What does a TRUMP presidency look like?

[CountDeMoney]

What's the Susan Rice thing?

She got all uppity.

[grumbler]

What's the Susan Rice thing?

Some hack at National Review took a pretty opaque statement by Rice and claims it proves Obama did things worse than Watergate.

[HVC]

What's the Susan Rice thing?

She "unmasked" some Americans recorded talking with Russian diplomats. Happens to be that people close to the  Trumpster really like talking to Russians.

[CountDeMoney]

What's the Susan Rice thing?

She "unmasked" some Americans recorded talking with Russian diplomats. Happens to be that people close to the  Trumpster really like talking to Russians.

Like it's all still supposed to be anonymous or something to somebody like the National Security Advisor.

[The Minsky Moment]

To be clear, Rice didn't unmask anything.  She was given some intelligence reports that referred to conversations by intelligent targets with un-named US citizens.  She then asked the agency who collected the information to "unmask" the identities.  The collecting agency, applying the FISA law I quoted a few days back, did the unmasking.

Unmasking can occur either if:
(1) the information "relates to clandestine intelligence activities by an intelligence service or network of a foreign power or by an agent of a foreign power"
or
(2) "such person's identity is necessary to understand foreign intelligence information or assess its importance"

If I were Trump or his defender I wouldn't be so eager to underline the fact the Trump's people were caught on such communications.

[Razgovory]

But she murdered that Ambassador!

[jimmy olsen]

I'm truly baffled how he is getting away with this corruption and disregard for laws.
Surely there should be controls in place for this kind of situation?

Not really. The assumption of the founders was that the president would be someone competent that would want to do his job successfully, and if corrupt would at least have the sense and ability to hide that fact, lest he be impeached.

[Berkut]

The office of the President is one that actually lacks a lot of the formal restrictions of other offices. The checks on the President are largely informal and based on the assumption that the person elected would operate in good faith.

Absent that, the primary check if political - that if he does too much ridiculous shit, the Congress can always come pretty close to neutering him.

That system, so far, has failed spectacularly on both counts. Trump is not operating in good faith, and Congress so far has completely failed to challenge him politically.

The only check that has apparently worked as intended is the courts, but that is a very blunt instrument.

[CountDeMoney]

I'm truly baffled how he is getting away with this corruption and disregard for laws.
Surely there should be controls in place for this kind of situation?

Not really. The assumption of the founders was that the president would be someone competent that would want to do his job successfully, and if corrupt would at least have the sense and ability to hide that fact, lest he be impeached.

[CountDeMoney]

The only check that has apparently worked as intended is the courts, but that is a very blunt instrument.

For now.  They'll be gone soon enough.

[CountDeMoney]

Man, seems like every day there's a different former Trump supporter jumping ship...

Islamic State says U.S. 'being run by an idiot'
Reuters
World News | Tue Apr 4, 2017 | 1:57pm EDT


Islamic State said on Tuesday the United States was drowning and "being run by an idiot".

In the first official remarks by the group referring to President Donald Trump since he took office, spokesman Abi al-Hassan al-Muhajer said:

"America you have drowned and there is no savior, and you have become prey for the soldiers of the caliphate in every part of the earth, you are bankrupt and the signs of your demise are evident to every eye."

"... There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is," he said in a recording released on Tuesday on messaging network Telegram.

Trump has made defeating Islamic State a priority of his presidency.

U.S.-backed forces are fighting to retake Islamic State's two biggest cities - Mosul in Iraq and Raqqa in Syria.

"Die of spite America, die of spite, a nation where both young and old are racing to die in the name of God will not be defeated," al-Muhajer said.

Trump is examining ways to accelerate the U.S.-led coalition campaign that U.S. and Iraqi officials say has so far been largely successful in uprooting Islamic State militants in Iraq and Syria.

The loss of Mosul, Islamic State's last major stronghold in Iraq, would deal a major defeat to Islamic State.

U.S. and Iraqi officials are preparing for smaller battles after the city is recaptured and expect the group to go underground to fight as a traditional insurgency.

[Grinning_Colossus]

Islamic State says U.S. 'being run by an idiot'

"... There is no more evidence than the fact that you are being run by an idiot who does not know what Syria or Iraq or Islam is,"

I mean, ISIS also has a somewhat eccentric understanding of those concepts.

[CountDeMoney]

I mean, ISIS also has a somewhat eccentric understanding of those concepts.

At this point, I'd give them the edge on those Jeopardy! categories.  JAP ANUS RELATIONS

[jimmy olsen]

That system, so far, has failed spectacularly on both counts. Trump is not operating in good faith, and Congress so far has completely failed to challenge him politically.

They did kill his health care bill. That's a pretty big rebuke isn't it?

[jimmy olsen]

Sounds like the FBI is taking this seriously.

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/fbi-turns-heat-russian-election-162300405.html

FBI Turns Up the Heat on Russian Election Hacking Investigation

Rob Garver

The Fiscal Times
April 04, 2017

President Donald Trump has been trying very hard to convince his supporters that the ongoing FBI investigation into Russian interference in the US election and possible connections between members of his campaign and the Russian government are some sort of plot against him. Over the past several days, Trump has labeled the stories about the investigation "fake" and "a scam" on Twitter.

However, the Federal Bureau of Investigation appears to disagree. Over the weekend, The Financial Times revealed that the agency charged with counter-espionage investigations is ramping up its inquiry into Russian election-meddling by bringing a veteran agent back to Washington to head up a new 20-person unit dedicated to the direction of the sprawling effort.

One of the sources the FT relied on said that the change reflected a "surge" of new resources into the investigation, and was seen as confirmation that the agency is taking the case extremely seriously. At the same time, Trump has been using his social media accounts to point fingers everywhere but toward himself and his associates.

"When will Sleepy Eyes Chuck Todd and @NBCNews start talking about the Obama SURVEILLANCE SCANDAL and stop with the Fake Trump/Russia story?" he tweeted Saturday, referring to Democratic Senator Chuck Schumer. "It is the same Fake News Media that said there is "no path to victory for Trump" that is now pushing the phony Russia story. A total scam!"

By Sunday, he was touting a Fox News story from the previous day that he claimed proved that he and his associates had been "spied on" by the Obama administration. In fact, the story indicates, as was already known, that conversations involving people affiliated with Trump's campaign were picked up as part of routine monitoring of foreign diplomats and other non-US persons.

After Trump's claim last month that then-president Barack Obama had him wiretapped was debunked by intelligence officials, the argument turned to the question of whether the identity of Trump-related individuals was "unmasked" in reports disseminated within the intelligence community.

The Fox report on Saturday said that the "unmasking" was done at the request of a senior figure in the Intelligence Community. That, too sent trump to Twitter, to claim he had been "spied on" by the Obama administration. "If this is true, does not get much bigger. Would be sad for U.S.," he wrote.

On Monday morning, Bloomberg's Eli Lake wrote a story suggesting the unmasking of Trump associates in dozens of reports containing accounts of conversations between Trump associates and foreign actors came at the request of then-National Security Adviser Susan Rice.

According to Lake, "One U.S. official familiar with the reports said they contained valuable political information on the Trump transition such as whom the Trump team was meeting, the views of Trump associates on foreign policy matters and plans for the incoming administration."

This would dovetail with Trump's repeated claim that he was placed under surveillance for political reasons. However, it also raises a fairly obvious question: If this information was gathered for a political hit on Trump during the election year -- something that would be a stunning abuse of power -- why did nothing emerge given that it's now clear that there were multiple contacts between the Trump team and Russian officials during the campaign?

An alternative explanation is that Rice, as President Obama's National Security Adviser, had been informed that there was an active FBI investigation into the Russian meddling and the potential connection between the Kremlin and the Trump team and that she wanted to stay abreast of what intelligence agencies were finding.