Random Politics & Religion #20

Nausi and Saevel starting the day off early with the lies. If its known, where is the evidence?

Wait, after all the diatribes about how Trump is guilty of collusion with Russia during the election in spite of no evidence, this is your response to Nausi and Saev?

Cognitive dissonance is the new norm.

...
And it's already know that the second FISA request was granted - this means the Obama admin DID spy on Trump in some fashion....

The FISA warrant was issued for two banks in Russia. Not for anything within a continent of Trump Tower....

agaib it's already know that Obama went to the fisa court to spy of trump and that the request in October was approved.

Any story you can link to that chanti?

... the allegation made by various news sources is that, in connection with a multi-agency intelligence investigation of Russian interference with the presidential election, the FBI sought an order from the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Court authorizing them to monitor transactions between two Russian banks and four persons connected with the Trump campaign. The Guardian‘s report alleges that initial applications submitted over the summer, naming “four members of the Trump team suspected of irregular contacts with Russian officials,” were rejected by the FISC. But according to the BBC, a narrower order naming only the Russian banks as direct targets was ultimately approved by the FISC in October....

Nevertheless, whether done inside or outside the FISA process, it would be a scandal of Watergate dimension if a presidential administration sought to conduct, or did conduct, national-security surveillance against the presidential candidate of the opposition party. Unless there was some powerful evidence that the candidate was actually acting as an agent of a foreign power, such activity would amount to a pretextual use of national-security power for political purposes.

Mr. Manafort is among at least three Trump campaign advisers whose possible links to Russia are under scrutiny. Two others are Carter Page, a businessman and former foreign policy adviser to the campaign, and Roger Stone, a longtime Republican operative.

The F.B.I. is leading the investigations, aided by the National Security Agency, the C.I.A. and the Treasury Department’s financial crimes unit. The investigators have accelerated their efforts in recent weeks but have found no conclusive evidence of wrongdoing, the officials said. One official said intelligence reports based on some of the wiretapped communications had been provided to the White House.

The only thing about this to me is that a White House rep has stated that the American people deserve to know if there was any illegal action taken by the former president... ok fine go for it I have no problem with them looking into it... the problem I do have is that they don't seem to feel the same way about the Russia stuff... why don't we deserve to know if any of that is true or not in their opinion? Should we just take their word for it? Should we just take obamas word for it?

But yeah, it's SOOOOO crazy for Trump to think he's been wiretapped.

Paranoid and delusional would be more precise but po-tay-to, po-tah-to.

Congressional inquiry is prpceeding

(Newser) – So where did President Trump's bombshell accusation that his predecessor tapped his phones come from? The White House tells the Fact Checker blog at the Washington Post that he's relying on reports "from BBC, Heat Street, New York Times, Fox News, among others.” After an analysis, the Post finds that the two most important ones are from the right-leaning Heat Street and the BBC. (Other reports have cited an article at Breitbart News, but it relies on the Heat Street piece.) The two articles say that US intelligence officials went to the FISA court (which deals with intelligence matters) because they wanted to investigate possible activity between two banks in Russia and a computer server in Trump Tower (which, to make matters more confusing, might actually be located in Philadelphia). Excerpts:

Heat Street: “Two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community have confirmed to Heat Street that the FBI sought, and was granted, a FISA court warrant in October, giving counter-intelligence permission to examine the activities of ‘U.S. persons’ in Donald Trump’s campaign with ties to Russia.”

BBC: It says Justice Department lawyers went to the FISA court. "Their first application, in June, was rejected outright by the judge. They returned with a more narrowly drawn order in July and were rejected again. Finally, before a new judge, the order was granted, on 15 October, three weeks before election day."

The Fact Checker's assessment? Even if the stories are accurate, and that hasn't been confirmed, they do not say that President Obama was behind the request. Plus, they involve a computer server, not the tapping of phone lines. And, finally, they "do not back up the administration’s revised claim of politically motivated investigations." As a result, Trump gets the blog's worst rating of Four Pinocchios.

Didn't take long for the Washington Post to start crying again over the travel ban. Place your bets on how long it'll take an activist judge to block it again.

Good luck! I haven't called anyone regarding anything remotely interesting in decades!