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Wednesday, April 5, 2017
The Susan Rice saga: Murky allegations and media reluctance
If the MSM could ignore 'golf and grandchildren' this should be no problem. After all, when you're fishing for Russians and unexpectedly catch Trumpsters who's fault is that?
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The Susan Rice situation is murky, but one thing that’s crystal clear is that she’s changing her story.
And that is raising a whole lot of questions about the tangled allegations that the Obama administration “unmasked” Donald Trump or his associates when they were picked up on foreign intercepts.
When Rice was asked about this by PBS’s Judy Woodruff a couple of weeks ago, the former national security adviser said she knew nothing about it and was just learning about it from news reports.
It never gets old. Head of the NSA... but learns everything from the news reports.
But in the wake of reports by Fox News and Bloomberg’s Eli Lake that Rice had done the unmasking, she broke her silence yesterday on MSNBC.
“It was not uncommon” to make these requests and “necessary” to do her job, Rice told Andrea Mitchell. She needed to know the names of the Americans picked up on the intercepts, but it’s “absolutely false” to say this was done “for political purposes.”
So she’s now gone from professed ignorance to nothing improper.
In fairness to Rice, it may turn out that what she did was perfectly legal. But there are now a whole host of troubling questions.
Did she seek the identities of Trump folks solely for intelligence reasons, or did she have political motivations?
Who did she share the information with?
Did she leak any of the findings, or cause them to be leaked? Rice denied leaking anything to do with her successor, Michael Flynn, whose false denials about contacts with the Russian ambassador led President Trump to fire him. “I leaked nothing to nobody and never have and never would,” she said.
This brings us to the role of the media.
Since the allegations were minimized yesterday by the Washington Post and New York Times (with the Times depicting them as something bouncing around conservative media), some critics on the right say they are covering for Rice. ABC and NBC didn't cover them on Monday's evening newscasts, while the "CBS Evening News" quoted a former official as saying Rice did "nothing improper or political."
I’d suggest the situation is complicated. It looks to me that many news outlets were unable to confirm the allegations, which raises the dilemma of whether you publish something based on other outlets citing unnamed sources when your own reporters can’t verify it.
Of course, some of these same outlets have run with stories, also involving anonymous sources, about alleged collusion between Trump associates and Russia.
It’s fair to say they are more enthusiastic about that story.
But there’s a difference between not confirming publishing allegations and denigrating them, which is what some at CNN have been doing.
Anchor Don Lemon told viewers “we will not insult your intelligence” by suggesting the Trump team was spied on illegally, “nor will we aid and abet the people who are trying to misinform you, the American people, by creating a diversion.”
How does Lemon know it’s a diversion? Shouldn’t he want to know all the facts? It’s true that the latest story does not confirm Trump’s original charge that the previous administration targeted him for wiretapping, but that doesn’t mean other surveillance was properly handled.
CNN’s national security correspondent, Jim Sciutto, was equally condescending, saying the Bloomberg scoop on Rice was “largely ginned up, partly as a distraction from this larger investigation.”
Not only is Sciutto dismissing legitimate questions, he worked for the Obama State Department as a diplomat from 2011 to 2013. I think the better course would have been to recuse himself.
Right now the media are on two different planets: Those more interested in proving a Russia/Trump conspiracy and those more interested in proving an Obama surveillance conspiracy. Hard facts are hard to come by, but it would be nice if the same standards were applied to both parts of this bizarre story.
Friday, March 31, 2017
Drexel professor wanted to 'vomit' after service member given courtesy seat on plane
Drexel University · Tuition
$51,030 USD (2016)
You may want to think twice before sending you kid here.
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An anti-white Drexel professor said he was disgusted a fellow traveler gave up their seat for a uniformed member of the military.
Then it was time for the rest of the Internet to register its disgust.
The Twitter backlash was swift for George Ciccariello, a visiting researcher at the National Autonomous University of Mexico who had a bad taste in his mouth after witnessing a kind act.
“Some guy gave up his first class seat for a uniformed soldier. People are thanking him. I’m trying not to vomit or yell about Mosul,” Ciccariello tweeted on March 26.
Conservative writer Ben Shapiro replied: “Because you’re a douchebag?”
After Ciccariello apparently blocked Washington Times columnist Madison Gesiotto, she wrote: “Maybe he’s busy vomiting.”
This isn’t the first time Ciccariello has drawn ire for his tweets.
In 2015 Ciccariello wrote “Abolish the White Race” and said Charleston church shooter Dylann Roof “put into practice what many white Americans already think.” In December 2016 he referred to two men in a viral video as “Racist Crackers.”
Ciccariello’s account, @ciccmaher, has its tweets protected; however, several of the more inflammatory messages have been archived.
The professor gave a statement to Fox 29, part of which reads: "Two days after U.S. airstrikes incinerated an estimated 200 civilians in the Iraqi city of Mosul, I sent a personal tweet in reaction to what I considered a smug and self-congratulatory gesture by a first-class passenger toward a uniformed soldier. Maybe predictably, my tweet has since been fed into and misrepresented by the outrage machine that is right-wing media. Needless to say, my personal views expressed off-campus have absolutely nothing to do with those of my employer, Drexel University."
I'm sure none of his leftist views spill out during his classes.
Can you imagine his take on 911???
And we wonder why they come out of college the way they do.
A university spokesman told the news station that the professor's comments "are his own opinion and do not represent the University’s views. Drexel is committed to and vigorously supports our ROTC students, student veterans and alumni who have served in the military. Our support for student veterans has helped us create an inclusive campus culture that honors service and Drexel’s deep connection to American military history."
Thursday, March 30, 2017
Akbar procures 72 virgins the hard way
Indonesian man found dead inside giant python
An Indonesian farmer has been discovered inside the belly of a giant python after the swollen snake was caught near where the man vanished while harvesting his crops, an official said Wednesday.
The body of 25-year-old Akbar was found when local people cut open the seven meter (23 foot) python after it was found bloated and slithering awkwardly in the village of Salubiro, on the eastern island of Sulawesi on Monday.
"We were immediately suspicious that the snake had swallowed Akbar because around the site we found palm fruit, his harvesting tool, and a boot," said Junaidi, a senior village official, who like many Indonesians goes by only one name.
Worried relatives launched a search for Akbar after he failed to return home from a trip to the family's plantation on Sunday.
Junaidi said the snake had swallowed the farmer whole, adding that it was the only such fatality recorded in the region.
The breed of snake, which regularly tops 20 feet, is commonly found in Indonesia and the Philippines.
While the serpents have been known to attack small animals, attempts to eat people are rare.
In 2013, a security guard on the tourist island of Bali was killed by a python at a luxury beachfront hotel.
Petition: Melania Trump should move into the WH continues to surge in popularity
Change.org petition:
“The U.S. taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the First Lady in Trump Tower, located in New York City,” the petition reads. “As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded.”
Is this a joke or what? Want to talk extravagance?... Anyone remember Barry's dog living the life of the Rich & Famous?
VIP: Very Important Pooch Bo is escorted off the tarmac with his own personal retinue of secret service agents
Speaking of moving into the WH didn't Barry's mother-in-law do it on the QT at taxpayer expense? Why were they not clamoring to Change.org then to sign a petition?
If they're so worried about the national debt and cost to the U.S. taxpayer where was that same concern when Barry singlehandedly piled on more national debt upon the shoulders of the U.S. taxpayer than all the other presidents combined?
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First lady Melania Trump presents awards at the International Women of Courage Award ceremony at the State Department in Washington, March 29, 2017.
A Change.org petition about first lady Melania Trump continues to explode in popularity, attracting over 230,000 signatures and becoming the site’s most signed campaign this week. The petition calls for her to either move to the White House or personally pay for her New York City security expenses.
“The U.S. taxpayer is paying an exorbitant amount of money to protect the First Lady in Trump Tower, located in New York City,” the petition reads. “As to help relieve the national debt, this expense yields no positive results for the nation and should be cut from being funded.”
There are thousands of responses on the petition’s page, as commenters air grievance after grievance about what they believe to be a misuse of taxpayer dollars.
“Why should the U.S. taxpayer carry the burden for her security away from the [White House]?” one person asked on the site.
“This is money that could be going towards a better healthcare and education system,” another wrote. “This is money that should be invested in ALL of the American people.”
Last month, the Secret Service requested $60 million in additional funding to protect the president and his family, according to a report in the Washington Post.
Some commenters on the site even encouraged Barron Trump, the president’s youngest son, to transfer to an elementary school in Washington, D.C. Soon after election day, Mr. Trump said Melania and Barron planned to make the move “very soon,” adding, “right after [Barron] finishes school.”
The petition seeks to reach 300,000 signatures total and, per the page’s description, will be delivered as a letter to Senators Bernie Sanders (I-VT) and Elizabeth Warren (D-MA). Though liberal favorites, neither Sanders nor Warren is on the Senate Appropriations Subcommittee on Homeland Security, which oversees the U.S. Secret Service budget.
Doug Caruana, the creator of the petition, declined to comment.
Despite the swell of online attention, the overall efficacy of Change.org petitions remains questionable. Hundreds of thousands of signatures bring heightened visibility to the petitioner’s cause, but Secret Service budget allocations are not subject to popular vote.
Petitions launched on the White House website have similarly murky results; the White House promises it will review a petition if it gathers 100,000 signatures in 30 days, but there’s no guarantee of any further action.
As a private citizen, before he formally entered politics, Donald Trump was fiercely critical of then-President Obama’s travel and expenses.
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