalwart partner in the fight against AQAP and ISIS. We will continue to work with him and his representatives to ensure that this important partnership remains solid in order to ultimately eradicate AQAP/ISIS from Yemen."

One of the Yemeni officials told CNN on Wednesday that "the green light the US had for conducting ground missions is now red."

"That's what happens when a mission goes wrong," said the official on condition of anonymity, adding that military leaders were unaware of the operation.

"From the intelligence we have, conducting a raid was the wrong option and failure was written all over it. The only side that gained is al Qaeda."

The two Yemeni officials are loyal to the internationally recognized government of Hadi, whose administration operates from the southern city of Aden. Houthi rebels have taken over the capital, Sanaa, and other key parts of the country.
'In the hot seat'

Reportedly among the dead was the 8-year-old the daughter of Anwar al-Awlaki, the late US-born cleric who directed attacks against the United States. Awlaki was killed in 2011.

Reprieve, a London-based nongovernmental organization, and a Sanaa-based human rights worker told CNN that at least 23 civilians were killed in the January attack.

One of the Yemeni officials said that Yemen did not want to lose the United States as a key ally, "but their actions and killing of innocent civilians are putting us in the hot seat in front of our people."

The raid was the first authorized by Trump shortly after he took the oath of office, but multiple officials told CNN the mission had been planned months in advance and briefed to President Barack Obama.

Both defense and Obama administration officials said the operation was never vetoed by Obama and that "operational reasons" were why it was pushed back after January 20 and why Obama left the task of authorizing the raid to his successor.

Journalist Hakim Almasmari reported from Sanaa, and CNN's Angela Dewan wrote and reported from London.

[pbrower2a]

(02-06-2017, 04:09 PM)Galen Wrote:

(02-06-2017, 03:58 PM)Eric the Green Wrote: Some people here have suggested that the Democrats and progressives must "pick their battles." I say no. The Democrats are going to need to block virtually everything, every day. They can't "pick their battles."

If Reid hadn't of eliminated the filibuster for most presidential appointments then the (Democrats -- insulting smear redacted) wouldn't be in this situation.  McConnell would leave the filibuster intact but knowing that his opponents will eliminate the filibuster when an nominee they favor comes up provide him with the incentive to go nuclear at this point.  The only reason they haven't now is because they are waiting to see if the Dims are going to be even remotely sane.

"Remotely sane" in your expression means that Democrats accept that their role in American political life is to acquiesce in whatever our would-be dictator Trump wants. America has never worked that way; I would prefer that the United States of America splinter into its fifty states even if some become fascist dictatorships than that the United States become one unitary Evil Empire as repressive as the Soviet Union at least in the Brezhnev era on non-economic matters. If you wonder what a society as repressive as the USSR under Brezhnev but with the freedom of economic indulgence for economic elites and near-serfdom for the poor looks like, then think of Chile under Pinochet.

Commie-style 'democratic centralism', which is anything but democratic, is fine with you so long as it serves your plutocratic dream. C'est vrai, n'est-ce pas?

(I really must practice my French in case I must move to Canada).

I've met people from Pinochet's Chile during the dictatorship.  They made very clear to me that I didn't want to visit such a political nightmare even if it has spectacular scenery, a rich culture, and (in its most populous areas) climates analogous to those off coastal California. Should I have to flee America for my political beliefs, Chile would be near the top of my list of countries in which I would want refuge -- because I would rather be where people appreciate political freedom enough to stay clear of demagogues.

Quote:I don't think the (Democrats -- insulting smear again redacted) are even remotely in a position to block everything.

We Democrats are operating with 48% representation in a political system in which the 52% now operate on the principle "We won and you are done -- forever!" which is utterly novel, and contrary to 220+ years of Constitutional government. But it is compatible with dictatorship, as in China, where the nominal opposition gets to have an ineffective presence with but 30%  representation. To be sure, the political culture has changed, at least with the Right becoming more rapacious and intolerant, something that this Crisis Era either corrects with a revival of freedom or endorses with the descent into tyranny.

Face it, Galen: you are no libertarian. You believe in a pure dominion of economic elites in political and economic life with the rest of Humanity obliged to suffer to the extent necessary for the maximal indulgence of those elites.

[Eric the Green]

Yes, face it Galen.

[Eric the Green]

Wow, what a betrayal this would be to all the folks who said Trump would be about "America First" and non-intervention! The worst neo-con hawk in America! Trump wants him for whut???

from info@justforeignpolicy.org

Elliott Abrams, a neoconservative who championed the Iraq war in the Bush White House, is reportedly emerging as Trump's choice to be Deputy Secretary of State. While serving at the State Department under Reagan, Abrams covered up gross human rights abuses by the governments of Guatemala and El Salvador. In 1991, Abrams was convicted of lying to Congress about the Iran-Contra affair. [1]

Urge the President & your Senators to oppose Elliott Abrams by signing our petition at MoveOn.

Republican Senator Rand Paul, a longtime critic of the neocons, has said he opposes Abrams' nomination. [2] Christopher Preble of the less-war, less-Empire Cato Institute calls the idea of nominating Elliott Abrams to the State Department "baffling." [3] As Senator Elizabeth Warren wrote during the Democratic presidential primary, "personnel is policy." [4]

Urge President Trump and your Senators to oppose the nomination of neocon Elliott Abrams to the State Department by signing and sharing our petition.

Thanks for all you do to help make U.S. foreign policy more just,

Robert Naiman, Avram Reisman, and Sarah Burns
Just Foreign Policy

[Eric the Green]

I see what you mean from an abstract point of view. But Elliot Abrams will not mitigate anything. He is a complete creep and dunkardhead. Trump has outdone himself again, appointing the worst possible people for every position in the government.

[Marypoza]

(02-10-2017, 02:07 AM)Eric the Green Wrote: I see what you mean from an abstract point of view. But Elliot Abrams will not mitigate anything. He is a complete creep and dunkardhead. Trump has outdone himself again, appointing the worst possible people for every position in the government.

-- yeah l know. I keep reminding myself the Donald's 2 favorite wds are you're fired. Hopefully we'll be hearing alot of that as the yr wears on.......

[Eric the Green]

Surprise, surprise!!!

‘He doesn’t like this sh*t’: Trump reportedly hates his job and his staff after less than a month
Travis Gettys
10 FEB 2017 AT 08:38 ET
http://www.rawstory.com/2017/02/he-doesn...n-a-month/

After just three weeks on the job, President Donald Trump is reportedly frustrated with the realities of trying to run the U.S. government the way he manages his family-owned business.

Politico interviewed nearly two dozen people who have spent time with the former real estate developer and reality TV star since his inauguration — and they said Trump’s “mood has careened between surprise and anger as he’s faced the predictable realities of governing,” according to the report.

“The interviews paint a picture of a powder-keg of a workplace where job duties are unclear, morale among some is low, factionalism is rampant and exhaustion is running high,” Politico reported. “Two visitors to the White House last week said they were struck by how tired the staff looks.”

Trump would like to shake up his White House staff less than a month into the job but knows it’s too soon, the website reported, and aides joke that the president would like to spend even more time golfing at his Mar-A-Lago resort.

Sources close to Trump said he’s infuriated by the profusion of leaks revealing his confrontational phone calls with world leaders and the herky-jerky inner workings of the White House.

The White House has launched an investigation of those leaks that appears to be focused on the National Security Council, based on the Politico report.

NSC staffers have been instructed to cooperate with the inquiry, and the administration may tighten the inner circle of aides who have access to the calls and their transcripts, the website reported.

A culture of fear and paranoia is developing, pitting the president and his allies against career NSC staff assigned from other agencies.

The Trump circle believe those career bureaucrats are out to get them, while NSC staffers are concerned the president isn’t up to the job and resent the politicization of the agency by appointing Bannon to the council.

Staffers fear Kushner because he’s so close to the president, and they aren’t really sure of his official role in the White House.

For his part, Kushner is furious at reports that New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie has been saying he will join the White House as part of a “second wave” after the president’s son-in-law got him banished from the transition team as retribution for prosecuting his father.

Sources said Trump often asks simple questions about his job, and he usually changes the subject when discussions become too detail-oriented to make it seem as if he’s in control, said one senior government official.

Trump prefers to hand off detailed questions to his son-in-law, Jared Kushner, or to chief strategist Steve Bannon or House Speaker Paul Ryan, the website reported.

Those sources also revealed that Trump has privately expressed disbelief that judges, bureaucrats and lawmakers are able to halt him from filling government positions or implementing policies.

“He doesn’t like this sh*t,” a source told Politico, referring to the difficulties Trump faced in getting one of his top fundraisers, Anthony Scaramucci, appointed to a job in the West Wing.

However, sources said Trump appears to enjoy showing visitors around the Oval Office, where he spends most of his working hours, and keeping tabs on how his staffers look on TV news.

[Eric the Green]

US investigators corroborate some aspects of the Russia dossier

By Jim Sciutto and Evan Perez, CNN
Updated 5:25 PM ET, Fri February 10, 2017
(see video here)
http://www.cnn.com/2017/02/10/politics/r...er-update/

another video:




Washington (CNN) For the first time, US investigators say they have corroborated some of the communications detailed in a 35-page dossier compiled by a former British intelligence agent, multiple current and former US law enforcement and intelligence officials tell CNN. As CNN first reported, then-President-elect Donald Trump and President Barack Obama were briefed on the existence of the dossier prior to Trump's inauguration.

None of the newly learned information relates to the salacious allegations in the dossier. Rather it relates to conversations between foreign nationals. The dossier details about a dozen conversations between senior Russian officials and other Russian individuals. Sources would not confirm which specific conversations were intercepted or the content of those discussions due to the classified nature of US intelligence collection programs.

But the intercepts do confirm that some of the conversations described in the dossier took place between the same individuals on the same days and from the same locations as detailed in the dossier, according to the officials. CNN has not confirmed whether any content relates to then-candidate Trump.

The corroboration, based on intercepted communications, has given US intelligence and law enforcement "greater confidence" in the credibility of some aspects of the dossier as they continue to actively investigate its contents, these sources say.

Reached for comment this afternoon, White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer said, "We continue to be disgusted by CNN's fake news reporting."

Spicer later called back and said, "This is more fake news. It is about time CNN focused on the success the President has had bringing back jobs, protecting the nation, and strengthening relationships with Japan and other nations. The President won the election because of his vision and message for the nation."

Spokespeople for the FBI, Department of Justice, CIA and Office of the Director of National Intelligence declined to comment.

US intelligence officials emphasize the conversations were solely between foreign nationals, including those in or tied to the Russian government, intercepted during routine intelligence gathering.

Some of the individuals involved in the intercepted communications were known to the US intelligence community as "heavily involved" in collecting information damaging to Hillary Clinton and helpful to Donald Trump, two of the officials tell CNN.

Until now, US intelligence and law enforcement officials have said they could not verify any parts of the dossier.

Officials who spoke to CNN cautioned they still have not reached any judgment on whether the Russian government has any compromising information about the President.

Officials did not comment on or confirm any alleged conversations or meetings between Russian officials and US citizens, including associates of then-candidate Trump.

One of the officials stressed to CNN they have not corroborated "the more salacious things" alleged in the dossier.

CNN has not reported any of the salacious allegations.

Trump dismissed the entire dossier last month during his only news conference as President-elect, saying in January, "It's all fake news. It's phony stuff. It didn't happen."

The dossier was commissioned as opposition research by political opponents of then-candidate Trump and compiled by a former British intelligence agent. US intelligence agencies checked out the former MI6 operative and his vast network throughout Europe and found him and his sources to be credible.

[Eric the Green]

Scarborough: Trump Will Be Impeached in 6 Months If He Defies Courts

(MSNBC/"Morning Joe")
By Sandy Fitzgerald | Monday, 13 Feb 2017 08:16 AM
http://www.newsmax.com/Politics/Scarboro...r=hqcu7l3o

MSNBC “Morning Joe” host Joe Scarborough warned Monday that President Donald Trump will face "impeachment proceedings within the next six months" if he follows White House Policy Adviser Stephen Miller's advice to defy court rulings on his immigration order.

During weekend TV appearances, Miller insisted courts in Seattle and San Francisco took "power for themselves that belong squarely" with the president in their immigration rulings.

"I'm just telling you right now, Monday, Feb. 13, 2017, if that sort of thinking were enacted into policy, we would have impeachment proceedings within the next six months," the "Morning Joe" host and former Republican congressman said on his program.

"Donald Trump would be impeached if they did not adhere to what the courts were saying."

Perhaps, said Scarborough, maybe Miller is "just dumb. Maybe he is ignorant and maybe I shouldn't be so tough on him. That is the worst performance of anybody. That made Susan Rice, the Sunday after Benghazi, look smooth. That was horrendous and an embarrassment."

On Sunday, Miller, appeared on morning news programming on several networks, where he insisted that the courts were wrong with their rulings on Trump's executive order on immigration. The president praised Miller's appearances through a Sunday tweet.


Donald J. Trump ✔ @realDonaldTrump
Congratulations Stephen Miller- on representing me this morning on the various Sunday morning shows. Great job!
7:41 AM - 12 Feb 2017

On ABC's "This Week with George Stephanopoulos," Miller sparred with Stephanopoulos, telling him that the "judiciary is not supreme," and that the judges at both the 9th Circuit and in Seattle took "power for themselves that belong squarely" with the president.

Further, Miller said, the "the end result of this, though, is that our opponent, the media, and the whole world will soon see, as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned.

"And the bottom line is the president's powers in this area represent the apex of executive authority."

"They will be questioned by the court," Scarborough said, pointing his remarks directly at Miller. "It's called judicial review. Alexander Hamilton and James Madison wrote about it in the Federalist Papers. It was enshrined in Madison's Constitution."

He further told Miller to go into Trump's office and look on the walls and see the paintings of Jackson and the books he wrote.

"You really need to go back and read the Constitution and, seriously, the White House has got to stop embarrassing themselves by putting this guy up," Scarborough said.

Bloomberg Politics co-editor John Heilemann, though, said Miller's comments amounted to an assertion that "'I don't want the president not being questioned, but nearly unlimited executive branch authority to do whatever it wants.'"

"That is the talk of a dictator and not somebody who is president of the United States," said Scarborough. "I would hope the president of the United States would fill up his lunch box, put him in the corner and put him at his desk and have him read the United States Constitution and have him read the Federalist Papers and have him read the words of our Founding Fathers and have him read the words of Andrew Jackson."

Show co-host Mika Brzezinski, though, commented that the White House loves Miller, and that he has "the whole inner cadre" of the Trump administration.

Scarborough went on to question why Trump and his staff are fighting so hard against the courts.

"Any fool — any fool in their first day of law school knows — I knew the second I heard the 9th Circuit, they are going to overturn this or put a stay on it and it will get to the Supreme Court and they will turn it around," said Scarborough.

"They've got the Supreme Court. They are going to get their fifth vote. They are going to fill up hundreds of judicial vacancies over the next couple of years. So he is picking a fight and sounding like an autocrat. Are they testing this to see if we are going to sit back like sheep and say nothing?"

Scarborough said he does not agree with the 9th Circuit's decision to keep a stay on Trump's executive order, and that it was "wrongly decided," but questions Miller's comments about the president's powers and that it will not be questioned.

Washington Post associate editor David Ignatius, also on the program, said that what Miller said sounded as if it came from "another country."

"One of the things that Stephen Miller said was talking about the unelected judges thinking they can run things, Donald Trump's own comment about the so-called judge, referring to the judge in Washington who made the initial district ruling, these are deeply offensive to our system and deeply offensive to judges," said Ignatius.

"Judges do not like being singled out in this way and having their authority challenged. The issue here is judicial review. It is central to our system of government. You are absolutely right in that Stephen Miller doesn't seem to get that. But we are a long way, I think, from courts and their role being overturned."

Ignatius said he does think Trump is seeing the reality of his choices, but what Miller said
"should worry everyone."

"There are some anti-democratic, anti-constitutional forces in that White House," said Scarborough.

The arguments came on the day after Scarborough and Brzezinski launched a Twitter attack against Miller Sunday night, with Brzezinski tweeting five messages calling Miller's interviews "frightening" and a "bad sign," and launching a new hashtag, #MillerTime2go, the Washington Examiner reports.

Scarborough tweeted that the White House is living in an "alternative universe."

[Eric the Green]

From People for the American Way:
(please note, Classic Xer)

Eric,

Trump senior policy adviser Stephen Miller made the rounds on the Sunday news shows to assail the federal judges who have ruled against the administration’s anti-Muslim refugee and travel ban, and expanded Trump’s attack on the independence of the judiciary.

Miller’s statements accused the courts of “remaking laws” and seeking “judicial law".....

Perhaps the most chilling moment of Miller’s interviews was the one in which he told CBS’s John Dickerson:

"The end result of this, though, is that our opponents, the media, and the whole world will soon see as we begin to take further actions, that the powers of the president to protect our country are very substantial and will not be questioned."

The powers of the president … will not be questioned?

Trump and his administration’s contempt for checks and balances and the independence of the judiciary is reaching new heights, and it’s becoming even more clear that Trump’s litmus test for judges is nothing short of blind deference to Trump and his agenda.

We CANNOT let Trump’s rubber-stamp Supreme Court nominee Neil Gorsuch get confirmed.

New polling from Hart Research shows a massive opportunity for us to grow public opposition to Gorsuch:

"Just 42 percent say the Senate should confirm Neil Gorsuch, while 58 percent either oppose confirmation or are not yet ready to decide," according to Hart’s pollsters. They add, "Significantly, once voters learn a bit more about Neil Gorsuch's record and philosophy, opposition to his confirmation doubles…”

Trump’s repeated attacks on judicial independence are a clear indicator of his plans for the federal courts. Remember, last month Trump adviser and confidant Roger Stone was quoted in Politico saying, in no uncertain terms, that loyalty to the president was a key qualification for any Supreme Court nominee:

“If Trump is going to be a transformational president, not a transitional president, he needs a supportive court,” said Roger Stone, a longtime Trump adviser. “Not a conservative court, not a right-wing court -- a Trump court.”

To say that all of this raises red flags would be putting it mildly. The bar for any Supreme Court nominees from this president must be extremely high, and Neil Gorsuch doesn’t even come close to clearing that bar.

Gorsuch’s name came from a list of 21 ultraconservative potential Supreme Court nominees Trump released during the campaign that was compiled for him by right-wing extremist groups like the Heritage Foundation. That list, of which Gorsuch was one of the most conservative, was almost universally cheered by the most bigoted and regressive factions of the Far Right, as was the Gorsuch nomination itself.

Trump and Senate Republicans owe America a consensus choice, made in consultation with senators from both parties -- like Obama’s nominee to that same Supreme Court seat, Merrick Garland. NO ONE on that list of 21 is a product of consultation. By choosing a nominee from that list, Trump may have made good on a campaign promise to the Radical Right but he flouted the constitutional requirement for advice and consent from senators.

When Trump picked Gorsuch, he was not seeking consultation, he was saying “take it or leave it” … and senators need to call Trump on his overreach and LEAVE IT.