Donald Trump: establishment trojan horse?

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Daglord
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Re: Donald Trump: establishment trojan horse?

Postby Daglord » Fri Dec 16, 2016 5:55 pm

Redneck wrote:I don't think it means that Trump is a facade. I think it could mean that he knows he's in deep, and to deflect the heavy stuff to an experienced former Governor is probably a smart move. If anything important comes from the briefing then no doubt Pence will bring it to Trump's attention.

Whatever the game is with all of this, I'm enjoying watching this unfold. The Pro-Globalist media is still going after Trump at every opportunity, and this whole Russian hacking scandal has no substance at all. It was a DNC insider who leaked the emails to Wikileaks, and I doubt that it influenced the outcome of the election.

In my opinion, the divide between the Clinton camp and Trump now is not some manufactured thing for the masses to eat popcorn by. To paraphrase a long standing Alex Jones saying, there is a serious war going on for people's minds.


deflecting the heavy stuff is a slippery slope though. how much did Bush keep from Reagan? Cheney from Bush Jr? regardless of what Trump says now, remember that Pence wasn't his first (or even 2nd?) choice for VP, IIRC he wasn't even on Trump's short list, the "establishment" pushed Pence on him.

I agree with the last couple parts. I'm enjoying the hell out it all crashing down. Trump was my preferred choice to Clinton, but that's not saying much.

the divide is real, but my opinion is that it is meaningless in the grand scheme of things. deep state still wins. I also think it's more a rift between the Intelligence community & the Clinton Foundation/camp with Trump (& Alex Jones) being an unwitting player in all of it. this election really brought out the 'my team vs. your team' attitude. people seem to care more now about their side winning then the expanding overreach of government.

I'm not sure Trump will be a bad president, I hope he surprises me. I also think the libertarians in congress hold him in check. the biggest loss in this election (IMO) seems to be both liberty & skepticism.

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Postby Daglord » Fri Dec 16, 2016 6:15 pm

Libertarians emerging as Trump resistance
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/donald-trump-libertarians-232659

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There were the warnings against flag-burning, the threats of tariffs, and the intervention in Carrier manufacturing negotiations. And now, there’s the possible appointment of ultra-hawkish John Bolton to a top role at the State Department.

Donald Trump’s transition is raising flag after red flag for libertarians, a Republican-leaning group that in turn has emerged as a vocal, frequent thorn in the side of the incoming administration even as some previous “Never Trumpers” have gone dark.

And with Sen. Rand Paul’s power to bog down Trump’s nominees, the libertarian movement sees tangible opportunities to make its influence felt.

“Somebody’s got to be out there reminding Republicans where we stand on all of these issues,” said Brendan Steinhauser, a conservative operative based in Texas with deep ties to the liberty movement.

He pointed to the tariff and Carrier issues in particular as Trump actions giving libertarians heartburn, even as he said activists were also ready to “cheer” on Trump when he made more conservative calls and Cabinet nominations, and there have been several.

“Yes, our president — of our party, our country — may have some ideas that are very different,” he said. “It’s incumbent on us to remind him, our party, our country, what good, pro-liberty policies are. That’s a very practical thing. It’s happening right now.”

Some of the loudest and potentially most consequential libertarian dissent has come in response to Trump’s flirtation with Bolton for a plum job at the State Department, possibly as the No. 2 to ExxonMobil CEO Rex Tillerson, whom Trump named as his secretary of state pick on Tuesday.

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Bolton, the conservative former United Nations ambassador who strongly supported the Iraq War, has particularly stoked the ire of Paul in the Senate.

“I am a no on John Bolton for ANY position in the State [Department] and will work to defeat his nomination to any post,”the Kentucky Republican tweeted on Sunday.

Paul sits on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee and has the power to stop the committee from recommending Bolton, if Democrats unanimously join in to block him. Other prominent libertarian outlets, including leaders with Young Americans for Liberty, have been quick to back him up.

In a recent interview, Paul — who endorsed Trump during the campaign as he dealt with his own reelection — told POLITICO that he remains supportive of Trump and his campaign promises, and he has gone out of his way to praise other nominations.

But he argued that nominating Bolton for a top slot at State would contradict a number of positions Trump took as a candidate, including opposition to the Iraq War, something Trump initially supported but made a point during the race to paint as a bad idea. Bolton — who himself is a longtime critic of Paul’s more hands-off approach to foreign policy — has also called for bombing Iran and has since been unapologetic about his support for the war in Iraq. That’s been a key sticking point with Paul.

“My efforts to insert myself into the public debate are not to oppose Donald Trump, they’re to support what Donald Trump said in the campaign,” Paul said, speaking at a time when Bolton was under more serious consideration to lead the State Department (though Paul has reiterated his opposition to Bolton in any role since then). “Regime change made us less safe, and the Iraq War allowed for chaos. … I agree on those things Trump said. I would just hate for, at the very beginning, that those things he professed on the campaign trail to be diminished or besmirched by having someone in charge of the State Department who doesn’t agree with Donald Trump.”

A Bolton representative had no comment.

Trump’s consideration of Bolton is just one alarming sign for libertarian leaders who weren’t the face of the Never Trump movement during the campaign, but who have since emerged as among the right’s most willing figures to draw contrasts with Trump.

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The “liberty movement,” a sprawling network of groups and public figures whose priorities range from auditing the Federal Reserve to returning to the gold standard to reducing military intervention abroad, was never fully united behind the Never Trump movement. Those who were opposed to Trump during the campaign were often overshadowed by more prominent dissenters, like Mitt Romney and Jeb Bush.

But since the campaign, it’s the voices aligned with the liberty movement that are often among the loudest ones pushing back on various Trump proposals, especially as other more establishment Republicans have made efforts to give the incoming administration breathing room.

Certainly, there are other conservatives who have long been wary of Trump and continue to express misgivings, and several Republican senators have outlined major concerns about Tillerson and are bracing for a potential fight, including Sen. Lindsey Graham of South Carolina, who also has already moved on immigration-related legislation designed to stymie potential hard-line deportation moves from a Trump administration.

But so far it is only Paul who has gone so far as to threaten to attempt to block a possible nominee from his own party’s president.

In the House, perhaps the most pointed Republican Trump critic also comes from the liberty wing of the party. Rep. Justin Amash (R-Mich.) has said he is “deeply concerned” about Sen. Jeff Sessions (R-Ala.), Trump’s choice for attorney general. He jabbed back at Trump after the president-elected tweeted that anyone who burns the flag should face consequences (“No president is allowed to burn the First Amendment,” Amash retorted on Twitter).

And he swiped at Trump’s 35 percent tariff proposal on goods from companies that move overseas: “Maybe the slogan should be #MakeAmericaVenezuela.”

The priorities are diverse in the often-contrarian liberty movement, and there has been diversity, too, in their criticism, ranging from the sense that the “Wall Street establishment” has been overly empowered by a number of Trump’s personnel selections who have deep ties to Goldman Sachs, to fears for civil liberties protections. Many libertarians were also plenty critical of George W. Bush, some activists note, so it’s not a big leap for them to express concerns about another Republican president.

Asked about the onetime Republican Trump critics who are now holding their tongues — Romney, for example, had been under consideration to serve in Trump’s Cabinet, and Carly Fiorina, who clashed with Trump during the campaign, met with him Monday — one plugged-in libertarian activist replied, “The type of Republicans who always get behind their party are doing it again, even if it makes them more uncomfortable than if Jeb or Marco were elected.”

“Basically, people are trying to operate the same way,” the source continued. “Whether Trump upends that model remains to be seen. … People right now are trying to be as normal as possible and hoping they can still get their agenda through, but for libertarian Republicans, criticizing the president-elect is par for the course.”

And, several libertarian leaders noted, there’s been much for libertarians to cheer about as well, from high hopes for scaled-back regulations, to strong selections, in their view, for appointments to lead departments like the Environmental Protection Agency and Health and Human Services.

“People have some concerns, but for the most part I think are pretty positive with the big-picture outlook, with regard to lower taxes, less regulation,” said Brian Darling, a former top Senate aide to Paul. “So I think you’ll see the liberty movement, moving forward, being critical at times, but being very supportive on big issues like repealing Obamacare, regulation reform, tax reform.”

The Trump transition didn’t respond to a request for comment.

Still, some libertarians see it as their responsibility to serve as a check on the president-elect.

“There’s a tendency, especially in the honeymoon period, that people can be unwilling to criticize a president-elect,” said Norm Singleton, a longtime aide to former Rep. Ron Paul, who now runs Campaign for Liberty. “The liberty movement, though, because it tends not to view politics through a partisan lens as much as other establishment parts of the center-right coalition, they’re more willing to not view it as, ‘Well, we can’t be as critical of Donald Trump as we were of Barack Obama because he’s our [party’s] president.’”

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Postby Daglord » Tue Jan 03, 2017 5:35 pm

Redneck wrote:Cheney called it "an inspired choice."

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Cheney emerges as surprise Trump surrogate
http://www.politico.com/story/2016/12/dick-cheney-trump-surrogate-232746

Rick Dearborn, executive director of the Trump transition and a Senate veteran who served as chief of staff to Alabama Sen. Jeff Sessions for more than a decade, is looking to leverage Cheney's influence with key GOP senators, according to a transition aide.

Another transition aide said Cheney's imprimatur may serve as "a good housekeeping seal of approval" with Republican skeptics. And indeed, Florida Sen. Marco Rubio received a call from the former vice president earlier this week. The goal: “To move Marco the right way,” according to a source familiar with the conversation. Rubio will cast a pivotal vote on the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, which must approve the nomination before it proceeds to the full Senate.

The former vice president is also in close contact with senior Trump aides. Cheney speaks frequently with the vice president-elect, Indiana Gov. Mike Pence, who himself serves as a liaison between the president-elect and Capitol Hill, and who has said he hopes to model his vice presidency on Cheney’s.

“Mike relishes the advice,” said a senior transition aide, who added that Cheney is “willing to do what he’s asked” and “wants to be helpful” to the incoming administration.” The aide denied, however, that Cheney's conversations were part of a coordinated effort between Trump Tower and Capitol Hill to push for Tillerson’s confirmation.

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Postby Daglord » Tue Jan 03, 2017 6:05 pm

great read... I think more people are opening to the possibility of the trojan horse ;)

Trump Is Exactly Where The Elites Want Him
http://www.ronpaullibertyreport.com/archives/trump-is-exactly-where-the-elites-want-him

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Cognitive dissonance is a powerful drug. It makes otherwise-very-intelligent people goofy and incoherent in their thinking and blinds them to certain realities that they should normally see right in front of their noses. I witness it all the time in the field of economics — a key piece of logic, a key fact that certain people absolutely refuse to take into account simply because they have a singular idea of how the world works and they cannot allow that idea to ever come into question. They would rather leap into a mental gymnastics routine worthy of an Olympic gold medal than examine the truth. And if you confront them on it, they’ll accuse YOU of being the one in denial.

This is how we ended up with the credit crisis and market crash of 2008/2009. This is how very few people saw the writing on the wall with Syria and ISIS and the fact that the funding and training of Islamic extremists by Western governments for the purpose of proxy insurgency might not be such a great concept. It is the reason why it took years for the mainstream to acknowledge the advent of the East/West paradigm, the same paradigm that alternative analysts warned about years in advance. This is why most mainstream AND alternative analysts completely discounted a successful Brexit referendum. And, it is why the vast majority of pundits could not even conceive of a Trump victory in 2016. I could write a list 20 pages long on all the geopolitical and fiscal developments most people missed because they were clinging to assumptions rather than evidence.

Unfortunately, the liberty movement is also sometimes vulnerable to such assumptions. The most dangerous of which revolve around the rise of President-elect Donald Trump.

I have seen endless theories over the past several months on all the ways in which the global elites would sabotage the Trump campaign. I believe the phrase “they will never allow him to win” was repeated in nearly every discussion on the election. The assumption in this instance was that Trump is “anti-establishment” and, therefore, a threat to the globalists. These are the same globalists that people also claimed would “rig the election,” or initiate a “coup” in the electoral college to stop a Trump presidency.

Of course, this never happened. So, a large percentage of the movement needs to question — why didn’t it happen? How did Trump win within a system we know has been rigged for decades?

You’ll hear hundreds of theories and rationalizations on Trump’s miraculous victory, but a reason you will almost never hear is also the most likely one: Trump won the election because he serves the interests of the establishment. Trump won because he is a fake.


This is not an idea that many liberty activists want to entertain. They were so repulsed by the proposition of Hillary Clinton taking the helm at the White House that they would have invested themselves in almost ANYONE running against her, even if they thought that candidate might be controlled opposition. However, not just anyone was fielded as a candidate; Trump was fielded, and for good reason. I predicted before the Republican and Democratic primaries that the final election would be between Trump and Clinton in my article Will A Trump Presidency Really Change Anything For The Better?, published in March, and here is a quote on why:

"The other ingenious aspect of the Trump campaign is really who he is running against — Hillary Clinton, a rabidly liberal candidate even more hated than Barack Obama. A candidate with a potentially serious criminal record and a penchant for an outright communistic world view far beyond that of Bernie Sanders. Those of us who have been in the writing field for a long time and have dabbled in fiction know that in order to create a fantastic hero, you must first put even more work into creating a fantastic villain. The hero is nothing without the villain.

The unmitigated horror inherent in the prospect of a Hillary Clinton presidency is like adding jet fuel to the Trump campaign. (And yes, I am assuming according to the results of the primaries so far that the final election will be between Trump and Clinton)."

http://www.alt-market.com/articles/2830-will-a-trump-presidency-really-change-anything-for-the-better

My point back then as well as now is that without Clinton as the counter-party, Trump would not have garnered the political following he did. Any other Democratic candidate would not have galvanized conservatives so fervently. As I continued in my pre-primaries article:

“Donald Trump appears to be the perfect antithesis to Hillary Clinton. … the real question is, is Trump a reflection of the frustration and defiance of the conservative population, or, is he a clever ruse by the establishment to co-opt and placate the conservative population before we rebel?”

The staging of the 2016 election might have appeared to some people to be absolute chaos, but to me, it could not have been more perfectly scripted. In later articles covering the election I went on to give Trump a chance. I stated that I had little doubt that he would win the election and that this would be followed by an economic crisis, probably triggered early in his first term. Conservative movements would be set up as scapegoats for a crash the globalists had created. However, I believed it (marginally) possible that Trump was not aware of this strategy on the part of the elites. Today, I no longer hold this view.

The first and worst sign that Trump is not anywhere near “anti-establishment” has been his complete reversal of his original “drain the swamp” rhetoric. Trump is not only NOT draining the swamp that is the Washington D.C. and corporate elitist revolving door, he is adding even more creatures of varying ghoulishness. As Newt Gingrich, who describes himself as an outside adviser to Trump, recently stated:

“I’m told he now just disclaims that…” [Draining the swamp] “He now says it was cute, but he doesn’t want to use it anymore…”

There is a good reason why Trump no longer wants to use that particular slogan — his cabinet is now filled with the exact same elitists he used to slam along with the Washington establishment.

Trump first placed former Goldman Sachs partner Steven Mnuchin as Treasury Secretary. Goldman Sachs has a long history of insinuating its alumni into vital positions within government bodies dealing directly with the economy. Mnuchin is particularly troubling because of his ties to George Soros; Mnuchin used to work directly for George Soros at Soros Fund Management up until 2004.

Then, for those people that thought maybe Mnuchin was just an anomaly, Trump added Gary Cohn, president of Goldman Sachs, as the director of the National Economic Council.

Trump’s chief strategist and Breitbart executive Steve Bannon is also a former Goldman Sachs investment banker.

It is interesting to note that over a quarter of the gains in the delusional Dow Jones spike after Trump’s election was tied to a rise in Goldman Sachs stock value. Imagine that…

Trump is also now “advised” on economic matters by the likes of JP Morgan’s Jamie Dimon. Are we starting to get the picture here?

If that is not enough, then how about the fact that Trump is being closely advised by long time globalist Henry Kissinger (just as Vladimir Putin is advised by Kissinger)? I'm not sure why so many people are surprised by this arrangement; Trump was meeting with Kissinger months before the election. No matter the administration, there is ALWAYS a high level globalist behind the curtain. Barack Obama had Zbigniew Brzezinski, and Trump and Putin have Kissinger.

I won’t go into the numerous establishment Republicans that Trump has tapped for his administration, I will save that can of worms for another article, but anyone in the Liberty Movement that is not at least generally suspicious of Trump at this point is probably kidding themselves. The bottom line is, Trump has already LIED to his political base. He has surrounded himself with globalists and financial gatekeepers when he originally criticized Clinton for the same behavior. At this point, as long as he working in close proximity with such parasites there is no way for us to know if he is calling the shots, or if his handlers are making decisions for him.

I have heard it argued that Trump “has no choices” outside of D.C. insiders, which is why his cabinet is loaded with bottom feeders from Goldman Sachs. I find this argument rather naive. I would argue that there are thousands of brilliant professionals and people far more trustworthy outside of the beltway that could populate Trump’s cabinet and “make America great again.” I would even argue that ANY person with little experience inside the D.C. corruption chamber would be better suited to the job.

It seems to me that there are some activists that just can’t let go of the notion that Trump was the candidate the elites wanted all along. After all, didn’t the powers-that-be do everything in their power to try and stop him from winning the election?

Well, not really. The media firestorm surrounding Trump, though highly negative in tone, only boosted Trump’s exposure throughout the election. In fact, Trump received more coverage from outlets like CNN than all the other candidates combined.

This was the exact opposite tactic that the elitist controlled media used against true liberty candidate Ron Paul in 2012. With Paul, the media went out of their way to ignore him; they even refused to show a single Ron Paul campaign sign in a crowd if they could avoid it. This was a concerted systematic effort on the part of left AND right wing media outlets to ensure that no one outside of the internet heard about Ron Paul.

So what happened with Trump? Why did the mainstream media abandon a strategy that was very effective against Ron Paul, and why did they give Trump endless free coverage?

The elites also did not take very stringent measures to disrupt Trump’s candidacy early in the race. The Republican National Convention undertook a campaign of disinformation and rule changes in order to ensure that Ron Paul would have no chance of organizing an upset against establishment choice Mitt Romney. The same exact kind of treachery was used by the DNC in 2016 to sabotage Bernie Sanders — arguably a far more popular and effective candidate than Hillary Clinton. The party elites have numerous tools at their disposal to kill a candidate’s chances before he or she ever makes it on the national stage, yet, we are supposed to believe that Trump just slipped through the cracks, or beat them at their own game? I think not.

The election itself was riddled with email leaks and data dumps showcasing the corruption of the Clinton campaign, and yes, this did help to ensure a Trump win. The accusations of “Russian hacking” is clearly a sideshow, but the question remains, who did feed that information to Wikileaks? Some theorize that “disgruntled employees” within the U.S. intelligence apparatus may have leaked the data. I think they were not disgruntled. I think that most of the leaks were part of the election theater from the very beginning. In light of Trump’s clear goal to entrench banking vampires within his administration, I think that the elites always intended for him to “win” the election.

Of course, for some in the liberty movement this claim is sacrilegious. They don’t want to hear it, they’ll hate me for saying it, and that’s fine. I started my work in 2006 during the Bush years, and I remember quite well what it was like. I have little doubt that some people will be accusing me of being a "liberal" before they even finish this article, just as people called me a "Neo-Con" during the Obama administration. People who held fast to "conspiracy theories" surrounding the election and how Clinton was the "chosen one" will now hypocritically call me a "conspiracy theorist" for pointing out that NO ONE gets into the White House without being vetted by the elites, even Trump.

Working in alternative media means not caring if people like you or dislike you. I’ve been able to make numerous correct predictions because I do not concern myself with the pressures of conforming to group-think. My only hope is that many in the movement realize sooner rather than later that their faith in Trump has been ill invested. The great danger is that the liberty movement, the best last chance for saving this nation, will sit on its collective hands idle, centralizing all their hopes and eggs into the Trump basket, waiting for him to gallop in on his white horse and save us all from oblivion. And when that time comes, I suspect that he will do nothing, and the movement will be neutralized by its own desperate desire for a hero and an idol.

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Postby Daglord » Sat Jan 07, 2017 2:25 pm

not all about Trump, mostly about Pence & his role in trying to tie the 2001 Anthrax attacks > WMD > Iraq > 9/11.

the Anthrax had originated from a US bioweapons lab in Maryland: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2001_anthrax_attacks

good 10 minutes re: the guy who may be the most powerful VP since Cheney (his idol & confidant).



Trump is the only candidate, from either party, to say GW Bush lied about "weapons of mass destruction." But he is a salesman. Is he honestly anti-war and anti-Bush? or is this just a sales pitch, bait and switch, to win votes? His choice of Mike Pence as vice president not only answers that question loudly and clearly; it suggests that if Trump does not knuckle under completely to the men he pretends to oppose, they will certainly kill him.

Donald Trump's running mate once peddled conspiracy theories about anthrax and Saddam Hussein
http://www.latimes.com/politics/la-na-pence-anthrax-20160717-20160715-snap-story.html

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump’s running mate stirred public concern after the 2001 anthrax letter attacks by asserting — without any scientific evidence — that the material had been “genetically modified” to make it more deadly. The statement by then-Rep. Mike Pence, now governor of Indiana, suggested that a foreign source — likely Saddam Hussein’s Iraq — was responsible for the letter attacks, which killed five people, disrupted mail delivery and temporarily shut down congressional office buildings.

The FBI ultimately concluded that an Army anthrax scientist, Bruce E. Ivins, carried out the attacks. Ivins, based at Ft. Detrick, Md., committed suicide in July 2008 after his lawyers informed him that he would be indicted.

“Why has the FBI apparently concluded that the source of these anthrax attacks was domestic when there is significant evidence to suggest an international source for these materials?” Pence wrote in a public letter to Atty Gen. John D. Ashcroft.

“The material found in my office and in others on Capitol Hill was finely milled weapons-grade anthrax that had been genetically modified to increase its virulence,” Pence wrote.

Pence’s claim of genetically altered anthrax was unfounded, according to scientists who analyzed the material recovered from the letters.

“That’s just wrong. That’s simply wrong — and we knew at the time that it was wrong,” said Johns Hopkins University scientist Steven L. Salzberg, who was part of the first team of scientists to analyze the material for the government.



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Postby Daglord » Mon Jan 09, 2017 8:40 pm

busy week in Trumpland this week... confirmation hearings.

First up, Jeff Sessions for Attorney General & Gen. John Kelly for DHS.



Tomorrow the Senate will take up Donald Trump's nominee for Attorney General, Sen. Jeff Sessions. Should libertarians cheer or be worried about an AG Sessions?

Who is the Mysterious Senator who is Fighting against Whistleblowers?
http://www.allgov.com/news/controversies/who-is-the-mysterious-senator-who-is-fighting-against-whistleblowers?news=842497

After 10 unsuccessful tries, U.S. Senator Daniel Akaka (D-Hawaii) is hoping this year will be the one to pass legislation that expands protection for whistleblowers. But one senator is secretly standing in his way.

The “secret hold” is a procedure that allows a single senator to prevent a motion from coming to a vote…and to do so anonymously. Secret holds are bad enough in any case, but anti-corruption activists were so outraged that a senator would use the technique to stop a whistleblower bill that they launched a campaign to flush out the culprit who issued the secret hold during Congress’s last session.

After a three-month open-source investigation, the Government Accountability Project (GAP) and NPR’s “On the Media” concluded that the culprit was either Jon Kyl (R-Arizona) or Jeff Sessions (R-Alabama).

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In 2005, Sessions spoke at a rally in Washington, D.C. in favor of the War in Iraq organized in opposition to an anti-war protest held the day before. Sessions said of the anti-war protesters: "The group who spoke here the other day did not represent the American ideals of freedom, liberty and spreading that around the world. I frankly don't know what they represent, other than to blame America first." The same year, he opposed legislation by Senator John McCain prohibiting the US military from engaging in torture; the amendment passed 90-9

Sessions (1/20/17) live stream:



Tillerson - Sec of State (1/11/17):



Watching the Senate hearing for President-elect Trump's Secretary of State, Rex Tillerson, it seemed arch-neocon Bill Kristol might have been hiding somewhere feeding the former Exxon CEO his lines. He's going to stop China from accessing islands it has constructed in the South China Sea? He endorses the neocon line about Russian "aggression" against Ukraine and Crimea? If America doesn't "lead" the rest of the world, there will only be chaos and confusion? He wants to give Saudi Arabia a "pass" on its dismal human rights record? Let's hope Tillerson is just telling the likes of Marco Rubio (R-FL) what he wants to hear, but should we bet on it?



Mattis - Sec of Defense (1/12/17):



President-elect Trump's choice of Gen. James Mattis to be Defense Secretary has raised more than a few eyebrows. Not only as a military officer in a traditionally civilian position, but also as an executive at a leading defense contractor. His views on Iran are also considered extreme and not grounded in reality. Will the mad dog be leashed?



Pompeo - CIA Director (1/12/17):



Rumors are buzzing that President-elect Trump plans a big overhaul of the CIA and the intelligence community in general. Will he? Can he? And what might it look like when he's done?


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Postby SRBrant » Thu Jan 19, 2017 3:26 pm

Trump is far worse than the establishment. The establishment seeks control, but Trump seeks control and PROFIT.

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Postby Daglord » Tue Jan 24, 2017 8:05 pm

Rand Paul: Why I voted against the new CIA director
http://rare.us/story/rand-paul-why-i-voted-against-the-new-cia-director/

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I voted against the new CIA Director because I worry that his desire for security will trump his defense of liberty.

More than ever before, oversight of the secretive world of intelligence is critically important.

Programs are authorized, money is spent, and operations are carried out in the name of the American people, yet only a few members of Congress are even allowed to know what is happening in the dark corners of these U.S. intelligence programs.

Most of Congress was surprised to learn that the U.S. government was collecting all of our phone records in bulk. Most of what our intelligence community does is shielded from the rank and file of Congress. Only eight legislators are privy to the full extent of the surveillance state.

Under oath, the former Director of National Intelligence James Clapper lied to Congress about the existence of the bulk collection of Americans’ phone records. Without the revelations of Edward Snowden, this gross violation of privacy might still remain unknown.

Only begrudgingly are the American people being told about the scope of the massive intelligence apparatus that has steadily grown in secret.

Yet when oversight of the intelligence community is most needed, Congress has demonstrated an insufficient appetite for curbing the worst excesses of our country’s domestic surveillance.

Some in Congress advocate that government collect “financial and lifestyle information” on Americans, combine it with their metadata, and store it in a government database.

A database that cross-references our every online action would be a devastating assault on liberty.

The new CIA Director described a congressional report on the CIA’s past use of torture as “a narcissistic self-cleansing.” He went on to say that those senators who voted to release the torture oversight report were “quintessentially at odds with [their] duty to [their] country.”

I couldn’t disagree more.

In the years following 9/11, we let fear get the better of our responsibility to liberty. Of the 119 people detained by the CIA, 39 were tortured. In our haste, at least 26 people were wrongfully detained, not even meeting the government’s own standard for detention.

If it was your husband or son that was “mistakenly” tortured, wouldn’t you want the world to know so that it never happened again?

Many of our military leaders, including incoming Sec. of Defense James Mattis, have acknowledged that waterboarding is torture, is ineffective, and sends a signal to our enemies that it is justified to torture U.S. soldiers when they are captured.

Despite this evidence, many in Congress have continued to maintain that waterboarding is not torture.

In addition, many in Congress support a comprehensive, searchable database equipped with “public” data like “lifestyle” choices, an incredible invasion of privacy in some ways more intrusive than the English soldiers that invaded American households to search for any untaxed papers.

Advocates of such a database argue that it will only be searched after obtaining some type of court order.

These advocates fail to understand that our privacy and the Fourth Amendment are breached merely in the collection of our personal data. Our privacy is invaded first by the collection of private information and only secondarily by searching that databank.

The existence of the database itself is a violation of our right to privacy.

Our intelligence community needs more oversight, not less.

There are many supporters of the Surveillance State in Congress. There is, however, a shortage of skeptics. Now that technology and fear have combined to allow the state to watch virtually our every action, someone must pledge to “watch the watchers.”

I swore an oath to defend the Constitution and the rights of the American people. Shielding the CIA from needed oversight is not consistent with that oath.

Protecting the entire Bill of Rights is one of the main reasons I ran for office, and I will remain vigilant in that cause.

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Postby The Anti-Archon » Tue Jan 24, 2017 8:39 pm

Daglord wrote:Rand Paul: Why I voted against the new CIA director

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Indeed...

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Megaterio Llamas
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Postby Megaterio Llamas » Fri Mar 24, 2017 3:51 am

'The senator from Kentucky is now working for Putin': John McCain slams Rand Paul for blocking Montenegro from joining NATO

http://www.businessinsider.com/john-mcc ... ato-2017-3

Republican Sen. John McCain slammed his GOP colleague, Kentucky Sen. Rand Paul, on Wednesday after Paul blocked the passage of a treaty that would allow Montenegro to move forward with joining NATO, Defense News' Joe Gould reported.

McCain warned before the vote that “If there’s objection, you are achieving the objectives of Vladimir Putin...and I do not say that lightly.”

Paul then entered the Senate chamber, voted against the accession protocol, and exited.

“The only conclusion you can draw when he walks away is he has no argument to be made,” McCain said after Paul walked out abruptly, according to The Washington Examiner. "The senator from Kentucky is now working for Vladimir Putin."

Russian President Vladimir Putin is staunchly opposed to Montengro's accession to NATO, which he views as a threat to Russian sovereignty. Albania and Croatia joined the alliance 2009.

"Senator McCain believes that the person who benefits the most from Congress’s failure to ratify Montenegro’s ascension to NATO is Vladimir Putin, whose government has sought to destroy the NATO alliance, erode confidence in America’s commitments to its allies, overthrow the duly-elected government of Montenegro, and undermine democratic institutions throughout Europe," McCain's spokesperson, Julie Tarallo, told Business Insider on Wednesday.

"The overwhelming majority of senators who support this treaty, and certainly the people of Montenegro, deserved an explanation from Senator Paul on the Senate floor as to why he sought to prevent this small, brave country from joining in the defense of the free world," Tarallo added.

For Montenegro to move forward with the accession process, which was approved in May, the treaty has to be ratified by the US Senate by unanimous consent. Twenty-one of 28 NATO allies have already backed Montenegro's accession.

Asked about McCain's comment, Paul stood by his decision to block the treaty and said it would be "unwise to expand the monetary and military obligations of the United States given the burden of our $20 trillion debt."

"Currently, the United States has troops in dozens of countries and is actively fighting in Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Yemen (with the occasional drone strike in Pakistan)," Paul told Business Insider in a statement provided by his office. "In addition, the United States is pledged to defend 28 countries in NATO."

McCain promised Montenegro Prime Minister Dusko Markovic in January that the Senate would ratify the treaty soon, according to Radio Free Europe.

Markovic was the target of a coup plot, allegedly orchestrated by Russian intelligence agents, to overthrow Montenegro's pro-NATO government and replace it with a Russia-friendly regime, The New York Times reported. The plot was uncovered in November after the pro-Russian mercenary who helped organize it was arrested by Montenegrin police.
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