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This former British lawmaker is at the heart of the Trump wiretap allegations


3/06/2017. This story from the Washington Post appears to show the Trump allegation of wiretapping is gleaned from a British Writer last year . It seems that the Trump administration is too busy looking for distractions rather than solutions to the Countries issues and possibly his own (external and internal). He is continuing on the campaign trail rather than the solution trail, What makes more sense, putting millions (or billions) toward infrastructure (which will create jobs, long-term) or towards a wall (which will create jobs temporarily)? The wall will also create more problems as Mexico cannot be forced to pay for it and we risk losing a partner in the fight against the drug cartels who are supplying Americans in a bad way, creating a rift in the trade agreements now in place which could  affect many corn producing states in the U.S.A . To top it off the wiretapping is old news and unrelated to the current Tweetstorm. MA

2 / 23

The Washington Post
Karla Adams hrs ago

LONDON — A former British legislator is at the heart of the Trump administration’s explosive allegation that President Barack Obama was spying on him during the 2016 campaign.
But who exactly is Louise Mensch?
For starters, the politician-turned-journalist is the writer behind an article published on the eve of the election titled: “EXCLUSIVE: FBI ‘Granted FISA Warrant’ Covering Trump Camp’s Ties To Russia.”
The article, published on the right-leaning, libertarian website Heat Street, did not create much of a stir at the time. But it has come under the spotlight after Trump, in a tweetstorm over the weekend, accused Obama of wiretapping his offices during the election campaign. Trump compared the alleged bugging to the Watergate scandal, but he has not offered any evidence to back up his claims.
In tweets on Monday, Mensch emphasized that her reporting does not back up Trump’s wiretapping claim, even though the White House cited her article to justify the allegation. She stressed that her reporting refers to a Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) court warrant and does not mention anything about wiretapping.
Over the weekend, the White House cited reports “from BBC, Heat Street, New York Times, Fox News, among others” to justify the claims. Former Obama administration officials and aides have denied the accusation.
After combing through these news reports, The Washington Post’s Glenn Kessler concluded that the piece by Mensch in Heat Street was “the most important” of the lot.
In her report, published Nov. 7, Mensch said the FBI 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.”
She cited “two separate sources with links to the counter-intelligence community” as evidence for those claims.
Mensch, who is based in New York, said her sources contacted her because of her outspoken backing for the intelligence community. She has, for instance, called Edward Snowden, the former National Security Agency contractor who leaked classified documents, “a loathsome traitor.”
“They gave me one of the most closely guarded secrets in intelligence,” she said, referring to her sources. Speaking to the Guardian, a left-leaning British newspaper, she added: “People are speculating why someone trusted me with that. Nobody met me in a darkened alley in a fedora, but they saw me as someone who has political experience and is their friend. I am a pro-national security partisan. I don’t have divided loyalties.”
Mensch, 45, is a force on social media and describes herself on Twitter as a “Conservative. Feminist. Optimist. Patriot.”
Anyone who follows her on Twitter — and more than 170,000 people do — knows that she is not a Trump supporter and has been probing Trump-Russia links for some time.
Her name also appeared in the hacked emails of John Podesta, the former chairman of Hillary Clinton’s presidential campaign. In an email she sent to the Creative Artists Agency that was forwarded to Podesta, Mensch described herself as a “committed Republican” who was concerned about a Trump presidency and offered a suggestion for a campaign ad for Clinton.
In Britain, Mensch is best known for her stint as a Conservative lawmaker and for her work as a successful chick-lit novelist under her maiden name, Louise Bagshawe.
She resigned as a lawmaker in 2012, saying it “proved impossible to balance the needs of my family.” The mother of three moved to New York to live with her husband, Peter Mensch, manager of the bands Metallica and the Red Hot Chili Peppers.
Although she served as a member of Parliament for only two years, she quickly became a high-profile figure, partly because of her leading role in a parliamentary committee investigating phone hacking at Rupert Murdoch’s News of the World tabloid.
Mensch was one of four Conservative lawmakers on the committee who refused to endorse the panel’s conclusions. The committee’s description of Murdoch as “not a fit person” to run a major international company, Mensch said, was “partisan” and unjustified. She also apologized to the broadcaster Piers Morgan after falsely accusing him of admitting to phone hacking.
Mensch was regularly featured in the news when she was a politician. She was once contacted by an investigative journalist who claimed to have pictures proving that Mensch had taken drugs in a nightclub in the 1990s with the violinist Nigel Kennedy.
Mensch responded in a statement by saying it was “highly probable” and apologized for her dancing.
“Since I was in my twenties, I’m sure it was not the only incident of the kind; we all do idiotic things when young. I am not a very good dancer and must apologise to any and all journalists who were forced to watch me dance that night at Ronnie Scott’s,” she said.
She works as an executive for News Corp., a media company owned by Murdoch. She helped to launch Heat Street last year but left that role in December and is focusing on creating digital media projects for the company.
This story has been updated.

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Trump’s Help For Harley Is Hurting The Bike Maker


A little more evidence that the current White House resident is not as in touch with world events as he would (or his staff) would like you to believe.MA

David Kiley, Contributor
2 days ago

© Provided by Forbes Media LLC
There aren’t too many brands that are as iconically “American” as Harley Davidson. And when Donald Trump invoked the “Hogs” in his speech to the nation Tuesday night, he thought he was calling attention to unfair trade deals inhibiting American companies and workers abroad.
Not so fast. It turns out that the high tariffs faced by Harley when trying to sell its bikes overseas would have been substantially removed by the Trans-Pacific Partnership, which Trump squashed his first days in office. In Vietnam, for example, Harley faces a 74% tax. It would have been zero if the U.S. signed on to TPP. Indeed, Harley’s CEO and chief lobbyist publicly advocated for TPP last year.

Trump repeatedly called TPP a U.S. “job killer.” Trade experts disagree, arguing that it was just the opposite, but got caught up in the political rancor and rhetoric of a campaign, rightfully referred to as “the silly season.”
Trump seems fairly fact-challenged in his use of Harley to call attention to unfair trade. He complained that there is one country that charges a 100% tariff on imported motorcycles. That’s true. It’s India. But Harley has a factory in India that supplies bikes to consumers there, so those bikes aren’t subject to the tariff. India, a developing country, put heavy tariffs on some categories of products to force companies to build factories in their country and create jobs for their working class. Indonesia, another country with a tariff, hits imported motorcycles with a 40% tax for the same reason.
In a statement, Harley-Davidson said it opened the plant in India in 2011 “to improve production flexibility, market responsiveness and strengthen operations in the country.” It doesn’t address whether the tariff played a part in its decision, but it did, of course.
India is a huge market for motorcycles and scooters – 16.5 million per years. Harley has less than a 1% share of that market. But that is because Harley does not make the kinds of bikes that are most popular in India, where there are many manufacturers vying for share at much lower price points.
Tariffs on motorcycles are common across the Asia-Pacific region. Besides India and Indonesia, China levies a 30% tariff, as does Malaysia. Thailand hits Harley with a 60% tariff, and Taiwan’s tariff is 20%. Malaysia and Singapore were also part of TPP, and there was hope that Indonesia would have joined it eventually.
The 12 countries in TPP account for one-third of global trade, according to The Peterson Institute for International Economics.
Harley relies heavily on overseas sales. Last year, the company reported 40% of its sales were outside the U.S. And despite the tariffs in Asia, it had a record year in the Pan-Asian region, selling 33,000 bikes – not bad considering Harley’s bikes are among the most expensive available in those markets.
Ironically, while Harley has been a big loser from Trump’s pull-out from TPP, the big winner is China, the country he has been most vocal about in terms of wanting to make it harder for Chinese goods to get into the U.S.
Without the U.S. in TPP, China is free to dominate the Pan-Pacific region through trade. “China’s ambitious One-Belt-One-Road and Asian Infrastructural Investment Bank initiatives will also be strengthened by a perceived or actual U.S. pullback from Asia [as a result of leaving the TPP],” says Linda Lim, professor of a strategy at the Stephen M. Ross School of Business at the University of Michigan.
No wonder Harley CEO Matthew Levatich seems uneasy in the spotlight with Donald Trump using Harley as a poster-brand for his supposed fair-trade policy. The new president already killed the one deal that would have helped the motorcycle company.
The focus on Harley isn’t all bad, though. Shares of Harley climbed 3.58% Wednesday, compared with the Dow Jones Industrial Average, which was up 1.46%.

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Congressional Members Who Avoid Townhalls Et al.


The two articles below are just a small sampling of what Congress thinks about the “American People” so many of them are fond of citing. It has been pointed out that many of the serving legislators are Lawyers, attorneys or what ever the descriptive term for their profession maybe. The job is to argue for or against someone or something on behalf of someone or entity. It appears that our Congress for the past 10 to 15 years (or more have been arguing against the people who elected them.MA

A Texas member of Congress Key congressman: It’s ‘a good thing’ if more Americans lose coverage

02/24/17 11:20 AM—Updated 02/24/17 12:59 PM
By Steve Benen
Rep. Mike Burgess (R-Texas) chairs the House Energy and Commerce subcommittee related to health care, which makes his perspective on the issue rather important. If Republicans ever present their alternative to the Affordable Care Act, for example, Burgess’ panel would be among the first to tackle the policy.

It was therefore rather striking yesterday when the far-right congressman appeared at the Conservative Political Action Conference (CPAC) and shared an unusual insight. BuzzFeed reported:

Burgess was asked about concerns that repealing Obamacare will lead to a drop in the number of people with health insurance. He responded that it would be a good thing because it means fewer people are subject to the individual mandate.

“First off, we’re not going to send an IRS agent out to chase you down and make you buy health insurance,” said Burgess. “So if the numbers (of insured people) drop I would say that’s a good thing because we restored personal liberty in this country.”

It’s a fascinating perspective. It doesn’t matter if the ACA is helping bring health security to millions of Americans; what matters, in Burgess’ mind, is conservative ideological principles.

U.S. News’ Robert Schlesinger noted in response, “If you listened to Burgess, you’d think that all or most of [the 20 million people insured by the ACA] were dragged kicking and screaming into the system and that they yearn for liberation from the tyranny of being able to afford catastrophic illness.”

Burgess, however, isn’t the only one reading from this script. Vice President Mike Pence said this week he wants to gut “Obamacare” in order to bring back “freedom.” House Speaker Paul Ryan (R-Wis.) added that his anti-ACA plans is based on a single principle: “Freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need. Obamacare is Washington telling you what to buy regardless of your needs.”

All of this must resonate with the focus groups Republicans convene, but it doesn’t make nearly as much sense as GOP officials want to believe. The New Republic’s Brian Beutler explained the other day:

Under the old order, far too many people didn’t have the ability to buy insurance in the first place. Or if they could, they were subjected to lifetime coverage limits, no coverage for pre-existing conditions, and any number of other personal barriers and restrictions.

And since Obamacare’s major accomplishment was to counter those forces, and thus enable people to get health insurance, that in turn opened up whole new areas of personal freedom: the ability to take risks and get new jobs, or start new businesses, and or simply have a sense of security and peace of mind.

So how exactly would it be a victory for “freedom” to pull out the rug from those who can finally buy health insurance?

Under the Republican approach, Americans can have the “personal liberty” of not receiving needed medical care. We can all be “free” to ration health services based on our individual wealth.

Ryan believes “freedom is the ability to buy what you want to fit what you need,” but the Speaker may not understand the point of insurance: we don’t always know what we’ll need, which is why we seek medical coverage in the first place.

I look forward to Republican policymakers telling countless Americans, “Your family is one serious illness away from financial ruin, and your health is at risk from treatable ailments, but look at how great your liberty is!”

SHY DEMOCRATS. It’s not just the GOP: Even some Democratic members of Congress are avoiding holding town halls. “From Montana to West Virginia, the nation’s most vulnerable Senate Democrats are avoiding town hall meetings as their Republican counterparts get pummeled by an energized electorate frustrated with President Donald Trump’s early agenda,” reports the Associated Press. “Some Democrats prefer to connect with constituents over the telephone or social media. Others are meeting voters in controlled environments with limited opportunities to ask questions. But few of the 10 Democratic senators facing re-election next year in states carried by Trump have scheduled in-person town hall meetings during this week’s congressional recess.”
‘HAVE SOME COURAGE.’ Former Democratic Rep. Gabby Giffords, who was shot in the head during a constituent meeting in Tucson, Ariz., in 2011, urged members of Congress to have the courage to meet with the people they represent after Texas Republican Rep. Louie Gohmert cited fears of violence as a reason to avoid town halls. “At this time there are groups from the more violent strains of the leftist ideology, some even being paid, who are preying on public town halls to wreak havoc and threaten public safety,” Gohmert said Thursday.
Giffords issued a blistering statement in reply via Americans for Responsible Solutions, the gun violence prevention group she co-founded:
“I was shot on a Saturday morning. By Monday morning my offices were open to the public. Ron Barber — at my side that Saturday, who was shot multiple times, then elected to Congress in my stead — held town halls. It’s what the people deserve in a representative.
“In the past year, campaigning for gun safety, I have held over 50 public events.
“Many of the members of Congress who are refusing to hold town halls and listen to their constituents concerns are the very same politicians that have opposed commonsense gun violence prevention policies and have allowed the Washington gun lobby to threaten the safety of law enforcement and everyday citizens in our schools, businesses, places of worship, airports, and movie theaters.
“To the politicians who have abandoned their civic obligations, I say this: Have some courage. Face your constituents. Hold town halls.”
One person who’s not afraid of town halls? Republican Rep. Justin Amash of Michigan. Sure, the libertarian-leaning lawmaker got yelled at plenty during his town hall on Thursday. But he took questions, and he’s out there telling Republicans to buck up and deal with the people they represent.

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No Common Ground


This post from Charlie Daniels offers a parallel to a time over 100 years ago when the US fell into internal turmoil.MA 

Posted on 02.13.2017

Over a century ago, the United States of America went through a divisive and bloody Civil War that separated the people of this nation bone from marrow. It split friends, families and eventually the nation itself as a line was drawn dividing the Union States of the North from the newly formed Confederacy of the Southern States.
Ostensibly, the war that followed was fought over the abolition of slavery, a devilish practice that never should have been allowed in the first place, and although it was the basic issue for the conflict – as is the case so much of the time – there were a myriad of other issues involved.
One – in my opinion – was just plain stubbornness and pride and the dogged determination that the South would not let itself by told what to do by the other half of the country, but trade, tariffs and different attitudes and beliefs about just how far a federal government could go in setting the tone and making laws to be obeyed by all the states could go were also involved.
The point I’m trying to make is that the feelings festered so long and ran so deep that men whose fathers had stood shoulder to shoulder in the war for independence faced off across fields of battle and killed each other.
The Civil War never should have happened, and had cooler heads prevailed on both sides, never would have. Southerners had to know that slavery was an abomination to the principles they had fought and died for in the Revolution.
No man has the right to own another man, to reap the fruits of his labor for nothing, to consider his children nothing more than commodities to be sold off or traded away on a whim, separating
families and breeding human beings like live stock.
But instead of acknowledging the very obvious evil of this situation, politicians from the South,
convinced that the economy of the Southern States was dependent on slavery, chose to become a separate nation and soon after over six hundred thousand Americans lost their lives in a senseless war that would set the Southern States back a half century.
Surely, had it been approached by fair, level-headed men on both sides of the issue, abolition could have been achieved without war. But the rhetoric grew ever hotter, brash young men on both sides who had never fired a gun in anger viewed a war as the pinnacle of romanticism and
implacable politicians refused to give an inch.
Is this not the same attitude we see on the streets of America today?
I see young people interviewed on television who can’t even articulate the reason they are protesting. Others bent on destruction who probably espouse no cause but chaos.
I’ve seen hysterical protestors screaming about First Amendment rights which they seem to think only protects them and those who think like them and that the opposition has no first amendment protection and ahold be shouted down at all costs.
The rhetoric is becoming hotter and more nonsensical, the radical element more apparent, the violence and destruction of property more common place.
The pot is boiling and it’s only a matter of time before there will be blood on the streets.
Americans have the right to civil disobedience, a right to gather and demonstrate against some policy they feel is unfair or harmful to the country at large, but they do not have the right to interrupt commerce, break windows, burn cars or do bodily harm to those who disagree with them.
People who won’t listen to reason, who ignore the law of the land, who try to stifle the opinions of others tend to forget that there is an element of violence on the other side as well, a side that, thankfully so far has not yet have not come forth.
But, should these conditions continue, someday soon the violent elements of both persuasions will find themselves on the same streets and, what will ensue will not be pretty.
Learn from history or repeat it.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
— Charlie Daniels

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President Millard Fillmore- Then And Now


The parallels to todays TOTUS are remarkable.MA

By Jeff Jacoby Globe Columnist February 19, 2017
HISTORY DOESN’T REPEAT itself. But it has an unnerving tendency to rhyme.
Consider, on this first Presidents’ Day under Donald Trump, another New Yorker
who occupied the highest office in the land.
When Millard Fillmore became the nation’s 13th president upon the death of
Zachary Taylor in 1850, he immediately plunged the White House and the Whig
Party — one of the nation’s two dominant political parties — into turmoil. On the
day he took the oath of office, Fillmore petulantly dismissed every member of
Taylor’s Cabinet, which he resented for having ignored him when he was vice
president. As a result, it took weeks — in one case, more than two months —
before the new president’s Cabinet members were approved. The Whigs, already
riven by patronage quarrels and North-South tensions, grew even more polarized
over Fillmore’s policies. He was off to a bad start.
To an American looking back from 2017, the disorder that followed Fillmore’s
accession might almost prefigure the pandemonium in the Trump White House.

There are other echoes.

John Tyler is a good reminder: Running mates matter
When President William Henry Harrison died in April 1841, Tyler took control by
declaring he was more than just a caretaker.
Fillmore presented himself as a loyal Whig, but his political career had begun with
the Anti-Masons, a political movement tied to a bizarre hostility toward
Freemasons. He was attracted, writes Paul Finkelman, a legal historian at Albany
Law School, “to oddball political movements, conspiracy theories, and ethnic
hatred.” Even after becoming a Whig, he trafficked easily with anti-Catholic and
anti-immigrant groups.
Fillmore served four terms in the House of Representatives, where he energetically
supported higher tariffs. When he ran for governor of New York in 1844, he kept
talking about tariffs — mostly, suggests Finkelman, to avoid talking about slavery.
Though antislavery sentiment was strong in New York, and though Fillmore, like
most Northern Whigs, was conventionally opposed to the practice, he shunned the
abolitionists. The most urgent moral issue of the day left him personally unmoved.
He seemed to believe that Whigs could avoid the controversial politics of slavery
altogether.
His unwillingness to condemn the spread of black servitude helped Fillmore lose
the governor’s race. So did his hostility to Irish immigrants and his coziness with
nativists. Nonetheless, Fillmore had a following, and at the Whig convention in
1848, he captured the vice presidential nomination. The ticket was headed by
Taylor, a hero of the Mexican War and a Southern planter, and Fillmore was seen
as an ideal ticket-balancer: He was from a key antislavery state, which would
appeal to Northerners, but had never been actively antislavery, which would
reassure Southerners.
Taylor was president for only 16 months; he died of cholera after eating tainted
food. During his brief administration, however, he turned firmly against the
Southern “fire-eaters” who had expected him, a fellow slaveholder, to sympathize
with their cause. The nation was being roiled by sectional bitterness, especially
over the extension of slavery to the vast territories that had been wrested from
Mexico. In Congress, Henry Clay proposed a series of bills that came to be called
the Compromise of 1850, but it was a lopsidedly pro-slavery package, and Taylor
refused to support it.
Vice President Fillmore, on the other hand, was in favor of appeasing Southern
interests. He backed Clay’s legislation; if it came to a tie in the Senate, he said, he
would vote against Taylor and in favor of the compromise.
With Taylor’s sudden death, pro-slavery forces thus found themselves with an
unlikely friend in the White House — a Northern Whig from an abolitionist state,
who was willing to open the Southwest to slavery. The Compromise of 1850,
passed by Congress and signed by Fillmore, undid the 30-year-old Missouri
Compromise, which had permanently barred slavery north of Missouri’s southern
border. Clay’s legislation did clear the way for California to enter the union as a
free state, and it shuttered the slave markets of Washington, D.C. But those sops to
Northern sentiment did nothing to halt the advance of slavery, or to restore
harmony to a Whig Party increasingly at war with itself.
But of all the components of the compromise, the worst was the Fugitive Slave
Act.
Rarely has there been a more repugnant law. For the first time in US history, the
Fugitive Slave Act created a national system of law enforcement. Its purpose:
hunting escaped slaves and returning them to bondage. Federal commissioners
were appointed nationwide, and empowered not only to adjudicate fugitive slave
claims, but to assemble local posses to capture slaves on the run. The law imposed
harsh penalties on anyone caught aiding a fugitive slave. And even free blacks
were at risk of being seized and charged as runaways, since the law, with grotesque
disregard for due process, forbade accused fugitives from testifying in their own
behalf.
Fillmore enforced the law with determination, and dispatched federal troops to
prevent opponents from interfering. He denounced Northern communities that
vowed to resist the law — “sanctuary cities” aren’t a 21st-century innovation —
and piously proclaimed that “without law there can be no real practical liberty.”
Scores of fugitives were captured and returned to the South during Fillmore’s
presidency. When antislavery activists in Boston rescued a captured slave from the
US marshals holding him, Fillmore repeatedly ordered that the rescuers be
prosecuted. In a Pennsylvania case, the administration went further, charging 41
Americans with treason for refusing to join a slave-catching posse.
Fillmore denounced Northern communities that vowed to resist the Fugitive Slave
Law. ‘Sanctuary cities’ aren’t a 21st-century innovation.
By the end of Fillmore’s term, the Whig Party was fractured beyond repair.
Democrats won the 1852 election in a landslide. The Whigs vanished from US
politics, supplanted by a new, unequivocally antislavery Republican Party.
Fillmore, however, turned elsewhere. He migrated to the anti-immigrant, anti-
Catholic “Know-Nothing” Party, running as its presidential nominee in 1856. His
slogan was “Americans Must Rule America.” Five years later, Americans were
ripping America apart in a ghastly Civil War that Fillmore had helped make
inevitable. As Abraham Lincoln labored to preserve the union and emancipate the
slaves, Fillmore watched from the sidelines, harshly criticizing.
Today, the 13th president is lost in obscurity. Fate has been kinder to him than he
deserved.
Jeff Jacoby can be reached at jacoby@globe.com

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Trump Rallies Supporters By Renewing Old Promises, Insults and What I Expect


 

Given the actions of the current Presidency over the last 30 plus days, this is my expectations of the events that will occur in and for government going forward. It is clear that the President (TOTUS) has a need to be liked (loved?) and admired. It is an expectation of many of us however many do not make build their existence around that goal. This does not appear to be the case of Mr. trump. His recent press conference pointed that out with the incomplete sentences and the reluctance to address the questions in a knowledgeable way. Then the town hall (rally) in Florida. This was held in an airplane hangar to have a huge crowd in attendance. This type of rally is what drives Mr. trump but it does not translate into Governing. He repeated his election promises but so far in reality has not done as well as he states. It is my opinion that he will still in effect spend less time dealing with the Presidential side of things in a scholarly manner and more time Tweeting his way through. The Congress is acting in the background to pass their own versions of laws that do not benefit us at all for the most part. TOTUS has surrounded himself with “yes men” which has been his stock in trade for all of his business and personal life. It seems to me that Mr. Trump has not deemed it important enough to learn the job of President and throw away the Adored Entertainer cloak. I have attached the coverage of that recent Rally.MA

CATHERINE LUCEY and JULIE PACE, Associated Press 12 hours ago

 

Trump bashes media at Florida rally
Yahoo News Video

MELBOURNE, Fla. (AP) — Just four weeks into his administration, President Donald Trump appeared at a campaign rally that mirrored the months leading up to Election Day, complete with promises to repeal the health care law, insults for the news media and a playlist highlighted by the Rolling Stones.

“I want to be among my friends and among the people,” Trump told a cheering crowd packed into an airport hangar in central Florida, praising his “truly great movement.”

Trump promised anew to build a border wall along the U.S.-Mexico border, reduce regulations and create jobs. He also pledged to “do something over the next couple of days” to address the immigration order that has been blocked in the courts. Said Trump: “We don’t give up, we never give up.”

Insisting he was the victim of false reporting, Trump said his White House was running “so smoothly” and that he “inherited one big mess.” The president has been trying refocus after reports of disarray and dysfunction within his administration.

Speaking to reporters on Air Force One before the rally, Trump said he was holding a campaign rally because “life is a campaign.”

“To make America great again is absolutely a campaign,” he said. “It’s not easy, especially when we’re also fighting the press.”

And he’s also had to contend with crowds of protesters. Thousands of them were out on the streets of Dallas and Los Angeles to oppose immigration enforcement raids and to support immigrants and refugees generally. In Los Angeles, an organizer urged local authorities not to spend money on immigration enforcement.

Trump, who held a rally in the same spot in Florida in September, clearly relished being back in front of his supporters, welcoming the cheers and letting one supporter up on stage to offer praise for the president. He also enjoyed reliving his surprise victory over Democrat Hillary Clinton.

First lady Melania Trump introduced her husband at the rally, reciting the Lord’s Prayer before offering her own pledge to act in the best interest of all Americans as she pursues initiatives she says will impact women and children around the world.

The event had the familiar trappings of a Trump campaign rally, including red Trump caps, “Make America Great Again” and “Trump/Pence” signs and at least one sign reading “Hillary for Prison.” Some of the speakers ahead of Trump’s appearance called for repealing and replacing President Barack Obama’s health care law, criticized the news media or lobbed barbs at Clinton, other constants of last year’s rallies.

The music playlist preceding Trump’s appearance included rally favorites like Free’s “All Right Now.” As Air Force One rolled up to the hangar, the theme to the Harrison Ford movie “Air Force One” signaled its arrival. Trump and the first lady appeared as Lee Greenwood’s “God Bless the U.S.A.” played. And his 45-minute remarks were followed by another 2016 campaign favorite, the 1969 hit “You Can’t Always Get What You Want” by the Rolling Stones.

The rally came during Trump’s third straight weekend at his private south Florida club, Mar-a-Lago. It was another working weekend for the president, who planned to interview at least four potential candidates for the job of national security adviser, a position unexpectedly open after retired Gen. Michael Flynn’s firing early this week.

Trump said Saturday “I have many, many that want the job, they want to really be a part of it. I’ll make a decision over the next couple of days.”

Scheduled to discuss the job with the president were his acting adviser, retired Army Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg; John Bolton, a former U.S. ambassador to the United Nations; Army Lt. Gen. H.R. McMaster; and the superintendent of the U.S. Military Academy at West Point, Lt. Gen. Robert Caslen. White House spokesman Sean Spicer said the four interviews were expected to take place Sunday at the private estate.

Finding a new national security adviser was proving to be a challenge for Trump. His first choice, retired Vice Adm. Robert Harward, turned down the offer.

Trump had also expressed interest in former CIA Director David Petraeus, but Spicer said Saturday that Petraeus was not a finalist. The retired four-star general resigned as CIA director in 2012 and pleaded guilty to one misdemeanor charge of mishandling classified information relating to documents he had provided to his biographer, with whom he was having an affair.

Flynn resigned at Trump’s request Monday after revelations that he misled Vice President Mike Pence about discussing sanctions with Russia’s ambassador to the U.S. during the transition. Trump said in a news conference Thursday that he was disappointed by how Flynn had treated Pence, but did not believe Flynn had done anything wrong by having the conversations.

Trump has lurched from crisis to crisis since the inauguration, including the botched rollout of his immigration order, struggles confirming his Cabinet picks and a near-constant stream of reports about strife within his administration.

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An Apology Letter To All Americans-From The Constituents Of Jason Chaffetz


Is It possible many other Americans who feel the same way can take initiative to remove ineffective legislators?.MA

Kaz Weida, Contributor
Freelance Writer & Blogger
An Apology Letter To All Americans — From The Constituents Of Jason Chaffetz
Utah’s District 3 here. We’re super sorry. Let’s talk.
02/17/2017 05:16 pm ET | Updated 11 hours ago

Dear America,
I’m writing tonight because I’d like to apologize for Jason Chaffetz.
To be fair, it’s not really my fault. I didn’t vote for him. But he’s my representative in Congress and he has my power and my voice. So Jason Chaffetz is my mess to clean up.
I’m sorry you have to deal with him. It’s no picnic for me either. This is a man who seems to place party before people, ambition before country. It’s embarrassing to have to lay claim to him but there it is. He’s mine.

Last week, I attended the town hall where Chaffetz belittled and taunted his own constituents. I thought that was about as egregious as it could get. But I was wrong, friends. So wrong. Now I get to sit on the sidelines and watch as my representative in Congress uses my power to prop up a would-be dictator. Hurray!
I took exception when Jason Chaffetz raised my voice in Congress to gut regulation that would protect public lands. I was furious when he used my vote to sign onto a bill to abolish the Department of Education. But today? Today, I think Mr. Chaffetz horrifies us all.
We’ve been assuming that in the face of facts and clear, irrefutable evidence our Congressman would be forced to take action. And he has. Mr. Chaffetz has been clear exactly whose side he’s on. I always knew he didn’t have my best interests at heart and that he wasn’t going to be representative of my ideals. But I never imagined that Jason Chaffetz would betray us all, that he would fail to hold up even the basic tenets of our democracy.
You have my deepest regrets, America, for the disaster that is my representative, Mr. Jason Chaffetz. Please know that thousands of Utahns join me in extending our apologies. But as is often the case, sorry isn’t enough. Sorry won’t save our country and our government from corruption. And apparently, neither will Mr. Chaffetz. So the resistance in Utah is going to do what it always does. We’re going to roll up our sleeves and get to work.
This will be Mr. Chaffetz’s last term in Congress. Jason’s constituents can’t send flowers to make the injury he’s inflicting better, but we can make sure we don’t send him back to D.C. to do more damage.
Sorry, America. We’ll persist. And we’ll fix this.
In love and solidarity,
Utah’s 3rd Congressional District
This piece was originally published on Rantt.

Republicans Eye Cutting More Obama Era Regulations


The Neer do well Congress is using the “Boy King” to roll back regulations that were designed to keep us safe. This roll back is not about us, its about what “they consider Overreach”. Read article below.MA
WASHINGTON — President Donald Trump signed two of the three pieces of legislation this week passed by Congress that roll back Obama-era regulations.
Republicans are repealing the regulations through the Congressional Review Act (CRA). The president’s signature on such legislation Tuesday is the first time the CRA has been used to repeal regulation in 16 years, when Trump signed legislation to roll back a Securities and Exchange Commission rule that would mandate energy companies to show their payments to foreign governments.
The coal industry cheered on another CRA piece of legislation Thursday that came to Trump’s desk for his signature that repealed an Obama-era Department of the Interior rule on coal mine discharge into nearby streams.
The CRA allows for Congress to review and repeal federal government department regulation within a 60-day window after the rule has been established. Legislation under the CRA cannot be filibustered in the Senate.
Congress initially proposed 37 resolutions under the CRA as a means to repeal the Obama-era rules.
“Congressional Review Act legislation provides relief for Americans hurt by regulations rushed through at the last minute by the Obama administration. This means freeing up American entrepreneurs, creating jobs, and jump-starting our economy,” House Speaker Paul Ryan said in a statement of the numerous bills passed under CRA.
One piece of legislation waiting for Trump’s signature that passed the Senate Wednesday under the CRA repealed a Social Security Administration rule established in December. The regulation mandated that the agency would submit Social Security recipients’ information to the National Instant Criminal Background Check System (NICS) with the intent of showing those who may not be eligible to purchase a firearm.
Democrats say the rule would keep guns out of the hands of the mentally ill, but Republicans argue the rule cast way too large of a net around social security recipients.
“Over the last several weeks we’ve been using a Congressional Review Act or what is known as CRA’s to take action on the explosion of Obamacare regulations. Hundreds and hundreds of pages of regulations that we’ve seen hurting families destroying jobs all across the country and here’s why our work is so historic. Up until now only six of those bills have ever reached the president’s desk in 21 years and only one was ever signed into law by the end of this week. We will have passed 13 in the last three weeks,” House Republican Conference Chair Cathy McMorris Rodgers said at a press conference Thursday.
The Senate is expected to take up two more resolutions passed by the House in the coming days, one of which repeals a regulation established by the Bureau of Land Management as well as a rule put forth by the Department of Labor.
The House passed three resolutions under the CRA last week and by the end of Friday, the Senate will be on track to consider 10 resolutions that repeal Obama administration regulations in the next legislative period.
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For GOP, A Dimmed Zeal For Investigations In Trump Era


WASHINGTON — The Republicans’ ardor for investigations and oversight, on display throughout the Obama administration, has cooled off considerably with Donald Trump in the White House.
Each day seems to bring a new headache or near-crisis from Trump, the latest being the departure of his national security adviser under questionable circumstances involving Russia.
Yet if there is a line too far, at which point Republicans will feel duty-bound to call for an independent investigation of their president or his administration, Trump hasn’t crossed it yet.
Democrats are clamoring for a full-scale probe of the resignation of National Security Adviser Michael Flynn, including demanding to know what Trump knew, and when, about Flynn’s pre-inauguration conversations with a Russian ambassador about U.S. sanctions. White House press secretary Sean Spicer disclosed that Trump was told in late January that Flynn had misled Vice President Mike Pence about those conversations.
Rather than go along with Democrats’ call for an independent outside investigation, Senate Republicans insisted Tuesday that the Intelligence Committee could look at the circumstances as part of an existing probe into Russia’s interference in the presidential election.
“The Intelligence Committee is already looking at Russian involvement in our election and they have broad jurisdiction over the intel community writ large and they can look at whatever they choose to,” said Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell, R-Ky., adding that “it’s highly likely they’d want to take a look at this episode as well.”
The intelligence panel’s chairman, Sen. Richard Burr of North Carolina, told reporters that “aggressive” oversight would continue “privately. We don’t do that in public.”
House Republicans were even less interested, with some shrugging off Democrats’ calls for an investigation entirely. Rep. Devin Nunes of California, chairman of the House Intelligence Committee, said that the “real crime” is how Flynn’s phone conversations were leaked, echoing a complaint Trump himself made over Twitter.
“I think the situation has taken care of itself” in light of Flynn’s resignation, House Oversight Committee Chairman Jason Chaffetz, R-Utah, told reporters. That’s a far different stance toward potential wrongdoing by the executive branch than Chaffetz took last year, when House Republicans issued more than 70 letters and subpoenas aimed at investigating Democrat Hillary Clinton over a period of less than three months after the FBI announced criminal charges weren’t warranted related to her use of a private email server as secretary of state.
Chaffetz did turn his attention to a different Trump administration matter later Tuesday, sending a letter to the White House seeking information about Trump’s discussion of a North Korea missile launch while dining al fresco with the Japanese prime minister at a resort in Florida.
Sen. Rand Paul, R-Ky., went so far as to counsel publicly against spending too much time investigating the White House, saying that doing so could only be counterproductive at a moment when the GOP faces a daunting legislative agenda on Capitol Hill.
“I just don’t think it’s useful to be doing investigation after investigation, particularly of your own party,” Paul said in an appearance on Fox News Radio’s “Kilmeade and Friends.” ”We’ll never even get started with doing the things we need to do like repealing Obamacare if we’re spending our whole time having Republicans investigate Republicans. I think it makes no sense.”
The relatively hands-off stance of the GOP toward the Trump White House angers Democrats, who are powerless to do much except fume from the minority in both chambers of Congress.
“Do you hear the silence? This is the sound of House Republicans conducting no oversight of President Trump. Zero,” Rep. Elijah Cummings of Maryland, top Democrat on the Oversight Committee, complained at a news conference Tuesday. “That is what it sounds like when they abdicate their duty under the Constitution. We’ve been asking for months for basic oversight.”
The GOP’s lack of enthusiasm about investigating the Trump White House comes as Capitol Hill Republicans struggle to come to terms with a new administration that has been engulfed in upheaval after upheaval. Republicans are trying to focus on their agenda despite the distractions. And for now, they appear to have concluded, going easy on Trump is the best way to achieve their goals, including confirming a Supreme Court justice and passing a new health care law and other legislation they want the president to sign.
“We know full well that there are issues that are going to come up on a daily basis that we’re going to get asked about and have to respond to,” said Sen. John Thune of South Dakota, the No. 3 Senate Republican, “but we’re interested in repealing and replacing Obamacare, reforming the tax code, reducing the regulatory burden on businesses, confirming a Supreme Court justice, getting these Cabinet nominees through — that’s what our agenda is right now.”

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Charlie Daniels: It’s Only a Matter of Time Before There Is Blood on the Streets


The article below is something we all should read especially our supposedly educated Legislators.MA

By Charlie Daniels | February 14, 2017 | 11:21 AM EST

A tattered and torn American flag blows in the wind with dark clouds overhead.
Over a century ago, the United States of America went through a divisive and bloody Civil War that separated the people of this nation bone from marrow. It split friends, families and eventually the nation itself as a line was drawn dividing the Union States of the North from the newly formed Confederacy of the Southern States.
Ostensibly, the war that followed was fought over the abolition of slavery, a devilish practice that never should have been allowed in the first place, and although it was the basic issue for the conflict – as is the case so much of the time – there were a myriad of other issues involved.
One – in my opinion – was just plain stubbornness and pride and the dogged determination that the South would not let itself be told what to do by the other half of the country, but trade, tariffs and different attitudes and beliefs about just how far a federal government could go in setting the tone and making laws to be obeyed by all the states were also involved.
The point I’m trying to make is that the feelings festered so long and ran so deep that men whose fathers had stood shoulder to shoulder in the war for independence faced off across fields of battle and killed each other.
The Civil War never should have happened, and had cooler heads prevailed on both sides, never would have. Southerners had to know that slavery was an abomination to the principles they had fought and died for in the Revolution.
No man has the right to own another man, to reap the fruits of his labor for nothing, to consider his children nothing more than commodities to be sold off or traded away on a whim, separating
families and breeding human beings like livestock.
But instead of acknowledging the very obvious evil of this situation, politicians from the South, convinced that the economy of the Southern States was dependent on slavery, chose to become a separate nation and soon after over six hundred thousand Americans lost their lives in a senseless war that would set the Southern States back a half century.
Surely, had it been approached by fair, level-headed men on both sides of the issue, abolition could have been achieved without war. But the rhetoric grew ever hotter. Brash young men on both sides, who had never fired a gun in anger, viewed a war as the pinnacle of romanticism, and implacable politicians refused to give an inch. Is this not the same attitude we see on the streets of America today?
I see young people interviewed on television who can’t even articulate the reason they are protesting. Others bent on destruction who probably espouse no cause but chaos.
I’ve seen hysterical protestors screaming about First Amendment rights which they seem to think only protects them and those who think like them and that the opposition has no first amendment protection and should be shouted down at all costs.
The rhetoric is becoming hotter and more nonsensical, the radical element more apparent, the violence and destruction of property more common place.
The pot is boiling and it’s only a matter of time before there will be blood on the streets.
Americans have the right to civil disobedience, a right to gather and demonstrate against some policy they feel is unfair or harmful to the country at large, but they do not have the right to interrupt commerce, break windows, burn cars or do bodily harm to those who disagree with them.
People who won’t listen to reason, who ignore the law of the land and who try to stifle the opinions of others tend to forget that there is an element of violence on the other side as well, a side that, thankfully, so far has not yet come forth.
But, should these conditions continue, someday soon the violent elements of both persuasions will find themselves on the same streets, and what will ensue will not be pretty.
Learn from history, or repeat it.
What do you think?
Pray for our troops, our police and the peace of Jerusalem.
God Bless America
— Charlie Daniels
Charlie Daniels is a legendary American singer, song writer, guitarist, and fiddler famous for his contributions to country and southern rock music. Daniels has been active as a singer since the early 1950s. He was inducted into the Grand Ole Opry on January 24, 2008.

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