With the mainstream media mocking what they describe as President Trump’s delusional claim that former President Obama ordered Trump Tower’s phones to be tapped, I thought it would only be fair to invite readers to look at the other side. In a 12-minute video, Mark Levin, a lawyer who was a chief of staff for Attorney General Edwin Meese during the Reagan administration, has laid out what appears to be overwhelming evidence that backs up Trump’s wiretapping claims. Newt Gingrich offers his take here. Matthew Vadum’s article, Obama’s Wiretaps?, in FrontPage magazine, makes for very disturbing reading. Vadum doesn’t pull any punches:
Now the outlines of a Watergate-like conspiracy are emerging in which a sitting Democrat president apparently used the apparatus of the state to spy on a Republican presidential candidate. Watergate differed in that President Nixon didn’t get involved in the plot against the Democratic National Committee until later as an accomplice after the fact. Here Obama likely masterminded, or oversaw someone like the diabolical Benghazi cover-up artist Ben Rhodes, masterminding the whole thing…
Obama used the IRS to target conservative and Tea Party nonprofits, along with Catholic, Jewish, and pro-Israel organizations. He brazenly lied about it, too. His Justice Department surreptitiously obtained telephone records for more than 100 reporters. He did nothing while Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius repeatedly violated the Hatch Act, an anti-corruption statute.
And if anyone still has doubts, I’d invite them to ask James Rosen and Angela Merkel about former President Obama’s spying. By the way, former Obama speechwriter Ben Rhodes’ claim that “No President can order a wiretap” is factually incorrect.
Those who think President Trump is concealing his connections with Russia need to check out this article, which pours cold water on that claim.
I’ve also been following mainstream media coverage of another issue that has been in the news lately: Sthe links between crime and immigration in Sweden. Regarding the statistics, I’d invite readers to have a look at these two articles: What Is the Truth about Crime and Immigration in Sweden? and The Truth about Sweden. What does it feel to be a woman in today’s Sweden? Katie Holmes answers that question in two hard-hitting articles in the Daily Mail: Where females fear to tread and The Swedish town where migrant gangs have killed multiculturalism stone dead and laugh at laws they despise and defy.
The mainstream media has ridiculed claims of a link between sexual assault crimes and immigration from Arabic-speaking countries. After reading the four articles linked to in the preceding paragraph, I’m more convinced than ever that the MSM is merely trying to obfuscate the truth – and in so doing, betraying its purpose, which is to report the truth without fear or favor.
So, what do readers think? Who’s crazy: the media or President Trump – or both?
If one had the inclination one could look at Trumps propensity to say batshit bullshit crazy untrue things and make a Bayesian argument.
Or from politifact: http://www.politifact.com/personalities/donald-trump/
True15 (4%)(15)
Mostly True45 (12%)(45)
Half True54 (14%)(54)
Mostly False75 (20%)(75)
False123 (33%)(123)
Pants on Fire63 (17)
I’ll even give him Half true as true. LaPlace’s rule of succession: (114+1)/(329+2) = 34.7% percent chance of being true, if you know him by his fruits.
Post Snowden, does anyone doubt that the NSA monitors all electronic communication continuously. Or does anyone doubt that the New York Times printed, on their front page, January 20, that transcripts existed of Trump’s associates’ phone calls? They use the word wiretap in the headline.
Does anyone deny that Clapper and Comey (neither appointed by Trump) have repeatedly asserted that no laws were broken by Trump or his associates?
Does anyone deny that when electronic surveillance done for national security purposes reveals no lawbreaking, that the results have to be deleted, and that leaking such results is a serious violation?
I stand ready to be educated on this.
Anything is possible and politicians are all or most of them the same; crooked. Even if few start off with good intentions, eventually they have to begin to play the dirty game or quit or others will make them quit.
Obama legally could not have ordered a wiretap on anybody unless he had a serious proof of security breach…
But, he could have indirectly ask one of his chief of staff to “look into it” which pretty much means that if the wiretap is ever discovered, the person’s head taking it upon himself how to look into the matter, will roll… This is just the tip of the iceberg on politics…
I don’t want to guess what really happened. “Heat” definitely happened…
Trump declared it a fact, Levin said it was not a fact. I pretty much assume with Trump whatever he accuses others of doing is what he is doing.
The legality of the wiretap is not the problem. The intelligence community can monitor your calls without a warrant. The problem starts when the people doing the monitoring use the information for political purposes.
Now if Trump colludes with the Russians, by all means hang him for treason. The problem is that there is no evidence at all that he did. If there were such evidence, it would have come to light while Obama was still president.
I am not making this up. Comey and Clapper are both on record. There is no such evidence.
So that leaves us with the orphan data that someone somewhere reported suspicions, and suspicions (possibly legitimately) led to surveillance.
Now, what we are seeing is the claim that the surveillance itself is proof that something evil happened, even though it came up dry. that’s a catch-22 big enough to hang George Washington.
And, of course, there are still people denying the surveillance. Good luck with that.
Vincent, do you really think that thing you linked to is ‘overwhelming evidence’? Please.
Fwiw, I wasn’t even slightly whelmed.
They are all without credibility.
Spying on jewish, pro Israel groups sounds like someone trying to make it PC to question such groups. Likewise the other identity causes quoted.
Yes people at the top believe thw world is run by small numbers of people at the top and so, on a curve, are great believers in keeping a eye on everyone.
The issue for the common man is to defang and defund any tiny organized elements and bring all matters before the people. The media must be destroyed as it is now in the hands of few people and so targeted for control by forceful groups.
America/Canada must turn public affairs into the light of the public.
the media has lost credibility as a watchdog while the rest of us are not watching.
Trump seems dumb to so quickly accuse. Whats wrong with this guy?
better then clinton but sheeesh.
Is great america floundering in the agendas of ethnic/sexual/class/foreign identityism???
YES!
If there were no wiretaps, then Trump is lying, which he does much more often than he tells the truth. In that case, I doubt he really understands what a corrosive lie this one is. What he does understand is sales, and how to gin up a bogus distraction to deflect from genuine problems.
If there were wiretaps, they were almost surely done through proper (if secret) channels, and were triggered by enough genuine evidence to convince a court to tap someone, probably not Trump himself but those members of his campaign nobody denies were communicating regularly with the Russians.
I find it interesting that Comey realized that these accusations indirectly accuse him (or the FBI) of breaking the law, and he asked the White House to desist. Of course, Trump would never admit he made it up (or Levin made it up, Breitbart massaged it, and Trump exaggerated it).
What makes this corrosive is something bobby here recognizes intuitively – making up stories, doing the Roy Cohn thing (attack attack attack, deny deny deny), effectively creates an environment where nobody knows whom to believe, and everyone can select the narrative that best fits their personal paranoia.
When trump took a photo of the march against him the day after his inauguration, claimed it was his own audience, claimed it was the largest ever, and wouldn’t back down EVEN THOUGH there were countless photographs of the real inauguration crowd AND the march picture was labeled as such RIGHT ON THE PICTURE, we know we have a brazen liar-in-chief who neither knows, nor cares, what’s true and what’s not.
Flint,
+1
Well said.
The taps may have been completely legal, but their use is not. No how, no way.
You simply can’t use FISA intel against anyone. You can use it to prevent an eminent attack, or you can use it to justify a warrant for a criminal investigation, but you cannot leak it to the press. No amount of dislike of a president’s policies makes it okay. If you disagree, consider who has the authority to make FISA requests now.
You cannot make government policies on the assumption that leaders will always be people you like.
You’re all gonna die anyway, so mix it up while it lasts. Or is that guano material?
Nixon was not a crook.
Ditto. I want to know if he’s being paid to post the occasional propaganda piece at this site, or if he’s just trying to prove to Barry that he’s really a good guy. I mean, he’d be a Republican, if only he weren’t Australian, and living in Japan.
ROFL. Riiiiiight.
I’ll wager that the investigations turned up something pretty bad, regarding the interactions of the Trump campaign with Russians under routine surveillance, and that Trump knows he can’t keep it from coming to light. The strategy is to convince people — and for some odd reason, an Australian resident of Japan wants to play a part — that the investigations were illegitimate.
Did you actually write that, 0’Torley? I hope the money’s good. You’ve certainly had to swallow your self-respect.
There’s been not a peep out of Congressional intelligence committees to suggest that something was amiss in the surveillance.
What I’m amazed at is how fine so many americans are with their president having close ties to a former KGB agent, soviet communist and dictator, simply because that president is the one they voted for, or has other policies they like. Trump has said the “right things” on immigration, and for that reason alone it seems there’s nothing you won’t excuse him for.
He can be outright bought and paid for, by a foreign government historically opposed to the US, but he hates muslims and mexicans as much as you do, and want to punish women for having abortions, so that’s all just fine.
What’s the worst that could happen? Infiltration of US government at the highest level by russian agents? Leaking of top state secrets to russia? Which could potentially completely undermine everything from the cohesion and military capability of the NATO alliance, to the strength and abilities of the US to enforce it’s policies on the world stage? Apparently that’s all just irrelevant, because Trump says welcome things about all those fucking “inner city” niggers, whoring women and mudslimes. Right?
Imagine for a moment if, during the campaign, Obama or Clinton had been revealed as having close ties to Russia and had been meeting with russian officials or intelligence agents in secret, and was trying to insert people with standing personal interests in business and trade deals with russian companies, into important US government positions.
You sycophant hypocrites would be howling at the fucking moon if that was the case.
You fucking idiot.
Since it is illegal to surveil a US citizen without a warrant, you can’t claim that there is any evidence that Trump’s people had nefarious communications with Russian agents and also assert that Trump’s claim that his team had been wiretapped is false. You can’t have it both ways.
If you have such evidence, it was either gathered legally or illegally; if it was gathered illegally, then Trump’s team was illegally wiretapped, which is in fact a waterate-level story; if it was gathered legally, then warrants exist. Either way, legal or illegal, if there is any validity to the russia-tie cliams, Trump must be right that his team was wiretapped.
Otherwise, mainstream news outlets have been concocting the whole “nefarious russia communications” thing out of whole cloth.
William J. Murray,
That discounts the possibility that the US was spying on Russian sources, and discovered connections between Kislyak and Flynn (and also between Kislyak and Sessions) that way.
Personally I don’t think there’s much of a story here. There’s a lot of “with this much smoke, there must be a fire!” thinking here. It’s a side-effect of the unavoidable tendency of our minds to seek patterns, whether real or not.
Suppose they weren’t surveilling US citizens.
Hahahahaha, the irony. It hurts.
You fucking morons, under the guise of necessity to beat the big bad moslem terrorists plotting against your freeduhmz, took the patriot act dry up your fucking bleeding asses, when the original neocon criminals proposed it.
And here you are now, in your delusion that warrantless wiretapping is illegal, all butthurt that the very same laws you sycophanticly agreed to when used against people you didn’t like, are put to use against people you like.
Can you spell H Y P O C R I C Y ?
They can gather intelligence from whoever they want, without a warrant, they can just say they suspect them of being in communication with hostile foreign powers and, ta-da, surveillance of US citizens is legal.
The tap to Trump tower appears to be the tap that got Flynn and the Russian ambassador talking and which was leaked to the press and got Flynn fired.
http://video.foxnews.com/v/5349939363001/?#sp=show-clips
What is not established is that Obama was directly involved, but it appears Trump tower was tapped by someone — a felony. It is suspected that it was done by government agents, but no one knows.
You got what you wanted.
Doesn’t matter. When they are surveilling foreign agents (which they can do without warrants) they are required by law to not listen to (mute and certainly not record or share) any communication from a US citizen during the surveillance because even listening to it is against the law. You can’t do it without a FISA warrant for that particular citizen.
Either there are legal warrants to wiretap Trump’s team or (1) it was illegal surveillance, or (2) there was no surveillance at all and the whole thing about Trump’s russian connection is a complete fabrication.
There is no innocent “accidental overhearing” in such scenarios. Trump bashers cannot have it both ways. Either the mainstream media is perpetrating an anti-Trump hoax to try to delegitimize his presidency, or his team was wiretapped.
stcordova,
What got Flynn fired was because he didn’t fully inform Pence about what he talked to the Ambassador about, not because they were talking, which was his job to do. Trump was under no ethical obligation to fire Flynn; if he did so, it points to a breakdown of trust he had in Flynn to fully perform his job. Trump is not the sort that likes to admit – when he doesn’t have to – that he made a mistake in hiring someone in the first place by firing them shortly thereafter.
In this context, what is “mainstream media”? Can anyone name a non-biased “alternative” media outlet? Fox News?
Trump is and always has been mainstream media darling. He is a celeb and it’s part of his celeb persona to throw out claims how “mainstream media” lies about him. He may occasionally have been really a victim of exaggerated speculations or flat-out lies, but this is not the point. The point is that he has gone to be interviewed everywhere when invited. Always everywhere. Because he is a celeb and that’s what celebs do. They love all kinds of attention on themselves.
Now he is prez and he cannot get out of his celeb persona. That’s all there is to the whole debacle.
Can you please cite the statutory basis for this claim? Thanks.
And everyone who whine about “mainstream media” attacks on Trump, have you ever taken a look at his Twitter feed? Can you name a comparable inflammatory scumbag troll among politicians or businessmen of his rank?
Which way is it, is Trump’s main activity his love-hate relationship with the media (which he misleadingly calls mainstream media when he feels like it, and his followers totally fall for it) or is he taking presidency seriously enough so that his twittering and media appearances can be considered secondary as they should? Can you make a case for the latter?
Tom English,
You wrote:
I’m not getting paid, and I wrote this post of my own volition, without consulting anyone. How do you spell C O N S P I R A C Y T H E O R Y?
OMagain,
If you don’t like Katie Holmes, explain this article by reporter Paula Neuding in The Weekly Standard:
But hey, if you want to continue believing that everything is hunky-dory in Sweden, don’t let me stop you.
Or that the media is pursuing a story that the beneficiary of a crime who has potential ties to the criminals may have been an accomplice to the crime.
Now who is being naive
If areas where they “can’t enter” and areas where they are “forced to retreat” are the same areas, that’s a contradiction.
But you didn’t mean this as a serious example anyway, right?
Rumraket,
I suggest you have a look at the conclusion of this article by Andrew McCarthy in NRO:
And by the way, the correct spelling is HYPOCRISY, not HYPOCRICY.
Erik asks:
Here’s my advice: don’t rely on a single news outlet. On a daily basis, I have a look at Drudge Report, American Thinker, RealClearPolitics, the BBC and the Guardian. I don’t watch Fox. I used to read the Huffington Post, but I stopped: it’s unbearably shrill, smug and self-righteous, and the articles are all written by twenty-somethings – and it shows. The Guardian is left-wing, but at least its tone is courteous.
Of the above sites, RealClearPolitics is the nearest to a balanced news source, since it links to articles from both left-wing and right-wing sources.
Can anyone else recommend any other good online news sites?
As for Trump’s tweets, let’s not forget that they got him elected. You may not like them, and I may not like them much either, but clearly they resonate with many people.
And here’s what Geraldo Rivera has to say about the latest tweets (5:30):
On that point, at least, I’m very much inclined to agree with Rivera.
Translation: you better hope I win the US election because then I’ll have more flexibility to cut you Russians a nice deal. How’s that sound? 🙂
If areas where they can’t safely enter and areas where they are “forced to retreat” are the same areas, that’s not a contradiction.
To quote Paula Neuding once again:
I happen to be a media person, so I can give you much better advice, when that becomes the topic.
My question was about the definition of mainstream media in your OP and in Trumpspeak. You totally ignored it. Noted.
How about something like: As for mainstream media, let’s not forget that they are the Fourth Estate. You may not like them, but clearly they serve an institutional purpose.
Trump’s tweets may have got him elected, but this only means that his hyperactive trolling and attention-mongering got him elected. You don’t seriously mean this as a positive recommendation for Trump, do you?
Geraldo Rivera: Is it paranoid ravings of the new president? I don’t think so. He wouldn’t just get up there, read Breitbart, and start spewing stuff about a wiretap.
Why wouldn’t he? Doesn’t the pattern of his behavior point in that direction?
Katie Hopkins
You seem to have me confused with someone who’s defending warrantless surveillance of US citizens. I’m simply pointing out what looks to me like colossal hypocrisy (thx, Irony noted). I’m going to take a wild stab in the dark here and guess many of you people who are indignant at this were nowhere to be found when things like the Patriot Act were first proposed. After all, it was all erected under the pretext of defending your so-called Freedoms(tm) from scary muslim terrorists.
It’s like hypocricy doesn’t register in your minds either. Trumps ties to russia are attempted downplayed because of the method by which it is supposed those ties were revealed. One needs only spend 30 seconds contemplating how you would be reacting if the roles were reversed, and it had been ties to russia of Barack HUSSEIN Obama* or Clinton (what about her emails?), exposed by warrantless wiretapping, and you people would be acting hysterical, calling for impeachment if not public fucking execution for treason.
That muslim communist america hating feminist-socialist nazi kenyan FEMA camps black helicopters muslim brotherhood free-welfare ACLU-lawyer Acorn abortion nigger. Oh and his wife used to be a man and he’s probably secretly homo and he hates the military. Oh and muslim. Did I mention muslim? He’s probably secretly muslim.
Sounds to me like an attempt at ignoring Trump’s ties to russia. Trump is the president of the US now, not Obama. So if that kind of politican maneuvering was not okay then, why is it okay now that Trump is doing it?
Facts about migration and crime in Sweden
http://www.government.se/articles/2017/02/facts-about-migration-and-crime-in-sweden/
I wonder what the crime statistics were like in Rotherham a few years ago.
vjtorley,
Thanks for the op and this list. I personally have confidence in NPR. Tucker Carlson is new to Fox news and worth a try. He is a smart guy.
petrushka,
I think you nailed it. The real issue is leaks from the intelligence agencies to the media for political purposes. The order Obama signed right before he left office to allow agencies to share information is what should be investigated. These agencies have shown that information inside them is not secure if decimated widely. They need information to do their job but if the information can leak this in itself is bad for our long term national security.
You’ve put your finger on the reason for much of the wailing and gnashing of teeth about Trump. The regressive left who were so shocked by his win, including much of the mainstream media, are very much of the mindset that “It’s okay when we do it.” One might hope that they’ll learn that the problem isn’t the person in power, it’s the power. I doubt it, though.
FISA courts are a travesty of justice that need to be reigned in or, preferably, eliminated. Even the ACLU, hardly a conservative organization, recognizes the constitutional problems posed by FISA.